A brief article in the July 6, 1953, edition of the Redwood City Tribune summed up the tragic case best. It seemed to show that a small-time criminal can escalate to becoming a murderer.
Walter W. Sanders, 36-year-old “panty burglar,” today was sentenced to San Quentin for a five-years-to life term for slaying his one-time sweetheart, Mrs. Roberta Faye Blackman, 37.
Superior Judge Murray Draper, before whom Sanders had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, imposed the sentence.
Mrs. Blackman was mortally wounded by Sanders at the Treasure Island Trailer Court, Colma, on May 25. She died later that evening during surgery at South San Francisco Hospital.
Sanders, who had lived with the woman for a year in Daly City and Redwood City, readily admitted the stabbing.
However, he denied that he intended to kill her. He said that he was in a jealous rage and “just wanted to cut her up a bit.”
Mrs. Blackman last Feb. 17 turned Sanders over to the sheriff’s office after he admitted to her that he had robbed a small drug store in San Francisco. San Francisco authorities failed to prosecute because they could not locate the robbery victim and could not get corroborative evidence.
Sanders also admitted to stealing 90 pairs of women’s panties from clotheslines in San Francisco.
He voluntarily signed a 72-hour commitment of himself as a sexual psychopath but later changed his mind about getting treatment.
The woman left him after he was arrested by the sheriff’s office. A month before she was killed, she started living with Gerald Blackman at the Colma trailer court.
She was stabbed with an eight-inch hunting knife fashioned by Sanders from a bayonet. Before she died, she named Sanders as her assailant.
