Cheryl "Cathy" Nolan

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/police-hope-new-evidence-berkeley-cold-case/nhPjf/

BERKELEY, Calif. —


Police are always trying to solve cold case homicides. In Berkeley, investigators have an unsolved killing that happened 48 years ago Thursday.

A quiet tree-lined street is where the body of a 17-year-old girl was found back in 1966.

It was a very different time. The U.C. Berkeley campus was in the middle of the free speech movement, which helped Ronald Reagan win the governor's office, and it was when Robert Kennedy gave a speech at Cal.

But on September 18, 1966, not far away from the school on Eton Avenue near Woolsey Street, police made a shocking discovery. "I went there and there she was, sitting in the passenger seat, slumped over," said 85-year-old former Berkeley Police Officer Manvil Hendrickson.

By phone from his home near Sacramento, the former officer said he found the body of Cheryl "Cathy" Nolan. "It was some kind of a pistol shot at... we later assumed it was fired by somebody standing outside the driver’s door."

The person who has kept Nolan's memory alive more than anyone is her cousin, Pam Nolan, who was just 10 years old at the time. "She was a beautiful 17-year-old girl. She actually looked like Ann Margaret. That's what everyone said."

Newspapers from the time described Cathy - as she was known - as an attractive or pretty auburn-haired girl, and also revealed she spent time in coffee houses in the Telegraph area. "And I miss her terribly. I think someone took her, and took her away from my life. And that's what really makes me mad," said Pam Nolan, still stung by the loss 48 years later.

Police never found Cathy Nolan's killer. But now they say it might take just one piece of information to solve the case. "Even if it's a very small detail that they may have not felt was relevant at the time, could be astronomical for us in terms of trying to garner a new lead or new direction," said Berkeley Police Officer Jennifer Coats.

There has been some speculation that Cathy Nolan was an additional victim of the notorious Zodiac Killer.

Mystery Murder of Oakland Girl

The body of a pretty auburn-haired girl -- shot in the heart -- was found in her widowed mother's car in Berkeley yesterday.

She was identified as Cheryl Nolan, 17, Oakland.

A woman passerby first noticed the girl slumped in the front seat of a red Volkswagen in a quiet residential neighborhood about 8 a.m. on Eton avenue near Woolsey street.

The girl, dressed in black stretch pants and a sweater, appeared to be sleeping -- but when the woman noticed she was still there two hours later, she telephoned police.

When Berkeley patrolman Manvil Hendrickson responded to the woman's call, he found the car parked on the wrong side of Eton avenue, "sticking pretty far out."

"I saw blood," he said, "and when I opened the door, I saw she was dead."

The body of the slain girl was in the passenger's seat of the car, he said.

A single bullet, apparently from a .38 caliber pistol, had cut through her left wrist and smashed
into the left side of her chest severing a heart artery.

She had been dead since about midnight, the officer said.

Although her purse was missing, she was quickly identified as 17-year-old Cheryl Cathleen Nolan of 360 Verson street, the daughter of Adele [sic] Nolan.

Her anguished mother told police her daughter left their apartment home at 8 p.m. Saturday night -- presumably for a date in Berkeley -- but never returned. "She took my car -- I think someone must have followed her."

"She was just a beautiful 17-year-old," mourned her mother. "She had long auburn hair and she wouldn't be unkind to any one."

"We were more like sisters than like mother and daughter."

Mrs. Nolan, an Oakland secretary, said her daughter, a senior at Oakland High School, planned to enter business school soon.

Berkeley police immediately began an all-out hunt for Cheryl's slayer but detectives said thay had "almost nothing to go on."

"We're not even sure she was murdered in Berkeley," said homicide Inspector Jack L. Houston. "We don't know yet if she ever met her date here."

San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, Sept. 20, 1966

Sketch of Dead Girl's Last Night

Pretty auburn-haired Cheryl Nolan [...] may have had a tryst with her killer Saturday night in
one of Berkeley's coffee houses.

The lively youngster, Berkeley police said, was known as a habitue of Berkeley's Telegraph avenue coffee houses and was last seen alive at 11 p.m. Saturday in deep conversation with two sandled, long-haired young men.

Lieutenant Darrel Hickman of the Berkeley Police Department said that some of Cheryl's friends are known to authorities as "dabblers or users in the Telegraph avenue marijuana and drug scene."

Cheryl's friends, however, told police the girl herself was not a "user."

"She didn't dig it," one said.

But, Lieutenant Hickman said, Cheryl did dress in the fashion affected by coffee house frequenters.

For the last six months, Hickman said, the Oakland High School senior wore her beautiful hair
hanging long, and on the night of her death was attired in purple stretch pants and an embroidered, plum-colored sweater.

When she left her home at 360 Vernon street, Oakland, Saturday night she told her widowed mother, Adela, that she was planning to meet a friend at the Jabberwock Club at 2901 Telegraph avenue. However, no one recalls her having entered the club any time
during the evening, Hickman said.

