Russell Kyle and Charles Wagner emerge from the dark, tree-lined pathway
of Golden Gate Park. Their faces are difficult to decipher in the shadows. Twilight in Golden Gate Park’s Shakespeare Garden casts an eerie ambiance over the once bright spring flowers and dense green trees that line the ancient walkways and benches. The beautiful garden setting is tainted by the sinister fact that a homeless man was found stabbed to death here less than two years ago.
Those who linger in the park after dark may find themselves under a different code of ethics, in a different environment often driven by poverty, drug use, and scandal. As creators of the San Francisco Crime Tour, Kyle and Wagner have taken an interest in the park’s unsolved murders. The tour, led by Kyle, covers both well-known historic crimes and less publicized, unsolved crimes that have taken place in San Francisco.
“Everybody knows the Zebra and Zodiac killings, but we’re also showing you the street corners,” Kyle gruffly explains.
Kyle’s weathered face and genuine, straightforward demeanor make it easy to mistake him for a professional detective. He dubs himself the living expert on true historic crimes in San Francisco. Having lived in the city since 1977, he’s experienced much of it first-hand.
Kyle and Wagner have known one another since the early ‘80s, working together to research and investigate the city’s crimes in their free time. They recently created a YouTube video about the possible connections between the mysterious homicides of homeless men in Golden Gate Park. The police and local newspapers have acknowledged three unsolved homicides, yet rumors circulate that there have been many more.
The first homicide took place on September 8, 2006 in Shakespeare Garden, where a forty-five-year-old homeless man, Matthew Lister, was found stabbed to death.
Almost exactly one year later, on September 4, 2007, forty-four-year-old Ramiro Marcial-Herrera, another homeless man, was found in the Polo Field, also stabbed to death.
A month later, on October 16, twenty-nine-year-old Brian Austin, yet another homeless man, was found dead on Forty-seventh and Fulton Streets on the edge of Golden Gate Park. He suffered from severe stab wounds to the face and neck.
Nathan Wright, a graduate of SF State and an acquaintance of Austin, played pool with him on the weekends and often ran into him around Irving Street and Ninth Avenue.
Austin didn’t have much family and had been living on the Lincoln side of the park for about eleven years.
The people in local bars and around the neighborhood
were closest to him. He loved socializing and even bartended in a couple of the bars. “I could see him defending himself, but I don’t think he would start a fight,” explains Wright.
Wright remembers running into Austin one afternoon about two weeks before his death. He was standing in front of Irving Pizza with a couple of pizza boxes in hand. He had found a one-hundred dollar bill in the park and instead of pocketing it, he had used it to buy pizzas.
“As I walked up to him he offered me a slice,” says Wright. “He offered slices to others who passed by as well.”
Wright says he has heard that at least six or seven homeless people in the park have been killed within the last year or so. Park dwellers have told Kyle that as many as eight murders have
occurred in the past two or three years. But much of what goes on in the park is hearsay, and often those who do know something are hesitant to speak up. There’s speculation that the murders are drug-related and even that a possible serial killer among the homeless is committing the crimes. Other rumors suggest that the murders are connected to the tension between homeowners in the Richmond district and the transients that live in the park.
However, San Francisco Police Department Sergeant Neville Gittens explains that in his experience there has been no noticeable increase in murders or violent acts within the park. He also hasn’t heard of any links between the murders.
But Kyle disagrees. “These crimes seem so vicious and spontaneous, and at the times they occur it makes me conclude that they were
committed by tweakers on meth,” he says.
He believes the SFPD is keeping information from the public to
protect tourism. “The cops want to give the impression that no one lives in the park and there is no crime there for the tourists...there has to be a perception that the park is perfectly safe for women and children,” he says.
If speculations are true and there have been many more murders of homeless people than what’s been publicized, an incredible social injustice against the homeless may be taking place. “I’d say it’s disconcerting that this string of violence could be connected,” Wright says with sincerity. “It’s unfortunate that we have to seek information out as citizens, yet I understand the balance the police have to keep.”
As silence grows within Golden Gate Park, the sky blackens, and there is hardly enough light to see the path as Kyle and Wagner pass through the iron gates of Shakespeare Garden. These dark streets seem to hold many secrets, both within the dense foliage, and the society that exists here. A major frustration in the research of these unsolved crimes is that many people are unwilling to talk, much less go on the record with what they may know.
Kyle and Wagner walk toward the dim streetlights shining down on Kyle’s Crown Victoria with genuine police spotlights. They chat about a recent unsolved shooting in a restaurant near Nineteenth Avenue, just a few streets over. “It comes down to people being afraid to come forward as witnesses,” explains Wagner. “No one wants to be the only person speaking out, and with some of these cases, others were around. People have to have seen something."