Teenagers in Love: Murdered at the Beach - First Zodiac Killer Victims?

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18-year-old Robert Domingos and 17-year-old Linda Edwards were high school students living in Lompoc, near Santa Barbara, California. On June 3, 1963, Robert and Linda decided to spend the senior “ditch day” together at a secluded spot on Gaviota beach. Robert parked his car in a turn out off Highway 101 and then hiked down the steep trail to shore below.

No one knows the precise timing and sequence of the events that followed, but, at some point, a man apparently confronted Robert and Domingos. He was armed with a .22 caliber weapon, possibly a rifle. Investigators believed that the man produced pre-cut lengths of rope and ordered Linda to tie-up Robert’s hands. After that, the man may have tried to bind Linda’s hands, but, Robert somehow freed himself and fought back long enough for the couple to run away. The man apparently shot both Robert and Linda in the back and they fell to the ground together. The man then reloaded his weapon and fired many more shots into the victims. Robert was shot 11 times and Linda was shot 8 times. The man then dragged the bodies to a makeshift shack and threw the victims inside. The killed collected the couple’s belongings and tossed them into the shack, too. He then tried to use matches to set fire to a blanket hanging on the shack in a failed attempt to destroy evidence. The fire went out and the man left the scene.

The couple’s parents became concerned when the teenagers never returned home. A member Robert’s family remembered that the couple had been to a spot on Gaviota beach. Mr. Domingos and others went to the location and discovered Robert’s car parked there along Highway 101. The discovery of the murdered teenagers shocked the community. Investigators recovered the evidence, including the burned matches, shell casings, and other material. Some leads seemed compelling but the case remained unsolved at the end of the decade.

In 1970, Detective Bill Baker was assigned to the cold case in the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department. Baker examined the evidence and sent out a teletype to other jurisdictions seeking any information on possible similar cases. Baker was contacted by San Francisco Police Department Inspector William Armstrong, assigned to the Zodiac investigation with his partner, Inspector David Toschi. Armstrong told Baker that he believed the Zodiac may have killed Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards. According to Baker, Armstrong said he would never think of the Zodiac crimes again without including the 1963 case.

Baker and others believed that the murders of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards was somewhat similar to the Zodiac’s infamous attack at Lake Berryessa. On September 27, 1969, college students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were relaxing together on the shore of Lake Berryessa, located more than 25 miles north of Napa, California. Sometime around 6:00 PM, Cecelia noticed a man walking among the trees but the couple dismissed him as harmless. Soon, the man appeared wearing a strange, hooded costume with a white crossed-circle symbol on the chest. He pointed a gun at the couple and explained that he had escaped from a prison and needed a car and money to escape to Mexico. The man said that he wanted to tie them up and drive away in Bryan’s car, parked up on the nearby road. Bryan and Cecelia agreed and were bound with pre-cut lengths of plastic clothesline. The man then stabbed Bryan in the back 6 times and then stabbed Cecelia 10 times. The man walked up to the road and wrote a message on the door of Bryan’s car which listed the dates of the two previous Zodiac attacks in Benicia and Vallejo.

The killer used .22 caliber ammunition similar to the ammunition used by the Zodiac in the murders on Lake Herman Road on December 20, 1968. in the 1968 attack, the killer shot the female victim as she tried to run away; in the 1963, the killer shot the victims as they ran away. Detective Baker also noted that elements of the Berryessa attack may indicate that the killer had learned from previous experience. In the Santa Barbara incident, investigators believed that the killer may have failed to check Robert’s bindings and relied instead on Linda to secure the rope around his wrists. She may have left the bindings loose enough for Robert to free himself and fight back. The fear of the victims made them unwilling to comply with the killer’s demands to remain docile and cooperative. Robert’s actions may have sufficiently disturbed the killer that he planned to avoid repeating the same mistakes in future crimes.