I expect to be roundly spanked for this little article. It’s happened before. However, it’s one thing to claim to be objective and another thing altogether to BE objective.
First, a brief disclaimer. Ray Grant, like a number of people in the online Zodiac community, is a controversial figure. I have never taken the time to read much of his work, other than his Riverside Timeline material. I am not writing to address his style, his presence in the community, his behavior, his state of mind, or anything else about him except for his Timeline work. I will not respond to any comments about anything except his Timeline theory. For the purpose of this article, it is ONLY his Timeline with which I am concerned. I don’t want to address the ongoing Internet Zodiac wars right now.
Some time ago, Grant began developing his Riverside Timeline theory and, for a time, posted it on his website. It then disappeared for a while and is now back up and available to read here (Internet Archive link). Please note that I am referring only to this page, which contains his Riverside work. I am not referring to any other portions of his site(s), and I am not concerned with them for the purpose of this article.
What Grant has done with his Timeline is not complete. It is a project in progress, as was the earlier incarnation of his theory. However, I feel that he has done some good work here. He has examined the Bates murder from a detailed and different perspective. He has made me re-think what I thought I knew about that murder, and he has raised issues that I have never seen discussed previously.
I have no idea where Grant is heading with this theory. Perhaps he is working out the details along the way, which is fine. However, I am pleased that he is doing it and that I have been given the opportunity to reexamine my own beliefs about the crime. If you can truly be objective, be true to the spirit of what open investigation should be, I recommend that you read what Grant has written about Riverside. I am not ready to climb on board with any of this simply because I have no idea where Grant is headed with his theory. However, so far, he has raised some valuable issues, which probably should have been raised a long time ago. To those who wish to spank anyone about this article, please take a moment to consider the spirit of objectivity before you hit that keyboard.
[Editor: Ray Grant has published a follow-up, related article: Riverside Revisited (Internet Archive link)]
Interestint possibilities that Ray Grant raises(I am certainly not endorsing any particular theory of his). I personally have attempted to reach out to 2 different people that knew Cheri, and got no responses from them. I was hoping to clear up a couple of things and ask them if they knew if Cheri was friendly with one or two individuals that graduated with her and wound up living in Vallejo & Napa circa 68-69 respectively. These two men are on my own personal ‘POI’ list. Althouugh I think they both knew Cheri, one in particular likely moved in the same circles as Cheri, was stocky, wore glasses,and was barrel chested. He wound up living on Webb st in Vallejo in 1969, and was there until he moved back to Riverside in 1974(when the Zodiac letters stopped). Not hearing back from these friends of Cheri certainly aided in stalling further research of these two individuals. Sorry to go off topic momentarily, back to Grant’s timeline. I should point out, one of the witnesses in the Riverside report DID mention seeing a car like Cheri’s being followed closely by another vehicle heading into the library parking lot. In addition, a girl that knew Cheri saw her driving towards the library at around the time she would have been going to the library, but Cheri didnt see her, or at least did not acknowledge her. Personally, I think she made it to the library and was attacked on school grounds. We also have a not to her Father stating she was going to the library. If you add it all up:
1-Note to Dad saying she was going to library
2-Friend seeing her heading that direction
3-witness seeing a car like here pulling into library parking lot
4-her books being found in her car
5-police report showing a violent struggle at the scene
I think all of this adds up to Cheri making it to the Riverside college library, and being attacked there. Again, although Ray Grant brings up some things of interest and a fresh way of looking at the case, I don’t personally endorse a theory of her being killed elsewhere. But still, Ray’s mention of her habits and routines, thats a valid point. A stalker may have well known where she would go and when she would go there, or may have been following her. Then again, she could have been killed by a stranger. RPD thinks that a jealous suitor killed her and they refuse to give up on the theory, DESPITE DNA tests excluding this individual as her killer. On my site, you can see the test reports recently released to me by the FBI. They also DO show information about what kind of clues they found and used for the DNA exam. Cheri Jo has always held a special part in my interest in the zodiac case. I am not sure why, but I have always tried to dig around a bit more regarding her case and any solide clues linking her to the Zodiac case. Perhaps it is because she had so much promise, and her entire life ahead of her….she was going to the library to get some books…not to a lover’s lane with a boy, not to a keg party, she wasnt a bad person. She was on her way to grab some books, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And now,I myself am forever linked to Cheri and the date of October 30 since it is my Daughter’s birthday. Kind of weird, one life cut short on that date, and another one begins that date,both have importance to me for separate reasons obviously. A couple points of interest, I made contact with ‘Phil Sins’, and exchanged letters & phone calls with him. If you recall, Mr. Sins was the person that first contacted Paul Avery and alerted him to the Bates case and to the Zodiac connection. Lastly, I looked around for Bates-like cases during the 60’s and 70’s in southern CA, and didnt find too many. I did find one of interest, a young girl, Sunny Dagowitz, walking to her car in the parking garage at her southern CA university…suddenly, she is attacked by a man slashing & stabbing with a knife. She was not raped or robbed, and her killer was never caught. Luckily, there are witnesses, there was a sketch,and that sketch does have some similarity to the Zodiac sketch. It’s possible that Cheri’s killer could have been responsible for other murders in the area with similar M.O. Does anybody know of any others?
