The 1970 murder of the Otta family in Santa Cruz, California, shocked the community and sparked widespread fear of a Manson-style cult. Five family members, including doctor Victor Otta and his wife, were found dead in their home, all shot and bound with silk scarves. A cryptic note found in the station wagon, filled with apocalyptic rhetoric and tarot-inspired signatures, fueled speculation of a cult or copycat. Though initial investigations pointed to organized violence, evidence like a single green station wagon, footprints, and a gas station sighting led detectives to focus on John Lindley Frazier—a man with a history of trauma, mental health struggles, and anti-materialist beliefs. Frazier, who had previously broken into the Otta home and stolen weapons, admitted to planning the killings, citing religious messages that convinced him the family’s wealth was destroying nature. He targeted them because of their perceived materialism, ambushing them at different times and using the family’s routine to mask his actions. The case was solved through community cooperation, especially from the Catalyst coffee shop, where patrons recognized the note’s content. Frazier was arrested after being seen near the scene, and the investigation highlighted how trauma, mental illness, and societal fears can lead to violent outcomes. The case remains a stark reminder of the dangers of misidentifying motives and the critical role of community vigilance in solving crimes.
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is morbid This is morbid It's also kind of like an 800 call service. Yeah, I have a sexy voice. It's true. She does It's like in and out though like I could it is I can force it to not be so. Yeah, it's it's the allergies. It's the allergies. It's the asthma. The asthma. It's just it's a whole bunch of things. You know, yeah, you know, what do you do? The goddamn pollen. It's here to stay. I don't know when it's we've had several rains. So intense rains. Yeah. Stombs even rains every fucking weekend. It's rain in all the time. And it's like and then we wake up and it's just somehow more pollen on my porch. Yeah. And now just puddles of pollen. Now the pollen has gathered. The pollen was gross me the fuck out. I'm also driving a pollen mobile. Yeah, if you love a black car. Yeah, pollen mobile. Yeah, there's no don't get your car washed in New England right now. I recently did and I don't know why it was a waste of $2. I know. Like that's actually wild that you did that. I just hate it like when it builds up to a certain point, I like can't handle it. I know. It's true, but I'm just like it's gonna get this way tomorrow. I know, but then I'm like, am I like breathing this in like having probably like sitting in my pollen mobile? You're breathing it in everywhere. I know. It's coming into your house. Oh, I know. I need to get my my air ducts cleaned out. This is 30. There you go. Yeah, especially 30. So many people message me like really nice things. So thank you guys for the breathy way, she's a great way she's quite celebrated. My 30th birthday was the most 30th birthday. It was so low key and so great. But usually yeah, they get chiller. I love it. It was drew. It was like you don't want to do anything. I was like, no, I want to order takeout. Yeah. And I want to lay on the couch. That's all I ever want to do for my parents. Yeah. And Elena. Yep. That was great. That's it. That was enough for me. That's all I want. Yeah. But we are going out soon to celebrate. Yeah, we'll celebrate for sure. We have a plan. Yeah, we're going to have the funeral. Sure. For my 20s. Yeah. As you should. Let's kill them. Yeah. All right. Um, by tickets to Radio City Music Hall. There's not that many left. There isn't. So go get them. Go get them. Go wander the streets of New York afterwards. Yeah. It's fun. It's going to be great. Just kidding. Don't do that. We got cool dresses. It's going to be a fun time. I know our dresses from Romania are coming in soon. And I'm going to poop my pants when I see it. Truly. Just not in the grass. What to do? I still need to figure out like our hair. I know. Make some calls. Make some calls. Do some admin. We're doing our own makeup. Yeah. That's that. We had we had a mishap with makeup once that we'll forever scar us. That's all we can say. But you're going to need to know basis. Just know that we will be doing our own makeup for the rest of our lives. It's true. Thank you. And with that, I think that's it. Yeah. That's all our business. Pre-order the butcher legacy. Pre-order it. Get it. It's fun. She's also making really good TikTok. So you got to follow. She did another one today. It's not an evidence collection. She had a whole new idea. Yeah. And I'm excited about it. So we know how to new idea. Go. I would kill me if I just said show. It's true. She the cat's mother. But go go pre-order it. It's a lot of fun. It's good. It's really fun. There's a lot going on in it. So close to finishing. But that's what I think that's all we have. Yeah. So ding. Now it starts. There you go. So we're going to be talking about the Otah family killings and a killer profit today. I feel like I don't even want to call this man a profit. He'd probably just call himself that. I don't even know if he did. I think he just got kind of like dubbed that damn. That's even worse. Yeah. This is a really awful story. And one that I actually hadn't really heard that much about before. Dave suggested it. And I was reading into it. And I was like, Oh my God. Yeah. I think I know this one. I think you probably do. It was right. It was in California. Yeah. Around the 70s, like very close to the Manson family. Yeah. There's like literally this happened while the Manson family was on trial. Oh, wow. Yeah. So a little past 8 p.m. on the evening of October 19th, 1970. Firefighters got an emergency call about an auto control fire at 999 rodeo gold road in Soquel, California. It's a suburb of Santa Cruz County. Okay. Now this was a multi million dollar mansion. And it was the home to 45 year old doctor Victor Otah, who was a very popular local ophthalmologist. He lived in that house with his wife Virginia, as well as their two sons, 12 year old Derrick and 11 year old Taggart. The couple also had two daughters, Lark and Tara, who were away at boarding school, luckily when the fire began. Now the house sat on top of a really high hill with two long driveways leading down to the main road. And when firefighters arrived to the scene, they found that the main driveway was blocked by Mr. Otah's Rolls Royce. It was parked across the driveway, like the width. That's not usual. No. Now there was a second car, which was a large Lincoln Continental. And that was parked across the same way, the second driveway, like pole driving, trying to keep people from getting there. Yeah. Wow. Luckily, firefighters were able to push one of the cars out of the way and they managed to get the truck up to the house. But once they got there, they ran into another problem. The house was too far from any fire hydrants to connect the hose and start extinguishing. I feel like, is that like, I don't think that would be like up to code. I was going to say that's not okay. No, I don't think so. That is not all right at all. It was the 70s. Yeah. I don't really thought that much. So they were like code about it. Yeah. I don't care about codes. Yeah. So thinking fast, one of the firefighters suggested that they could siphon water from the swimming pool in the back of the house. Pretty good idea. That was smart. I don't know if that would work if you had like a salt water pool though. I was thinking, hmm, it's like, oh, mate, it still could. But also then, like, there's a lot of chemicals in pool. So it's just interesting to think about. Yeah. But they had to do something. The fire wasn't, it was serious, but it wasn't as large as they expected. So the pool would be a pretty sufficient source of water. So they dragged the hose to the back of the house. But when they reached the pool, they made a terrible discovery. Five bodies floating face down in the water. Fire Chief Ted Pound said, I went to the pool to see where the end of the pipe came through. And my flashlight beam spotted one of the kids. Oh. So Chief Pound called out for one of the detectives on the scene and was met at the back of the house by Detective Terry Medina. Medina later said, the first thing that I noticed was that the bodies are tied, but not with rope. They're like sulf scarves that are knotted together to tie the hands. To everybody's surprise, the simple fire had just turned into a multi-murder scene. Damn. Now they soon learned that the bodies were those of Dr. Ota, his wife Virginia, the two youngest children, Derek and Tagger. And the