Visalia Ransacker

The Visalia Ransacker is an unidentified serial burglar who operated in Visalia, California in the mid-1970s. In most of his crimes, the Visalia Ransacker would break into a single-family home and tear apart the interior while stealing only small items. Within the law enforcement community, it is generally believed that the Visalia Ransacker's crime spree began in April 1974 and ended in late 1976.

While most of the Visalia Ransacker's activities involved breaking into houses and vandalizing the owner's belongings, the Ransacker's crimes took a much darker turn on September 11, 1975. On this date, a man who is strongly believed to be the Visalia Ransacker broke into the home of Claude Snelling. Snelling, a journalism professor at the College of the Sequoias, was awakened in the middle of the night by strange noises in his home. Upon leaving his bedroom, Snelling discovered a masked intruder attempting to kidnap his daughter Beth. Snelling was shot and killed by the intruder, who fled the scene after the shooting.

After the murder of Claude Snelling, the Visalia Police Department went on high alert to apprehend the Ransacker. Nighttime stakeouts were set up in neighborboods which had been hit by the Ransacker. In 1976, a man was spotted walking through one of the neighborhoods in which the Ransacker had been active. When Detective William McGowan attempted to question the man, the suspect pulled out a handgun and shot McGowan. McGowan survived the attack, but the shooter was able to escape.

After recovering from his gunshot wounds, Detective McGowan resumed his search for the Visalia Ransacker. At about the same time the Ransacker stopped his crime spree in Visalia, a serial sex predator dubbed the "East Area Rapist" began attacking people in their homes in the Sacramento County, California. Based on witness descriptions of the East Area Rapist and the method of operation which was used to carry out his crimes, Detective McGowan attempted to link the Ransacker crimes to the sexual attacks in the Sacramento-area. Both the Visalia Ransacker and the East Area Rapist were described as physically fit white males in their twenties. In terms of modus operandi, both the Visalia Ransacker and the East Area Rapist pulled hot prowl burglaries on single-family residences in the middle of the night. Neither the Ransacker nor the East Area Rapist ever took valuable items from the homes they burglarized. Additionally, both the Visalia Ransacker (who is considered the prime suspect in the murder of Claude Snelling) and the East Area Rapist took firearms along when burglarizing residences. Based on all of the evidence, it is strongly suspected that the Visalia Ransacker and the East Area Rapist are one and the same.

In all, the Visalia Ransacker is believed to be responsible for more than eighty burglaries in Visalia and the East Area Rapist is linked to more than fifty rapes across northern California.

In 2002, a criminalist with the Orange County Sheriff's Department connected DNA which was left at the scenes of five rape-murders in southern California in the 1970s and 1980s with the East Area Rapist. In all of the southern California rape-murders, a male offender broke into the homes of his victims in the middle of the night. The offender, who became known as the "Original Night Stalker," would tie up the male in the residence and kill him before raping and murdering the female. Because of the DNA link between the Original Night Stalker and the East Area Rapist, and the M.O.-link between the East Area Rapist and the Visalia Ransacker, it has been speculated widely that all three suspects are one man.

As of May 29, 2009, the Visalia Ransacker remains at large.

References:

http://www.ear-ons.com/visalia.html

http://www.jjmcgr.org/BK/Clippings/770518.pdf

http://jjmcgr.googlepages.com/visaliaarticles1977

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