The Zodiac Killer (Part 2)

Summary

Morbid Episode 668: The Zodiac Killer (Part 2)

Release Date: May 1, 2025
Hosts: Elena & Ash
Podcast Network: Morbid Network | Wondery

---

Introduction

Morbid returns with Part 2 of their deep dive into the enigmatic case of the Zodiac Killer. Hosts Elena and Ash continue to unravel the twisted narrative, exploring new evidence, suspect profiles, and the relentless efforts of law enforcement to capture the elusive murderer.

---

Recap of Part 1

The episode begins with a brief recap of the Zodiac Killer's initial crimes. In Part 1, Elena and Ash detailed the murders of:

• David Faraday (17) and Betty Lou Jensen (16): A tragic first date that ended in horror.
• Darlene Fen (22) and Mike Moe (19): Another couple targeted by the Zodiac.
• Cecilia Shepherd (22) and Brian Hartnell (20): Both men survived their attacks, adding mystery to the killer's intentions.

The hosts highlighted the Zodiac's theatrical methods, including taunting letters, complex ciphers, and his distinctive executioner's hood and clip-on sunglasses, which left a lasting impression on investigators and the public alike.

---

The Attack at Lake Berryessa

Transitioning into Part 2, Elena and Ash recount the Lake Berryessa attack, which provided more substantial evidence than previous incidents:

• Paul Stein (29), a cab driver and PhD candidate, was brutally murdered after accepting a fare from a mysterious passenger.
• The killer's meticulous actions—wiping down the cab, moving Paul's body, and leaving behind gloves and shell casings—suggested premeditation and an attempt to cover his tracks.

Notable Quote:
Ash (14:41): "What happened next is really just based off of speculation based on evidence found at the scene."

---

The Zodiac's Letter Linking to Stein's Murder

Two days following Stein's murder, a letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle, signed by the Zodiac:

• Content: The letter claimed responsibility for Stein's death and threatened further violence, including a bomb on a school bus.
• Evidence: A blood-stained piece of Stein's shirt was included, validating the claim.

Notable Quote:
Ash (23:25): "He could be old Mrs. So and so's boy who never says boo."

---

AM San Francisco Show Interaction

In an unprecedented move, the Zodiac reached out to the morning show AM San Francisco:

• Initiative: The killer called in, insisting he was the Zodiac and threatening to harm schoolchildren.
• Attempted Meeting: He proposed meeting Melvin Belly, the show's host, which ended in failure when the killer did not show up at the agreed location.
• Outcome: The Zodiac temporarily ceased communication, further deepening the mystery.

Notable Quote:
Ash (35:18): "It's like, Oh, yeah, I'll just do something. That's the way to go about that."

---

Subsequent Letters and Escalation

The Zodiac continued to terrorize San Francisco with a series of increasingly aggressive letters:

• The Dripping Pen Card (October 1970): A peculiar greeting card with minimal content and hints at more victims.
• November and December Letters: Introduced threats of bombings and escalated the number of claimed victims to seventeen.
• Final Letter (January 1974): Marked by cryptic messages referencing popular culture and vague threats, leaving investigators puzzled.

Notable Quote:
Ash (46:03): "He was just like, I think, shooting the kitties as they bounce out of school. Will be fun. And then here he's like, I need help."

---

Investigation and Suspect Profiles

Despite extensive efforts, the Zodiac Killer remained uncaught. Elena and Ash explore the three most prominent suspects:

1. Richard Gaikowski

   • Profile: Editor at Good Times, lived near multiple crime scenes.
   • Evidence: Resembles police sketches, circumstantial links including witness statements and a penchant for violence.
   • Quote:
     Elena (64:46): "He looks exactly like the sketch. That's like really wild."

2. Gary Francis Poste

   • Profile: Former U.S. Air Force member with a violent history.
   • Evidence:
     • Physical traits matching crime scene evidence (e.g., boot prints, watch bands).
     • Link to the murder of Sherry Jo Bates (1966), though officially cleared.
   • Quote:
     Ash (68:31): "He remains a popular suspect with the Case breakers and just people who enjoy true crime in general."

