Brazos county busted newspaper

1971 was an exciting year for the townspeople of Fouke, Miller County, Arkansas. It was almost 52 years ago that they discovered they had their very own monster. Named by a local reporter, Jim Powell of the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News, the press had a hey-day and the newly named Fouke Monster even had a series of movies made about it. The monster inspired a yearly festival called the Fouke Monster Festival meant to bring up discussion and talk about lore regarding the local monster as well as other cryptids. All for a good cause of course, the money goes directly to the local school district. That being said, let’s take a little dive into the history and tale of the Fouke, AR monster.
A very small town, located 15 miles southeast of Texarkana, TX-Texarkana, AR, Fouke is still considered to be a part of the metropolitan area. It lies along Hwy. 71 and isn’t very far from the Red River. Originally inhabited by the Caddo Native Americans, like so many places time changes everything. However, this isn’t a tale about the history of Fouke, it is a tale of something or someone who scared some locals enough to simply leave the area and the legend is still told to this day. Let’s take a step back in time and re-visit this story…or is it just a story?
Believe it or not, per the Memphis Enquirer, a large, furry creature had been seen in the vicinity in 1851, and the Caddo Gazette reported on it in 1856. So the monster may not be as new to the area as previously thought. The next reports came in at the much later date of 1946 and some locals in Fouke claimed to have seen it in 1964 although it was not reported. These reports called it the Jonesville Monster as these sightings were closer to Jonesville (near Fouke). There was an alleged sighting by a young teenage boy in 1955 who described it as having reddish-brown hair, sniffing the air, and not reacting to birdshot when fired upon. Joe Nickell, an investigator, was of the opinion that it was a misidentified brown bear - which could be a definite possibility.
There have been several different reports on what it actually looked like but they do bear some similarities. Such as being large, bipedal, and with long dark hair. Over the years it has been described as anywhere from 7’-10’ tall, weighing 250-300 pounds or on the higher end up to 800 pounds. Many described it as having a galloping gait, and swinging its arms like an ape. Aside from the disturbing description it was also described as stinking like a combination of a skunk and a wet dog. I simply do not want to imagine the smell, lol. To top it off it was also described as having bright red, half-dollar size eyes.
What really brought it to the public attention was an attack on the home of Bobby and Elizabeth Ford on May 2, 1971. At the time of the attack Dave Hall was the news director of KTFS in Texarkana and Jim Powell was a reporter for the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News. Powell received a call from Hall about something strange going on down in Fouke and they decided to make the trip there. An ongoing story that in time became a legend. What more could a reporter ask for?
According to Powell, when they arrived the Fords were moving out after having only lived there a week. Packing their things into a waiting U-Haul, they were, excuse the bad pun, hauling ass outta there. From what the Fords reported to the police, Bobby and his brother Don had been doing a little hunting out back of the house when they heard a woman scream. They immediately took off for the house and were completely horrified. While they had been out doing their thing, Elizabeth was lying on the couch and the creature, which she assumed was a bear, reached in through a screen window and was chased away by her husband and brother-in-law. The Ford brothers fired seven shots and thought they hit it although no traces of blood were found. But, three-toed footprints were found around the house, scratch marks on the porch, and damage to a window and some siding were located.
Powell and Hall talked to someone at the hospital who told them that, “This guy is in shock.” I believe they were referring to Bobby Ford. Ford said he saw a 7’ tall creature that was 3’ across the chest. He also said he felt a hairy arm around his neck and he was so scared he ran, busting through a glass and wood front door.
The brothers said they shot it seven times and were pretty sure they had wounded it. All of their ammo had been used, but still - no blood. Powell said he dubbed it the Fouke Monster because of Elizabeth Ford’s description of the monster. When Powell got to the house the morning after the attack, he went behind the house, saw unusual footprints, and small saplings broken off headed into a wooded area. Some people thought it was a joke, others were of the opinion that when a traveling circus had come through the town years before, some of the animals had escaped and that was what was seen. Local officials were overwhelmed by the sheer number of monster hunters, calls, and tips. Miller County Sheriff, Leslie Greer, invoked a “no guns” policy in order to protect people from being accidentally hurt or killed.
