This is footage of a parade in Riverside circa 1966. Of note, Ramona High School’s Band participated in the parade.

Here is a screen capture around 13 seconds in:

Note the woman in the red pants and the man sitting next to her.

The video is not high quality but here is a blown up screenshot of that photo.

(EDIT 10/27/24 – Some CJB photos for comparison)

At the time I discovered this video on YouTube and posted a link on zodiackillersite about 6 months back I declared the footage too grainy for identifying a person but that the guy on the right looked like a “Ross shaped blob”. Here is a comparison photo.

The jacket on the left photo above looks similar to the man in the parade. Here is a blow up of the collar for comparison.

In the above photo he is looking to the right or talking to her. Body language is him inclined toward her and her leaning away. She has her elbow resting on her knee and her hand holding up her chin, making it hard to talk. (ALTENATIVELY: Her left hand could be straight, resting on the right side of her face.)

For what it’s worth, I don’t think a positive identification can be made here with the tools I have. I’d say it’s plausible that that is Ross but far from a sure thing.

Now for her, and this is where it gets interesting. Way back I entertained the notion that might be Cheri Jo Bates. Beside from general shape, this girl has red capri’s that look like the one’s she had on when she died. (Alternatively that’s a red dress but I’ve enhanced several screen shots and I’d say I’m fairly certain they are capri’s)

(UPDATE: A note that seems pertinent here. According to the newspaper article ‘Death on a dirt driveway: A life that ended too soon’ Cheri made the capri’s she wore the night she was killed. You can read that article here: http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=73)

(EDIT 10/27/24 – Just want to note that her prized car was light green like the jacket in this picture. I wonder if Green was her favorite color.)

However, Cheri in the photos provided wears her hair generally hanging to the left of her face rather than the right and she had blonde highlights around this time. (EDIT 10/27/24 – the new photos above of her show her with hairstyles that could work with what is seen in the video) It’s possible it’s a pony tail, wind is blowing it that way, or it’s just short and symmetrical but the shadows and poor quality of the footage are distorting an accurate idea of what it actually looks like. No matter what, the footage is such low quality that very little detail of the face is possible to see. I abandoned the idea.

Relooking over the photo now it struck me: where is this girl’s purse?

I played with filters …

Look closely in-between them where his hands are resting. You’ll likely have to expand the pic a good bit to see it so I’ve added some pictures below.

A striped bag is resting behind them. That bag looked familiar.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT NEXT CONTAINING CRIME SCENE PHOTO OF CHERI JO

Very similar purse. Very similar pants as well. Similar outfit and body shape in general. Is that Cheri Jo at the parade?

It appears she is with a boy on her right in the shadows next to a pillar. The face is clearer for the child in some of the screenshots than these two. Is that her brother, another relative, or a child she babysat? I’ve never seen a pic of her brother or if he’s even younger than her but that would be pretty big to identifying if it’s her or not.

(UPDATE: Apparently her brother was 20 at the time according to the article I linked above so that’s definitely not him next to the mystery girl in this video. There is a quote in that article from her friend Kathy Sites in that article that stuck out to me. “Cheri had a lot of friends. When we went to parties I was amazed at the number of kids from other schools that knew her.”)

(UPDATE 2022: Because of the blood stains I couldn’t tell but today i saw a crime scene photo from the opposite angle and it appears that the sweater/jacket Cheri Jo was wearing on the night of the murder was green just like the one in this video. (EDIT 2024 – Apparently it was a long sleeved pale yellow blouse with a ribbon tied at the throat according to Inside Detective. Cheri’s car, though, was the color green of her car so that’s something to think about) Crazy, but this may very well be Cheri Jo Bates. The same red capri pants, green coat, and black striped straw purse – it’s the same outfit. Cheri Jo was pictured with dark hair in some photos and went to Ramona which was on parade (and I think she was a cheerleader so she had extra reasons to be there). The “Ross shaped blob” is impossible to ID but that guy has a coat very very similar to the one Ross had on in the Deja Vive photo and is the same general look and body shape of Ross Sullivan.)