CA CA - Malibu, WhtFem Skeletal UP4383, 17-23, Harley Davidson earrings, Mar'80

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The Doe Network:
Hot Case 1456
http://doenetwork.org/hot/hotcase1456.html
NamUs UP Case 4383 https://identifyus.org/en/cases/4383


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Unidentified White Female

The victim was discovered on March 9, 1980 in Los Angeles County, California
Partial Skeleton

Vital Statistics

Estimated age: 17-23 years old
Approximate Height and Weight: 5'7".
Distinguishing Characteristics: Brown hair. Pierced ears. Left foot measured 10 inches; possible 8-9 shoe.
Jewelry: Earrings formed of a numeral one with stars & word "Harley Davidson".
Dentals: Available; 1, 8, 9, 10 somewhat v-shaped or tapered.

Case History
The victim was located over mountain side of Pacific Coast Highway, on Topanga canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles County, California on March 9, 1980.
 
Ambercat brought this case up on the Lucinda Schaefer thread, suggesting that this Jane Doe might be Lucinda.

CA CA - Lucinda Schaefer, 17, Torrance, 24 June 1979


I responded that the Harley Davidson earrings (mentioned in DoeNet, but not in NamUs) would make Lucinda an unlikely possible. However, it occurred to me that Andrea Joy Hall (the other still-missing victim of Serial Killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris) might be a pretty reasonable possible

Andrea Joy Hall
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/h/hall_andrea.html

hall_andrea.jpg


* Her height 5'7" is spot-on.
* The timeline (8 months from 8-July-1979 to 9-Mar-1980) is consistent.
* Her age (18) is within the 17-23 age range.
* What can be seen of her teeth seems consistent with the "V-Shaped or Tapered" description of the UID's #8, #9, and #10 incisors.
* From what I understand, Bittaker and Norris took their other four known victims up to the San Gabriel mountains near Angeles Crest Highway. Three of the victims were left at that location, one was taken from that location after she was killed and her body was dumped in Hermosa Beach. AFAIK, Andrea was the only one who wasn't taken to that location.

The one slight inconsistency is hair color. Andrea's hair is described as blonde, and the UID's hair is described as brown.

I also had no reason to believe one way or the other whether she would be the type to wear Harley Davidson earrings.

However, looking around online, I saw her Find a Grave memorial, which shows a wider cropping of the same photo.

AndreaHall.jpg


http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=6681854

I had never seen the broader view of this photo, but it shows her wearing a tube-top and a very flashy necklace with an eagle pendant. I don't think this eagle is a Harley Davidson symbol per se, but it is very similar in style to something that a biker girl would wear.

One of the persons who signed her Find-A-Grave memorial calls herself "Biker Babe". However, it looks like "Biker Babe" is a murder victims advocate and a frequent contributor of comments to the Findagrave site. She doesn't appear to have personally known Andrea.
 
...

Andrea Joy Hall
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/h/hall_andrea.html

...

However, looking around online, I saw her Find a Grave memorial, which shows a wider cropping of the same photo.

AndreaHall.jpg


http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=6681854

I had never seen the broader view of this photo, but it shows her wearing a tube-top and a very flashy necklace with an eagle pendant. I don't think this eagle is a Harley Davidson symbol per se, but it is very similar in style to something that a biker girl would wear

....

This has stumped me for a couple of weeks now.

Can anybody figure out what is in the background of this broadly-cropped version of Andrea's photo?
 
I have tried to figure it out a few times, myself with little success.

The best I have come up with:

The top right corner looks like a building with a support post holding up a balcony with a railing. All the dark stuff might be the underside of an umbrella she is sitting under and the red/black is someone's jacket. I am imagining a beach type scene.

But honestly, that picture is still puzzling to me. The support post doesn't look thick enough and that red/black jacket just seems to be floating.
 
Right above her shoulder appears to be a man with a mustache and sunglasses, he has something white on his head. I see a man with dark hair wearing a red and black jacket, the jacket appears to be billowing in the wind. You can make out his ear and neck. He is also wearing red pants. Could the other be an art easel?
 
Right above her shoulder appears to be a man with a mustache and sunglasses, he has something white on his head. I see a man with dark hair wearing a red and black jacket, the jacket appears to be billowing in the wind. You can make out his ear and neck. He is also wearing red pants. Could the other be an art easel?

LOL - I'm not seeing the guy with the moustache. It's like a Rorschach test.

I was envisioning the object on the right side of the photo as some kind of 1970's version computer and monitor with the control panel below. And then there's either a broomstick or a shovel handle in front of it.

The black over red object doesn't look like a jacket. It looks more like some sort of mechanical lifting device . There's a very straight channel on the face of it (pointing about 45 degrees toward the ground) that looks like something that you would slide a long pipe into (with a lip overhang to support the pipe). The device would then rotate and lift the pipe/arm upward.

I'm sure I've seen something similar somewhere in my travels. But I can't place it. :banghead:

If we ever find out what it is, I'm sure it will be something simple and I will feel real dumb for not seeing it.
 
At first I thought it might be half the lower part of someone wearing auto-racing pants sitting in a wooden folding chair (the type that were popular in the late 1970s), but the more I look I the photo, I am not sure anymore.
 
I will laugh if it is a mural painted on that brick wall. Oddly I see the little man on her shoulder too..
 
I can see the thing that looks like guy's face, too. He's looking away from her and he could be some distance behind that black and red thing. Or it might be something else.

The piece of equipment looks like a VT220 terminal set up for outdoor use, like maybe a sound board, but it can't be; it wasn't manufactured until 1982 or 83. And when I enlarged the photo, it seemed to be more of a pyramid.
 
