Saturday, December 13, 2025

Cold Case: Betty Van Patter

At 11:30 a.m. January 17th, 1975, Sgt. R. Scofield, piloting San Mateo County Sheriff’s Helicopter 2-H-10, was on patrol above San Francisco Bay when he spotted a body floating about a mile south of the San Mateo Hayward Bridge, between markers 670 and 680.

He immediately put out distress calls to the U.S. Coast Guard, the Foster City Police Department, and the San Mateo Coroner’s Office. Within 15 minutes, the Coast Guard was on the scene, recovered the body, and took it to Old Warder Pier, on the corner of East Hillsdale Avenue and Teal Street, where representatives of the police department and coroner’s office quickly gathered.

The medical examiner observed that the body was that of an adult female in a state of “moderate to severe post-mortem decomposition.”

The remains were then transported to Chope Hospital for an examination and identification. The body was placed in container #7 and sealed at 2:05 p.m. An autopsy was scheduled for 10 a.m. the following morning.

It took three days for the coroner to determine an identity through the use of dental charts, but there was little doubt about the cause of death. The victim had been murdered -- killed by a massive blow to the head -- a “fractured calvarium” is noted in the autopsy report.

There was no water in the woman’s lungs, which meant she was dead before her body got into the bay. The coroner estimated she was in the water for around three weeks, drifting on the currents, back and forth along the tide lines.

***

Roughly five weeks earlier, on the night of December 13, 1974, 45-year-old Betty Van Patter was nursing a drink and crying softly after work at a local bar called the Berkeley Square.

That afternoon, she had been fired from her job as bookkeeper for the Black Panther Party by Elaine Brown, who headed up the party while co-founder Huey Newton was in exile in Cuba. Van Patter, an idealistic supporter of Brown and the party, had witnessed irregularities and the misuse of cash by party members. She had warned Brown that these practices were illegal and needed to be stopped to avoid bringing unwanted attention from law enforcement.

While she was at the bar, a man walked in and handed Van Patter a note. She got up and followed him out of the door. (The identity of this man, who was black, remains unknown.)

Later that night, Van Patter was again spotted, this time at the Lamp Post, another bar on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. The Lamp Post, a Panther hangout owned by a cousin of Newton’s named Jimmie Ward, was the site of most of the illegal cash transactions Van Patter was worried about.

Meanwhile, back at the Berkeley Square, one of Betty’s friends, an ex-boyfriend named Ken Baptiste, arrived to meet up with her, only to find her missing. He then placed a telephone call to the Lamp Post and asked if she was there.

“That party has left,” he was told.

That cryptic message was the last time any of her friends or family ever heard anything about Betty Van Patter until her body was found floating in the bay by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s helicopter.

(Part 2 tomorrow.)

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