Murder of Yvonne Fruit

Last night in chat this was discussed, and someone mentioned this case. This young woman was killed in 1987, and someone (Calman?) mentioned it was on MAY 6, 1987. Which, if true, is interesting, as the ONS killed Janelle Cruz on May 4, 1986, and it appears the possible Zodiac letter was mailed on May 6, 1986.

Can anyone find anything on this case? Of course it was mentioned by Gold Catcher, who is less than reliable on mnay things, causing many to dismiss everything he says. But what he said about the abduction and murder of Alexander Harris on November 29, 1987, one month after the possible Zodiac letter of October 29, 1987, turned out to be at least partially true.

This is all I could find, in an article about the retirement of a San Mateo County detective:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2000-01-07/news/17636804_1_polly-klaas-golden-gate-park-police-detective

Lifetime of Tracking Down The Bad Guys / San Mateo County detective retires
January 07, 2000|By Marshall Wilson, Chronicle Staff Writer


2000-01-07 04:00:00 PST San Francisco — There's nothing that Doug McCool loves -- and hates -- as much as a good mystery.

Take the killing of Carol Lee Booth, a young woman whose body was found in a shallow grave in a lonely field. Or Yvonne Marie Fruit, a teenager stabbed to death after school.

"Two things have always bothered me," McCool, a South San Francisco police detective for more than 30 years, said the other day in his thick, graveyard voice.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Criminals have gone to jail in all but four of the 38 homicides McCool has investigated. Of those, one is pending a court trial, and McCool is sure he knows the killer in another but can't satisfy prosectors -- yet.

South San Francisco Lieutenant Mike Devan, who is in charge of the detective bureau, called McCool "tenacious and pondering."

He said McCool's mind constantly churns information to figure out some missing detail or fact that's been overlooked.

"You want everyone to think outside the box," Devan said. "Doug thinks outside the universe."

Police work is not his whole life. McCool has a wife, Margaret, and two daughters. Janie Sue O'Connor is a former police dispatcher, and Kathleen Sue Boyovich is an investigator with the Alameda County district attorney's office.

It's just that work happens to be his hobby. McCool could have retired years ago, earning the maximum of 75 percent of his salary for waking up each morning.

Now, after more than 40 years, he figures the time has come. But retirement for him means a part-time job as a desk officer in the police station, beginning Monday. He is still going over old case files, looking for some clue that could lead to the killers of Booth and Fruit. The cases still gnaw at him.

Booth was killed during a string of unsolved murders of young women in the 1970s. Fruit was a sophomore at South San Francisco's El Camino High School when she was killed in 1987.

"She was only 14 years old and plain didn't deserve that," McCool said.

I was able to find a birth and death record for Yvonne Fruit but not any newspaper articles.

Yvonne Marie Fruit
DOB- June 16, 1972 San Francisco County
DOD- May 6, 1987 San Mateo County

Mother's maiden name- Fruit

Thanks Segull.

Then it does indeed appear that this girl was murdered on MAY 6, 1987.

As I personally believe Zodiac did do murders and mailings on the anniversaries of other murders and mailings, it is interesting to me that, thanks to thebigZ, it now seems a probable Zodiac letter was apparently sent on MAY 6, 1986. So the Yvonne Fruit murder occurs exactly one year later.

See this post:

Post from thebigZ:

AK,

This is the best I could come up with playing with contrast, etc. The two dark spots that show up where the missing letter would be coincide more with a "Y" than an "R". So if I had to make an educated guess, the postmark is "6 MAY"

-tbz



Also from tbz:

Also, if it is a "Y", the day and month are centered directly over the year; not so if it is an "R".[/size]


AK - WOW.

I think that shows it much better than I ever got it!

That does look much more like a "Y" than an "R"

Good work. Thanks.

I have to study this and think it through. What do others think?

I know you probably don't agree with much of my thesis on the possible connection between Zodiac and EAR/ONS, but here we have a Zodiac letter, never released to the public until this year, authenticated as real by Terry Pascoe Cal DOJ handwriting expert, and it is looking more and more that the letter was mailed on MAY 6, 1986, just two days after the ONS murder of Janelle Cruz. And the letter mentions new "slaves".

tbz = "Also, if it is a "Y", the day and month are centered directly over the year; not so if it is an "R"."

That is true. The centering is consistent with MAY, not so much MARCH.

I now think we can safely say that this letter was indeed mailed on MAY 6, 1986. Which is two days after the murder by the ONS of Janelle Cruz on May 4, 1986.

