Seven Blacks Seized in 'Zebra' Murders

[Of related interest, at WEJB/NSU:

“The Nation of Islam’s Blood Brothers 1963-1964 Serial Killings of Whites in Harlem (Alan Stang)”;

“The Zebra Murders: The First Victims?”;

“Lest We Forget: Remembering the Zebra Victims”;

“Domestic Terrorism: The Nation of Islam and the Zebra Murders”;

“The Nation of Islam's Sacramento Murders”;

“The Nation of Islam's Sacramento Murders, Part II”;

“The Nation of Islam's Sacramento Murders, Part III”;

“Larry Pratt: Picture of a Genocidal Racist and Future Murderer”;

“Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam Mosque Ambush Murder of White NYPD Cop Philip Cardillo is in the News Again, as Racist Black CB 10 Chairwoman”;

“The Oklahoma City Nation of Islam Murders.”]
 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

Thanks to my friend, legman, and partner-in-crime, David in TN, for this article!

This is a classic, 1974 New York Times article on the first arrests in the 1973-1974 Nation of Islam serial and spree murders of whites in San Francisco.

The article appears to be poorly edited, but its typos and other grammatical errors are likely all due to scanning.

Other errors are political in nature, e.g., Mayor Alioto’s denial that the Death Angels were members of the Nation of Islam. The Mayor knew better.

The “midwestern city” mentioned was Chicago, or as the NOI called it, “New Mecca.”

I have a strong hunch, as to who the “man who lives in a midwestern city” is, but I can’t prove it, and he’s still alive. My hunch is based on his being the one man who had motive, means, and opportunity to order the murders.

Back in 2006, one of the members of the SFPD’s Zebra Task Force told me that the murders and burglaries were all run through the local mosque.

I see that once I started publishing a series of reports on the Nation of Islam murders, other men followed in my footsteps, but most of them failed to give attribution. The usual.

Zebra killer J.C. Simon, aka J.C.X. Simon, died in his jail cell at San Quentin Prison on March 12, 2015, of unknown causes.
 

Archives
| 1974

Seven Blacks Seized in 'Zebra' Murders

By WALLACE TURNER
MAY 2, 1974
New York Times

[Coded, online, NYT summary: data-title="Seven Blacks Seized in 'Zebra' Murders" data-author="By WALLACE TURNER Special to The New York Times" data-media="" data-description="7 black men arrested on May 1 in San Francisco Zebra killings; Mayor Alioto says group called 'Death Angels' is behind killings in city and perhaps more than 80 murders in state, although Atty Gen Evelle J Younger disputes statement; suspects identified as J C Simon, Larry D Green, Manuel Moorer, Douglas Burton, Tom Manney, Clarence Jamerson and Dwight Stallings; Green, Morrer and Jamerson said to be Black Muslims; Alioto says that Death Angels is believed to be directed by man in midwestern city, who grants promotions to members on basis of criminal acts performed; says recruitment is done in prison; insists that no evidence ties group to Black Muslims; illus (L)" data-publish-date="May 2, 1974" data-share-tools-initialized="1">]


SAN FRANCISCO, May 1—Seven black men were arrested by the police here early today on murder charges, and within hours Mayor Joseph L. Alioto said “I am satisfied that we have the men” who committed 12 apparently motiveless slayings of whites in five months.

Seven Blacks Seized in ‘Zebra’ Murders

The Mayor also said that a statewide—perhaps nationwide —“vicious ring of murderers called ‘Death Angels'” was behind the killings here and perhaps more than 80 similar killings through the state. The 12 murders here have been nicknamed tor the radio channel used by police investigators —“Z” for zebra.

No other law enforcement agency here, including the San Francisco Police Department, was willing to support the Mayor's statements about the Death Angel murder ring.

[Publicly, maybe not, but Mayor Alioto got his information from the very law enforcement organizations which reportedly refused to publicly support him!]

Attorney General Evelie J. Younger, opening a news conference to say he was well aware of the “pitfalls of any careless comments,” said it was for Mr. Alioto to decide “whether his comments are wise or unwise.”

[These attacks on an elected official for telling the truth sound awfully familiar!]

“We have no evidence to indicate that those responsible for the Zebra killings in San Franscisco committed murders outside the bay area,” Mr. Younger said.

[AG Younger, a Republican, was lying through his teeth. Not only had state law enforcement determined that the murders were being committed up and down the state, and East Bay police and media had reported on over 30 such additional murders, but a member of the Zebra Task force, whom I interviewed in 2006, recounted getting a memo from the FBI, stating that the NOI was murdering whites on both coasts. Note, too, the NOI’s racist murders of whites in Oklahoma City, during the same period.]

Charles Bates, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation office here, said he had never heard of the Death Angels and added, “I know of nothing now that puts this matter in the F.B.I.'s jurisdiction.”

[Another liar is heard from.]

Both Mr. Younger and Mr. Alioto denied any political partisanship in their statements. Mr. Younger is a Republican running for a second tern; Mayor Alioto in recent polls has been shown to be running third in his quest for the Democratic nomination for Governor.

Early Morning Raids

Six of the arrests were made between 5 and 8:15 A.M. in coordinated raids involving more than 100 San Francisco policemen. The seventh arrest was made soon after.

