Documentary series ‘Hunted’ set to explore Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders

An upcoming documentary series is set to explore a decades-old investigation into the notorious Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders.

The murders spanned from 1972 to 1979, when the nude bodies of seven girls and young women were found buried or dumped on the outskirts of Santa Rosa.

The series, “Hunted,” will be an eight-part production, according to director Grace Kahng, an investigative journalist who has worked for ABC, CBS and NBC news stations. Kahng is the force behind another true crime documentary series, “The Stanford Murders,” which examines three deaths in 1973 on the campus of Stanford University.

“Hunted” is produced by Santoki Productions, which Kahng founded in 2003, and Dick Wolf, who created the “Law & Order” TV franchise. A release date for the series has not been set.

The documentary team has been exploring a link between the Hitchhiker Murders and a man who was recently identified by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office as a suspect in a murder that took place some two decades after the killings of the 1970s.

The Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday announced the break in its investigation into the murder of Michelle Marie Veal, whose body was found nude on the side of a road near Rohnert Park in the summer of 1996.

DNA found on Veal’s body was tested recently using relatively new technology and a laboratory determined that it matched the DNA of Jack Alexander Bokin of San Francisco, the Sheriff’s Office said in its announcement.

Bokin, who died in a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation medical facility in December, had a long history of violent sexual assaults and had been sentenced in 2000 to 231 years in prison for a case that involved kidnapping, rape and attempted murder in San Francisco.

The Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that investigators are looking into whether Bokin can be linked to the Santa Rosa killings.

You can reach Staff Writer Matt Pera at matthew.pera@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Matt__Pera.