Police asks help identifying the people in photos taken by murderer

dsntslp said:

A good many of them have the same markings around the mouth when I put them on the big screen or blow them up on the laptop. Some of the girls we see multiple pics of do not have those marks in pics that appear to be taken in an earlier time frame. It made me wonder if they had all been gagged with the same object because the marks are all so consistently similar. I guess his hand would be consistent but it bugs me that the marks are all oval shaped. Would oval shaped marks be consistent with a hand? I suppose if that is what is being reported and admitted to then that must be it.

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Could that sort of bruising be caused by forcing a person to open their mouth when they desperately wanted to keep it shut?

The only real tools we've heard about him using, other than bindings and ligatures of various sorts and his camera, are that iron bar and that hammer. I suppose one could gag someone for a short time with an iron bar, if one did it actively.

I may be jumping the gun but after seeing the extra large photo of the girl in the yellow bikini I have little hope that he didnt kill her.

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00581.jpg

Click on that photo and it gets much larger.



The right side of her face looks badly bruised and there seem to be some sort of marks around her neck, as if she was being choked. If you look at the area below her right ear around the jaw line it looks like she has some pretty serious bruising.



If you look at the extra large photo I linked below, look at the bits ive circled here:



Poor girl.

Didn't the girl in shorts (the picture where the colors were all strange) have a bruise in a similar place on her leg?

I can't find any information about whether Amy Fandel's front teeth had grown in by the time she disappeared. They're missing in her photo, and the child in this photo appears to have front teeth:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00263.jpg

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Donjeta, in post #547 you asked if these three girls were the same:

Blonde holding headphones: http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00751.jpg

Blonde in green velour dress sitting by luggage: http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00801.jpg

Nude blonde wearing necklace on blue sheet:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2010/03/11/2011323439.jpg

I'm not sure the nude girl is the same. Her eyelashes look thicker and her hair looks shorter. Also, the nude girl is seated on a bed and the girl with the white shirt is sitting on a brown rug, and the stuff on the table behind them in both pictures looks significantly rearranged. I think the pictures might have been taken some time apart, with some room rearrangement happening in the meantime.

One thing's for sure, Alcala had a fetish for photograhing girls, mostly topless, wearing his headphones. He also uses that blue sheet frequently as a backdrop. Though I hope he didn't, it crossed my mind that he might have had some kind of sick code where anyone who put on his headphones would be victimized.

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That ledge I mistakenly called a headboard definitely is a fireplace mantel. You can even see the edge of it in this photo:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/01201.jpg

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While this is the same apartment, notice the pictures on the wall, specifically the Madonna & Child:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/photogalleries/localnews2011323273/23.html

...have moved, and the clock, Bosch painting and others are in their places:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/01431.jpg

So I suspect they weren't taken the same day.

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This girl's white necklace is a puka shell necklace. My dad said everyone, guys and girls alike, had them in the Seventies.

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/02071.jpg
Pic for reference: http://www.dandlcreations.com/neck_70supka_sharksdark.jpg

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I've always thought this subject was a woman. She has no Adam's Apple:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/02081.jpg
http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/02091.jpg

She does look distressed in that second photo, and not exactly thrilled to be photographed in the first. I wonder if he asked her to pull her blouse down, exposing her shoulder, and then he asked to take more provocative photos and she emphatically said no, hence her expression in the second picture. That's just my two cents.

cj1132 said:

There was some discussion that the person in the Christmas picture might be his sister. I think this is the same person. They both hold their heads the same way.

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/01221.jpg

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I think the guy is Alcala, isn't it?

reasypeasy said:

Didn't the girl in shorts (the picture where the colors were all strange) have a bruise in a similar place on her leg?

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The girl in the engineer shorts (blue and white stripes) in the pic that looks like it has been taken through a red filter has very ugly bruising on both legs. Her right leg has two round marks the size of fists and her left leg has a band of bruising that is quite a few inches long and at least an inch wide. She also has a left ankle that is so swollen looking that it is hard to discern an ankle bone but when I see that same ankle in her other pic it looks normal, so idk. Maybe it was just the way she was standing. (From memory here, apologies if slightly off.) And that is one of two pic's where I believe the subject has writing on her arm, perhaps it says "Alcala" or something. I can see it but can't read it. She is pointing to it even.

carbuff said:

I think the guy is Alcala, isn't it?

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Yes, I believe it is. IT looks like a younger version of the old long haired guy they have shown on TV anyway, IMO.

CarlK90245 said:

This photo clearly shows the album Surrealistic Pillow (Jefferson Airplane 1967)

Not real helpful in pinning down the timeline, as we already know the timeline doesn't go much before 1967, but it may give an indication of his musical tastes in trying to figure out the others.