fifth body was Dr. Ota's longtime secretary, 38-year-old Dorothy Cadwalleter. Based on the medical examiner's initial observations, it seems like Dr. Ota had been shot once in the chest and twice in the back before he was pushed into the pool. And the other four victims had all been shot once in the back of the neck and then were pushed into the pool. God. All of the victims had their hands bound with colorful silk scarves. And Dr. Ota was known to wear those scarves instead of like a regular neck tie. Oh God. So those were all of his own personal scarves. That's spooky. And all five victims were also blindfolded. Now as far as the forensic investigators could tell, the victims were each shot beside the pool, like I said, and then immediately pushed in. Now to the frustration of investigators, the crime scene really didn't have that many clues as to what happened at the house that night. All five victims seemed to have been shot at close range execution style. And the killer or maybe multiple killers had set several small fires throughout the house, presumably to cover up the crime. Now fortunately, the fires failed to catch were really spread as easily as they probably hoped they would. So there was minimal fire damage. But there was still not that much to be found inside. From what investigators could tell, nothing looked to be missing. So they were able to rule out robbery as a motive. But even more concerning was the lack of evidence of any kind of struggle. This is a family of five you would expect. Some kind of struggle. It seemed very unlikely to investigators that a single intruder could overtake and completely control five people, three of which were grown adults. Yeah. And they added it face the terrifying possibility at that point that they were dealing with what one detective described as another Manson case. Because that had what just happened. Literally, like I said, the Manson family was on trial. Yeah, that was probably one of the first things they thought of. It was it cannot be understated how significant the fear of another man's style murder was at the time of these murders. It was a little more than a year earlier when Charles Manson and his followers broke into the Hollywood home of director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate while Polanski was away in Europe. As we know, they killed five people staying in the house, including Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant. And then the very next day, they murdered Lino and Rosemary LaBianca. Now, the murders had always been symbolic of a larger shift in fear toward uncertainty, but they were just the first of a lot of horrific acts that would go on to reshape California throughout that period. At the time, residents of the Samford
Francisco Bay area were being terrorized by the Zodiac Killer, like all of this was going on. And there were a slew of other violent criminals who kept Californians in constant fear of being killed. Yeah. Like California in the 70s, it cannot be stated off how insane it was. Because then just a couple of years later, you would have Ed Kemper. Yeah, there like there's so many more. Oh yeah, the some of the scariest ones. So just one morning after the otometer's 19 year old, Tom DeCecho was found dead inside the gas station where he worked. And his body was stuffed into an alcove just off the main garage. The station was in Saratoga, which was just 30 miles from where the otto family lived. Like the otas, DeCecho had been shot in the back of the head execution style. And his wrists were also bound this time with electricians tape. Yes. According to the medical examiner, his murder occurred roughly two hours after the otam murders. And that brought to everybody's mind the murders of the La Bianca's investigators declined a comment on whether the crimes were related, but they couldn't help think of the Manson murder spree. And wonder if this was some kind of copycat crime. Yeah. I mean, I would think that right away, a whole family and then the kid, you know. So the fear of a new murder is called only Grew Deeper when investigators started combing over the crime scene at the otto home. And they reached the cars at the bottom of the driveway. It was clear, obviously, like we said, that the killer rearranged the cars on purpose to prevent the firefighters from reaching the house and the police too. The killer just so fucked up and so like thinking that's so premeditated. It is absolutely. I'm so glad that you said that. The killer actually, even when as far as to break the key of Dr. Otto's car off in the ignition, so that they can move it. That's why they got one of them. But more disturbing was the type written note that they found tucked under the windshield. It read Halloween 1970. Today, World War III will begin as brought to you by the people of the free universe. From this day forward, anyone and or everyone or company of persons who misuses the natural environment or destroy same will suffer the penalty of death by the people of the free universe. I and my comrades from this day forth will fight until death or freedom against anyone who does not support natural life on this planet. Materialism must die or mankind will stop. And then it was signed night of wands, night of cups, night of pentacles, night of swords. All of those nights were spelled correctly like KN other than the pentacles. That one was spelled like nighttime. Like a night. Okay. Which is just weird. No, detective saw similarities between the note and the apocalyptic ranting of from the Manson family, like similar kind of vibes there. But the signatures at the bottom of the note were entirely new and entirely unfamiliar to investigators. Not everybody was very familiar with tarot back then. Yeah. So the reference to four possibly occult sounding names only reinforce the concern that they were dealing with a new or a sculpt. Yeah. A copycat if that. Now, elsewhere in the house, more evidence suggested that the otomaters were not an impulsive act. In addition to the killer or killers, haven't taken the time to block the driveway. Investigators quickly discovered that the killer had also cut the phone lines, which is the scariest thing to me. Yeah. And they also discovered a box of 22 caliber shells, which indicated that they had the fourth thought to bring additional ammunition. But the killer had collected all the spent cartridges at the scene and left a little evidence of having been there at all. Wow. Now when considered together, the evidence suggested that these murders were definitely planned in advance. And the presence of the note suggested that whoever was responsible seemed intent on killing again. Yeah. So despite the presence of several high profile cases in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the summer in the fall of 1970, violent crime was really something that didn't happen in the quiet suburban area of Santa Cruz. In fact, the otomater was the first murder in the county's history. Wow. Crazy. That was like the Martha Moxley case. Yeah. It was like one of the first. This was legit. The first. Wow. Under the circumstances, suspicion quickly settled on the relatively small hippie community in and around Santa Cruz. And especially, I think, because of the Manson. I was going to say the Manson didn't help hippies, though. No, they did not. One neighbor told a reporter, it looks like another Manson thing to me. And another commented, looks like drugs. Which like, it doesn't really look like drugs because there was a lot of careful. I was going to say, it's not chaos. No, not at all. Like that. That is a very planned out, almost professional crime scene. I don't know if they said looks like drugs because of like the execution style killings. Yeah. Who knows? Or they're just thinking of hippies. Exactly. So they're like drugs. Exactly. Now in reality, detectives had no idea what the motive could have been. If it had been drugs, then they reason that the killer would have at least taken some of the jewelry or the other valuables that were in plain sight around the house. I mean, this is a mansion. Like, there's valuables everywhere. Yeah. I was shocked by that. Yeah. And if it were a Manson copycat, they expected some sign of the occult left behind. But aside from the cryptic mysterious note, there was not that much to indicate a motive. In fact, other than the note, the only thing detectives knew for sure was that the killer or killers had stolen Virginia Ota's green olds mobile station wagon. District Attorney Peter Chang told reporters, "This was the most tragic murder scene of witness in nine years. We will need all the outside help we can get." Now in the absence of any forensic evidence pointing to a motive or a suspect, detectives started