Robin Graham (Endangered Missing)

It was nearly 2am on Sunday November 15th 1970  when 18 year old college freshman Robin Graham ran out of petrol on  Hollywood freeway, California.  A couple of highway patrol officers pulled up to assist her and directed Robin to the nearest emergency phone, from where she called her parents' home. They had not yet returned from an evening out so Robin left a message with her sister that she needed picking up. Over the next thirty minutes or so highway patrol officers passed by a few times to check on Robin. On one pass they noticed a man aged in his mid-twenties standing by the open bonnet of Robin's car. They assumed the man was a family member who had come to help.  At approximately 2.30am, Robin's father arrived to collect her. He found the car locked and no sign of his daughter. Robin has not been seen since that night, more than fifty years ago. 

All sources for the episode can be found here

Transcript

Robin Graham

Robin Graham finished her shift at Pier 1 Imports, situated at 5711 Hollywood Boulevard, at around 10pm on Saturday November 14th 1970. The 18 year old was employed part-time at the home decor store and juggled her work responsibilities with her studies at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. Robin had graduated from John Marshall High School the previous June and was enjoying her freshman year. 

After finishing work that evening Robin was met by two friends. One friend was a woman and the other a 19 year old man named Tom. In early reports Tom is referred to as Robin's boyfriend and the pair are said to have gone on a date that evening. However it is clear that Robin's female friend accompanied the pair and the three teenagers all went out to a bar or restaurant together. They travelled in Tom's car. Robin's car, which she had driven to work, was left in the car park of Pier 1 Imports. 

At 1.45am, now November 15th, Tom dropped Robin back at the car park of Pier 1 Imports. Before doing this they had taken Robin's female friend to her home. Robin then got into her car, a black and white Dodge, ready to drive home. The Dodge was a former highway patrol vehicle she had bought at auction. Robin set off for Hollywood Freeway and headed southbound in order to get back to her family home at Lemoyne Street, in Northridge. This was a distance of 5 miles or 8km. Just an aside, modern reports state that Robin was driving her boyfriend's car that night, but as far as I can see this is incorrect. She set off for home in her own car.

After driving only a short distance Robin realised that there was a problem with the car; it was losing power. As she slowed to a halt on the side of the freeway it was clear the car was out of fuel. The spot where she had pulled over was near the Santa Monica Boulevard overcrossing. As she sat in the car wondering what to do, two California Highway patrol officers (CHP) noticed Robin's car and came to check on her. This was at 1.55am. Robin informed the officers of her predicament.

Protocols at the time meant officers were limited in what assistance they could give to stranded motorists. They offered to call a tow truck for Robin but she declined. Robin was not a member of the Automobile Club and did not want to be left facing an expensive towing fee. With this in mind, official guidelines left the officers with two options. They could show Robin where to make an emergency call, or they could offer to take her to a service station - but they were not permitted to drive her back to her car. It was a one way trip only. This meant that Robin could collect fuel in a can but would have no means of getting back to her car. Also the nearest open service station, remember this was in the early hours of the morning, was a considerable distance away at Western Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

The two officers did not even suggest this latter option to Robin as it didn't seem practical. The only thing they could do was point Robin to the nearest emergency call box, where she would be able to request the operator to patch her through to her parents’ home phone. She could then ask them to come and collect her. The bright yellow emergency call boxes with blue lettering denoting their exact location were situated every quarter of a mile along the freeway. Robin didn't have to walk far until she reached one. Content with the plan of action the CHP officers got back in their patrol car and continued south along the freeway toward the Vermont area of the city.

At 2.04am a call came in to the switchboard operator from Robin explaining her problem. The City received 25,000 similar calls a month, it was certainly not out of the ordinary. The call handler answered and was promptly able to connect Robin to her parents’ homeline. It was Robin's 16 year old sister, initial B, who answered the phone. The girl’s parents, Marvin, an employee of the Water and Power department and full-time parent Beverley had not yet returned from an evening out with friends. B took the message and promised to pass it on when their Mum and Dad returned. They were expected any minute. Robin hung up the phone and walked the short distance back to the car to wait.

