The Hitchhiker Slayer

In the mid-1970s, hitchhiking was a normal way to get around Isla Vista, the student town beside UC Santa Barbara. That changed in the winter of 1976. Jacqueline Rook, 21, was last seen on November 20, 1976. Mary Sarris, 19, went missing on December 6, and Patricia Laney, 21, disappeared on January 18, 1977.

Laney was found shot to death in Refugio Canyon the next day, and Rook’s body was found in the same area a day later. Sarris’s remains were found near Los Alamos in May 1977. The killer was Thor Nis Christiansen, a Danish-born gas station attendant from Solvang. In February 1977 deputies seized a .22-caliber pistol from his car at Refugio State Beach, but no one connected him. In April 1979 he shot and killed Laura Benjamin, 22, in Los Angeles County. On April 18 he shot Lydia Preston, 24, in the ear, but she escaped. On July 11 she spotted him in a Hollywood bar, and police arrested him.

In April 1980 a Los Angeles jury convicted Christiansen of murdering Laura Benjamin and of the attempted murder of Preston, and he was sentenced to 25 years to life. On May 28, 1980, he pleaded guilty to the three Santa Barbara County murders and received a life term. On March 30, 1981, at age 23, he was stabbed to death in the Folsom State Prison yard.