looking into the background of the victims. Family friend Douglas lit a coat said, "The life of Dr. Victor Ota reads like a classic American dream." Yeah. He was born in Montana to Japanese immigrant parents who worked really hard to build a life for their family. Only to have everything ripped away from them when they were placed in an internment camp in 1941. Oh, shit. Despite everything he faced, Victor was a great student. He worked all these odd jobs to support not only himself through college, but also his parents. He always sent money to his parents. After graduating with an undergrad degree, he enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served two years before returning home and enrolling at Northwestern University, where he studied ophthalmology. At night, he drove a cab in order to support himself and his parents. Because by that point, they were too old and too weak to work anymore. After graduating in 1950, he met and married Virginia, and before long she was pregnant with their first son. Uncertain about their financial situation. Victor decided actually to reenlist in the Army, and he served several years as a flight surgeon. Whoa. Crazy. That must be wild. Next level. Yeah. And then eventually, he returned to Northwestern to continue his studies, and he was just determined to become the top specialist in his field. Oh, yeah. Which he really did become one of them. Now, it was during this time that tragedy struck, and the couple lost their son, Kevin, to pneumonia when he was only two years old. They're two years old, like two years old. Like two years old. They're daughter Lark said, I know it was traumatic. It was another two years before they even considered having more children. So the emotional toll of the loss and the added expenses of a funeral pushed Victor back into the Army, where he managed to finish his studies while also making a livable wage, and that finally made it possible for them to consider having more children. Now, over the course of the next decade, Dr. Victor O'Topill, one of the most successful medical practices in Santa Cruz County, and at the same time served as a founding member on the board of the Dominican Hospital. Wow. Like doing the damn thing. Yeah. Not long after establishing his own private practice, he hired Dorothy Codwalleter as his secretary. She became an indispensable asset to the family, and in no time, she really just became part of their family. She joined them for holidays, birthdays, vacations, and actually, unfortunately, they did have quite the bond, because Dorothy and her husband had also lost a child at a young age. Their child was struck and killed by a male truck. Holy shit. Yeah. Now, as far as anybody new, Dr. O'Topill and the family had no enemies to speak of, and nobody could imagine who might want them dead, like him specifically, much less his entire family. You also wonder with stories like that. You're like, why do some people just have to work? Just get all the shit. It's so true. And a lot of times, it's the nicest people. Best kind of people. That never makes sense to me. No. I feel like we know so many families like that. Yeah. Because Dorothy and her husband has been lost to child in such a horrific way. And now he loses her this way. Like, why do they have to deal with all that? And then the Otas, like, I just don't want to hear about that. You're like, Jesus. Dorothy and her husband, much like the Otas, went on to have more children. Yeah. So her children and her husband lost her. It's awful. You just don't get it. I don't either. Dr. Louise Wildman, a friend, said, never once did I hear him speak an angry word to anybody. Dr. O'Topill was always friendly, always generous to give to charitable organizations. Yeah. Lark, his daughter echoed the sentiments of friends and neighbors and colleagues. Literally everybody in this community loved this family. Lark said, my dad was a magnanimous man. He was generous and outgoing and friendly. He was just a good man. He was loved in that community. I also love that name. Lark. I do too. It's such a name.
Now, the same was true for the other victims, like her husband, Virginia Ota grew up in an immigrant family, and she worked alongside her husband to make sure that their kids had opportunities that her and her husband never could have dreamed of. Lark said of her mother, "She was the strongest and most determined person that I knew, and I miss her deeply." Victor may have been the face of several charities at the hospital, but Virginia was very much working behind the scenes to ensure that everything ran smoothly. More than just his doctor's simple, stylish wife, she was an active and tag-roll member of this community, and she was a dedicated mother. She was so committed to raising those kids to not only have the best opportunities, but with an awareness of both sides of their heritage. While Dorothy called Walleter, "might not have been as outgoing as Dr. Ota and Virginia," she left an impression on the lives that she touched. Her daughter, Melinda, said, "My mom was very elegant. She was very sick, sneezed, makeup, false lashes, and hairstyles." Dorothy spent her entire professional life working in health care, and for the previous eight years she worked in Dr. Ota's private practice, she managed nearly every aspect of that business. She always jumped in to help with the Ota children when the parents were too busy, and all the children loved and respected her. This was very much a family. Yeah, like a blended family. Now in Victor and Virginia had to go out of town or to a conference or a charity event, Dorothy and her husband would welcome all of the Ota kids into their job, and just treated them like they were their own children. Clark said Dorothy was perfect, like a 60's TV mom, except that she worked. She was beautiful inside and out. Nearly everything investigators had learned about the Ota family and about Dorothy indicated that these were all well-liked, deeply-appreciated people in their communities, like great people. They were the last people anybody would expect to be the victims of violent crime. The only involvement with the law that Dr. Ota had in his past was in 1967, when the group of thieves broke into his office, and they stole a cocaine solution that he used in his surgical procedures. She so wasn't even him. Otherwise, there appeared to be nothing in the background of any of the victims that pointed toward their killer. So in the absence of any new evidence, any new leads, anything, detectives turned their attention back to their original theory that the victims had been killed by either a cult or a man's and family copycat. Santa Cruz County and SoCal in particular had always been a quiet area. In the summer, the area was popular with tourists. They like to visit the beaches, but otherwise it was mostly populated by wealthy retirees. Okay. So by the mid 60s, though, the University of California opened a campus in Santa Cruz, and that brought a younger crowd to the area. And by the end of the 60s, many among that crowd embraced the hippie lifestyle was very much of the time, but also very much to the disappointment of local home. Sure. In reality, the small but noticeable hippie community in the area, they're mostly peaceful. They actually really didn't engage with many protests. They're just vibing. Yeah. Like all across the country, there were like, like activism, different things like that going on. But here, these hippies just kind of hung out around this cafe and coffee shop called the Catalyst. They hosted folk music and poetry readings regularly, like just a very chill. I just, that just made me think of something completely unrelated to this, but I feel like you need to know it right now. I do. I just thought of the name the Catalyst as like, I'm like, wow, what a name for a cafe. Did you know that 98 degrees almost name themselves spontaneous combustible? I actually did. And I saw you post about that. If you didn't see that post, I just needed everybody to know that. I feel like spontaneous combustion. It would make them a completely different band. Yeah. Like a completely different band. And one of them also wanted to be called inertia. Oh, inertia could have been cool. It's been sitting within me. So I just had to put it out there when I heard the Catalyst. I feel like they didn't quite know what vibe they were going for because those are three completely different genres to me. That's the thing. It sounds like they knew the vibe they wanted to go for. They just could not. But then they went, they went with the right hand. They went with the right name for the, for the spontaneous combustion will live in my soul. