Genise Rispin and Edwin Miller

Genise and Eddie’s story

Genise Rispin, 13, of Long Beach, and her boyfriend Edwin “Eddie” Miller, 16, of Elsinore (now Lake Elsinore), disappeared on a summer night in 1970 while walking to a go-kart track. Eddie was found strangled in a shallow grave off the Ortega Highway, inside Riverside County. Genise was found strangled two weeks later in a field near San Juan Capistrano, in Orange County. Both were fully clothed. Detectives at the time said sexual assault did not appear to be the motive. More than 50 years later, the case is unsolved. [1][2][3]

Who Genise and Eddie were

Genise Marie Rispin was born in Long Beach in November 1956. Her family kept a mobile home at Crane’s Lakeside Park in Elsinore and spent weekends and vacations there. Friends called her “Neisy.” She had long blonde hair and wore braces. [1][9]

Edwin Erving Miller, born in July 1954, lived with his parents on Riverside Drive in Elsinore. He was described as tall and slim. People who knew him remember a happy-go-lucky kid who had just gotten his driver’s license that week. [3][7][9]

The two were described in 1970 as close friends and as boyfriend and girlfriend. When Genise was found, she was wearing a gold ring inscribed “E.M. 1972.” Friends later said it was Eddie’s class ring, and the initials and year fit Edwin Miller, who would have graduated in 1972. [1][2][9]

What happened

The most detailed account published at the time appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 15, 1970. It says Genise’s parents had taken her to Eddie’s home that evening. Shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, the two left his parents’ house, set back in a grove of trees, and walked hand-in-hand along busy Riverside Drive toward a go-kart track about a mile away. Weekend traffic was streaming home from the lake. [3]

“All we know is that they weren’t seen again after they left the boy’s home,” said Lt. Russ Hawk of the Riverside sheriff’s Elsinore station. [3]

The next day, Aug. 30, a motorist whose car had broken down on the Ortega Highway found Eddie’s body, roughly 15 miles from Lake Elsinore. He didn’t call police; he told friends. When officers learned of it on Aug. 31, Orange County deputies went out first but found the site was in Riverside County. Riverside deputies recovered Eddie’s body from a shallow grave late that evening. An autopsy found he had probably been strangled. [1][3]

There was still no sign of Genise. A friend later recalled searching the back roads with others. Then, at about 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, two young men from Kirkland, Washington, hitchhiking to San Diego, stopped by a shade tree in a field near San Juan Capistrano and found her body. Orange County Detective Sgt. Ben Oxandaboure said she had been strangled and had been dead one to two weeks. She was identified the next day from her ring and her dental charts, and was buried at Westminster Memorial Park on Sept. 16. [1][2][5][9]

Where it happened

• Elsinore, 1970. Riverside Drive ran along the lake through a semirural resort area. The Rispins’ trailer at Crane’s Lakeside Park was about a mile and a half from the Millers’ home. [3]
• Ortega Highway. In 1970 this was the main road between Elsinore and San Juan Capistrano, winding through the Santa Ana Mountains. Eddie was found off this road about 14 miles east of where Genise was later found. [3]
• Near San Juan Capistrano. Reports from 1970 describe the site as “a field under a tree near Camino Capistrano Road,” “a ditch a few feet west of Cabot Road” between Mission Viejo and San Juan Capistrano, and “a pasture five miles from San Juan Capistrano.” Cabot Road was later extended, so today’s road can’t be used to place a 1970 report. [1][2][4][10]

What investigators have said

In September 1970, Riverside detectives said they were “almost totally without clues.” They asked whether the teens might have accepted a ride from a stranger, or been forced into a car without a passing driver noticing. [3]

In March 1971, after a Zodiac letter claimed there were “a lot more” victims in the Riverside area, Riverside sheriff’s Capt. Bud Brooks reviewed unsolved county murders, and this case was among those discussed. The report gives no evidence connecting the teens’ murders to Zodiac. [4]

Today the Orange County Sheriff’s Department holds the case. Its Coroner Division ruled both deaths homicide by asphyxiation. In 2017 the department’s cold case team said it was still classified as unsolved, and its public page still asks for information. [6][9]

Where accounts differ

• The date. The Sheriff’s Department’s current page says Aug. 27, 1970. Two 1970 articles place the last sighting on Aug. 29, and a third says the pair were reported missing that night. The 1970 accounts have their own inconsistencies: one calls the evening “Sunday,” and another implies Aug. 28. [1][2][3][6][8]
• The starting point. Today’s summary says the teens left Crane’s Lakeside Park. The 1970 Times says they left Eddie’s parents’ home on Riverside Drive. Later recollections from friends differ again. [3][6][9]
• Eddie’s discovery. Aug. 30, when he was found, or Aug. 31, when police recovered him; in a shallow grave, or “at the base of a turnout.” [1][3][6]
• Who found Genise. The official page says deputies found her; the 1970 papers say two hitchhikers did, and deputies then responded. [1][6]
• Death dates on memorials. Grave and memorial records give dates for Eddie of July 31 (impossible) and Aug. 28 (before the reported disappearance). These records are not reliable for the date of death. [7]

Open questions

• Did they get into a vehicle, as OCSD believes, and did anyone see one stop?
• Why was Eddie buried in a shallow grave while Genise was left in the open, about 14 miles away?
• Was Eddie’s wallet missing? One person who knew him recalls that it was, but no official source says so. [9]
• Which agency, if any, ever reviewed the case in the 2000s?

What you can do

• If you were in Elsinore in late August 1970, around Riverside Drive, the go-kart track or Crane’s Lakeside Park, or on the Ortega Highway that weekend, contact the cold case team.
• Research: the Lake Elsinore Valley Sun for late August and September 1970 is digitized on Newspapers.com and reportedly ran both teens’ photographs. The Riverside Daily Enterprise and Press for Aug. 31–Sept. 2, 1970 should hold Riverside’s account of Eddie’s recovery.
• Map it: use 1970-era maps (not modern roads) to place the go-kart track, the Millers’ home and the Cabot Road / Camino Capistrano site. The USGS 1968 San Juan Capistrano map shows later-added roads in purple; ignore those. [11]