Excerpt - Programmed to Kill David McGowan Pages 146 - 148 Relatively little has been written about the murder of Dr. Vincent Ohta and his family on October 19, 1970, thought the crime was not less sensational than the slaughter at the Polanski/Tate residence the year before. There were two marked differences between the Santa Cruz crime scene and the Benedict Canyon crime scene: in Santa Cruz, none of the victims was a national celebrity and the job was done more professionally. In a spectacular home overlooking the bay, Dr. Ohta, his secretary, Dorothy Cadwallader, his wife, Virginia, and his sons, Derrick and Taggert, were bound and blindfolded and then shot in the head from behind, execution style. They were then tossed into the homes pool, some of them while they were still alive. The house was then set afire in several locations, thus destroying the crime scene. The familys Rolls Royce and Lincoln continental were parked across the homes driveway entrances, denying access to the emergency vehicles that attempted to respond to the fires. A third car, a 1968 Oldsmobile station wagon, was missing. There was little in the way of crime scene evidence. The main portion of the house was completely gutted by the fires. The victims bodies had been washed clean in the pool. A driving rain in the early morning hours had thoroughly washed away any footprints or other evidence that might have been left outside the home. Police initially said they found no scrawled messages and no evidence of burglary. When the missing Oldsmobile was found, torched and abandoned in a tunnel, it also failed to yield any evidence. Although there was little for police to work with, one thing seemed clear enough: these murders were not the work of a lone perpetrator. Some investigators, and much of the public, immediately suspected that another homicidal cult was at work. It seemed very unlikely that a sole assailant would have been able to bind all five victims, drag all their bodies out to the pool, start multiple fires, blockade the driveway, and then make a clean getaway. Two guns were used in the commission of the crimes-the .38 caliber weapon that killed Dr. Ohta and the .22 caliber weapon that killed the others. A witness reported seeing three people in the vicinity of the abandoned Oldsmobile, and three sets of footprints were found leading from the tunnel to an adjacent river. Two people who fit the witness description were reportedly found in the search area, but here is not indication of what became of those potential suspects. For obvious reasons, a Sheriffs spokesman announced at a press conference that police were seeking more than one perpetrator. A few days later, however, John Frazier was arrested and charged with being the sole perpetrator of the crimes. An initial report on the arrest falsely claimed that Frazier had waged a gun battle with police, when he was actually taken into custody without incident. John Frazier had been placed in foster care at the age of five. He later ended up in a series of juvenile detention facilities. He was said to have a history of sleepwalking and horrifying nightmares. Despite his troubled upbringing, a friend described Frazier as having been a perfectly normal family man and competent mechanic, right up until the time that he suddenly changed his lifestyle dramatically and began speaking gibberish. On July 4, 1970, just three months before the murders, Frazier left his wife. At that time, he apparently took up residence in a shack, accessible via a drawbridge, on property near the Ohta residence. While living there, he reportedly collected guns. Following his arrest, Frazier was assigned James Jackson, the chief assistant public defender of Santa Cruz County, as his defense counsel. Assisting Jackson was Harold Cartwright, a former U.S. marine and police lieutenant working as Jacksons private investigator. Also brought on board by Jackson was Donald Lunde, a former Navy man and a professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University Medical School, not far from Santa Cruz. This team remained together to handle the Kemper and Mullin cases as well. Also on the same team, for all practical purposes, was prosecutor Peter Chang. It is unclear whether these four men knew each other before the Frazier trial began, but in his book, Lunde makes it clear that he, Chang, Jackson and Cartwright were fast friends by trials end, and frequently saw each other socially thereafter. This undoubtedly made it much easier to coordinate the shamelessly fraudulent Kemper and Mullin trials. On October 28, 1070, a grand jury indicted Frazier on five counts of murder. The defendant entered a plea of not guilty, which was later changed, on January 19, 1971, to not guilty by reason of insanity. A gag order was issued and the trial was moved to Redwood City, but the Santa Cruz team remained on the case. Helming the trial, which began in October 1971, was Judge Charles Franich. By late November, Frazier had been convicted on all five murder counts. It is unclear what evidence those convictions were based on. No murder weapon was ever found, so there was not ballistics evidence. There were no witnesses to the crime, and virtually all forensics evidence was destroyed by the fires and the rain. One witness reportedly identified Frazier as the driver of the abandoned Oldsmobile. It was claimed at one time by the DAs office that fingerprints had been recovered from a typewriter found in the incinerated home, but it was later acknowledged that the statement had not been accurate. It was also claimed implausibly enough, that fingerprints were recovered from a beer can found in the house. Dr. Lunde seems to have played a key role in garnering the convictions when he testified (for the defense, mind you) that Frazier had confessed the crimes to him during a psychiatric examination. Lunde also assured the court: Hes crazy. John Frazier illustrated that point when he arrived for court during the penalty phase of the trial with half his head and face shaved clean. He was sentenced to death, but that sentence was later set aside by a 1976 Supreme Court decision. There are many questions left unanswered in the Ohta/Frazier case. Among them is the question of what Dorothy Cadwallader was doing at the Ohta home. Cadwallader worked at Ohtas office, not at his home, and she was not known to be a visitor to the residence. Press reports claimed tha tshe was there to baby-sit, but Cadwalladers husband denied those reports. He had not explanation for why his wife was there that fateful day. Another lingering question concerns the typewritten note th at a press release claimed was found under the windshield wiper of the Rolls Royce, contradicting initial reports that there were not notes or messages found. Of course, a typewritten note fits in quite well with the claim of a fingerprint-laden typewriter. That typewriter, unfortunately, did not actually exist. The note, however, lives on. It read, in part: Halloween1970 Today World War 3 will begin as brought to you by the people of the free universe. Next Edmund Kemper III and Herbert Mullin
A visit was made to the grave site for the Ohta Family on 12 -24-11 to say a prayer for them may they all rest in peace.
God that' horrendous and it does not sound like they got the culprit/s in this case. If the secretary was there maybe Dr Ohta was having to deal with some business at home?
