The Doodler is an unknown and unidentified serial killer who operated in San Francisco in the 1970s. While still unidentified, about six murders have been associated with The Doodler because of the resemblance in how they were engineered and other information surrounding the murder victims. Police fear that there may be more murders related to The Doodler besides the five gay men who were discovered in the 1970s (Dowd, 2019). If The Doodler is still unidentified, then he might still be out there, dangerous and threatening to society. A criminal profile can be essential in providing enough information about The Doodler that may aid his apprehension and prosecution.
The Doodler operated in San Francisco, California. Most of his victims had their bodies discovered within short ranges in San Francisco. For instance, Jae’s body was discovered on June 25, 1974, along Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (Wendy Heard, n.d.). This discovery was made only a mile from the location of the discovery of the murder of Gerald Cavanaugh, another victim of The Doodler. Cavanaugh’s body was discovered in January in Ocean Beach, another area of San Francisco (Wendy Heard, n.d.). Other murders linked to The Doodler, such as that of Klaus Christmann, were also discovered in Lincoln Way, a street near Golden Gate and Ocean Park, a short distance from the location of the first murder linked to the Doodler. All these murders linked to The Doodler were discovered near Ocean Beach, San Francisco, pointing to the murders operating within this area. San Francisco might have had unique features or characteristics that convinced this serial killer to operate from it.
San Francisco offered the social and physical environment features that allowed The Doodler to manage his murders. Researchers say, “Crime Pattern theory combines both Rational Choice theory and Routine Activities theory asserting that rational offenders, during their routine activities, select available targets based on the influence of the offender’s social and physical environments” (Comerford, 2021, p. 3). The Doodler needed an environment that would be suitable for the crimes he was going to commit. For example, the location had to be one that would offer them their preferred victims, and San Francisco offered The Doodler such a thing. It was an environment where he would not have challenges identifying or interacting with their victims. This environment was existent in San Francisco in the form of gay bars, where The Doodler is said to have met most of his victims. San Francisco was a place with many gay bars, including Finocchio, which can also mean the slur for a gay man (Wendy Heard, n.d.). One of The Doodler’s victims, Jae, had received a summer performance spot at this club, where he performed as a female impersonator. Therefore, San Francisco, as the geographical location where The Doodler was based, offered him the necessary environment and tools to commit the murders.
The Doodler operated only within San Francisco, making him a geographically stable serial killer. The geographical location of crimes can be considered a hunting style employed by these individuals to reach their victims. Bartol and Bartol (2019) mention that offenders can be geographically stable by choosing one geographical area where they would be committing their crimes. The research reveals that the criminal’s hunting style will determine their location. The Doodler possibly settled for San Francisco because it suited his hunting style. For example, by hunting in gay bars, San Francisco remained the best place for hunting because it had many gay bars that could offer him as many victims as he needed. Therefore, The Doodler’s operations are only concentrated within San Francisco because this area offered him an environment suitable for his hunting style.
The Doodler most targeted gay White men. Madani (2022) describes The Doodler as a serial killer who targeted the gay members of the city. He would frequent some of the gay bars in San Francisco to meet up with his victims. San Francisco had a large population of gay individuals, and it made it easy for the serial killer to get his victims here. This place offered sanctuary to gay people from different parts of the country, and its diverse nightlife provided enough opportunities for gay individuals to engage in social and sexual activities. Every one of The Doodler’s victims had a gay background, a factor that allowed the authorities to tie all the murders to the perpetrator. For instance, Cavanaugh, one of The Doodler’s victims, was 49 years old and unmarried, pointing to the possibility of being gay (Wendy Heard, n.d.). The location of his boy during discovery also communicated something about the possibility of being a gay individual. It is possible that on the night of his murder, Cavanaugh was attending a nightclub in the gay area known as the Castro (Wendy Heard, n.d.). It is from this nightclub that The Doodler might have lured him and killed him. The nightclub is near the location where his body was discovered.
The sexual orientation of the other victims associated with The Doodler confirms that his victims were gay individuals. For example, Jae Stevens, another victim, was discovered in a lonely place near the place of the first murder. In analyzing the relationship between this play and the killer’s victimology, the investigators argued that since the victim’s car was also near the crime scenes, a picturesque and isolated place for one to visit so late on a weeknight, it was probable that the location was chosen to enjoy a private sexual encounter (Wendy Heard, n.d.). A private sexual encounter would only be necessary if the individuals meeting were gay because gays had started having a difficult time with the police during this period in San Francisco. It is also possible that Stevens met this private partner, a Cabaret Club because this was a common practice among clubbers during this time. Similarly, the state in which the third victim, Klaus Christmann, was found solidifies the idea that The Doodler’s victims were gay people. At discovery, the victim’s pants were unzipped, indicating the possibility of engaging in sexual acts before being killed (Wendy Heard, n.d.). Therefore, it seems The Doodler targeted gay people whom he had sexual activities with before killing them.
