Nov. 16, 1978 — Two Sacramento area men with connections to the Charles Manson family were found shot and stuffed into the trunk of a burning car early Wednesday morning on the Garden Highway. One is dead, the other is in critical condition.
Slain was Edward A. Barabas, 27, a parolee from Folsom Prison, who had been shot and burned. James Terrill Craig, 38, was in critical condition at University Medical center, part of his jaw blown away by at least one shotgun blast.
“This appears to have been planned as a double execution,” said police homicide Lt. Hal Taylor. As Craig was being taken to the hospital, he repeatedly moaned, “She’s dangerous, she’s dangerous,” But police had not determined who “she” was.
A police investigator indicated the shootings may have stemmed from a prison gang conflict. Craig in 1972 told Stockton police he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison-based gang that he said included former female followers of Charles Manson.
Barabas’ father, William Barabas of Sepulveda, said Wednesday his son was living in Sacramento with Priscilla Cooper. Ms. Cooper was a Manson follower whose forehead was carved with a cross similar to the one Manson carved on his own forehead during his trial for the killing of actress Sharon Tate and others. Ms. Cooper and Craig served prison terms on charges stemming from two 1972 Stockton area murders.
A private security guard on duty at a nearby construction site and police Lt. John Carey, patrolling nearby, first reached the burning 1967 Dodge in which the men were found at 4 am. It was parked off the asphalt of the Garden Highway just west of Truxel Road, police said. Both heard moaning from the trunk of the car.
Firefighters extinguished the flames and opened the trunk to find Craig semiconscious and delirious, with his hands and feet bound. In addition to the jaw wound, shotgun pellets struck Craig above the eye and in the neck, investigators said.
Barabas, who was closest to the back seat, was burned and shot twice in the head with a medium-caliber handgun, police said. Also in the trunk was a dismantled 12-gauge shotgun believed to have been used on Craig, police said. The car was last registered to a woman in Hood, police said. Police believe the men were shot elsewhere and dumped into the trunk. Officers later found Craig’s car parked at 17th and Q Streets.
Barabas, the youngest of eight brothers, was also known as Ekron Chad Skeens. He was paroled from Folsom Prison on March 7 after serving nearly three years there and at San Quentin, Vacaville, and Soledad for robbing Allen’s Precious Metals in Carmichael, Department Of Corrections spokesman Phil Guthrie said.
Soledad officials put Barabas in protective custody when he was thought to be threatened by black and Mexican gangs, Guthrie said. In Vacaville, he was suspected of being involved in an assault on an inmate, Guthrie said.
Barabas was released on parole from Folsom just 10 days before Craig’s parole from the same prison. Craig, who had been in and out of Folsom since 1963, was finally discharged from parole in July, Guthrie said.
He first went to Folsom on a Los Angeles County robbery charge. In 1973, however, he went back to prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact in the murder of James And Lauren Willett, who had lived with Craig and ex-convict Michael Lee Montfort. Craig, Montfort, and three women followers of Charles Manson – Ms. Cooper, Nancy Laura Pitman, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme – were arrested for the Willett murders. All but Ms. Fromme served prison terms for the slayings.
Mrs. Willett’s body was found under the Manson women’s house in Stockton, and Willett, a former Marine, was found decapitated and buried near Guerneville. Ms. Fromme was later convicted for her 1975 assassination attempt on President Ford in Sacramento. Barabas is the 58th homicide victim in the city of Sacramento this year. That figure is two more than the record total of 56 set in 1976.