On October 1, 1993, Polly Klaas and two friends were having a slumber party. Late in the evening, Richard Allen Davis entered their bedroom, carrying a knife. He tied both friends up, pulled pillowcases over their heads and told them to count to 1,000. He then kidnapped the weeping Polly Klaas. Over the next two months, about 4,000 people helped search for Polly Klaas. TV shows such as 20/20 and America’s Most Wanted covered the kidnapping. An APB (all-points bulletin) with the suspect information was broadcast within 30 minutes of it, on October 1, 1993. However, the broadcast only went out over Sonoma County Sheriff’s Channel 1. In a rural area of Santa Rosa, about 20 miles north of Petaluma, a babysitter returning home noted a suspicious vehicle stuck in a ditch on her employer’s private driveway. She phoned the property owner, who decided to leave with her daughter. As she drove down the long driveway to Pythian Road, the owner passed the suspect. She called 911 when she got to a service station and two deputies were dispatched on the call. The deputies did not know of the kidnapping or the suspect’s description, due to Sonoma Valley units being on Channel 3. The deputies ran the suspect’s driver’s license number and car plate number, but they came back with no wants or warrants. The deputies tried to convince the property owner to perform a citizen’s arrest for trespassing. Under California law, a citizen must make an arrest for this type of misdemeanor. The property owner would have had to go to the car with the deputies and say “I arrest you.” The deputies then would have taken him into custody. The property owner refused.

The deputies called for a tow truck to get the suspect’s car out of the ditch. They searched it thoroughly before the arrival of the tow truck and did not find evidence of anyone else in the car. The only possible violation was an open container of beer, but the suspect was not driving at the time of the deputies’ contact and mere possession of an open container was not illegal. Before the suspect was allowed to leave, he was instructed to pour out the beer and the deputies filled out an FI (Field Interrogation) card with his information and the FI card was filed. It showed that Davis was the person with the Ford Pinto that night. Since the events of October 1, the Sheriff’s radio system has been upgraded and APB’s are now broadcast on all channels through a centralized 911 dispatch system. On November 28, 1993, the property owner was inspecting her property after loggers had partially cleared the property of trees. She discovered items that made her think they might have matched those used in the kidnapping. She called the Sheriff’s Department to report her discovery and deputies and crime scene investigators were dispatched. One of the items found, a torn pair of ballet leggings, was matched by the FBI Crime Laboratory to the other part of the leggings that were taken as evidence on the night of the kidnapping. A review of calls in the area the day of the kidnapping turned up the contact with Davis. The suspect was only identified because both deputies had filled out and filed the FI card. Once the identity of Davis was revealed, his palm print at the scene of the kidnapping was also traced to him. Authorities were unable to match the partial print earlier due to the poor quality of the print.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department, in cooperation with Petaluma Police and the FBI, launched a search of the property and the Pythian Road area during a heavy rainstorm. The first two days of the search were kept as low key as possible, since the suspect was under surveillance at an Indian rancheria near Ukiah, California. When nothing was found during the initial search and the surveillance of Davis also produced no results, the decision was made to arrest him for the kidnapping of Klaas. While Davis was being interrogated by Petaluma PD and the FBI, a massive search was launched on Friday, December 3. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department was assisted by over 500 search team members from 24 agencies, coming from as far away as Kern County, California and Washoe County, Nevada. The mutual aid effort was coordinated by the California State Office of Emergency Services (now known as the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services), FBI Crime Scene teams and numerous other state and federal agencies. The search remains today as one of the largest ever conducted in California. The search continued through Saturday, December 4. The search effort produced other items of evidence, but did not produce any evidence of human remains. The search was planned to continue on Sunday, December 5, but on the evening of December 4, Davis confessed to kidnapping and murdering Klaas and led investigators to her body. He had buried Polly Klaas in a shallow grave just off Highway 101, about a mile south of the city limits of Cloverdale, California. The grave site is about 20 air miles and about 30 road miles, from the search site.

Although Davis admitted to strangling Polly Klaas to death, he refused to give investigators a timeline of the events from October 1. Investigators thought he was fearful that both people who passed him would call the Sheriff’s Department. It is debated that he killed her before the arrival of deputies and hid her body in the thick brush on the hillside above where his car was stuck. He then waited for an undetermined period of time after being escorted back to Highway 12, about 1.5 miles from where his car was stuck and drove back up to retrieve her body. He was reportedly out of breath, sweating profusely (despite being a cool night) and had twigs and leaves in his hair when contacted by deputies. It is also debated that he had chose the grave site in advance, since it would not have been discovered by a casual observer. The grave site area would be directly visible from Highway 101, but not the grave itself. He had to drive from the Indian Rancheria in Ukiah once a week to meet with his parole officer and he would have seen any police activity in the area. While the exact sequence of events might never be known, the assumptions of the investigators seem reasonable, given what is already known now.