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the Catalyst is also a catalyst name for a coffee shop. It's a really cool name for a coffee shop. That's why I really think of it like anything. Yeah. Even a big name for a catalyst. I think the catalyst is a band. Probably. Well, here it's a coffee shop. And they, you know, they had like little hippie gatherings all the time. Yeah, hippie gatherings. I want to go on. Even though things were pretty chill with this group and they kept to themselves, after the otomers, the local police were very worried that there would be tension between the hippies and the older residents and Santa Cruz. They've been just tension between the hippies. No, never tension between the hippies. It's always outsiders. Always. I'm just picturing like hippies fighting. It's just like having tension. Weird. Yeah. Now at the time, the contents of the note found on Dr. Otas windshield had not yet been made public. And it was truly only because of the Manson murders that the locals even suspected somebody from the catalyst community was responsible for the murders. Dr. Terry Medina said there was already fear people were already buying guns. We didn't want retaliation against hippies or vigilantism. So we decided not to release the contents of this note, which I think was a good idea. Probably smart. Because unfortunately, whether they wanted it or not, retaliation was inevitable. As soon as the news about the murders made the papers, the catalyst started getting all kinds of harassing phone calls. And even a few bomb threats. Wow. Which like, you guys don't know anything about this murder. That's it's it's wild to know that even then before the internet, people going to people, people were still people in a way of being like, I know the whole story. Even though I know nothing about the story. It was heavy. I way, but way worse now. But I feel like it's there it is. Because people have always been doing that thing where they're like, well, I heard this much of the story. So let's put it on the whole story. And I'm going to act based on that tiny little grain of sand that I know. We all have to stop doing that. We do. Can we stop that? Can we all agree collectively to stop doing that? I'm down until you know a whole story inside and out. Don't act. And here's that thing when these things are initially reported on, you know nothing. Yeah. You know nothing. The tip of the tip of the ice. Oh, yeah. Just a little bit. They know what you want them or what they want you to know. And that's the thing. Now, given the way that they've been treated in the community and now facing harassment, the staff and the patrons at the catalyst had every reason not to trust the police, trust the locals or really talk to anybody. But when investigators canvas the restaurant, they found a group of people who were actually very eager to help. Yeah. No one at the catalyst really knew anything about the murders or the Ota family. But when detectives brought up the contents of the note to these people, they learned from one of the patrons that the four signatures at the end of the note were not signatures. They were suits from the terror. Yes. Now back at the police station, Detective Medina and the other investigators laid out the night of wands, the night of cups, the night of pentacles, and the night of swords on the desk and various configurations, hoping that the cards might tell themselves about the contents of the note or the murders. Medina said we really didn't come up with very much, but it was still very cultish. Very cultish. Very cultish. But I love very cultish. It's only 70s to have that take. Just like pretty cultish. I'm also like, do you want to bring in one of the hippies who knows tarot who can maybe tell you something? Yeah. That's a thing. Yeah. It's some experts. Exactly. Now in the second day of the investigation, just as they were settling into their theory of a newly formed cult, investigators got a call that would undermine that theory altogether. The call was from a gas station attendant on the outskirts of Sokol, who had been working on the night of the murders. According to the caller, he'd been sitting outside the gas station when a young man in a green station wagon pulled up looking for gas. At the time, that specific station had run out of gas, so the attendant directed the driver to another station about a mile down the road. He could remember the exact time, but he said it was probably a little before 8 p.m., which was not long after the otas were killed. According to the attendant, the car matched the description of Virginia otas old's mobile, and there was only one person in the car. While the attendant never saw the man's face in the light, he did say that the driver had a fairly distinctive voice, and he was certain that he would recognize it if he heard it again. Now that was just the first of many calls that investigators got that day, most reporting leads that really went nowhere. But among the dead calls, there was someone from the Southern Pacific Railroad with valuable information. The caller reported that one of their trains had collided with a green old's mobile wagon in a tunnel not too far from the gas station where it had been spotted on the night of the murder. So Sheriff's deputies rushed out to the scene hoping that they would find the killer or the killers, but by the time they reached the train tunnel where the car was discovered, the driver was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, neither the train nor the car suffered much damage in the collision. The only damage from the fire was to the upholstery inside the car, but any hope of finding useful evidence was quickly dashed. It had arraigned that morning. Of course. And it had transformed the area of the tunnel into like kind of a mud pit. Goddamn. And it washed away any physical evidence that might have been left on the exterior of the vehicle. But there were several footprints left in the mud around the car. And while it was difficult to be 100% certain, it did seem that these footprints all belong to the same person. Okay. So since
Since the bodies were discovered, the police and the press had been operating on the assumption that there was more than one killer. Yeah. But now investigators with all this new information were starting to wonder if they had it wrong. The footprints found outside the car and the statement from the gas station attendant seemed to suggest that these five murders actually could have been committed by one single killer. That's horrific. And just to think about it. They have to think about how that possibly could have happened. Yeah, now you have to go back and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. So frustrated with the lack of evidence and leads detectives went back to question family and friends of the otas in order to try to establish some kind of timeline, which like would have accounted for the day of the murders. Yeah. So they learned that on the day of the murders, Dorothy had picked up one of the boys from school and drove him home because his mom was going to be late. So stick that in your backpack, yeah, already this is adding up, changing the routine a little bit. Now from the beginning of the investigation, the assumption had been that the otas family had all been home at the same time when they were attacked, which would make that insane. Right. But if Dorothy had picked up one of the children and Virginia plan to be home later, that strongly suggested that the family members could have arrived home one or two at a time. And if that was the case, an armed gunman easily could have overtaken them as they entered the house to, especially if he had been lying and waiting as they suspected, which is so fucking terrifying. Horrible. Now, the new theory did seem to match the evidence, but it did little to point them in the direction of somebody out of options and running the risk of this case going cold. Investigators did make the decision to release the one piece of information that they had been holding back that note, that note on the car. They hope that somebody might recognize the language and the note. And on the day that it was published in the paper, Roger Crone, the owner of the catalyst, and several others at the cafe were reading that paper and recognized the content as being very similar to the ranting of a young man who'd been coming into the cafe recently. Isn't that interesting that it's the catalyst, people that are like, wait a second. They're like, wait a minute. We can help. And that it's like a newcomer to the catalyst, not like the typical crew. So Roger Crone spent a lot of the afternoon agonizing over whether he should turn in one of his own customers and his own community members to the police. But in the end, he reasoned that if it was the same man, there