I didn't see a NamUs casefile for Andrea Hall, so I created one, and sent an e-mail to Todd Matthews and Carrie Sutherland, requesting that they compare these two cases if possible. Carrie responded that there is already an MP casefile for Andrea, but it is not yet publicly viewable.

The hair color and the Harley D earrings are minor inconsistencies, considering all that is in common.

I looked around to see if I could find any indication of where Norris claimed to have dumped Andrea's body. There wasn't anything definitive, but I don't think he took her to the same area in the San Gabriel mountains where he took Cindy Schaeffer, Leah Lamp, Jackie Gilliam, and Lynette Ledford.

In Norris' account of the crimes, he indicated that Hall was attacked and murdered very quickly after she was picked up.

The CP and DoeNet narratives indicate that she was picked up on Pacific Coast Hwy (known locally as "PCH") in Redondo Beach. However, Norris alludes to picking her up at an "onramp". There are no freeways or onramps near PCH in Redondo Beach. But he does mention PCH. I am thinking that the "onramp" could have been either either to the 405 or the 10 freeways, and PCH was the segment of PCH that extends Northward from the end of the 10 Freeway in Santa Monica toward Malibu.

Norris told LE that he went to a "country store", while Bittaker raped and murdered Hall. I am not aware of any country stores in the part of the San Gabriel Mountains where he took the other four victims. It is quite desolate up there. Wrightwood has country stores and a couple of ski resorts, but I don't think their hideout was near Wrightwood. There are country stores in the mountains near Malibu and steep ravines along Topanga Canyon Blvd, similar to what was described by Norris.
 
This has stumped me for a couple of weeks now.

Can anybody figure out what is in the background of this broadly-cropped version of Andrea's photo?

In the background, the "broomstick" looking thing appears to be some kind of sign, the horizontal sticks are attached to the vertical stick and we are seeing the back of the sign attached to it. I see the head of a white haired man with sunglasses just above her left shoulder, very small, so way back behind her. The red and black material looks like a pants leg, so this could be a motorcycle show, parade or maybe a fair/circus.... And she is in front of a grandstand and someone is sitting there behind her!
I have been looking at the background trying to figure this out for awhile! My first thought was a parade!
 
In the background, the "broomstick" looking thing appears to be some kind of sign, the horizontal sticks are attached to the vertical stick and we are seeing the back of the sign attached to it. I see the head of a white haired man with sunglasses just above her left shoulder, very small, so way back behind her. The red and black material looks like a pants leg, so this could be a motorcycle show, parade or maybe a fair/circus.... And she is in front of a grandstand and someone is sitting there behind her!
I have been looking at the background trying to figure this out for awhile! My first thought was a parade!

Something about the black and red thing, and the sign, made me think some kind of renaissance fair?
 
Something about the black and red thing, and the sign, made me think some kind of renaissance fair?

That would be an interesting coincidence if it was. At that time, the annual Renaissance Fair was held at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura, right next to Malibu (where this Jane Doe was found).

If she was picked up by Bittaker/Norris while hitchhiking toward this area, it would make sense that Topanga Canyon is where her body would end up.

I am still having difficulty figuring out where Andrea Hall lived. According to Ancestry.com, Andrea was born in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio. One account says she lived in Sunland, but the blog where I read that might have her confused with Lynette Ledford, who lived in the Sunland/Tujunga area and was picked up by Bittaker/Norris in that area.
 
Here's what I see in the photo:

A man wearing a black blouse with long full sleeves under a long red vest of some type. He has shoulder-length dark hair (might be wearing a black hat of some type) and is facing away from the camera, clasping his hands behind his back with his head hanging forward (toward the right) as he examines merchandise on the table in front of him. Looks like a hand-crafted doll on the table. Possibly a flea market-type thing or craft fair. Renaissance fair would make sense; the red/black outfit could be a period costume. There is possibly a second person standing beyond the dark-haired person, head partially visible over his left shoulder, maybe a woman with her hair up with a long side curl dangling, wearing a Renaissance-period headpiece as part of a costume?

I see a brick wall in the upper left corner of the photo. Were there any brick walls where the Renaissance fair was held at that time?

ETA: The tiny face with mustache and sunglasses on the far right of the photo could be a toby jug sitting on the table next to the doll, which looks kind of like a Cabbage Patch type. I remember my mom making homemade Cabbage Patch dolls for her granddaughters back then.
 
The difference in hair color between Andrea Hall & the UID might be that the victim colored her hair between the time she was last photographed & the time she died. Of course a lab tech could confirm this......

If a facial reconstruction was done of the UID & shared in biker communities on the West Coast, do you think it would generate leads? My ex-in laws are bikers & I even know some from my stomping grounds that have moved to my current home area.....It's highly likely someone might recognize the UID.

edit to add- the numeral 1 earring obviously refers to the "One percenter" thing that the HA loves to claim. IMO she might have been killed by her associates if she considered herself "close" enough to wear such decorations.
 
It should be mentioned that Malibu Canyon is a very popular route for bikers out for a weekend-ride.

There is a place called the Rock Store on Mulholland Highway, not far from where this Jane Doe was found.

The Rock Store is a popular location where bikers park and show off their bikes and socialize.
 
Kimberly Kahler looks like an okay PM.

Her age (15) is slightly out of range but not terribly so
Race matches
Height (5'8) is within an inch
Hair color (brown) matches
Timing (about 3 months between her date LKA and the UID's discovery) is consistent
Distance between Marina del Rey and Topanga Canyon Blvd is only 19 miles
Circumstances line up
It also looks like she has pierced ears, but the second picture isn't too clear, so I'm not sure.
 
I've heard that this woman is believed to be a victim of William Bradford.
 

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