An American mass murderer who killed five people in Santa Cruz, California. In his first 23 years, John Linley Fraizer was a normal person. Like Charles Manson, Fraizer was driven by apocalyptic visions. Unlike Manson, who had an irregular childhood, Fraziers life was regular. He dropped out of high school, and took a trade as an auto mechanic in Santa Cruz, California. His wife described him as a beautiful person.
Sometime in the spring of 1970, Fraizer started taking drugs, and his marriage broke up. He started living the life of the counterculture, and took up an interest in ecology. Even quitting his mechanic job, telling his boss he refused to "contribute to the death cycle of the planet." After this, he took off to join the hippie communes. He soon became interested in the mystical meaning of the tarot cards.
He didn't fit in too well with his new hippie friends. He was fiercely paranoid, which didn't fit with the laid-back lifestyle of the hippies he was with. Soon he drifted away from the communes and started his own self-styled lifestyle of an Aquarian Age Hermit, living in a six-foot-square shack in the woods. Not far away was the home of an eye surgeon named Victor Ohta. Once while the Ohta family was out, Fraizer broke into their house and stole a pair of binoculars. He considered the Ohta's to be too materialistic.
On Monday, October 19, 1970, Fraizer went back to the Ohta house. Victor’s wife, Virginia, was the only person home. Holding a .38 revolver on the woman, he tied her wrists with a scarf, and then waited for the rest of the family to come home. Soon, Dorothy Cadwallader, Victor’s secretary, showed up, along with one of the two Ohta boys.
Then Ohta returned home with their second son. As each showed up, they were tied at gunpoint. Standing outside by the pool, Fraizer started to lecture the captives about the evils of materialistic society and the ways in which it destroyed the environment. Ohta got into an argument with Fraizer, so he shoved him into the pool. While he was trying to get out of the water, Fraizer shot him three times. One by one, Fraizer killed the rest.
Virginia, then Dorothy, then the boys, Derrick, and Taggart. Then Frazier went into the house, typed a note, and set the house a blaze. When the fire fighters showed up, they found the five bodies in the pool, and the typed note under the windshield wipers of Ohta's Rolls-Royce. The message said:
Halloween...1970
today world war 3 will begin as brought to you by the people of the free universe.
From this day forward anyone and? /or company of persons who missuses the natural environment or destroys 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 anything or anyone who does not support natural life on this planet, materialism must die, or humanity will.
KNIGHT OF WANDS
KNIGHT OF CUPS
KNIGHT OF PENTICLES
KNIGHT OF SWORDS
The community was in fear. The Tate/LA Bianca murders by the Manson Family had occurred a bit over a year before, and now they were expecting the same to happen again. The hippie communes became suspicious. The police learned though, that they communes were also spooked by the Ohta murders, and they were willing to cooperate in catching the killer.
Soon the note was published by the press, a group of hippies recognized the ideas of the note of those that John Linley Fraizer would talk about, and they supplied the location to Fraziers shack to the police. Frazier’s fingerprints were lifted from the Rolls-Royce, and a beer can found at the scene.
When convicted in November 1970, a sanity trial was followed to determine what sort of punishment Fraizer should receive. Frazier’s courtroom theatrics were unheard of. One side of his head was completely shaved, while his long hair and beard still sprouted on the other side. His reason for this stunt was quite convoluted.
He appeared to be putting on an act to win an insanity plea, but his psychologist thought otherwise. He said that Fraizer was trying to appear to be faking insanity, so that the jury would feel obliged to dismiss the insanity argument. In the end, Fraizer got a sanity ruling, and a death sentence. He regarded the gas chamber as preferable to "having any fascist pigs working on my head."
Fraziers wish was denied when the California Supreme Court abolished capital punishment, and commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. He died in prison on August 13, 2009.
The actions of killers from the past will prepare us for killers of the future.
As always, be safe!
- Bird
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