The 45-year-old male victim, Frank Garcia, was discovered fatally stabbed on Thanksgiving Day, November 23 1978, on a public bench just outside Los Angeles City Hall—less than 200 feet from police headquarters. Investigators noted at least twenty knife wounds to the torso and found his empty wallet beside the body, suggesting a swift, violent robbery or a staged theft.
Despite the lunchtime crowds that normally filled the Civic Center mall, no eyewitnesses came forward, and the assailant slipped away unnoticed.
Detectives quickly linked the slaying of the 45-year-old male victim to a string of knife murders then plaguing downtown's Skid Row. In each case, homeless men were attacked with a similar blade and left in public spaces. The killing of Frank Garcia stood out because it occurred in broad daylight; nevertheless the pattern—geography, weapon, and victim profile—matched what the media soon dubbed the “Skid Row Stabber” series. Crucially, crime-scene technicians lifted a single palm print from the bench beside the 45-year-old male victim, giving police their first tangible clue.
Three months later, that latent palm print was matched to 29-year-old drifter Bobby Joe Maxwell, a recent transplant from Tennessee who frequented Skid Row and was already in custody on a minor charge. Detectives seized a knife from Maxwell that matched the dimensions of the murder weapon and, during a cell-block stay, jailhouse informant Sidney Storch claimed Maxwell confessed to slaying “street winos” as satanic offerings. On the strength of the print, the knife, and Storch's testimony, Maxwell was charged with ten Skid Row murders—including the 45-year-old male victim Frank Garcia—and, after a lengthy 1984 trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Over the next quarter-century, doubts about the case mounted. The eyewitnesses who had identified Maxwell recanted, Storch was exposed as a serial jailhouse informant, and appellate judges criticized the paucity of physical evidence. In 2010, the Ninth Circuit overturned Maxwell's convictions, citing false testimony and prosecutorial misconduct; the Los Angeles District Attorney dropped all remaining charges in 2018. Maxwell—still listed as the lone suspect in the murder of the 45-year-old male victim—died in 2019 after suffering a heart attack while comatose, never learning that he had been formally exonerated. The killing of Frank Garcia—and the broader Skid Row Stabber series—remains officially unsolved, with no other arrests announced since the original investigation.