The Doodler modus operandi depended on stalking his victims in bars. He would sit in bars and draw caricatures and cartoons on napkins (Watt, 2018). Sitting in bars was benefitting The Doodler because it offered him a chance to interact with his target victims. These were bars that gay victims frequented in San Francisco. Even when searches were counting for this serial killer, the bar was the most possible location to get him. While searching for him, reports indicated that he was arrested “outside a Tenderloin bar last Friday night after a bar patron called to report that a man fitting the composite drawing furnished by the SFPD had entered the bar and was offering to draw sketches of patrons” (Watt, 2018). The arrested individual had a butcher knife and a book of sketches, which were taken from him by the police. He depended on bars to get the gay individuals, whom he would sketch on napkins or books before tracking and killing them. Therefore, The Doodle depended on bars to identify his victims, after which he would sketch them before finally killing them.
Similarly, The Doodler sketched his victims before killing them. Reports argued that the moniker, The Doodler, originated from the killer’s nature of drawing caricatures of the victims in nightclubs, as recounted by surviving victims (Whitcomb, 2019). Sketching a quick portrait of the victims was one way The Doodler used to reach his victims. He would convince them that he was a cartoonist. Researchers argue that by drawing a doodle of the victims and showing it to them, the killer was capable of captivating his victims before suggesting they move somewhere to have sex (Fagan, 2021). Drawing the sketches allowed The Doodler to create a rapport with the victims, most of whom he did not know before luring them to the locations of the murder.
The Doodler often lured his victims to kill them in isolated places. He could not kill them in the clubs where they met because this would attract the attention of others, and he would be apprehended and not kill as many as he may have thought of. For instance, when Jae Stevens’s car was found near his dead body, the investigators concluded that he could have driven himself to the location on the instructions of the killer (Wendy Heard). The isolation of the place was another clue that convinced the investigators that the killer lured his victims to the crime scene. He would lure them to isolated places because these areas were deemed the most appropriate for sexual activities, the primary reason why the killer reached them. All of The Doodler’s victims were discovered in isolated locations and not in the clubs and bars where they supposedly met. Similarly, the bodies were discovered in similar locations that were all isolated. According to Fagan (2021), discovering the bodies in similar locations and showing signs of similar killings allowed the investigations to connect them to The Doodler. Therefore, luring the victims to an isolated place for sexual purposes before killing them was another modus operandi that The Doodler applied in the course of his killings.
Sketching the victims was a signature that The Doodler used in his killings. According to Bartol and Bartol (2013), the signature refers to repetitive evidence the killer leaves at a crime scene. These items can be patterns or drawings that may communicate the individual’s ritualistic behaviors. While the drawings were not left at the crime scene, they can communicate the ritualistic behaviors that The Doodler had. It can be used as a trademark or anything that identifies The Doodler with the crime. If a sketch is made of a murder victim, then it possibly is The Doodler who killed the victim because no other killer is known for using caricatures and sketches on napkins.
Another signature related to The Doodler is the front and backstabbing of the victims. According to Wendy Heard (n.d.), all three of the murder victims related to The Doodler were stabbed front and back. The signatures refer to marks that the killers add to the victim’s body that make the killing personal to the killer. The marks or things done to every victim allow investigators to link the victims with the murders, most in ways that are not common to real life. For instance, it is uncommon for victims to be stabbed in both the front and the back. Tabbing individuals on both sides reveals a killer who had enough time to kill the individuals. It can also reveal a killer who has a clear plan of how they will deal with the victims. Possibly, The Doodler, like most serial killers, was leaving a mark by stabbing on both sides to link the murders.
Sexual intentions motivated The Doodler to commit the crimes. According to DeHart and Mahoney (1994), most serial murders are motivated by sexual urges, which often have intrinsic locus and involve gratification through murder. Specifically, The Doodler must have murdered his victims because of his sexual needs that he wanted to gratify. The sexual orientation of his victims can confirm this. He only murdered gay individuals, whom it is thought that he engaged in sexual activities with before murdering them. Dowd (2019) posits that there is a possibility that The Doodler had sexual encounters with the murder victims before killing them. It means that he killed the individuals after gratifying his sexual desires. At some point, he may be seen as killing the individuals to cover up his sexual relationships with them. However, this is not seemingly likely because he lured the individuals into having sex, meaning that it was consensual and would require no need to kill the individuals since they would not report having consensual sex.
Similarly, sexual urges motivated The Doodler to kill his victims. After engaging the individuals in sexual encounters, killing them would seem to be the best solution to ease the act he did. “He’s probably ashamed of what he’s doing. Homosexuality has never been accepted in the black community. … The guilt he is experiencing causes him to want to erase the acts he’s committed,” reported Inspector Rotea Gilford to The Chronicle (Watt, 2018). He must have had issues with his sexuality. He murdered the victims trying to reframe the societal expectations of a man, especially an African American man. While he acted at first because of his sexual desires, the need to conform to societal needs would make it appropriate for him to kill his victims.
