[2][1] Criminology professor Anthony Walsh wrote in a 2005 article that the "San Francisco–based Death Angels may have killed more people in the early- to mid-1970s than all the other serial killers operating during that period combined.
On October 20, 1973, Richard Hague, 30, and his wife, Quita, 28, were abducted at gunpoint and forced into a van while walking from their Telegraph Hill home in San Francisco.
Just before the shooting, Stoeckmann, a field clerk for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, was on duty, picking up paperwork from various projects, when a well-dressed man asked him for directions to a filling station.
[8] Two days later, on the evening of December 13, 1973, Art Agnos, 35, top aide to San Francisco Assemblyman Leo McCarthy, was in Potrero Hill attending a meeting on child-care centers.
[8] Less than 90 minutes later, Marietta DiGirolamo, 31, was standing in a doorway along Divisadero Street when a black man wearing a long leather jacket shot her three times at close range.
[8] Just over two hours after Bertuccio was killed, Terese DeMartini, 20, survived being shot several times near her apartment, while parking her car, after returning home from a Christmas party.
Nevertheless, police indicated that the shootings were likely committed by the same person responsible for five other killings over the previous five days, due to the fact that all seven victims were shot at close range with a handgun, three or four times, and none were robbed.
[10] On December 24, 1973, a dismembered body, named John Doe #169, cut with surgical precision, wrapped in plastic, and stuffed in a cardboard box, was found at Ocean Beach.
It was testified that the remaining Death Angels took turns hacking off his limbs, "starting with his fingers, and toes, until he was disassembled like a hog in a butcher's shop" [13] The killings resumed on January 28, 1974, with five more shootings; four were fatal.
Ten minutes later, and eight blocks away, Vincent Wollin, 69, was shot twice in the back while digging through trash cans for items to repair and sell to supplement his Social Security checks.
The city suffered losses in revenue by a dramatic drop in tourist traffic; many hotel, nightclub, restaurant, and theater owners reported a decline in business.
Another link among the shootings was the killers' preference for a .32 caliber pistol, based on the slugs recovered from the victims and the shell casings found at the crime scenes.
Each officer carried a composite sketch of the suspect, prepared by Homicide Inspector Hobart Nelson, based on the descriptions given by the many witness he interviewed.
The general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, Paul Halvonik, stated that the measures taken by Mayor Alioto and police "are totally unprecedented in their scope and clearly indefensible in view of the Constitution."
"[26] In response to the public backlash about the program, Alioto compared the interrogations to that of the Zodiac murders, in which hundreds of white people were also stopped, and defended the searches as constitutional.
Nathaniel Colley, an attorney for the NAACP, told the judge, "By admission, the police are engaged in a wholesale violation of every black male's rights if he happens to be what they think fits the description of the Zebra killer.
"[26][28] On April 22, 1974, Alioto was spat on and struck on the head with protest signs as he walked through a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators, organized by a group called, "Coalition to Stop Operation Zebra.
"[28] During the hearing for the lawsuits, which began on April 24, 1974, Chief of Inspectors Charles Barca reported that of the 567 black men that had been stopped, 181 field interrogation cards were submitted, and that the searches produced, "no effective leads."
"[29] On April 25, 1974, U.S. District Judge Alfonso Zirpoli issued a court order ruling that the searches unconstitutionally violated the rights of young black men, and said officers must have probable cause, and that a likeness to the composite drawing was not enough.
[32] Just ten days later, on April 28, 1974, Anthony Harris attended a secret meeting with the mayor that led to the arrests of seven men on May 1, 1974, just six months after the killings began.
The men were identified as: J. C. Simon, 29; Larry Green, 22; Manuel Moore, 23; Dwight Stallins, 28; Thomas Manney, 31; Edgar Burton, 22; Clarence Jamison, 27; the last four were released due to lack of evidence.
At the center they collected a roll of rope, an axe, bows and arrows, a sickle, a machete, wire, plastic bags, five knives, a small hatchet, a hand saw, and a spear.
The San Francisco police, under the leadership of Chief Donald Scott, have pierced the veil of a vicious ring of murders called "DEATH ANGELS."
An examination of the specific facts in the attached partial list of victims amply supports the inference, on courtroom evidence, that the similarity of pattern is better explained by concert of action than by coincidence.
Investigation by local police, the FBI, and grand juries, preferably coordinated by the Attorney General of California, is in my opinion an absolute imperative.
The following week, protestors from the Progressive Labor Party distributed literature demanding the indictment of Mayor Alioto and the police department for the harassment and terrorization of black people.
On the date of the Hague murder and assault, Harris testified that Green and Cooks offered him a ride home, but instead made him a participant in the kidnapping of the couple.
[43][44][45] By February 21, 1975, Clinton White, the attorney for defendants Green, Moore, and Simon, said Harris sent him two letters claiming police threatened to revoke his parole if he failed to testify.
That same night, a briefcase, tape recorder, cassettes, and binders concerning the Zebra trial were stolen from the parked car of one of the defense attorneys, John Cruikshank.
[62] On March 12, 2015, J. C. X. Simon (aged 69) was found unresponsive in his cell at San Quentin State Prison, where since 1976 he had been serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole.