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Norwegian forests, the coast of Lake Berryessa is cluttered with stands of California oaks. It was an early evening, this September 27, 1969. Now, past 6 p.m., their shadows stretch over the dry grass and the first fallen leaves of autumn.
In late September, the colors of fall had not yet daubed the landscape. Nor had the winter rains swelled the lake. The levy marks, those little striations along the shoreline, still marked the various past descending summer water levels. This area was known as the “beach” though it was really only dirt and pebbles. Brown grass marked the area where the water level would normally rise and go no further in the winter. Knolls on these long fingers would become islands in winter. The rest of the peninsula would slip below the
water and the fjords would expand.
It is on the “beach” of one of these knolls that Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were lying on a blanket. He was now 20, and she was 22. They had been good friends in the past, and were now just reminiscing about ‘old times.’ Bryan was in college at Pacific Union in nearby Angwin. She was a student at Riverside College in southern California, and she had only been up around Angwin visiting a friend. Tomorrow she was leaving to go back south.
The lazy Saturday afternoon was ebbing to dusk. Those that had been out and about the lake were now no longer to be seen. The lake can be unnervingly quiet at this time. Knoxville Road is on the shoulders of the surrounding mountains. Thus the noise of sporadic country traffic is not even heard at the shoreline. It is so quiet that a duck can be heard flapping its wings hundreds of yards away. (Video from the top of the knoll.)
Bryan and ‘Celia’ were barely talking now. He lay on his back, she
lay on her stomach, with her head on his shoulder. He now heard
rustling behind them on the knoll. Three great oaks capped this little
knoll, and crunchy dried leaves peppered the ground. “You have
your specs on,” he said to Celia. “Why don’t you see what the deal
is over there.”
She raised her head and looked. There was a man standing next to one of the oaks. It was right at the edge of the “beach,” in the furry brown grass of the knoll. “Oh, it’s some man,” she replied carelessly.
“Is he alone?” asked Bryan.
“Yeah. . . He just stepped behind a tree.”
“What’s the idea of that? To take a leak? Well, keep looking and tell me what happens.”
She said nothing. Only moments passed. She squeezed his arm. “Oh my God, he’s got a gun!”
The man came quickly out from behind the tree, pointing an automatic pistol at them. The first thing Bryan could think of was that the man was coming to rob them. This didn’t frighten him too much because he knew he only had 75 cents on him. He bolted up and looked over his shoulder. Video.
The man wore a peculiar and quite elaborate hood. It struck Bryan as ceremonial. This was an odd contrast to the plain, if not old fashioned, clothes he wore. His dark pants were pleated, which was quite out of fashion, especially for the young. That fashion went out in the 1950s. He wore a dark blue ski type wind breaker, with fabric cuffs, collar and waistband. The gun’s holster was affixed to his belt on the right side. On the left there was a long, deadly knife in a sheath. The man was thick, a bit heavy, possibly close to 6 feet tall. Since Bryan was about 6’7” it was hard for him to judge height.
The hood was remarkable, though. It was black fabric. It was neatly sewn about the edge so that it conformed to what seemed a square grocery store bag underneath. The top of the hood therefore did not conform to the head but was square like a graduation cap. Two eye holes were cut into it, and clipped over these was a pair of clip-on shades. The hood was attached to a surcoat that fell over the shoulders and extended down near to the waist in front and in back. On the center of this surcoat, where the heraldic symbol is usually emblazoned on a knight’s surcoat, there was a strange symbol. It was a circle about 3 inches wide, with a cross in it, which extended about an inch beyond the circle. It was, of course, a crosshair, the zodiac symbol of the Universe.
“What do you want?” asked Hartnell.
The rest of the incident can be accessed in Gian J. Quasar’s:
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