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Post by amazingates on Nov 1, 2019 0:27:19 GMT -8
Patricia " Pattie" Ann Popejoy - Delta Mendota Canal outside of TRACY, CA West of Modesto CAUnsolved Murder of Pattie Popejoy
Popejoy Patricia (Patterson Cemetery District Obit Listings) 1971 Murder Victim Is Identified; The body of a young woman found Sunday evening floating in the Delta-Mendota canal was identified Wednesday as an 18 year old Modestan. She was Patricia Ann Popejoy, whose address was listed the same as her mother and step-father. Her body had been in the water from two to four weeks, according to the county pathologist. The body was noticed Sunday by two Modestans, Jed and Sharon Green, who were fishing in the canal. It was floating on the surface. When removed from the canal, it was discovered that chains had been used to wire Miss Popejoy's legs and neck to a trailer axle. However, her death was apparently caused by five blows to the back of the skull, possibly by a hand axe. Her larynx also was fractured. Sheriff s investigators state they do not have any leads as to the point at which the body was thrown into the canal. The Trailer Axel came from the sierras east of ModestoPatricia Ann “Pattie” Popejoy BIRTH 9 Dec 1952 California, USA DEATH 15 May 1971 (aged 18) Ceres, Stanislaus County, California, USA BURIAL Ceres Memorial Park Ceres, Stanislaus County, California, USA From her memorial site ( posted by Pattie's sister)Patricia was found tied to a trailer axel floating in the delta mendota canel around the tracy area there in california, a young man and a young girl that was fishing found her body floating, she had been in the water for about two weeks so therefore her body was bloated, they found that someone used a machetty to wack her behind the head, that is what killed her, her fingers were gone so they tried to hide her identity but was identified by my mother, the trailer axel came from a farm in the mountains in the high sierras east side of the valley, this was around the time of charley manson, i always thought that trailer axel might of came from the farm were he was, but the fbi said it wasnt, but was related to him? My sister was a hippy and traveled every were used drugs ran with bikers, the last time i seen her was in keys california about a couple months before she showed up dead, she stayed two days with us, i always thought she was very pretty, the man that droped her off reminds me of the guy who in the movie with charley manson his top guy, really related to him and also the car that he drove, im sure someone knows, but maybe im just wishful thinking, but i still feel the same way today, her last words with us was that she was going away for a while and was going to be rich? Im thinking of the kind of people she hung around got her killed and maybe she ripped them off, saying maybe there drug money, i dont know but her case is still not solved? www.findagrave.com/memorial/99272456/patricia-ann-popejoy
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Post by amazingates on Nov 1, 2019 0:32:56 GMT -8
Here is another case that I have wondered about since Pattie went missing.
Pattie's family had lived in Modesto, Ceres and KEYES (a tiny little town just south of Modesto, CA.) Pattie was known to travel all over. Her body was found in the Delta Mendota Canal, West Of Modesto, almost in the Tracy CA area. Pattie was 18 years old when she died.
Whoever killed Pattie had weighted her down with a heavy trailer axel, but her body surfaced anyway. Someone had cut off her fingers so she could not be identified.
She is one in a long list of people found in the Delta Mendota Canal.
I know her sister thinks Pattie might have left with one of the Manson members, but I'm not sure I personally think that. I remember when this happened. there were a lot of girls disappearing back then. I there was a sk running loose in the Modesto area.
It is said the trailer axle came from the Sierra mountains from the east of Modesto, that would most like be at least 50 miles to the east before you get up into the sierras. I don't know how far up into the Sierras where the axle came from. I certainly would like to know. It would help a lot to know who might have done this.
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Post by amazingates on Nov 1, 2019 1:00:15 GMT -8
Not long after Pattie went missing, there was an incident where a girl got into a 55 or 56 dark shiny green chevy and was taken out in the country out west of Modesto, going out to the area where Pattie was put in the Delta Mendota. She did not think she was going to get out of there alive. She pretended she had drugs back in her own car that she had left parked in Modesto. She got them to take her to her car to get the drugs, which she did not have but she made up the story in hopes they would take her to get them. It worked and she got away from them once back in town in a residential area. No one ever knew who they were and I've never heard anything about it other than this
I forgot to say... so adding this now... the people who had taken this other girl out there in the green chevy, were sitting there talking about how they were going to do to her what they had done to the girl in the Mendota Canal, meaning Pattie. Did they really have something to do with that? who knows, but they were discussing it and the girl thought they were either trying to scare the hell out of her, or they really had killed and dumped pattie in the delta mendota, and planned on doing the same to her. None of this was ever reported to the police.
