Deciphering the Zodiac Killer (2023) Movie Script

1
[Building Music Plays]
[Pulsing News Style Music]
[VHS Ejecting Noise]
[News Reporter]
The search goes on
in San Francisco for the man
known as the Zodiac Killer.
The psychotic killer
has already murdered five.
[Detective] He claims that he
has murdered 13 individuals.
Of course,
our records reflect five.
[News Reported] The Zodiac
killer seems to crave publicity.
He sent letters and cryptograms
to newspapers and the police.
[Dick Carlson]
Police are now convinced
that it was the killer
of a San Francisco cab driver
who sat in a swatch
of bloody cloth
with a letter to the San
Francisco Chronicle.
[Police Chief] This guy is a
pathological psycho killer.
[Melvin Belli]
You have those headaches, Sam?
[Caller] Since I killed a kid,
[Detective] School children...
make find targets.
I think I shall wipe out
a school bus.
some morning.
Just shoot out the front tire
and then pick off the kiddies
as they come bouncing out.
[Detective Lundblad] We have
no known motive at this time.
However, we're not overruling
any possibility.
[Reporter] How about leads?
[Detective Lundblad]
We have several leads
that we're working on,
and some of them have
been barred.
We have ruled them out.
[Detective] No, we're just about
position.
We're still following
a tremendous amount of leads.
We're getting a tremendous
amount of information every day,
not only from the Bay Area
but from all over the nation.
[Reporter] The murderers
terrorized the Bay Area decades
ago, the killer taunted police
by sending letters to the media.
But now a team of independent
investigators
says it has identified
the Zodiac killer
[Killer] I also killed those
kids last year.
[Killer in taunting voice]
Good.....Bye.....
[Jason] Can we put documentary
filmmaker instead of YouTuber
Unless one of you guys can think
of something more pretentious.
The Zodiac case was one of
the earlier cases at a time
that was rife
with serial killers in the USA
between the 1960s
and early eighties,
there was a multitude
of serial killers
[News] by a killer who's become
nown as the Night Stalker
A killer
The police are calling
the Hillside Strangler
the vine or intent to effect
the death of Lisa Lehey.
This is where they live.
Among the stables,
barns and phony buildings
of an old rundown movie
location.
20 miles from Los Angeles
has had three of its followers
arrested in the investigation
of the murder of Sharon Tate
and six others.
Well, he said, you've got me.
Police say those words
ended the biggest manhunt
in New York City history
with a capture of Son of Sam.
More bodies
unearthed from the basement
crawl space of Gacy's Norwood
Park Township home today,
bringing to 15 the number of
found there since Friday.
I'm called the banana
and I'm looking really good.
[Static Noise]
[Jason] And there
was obviously serial killers
outside of that time frame,
but there was very much
a grouping of them
around that time.
And specifically in California,
it was awash
with serial killers.
And there was a few reasons
for this.
All of which
added up to the key reason.
And that was the fact
that it was just easier
to get away with murder.
[News Reporter] Big city
police rejected evidence
from small town cops like Harvey
Irons and police rivalries
hampered
the Zodiac investigation
of possibly 30 murders
all over the state.
[Detective] It wasn't handled,
as you would handle it today,
eh...
because I don't think
there was the experience there
to actually handle it that way.
[Jason Narrating] Today,
of course, this would have been
a very different investigation
at the crime scene.
Forensics
would have been on site
for at least 24 hours, taking
everything from soil samples
to deep diving into every piece
of available DNA on site.
Unfortunately, back
in those days, that technology
just wasn't available
to the investigators.
They had to make do with
what they had.
The interdepartmental politics
where police would be fighting
that a case is
theirs or the case is
someone else's,
along with the fact
that DNA evidence just didn't
exist and forensics in general
was nowhere near what it is
today, just made it a lot
easier for people to get away
with murder back then.
And serial killers
thrived in that environment.
And the Zodiac Killer
was one of the most famous.
And it got more and more famous
as each year
where it was unsolved
went by
[Dramatic Music]
[News Reporter]
between 1968 and 1987,
someone calling himself
the Zodiac
claimed responsibility
for up to 40 murders
[Host]
and he left behind
a trail of bodies
and taunting letters.
Then suddenly the murders
stopped and he went silent.
[Robert] Something about this
case that was different.
And it became,
I think, a battle,
you know, a chess game
between the killer and people
like Captain Narlow of Napa,
who were highly intelligent
police officers
who really did their best.
[Jason Narrating]
And if you watched a 27 movie
Zodiac with Mark Ruffalo,
Robert Downey Jr,
Jake Gyllenhaal, you would be
forgiven for assuming
that this case was solved,
but it couldn't be further
from the truth.
[Show Host] Officially,
it remains unsolved.
Are people going to be
dissatisfied with that?
I'm going to give them the full
ending of the movie,
but dissatisfied
with the ending.
[Talk Show Host]
Why has he not been caught?
[Robert] Extremely intelligent.
This man has crafted ciphers
that have never been broken
to this day.
A certain amount of luck
involved too.
And he's highly skilled.
He is skilled in explosives,
cryptography...
[Talk show Host] A master
criminal?
[Robert] A master criminal.
And uncaught to this day,
I still get calls almost daily
[Inspector] I still get calls
almost daily
from people who believe
they know who the Zodiac is.
[Jason] Part of its fame
as well was definitely helped
by the fact that the lead
detective on the case
was this rock star detective.
[Reporter]
For the last nine years,
the Zodiac investigation
has been headed by homicide
inspector David Toschi
David Toschi, a San
Francisco homicide detective.
And the model for the Dirty
Harry movies
vowed to catch the Zodiac,
but he never did.
[Toschi] I have always felt
a gut feeling
that he was not dead and that
he was out there somewhere and
that he would communicate
in every manner.
[Jason] and everyone
man and his
dog thought their father
or their dog did it.
Um...
But this case remained unsolved
for a very long time.
Now, though, it seems like
we are closer than ever
to getting a final answer
on who the Zodiac is.
But to really understand how,
why and who
we need to first go back
to where it all begins.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
The first murders in this case
took place
in a very quiet and small town
in California called Benicia.
[Detective] The population
was probably around 5000.
It was a sleepy little
community, middle class
crime rate was
very, very low.
[TV Show Host]
The first killings
and the enduring mystery began
not far from San Francisco.
It is late one night.
Five days before Christmas,
in December of 1968, David
[Another TV Host]
in December of 1968, David
Faraday took Betty Lou Jensen
out on their first date.
[Jason Narrating] The two
teenagers made the unfortunate
choice to park up in a secluded
area in Benicia, California,
shortly after a car
pulled up behind them
with its headlights
on full blast.
A man emerged
and began firing into the car.
A shots fired report was
called in to the police
and shortly after dispatchers
called out,
the closest police officers
to arrive on scene
as soon as possible.
[Reporter] Sergeant,
could you briefly describe
what apparently happened
last night?
[Det. Lundblad] Yes, we had a
double homicide that took place
out on a county road about,
sometime after 11:00 last night.
A double homicide
involving victims were,
16 year old girl
and a 17 year old boy.
[Reporter] What were the
circumstances involved?
[Lundblad] Possibly they were
ordered out of the car by the
[Pensive Piano Music]
the boy, was shot
right at this side of the car.
And the girl
apparently tried to run
and she was shot
and found 28 feet
further on.
[Reporter] There was one bullet
hole that penetrated
one of the windows of the car.
Was this a stray bullet
or was this one of the bullets
that hit the victim
and went on through?
[Det. Lundblad]
This could be a stray bullet or
a warning
bullet of some sort that,
we can't connect it
with the bodies,
but it's the same type of shell.
[Robert] He reached his gun
through the window
and shot David as he exited,
and Betty Lou
was running toward Benicia
when he shot her
some 26 feet away.
Five times.
[Pensive Music Continues]
[Jason] This was a particularly
brutal murder.
The killer placed the gun
right up against
David's skull for the last shot.
And then as Betty
Lou started running
as fast as she could
away from the killer, he fired
several shots into her back in a
in a very, very close pattern.
Whoever did
this was clearly a marksman.
They knew how to use a gun,
obviously, given the fact
that there was no known
related killings at the time.
The police were a little bit
dumbstruck by what
the motive could be for this.
[Reporter]Do you have any idea
what the possible motive might
be for this killing?
[Detective]
We have no motive at this time.
[Jason] And within a few days,
a picture started to form
that this could be drugs
related, which was at first
thrown out because Betty
Lou and David didn't even drink.
But there was then a report
that came
to the attention of the police
that David had threatened
someone who was pushing drugs
in the local area.