The police gave minimal information about the prisoners. Lineups were planned for witnesses to the murders, officials said.

Reporters were able to establish from state prison officials that two of the men had been Black Muslims [the vernacular phrase for the Nation of Islam] while in prison. Other sources identified a third man as a Black Muslim.

A spokesman for the religious group reacted angrily to the Mayor's statements. The spokesman said that the church would defend its members unless “we find they are guilty and we will not support them.”

[He lied. The criterion for defending fellow NOI members was that they never confess to any crimes against “the white man’s law.” The only Black Muslim they didn’t defend was Jesse Lee Cooks, because he confessed.]

The seven arrested, and charges against them were as follows:

J. C. Simon, 29, charged with two counts of murder and single counts of conspiracy to commit murder, assault with a deadly weapon “and robbery. The police said the robbery charge grew out of a holdup of a grocery store a few blocks from City Hall on Nov. 25, 1973, where Saleen Erakat, a grocer, was killed. This was the first Zebra slaying.

[The first Zebra killings were committed no later than Friday, August 3-Saturday, August 4, 1973. The victims were Stephen M. Conachy, 21, and Joseph M. Villaroman, 17, repectively.]

Larry D. Green, one count each of, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and robbery and two counts of assault with deadly weapon. He was said to bea truck driver and a Black Muslim.

Manuel Moorer, 29, murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was on parole, and while in San Quentin prison was a Black Muslim, officials said.

Douglas Burton, 22, Clarence Jamerson, 27, Dwight Stallings, 23, and Tom Manney, 31, all charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

[Burton, Jamerson, Stallings and Manney would all soon be released, based on an alleged “lack of evidence,” even though several of the murders were carried out using Manney’s car. Manney was the manager of the NOI-owned, Black Self-Help Moving and Storage, where three of the eventually convicted killers worked, at the time of the murders. Jamerson and Stallings are long since dead, Stallings by murder. Zebra author Clark Howard referred to one suspect by the pseudonym “Jasper Childs.” Since I can account for the three others who were released, by the process of elimination, I’m left with Douglas Burton, aka Edgar D. Burton. The reader can easily figure out why Howard would single one man out for special treatment.

Manney long ago changed his name to a Moslem one, but I don’t know what it is, and have no idea if he’s still alive, and if he is, where he is.]

Mr. Jimerson, who served a year in prison for receiving stolen property, was a black Muslim during his term, officials said.


No Details on Arrests


The police said that Mr. Manney, while a student at St. Ignatius High School here, was an all‐city fullback in 1959. He was said to have been a varsity halfback at San Francisco State College from 1961 to 1963 and to have been drafted in 1963 by the professional Pittsburgh Steelers but never to have played. He did not graduate from college although he returned to study there in the autumn of 1968, school employes said.

The police would not say where the men were arrested and except for identifying the grocery holdup with one charge against Mr. Simon, they would not tie any of the men to any specific criminal act.

The police would give no information on what leads caused them to make the seven arrests, but Mayor Alioto said at a news conference that the arrests had come after investigations that corroborated the story of a witness interviewed by the Mayor and the police last Saturday morning in the Mayor's office.

In a long prepared statement and in reply to questions the Mayor said that he believed the Death Angels to be directed by a man who lives in a midwestern city. Mr. Alioto said he did not know the man's mame and he would not identify the city.

“We don't know his name,” Mr. Alioto said, “All we know is that certain trips are made to a certain city outside of California to determine if certain people are entitled to certain promotions.”

The Mayor said he believed the Death Angels organization had titles and offices to which advancement, was awarded on the basis of criminal acts performed. He said recruitment was done in prison.

He insisted repeatedly that no, evidence existed to tie the group to the Black Muslims: In his statement he said it “is based on muddled aberrations clearly outside the mainstream of Islamic religion.” In answers to questions he made an analogy between that relationship and the relationship between members of the Southern Septist Church and the Ku Klux Klan.

John Muhammad, minister of Temple 26 in San Francisco, said at a 10‐minute news conference where questions were not taken that he thought Mayor Alioto was clever “but at the same time he left some doors open that maybe some of the murders, were committed by the followers of the Honorable Elijah‐Muhammad (national leader of the church) but we don't even carry a penknife and this the Federal Government knows.”

Mr. Muhammad said the Mayor wanted defendants charged “because he wanted his office to look good.” He accused the Mayor of “already convicting the men.” He insisted that Muslims “do not take part in any random shootings.”

“I don't think the Death Angels is a religious organization, even though some of its members may be connected with the Muslim church,” Mr. Alioto said at his news conference.

“The local group is a division of a larger organization dedicated to the murder and mutilation of whites and dissident blacks,” he said in his prepared statement. “The pattern of killing is by random street shooting or hacking to death with machete, cleaver or knife. Decapitation and other forms of mayhem bring special credit from the organization for the killers. Hitchhikers are a particular prey.”

Mr. Alioto issued a list of 73 names of murder victims from several parts of this state, but he said that he suspected there were more than 80 murders committed by Death Angels and that some would never be, known. He mentioned that many suspicious disappearances had been reported to policemen in several California cities.