3. Arthur Lee Allen

   • Profile: Former elementary school teacher with a criminal past.
   • Evidence:
     • Presence at key crime scenes and possession of a bloody hunting knife.
     • Behavior indicative of a potential perpetrator, including prior violent remarks.
     • Ultimately ruled out by DNA and fingerprint analysis.
   • Quote:
     Ash (77:14): "Arthur Lee Allen was the most compelling suspect and the only person to ever be publicly identified by investigators."

---

Conclusion and Reflections

Elena and Ash reflect on the enduring mystery of the Zodiac Killer:

• Impact: The case remains one of America's most infamous unsolved mysteries, with a vast number of suspects but no definitive conclusion.
• Public Fascination: The Zodiac's cunning and media manipulation have cemented his place in true crime lore.
• Ongoing Investigation: Despite advancements in forensic science, the Zodiac case continues to elude closure, leaving both hosts and listeners pondering over the unanswered questions.

Notable Quote:
Ash (79:12): "We hope you keep listening... because can you imagine if that's solved within our lifetimes?"

---

Final Thoughts

Mordid skillfully navigates the complex narrative of the Zodiac Killer, balancing detailed research with engaging commentary. Hosts Elena and Ash provide a comprehensive overview of the case's progression, the suspects under scrutiny, and the lingering questions that keep true crime enthusiasts captivated.

---

Disclaimer: This summary is based on the provided transcript of Morbid Episode 668 and aims to encapsulate the episode's key discussions and insights without including non-content segments such as advertisements or intros.

Transcript

[Elena]

Hey weirdos. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about a place where the darkness never ends. Wondery. It's like stepping into a haunted mansion where the floorboards creak with ad free episodes and early access to new episodes lurks around every corner. So come join us if you dare. Morbid is available one week early and ad free only on Wondery. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[Ash]

You're listening to a Morbid network podcast. You know us, we live for a gripping story that makes you lean in like, wait, what just happened? That shocking twist, that unexpected turn. And we especially love when they're shown in a clever way from a perspective that you don't typically see. And that is exactly why we love Britbox. Britbox lets you stream the best of British tv and it is one of our many, many obsessions. Not only do they have some unbelievably good crime series, but they also have a huge selection of mysteries, comedies, thrillers, and even more that have been really shaking up our watch list. A lot of gems to chat about at dinner parties. And of course we all love the murder mysteries set in those quaint little thatched roof villages. We could watch those for hours. So try Britbox and see it differently when you stream the best of British TV, start watching with a free [e-mail] Life doesn't happen bi weekly, so why should Payday the money you earn can be in your hands today with Earn In. Earnin is an app gives you access to your pay as you work up to $150 per day with a max of $750 between paydays. Just download the Earn an app and verify your paycheck. Then access up to $150 a day as you work and leave an optional tip. Any money you access plus tips are automatically repaid from your next paycheck. I think Earn in is so good for so many different things because as we all know, emergencies and crappy things like, you know, an unexpected trip to the vet or you having to replace a always happen when you have like no money. But you won't find yourself in that position if you got Earn in download Earn in today spelled E A R N I N in the Google Play or Apple App Store. When you download the Earn an app, type in Morbid under Podcast when you sign up. It will really help the show. Morbid under Podcast Earnin is a financial technology company, not a bank. Cash outs are based on your available earnings. Standard cash outs take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Option to expedite your transfer for a free. Tips are voluntary and don't affect the service. See the cash out user agreement for details. Service not available in all states. Hey, weirdos.

[Elena]

I'm Elena.

[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[Elena]

And this is morbid.

[Ash]

I didn't like the look in your eye when you were saying that at all, that Mikey said. Nope.

[Elena]

Everybody's just shaking their head and be like, no. Creepy.

[Ash]

You went like. Like she got low. Sort of. No.

[Elena]

Yeah. I just wanted to be weird about it, and I succeeded. Congrats.

[Ash]

High five. Across the room. That was weird.

[Elena]

Yeah. I don't know. I'm in a weird mood.

[Ash]

Same weird day. Yes.

[Elena]

You know, maybe.

[Ash]

Hold on.

[Elena]

Hold on.

[Ash]

Everybody.

[Elena]

Sit tight.

[Ash]

Guys, just hold on a second. Just pull over. Okay?

[Elena]

You know what? While she's looking that up, we had our 666th episode recently, the Mark of the Beast.

[Ash]

Wait a second. Oh, Mercury is out of retrograde.

[Elena]

Oh, doesn't feel that way.