was a very good chance he could kill again. So in the early hours of, just just quick, he was not sure if he should, he was stressed out about it. Like this, I'm just being clear. Yeah. With myself. Yeah. So there's a possibility that this person murdered an entire family, including children. Yeah. Because like some of you were wrestling with Roger. Roger was nervous to turn on his own community. Okay. Yeah. I mean, but he did. He eventually realized that he couldn't not do that because you literally can't not do that. I'm glad you realized. And he said he was like, if this is the same guy, he could kill again and like, I got to tell someone. And he's already murdered kids. So he did the right thing. And that goes to show you that you can, you know, you shouldn't, but you can sit there and question things for a minute. And they want to come to the right decision. Yeah. There you go. You can mull things over for about a minute and a half and then you can move on with the right thing. I'm glad he made the right decision. He did. In the end. There's always that. That just had to be. Chance for you. Clear. Yeah. So the early mornings of October 22nd, he met privately at the catalyst with district attorney Peter Chang. And he told him the note found at the scene sounded a lot like the apocalyptic rhetoric of a man named John Lindley Frazier. He'd been coming into the cafe in recent weeks. And according to Crone, Frazier generally seemed like he was suffering from some kind of mental illness. He came into the cafe regularly, ranting about capitalism, the rich destroying the earth. And he seemed very preoccupied with World War Three. All of that sounds very familiar. All of that was in the note. And you know what, I can, I can at least take a step back now and say, okay, so he wasn't positive that this guy is the person, like he's not sitting there being like, I know he did it. And he was like, I think that it is difficult to take that first step and accuse because you want to be like, hopefully that guy coming into my bar to everybody, my cafe didn't murder a whole family. A family and a later. Like, yeah. Exactly. So I'll step back and look at it from a different angle. So you see, you're always capable of that too. Yeah. I thought about it. Growth. So Roger provided a general description of Frazier, but you didn't really know that much about him. Or police might find him, in fact, given the increased bomb threats that the cafe had been receiving and the fear of violence that his customers were feeling, John wanted to make sure that Chang and all the other investigators understood that despite his appearance, John Frazier was not a member of the hippie community and he did not represent their values. He was like, please understand that. Don't conflate us. The DA indicated that he understood and that he would do his best to relieve the message. But first he needed to find and stop John Lindley Frazier. So who the fuck is John Lindley Frazier? Truly who the fuck is he? This is a doozy of a background. Oh boy. John Lindley Frazier was born January 26, 1946 in New Mexico to Pat and William Frazier. He was an Aquarius. The family was very far from wealthy, but they were well known in the area because they had a rabbit farm and Pat, the mother, was an outspoken advocate of rabbit farming and animal welfare. Both activities that she would later enlist to help with her son with. In 1970, she told her reporter, John was always kind to animals. He couldn't stand abuse of life. Wow. According to Pat, the first year or two of John's life were pretty ordinary. The family was generally happy. But in mid-1947, they moved to Ohio to be closer to her husband's family. And that was when Pat started to notice that William, her husband, his personality was changing. He was just behaving in odd ways. She said he'd go all night, forget where he lived and get involved with other women. Oh, it's unclear whether his behavior was the result of a mental illness or if he was just unhappy. But either way, the sudden change in his personality took obviously a serious relative on his relationship with his wife and his son. Pat tried to convince her husband that moving back to his hometown maybe was a mistake and suggested that they move and start over on their own, but he was not interested. So Pat said, "I left and I thought he might come to his senses, but he didn't, so I started off on my own." Wow. Now a single mother with no income. She moved to Hayward, California to live with her own family. And she found a job working at a local hospital. At first, the new situation was really tough for John. His mom had to rely on her family to watch him while she was working 12-hour overnight shifts. And everything was made significantly worse in the months that followed when John's health appeared to be declining. One night while Pat was working at the hospital, her aunt brought John in and he had a high fever and acute stomach pain. At first, the attending doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia, but the situation took a very dramatic turn just a few hours later when his appendix ruptured. Oh, shit. Yeah. From there, things only got worse. After the surgery to remove his appendix, he was kept at the hospital for a few days and he was inadvertently exposed to measles. Oh, my. So that added another two months on to his hospital stay. Ooh. Yeah. Now, his measles were followed by other upper respiratory illnesses. Yeah, measles sucks. Whoa. Upper respiratory illnesses. Yeah. That's why they have vaccines for measles too. And that's why they name our proponents of vaccine. Hell yeah. Now, eventually, doctors removed his adenoids and they also removed his tonsils and he started to improve, but then inevitably declined again when he was afflicted with just what seemed to be severe colds that went on and off for months. Oh, that sucks. Now, believing that the move and the living arrangements were contributing to her son's poor health, Pat quit her job and she moved to the San Francisco area. She enrolled in dental school and found new doctors for her son. And it took some time before they were able to properly diagnose him, but eventually it was discovered that he had contracted tuberculosis. Holy shit. Yeah. Now, this was all further complicated by injuries that he sustained in an auto accident in 1952. What is going on? Everything. In that accident, he broke his collarbone and also got a concussion. What? He was blind for several weeks after that accident. This is so much trauma. This kid isn't even in first grade yet. This is an incredible amount of trauma. That's he's got a burst appendix, measles, tuberculosis, adenoids removed, tonsils removed. Broken collarbone, wet blinds, wet blinds, and a concussion. Holy shit. Yeah. Now, once he had been properly diagnosed, his physical health improved dramatically, but there were several unusual behaviors that persisted regardless of the doctor's attempts to try to curb them. John frequently wet the bed and it ultimately seemed to stop when he got married. Oh, wow. He was like a very long wait. Yeah. Bed wetter. He was also a chronic sleep walker who struggled with other sleep disturbances for years. Oh, man. After he was quote unquote stabilized, Pat realized that she wasn't going to be able to go to school full-time, work at the evenings, and take care of her son. So she ended up placing him in foster care for he lived for two years. By the time that he did reach first grade, she was able to regain custody, but from that point forward, he struggled with a lot of behavioral problems.