A recent spike in biker
gangs and drug related
violence in the Vallejo
area was quickly linked
and thought to be the cause
of this execution style murder.
[Det. Bidou] During that night,
we had served a search warrant
at the what we called
the cottage at Lake Herman,
which was owned
by the city of Benicia
[Jason] Earlier
that same day, a substantial
drug bust took place.
A pound and a half of marijuana
was confiscated,
which by today's standards
would barely be noticed.
But that was a large drug bust
in those days.
David Farraday was a member
of the community who stood up
for his values as an Eagle Scout
who was on the wrestling team,
who would
push back on these dark elements
within the community.
And it was reported to police
at the time of the incident
that just days
before this took place,
he had confronted
someone from his school
about selling drugs in the area
and telling them that he was
going to personally stop to it.
So for the first while after the
murders this is where the police
were looking
...but that would change
[Det Bidou] I think that the FBI
statistics are still somewhere
in the high eighties that most
victims know their assailant.
[Ominous Droning Music]
[Jason] The next murders took
place in Vallejo
at a place
called Blue Rock Springs,
which was only about a six
or seven minute drive
from Lake Hermon Road where
the first murders took place.
Again, another fairly quiet,
fairly small and peaceful place.
[Det. Butterback]
Never had too many murders.
We solved them all,
but there was just a few.
[Jason Narrating] Darlene
Ferrin was the next victim.
She was a 22 year old
local waitress who had gone out
for a nice drive with a friend,
Mike Margo, that evening.
[TV Host]They were cruising
around Vallejo when a car chased
them out of town
and cornered them.
[Mike Mageau]
We were chased by this guy.
Chased by him from a
restaurant.
He was chasing us and I told her
to pull into the parking lot.
[Melancholic Piano Music]
[Jason Narrating]
According to Mike Mageau,
they were chased throughout
the evening to restaurant
and location after location
until they got to blue
rock Springs, where they thought
they had lost him.
[Melancholic Piano Music
Continues]
And this guy pulled up
beside them.
Darlene and Mike
looked across at them
and apparently Darlene knew
who this guy was.
That was chasing them.
[TV Host] 22 year old Darlene
Ferrin and 19 year old Mike
believe the man approaching
their car is a policeman.
[Robert] And then suddenly the
door was open and this crew cut
Man with glasses,
really pronounced stomach
gets out,
shining a light into their eyes.
They're totally blind.
And Mike
had reached for his wallet,
almost as if he thought
it was some sort of policeman.
And he fired bullets
into the car and the bullets
passed through.
Mike,
who was very badly wounded.
He had extensive surgery,
but Darlene was killed.
He survived.
Mike Mageau miraculously
survived.
[Piano Music Ends]
[Silence]
This was a pretty brutal murder
once again.
And most of the bullets
were pumped into Darlene.
Mike obviously took a few
pretty brutal shots, but
it seemed like the killer
was very focused on Darlene.
At least that was what
the police
and what the reports would say
at the time.
[Det] And he asked Darlene,
do you know who that is?
And she said something like,
Never mind.
[Jason] And the fact is as well
that Darlene had been
saying to people,
including her sister,
that there was someone who
she was afraid of,
someone who basically she
apparently had witnessed
do something before.
[Pam] She said that she's
seen them do something.
She's seen them kill
someone
[Mike]
She never mention the name.
But she...
Something about a Richard.
I remember Richard.
Named Richard
[Jason] So the initial thoughts
were that someone clearly knew
the victim
because of
how brutal
it was, particularly to Darlene.
For example, she was out with
Mike while her husband
was apparently at home
with the kids at the time.
You know, and Mike has said that
he was her boyfriend
at the time.
[Myserious Piano Music]
[Jason Narrates]
According to her husband, Dean,
she liked to go out and dance
and enjoy a time
with her friends.
And while there were rumors
spread
that she was off with other men,
Dean says
he never took this to heart
and didn't believe it.
[Mysterious Music Continues]
So there was a lot of intrigue
around this idea that it was
someone that Darlene knew
that was chasing them.
And the police officer
angle was quite interesting.
This was one
that was put forward
very much by, I think, Graysmith
in his book at one point.
And that was an interesting
one for a few reasons,
not least the fact that Mike
has admitted in his testimony
that they thought
it was a police officer
behind them
the way
the car parked behind them
apparently
was quite like a police officer.
And another part of that theory
that would make
you think that perhaps this guy
has some sort of insight
with the police or is police
is that according to Mike,
in Graysmiths book,
the door handle on
the passenger side was removed
and he couldn't
actually get out of the car
until the zodiac opened the door
to shoot him.
But in the police reports,
that door handle was then back,
which would mean someone
who had access to the crime scen
[Officer Richard Hoffman]
Graysmith wrote a book
about the Zodiac
and he mentioned in his book
that I was at her Darlene
and her husband's house
on a house painting party prior
to her death.
And I, I don't know anything
about that.
I wasn't me.
[Music Slowly Ends]
[Jason] Dick Hoffman was the
police officer who arrived on
scene first before the rest
of the cavalry rode in.
He collected some of her items
and waited for the ambulance
and was told to ride
with them to the hospital.
[Silence]
[Interviewer] You knew her
before the attack, right?
[Officer Richard Hoffman]
I've never laid eyes on her.
[Interviewer]
You never laid eyes on her?
[Officer Richard Hoffman]
No. No.
I had heard that
she was a waitress at
an all night restaurant
in Vallejo.
But I didn't know the girl
at all.
[Jason] Initially,
there was obviously the thought
that this was someone she knew.
Some of those roads
would have pointed
for obvious reasons
to her ex-husband.
But there is
a variety of other people
that could have been involved.
Darlene definitely
was afraid of someone.
[Ominus Music]
[Jason Narrating]
In cases such as this,
those closest to the victims
are normally the ones
who are investigated first,
especially when
there is not only a husband
but an ex husband involved.
And especially in this case
where her ex-husband
had a criminal record to beat.
And Dean had said that
she and her ex-husband
had had a lot of issues
throughout their time together.
And he had even stalked her
at times.
Those closest to Darlene
also talked
about how her ex-husband
was a strange character.
All of this
leading police to believe
that was the best place to look,
at least at first.
All of those thoughts
and ideas, though, quickly
went out the window
after one terrifying phone call.
[Police Operator]
Then the next call I got
was about 12:40
[Operator] Vallejo Police
Department
[Caller] I want to report
a double murder.
If you go one mile east
on Columbus Parkway,
a public park, youll find
kids in a brown car.
They were shot with a
nine millimeter lugar.
I also
killed those kid last year.
[Droning Music]
[Caller in Taunting Voice]
Goooood....bye.....
[Jason] the lead investigator,
sent police
to go and dust the phone booth
for fingerprints.
But even today,
this would have been difficult
as they found dozens
and dozens of fingerprints
that still have not been
verified or identified.
This was no easy task,
especially in the sixties.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason]
Then the case's
most famous
signature would be introduced.
[TV Narrator] The killer sent
letters between to the
Newspapers.
The San Francisco
Chronicle, The Examiner
and The Vallejo Times Herald.
They were the beginning
of a flood of written evidence.
He would pour forth
for years to come.
He gave himself a name....
Zodiac!
[Robert] Knowing such things as
describing what the woman was
wearing. You know,
enough details
to tell the police that he was
the man.
[TV Narrator]
Print these pages...or else
[Voice Recreation of Zodiac]
If you do not print this cipher,
I will cruise around all weekend
killing
lonely people in the night
and until I end up with a dozen.
[Host] And what did that do
to this community?
[Robert]
It terrified everyone.
Three newspapers gave
their front pages to this man.
I mean, that's how terrible
they were.
[Det.] In this particular code,
the Zodiac used what we referred
to as a common letter
numeral substitution code,
where you might substitute
the letter
C for E,
and A for B and etc., etc.. And
coupled with that, he used
some symbols
that you might describe as being
something like semaphore flags,
where he'd
take a square and color
in half of it diagonally,
or he used some Greek symbols.
[TV Host] The published codes
stumped hundreds of amateur
cryptographers
and several intelligence
agencies
[Jason]
Police, the CIA, and
a variety of law enforcement
and governmental
offices
tried to break the cipher
that was given
with these letters, but
it was solved
by an unlikely couple.
Husband and wife who were
teachers in San Francisco.
[Building Hopeful Music]
[Robert] And finally,
Donald Harden and his wife,
simply sat down and through
sheer stick-to-itiveness
worked around the clock.
And they were the only ones,
the CIA, Naval intelligence,
None of these people were able
to crack the three cipher codes.