[Ash]

I know. Well, we're in the after effects right now. It got out of. It stopped retrograding. I think that's how you say that. Right? On April 7th. Oh, right now, I think it's the April 9th.

[Elena]

So we're still feeling the. Yeah, we're circling the. The toile.

[Ash]

Sometimes I feel like that's when it's the worst is the after effects. Yeah. So maybe that's why we feel so weird and why everybody's so annoying.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

It also might just be, like, facts.

[Elena]

Everything's just like. You know when you have that. That moment where everything just feels like it's taking forever.

[Ash]

God.

[Elena]

To move forward. Anything. Any answers you need. Anything. You're just like, literally anything. Yeah, it's that.

[Ash]

Sorry, I interrupted you.

[Elena]

What? Back to the Mark of the Beast.

[Ash]

Oh, yeah.

[Elena]

Episode.

[Ash]

That was so much fun.

[Elena]

It was. It was so much fun. And we had. We had a ghost join us named Nicholas.

[Ash]

My special guest, if you will.

[Elena]

He was. He was sassy. He was spicy.

[Ash]

He was that friend, I think.

[Elena]

Well, he was that friend that will be honest with you. And I like that about him.

[Ash]

So you agree. You think I'm dull?

[Elena]

No, he. He thought that the tale, like whatever tale I told was dull. He wasn't calling you dull.

[Ash]

Okay?

[Elena]

It's not about you, Ash.

[Ash]

No, no, but you said that he.

[Elena]

You. What?

[Ash]

Was it that you weren't dull or something? Oh, the episode.

[Elena]

I can't remember what he said.

[Ash]

No. Did he compliment at one Point.

[Elena]

And you were like that he complimented and I. And I took it. I received that for you. And then he said something mean and I said, I don't receive that.

[Ash]

And you said, because I think that I understand Nicholas. Well, he's in your home. So he is.

[Elena]

So I think I vibe with him.

[Ash]

Maybe he is related to us. Maybe I was gonna say maybe he's related to you. And then I was like, well, you're.

[Elena]

Like, I am also.

[Ash]

Then he would be related to me as well.

[Elena]

No, I think we. He was fun. It was fun to have him. During the episode. We. We just put on Ghost Tube and just kind of like let him chat with us. And I think we have a spooky episode coming up. Like, you know, one of our, like spooky insert thing here. Spooky loosey goosey roads, lakes, schools, graveyards, but towns, all that. We're going to do one of those coming up.

[Ash]

I think Spooky butts, probably.

[Elena]

Spooky butts, I think is where we're going to land on. And during our Spooky butts episode, our spooky butts, we're going to have Nicholas come back. We're going to throw on the ghost tube and just let. Let him kind of comment throughout the episode.

[Ash]

I hope it's him again. I feel like it will be what it. Well, when we turned off the episode and we kept doing something, somebody named Jacob came.

[Elena]

Yeah, we just got a gaggle of. A gaggle of guys just floating around. I don't know how any of us feel about that, but not great. I love Nicholas.

[Ash]

Personally, I love Nicholas.

[Elena]

I feel very connected to him. Jacob, I don't know. We haven't really time to get to know each other.

[Ash]

Yeah, we turned it off.

[Elena]

Yeah, we did.

[Ash]

We said bye.

[Elena]

So maybe Jacob will come through. But I think it'll be fun to do for our spooky episodes to have our pod lab spirits join us and just kind of comment.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

I think hopefully you guys will think that's kind of fun. You can let us know after the episode. If you're like, that was not fun, then totally let us know.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

But we figured it would be something fun to add to the episode.

[Ash]

I think you'll love it.

[Elena]

I think you're going to love it.

[Ash]

Personally, I love Nicholas. So, you know, Ghost Tube's fun and I think it's for reals.

[Elena]

Like, I'm just saying. Yeah.

[Ash]

I stand on ghost taste.

[Elena]

Fun as hell. No matter what it is, it's fun.

[Ash]

I agree.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

What's not fun. Is the Zodiac Killer.

[Elena]

No. He's not fun. No. And I'm pretty. He's probably dead, I think. Yeah, I would assume there's a good theory. Oh, okay.

[Ash]

I think he died.

[Elena]

Oh. Personally, I mean, it makes sense considering the time period, I guess. Like, it's a possibility.

