Timeline - June Through August 1985

In Episode Three of Dead and Gone, Robert, a Deadhead living in Oregon who's very familiar with the case, expresses his hope that, "anybody who hears this, that beyond it being some kind of form of entertainment or intrigue, maybe somebody has the nuggets of information out there, missing pieces of a puzzle, some information that might reveal, you know, what really happened."  

After listening to Dead and Gone and then reading through the court documents, I realized there was a pile of puzzle pieces and I could begin to fit them together using timelines.  I now have two timelines.  I started putting the following timeline together by first looking at the Dead's 1985 set-lists, and then making a list of shows (highlighted in red) relevant to the case, beginning with the Greeks in mid-June and ending with Boreal Springs in August.  (I've added an asterisk to the shows I'm fairly confident Mary attended.)  At some point I realized I had to include the dates of relevant Jerry Band shows (labeled by 'JGB').  Once I had this framework I could check claims made during the podcast against the timeline, and I could add relevant information as I gathered it from listening to Dead and Gone or reading various sources.  

(Assuming that the police found ticket stubs among Mary and Greg's personal items, and one had access to this inventory, one could confidently mark the shows they attended between June and August.  I don't know that the police collected stubs among their personal effects, however.)

Greg Kniffin leaves home for California sometime in June.

6.14.85 - Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA

6.15.85 - Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA

6.16.85 - Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA

6.16.85 “Anne” (or is it "Gnome"?), another Deadhead very familiar with the case, catches a ride on the Dead On and heads to WI for the Alpine Valley shows.  Dead and Gone. Episode 8.

6.20.85 Mary travels to WI to see the Dead at Alpine.  I'm assuming she was at both shows.  (Berkeley Marina Murders, pp. 91-2)

6.21.85 - Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI (*)

6.22.85 - Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI  (*)

Mary may have traveled to the shows in OH.  Evidence?  Before leaving "to see some other Dead shows" on June 28, she told her sister that she had to “get her things from a Dead-on [sic] bus that had broken down in Ohio.” (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 92)

6.24.85 - River Bend Music Center, Cincinnati, OH

6.25.85 - Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga, OH

6.27.85 - Saratoga Springs Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY (*)

6.28.85 Mary leaves her sister’s in a car “to see some other Dead shows (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 92)

6.28.85 - Hershey Park Stadium, Hershey, PA

6.30.85 - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD

7.1.85 - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD

7.2.85 - Pittsburgh Civic Arena, Pittsburgh PA

7.4.85 - Mary phones her sister, Joan, from IL and tells her she’s getting a ride to CA. She calls her sister four times from California, during the month of July.  (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 92)

7.5.85 - Scripps Howard publishes a story about the Rainbow Gathering near Salem, MO.  The Waterloo Courier (07.09.1985) 

Greg Kniffin may have attended this gathering. "The resident said 'Greg' had accompanied a group of Rainbow Village residents several months ago to a 'Rainbow Family Reunion' in Missouri, where Grateful Dead followers from across the country gathered."  San Francisco Examiner (08.18.1985)

7.7.85 - The Santa Cruz Sentinel publishes a story on Rainbow Village. Santa Cruz Sentinel (07.07.1985)

7.13.85 - Mary phones her mother from CA, and tells her she’s been "traveling up and down the state looking for somewhere to live and to find a job."  (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 14)

"Mary had driven out to California with a male friend, also a Grateful Dead follower.  His mother owned a restaurant in southern California.  For her ride out west, Mary worked in the restaurant for a few days--payback for the trip." (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 39)

"After staying in Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Oakland, [Mary] fell in love with the mountains, the countryside, the ocean, everything," her brother [Gerry Gioia] said. Oakland Tribune (08.22.2021)

7.13.85 - Ventura County Fairgrounds, Ventura, CA (*) 

7.14.85 - Ventura County Fairgrounds, Ventura, CA (*)

8.4.85 - The Stone, San Francisco, CA (JGB)

8.5.85 - The Stone, San Francisco, CA (JGB)

8.6.85 - The Santa Cruz Sentinel publishes a humor piece about a cat named Sgt. Chumley.  Mary included a clipping of this story in the letter to her mother postmarked August 13.  (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 15)

8.9.85 - The Stone, San Francisco, CA (JGB)

8.11.85 - Keystone, Palo Alto, CA (JGB)

8.13.85 - Letter from Mary to her mother was postmarked Oakland California, with this date. (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 14)

8.14.85 - Mary volunteers at the Berkeley Emergency Food Project. (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 135)

8.15.85 - Gathering at Rainbow Village.

8.16.85 - Mary Gioia and Greg Kniffin are murdered.

1115 - A jogger or a dog walker sees Mary Gioia's body floating in the lagoon, near the dump gate at the intersection of Marina Blvd. and Spinnaker Way.

 

8.17.85 Divers find Greg Kniffin's body in 10 feet of water not far from where Mary's body was found floating.

8.24.85 - Boreal Springs Ski Resort, Donner’s Summit, CA