Lynda Christine Kanes 2/26/71

Lynda Kanes was a student at Pacific Union College, the same college that Cecelia and Bryan attended, when she went missing on Feb 26, 1971. She had been on her way to work and she never arrived. Her body was found after an extensive search on March 5, 1971. Bryan Hartnell was among those who had searched for her. A man known to the locals as Willie the Woodcutter was eventually arrested for her murder and he was convicted. Many people in the Napa Valley did not believe that Willie had done the crime and that he was set-up. Prominant people in the St. Helena area and beyond put up money to see that Willie had a good attorney.

Lynda's murder is on Graysmith's list in the Yellowbook. I do have a number of articles about her disappearence and murder up to the point of Willie's preliminary hearing. I have not found the articles about the trial because I don't know when exactly it happened but I will continue to look. Here are some of the articles that I feel will give a good picture of what happened.

The first one is the article written March 7, 1971 in the Press Democrat about finding Lynda Kanes body.



Willie is arrested.

Press Democrat March 17, 1971


Press Democrat March 18, 1971


San Francisco Chronicle March 18, 1971


San Fancisco Chronicle March 26, 1971


The account of the preliminary hearing.
[/]Press Democrat[/i] March 28, 1971

The article was big and all on one page in the newspaper. It took two pages of copying to get it all. Each of the three columns on the first page is continued on the second page.

Are there any photo's of what she looked like?

Here you go, Mazzy. It's from the newspaper so not very good and it's a picture taken when she was in high school a couple of years before her death.

Thank you

She was apparently born Linda and not Lynda.

And her middle name was Christine.


So you can search info on her on:

Linda Christine Kanes
Linda C Kanes
Linda Kanes

Lynda Christine Kanes
Lynda C Kanes
Lynda Kanes


Here are her birth and death records + name of her father and brother:

California Birth Index, 1905-1995
about Linda Christine Kanes
Name: Linda Christine Kanes
Birth Date: 22 Feb 1951
Gender: Female
Mother's Maiden Name: Thompson
Birth County: Madera



California Death Index, 1940-1997
about Lynda C Kanes
Name: Lynda C Kanes
Social Security #: 564863704
Sex: Female
Birth Date: 22 Feb 1951
Birthplace: California (Madera)
Death Date: 26 Feb 1971
Death Place: Napa



Parents Mr and Mrs George Kanes

Brother :

California Birth Index, 1905-1995
about Ronald George Kanes
Name: Ronald George Kanes
Birth Date: 5 Jun 1949
Gender: Male
Mother's Maiden Name: Thompson
Birth County: Madera

Thanks Seagull,
I appreciate you tracking this down. I've been interested in this story line for awhile. I don't know, I almost feel like Willie was set up.

Was there a girl with a similare name that was a victim of Phillip Arthur Thompson?

I'm struck again by how many of Z's victims/potential victims were attractive looking young women.

morf13 wrote:

Was there a girl with a similare name that was a victim of Phillip Arthur Thompson?

CLOER? The known victim of Thompson was Cloer. Betty Cloer?

Morf you may be thinking of a probable victim of the "Trailside Killer" named EDDA KANE? Or something like that?

AK Wilks wrote:

morf13 wrote:

Was there a girl with a similare name that was a victim of Phillip Arthur Thompson?

CLOER? The known victim of Thompson was Cloer. Betty Cloer?

Morf you may be thinking of a probable victim of the "Trailside Killer" named EDDA KANE? Or something like that?

I was thinking the one that was wrapped in a flag.

This girl Lynda was (supposedly) wrapped in a flag, but thanks to Seagull's article's....I think that is questionable.


Thanks for the photo of her Seagull!

tahoe27 wrote:

This girl Lynda was (supposedly) wrapped in a flag, but thanks to Seagull's article's....I think that is questionable.


Thanks for the photo of her Seagull!

Okay that must be what I was thinking about from a long time ago.

I was about 20 and living in Napa when this murder happened. It's been so long and at that age I had so many things going on that my memories of the crime are kind of hit and miss. That is why I wanted to find the articles, to refresh my recollection of the whole deal. The one thing that I did remember quite clearly was that of the citizens of the Napa Valley there was a fairly equal divide of people who thought that Willie had been framed for doing this murder and those that wanted to lock him up and throw away the key.

Certain elements of the crime as it was reported just don't add up. In the article where Lynda was finally found it says that her body was between two fallen fir trees and covered by brush. But by the preliminary hearing her body had been found in a shallow grave and was covered by an American flag. Also found near by were a gas can and a partial duffle bag.

In articles prior to Lynda being found it was reported that 500 people, 400 of them students from PUC, were involved with the search for her. She was found not far from her car and that area was searched extensively, why wasn't the gas can and duffle bag found in those searches?

That preliminary hearing was closed to the public and press awfully quick, too. It seemed to me that there was a lot of info going to the press and public before Willie was arrested but the minute he was under arrest the was a total blackout on information. That to the best of my recollection was not something that happened in other murder cases in Napa around that time.

Ideally I would like to get the articles that were written during Willie's trial and perhaps see if there might be any letters to the editor that will show the outrage of some of the citizens over this whole situation. I'm pretty sure that Calman, who posts here, was in Napa at this time and would love to hear his memories about this.

As for Zodiac having committed this crime.... I don't know, it's not a very Zodiac-like crime but he did say that he would change his way of doing things and this girl was not sexually assaulted going by what I've read so far in these articles. Lynda drove a VW like Cheri Bates, BTW and Hartnell's car was a VW Karman Ghia.

One other thing regarding Zodiac and this crime. Zodiac was mentioned in the early articles as this being a possible Zodiac crime. The dates of the articles were March 1, 2, 7 and 8, four times in eight days. The LA Times letter was postmarked March 13, 1971, in Pleasanton and an announcement of the letter appeared in the March 16, 1971 edition of the newspaper on the fron page. In the LA Times letter Zodiac complains that the Bay Area paper "buried him on the back page" and that is why he was sending this one to the LA paper.

The Bay Area papers did not bury him on the back pages when the Lynda Kanes article were published prior to the LA Times letter, the initial articles were on the front page of the Chronicle with Zodiac's name in them.

True Detective
December 1971