Really interesting comments and observations, especially at the end of your reply. I’m happy to see such a renewed interest in this case. It’s long past time that fresh eyes and fresh minds take a second look at all of it.
Grant says Cheri Jo and her father went to Mass at 9:00 a.m. Then they went to breakfast, then they went home. And then Mr. Bates left for the beach at 10:00 a.m.
But Sunday Mass usually takes an hour. Even if they left after communion but before the final blessing that would still be around 9:45.
How do they go eat at a diner and get back home in fifteen minutes? Did Grant mean to say they LEFT church at 9:00, that Mass actually started at 8:00? Am I missing something?
I also noticed this. However, it doesn’t trouble me for a few reasons. First, as I mentioned in the article, I believe this is a work in progress, so there are bound to be rough patches here and there. I think we need to wait for him to develop and polish his work before worrying too much about this kind of inconsistency. Also, this is a portion of the Timeline that I didn’t find critical because it was early that day. I felt that Grant was painting a picture, developing a scenario of possible events/circumstances, for the reader. He made assumptions which were necessary to develop his line of presentation. I don’t have any problem with these kinds of assumptions so long as they flow naturally from the facts. In his presentation so far, he has stuck to the facts and made reasonable assumptions. I’m OK with this technique and willing to wait for the rough patches to get worked out, so long as they are not critical to the overall presentation and do not fly in the face of what is known to a relative certainty. So far, Grant has been very careful with his facts while developing his story line. That works for me.
Hi Mike,
One thing I like about Mr Grant’s method is that the reasoning is transparent.
One of the challenges of building any theory about the Zodiac Killer is to come up with methods that can be considered trustworthy, and can hopefully be replicated.
In general, the communities provide environments geared towards, idea and information sharing, which is very important, but don’t seem to be as focused on the development and sharing of better methods (based on what I have seen so far).
I don’t know how his theory is going to turn out, but his method may prove to be an exemplar of how we can approach certain types of problems.
The fact that he is essentially doing his thinking “out loud” allows others to check his reasoning, but even more importantly, may suggest ways for others to work through comparable problems.
Good topic.
G
Hi ya, G.
I agree. He puts it out there and lets the reader run with it, however he/she sees fit. I like it also because it feels fresh and different. I enjoy the sort-of story-telling way of putting it out there. He’s working with the facts and reasonable assumptions, which makes for good reading, at least to me.
For G. and others:
I noticed that Ray Grant has updated his Timeline and added a bunch of archived material he discovered. It’s not in the usual location but within a different page entitled, “Riverside Revisited” on his Timeline site. I would attempt to put links in here but, being an old fogey and therefore inept, I can’t figure out how to do it.
Anyway, it makes for interesting reading as he tweaks and fills-in the details on his Timeline.
Mike
Hi Mike,
I added the link to the end of the article. For ease of reference, I’ll also add it here: Riverside Revisited.
I just happened to encounter some related updates on Mr Grant’s other website (http://zodiackillerfactsinfo.com/What_s_New_TZMS_Archive.html).
It appears it has been there a little while, so others may already be aware. I am usually the last to find things out.
Perhaps I can just add that my comment about the communities not being as directly focused on the development and sharing of better methods, was not meant as criticism, but perhaps as suggestion for future growth.