She was seen at 11 p.m. on the 2400 block of Telegraph avenue, talking to the two young men.

Eleven hours later her body was found in the little red car she had borrowed from her mother. It was parked on the wrong side of Eton avenue near Claremont avenue in the quiet residential area of south Berkeley.

The girl was sitting on the front seat, on the passenger side of the car. A single bullet from
what police think may be a 32-caliber gun or a slightly larger foreign weapon passed through her left wrist and penetrated her chest.

Police had only two fragile leads to the girl's
slayer.

A woman living on Eton street reported to auhtorities she was awakened shortly before 1 a.m.
by what she thought may have been a shot, but did not look outside.

A man told police that at 11:55 p.m. he saw a tall heavy-set man wearing a windbreaker running south on Eton avenue toward Claremont. The girl died between midnight and 1 a.m. Sunday.

Hickman said that five of Cheryl's boy friends and a number of girls voluntarily had submitted to fingerprinting and photographing. He said most of the young people were "new" friends who had met the blue-eyed girled in recent months.

There have been no arrests and no charges. None of the youngsters questioned have been implicated in any way with the slaying.

A Rosary for the dead girl will be recited at 8 o'clock this (Tuesday) evening at the Albert Engle Mortuary, 3300 High street in Oakland. A Requiem Mass will be offered at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) at St. Margaret Mary's church at 1219 Excelsior avenue, Oakland, and burial will be private.

In addition to her mother, Cheryl is survived by her paternal grandfather, George V. Nolan, her maternal grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. Eustace Alvers, and a great-grandmother, Mrs. William Lund, all of Oakland.

This girl was murdered pretty damn close to where JK Fry lives!! About 2.5 miles to be exact. Where he lives today that is, but I have no idea how long he has lived at this home or where he lived in the 60's.

Here is a post by smokietreats on www.zodiackiller.com:

There is a similar news article at: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2245&dat=19660914&id=1fFfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=b1QMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4386,6149671

Here is rough timeline taken from the articles:
•17 year old Cheryl Nolan left her Oakland home early Saturday evening on September 17, 1966, telling her mother that she was going to the Jabberwock Club at 2901 Telegraph avenue and would be home by 12:30 a.m. Sunday
•Also that evening, Cheryl and a young man named "Mike" were seen at the apartment of 24 year old Roger D. Larson, 5830 Birch Street (it is actually Birch Ct) in Oakland. Later, Cheryl allegedly dropped her friend Mike off at a friend's house and returned to Telegraph Avenue.
•Cheryl had also been seen wandering the 2400 block of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley between Saturday afternoon until late that evening.
•Cheryl was last seen alive at 11 p.m. Saturday on the 2400 block of Telegraph avenue outside of a pizza parlor with two long haired young men wearing sandals.
•At about 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning of September 18, 1966, Cheryl was found in the passenger seat of her mother's red Volkswagen, which was parked sticking out away from the curb on the wrong side of Eton Avenue near Woolsey Street and Claremont Avenue in Berkeley. A .38 caliber bullet had passed through her left wrist and into her heart. She was killed at around midnight. Her purse was missing.
•A possible witness, Robert Leone, told police that around midnight he saw a red Volkswagen being driven by a long haired girl, apparently pursued by a green Volkswagen driven by a man. Leone saw the cars at Ashby and Claremont, and they both made an illegal U-turn at the cut-off to Lafayette.
•A possible witness stated that he saw a tall, heavy-set man wearing a windbreaker running south on Eton Avenue toward Claremont at 11:55 p.m.
•A possible witness living on Eton Street thought that she may have heard a gunshot shortly before 1 a.m.
•Two other possible witnesses living nearby heard a shot just before 1 a.m.
•Cheryl was known to have picked up hitchhikers but was "very fussy" about who drove her mother's car
•Cheryl had recently spent the summer at Lake Tahoe, sharing an apartment with two other girls and working at a taxi cab office

"JK Fry" lives at **** Ross St. in Oakland. I will post the distances from his front door to the locations mentioned here...

5830 Birch Ct, Oakland, CA = 0.5 miles
2400 block of Telegraph Ave in Berkeley = 2.2 miles
The corner of Eton and Woolsley = 0.7 miles
The corner of Ashby and Claremont = 2.2 miles

Her body was found just a few blocks from Fry's home.

Coincidentally, Valerie Percy was murdered September 18, 1966. At approximately 5:00 am (Kenilworth, IL.)

Cjeryl Nolan was most likely murdered at around 1:00 am on September 18, 1966.

good work. I have never heard of this murder before but I find that interesting if you can place JF Fry in that area too. I don't know a lot about the Percy murder, how is it possible that the two murders can be related?

3 days later, Sept, 21, 1966, Clare Anderson was murdered in her Walnut Creek home. She was raped and then strangled with a necktie.