In the early 1970s, the idyllic, free-spirited coastal community of Santa Cruz, California, became the hunting ground for one of America's most disturbingly deluded serial killers: Herbert Mullin. Over a terrifying four-month spree, this softly spoken man murdered 13 people, including two young children, driven by a catastrophic psychotic belief that he was saving the state from a devastating earthquake.
A Mind Unravelling: The Descent into Psychosis
Born in 1947, Herbert Mullin's path to violence began long before his first killing. As a teenager, he was profoundly affected by the death of a close friend in a car accident, a loss from which he never truly recovered. Those around him watched as he grew increasingly withdrawn, paranoid, and detached from the real world.
By his early twenties, Mullin was experiencing intense hallucinations and hearing voices. Doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. His illness fixated on a specific apocalyptic fear: earthquakes. Mullin developed a warped conviction that natural disasters were not random events but divine punishment for human overpopulation. He believed he had received a sacred mission—through telepathic orders from his father—to reduce the population through murder, thereby postponing or preventing a catastrophic quake.
A Random Reign of Terror in Santa Cruz
Unlike many serial killers who target a specific victim type, Mullin's attacks were horrifyingly random. His victims had no connection to each other, making the pattern impossible for a terrified community to discern. His list of victims included:
- A homeless drifter, beaten to death with a baseball bat in October 1972.
- A female hitchhiker he stabbed and mutilated in his car.
- Four teenage boys camping in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, shot in the head.
- A Catholic priest.
- An old friend and his wife, whom he blamed for introducing him to cannabis.
- A mother and her two children, aged just four and nine.
Chillingly, witnesses reported that Mullin often appeared calm and friendly moments before committing his heinous acts. His killing methods varied from shooting and stabbing to bludgeoning. The fact that another unrelated serial killer, Edmund Kemper, was operating in the same small area at the same time further confused the authorities and amplified the community's fear.
Capture, Trial, and a Warped Legacy
Mullin's spree finally ended in February 1973 after he committed his most brazen murder: shooting 72-year-old Fred Perez in a public park in broad daylight. A vigilant neighbour noted his car's licence plate, leading to his swift arrest by police.
Upon arrest, Mullin spoke freely and calmly, explaining his earthquake-prevention rationale without denial or evident remorse. At his trial, psychiatrists described a man utterly ruled by powerful delusions that overrode any normal moral compass. However, the jury rejected an insanity defence. He was found guilty of multiple murders and sentenced to life in prison.
Herbert Mullin never recanted his bizarre justification. He showed little remorse and died of natural causes in the California Health Care Facility in August 2022, aged 75. His crimes remain a stark case study of how severe mental illness, left untreated, can collide with society with devastating consequences, forever shattering the peaceful hippie image of 1970s Santa Cruz.
