The names of the two men whose bodies were found in a pickup truck in the Santa Cruz Mountains a week ago were released Tuesday by the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The identities of the victims, previously identified by family members, are Colter White, 53, and Sean Pfeffer, 45. Family members said both men lived in Boulder Creek.
Pfeffer spent his childhood in Gilroy, where he and his sister attended Gilroy High School. In a Sunday telephone call from her home in Texas, Nicki Dorris, Peffer’s sister, called her younger brother a loving father who was loyal to his friends and family. She had not yet heard from detectives investigating the deaths of her brother and White.
Six days after the discovery of the two friends’ bodies at a mountain ridge turnout along Skyline Boulevard (SR 35), Dorris said, “I just want to know what happened. I want justice for whoever did this to him.” April 1 would have been Pfeffer’s 46th birthday.
Sunday would have been White’s 54th birthday.
One week after the bodies were found, the California Highway Patrol, which is investigating the double homicide, declined to discuss any details of the case, such as suspects, a murder weapon, or where or when the actual killings occurred.
In a March 26 report, the coroner officially classified the incident as a double homicide.
Pfeffer was killed by a “gunshot wound of the left chest,” while White was killed by “gunshot wounds of torso and left upper and lower extremities,” according to medical examiner records.
Over the weekend, a small roadside memorial—with photos, candles and flowers—appeared at the Highway 35 turnout where the truck and bodies were discovered.
On March 24, just after 6:50pm, the California Highway Patrol was notified of an abandoned truck located along Skyline, on the Santa Clara/Santa Cruz County boundary. When CHP officers arrived on scene they discovered two deceased individuals in the bed of a Ford pickup. Because the crime scene was next to a state route, CHP detectives are investigating the case.
One week after the grisly discovery, investigators were releasing few details about the killings.
Information has been compiled from families, friends, court records, newspaper archives and social media.
Pfeffer left a chilling message on Facebook one day before his body was found. Four days before that, he’d updated his Facebook profile photo.
At 2:10pm on March 23, Pfeffer wrote on his Facebook page, “If today isn’t work out know that it was (name withheld by this publication), the piece of crap that I invited to this mountain that still hasn’t left it and is working the f*** out of my f****** cousin. I’m rolling down there right now (name withheld) I hope you shoot me.” It was his last social media post.
At a weekend vigil at the mountain crime scene, Janelle Sanford, who described herself as a friend of White’s, told a KTVU-TV reporter that Pfeffer and White were friends.
“It seems like he just got Colter caught up in things that he shouldn’t have been,” she speculated. She said Pfeffer “had problems with people and he wanted Colter to come be his muscle and back him up.”
Dorris posted to Facebook, “If you or someone you know lives in the Boulder Creek area in California and knows anything that can help find the people responsible for murdering my little brother, Sean Pfeffer, please call it in! He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a father and a friend to many and did not deserve this.”
The CHP would not comment on the Facebook post or any other aspect of the case.
“The investigation is active and ongoing,” said Andrew Barclay, a spokesperson for CHP, in a telephone interview Friday. “Based on what we know at this time, there doesn’t appear to be any danger to the public.”
Sean Pfeffer’s Gilroy childhood
In an hour-long interview Sunday, Dorris said she is devastated by the sudden loss of the “baby brother” she grew up with in Gilroy.
“I just want to find his killer—or killers.”
Dorris said that as children, she and her brother were as close as can be.
Their parents were frequently away for work (their dad was a traveling plumber). So, the siblings had to rely on one another.
They attended Gilroy High School, but after a “family incident” were sent to live with their aunt in Santa Rosa.
“I feel like that’s when everything went to shit,” she said.
She was 17 years old. After a few months, Pfeffer moved to San Jose.
“He dropped out of school,” she said. “He just started hanging out with not the best people, and just making really bad decisions.”
Pfeffer married his longtime girlfriend and they had a daughter together.
“He was extremely happy,” she said.
But, according to Dorris, Pfeffer was gutted by an acrimonious divorce that followed.
“He cried many times on the phone to me,” she said. “He’s not a man who can keep his emotions inside.”
A few weeks before his death, Dorris messaged Pfeffer about a painting project she’d been working on.
He complimented her on one of the dressers she’d spruced-up to flip in his own way.
Final frantic post
Pfeffer’s final Facebook post on March 23 shocked his friends and family. Dorris said she was so alarmed she tried to reach out to see if he was okay.
“Sean, just pick up your fricking phone,” she thought.
She says she even tried—unsuccessfully—to crack his T-Mobile account to see if she could intercept messages that might give her a clue about what was going on.
Dorris even went as far as to file a missing persons report with local authorities here.
And then her mom called with the tragic news. Her little brother was dead.
“That was a blur moment. I just remember pleading with her that she was wrong,” Dorris said. “It was awful. It was terrible.”
She says at that point she flipped into robotic mode: notifying their father, their stepdad and others about the killing.
Dorris says she’s frustrated with the pace of the investigation.
“I don’t want this to go in the back page of the newspaper,” she said. “There’s a murderer out there.”
Barry Holtzclaw contributed to this report.