G
Ray wrote…
“Gee, Mike [Butterfield], I’m sorry you feel that way. But if we’re talking about responsible people, here’s a list of Zodiac websites that have shown an absolute disregard for the victims and their families: ZKF, ZK.com, ZKS”
Not sure what he means, I dont know of anything on our site that would make him think we have “absolute disregard for victims and their Families”. I take offense actually. I want nothing more than to see the case solved and have justice for the Victims and their Familes. I actually had one knucklehead that was trying to say that Hartnell was actually involved in the killings and was willingly stabbed. I thought it was absurd and offensive to Hartnell, and banned the member. And as far as ‘justice’ for the victims, our site is probably the loosest when it comes to discussing & presenting suspects and POI’s, (maybe too loose sometimes) with the longshot hope that one of them can be identified as Zodiac, and then justice will be served.
Nothing against Ray Grant, but I just think he’s wrong, PERIOD. I will let Tom V or Mike B speak for themselves.
I do agree with Ray on one thing that he said, which is that the various sites & forums should pull their resources and share everything with each other and get along for the good of the case, but who knows if that will ever happen.
Just to be clear on the quote, which was not included in its entirety. The “Mike” he was referring to was Mike Butterfield, not Cole or Kelleher. The full quote is on his site.
Thanks for pointing that out. I updated the comment so it’s clear. All of us Mikes bear the burden of a common name…
heres’ my theory:
in 1962 makes his first kill, finds woman at a greyhound station,
1966 returns to riverside if my theory holds Baits will be near a greyhound depot
@CANTSAY…..so I assume that you are a follower of Gareth Penn???
First, some quick housekeeping. I stumbled across a tidbit the other day that said, in essence, I am now Ray Grant’s troll. Being well into my “senior” years, I really don’t know what that means. However, I assume it means that I’m blowing smoke up Grant’s skirts, or something to that effect. Well, not true. Ray Grant and I have been on the opposite side of the tracks, some time ago. I believe that he has mentioned this fact on his website, somewhere. It’s all history now. I am writing about Grant for one, simple reason – I think he has something to say on the Riverside saga.
Grant has again updated his Timeline series on the Riverside murder. This time, he posted an article entitled “Riverside Timeline A,” which takes a detailed look at RPD’s long-favored (now excluded) suspect. It makes for good reading and, again, he raises some interesting and, I believe, powerful points. No endorsement here, just go over and give it a read. I enjoyed it.
I’ve been catching up on the Timeline series and ran across this statement:
“If there’s anything that absolutely jumps out at us about the Cheri Bates case, it’s that the police had no leads. When one compares the amount of investigative legwork that was done, and how much manpower was used, with what the police actually went with—the “Bob Barnett” circumstantial case, which, in hindsight, was nonexistent—it tells us that they had ZERO local suspects.” Ray Grant, Riverside Timeline Series (Mostly Morf)
I have a very hard time arguing against this statement or this kind of thinking. I believe that many of us have had it wrong about this murder for a very long time. I know that my thinking has definitely changed.
As soon as I read this -“The Naval Ordnance Laboratory where Joseph worked was also called “Corona”, and was apparently located in or near Corona Del Mar, about which more later.’
i quit reading. Corona del Mar has no relationship here. Its on the beach in LA County. The city of Corona is in Riverside County (about 90 miles away) It was home to a Naval base at one time. I was born there. The area is now in the city of Norco (circa 1963) and has been in use as a Naval weapons/testing area for a long time.
Ray Grant has written a nice piece on me at his forum:
http://zodiackillertimeline.com/Mostly_Morf.html
I am flattered! I guess I can say that I have finally made it. In all seriousness, I have no problems with Ray Grant personally, I never have. He’s a smart guy and a great writer, and seems to take his work seriously while avoiding the ‘Zodiac games & politics’ . I do have a couple issues with Ray’s piece about me that I have to take exception with, mainly that he assumes what my opinions and beliefs are.
Ray seems to be convinced that Cheri was somehow killed much earlier in the day then we have been led to believe. He backs this up because no students remember seeing her, and something about the food in her stomach. Well, here’s what we DO KNOW…Cheri left her Dad a note “going to RCC library”. On her drive to the library, a friend of Cheri’s saw her driving towards the school. Finally, an air force man saw Cheri pull in in her lime green VW (closely followed by an older studebaker). Then, we also have the books she checked out being found in her car. To me, this demonstrates a timeline, and all of it fits
To me, this proves Cheri was there, and she got her books and made it out of the library. What happens next, or the exact timeline of events is really anybody’s guess. But, if Ray is thinking that Cheri was killed someplace else and dumped there(not sure what he is thinking), he should consider the blood, the wrist watch , and the torn up ground where they fought. Also, there was a scream reported by a neighbor as well. The whole wild card in all of this mess is the clocks being set back that weekend. Hopefully all the accounts of time were correct and that the time change didn’t mess anything up.
