Infamous 'Zebra killer’ found dead in San Quentin cell 
 
 One of the four “Zebra killers,” whose string of racially motivated slayings terrorized San Francisco in the 1970s, was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison, corrections officials said Friday. 
 
 The body of J.C.X. Simon, who was accused nearly 40 years ago of killing 14 random victims and wounding seven others on San Francisco streets, died alone in his cell of unknown causes Thursday night, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was pronounced dead at 11:59 p.m. inside the prison. 
 
 “The cause of death is pending an autopsy,” said Krissi Khokhobashvili, a spokeswoman for the corrections department. “All that can be released at this point is that he was unresponsive in his cell.” 
 
 The 69-year-old Simon was convicted in San Francisco of two counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and assault with a deadly weapon in 1976 after the killing spree, which prompted what authorities said was the biggest manhunt in the city’s history. He was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole when he died. 
 
 Simon and three other black men — Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks — went on a six-month rampage from October 1973 to April 1974. They targeted white people, mostly at night along the Divisadero Street corridor. 
 
 The 14 victims were mostly shot in the back or the back of the head execution-style. The slayings were called the “Zebra” murders because of the special radio band, the Z channel, that investigators used. 
 
 The seven victims who survived the attacks were crucial in finding the culprits, detectives said. 
 
 One of the survivors was future Mayor Art Agnos, who was then a 35-year-old social worker. He had left a meeting in Potrero Hill on Dec. 13, 1973, and was walking to his car when he said he heard a loud popping noise at Wisconsin and 23rd streets. Agnos at first tried to calm the people fleeing the gunshots when he realized he had been shot twice in the back. 
 
 The intensive manhunt, overseen by Mayor Joseph Alioto, lasted several months and included a $30,000 reward for information about the killers. At one point the mayor authorized police to stop and question any black man who resembled witnesses’ descriptions. The practice, which resulted in the questioning of hundreds of innocent men, was eventually halted by a federal judge. 
 
 Police, acting on a tip by an informant, eventually raided an apartment complex at 844 Grove St., in the old Fillmore district. Seven men were arrested, but only Cooks, Green, Moore and Simons were charged. 
 
 The killings were among several horrific and bloody events in the late 1960s and 1970s by San Francisco radicals, including the Zodiac serial killer, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Rev. Jim Jones, who forced his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch. Dan White also murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk that decade. 
 
 The four Zebra killers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, which has been denied repeatedly. 
 
 Green, 63, is serving his sentence at California State Prison-Solano in Vacaville; Moore, 70, is at Ironwood State Prison (Riverside County); and Cooks, 70, is at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. 
 
 The men have never been allowed to be in the same institution, corrections officials said. ||||| One of San Francisco's infamous "Zebra Killers," a gang of four convicted of a slew of racially motivated murders in the 1970s, has been found dead in his cell at San Quentin prison, officials said Friday. 
 
 J.C.X. Simon, 69, was found unresponsive in his single cell and pronounced dead late on Thursday at the prison where he was serving a life sentence. 
 
 "The cause of death is unknown pending the results of an autopsy," according to the prison statement. 
 
 Simon and his accomplices were convicted of a string of racially motivated killings that took place in San Francisco. The four black men were convicted of targeting white victims during a six-month spree between October 1973 to April 1974 that left 14 people dead and wounded seven more. 
 
 Simon was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The three other men convicted in the killings — Larry Green, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooks — are serving life sentences at separate California prisons. 
 
 SOCIAL 
 
 JUST IN: J.C.X. Simon, convicted of ‘Zebra Murders,’ in Bay Area during the early 70's dies in prison. pic.twitter.com/5NZMeOeM3t — John Zuchelli (@tvzuke) March 13, 2015 
 
 — Jillian Sederholm ||||| The trial relied on testimony from Anthony C. Harris, who allegedly participated in the "hunts" for white victims and turned against the others. Harris testified that the men were an offshoot of the Fruit of Islam called the Death Angels. The Fruit of Islam was the security arm of the Nation of Islam.
– A man who went on a murder rampage against white people in San Francisco 40 years ago has died at San Quentin. NBC News reports that JCX Simon, 69, one of four notorious "Zebra killers," was found unresponsive in his cell. An autopsy is pending. Simon and three others were convicted of killing 14 random white victims and wounding seven others from October 1973 to April 1974. Most were shot in the back or execution-style while walking down a street, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. They were dubbed the "Zebra" killings because investigators used the Z channel radio band to communicate, explains the newspaper. At one point, the manhunt was so intense that police stopped and questioned any black men who remotely resembled the suspects—until a federal judge ruled that the stops were unconstitutional. The LA Times reports that the men hoped to "run all the whites out of San Francisco" and make the city headquarters for a group known as the Death Angels, an offshoot of the Fruit of Islam, which provided security for the Nation of Islam. The other three killers are still serving life sentences without parole at separate prisons.