And this was certainly
for his wife,
the very first attempt at any
sort of cryptography
for Don Harden.
I think he'd done the crossword
puzzles.
He had some various books
on ciphers.
But what they had begun to do
is they looked
for a double combination
of symbols, the most common
being a double L.
And Mrs. Harden thought that
he would use the word kill.
And so
once they figured that word,
killing or kill was somewhere,
and those were double L's
that they were seeing
throughout these ciphers
that eventually gave them
the key to to break it.
[Zodiac] I like killing people
because it is so much fun.
It is more fun than killing
wild game in the forest
because man is the most
dangerous animal of all.
[Jason] There's an interesting
piece in the cipher, which is
about humans being the most
dangerous animal of all,
which is a quote
from The Dangerous Game.
And this definitely stood out
to police officers
and got them a little bit
worried
because at the end of the day,
that is a movie about a man
who hunts humans
basically for sport.
So a little bit
worrying that even
with these letters, the police
essentially had nothing.
[Det.] The status of the case is
just as bad as it was.
We're getting many, many letters
and telephone calls
and everything.
There's no no specific person
that we suspect at this time.
[Jason] And it was about
to get much, much worse.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Detective]
Napa was kind of a secluded
community were bordered
on both sides by major
highways.
Highway 80 to our east and
highway one on one to our west.
And so we don't get a lot of the
traffic coming through Napa.
Some of the other cities do.
So we have a relatively low
crime rate.
We sometimes go several years
without a homicide.
[Jason] Napa in those days
would have been very quiet
in terms of crime.
However, that year
there had been five
or six homicides, which was
quite unusual for the sixties
in Napa
Lake Berryessa
at that time of year
was also extremely quiet.
So this was an unusual day,
[TV Show Host]
September
27th, 1969,
for his new role of executioner.
Zodiac chooses
a peaceful setting
in the heart of California's
wine country.
[Reporter] Celia Sheppard and
Bryan Hartnell,
both in their early twenties,
were sitting
on this knoll of land
overlooking part of Lake Barry.
They thought they were
alone, but there was a third man
on this knoll.
A man who wore a medieval style
executioner's hood,
carried a knife and gun
and intended to use them.
[Building Suspensful Music]
[Police Chief]
They were approximately a quarter of a mile
from the road down
near the water front,
and they were laying down
on a blanket.
The talking,
they were schoolmates.
And the subject approached them.
They saw
a subject come up by them.
[Bryan Hartnell] I happened to
hear some rustling in behind us
and I asked her to look as
she was facing that direction.
I was facing toward
the water and
I asked her to note, you know,
what was going on.
And she said,
there's a man walking around.
And she became concerned
about it.
And I said, Well, actually,
don't worry about it.
It's something there's a lot
of people, picnickers, etc..
And just, you know,
if you kept coming, let me know.
And she kind of kept watching.
I noticed she wasn't
following my conversation.
She told me
he was stepping behind a tree
and the tree was about
30 feet behind us.
And when he came out,
she said, he's got a mask on.
And that was my first inkling
that there was anything
actually wrong going on.
[Police Chief] They didn't think
too much about it.
And the next thing I knew, the
subject was upon him with a gun
and demanded the keys
to the car and money.
[Bryan] And I actually
laughed at the moment
because I told him, I said, I've
only got $0.75 in my pocket.
And I said, You're
welcome to have it.
I considered him a robber.
I had absolutely no thought
that he was anything but that.
And when we were
at this robbery stage,
I didn't consider
any real threat to my life
or to or to the girl
or anything.
I didn't consider this,
but I really wanted to help him.
[Bryan] He pulled some cuts of a
three foot length of clothesline
It's actually plastic.
It's the kind
that this hollow in the center.
[Police Chief]
The young man
stated that,
you're going to have my money.
I've only got a few cents,
75 or $0.80.
And with this he says, Well,
I'm going to tie you up.
And he had the young lady tie
her friend up,
and then he tied the girl up.
[Bryan] He said, Well, what I
need right now is to get you
tied up. And so he had the girl
tie me. Of course she was real
nervous and tied me rather
loosely.
And he came
and he tightened the knot up,
and then he tied her up.
And we continued the dialog
along
most of this time,
[Officer] and the kid said
the money is in my pocket.
He said, I don't want the money.
All I want to do is
just kill you.
The boy asked him, said,
You really mean that?
And he said, yes.
I mean it
he said, well
if you're going to, then kill me
first because I can't stand
to see the girl be stabbed.
He said, Well, I'll do that.
So he started
stabbing the kid in the back
[Police Chief]
and laid him face down.
And with this,
he proceeded to knife
both of them numerous times.
[Jason] Still on his knees,
the man gave a ghastly,
frenzied sound and letting out
a long, low exhalation
began stabbing
the girl in the back ten times.
The knife fell.
Instinctively,
Cecilia rolled over on her back
and the dark hunter continued,
thrusting.
Once he plunged the knife
full length into her chest.
sated at last,
the stocky man stood up
and tossed the money
and keys onto the blanket next
to his victims.
He walked slowly across the open
peninsula
and was soon lost
in the empty twilight.
[Reporter]
Bryan will probably be able
to leave Queen of the Valley
Hospital fairly soon,
but where he's going from here
is being kept secret.
In the event
that the man who attacked him
and killed
Cecilia Shepard on Lake
Barryessa a week ago
Saturday tries again.
Bryan made it for two reasons
some people might regard
as intangibles, but reasons
that for him were enough,
a strong faith and
an equally strong will to live.
[Bryan] I got, I was able to
untie one of her hands
that she was too weak
to untie me at that time.
Finally, one fisherman who's
going real slow, he stopped.
He shut off his motor
and we cajoled and called
and we did everything to try
to get him to come.
He sat there
for about 15 minutes and he
he did finally come closer, but
he wouldn't come to the shore.
I guess he was afraid that
the man might still be around.
He said he'd go get help.
So I got...encouraged her
enough to get me untied, and
I got one wrist loose so that
I could get the rest untied.
[Interviewer]
How were you finally?
How were you finally found?
[Bryan] Well, she was found out
on the blanket.
Still...I made it up
about 300 yards up
almost to the road.
And that it was a slow process
because I kept black.
I couldn't see, you know,
I kept blacking out and my legs
kept getting weak,
but I was getting progress.
I think I could have made it to
the road,
but a pickup
truck, was coming along
with these dirt roads,
and apparently
this man had called for help.
[Jason]
Such a change in crime.
He was clearly evolving
and getting,
let's be honest, much worse.
[Officer]
I've had 11 years
patrol on this lake
and I've seen a lot of people
cut up by boat
accidents and this.
But this is one of the worst
things I ever witnessed.
So for no reason at all,
a hooded man came out
with a pistol drawn on them,
tied him up, and then told me
he had to kill them. So.
[Jason] So there have been this
theory that park ranger
Dennis Land
was somehow involved in this,
and his activities
and his actions during and after
the crime are definitely cause
for suspicion.
[Mysterious Piano Music Starts]
There has been one man
who is a source of controversy
around this particular incident,
a man who fit the description
of the killer who was nearby
and who tampered with evidence.
And this was park ranger
Dennis Land.
In fact, when Dennis Land
arrived on scene,
Brian Hartnell
even said he thought
it was the killer returning
to the scene of the crime.
[Detective]
And while waiting for detectives
from the sheriff's department
to arrive, Deputy Land
talked to the witnesses
that were there
and obtained statements
from them.
I began a search for evidence.
[Jason Narrates]
Dennis Land
has been the cause of suspicion
ever since that day
by a variety of people.
And the reason for this
is that he packed up
the entire crime scene
and brought it back to the park
ranger station.
This is not something
an investigator
or a police officer would do.
And in fact,
it is something that normally
they would be trained
not to do in order
to preserve the crime scene
and allow the lead investigators
to look at the crime scene
as it was at the time that
the crime itself took place.
Now, according to the
investigator and Dennis Land,
it seemed like Dennis Land
was trying to do the right thing
to preserve the crime scene
from being blown apart
and blown away
in such an open area.
However, this did upset
the police,
who really would have preferred
to see the blood,
the hair follicles and so on
in their correct location.
Another reason
why Dennis Land has been a cause
for suspicion
is that he radioed himself
going into the dark
before the crime took place
and put himself back into radio
contact
only after the police
had been called.
One crucial piece of evidence
that was found during
this was
a very unique boot print.
One piece of evidence that
would become synonymous with
this crime was the footprint
left behind at Lake Berryessa
A very unique boot print
that was easily identifiable
by the police
to a very unique shoe
known as a wing walker.
