Richard Harland Niemeier, BHS 1965Napa Valley Register, Napa, California, Saturday, February 10, 1979
Identify Slaying Victim
The murder victim found on rural Buhman Avenue in Brown Valley early Friday has been identified as Richard Harland Niemeier, 32, of Burbank.
Niemeier, a Los Angeles department store window dresser, was on vacation and had taken a flight from Burbank to San Francisco at noon Wednesday, his mother told Napa County Sheriff’s investigators. Lt. Dick Lonergan said today that Niemeier was probably killed in San Francisco’s homosexual community and dumped alongside the isolated road between Dealy Lane and Henry Road. He had been dead for only five to six hours when the body was discovered. Niemeier’s mother told police her son was visiting a male friend in northern California while on vacation. But she said she did not know where his friend lived.
Lonergan who has been leading the investigation, said he had contacted several of the victim’s friends in San Francisco last night in an attempt to piece together his last activities. Lonergan added that Niemeier friends are helping with the investigation and none are suspects at this time. Niemeier nude body was spotted by a passing motorist about 7:15 a.m. Friday.
An autopsy report completed Friday night showed he had been shot twice in the face, once in the back of the head, and once in the small of the back. Ballistics tests on Friday showed Niemeier was not clothed when he was shot. None of the victim’s clothing or his belongings have been found.
Deputies questioned residents of the rural area and two farm workers, but no one had seen or heard anything unusual during the night or early Friday morning. Lonergan said the murder could have occurred somewhere between San Francisco and Napa, but he emphasized there was “no local connection at all.” Detectives said Niemeier was single and survived by his mother and a brother, both of Burbank.
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The Napa Valley Register, Thursday, February 22, 1979
Same Gun Used For Napa And Tehama Deaths
Two homosexuals believed killed in San Francisco and then dumped – one in Tehama County on Feb. 5 and the other in Napa County four days later – were both shot with the same gun, Department of Justice ballistics experts confirmed today.
The nude body of Richard Niemeier, 32, of Burbank, was found on rural Buhman Avenue in the early morning of Feb. 9. The partially-clothed body of Thomas Walls Gloster, 31, of San Francisco, was found in an isolated area near Red Bluff a few mornings before. Each of the men had last been seen in the same gay bar in San Francisco the night before his death. Both had been shot repeatedly.
Gloster had been shot six times, five times to back of the head. Niemeier had been shot four times, twice in the lower face, once in the back of head and once in the small of the back. Napa County sheriff’s detectives investigating the brutal Niemeier murder had speculated that the Niemeier slaying and the Gloster murder were connected.
Since both men frequented gay establishments, investigators concluded that they probably knew one another and may well have both run into the same murderer. Detectives further speculated that both may have been the victims of a sado-masochistic encounter which ended with death. But until now, investigators could only speculate that the murders were connected. After the ballistics tests, they know there is a connection.
But Lt. Richard Lonergan, who is heading the probe, is still reluctant to say the same person killed both Niemeier and Gloster. “We know they were killed by the same gun,” Lonergan commented. “But we don’t know it was the same person. We can only infer that.” Lonergan would not reveal the type of weapon used in the murders but he described it as a large caliber gun. Investigators reported earlier that any one of the bullet wounds might well have killed Niemeier, lending credence to the sado-masochism theory.
“In sado-masochism the ultimate for the sadist is o kill and for the masochist, to be killed,” Lonergan noted. “And when they kill, it’s always overkill.” Lonergan said investors are continuing to interview members of the gay community in San Francisco and are working closely with detectives from Tehama County Sheriff’s department.
He said friends of the two victims have been cooperative in the investigation. As yet, detectives have no suspects in the murders. Both Niemeier and Gloster were found by passing motorist only a few hours after they had been dumped. Gloster’s hands and feet had been tied and he wore a black T-shirt.
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Napa Valley Times, Tuesday, May 8, 1979
Unsolved Murders Studied For Link To Hendricks
Authorities throughout the states of Washington, Oregon and California are comparing the evidence in about 20 unsolved murder cases this week to see if slain murderer Larry Hendricks, 33, of Tacoma, Washington, can be blamed for any of the deaths. Hendricks was killed last week in Tacoma when a would-be murder victim wrestled away a gun and shot him six times. Authorities have confirmed through ballistics that Hendricks killed Richard Niemeier, 32, of Burbank, on Feb 5, and dumped him on Buhman Avenue in Napa.
He also killed Thomas Gloster, 30, of San Francisco, and dumped his body off Interstate 5 in Tehama County on Feb. 9, authorities have confirmed. The body of a third victim, Michael Zahnle, 22, of Tacoma, was found in the same wooded area where Army Private Toivo Redditt killed Hendricks.
Napa County Sheriff’s Lt. Dick Lonergan said today the 20 unsolved cases are similar to the Niemeier, Gloster and Zahnle deaths, in that the victims were shot to death and dumped in isolated areas.
Dead man suspected of being killer of at least 4 gay men
Law enforcement officials said today they believe they have found the killer of at least four men whose tortured and beaten bodies were found recently in Northern California and Washington. Both Northern California victims were believed to have met the killer in a San Francisco gay bar.
Undersheriff Roy Durham, of Pierce County, Washington, said the killer of the four men “and probably more” was Larry Hendricks, a 23 year-old convicted sex offender who worked as a sex counsellor at the Washington State Hospital in Tacoma. Hendricks, who was believed to have shot his victims after torturing them, was himself killed late last week by one of his intended victims, Durham said today.
Durham said Hendricks dressed in his usual black leather jacket, leather pants, black turtleneck sweater and driving a black van, picked up Toivo Redditt, 23, a soldier, who was hitchhiking in Tacoma last week. When Redditt got into the van, Hendricks drew a 38-caliber Colt revolver and handcuffed the young soldier. He placed a hood over his head and leg irons on his ankles and then drove to the outskirts of Tacoma.
When they got to a wooded area, Durham said, Hendricks drove to an open grave where he showed Redditt the corpse of another victim, later identified as Michael Zahnle, 23, of Tacoma. Hendricks then beat Redditt and burned him with a lighted cigarette, saying “If you don’t cooperate you’ll end up like that body.”
When Redditt indicted he would cooperate, Hendricks bent over to unlock the leg irons, Redditt told Durham. “I knew it was my last chance. So I kicked him in the face and hit him with everything I had. Then I grabbed his gun and shot him.” Durham said Hendricks was instantly killed. Redditt drove the van to the nearest sheriff’s station and told his story.
Durham said he did not know how many more victims there might be but “we have two missing homosexuals from Tacoma and a dentist has mysteriously disappeared and we found his near Hendricks’ home.” The Washington officials put out an all-points bulletin late last week, describing Hendricks and his method of killing and last weekend representatives of the Napa and Tehama County sheriff’s departments flew to Tacoma.
Ballistics tests have confirmed that it was Hendricks Colt that killed Richard Harland Niemeier, 32, of Burbank, and Thomas Walls Gloster, 31, of San Francisco, whose bodies were found last February in Napa and Red Bluff. Both these men frequented the same San Francisco gay bar, deputies said, and Hendricks was known to have moved from Tacoma last November to San Francisco. He returned to his Washington home in late February, deputies said.
Both Niemeier and Gloster were bound hand and foot, shot in the head and found nude. They had both been burned with cigarettes. Durham said carpet fibers taken from Hendricks van were found on the two California victims and a black van was seen near the spot where Gloster’s body was found alongside Highway 36, about 34 miles from Red Bluff.
Durham said his office is now getting inquiries from police departments “up and down the coast” and added he had no idea “how many more victims there might be.”