A month after the Ford sighting, archaeologist Frank Schambach stated that in his opinion there was a 99% chance that the tracks were man made. He said that the tracks couldn’t be from an ape because all primates (including hominids) have five toes, there was no history of primates in the area, and apes are all diurnal, not nocturnal as the Fouke Monster appeared to be.
In May, 1971, D. C. Woods, Jr., Wilma Woods, and Mrs. R. H. Sedgass, reported something that resembled an ape crossing Hwy. 71, with more reports popping up from others. This included giant footprints showing up in Willie E. Smith’s soybean field located behind a local gas station. What was odd was that they were in a straight line, avoiding plants. According to one local, it was pure chaos. Non-locals were popping out of the woodwork. Little Rock, AR KAAY offered a bounty of $1,090.00 and a local man chipped in $200.00. A local woman who was sitting on her front porch said she saw the monster in a field across from her home. However, three jokers got caught when they claimed they were attacked by the monster when in fact they had likely just gotten into a fight fueled by alcohol and were fined $59.00 apiece for filing a false report.
By 1974, interest had dropped but started up again when tracks were allegedly found by two brothers in Russellville, AR, in March of 1978. Sightings were noted in Center Ridge, AR, and in July of 1978, there was another sighting in Crossett, AR. This time there were missing livestock and dog attacks. In 1991, it was supposed to have been seen jumping from a bridge. There were around 40 sightings in 1997, and in 1998 it was reported to have been sighted while crossing a dry creek bed about 5 miles away from Fouke.
Greer was Sheriff from 1967-1974 and said that he recalled hearing about the monster as far back as 1946. In his words, “"I was campaigning for tax assessor and stopped to talk to a lady sitting on her front porch," he said. "She lived about halfway between Fouke and the Below Bridge. She told me that she saw some kind of animal go down in the field in a low, bushy place. She said it looked kind of like a man, and walked like a man, but she didn't think it was a man." Of course, he never gave it much thought until 1971 when the Ford family was attacked. Most reports were hoaxes but there was serious concern that an innocent person would be harmed by the horde of monster hunters in town. There ended up being a lot of hurt feelings over trespassing on private property.
By 1986, most officials were of the opinion that the tracks were man-made. Greer’s colleague at the time, Chief Deputy H.L. Phillips said he hadn’t taken a call in years about it but he refused to argue with people who say they did see it because they were respectable, responsible people. He did state he didn’t believe in it but there were those who did and still do. Keep in mind, as Skeptoid states, all the evidence is anecdotal with not a thing that is able to be tested. It makes for a great story though!
So, what do you think? There are things we don’t know about or are just discovering. Could the Fouke Monster be the real thing or is it only a folk-tale? I would love to hear your thoughts and thanks for reading!
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouke_Monster
https://web.archive.org/web/20030803215531/http://texarkanagazette.com/articles/2001/06/24/export15709.txt
https://skeptoid.com/

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Patricia Schneider was a 25-year-old waitress that disappeared from an unincorporated part of Riverside County called Pedley. She got off work from the Palamino Station in the early morning hours of Sunday August 1, 1982. Having car problems, she stopped at a Circle K mini market near the cross streets of Limonite and Van Buren. She was seen talking with two men with Sandy hair who were apparently assisting her with her car. She called her boyfriend twice while at the mini mart with the last call being around 3 am. She has never been seen since. However, her car was found about 2 miles away from the mini-market near Van Buren and Dolittle in the city of Riverside. It had been set ablaze. Police found her purse in the car.
Patricia was survived by her mother who lived in Banning California and did not have a phone and her aunt who lived in Laguna Hills California.
Patricia’s disappearance has at times been associated with the Disappearance and murder of Dorothy Jane Scott (1980, Orange California). The primary reasons for this is that the cars of both women were found burning hours after their disappearance. Additionally, a story about Patricia showed up in the Orange County register, due to her aunt and friends living in Laguna Hills.
What I have not previously seen noted is that Patricia was not the only disappearance on Limonite Avenue on that weekend in 1982.
On Friday, July 30, 1982, at around 4 pm, two miles from the mini market Patricia was last seen at ten-year-old April Irene Lamont was kidnapped while riding her bike to the Stater Brothers grocery store on the corner of Limonite and Etiwanda in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Mira Loma. A search would be conducted for April and her bicycle would be found four miles North near Etiwanda and the 60 freeway in an industrial area called the Mira Loma Space Center. The following morning her body would be found dumped behind a Mobil gas station on Valley Blvd and the 60 Freeway in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Rubidoux. The cause of death was believed to be asphyxia due to strangulation.
