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By Raven Saunt for Dailymail.Com
17:24 February 4, 2024, updated 18:01 February 4, 2024
A woman has launched a chilling investigation into her grandfather’s physical and sexual abuse as she wonders if his crimes could have escalated to multiple murders.
California native Sierra Barter has become a central figure in Max’s upcoming four-part documentary series The Truth About Jim, as she sets out to confront her family’s traumatic past.
The amateur investigator will begin by unraveling the horrific abuse suffered by family members at the hands of Jim Mordecai who, by most, was a respected teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area.
But the family has now detailed their suspicions that the former patriarch, who died in 2008, could have been responsible for a series of deaths that have remained unsolved for decades.
Many believed that Jim “seemed like a really nice teacher,” but this was not the whole story.
“To this day there are still many people who admire him, but he is much darker,” one woman admits ominously.
Sierra then explains: ‘My stepfather was a man named Jim Mordecai. I’ve heard horror stories about him my whole life.
Jim was accused of sexual and physical abuse, including extensive beatings, which left his family “terrified.”
“Either he was the most charming man you would ever meet or he was your worst nightmare,” adds another woman.
The trailer shows Jim nonchalantly walking through the family’s living room as his own stepdaughter candidly reveals, “Being sexually assaulted by your stepfather, who happens to be a teacher… just made me shut down.”
And it appears that it was Sierra’s mother, Shannon Barter, who first mentioned that she thought Jim’s crimes could have been even more sinister.
Sitting with her head in her hands, Shannon mutters, “I’m just trying to figure out when I started thinking he killed people.”
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim had murdered some women. In fact, I’d probably be surprised if he didn’t,” his stepdaughter reveals.
The clip then cuts to Sierra’s two boards of inquiry charting the location of the Mordecai family homes in relation to both the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders and the Zodiac victims.
Between 1972 and 1973, seven hitchhiking women were found dead in California; three of the victims had been raped and three were too decomposed for investigators to determine.
An eighth probable victim also disappeared but his body has never been located.
The killing spree became known as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders.
At one point, the series of murders was even linked to the notorious Zodiac Killer, who operated during the 1960s and 1970s in Northern California.
But since those murders did not involve rape, stripping, or throwing victims off roads, the connection was never firmly established.
Both cases currently remain unsolved.
Sierra concluded the trailer by saying, “It sounds crazy, but this is reality. Someone’s grandfather was the serial killer, was it mine? I don’t know. But someone’s grandfather was.
The documentary will see her gathering evidence, collecting witness testimonies and ultimately delivering her findings to the police “in the hope of convincing them to investigate and help her family get out of Jim’s shadow.”
Max’s The Truth About Jim will be released on February 15