The two CHP officers returned a short time later and went to check on Robin. They noticed her car was slightly protruding into the fourth lane of the highway so helped to push it further onto the hard shoulder. Robin informed the officers that a message had been left with her sister and her parents would be along shortly. Over the next half an hour or so CHP continued to drive up and down the freeway. A CHP spokesperson later said that Robin was observed at least five or six times during this time. On one occasion the officers drove past and noticed a man looking under the bonnet (hood) of Robin’s Dodge. Robin was sitting behind the steering wheel. Just as an aside, I’m not sure why the man would be looking at the engine of the car if the issue was that the car was out of fuel? What had this man told Robin?

Parked next to Robin’s Dodge was a light blue or green older model Corvette. The bodywork was dashed here and there with primer paint. The officers did not stop as they thought it looked like Robin knew the man and they presumed a member of Robin's family had turned up to help start the car. 

According to a report in the LA Times on November 18th 1970, CHP officers first noticed the Corvette travelling on the northbound side of the freeway. The driver of the vehicle saw Robin by the side of the road and exited at the next junction, coming back on the southbound side. The officers did not take down the number plate of the Corvette but it was later said to have been either a 1957, ‘58 or ‘59 model.

According to reports, Marvin and Beverley Graham arrived back to their home at approximately 2.30am, 26 minutes after the emergency call was made by Robin. Robin's sister informed her parents about Robin’s situation and Marvin set out straight away. It would have taken maybe 10-20 minutes for Marvin to have driven to Robin's location at the side of the freeway. His arrival at this location is also given as 2.30am, so obviously the timing is approximate. 

Marvin found the black and white Dodge locked and with the windows wound fully up. Robin was nowhere to be seen. There was no evidence of a struggle or any sign that something untoward had happened. Robin had simply vanished. She was never seen again.

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Marvin Graham started looking around for his daughter, presuming she had attempted to walk somewhere to find help. He drove back and forth for the rest of the night scouring the Hollywood area, but found nothing.

At 9 the next morning, having not slept a wink, an exhausted Marvin walked into the Hollywood Division HQ of the LAPD, to report his daughter missing. He was told by the officer on desk duty that without any evidence of foul play nothing could be done until Robin had been missing for twenty four hours. The LAPD operated this protocol because in their experience the vast majority of missing persons turned up within a day. This procedure was justified by the police department as it prevented the waste of valuable police time and resources. 

Robin’s mother Beverley later bemoaned the fact that police thought her daughter had likely run away. This, Beverley said, made little sense. Why would Robin have phoned her parents to come and pick her up if she was secretly planning on running away? Beverley also made it clear to police that Robin would not have accepted a lift from a stranger. Their daughter would have waited in the car for her father to pick her up. Something was wrong. Still the Hollywood police stuck rigidly to the regulations and said there was nothing more they could do at that point.

The rest of that day (Sunday 15th) Marvin and Beverley spent contacting Robin’s friends to see if she was with any of them. No one had seen or heard from Robin. Getting increasingly agitated, Marvin and Beverley decided to go to the Rampart Division police station to see if they would get a more satisfactory response. Unfortunately they were given the same answer and told that with no obvious signs of foul play their hands were tied. One of the officers on duty did say he would phone around local hospitals and jails just in case Robin had been in an accident or gotten herself in trouble. Needless to say the officer had no joy in finding any useful information. In total Robin's parents went to the police station three times on Sunday but were always given the same reply by police officers.

At 2am on Monday 16th November, 24 hours after Robin was forced to pull up on the side of the road, Beverley Graham phoned the Hollywood police. She asked if she could come straight away to speak with an officer and file a missing persons report. Beverley was told this was not possible and she would need to wait until the morning. Therefore, it wasn’t until Monday morning that police officers finally started to look for Robin and began to make inquiries in the local area. 

A description of Robin was circulated. She was 5 feet 6 or 167 cm and 125 pounds or 56 kg. She had long, dark brown hair, sometimes described as chestnut in colour, which was parted in the centre, and brown eyes. Robin was last seen wearing blue jeans, a red jersey blouse and a blue corduroy jacket with gold buttons. On her feet were red clogs and she carried with her a leather purse.

