The Doodler: Unsolved, But Not Forgotten

California was a hell of a place for headlines in the 70s. Journalists and reporters of the Golden State likely had a tough time keeping up with everything going on. The Zebra Killers attacked and killed people all over San Francisco while The Zodiac taunted The Chronicle and tormented the public. The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst right from her Berkeley apartment before managing to brainwash her, making her one of their own. But one of the most horrifying serial killers to ever terrorize San Francisco garnered little attention from police or media due to his victim profile. As Harvey Milk was pioneering the LGBTQ movement, gay and trans men and women all over the country were facing bigotry, harassment, and violent assaults. San Francisco provided a safe haven for those that would not have been able to live their lives freely anywhere else. But even this haven had its fair share of dangers for the LGBTQ community.

It all started with a phone call to the San Francisco Police Department on January 27, 1974. The caller, a young man from the sound of him, anonymously reported a body found on Ocean Beach. The unknown man said that he felt a duty to report what he had seen. He placed his call from a pay phone not far from the beach. People magazine reported that the remains were identified as fifty-year-old Gerald Cavanagh.

The San Francisco Chronicle has put a lot of time and resources towards tracking down surviving family members of The Doodler’s known victims. Though there is still work to be done, they have unearthed and published information on Gerald Cavanagh as well as the victim that came after him. Gerald was found to have been a furniture finisher from Canada. Born in Montreal in 1923, he was not returned to his home country after his death. Instead he was buried in a lonely plot marked by a simple flat stone at the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma.

Though a freelance researcher hired by The Chronicle managed to find a niece of Gerald’s, she did not wish to be named. However, she was willing and able to point them in the direction of family members with more information. Gerald left home at a young age and landed in the U.S. Army, where he served a twenty-one-month stint at the end of World War II. By the 1970s, he had ended up in Haight-Ashbury. There, he immersed himself in the gay scene with the kind of freedom he’d never known before. His staunchly Catholic family would’ve never accepted him as he truly was, so his sexuality was a well-kept secret until his death. Once every year he would return home to visit his mother until she passed away in 1967. After her death, he never returned home again.

Six months after Gerald Cavanagh’s body was found, another gruesome discovery was made as a woman walked her dog. Joseph “Jae” Stevens was found beside a tree at Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park on June 25, 1974. At only twenty-seven, he was a rising star within San Francisco’s drag scene. Singer, dancer, and comedian, Jae was a triple-threat on stage and the center of attention wherever he went. Those that knew him personally commented on how modest and shy he was outside of the spotlight. The slightest compliment could make him turn away and blush.

Crowds at the *PS Lounge in Polk Gulch and Finnochio’s in North Beach absolutely loved him. Everyone that knew Jae seems to have a smile-inducing memory of his Julie Andrews impression. With high cheekbones and innocent, doe eyes framed by long, wavy blonde hair, he was a beauty in drag. His sweet and genuine personality deepened his beauty from mere outer appearance. In The Chronicle’s search for surviving relatives, they managed to find his closest sister, Melissa Stevens Honrath. It had been her devastating and defeating duty to identify her brother’s remains. Since that day, she has not spoken with police again. It’s always been her belief that Jae’s case was pushed aside due to his sexuality and his position in the drag scene.

Police have always believed that Jae and all the other victims willingly followed their killer to their deaths. The prevailing theory is that The Doodler would go to gay bars and draw sketches of the men he would ensnare. Then, he would show the pictures to the men to lure them in with his talent before suggesting that they find some place else to go. This theory has been based off of accounts given by the only three victims known to have gotten away from him. All three men described the attacker as a young, tall, black man with a talent for drawing.

This would fit with Jae’s last known movements on the night of his death. He was last seen at a popular cabaret club in the area on the night before what would’ve been a big trip for him. He was due to perform a big show in Boston the very next night. His sister, Melissa, would’ve been performing right along with him and Steve Miller (yes, that Steve Miller) in their group, “The Wonder Sisters.” Melissa described herself as “the female relief” of the group as she fondly remembered her days performing alongside her brother.

