In late 1976 and early 1977, female students at the University of California in Santa Barbara were terrorized by a grim series of "look-alike" murders, so-called because the victims closely resembled one another. The first to die was co-ed Jacqueline Rook, 21, abducted from a bus stop in the Santa Barbara suburb of Goleta on December 6, 1976. A Goleta waitress, Mary Sarris, disappeared the same day, and both were still missing on January 18, when 21-year-old Patricia Laney vanished from another local bus stop. Laney's corpse was discovered next day, in nearby Refugio Canyon, and police recognized the sinister pattern when Jacqueline Rook was found dead, in the same area, on January 20. Each had been killed by one shot to the head, fired from a small-caliber pistol. Thor Christiansen first came to the attention of police in February 1977, as one of several hundred persons questioned in the case. Cited as a minor in possession of alcohol, he was not considered a suspect at the time, although authorities confiscated a .22-caliber pistol from his car. No one remembered Christiansen on May 22, when the skeletal remains of Mary Sarris were discovered in Drum Canyon, north of Santa Barbara. Homicide investigators wrote him off as one more teenaged punk, picked up with liquor on his breath. Linda Preston, age 24, was thumbing rides in Hollywood on April 18, 1979, when Christiansen picked her up, traveling several blocks before he drew a gun and pumped a bullet into her left ear. Bleeding profusely, the young woman managed to leap from his car and save herself, escaping on foot to find medical aid. Three months later, on July 11, Preston spotted her assailant in a Hollywood tavern and summoned sheriff's deputies, who booked him on a charge of felonious assault. Police in Santa Barbara noted similarities between the crimes; they also learned that Thor had been arrested on a drunken driving charge July 7, another .22-caliber handgun removed from his car. On July 27, Christiansen was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder in Santa Barbara, held over for trial without bond.
Thor Nis CHRISTIANSEN was murdered in prison.
In late 1976 and early 1977, female students at the University of California in Santa Barbara were terrorized by a grim series of "look-alike" murders, so-called because the victims closely resembled one another. The first to die was co-ed Jacqueline Rook, 21, abducted from a bus stop in the Santa Barbara suburb of Goleta on December 6, 1976. A Goleta waitress, Mary Sarris, disappeared the same day, and both were still missing on January 18, when 21-year-old Patricia Laney vanished from another local bus stop. Laney's corpse was discovered next day, in nearby Refugio Canyon, and police recognized the sinister pattern when Jacqueline Rook was found dead, in the same area, on January 20. Each had been killed by one shot to the head, fired from a small-caliber pistol. Thor Christiansen first came to the attention of police in February 1977, as one of several hundred persons questioned in the case. Cited as a minor in possession of alcohol, he was not considered a suspect at the time, although authorities confiscated a .22-caliber pistol from his car. No one remembered Christiansen on May 22, when the skeletal remains of Mary Sarris were discovered in Drum Canyon, north of Santa Barbara. Homicide investigators wrote him off as one more teenaged punk, picked up with liquor on his breath. Linda Preston, age 24, was thumbing rides in Hollywood on April 18, 1979, when Christiansen picked her up, traveling several blocks before he drew a gun and pumped a bullet into her left ear. Bleeding profusely, the young woman managed to leap from his car and save herself, escaping on foot to find medical aid. Three months later, on July 11, Preston spotted her assailant in a Hollywood tavern and summoned sheriff's deputies, who booked him on a charge of felonious assault. Police in Santa Barbara noted similarities between the crimes; they also learned that Thor had been arrested on a drunken driving charge July 7, another .22-caliber handgun removed from his car. On July 27, Christiansen was formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder in Santa Barbara, held over for trial without bond.
Thor Nis CHRISTIANSEN was murdered in prison. |
