The Doodler

The Doodler

The doodler is one of the more lesser-known serial killers, he operated out of San Fransisco in the ’70s and around the same time as the notorious zodiac killer. His real tally is not completely known but it is believed that his total could be as much as 16, although only 5 could be substantiated as being his victims, there is a spate of attacks that have been associated to him as well. The perpetrator is still unknown to this day and is now under the cold case files.

“The Doodler” was said to have got his name because he would draw pictures of his victims before murdering them, he was reported by witnesses and the few survivors as being an American male, 5”10 -6ft tall, 18-24 years old, he was glimpsed to be wearing a navy type watch cap and it was commented that he was over average in intelligence and was probably an art student. He targetted gay, white men in San Francisco where he stabbed and dumped their corpses around the ocean beach region of the city, all of them had identical wounds which lead the police to speculate that it was from the same killer. Although in the outset it was first believed to be the work of 3 different killers as most of the casualties were dragqueens, sadomasochists and upper-middle-class men. At that time it was very tough for men to talk about being gay and the attacks as many did not want to talk about it in concern of being outed and ostracized, a few of the fatalities seem to have been “closet gays”

The doodler case has been covered in mystery and the names of all the victims have been hard to ascertain, What is known is that the first victim was Gerald Cavanaugh, a 49-year-old Canadian born man who moved to San Francisco. The corpse of the mattress factory worker was discovered on 27 January 1974 at the water’s edge of Ocean Beach. According to the coroner, Cavanaugh was aware at the time of the murder and had attempted to fend off his attacker. Self-defence wounds were discovered on the body. Aside from what I mentioned above, little is known about the sufferer other than he was a Catholic who had never married. Indeed, he was initially unidentified and called ‘John Doe #7’.

It seems as if The Doodler caught the eye of patrons o of the Castro bar, a well-known haunt for homosexuals in the city. He would compliment his victims by drawing parodies of them and on various occasions; men would leave the bar with The Doodler and go to a more private spot where they were killed.

The next known victim was Joseph ‘Jae’ Stevens who worked as a ‘female impersonator’. His corpse was found off the walking path of Spreckels Lake (which was quite a distance from the Castro bar) on 25 June 1974. He had been stabbed in the lungs and stomach. The other named victims were Klaus Christmann, Frederick Capin and Harald Gullberg. Gullberg’s corpse was discovered on 4 June 1975 about two weeks after he had been killed. There is some doubt as to whether he was even a Doodler victim.

Why the doodler suddenly quit nobody knows, there have been suspects over the years but none that have panned out in part due to witnesses declining to come forward to recognize the main suspect in the case for fear of being ostracized by society, (homosexuality had been classed as a ‘disorder’ at this time) no action was taken.

So to this day, these murders have stayed in the cold case files, although recently the police have reopened the case and published an up to date sketch and apparent voice recording of the said killer.