# Herbert Mullin Killing Spree

- Link: https://thedarksideofhumanity.com/herbert-mullin-killing-spree/
- Published: 2025-08-19T04:21:59-04:00
- Author: Mandi Martyr

Herbert William Mullin (April 18, 1947 to August 18, 2022) killed 13 people in Santa Cruz County and nearby Los Gatos, California, between October 13, 1972 and February 13, 1973. He said the killings were sacrifices that would prevent a great earthquake. A Santa Cruz County jury rejected his insanity defense in August 1973 and convicted him of two counts of first degree murder and eight counts of second degree murder. He later pleaded guilty in Santa Clara County to the second degree murder of a priest. He was denied parole repeatedly, most recently on March 18, 2021, and died of natural causes in state custody at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton on August 18, 2022, at age 75. Content notice: This dossier covers the killings of 13 people, including two children, and describes severe mental illness. It does not use images of the killer. Case Status Locator map of Santa Cruz County, California, where 12 of the 13 killings took place. Credit: David Benbennick / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). The case is closed. On August 19, 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced that Mullin “passed away of natural causes on Aug. 18, 2022, at 7:35 p.m.” He had been held at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, and the San Joaquin County Office of the Medical Examiner was to determine the cause of death. No later finding on the cause was located for this dossier. At his death Mullin had been in state prison for almost 49 years. The Board of Parole Hearings had denied him parole at his last hearing in March 2021 and set his next possible hearing for 2028. He was never released. He was never charged with two of the 13 killings he admitted. Legal Status at Death CDCR’s August 2022 release gives the formal record: Admitted to prison: from Santa Cruz County, September 18, 1973. Santa Cruz County sentences: “two concurrent life-with-the-possibility-of-parole sentences for two counts of first-degree murder and eight concurrent five-years-to-life sentences for eight counts of second-degree murder.” Santa Clara County sentence: on December 21, 1973, “a consecutive five-years-to-life term for second-degree murder,” for the killing of Father Henri Tomei. Total convictions: 11 murders. He admitted 13. The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office said in 2021 that he “committed another two murders for which he was never charged.” Last parole decision: denied March 18, 2021, with a seven year denial. Next eligibility 2028. Died: August 18, 2022, natural causes, California Health Care Facility, Stockton. A note on counts: the opening of Wikipedia’s article says he was convicted of “two murders in the first-degree and nine in the second-degree,” while the same article’s trial section, CDCR and the District Attorney all give two first degree and eight second degree counts in Santa Cruz County, plus one more second degree count in Santa Clara County. The figure of nine second degree convictions is correct only when the Tomei case is included. Early Life Downtown Felton, California, 2006, the Santa Cruz Mountains town where Mullin lived with his parents in 1972. Public domain. Credit: John Pilge / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Mullin was born on April 18, 1947, in Salinas, California. Wikipedia describes his father as stern but not abusive. Shortly before Mullin turned five, the family moved to San Francisco. They later lived in Felton, one of the small towns in the Santa Cruz Mountains a short drive from the city of Santa Cruz. At San Lorenzo Valley High School in Felton, Mullin had many friends, and his classmates voted him “Most Likely to Succeed.” In 1965, shortly after he graduated, his friend Dean Richardson was killed in a car accident. Wikipedia reports that Mullin built “shrines” to Richardson in his room and became obsessed with reincarnation. He went on to Cabrillo College in Aptos, in southern Santa Cruz County, where he earned an associate degree in civil highway technology in 1967. The birth date mattered to him later. April 18 is the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and Wikipedia says Mullin believed this was very significant. Mental Illness and Hospitalizations In 1969 Mullin was admitted to Mendocino State Hospital. Over the next few years he entered five mental hospitals, and each time he was discharged when he was judged to pose no risk of harm to himself or others. By his mid twenties he had a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, which Wikipedia says was accelerated by LSD use. After his arrest, Dr. David Marlowe of the University of California, Santa Cruz diagnosed him with “schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type.” The discharges have been central to later discussion of the case. Wikipedia’s bibliography for the case lists psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey’s 2008 book The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens. It also lists Donald T. Lunde’s Murder and Madness (1979) and Lunde and Jefferson Morgan’s The Die Song (1980). This dossier did not read those books and does not quote them. By 1972 Mullin was 25 and living with his parents again in Felton. The Earthquake Belief According to Wikipedia’s account of his statements, Mullin believed that American deaths in the Vietnam War had served as a blood sacrifice that held back earthquakes. With American involvement in the war