"PLAUSIBLE" – San Francisco judge's verdict on Zebra killer's innocence claim as she slams parole board for denial and orders new hearing

May 8, 2026

The last surviving Zebra killer has won a new parole hearing after a top San Francisco criminal judge slammed parole commissioners for allowing skepticism over his claim of innocence to unlawfully influence their decision to deny him release. That claim was “plausible,” insisted the judge.

Larry Craig Green, 74, was convicted in March 1976 of first-degree murder and conspiracy for his role in the six-month spree that killed 14 and wounded eight others. Green and three accomplices were part of a notorious black muslim cult – the ‘Death Angels’ – bent on slaying whites.

Judge Teresa Caffese struck down the parole board’s decision to deny Green parole in 2024, tore apart the rationale behind its determination, and ordered a new hearing now set for July 14 2026.

The board had no basis to deny Green parole, she said, beyond drawing adverse conclusions from his denial of guilt, which it should not have done.

Her criticism will unsettle survivors and family members of victims who attended the last hearing and spoke powerfully against his release.

Manuel Moore, Larry Green, Jessie Lee Cooks, J.C.X. Simon

The developments came to light after the board revealed last month it had been told to schedule a new hearing. Caffese’s February 2026 order was issued with little fanfare after habeas proceedings had rumbled on since May 2025 on a docket not accessible to the public and with no scrutiny.

“Petitioner’s claim of innocence is plausible,” Caffese wrote in her order. The board can only use an inmate’s claim of innocence as a basis for denying parole if that claim is implausible, she said.

Attorneys for the parole board pointed out that commissioners found Green was not credible, and that therefore his claim was implausible.

Caffese rejected this, saying it conflated credibility with plausibility. Plausibility relates to whether an innocence claim could be believed, she said, whereas credibility relates to whether one actually does believe it.

A claim could be believed if it does not strain credulity, she added, endorsing the standard set by three appellate districts in California. She rejected an interpretation favored by the fourth appellate district that the board’s finding must be upheld unless it lacks any rational basis.

Although commissioner Lawrence Nwajei said he would not use Green’s denial of guilt as a basis for denying him parole, that is exactly what he and deputy commissioner Angelique Scott ended up doing, Caffese found.

“The evidence against Petitioner consisted of accomplice testimony and circumstantial evidence,” she wrote. “Petitioner’s trial had only a single accomplice witness, Mr Harris…Mr Harris indeed received leniency in exchange for this testimony.”

“None of this is to cast doubt on the sufficiency of the evidence to convict Petitioner. The jury could reasonably have relied on Harris’ testimony and the circumstantial evidence to find Petitioner guilty. But the question before the court is not whether Petitioner’s account is true or false but whether it is inconsistent with the evidence. To that question, the answer is no.”

At the parole hearing a San Francisco prosecutor said Green’s “continued denial of culpability” was “absolutely implausible”.

Caffese concluded: “The board unlawfully considered Petitioner’s claim of innocence as a basis for denying parole. The comprehensive risk assessment also based its conclusion largely on Petitioner’s claim of innocence, and therefore did not provide lawful grounds to deny parole. The board found no other aggravating factor besides the gravity of the commitment offense, which is not a sufficient basis by itself. Therefore, the board erred in denying parole.”

“What do you take responsibility for?” Green was asked by commissioner Lawrence Nwajei at the start of the 2024 hearing under scrutiny.

“I don’t take responsibility for committing the acts for which I was convicted,” replied the inmate.

“So they have the wrong man in prison?” asked Nwajei.

“Yes,” said Green.

Asked to account for why witness Anthony Harris framed him, as he saw it, Green said: “Probably to protect himself because he had told me some things about what he had done…because he thought that I could be…a witness against him.”

Green told Nwajei that Harris had admitted to him that he killed Saleem Erakat.

“He said that he needed some money,” Green said. “He had a meeting we were all at that particular day and we had what was our first real argument or hostile exchange and he said he had committed this crime to get some money and that he had killed this man in a grocery store.”

“Everyone here remembers the siege, the state of despair,” said Nwajei with respect to the Zebra killings.

