A mid-century estate tucked into the hills above Soquel, California is listed for $4.6 million, carrying with it one of the Santa Cruz area's most notorious crime stories. The property at 999 North Rodeo Gulch Road sits on nearly 10 private acres overlooking Monterey Bay and the Santa Cruz countryside, but it is best known as the site where five people were murdered on October 19, 1970.
According to a California Supreme Court opinion, Dr. Victor Ohta, a prominent Santa Cruz eye surgeon, his wife, their two sons, and Dr. Ohta's secretary were found murdered at the family mansion that day. The seed reporting from the New York Post identifies the victims as Dr. Ohta, his wife Virginia, sons Derek, 12, and Taggart, 11, and secretary Dorothy Cadwallader. The killer, 24-year-old John Linley Frazier, believed God had chosen him to punish people who misused the natural environment and reportedly called himself “the killer prophet,” per the same report.
A Crime Scene Frozen in Court Records
Court records describe a horrifying scene. The five victims had been bound with scarves and thrown into the family's swimming pool, the state Supreme Court's opinion states, while the Post's reporting adds that court records describe the victims as bound with silk scarves and ties and shot in the backyard near or in the pool. Several fires had been set inside the Ohtas' house, apparently in an effort to burn it down, the opinion notes, and firefighters are reported to have found the five bodies floating in the pool, according to the Post.
Frazier left a note on Dr. Ohta's windshield that has since become a grim footnote in true-crime history. The Supreme Court opinion states the note declared that “World War 3” had begun and warned that anyone who misuses the natural environment would suffer the penalty of death. The Post's account adds that the note was typewritten and left on Dr. Ohta's Rolls-Royce windshield, declaring World War III had begun and threatening death for those who destroyed the environment.
Arrest, Conviction and a Death Sentence Overturned
At dawn on October 23, 1970, four days after the murders, Frazier was arrested in his shack, the Supreme Court opinion says, with the Post's reporting specifying he was found sleeping nearby. He was convicted of five first-degree murder counts for the killings, according to NBC Bay Area, and was originally sentenced to death.
That sentence did not stand. Frazier was resentenced to life in prison in 1974 after the California Supreme Court found the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the state constitution, the station's report states. Decades later, Frazier died by hanging in his prison cell in 2009, according to the Amador County Sheriff's Office as reported by The Mercury News. NBC Bay Area's contemporaneous coverage said his death was being investigated as a suicide.
From Crime Scene to Architectural Showcase
The house itself has a design pedigree that predates the murders by five years. It was built in 1965 and designed by Aaron Green, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright whom Wright regarded as a son, according to the Post's reporting. The home was restored in the early 1970s and today is marketed as a single-level residence spanning 4,166 square feet, with the mansion's living room rising 25 feet, per the same account.
The listing describes five bedrooms, four bathrooms, limestone masonry, redwood-framed glass walls and polished concrete floors. Outdoor features include a lagoon-shaped swimming pool, a tennis court, a bocce court, a traditional sauna, an outdoor fireplace, two redwood decks, a bamboo walking path, a secluded hilltop lawn, a Japanese garden with a koi pond and waterfall, and more than 5,000 square feet of stone terrace, the Post reports.
A local history blog, Secret Santa Cruz, separately describes the property as an eleven-acre hilltop estate with a free-form salt-water pool on a stone terrace, a tennis court, gardens and ocean views, and says the house had spent two years on the market before its sellers cut the asking price by 10 percent. The current listing reflects that reduction, according to the Post's reporting, which also notes the estate has had a recent price cut.