winding down in late 1972, he decided that he would need to kill people himself to keep a disastrous earthquake away. He later said his father had told him telepathically to take lives. His explanation changed over time. At his 2011 and 2021 parole hearings, prosecutors said he admitted the 13 killings but blamed his parents and his upbringing. In 2021 the District Attorney’s Office said: “Although he admitted that he had killed the 13 people he insisted that his parents forced him to do it by their inappropriate upbringing and felt his parents and sister should be held responsible.” The Killings, October 1972 to February 1973 St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church, Los Gatos, 2013. Father Henri Tomei was killed at St. Mary's in Los Gatos on November 2, 1972. Building view only. Credit: David Leigh Ellis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Lawrence White, October 13, 1972 Mullin pulled his 1958 Chevrolet station wagon over on a mountain road, pretending to have car trouble, and opened the hood. Lawrence “Whitey” White, 55, a transient who had offered to fix the car in exchange for a ride, looked at the engine. Mullin beat him with a baseball bat and dragged his body into the woods, where it was found the next day. Mullin later claimed that White looked like Jonah from the Bible and had sent him a telepathic message asking to be killed “so that others will be saved.” Mary Margaret Guilfoyle, October 24, 1972 Mary Margaret Guilfoyle was a Cabrillo College student who was running late for an appointment. Mullin offered her a ride and stabbed her in the chest while he was driving. He then mutilated her body. Her remains were not found until February 1973, several months later. Father Henri Tomei, November 2, 1972 Mullin went to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Los Gatos, in Santa Clara County, saying later that he had begun to doubt the commands he believed came from his father and wanted to go to confession. He beat, kicked and stabbed Father Henri Tomei to death in the confessional and fled. In custody, he claimed the priest had volunteered to be the next sacrifice. Because Los Gatos is in Santa Clara County, that county’s prosecutors handled this case separately. The Marine Corps application, January 1973 Around January 1973, Mullin applied to join the United States Marine Corps. Wikipedia reports he hoped to carry out what he saw as his mission legally, but he was turned away when he refused to sign his criminal record. By the start of 1973 he had stopped taking drugs and was blaming his problems on his past drug use. Jim and Joan Gianera, Kathy Francis and her sons, January 25, 1973 Mullin went looking for Jim Gianera, a high school friend whom he blamed for introducing him to marijuana. He first stopped at the home of Kathleen “Kathy” Francis, a friend of the Gianeras, who directed him to their cabin farther down the same road. At the cabin he shot Jim Gianera, 25, and then shot Joan Gianera, 21, who was in the bathroom. He then returned to the Francis home and shot Kathy Francis, 29, and her two sons, Daemon Francis, 4, and David Hughes, 9. He stabbed each victim after death. Police believed the deaths at both homes were drug related and did not connect them to the earlier killings. Four campers, February 10, 1973 Hiking in the state park, Mullin came on four young men camping illegally: Robert Spector, 18, Brian Scott Card, 19, David Oliker, 18, and Mark Dreibelbis, 15. He claimed to be a park ranger and told them to leave because they were “polluting” the forest. They sent him away. Wikipedia reports that he came back and shot all four with a .22 caliber pistol, then took their .22 rifle and $20. The Santa Cruz Sentinel identifies the area as Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Their bodies were not found until the following week. Fred Perez and the arrest, February 13, 1973 Driving firewood in his station wagon, Mullin saw Fred Abbie Perez, a retired prizefighter and fishmonger, working in his garden in Santa Cruz. Wikipedia gives his age as 72; the District Attorney’s Office in 2021 described the oldest victim as 73. Mullin made a U turn, rested the rifle across the hood and shot Perez once in the heart. A neighbour saw the shooting and took down his licence plate. Minutes after the description went out over police radio, a patrolman pulled him over. Wikipedia describes Mullin as “docile.” The .22 pistol used in the cabin killings was on the seat beside him, and he did not reach for it. Why Police Missed the Pattern Redwoods in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, 2023. The Santa Cruz Sentinel places part of the killings in the park. Context image only. Credit: Librarybell / Wikimedia Commons (CC0). Wikipedia gives three reasons that investigators did not link the killings while they were happening. The killings used different weapons and methods. The victims varied in age, race and sex. And Edmund Kemper was killing in roughly the same area at the same time. Kemper, who would kill the last of his eight victims a few weeks after Mullin’s arrest, was arrested within weeks of Mullin. Between them, the two accounted for 21 deaths. The Santa Cruz Sentinel noted in 2011 that Mullin’s was one of three mass killing cases in the county in the 1970s, earning it the label “the murder capitol of the world.” The third was John Linley Frazier, who killed eye surgeon Victor Ohta, his wife Virginia, his secretary Dorothy Cadwaller and the Ohtas’ sons, Derrick, 12, and Taggert, 11, on October 19, 1970. Frazier died by suicide in his Mule Creek prison cell