Media reports of April’s murder quickly disappear with only a blurb appearing the San Bernardino Sun, a few articles appearing in the Press Enterprise, and a couple of articles in The Record, a small newspaper published in the area.
Despite many search efforts, I have never been able to find any stories regarding a resolution to April’s murder case in the media. I have also been unable to locate any court records regarding anyone being charged with the April's. However, April’s murder does not appear on any of the unsolved sites.
At first, I thought this may have been because of the father’s attitude as portrayed by an interesting quote in one of the articles. It was the only quote from a family member which I found. A reporter apparently caught him on his lawn within a day or two of the murder. The reporter quoted the father as saying, “I had three children. Now I have two.”
I can only interpret this as being the words of a broken man. Based on witnesses statements there is no doubt that April was abducted by a stranger, so the father would not have been under suspicion. As the father did not appeal for the perpetrator to be caught or have any other cries for justice we have to assume he simply accepted the fact that nothing would return his daughter to him.
Reading through the articles of the time, it seems the unincorporated areas of Riverside County known as Rubidoux, Indian Hills, Glen Avon, Pedley, and Mira Loma were striving to become a booming city. So there may have been reason for the media not to emphasis the unsolved murder of a 10 year old girl. However, efforts to become a city seemed to be foiled by a scandal called the Stringfellow Acid Pits, which involved the dumping of toxic materials in the Jurupa Mountains which was found to have leaked into the Pyrite Creek. Today, all of those communities are known as the City of Jurupa Valley, which was incorporated in 2010.
So, the question remains, why is April’s murder not a cold case listed like that of Patricia’s?
I believe the reason is because authorities know who killed April and it is highly likely the same person killed Patricia as well.
In 1982, there was a child rapist abducting and sexually assaulting young girls in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. He was known as the Lost Dog Rapist, because he would ask children to help him look for his lost dog and then snatch them. He would take them for a long ride in his car and then sexual assault them in the car or a motel room. Later releasing them by dropping them off at some other location.
Though he had been preying on girls for some time in the area, as things seemed to heat up in Los Angeles and Orange counties, he moved to San Diego County. There he picked up a girl and kept her overnight in a motel. However, he slipped up as the girl was able to lead the police back to the motel, where he had taken her.
Within a couple of month’s Los Angeles Police Investigators would fly to Kansas and working with Investigators there, discovered that the address used to register at the Mission Valley Motel in the San Diego was one that had been frequented by a man who had been arrested for indecent exposure and then jumped bail. Shortly after that arrest in 1977, a series of rapes occurred in the Kansas City area. They involve home brake-ins as well as at least one rape on the streets. Most of the victims were girls around 9 to 12 years old, but one was 17 and another 20 years old. Victim identified the photo of the man who had skipped bail as their attacker. The name he was known as was Roscoe James Short.
Soon, a connection was made to an incident in Albuquerque New Mexico in 1974. There a man identified as James Henry Ginn Jr. who was also known as Patrick James Kerwin was arrested after being pulled over for a traffic infraction. As the officer was speaking with Kerwin, two women approached them and indicated the man had just attempted to abduct one of them. One of the women said that she was leaving her waitressing job when Kerwin grabbed her and put a knife to her thought. He forced her into the passenger side of her car, but she was able to escape when the car would not start. The second woman came to her rescue as she screamed and so the man fled to another car where he screeched out of the parking lot causing the near by officer to pull him over. Investigators there connected Ginn with a number of other attack on girls aged 14 to 16 years old. Eventually, Ginn known there as Kerwin would be charged with seven counts of aggravated assault, five of sodomy, and one count of kidnapping for crimes he was identified to have committed in the area. According to media reports, Kerwin would escape prosecution after unwittingly being released from a psychiatric hospital.
Between his activities in Kansas City and Albuquerque in 1976, Ginn would be arrested in Azusa California under the name Patrick Kerwin as part of a drug bust involving 4,400 pounds of marijuana. The drugs were found when police responded to reports of a burglary. There they found 400 crates of onions each with 11 pounds of marijuana hidden under the onions. The marijuana had a street value of more than $250,000. Ginn was arrested with two other accomplices at the time.