[Ash]

Yeah. So it was Dragon is bag of bones, the late 60s. And everybody thought he was 20. So let's do some math.

[Elena]

So, I mean, you say let's. I will not be joining you.

[Ash]

So it's 2025, minus, we'll just say 1970 for the hell of it.

[Elena]

I like that.

[Ash]

That was 55 years ago. If you were 20. Let's say he was like 25. He could be like 80. Yeah.

[Elena]

Which is very possible.

[Ash]

Yeah. I know 80 year olds.

[Elena]

Damn. Imagine if he's. If the Zodiac Killer is still out. Just imagine if he's just someone's grandpa.

[Ash]

Oh, my God. Well, it's like Joseph James D'Angelo. Just, like, he was, like, in his late mid to late 70s when he got caught. Well, that's being a douchebag still.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

The thing about the Zodiac, though, is, like, I don't think he would have just gone away because he loved the theater and the dramatics and, like, loved even. Even when it seemed as though he stopped killing people, like, they stopped linking crimes to him officially, he was still sending shit in.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

To, like, newspapers and to the police and everything. So.

[Elena]

But maybe he's like a btk, but like a BTK with restraint, maybe. You know, because, like, BTK went away for a long time. Yeah.

[Ash]

And that. But then he couldn't help himself.

[Elena]

And then he couldn't help himself. But, like, who knows if, you know, whoever the Zodiac is, if something took precedent that maybe changed maybe the trajectory thing.

[Ash]

I just. I am not ruling it out. Like, it's definitely possible, but something about this dude, I feel like he wouldn't be able to resist that urge. And that's just me who has, like, no profiling experience whatsoever. But that's what my gut tells me.

[Elena]

Hey, I'm willing to listen to your gut.

[Ash]

Thank you.

[Elena]

I'll listen to it over here. Thank you.

[Ash]

She's trashed, but we're working on.

[Elena]

It's very loud and you have to listen to it all the time.

[Ash]

That's true. Even so, if I don't want to listen to your gut. She's telling me things.

[Elena]

She's always talking.

[Ash]

It's usually just.

[Elena]

I know. And it's never like, I'm never in distress.

[Ash]

No and sometimes it's not even when you're hungry.

[Elena]

Yeah, it's just, that's how my gut works. It's just loud, my gut doing the.

[Ash]

Damn thing like it does in general, but it works with instinct.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So that's a little bit about our guts. Now let's get into it. So we're back. We're back, everybody, with part two.

[Elena]

We're back.

[Ash]

In part one, we went over the first of the attacks, which started with the murders of 17 year old David Faraday and his girlfriend, who? Betty Lou Jensen. She was 16 years old and this was her first boyfriend ever.

[Elena]

That broke my heart.

[Ash]

Awful. On her first date. And then we went over the attacks on two more couples. 22 year old Darlene Fen and 19 year old Mike Moe. Then lastly, 22 year old Cecilia shepherd and 20 year old Brian Hartnell. And if you remember from part one, those last two attacks, both of the men survived. It doesn't actually seem like that was intentional, like on the part of the killer, but you know, it happened. And of course we got into the theatrics that surround the case as far as the taunting letters to the media, the weird ciphers, the crazy costume that he was wearing. Oh, with the clip on sunglasses.

[Elena]

So unsettling.

[Ash]

I'll never be over the clip on sunglasses and the flat top of the head. Like the executioner's hood being flat topped. Something about it, I just don't know.

[Elena]

In an executioner's hood. In and of itself. Horrifying. Yeah.

[Ash]

So now let's get into part two, which as most of us know, unfortunately does not end with the capture of this fool. But luckily the attack at Lake Berryessa produced more evidence than the first two attacks. Because remember, the first two attacks, there was like nothing to go off of basically. This gave us a little bit more. But not so luckily. Detectives had pretty much exhausted any lead that they had within like two weeks. Not great.

[Elena]

No, not great at all.

[Ash]

No, not great at all. The witness descriptions and communications with the killer allowed investigators to get some kind of insight into the person that they were looking for. But funny that I was just talking about profiling at that time. Psychological profiling was still years away. It wasn't a thing that was really, you know, tapped into yet. And any kind of profile that they developed at that time was really just speculation. For example, a psychiatrist in Napa, quote, suggested that the killer may be psychotic rather than psychopathic thinking, that the cipher revealed the zodiac's delusional thinking. Okay, now if you're like Me and you found that quote a little bit confusing. According to a quick Google, psychosis, AKA being psychotic, is a symptom of mental illness involving a loss of touch with reality.