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JoeFromLB said:

Leonard Bernstein, the long-time conductor of the NY Philharmonic and composer of musicals, etc (West Side Story). I googled his albums to try to find the exact cover, but there are so many.[/quote]


This album is [I][B]Green River[/B][/I] (Credence Clearwater Revival - August 1969)

[IMG]http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q697/Carlkopp90245/Misc%20Websleuths%20Images/2554657920045078242S425x425Q851.jpg

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She almost looks like she has been whacked with a tripod... not the itty bitty tripods they sell for small digital cameras nowadays, but a big heavy tripod for using with an old-fashioned SLR camera.

I wonder whether he got trained in riot control and baton use when he was in the armed forces?

Here's Alcala in Dating Game 1978 (Bachelor no. 1)


http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/08/dating.game.killer/index.html

reasypeasy said:

She almost looks like she has been whacked with a tripod... not the itty bitty tripods they sell for small digital cameras nowadays, but a big heavy tripod for using with an old-fashioned SLR camera.

I wonder whether he got trained in riot control and baton use when he was in the armed forces?

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Like this one?

Donjeta said:

Like this one?

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Possibly. Maybe not that exact one, maybe an old one he modified so it would work better as a baton, be heavier and easier to keep hold of? Iron bars and hammers were very suspicious looking items even in the relaxed seventies, but no police officer would suspect an artsy looking photographer carrying a tripod and camera case. Or maybe he was using some other baton like item.

I think that his time in prison may have been sort of pivotal in so far as how he approached his offending, how organised he was. He had a lot of time to think about how to get away with it.

On some of these, I'm not so sure there is bruising that you guys are seeing. I think it could just be shadows, and when you begin to think about something, it starts to "appear".

tatertot said:

I can't find any information about whether Amy Fandel's front teeth had grown in by the time she disappeared. They're missing in her photo, and the child in this photo appears to have front teeth:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00263.jpg

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Amy looks considerably younger than 8 in her photo. My guess would be that the photo was taken when she was around six. Those front teeth could have grown in by the time she vanished.

CarlK90245 said:

This album is Green River (Credence Clearwater Revival - August 1969)

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The video recorder to the right isn't much use in dating the photo, unfortunately.

It shows a Sony TCV-2020 video recorder, which was introduced in 1965 and apparently ran until 1970.

This is what it would have looked like:



Worryingly (perhaps) the unit was available with a camera attachment, sold separately, that allowed you to record video and sound to tape. The camera had to be tethered to the machine and wasn't a true camcorder.

I don't know what the lifespan of one of those units would have been but they weren't cheap - retail was $1,250 in 1965.

JoeFromLB said:

I see it. There are some other marks on her face that you can see more clearly in the nancy grace photo which can be enlarged:

http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00133.jpg

It looks like she covered up the mark on her nose with makeup. You can see the bump, however. I also see a little mark above the nose between the eyebrows, and another blemish higher up in the center of the forehead.

Can you see any similar marks on this face? (missing person Lynn Luray)

http://www.missingkids.com/photographs/NCMC1126040c1.jpg

I think I see the same mark on the forehead, and a faint mark on the nose.
I could be imagining things, though.

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What I see doesn't look like marks on her face, it looks like water on the photo -- possibly a poorly developed negative or air bubbles in the print.

Hope32 said:

On some of these, I'm not so sure there is bruising that you guys are seeing. I think it could just be shadows, and when you begin to think about something, it starts to "appear".

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Yeah. I see marks on the bikini girl's face, and possibly her thigh, but the others, not so much. I can't see the writing that has been mentioned, either.

Is that the same girl or is the similarity an artifact of the matching head tilt?

They both have got some spotting on their chin but the bike girl gets grainy before I can tell if it matches.

Her bicycle is an Olmo Special, btw. I didn't have any luck dating it on a quick google search but maybe some vintage bicycle aficionado could.

Other bicycles that might possibly be dated:
http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/01591.jpg
I can't tell what the logo says.

Says it's a Schwinn here:
http://cnnnancygrace.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/00193.jpg

dsntslp said:

The girl in the engineer shorts (blue and white stripes) in the pic that looks like it has been taken through a red filter has very ugly bruising on both legs. Her right leg has two round marks the size of fists and her left leg has a band of bruising that is quite a few inches long and at least an inch wide. She also has a left ankle that is so swollen looking that it is hard to discern an ankle bone but when I see that same ankle in her other pic it looks normal, so idk. Maybe it was just the way she was standing. (From memory here, apologies if slightly off.) And that is one of two pic's where I believe the subject has writing on her arm, perhaps it says "Alcala" or something. I can see it but can't read it. She is pointing to it even.

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Which photo are you referring to? Can you link it please?