In the 1970s, few places on earth were more queer-friendly than San Francisco. But it wasn’t all drag queens and rainbows in the City by the Bay, and when the bodies of gay men started turning up one after another, fear spread like wildfire, and it got harder and harder to distinguish rumor from fact.If you have any information about murders connected to the Doodler, please call the San Francisco PD’s 24-hour tip line at 415-575-4444 or text them at TIP411. You can remain anonymous. There is a $250,000 reward for information leading to the solving of the cases.Please take a minute to check out these resources and organizations in support of the LGBTQ+ community:The Trevor ProjectIt Gets Better ProjectGLSEN (Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network)SAGE (Services & Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders)National Center for Transgender EqualityPFLAG (Parent, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)Matthew Shepard FoundationAnti-Violence Project You can learn more about The Good segment and even submit a story of your own by visiting The Good page on our website! Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/serial-killer-the-doodler/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.The Crime Junkie Merch Store is NOW OPEN! Shop the exclusive Life Rule #10 Tour collection before it’s gone for good! Don’t miss your chance - visit the store now! Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Chapter 1: What is the story of The Doodler?
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is one that has truly consumed me. In the 1970s, there was a serial killer lurking in San Francisco. One who some believe would sketch his victims as a way to lure them in and then attack them in the most brutal ways.
And the wild part is that pretty early on, tons of people were pointing the finger at one man. Even survivors who escaped his clutches picked him out of a lineup. But to date, everyone has been too scared of what would happen to their lives if they cooperated with police. So this man is free, living among us.
And though some believe he hasn't been a threat since 1976 when the murders stopped, the current detective thinks that we just might not know the true scope of his crimes. This is the story of The Doodler.
I believe there might be a dead person on the beach right across from your lowest street. If you follow the street right down to the water. I was walking along there and I saw somebody lying there, but I didn't want to get too close because you know, nothing could happen. Okay? No, I don't think that's necessary. I just wanted to let somebody know. Maybe he needs help or something.
But, um, help is my duty to report it. Okay, fine. Let's work it out. Okay. Bye.
That call came into San Francisco dispatch in the early morning hours of January 27th, 1974. And I know that might have been a little hard to make out, but the gist is that the caller found a body on the beach. He didn't want to get too close to it. And the caller would not leave his name. He just thought that maybe the guy on the beach might need some help.
Now, within minutes, they had officers descending on the scene. And what they found when they got there was odd. I mean, they quickly spot the body that the caller told them about. But he's not just lying there on the beach, like the caller said. He is fully in the water, about to be pulled out with the tide. So much so that officers have to wade in and drag him back to dry land.
And by the way, no one is thinking that this guy could have drowned or anything. He has got wounds everywhere. He was a victim of a homicide, no doubt. But here is the even stranger part. At nearly 2 a.m. when this call came in, it is midnight. It's very dark out and there isn't any lighting down by the water.
So when they get this body to the shore and have a minute to like take it all in, they're like, wait, what was this caller even doing out here on the beach in the middle of the night? And how exactly did he spot this body in the pitch dark? Now, it is worth noting that this beach is a common hookup spot.
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Chapter 2: Who were the victims of The Doodler?
I mean, that same year, 1974, a gay man settled a lawsuit against SFPD for nearly a quarter of a million dollars, which would be like $1.5 million today, after police pulled him from a car and beat him to the point of having permanent brain damage.
And how was Ron even out at this time?
I had the same question. So apparently, and this is super interesting, it had to do with the election of a DA who both sincerely wanted to integrate the gay community into mainstream politics, and maybe saw the political benefit of doing so.
And Ron told us that things at the police academy were kind of tense at first, but he was able to win some trainees over with a little humor, which I think came easy to Ron. I mean, OK, so literally his nickname in the gay community was Daddy Cop, which obviously was like tongue in cheek because like obviously the guy didn't take himself too seriously.
But anyways, that was my long winded way of emphasizing that these cases were kind of thrown to the side and thought to be one offs. No one was thinking serial killer. I don't even know that serial killer was a thing that, you know, we had a word for at the time. But that changes 12 days after Jay's murder.
