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Some good finds... a while back, a friend of mine was telling me about a guy in Santa Cruz that was close friends with Ross and that they used to cause trouble together in the early 70s. My friend did not remember the friends name but said he is still alive. Apparently he lived very close to the home Ross was in on 17th Ave. I don't know if there is any truth to this or not, but I have been trying to find any trouble makers who lived in that area.

Has anyone else heard anything like this?

ophion1031 wrote:Some good finds... a while back, a friend of mine was telling me about a guy in Santa Cruz that was close friends with Ross and that they used to cause trouble together in the early 70s. My friend did not remember the friends name but said he is still alive. Apparently he lived very close to the home Ross was in on 17th Ave. I don't know if there is any truth to this or not, but I have been trying to find any trouble makers who lived in that area.

Has anyone else heard anything like this?

What? is someone pulling your leg?

I have no idea, that's why I asked if anyone else had heard this? If I had to bet, I would bet it is not true but I have no idea. But seeing some of the trouble makers that lived at the same address as Ross in 1968 in Santa Cruz, who knows.

Dag MacLugh wrote:Marie:
Don't despair! Some months ago, I proposed a Group Project. Everyone thought it was a great idea, so long as I was the Group. One guy, probably a white supremacist, called me a "reneger." I counted to three billion, then returned to the Board.
Yes, there are anti-social types who post here. But, there are far more decent, intelligent contributors. And you, Marie, are one.
Stick around. We like you.
Dag

Thanks Dag, makes me feel productive and helpul . And I have been in so many groups and organizations, I already know, theres the few you can depend on but usually it falls to you.

I have been doing lots of things behind the scenes, not to hide them, I just like confirmation before I post. Hopefully the info I need comes soon.

I am also guessing at this point, even if there was an autopsy of sorts, its been "misfiled." I do wonder, after looking at Ross's Death Certificate if there aren't samples somewhere (make DNA testing easier, but there are other ways). If foul play isn't suspected, he probably wan't at the top of the coroner's list. Nearly two months went by from his death to the release of the Death Certificate.

Heck, if all they did was a blood smear on a slide, and its well labeled, that might be all we need. (I do know they took samples at ALAs autopsy for further testing.) I don't know how long samples are kept, I think it depends on the lab/situations/storage etc. but I am betting somewhere there is some conclusively his DNA- though we might not need it.

Oh- one last thing, I looked up CA FOIA laws and unless there is an ongoing investigation/suspicious circumstances, autopsy reports can be foia-ed (unless they lost them, argh!). Which leads me to another thought I will post on the DNA forum...

-M

Good catch. I never even noticed that it said "informant." So it was probably a nurse at the home that found him. So they would have contacted the coroner right away and he was either taken to the coroner's office or directly to the funeral home if there was no autopsy done.[/quote]

What sucks is, that Ross's coroners report, which listed stuff like height, weight, other stuff, is missing from the Santa Cruz coroner's office. I spoke to two different people who could not locate it. There should have been one on file[/quote}]

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Feather here. Before I joined the forum, I'd read a lot of the posts and was curious about Ross. I decided to re-read about Ross.

This really sticks out to me: Just why were no records found via the coroner's office? Is there a reason why the records would be at another location? Surely this has nothing to do with cremation? There has to be death records? Am I not understanding something here?

Feather here. I posted on the last page of this discussion. I'll try this way. I was really curious as to why no records were found in the coroner's office for Ross's death. Has anyone else looked into this? Surely another county or city would not have been given information on his death? But WHY NO RECORDS AT THE CORONER'S OFFICE in Santa Cruz (I believe it was).

There probably are records but they have been misfiled. Or the records could have been requested by another agency, police perhaps, and no note was left in the file.

Featherweight wrote:Feather here. I posted on the last page of this discussion. I'll try this way. I was really curious as to why no records were found in the coroner's office for Ross's death. Has anyone else looked into this? Surely another county or city would not have been given information on his death? But WHY NO RECORDS AT THE CORONER'S OFFICE in Santa Cruz (I believe it was).

I reached out to them. I actually spoke with somebody there, as they searched for them with me on the phone. It's been a while now, but as I recall, I almost want to say that the person looking for it may have actually been a police officer,I think I remember that they did double duty. He told me that he knew what he was doing, and how the files were arranged, but he couldn't find one for Ross.