Next, Ray seems to think he knows what my opinion is on the Bates case letters & connection(or lack thereof) to the Bates murder. Well Ray, here’s what I think- I greatly respect the work and record of Zodiac document examiner Sherwood Morrill . He was of the firm belief that Zodiac had written the letters in the Bates case, as well as the desktop poem at RCC. That was good enough for me. I think I would agree that Zodiac wrote the Bates case letters. Whether he killed Cheri is still up for debate as far as I am concerned. Since you no longer are a member at my forum, you wouldn’t have access to the fine work done by a member there. TRAVELLER1st is a member of my forum who I respect a great deal. He is very skilled with a computer, document examination, and graphic software. He has done some VERY COMPELLING side b y side writing comparisons between the known Zodiac writing, and the Bates case letters & desktop, and the results are fascinating to say the least. There seem to be very strong matches and similarities. So, yes, I am of the opinion that Zodiac, whomever he was, likely wrote the Bates case letters & desktop in Riverside before winding up in Vallejo.
Regarding the Confession letter, as you yourself quoted me on, there ARE some misspellings that both Zodiac, and the confession letter writer share, as well as words that most people wouldn’t use, twitch, shall, etc…they simply were NOT commonly used words, yet the confession writer & Zodiac both used them. Some people want to dismiss the confession letter as being bogus and some feel it had to be authored by the killer. Well, there is evidence for both arguments. RPD seemed very hot on the confession letter being authored by the killer. They made statements like “it contained info only the killer would know”. But as many people have noted, there were MANY details available in the newspapers in the days after her murder, including the details about how her car was sabotaged. If RPD had simply mentioned “her car was disabled”, then they would have known for sure if the confession letter writer gave specific details. In my opinion, they gave out too much info, and should have kept her wire being pulled close to the vest. One last similarity between the confession letter writer and Zodiac. The confession letter author wrote “I did make that call to you”. Police have NEVER mentioned any call about the Bates murder one way or another. It’s one unanswered question. But what do we know about Zodiac? He had 4 confirmed attacks, and he called police after two of them. There seems to be a pattern of a lot of things lining up between the Bates letter writer & Zodiac, more things line up than don’t line up. There has also been discussion of the confession letter writer & the ‘Bates had to die’ letter writer being two different authors. I personally do not buy that, I find it hard to believe that there would be two separate cold & disturbed letter writers in one town sending bogus letters in the Bates case. No, my money is on one single author. Whether he killed Cheri or not, I have no answers. If I was a betting man, I would say yes, Zodiac killed Cheri and sent all of the letters in her case. Which leads to my next point.
Regarding the DNA found under Cheri’s nails. There is very little doubt it belongs to her killer. If police ever match that DNA to a person, they will have Cheri’s killer. What I was pointing out in my statement about the DNA was that it simply ruled out Riverside’s favorite suspect as being the killer, to which you wrote:
“Morf, get your DNA straight. The tissue under Cheri Bates’s fingernails was too decomposed to yield a DNA profile. What RPD had was mitochondrial DNA, which meant the hairs stuck to Cheri’s palm in blood contained the root. mtDNA is different from what is found in saliva, sweat, and semen.”
I am no DNA expert, and do not claim to be. But I do know this, and that is the FBI knows what they are doing, wouldn’t you agree? So when I see an FBI memo saying that whatever kind of DNA from under Cheri’s nails did not match their suspect’s DNA, then that’s good enough for me, that tells me he was NOT the source of DNA under her nails. So now, it seems as if RPD still hangs on to the ‘team’ theory thinking that the DNA must belong to the 2nd member of the team that killed Bates. It’s 46 years later, and they still won’t let go of this guy, despite the DNA rules him out. Could he ever be convicted? With no DNA? I don’t think so. They never connected him to the watch either, so what do they have? ZERO. You mentioned that RPD took hair samples of male students, but guess what, they didn’t do DNA testing on all of them. So, this takes us right into another possibility which is that Cheri DID know her killer and it wasn’t ‘Bob Barnett’.
