Karen Ann Signore was killed by multiple, close-range .22 gunshots after being picked-up hitchhiking near Santa Barbara, CA on May 10, 1971.
The apparent randomness and lack of motive makes the murder seem Z-like: "It was just as if somebody were driving around with this purpose in mind — to pick up somebody and kill them."
From the Press Courier, May 12, 1971:
From the LA Times,
Three articles on Signore from SF Chronicle:
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, May 12, 1971Coed Slain in Santa Barbara Hills
A pretty hitchhiker died of gunshot wounds on an operating table in Santa Barbara yesterday shortly after she was found on Coyote road in the hills overlooking the city.
Homicide detectives said at least five bullets — fired pointblank — struck Karen Ann Signore, 21, who last month had withdrawn as a student at the nearby University of California campus.
"I was hitchhiking," were the only words Miss Signore managed to gasp out to William Richardson, a motorist who spotted her body just off the roadway, before she lapsed into unconsciousness. The young woman was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara where she died shortly after midnight while undergoing emergency surgery.
Detectives said bullets fired by the killer struck Miss Signore in an arm, a leg, stomach, chest and back. There was no immediate indication of a motive.
Detective Sergeant Homer Aguilar of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office said the "direction of the investigation at this stage is to try and find out where the victim was picked up – from that we may find out who picked her up and then, most brutally, killed her."
Miss Signore, whose parents live in Bonita, San Diego county, enrolled at UCSB in 1968 as an English major. She was taking junior class courses at the time she decided to drop out of school for, friends told police, "personal reasons." She lived in an apartment in Isla Vista, a community of students next to the campus.
Aguilar was checking out reports of gunfire, sounding like a high-powered rifle, heard in the Santa Barbara Hills over the weekend. He said it had not been determined whether Miss Signore had been shot with a pistol or rifle.
San Francisco Chronicle
Thursday, May 13, 1971Dying Girls Last Words at Hospital
Karen Ann Signore spoke a few words to hospital officials before she died, Sheriff’s Sergeant Homer Aguilar disclosed yesterday. Aguilar would not disclose what she told hospital personnel before she died early Tuesday.
Aguilar said it was learned that Miss Signore, 21, who attended the University until April, had left her Isla Vista apartment Monday evening, hitchhiked to downtown Santa Barbara, and spent some time at a sauna at the City Recreation Center.
His theory of events after that is that Miss Signore was picked up while hitchhiking back to Isla Vista, taken to a lonely stretch of Coyote road in the hills behind the city and shot.
Four .22 caliber gunshot wounds in the upper chest and abdomen were disclosed by an autopsy.
San Francisco Chronicle
Saturday, May 15, 1971Coed Was Slain Minutes after Ride
Pretty UC dropout Karen Ann Signore was slain within ten minutes of being picked up while hitchhiking Monday night, lawmen revealed yesterday.
Sheriff’s Inspector Peter Zanella said, "It was just as if somebody were driving around with this purpose in mind — to pick up somebody and kill them."
Zanella said a woman motorist gave the 21-year- old Miss Signore a ride to a crossroads in Montecito, in the hills east of here, about 9:45 p.m. A few minutes after 10 p.m. she was found a mile away, on lonely Coyote road.
Detectives also revealed that a stolen Volkswagen was found in a field about a half-mile from where Miss Signore was found. Suspicious "spots" in the car are being chemically analyzed, they said.
Miss Signore grew up in Westport, Conn., the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Domenico Signore, who now live in Bonita in San Diego county. She dropped out of the University of California at Santa Barbara last month, and had been working as a model, lawmen said.
