Mass Murder in Soquel

A parked car blocked the dirt road to the burning hilltop home of Dr. Victor Ohta. Leaving his pickup truck, Soquel, Calif., Assistant Fire Chief Ernest Negro ran to the house to find "the roof was really going." As the local fire trucks screamed up to the main entrance, Negro looked and found that it also was blocked by Dr. Ohta's maroon Rolls-Royce. "I felt awfully funny for a second," Negro recalls. "Somebody seemed determined to prevent anybody from getting near the fire. If I knew then what I know now, I would have gotten out fast."

What Negro and the other firemen soon discovered was the most gruesome mass murder in the U.S. since the Tate slayings. In the lagoon-shaped swimming pool in front of the $250,000 house were the bodies of Victor Ohta, 46. his wife Virginia, 43, their sons, Derrick, 12, and Taggart, 11, and the doctor's secretary, Dorothy Cadwallader, 38. Ohta, one of California's most prominent eye surgeons, had been shot twice in the back and once under the arm. The others had been shot in the head, and all were bound with their hands in front of them with the bright silk scarves and ties of which Dr. Ohta was so fond.

Police quickly ruled out robbery as a motive. The Ohtas were wearing expensive jewelry, and in Dr. Ohta's bedroom they found a valuable tape recorder, cameras and more jewelry. There was no sign of a struggle, and all the bodies were neatly dressed. Stacks of kindling were also discovered in the house, indicating that the fire had been deliberately set by the killer to attract attention. Said Kenneth Pittenger, deputy sheriff of Santa Cruz County, where Soquel is located: "It was like an execution."

Grisly Specter. Substantiating that theory, police found a typewritten, misspelled note under the windshield wiper of Dr. Ohta's Rolls-Royce. "Hallowween 1970," it read. "Today World War III will begin as brought to you by the people of the free universe. From this day forward anyone and/or company of persons who misuses the natural environment or destroys same will suffer the penalty of death by the people of the free universe." The note was signed with fortuneteller tarot-card names, one name to a line: "Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Pentacles, Knight of Swords."

Haunted by the grisly specter of a Charles Manson cult, the frightened residents of the county turned on the numerous hippie communes dotting the surrounding hills. One recalled Mrs. Ohta complaining about the hippies two months earlier. A friend remembered that Dr. Ohta had recently chased uninvited young people away from his swimming pool.

But as the police combed the hills around Santa Cruz visiting communes and cabins, they found the hippies just as frightened by the murders as the townspeople. Said District Attorney Peter Chang: "The investigating officers who went into their communities found tremendous help from the hippie-type people." The big break in the case, leading to the capture of a suspect, came from the hippies.

At 3 a.m. one morning, a group of hippies came to Chang to report on John L. Frazier, 24, a former auto mechanic. He had dropped out of the straight world and attempted to join the Santa Cruz hippie community. But he was considered "a real freak," Chang was told, and "paranoid" about ecology. Acting on the tip, he learned that Frazier had lived for several months in a 6 ft. by 6 ft. shanty half a mile from the murdered family's home. Two days before the slayings, he had abruptly moved out.

One-Man Theory. Frazier next appeared at the home of his estranged wife Delores, carrying a .38 cal. Smith and Wesson revolver in his waistband and a backpack with food for several days. When he left, he handed her his wallet and driver's license with the remark: "I won't be needing these any more." Among the personal possessions he left behind was a book on tarot. A warrant was issued for Frazier's arrest and a watch put on his cabin.

The police did not have long to wait. Early one morning Frazier returned and was arrested without a struggle. Police speculate that if the killings had been carried out in stages--which the evidence suggests--they could have been done by one man, and District Attorney Chang is satisfied that the killer acted alone. Still, the air in Santa Cruz County is heavy with fear. Said one apprehensive resident, E.H. Gransbury: "You expect this sort of thing down in Los Angeles, Sin City, but when it happens in a small community like ours it makes you feel that your hands are tied and you are perfectly helpless."

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