Season of Madness Read online

  It was about the only helpful knowledge to come from the test. As in Brenda Simmons’s case, Jeanne Maddox did not know her attacker and had only a vague knowledge of what he even looked like. He seemed to be in his late twenties, had dark brown hair and a brown thick beard. All of this was chalked up to being a random attack. As yet, Jeanne Maddox’s attacker and Brenda Simmons’s assailant were not linked.

  Rather than this being the last of the man’s assaults on women in the area, he was just getting started.

  Teenager Jeanne Maddox was kidnapped as she walked home alone from

  the Shasta District Fairgrounds. She was taken out into the countryside

  and sexually molested. (Author photo)

  Chapter 3

  “I Thought He Was Going to Kill Me”

  On the evening of June 25, 1978, fifteen-year-old John Mason and his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Melanie Franklin, went skating at Viking Skate Country in Redding. Roller-skating to disco music was popular in Redding, as it was in so many American cities. In fact, in 1980, the movie Xanadu, with Olivia Newton-John, would make it very popular nationwide.

  John and Melanie had fun all evening. When it was time to leave, they walked down Cypress Street toward Hilltop Drive. At the corner of Hilltop and Cypress, a car stopped as they walked along. It was around 11:00 P.M.

  A man in the car rolled down his window and asked John and Melanie if they needed a ride. They declined and said they were walking in the opposite direction that he was going. The man took off in his car, but then he drove only a short way before turning around.

  He stopped again near them and made the same offer. He seemed to be friendly and only trying to help. He was a young man with dark hair and a dark beard. This time they accepted, taking into account the lateness of the hour. The man driving the car seemed okay to them, and John opened a passenger door for Melanie to climb into the vehicle. This occurred directly across from a hotel on Hilltop Drive.

  As Melanie started to sit down in the passenger seat, the driver suddenly grabbed her arm and hair. She screamed and the man punched her very hard on the right side of her head. Then he slammed the door before John could get into the vehicle; the driver peeled out at a high rate of speed.

  John didn’t get a good look at the man, but he thought the driver had a short beard and medium-length hair. And as far as the color of the car went, it was dark on that portion of the street and John only recalled it as being “tan, light brown or even a dirty white color.”

  The driver took Melanie down the I-5 freeway toward the exit that led to Lassen Volcanic National Park, east of Redding. As he did so, he told Melanie not to look at him or he would hurt her. She believed him after he punched her hard in the face—already there was swelling around her eye.

  As he drove along Highway 44 toward the east, the man told Melanie to take her shirt off. She didn’t want to do so, but she was so scared that she complied with his demand. When he asked where she lived, Melanie lied and said she was from Los Angeles. She didn’t want him to know that she actually lived in the area.

  The man drove down Highway 44 to Airport Road, turned off and then continued to a small dirt road in the countryside. He reached an area of no residences; it was completely dark without any streetlights. Once they arrived there, the man had her completely undress. Then he tried to penetrate her vagina, but she was too tight for him.

  The man had Melanie exit the vehicle and bend over. He tried to penetrate her anally. Melanie was shocked by this, and felt him only penetrate her partway as she struggled. Angered by this, the man told her to kneel down and orally copulate him. Or as he put it, “You’re going to have to give me a head bet.”

  Melanie responded, “I don’t know how. You’re going to have to tell me how!”

  He replied, “All you do is suck.”

  Melanie was disgusted with that and said, “I’m not going to do that!”

  The man got angry and replied, “It’s either that or I’m going to fuck you!”

  That option hurt too much, and Melanie cried, “No!” Even though she was revolted by what he wanted her to do, she did it, anyway. She orally copulated him; and when he was satisfied, the man had Melanie stand up. He then climbed back into his car. Without any further conversation, he started the car and simply took off.

  The man didn’t drive very far, however; he began to back up. Scared by this action, Melanie ran off into the bushes and hid. The man looked around for her very briefly and then took off for good.

  After she was sure he was gone, Melanie made the long walk back to town. She went to a police station and reported what had occurred. In her own words she told an officer, “He wanted to do it in my butt, but I told him, ‘No. It hurts.’ He did it, anyway, for about two inches. Then he went to stick his, whatever you call it, in my mouth. I turned my face and he grabbed my face like this and pulled down on my jaw. He said, ‘Now suck it!’ And I did and kind of choked.”

  Fourteen-year-old Melanie Franklin was kidnapped in the Redding area and taken east toward Lassen Volcanic National Park (depicted in photo). There in the countryside, the assailant raped her and said that if she told anyone, he would track her down and kill her. (Author photo)

  Melanie also told the officer about when the man started the car for a short distance and then backed up. She said, “I was really scared. I thought he was going to kill me!”

  As in Brenda’s and Jeanne’s cases, there was police work about Melanie’s assault. But all the work went nowhere with no viable suspects. The assailant of all these girls and young women remained a shadowy figure in the dark.

  Chapter 4

  Nightmare Along the Canal

  The Fourth of July should have been a fun time for the residents of Redding, with picnics and fireworks. However, for two young women of the area, it would become a time of terror. The day had barely begun, in the very early hours after midnight, when the third of July turned into the fourth, when twenty-one-year-old Janet Olson got into an argument with her boyfriend. The argument occurred when they were both in his car near a motel on Hilltop Drive.

