By Kevin Fagan
Source San Francisco Chronicle
Encouraged by new attention in the cold-case investigation of a serial killer who terrorized San Francisco's gay community in the 1970s, police will announce Thursday that it is doubling the reward to $200,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the notorious "Doodler."
The announcement will come 48 years to the day after the first victim was found lying at the water's edge off Ocean Beach on Jan. 27, 1974.
The San Francisco Police Department is also expected to confirm it is adding a probable sixth victim to the total of gay men whose bodies were found along beaches and parklands on the western edge of the city in 1974 and 1975. The five known victims were stabbed to death, but the newly identified victim — a 52-year-old lawyer named Warren Andrews — was beaten with a rock and a tree branch.
Andrews was left for dead on April 27, 1975, beneath overhanging brush at Lands End. He died of his injuries seven weeks after the attack and wasn't considered a potential Doodler victim until 2021, when police investigators and Chronicle reporters looked deeply into his case.
It turned out there were enough similarities to link Andrews to the other Doodler victims. He was found at an outdoor gay hookup spot not far from where another Doodler victim was discovered a few weeks later, and his family and friends say they believe he was gay and closeted. The unusual brutality of the attack — what investigators called "a rage killing" — and the fact that it occurred in an out-of-view spot near water were also hallmarks of other Doodler slayings.
The main thing that didn't fit was the murder weapon. But detectives believe that the killer probably struggled with Andrews, lost his knife over a nearby cliff, then grabbed the tree branch and rock to finish the job.
"The location, the time period, the victimology — it all makes me think that it might be connected," lead investigator Dan Cunningham told The Chronicle last year. "I'd be a fool not to consider him as a Doodler victim."
Police hope publicizing Andrews' name and the increased reward will jog memories and motivate those who have been reluctant to come forward.
"We've come a long way in this investigation, and I think we're closer than ever to solving it — but we just need a bit more information," Cunningham said in a recent phone interview.
The Chronicle ran an eight-part podcast and seven-part story series in the spring examining the Doodler mystery, attracting international attention and generating dozens of promising tips. The series also turned up clues into Andrews' killing as well as new witnesses in the saga, including the possible identity of a psychiatrist who interviewed a key suspect in the 1970s.
Cunningham pulled the Doodler case from the back shelves of cold-case files in 2017, and in February 2019 the department announced a $100,000 reward for information and released an age-enhanced sketch of a suspect from the 1970s. Four years later, after sifting through the old evidence and scaring up new leads, Cunningham has likened the probe to a football game where the ball started on the "1-or-2-yard line" and has been brought out to midfield.
"Sometimes that's the hardest — getting the last 50 yards," he said. "Pushing it forward."
Since last summer, Cunningham has found new evidence from the Andrews crime scene that is undergoing DNA testing, plus new leads from the eastern and southern parts of the U.S. where the Doodler may also have killed. He's also found new evidence that could be tested in the case of Doodler victim Fredrick Capin, a Vietnam War hero whose body was found in May 1975 on Ocean Beach.
The Doodler's first victim, Gerald Cavanagh, a 50-year-old mattress factory worker, was found on Ocean Beach on Jan. 27, 1974. He'd been stabbed 17 times, front and back, leading detectives to believe the killer was driven by fury of some kind.
San Francisco homicide detectives Rotea Gilford and Earl Sanders took on the mystery in the mid-1970s and concluded that the Doodler had picked up Cavanagh and the next four victims by enticing them with sketches at gay bars. Described by witnesses as a good artist, he'd pick a mark, sketch his likeness, then approach him with the doodle — hence the name — to flatter him and ask him to take off to have sex.
This was back when sodomy laws were still on the books, and gay men sought community and connections in the city's dozens of LGBTQ bars. Beaches and parks were popular places to hook up — and that's where the Doodler did his killings.
Gilford and Sanders got tips in the summer of 1975 from three victims who survived the Doodler's attacks, and one of them, known only as "The Diplomat," helped police generate a sketch of the suspect. That sketch led to a call from an East Bay psychiatrist who said he'd interviewed a man he believed to be the Doodler. But despite the promising lead, Gilford and Sanders were unable to solidify a case against him.
Nearly half a century later, Cunningham calls that same man — whom he has interviewed — "a person of interest."
Police spokesperson Robert Rueca said the department decided to make Thursday's announcement because advances in the investigation have given new promise to chances of getting a solid break.
"There are some cold cases where investigators think that with a little bit of the public's help they can create some real strides in the investigation, and this is one of those," he said. "If it wasn't for investigators like Dan Cunningham who are really driven to solving these cases, they would just remain on the shelf. He's one of the best."
Andrews' sister, 85-year-old Nancy Luebke, said she is "happy" that her brother's killing is getting new attention, because until last year she thought it would remain a forgotten footnote in San Francisco homicide history. Back in 1975, she flew down to San Francisco and brought her gravely injured brother back to a hospital near her home in Seattle, which is where he died.
She hadn't even heard of the Doodler until a Chronicle reporter called her in 2021.
"It's been a lot of years," Luebke said when reached this week at her current home in Washington state. "I'd kind of tucked it away, and when all this was brought up again you caused me two sleepless nights thinking about this all over again.
"I didn't think it would ever be investigated like this. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it certainly would be nice if the Doodler could be caught."
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