James Ellroy - Silent Terror

From the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, September 6, 1974:

Despite a massive investigation, the police have made little headway in their efforts to solve the brutal murders of Jill Eversall and Steven Safakis, found stabbed to death in Safakis’s 26th Street apartment Wednesday night. According to S.F.P.D. Chief of Detectives Douglas Lindsay, the 50-hour hiatus between the crime and the discovery of the bodies has given the killer or killers an edge, and the lifestyle of the victims poses frustrating investigatory problems. In a formal statement made to the media this morning at City Hall, Lindsay said:

“With the basics covered, I can tell you this. Mr. Sifakis and Miss Eversall were last seen dining alone Monday evening in North Beach, and they met up with the person or persons who killed them somewhere between the restaurant and Mr. Sifakis’s apartment. Despite widely broadcast public appeals and the questioning of virtually every resident in an eight-block radius surrounding the apartment building, no eyewitnesses can be found — no one saw the victims in the company of another person or persons. The only fingerprints found in the apartment belonged to the victims themselves, or to known associates of theirs who have since been cleared as suspects. The murder weapon — a saw-bladed steak knife — was found on the scene, and we believe it was what the killer or killers used to decapitate Miss Eversall. Mr. Sifakis, who died from blows to the head, was mutilated in the cranial area after death with the knife, but we believe a steel meat mallet from his kitchen was the actual instrument of murder. Forensic technicians have painstakingly examined the apartment and have gained no salient information, and we have ruled out robbery as a motive, having inventoried the apartment with friends of Mr. Sifakis. Nothing appears to be stolen, and no one heard the actual murders — which had to have happened abruptly for the carnage to have gone unheard.

“Circumstantially, we believe the killer or killers to have left in the early morning hours, wearing Mr. Sifakis’s clothes, carrying their own bloodstained clothing in plastic trash bags taken from under the sink. The killer or killers’ departure was not observed, and we are currently collating data on suspicious vehicles seen in the area that night.

“Our investigation is now centering on the victims’ life-style. Jill Eversall worked at a skid-row day labor pool that hired transients with criminal records, and during her three years with the agency she befriended a number of men with dubious backgrounds. She was plagued by obscene phone calls throughout that time, and repeatedly told friends that some of the men she associated with on the job frightened her. We are now extensively checking out laborers associated with the Mighty-Man Agency, along with other skid-row habitués.

“Steven Sifakis possessed two convictions for marijuana sales, and was tenuously connected to a number of Oakland motorcycle gangs. At the moment, we believe that the murders may be drug-related. Narcotics officers are involved in that aspect of the investigation, and officers attached to the Sex Crimes Squad are checking on the whereabouts of registered sex offenders known to use violence. Although the victims were not sexually abused, forensic psychiatrists involved in the investigation have concluded that the killer or killers were acting out of sexually motivated rage. Both Miss Eversall and Mr. Sifakis were involved with other partners in the recent past, and jealousy remains near the top of our list of probable motives. Those former partners are now being checked out.

“In conclusion, we are doing all we can to find the killer or killers, and we are convinced that the victims’ loose life-style holds the answer. Existing evidence and psychological mockups point to this as a one-time-only crime — not the work of a repeating psychopath.”

From the Berkeley Barb, September 11, 1974:

Last month Tricky Dicky resigned, and you thought things were looking up. You were right, but now the other shoe — or should we say hobnailed boot — has fallen. On September 2, Jill Eversall and her main man Steve Sifakis were brutally offed at Steve’s Richmond District crib. The killer hasn’t been caught yet, unfortunately, although the fuzz is trying. In some respects — too hard.

You see, Steve and Jill had an open thing, and they grooved on getting mellow with grass, and they weren’t uptight about who they hung out with. Jill had a gig at a slave market on South Mission, and — are you ready? — she liked helping the down-and-out guys on skid row find work. So...

So the San Francisco cops have concluded that Steve and Jill’s “loose life-style” was the cause of their deaths, and although deploring that life-style, they have set out to find the snuff artist/artists with bulldog determination. (Steve and Jill lived in the nice, safe Richmond, after all — why, it could have been someone... decent!) In the course of their investigation they have violated the civil rights of scores of peaceful “loose life-stylers.”

Item: In an early-morning raid, the fuzz rousted a half-dozen long-haired young people sleeping in Golden Gate Park, and when they found a pocketknife on one young man, they put a gun to his head and screamed, “Tell us why you sliced those people in the Richmond!”

Item: Workers drinking wine outside the Mighty-Man slave office were loaded into a van and hauled to the City Prison, where they were skin-searched, then harassed by homicide detectives. One plainclothes pig demanded that an old man admit to being hot for Jill Eversall. When the old man refused, the cop broke a wine bottle over his head.

Item: A number of innocent men with sex-offense records have been hassled by cops threatening to expose their records to employers and friends.

Item: Cops interrupted a chanting service at the Hare Krishna Temple on Delores Street, shaking down the chanters for dope and weapons. When the Temple’s head dojo demanded an explanation, one officer exclaimed, “I think the Richmond killings are cult-connected. My mom lives on Twenty-ninth Street! Don’t gimme no shit! I’m here to enforce the law!”

We at the Berkeley Barb wish to protest the above cited lawlessness and point out another law that may soon take precedence — the law of equal and opposite reaction. Breaking the law to enforce the law is never justified, even if the crime is murder.

While the events described in the preceding accounts were taking place, I was invisible in the storm center, lucid and gracefully careful, as apprentices should be when they finally achieve the status of Professional.

You are a murderer, Martin.

Awakening from my post-killing color sleep at 7:30, I automatically shaved and showered and prepared myself for work. I knew exactly what I had done and what I had to do, and went about it free of waking colors and brain-movies. First I dressed in my spare set of work clothes; then, knowing it was unlikely that the bodies had yet been discovered, I tossed Steve’s jump suit in with my bloodied khakis, web belt and ax, wrapped the plastic bundle up tightly and carried it out to my van. I drove to the clearing site as if my day portended business as usual, and I buried the death kit in a marsh area outside downtown Sausalito. Getaway step one completed, I sat on a rock and charted the remaining steps in mental typeface, “Business As Usual” my basic escape theme.

Neighbors may have seen you with the ax, so you need to obtain an identical ax illegally, then wear down the blade so that it will appear blood-free and well used if subjected to forensic scrutiny.