In 1979, Ginn was active in Corpus Chirsti, Texas where a 10 year old girl was raped. In that case, a man and a woman lured the girl to the car telling her they needed her help looking for a lost dog. They then took the girl to a motel in Victoria where she was tied to a bed, blind folded and gagged. The man then raped and sodomized her as the woman took photograph of the act. The girl was then dropped off at a restaurant back in Corpus Christi.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Ginn would be active in Denver Colorado, where he was known as the Baby sitter rapist. Twenty-two attacks on girls ranging from age 4 to 15 would be identified. In these attacks he would force his way into a home where he would assault babysitters and the children they were watching.
In May of 1982, LAPD Chief Darryl Gates would announce they had identified the Lost Dog Rapist as Roscoe James Short. At the time, they listed a number of aliases the man was known to used and stated they did not know what his true name was, but that they were sure who was committing the rapes. They also indicated the individual was a known drug trafficker. Within a couple of weeks, the LAPD would indicate that the man’s true identity was James Henry Ginn Jr.
Attacks had gone quiet in Los Angeles, Orange and Sand Diego Counties after the March 1982 abduction of the girl in the San Diego area. That same month, March, a 9-year-old girl named Jenny Kao was murdered at a Pasadena Mall while selling candy and the Lost Dog Rapist was considered a suspect. Another girl was attacked in Venice, a Beach area of Los Angeles, but some of the details of the attacks were different, so police were skeptical.
After the May announcement of Short being the suspect and the clarification that his real name was James Henry Ginn Jr. things were quiet in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties in the months of June and July. However, in Riverside County April would be murdered on July 30th and Patricia would disappear 36 hours later on August 1st.
On August 18, 1982, Ginn would be arrested by the FBI in a restaurant in Denver Colorado. By October, Ginn would be charged with 37 counts in four states and through a plea bargain he would be sentenced to 83 ½ years to be served in Colorado.
So, recapping what we know about Ginn:
- He is a rapist that has been active since at least 1961.
- He committed a series of rapes in multiple cities.
- He used different methods of operation, including abducting children from the street and forcing women into their own car.
- Has attacked waitresses as they left their jobs.
- He is known to have attached girls and young women.
- He is known to have had accomplices in abductions.
- Possibly involved in child pornography.
- Involved in drug trafficking.
- Skipped bail repeatedly and seemed to have a knack for alluding prosecution.
- He used over 10 aliases.
- On a couple of occasions, he was described as having blonde hair, though his hair was brown with gray in it.
When investigating the Dorothy Scott murder, I uncovered four men who were involved in a kidnapping and rape spree in Orange County at the time of her abduction in 1980. Those four men were involved in sexually assaulting seven young women, mostly teenagers, raping them and releasing them. For their crimes they were sentenced to 400 years in prison. It is curious to me that a man involved in the molestation of so many children, with a knack for escaping justice would get such a sweet deal in comparison. A deal that would have him released after 40 years, allowing him to be free today. I tend to wonder if some additional information came along with Ginn’s confession as he was clearly involved in organized crime of some fashion.
Interestingly, enough a little over a week before Ginn’s plea bargain would be announced, four agencies would raid a property in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Glen Avon where they would find over $100,000 in stolen cars. According to media reports, they uncovered the location when a truck load of soap bound for Burbank (neighbors Van Nuys where three of the Los Angeles attacks occurred), was reported stolen from Colton. When the incident was reported to the Riverside FBI office, an agent there remembered the truck as being one he had seen at a Glen Avon address. It does not say why the Special Agent had been checking out the address in Glen Avon. They used that information to obtain a warrant for the property, where they discover a chop shop of stolen vehicles and other property.
It is my belief that the murder of April and the disappearance of Patricia may likely be the work of Ginn. Although Ginn had not been identified as a murderer, it is very possible that with the heat on him he could have opted to kill April rather than leave a witness in the area he was hiding out. It is also possible he involved accomplices that preferred no witnesses remain. April also could have accidentally been asphyxiated as part of the act. As for Patricia, it is likely her remains are somewhere between Riverside and Denver Colorado.
