Crazed Hippy Killer caused horror with 1970 murder of California doctor http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/22/2009-03-22_crazed_hippy_killer_caused_horror_with_1.html?page=2
BY Mara Bovsun SPECIAL TO THE NEWS Sunday, March 22nd 2009 By any yardstick, Dr. Victor Ohta was a stunning success. Born in 1925, the son of a Japanese immigrant farmer in Montana, Ohta studied medicine at Northwestern University and, in 1954, joined the Air Force, achieving the rank of major. By 1970, he had established a booming practice in bucolic Santa Cruz, Calif. Along with a sterling reputation as an eye surgeon, citizen and friend, Ohta also had earned a considerable amount of money, and he spent much of it on the trappings of wealth. He owned a maroon Rolls-Royce, bought his wife expensive jewelry and favored colorful silk scarves instead of ties. His children attended pricey private schools. Perhaps his most extravagant belonging was his home, in the oceanfront resort area of Soquel, 5 miles south of Santa Cruz. Perched atop a hilltop overlooking Monterey Bay, the mansion had been designed by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. On Oct. 19, 1970, it all went up in flames. Firefighters rushed to the blaze, only to find the two dirt roads leading to the house blocked by the doctor's Rolls and a Lincoln Continental. What they found when they cleared the obstacles and reached the house was more than a fire. It was a scene of horror, a mass murder reminiscent of the grisly Charles Manson cult slayings just 15 months earlier. Horrific discovery The house at first appeared to be unoccupied. Then one of the firefighters aimed his flashlight at the lagoonlike pool and spotted a floating corpse. Four more bodies had sunk to the bottom of the pool. They were Dr. Ohta; his wife, Virginia, 43; their sons Derrick, 12, and Taggart, 11, and Ohta's secretary, Dorothy Cadwallader, 38, a married mother of two little girls. All had been bound with the doctor's bright silk scarves, and all, along with the family cat, had been shot in the neck with a .38. "Like an execution," one officer observed. A burglary seemed unlikely, because jewelry, expensive cameras and electronics had not been touched. But one of the family cars was missing. The green station wagon turned up the next day, burned and abandoned in a Southern Pacific railroad tunnel about 20 miles to the northwest. There were no weapon, no suspects and no motive. All detectives had was a typewritten note left on the windshield of the Rolls. Dated "Halloween, 1970," it read: "today world war 3 will begin as brought to you by the people of free universe. From this day forward, anyone or company of persons who misuses the natural environment or destroys same will suffer the penalty of death by the people of the free universe. I and my comrades from this day forth will fight until death or freedom against any single anyone who does not support natural life on this planet, materialism must die or mankind will." The note was signed by "Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Night [sic] of Pentacles and Knight of Swords." The ritualistic nature of the slayings, the cultish tone of the note and the signature of tarot card characters sparked terror that another Manson family was about to begin a bloody rampage. Detectives began probing the many hippie communes that dotted the region. The idea that the massacre had been the work of hippies gained momentum when one of Ohta's neighbors recalled that the eye doctor had recently shooed a handful of them off his porch and out of the pool in which he was later found dead. But detectives soon learned that the hippies around Santa Cruz were as terrified as the wealthy establishment of the phantom killer. Some expressed true remorse over the doctor's death because Ohta frequently extended charity to his earthy neighbors in the form of free medical care. Ultimately, a tip from the hippies led investigators to the suspect. His name was John Linley Frazier, 24. Born in Ohio, Frazier had a history of petty crimes as a youngster but had calmed down after he dropped out of high school, married and found steady work as an auto mechanic. Then, six months before the killing, he "flipped out," no doubt a reaction to the LSD and mescaline he was taking, a neighbor told United Press International. Frazier left his wife, let his hair and beard grow and became an eco-freak. Frazier declared he had stopped driving, for example, on orders from the Almighty. "He said God had told him that by driving his car he was polluting the environment and he would be killed if he drove anymore," said one acquaintance. Always a bit of a loner, Frazier had gone into seclusion in a rundown shanty near Soquel, about a half mile from the Ohta mansion. One of his hairy hiking companions reported that Frazier had ranted about the doctor's materialism, saying that people like that "should be snuffed." Ohta's mansion was particularly irksome to the born-again nature lover because trees had been cut to make room for it. On the day of the murders, Frazier appeared at the San Lorenzo home he had shared with his wife and told her he was going to New York. He carried a loaded pistol and a backpack filled with food. As he left, Frazier handed his estranged wife his wallet and driver's license. "I won't be needing these anymore," he said. Four days after the murders, police found their suspect asleep in his shack. They also found a pair of binoculars that had been stolen from the doctor's house some months earlier, a wristwatch that had belonged to one of Ohta's sons and a .45-caliber pistol. The murder weapon was never found. 'It blew my mind' Frazier pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and appeared to be barely in touch with reality during his three trials, one to establish guilt, a second to determine sanity and a third to decide upon a sentence. Although he never offered a confession to police, he gave details of the killings to psychiatrist David Marlowe. Frazier said he had broken into Ohta's house when no one was home, spotted what looked like an animal-skin bedspread, and went berserk. "It blew my mind," the defendant recalled. He never noticed that it was fake. Ohta's wife, Virginia, was first to arrive. The intruder tied her up and berated her for destroying the planet. Next to arrive was Dorothy Cadwallader. She had offered a lift to one of Ohta's boys after school. She and the boy were tied up, as were Ohta and his other son, who arrived a few minutes later. Frazier said he had asked Ohta to burn the house. Instead, Ohta offered him whatever he wanted. The offer set Frazier into a rage, and he started shooting. It took five hours for the jury to find Frazier guilty. During the second trial, the defendant did his best to look crazy. He shaved half his head and eyebrows, was heard muttering "far out" and "right on" to himself, hurled crumpled newspaper clippings at reporters and was seen reading George Orwell's "1984." Despite his actions, he looked sane to the jury, which later sentenced him to death. The sentence would never be carried out. Frazier, along with Charles Manson and Robert Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan were among the 107 Death Row inmates to be spared when California ended capital punishment in 1972. The sentence was automatically commuted to life in about as unnatural an environment as can be imagined - a prison cell. Every five years, the longest interval allowed, he comes up for parole. After his last hearing, in November 2008, Santa Cruz county assistant district attorney issued a statement: "Some people deserve to be punished for the rest of their lives. Frazier is such a man." . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