Just some thoughts. Ross' address on the death certificate was a personal care services type facility or what may have been known as an Assisted Living Facility (ALF). If he had lived there for three years (1974-1977), according to his death certificate, that can mean only one thing, he was a Medicare beneficiary, in other words, he was a Medicare insuranced person. Facilities like ALF's are paid for with Medicare insurance, specifically Medicare Part A which covers things such as hospital in-patient stays, home health, hospice, skilled nursing facilities, ALFs. Yes, ALFs would accept private-pay insurance but a majority of these facilities accept Medicare insured residents because its guaranteed rent when the Federal Government is paying for the residence. Check drops every month for that resident.

However, Medicare coverage is only available to people aged 65 and older UNLESS you have a disability or end-stage renal disease. Since Ross resided in an ALF from 1974-1977, from age 33 to age 36, then I think he was either adjudicated disabled or like most people on Medicare Part A prior to age 65, he went and got diagnosed with a physical disability (think obesity), and signed-up for his Social Security disability benefits which automatically entitles one to Medicare Part A coverage. I just have to believe he was on Medicare because who is gonna pay Ross' stay in an expensive ALF? Either his brother or other family members paid out-of-pocket for his residence there, or more likely, either they or the State had Ross' adjudicated or diagnosed disabled so that the Federal Government (i.e. Medicare) could foot the bill for his residence from 1974-1977. I just don't see his family paying for his stay because that can get expensive real quick.

If true, this is significant because it means Ross may not have been considered "disabled" prior to 1974 and from 1974-1977 he lived in an ALF, a place where one can come and go as they pleased. I'm betting he was like a lot of folks that game the system and get their "fat check" each month. This slang term refers to people who use obesity as a pre-text to qualify for month Social Security disability which in turn qualifies one automatically for Medicare health insurance.

Also, "Last Occupation" as dishwasher tells me that this was an older occupation, pre-1974, since one doesn't typically collect disability and Medicare and also work. I believe they asked his brother what Ross' last known job was and that's what was reported for the death certificate.

Unless you can dig up an ALF address prior to 1974, then I think he was never officially disabled prior to 1974 since he needed Medicare to pay for his residence from 1974-1977. I do not know how those conservatorships work and if those qualify you for Medicare because of a "mental" disability. Or did the State of California pick up the tab for any of his mental institutional stays? With Ross' moving from one institution to another, then settling down in his last 3 three years of life in Santa Cruz, in what may have been an ALF, tells me he may have only been officially diagnosed disabled those last 3 years. And even then, it may have only been a physical disability (obesity). This also makes me think his past mental institution stays may have been those short stays based on law enforcement holds as opposed to being committed. What if he was only temporarily in these mental institutions on holds based off arrests? This means there could be more arrest records (mugshots) in other jurisdictions that exist.

Of course all these Medicare records are protected and unavailable to the general public. And any medical records, even if family agreed to release them, are more than likely long since destroyed as Medicare only requires doctors and Medicare funded facilities to keep records for 6 years and then they can be destroyed. And these would have been entirely paper files back in the 70s so they have long since been shredded.

Again, the point of my post is he lived in a Medicare reimbursed facility. Ross was under age 65 which means he wouldn't normally be entitled to Medicare coverage unless he had a disability diagnoses. He lived in an ALF that may have allowed him the freedom to come and go as he pleased. If you can't find another ALF address prior to 1974, then it stands to reason he was only considered disabled in 1974 or shortly before. When one applies to Social Security disability, Medicare Part A coverage is almost instantaneous. He would have been a person with Medicare coverage to pay for his residence from 1974-1977. Any address pre-1974 needs to be researched and one might be able to build a timeline that shows what I am saying is accurate-he was only officially disabled in 1974.

Thanks for posting that info KTK, and welcome.

The stuff you said is interesting for sure. The issue for us has always been that we can't find anything at all for Ross during the crucial 1968-1974 timeframe. We don't know where he lived. One person that knew Ross and his brother Tim, thought Ross had lived in San Fran, but didn't have exact details. Allegedly, his brother Tim confided that he thought Ross was Zodiac, but didn't elaborate. Now Tim is dead, and Ross's surviving Brother wants nothing to do with talking about Ross. So we haven't made any progress, and as you pointed out, things that might leave a paper trail like medical records, etc are private