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If you meet any of the early victims of the East Area Rapist, when first speaking with them they note that they were a different number on the list to begin with and then the numbers changed. If not this, they will give you a number that is one higher than is preserved for them in the “canon” of accepted victims. The reason is simple. During the early investigation into the evolving crime spree of the EAR/ONS the sheriff detectives believed and the press reported that the first true victim of EAR was not in the summer of 1976, but already lost in the shadows of the previous October 1975. 
Here is how it evolved:
After the very distinct and disturbing rape to the canonical Victim 1 on Paseo Drive on June 18, 1976, and then subsequent aggressive rapes, detectives went back and looked at similar cases. Almost 9 months earlier one turned up, and the circumstances were suggestive of the strike on Paseo Drive.
It was the silent, dark early hours of the morning of October 21, 1975. A mother and her two daughters were home alone in the 2600 block of Dawes Street, a main road into Rancho Cordova from Folsom Blvd. The eldest daughter was about 18 years old and the youngest just a 7 year old girl. Entry into the home had been silent. They had left unlocked the garage door and then the door from the garage leading into the kitchen. The intruder first awoke the eldest daughter. Shocked, she saw looming over her a man wearing a cloth mask, an Army fatigue shirt and camo pants. A large, shiny knife came into view and he threatened her to keep quiet. He awoke the mother (36 years old), and led her into the daughter’s room. He bound her and left them there. Then he gagged and tied up the 7 year old and left her in her room.
He returned to the mother and daughter and on the same bed he raped them. He raped them repeatedly. It was a frenzied rape, perverse beyond description.
In between rapes and before he left, the vile intruder ransacked the house. He left close to 6:30 a.m.
The mother was able to untie herself, her 18 year old daughter (who then untied her sister), and quickly locked all the doors. She opened a window and fled to her neighbors to call the police.
There was something very curious about the attack that linked it to the rapes of the East Area Rapist, beyond what is already noted. It wasn’t an impromptu home invasion. Subsequent investigation had turned up that in the week prior to the attack there had been prowling in the block. Neighbor’s porch and post lights had been knocked out, then petty burglaries began. All told, it seemed as though the house had been targeted for a while by a prowler/burglar. Maybe in his prowlings and burglaries he had identified the women as desirable and then came back this night to rape.
The family associated with biker culture, though not in a bad way. There was some suspicion that someone within this culture and known to the family might have been responsible, basically because that was the attitude of the times. When the little girl was asked about this (in essence, did you recognize him?), she insisted that none of her mother’s friends would have done this to her.
The assailant had other similarities to EAR. He was only about 150 pounds (estimated), under 6 foot tall, between 20 to 25 years old. But for some reason was thought to be black.
After the EAR became accepted as a single serial on the loose, detectives went back and accepted this case as his first. They had discovered irregularities in the questioning of the victims, which showed that the estimation of “black” was based on having seen black gloves. But the comparisons to EAR seemed more persuasive. For about a year in all subsequent news reports, the clarification was always added that the EAR began in October 1975.
It took some time to knock this case off the list, and what the motivation was I do not know. But apparently this was done by some re-interviews which weren’t entirely soundly based. The original (or re-interview of the little girl) wasn’t very controlled. The mother had been allowed to ask the girl the sensitive questions while alone. When the mother returned, the little girl’s statement that “he put something in my mouth” was taken to mean sexual assault instead of the gag. EAR had not done this with a little girl. But it is a fact the little girl had been gagged, and when she had said “something in my mouth” she may indeed have meant the gagging.
The October, 21, 1975, attack (00) in relation to the other known strikes of the East Area Rapist.