[Elena]

Oh, interesting.

[Ash]

But psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy and remorse. Okay, that's the difference between those two things.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Because when I first heard that, I was like, isn't that the same thing?

[Elena]

Excuse me.

[Ash]

And Google said, no, no, she sang it to me.

[Elena]

He said, nor.

[Ash]

She said, nor girl. So within a matter of a few weeks, all the theories from a ton of sources started to merge into kind of one big theory that created a kind of unofficial and obviously again, highly speculative profile of the killer. In early October, a reporter from the Sacramento Bee wrote, he's fairly bright, but his spelling and grammar indicate a poor education. And this is a quote. He is fat. So he probably does not do too well with girls. In fact, he has unwittingly indicated a sexual inadequacy. Oh, and he is an astrology fan. And when the signs are right, he goes out and finds young boys and girls together who symbolize everything life has denied him. Wow. Oh, the 60s.

[Elena]

I don't even know which thing they had on first.

[Ash]

Yeah. To be quite honest, yeah. Damn, that was journalism.

[Elena]

Yeah, sure was.

[Ash]

But like a lot of the theories about the identity and motives of the Zodiac that have come out in, you know, five decades since the first attacks, it's unclear what led reporters and investigators to mo like some of these conclusions, and most of them. But while everybody was speculating and piecing together the clues that they did have, the Zodiac was back out on the streets. On the afternoon of October 11, 29 year old cab driver Paul Stein got ready to head out for his shift for the night. Paul was a PhD candidate at San Francisco State College, and he was working as a cab driver just to cover the cost of his education. He was just a few months away from finishing his degree requirements and would have been on on track to graduate in January. Not far at all. By 9:30pm Paul had finished his first fair of the night and he got a notification from the dispatcher about another fare needing to be picked up. While he was on his way to get the second fare, he stopped to pick up a single passenger, a man who hailed him at the intersection of Mason and Geary streets. The man asked to be dropped off at Washington and Maple streets, which was in a pretty wealthy neighborhood in San Francisco, Presidio Heights. So Paul entered the location in the logbook and started the meter and then pulled Away from the curb. What happened next is really just based off of speculation Based on evidence found at the scene. When they arrived at the intersection the passenger had requested, the man instructed Paul to drive just one block further to the corner of Washington and Cherry streets. Once there, the man produced a 9 millimeter handgun and placed the barrel to the back of Paul's head, Just behind his right ear, and pulled the truck the trigger, killing Paul instantly.

[Elena]

Come on.

[Ash]

Nobody was really around to witness the. The actual shooting itself. But the sound of the gunshot was loud enough to attract the attention of three teenagers who were in an apartment building across the street. And by the time they went to the window to see what the hell was happening, they actually saw the killer move from the back seat to the front passenger seat, where it seemed like he was going through Paul's pockets and some kind of robbery.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So while one of the kids called the police, the other two went down to a lower floor of the building to try to get a better look at the guy in the cab. And from their new position, they could see the shooter wiping down the surfaces on the cab with what looked like a cloth. Oh, and then he moved Paul's body into an upright position and exited the cab through the passenger door. Oh, he wiped down the handle before and after closing it. Once he was outside the car, the shooter walked around to the driver's side, Opened the door, and repositioned Paul's body again, since it had kind of like slid down when he got down and forward when he got out. And then after wiping down the inside and outside of that, the driver's side door, the man closed it and just calmly walked away from the scene toward Cherry street, like he was just some normal fucking dude walking down the street after taking a cab.

[Elena]

That's creepy.

[Ash]

You imagine watching that as a teenager.

[Elena]

Like, watching that turn this body around multiple times. Wiping.

[Ash]

No, wiping the doors down, like.

[Elena]

I hate it.

[Ash]

So when the witnesses placed a call to the police, for some reason, there was some kind of miscommunication. And for whatever reason, the dispatcher thought that the shooter was a black man and advised responding officers to that detail. As a result, on their way to the scene, those officers drove right past the actual shooter as they traveled down Jackson street, Paying no attention to this white man casually walking away, Even though he was the only person in the vicinity of the crime scene at that point.