I would be interested to know your opinions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1342V9B37dN5FIv2jJJH09sPfXi_n1VRM/view?usp=sharing
My video on Dorothy Scott: https://youtu.be/c-9eKdwiuKQ
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ANB1vbISWO_Bmf1vRepUDkKRCLccP_BJ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BGDdxVNGFmVtMFVTG12iahbpkfmqBxZz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BtwZklIS9B_LhkOa8pEFeLDo_LFu05Ol/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gz7FNXmAhG5PsF9WuHsKGaBXD0gXW7Zq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HLVchcb74g-J5LxwoGVLXKIU-q-6iQ-4/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JTRvqux4oRePYnn9ICz-4wH7IW8Z1iRview?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N4dCi60L2xAAcs5oKQ46vlC5PXzpJQXp/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NPbNCHahs6yLmIm8oEgsctE1g79tefkn/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YL6W0U9Y8TI9kiVNL9nDkLgs8p9e_vvw/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVXDquFfinMoTyjkIAn7R5ivC7gKEWqP/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bkRZijUwx-rXRxrKmY2mXyhwF7KRdqOG/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sWwnXZzHLYfurFB5bzFwaytEk6_pi_b4/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w7GoO0cOed0dvKnmR0U4yflkWCYIfd2P/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zhTpfXrXR6ZjbL1dVczjg36UzEbeiBJQ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T2I26lNPXALZPD1rh1exVVnTyIOYcBqL/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qNf2I5He_GcNTB9B51s5aHNWVZCqize/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16CR6hQithovZhSx4xRC573rjcxzt0Jbd/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BwXa6fiDKbBun0d6mSTx8tQuz_uOtm-1/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KPXWF5JEBUCz5QeQ-obn-Pgdpfr4YTAn/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PJzUvNi2wHtMbxHr0PkIJA3-SGh6axmP/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T6luRGe2oBF2gMK-vfCIkBckbxQdpoYz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VvEovVlHv9_w922lCKK0mJgegUaTXGKq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fIpsakjANoyCHELcEG6eNXZ1nRVvPfMt/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqaggO800d1VC8AzkqoqiOf7c_nNwEsf/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i0HxEvpJM4_NcK2n7cHHEggynrRqEGyN/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rANJEJ-kV1UIB4shb7AtTjfKYi3us-hu/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u-HbuFdzCGm-IbHub9V5xI2y5LN2Twu3/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vsDAHt7z9gamTeu5Yh4I8BqQty3HzUVL/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xX4mfaQ1mshnKuuT376c5C-iZVb6eFr7/view?usp=sharing

Shorties always talkin about “I don’t pay for anything I get smoked down for free, I get in the club for free, I get drinks for free” the truth is nothing in life is free. Don’t believe the lies. She got her dealer coming down to the crib at 2:36 am blasting YFN Lucci in his black on black 2020 Hellcat. He pulls up with the intentions of getting da meat slobbed on by his onlytoes throat 🐐 queen. He pulls up with that pack of Cali exotic which is what he told her but in reality it’s just exotic reggies that he sells to mfs in the suburbs for $50 a G. They get to her room to smoke which is in the closet cuz she got 6 other roommates in her bando executive 1 bedroom pent house in the trenches of dade county. They smoke and she says “damn this really fire you always come thruu” he says “you already know i got that runtz pack” but he mixed in a lil oregano cuz he knew she couldn’t tell the difference. After they get done smoking a .5 gram roach he whips out his meat and gets that cotton mouth neck by shorty. She keeps hitting her head on the closet ceiling cuz it’s a crawling space. She hits her head so hard that a nest of Australian Hissing tarantulas fall and bite her dealer. He’s screaming and pulls out his pistol and starts shooting at the hissing tarantulas. He wins and busts a cap in every single one. He runs to his car and his body is in pain. He passes out. It’s a scene from spider man. The mf body is morphing he getting spider senses... his TrapLord blood fuses with spider blood and turns into TrapLord Spidy. He now has the ability to shoot reggies out of his wrist and hit licks on packs from 600 feet away from him with his webs. His hellcat got upgraded with spider webb graphics and boosted additional 1,100 horse power to escape cops and his opps. He now will take on the responsibility to become the king pin trap lord of dade county. TrapLord Spidy story continues.... until next time

Daily Freeman Journal, Page6, 1951-09-08
looking for the housken reunion part,i have a PDF of it from the countys newspaper archives but its really low quality which sucks cause it has a 2nd great grandparent that i havent seen b4 idk if newspapers would have it or not

Patricia Schneider was a 25-year-old waitress that disappeared from an unincorporated part of Riverside County called Pedley. She got off work from the Palamino Station in the early morning hours of Sunday August 1, 1982. Having car problems, she stopped at a Circle K mini market near the cross streets of Limonite and Van Buren. She was seen talking with two men with Sandy hair who were apparently assisting her with her car. She called her boyfriend twice while at the mini mart with the last call being around 3 am. She has never been seen since. However, her car was found about 2 miles away from the mini-market near Van Buren and Dolittle in the city of Riverside. It had been set ablaze. Police found her purse in the car.
