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WARNER Karl F.

1950

...

1969

1970

Verdict/Urteil:

On August 3, 1969, schoolmates Deborah Furlong, 14, and Kathy Snoozy, 15, rode their bikes to a wooded knoll overlooking their homes in the rugged Alameda Valley section of South San Jose, California. They brought a picnic lunch and meant to spend a quiet afternoon alone, unconscious of the fact that they had trespassed on a killer's private hunting ground. When neither girl came home for supper, Debby Furlong's father started scouring the woods. He found a crowd of gawkers and police around the mutilated bodies of his daughter and her friend, laid out within a grove of trees from which their homes were visible. The medical examiner stopped counting at 300 stab wounds, all above the waist; in statements to the press, he would declare that "The Nazi sex mutilations during World War II were nothing compared to what was done to these young girls." Infuriated parents launched patrols in San Jose, without result, while homicide investigators searched for clues. One theory linked the murders with an offshoot of the Manson "family"; another speculated on connections with the "Zodiac," an unidentified serial slayer whose latest mocking letter, on November 8, claimed seven victims rather than the five accounted for by solid evidence . It all came down to nothing in the end; the killer would remain at large for nearly two more years. before a new attack produced the necessary leads. On April 11, 1971, 18-year-old Kathy Bilek chose the San Jose murder site as a prime spot for birdwatching. The killer found her there, using his favorite knife to stab her seventeen times in the back, thirty-two times in the chest and stomach, carefully avoiding contact with her breasts. Discovered early next morning, Bilek's wounds connected her murder with the previous killings, and police redoubled their efforts. Two weeks later, armed with fresh descriptions of a suspicious man seen prowling the area, detectives focused their attention on Karl Warner, a former classmate of victims Furlong and Snoozy at Oak Grove High School. Warner lived with his parents, three blocks from the homes of the earliest victims, and he was also suspected in the stabbing of a woman who survived her wounds. Police secured a warrant and surprised their suspect in the midst of-preparation for a college physics test. Their search turned up the murder knife, and Warner pled guilty on all counts in September 1971, receiving a sentence of life imprisonment . A background check eliminated him as a potential "Zodiac," since he had moved to California from Marlborough, Massachusetts, in early 1969, two and a half years after the first Zodiac murder.

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