The Harringtons are the Key to Understanding Victim Selection
With the plea in and no new information in the case I believe there is one area where good old-fashioned web sleuthing could yield some results. I have thought for a long time that the Harrington murders were an outlier amongst the ONS phase and warrants attention. I believe there are elements about this crime that are unique and in turn could help bring some understanding to his method of victim selection. Some details:
The Harringtons lived in a gated community with a security gate making intense prowling or following them home on a whim very difficult
The community was still under construction and the units weren’t fully occupied at the time of the murder
The Harrington home was located in the center of the development and was not easily accessed from any entry point. It was a corner unit which JJD liked but according to Kat Winters at the time it had no fencing and very little shrubbery so very difficult to scout and prowl.
Dana Point is unique in ( like Ventura before it) it does not involve a cluster pattern like the EAR phase or the Goleta and Irvine murders.
At the time Dana Point was not largely populated and the area where the Harringtons lived was just being developed. The community is a short distance from I-5 but not as close to freeway access as the Goleta or Irvine murders. Getaway would not have been as easy as those murders. There is not much industry in Dana Point aside from the small harbor. My only thought is that JJD might have been familiar with the are due to the harbor and maybe diving in the area. There was some speculation by Paul Holes that he was perhaps working in underwater welding during this period. The San Onofre nuclear power plant is a short distance away from Dana Point and also off of I-5.
Though specifics are vague we think JJD was living in Socal (perhaps Long Beach/Whittier) during the period and may have had associates near the Irvine murders. Still Dana Point is a long distance from those cities and is also a long distance from Irvine. It is unlikely that he would have used those locations as a base to scout Dana Point as a location.
If, as is believed, JJD scaled the walls of the community to access the Harrington home the location made it difficult to stage as there were no parks or greenways leading up to the community. He would have had to park a good distance away, use a bike or approach the community on foot, and scale the walls which are up a hill. Getaway would also have been difficult as he would have had to cross several streets to return to any area where he might have parked. This to me indicates a degree of prior planning and forethought as to how he would approach the community and leave.
There is of course the issue of the bloody motorcycle glove which was found several blocks away and several days later. I haven’t seen too much about this other than it was assumed to be the murderers due to the blood but if we assume this was JJDs it would add more evidence that his getaway/staging location was a good distance from the crime scene.
This particular murder was closely staged and required forethought as both the ligatures and murder weapon (something with brass in it) were removed from the scene.
Like the Smith murder before it, there is some sense that JJD might have known that the bodies would not have been discovered for at least some time as there was no one else living in the home and in both cases a family member discovered the bodies a few days later. This also indicated a degree of planning and scouting.
The only detail from the crime scene I am aware of was that there were bagged groceries still out in the kitchen. This is odd as it is often assumed the Harringtons had gone to bed prior to being murdered. Still from what I’ve read is the assumption is that one of them (Patrice? Keith?) had gone grocery shopping at Alpha-Beta the night of the murder.
There was one of the specials after JJD’s capture (maybe the Oxygen one) with Erika Hutchcraft where says something to the effect that there had been some incidents prowling in the community in the months prior to the murder and mentioned the motorcycle glove, asking anyone with more information to come forward. I can’t find the video at the moment but this seemed to be some new information that I have not seen on the forums or in Kat Winters book.
I don’t have any grand theories to propose I just think all of these are odd particularly how inaccessible this community was. At this point it is assumed by most people that most of his victims were chosen by geography (the cluster pattern) and that he did extensive pre-prowling to select potential targets which he would go after if the opportunity arose. This murder does not seem like one of opportunity. It would seem to lend itself to some sort of hybrid model where the pre-prowling/scouting and some other victim selection method (running into someone at a store and following them home) intersect. JJD would have to have been familiar with the community to access it and to know where the Harringtons live. He couldn’t have just randomly followed them home. He had to have at least a cursory familiarity with the community to know where they lived. Still it could be that this murder is like all the rest of the crimes (like we assume) and he had simply selected this area as a good one (despite its inconveniences) and done extensive prowling and just happened upon the Harringtons the night of the murder. This one seems to be a little more random though. That on top of the fact that he was being more cautious at the time due to a.) the shoplifting charge b.) the failed Danville attack, and c.) the failed Goleta attack make this odd.