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Post by amazingates on Nov 1, 2019 20:44:22 GMT -8
I just realized that where they found the body of Donna Peeples murdered Modesto CA 1975 and found her in a grape vineyard out maze road at Dakota, this is only a few miles from where Pattie Popejoy was last seen, in 1971 and then she was taken out maze, all the way out and put in the delta mendota canal.
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Post by amazingates on Nov 19, 2019 10:13:18 GMT -8
I remember when Pattie went missing. She was on youth parole at the time, from California Youth Authority (that happened to a lot of people then, nothing horrible, they sent you there for anything from truancy to run away or stupid nothing things like that). But anyway she was on Parole at the time. Her parole officer one day asked me if I had seen Pattie and I said no, and I really had not seen her. Her parole officer asked me if I would keep an eye out for her and if I saw her(Pattie) to have her contact her(the parole officer). Her parole officer was worried about her for some reason. This parole officer really cared about her parolees and tried to help them, not violate them and get them in trouble. For some reason she was concerned that Pattie did not show up for her "check in". I don't know why she thought that was unusual, but she did. So I kept an eye out for Pattie, but never saw her and never heard anything about her.
A couple of weeks passed and the parole officer again asked me to help find her. again, I heard nothing about where she might be. I would not have told where she was anyway haha, but I would have told her to "check in" that the parole officer was worried about her. But never ran into her.
So was not long after that, they found her in the Delta Mendota. I was like, what the hell happened, who did this to Pattie. I never talked to the Parole officer again about Pattie. I don't know if the parole officer suspected Pattie was in danger or if someone else had told the parole officer something that made her worry or why she was so worried about finding Pattie. I know it was not like most parole officers when they are looking for someone. This parole officer was nothing like that. She was a very caring person and tried to help her parolees, not lock them up. She would actually let you get away with anything and try to get you out of trouble if you did do something. So I'm wondering if someone else came into the parole office and might have told her(the parole officer) that they thought something had happened to Pattie. I'm sure that parole officer is dead by now, but maybe not. Her name was Mrs Williams. I wonder if there is anything at all written in Patties parole file that she(the parole officer) might have made a note of in there. Maybe she scribbled something in there, and would that file even still exist. i doubt it. Maybe someone out there remembers mrs William saying something to them about worried about Pattie or why? maybe someone out there who did talk to Mrs williams said something to make Mrs Williams go out of her way to find pattie to make sure she was okay. If so, who was that person, are they still alive? and how the heck do we figure out who they were and what they knew? ... IF they knew something and told it to Mrs Williams
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Post by amazingates on Nov 19, 2019 10:23:32 GMT -8
I wonder where in the "high sierras" that the trailer axle Pattie was wired to, came from. Wherever it came from it seems Pattie's killer/killers would have been there and picked it up for some reason. Did they steal it from up there and then brought it back to Modesto area and just had it for other reasons? And then used it to weight Pattie down after they killed her? as a "second thought"? or did they kill Pattie up there in the Sierras where the axle was at and then grab it up to weight her down, knowing they were going to drive back to Modesto area and dump her in the Delta mendota? At that time the Delta Mendota was the "dumping grounds" for bodies. So for something to take her all that way and then dump her out there is not that unthinkable to have happened. Perhaps this person/persons had been responsible for some of the other bodies dumped out in the Delta Mendota, and perhaps the others never surfaced, so they thought that was the best place to hide Pattie's body as well. A lot of girls were missing during this time. In fact so many, I believe there was a serial killer in Modesto area for years.
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Post by amazingates on Nov 19, 2019 11:03:06 GMT -8
I'm not sure exactly where at in the Delta Mendota they found pattie. I'm not sure how far she would have floated after she surfaced, still wired to the trailer axle. Would she float far, very likely she could have. That is fast moving water. You always knew not to get up there and fall in or you would not get out and you would drown. That was a given. It was a popular place to fish, and I remember as a kid when fishing out there to never get near the edge and slide in. It was exceptionally wide and very fast water. It was not like most "canals".
I wonder if they determined where exactly she was put in the canal. If she was in there for 3-4 weeks she could have surfaced early on and floated a long ways. I would really like to know exactly where the killer/killers put her in at. That might tell us what area of the delta mendota they were most familiar with and where they might live. That canal stretches for miles and miles past many towns, so it would be nice to know by which town and which road they think she was put in the canal, "IF" they can even tell.
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Post by amazingates on Nov 22, 2019 21:15:37 GMT -8
The person I had talked to who said this green 55-56 chevy picked her up and took her out towards the area of the Delta Mendota (who were talking about the girl they had done something to, and saying the girl in the delta mendota), she said she thought they had some connections to turlock and an auto body shop or a place where they had mechanics and worked on cars. She said she later saw them by there. They might not have lived around there but might have known someone around there and says she vaguely remembers someone there who had an orange GTO. And she says maybe it was near hilmar that one of them might have lived.
