Infamous 'Zebra killer’ found dead in San Quentin cell

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | March 13, 2015 | Peter Fimrite

[artichokegrower]

One of the four “Zebra killers,” whose string of racially motivated slayings terrorized San Francisco in the 1970s, was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison, corrections officials said Friday.

The body of J.C.X. Simon, who was accused nearly 40 years ago of killing 14 random victims and wounding seven others on San Francisco streets, died alone in his cell of unknown causes Thursday night, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was pronounced dead at 11:59 p.m. inside the prison

[artichokegrower]

It's odd that Obama in his Selma speech last week mentioned "We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco" but left this incident out. Maybe all of the Zebra killing victims in addition to be all white were all gay.

[yldstrk]

Highway to hell

[P.O.E.]

“Random”, huh.

[ClearCase_guy]

Well, “the torch has been passed to a new generation” anyway.

[Tupelo]

“accused nearly 40 years ago”

Accused? I am reasonably sure he and the others were convicted.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

The killings were among several horrific and bloody events in the late 1960s and 1970s by San Francisco radicals, including the Zodiac serial killer, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Rev. Jim Jones, who forced his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch. Dan White also murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk that decade.

I've heard of all of these cases, except for the "Zebra Killings." Huh. Puzzling. Very puzzling.

[Liberty Valance]

Related thread from ‘05
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1394993/posts

[packrat35]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_murders

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Satan called him home at long last.

[newfreep]

satan's follower...

[IronJack]

Maybe his rotting corpse can be of some use as fertilizer. He sure wasn’t of much value when he was alive.

[Verginius Rufus]

The victims were all white. Whether any of them were gay, I don't know. I think one incident involved a couple (man and woman) who were shot at, but I don't recall if one or both died. By then San Francisco was notorious for having a lot of homosexual residents but I think they were just a small minority of the white population.

I was living in the Bay Area at the time and recall the black leaders making a big stink about police tactics as they tried to find the killer or killers. The police were stopping and questioning black men and eventually it did result in arrests. It seemed that the black leaders were upset that black men were being stopped but did not care about the victims since they were all white.

[glasseye]

“I can’t breath”