This shoe was used specifically
so as not to build up static
so that military personnel
could walk on the wings
of aircraft
in order to service them.
[Bryan] Well,
the pictures are in the paper.
This last one that they put out,
I think is probably as accurate
as any of that they have put up.
He was of medium
to short height, a kind of
pouchy
real casually casual,
I don't want to say sloppily,
but casually,
real casually dressed,
of course,
a little dusty from the lake.
And he had this black hood
on, came clear down to here,
just little slits in the eyes.
And you know, these clip
on glasses,
they were
clipped into those little.
[Voice fades into Silence]
[Jason]
One piece
of evidence that baffled police
was why
this man would wear a mask
if he intended to murder
someone,
as the police said at the time.
Normally, if you knew
you were going to kill someone,
you don't need to hide
your identity.
But very quickly,
there was some clear
and evident links
that would tie this right back
to the prior zodiac killings.
[Police Chief]
At 7:40 p.m.
Officer Slaight at the Napa Poli
Department received this call.
[Jason] The local police
switchboard was one of the old
style switches where you had to
manually plug the
cables in and out.
And that evening
one of the operators
got a very ominous call.
[Operator]There was a male voice
on the other end of the phone
and he said,
I want to report a murder,
[Caller] A Double Murder.
two miles north of the park
headquarters.
They were in a white
Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.
I'm the one that did it
[News Reporter]
the call to Napa.
Police came within an hour
after the stabbings.
A young man's voice
reported the double murder.
He described the couple their
car at the scene and hung up.
[Detective] And then the dispatcher
knew that the phone was not hung up.
It just went silent.
And just minutes later,
one of the officers said
that he had discovered
a phone off the hook at the
at this car wash,
which was only five
or six blocks from the local
police department.
[Jason]
David's first thought
was that
this had been the park ranger
having issues with his radio
and sending someone
to the nearest
payphone to report the crime.
While that call was terrifying.
For me,
it does do one thing,
and that is dissuade
the idea that this could have
been Dennis Land,
because he was at the
crime scene with the detectives
when that call was placed.
And therefore, I don't think
he could have done it.
You could get around that
by saying perhaps these killings
are done by two people.
But for me, it
kind of dissuaded me away
from the idea that Dennis Land
had any involvement.
Personally.
[Detective]
I saw the white Carmen Ghia
and I saw tracks
leading away from it.
[Jason Narrating] Police assumed that
these tracks were tracks of the Zodiac car
leading away, and this gave them
a couple of potential clues.
First of all, there was,
of course, the fact
they were able to identify the
tires, which were mismatched,
which led the police believe
that this was an older
model car that
wasn't very well-maintained.
But then, of course,
there was the biggest clue,
the connection in all of this,
where they found a list of dates
written
on the door of the Carmen Ghia,
which matched
to the previous crimes
and finally led to September
29th.
6:30 p.m.
by knife, which was this crime.
[Bryan]
Pretty thin point.
You can see a little OCD,
though,
with the circles
being filled on the time.
You know, if you're in a hurry,
you wouldn't even know
[Criminal Profiler]
he was into time.
You know, he's continually
telling us
how far something has went,
how long it's been
[Muffled Chatter
in the background]
[Bryan] except this right here
is the only thing
that really nails down with
some degree of authenticity.
We think the connection
between the pieces.
[Profiler]
I agree with you.
[Jason] the killer was evolving.
He was getting more brutal,
this time
He actually talked
to the victims.
He was experimenting.
He was getting far more brutal.
This was becoming a
big issue for the local area.
[Police Chief] There
is, as far as I'm concerned,
a definite pattern
between their killings and ours.
And the message left
on the side of the victim's door
eh...
with the dates
of the Solano County murders
and ours,
along with other items
that are on there, have
definitely indicated to us
that they're one and the same.
[Reporter]
Does it seem to you as if
you're pretty much on the verge
of finding this man?
[Police Chief] Well,
I wouldn't want to say that.
Dave. We're hoping
we've...we've got some good
things working for us,
but it takes time
and to be able to reach out
and pluck this guy
out of the air isn't done
in most murder cases.
You'll find a motive.
But of course,
this guy is just a killer,
a mad killer,
and you have no motive.
So it makes it a little bit
harder for us to track him down.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason] In early
October, the police interviewed
a man who would go on to become
the most famous suspect
in this case.
And the man that I think Toschi
and Graysmith
very, very quickly
set their focus onto
and they still are
fairly certain
that this is the guy who did it.
[Reporter]
There's a retired homicide
investigator
in Vallejo, California,
who thinks he knows
who the killer is.
His name is Jack Mullinax.
18 years ago,
when he was a homicide
detective,
he was assigned a case
involving the Zodiac.
What was your feeling once
you got
once you got close to him,
did you feel strongly
that he was the guy?
[Jack]
I did.
I mean,
I had...the only...
of all the people
that I was involved
in investigating Zodiac.
He was the only one that really,
really turned me on.
[Reporter]
Where is he now?
Do you know?
[Jack] the last I heard,
he was working in
a hardware store
in Northern California.
[Host] His name is Robert Graysmith,
and this man has spent ten years
researching the Zodiac
before he wrote a book on it
[Robert]
to know about Zodiac.
Before there was a Zodiac, to us
the symbol, to wear that watch
and and to be at the crime
scenes and to know the victims.
He would have to be Zodiac.
And there are a lot of strange
theories and things.
But if it's one man,
if it's one man only.
[Norman, Friend of Suspect]
He liked the children's world.
He liked kids.
He liked to be
a part of that world.
He went a little
too far with it, obviously.
But he enjoyed
children and they loved him.
[Interviewer] But he admitted to
using the screams of a child as a sex toy.
[Detective]
Yeah. Yes, he did.
He....he said...he...
he enjoyed listening
to the screams of a child
being beaten.
[Robert] as far as I can tell,
Alan is the best suspect
they come up with.
[Jason] And the heart of the
Alan's choice of very specific boots
would also add suspicion
to his character in this case.
[Detective]
And it was determined to be
what was referred to
as a wing walk or shoe
that was used primarily
with the Navy and the Air Force
in maintenance duties of static
free soul and the shoe.
[Robert]
Our suspect wears them.
It's not just that
he's a size ten and a half.
The shoes
that were pressed into the dry
sand at Lake Berryessa,
a size ten and a half.
[Jason] There were various
people over the years
who pointed at Arthur Lee
Allen more so than just
Robert
Graysmith and Dave Toschi.
There was, of course, Cheney
who said that Arthur Lee Allen
had asked him to write
and help him stamp envelopes
where he was talking about
being the Zodiac killer.
There was Spinelli who said that
he had offered services
to do things in so far
as to kill people
or other acts
of that nature for a fee.
And the police
were interested in him
for a variety of reasons,
especially given his background,
the fact that he was in the area
and the fact that he wore
a watch
with the Zodiac name on it
and a few detectives went so far
as to say that in reality
he should have been looked
at a lot harder
by the investigating detectives
at the time.
Personally,
I don't think Arthur Lee
Allen looked like this sketches
in any way.
In fact,
one of the sketches definitely
looks more like me,
I think, than Arthur Lee Allen.
But that could be explained away
very, very quickly.
[Zodiac] I look like the
description passed out
only when I do my thing.
The rest of the time
I look entirely different.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason]
A couple of years before
the Lake Herman, Blue Rock Sprin
and Lake Berryessa
murders, back in 1966,
there was another case
that would eventually end up
being very much tied
to the Zodiac case,
and that was the case
that took place in Riverside.
Sherri
Jo Bates was stabbed to death,
nearly decapitated
by her killer.
She was an athletic girl, strong
girl who was able to fight back.
Unfortunately, she couldn't
fight off her killer,
but she did manage
to knock his wristwatch off,
which was found by the police.
And it was sputtered
with white paint, which perhaps
would allude to the job
of the killer at the time.
This was the only at the time,
at least unsolved murder
in Riverside history.
And six months later,
the police received a letter
from supposedly the killer
outlining what he had done
and taking credit for it.
There was a few reasons
why this letter would later
be tied to the Zodiac, not least
because it was signed off
with the letter Z.
But some instances in it.
At one point in the letter
he said, I then finish the job
by cutting her throat.
I am not sick, I am insane.
But that will not stop the game.
The fact that
he put the game in there
obviously was later
linked to
the fact that he talked
about The Dangerous Game
in later letters, but the
Z was obviously the big thing
that was brought up,
but that connection wasn't made
until four years later
by Paul Avery.
[Paul Avery] six months later.
Other...other things
that make me think that
it's quite possibly him.
I received a letter
from an individual
in Southern California
pointing out the similarities
actually
was an anonymous letter.
