Wikipedia: James Clifford Carson (aka Michael Bear Carson) (born 1950) and Suzan Barnes Carson (born 1942) were serial killers reported to
have been active in several countries and regions in the late 1970s and early
1980s - particularly, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
They were involved in the counter culture movement. Their
crimes emerged from a shared missionary philosophy to exterminate individuals
they believed to be "witches". The pair reportedly kept a list of
targeted individuals including celebrities and political figures such as Johnny
Carson and then-president Ronald Reagan.
After their arrest in 1983, they held a news conference
confessing to murders, including those of Karen Barnes, stabbed and bludgeoned
to death in her home in Haight-Ashbury in 1981, Clark Stephens, murdered and
mutilated (dismembered and set on fire) in Humboldt County and John Hillyar,
who was stabbed and shot on the side of the road in Napa Valley. They were also
suspects in 9 other murders in Europe and the U.S.
On 12 June 1984 the Carsons were convicted of one murder and
sentenced to serve twenty five years to life in prison. Later they were
convicted of two other murders and given 50 years to life. Their final sentence
was 75 years to life. James Carson is incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison
and Suzan Carson is incarcerated at California Central Women's Facility.
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FULL TEXT: San Francisco – A couple who complained their
murder trial hadn’t received enough publicity told reporters they have killed
three people for “religious reasons,” the San Francisco reported today.
“Witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion are causes for
death,” said Michael Bear Carson, who with his wife, Suzan, described the
killings during a five-hour interview Wednesday with the Chronicle and KGO-TV.
Homicide inspectors from the San Francisco police and the
Sonoma County sheriff’s office were also present.
The couple, who say they are vegetarian Moslem “warriors,”
face trial in Sonoma County Superior Court in Santa Rosa over the January 1983
shooting death of Jon Charles Hillyar, 30. but they also said they had killed
23-year-old Keryn Barnes in San Francisco in March 1981 and Clark Stephens in
Humbolt County in 1982.
Carson last month wrote to Chronicle columnist Herb Caen,
complaining that his murder trial had received “no publicity in the more
important press.”
“We insist on pre-trial publicity,” the bearded long-haired
man said Wednesday, complaining that he hadn’t been allowed to air his opinions
during a preliminary hearing last week.
Carson, 22, described Suzan as “a yogi and a mystic with
knowledge of past, present and future events.” He claimed she had been sexually
attacked by Stephens and abused by Hillyar, who said she was a “witch.”
“Susan ordered each killing,” he said as his wife sat beside
him, half smiling.
The two said they had led a wandering life, from San
Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district to Europe, the American Southwest and other
portions of California. They said they developed feelings of pacifism, came to
practice yoga and vegetarianism and then converted to a form of the Moslem
religion.
Mrs. Carson complained that Miss Barnes, who shared an
apartment with the couple in 1961, faked a conversion to Islam and in fact was
draining Miss Carson of her health and yogic powers.
During a hitchhiking trip home from Arizona, the Carsons
were staying in an Oxnard motel room when Suzan “got orders” in her mind to
kill their roommate.
“Each time Suzan said it, the thunder would clap,” Carson
said.
After arriving back in San Francisco, Carson said, he bashed
Miss Barnes on the head “as hard as I could, three times” and when she still
made a sound, he stabbed her in the neck with a small knife.
Stephens, who allegedly worked on a marijuana farm near
Garberville with the Carsons, was slain near the town of Alderpoint, Mrs.
Carson said he was “a demon. He had to be killed.”
Carson said he shot Stephens twice in the head and once in
the side and then burned the body and buried it beneath some chicken
fertilizer.
Carson said Hillyer, whom the couple met while hitchhiking,
“abused Suzan sexually” and therefore had to be killed. He said that was “part
of the Koran.”
[“‘Religious Reasons’ Cited – Murder Suspects Admit
Slayings,” The Press-Courier (Oxnard, Ca.), Apr. 28, 1983, p. 31]
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