It was not until Tuesday that homicide detectives Paul Osteen and William Mercier were put on the case. By the end of that day another detective, Lieutenant James of the Rampart Division missing persons unit, with a heavy heart told the press that Robin may well have met with foul play.

From an article in the LA Times from November 19th 1970 it is clear how stressful this period was for Robin’s parents. They were in the awkward position of trying to advocate for their missing daughter while endeavouring not to be seen as making trouble for the police. It was an awful time for the family, as the following story illustrates.

Robin’s black and white Dodge was picked up from the side of the freeway and returned to the Grahams' residence. Shortly afterwards, a distracted Marvin, consumed with thoughts about his missing daughter, was out in the garden hosing the plants. Absent-mindedly, he ended up hosing down Robin's car. This was before the police had carried out any forensic tests on the vehicle. Marvin felt awful, but it was not his fault. The police really should have taken possession of the car straight away. The car was belatedly dusted for finger prints on Wednesday 18th November, but as far as I can tell none of importance were found. 

Wednesday 18th did see the arrest of a 31 year old man named Richard surname initial D in connection with the case. He had anonymously contacted the manager of the Pier 1 Imports where Robin worked and claimed to have kidnapped Robin. He demanded $1600 for her safe return. The store manager informed the police straight away, who took $800 of the ransom money to the location in Santa Monica Richard D had specified. He was promptly arrested at the scene. Robin’s parents were not informed about this development until after Richard D had been arrested. Police soon worked out that he had nothing to do with the actual disappearance of Robin and he was charged with posing as a kidnapper. 

Very late on that Wednesday Detective Lieutenant Thomas J Cornwell gave a statement to the  press which took everyone by surprise. Only the day before, Detective Lt Ron Breiter had spoken publicly saying that one of the CHP officers who had dealt with Robin at the roadside said he had seen the 18 year old voluntarily get into the Corvette sports car that had been parked alongside the stranded Dodge. The Corvette was driven by the same man who officers  witnessed by the open bonnet of the Dodge.

Now the story was altered. Detective Lieutenant Cornwell now stated  that after the patrol officer was re-questioned he said he had not seen Robin get into the car with the unknown man. All very strange and a little odd.  This did nothing to quiet the chorus of people in the media and members of the public criticising the perceived inertia of the CHP to help the stranded Robin.

At first CHP leadership doubled down on the decisions made by their officers that night and maintained that procedures would not change as a result of what had happened to Robin. Eventually they did bow to pressure and operating procedures were changed. For example it was agreed that if an emergency roadside call was made by a lone woman or pair of women the operator would send out a message to patrol cars in the area to attend and keep an eye out for any trouble. A yellow tag would also be attached to the aerial of the stranded car by patrol officers. Occupants were advised to stay in the vehicle and only get out when a police officer or tow truck driver showed up. It was also suggested that CHP cars should carry cans of spare fuel to be used to help stranded motorists. 

Newspapers such as Valley News published a description of the man seen assisting Robin with her car. He was described as around 25, (The Independent newspaper claimed he was as young as 22). He was 5 feet 8 or 172 cm. He was wearing a white turtleneck shirt and bell bottom trousers. In early reports the man is described as having blond medium length hair. Most modern day write-ups, including the information on the Doe Network, state the man had dark hair. I cannot account for this inconsistency. 

Over the first week of the investigation over 150 friends and family of Robin, plus many potential witnesses who were driving on the freeway that night, were talked to by officers. Hollywood Division police received numerous calls, including some that were malicious in nature, sick jokes and the like. For the most part the information they received, while not particularly helpful, was sincerely given. Lead investigator Sergeant Don Ham later told the LA times that six weeks into the investigation he had checked seemingly millions of Corvettes, but with no results.

Twelve months after Robin went missing there was still no news to celebrate. The case was ascribed number 70687411, and Sargeant Don Ham who had been involved with the investigation since the first week continued to lead efforts to find Robin. The officer still received a weekly call from Marvin Graham who would pass on to him the licence plate numbers of Corvettes he had seen over the previous seven days. Unfortunately none of this information led anywhere and what had happened to Robin remained a mystery.

When Robin disappeared, other similar cases of missing and murdered young women in the local area were suggested as possibly being connected. Some are eerily similar. 