The brother-sister duo had always been quite close. They had also always held a love for performing together. As children they would create their own shows, singing, dancing, and telling jokes. While “Jae” was only a stage name, Melissa always knew her brother as Joe. As they grew older, living room shows turned into packed clubs watching them onstage. Melissa happily recalls nights out at the clubs with Joe. After his death, she threw in the towel on her performance career and became a nurse. In the blink of an eye, two great talents were taken from the stage in their prime all thanks to The Doodler.

Unfortunately this wouldn’t be the last tragedy to befall Jae and Melissa’s family. Another sister of their’s, Alma Stevens, had an apparent mental break in the aftermath of her brother’s murder. She firmly believed that evil spirits had somehow emerged from the crime. Three months after Jae’s body was discovered, Alma dismembered their mother and burned her remains in the fireplace. Afterward, she attacked Melissa with a sledgehammer. Melissa miraculously survived the attack and Alma was arrested. Soon after the arrest, their father burned to death in an office fire, deepening the grief and despair felt by the family.

The lengthy, traumatic institutionalization process drove Melissa from the Bay Area that her and her siblings had grown up in. By the end of the long road, Alma Stevens found herself housed in an institution for the criminally insane. Melissa would not return to the Bay Area until her sister’s death in 2004. One can only wonder what could’ve been for this family had Joseph “Jae” Stevens never crossed paths with The Doodler.

As The Chronicle searched for Jae’s surviving relatives, the house where Alma Stevens committed her horrible crime was found. The current occupants, Bob and Pat Johnson, are quite aware of what happened there. They don’t let the home’s past bother them in the present. However, they say that the poor woman that died in that house remains there, appearing to the residents as a shadow from time to time. As she doesn’t bother them, likewise they don’t bother her, either.

Only twelve days passed from the time Joseph “Jae” Stevens was found to the next grisly discovery. On July 7, 1974, Klaus Christmann was found on Ocean Beach by a woman walking her dog. Both previous victims had been found stabbed in their backs as well as their fronts. Klaus’s murder was the most violent so far, though. At just thirty-one, he was married with two children waiting on him at home. He and his family had only recently immigrated to the U.S. from Germany. There is nothing more known of The Doodler’s third victim.

The next victim wouldn’t be found until May 12, 1975. Fred Capin was only thirty-two when he was found sprawled out behind a sand dune. Impressions in the sand indicated that he had been dragged there from the spot where he was killed. He was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and had been a registered nurse before his death. Stabbed in both the front and back, it was a slash across the aorta that ended his life. It was after this discovery that police began to notice a grim pattern emerging before them.

Mere weeks later, on June 4, 1975, a Swedish sailor named Harald Gullberg was found near a golf course in Lincoln Park. The outlier of this case, he was sixty-six at the time of his murder. His pants were unzipped and his underwear was missing when he was discovered. It’s believed that this was The Doodler’s last victim.

In January 2022 yet another victim was tied to the case. Fifty-two-year-old Warren Andrews had been a lawyer for the U.S. Postal Service. Like other victims of the Doodler, he was found viciously beaten on April 27, 1975. A tree branch and a rock were crudely used to nearly beat the life right out of the man. He was taken the hospital unconscious, but alive. Seven weeks later he succumbed to the damage inflicted upon his body. Warren was discovered in Land’s End, a mere two miles from Ocean Beach.

At least three men have escaped the grasp of The Doodler. In one of these instances a foreign diplomat was targeted. In another, a well-known entertainer of the time was attacked, but never named. These men all described their attacker as a tall black man somewhere between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. His moniker was earned after the diplomat’s statement was taken.

