It is believed by law enforcement that as many as fifteen women had been murdered by the same person in and near Sonoma County, California, from 1972-75. The first victims credited to this elusive killer were 12-year-olds Maureen Strong and Yvonne Weber, abducted in Santa Rosa on February 4, 1972 and found nude out in the country on December 28. Each girl had one earring removed as a momento, a practice their killer could continue with future victims.

On March 4, 1972, Kim Allen, 19, vanished in Santa Rosa and was found nude and strangled in a creek with one earring missing and on April 25 Jeannette Kamahele was abducted. Next was Lori Jursa, 13, abducted in Santa Rosa on November 21 and found with a broken neck three weeks later (Kamahele was found in a shallow grave in the same location in 1979). By now an established trend was obvious. Only location changed. Four young women were strangled and dumped naked in San Francisco in the spring and early summer of 1973 before hitch-hiker Caroline Davis was poisoned and dumped in a ditch near Santa Rosa in July. It was the same spot that Strong and Weber's remains had also been discovered.

The killings continued in Redding when Nancy Feusi was found on July 22, her body very decomposed, and Laura O'Dell was discovered on November 4, nude and strangled according to pattern near the dumpsite of Allen. Brenda Merchant was murdered in Marysville and found in a rural ditch on February 1, 1974, and Donna Braun, 14, was discovered in the Salinas River in September, the last of the known victims.

High-profile suspects abound in the case. Ted Bundy was eliminated from suspicion only after investigators meticulously plotted his movements and cleared the legendary killer. Fellow sex-killer Harvey Carignan has also come under suspicion because of a traffic ticket he recieved in the general area. Carignan, however, was known to kill exclusively with a hammer beating and was in Minnesota murdering women before the California series was over. The elusive Zodiac has also been tenuously linked despite the serious differences between the two sets of murders. Top Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen is also a possibility as he lived in Sonoma County during the duration of the women's deaths. Despite rampant speculations the killer of these innocent women eluded police and remains at large.