The Most Dangerous Animal of All

by Gary L. Stewart

Late in 1975, Toschi’s partner, Bill Armstrong, weary of all of the death that plagued his dreams at night, left the homicide department with the biggest case of his career unsolved. Toschi wasn’t about to part ways with the Zodiac; he had too much invested. While the flamboyant detective still lorded over the case in the media, Armstrong had been the backbone of the duo, and in his absence, new leads were eventually distributed among all of the detectives. There was always another killer to catch, and the focus on apprehending the Zodiac was not as all-consuming as it had been six years earlier.

  Rotea finally had his shot to investigate the case more thoroughly, but another serial killer was now plaguing the homicide division. The Black Doodler, named by the media for his habit of attracting his victims by sketching their likenesses before having sex with them, had viciously stabbed and killed fourteen gay men between January 1974 and September 1975. Three other men, who had been attacked and escaped, had reported the incidents to the SFPD.

  Initially, Rotea and Sanders suspected they were dealing with three separate serial killers, because the modus operandi was different in some of the cases. Five of the victims were transvestites who frequented the gay bars in the Tenderloin. Six of the victims were involved in sadomasochism and hung out at the leather bars south of Market Street. The other six victims had been on the down-low—businessmen, a lawyer, an entertainer, a diplomat, all picked up in the Castro District, wooed by promises of a fun evening.

  As Rotea and the other detectives interviewed the survivors, a clear picture of the Black Doodler emerged. In 1976, they brought in a suspect and questioned him. Although willing enough to talk with detectives, the suspect refused to confess. Yet Rotea was convinced: the SFPD had the Black Doodler in its custody.

  But there was a problem.

  They had to let him go.

  In an Associated Press article dated May 8, 1977, Rotea was reported to have explained that “for the past year, police have been questioning a young man they call ‘The Doodler’ about the 14 slayings and three assaults that have occurred in San Francisco’s gay community.

  “The suspect here, his name not released, has talked freely with police but has not admitted the slayings, Gilford said.

  “He said police are ‘fairly certain’ they have the right man, but need the testimony of survivors who may be able to identify ‘The Doodler,’ ” the article continued.

  “Gilford said the three survivors include the entertainer, the diplomat and a man who left San Francisco and won’t answer letters or phone calls at his new address.

  “ ‘My feeling is they don’t want to be exposed.’ ”

  And because the victims were not willing to come out of the closet to put a serial killer in prison, the Black Doodler was never arrested.

  The case frustrated Rotea. He knew who the killer was, where he lived, but there was not enough evidence to convict him without victim identifications.

  The article went on to state that Harvey Milk, “an advocate of homosexual rights, said of the victims who refuse to speak up, ‘I can understand their position. I respect the pressure society has put on them.’

  “Milk said many homosexuals may keep their sexual preference a secret because they fear losing their jobs. ‘They have to stay in the closet,’ he said.”

  The Black Doodler soon faded from public attention. He didn’t sell newspapers like the Zodiac had. Killings of homosexuals simply weren’t as mesmerizing as ciphers from the Zodiac.

  Homosexual politicians—now that was another story. When Harvey Milk became the first openly gay person ever to be elected to public office in California, in late 1977, politics and homosexuality once again dominated the headlines. Backed by Mayor George Moscone, the outspoken Milk won over voters and earned his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

  Moscone, a strong proponent of gay rights, was the first mayor of the city to appoint large numbers of women, gays, and minorities to city commissions and advisory boards. With the help of Rotea’s old friend in the State Assembly, Willie Brown, Moscone, as a state senator, had been instrumental in repealing California’s sodomy law. In the dimly lit bars of the Castro, young businessmen had cheered and raised their glasses, saluting Moscone and Brown for the victory. But the decisions Moscone made as mayor would cost him dearly.