Patricia was survived by her mother who lived in Banning California and did not have a phone and her aunt who lived in Laguna Hills California.
Patricia’s disappearance has at times been associated with the Disappearance and murder of Dorothy Jane Scott (1980, Orange California). The primary reasons for this is that the cars of both women were found burning hours after their disappearance. Additionally, a story about Patricia showed up in the Orange County register, due to her aunt and friends living in Laguna Hills.
What I have not previously seen noted is that Patricia was not the only disappearance on Limonite Avenue on that weekend in 1982.
On Friday, July 30, 1982, at around 4 pm, two miles from the mini market Patricia was last seen at ten-year-old April Irene Lamont was kidnapped while riding her bike to the Stater Brothers grocery store on the corner of Limonite and Etiwanda in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Mira Loma. A search would be conducted for April and her bicycle would be found four miles North near Etiwanda and the 60 freeway in an industrial area called the Mira Loma Space Center. The following morning her body would be found dumped behind a Mobil gas station on Valley Blvd and the 60 Freeway in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Rubidoux. The cause of death was believed to be asphyxia due to strangulation.
Media reports of April’s murder quickly disappear with only a blurb appearing the San Bernardino Sun, a few articles appearing in the Press Enterprise, and a couple of articles in The Record, a small newspaper published in the area.
Despite many search efforts, I have never been able to find any stories regarding a resolution to April’s murder case in the media. I have also been unable to locate any court records regarding anyone being charged with the April's. However, April’s murder does not appear on any of the unsolved sites.
At first, I thought this may have been because of the father’s attitude as portrayed by an interesting quote in one of the articles. It was the only quote from a family member which I found. A reporter apparently caught him on his lawn within a day or two of the murder. The reporter quoted the father as saying, “I had three children. Now I have two.”
I can only interpret this as being the words of a broken man. Based on witnesses statements there is no doubt that April was abducted by a stranger, so the father would not have been under suspicion. As the father did not appeal for the perpetrator to be caught or have any other cries for justice we have to assume he simply accepted the fact that nothing would return his daughter to him.
Reading through the articles of the time, it seems the unincorporated areas of Riverside County known as Rubidoux, Indian Hills, Glen Avon, Pedley, and Mira Loma were striving to become a booming city. So there may have been reason for the media not to emphasis the unsolved murder of a 10 year old girl. However, efforts to become a city seemed to be foiled by a scandal called the Stringfellow Acid Pits, which involved the dumping of toxic materials in the Jurupa Mountains which was found to have leaked into the Pyrite Creek. Today, all of those communities are known as the City of Jurupa Valley, which was incorporated in 2010.
So, the question remains, why is April’s murder not a cold case listed like that of Patricia’s?
I believe the reason is because authorities know who killed April and it is highly likely the same person killed Patricia as well.
In 1982, there was a child rapist abducting and sexually assaulting young girls in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. He was known as the Lost Dog Rapist, because he would ask children to help him look for his lost dog and then snatch them. He would take them for a long ride in his car and then sexual assault them in the car or a motel room. Later releasing them by dropping them off at some other location.
Though he had been preying on girls for some time in the area, as things seemed to heat up in Los Angeles and Orange counties, he moved to San Diego County. There he picked up a girl and kept her overnight in a motel. However, he slipped up as the girl was able to lead the police back to the motel, where he had taken her.