That's when another man is found deceased on the beach really close to where Gerald had been found. This murder is especially brutal. The victim is another white man on the younger side like Jay, and he was nearly decapitated. Sergeant Cunningham told us one of the original investigators said it was probably the worst crime scene he'd ever worked. And that dude worked the Zodiac investigation.
This young man was found fully clothed, but yet again, no wallet, no ID. So it takes two weeks to ID him as a 31-year-old German national named Klaus Christmann. Klaus, investigators learn, has a family back home in Germany, like a wife and two kids. But he'd come to the U.S.
a few months back and has been staying with friends, this American couple who lived in the Castro, which I think is like a suburb of San Francisco.
It's like an area of San Francisco that in the 70s had a really vibrant, progressive culture.
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Chapter 3: How did the police respond to the murders?
No usable prints. Somehow they do eventually ID him, though. He's Harold Goldberg, a 66-year-old sailor and naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sweden. And then in July, another man is attacked. But he is alive when he stumbles into a local ER pleading for help. Now, dude is drenched in blood and he's saying that he's been stabbed.
And though he does want immediate medical help, make no mistake, he does not want the police involved, like does not want to file a report. He is adamant that he does not want a report filed, like he will not cooperate if one is filed.
Is he afraid of being outed?
He's a European diplomat and San Francisco is where he was stationed for his job. I actually don't know his name because that's never been released. So I'm just going to refer to him as the diplomat. But they get his story nonetheless. I mean, again, he I don't know how they convince him, but they do. And his story is a doozy. He says that he was by himself in a diner called the Truck Stop.
It's like 2 a.m. A nearby gay bar called The Rear End had just closed its doors. And he noticed a guy sitting alone sketching animals on a napkin. And these sketches were pretty impressive. By total coincidence, the diplomat has some art training. So they like strike up a little conversation about their shared hobby.
And the guy doing the sketches was a young black guy, good looking, total like artist vibes, according to Ron Huberman. And the diplomat was intrigued when he mentioned that he was studying to be a cartoonist. So they're chatting. They hit it off. And when the diplomat asks if he wanted to head back to his apartment, maybe for a nightcap, whatever, the artist accepted the invite.
So like, so far, so good, right? But when they got there, things got real weird, real fast. It started when the artist asked to use the bathroom. The diplomat was like, sure, no problem. So the artist goes in, but then the guy like wouldn't come out. Sergeant Cunningham told us that after so long, the diplomat was like knocking on the door. I mean, more than once asking if he was okay.
About 30 minutes later, as the diplomat was standing with his back to the bathroom door, all of a sudden it swings open. The artist growled something along the lines of, you guys are all alike. and then he plunged a steak knife into the diplomat's back. Now, the diplomat started fighting back, but the artist managed to stab him six times before the knife broke off in his body.
And thank God it did, because only then did the artist run out the front door, allowing the diplomat to barely escape with his life. And his injuries are no joke. I mean, the poor guy is hospitalized for weeks. And this, by the way, is when their killer earns the nickname... the doodler.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did the investigation face?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Like, this is your guy. I know this is your guy for a fact.
I assume with him being called the doodler, the public knows about the sketches, too, right?
Yeah, they do by this point.
And this guy is, like, a good artist, too, that they're calling in about?
Yes, question mark. So here's the thing. Outside of the reporting on the diplomat's interaction with him, where he said, like, yes, he was, answers on that are kind of hard to come by. Like, I can't find a solid answer on, like, was this guy really a cartoonist? Like, I don't know. Now, before long, Guilford and Sanders decide it's time to confront this guy that they've been watching.
And so in January of 1976, they bring him in for questioning. He comes in voluntarily, doesn't even bring a lawyer. And while he denies being the doodler, he doesn't deny everything. Guilford tells the San Francisco Chronicle, quote, Which sounds conversion therapy to me, but, like, I could be wrong.
Either way, this guy's description of himself couldn't fit the PERT profile more closely, which is of someone who is quiet, intelligent, middle class, and absolutely drowning in self-loathing over his attraction to men, which he probably acts on before lashing out violently with a kind of misdirected self-hatred. And here's where things get really frustrating. Even though
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Chapter 5: Who were the key investigators in the case?