The amount of trauma that happened to this child before first grade is unthinkable. It really is. It's also a wild concept to me that like you could just drop your kid off in foster care and then go a couple of years later and just be like, "Okay, yeah." Ooh, nuts. That's a lot. So his first brush with the law came when he was 10 years old and got caught shoplifting a pen knife from a store in San Francisco. Police were called and he was given a citation and had to appear in juvenile court. Eventually, the charges were dropped, but his attitude and his behavior only continued to get worse. His eighth grade teacher said he was kind of a tough kid. His attitude was poor at times. He didn't seem like a happy kid. Yeah, just like I don't know that I'd be happy to either. Two years later, after his mom moved to Santa Cruz, John was arrested again when he and his friends vandalized a tile factory in town. The parents of all of the boys made them clean up the factory and repair the damages. So the company agreed that they wouldn't press charges, but it didn't do much to stop his defiant behavior. By the time he reached high school, he was almost entirely uneducated and going to school. He went to a vocational school, but within a few months he started skipping classes and soon he was just skipping school days altogether. Teachers and counselors tried to keep him engaged, but he continued to miss long stretches and eventually just dropped out entirely. Pat said that was when he started to get in trouble. No, I feel like he's not where he started to get trouble. Yeah, that's not it that objectively. That's not when he started getting in trouble. He got arrested at 10 years old, baby. Yeah. So a series of more petty crimes led to a period of incarceration in a juvenile detention center, which was then followed by juvenile parole, which he violated almost immediately. Oh man, he's just on a path. Yeah, clearly. Outside of the justice system, he also continued to demonstrate anti-social behavior, trigger warning for animal abuse here. I thought he was nice to animals. Yeah, his mom thought so too, but there was one instance where he doused a neighborhood cat in kerosene and lit it on fire. How do you go from being kind to animals to that head injuries? Wow. There were also charges for shoplifting and petty violence. In 1961, he was removed from his mother's care for a second time, this time involuntarily and placed again in foster care. His relationship with his foster parents got off to a very bad start, and it basically stayed that way for the entire duration of the placement. In 1962, he was reported to the police by his foster parents for stealing a 22 caliber pistol, which he said he took in order to shoot animals for food. So that charge got him sent back to a juvenile justice center in Watsonville, where he continued to demonstrate a very defiant and anti-social behavior, particularly when it came to authority figures. In 1966, he found work in the auto parts section of disco, which was a San Francisco department store, and it was there that he met Dolores, his soon-to-be wife, not to be confused with my sweet angel of a daughter. No. Now, she later said, "I started taking Johnny home because he didn't have a car, and every time I took him home, we got closer and closer." She was married at the time, but within a few months, she divorced her husband so that she could be with John Frazier. Choices. At first, the relationship was pretty good, everything seemed normal, but then she started to notice someone usual behavior in John. She said he would get horribly sweaty and cold, and he'd yell and cry and whimper in the middle of the night. Oh, that's really sad. It is. And she said at times, he seemed so paranoid that he kept a loaded gun in the drawer of his nightstand. He's clearly- -Suffering from something. -Yeah, that's my dullness, 100%. So the couple got married in 1967 and moved to Washington, hoping to make a fresh start. But unfortunately, things did not work out out there. Jobs were very hard to come by, so they struggled and they scraped together enough just to get by. But in September of that year, Dolores found out that she was pregnant with their daughter, Lisa, and it became clear that they weren't going to be able to make it in Washington. So they returned to the Santa Cruz area where John found work at an auto shop. Like always, things would be pretty good for a while, but then after a few months, John would find faults with his employer, with his co-workers, he'd gotten to arguments, and he'd eventually get fired. Dolores said he always had to change jobs because there was always someone who he couldn't get along with or who was always picking on it. Oh, we all know people like that. It's never their fault. Never their fault. Finally, in 1969, he got a job with Performance West, which was a foreign car mechanic, and this was the one job that seemed to stick. The owner, Richard Depont, told a reporter, he was the best worker I ever had. Whoa, yeah. So Frazier managed to stay out of trouble until May of 1970, when he was picked up by police for harassing a local girl on the sidewalk. Awesome. Yeah. According to Dolores, the young girl had been walking down the sidewalk on her way to school when she was verbally assaulted by John. He denied it was him, but she was able to identify him in a lineup. After the identification, they let him go with a warning because he only frightened her. That's it. You have to actually cause somebody. Yeah, you got to really hurt and hurt someone. He didn't hit her. He just scared the shit out of her. Terrified on the way to school. He just minister. That's all. It's fine. Yeah, men are allowed to do that. People are idiots. Yeah, it's a man's world. What do you think? So two investigators, he sounded like countless other petty criminals that they'd run into. Young guys with that upbringing, who were mad at the world and their parents and wanted to take it out on whoever stepped on their path. He definitely seemed like a nuisance. But to investigators, he really didn't seem like the kind of guy who could plan and execute a mass murder of a family for no obvious reason. Now detectives managed to track him to performance West, where they discovered he'd been working until a few months earlier when he quit unexpectedly. Remember this. Yeah, the best spot they've ever had. The description of Frazier given by Dupont, that of a clean cut married man and a great employee. Seemed at odds with the man that investigators came to know through his criminal record. But as it turned out, there was an explanation for that. After Dupont gave them the address that they had on file for Frazier, detectives learned that right around the time he quit his job there. He also left his wife abruptly and moved out of the house. Oh. According to Dolores, a few days before he was picked up for that verbal assault, he was in another car accident and hit his head when he re-arended another car. Oh, shit. At the time, she said he didn't seem to be hurt in obvious way, in any obvious way at least not physically. But she did say he had a bump on his forehead. It wasn't bleeding, just raised, but he wouldn't let me touch it at all. He wouldn't see a doctor and he wouldn't hardly let me near him. Oh boy. Now in the days that followed, he continued to insist that he was fine, but he started to behave even more strangely. According to his friend, David Marlow, he started hearing voices that were warning him against catastrophe. But this is such a veer mental health. Dolores said he said he heard voices that said he should never drive again or he'd be killed. He was very different. His whole attitude was cheap and aggressive. Well said. That's a read. That's wow. What a way to describe that cheap and aggressive. You're acting cheap. It's crazy. Holy shit. At first, Dolores was hesitant to tell the detectives where John had gone, but eventually she relented and she told them. No, stop hesitate. I think she was embarrassed. Everyone's very hesitant. Because look. Don't hesitate. Stop hesitate. No. Now, after he moved out of the house, he moved into an abandoned shack in the woods. Just a few miles from the Ota's family house. I hate this. Later, after his picture was published in all the papers, neighbors of the Ota family told the police that they saw somebody who looked very much like Frazier, walking from the woods to a water tower near their houses, where he appeared to watch the Ota house with binoculars, for hours on end, and then climbed down from the water tower and retreat into the woods. To which I say neighbors, if you see a strange man in the woods using binoculars to watch a family home, maybe call the police before that entire family gets murdered. The amount of unnecessary hesitation in this story is sending me into a fucking orbit. Especially this one. They're like, come to think of it. You know what? There was a guy on the water tower with binoculars. His guy lives in the woods. Was watching this family for literally hours on end. A top of the water tower. And just slip my mind. That would be something that would be top, tip top. I would hope that my neighbors would come knock on my door. I would hope and say, hey, there's a man watching your home with binoculars atop the water tower. We should do something. What do you want me to call somebody like how you guys should go somewhere? Yeah. Hello. I'm shook by everybody in this. So now certain that they had the right suspect. Yeah, police and sheriff's jeopardy is combed the woods around the Ota house for hours until they ended up finding the shack. But there's no sign of John anywhere. Convincy would return at some point. They set up a stake out and they watched the shack for almost an entire day. Around 8 a.m. on the morning of October 23rd. They saw him return. Not wanting to alert him to their presence. They waited an hour or two longer before five.
