The Seaside Murders: 1977

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On the morning of August 11, 1977, a Seaside, California, police officer kicked down the door to a small duplex and found four females spanning three generations of the Smith family dead from too many stab wounds to count.

Looking into the kitchen, he could see Josephine Smith, the white-haired grandmother, lying dead next to her twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Suzanne Harris, who was lying dead next to her six-year-old daughter, Rachel Harris. In the bedroom, Renee Ferguson, another fifteen-year-old Smith family granddaughter and niece to Suzanne, was found dead, lying across the bed with her hands tied behind her back.

All four females had not been seen since attending church on Tuesday night, August 9. After the service, Grandma Smith promised the Assembly of God Church pastor they would return the following evening for his evangelical seminar. They never came. It wasn’t like Grandma Smith not to appear when she said she would. He thought about checking on them, but his attention was directed elsewhere.

That Wednesday morning, both Suzanne Harris and Renee Ferguson were supposed to be at work; Suzanne at an electrical firm, and Renee to her summer job she had gotten through the youth job corp. Neither one of them showed-up and Suzanne’s car remained under the carport, exactly where it had been parked the night before.

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