  In the months before his mayoral election, Moscone had recruited Jim Jones, of the Peoples Temple, to campaign for him, recognizing that Jones’s huge congregation could swing the vote. Jones had moved his temple to San Francisco several years before and had been steadily working his way into San Francisco’s political circles. Moscone rewarded him with the chairmanship of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission soon after he won the election.

  By September 1977, Willie Brown had also joined the Jim Jones bandwagon, delivering a speech at a banquet held at the temple headquarters on Geary Street, where he proclaimed that Jones was a combination of “Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao,” according to PBS.org.

  In 1978, Rotea took an early retirement from the San Francisco Police Department, making the move into politics. Moscone appointed him executive director of the Mayor’s Council on Criminal Justice, even though the lawsuit for racial discrimination that Rotea had helped initiate against the city was ongoing.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  On November 18, 1978, Jones led some nine hundred people in a mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, where he had moved his temple after allegations of abuse began to filter out through the media. Images of corpses—adults and children, lying side by side on the ground—filled evening news programs, and a collective shudder of horror rippled through the world. Among the dead was California congressman Leo Ryan, who was visiting Guyana to investigate the allegations.

  Jones’s political friends in San Francisco ran for cover, including Willie Brown, Harvey Milk, and George Moscone.

  Nine days later, Dan White, a recently resigned city supervisor, walked into city hall and shot and killed Mayor Moscone and then Milk, both of whom had opposed White’s requests to be reassigned to his position.

  As the world mourned the tragedy in Guyana, the gay community in San Francisco mourned the loss of its two biggest proponents in city hall.

  It was not a good time for anyone to enter politics in the city of San Francisco, least of all someone like Rotea, for whom integrity was so important. During his time at the SFPD, he had broken new ground for African Americans and earned fifteen commendations in eighteen years. In 1979, Judge Robert F. Peckham agreed that minorities were underrepresented in the department and ordered new standards regarding recruitment, assignments, and promotions, complete with a twenty-year review process. Rotea and the Officers for Justice had finally succeeded in their fight to end discrimination in the SFPD.

  Rotea had achieved all of his goals.

  Except one.

  The Zodiac was still free.

  41

  “It’s for you, dear. It’s Van,” Ellie said, handing the phone to her husband.

  Earl picked up the phone, hoping for some good news. Lately, on the rare occasions Van called, his father could barely understand him.

  “Yes, hello, son,” Earl said.

  “I need some money, Father.”

  “Why. What’s going on?” Earl queried.

  “I got arrested and need to pay my fines and get down to Mexico,” Van said, slurring his words.

  Earl sat down, preparing himself. “What did you do?”

  “Just a couple of drunk-driving charges,” Van mumbled.

  “Van, speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  “I said, ‘drunk driving.’ ”

  “Van, you have got to stop this,” Earl said. “When are you going to pull yourself together?”

  “I will, Father. I’m working on it. I just need to make one more trip and everything will be better. I promise.”

  Van had been arrested three times for drunk driving in 1977—on March 21 in San Bernardino,
on June 24 in Riverside, and on October 24 in San Bernardino. Earl knew his son was spiraling downward, and there was nothing he could do.

  By this time Earl had retired from his ministry at the Refuge Christian Church and was enjoying his retirement with his beloved wife. The country preacher had much to be proud of. He had been elected twice to serve his country as the national chaplain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and had worked with several presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. For many years he had been the chaplain of the Indiana State VFW, and recently Indiana governor Otis Bowen had named him a Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest honor the governor could bestow on a citizen to recognize distinguished service. The minister had four degrees to his credit. His had been a life of service to his congregation and to his country.

  His only failure had been Van.

  Van spent the next five years traveling back and forth along the coast of California, living in Long Beach, while also spending long periods at the Hotel Corinto, in Mexico. Occasionally he discovered something of value on his trips, but mostly he bartered his antiquities for enough money to buy the alcohol that made his existence bearable. Merchants along the coast who had once enthusiastically looked forward to his visits, impressed with Van’s knowledge and unusual finds, now hesitated before parting with their money, viewing the unkempt appearance of the once well-dressed trader. My father was no longer able to schmooze them with a charming smile and a turn of a phrase. They could smell the alcohol on his breath and see it in his eyes.

