Carol Beth Hilburn

14th November 1970

22, Found Saturday in an isolated field. Coroners deputies said she was so badly beaten that she was unrecognizable. She suffered several skull and facial fractures, her throat had also been cut. She was identified after a friend reported her missing, and comparisons were made to FBI fingerprint charts and dental records. Mrs Hilburn’s sister and estranged husband told reporters that the woman went to Sacramento Thursday night to visit friends. Her husband, Jay Hilburn, 24, of Sebastopol, and her sister Mrs Pamela Lee, Santa Rosa, said she was accompanied by a girl known to them as “Deeane”.
Sources say Mrs. Hilburn had worked in a Sacramento bar 18 months ago where she had made friends with members of local motorcycle gangs. The girl was a student in Sacramento for six months in 1968-1969. Kearns later identified the place she worked as the Forty Grand, a country and western bar in north Sacramento.
The victims husband said that his wife and the second girl visited him at his Sebastopol home Thursday night, and said they were going to Sacramento to visit friends. Mr Hilburn said his wife had become associated with the “wrong people” in Sacramento and described them as motorcycle types. The couple has been separated for three months in what was described by Mr Hilburn as a amicable split, they had no children.
Mrs Hilburn had been living with her sister at 655 Santa Ana Court since their separation. The sister, Mrs Lee, said the victim and “Deeane” left Nov 9 to visit friends in Modesto. They returned briefly Thursday night, picked up some clothes, and said they were going to see some friends in Sacramento. Mrs Lee said her sister was vivacious and full of life, and “trusted everybody”.
Chief detective Jack Kearns confirmed stories given by friends and relatives of the girl. He said she had a “few friends” who had moved to Sacramento from Santa Rosa, plus others whom she had met during her six months when she lived in Sacramento. The girl had been in an x-ray technicians class at Sutter General Hospital.
Detective Kearns said police had questioned a man who had seen the girl early Friday evening but he refused to elaborate or identify the man.
Passers by discovered Mrs Hilburns body Saturday afternoon in a field adjacent to Ascot ave and west 4th St near Rio Linda in North Sacramento. Police say the girl had been bludgeoned to death, dragged from a car through weeds and dumped. She was clad only in a suede boot on one foot, a slipper-like covering on the other, and panties around one knee. However, coroner George Nielsen said she wasn’t molested.
The location where she was found is isolated. Fisherman sometimes use the field to park their cards while fishing in the dry creek. Mrs Hilburn formerly worked as a medical assistant in the office of Santa Rosa physician Preston Judson. She graduated from high school in Denver, Colorado but also attended high school in Ukiah and Santa Rosa. In addition to her husband and sister, she is also survived by her mother, Mrs Florence Bradshaw, Santa Rosa, and her father C B Bradshaw, Oak Lawn, Ill.
Chief detective Jack Kears told reporters that Mrs Hilburn was dropped off at the after-hours club by a companion, Deeane Bertini. The victim supposedly was to keep a date with an old boyfriend. Kearns said the date was never kept, and police are now trying to locate anyone who might have seen her at the West Sacramento establishment called the Zodiac Club (West Capitol Avenue). From there she went to Lloyd Hickey’s Forty Grand Club on Del Paso Blvd. She had once worked there and chatted until the early morning hours. Neither of these, shall we say, are in the best part of town.
After she left (around 5 a.m. Saturday morning), nothing was seen of her until her body was found several miles north of there in the rural Rio Linda area. According to Kearns the girl was wearing a black windbreaker with the name of a Santa Rosa bar, the Capri Lounge, printed in large black letters on the back. The names “Santa Rosa” and “Carol” were lettered on the front. She was also wearing flared pants with brown and gold vertical stripes, carrying a dark brown bag with leather fringe, and wearing mahagony-coloured suede boots.
Only one boot and none of the other clothes were recovered when passerbys recovered her body. The coroner’s keen eye found a needle mark. It was fresh. She didn’t have a record of doing drugs, and indeed no other needle marks could be found. It was speculated she may have been plied with liquor by her assailant and then drugged.