Douglas Edward Gretzler: The 1973 Murder Spree Across Arizona and California
Background
Douglas Edward Gretzler was an American serial killer whose brief but extraordinarily violent crime spree took place in Arizona and California during the autumn of 1973. Born on May 21, 1951, in the Bronx, New York, Gretzler had drifted west after leaving his wife and young daughter. In Colorado he became acquainted with Willie Luther Steelman, an older ex-convict with a lengthy history of criminal behavior. The two men formed a partnership centered on robbery, drugs, kidnapping, and increasingly serious violence.
Between October and November 1973, Gretzler and Steelman were responsible for seventeen murders. The killings occurred in a period of only about three weeks and frequently followed robberies or kidnappings. A recurring motive was the elimination of people who could identify the pair or connect them with earlier crimes. Their victims ranged from hitchhikers and acquaintances to an Arizona married couple and, finally, nine people held hostage in a California home.
The First Murders
On October 17, 1973, Gretzler and Steelman kidnapped Kenneth Francis Unrein and Michael Raymond Adshade in Arizona and forced them into Unrein's Volkswagen van. The captives were driven west into California. By the following day, the group had reached the vicinity of Knights Ferry in Stanislaus County. Near Littlejohn Creek, Unrein and Adshade were taken from the vehicle, bound, and initially led to believe that their abductors intended merely to leave them behind. Instead, Gretzler and Steelman returned and killed both men by strangling and stabbing them. Their bodies were hidden beneath vegetation near the creek. The detailed chronology places their deaths on October 18, 1973.
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