AK - And as we now know, exactly one year before the murder of Yvonne Fruit.

Also, wasn't there some prior Zodiac activity in SAN MATEO? Wasn't the Exprcist letter sent from there, and a phone call made to police there on Janury 12, 1974?

I have a few things about her.

Index Terms:
BAY AREA
MURDER
YOUTH
Column: BAY AREA REPORT
South City Parents Seeking Child's Killer
Article Text:
The city of South San Francisco and the parents of a 14-year-old murder victim are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
Yvonne Fruit was found May 6 on a path in a wooded area between El Camino Real and Mission Road. The El Camino High School student had been stabbed to death.
The police investigation has taken more than 800 man-hours, said South San Francisco Police Sergeant Myron Sutton, but the motive for the killing has never been determined and Fruit's activities on May 5 and 6 are still not known.
Anyone with information about the murder should contact police at 877-8910, or 877-8900 after business hours.
Copyright 1987 San Francisco Chronicle
Record Number: 454245

This article also mentions Yvonne Fruit.

Suspect Described In Daly City Murder
Author: Bill Workman
Article Text:
Daly City police released a composite drawing yesterday of a man who was seen talking with Michelle Matteucci a short time before she was murdered on Tuesday.
"We want him for questioning," said Detective Sergeant Jim McHenry, as police stepped up the hunt for the 13-year-old girl's slayer.
McHenry said the suspect, who was described as a white man, 25 to 30 years old, with a brown goatee, was wearing a calf-length "dirty green" overcoat.
A witness told police he was of medium build, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10. He also wore a light blue rain hat with wrap-around brim, and brown work boots.
The man was seen talking with Michelle near a SamTrans bus stop at Callan Boulevard and Morton Drive, in Daly City, a block from the victim's home. She had just gotten off a bus with several classmates from Alta Loma Junior High School in South San Francisco.
The witness apparently got a very good look at the suspect, recalling that he had a scar or mole near the hairline of his forehead, police said.
Two other witnesses, one a classmate who had been on the bus with Michelle, also reported they saw the girl, after she spoke with the man, walk alone into the yard at 183 Morton Drive, where her body was later found.
The body was discovered six hours later by a neighbor who had joined a search organized after she failed to return home from school.
Michelle was seen leaving the yard shortly after she went through a side gate, then walked away from her nearby home, heading down Morton Drive toward Callan Boulevard, McHenry said.
It was off Callan Boulevard, in a drainage ditch only yards from the bus stop, that Michelle's' brother, Marc, 16, found her books and the clarinet she played in her school's marching band.
Police believe that the killer threw the items over the backyard fence on Morton Drive after she was struck on the head and strangled. Criminalists are checking for fingerprints on the items, McHenry said.
He said investigators believe the victim was garroted with a piece of clothing or cloth-like material. Bits of fiber were recovered from her neck during an autopsy. The coroner's pathologist said the girl died between 3:30 and 5 p.m.
City officials offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Michelle's killer.
McHenry said detectives have not ruled out the possibility of a link between Michelle's death and the stabbing death in May of 14-year-old Yvonne Fruit, a sophomore at El Camino High School in South San Francisco. Her body was found near the high school, which is only a half-mile from the school where the Daly City murder victim attended classes.
Michelle, a top student and National Honor Society member, is survived by her parents, Dante and Gwen, brother Marc, and grandparents Arthur Silveria of Soledad and Barbara Masciorini of King City.
A Mass of Christian burial will be sung for her at 10:30 a.m., Monday, at St. Augustine's Catholic Church, 3700 Callan Boulevard, South San Francisco. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery. Recitation of the rosary will be at 4 p.m., Sunday, at the church. Visitation hours are 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Sunday at Chapel of the Highlands, 194 Millwood Drive, Millbrae.
The family prefers contributions be made to the Alta Loma Junior High School Band Uniform Fund, South San Francisco.
Caption:
This police sketch was based on descriptions that even included a mole near the hairline
PHOTO
Copyright 1987 San Francisco Chronicle
Record Number: 477268

Do we know when Michelle Matteucci was killed?

Can anyone get this police sketch of the Michelle Matteucci killer?

Check out this from the description of her killer, who police speculate may also be the killer of Yvonne Fruit:

"Daly City police released a composite drawing yesterday of a man who was seen talking with Michelle Matteucci a short time before she was murdered on Tuesday.