finally storming the shack, more hesitancy, but you know, I'm like, I like, I realize you don't want to, like, scare him right away. But like, 25 minutes, like an hour or two, half an hour, an hour or two, feel 20 minutes, 20 minutes, max, max, I mean, thanks. Like, I've never set a link out before for 20 minutes. Like, he's, he's doing his thing. Yeah, you, you, you're free to storm the shack at that point. Storm storm the fucking chat. Please everybody hustle, pull trick, hustle, whole trick. This is California, everybody's chiller. If this was life coast, you'd never see it, you'd never see it be this slow. Nobody can be that slow over here. So they like, like I said, they waited an hour or two before they stormed the shack. And that's where they caught Frazier asleep on a dirty mattress laid out on the floor. Holy shit. He was startled by the presence of police in a shack. But as soon as he understood what was happening, he looked at Terry Medina and said, why don't you give me what I deserve? Whoa. That's really chilling. Now, he was taken into custody that morning. And a few hours later, he was charged with the murders of the four members of the O'Tough family and the murder of Dorothy Codwalleter. The arrest was a major relief to everybody in Santa Cruz County, especially when district attorney Chang announced that they had captured the sole person responsible for the murders. Wow. And true to his word, Peter Chang made sure to tell reporters that they could not have apprehended John Frazier. If it was not for the help of the hippie community, who were quote unquote, totally revolved by the mass executions. Look at him. I know. That's a nice study kept his word. It is. It's the truth. It is. Now in their interviews with Frazier's family and friends, they learned that after one of the most recent recent accident, John had developed a fixation with wealthy people that he believed were quote unquote to materialistic. He said that they were harming the earth, but the one person he was the most fixated on was Victor O'Tough. Why? According to a former friend in the weeks leading up to the murders, John made several statements about how big things would be happening next Monday, which indicated his plan to kill the O'Toughs. That same friend also told detectives that John confessed to him that he had broken into the O'Tough family home on several occasions when they weren't there. And while inside, he stole several items, including the binoculars, he was using to stock them and the 22 caliber pistol that they were killed with. Later, say something. Yeah. Later, when Lark, their daughter was shown, the items found in Frazier's possession, she identified them all as having belonged to her father. Wow. Now the evidence was already quite substantial by the end of the day that he was arrested, but there was still more to be learned in the days that followed. Shortly after his arrest, he was placed in a voice lineup where he was identified by the gas station attendant as the man seen driving Virginia O'Tough station wagon on the night of the murders. And beyond that, there were his own statements about the murders made the day following his arrest. According to John, he said, he received a message from God telling him that the O'Tough family needed to die because they were too rich and they were harming the earth with their reckless materialism. Wow. Now, meanwhile, these people are like giving back to their community. That's a thing. It's like they're using their wealth for good. Now, on the day of the murders, he said he broke into the house early in the afternoon when no one was home, which is so fucking scary. That's when he found the 22 caliber pistol in the scarves that he and he started planning the executions in their home. Wow. He pleased to call to Mr. O'Tough's office saying that Virginia wouldn't be able to pick up the children from school because she was having car trouble knowing that it would require them to change their plans. And now that they would all be coming home at different times. That's too much premeditation for me. Like he thought that through way too well. Oh, yeah. When Dorothy returned to the house with Derek O'Tough, a few hours later, John ambushed them at the door and tied them up with the scarves. Mr O'Tough and Taggart returned home next and they were ambushed and tied up in the same way. And finally, Virginia came home and she too was ambushed and tied up with the entire family bound and gathered in the living room. John ranted for some time about his beliefs about how they were harming the earth. And then he explained that he needed to destroy their home and actually even asked Victor O'Tough to help him do it. Victor O'Tough did not respond to the request, but instead he said, we'll give you whatever you want. You can have any money that you want and please just let my family live. But the mention of money and possession sent John over the edge. And now he was enraged. He dragged Mr. O'Tough, Dr. O'Tough out to the pool, pushed him in and then shot him three times. What the fuck? Now, once he started killing, he said he understood that there was no going back. Moments later, he brought Virginia and Dorothy out to the pool and told the blind folded women to kneel down. After they did, as he instructed, John asked Virginia whether she believed in God. And when she said that she did, he said, then you have nothing to fear and shot them both in the back of the neck and push their bodies into the pool. This is so fucked up. It's so dark. Now, after killing all three adults, he said he hesitated when it came to the children who were 11 and 12. He told investigators that he kneeled down on the pavement beside the pool and begged God to give him a sign that he should spare the children. But when he didn't receive a sign, he said he had no other choice than to accept that the sins of the father had been passed on to the sons. Oh, fuck off. So he shot and killed both boys, Derek and Tagger. Wow. Now, it was clear to detectives that he had absolutely killed the family. But the question on many people's minds, which I'm sure you can say it with me was he legally sane when he committed the murders, which I'm so happy you've been pointing out the premeditation here. Yeah, so in the weeks after his arrest, he was placed in the custody of the county jail where he made a suicide attempt in his cell by cutting one of his wrists, kind of in his statement to the press Peter Chang told reporters, he made a very superficial cut on one wrist. He is in no danger. In fact, it seemed that most of his behavior while in custody was that of somebody trying to convince people that he was mentally, rather than somebody who was genuinely suffering from a mental disorder. I'm not here to say that he didn't have a mental disorder, but it very much seemed like he was, he was trying to play it up a little more. Yeah. Now, for instance, just before his interview with an evaluating psychiatrist, he shaved all the hair on one side of his head, including his eyebrows, for no apparent reason, other than just I just saw that picture and it is very unsettling. It's really chilling. Terry Medina said in 2020, it very quickly just became a media train wreck. From the moment he was arrested, Santa Cruz County was descended upon by journalists from not only just all over the country, but some case in some cases all over the world. The case was very sensational and being that it was 1971, the idea of a spree killer was still pretty unfamiliar to most people. So a figure like John Frazier terrified ordinary people, yeah, especially coming so close on the hills of the Manson murders. Now, as a result, the defense filed several motions that delayed the start of the trial, including a request for a gag order on everyone involved in the case and a motion to move the trial out of Santa Cruz County to ensure that he would be treated fairly. A judge approved motion for the relocation, specifically citing the local populations animosity toward the hippie community and commending Peter Chang for his attempts to minimize those negative feelings. He did try. He did. Now, in late October of 1971, a year after the murders had been committed, the trial finally got started in Redwood City, which is about 50 miles from Santa Cruz. And there were countless spectators, journalists, everybody gathered inside the courtroom and even waiting in the halls. Assistant District Attorney Chris Coddle said, I would put him in the same camp as Manson, but unlike the Manson trial, there was no cheering section for Frazier. Isn't that interesting? Isn't it also insane that there was a cheering section for a group of people that murdered a woman who was eight and a half months pregnant and all of her friends and then a married couple? What's there to cheer for? And also how are you picking and choosing? Exactly. Now, given that he had already essentially confessed to the murders, it was the job of the defense to convince the jury that he was too mentally ill to be held accountable for the crimes. And to that end, he did his best to play the part. During witness testimony for the prosecution, he stared relentlessly at the witnesses. And at one point, even yelled at the district attorney for getting in between him and a witness that was on the stand. But despite the antics in the courtroom, several people testified to his bizarre behavior and the frequency that he raised the subject of quote unquote, snuffing out the rich and materialistic people of the world. That's the thing he's been talking about. This was like, oh, my snaps. Exactly. So the trial dragged on for over a month with even more strange outbursts from Frazier throughout the trial, his defense attorney James Jackson did his best to demonstrate his client's poor mental health and the extent to which they did believe that the police violated his rights with regard to collection of physical evidence, blah, blah, despite his best efforts, though, it actually seemed like John Frazier was working against his lawyer rather than with him. Jackson recalled in 2020, Frazier didn't talk to me. He just wouldn't talk to us for a long time. And he gave three different stories to a psychiatrist. Now, in addition to the
