The Search Is On For Cold Case Witness
Written by
KEY News Staff
Story Created:
Jan 20, 2012 at 7:25 PM PDT
Story Updated:
Jan 23, 2012 at 1:20 PM PDT
The summer of 1970 at UCSB wasn't the summer of love it was the summer of the unsolved campus point slayings.
On Sunday morning July 5th an Isla Vista man walking on the bluff above the beach spotted three victims.
When University Police arrived they found the bodies of 20 year old Larry Hess of Indiana and 17 year old Thomas Dolan of Manhattan Beach.
At first they thought Dolan's childhood friend was a third victim, but two hours into the investigation the 19 year old moved a hand and he was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries.
They had been attacked by three young men with an axe and a knife.
At the urging of Dolan's sister and University Police Chief Dustin Olson Sintra Investigation Group of Ventura is trying to solve the case.
Investigator Chuck Hookstra calls it an opportunity of a lifetime for an investigator.
They now have new technology that will help them work with blood and other evidence collected and safely kept years ago.
They also have information about a recanted jail house confession and they are looking for a mystery witness.
They say her name is Cindy and she was only 16 at the time of the murders.
Hookstra is hoping publicity will help them find her.
The sole survivor who would rather not be identified in this story says his friend Thomas had permission from his father to hitchhike with him to San Francisco for the Fourth of July.
It was on their way home that trouble began.
They were picked up by an Asian man driving a Volkswagen Van.
The driver also picked up Hess and two girls.
After dropped the girls off at a dorm, one of them called back saying she had left her tennis shoes behind.
The survivor says he has been haunted by the fact that he said he would protect them with his life.
Investigators recently helped the survivor return those shoes that had been held as evidence.
And next week they plan to reunite him with the original investigator, who is now 81 and living in Goleta.
Investigators say it's possible the drug LSD may have been taken from the oldest victim.
But the victims watches and money were not taken.
Anyone with information is urged to contact
the Sintra Group at www.sintragroup.com or by calling
(805) 658-5656