And I.
I felt that
there might be something to it.
So I contacted the Riverside
Police.
They were very cooperative.
Gave me information
on the phone and then sent me
some information, Xerox
copies of certain documents,
and then they included
kind of as an aside, a letter
that had been received
six months after the suicide
girl had been killed.
And said this might be
of interest to you.
Its signed with a Z
[Jason] in 2016, according
to, I believe, the FBI,
someone had called in
to a police department
or somewhere and basically said
that, look, that was a prank.
I wrote that letter.
If that is the case, it was
in really, really poor taste.
But that would essentially
dissuade the idea that it was
linked to the Zodiac in any way.
And there was another case
that very much lines up with
similarities to the Zodiac case,
and that was the 1962
killing of Ray Davis,
who was a cab driver.
And letters also appeared
after that murder.
But personally,
I think the Ray Davis killing
was very much only linked
to the Zodiac because of
what would happen next
in San Francisco after Lake
Berryessa
[Ominous Droning Sound]
this has always been known
as a city of mystery.
And it seems now to have a new
and real one on its hands.
Five murders,
somebody who says he committed
all and will commit yet more.
[Reporter] The latest,
a taxi driver in San Francisco
[Guest on TV Show] came here to San
Francisco to commit a deliberate murder
so that he might
garner that attention
that had remained so elusive.
And with the murder
of Paul Stine
He gained that notoriety.
[Detective] Driver for Yellow Cab
in San Francisco picked up a fare
in downtown San Francisco,
and some were in route to
the Sunset District.
The fare asked him to stop
at a certain location,
and at that time, the Zodiac
killer shot the cab driver.
[Jason]This was a very different
crime by the Zodiac,
a crime that wasn't against
a couple in a remote area,
but instead
in a wealthy neighborhood
using a weapon, which was loud
and could draw attention.
A stark departure
[Detective] The description that
came out over the air was of an
NMA, Negro
male adult at the time.
The only person
that could have given
that information
would have been the child
who called it in
to police dispatch.
[TV Host] What did you see
when you came down this road?
[Officer] My headlights
went on to an individual who
was walking in the shadow
of the trees at the time.
The individual I saw that night
was a white male adult,
approximately
35-45 years of age,
five feet, ten inches
tall, 180 to 210lbs.
[Robert]
Unfortunately, as I was told,
they were looking
for a black man.
They had been given
wrong information on the phone.
[Officer] Since we were looking
for a Negro male adult,
we proceeded on Jackson
Street towards Arguello,
continuing our search
as we arrived
at Arguello Street.
The description of the suspect
was changed
to a white male adult,
believing that this suspect
was possibly the one involved
in the shooting.
We entered the Presidio
of San Francisco and conducted
a search on West Pacific Avenue
on the opposite side of a wall
in the last direction.
that we observed the suspect
but did not find the suspect.
[Jason]
Police were dubious, though,
that folk had actually seen
the Zodiac killer.
The reason being that
this was a brightly lit area
and the assailant would likely
be covered in blood,
which would have been
noticeable.
The moment the headlights
focused on the killer,
[Robert] He claimed later in a
letter that he had been watching
the whole time
[Reporter] finding one psychopath
in this city could be a tall order.
This latest communication from
the killer who calls himself
Zodiac adds very little
substantially to the case,
except that
he may be a conservationist.
Ed Leslie, News
13 San Francisco.
[Jason] It very much seems like
he only committed this murder
to prove a point
just to get the bloody cloth
that he later sent in
to the newspapers
from Paul Stines shirt.
[Dick Carlson] Police are now
convinced that it was the killer
of a San Francisco cab driver
who sent in a swatch
of bloody cloth with a letter
to the San Francisco Chronicle.
[Paul] And two days
later, the Chronicle,
where I worked, then received
a letter from the Zodiac.
The the envelope was opened.
It was addressed to the editor,
and it was like a letter
to the editor and the secretary
who handled that correspondence
opened envelope,
saw this
bloody, bloodstained shirt
and read
the letter then rushed it in
to the executives at the paper.
[TV Host] Over the next several
weeks, Zodiac sends two more swatches
of the bloody shirt,
along with letters
taunting the police
for failing to catch him
and confirms
that he was spotted that night.
[Dick] All of the letters sent
by the killer have been posted
from San Francisco, and police
believe the man either
works or lives in the city.
Laboratory tests on the cloth
torn from the shirt of Paul
Stine prove
that it came, in fact,
from the cab driver
when he was murdered
last Saturday night in
Presidio Heights.
And handwriting analysis
of a foreboding letter indicates
the writer is the same man
who's committed five murders.
One here, three in Vallejo,
and one in Napa over the last
ten months.
His chilling allusions to future
slayings are being counted
with an intense drive
to prevent him from fulfilling
any promises.
Dick Carlson reporting
for Newsbeat from San Francisco.
Hall of Justice
[Jason] There has also since
been suspicion
that the Zodiac could live
very close
by, given the fact that,
according
to one of his later letters,
he was watching the entire thing
unfold afterwards
as the police were
running around looking for him.
[Zodiac]
I enjoy needling the blue pink.
Hey, blue pig.
The dogs never came
within two blocks of me
and they were to the west.
Motorcycles
went by about 150 feet away.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason] Nearly
50 years after the first murder.
There was still a big push
to try and break the codes.
They couldn't crack them.
The CIA had tried.
The FBI had tried.
Various code breakers had tried.
They were alluded by these.
And these were to codes in
general.
Z 13 because of 13 characters
and likewise Z 340.
The Z 13 in 2017
was thought to have been broken.
Apparently...
Once the Z 13 code was broken,
the shorter of the two.
It alleged that
the name of the person was Kane
K.A.N.E....the FBI, though,
very much had their doubts
about this and the accuracy
of that code break.
And the problem
with cryptography and encryption
and so on
is it's very hard to verify
something with a small subset.
Realistically, it's
much easier to verify something
along like the 340 code
than it is with the 13 code,
because you don't have much
to compare it to to check
whether the rest is gibberish.
So the FBI still weren't 100%
sure that the Kane finding
was actually accurate.
Back in the late
sixties, though, while
the police were still trying
to crack these codes
and hunt the killer
things were going from
bad to monumentally worse.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Detective] Schoolchildren...
make fine targets.
I think I shall wipe out
a school bus some morning.
Just shoot out the front tire
and then pick off the kiddies
as they come bouncing out.
[Reporter] That was the threat
of the Zodiac killer.
Now, every day, police cars
follow the busses,
which would be likely targets.
Officers armed with shotguns
take the threat seriously.
[Jason] Parents were obviously
terrified of this threat.
And now there was
a renewed effort to find
this guy as quickly as possible
before something horrible
happened to local schoolchildren
[Detective] In San Francisco
We have been since the first day
since the reception
of this note.
And up to now and continuing,
we have a number of plainclothes
officers
following busses in the morning
and in the evening.
You know,
somebody shoots at your tire,
don't stop, keep driving.
So there was a great panic.
[Jason] As you can imagine,
there was immense pressure
on the police
to ensure that nothing happened
and to get on top of this
as quickly as possible.
And I think
even the word immense there is
probably the understatement,
the century.
[Reporter] The bus patrol was
started first in this county Wednesday.
Police units
from various agencies
using marked and unmarked cars
follow busses on their runs
to and from schools
assisted by aerial patrols
and some busses
now equipped with two way
police radios.
The massive patrols
are responses
to the Zodiac Killer's threat to
stop a bus and shoot children.
The patrols are concentrated
in the remote sections
of the county, similar to areas
where five were murdered.
The Napa School District is
the third largest in the state.
In bussing, its 70 busses travel
more than 4000 miles a day.
These patrols have been expanded
to several counties
and the highway Patrol
has written guidelines
for bus drivers.
[Detective] We have specifically
requested that they
alert their drivers
to not stop under any conditions
if a shot was fired
or if their busses
subjected to a flat tire
by the sniper.
Further, that they get
the children down immediately
and proceed
with all speed out of the area
and to try and attract
all the possible attention
by blowing their horns
and therefore
get out of the situation.
We're satisfied that it is
all that can reasonably be done
under the circumstances
that might be present
at the particular time,
giving due
consideration to the vast
number of busses operating.
[Interviewer]
Have any of the drivers
expressed
any concern over their job now?
[Bus Driver] Well,
there's naturally
talk, everybody,
I guess, tense, about it,
but they all seem to be
in good spirits and all seem
to be going on with the job.
I don't know of anybody
that's quit.
[Interviewer]
You're not afraid?
[Bus Driver]
No.
Just not too afraid.