19 year old Israeli born Rose Tashman disappeared late on the evening of May 18th 1969. The San Fernando state college student was travelling back from a friend's house in Van Nuys towards her home in Hollywood. The pair had been studying for an upcoming exam. The following morning her 1965 Beige Mustang was found abandoned close to the Highway Avenue off ramp on the Hollywood Freeway. This was only a mile or so from where Robin’s car was found. Rose’s car was discovered to have a flat tire on the front left side. 

Rose's body was found less than 24 hours later at 6pm on May 19th in a ravine off Mulholland Drive near Beverly Drive. She had been beaten, raped and strangled with wire. The police theorised that she had accepted a lift from a man posing as a “Good Samaritan” who had stopped to help her. This location was less than a fifteen minute walk from where the body of  17 year old Marina Habe was discovered five months earlier on New year's day 1969. 

Marina was a university of Hawaii student but was back for the Christmas period staying with her parents. On December 30th 1968 she returned to her family home at 3.30am following an evening catching up with school friends. At this time her sleeping mother was awoken by the sound of a car with a loud exhaust. She looked out of the window in time to see a man run and jump quickly into the passenger seat of a black car, which sped off, driven by another man. Marina was also in the car, she had been abducted from her own driveway.

Marina's body was found two days later. She had been stabbed in the neck and thorax. There was no sign of sexual assault and robbery was not considered a motive as Marina’s money and credit cards were left untouched. 

Nearly a year later in November 1969 the body of yet another young woman was found in the same vicinity. This person could not be identified and remained known only as Jane Doe 59 for the next four and a half decades. The murdered woman had been stabbed 157 times and suffered similar wounds to the neck and thorax as Marina. This unknown victim displayed no obvious sign of sexual assault. As in Marina’s case, robbery was not believed to have been the motive, as two expensive rings were found with the body.

In 2015 the case of Jane Doe 59 was featured on a television program and a photo taken at the morgue of the unknown woman was displayed on screen. A member of the public called in to say they recognised the person. Jane Doe 59 was finally identified using familial DNA as being 19 year old Reet Jurvetson, who was originally from Montreal, Canada. 

Even before this spate of murders, in November 1967 West Valley police had warned the public that there was a man targeting women driving on highways late at night. He would flag women drivers down and explain that it looked like there was something wrong with their car. He would then pretend to help fix the issue, before assaulting the unsuspecting woman. He had attacked at least three women using this ruse. The suspect in this case was said to be in his mid-thirties and approximately 6’1 or 185cm with a medium build and dark hair. On each occasion he was driving a different model car. 

The disappearance of Robin Graham in November 1970 followed all of these similar crimes. Newspapers certainly reported that police were looking at a possible connection between the cases. An article published in Valley News to mark the two year anniversary of Robin's disappearance states that initially a connection was sought with three other cases. I believe those to be the cases I have highlighted. There continues to be much debate and all of the cases I have mentioned remain unsolved. As we shall see there are other murders and disappearances that came later that have also been tentatively connected to Robin's case. 

Robin Graham’s disappearance did receive a fair bit of coverage in the California press in the immediate aftermath. One article in the LA times about the case caught the attention of a woman who instantly contacted the police with a story of something that had happened to her on the same night Robin vanished. 

On the evening of November 14th 1970, like Robin, the woman found herself with car trouble and was forced to pull over on the same stretch of freeway. As she sat in the static car a man in a light blue Corvette pulled up next to her and offered to give her a lift. The woman politely declined, but the man persisted, claiming he was an off-duty cop. She refused a second time and the man eventually gave up and drove on. On hearing this story investigators' interest was piqued. Surely it was the same man? If the man had used the tactic of claiming to be an off-duty cop, it  would explain Robin’s readiness to trust him. However, those who knew Robin believed she wasn't the kind of person to have gone off with this person without first leaving a note in the car.

Things took a darker turn when a few months later the woman witness identified the man in the light blue Corvette who had approached her that evening as Manson family member, 28 year old Bruce Davis.