The unnamed foreign diplomat stated that he had come into contact with the killer at a late-night diner known as the Truck Stop in July 1975. It was located in San Francisco’s Castro District near Market and Church streets. This nearly fifty year old phantom was doodling pictures of animals on a napkin when the two met. He told the diplomat that he was currently attending art school to be a cartoonist. The description garnered from that report led to a sketch, that led to a few tips.

Meanwhile, two more attacks that occurred within just two weeks of each other were tied to the case. The wildest part was that the attacks had both occurred in the Fox Plaza Apartments. The two victims even lived on the same floor, but did not know each other at all. Once a connection was made between these two men and The Doodler’s previous victims, it was made even more clear that someone was targeting the area’s gay and trans community.

It wasn’t long after the first sketch was released that police were contacted by a woman. She didn’t give her own name, but she did provide authorities with the name and license plate number of a man she suspected to be responsible. Within ten days she called twice to report this man. CBS News stated that she wasn’t the only one. At least two more people called in to report the same man with the same license plate.

This man was tracked down, brought in, and interviewed thoroughly. Police immediately thought him to be a prime suspect. Without any solid evidence to convict him, or any cooperation from the surviving victims, there was nothing to hold him on. Out of fear of being outed to the public and the people in their lives, the surviving victims held onto their silence and chose not to appear in court. Though there was little mainstream media coverage on the case, the small amount that appeared in papers had already labeled the victims of The Doodler as gay. Neither of these men wanted to be associated with the attacks on gay men in the city, knowing that it would be an admission of their private lifestyles. Though San Francisco was more tolerant than the rest of the country during that time, there was still gay-bashing, harassment, and mugging to contend with. Even the LGBTQ’s safe haven had dangers crawling in its dark corners and intolerance oozing from its ripped seams.

The lack of media coverage on The Doodler’s crimes was no accident, nor was it the product of a lack of information. It was solely due to the fact that the victims were all members of the LGBTQ community. Short pieces were published in the papers when a body would turn up. The longer pieces that emerged alongside the established pattern of murders featured crude and homophobic headlines. For instance a January 1976 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle was plopped onto newsstands with the shocking headline “The Sado Murder Horror.”

Harvey Milk, pioneering activist for the LGBTQ movement, was involved with helping his community in any way that he could. He even handed whistles out so those attacked in the streets by gay-bashers would have a way to call out for help. Harassment was a daily occurrence in the life of an openly gay or trans person during that era. It was because of this tense and phobic climate that Milk understood why the surviving victims remained mum on their encounters with the killer. These men likely feared damaging the personal relationships in their lives as well as having to deal with the savage brutality that other members of their community were facing everyday. Milk believed that “20%-25% of the 85,000 gay men in San Francisco” were not open about their sexualities.

An updated, age progressed sketch of The Doodler was released in 2019. Also in February 2019 a $100,000 reward was offered to anyone able to provide information leading to an arrest. In 2022 that reward was doubled. Renewed interest in the case has caused the reward to be increased once again. It now stands at $250,000. Another age progressed sketch was recently provided to the public as well.

It is the hope of SFPD’s Cold Case Investigators team that this case will finally be solved with the use of today’s more advanced technology. Evidence in this case is being reexamined with a much larger and more powerful lens. Detectives are also looking into the possibility of using the very same tool that finally solved that Golden State Killer’s case. Forensic genetic genealogy is a formidable tool at the disposal of police. It could one day lead us directly to The Doodler’s doorstep.

Once police’s prime suspect was interviewed, The Doodler’s pattern faded from existence. No more murders resembling his M.O. were ever committed. Not in San Francisco. Not anywhere. What is the likelihood that such a vicious predator would simply decide to stop hunting? Did he pack his bags and leave San Francisco only to turn up elsewhere with a brand new M.O.? Or, did he just stop out of fear of one day being caught? What happened to The Doodler?

The dedicated team tirelessly working this case urges the public to reach out with any information they may have. Contact information for the detectives working this case can be found on CBS News’s January 2023 article on The Doodler investigation.