fact that he was mentally ill. The prosecution faced the hurdle of not having the murder weapon at the time of the trial. But what they did have was enough to place him in the house at several points, including on the night of the murder. And while it may have been obvious that he was unwell when the crimes were committed, he killed a family, which included two children. So they were hoping that would override at least some of the sympathy that the nurse felt if any at all. Now on November 26, 1971, both sides gave their closing arguments, and the case was handed over to the jury. Throughout the trial, it was very hard to ignore that. While he may have been performing this mental illness at various points, he was actively clearly suffering from some kind of mental image. And that did strengthen the defense's case. They made it tough for the jury. But being mentally ill was not in itself enough to prove that he was legally insane. Yeah, those were two very different things. That's the thing that you have to remember. In fact, like you've been saying this whole time, there was considerable evidence that established he planned these murders in advance. And not only that, but he gathered what he needed in order to execute this plan. And on top of that, even after he committed the murders, this is a biggie. He set the house on fire and blocked both driveways in order to prevent help from arriving. Yeah, that's big, which all suggested that, well, yes, maybe mentally ill, he was still sane enough to know that what he was doing was a crime. Yeah. After three days, the jury emerged from deliberation, and they found John Lindley Frazier guilty of five counts of first-degree murder. The following month, the same jury found him to have been legally sane at the time of those murders. I agree. And he was sentenced to death. Whoa. When a reporter asked him how he felt about the sentence, he said, oh, I don't know what sentence. And then laughed. Wow. Unfortunately, while investigators initially did think that Tom DeCecho's murder was linked to the Ota family murders, there was never sufficient evidence, and the case remains unsolved. Wow. In 1972, just a few months after John Frazier was sentenced to death, though, the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty on the grounds that it was a cruel and unusual punishment. So Frazier's sentence was commuted to life in prison. A few weeks later, detectives found the Ota murder weapon among his possessions. Stop. They just didn't initially find it. What? Now, John Lindley Frazier ultimately spent 37 years at Mule Creek State Prison in Lone, California, until August 13, 2009, when he was found to have hanged himself in his cell at the age of 63. Wow. And that is the story of the Ota family murderers. Wow. What a chilling case. What a chilling case, truly. This man just like truly loses his grip on reality. He never had a chance from the beginning. He really didn't. But like moves into a shack in the woods and just singles in on this family. That's so scary. And like, I need to know for how long these people saw him. That's a thing. Like, I'm sorry. That's crazy. No, I know. Like what? And then just the fact that they're like, oh yeah, come to think of it. Like, that's why I'm so glad me and my neighbors are all up each other's asses. Oh yeah, you should be. And honestly, that's the way it should be. We're always looking out for each other. I hope mine are looking out for me. Our group chat pops off if there's something suspicious going on. We're all just out there like what the box up Kyle. What the fuck is up Kyle? Yeah. Like, FedEx tracks. Sorry. You're getting ganged up on by my whole neighborhood. We're following you around. That's just the way it is. Neighbors coming out their house. It's true. We're all just like staring you down as you go by. It's wild. I can't imagine. My neighbor's just being like, yeah, it's so weird. We saw somebody watching your house and your family with binoculars for hours on end. It has nuts. We just kind of went about our business. Like, I can't imagine that. And also, like, how long did it take to communicate that to the police? Because they were struggling to find a suspect for the. And all of a sudden, everyone's like, come to think of it. That guy from the water to weird. That guy that was staring at you. I feel like people like really kept to themselves. Like, Oh, yeah. I think it was a totally different like culture. Yeah. You know, but it's like to a to a bad degree. Yeah. To a doctor mentor. Exactly. Damn. I think we're going to need a fun fact. Yeah. I love this in Switzerland. It's illegal to own just one guinea pig. I know. Because guinea pigs are like broy. It's like they're very sociable. Yeah. So they literally the Swiss government classifies owning just one single guinea pig as animal abuse. Oh my god. I love that. That's pretty bad us. That's so funny that you said that. A plus Switzerland. My angel sweet daughter Dolores went to the pet store and she was like intrigued by the guinea pigs yesterday. Wow. That is weird. It's weird that you just brought up guinea pigs today. Can't have just one. No. Gotta catch more. I feel like you can't just have one animal and all you have to have what you really can't. Unfortunately, it's just the way it is. Yeah. Oh, that's so cute. We need that. Is that adorable? All right. Well, thanks so much. And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's who really you don't report the strange activities in the woods outside of your house. And a man atop a water tower watching a family with their own binoculars. Yeah. I hate that a lot. Shame. I hate it a lot. They're own binoculars. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The 1970 Otta family murders in Santa Cruz involved the killing of five people, including doctor Victor Otta, his wife, two sons, and his secretary Dorothy Cadwalleter, with victims shot and tied with silk scarves.
The crime scene showed signs of meticulous planning, including blocked driveways, cut phone lines, and a cryptic apocalyptic note referencing environmental destruction and World War III.
The note, signed with tarot-themed names, raised fears of a copycat Manson-style cult, leading to panic in the local hippie community, especially around the Catalyst coffee shop.
A key breakthrough came when a gas station attendant and a train collision report linked a green 1970s station wagon to the crime, suggesting a single killer who moved through the area.
John Lindley Frazier, a man with a history of trauma, mental health issues, and anti-social behavior, was identified as the killer after his connection to the note, the car, and the family’s home was confirmed.
Frazier had a deep fixation on materialism and believed the Otta family were harming the environment, which motivated his actions, and he had previously broken into the home and stolen key items.
Despite the community’s initial reluctance, the hippie residents at the Catalyst helped investigators by recognizing the note’s similarities to Frazier’s rhetoric, leading to his arrest.
The case remains a chilling example of how trauma, mental illness, and societal fear can converge in a violent crime, with the community’s response highlighting the dangers of misinformation and vigilante behavior.
Summary:
The 1970 murder of the Otta family in Santa Cruz, California, shocked the community and sparked widespread fear of a Manson-style cult. Five family members, including doctor Victor Otta and his wife, were found dead in their home, all shot and bound with silk scarves. A cryptic note found in the station wagon, filled with apocalyptic rhetoric and tarot-inspired signatures, fueled speculation of a cult or copycat.
Though initial investigations pointed to organized violence, evidence like a single green station wagon, footprints, and a gas station sighting led detectives to focus on John Lindley Frazier—a man with a history of trauma, mental health struggles, and anti-materialist beliefs. Frazier, who had previously broken into the Otta home and stolen weapons, admitted to planning the killings, citing religious messages that convinced him the family’s wealth was destroying nature. He targeted them because of their perceived materialism, ambushing them at different times and using the family’s routine to mask his actions.
The case was solved through community cooperation, especially from the Catalyst coffee shop, where patrons recognized the note’s content. Frazier was arrested after being seen near the scene, and the investigation highlighted how trauma, mental illness, and societal fears can lead to violent outcomes. The case remains a stark reminder of the dangers of misidentifying motives and the critical role of community vigilance in solving crimes.
FAQs
The murders were committed by John Lindley Frazier, who planned and executed the killings in a premeditated manner. He targeted the family because he believed they were materialistic and harming the environment, which aligned with his extremist beliefs.
Frazier broke into the home early in the afternoon when the family was not present. He had previously stolen items like binoculars and a 22-caliber pistol from the house, which he used during the murders.
Frazier's fingerprints were not found, but he was identified by a gas station attendant who recognized him from a photo of the man driving the green Oldsmobile that night. He also admitted to the crimes during interrogation.
The scarves were part of Dr. Victor Otta’s personal collection, and the killer used them to tie the victims’ hands, showing a level of familiarity with the family’s routines and possessions.
The note read: 'Halloween 1970. Today, World War III will begin as brought to you by the people of the free universe. Anyone who misuses the natural environment will suffer death. Materialism must die or mankind will stop.' It was signed with tarot card references like 'Night of Wands,' indicating a possible occult influence.
While the killings were initially suspected to be a copycat due to the timing and style, investigators concluded it was committed by a single individual with unique motives, not a cult or group inspired by the Manson family.
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