[Elena]

Oh, come on.

[Ash]

How did that happen?

[Elena]

How was. Was he wearing the outfit that. I don't know, actually, because maybe the miscommunication was, like, the Black hood. You know what I mean? Maybe that was not relayed correctly or it didn't get heard correctly.

[Ash]

That is possible. You know, I don't think so, though, because I think that would have been like, a major detail that the. The kids.

[Elena]

Yeah. So maybe. Maybe straight up racism.

[Ash]

It might have been straight up racism.

[Elena]

That's probably it.

[Ash]

Because it was again, like late 60s, early 70s.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Because I don't think he would have been wearing the outfit, because I think Paul, like, I think that would have been startling. Yeah. It wouldn't have got to the final destination.

[Elena]

No, definitely not. You know, like, if he just popped that hood on.

[Ash]

Yeah. I think he was just dressed like a man.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

And actually, you know what? Yeah, I don't.

[Elena]

He does. The more I think about it. Yeah.

[Ash]

And later on, the teenagers describe him, so.

[Elena]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Ash]

So San Francisco police officers Armen Palacetti and Frank PETA were the first to arrive at the scene. And they found two of the three teenagers, teenage witnesses, just standing near the cab, just taking the scene in.

[Elena]

Jesus.

[Ash]

After moving them to. I know. After moving them to a location further from the scene, they took their statement, statements, which is when they realized that that initial description of the shooter had been wrong. Like. Like somehow. Lost in translation. Palacetti quickly radio dispatch with the update of a corrected description, and that went out to responding officers. But by the time the additional officers got to that area on Jackson street where they had just passed a white man and, like, the only man in the vicinity.

[Elena]

Jesus Christ.

[Ash]

He was gone.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

Completely gone. So back at the crime scene, Officer Pellisetti approached the cab and looked inside. By that point, Paul's body was again slumped forward. And the officer could see that there was a hole in his head right behind his right ear. Between the injury and the large amount of blood in the front of the cab, it was obvious that Paul had died. Unfortunately, in the backseat of the cab, the killer had left a pair of size 7 black leather gloves, which was a noticeably small size for a man at that time. They also found a single 9 millimeter shell casing and 30 fingerprints.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Which, remember, it's a cab, so.

[Elena]

Yeah, tons of people. Yeah.

[Ash]

But among the fingerprints was one that belonged to Paul Stine and one unidentified print that was streaked with blood, indicating that it most likely belonged to the shooter. Palasetti and the other officers also noticed that Paul's wallet and keys to the cab were missing, which actually, at that point, did make them think that this was a robbery that had gone wrong. So Pella said he Requested an ambulance and additional officers with dogs to comb the area in search of the suspect. And within a few minutes, all 7K9 units had responded to the request, along with a ton of San Francisco police officers. A large number of San Francisco firefighters were also called to the scene so that they could set up their ladders and high powered lamps to kind of like illuminate the area more. And once they collected all the evidence and removed the body, investigators left the scene still thinking that this was some kind of robbery. Because actually at that point it was pretty common for cab drivers to get robbed or face some kind of violence like this.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So, you know, they just thought that that was it.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And the search teams and the dogs didn't turn up anything else in search for the killer. Based on the description of the shooter from the teenagers who reported the shooting, investigators were actually able to produce a sketch of the killer which was published in the local papers a few days later. This man was described as a white man. So the teenagers. The teenagers had not said to the.

[Elena]

Yeah, so that was clearly either just straight up racism or there was some very strange miscommunication happening.

[Ash]

I don't.

[Elena]

I'm leaning towards the. The former.

[Ash]

The racism.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I don't understand how the black man comment was made because all three said he was a white man, 25 to 30 years old, 58 or 59 inches tall, and weighed about 150 pounds. They said he had clear. Yeah, definitely. I always wonder how people come up with that. I have no. I don't even know how tall I am.

[Elena]

I couldn't tell how tall someone is or how much they weigh. If you paid me a zillion dollars.

[Ash]

No, not at all.

[Elena]

I could not. I'd be the worst witness ever.

[Ash]

100. I. I also just like, remember people looking completely different than they do.

[Elena]

I'm not great at that either.

[Ash]

Yeah. I. This would not be great for me.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

But they also said he has reddish brown hair, which he wears in a crew cut, and was wearing heavy rimmed glasses and a navy blue or black jacket at the time of the slaying. Okay, so not. Not the outfit.

