Clark believed that the Death Angels were also hunting for victims outside the city limits of San Francisco, and may have committed more than 70 murders in total - possibly even over 100. According to Clark Howard's research, there were at least several additional Death Angels, and possibly even separate cells of the group. The story is well known to those with interest in criminology however, among the most intriguing aspects of the deadly group - in addition to its unusual nature, that of a fanatical, racially-driven, quasi-religious sect - is the number of its victims, and the possibility that many of its members escaped justice. At least one of the found victims has still not recovered his name - San Francisco John Doe 169, a massacred corpse with missing body parts, found in late 1973 according to the testimony of one of the caught Zebra killers, he was a homeless man taken by the Death Angels off the street, and imprisoned in the Black Self-Help Moving warehouse, where the Zebra members spent hours slowly cutting off pieces of his flesh with various tools, until he died of shock and blood loss.

In fact, the codename was simply taken from the last alphabetically listed police radio channel - 'Zebra', for band Z - which was exclusively given for communications about the investigation.Īt least 15 people were murdered 10 - including the later mayor of San Francisco, Arthur Agnos - survived the attacks. According to a popular misconception, the name was inspired by the nature of the crimes - all victims were white, all attackers were black, and it seemed that the victims were chosen only for their white skin (which, as the investigation eventually proved, was precisely the case) - hence, the urban legend stated, the 'Zebra' codename, since the serial murders were 'black on white'. Over 19, San Francisco was terrorized by a wave of seemingly pointless, random murders, eventually codenamed 'Zebra'.

Zebra by clark howard