Town note
Terra Linda means beautiful land.
about 0:05:12Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 411 / 3 August 2023 / 178 MIN / full
Terralinda, California, which is actually a smaller town inside of another not very big city called San Rafael... in Marin County... about a half hour outside San Francisco. about 0:04:42
Terra Linda means beautiful land.
about 0:05:12The town sits on land once owned by Manuel T. Freitas, whose family held parts of the Rancho San Pedro, Santa Margarita and Las Gallinas Mexican land grants.
about 0:06:29About 900 homes were built by Joseph Eichler in 1955, giving Terra Linda its distinctive mid-century style.
about 0:07:14Guide Dogs for the Blind has been based on the edge of Terra Linda since before there was a town there.
about 0:08:40Terra Linda means beautiful land.
about 0:05:12The town sits on land once owned by Manuel T. Freitas, whose family held parts of the Rancho San Pedro, Santa Margarita and Las Gallinas Mexican land grants.
about 0:06:29About 900 homes were built by Joseph Eichler in 1955, giving Terra Linda its distinctive mid-century style.
about 0:07:14Guide Dogs for the Blind has been based on the edge of Terra Linda since before there was a town there.
about 0:08:40The Mall at Northgate is the only enclosed mall in Marin County, and Sears is its only original tenant from the 1960s.
about 0:09:25Spaceman Bill Lee, who pitched for the Red Sox in the 1970s, is from Terra Linda.
about 0:10:00James Hetfield of Metallica bought a house in Terra Linda in 2010.
about 0:10:15The legend that 420 began with San Rafael High School students in 1975, who used it as the time they met to smoke weed.
about 0:10:3144%
Biggest faith: Catholic residents, 31.6%
about 0:15:49White 56.3% · Black 2.3% · Asian 6.2% · Hispanic 29.7%
Ethnicity can overlap race.Property crime
▲ slightly high but not too high
Violent crime
▼ about a quarter under the national average
Two-bedroom two-bath condo
about 0:18:24Five-bedroom three-bath house
about 0:18:54Four-bedroom two-bath Eichler home
about 0:19:22"61,158"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:51
"7,091"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:14:56
"a few more males than females"
Comparison: "the opposite of normal". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:17
"41"
Comparison: "a little higher than normal". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:20
"50%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:26
"56.3%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:35
"2.3%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:35
"6.2%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:35
"29.7%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:35
"44%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:49
"31.6%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:15:56
"1.8%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:04
"82.3%"
Comparison: "last election". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:25
"15.8%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:32
"1.9%"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:32
"$75,668"
Comparison: "national average of about $54,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:16:34
"217"
Comparison: "100 is average". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:00
"$1,209,300"
Comparison: "on a median household income of about $76,000". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:07
"$3,300 a month"
Comparison: "normally about $1,200". No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:17:58
"$750,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:18:24
"$1,550,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:18:54
"$2,495,000"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:19:22
"slightly high but not too high"
Comparison: "in the range of pretty normal". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:21:32
"about a quarter under the national average"
Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:21:38
3.4 / 5 · average of 5
“The people are kind and friendly, everyone seems to know one another and there is a good mix of young families and elderly couples.”about 0:12:09
“It is mostly pet friendly and there are lots of dogs on the roads throughout the hills.”about 0:12:39
“The owners are very nice.”about 0:12:49
“Some places are very bad.”about 0:12:56
“The area has deteriorated since the demise of Northgate Mall; it is now a dump, with constant strong winds, brutal summer heat, drought, poor dining and more homeless and mentally ill people around.”about 0:13:13
Terra Linda is a small community within San Rafael, in Marin County, California, about half an hour north of San Francisco. Jim was born in 1917 and spent his working life chasing business schemes. He met and married Naomi, who was born in 1922, while on leave from the military in the summer of 1944. She was the daughter of a young woman from a prominent Virginia family and a sailor, and she grew up mostly in Ecuador, where Jim managed sales for American oil companies. Naomi hated Ecuador and became increasingly unstable. By the time the family returned to California she was drinking heavily, hoarding canned food, talking to invisible people in different voices and was later described as having a schizoid personality with paranoid features.
She was bright and pretty, wrote poetry, stole, took drugs and told people she was a witch. She hated her mother and the two fought constantly. After the family moved to Terra Linda, she was transferred from Terra Linda High School to a one-to-one school in San Rafael. Jim was often away working, and Naomi's behaviour grew worse.
He was overweight, shy and desperate to be liked, and he sold drugs to make friends. He fell in love with her immediately. She was less impressed at first, but he gave her drugs and gifts and did whatever she asked. She dominated him, told him she was a witch and that her eyes had power over him, made him steal women's clothes from shops, and threatened to become a prostitute if he refused her. He attempted suicide twice when she broke up with him. Her parents banned him from the house.
She told friends she wished they were dead, asked one man for a bomb to blow up their car, asked another whether he knew anyone who killed people, and with a former carnival worker called Mike Monroy bought a telescopic sight to shoot her father. In May 1975 she put Darvon and Dalmane in her mother's food, but Naomi ate little and complained about the taste.
He found the claw hammer she had left for him and struck Naomi repeatedly in the forehead. The hammer lodged in her skull.
After dark they wrapped the bodies, drove to China Camp, a remote spot off North San Pedro Road on the edge of San Pablo Bay, and burned them in a large concrete firepit used by hunters. They returned at six the next morning, found Jim's torso and head still intact, and built a bigger fire. At 9.49 a.m. a firefighter, Vic Torini, found the blaze, assumed hunters were burning a poached deer, shovelled the ashes over the wall and poured water on them.
A week later Jim's business partner, Colonel Phil Royce, called the police because Jim had vanished. She was sent for psychiatric evaluation. Anonymous calls led police to the China Camp firepit, where they found bone fragments, clothing and a burned dress. An anthropologist identified human remains. The press called the case the barbecue murders.
A friend had lent him the .22 revolver, which he borrowed on 21 June and returned on 23 June.
Psychiatrists described him as passive, highly suggestible and hungry for approval.
Her lawyer, Terence Hallinan, had been promised half her inheritance, but she was barred from inheriting.
In 1992 the Los Angeles Times called her the queen of the trashers after she was found with stolen credit cards, counterfeit identification and forged cheques. Police believed she was one of the leaders of a twenty-person ring and the main supplier of false documents. Her later whereabouts are unknown.
June 1975 / the Olive house, Terra Linda, California
As told in the episode, on 3 August 2023.
Accused
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
about 1:55:30school
about 0:29:02body found
about 1:40:38business
about 0:09:25business
about 1:51:05police
about 1:48:14other
about 0:08:48school
about 0:10:31business
about 2:14:07