[Jason] On top of all of this,
even worse, there was then
a bomb threat thrown in on top
of a potential sniper situation.
[Detective]
If you did not want me to have this blast,
you must do two things.
Tell everyone about the bus bomb
and all the details.
I would like to see some nice
zodiac buttons
wandering about town.
On the face of which says,
I hope you enjoy yourselves.
When I had my blast,
[Robert] the killer sent a
diagram for an explosive device
that was in the hillsides
around Napa.
And this was working on
an electric system
where everything else
could pass.
But a school bus
would set this bomb off.
[Detective] Bomb, as he described
it to us in the past, consist of a bomb
planted in the street
or alongside of a roadside,
which would be triggered
when a school bus passed by.
[Detective]
He is an absolutely
ruthless,
completely merciless killer.
He does not
get great excitement.
Or is he just
he thinks killing is
is just killing.
So somebody like that
is going to be
a very serious problem for us.
[Interviewer]
What more do you know
about the killer today
than you did earlier?
[Police Chief]
Well, we have progressed.
We've been able to come up
with more physical evidence
that will be able
to be used in in court.
What we have to do
is find the suspect,
of course,
and be able to apply those.
[Detective]
And this man is a
psychopath and very,
very seriously
mentally deranged.
He appears to have no conscience
at all,
no remorse after any of the
acts, certainly no reason
or even alleged justification
for anything that he does.
Several of
the shootings have occurred
without a single word
to anybody, just merely
to walk up and start shooting.
This man is a
serious problem to us.
He's very, very sick
and very dangerous person.
[Jason] Thankfully, though,
another letter will arrive
and for the first time,
police were relieved
to get a letter from the Zodiac
[Reporter] after last month's
letters and the murder of a cab driver.
The Zodiac threatened to
kill children on a school bus,
so bus guards were provided
in many Bay Area counties,
including these at Napa.
Police say most of those
precautions have been halted.
And now in the latest letter,
the Zodiac says
if you cops think
I'm going to take on a bus,
the way I stated I was.
You deserve
to have holes in your heads.
[Jason] Sadly, though,
throughout all of this, police
were no closer
to catching the Zodiac killer.
[Interviewer] Are you confident
you will get him
sooner or later?
[Detective]
Well, of course, that's.
I feel that about all
the murders we're involved in.
I mean, that's our business
and that's our job. And.
And that's the only way
to look at it and approach it,
is that...Of course....
Eventually we'll get him.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Reporter] I'm standing
in front of the Vallejo home,
which investigators searched
last Valentine's Day.
The home of the man police
have suspected off
and on for the last 20 years.
Thousands of people
have been interviewed
and the Zodiac bounced in
and out of the news.
And through it
all, there's been one constant.
Arthur Allen
[Arthur Lee Allen]
Im not the Zodiac Killer
[George] I feel that
there are so many areas
that point directly at Arthur
Lee Allen that I feel
that he is a viable suspect in,
in all probability, the Zodiac.
[Jason] In 1991,
there was a break in the case
when a tip came in
to one of the case.
Detectives still working on this
to make things
even more exciting
for the police.
Mike Mageau,
one of the survivors
of the Zodiac killings,
was able to I.D.
a suspect.
Mike Miguel was given
a set of photos
and immediately
identified within 20 seconds.
Arthur Lee Allen.
[Arthur]
That is mine.
But that's my third Karman Ghia
[Reporter]
Your third. Okay.
According to the affidavit,
it unsealed by a judge late
this afternoon, an armed robbery
suspect arrested in
San Jose last December
told police there
that Arthur Allen, now 52 years
old, is the infamous Zodiac.
That information
led Vallejo police
to obtain a warrant
and search Allen's home
last Valentine's Day.
Police were looking for specific
items, 22 caliber pistols,
a black executioner style hood,
yellow taxicab keys.
Without revealing everything
they found.
I learned
they did confiscate explosives.
Bombs exactly like those
the Zodiac serial killer
described during his murder
spree in the late 1960s
and early to mid 1970s.
[Jason]
Arthur Lee Allen died
just months after this
and was never formally arrested
or formally
a suspect in the case.
Since his death, though,
there was continued intrigue
into him as a suspect.
And this meant
that as the nineties moved on
and into the 2000, new DNA
and forensic technology
allowed investigators
to, with more certainty, decide
whether or not Allen was
in fact, the right suspect
for the case, whether or not
he was the Zodiac.
Police and various interested
parties
continued to try and do
DNA matches.
And after recovering DNA
from the stamps on the letters
that were sent,
as well as taking DNA from
the various pieces of evidence,
they could still not find a hard
evidence match
linking this crime to Arthur
Lee Allen.
[Detective] Arthur Lee Allen did
not donate the biological material
that was recovered
from the stamp.
[Expert] When you write,
you rest the heel of your palm,
a very characteristic part of it
on the paper
and people in those days
weren't really aware
that you could
leave a palm print
and that it could be identified.
They knew about fingerprints.
It was compared to the one
that had been developed earlier
and they don't match.
That is not Arthur Allen's
palm print.
[Jason] It seems then, at least
according to any hard evidence,
that Arthur Lee Allen did not
commit the Zodiac killings.
It seems like the only evidence
left is circumstantial
and under today's burden,
that just wouldn't be enough,
given the fact that there's no
DNA evidence and DNA evidence
from the letters
and so on exists,
that would point to the fact
that it just isn't
Arthur Lee Allen.
[Reporter] And during an interview
here last Friday night with Channel
seven News, Arthur Allen claimed
that he is being persecuted
by Vallejo police
[Jason] And Arthur
Lee Allen would go on until
his dying breath, adamant that
he wasn't the Zodiac killer.
[Arthur] Two types of liars in
the world fishermen & policemen,
and not necessarily
in that order.
And their function is lying to
you is to trip you up.
They can't do it to me because
I have nothing to trip over.
No, I'm certainly most
certainly not the Zodiac killer
having arrested me,
because
they can't prove a thing.
I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Thank God for our Constitution,
because that says a person
is innocent until proven guilty.
Difficult as and it can be.
[Sound of Crying]
It can be terribly depressing.
And if I deserved any of it,
that would be
something different.
But I don't.
[Reporter] Michael Finney,
Channel seven News tonight.
[Jason] So the issue for me
personally with Arthur
Lee Allen is not the fact
that I don't think
he's a good suspect.
He clearly is not a great person
given he was charged
with child molestation,
as far as I'm aware.
It's the fact that we had
a living victim, a survivor
who was able to be used
at various points to check
the voice of the Zodiac killer
against the voice he heard.
And at no point,
as far as I'm aware, did Brian
Hartnell ever point to Arthur
Lee Allen as sounding exactly
like the man who stabbed him?
So that for me was the
the point where
that for me was the indication
that I don't think Arthur Lee
Allen did it, or at least
he didn't commit the Lake
Berryessa stabbings.
But this is an even bigger
problem,
isn't it, for the police?
Because if not Arthur Lee Allen
after all these years, then who
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[TV Sound] he was the mad man
who called himself the Zodiac killer?
And this is the surviving victim
who looked him
straight in the eye and says
she knows who the killer is.
[Detective] Kathleen Jones was a
woman that was down in central California.
[Kathleen] It was late at night
and left in the evening.
And the car behind me
starting flashing its lights and
bright and dim
and the car pulled up
behind me and the guy got out
and said my back
Wheel was wobbly
[Man] Its not
on good
[Jason] The man pulled up beside
her car told her that there
was an issue with her wheel.
that it was about to fall off
and that she and her child
should get in the car with him
[Kathleen] When we would come to
any kind of stop
sign, he would slow down.
But he didn't stop.
So I jumped finally
saw a man in the field.
Just wait and see what happens.
No, he could have stopped at
any time and physically
been stronger than I was.
I was like
seven months pregnant and
I had the little kid on my lap.
[Jason] She was seven months
pregnant with an infant child in her arms
and managed to jump from the car
and survive
while it was moving.
Terrifying stuff.
[Reporter] But now one
determined cop says he knows
exactly who the killer is
and where he's hiding.
Doug Buckner has the story.
[Jason] She did offer up a clue
to the investigators, though,
a very, very interesting one.
[Host] He says it's her
eyewitness account
that proves the suspect
is, in fact, the Zodiac.
[TV Host] Detective Harvey Hinds
of Echelon says his analysis
of these cryptic symbols reveals
the Zodiac name is Cain.
[Det. Hinds]
We also have another clue.
He installed another clue in the
in the cryptogram.
It reads, Name Cain or name.
Cain's here.
And he reading
from right to left.
She saw him and put her finger
down on the picture and said
that was him.