Nothing will convince me that Cheri didn’t know her killer, this is going to be a matter of opinion for each person. In my mind, there is no way Cheri walks down into a dark alley, away from the available help in the library, with a total stranger. (Again Ray, feel free to ignore this part if you think she was dead by this point and didn’t ever walk down to the alley) An 18 year old girl would be most comfortable with people her own age, high school to college aged guys, likely an RCC student or Ramona HS alumni, in the 18-22 age bracket. Ray, you said yourself, Cheri was afraid of the dark. Well with a stranger, you’re 100% right, but with somebody she thought she could trust, she would feel safe. That’s what makes me think she knew her killer, and her killer knew her, maybe they passed in the halls, and were not close friends, buy she didn’t feel threatened by him. Maybe he was a Friend of her Brother, who knows. The possibilities are endless. But consider this, when Officer Slaight talked to Zodiac after the Berryessa attack, he described Zodiac’s voice as “early 20’s”. Hartnell also described Zodiac as being in his 20’s and said he sounded “like a student”. Somebody that was in their early 20’s in 1969, would have been 18 or 19 in 1966 when Cheri was killed….further evidence that Zodiac would have likely been around Cheri’s age, and she likely knew him. I painstakingly went thru her entire senior class, looking for any men that wound up moving to Vallejo or Napa during the Zodiac attack. It took months, and guess what I found two promising guys. One lived on Webb St in Vallejo, and like the description of Zodiac, he was stocky, barrel chested, and wore glasses. His Dad was in the military, which could certainly explain the wingwalker boots at the Berryessa crime scene, or the military watch found at the Bates crime scene. In addition, this guy looked quite similar to the sketch made based on the account of the three young ladies at Berryessa. This man lived in Vallejo until 1974(when the last Z letter was received), and then moved back down to southern CA.H e was a jock at Ramona HS, and since Cheri’s Boyfriend was as well, and since she was a cheerleader, they likely knew each other and moved in the same circles. The second guy, had moved to Napa from Riverside with his parents in 1968. He didn’t look a lot like any zodiac descriptions and was tall & lanky. I have seen his printed writing and it looks nothing like Zodiac’s. In my opinion, the first guy is a very good person of interest.
There’s another reason to think that whoever killed Cheri and disabled her car may have moved to the bay area, and that’s the ‘Telegraph Ave. incident’ in 1968. Not sure if you are familiar with it, but two girls had been driving their VW bug and had parked. When they came back, it wouldn’t start. A man came up and offered to help them. While he was offering help, another man came along and offered to help. This made the first guy very upset, and he stormed off and left the scene. When the girls got their hood open, they found that the wire had been disconnected in the very same way that Cheri’s was. Does this prove that the guy on Telegraph Ave was Zodiac, or was Cheri’s killer? NO, but then again, it’s one more thing that seems to fit and link Cheri’s case to Zodiac.
Also, another story straight from the Graysmith book, immediately before the 1970 Kathleen Johns incident, a young man in Santa Rosa had frightened multiple women by driving up behind them and flashing his lights to get them to pull over. None of them did and they alerted police giving a description of the man’s car to police. Police caught up with this man and pulled him over. He was a young man from Vallejo “about 23”. He claimed he was lost and they let him go after giving him directions. The age of this man, once again matches up with somebody that was around Cheri’s age when she was killed. Was this guy the same guy that attacked Johns, or was he the Zodiac? We don’t know, but again, its just another little item to put on the checklist.
Regarding the prints from the Bates case matching the prints from the Zodiac case, you may be 100% right, they may not be a match, which is why RPD got so cold to the idea that their case is connected to zodiac. But then again, can any of us confirm that? We know from the FBI files that the Bates case prints were compared to the Zodiac prints but does anybody have the results? NO. Hell, we can’t even verify with certainty if any of the Zodiac case prints from NAPA match the one from SF.
All in all, there’s a lot of questions that remain Ray, and they are open to theory and opinion, and we all have ours, don’t we? I like what you are doing by really delving into the Bates case, timeline, etc. For me personally, whether or not Cheri was killed by Zodiac is unimportant. I certainly don’t mean that I want to see her case go unsolved, I would love to see somebody pay for what they did to her. What I mean is, I am of the belief that Zodiac, whomever he was, was likely in Riverside at least from November 66 to April 67, and then wound up in Vallejo by December 1968 in time for the Zodiac murders. If this proves to be true, this is a major clue and would unquestionably help the police narrow down suspects .
In a perfect world, the Bates & Zodiac cases would both be solved, and it might be an added bonus if they could catch one perp responsible for both.
Keep up the good work Ray, keep digging.