“Words fail me when you think about what was going on in San Francisco. There was widespread panic. The city suffered, families suffered.”

Nwajei explored Green’s background in the Nation of Islam.

“In the Nation of Islam we practiced or believed that the black man was good and the white man was the devil – and that wasn’t true and it is not based on the Koran,” said Green.

“It was very attractive,” Green added of the Nation of Islam. “It was very interesting. Usually when they had their meetings they would give you a long history lesson and at the end of it you would usually hear that the white man was the devil…it was fascinating for me as a young man.”

Green noted that he had adopted “orthodox” Islam as a religion in the years following the death of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in 1975.

During the five and a half hour hearing, a representative of San Francisco District Attorney’s office, Victoria Murray-Baldocchi, was straightforward in her assessment of Green, his crimes, and his suitability for release.

“There is an air of, an attitude of, arrogance. And it’s pervasive and persistent from when this man was a young man to now when he sits before you as a senior citizen today,” she said of Green.

“He poses an unreasonable risk of future dangerousness.”

“This inmate was the most vicious of all four defendants. And he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder of 15 people and the other eight individuals who didn’t die.”

“He murdered Ms Hague and then gleefully recounted the details of ‘the blood spurting from the devil’s neck’.”

“This is not youthful impulsiveness. This is deviant behavior borne of deep-rooted hate.”

“His continued denial of culpability is absolutely implausible,” she later added.

The family of the Zebra killers’ last victim, Nelson Shields, known as Nicky, spoke at the hearing.

“On April 7 1974 Nicky was shot in the back three times,” Shields’ brother, David, told the panel.

“He died instantly. He wasn’t doing anything to anyone – he was clearing space in the back of a car. His only offense? He was white. Larry Craig Green along with his co-defendants was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Specifically he targeted white people. Larry Craig Green does not deserve to be paroled.”

The panel also heard from Shields’ sister Leslie, and had statements read to it by two other family members.

Michael Dancik told Commissioners about his brother Paul.

“My brother Paul Dancik was shot to death on the night of December 11 1973 in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. While Larry Green did not pull the trigger on my brother he killed others, at times horrifically, and I want him to know who my brother Paul was.”

Mr Dancik showed the panel several pictures of his brother at various stages of his life, including photographs of him with his wife and son.

“Blonde hair and blue eyes but he was not a devil,” said Mr Dancik told Green while holding up a photograph of his brother to the camera.

“Not having him has been a life sentence,” he added.

Roxanne McMillan, who was shot twice in the back and paralyzed in the Zebra attacks, died in 2022. Her son, Leon, arranged for the panel to be read the remarks his mother made at Green’s last parole hearing in 2019.

In that statement she described how she had just moved to San Francisco with her husband and young son when she was shot as she was moving in to their new apartment. She said how her life as a paraplegic was becoming increasingly difficult as she got older and that she was in constant pain. She asked commissioners to remember the four people who were killed by the Zebra killers on the same night that she was shot and not to parole Green.

SFPD Sgt Troy Carrasco told the hearing about the attempted kidnapping of his sister Michele by the Zebra killers on the first day of their attacks in San Francisco. As a child he saw two men walk his sister and friends down the block and attempt to put them in their van.

“The impact that it had on our family and Michelle on that time took away her innocence, our sense of safety in our home, in our neighborhood, and in the city,” he said.

After 50 minutes’ deliberation Nwajei announced that Green would be denied parole.

“Based on the legal standard and the evidence considered we find that you pose an unreasonable risk to public safety and are therefore not suitable for parole at this time,” he said.

Nwajei told Green that he thought his profession of innocence was not credible. “it is time for you to acquaint yourself with the principles taught in denial management classes,” he said.

He had earlier noted that the inmate’s Comprehensive Risk Assessment report indicated that he was a “moderate/medium” risk of committing violence in future.

It remains to be seen how the parole board will respond to the rare judicial rebuke in the case of one of California’s highest profile and most notorious prisoners.

Green will appear before a new panel on July 14, likely by videoconference from Solano State Prison. The three other convicted Zebra killers all died in prison – J.C.X. Simon in 2015, Manuel Moore in 2017 and Jessie Lee Cooks in 2021.