in 2009, the Sentinel reported. The Santa Cruz Trial, 1973 The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office charged Mullin with ten murders. The trial opened on July 30, 1973. He had admitted the crimes, so the only real question was whether he was legally sane. Wikipedia describes the test as whether he understood the nature and quality of his actions and knew right from wrong. Prosecutor Chris Cottle pointed out that Mullin had covered his tracks and showed premeditation in some of the killings. Public defender Jim Jackson argued that his delusions drove him to kill. On August 19, 1973, after 14 hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of first degree murder for the killings of Jim Gianera and Kathy Francis, which it found premeditated. It returned second degree verdicts on the other eight Santa Cruz County killings, which Wikipedia says the jury viewed as “impulse” killings. Mullin was 26. The jury’s split verdict matters. A finding of first degree murder requires premeditation and deliberation. By finding only two of ten killings premeditated, the jury accepted that he was legally sane but treated most of the killings as unplanned. Kemper, the Same Defender and No Death Penalty The two cases ran side by side in the same courthouse. Kemper, born December 18, 1948, killed his mother and her friend in April 1973, drove to Pueblo, Colorado, and confessed. He was indicted on eight counts of first degree murder on May 7, 1973, and was represented by the Chief Public Defender of Santa Cruz County, Jim Jackson, the same lawyer who defended Mullin. Like Mullin, Kemper pleaded insanity. On November 8, 1973, a jury found him sane and guilty on all counts after five hours. Neither man faced execution. Kemper’s Wikipedia article reports that capital punishment was suspended in California at the time under a moratorium from the Supreme Court of California, and Kemper received eight concurrent life sentences. CDCR records that Mullin received life with the possibility of parole on his two first degree counts. Kemper remains in prison; his article reports that after a 2024 parole hearing he was described as using a wheelchair, and an April 2024 psychiatric evaluation rated him “high risk” to reoffend. The Santa Clara County Case The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office charged Mullin with the murder of Father Tomei. He first pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to first degree murder. On December 11, 1973, the day his trial was to begin, he pleaded guilty to second degree murder instead. On December 21, 1973, he received a five years to life term, to run consecutively to his Santa Cruz County sentences, according to CDCR. Prison and Edmund Kemper Mule Creek State Prison, Ione, California, in a 2006 state corrections photo. Mullin was held there for years. Public domain. Credit: California Department of Corrections / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). Mullin was held for years at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California. At one point he and Edmund Kemper were in adjoining cells. Kemper’s Wikipedia article places them in the same prison block at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. Kemper later said he disliked Mullin because he “killed for no good reason.” In an interview quoted by Wikipedia, Kemper said that Mullin “had a habit of singing and bothering people when somebody tried to watch TV. So I threw water on him to shut him up. Then, when he was a good boy, I’d give him some peanuts.” Kemper also described him as having “a lot of pain inside” and “a lot of hate inside” aimed at strangers. Parole Hearings Mullin’s life sentences carried the possibility of parole, and Wikipedia reports he was denied parole eight times from 1980 onward. Two hearings are documented in sources read for this dossier. February 2011, Mule Creek State Prison. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that District Attorney Bob Lee argued Mullin should never be released “due to the number and magnitude of his crimes, their senseless and horrific nature, and the risk he would pose to the community if released.” Lee said: “The victims’ families and friends and the entire community suffered immeasurably by the actions of this man,” and “It is clear that Mr. Mullin is incapable of morally and intellectually taking responsibility for these crimes.” The board denied parole for ten years, the Sentinel reported, making him eligible again in 2021. March 18, 2021, virtual hearing. District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell represented the county. In a release the same day, his office said Mullin, then 74, “continued to blame others for the murders including his parents, his sister, and numerous family members.” Rosell said: “Mr. Mullin continues to blame others for his actions. He lacks insight and shows no true remorse for these brutal murders. To this day, Mr. Mullin continues to pose as high of a risk to the community as he did during his crime spree in 1972 and 1973 if he were released.” The board denied parole for seven years. He would not have been eligible again until 2028. Death Mullin died at 7:35 p.m. on August 18, 2022, at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, a CDCR medical prison. CBS San Francisco and KRON4 reported the death the next day, citing CDCR. The San Joaquin County medical examiner was to rule on the exact cause. Victims Date Victim Age Place Outcome in court October 13, 1972 Lawrence “Whitey” White 55 Santa Cruz Mountains road Not specified in sources read; see note below October 24, 