Bruce Davis, who went by other names including Bruce McMillan, George McGregor Davis, Jack Paul McMilliam and Bruce McGregor, was raised in Alabama in the 1940s and 1950s. After attending college in Tennessee he moved to California in the early 1960s, drawn by the allure of the hippy lifestyle. Davis met Charles Manson in 1967 and became one of his early followers. Davis had been described as Manson's right hand man and was a core member of the Manson family. Davis, like the other hundred or so devotees, believed Charles Manson to be a Christ-like figure and bought into his prophecies about an impending race war. It wasn't long before the rhetoric spilled over into bloody violence. The Manson family were responsible for at least 8 murders in 1969.

Bruce Davis was convicted of involvement in two murders, that of ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea and fellow Manson family associate Gary Hinman. Davis was not present during the infamous murders that took place over August 8th/9th 1969 which included the sadistic slaying of Sharon Tate and her unborn child. When Robin Graham disappeared in November 1970 Davis was a fugitive on the run from the authorities. He actually handed himself into police on December 2nd, a matter of weeks after Robin vanished. 

Bruce Davis has always denied being involved in Robin’s disappearance. He is currently serving a life sentence in the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. Since being behind bars he is said to have become a Christian, gaining a PHD in theology he now ministers to other prisoners. He has been recommended for parole numerous times over the years but has always been denied at the final hurdle, most recently in the summer of 2022. He was refused on that occasion apparently due to a lack of empathy shown towards the victims of his crimes. 

The story takes another twist as Bruce Davis has also been put forward as a suspect in the murders carried out by the unidentified serial killer, Zodiac. The disappearance of Robin Graham regularly crops up in research and discussion connected with Zodiac.

Between 1968 and 69, Zodiac murdered at least 5 people in the San Francisco Bay area. The killer gave himself the Zodiac name in a series of letters sent to the San Francisco press. The letters boasted of his crimes and taunted the police, although they were often rambling and confusing. Along with the letters, Zodiac also sent cryptic codes that needed to be deciphered in order for the message to be understood. One was cracked almost straight away, another as late as 2020. Others still remain a mystery to this day. In these cyphers Zodiac promised to reveal his true identity, though in the ones that have been solved this has not been the case.

Zodiac has five confirmed murder victims, plus two people who somehow were able to survive his attacks. The last confirmed Zodiac victim was 29 year-old taxi driver Paul Stine on October 11th 1969. The taunting letters continued for some time after this, and the writer claimed to have murdered a further 32 people, although none of these additional murders were ever proven. The letters arrived sporadically until 1978, although the veracity of some of the later ones in particular is very much in doubt.

To establish whether or not Bruce Davis is a good suspect for Zodiac is not the purpose of this podcast episode. Nevertheless the shadowy figure of Zodiac is tentatively linked to Robin Graham’s case. She is put forward as being one of the potential further 32 murder victims the Zodiac boasted of. It must be said that this is down to speculation rather than any hard evidence. One reason she is included as a potential victim of Zodiac is the fact that there was a full moon on the night Robin disappeared. There is a popular theory that Zodiac timed his attacks to align with lunar events. The other reason is that Robin's case shares some similarities with other crimes that have been connected (though never conclusively!) to the Zodiac.

One such case is the murder of 18 year old Cheri Jo Bates in October 1966. I covered this case in detail in episode six of the podcast. Cheri Jo left the campus library at Riverside city college at around 9pm on October 30th. The following morning her body was found close by, she had been stabbed to death. Cheri Jo’s Volkswagen Beetle was found in the library car park. It looked to police as though the ignition coil and distributor had been deliberately tampered with in order to disable the car. It was theorised this had been used as a ruse by the killer to approach a stranded Cheri Jo. It is the tactic of the “Good Samaritan motorist” and location of the crime, Riverside is only an hour's drive east of Hollywood, that has led some to note the similarities.

Another incident possibly linked to Zodiac is mentioned alongside Robin’s case. This event is also said to have taken place during a full moon. As an aside, the Cheri Jo Bates murder happened the day after a full moon.  

At around 11.15pm on March 22nd 1970, 22 year old Kathleen Johns was travelling with her infant daughter along Highway 132m near the city of Patterson. This location is in the San Francisco area, more than a four hour drive from Hollywood. 