She also told me that when she first got in the car with them a friend was with her but she got a ride home first and then she was suppose to be taken back to her car, but they would not take her back. there were 3 guys in the car, two were older and one was pretty young and she remember he was dressed up and when she asked why, she was told he had just graduated high school. She remembers she said she did not believe he was in high school and he showed her his ID with his age on it, and she thinks his first name was RICK. She tried to get them to take her back to her car and they would not do it. So she just played it off until she could figure out a way to get away from them. She vaguely remembers what they looked like. they were probably in their late 20's at the time. The driver had darker hair not long but not in a really short hair cut, kind of bushy a bit, and the other one had lighter shorter hair. The lighter haired one was kind of heavier, not fat at all, but stocky. The darker haired one was taller and not skinny but not heavy. The younger one named "rick" she really can't remember too much about what he looked like. it was dark in the back of the car and she could not see that well. but she is sure his name was Rick. She thought they were all related, but does not remember why she thought that.
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Post by amazingates on Dec 19, 2019 21:17:12 GMT -8
I'm wondering if that trailer axle might have by chance came out of long barn Ca?
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Post by amazingates on Jan 13, 2020 21:35:36 GMT -8
got to thinking about this trailer axle again. First how do they know this axle came out of the High Sierras? how would they know, it is just an axle, are they stamped with numbers etc? or maybe something was wired onto it?
there had to be something on that axle to identify who it belonged to. Being in the delta mendota canal it would not have any dirt or debris that would id where it came from. so what ID'd it?
this is one case that has been unsolved for way way way too long and I really want this case solved.
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Post by amazingates on Jan 28, 2020 16:29:51 GMT -8
The trailer axle came from the high sierras. I had wondered if it might have been from the LONG BARN area, and now I wonder if it might have come from up at Long Barn on the Clavey River Area. That is all gold mining area up there but LONG BARN is a FAVE hunting are for many hunters out of the valley and the foothill towns. I wish I could find out exactly where that trailer axle was from.
I've been thinking about this a lot. If they killed her in the high sierras where that trailer axle was stolen from, then why not just bury her up there. So they must have killed her in Modesto area and either had the trailer axle with them in the trunk or the back of a truck, probably a truck or van, how you going to fit a trailer axle in a car? maybe a station wagon... but a car is unlikely. Or they killed her and had to go home and get the trailer axle to tie her to, but still they need a truck, van, or station wagon to haul a trailer axle.
I wonder if Pattie's sister remembers what kind of vehicle that one guy was driving when he came to the house with Pattie. I need to talk to her. I also have a name I want to ask her if she remembers ever coming around with pattie or who lived there in Keyes at the time.
oh wait a minute. I just remembered something someone told me about someone popping in all bloody as hell in the middle of the night. wow. Could this have been what was going on? thinking of the dates. hmm it is the right year. let me go see if I can find some old docs and records on where someone was living in 1971. I think they were living right there in Keyes. crap!!!
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Post by amazingates on Jan 28, 2020 16:53:38 GMT -8
still brainstorming this....
I'm wondering if a trailer axle would fit in the back of a 55 chevy trunk...they were big cars with big trunks. This is 1971, what kind of trailer axle are they talking about... a U-haul, one that was in a homemade trailer made out of an old pickup bed? or what? who steals a trailer axle up in the high sierras, and takes it to modesto? someone building a trailer, someone who has a trailer that they axle is bad, someone who lives in a place that has room for a trailer(not an appartment etc).
other thought.... you wire a body to a trailer axle and then try to get it in the delta mendota canal. that is a steep cement-sided canal that you can easily fall into and can not get out. you fall in that canal and most likely you are not getting out. It's also swift and dangerous and anyone familiar with that canal knows that. So how do they get this heavy trailer axle(with another 100 lbs of body weight) into that canal. the metal of the trailer and the weight pushing it on the surface of the cement is going to make it really hard to get that axle into the water. I'm thinking it is going to take more than one person to get that axle and body out there into the water and not have the axle hang up on the cement embankment. I don't think it would roll down it either with a body wired on it. so how did they manage to get that trailer axle with the body OUT INTO THE WATER where it would SINK... that's going to be very hard if not impossible. My guess is there was someone else there helping. Was someone else there when Pattie was killed or did the killer go get help?
1971, let me go look at something.
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Post by amazingates on Jan 28, 2020 17:10:16 GMT -8
just a couple of notes so I don't forget....
Ceres, Modesto - story told address of people talking about something happening in 1971 Turlock - old address and relatives or person in cases below there in 1971 Keyes - 1971 relatives or person below
long barn - Clavey River - other case - 2 bodies
other story Girl Taken, Pattie in conversation, orchard out by maze 132 - Delta Mendota murder 1971
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