Within a couple of month’s Los Angeles Police Investigators would fly to Kansas and working with Investigators there, discovered that the address used to register at the Mission Valley Motel in the San Diego was one that had been frequented by a man who had been arrested for indecent exposure and then jumped bail. Shortly after that arrest in 1977, a series of rapes occurred in the Kansas City area. They involve home brake-ins as well as at least one rape on the streets. Most of the victims were girls around 9 to 12 years old, but one was 17 and another 20 years old. Victim identified the photo of the man who had skipped bail as their attacker. The name he was known as was Roscoe James Short.
Soon, a connection was made to an incident in Albuquerque New Mexico in 1974. There a man identified as James Henry Ginn Jr. who was also known as Patrick James Kerwin was arrested after being pulled over for a traffic infraction. As the officer was speaking with Kerwin, two women approached them and indicated the man had just attempted to abduct one of them. One of the women said that she was leaving her waitressing job when Kerwin grabbed her and put a knife to her thought. He forced her into the passenger side of her car, but she was able to escape when the car would not start. The second woman came to her rescue as she screamed and so the man fled to another car where he screeched out of the parking lot causing the near by officer to pull him over. Investigators there connected Ginn with a number of other attack on girls aged 14 to 16 years old. Eventually, Ginn known there as Kerwin would be charged with seven counts of aggravated assault, five of sodomy, and one count of kidnapping for crimes he was identified to have committed in the area. According to media reports, Kerwin would escape prosecution after unwittingly being released from a psychiatric hospital.
Between his activities in Kansas City and Albuquerque in 1976, Ginn would be arrested in Azusa California under the name Patrick Kerwin as part of a drug bust involving 4,400 pounds of marijuana. The drugs were found when police responded to reports of a burglary. There they found 400 crates of onions each with 11 pounds of marijuana hidden under the onions. The marijuana had a street value of more than $250,000. Ginn was arrested with two other accomplices at the time.
In 1979, Ginn was active in Corpus Chirsti, Texas where a 10 year old girl was raped. In that case, a man and a woman lured the girl to the car telling her they needed her help looking for a lost dog. They then took the girl to a motel in Victoria where she was tied to a bed, blind folded and gagged. The man then raped and sodomized her as the woman took photograph of the act. The girl was then dropped off at a restaurant back in Corpus Christi.
In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Ginn would be active in Denver Colorado, where he was known as the Baby sitter rapist. Twenty-two attacks on girls ranging from age 4 to 15 would be identified. In these attacks he would force his way into a home where he would assault babysitters and the children they were watching.
In May of 1982, LAPD Chief Darryl Gates would announce they had identified the Lost Dog Rapist as Roscoe James Short. At the time, they listed a number of aliases the man was known to used and stated they did not know what his true name was, but that they were sure who was committing the rapes. They also indicated the individual was a known drug trafficker. Within a couple of weeks, the LAPD would indicate that the man’s true identity was James Henry Ginn Jr.
Attacks had gone quiet in Los Angeles, Orange and Sand Diego Counties after the March 1982 abduction of the girl in the San Diego area. That same month, March, a 9-year-old girl named Jenny Kao was murdered at a Pasadena Mall while selling candy and the Lost Dog Rapist was considered a suspect. Another girl was attacked in Venice, a Beach area of Los Angeles, but some of the details of the attacks were different, so police were skeptical.
After the May announcement of Short being the suspect and the clarification that his real name was James Henry Ginn Jr. things were quiet in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties in the months of June and July. However, in Riverside County April would be murdered on July 30th and Patricia would disappear 36 hours later on August 1st.
On August 18, 1982, Ginn would be arrested by the FBI in a restaurant in Denver Colorado. By October, Ginn would be charged with 37 counts in four states and through a plea bargain he would be sentenced to 83 ½ years to be served in Colorado.
So, recapping what we know about Ginn:
- He is a rapist that has been active since at least 1961.
- He committed a series of rapes in multiple cities.
- He used different methods of operation, including abducting children from the street and forcing women into their own car.
- Has attacked waitresses as they left their jobs.
- He is known to have attached girls and young women.
- He is known to have had accomplices in abductions.
- Possibly involved in child pornography.
- Involved in drug trafficking.
- Skipped bail repeatedly and seemed to have a knack for alluding prosecution.
- He used over 10 aliases.
- On a couple of occasions, he was described as having blonde hair, though his hair was brown with gray in it.
