Free Almost Trailside: A True Story by Kathy Rocco

at the boys running ahead of us. Then he looked back at me, and smiled, again.
    “Thank you. They’re really enjoying themselves.” I smiled back at him and glanced at the young woman again, who now seemed to be staring across the trail. She still did not acknowledge us in any way. Tommy began to quicken his pace.
    “Maybe we’ll see you again.” His tone was pleasant and rather charming.
    “Maybe…have a nice day.” I called back to him as we continued our hike to catch up with the boys, who had stopped to investigate some small rocks along the trail.
    We didn’t stop to talk with them for long. It was a very good thing that we didn’t, because
he
was the Trailside Killer, who had been raping and killing young women and their companions in and around open spaces and parklands in the San Francisco Bay Area for years but had never been identified or caught.
    That day, the Trailside Killer, shot to death the well-liked and vibrant young woman sitting next to him,
Ellen Marie Hansen
. But first, he viciously shot her boyfriend,
Stephen Haertle
, leaving him in the bushes for dead.
    The Trailside Killer was more active now than ever before and people of the San Francisco Bay Area were afraid.
    We continued our hike on the down side of the hiking trail, which brought us out into the campground just above our campsite.

    E
llen Marie Hansen and Stephen Haertle, were undergraduates at the University of California at Davis. Stephen was a junior and Ellen was a sophomore. On March 29, 1981 they were hiking together on one of the trails not far from their campground in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A stranger had passed them a couple of times along the trail, but they didn’t think anything of it. Suddenly, the stranger appeared again holding a gun. The stranger threatened them with the gun, insisting that Ellen allow him to rape her. She refused. Stephen tried to talk the stranger out of it begging him to let both of them go. Stephen lost his footing at the edge of the trail and when he did the stranger shot him. The bullets burrowed through Stephen’s neck and the stranger left him for dead as he lay motionless and unconscious in the bushes on the forest floor. When Stephen finally regained consciousness, he was disoriented and bleeding badly from the gunshot wounds. Sadly, he found Ellen near by, her head lying in a pool of blood. She was dead. The stranger wanted to rape Ellen, but her protests lead to him shooting her several times point blank, twice in the head and once in the shoulder, killing her instantly. Stephen was horrified but eventually was able to attract the attention of other hikers who passed by along the trail. Stephen Heartle was able to recover from his wounds after a long stay in the hospital. Stephen lived to describe the stranger and seven other hikers reported the man to the police but the Trailside Killer wasn’t finished with his path of destruction, by any means. There were more victims and more sadness to come for other families of the San Francisco Bay Area in the weeks and months ahead
.

    After the hike, inside the travel trailer, we washed our hands and freshened up before lunch. It was nice and warm inside with the forced air heater on.
    At the table we looked over a map of the area that the ranger had given us. We noticed another section of the Park that had a railroad train and a walking trail. It was called
Roaring Camp Big Trees Railroad
. We decided to unhook our station wagon from the travel trailer and drive over after lunch.
    We parked our Ford station wagon in the Roaring Camp parking lot and walked through the wide entrance to the huge picnic area. Redwood picnic tables were full of visitors eating and enjoying themselves. This section of the Park featured a narrow gauge railroad with a huge old steam engine, gift shop, and a nature walking trail.
    We considered taking a ride on the enormous black steam train but eventually decided against it. We