Carrying a pocket knife was not at all unusual for a young man in the 60s. If he were preparing to embark on a homicidal mission, he’d probably been equipped with a switchblade.

I think the whole point is that had he been out to kill, he would have armed himself appropriately suggesting the Bates murder was not pre-planned.

Hi,

The interesting thing about the Bates case is that in ZU, RG changes the car from Studebaker to Tucker Torpedo. That would be a huge change, if that is what kind of car it was. My colleague Jim reached out to RG this summer and RG said he must have read that somewhere because he has very little knowledge of cars and would not have substituted one for the other by happenstance. We asked him to look for the reference but so far no response.

A Studebaker and a Tucker looked similar to one another and could have been mistaken for each other by the casual observer. But the significance if it was a Tucker is potentially huge.

It certainly is! There were only 51 Tucker Torpedo’s ever made so if Cheri’s assailant drove a Tucker then it would narrow
down the suspect pool to just a few people.

I wonder how many Tucker’s were registered in southern California ? Maybe 10 ?
If only we could get that data from the California DMV.

Hi,

Been down that road and it a bit confusing. Interesting thing is that for a period of time in 1967, the year AFTER the Bates murder, IIRC Qvale owned the very Tucker car that was owned by Preston Tucker, the originator of the car. However, there is no proof that the car in Riverside was actually a Tucker, except that RG said he could not imagine making that bit of info up (even if he made up other stuff lol) because of how little he knows about cars.

Mike

Did the police ever track this guy down and interview him?

mike: I agree that Cheri’s killer did not intend to kill her. I believe they had a serious disagreement, and he disabled her car in order to harangue her at length, and in private. That the setting was the college library was accidental. However, his knowledge of the library’s site suggests he was either a student or faculty member at the college.

mike: I agree that Cheri’s killer did not intend to kill her. I believe they had a serious disagreement, and he disabled her car in order to harangue her at length, and in private. That the setting was the college library was accidental. However, his knowledge of the library’s site suggests he was either a student or faculty member at the college.

The Library was also available and free to use by any local resident.

This has all really got me thinking about the small knife conundrum. It was 3 and 1/2 inches, is that correct? There seems to be a real conflict here, on the one hand you have the disabling of the vehicle, which no matter how you quibble over the details, seems to show a genuinely planned attack, but the attacker brings a grossly inadequate weapon for the situation, at least in the sense that if you were planning an attack, would you really reach for a 3 1/2 inch knife? It gets the job done, but it just seems so risky. The attack took place in a location where controlling the victim would have been so important. I can understand toying around if you have someone trapped in barn on a remote property, but in the middle of town, you’d want to get things over and done with, not give them so much of a chance to scream.

The more I think about, the more bizarre I find it. I think a lot of the time it’s easy for us to read too much into happenstance, like there doesn’t always have to be a reason. But a serial killer, stalking his victim, disabling their car, and then attacking them with a pen knife? That does seem odd.

This might be a stretch, but I do get whiff of Zodiac MO from that. Slightly inadequate arsenal, and a location that is somewhat secluded at night, but still carries enormous risk of interruption. It almost does seem a little like intentionally creating extra risk.

The anterior neck skin extensively and irregularly lacerated with marked gaping. A deep cut in the thyroid cartilage on both sides and the right common carotid is completely transected as well as the right superficial jugular vein. At least 7 lacerations involve the neck.

And this was not an intention to kill her. Are you suggesting that seven lacerations across her neck was accidental or an oversight. Whether he had armed himself appropriately is irrelevant to the moment of attack, which was prolonged and vicious. It may not have been pre-planned, but the repetitive injuries to her neck were purposeful and intentional.

I’m not suggesting the intent wasn’t to kill, quite the opposite, it was a brutal attack. I’m just pointing out the seeming paradox, why carry out such a brutal, evidently planned attack, with such a dinky weapon? I suppose you could say, "because he could", or you might say, "stranglers take as great a risk". But I think it does stand out as being more than a little peculiar.

I think there is a psychology to the choice of weapon that can be analyzed. It makes me chuckle, but from a masculine perspective, there is that tendency to reach for the heavy duty equipment, you know? Like I don’t set the cloths iron for synthetic blends, it’s full boar linen all the way baby.

There is a psychology to it. If your going out on some homicidal bender and you’re picking a knife, you don’t reach for the boy scout deluxe with bottle opener.

But that’s because I always read it was a "pen" knife, which from the time in history I come from, is a small, single bladed pocket knife, without all the gadgets. But I look at old pen knifes of yore on Google images and they’re more like a flip out paring knife, or switch blade, more substantial and just plain meaner looking, now that I could understand.

So I suppose not all 3 1/2 inch pen knifes have quite the same psychological effect. You can have two knifes with same blade length, one that looks good for whittling a nice piece of basswood and another that wouldn’t look out of place at a biker brawl.

That’s just it – the knife the assailant carried probably wasn’t carried for the intention of murder, but ultimately become the murder weapon in an unplanned and "spur of the moment" attack by somebody she knew.

I always figured it was a Barlow or Buck, which were quite common and rather cheap…

It’s possible the intent was to strangle her, but when that turned out to be harder than anticipated, he used the knife.

.. it just seems so risky. The attack took place in a location where controlling the victim would have been so important. I can understand toying around if you have someone trapped in barn on a remote property, but in the middle of town, you’d want to get things over and done with, not give them so much of a chance to scream.

He also had to know that whoever closed the library wouldn’t be an option for Cheri to turn to for help.

I tend to think of a pocket knife being a bit of an odd choice. But I was looking at some images and I think some of the old fashion ones do look a bit meaner. 3 1/2" is almost a decent blade length. I just can’t see someone reaching for the boy scout deluxe with bottle opener for a planned murder, but if it was little more aggressively styled, something a biker might carry, that I could understand.

I think it may have been an attempted rape, the assailant thinking a pocket knife or switch blade
is more than enough to instill fear and forcing her to submit, but she was having none of it and
fought back with everything she had !