Herbert William Mullin – Schizophrenic Serial Killer
Introduction
Herbert William Mullin was a paranoid schizophrenic serial killer who murdered 13 people in Northern California between October 1972 and February 1973, claiming he was performing “sacrifices” to prevent catastrophic earthquakes from destroying the state. His case sits at the intersection of severe untreated psychosis, random victim selection, and extreme violence that unfolded in the same region and era as Edmund Kemper, turning Santa Cruz into a notorious “murder capital” in the early 1970s.
Early Life and Background
Mullin was born April 18, 1947, in Salinas, California, and grew up mainly in the Santa Cruz area. His father, a World War II veteran, was strict but is generally described as not physically abusive; he taught Herbert to shoot and told him war stories, emphasizing discipline and toughness. As a child and teenager, Mullin appeared outwardly well‑adjusted: he was an intelligent and sensitive boy, played sports, had friends, and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” in his San Lorenzo Valley High School yearbook.
After graduating in 1965, he briefly worked in construction and then attended Cabrillo College in Aptos, earning an associate degree in civil highway engineering in 1967. During this period, he built a shrine in his bedroom to his best friend, Dean Richardson, who had died in a car accident, and became increasingly preoccupied with death and reincarnation, suggesting early destabilization of his belief system and identity.
Psychological Decline and Emerging Schizophrenia
In his early twenties, Mullin’s mental state deteriorated sharply. He began using marijuana and LSD heavily, reporting later that a friend had introduced him to mind‑altering drugs, which likely intensified his underlying vulnerability to psychosis. Family members and acquaintances noticed dramatic changes: he extinguished cigarettes on his own skin, claimed to be a saint or a reincarnation of Christ, talked to himself, and shouted at unseen individuals.
Between 1969 and the early 1970s he cycled in and out of mental hospitals, including Mendocino State Hospital, sometimes checking himself in and other times being committed by family or authorities. Doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, noting auditory hallucinations, suspiciousness, and disorganized thinking, but he was repeatedly discharged after short stays when he was judged “no longer a danger” to himself or others. By his mid‑twenties, he was essentially untreated in the community, hearing voices and developing a grandiose, religiously tinged delusional system.
Delusional Motive: “Stopping Earthquakes”
Mullin’s psychosis crystallized around a bizarre, apocalyptic belief: he claimed that California was about to be destroyed by massive earthquakes, and that only human sacrifices could appease the earth and prevent the disaster. He said he received telepathic messages from God, from his deceased friend, and even from strangers’ minds, telling him that certain people “volunteered” to die and that he had been chosen as a scapegoat or hero to carry out the killings.
He also claimed that his father communicated with him telepathically, encouraging him to kill in order to save lives – a core part of his delusional justification. These beliefs gave his homicides a sacrificial, religious overlay: in his mind, he was not a murderer but a protector preventing a greater catastrophe, a pattern very similar to Richard Chase’s “medical necessity” delusions but framed in geological and religious terms.
Offense Timeline and Victims
Mullin’s confirmed murders took place between October 13, 1972, and February 13, 1973, primarily in Santa Cruz County and nearby areas, with victims ranging in age, gender, and social background. He killed acquaintances and strangers, sometimes one at a time and sometimes entire groups, using beating, stabbing, and shooting.
Key victims and incidents (chronology condensed):
- October 13, 1972 – Lawrence “Whitey” White, 55, an alcoholic transient, was lured into the woods near Santa Cruz and beaten to death with a baseball bat. Mullin later said White had “telepathically volunteered” to be his first sacrifice to prevent an earthquake.
- October 24, 1972 – Mary Guilfoyle, 24, a college student hitchhiking in Santa Cruz, was picked up by Mullin, stabbed to death in his car, and dumped in a rural area. He dissected her body, removing organs and hanging her intestines from tree branches to inspect them for “pollution,” reflecting ritualistic and psychotic thinking. Her remains were not found until February 1973 and were initially attributed to Edmund Kemper.
- November 2, 1972 – Father Henri Tomei (often spelled Tomsi), 64, a Catholic priest, was stabbed to death in a confessional at St. Mary’s Church in Los Gatos after Mullin walked in and attacked him without provocation. Mullin later framed the killing as another necessary sacrifice with religious overtones.
- January 25, 1973 – In Santa Cruz, Mullin shot and stabbed his marijuana dealer acquaintance Jim Gianera and Gianera’s wife, Joan, in their home, then went to the home of Kathy Francis (an acquaintance connected to Gianera) and shot and stabbed her and her two young sons, Damon (4) and David (9), in another episode of overkill.