Sexuality did not only rive The Doodler to kill but also thwarted the searchers for this serial killer. The Doodler had some surviving victims, but few braved coming to the limelight to shed some light on the identity of this killer to enable conclusive investigations and apprehension. Watt (2018) notes that when a suspect was arrested, there were three living witnesses, all of whom feared coming out in public, possibly because of the fear of being exposed as homosexuals. The witnesses feared being exposed as homosexuals because of the repercussions they would have at this time. For instance, reports indicated that homosexuality was illegal in California until January 1976, and those who were known as homosexuals could risk discrimination in jobs and housing (Watt, 2018). These are the types of discrimination that the witnesses did not want to experience since the murders took place at a time when homosexuality was still outlawed in the region.
The Doodler must also have been motivated by psychopathy to kill the victims. Most serial killers have psychopathic traits that make them have no value for human life. Psychopathy also leads to the cruelty with which serial killers employ in killing their victims. García-Baamonde et al. (2022) reveal that psychopathic traits, such as the desire for thrills, a lack of remorse, impulsiveness, the need for control, and abusive practices, are all existing among serial killers. The Doodler can be said to embody some of these psychopathic characteristics. For instance, he can be argued to have had no remorse and was very cruel while dealing with his victims. Wendy Heard (n.d.) documents that The Doodler stabbed his victims both in front and at the back. It needs so much cruelty and lack of remorse to stab individuals in such a manner. Similarly, it can be assumed that he stabbed them in these ways because of the desire for thrills. Seeing his victims writhe in pain by stabbing them on the front and back might have accorded him the thrills he so wished for. Therefore, The Doodler might have psychopathic issues that drove him to kill his victims in such cruel manners.
The Doodler might have had a low self-esteem that led to the cruel murder of his victims. The feelings of having low self-esteem are experienced mainly by individuals when they are almost committing crimes. According to James and Proulx (2016), criminals, mostly sexual ones, become dramatic, have antisocial lifestyles, and unfettered sexuality. This makes them very angry, causing a modus operandi that determines how they commit the crimes. Individuals with low self-esteem may be driven by the need to get revenge on people who they believe are responsible for their unhappiness. The gay individuals can be viewed by The Doodler as the ones responsible for their unhappiness issues and resort to killing them as a form of vengeance.
Another possible motivation for The Doodler’s killings is the economic needs. While not so much proclaimed in his killings, The Doodler picked valuables from his victims. In the case of Jae Stevens, The Doodler took his identification and jewelry, making him classified as a “John Doe” until further investigations revealed his real identity. Another victim, Klaus, also had his identification removed and was also labeled a “Jon Doe” during the initial investigations. While it can be assumed that The Doodler took the identification to hide the identity of his victims, it might not be known whether he robbed them of their valuables, too. There is evidence that he once took away jewelry from the victims. Therefore, The Doodler might have had financial issues that urged him to kill his sexual partners.
Criminal profiling would help investigators identify the behaviors of suspects and apprehend the one they are most convinced of as being The Doodler. Investigators can use profiling strategies such as induction to determine the characteristics of the killers. Induction involves starting from general observations to create assumptions, which are then compared to identify the similarities (Petherick & Brooks, 2020). It can involve learning about the suspects’ behaviors, which are compared with the behaviors of the hypothetical suspects derived from the crime scenes. The behavior patterns are compared among cases and with suspects to determine the most probable perpetrators of the crimes. Other strategies, such as abduction and deduction, can also be applied to learn about the offenders’ behaviors and determine who committed the crimes. Furthermore, criminal profiling allows the investigators to study the personality traits and triggers of violence that may have led to criminal activities. If the traits and triggers are specific to an individual, it becomes easier to determine who the criminal is, in the case of unidentified individuals like The Doodler.
In sum, investigators can depend on the criminal profile of The Doodler to help them apprehend and prosecute him. The Doodler operated only within San Francisco because this area offered him his preferred type of victims. He mostly killed homosexual men whom he could easily reach in San Francisco. He stalked his victims in gay nightclubs, sketched them, and lured them to isolated places before killing them. As a killer, the Doodler’s signature could include the sketches he made of his victims and the stabs that were found on the front and back of the individuals. The Doodler was motivated by his sexual desires, psychopathy, low self-esteem, and economic needs. The sexual orientation also hindered the success of investigations to identify The Doodler because the living witnesses feared being labeled as homosexuals. Through criminal profiling, the investigators can identify the character traits, behaviors, and motives for committing the crimes and match them with the right suspects. Therefore, as The Doodler remains unidentified, it is essential to use criminal profiling to identify and thwart similar crimes properly.
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