  Six years after Judy married Rotea, Van rebounded for a while in 1982. Earl, relieved that his son was doing better, wrote a letter to his niece: “Van has quit drinking and writes and talks with some sense now. We talk via phone once in a while and it makes me proud to know he’s living the good life.”

  After forty-eight years, my grandfather finally experienced a moment in which he could be proud of his son.

  And then the moment was gone.

  By the end of the year Van had retreated back into the bottle.

  Father and son would never speak again.

  Earl Van Best Sr. passed away on March 28, 1984, at the age of seventy-nine. Ellie brushed away her tears as a bugle cried out the lonesome notes of Taps. The twenty-one-gun salute, which had originated in the Navy, of which Earl had been so proud, recognized her husband as a military hero. Standing there in Arlington National Cemetery, watching as the man who had earned such respect was lowered into the ground, she looked around for Van.

  He did not bother to attend.

  42

  In 1978, Dianne Feinstein succeeded George Moscone to become the first female mayor of San Francisco. She appointed Rotea Gilford her deputy mayor.

  Judy couldn’t have been prouder. She adored the man who had brought such stability to her life. Things had been a little rocky at first, but she had soon realized it wasn’t Rotea’s fault. She didn’t know how to behave in a healthy relationship. She had been conditioned for drama, first by her father and stepfather and then by Van. She did everything she could to sabotage the relationship during the first six months of their marriage.

  Rotea began to wonder what had happened to the vivacious young girl he had married. She found fault with everything he did. Then one day, about six months into the marriage, Judy had an epiphany.

  “I was driving to work this morning and was thinking about what is so wrong with our marriage,” she said to her husband later that evening. Judy now worked as an office manager on a construction project.

  “And what did you come up with?” Rotea asked, worry evident in his tone.

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There’s nothing wrong with our marriage. I don’t know why I’ve been acting like this. I have a wonderful husband and a very interesting life. I will be better now. I promise.”

  Rotea pulled her close, relieved. He didn’t know about Judy’s past, but he sometimes realized she was battling demons she didn’t care to share with him.

  “Let’s celebrate,” he said. “We’ll just start over.”

  They did, and Judy had never been happier. Three years into the marriage, she finally overcame her fear of having another child and gave birth to a boy they named Chance Michael, after Rotea’s son Michael, who had recently passed away after suffering for years with injuries he had sustained in the car accident.

  Judy and Rotea doted on their baby. He was a second chance for both of them.

  From the day he was born, Judy was very protective of Chance. If Rotea raised his voice with the child, Judy cautioned him not to, but she needn’t have worried. He had always been a loving father, and as Chance grew up, Rotea proved over and over that there were honorable men in the world.

  Sometimes Judy spotted her husband sitting at their kitchen window watching Chance as he played basketball with his friends outside. Rotea would take notes, then make a list of the things Chance had done that needed improvement and the things he had done very well. When Chance came inside, they would go over the list.

  She watched as her husband instilled in her son discipline, strength, responsibility. For the first time in her life, Judy knew she had made the right choice. Rotea often coached Chance and other neighborhood children and made himself available for any child who needed fatherly advice. Whenever they walked through their neighborhood in Hayes Valley, neighbors always smiled and waved, comforted by Rotea’s presence among them.

  Judy showered Chance with love, trying in some small way to make up for leaving me behind in Baton Rouge. Although she kept her silence, she sometimes wondered what had happened to the son she had given up for adoption. She was secure in her marriage, yet she couldn’t bring herself to tell her husband, who loved children so much, that she had given away her son. Instead she threw herself into helping Rotea mentor the children in their community, and soon the couple invited twelve-year-old Terry Marshall, who had been abandoned by his grandmother, to live with them.