  Janet exited her boyfriend’s car and later said that she just wanted to cool off before going back to the boyfriend’s parents’ house, where she was staying. She walked down Hilltop Drive to Cypress Street and then crossed the Sacramento River Bridge to the Anderson-Cottonwood Canal. A dirt road paralleled the canal, and she decided to take it as a shortcut toward her boyfriend’s parents’ home.

  There was very little lighting around the canal, and she began to jog along the dirt road. The darkness frightened her, and she decided to get back to lighted streets as soon as she could. When she spotted a man coming toward her from the opposite direction, she slowed down to a walk. His presence there, at that hour, made her nervous.

  As soon as they reached each other, the man suddenly grabbed her. Janet started to scream, but he hit her in the face very hard. Then he covered her mouth with one of his hands. He snarled into her ear, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you!”

  Janet responded, “If you don’t let me go, my boyfriend will get you! He’s following me.”

  The man replied, “You’re lying! Because I’ve watched you all the way from Hilltop Drive.”

  Janet was in good physical shape from riding horses and lifting weights, and she decided to fight back. She began struggling with the man, but he hit her so hard in the head that she fell to the ground unconscious.

  Janet had no idea how long she was out. All she knew was that when she awoke, her blouse was disheveled and he was pushing her toward the water in the canal. Janet began struggling again, and the man ripped her blouse completely off. Then he pinned her arms down with his knees. He told her to take off her slacks. Afraid now that he would kill her if she resisted further, she complied.

  Once her slacks were down to her knees, the man completely pulled them off and draped them over her face. The pair of slacks over her mouth and nose was suffocating her. Janet asked if he cou
ld place them higher. He agreed and pulled them above her nose.

  All the while, Janet was thinking, He’s very professional about this. He seems to know what he is doing. It’s all timed.

  Janet heard the man unzipping his pants; then she felt his penis enter her vagina. For the next five minutes, he had sexual intercourse with her. After he was through, Janet asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

  The surroundings were completely dark and she knew that the chance of anyone else coming along the path at that time of night was very remote.

  The man’s response was “Shut up, and don’t move!” He then added, “For five to ten minutes, you just stay here. I’ll be watching you.”

  He pulled up his pants, zipped them closed and merely walked away. A short time later, Janet heard a car door open and shut, followed by an engine starting and a car driving away.

  Janet took a chance and decided to look at the man’s car. She noted later, “It was a small sedan. Kind of dark in color and possibly a Datsun.”

  Janet quickly got dressed and made her way to some apartments located about a block away. When she arrived there, she called some friends and told them what had just occurred. With that news relayed to her boyfriend, he arrived to get her, at around 1:15 A.M.

  Janet was in shock, and she didn’t report the incident to police until twelve hours later. She then gave them a full report, had a medical examination and went up to Oregon as soon as she could. All she wanted to do was get away from Redding as quickly as possible.

  By now, the dark-haired young man was almost in a frenzy. It didn’t matter that he’d just assaulted and raped a young woman in Redding. He wanted more, and he intended to get what he wanted by any means he saw fit.

  Chapter 5

  Horror on the Fourth of July

  That very same day, July 4, nineteen-year-old Annette Edwards was with her boyfriend, Mickey, and housemates Bill and Bill’s wife, along with a friend named Kathy, on Clay Street in Redding. Annette shared a house with three other roommates on Clay Street in the northern portion of Redding. Annette had a sunny disposition and friendly smile. She had just started working at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Redding on July 2.

  Nineteen-year-old Annette Edwards wanted a better view of the July 4 fireworks in Redding. She walked alone down Market Street to the Sacramento River. (Yearbook photo)

  Around 7:00 P.M., Annette talked on the phone with her sister, Elaine Edwards, and said she was going up to Shasta Drive to watch the fireworks. Then at eight-thirty, Bill and Kathy went outside to watch fireworks from their yard, but Annette was still inside the house. A short time later, Annette went to a nearby park for a better view of the fireworks, instead of going to Shasta Drive, as she had mentioned to her sister.

  Just which park she went to would later become a matter of debate. It could have been any one of the parks down along the Sacramento River. And there would also be some confusion as to whether Annette had originally said she was going to Shasta Lake or Shasta Drive. Shasta Lake was about twenty miles north of Redding, and it’s more likely she just intended to stay in town.

  Apparently, Annette did go down the hill to a park along the Sacramento River in Redding. After the fireworks display was over, Annette made her way back toward Market Street in an area known as Sulphur Hill. She passed a bowling alley and got to an area where there was a Texaco station, which was closed for the night. Suddenly a bearded man pulled up in a car and asked her if she wanted a ride. Annette refused, and hurried on her way.

  She thought she had seen the last of him, but that was not the case. As she walked quickly toward home, the same man materialized from out of the shadows and asked her once again if she wanted a ride. When she refused, he sprang upon her without warning. They both went tumbling down the steep embankment into the weeds. And then Annette disappeared from the lives of her boyfriend and friends.