When investigating the Dorothy Scott murder, I uncovered four men who were involved in a kidnapping and rape spree in Orange County at the time of her abduction in 1980. Those four men were involved in sexually assaulting seven young women, mostly teenagers, raping them and releasing them. For their crimes they were sentenced to 400 years in prison. It is curious to me that a man involved in the molestation of so many children, with a knack for escaping justice would get such a sweet deal in comparison. A deal that would have him released after 40 years, allowing him to be free today. I tend to wonder if some additional information came along with Ginn’s confession as he was clearly involved in organized crime of some fashion.
Interestingly, enough a little over a week before Ginn’s plea bargain would be announced, four agencies would raid a property in the unincorporated part of Riverside County called Glen Avon where they would find over $100,000 in stolen cars. According to media reports, they uncovered the location when a truck load of soap bound for Burbank (neighbors Van Nuys where three of the Los Angeles attacks occurred), was reported stolen from Colton. When the incident was reported to the Riverside FBI office, an agent there remembered the truck as being one he had seen at a Glen Avon address. It does not say why the Special Agent had been checking out the address in Glen Avon. They used that information to obtain a warrant for the property, where they discover a chop shop of stolen vehicles and other property.
It is my belief that the murder of April and the disappearance of Patricia may likely be the work of Ginn. Although Ginn had not been identified as a murderer, it is very possible that with the heat on him he could have opted to kill April rather than leave a witness in the area he was hiding out. It is also possible he involved accomplices that preferred no witnesses remain. April also could have accidentally been asphyxiated as part of the act. As for Patricia, it is likely her remains are somewhere between Riverside and Denver Colorado.
I would be interested to know your opinions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1342V9B37dN5FIv2jJJH09sPfXi_n1VRM/view?usp=sharing
My video on Dorothy Scott: https://youtu.be/c-9eKdwiuKQ
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ANB1vbISWO_Bmf1vRepUDkKRCLccP_BJ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BGDdxVNGFmVtMFVTG12iahbpkfmqBxZz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BtwZklIS9B_LhkOa8pEFeLDo_LFu05Ol/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gz7FNXmAhG5PsF9WuHsKGaBXD0gXW7Zq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HLVchcb74g-J5LxwoGVLXKIU-q-6iQ-4/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JTRvqux4oRePYnn9ICz-4wH7IW8Z1iRview?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N4dCi60L2xAAcs5oKQ46vlC5PXzpJQXp/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NPbNCHahs6yLmIm8oEgsctE1g79tefkn/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YL6W0U9Y8TI9kiVNL9nDkLgs8p9e_vvw/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bVXDquFfinMoTyjkIAn7R5ivC7gKEWqP/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bkRZijUwx-rXRxrKmY2mXyhwF7KRdqOG/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sWwnXZzHLYfurFB5bzFwaytEk6_pi_b4/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w7GoO0cOed0dvKnmR0U4yflkWCYIfd2P/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zhTpfXrXR6ZjbL1dVczjg36UzEbeiBJQ/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T2I26lNPXALZPD1rh1exVVnTyIOYcBqL/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14qNf2I5He_GcNTB9B51s5aHNWVZCqize/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16CR6hQithovZhSx4xRC573rjcxzt0Jbd/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BwXa6fiDKbBun0d6mSTx8tQuz_uOtm-1/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KPXWF5JEBUCz5QeQ-obn-Pgdpfr4YTAn/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PJzUvNi2wHtMbxHr0PkIJA3-SGh6axmP/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T6luRGe2oBF2gMK-vfCIkBckbxQdpoYz/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VvEovVlHv9_w922lCKK0mJgegUaTXGKq/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fIpsakjANoyCHELcEG6eNXZ1nRVvPfMt/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqaggO800d1VC8AzkqoqiOf7c_nNwEsf/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i0HxEvpJM4_NcK2n7cHHEggynrRqEGyN/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rANJEJ-kV1UIB4shb7AtTjfKYi3us-hu/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u-HbuFdzCGm-IbHub9V5xI2y5LN2Twu3/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vsDAHt7z9gamTeu5Yh4I8BqQty3HzUVL/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xX4mfaQ1mshnKuuT376c5C-iZVb6eFr7/view?usp=sharing