- February 6, 1973 – In Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, he encountered four teenage boys camping (Brian Scott Card, 19; David Allen Oliker, 18; Robert Michael Spector, 18; and Mark D. Pollock, 18). After casual conversation, he suddenly pulled a gun and shot all four, killing them where they sat in their tent or at the campsite, then left their bodies in place.
- February 13, 1973 – Mullin’s final known victim, Fred Perez, 72, was shot once in the heart with a rifle while raking leaves in his front yard in Santa Cruz. Mullin had driven past, heard “voices,” made a U‑turn, and fired from his car, then drove away. A neighbor witnessed the murder, recorded his license plate, and alerted police, leading to Mullin’s swift arrest minutes later.
Mullin confessed to all 13 killings during interrogation, insisting they were necessary to prevent earthquakes and that many of his victims had granted telepathic permission.
Modus Operandi and Victimology
Mullin’s victimology was notably broad: men and women, adults and children, acquaintances and complete strangers, including a priest, a transient, teenage campers, a drug dealer, and a suburban mother and her sons. Geographically, the killings clustered in and around Santa Cruz County, with forays into Los Gatos and rural parks, but without a tight neighborhood focus.
His methods varied. He used:
- Bludgeoning (baseball bat) in his first murder.
- Stabbing and disembowelment in multiple cases, including the priest and Mary Guilfoyle.
- Shooting with .22‑caliber firearms and then postmortem stabbing, particularly in the Gianera/Francis household murders and the teenage campers.
This variability, along with the lack of sexual assault and the heavy overlay of psychotic motive, marks him as a disorganized, psychosis‑driven killer rather than a methodical, sexually motivated serial predator. His actions were impulsive and driven by real‑time hallucinations and delusions, yet his use of weapons and targeting of vulnerable situations shows pockets of intact instrumental thinking.
Arrest, Interrogation, and Confession
After the drive‑by killing of Fred Perez on February 13, 1973, a neighbor’s quick report of Mullin’s license plate allowed police to broadcast a description, and he was stopped and arrested without resistance a few minutes later. In the car beside him was the .22‑caliber handgun tied to the cabin murders; he made no attempt to use it during the arrest.
At the station, Mullin rapidly confessed to the entire series of killings, describing voices and telepathic communications that told him who needed to die to prevent earthquakes. His detailed admissions shifted the trial’s focus from whether he committed the murders to whether he was legally sane and criminally responsible.
Trial, Sanity Question, and Sentencing
Mullin was charged with ten counts of murder (not all 13 suspected homicides were formally charged), and his 1973 trial centered on his mental state. The defense argued that he was legally insane due to paranoid schizophrenia, citing years of hospitalizations, hallucinations, grandiose religious delusions, and his earthquake‑prevention beliefs.
Prosecutors countered that despite his illness, he understood what he was doing and that it was wrong: he took steps such as hiding some bodies, using multiple weapons, and changing locations; he also sometimes targeted people he had conflicts with (like Gianera) in addition to strangers, suggesting a mix of delusional and instrumental motives.
In August 1973, the jury found Mullin legally sane and convicted him of two counts of first‑degree murder (for the premeditated killings of the campers) and nine counts of second‑degree murder for the other victims. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, with eligibility set decades in the future.
Incarceration, Parole Denials, and Death
Mullin served his sentence in California prisons, most recently at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California. Over the years he appeared before parole boards multiple times – at least eight hearings – each time denied release due to the severity of his crimes and ongoing concerns about his mental state and potential risk.
At a later parole hearing conducted via Zoom in his seventies, he was still described as schizophrenic and highly dangerous by evaluating psychiatrists, despite his own claims that he had been “freed” from the illness since the 1980s. When asked hypothetically whether he would have killed a baby if the “voices” told him to, he reportedly paused before saying no – a hesitation that reinforced board members’ doubts about his judgment and insight.
Mullin died on August 18, 2022, aged 75, at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton from natural causes after roughly 49 years in custody. He never obtained parole.
Psychological Profile and Violent Mindset
Herbert Mullin’s case is a stark illustration of how severe schizophrenia, when combined with stress, trauma, drug use, and insufficient treatment, can yield a lethal delusional mission. His belief that he was preventing earthquakes by killing, and that victims telepathically consented, allowed him to override moral restraints and to reinterpret murder as altruistic sacrifice.
Unlike many serial killers driven by sexual sadism or psychopathic thrill‑seeking, Mullin’s violence was rooted primarily in psychosis rather than calculated cruelty, although his disembowelments, overkill, and child murders still reveal deep aggression and a complete collapse of empathy. His life also illustrates systemic failure: multiple brief hospitalizations, premature discharges, and lack of sustained community treatment left a floridly psychotic man free to act on apocalyptic commands, with devastating consequences for 13 victims and their families.
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