David was driving his mother's 1961 Rambler station wagon, which he was only allowed to use when his mother wasn't working or going anywhere. but only if they made it back by 11:00 PM.ĭavid agreed, and off they went. Betty's father, Verne - a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Army - agreed. He told Betty's parents that he planned on taking her to a Christmas concert at Hogan High School, which was just three or so blocks away from the Jensen home. In addition to this being her first date with David, it was Betty's first date in general.Ī short time later, David came to pick up Betty. She settled upon a purple dress, with a ruffled white collar, which both she and her sister, Melodie, really liked for the occasion. In the early evening, Betty was struggling to find the right outfit for her date, asking her sister for assistance, and tried on multiple combinations until she got it just right.
He was also allegedly considering giving her his class ring a type of juvenile engagement. David had noticeably excited all day long, and had told his friends that he was going to be asking Betty if she wanted to "go steady" with him. David had apparently cut class a couple of times to spend time with Betty, and the two were beginning to grow inseparable.īy all indications, this was the night where the two were going to make their relationship status official.
They had been officially "dating" for less than two weeks and by "dating," I mean in the high school way. The two had met a short time before the evening of December 20th, having met at a church function. In the meantime, she was looking forward to her date with David. She was hoping to earn an art scholarship, which would allow her to go to a prestigious school where she could harness her creativity, but she still had a year-and-a-half to figure that out. She was a talented artist who was still trying to figure out her future goals. He had plans for the future, and hoped to become a teacher in the coming years.īetty Lou Jensen was sixteen years old, a junior at Benicia's Hogan High School. It was a brisk and chilly Friday night, which began with the simplest of circumstances: a young man preparing to take a young woman out on their very first date.ĭavid Arthur Faraday was seventeen years old, and he was a senior at Vallejo High School. If you've ever lived in the Bay Area, you know that these type of lows aren't usual, so this was particularly cold for the roughly 7,000 souls that lived in Benicia at the time. It was on this night - December 20th, 1968 - that the temperature dipped down to nearly-twenty degrees. The area mainly consisted of military members and their families, most of whom worked at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard, or at Travis Air Force Base, which was smack-dab in the center of Solona County. Solona County is almost the forgotten stepchild of the San Francisco Bay Area, with the surrounding counties and metropolitan areas constantly overshadowing it - in terms of not only popularity, but cultural impact.
It's a small town along the southern edge of Solona County, which extends from the area just north of San Francisco and Oakland, all the way to the southwestern tip of Sacramento - near Davis, California. June & Jennifer Gibbons (The Silent Twins)ĭecember 20th, 1968, was a cold night in the area of Benicia, California.īenicia is located just southeast of Vallejo, California.Paul Skiba, Sarah Skiba, and Lorenzo Chivers.Kimberly Riley & Jeremy Britt-Bayinthavong.The North Augusta Huddle House Shooting.