Search

Herbert Mullin: The 'Earthquake Killer' Who Murdered to Save California

Jun 16
3 min read

Updated: Jun 25

Herbert Mullin's case sits at the painful intersection of severe untreated mental illness and lethal violence. Over a single terrifying four-month stretch in 1972 and 1973, the former high-school honour student murdered thirteen people around Santa Cruz, California, convinced by the voices in his head that each death was a “human sacrifice” capable of preventing a catastrophic earthquake.

This article follows Mullin's descent from a promising youth into psychosis, the bizarre delusion that drove his crimes, and the trial that wrestled with whether he could be held responsible.

Herbert Mullin: The 'Earthquake Killer' Who Murdered to Save California

Key Facts at a Glance

Full name: Herbert William Mullin
Born: 18 April 1947, Salinas, California, USA
Known as: The Earthquake Killer
Victims: 13, between October 1972 and February 1973
Diagnosis: Paranoid schizophrenia
Outcome: Convicted 1973; life imprisonment; died in custody in 2022

Promising Beginnings, Then Collapse

Mullin grew up in the Santa Cruz area and seemed destined for an ordinary, successful life — classmates voted him “most likely to succeed.” After high school, the death of a close friend appears to have helped trigger a mental decline, and his use of LSD and cannabis worsened symptoms of what was eventually diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. He was hospitalised several times as his grip on reality loosened.

The Earthquake Delusion

Mullin's delusions fixed on natural disaster. His birthday fell on the anniversary of the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a coincidence he found deeply significant. He came to believe that human deaths could appease nature and stave off a quake — and that the carnage of the Vietnam War had been holding catastrophe at bay. As the war wound down, he concluded that he personally had to kill to keep California safe, claiming his father urged him on through telepathy.

Four Months of Killing

His spree began on 13 October 1972, when he beat a homeless man, Lawrence “Whitey” White, to death with a baseball bat. Over the following months he stabbed a young hitchhiking student, killed a Catholic priest in a confessional, and shot or stabbed others — including an acquaintance and his wife, a mother and her two young children, and four teenage boys camping in the woods. His final victim, on 13 February 1973, was 72-year-old Fred Perez, whom he shot as Perez worked in his yard.

A neighbour who saw the shooting noted Mullin's licence plate, and he was arrested within minutes — ending the spree that had helped turn early-1970s Santa Cruz into what locals grimly called a “murder capital,” a period that overlapped with the separate crimes of killer Edmund Kemper.

Arrest and the Insanity Question

Mullin readily confessed, describing the voices and “die songs” that he said commanded the killings. His 1973 trial therefore turned not on whether he had killed but on whether he was legally sane. The defence argued that his paranoid schizophrenia made him not responsible; prosecutors countered that he had hidden bodies, used different weapons and sometimes targeted people he had grudges against — signs, they said, that he understood his actions were wrong. The jury rejected the insanity defence, convicting him of two first-degree and several second-degree murders.

Aftermath

Mullin was sentenced to life imprisonment and was denied parole repeatedly over the following decades. He died in a California prison medical facility in 2022 at the age of 75. His case remains a frequently cited example in debates over the insanity defence and the consequences of failing to treat severe mental illness.

A Failure of Mental-Health Care

Mullin's story is often cited in debates over how societies treat severe mental illness. In the years before the killings he was hospitalised several times as paranoid schizophrenia took hold, but shifting treatment policies and his own refusal of care meant he was repeatedly released without sustained support. By the time his delusion that human sacrifice could prevent earthquakes drove him to kill, the chances to intervene had passed. After his conviction, jurors and observers alike wrestled with whether a man so visibly psychotic should be held fully responsible. His case remains a touchstone in arguments over deinstitutionalisation and the limits of the insanity defence.