And she said, it's
not only my eye is telling me
it's my stomach, too.
[Reporter] Indeed, there is a
man who used the name Cain,
who has a criminal record,
who was born in 1924.
He's an ex mental patient
who fits the
profile of the Zodiac killer.
The man called Cain now lives
in rural northern California,
but he hasn't been arrested.
[Jason] Later, he would be linked
to another crime where Donna Lass
an employee in a hotel
where Cain worked in Lake
Tahoe, went missing
and was never seen again.
And she was seen
last in that area
And a postcard supposedly
from Zodiac, was sent later
on from that area, from Forest
Pines.
[Sheriff] The limit of my knowledge
about the girl at Lake Tahoe,
and we discussed that
at the time
that we were talking during
the investigation of Benelli.
Appears that
She was a nurse, that she got
off duty at a casino up there.
And ostensibly, that's
the last time anybody saw her.
And the similarity between that
and Judith Acaree that Ms.
Acaree was a nurse and
within reason, she got off duty.
She was followed by a fellow
employee to a certain,
you know, location.
And she was never seen again.
[Reporter] I understand
there was also a similarity
in the way
the parked cars were found.
[Sheriff] The car and again, the girl
in Lake Tahoe was apparently found.
And I just learned that today.
It was apparently found
in her parking
stall in front of her apartment
or her cabin
or wherever
she her place of residence was.
And Ms. Acarees automobile
was found
in its parking spot
in front of her apartment.
[Jason] And there is a link
between the Riverside case
and the Kathleen Johns case.
And that is the fact
that in the Riverside case,
the killer did actually disable
her Volkswagen Beetle
by removing the distributor coil
and the condenser
so that the car wouldn't start.
And then,
according to a later letter,
if it is to be believed
and according
to police in general,
it seems likely that the killer
offered her help to get to
wherever she was going.
And that's
how we got her in the car.
And this was similar
to the Kathleen Jones case
where he decided
to help with the wheel
but then went and loosened
the wheel.
There was never enough
evidence, though, to either tie
to Zodiac or on Cain in general.
And Cain was never treated
as a official police suspect of
the case In either situation.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
One of the most bizarre
parts of this case, though,
is definitely that call in show
[News Anchor] Zodiac, a symbol that
now stands for terror in San Francisco.
Today,
there was a possibly significant
development
in the terrifying case
of the man who calls himself
Zodiac.
[Reporter] Inspector, attorney
Melvin Bellis office said it
has been contacted by a person
claiming to be the Zodiac.
Have you been able to verify
that the letter received by
his office is authentic?
[Det. Toschi] Yes.
We have, this has been done
by our crime lab.
Basically,
it was a letter written to Mr.
Belli, which was a personal type
letter.
And again,
at this point
of the investigation,
I would not want to comment
on the particular details
of the contents of this letter.
[Reporter]This bizarre situation
began at 2:00 this morning
when the so-called Zodiac
telephoned police headquarters.
He said he was sick,
he needed help
and he wanted to
talk to Belli on television.
All of a scheduled guests
were canceled from the show
on the ABC station KGO.
Belli waited for Zodiac
to call on the private line.
The phone was not tapped.
The killer telephone 12 times.
He spoke very
little with attorney Belli,
trying to draw him out of that.
[Host] Just tell us whats going
on inside you right now.
[Caller] I have a headache.
[Belli] There Was one moment
when he talked about
killing kids
that I still remember with.
a shiver.
[Caller] I wanna kill those kid
[Reporter] He calls back 11 time
[Belli] how long
have you had those headaches...
Sam?
Been a long time?
[Caller] Since I killed a kid.
[Beli] Just tell us what's going
inside you right now.
[Caller] I have a headaches.
[Belli] Right
Were you in service that
you might have had an injury?
In Service? Did you ever fall
out of a tree or
downstairs or become unconscious
[Caller] I don't know.
[Belli ]You don't remember,
[Reporter]
So no one knows yet.
If they had the Zodiac killer
on the phone,
they'll have witnesses listen
to a tape of the broadcast
to determine that.
But it seems
a solution to the five
Zodiac murders is just
as far away as it was before.
Spencer Michaels, Casey RA News,
San Francisco.
[Jason] The Supposed Zodiac
afterwards even offered to meet up,
but never showed.
[Reporter] Belli, I finally
arranged to meet Zodiac in Daly
City, a suburb south of San
Francisco, to talk in person.
The attorney waited in
an office building,
but Zodiac never showed.
I asked Belli
if he thought the man who called
really was the Zodiac killer.
[Belli] I cant. Negative,
I can't say.
All I can say is
this man needed help.
This man seemed like a man
who was coming up to a storm or
to a climax, this
very blood curdling thing.
Children kill.
And then sort of an agonized
cut off, enough to turn your
hair whiter than mine.
[Reporter] So inside the thrift
Saint Vincent de Paul, attorney
Melvin Belli
and the San Francisco police
waited for the Zodiac killer.
The man did not show.
So now all we can do is wait.
Perhaps that next phone call
from the man who calls himself
Zodiac who has killed five
says he's going to kill again.
Dick Shoemaker, ABC News,
San Francisco.
[Detective]
Nothing came of that.
We went out to the location
where the meet was to have been.
Mr. Belli was out there.
Mr. Dunbar was out there
and nobody appeared.
[Reporter] Could you tell
us where that was?
[Detective] That was in the
a little out of San Francisco
in the outer
end of the Mission District,
[Reporter] Do you think he reall
the Zodiac?
[Detective] Not necessarily.
I listen to the program.
My opinion my.
For what it's worth,
my my opinion is that
this is no hoax or no prankster.
The man on that show,
I sincerely believe,
has a problem,
has a mental problem,
but he may or may not have been
the so-called Zodiac.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[News Anchor] I hope you're
having lots of fun in trying to catch me.
That's part of the chilling
taunt
from one of the Bay Area's
most notorious serial killers.
Now decoded after 51 years,
[Jason] a major break in
the case came in 2021
when these 340 cipher
was finally cracked.
[Reporter] This major development
in the case comes decades
after that coded message
was sent
to the San Francisco Chronicle
in November of 1969,
and many hope it will help
identify the serial killer.
A coded 340 character message
sent to the San Francisco
Chronicle from the infamous
Zodiac killer of the 1960s
cracked by a group of amateur
code breakers.
In a statement,
the bureau said the FBI is aware
that a cipher attributed to
the Zodiac Killer
was recently solved
by private citizens.
[Samuel] We we tried several
hundred thousand incorrect
of solving the cipher.
And just by chance,
we happened to sort of stumble
upon a fragment of
of how it could be solved.
And using that fragment,
we reverse engineered
the entire solution
and got the entire message out
from the Zodiac.
[Jason] Sadly, though, there was
no name to be found in this cipher.
[Reporter]Fagen said there had
been hope that the killer
would reveal his identity
in one of his coded messages.
[Fagen]
This one didn't do the trick.
[Samuel]
It doesn't reveal his identity.
It doesn't give a lot clues
to his identity.
I think more what it does
is the the method
that he was able to use
to create that that cipher
may help us track down who he is
that the Zodiac was encrypting
is replaced
with multiple symbols.
[Jason] It did, though, confirm
what Brian Cardinal had said
years and years ago
that the voice who called in
to the Jim Dunbar show wasn't
in fact the killer.
And in the cipher it said
it wasn't me on the TV show.
[Bryan] At one point in time,
I was asked to go down
and listen
to a tape of an interview
that had been on the Jim Dunbar
Show.
[Jason] Hartnell was asked to
come to the Jim Dunbar Show studio
and listen to the recordings
of the events of that day
and said that
it wasn't anywhere near
what he had
heard on the day of his attack
and that the cadence wasn't
even close
and that he didn't believe
that man on the phone was the
man who had attacked them.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason] After no new
letters, contact or information
since 1974, police finally
got another break in the case
with a letter sent in
by the supposed Zodiac in 1978.
[Reporter] This letter
from the Zodiac poses
more questions than it answers.
Questions
like Why is he only communicated
twice in the past nine years.
Has he killed in that time?
No clues in the latest letter.
But more importantly,
who is the Zodiac
and where is he?
[Det. Narlow] Every time the
Zodiac would send us a letter.
We were spurred on
because we gleaned
a little bit of intelligence
information
out of every letter
that he sent us.
And we just hope
that we can latch onto one
little thing that might might
lead us to the Zodiac killer.
We knew an awful lot about this
this killer.
[Robert] But in
1978, April 25th, I believe,
we got a letter
that says, I am back with you.
I've never been anywhere else.
You know, I've been with you
all this time.
