Albany Girl, 19, Slain in L.A.
By Bob Stronach
Times-Union Staff Writer
Times-Union, Albany, NY - November 23, 1969

The nude body of an Albany girl and the body of a boy in hippie clothing were found early Saturday in an alley in Los Angeles, Calif.

They were identified as Doreen Gaul, 19, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Gaul Jr., 570 Myrtle Avenue, Albany, and James Sharp, 15, of St. Louis, Mo.

Doreen was graduated from Vincentian Institute in 1968.

Homicide detectives said the victims had been stabbed in the face and chest so many times that it appeared they had been shot with a shotgun at close range.

They apparently had been slain elsewhere and then dumped in the alley in a residential area of the central part of Los Angeles, detectives said.

In Religious Sect

A man talking a short cut home discovered the bodies in the alley at about 12 a.m. Saturday.

Police said Doreen - who was wearing multi-colored Indian beads with a peace symbol - lived at various places in Los Angeles and was an active member of American Saint Hill, a religious sect practicing the philosophy of Scientology.

Sharp had a Scientology membership card on him, police said. Directors  of the Scientology group acknowledged that both were registered with them and said the pair had good names in the group.

An unidentified friend of Doreen told LA police she was from Albany, but authorities had been unable to locate her next of kin.  Times-Union staffers found people who knew her and then notified Los Angeles police of her parents' address.

Went West in Spring

Detectives said the initial coroner's report - an autopsy was performed Saturday morning - indicated that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds and that Doreen had not been sexually molested.

Gerald Connolly, Doreen's uncle, said she originally went west last Spring because of her involvement in Scientology.  She had been active in the Scientology Center at 510 Second Avenue, Troy.

Doreen stopped over in the Kansas City are before going to Los Angeles, one of her Friends said Saturday night.

Connolly said Doreen was thinking about leaving the scientology group in Los Angeles.

Tracing Movements

Detectives said they have no leads yet and could only trace the movements of Sharp to 6 p.m. Friday at a scientology graduation.

Detectives said "there's no speculation on our part" that the stabbings could be attributed to the Zodiac killer from San Francisco.  "There's nothing to indicate it," they said, explaining that the Zodiac killer has so far only operated in San Francisco, uses a gun and usually makes cryptic predictions to the media.

Doreen, the oldest of eight children, has four brothers and three sisters. Also surviving are her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. William Gaul Sr., and four uncles and one aunt.

Funeral arrangements, according to an uncle, will be made by the Magin and Keegan Funeral Home, 891 Madison Avenue.

Doreen Gaul Termed
'Talented and Intense'
By Mary Lee Dunn
Times-Union Staff Writer
Times-Union, Albany, NY - November 23, 1969

Doreen Gaul "always seemed to be on some frantic electric edge, looking for something she didn't seem likely to find," a former high school friend said the night after her body was found in a residential area of Los Angeles.

Authorities in Los Angeles were probing the double murder of Doreen and a teen-aged Missouri boy Saturday.

Friends and acquaintances of the girl, shocked at her death, described her as talented and intense... "totally into the people she spoke to"... interested in artistic things; singing, poetry, ceramics... troubled, "an intelligent kid with emotional problems"... at one time, involved in the local hippy scene... a follower of the philosophy of Scientology.

1968 VI Graduate

In fact, several people said it was Scientology that drew her to the west coast.

Nineteen-year-old Doreen, oldest of eight children, graduated from Vincentian Institute in 1968.  In high school, Doreen had won art prizes, including a second place award in a Diocesan Art Fair in 1965 for her paintings.

She taught ceramics several nights a week at the Albany Boys' Club on Delaware Avenue.  A club director remembered "She loved to work with kids.  She was very happy with that."  She began working after school in her junior year and besides the boys' club class, did some babysitting.  At the club, she was popular with the boys and she was considered a conscientious worker.

Doreen once told a classmate that she worked at the club because she liked people, and it was "a good place to work."

Doreen wrote poetry: "She did have a flair for words," said one friend, "It was more or less a hobby."

"She used to spin off that stuff like nothing," said the Rev. Nellis Trembley, a former guidance counselor at Vincentian who is now stationed at Sacred Heart Church in Cohoes "And it was really good. She was a great poet. She used to come in and read them to me."

Father Trembley said Doreen was an "intelligent kid with emotional problems."

Regents Alternate

The year she graduated from high school, Doreen was an alternate candidate for a state Regents scholarship.  But she didn't continue in school.

She became a follower of Scientology, a philosophy which is recognized by its adherents as a religion.  It was founded in 1950.  Locally, there is a Scientology Center at 510 Second Avenue in Troy.  Doreen visited the group of 40 to 50 people there and, according to a friend, became "very deeply involved."

Doreen had left home.  For a time, she lived in an apartment on Lancaster Street.  She got a job doing advertising layouts for a publications group in Albany, a "local free press," said Dave Kelly, who had met her through a common friend after she graduated from high school. He said she worked that job for several months.

Sold Enamel Jewelry

But she didn't drop her artistic interests.  Doreen made copper enamel jewelry and sold her work to several Albany boutiques.

She had wanted to learn guitar also, though she never did, Kelly said. Many though Doreen had an exceptionally good voice.  She had a "real talent in singing and art," said Father Trembley.  Dave Kelly agreed.

Doreen decided to go west about six months ago.  Several people, including her uncle, Gerald Connelly of Colonie, and Kelly, who lives outside of Cohoes, said the move was to become more involved in Scientology. The Scientology organization, an international group, reportedly has a large headquarters in Los Angeles.

Stopover in Kansas City

Doreen went to Los Angeles after a brief stop in the Kansas City area.

She had written Kelly several times since she moved west.  he said she indicated she would train with the Scientology group.

He said his last letter from Doreen was dated October 7 and postmarked Scottsdale, Ariz.  He said she was thinking of marrying and that was why she was in Arizona at the time.

But Doreen had returned to Los Angeles since then.  She was found in Los Angeles early yesterday, stabbed to death.  She wore only beads and a peace symbol.

Doreen had been "on her own" for about a year, said Gerald Connelly of Colonie, her uncle.  It was the same time she left home - about September, 1968 - that she became interested in Scientology.  But she only went west last spring, to deepen her involvement in Scientology.

She would have been home for Christmas, her first visit home since leaving for the West Coast, said her uncle.

Recently Doreen had been engaged to marry a man from Phoenix. But before setting the date, the couple decided to wait a bit.  Doreen had talked with her mother and with the young man and decided perhaps the wedding was a bit premature, according to her uncle.

He added that she had been considering taking a job in Los Angeles with an advertising agency, a position similar to one she held for a short time with an Albany press group.

Another idea she had entertained was recording.  Many people had praised Doreen's voice, though she never sang professionally.  Connelly said that Doreen had mentioned that she and the Missouri teenager who was found slain with her had considered making recordings together.

"She was very idealistic," he commented.