"We want him for questioning," said Detective Sergeant Jim McHenry, as police stepped up the hunt for the 13-year-old girl's slayer.
McHenry said the suspect, who was described as a white man, 25 to 30 years old, with a brown goatee, was wearing a calf-length "dirty green" overcoat.
A witness told police he was of medium build, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10. He also wore a light blue rain hat with wrap-around brim, and brown work boots.
The man was seen talking with Michelle near a SamTrans bus stop at Callan Boulevard and Morton Drive, in Daly City, a block from the victim's home. She had just gotten off a bus with several classmates from Alta Loma Junior High School in South San Francisco.

The witness apparently got a very good look at the suspect, recalling that he had a scar or mole near the hairline of his forehead, police said."


AK = The suspect wanted in the murder of Alexander Harris on November 28, 1987, was also described as having a mole or birthmark near the hairline of his forehead, as seen in the sletch below.

This is also interesting in re the Michelle Matteucci murder:

This is from wiki, on the "Alphabet Murders" or "Double Initial Murders" in Rochester, New York (which is close to Albany, NY):

The so-called "Alphabet murders" (also known as the "double initial murders") took place in the early 1970s in the Rochester, New York area; three young girls were raped and strangled.

The case got its name from the fact that each of the three girls' first and last names started with the same letters (Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza) and that the bodies were found in a town that started with the same letter as the girls' names (Colon in Churchville, Walkowicz in Webster and Maenza in Macedon).

Carmen Colon, 11, disappeared November 16, 1971. She was found two days later 12 miles from where she was last seen. Although found in the town of Riga[1], the village of Churchville is the town's center of population, and the town of Chili is nearby.

Wanda Walkowicz, 11, disappeared April 2, 1973. She was found the next day at a rest area off State Route 104 in Webster, seven miles from Rochester.

Michelle Maenza, 10, disappeared November 26, 1973. She was found two days later in Macedon, 15 miles from Rochester.

AK - Michelle Matteucci also has double initials, though it seems she was found in San Mateo?

Also, read the description of the Matteucci suspect, then look at a sketch of a suspect in the Alphabet Murders:

"Daly City police released a composite drawing yesterday of a man who was seen talking with Michelle Matteucci a short time before she was murdered on Tuesday.

"We want him for questioning," said Detective Sergeant Jim McHenry, as police stepped up the hunt for the 13-year-old girl's slayer.
McHenry said the suspect, who was described as a white man, 25 to 30 years old, with a brown goatee, was wearing a calf-length "dirty green" overcoat.

A witness told police he was of medium build, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10. He also wore a light blue rain hat with wrap-around brim, and brown work boots.

The man was seen talking with Michelle near a SamTrans bus stop at Callan Boulevard and Morton Drive, in Daly City, a block from the victim's home. She had just gotten off a bus with several classmates from Alta Loma Junior High School in South San Francisco."

AK = Below is the sketch of the suspect in the Alphabet Murders.

Michelle Matteucci was murdered on November 10, 1987.

Also have another composite out in 1989 some people thought may be related to the
1987 murders.

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - January 24, 1989

South San Francisco Cops Put Out Posters in Kidnap Try
South San Francisco police have blanketed the city with wanted posters in an attempt to find the man who tried to kidnap a 15-year-old girl from a quiet suburban street last week.The posters, which feature a police artist's sketch of the would-be kidnaper and a description of the beat-up 1977 Mustang he was driving, started popping up Friday on store windows, bulletin boards and telephone poles throughout South San Francisco and neighboring communities."...

AK, I emailed the San Jose Mercury news and they will not even sell me the
picture of the composite. The best and maybe only way to get it will be from
the library. I am pretty sure the picture we want is in the
San Jose Mercury News (CA) - November 15, 1987 - 2B Local.

I am sure it was also in other newspapers

Also AK, It seems like there was a series of murders in the Daly city/El Camino
area within a few year period. I am still looking for the article but I think
they tried to tie these murders to the same killer? It has been awhile but
I think the LE had a good idea who committed some of these murders.

x Mistake.

Suspect sketch in Harris murder, who perhaps should also be considered a suspect in the deaths of Yvonne Fruit and Michelle Matteucci - compared to sketch of suspect seen with bearded suuspect at Judith Hakari burial site.

17 years difference, but there is a certain similarity?



Hmm, after further review, maybe not so much.