There is one piece of evidence here that we’ve had all the time and I wonder if it might have a significant bearing on the events of that night. That is the exact location of Cheri’s car and it’s position in relation to the library and alley. We have two pieces of information in relation to this (a) It was in a small cul de sac off Terracina (b) in was on Terracina at the end of the road,which was a dead end. While I have yet to confirm which is exactly true and what the difference might be, we know (from the photographs of the car) that it’s a dead end spot. It’s parked beside a shed like building and we can also see the bounday behind, the area being overlooked by either Campus buildings or probably (at the time) private residences.
The killers plan, not only included tampering with the car but allowing Cheri to return and make more noise attempting to start it, before he could step in and offer help.
Obviously, it would seem, he was comfortable there. He could have left the air out of the tyres, without noise or risking leaving physical evidence, however, that would probably have looked exactly like it would have been, an act of vandalism and put Cheri on alert. Evidently, (despite his error) he put a bit of thought into it and any approach by him would have to look as natural as possible.
But then what about the exact location of the car…..at the end of a dead end street? How does someone approach that location without appearing out of place? I can only think of two possibilities….his car is parked very close by (which we know is not the case) or he’s connected to one of those buildings. ( I wonder if there was a gateway or walkway through to those buildings). It would have been dark by 6pm around the time Cheri arrived and I also wonder at that time or later, when pretending to have a look under the hood, if he would have needed a flashlight.
What I’m suggesting is that perhaps the killer lived in one of those buildings and/or had reason to be in one. Could it not be that this guy often looked out over the area and watched who parked and when and concocted this plan over time?
The one piece of evidence that has us all confused is that the key was left in the ignition and why that might be. Surely unless Cheri somehow forgot to take it at a critical point, it would be because she thought/knew she would be returning soon and/or help was on the way and the key would be needed.
However there is possibly another consideration here, depending on the time all of this was happening. It could well be that the killer needed to stall her for longer because in order to get to that Alley, both would have to walk back passed the library entrance. It seems whatever way we look at this crime we have to accept something unusual needs to be accounted for.
Could the killer have gone into his residence for a flashlight? After pretending to help did he say come on in….I’ll wash up/ get my keys and drive you home or any such ruse?
It’s very hard to believe that Cheri spent any significant amount of time in that Alley, either with someone she knew or not. A stranger would have to hold her there against her will (probably possible but surely not for an extended period) and if it was someone she knew, surely her predicament would take priority and couldn’t they also do their talking on the way home? Could it even be at that point, Cheri realised she’d left the keys in the car and wanted to return? Perhaps the killers original plan was to get her to his car.
In any case, I don’t doubt that this scenario will have it’s problems too, but we should at least try to get a proper layout of the area and consider all.
Just to add a further point to the above……the one thing Cheri’s killer does not have control of is the amount of time she’s going to spend in the library. I am more persuaded by the argument that she wasn’t in there that long, at least not until closing.
The shorter that period, the more time we have to account for. I wonder if the killer considered this? It would also seem more unlikely, the longer that time was, that it would not have been spent in the alley.
As above (given where the car was parked) can he/ does he risk passing back in front of the library, where he risks being seen in her company and the possibility that Cheri may want to go back in to use a phone or speak to a friend inside?
The same holds true I think for anytime around closing, he probably couldn’t even risk being anywhere near her car at that stage.
Could he have coaxed her or forced her into one of those buildings near the boundary to wait for the area to clear?
In any case, it would be interesting if we had the following info:-
1. What the lighting was like in the area where her car was parked
2. If there was a clear view of her car from the library/alley enterance
3. If her car was in any way obscured from view from those positions
4. Are those buildings at the boundary part of the campus or private residences
5. Would they have been occupied or unoccupied at the time.
Incidentally…I noted a question asked in another thread re a witness reporting a man standing in the shadows at the enterance to the alley, and whether it was true or not.
It appears that it is…..it was part of the evidence considered against “Barnett”. The witness couldn’t give a description of the individual but he was (apparently) dressed similar to what Barnett was reportedly wearing that night.
Bob was probably just stalkin her. He had watch like one found at the crime scene, bought at a military base (his sister worked at one). the clothes thing is odd. The watch is stopped at 9:07… CJB was missing her term paper so she HAD to stay all night and work on it. That devious – that’s getting close. Only Sullivan working there OR a guy she was seeing could have stolen that paper. The crime itself is nasty – someone really hated her.