Introduction to Poking a Dung Pile

In late January 1985, the City of Berkeley set aside of plot of land (near the Marina and adjacent to a landfill) on which the homeless could park their vehicles and live for a nominal fee.  The city provided rudimentary facilities such as porta-johns and sinks with running water.  Those who resided on this land called their encampment Rainbow Village. ‘Deadheads’ claimed a spot in the Village very near the time it was established.  Some Deadheads used it as a kind of haven or stop-over in their travels.  In mid-August of '85, twenty-two year-old Mary Regina Gioia and eighteen year-old Gregory Allen Kniffin spent a few days in Rainbow Village on their way to see the Dead perform at Boreal Springs on August 24, 1985.  During the early morning hours of Friday, August 16, Mary and Greg were brutally beaten and then shot in the head at point-blank range.  Their bodies were dumped in a nearby lagoon.  After a brief investigation, the police arrested a resident of the Village, Ralph International Thomas, and charged him with the murders.  In the spring of 1986 Thomas was tried and convicted of the second-degree murder of Mary and the first-degree murder of Greg.  He was sentenced to death.  Early on, there was a strong suspicion among Village residents and some Deadheads that Thomas had not committed the crimes.  It was suspected that a Deadhead, or someone associated with that community, had committed the murders.  

This blog addresses the question:  Did Ralph International Thomas murder Mary Gioia and Greg Kniffin?  After listening to the podcast Dead and Gone and doing a little research of my own, I'm still not persuaded that Ralph International Thomas did not murder Mary and Greg.  I just don't believe enough evidence has been presented to rule him out as the prime suspect.  However, based on my own research, I am convinced that International received far from adequate representation at trial. 

I'm not a journalist.  I don't have the kind of resources a defense lawyer or an investigative journalist might have available to him or her.  Beyond listening to the podcast, I've read some of the court documents to which Payne Lindsey refers in the podcast.  I've read Patricia Gioia's book The Berkeley Marina Murders: One Family's Story.  And I've read through a number of newspaper clippings from around the time of the murder.

As its title suggests,* I begin this blog apprehensively.  Why?  I'm not clear what my motivations are, and I don't have a clear idea about what I want to accomplish and what I can accomplish.  I teach at a community college, and many of my students are at, or near, the ages of Mary and Greg when they were murdered.  Mary attended a community college and earned a culinary arts degree.  I'm the same age as Greg would be now, if he'd not been murdered.  So maybe, for now, these thoughts might shed some light on my motivations for writing the blog.

Overall, I hope to collect enough pieces of this puzzle (on my own and with the help of others) to reveal some truth about who really did kill Mary and Greg.  I think the first thing I want to do is to share with readers the court documents and newspaper clippings I've collected during the past six months.  This will be my next post.  In my third post I will give a rough timeline for the months leading up to the murder.  Please remember that this timeline may change as I obtain more information.

Thank you for taking the time to read this introduction.

*In Episode 8 of Dead and Gone, Claus von Wendel remarks how, "if you go poking in a pile of shit, it starts to smell".  Thus, it's with some apprehension that I'm going to poke this dung pile.