We have survivors, and even though they have a suspect, the survivors that they have won't cooperate to ID him as their attacker. They even have found a third survivor by this point, but he's a super famous actor who, surprise, surprise, wants nothing to do with the case. And this guy wasn't actually physically attacked.
Rather, he ended the encounter, which was like a potential hookup, when a knife fell out of the guy's pocket.
And are you saying that they won't even like come in and ID the guy or they just won't cooperate if slash when it comes to testifying?
The latter. Well, maybe a little former. I know the diplomat at one point at least looks at a lineup. I don't know about the other guys. And when they finally convince him to do that, he does pick their guy out as the doodler. But he still won't be caught dead in a courtroom saying that that's the man he brought back to his apartment.
And that's why this case, solved in everything but name, as far as Guilford and Sanders are concerned, goes cold. Ice cold for the next four decades. And it seems that their suspect, if their suspect is their guy, gets like cold feet or whatever once he knows that the cops are onto him because the doodler killings in San Francisco just stop and they never resume again in all that time.
It wasn't until 2018 that Sergeant Cunningham picks the investigation back up and started working it with another recently retired investigator working cold cases. This guy's name is Dan Dedette. So they have to go back and start from scratch because in the four decades that the case sat untouched, the file got moved around, it got misplaced, things got separated and whatnot.
So the records they have are fragmented, they're incomplete. And I think Sergeant Cunningham almost views this as a blessing and a curse kind of thing because they're almost forced to start from square one. And I said blessing because starting from square one leads them to some surprising conclusions. Take this. The number of doodler victims is pretty well settled by this point, right?
There are five deceased victims and three survivors, eight people total. But they decide, you know what, we should look at all of the cold case homicides of gay men from 74 and 75. Eventually concluding that there was actually a ninth Doodler victim. His name was Warren Andrews. And at first glance, his case doesn't have much in common with the others.
Warren was found barely clinging to life on April 27th of 1975 at this cliff overlooking the ocean called Land's End. But he wasn't stabbed like the others. He was beaten brutally with a rock and a tree branch. And even though he was found quickly, he was in terrible shape. He was in a coma for a couple of months and then eventually passed away.
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Chapter 6: What led to the nickname 'The Doodler'?
Chapter 7: What similarities exist between the victims?
There are five deceased victims and three survivors, eight people total. But they decide, you know what, we should look at all of the cold case homicides of gay men from 74 and 75. Eventually concluding that there was actually a ninth Doodler victim. His name was Warren Andrews. And at first glance, his case doesn't have much in common with the others.
Warren was found barely clinging to life on April 27th of 1975 at this cliff overlooking the ocean called Land's End. But he wasn't stabbed like the others. He was beaten brutally with a rock and a tree branch. And even though he was found quickly, he was in terrible shape. He was in a coma for a couple of months and then eventually passed away.
So then what's the connection?
I think mostly like who he was and the location where he was found. See, Warren is thought to have been gay and Land's End is another remote hookup spot. It's also just a mile from where Harold Goldberg was found in a similar setting. And it's the cliffs that really get Sergeant Cunningham's wheels spinning.
It seems obvious to him that whatever happened there, it didn't go down the way the killer wanted it to. It was especially messy. The victim was still alive when he was found. And the weapons the killer used seemed improvised.
OK, can you just put this a little bit in context for me? When Warren is attacked in April of 75.
Oh, so you have you have Gerald, who was the first victim found on the beach in the water. Then you have Jay, the second victim. Then Klaus is the third. Then there was that like almost 10 month break where nothing happened. This attack on Warren was April of 75. And then May 75 was Frederick and June 75 was Harold. Got it.
I wonder if it was after Harold because that's when he got the string of other victims that start surviving.
So the diplomat and the other guy who lived in his building, yes. But best I can tell, the super famous actor guy was maybe in May, although no one seems to like really know that for sure. So, yeah, I don't know if his like MO is changing or if you like because he seems like right. Like it was like usually you see the opposite.
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