Kathleen was suddenly aware that the driver behind her was flashing his headlights at her. She pulled over to see what the issue was. The man informed Kathleen that one of her rear tyres looked loose. He offered to fix it for her, which he then did. The good samaritan got back in his car and Kathleen drove on. After a short distance the wheel that had supposedly just been tightened came completely off. Kathleen pulled over and the man behind also stopped and offered to give her a lift to a service station. Unbeknownst to Kathleen the man had loosened the tyre, causing it to fall off. Kathleen and her baby got into the man's car and they drove off. 

Kathleen described the man as about 30 years old and 5 feet 9 or 175cm. He weighed 160 pounds, 72kg, and had short dark hair. He was wearing heavy-rimmed glasses.

The man continued to drive on ceaselessly, passing service station after service station. Kathleen was worried but did not know what to do. The man then started threatening to kill both Kathleen and her baby. He continued to drive around taunting Kathleen for an hour and a half before she was finally able to jump out of the car clutching her baby.

Kathleen then hid in a field as the man searched for her using a torch. Eventually he left when a truck passed by. Kathleen managed to stop a motorist who took her to a police station. While waiting to be questioned by officers she noticed a Wanted picture on the office notice board. In shock she exclaimed that it was the face of her attacker. It was the now infamous police sketch of Zodiac. It was drawn from witness accounts following the murder of taxi driver Paul Stine. 

Kathleen John’s terrifying ordeal has been connected to Robin's case because of the good samaritan ruse that the attacker employed and the late night freeway location. It must be noted that this account remains controversial and there are many doubts over whether this was a Zodiac crime. There are some who have even questioned whether the incident took place at all. One of the Zodiac letters does make mention of this but it does not contain any details that were not already in the public domain, through newspaper reports.

In 1992 Kathleen Johns identified Lawrence or Larry Kane as the man who had abducted her that evening. Lawrence Kane was born Larence Klein in New York in 1924. He employed many pseudonyms including Larry Kane. Kane had a lengthy criminal history and is often included in Zodiac suspect lists. In 1962 he suffered brain damage in a car accident and it is alleged that following this he lost the ability to control self-gratification. There are several pieces of circumstantial evidence pointing to Kane being the Zodiac. One such argument is that a family member of Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin claims Kane was stalking her in the months before her murder. Kane passed away in 2010. Again, this is not the time to go into depth on this matter. There is no evidence that Kane was involved in Robin’s disappearance. 

There is another serial killer sometimes referred to as being a potential suspect in Robin's disappearance and presumed murder. Theodore Robert Bundy was executed on January 24th 1989 for the 1978 murders of Margaret Bowman, 21, Lisa Levy 20 and Kimberley Leach aged just 12. Bundy had many more confirmed victims in the states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah and Florida between 1974 and 1978. The true total number of Bundy victims may never be known, but in the days before his execution he confessed to raping and murdering at least 28 women. It is suspected the true number could be in excess of one hundred. He is suspected of having murdered people in California. One of the murders he confessed to was an unidentified victim from the state. Bundy is also considered a suspect in the Santa Rosa hitchhiking murders that occurred in California in 1972-73.

There are a couple of reasons Bundy has been seen as a potential suspect in Robin’s disappearance. Bundy was known to have a particular victim type. Young attractive women with long dark hair, often parted in the centre. Robin fits this profile to a t. Bundy was also known to employ a ruse when abducting victims, often wearing a cast to feign injury and put his would-be victim at ease. He was non-threatening in appearance and a confident talker. He was someone who could easily have donned the role of a good samaritan in order to gain Robin's trust. Bundy very loosely matches the description of the man seen with the Corvette.  Bundy was fond of wearing clothing similar to the white turtleneck shirt the suspect was seen in.

I've had a look into Bundy’s timeline and at the time of Robin's disappearance he was living in Washington State and had just re-enrolled at the university to study Psychology. Bundy did travel to California in the early 1970s in his role volunteering with the Republican party but he didn't visit in this capacity in 1970. Having said that, Bundy was known to travel long distances to carry out some of his attacks.  Was Ted Bundy involved in Robin's disappearance? I would say it's unlikely but not impossible. 

If it wasn't Bundy or Zodiac it could have been an as yet undetected and unnamed serial killer. As I mentioned earlier, when Robin first disappeared several other young women motorists had previously been abducted and murdered. Of these cases, the 1969 murder of Rose Tashman is the one most often associated with Robin Graham, along with another unsolved murder from 1975.

