Opinion ID: 2639434
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Murder Commonalities

Text: The murders of Lynda, Denise, and Debbie must not be viewed in isolation because there are many common threads that point to the fact that one person killed these three girls. For example, all three victims were teenagers who lived in Placerville and Debbie and Denise lived in the same foster home. All three victims knew each other and hung out in downtown Placerville. All three victims were killed in the El Dorado National Forest within a two-month period in the late spring and summer of 1984 and the bodies of Denise and Lynda (who were murdered just 17 days apart) were found within a quarter-mile of each other. The bodies of all three victims were found unburied and naked, and their clothes were found nearby, not strewn about, but together. Because no blood was found on the victims' clothes, it can be reasonably inferred that all three were murdered while they were naked. These commonalities lead to the conclusion that the murders were committed by one person and the evidence presented at trial conclusively showed that that person was petitioner.