  Rotea’s mother, Viola, who lived in an apartment on the first floor of their home, helped out with the children. A wonderful baker, Viola would have dinner ready every afternoon after Judy and Rotea had retrieved the children from school.

  As Rotea became more embroiled in San Francisco politics, Judy began to worry. He seemed more tired than usual. Between volunteering, coaching, and substitute teaching, he began to have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. That was not like the energetic man she had married.

  Harold Butler, a young police officer with the SFPD, noticed something was amiss, too. Butler had become one of Rotea’s projects, a black officer rising through the ranks in a much different environment than Rotea had experienced. The two had met through the Officers for Justice and had become fast friends, although Butler was much younger. He had heard all of the stories about Rotea and looked up to him.

  “Is he all right?” Butler asked Judy one evening as they sat at the dining room table. “He looks worn out.”

  “He’s been tired lately,” Judy admitted. “I don’t know what’s wrong. He says it’s nothing.”

  “He should see a doctor,” Butler said.

  Judy tried, but Rotea insisted that everything was okay. “It’s my blood sugar,” he said, his standard excuse when anything was wrong.

  Rotea served his city throughout the Feinstein administration, but he withdrew from public office soon after Art Agnos became mayor, in 1988. When Willie Brown, who had served in the California State Assembly for fifteen years, became the first black mayor in San Francisco’s history, in 1996, Rotea was drawn back into politics. Brown appointed him to the Recreation and Park Commission.

  Every morning, promptly at 6:00 a.m., Rotea called Brown. “Good morning, Mayor,” he always said, his way of acknowledging Brown’s accomplishment. The two men had spent decades building a friendship that encompassed not only genuine affection for each other but also a shared fight for racial equality.

  Harold Butler was excited to be a part of Rotea’s inner circle. He and his
wife were frequent guests at the Gilford home, and he enjoyed strategizing with his mentor about meetings Rotea was having with the mayor to discuss new projects—which was unnecessary, really, because Brown backed Rotea’s ideas one hundred percent. Rotea knew how much it meant to the young officer to be a part of the politics, so he invited him over regularly. Butler often consulted Rotea about difficult cases he was working, taking advantage of the detective’s experience and wisdom. He was in awe of the great man who had become such a legend on the force, but he worried about Rotea’s health.

  So did Judy. Throughout the last years of their marriage, she lost her husband to diabetes one limb at a time. It started with a discolored toe when Rotea was in his early sixties, and then gangrene set in. Judy had promised to care for Rotea, but sometimes she wondered how she would cope. “When he came home from the hospital, a visiting nurse came over to show me how to change the dressings,” she would later write when documenting her memories of Rotea. “When she removed the bandages and I saw the gaping hole where his toe had formerly fit, I almost fainted. I got through the lesson, went upstairs and out onto the front deck, and gasped for air. How in the world was I going to do this?”

  Later, after part of Rotea’s left foot was amputated, Judy had to soak the remaining part in bleach every four hours, for weeks. The treatments she administered saved the rest of the foot, and Rotea was able to hobble around with a prosthetic shoe.

  Then he lost the other foot.

  By the time Brown appointed Rotea to the commission, his diabetes had forced him into renal failure. Every morning, Mitch Salazar, director of community-based programs and one of Rotea’s success stories, came by to bring his mentor to the dialysis center. Once a street hustler and low-level drug dealer in the Mission District, the young man had turned his life around with Rotea’s help. Salazar, a high school dropout, worked his way into city politics through volunteer work, in which he helped others who had the odds stacked against them.

  Rudy Smith, another childhood friend of Rotea’s, had also been appointed to the commission by the mayor. He was given the go-ahead by Brown to provide Rotea with whatever assistance he needed. Loyal to a fault, Smith picked Rotea up from dialysis around noon each day, got him food from his favorite restaurants, and discussed the city’s business over lunch in Rotea’s kitchen.