Between 12.15am and 1am on Thursday June 19th 1975, 23 year old Mona Jean Gallegos set out from her friend’s house in Alhambra for her home in West Covina, California. The journey should have taken only 30 minutes or so but Mona ran out of petrol while driving on the Bernardino Freeway. Five hours later her 1970 Pontiac was found on the eastbound side of the freeway close to the Santa Anita Avenue off ramp in El Monte. The vehicle had damage to the front right fender. There was no sign of Mona. She was described as being 5 feet 1 or 155cm and 128 lbs or 58kg. She had dark brown hair and was wearing a red and white pantsuit with white shoes when she left her friend's house.

Five months later on November 28th two teenage boys were out exploring a remote ravine near the city of Riverside when they stumbled across skeletal remains. Using dental records and jewellery found at the scene they were identified as being those of Mona Jean Gallegos. The cause of death could not be established and it was noted that none of the bones displayed any obvious injury. Investigators suspected she had been abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered.

The big difference between the cases of Rose Tashman, Mona Jean Gallegos and Robin Graham is obviously that in the latter instance  no remains have ever been found.

There are many other murders and disappearances of young women in California that over the years have been mentioned alongside the case of Robin Graham and share some similarities. 

These include:

Cindy Lee Mellin, 19, from Ventura, which is an hour's drive north of Hollywood, who has been missing since January 20th 1970. Her car was found abandoned with a flat tyre in the car park of a shopping centre. 

Christine Marie Eastin, 19, who has been missing since January 18th 1971. Her car was found locked with her purse inside in Hayward, California. This is a five hour drive north of Hollywood. In 2019 a witness came forward to say they saw Christine get abducted by two men in a white van. 

Ernestine Francis Terello, 43, whose yellow Plymouth was found with a flat tyre on the Ventura freeway in Agoura, 30 minutes from Hollywood, five days after she went missing in April 1972. Her body was found a month later off Pacific coast Highway. No cause of death could be established. 

As of the writing of this podcast all these cases remain unsolved.

Robin Graham's case continued to be worked diligently by Sgt Don Ham for many years. If unidentified remains were found he would check them against Robin’s dental records. During the 1970’s, skeletal remains were discovered in Pennsylvania and they were initially believed to belong to Robin. Dental records proved this was not the case.  

Seven years after Robin's disappearance Sargeant Ham still received calls from Marvin Graham checking up on the progress, or lack thereof, in the investigation. Over time the pair had become friends and sometimes would go out to lunch together. There were other police officers who had not forgotten Robin. One CHP officer visited Sargeant Ham for years with lists of Corvettes for him to check. As well as the remains found in Pennsylvania, Robin has been excluded from being the 1971 Atlantic County Jane Doe, the 1976 San Fernando Jane Doe and the 2005 Stanton Jane Doe. I’ve read that a person once admitted to murdering Robin but it was soon proved to be a false confession. The person was suffering from a mental illness. 

For a brief moment in the 1980s there looked to be a significant development in the case. In December 1987 a WKFI radio DJ was perusing the classified ads in the LA Times when he read something that sent shivers down his spine. The ad said the following:  Quote

“Dearest Robin, you ran out of gas on the Hollywood Freeway. A man in a Corvette pulled over to help. You have not been seen since. It's been 17 years, but it’s always just yesterday. Still looking for you. Signed the Echo Park Ducks”  End quote.

The DJ was familiar with Robin Graham's case and immediately notified the police. The writer of the ad was quickly found. It turned out to be a neighbourhood friend of Robin. He just wanted to do something that showed Robin was still in the thoughts and prayers of her friends. The Echo Park Ducks was the name that had been given to their group of neighbourhood kids.

Both Marvin and Beverley Graham have since passed without ever finding out what happened to Robin. Robin's case remains open. If you can shed any light on what happened to Robin Graham you can contact the LA Police department by emailing missingpersons@lapd.lacity.org The Case Number is: DR7068741. Robin’s ID number on the Doe network website is 980 DFCA.

Sources 

https://tinyurl.com/y3mzhvxt