For decades this case was ignored. But recently with the reemergence of sheriff investigation records from 1972 and 1973 pertaining to the Cordova Cat burglar, there is some reason to wonder if he was EAR and that with this attack he had graduated to rape. For starters, the attack was preceded by what was termed to me a “mini storm” of EAR activity (the prowling, burglaries, etc). This does not suggest a family friend or some established rapist who was attracted to this family alone. Rather it indicates an adept prowler who had been adroitly entering homes and then finally decided to jack up his thrill level. The street of the attack was Dawes, a main road into Rancho C from Folsom Blvd. This is the same area where EAR would concentrate and where the Cat Burglar had also struck a couple of years before. EAR’s strike points in Rancho Cordova had always suggested he was coming back to territory with which he was familiar.
Something intriguing was pointed out to me. The behavior of the rapist here could easily fit into EAR’s developing pattern. It was a “sex frenzy, profligate rape.” Coincidentally, EAR put a lot of gusto into his earliest rapes, indicating this was a new thrill he was ardently enjoying. Nothing deterred him from No. 3 on nearby Malaga Way. Had the mother not put up a fight, this attack very well could have mirrored the attack on Dawes. The daughter here was also near the same age (about 16). It seemed EAR was ready for a near identical frenzy. We must recall nothing stopped him this night from getting in despite having been seen twice in advance. He punched Victim No 4 and broke her nose before dragging her into the house to rape her in unimaginable ways. No. 6 on nearby El Segundo was treated to 3 rapes in between breaks when he ransacked the house. The list of enjoyment goes on, but it applies only to the early victims. As time went by and EAR racked up more and more victims, a much larger list can be compiled of how he was lackluster and lost the thrill. The rapes became perfunctory, short, only once instead of the previous parade of ghastly terror.
Left, the area of Dawes in question. Benny Way, where Victim 15 was struck, is the street at top.
Early on, rape seems a relatively new thrill to him, and the “sex frenzy” of October 1975 can well fit into this pattern by being his most debauched. If allowed to stand alone, this case does not stand alone in any logical way. It strangely stands out as the thrill of a burglar/prowler who spent a week working the neighborhood and then quit after one rape. The attack and its gusto fits better within the pattern of EAR, but the location also is disturbingly within EAR’s Rancho comfort zone.
These and several other factors come together to make this case a logical bridge from the bizarre meanderings of the Cordova Cat (1972-1973) and the subsequent attacks of the EAR nearby. Again, it must be noted that the “Cat” struck No. 6 in 1973 (2600 block El Segundo) and so did EAR in October 1976. The Cordova Cat cases had already been forgotten by October 1975 because the original detective had died. But with modern sheriff investigators rediscovering them, the pattern they collectively reveal of the Cordova Cat is a disturbing foreshadow of EAR.
The Sarda Way Incident, an attempted but thwarted aggressive rape on another Rancho street, in September 1973 was also rediscovered in recent years. Investigators discovered an Identikit was made of the suspect. He strangely resembles a few others that were made in relation to a suspected EAR attack. His actions here were also unrelenting and crude, as though he was a beginner. It was a daytime attack and it took struggling with the armed victim and one shot fired to get him to flee. If he was also the odd Cordova Cat he may have already wanted to rape by September 1973. Cat Burglary is often associated with sexual offenses.
Had these earlier cat burglar incidents been known at the time of the EAR’s early strikes, it seems that the October 21st rape would have remained on the list. In the two books published by actual detectives on the case (Sudden Terror, Crompton; Hunting a Psychopath, Shelby) the belief was always asserted that EAR must have already had a prowler or peeping background in order to account for his confidence and style of entering a victim’s house. His lack of subtlety in some cases (unusual for a cat burglar) meant, however, he was an odd one who had an unusual volatile streak. This previous experience may indeed have been uncovered by modern homicide inspectors who have spent hundreds of hours looking through the reports of 1972-73.
There was little reason to think later that a black man had committed the rape merely because black gloves had been seen, and there is little reason to suspect that the little girl had been assaulted. Taking these factors away and adding the pattern of the Cordova Cat, and it becomes increasingly had to explain this brutal orgy of violent lust except as that of the villain who would become the No. 1 serial offender in history.
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