The Doodler

The Doodler also referred to as The Black Doodler is an unidentified serial killer who was active in San Francisco's Castro District from 1974 to 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to their sexual encounters and murders by stabbing.

Case Background
It is believed that the Doodler killed up to fourteen people. A consistent method used in several of the killings was stabbing the victims in the front and back of their bodies. Police theorized that the victims had all died after meeting with the suspect near the locations where their bodies were recovered. Police initially believed there could have been as many as three different perpetrators during early stages of the investigation.

Police questioned a young man as a murder suspect in the case but could not proceed with criminal charges because the three surviving victims did not want to "out" themselves by testifying against him in court. Among the stabbing survivors were a "well-known entertainer" and a diplomat. The suspect cooperated with police during his interview but he never admitted guilt for the murders and attacks. Officers stated that they strongly believed that the man in question was responsible for the crimes, although he was never tried or convicted because of the survivors' refusals to appear in court. To date, the suspect has never been publicly named or apprehended; very little information is available about the crimes.

Modus Operandi
Although the name sounds infantile, the killer's M.O. was chilling. The man prowled bars and restaurants that were popular with gay men, and according to witnesses, he would draw sketches of men before he, had sex with, assaulted and killed them through stabbing.

Profile
Sometimes referred to as the Black Doodler, he was described at the time as African-American, between 19 and 22 years old, slender but well built, a little shy of 6 feet, and frequently wore "a Navy-type watch cap." The Doodler was described as an artist who would sketch strangers he met in local bars and use the drawings to strike up conversations with the men. He’d leave with his sketch subject from the bar, have sex with them, and later stab the man to death. Police believe that he committed the murders after feeling shame over his homosexual experiences.

Suspect
The suspect, as stated above has never been publicly named or identified but a few pieces of information have been released. The suspect was apprehended when he was reported by a bartender for sketching men in his bar after he had heard about the Doodler's M.O. and thus promptly called the police. The suspect was in his late teens early twenties and is believed to have left San Francisco after his release. In January 1976, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the Doodler and two days later a suspect was arrested. According to The Sentinel, he was detained "outside a Tenderloin bar last Friday night after a bar patron called to report that a man fitting the composite drawing furnished by the SFPD had entered the bar and was offering to draw sketches of patrons." According to the paper, "The man was carrying a butcher knife and a book of sketches when the police nabbed him." Police questioned the man repeatedly, The Sentinel reported at the time. The paper quoted an unnamed police source as saying the suspect had confessed the killings to a psychiatrist. "He's having difficulty with his sexuality," Gilford told The Chronicle at the time. "He's probably ashamed of what he's doing. Homosexuality has never been accepted in the black community. ... The guilt he is experiencing causes him to want to erase the acts he's committed."

On Criminal Minds

 * "In Heat" - Steven Fitzgerald might to some extent be inspired by the Doodler's suspected background. Steven's father, David, was a prison guard who was deeply religious. It has been implied that Steven, at some point, developed homosexual urges and was physically abused by his father as a result, much like the police suspected with the Doodler. The repeated abuse and chastising led Steven to believe that he was "filthy" and caused him to hate himself, again exactly what the police think the Doodler thought of himself, they believed he was a closeted homosexual took out his anger on the men he caught feelings for as he felt ashamed of what he was.