[Reporter] San Francisco
police displayed a blackboard
with excerpts of the latest
Zodiac letter.
At a news conference last night,
police are convinced
it is authentic.
Deputy San Francisco
Police Chief Glenn D'Amico said
it's the 16th letter
received from the Zodiac killer.
[Jason] However,
there was more to this 1978
letter than meets
the eye
[Det. Narlow]
towards the end.
I don't know
we're getting some
some letters that
turned out not to be authentic
Zodiac letters and
and I believe
the last time we heard from them
with an authenticated
letter was in April of 1974.
[Reporter] For the first time
since the Zodiac case began
nine years ago, Inspector
Toschi is out of it.
Toschi is under fire
for writing phony fan letters
about himself to a newspaper
feature writer Armistead Maupin.
And Maupin today came up with
far more serious charges
that there are similarities
between the letters
Toschi admits writing to Maupin
and the most recent Zodiac
letter of last April.
[Jason] And that was it.
Toschi was off the case
and close to losing his career
after being one of the most
famous detectives
only a decade earlier.
[Reporter] Toschi admits
writing the fan letters to Maupin,
but vigorously denies
having anything to do
with the letters
purporting to come
from the killer known as Zodiac.
Toschi was low profile
at the Hall of Justice today.
He had been officially
reprimanded over the fan letters
by being transferred
from the homicide detail
to the pawn shop detail,
and an official investigation
is underway on any connection
he might have
with the Zodiac letters.
Thus far,
the experts can't agree
on the authenticity of the last
letter from the Zodiac.
Right now, Toschi has
admitted to nothing
more than being
guilty of an indiscretion.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[Jason]
As technology moved forward,
the case
continued on in the background
and investigators struggled
to find more on more evidence.
Thankfully, though,
technology also got better
and they had more DNA out there
to either put more pressure
on certain suspects
or completely
clear them from their list.
[TV Host] Careful as he was,
it's unlikely that 33 ago
Zodiac would worry about
leaving behind a genetic trail.
Could this tiny strand bare
Zodiac's DNA fingerprint?
She examines it.
But again, no luck.
[Reporter] From all of your
investigations, what can you tell us
about the Zodiac?
[Handwriting Specialist]
Not a great deal.
He's not an unintelligent man
by a long shot.
His paragraph in his phrasing,
his punctuation is very good.
I'm sure he has deliberately
misspelled words in the attempt
to lead us to believe
that he's illiterate. But
in so doing.
Why hes...
led us to thepoint that we
believe just the opposite.
[Jason] And I think that after
the Golden State killer was caught
in 2021, investigators had
more hope than ever
that they could potentially
do the same thing with Zodiac
and catch him
while he was alive.
[News Anchor]
That bombshell arrest,
that former police officer
who authorities say
went on a reign of terror
for so many years.
The numbers, as I mentioned,
are simply staggering at.
Least 12 murders, 45 rapes.
They say this is their man,
Joseph D'Angelo, now
72, arrested outside his home.
They surprised him.
He spent years as a California
police officer.
He'd been married.
[Reporter] Law enforcement
now identifying 72 year old
Joseph James D'Angelo
as the Golden State killer.
But D'Angelo,
not a suspect until days ago
when they got a break.
They say cutting edge
DNA testing
allowed them to make a match.
[Jason] Now, though, in 2023,
as each year passes by, becomes
less and less likely that
they'll catch this man alive.
[Ominous Droning Sound]
[News Anchor] There may now
be a break in this case, though.
A nonprofit group claims
that it has identified
the Zodiac killer.
[Reporter] A group of Independent
cold case investigators claims
they have solved
the more than 50 year old
mystery of the Zodiac killer.
It is made up of former FBI
agents, military officials
and forensic investigators
from all across the country.
And they say they're confident
they have solved this mystery.
[Jason] The case now,
though, might finally be closer
to being solved than it ever
has before.
[Investigator] By going to the
library that simple and going through
Bay Area phonebooks
that put him in the Bay Area
at the right times
and there was just no way
you could get around it
that it wasn't this person.
Everything matched up,
including stuff
that wasn't public,
that we had kind of found
and talked
[Reporter]
the long unsolved Zodiac killer case
and a high profile announcement.
We're putting a name
to the suspect's face. It's
no surprise for this Sacramento
investigator and attorney.
The group says Post
had scars on his forehead
from a car crash
that matched scars
on a sketch of the Zodiac.
[Cold Case Investigator]
That is irrefutable.
That Is a mark. That's the same.
It's on him all the way
to his death at 80 years old.
[Reporter] The case breakers
point to Gary Post, an Air Force
veteran and house painter
who died in 2018.
[Cold Case Investigator]
We have six people that he told
towards his last years
that he was the Zodiac.
[Reporter] The group says
evidence like a shoe
match, court affidavits matching
facial features and a clue
that the killer hid his name in
those ciphers proves their I.D.
[Cold Case Investigator]
His name is Post.
He ended it with the stamp
and they couldn't
figure out his last name.
He cleverly used
the postal markings
as Gary Francis...stamp...Poste.
[Reporter] And it's more
than just this little riddle
or the code that was sent
to the San Francisco Chronicle.
They have the scars
apparently on Poste
forehead that match that
drawing of the Zodiac killer.
And they've even gone so far
as to interview Postes neighbor
who says that she believed
that Poste was the Zodiac killer
So they've done
an outstanding job.
And it's interesting at first.
Obviously,
we dealt with Bob Durst
after years
and now more than 50 years,
we're getting close to
identifying the Zodiac killer.
Obviously, he's passed if
it is Poste.
He's not going to face
the same justice that Bob Durst.
[Cold Case Investigator]
It's a good feeling.
But there was a bit of,
you know, sadness to it
that we actually
when he was still alive,
we're talking to individuals
in law enforcement about,
you know, we were confident
it was him.
[Reporter] Sacramento attorney Mark
Reichel and his longtime investigator,
John Kennedy, named Gary Poste
as the likely Zodiac killer
years ago after their own
lengthy investigation.
[Cold Case Investigator]
This is the radar station where he worked.
[Reporter] Kennedy showed
me the digital files of his own
Zodiac Killer investigation tied
to Gary Post compiling records
where he was stationed
in the Air Force
before the Zodiac Killer
spree in the fifties.
[Cold Case Investigator]
And in these places,
there were encrypted messages
being sent and received
[Reporter] and where Post may
have picked up a knack for codes.
Kennedy also found a news
clipping of a deadly car
crash Poste was involved in
just outside the base.
So Mark Reichel
and John Kennedy,
While they believe that Poste is
in fact the Zodiac killer.
They do acknowledge
that the evidence that they have
is circumstantial.
They look forward to the day
that science will prove
them right.
[Cold Case Investigator]
An Expert like myself who has
had contact with members
within the bureau that said that
since 2016, Gary
Francis Post was their suspect.
[Jason] They will be releasing
this evidence
if and when the FBI confirms
whether or not
they are accurate,
using the database of evidence
that the FBI has on this case.
[Reporter]
Some aren't convinced.
[Tom]
I woke up this morning.
I really thought it was
April 1st.
[Reporter] Tom Voight of
ZodiacKiller.com calls the claims
hot garbage and says
the theories presented are thin.
[Fagan]
Who are we to say yay or nay?
[Reporter] San Francisco
Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan
has been covering
the Zodiac case for years.
He says he's not so sure
Post is the right guy.
[Fagan] You know,
I got an email two weeks ago
saying that they found Herb
Caen's name in the anagram.
So Herb Caen must be the Zodiac.
Before that,
it was Charlie Manson.
[Reporter]
Back in December,
the FBI confirmed
that the Zodiac cipher
had been cracked by code
breakers.
His message said in part,
I hope you're having lots of fun
and trying to catch me, and I'm
not afraid of the gas chamber.
Now, we did reach out to the San
Francisco Police Department
and the FBI,
and they both told me
that this case remains open.
They have not confirmed
the theory
presented by the case
breakers today.
So at least for now,
the mystery continues.
[Jason]
Until then, we can only ponder.
But I for one
have always been of the opinion
that this is
most likely a gun for hire type.
A man who was hired
to commit murders
on the behalf of others and.
He cleverly used the letters
to make
this look like a serial killer
instead of a gun for hire.
[Reporter] The San Francisco
police say the Zodiac case is still open,
but it's not actively
under investigation.
In fact,
many of the files in the case
have been stored in Sacramento
and the original detectives
in the case every time.
[Jason] And I think given that
that's been my opinion on it
that, makes the idea of Poste
who was a house painter
even more poetic.
[Sad Orchestral Outro Music]