We had been working the case for a while, closing in, but we still didn’t have a name.
That changed on the morning of January 30, 1976.
A call came into the department from a young marriage counselor in Placentia, the city just east of Fullerton. His name was Ron Rockenbach, and he had something we needed.
Rockenbach told Detective Schauperl, our lead investigator, that he and his wife had counseled a young couple—Kenneth Hulbert and his “wife,” Mollye Selfies Hulbert. He had met with them together a few times, but most of the time, Mollye came alone. And over time, Rockenbach’s gut told him something wasn’t right about Hulbert.
Then, on January 29, 1976, Mollye called him, panicked. She confided that she suspected Hulbert was responsible for the rapes and murders in the news. She had found a stash of women’s jewelry hidden in their home—jewelry that didn’t belong to her. That night, she handed the jewelry off to Rockenbach’s wife, Linda.
Rockenbach didn’t wait. The next morning, he called Fullerton PD and laid out his suspicions: Hulbert could be the parking lot rapist.
Schauperl told him to come in—and bring the jewelry.
While Rockenbach made his way to the station, we ran Kenneth Hulbert through our records. A prior arrest popped up: possession of marijuana. Not much, but enough to get a fingerprint on file.
That was the break we needed.
One of our victims, Carmen Banderas, had been forced to write a check that Hulbert tried to cash. We had lifted a print from that check, but until now, we had no match.
When Rockenbach arrived, he recounted how, just the night before, Mollye had driven to his home, desperate to talk. She was afraid. She was convinced Hulbert was the killer. But she refused to go to the police.
As he spoke, our Identification Technician, Jim Babcock, worked in the background, comparing the print from the check to Hulbert’s fingerprint card.
Then he looked up.
Perfect match.
We had him.
Now, all we had to do was find him.
Lee DeVore True Crime 