Murder in California: Abductions, Assassinations and Police Related Murders

Murder in California: Abductions, Assassinations and Police Related Murders profiles some of California’s most infamous murder cases. The edition photographically transports you to actual murder sites along with images related to the case and perpetrator(s).

The images and accompanying profiles offer a descriptive account and follow-up aftermath providing an important understanding into the far-reaching effects of each crime. Convicted killers and their confirmed victims are identified. For criminals still living, their current incarceration location is provided. A directory of precise crime site locations is included.

The captured snapshots portray visual testimonies of extinguished lives removed by acts of violence. Crime scenes often revert back into unremarkable landscape or unassuming buildings over the ensuing years and decades. Several have altered little since their moment of infamy. Many are passed daily by pedestrian and vehicular traffic unaware of a location’s unique significance.

California has been the site for many notorious homicides. The following are portrayed in this edition:

San Jose kidnapping of heir Brooke Hart and resulting mob justice
Eureka’s Karen Mitchell: vanishing into speculation
An Epitaph That Embodied The Wasted Life of a Killer (Robert Alton Harris)
Kristin Smart: The tangled web involving Fifth Amendment silence
Nicholas Markowitz: The Stolen Boy and unforeseen execution
The Onion Field Killings: Execution amidst rural darkness
An Abduction-Murder of Two Innocents (Charles Keever and Jonathan Sellers)
The Patty Hearst Kidnapping and SLA shoot out
Polly Klaas: The shocking death of innocence
Rex Allen Krebs: Predestined towards violence
The Mob permanently severs relations with Bugsy Siegel
Fung Little Pete Jing Toy: 19th Century San Francisco’s Chinatown gangland slaying
Chauncey Bailey: The price of constitutional protection
Joseph The Animal Barboza: East Coast mob contract hit
Dr. Marcus Foster: The marginalized assassination
Destroying What One Cannot Fully Possess (Betty Broderick)
The Marin County Courthouse Shootout: Thirty minutes that forever altered courtroom security procedures
The Mickey and Trudy Thompson morning driveway execution
The political killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk
The East/West Coast vendetta and shooting of Christopher Wallace a.k.a. Biggie Smalls
Senator Robert F. Kennedy: The assassination of hope
The Contract killing of Vic Weiss: Payback for stealing from the wrong people
Charles Crawford: The fixer loses his Los Angeles influence
The Wonderland Gang drug executions
A Panic and Impulsive Police Shooting At Grape Street Park (Joselito Cinco)
The slaying of LAPD Captain Walter Auble and impressive public response
Lovelle Mixon: A desperate final and fatal gamble towards escape
An Absence of Warning Proves Fatal To A Back-Up Officer (Officer Christopher Wilson)
The Newhall Shootout: Deadliest firefight in California Highway Patrol history
The North Hollywood Bank of America doomed heist and shootout
A Senseless Police Shooting By A Gunman Wagering on Reincarnation (Officer Jeremy Henwood)
Burbank Policeman Matthew Pavelka: Officer down following up a fateful back up
Oscar Grant III: When the facts behind a killing become secondary
A Routine Gang Questioning That Deteriorated Into Tragedy
Santa Barbara Officer Thomas Guerry: A legacy award for an abruptly ended life