She went to the slaughter like a lamb,” and added, “I am not sick.
The author wrote, “Miss Bates was stupid. One month after the murder, the local newspaper and the police department received typewritten letters titled “The Confession” from someone who claimed to be the killer. Cheri Jo’s purse was intact, and an autopsy revealed no evidence of sexual assault. Police found a men’s Timex watch at the crime scene, a print from a military boot and some hairs in dried blood on the victim’s hand. She had been stabbed several times and her throat was slashed. On October 30, 1966, she left a note that read, “Dad- – went to the RCC library.” The next morning, her Volkswagen Beetle was found abandoned in the library parking lot, and her body was lying nearby between two houses.
The Domingos/Edwards case also had similarities to the Zodiac’s attack of another young couple at Lake Berryessa in 1969.Įighteen-year-old Cheri Josephine Bates lived with her father Joseph and was a student at Riverside City College in Riverside, California. The beach killer used Winchester Western Super X ammunition, the same ammunition used by the Zodiac during the 1968 murders on Lake Herman Road. Investigators had few leads but, in 1972, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department announced a possible Zodiac connection. The killer then dragged the bodies to the shack where he tried and failed to start a fire. Robert was shot 11 times and Linda had been shot nine times. The victims, bound with rope, had apparently tried to escape, but were shot and killed with a. When the two teenagers didn’t return home by Wednesday, Robert’s father went to the beach and was horrified to discover their bodies lying together inside the remains of a crumbling shack. On Tuesday in early June, 1963, the couple decided to use the “Senior Ditch Day” to go sunbathing on a beach near Gaviota State Park. Robert Domingos and his fiancé Linda Edwards were seniors at Lompoc High School in Santa Barbara County in Southern California.