What I would really like to do is compare the Matteucci suspect sketch to the Harris sketch, and the Zodiac and 86 ONS sketch.

I have had no luck getting that composite from the Matteuci murder.
Getting the runaround from the newspaper and the library.
If someone is near San Mateo they might be able to get it in person.
I have to do an interlibrary request for a copy of the clipping.
Never had a library be so strict, lol

I sent a message to Frank Mickadeit, a reporter from the Orange County Register, seeing if he can help with getting that MM composite. Will keep you posted.

I must be missing something here. How could the murderer of MM be Z? The suspect was described as 25 to 30 years old. So if it was Z, that would mean that Z was roughly 13 years old when he killed Stine, Shepard, and Ferrin.

rand wrote:

I must be missing something here. How could the murderer of MM be Z? The suspect was described as 25 to 30 years old. So if it was Z, that would mean that Z was roughly 13 years old when he killed Stine, Shepard, and Ferrin.

Thanks for doing the math. What were we thinking?

Stores have a policy of "carding" anyone who looks under 40, because age is very hard to guess. Depending on light, angle, hairstyle, clothes - it can all affect how old we think someone is. And bottom line, some people just do not look their age.

Just as an example, a major Zodiac suspect, Ted Kaczynski, was seen planting a bomb in Utah in February 1987. The same year as the murder of MM. The witness in Utah guessed his age as 25 to 30 years old. In fact, Ted was 45 years old!

If a man is not balding or going grey, and is in good shape, it can be real hard to correctly guess age between 25 and 45 if you only see him for seconds.

Some have put Zodiac at 35 to 45 in 1969, based on Fouke, but Mageau, Johns and others guessed him at 25 to 30.

And the MZ Pacific High suspect was 21 in 1969? And some people think he could be Zodiac.

Since some 45 year old men have looked 25 to 30 to witnesses, I wouldn't rule out Zodiac for these 1987 crimes, though I have yet to see anything compelling to rule him in.

It would help if anyone could get the sketch of the suspect in the MM case!

huh? So I haven't missed anything? You believe that someone described as between 25-30 years old in 1987 could be Z? That's strange.

caresut wrote:

rand wrote:

I must be missing something here. How could the murderer of MM be Z? The suspect was described as 25 to 30 years old. So if it was Z, that would mean that Z was roughly 13 years old when he killed Stine, Shepard, and Ferrin.

Thanks for doing the math. What were we thinking?

What WERE you thinking?

rand wrote:

huh? So I haven't missed anything? You believe that someone described as between 25-30 years old in 1987 could be Z? That's strange.

Yes, absolutely. You can see on this wanted poster below, Zodiac suspect Ted Kaczynski was described in 1987 by a witness as appearing 25 to 30 years old! In fact he was 45, but the witness who saw him guessed 25 to 30.



And that is just one real life example. It shows that when you have a witness who sees a suspect for a few seconds, often in bad light or bad angle, if the man has a full head of hair and is in good shape, no wrinkles no grey, athletic, not fat, a 45 yearold man can be thought to be 25 to 30.

Even if MM's murderer was 43 or thereabouts, that would make Z around 25 in 1969. I think Z was in his late 30s or early 40s in 1969, not just because of Fouke's description but because he called the victims "boys" and he used old-time terms like boughten, stove oil, etc.

Ted K was 27 in 1969.

Mageau, Johns and some of the SF teens and LB college girls said Zodiac was between 25 and 30.

It is real hard to guess age by langauge. You don't know if the words were picked to lead police off track, or of the person is a highly educated man in his twenties and/or uses eccentric or old fashioned langauge.

Going by the above mentioned witness descriptions, it is possible Z was between 25 and 30 in 1969, and thus if he was between 40 and 45 in 1987, he could have been thought to be 25 to 30, as TK was.

A month ago there was a real craze for MZ as a Zodiac suspect and he was 21 in 1969!

rand wrote:

caresut wrote:

rand wrote:

I must be missing something here. How could the murderer of MM be Z? The suspect was described as 25 to 30 years old. So if it was Z, that would mean that Z was roughly 13 years old when he killed Stine, Shepard, and Ferrin.

Thanks for doing the math. What were we thinking?

What WERE you thinking?

We were researching a murder victim that Goldcatcher thinks is related to the Z murders.
AK also saw the dates as a possible connection.
I thought AK explained it pretty well in the first post on this thread.
There are many possible victims that are more than likely not connected
to the Zodiac. Still doesn't hurt to look into them some, imo.