Murder City: Santa Cruz, California, 1970 to 1973 - Part 1
Once Upon A Crime | True Crime
Esther Ludlow
4.6 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the 1970s, Santa Cruz, California, became known by a title no one else wanted - “Murder City.” Between 1970 and 1973, a series of murders rocked the once peaceful beach community. Before it was all over, residents would live through unimaginable horrors - a prominent family wiped out in a mass murder by a deranged killer and not one but two serial killers stalking their streets at the same time.
In this 3-part series, we’ll travel back in time to experience those three terrifying years in Santa Cruz - 1970 to 1973 - beginning with the mass murder of a prominent doctor and his family. Just as the court was determining the first killer’s fate, another was making Santa Cruz his home and hunting grounds. His crimes would make him one of the most infamous serial killers on record.
This is part one of “Murder City: Santa Cruz, California, 1970 to 1973.
Sources:
Murray, E. (2020). Murder Capital of the World.
Ohta Family Murders in Soquel - Bay Area Television Archive
John Linley Frazier | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
John L. Frazier - "LEGENDS" SANTA CRUZ GHOST HUNTERS
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Frazier-2125
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/John_Linley_Frazier
John Linley Frazier - Wikipedia
https://crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/mass/john_frazier/5.html
Frazier v. Superior Court, 5 Cal.3d 287 | Casetext Search + Citator
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/102337#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0
John Linley Frazier | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence. |
| 0:06.9 | It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised. |
| 0:18.4 | Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime. |
| 0:22.6 | Two California beach towns entered into a year-long dispute over who deserved to claim the title, |
| 0:28.6 | Surf City. |
| 0:29.6 | One contender, Huntington Beach in Southern California, hosts one of the world's most important surfing competitions, |
| 0:36.6 | the U.S. Open of Surfing, |
| 0:38.3 | and over 50 other surfing events each year. |
| 0:41.3 | Its sunny climate and proximity to Los Angeles made Huntington Beach the inspiration for the 1963 Jan and Dean song, Surf City. |
| 0:50.3 | However, its rival, the Northern California town of Santa Cruz began using the surf city nickname |
| 0:57.1 | decades earlier, after a local newspaper coined the term to describe Santa Cruz in a 1927 article. |
| 1:05.2 | Santa Cruz boasts almost a dozen world-renowned surf breaks, creating some of the world's best surfing |
| 1:10.7 | waves. Historically, Santa breaks, creating some of the world's best surfing waves. |
| 1:11.8 | Historically, Santa Cruz was the site of the first recorded surfing in California by visiting |
| 1:17.7 | Hawaiians in 1885. Even so, Huntington Beach won a legal battle to trademark Surf City Huntington Beach |
| 1:26.2 | in 1994. Still, Santa Cruz is the true surf |
| 1:31.3 | city to many who surf its waves. But Santa Cruz became known by another nickname in the 1970s, |
| 1:38.9 | a title no one else wanted. Murder City. Between 1970 and 1973, a series of murders rocked the once peaceful beach community. |
| 1:50.0 | Before it was all over, residents would live through unimaginable horrors, a prominent family |
| 1:55.0 | wiped out in a mass murder by a deranged killer, and two serial killers working simultaneously but separately in their midst. |
| 2:03.6 | In this three-part series, we'll travel back in time to experience those three terrifying years in Santa Cruz, |
| 2:10.6 | 1970 to 1973, beginning with the mass murder of a prominent doctor and his family. |
... |
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