1972 Mary Margaret Guilfoyle Not stated in sources read Santa Cruz County Not specified in sources read; see note below November 2, 1972 Father Henri Tomei Not stated in sources read St. Mary’s Church, Los Gatos Guilty plea, second degree murder, Santa Clara County January 25, 1973 Jim Gianera 25 Santa Cruz County cabin First degree murder January 25, 1973 Joan Gianera 21 Santa Cruz County cabin Second degree murder January 25, 1973 Kathy Francis 29 Santa Cruz County home First degree murder January 25, 1973 Daemon Francis 4 Santa Cruz County home Second degree murder January 25, 1973 David Hughes 9 Santa Cruz County home Second degree murder February 10, 1973 Robert Spector 18 State park campsite Second degree murder February 10, 1973 Brian Scott Card 19 State park campsite Second degree murder February 10, 1973 David Oliker 18 State park campsite Second degree murder February 10, 1973 Mark Dreibelbis 15 State park campsite Second degree murder February 13, 1973 Fred Abbie Perez 72 (73 per the DA) Westside Santa Cruz Second degree murder Note on uncharged killings: the District Attorney’s Office says two of the 13 killings were never charged, but the sources read for this dossier do not say which two. Ten Santa Cruz County killings were charged, and the table lists eleven Santa Cruz County victims. The table assigns second degree verdicts to the other Santa Cruz victims on the basis of Wikipedia’s statement that only the Gianera and Francis killings were first degree. Discrepancies in the Record Number of second degree convictions: eight in Santa Cruz County plus one in Santa Clara County (CDCR). Wikipedia’s lead says “nine,” which counts both. Age of Fred Perez: 72 in Wikipedia; 73 in the 2021 District Attorney release, CBS and KION. Parole denials: Wikipedia says eight denials since 1980; this dossier located records of only the 2011 and 2021 hearings. Place of death: Wikipedia and CDCR give the California Health Care Facility in Stockton. Earlier summaries placed him at Mule Creek State Prison, where he was held for years and where the 2011 hearing took place. Timeline April 18, 1947: Herbert Mullin born in Salinas, California. 1965: graduates from San Lorenzo Valley High School; friend Dean Richardson dies in a car accident. 1967: associate degree from Cabrillo College. 1969: admitted to Mendocino State Hospital; four more hospital stays follow. 1972: living with his parents in Felton. October 13, 1972: Lawrence White killed. October 24, 1972: Mary Margaret Guilfoyle killed. November 2, 1972: Father Henri Tomei killed in Los Gatos. January 1973: Marine Corps application rejected. January 25, 1973: Jim and Joan Gianera, Kathy Francis, Daemon Francis and David Hughes killed. February 10, 1973: four campers killed in the state park. February 13, 1973: Fred Perez killed; Mullin arrested minutes later. February 1973: Guilfoyle’s remains found. July 30, 1973: Santa Cruz County trial opens. August 19, 1973: convicted of two first degree and eight second degree murders. September 18, 1973: admitted to state prison. December 11, 1973: pleads guilty in Santa Clara County to second degree murder of Father Tomei. December 21, 1973: consecutive five years to life term imposed. 1980: first parole denial, according to Wikipedia. February 2011: parole denied for ten years at Mule Creek State Prison. March 18, 2021: parole denied for seven years. August 18, 2022: dies of natural causes in Stockton, age 75. Frequently Asked Questions Who was Herbert Mullin? A California man who killed 13 people in Santa Cruz County and Los Gatos between October 13, 1972, and February 13, 1973. He said the killings would prevent earthquakes. How was he caught? A neighbour saw him shoot Fred Perez on February 13, 1973, and took down his licence plate. A patrolman stopped him minutes later. What was he convicted of? Two first degree and eight second degree murders in Santa Cruz County in August 1973, and one second degree murder in Santa Clara County in December 1973. Did the jury find him insane? No. The jury rejected his insanity defense after 14 hours of deliberation on August 19, 1973. Why was he not sentenced to death? Capital punishment was suspended in California at the time. He received life with the possibility of parole on his first degree counts. Was he ever paroled? No. He was denied parole repeatedly. At his last hearing on March 18, 2021, the board denied parole for seven years. When did he die? On August 18, 2022, of natural causes, at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton. He was 75. Were all 13 killings charged? No. He was convicted of 11. The Santa Cruz County District Attorney says two killings he admitted were never charged. Sources California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, “Herbert Mullin Dies of Natural Causes,” news release, August 19, 2022. Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office, “Serial Murderer Denied Parole,” press release, March 18, 2021. Cathy Kelly, “Serial killer again denied parole,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 19, 2011 (also catalogued in the Santa Cruz Public Libraries Local History collection). CBS San Francisco (Bay City News), “Early 70s Serial Killer Herbert Mullin Denied Parole In Santa Cruz County,” March 2021, and “South Bay serial killer who murdered 13 dies in Stockton hospital,” August 2022. KION Central Coast, “Santa Cruz County serial killer denied parole,” March 18, 2021. KRON4, “Santa Cruz serial killer Herbert Mullin dies,” August 2022. Wikipedia, “Herbert Mullin,” “Edmund Kemper” and “John Linley Frazier,” retrieved October 16, 2026.