  The next morning when Annette had not come home, and had not gone to work, the boyfriend put in a missing person report to the Redding police. Annette’s car was still out in front of the house she shared with her boyfriend and two others. Despite searches in the area, no traces of Annette were discovered.

  Three days later, July 7, at 5:50 P.M., Redding police officer James Gilhula met a man named Sheldon Heath, who was a logging truck driver. Sheldon told the officer that he had wheel problems while driving down Sulphur Hill Road. In fact, he had lost a wheel on that very steep portion of Sulphur Hill and went to look for it near the Texaco station and then down an embankment. While he was there, he smelled a very bad odor. This odor made Heath believe something was dead there, and that prompted him to contact the police.

  Officer Gilhula went to investigate. As soon as he did, he found a young woman, who was indeed dead, lying in the weeds. She was lying on her back, with legs spread apart. Her pants were down below her knees. Her tank top had been pulled up over her breasts. The young woman’s head was very bloody; nearby was a bloody trash can lid. Also nearby in the weeds were a book of matches, energy bar wrapper, several buttons, a key ring, Bic lighter and pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

  Investigators came out and collected all those items. It was noted that the dead woman was about seventy-five feet from North Market Street and down a steep embankment. A short article came out in the Redding Record Searchlight on July 8: MISSING WOMAN IS A VICTIM? In other words, a question if the dead woman was actually Annette Edwards. The article noted that police investigators were looking at clues connected to the dead young woman found near North Market Street. Captain Bob Coulter told a reporter, “It looks like murder, but we just don’t know yet.” In fact, by that point the police were pretty sure that it was murder, but were just not ready to divulge that fact to reporters. Coulter added that the dead woman appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties. Annette, of course, fell into that category.

  Investigator Chuck Henry weighed in on this as well, and said that Annette Edwards’s disappearance on the night of July 4 was “very mysterious.” Henry noted, “There’s a very strong possibility of foul play in Edwards’s case.”

  Once the body of the young woman near North Market Street was taken to the morgue, the chief deputy coroner estimated that she had been dead for about two days when discovered. It had been very hot in the area, and her face by this point was almost black, even though she was Caucasian. There were numerous bruises and abrasions on her buttocks and legs.

  There were also major injuries to her face and head. The upper-jaw area had abrasions, and it was noted that the lower jaw was nearly broken in two. The coroner also noted that it would take a very strong person to beat someone to death with a garbage can lid, although he would not go so far as to say that had been the actual weapon. Blood may have been cast off on the abandoned garbage can lid, instead. Some other blunt object may have been the actual murder weapon. “Basal skull fracture caused by blunt force” was determined to be the cause of death.

  Gale Croxell was a friend of the young bearded man who had assaulted Annette Edwards and the other young women. Gale had no idea that his friend had done any of those things. In fact, Gale had even shared a house with the bearded young man for a while and thought that he was okay. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary about him, except that he would become depressed on occasion.

  A couple of days after July 4, Gale was cruising around Redding with Tracy Rogers and two others in a vehicle. They stopped by the Arctic Circle fast-food restaurant in town, and the bearded young man happened to be there.

  The bearded young man took Gale aside and told him that the Redding police had been questioning him about the Hilltop rapes and wanted to know where he’d been on certain nights. The bearded young man said he couldn’t remember. However, if the police ever asked Gale, the bearded young man wanted Gale to say that they’d been together at the park in Anderson, watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  Gale thought this was a very strange conversation. It would have even seemed s
tranger to him if he’d known that neither the Redding police nor any other law enforcement agency had spoken with the bearded young man. Not one agency considered him a suspect or even knew about him. And yet the bearded young man was getting very nervous about his crimes and felt compelled to contact Gale about an alibi.

  By July 10, it was definitely known there had been “foul play” concerning Annette Edwards. The Redding Record Searchlight headline stated: BODY IDENTIFIED—CLUES SOUGHT IN TEEN’S DEATH. Shasta County coroner Joe Kohn related that the dead girl was indeed Annette Edwards, and she had died from blunt-force trauma to the side of her head. Keeping the garbage can lid a secret, Kohn said that it was not yet determined if she had expired from blows from a fist or some object. He did say that a pathologist, who worked for the state, was going to be called in for further examination of Edwards.

  At that point it wasn’t mentioned if she had been sexually molested. Authorities let it be known that they were asking a pathologist in Sacramento who worked on homicides to come up to Redding and examine the body for more clues. Some of the clues would be to see if a sexual assault had actually taken place.

  Captain Henry surmised that Annette might have been walking to Lake Redding Park for a better view of fireworks on the night of July 4. He also related that someone reported seeing a man in his fifties struggling with a woman on Lake Boulevard that night. It appeared that the man had been trying to make the woman get into his car against her will. Whether this was related to Edwards’s case or not couldn’t be determined at the present moment.

  Captain Henry added, “We don’t really know what we’ve got here, but it certainly appears to be a homicide. We’re checking out several things right now, trying to piece together things that we’ve heard. But there is nothing solid at this time.”