The Zodiac Killer wrote the San Francisco Chronicle in mid-October of 1969 and threatened to shoot out the tires of a school bus and “pick off kiddies as they come bouncing out.” Shortly afterward, he phoned the Palo Alto Times and told them that he was leaving San Francisco because it was “too hot.” This was taken as a direct threat and subsequently, all of the school buses in Palo Alto were given police escorts.
Mom paid our babysitter, Sharkey, a little extra to pick us up early at school. She didn’t believe the pigs would be able to protect any kids if the bullets started flying. Ironically, we weren’t any safer with the sitter. Sharkey watched up to a dozen kids in her two-bedroom apartment while dealing cocaine and heroin on the side. She kept one eye on us and the other on her customers, who came and went well into the evening. Her neighbors were never suspicious of the heavy foot traffic, assuming it was parents picking up or dropping off their kids.
My sister and I were always the last ones to be picked up. One night, not long after we left, two masked men burst through the front door and got the drop on Sharkey and her roommate; her 13-year-old niece. One put his gun to Sharkey’s head and demanded her drugs and money. She told them they had the wrong apartment. They knew that was bullshit.
One night, not long after we left, two masked men burst through the front door and got the drop on Sharkey and her roommate; her 13-year-old niece.
The niece was dragged to her bedroom, and told to sit on her bed and not move. Sharkey was tossed around from room to room as the robbers tore the place apart. She kept telling them there were no drugs or money in the apartment. Finally, one of the men took her back into her bedroom and slammed the door shut. He gave her one last chance to give up the goods. When she didn’t, he shot her in the face. The bullet entered her right eye and exited the back of her head. They left her for dead.
While Sharkey recuperated in the hospital, her family emptied her apartment and locked all of her belongings away in storage. Upon her release, she went into hiding, believing the would-be killers would come back to finish the job.
I was with my mom when she ran into Sharkey at the grocery store about a year after the incident. She filled my mom in on some of the details she hadn’t heard. I couldn’t help but stare at her eye patch the whole time, visualizing the gun going off in her face, over and over, and over again. For years I had recurring nightmares that I was there when it happened, and for a time, believed I actually had been.
Sharkey wasn’t seen again in public until thirty years later. She felt safe enough to come out one day to a neighborhood picnic but spent most of her time looking over her shoulder, with her one good eye.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I am an avid reader of mob and true crime novels. This is one of the best I have ever read." - Amazon review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "What a page turner! This story is an amazing piece of investigative work—both compelling and heartbreaking." - Amazon review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I’d seen the author’s work in OZY but was blown away by this book. It’s SUCH a great read, written from the heart! Full of interest for those historians of the hippie generation, North Beach, corrupt cops, mobbed up pols, and San Francisco in general. Very well written and paced up to the last pages. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Buy this book now!" - Amazon review