[Elena]

Bombas makes the most comfortable socks, underwear, and T shirts. Warning, Bombas are so absurdly comfortable, you may throw out all your other clothes.

[Ash]

Sorry, do we legally have to say that?

[Elena]

No. This is just how I talk. And I really love my Bombas. They do feel that good.

[Ash]

And they do good too. One item purchased equals one item donated.

[Elena]

To feel good and do good, go to bombas.com wondry and use code wondry for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M b-s.com wondry and use code Wondry at checkout.

[Ash]

If you're into sneakers, streetwear or just keeping your style sharp, you've got to check out JD they're a global sports fashion retailer with over 300 stores across the US and they carry the best of the best. Nike, Jordan, New Balance, Adidas and more. Whether you're chasing the latest drop or need a solid everyday look, JD Makes it easy to shop it all in one spot. They stay tapped into what's trending so you don't have to check them [e-mail] that's jdsports.com and upgrade your game now. It wasn't until two days later, on October 13, that Paul Stine's murder was linked to the Zodiac. That afternoon a letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle containing one single page note. Written in what was now familiar writing and in a blue felt tipped handwriting of the killer. He said, this is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington street and Maple street last night. To prove this, here is a blood stained piece of his shirt which he did include. He said, I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay Area. The SF Police, San Francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly. Instead of holding road races with their motorcycles, seeing who could make the most noise, the car driver should have just parked their cars and sat there waiting for me to come out of COVID School children make nice targets. I think I shall, I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the red. The front tire and pick off the kitties as they come bouncing out.

[Elena]

Wow. What I I remember hearing that specific line.

[Ash]

I do too. I've read that school children make nice targets. And then he said like come bouncing.

[Elena]

The little kitties as if they come bouncing out. Like. I remember reading that and just being horrified. Sinister how? Sin? Exactly. Like sinister and depraved that is.

[Ash]

And it's just like he starts with couples, then he targets this cab driver.

[Elena]

So that's maybe I'll just kill kids now.

[Ash]

And now he's going to kids, right? Like what the Nobody's safe.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

Which we're going to get into.

[Elena]

Literally nobody's safe.

[Ash]

Now just like the other letters, the latest note was signed simply with those crosshairs, the symbol. And as proof of its authenticity, like I said, the letter writer also included a swatch of fabric ripped from Paul St's blood soaked shirt.

[Elena]

So he was like, this is me. Yeah.

[Ash]

And they also did an analysis of the handwriting, and it concluded that it matched the other letters that the San Francisco area papers had gotten a few months earlier. Police Captain Martin Lee told told reporters, there are very strong indications, including the handwriting, that we are dealing with the same person. All of the evidence is pointing toward this. And that inclusion of Paul's gray and white striped shirt was irrefutable proof that the killings were linked. And if the previous attacks were any indication, there was going to be more murders to.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

The Zodiac had already made mention of shooting a busload of school children. And as far as the public knew, the police were no closer to stopping him than they had been after the first murders of David Faraday and Betty Jensen. They made no progress on this case. They didn't have the slightest idea who this guy was. And in a city as large as San Francisco, he could have been anywhere. He could have been anyone.

[Elena]

Absolutely.

[Ash]

An article from the LA Times read, He could be old Mrs. So and so's boy who never says boo and still lives at home. Or that bachelor who keeps to himself and never seems to have any fun. Or that poor guy who works so hard at that lousy job and never complains and never lets on that his marriage is miserable. Damn, that's bleak the way that they wrote back then. Yeah, And I remember that clip. I remember he could be Mrs. So and so's boy who never says boo.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

For some reason, that always stuck out to me. But if we know anything about the 60s and 70s in California, or really anything about the last few episodes of Morbid, we know that Californians had to contend with killers in the past. Yeah. Some of these killers, obviously, like we've talked about, were theatrical and, like, egomaniacal. But the Zodiac wasn't like anything anybody had ever experienced before. Like we were just saying, he changed his method of killing unexpectedly changed his preferred victims. He performed his attacks and murders with a kind of showiness, too. And a killer with an unpredictable victim pattern. Hunting the streets of San Francisco was terrifying enough, but this guy is doing it while wearing a fucking executioner. Yeah, like that adds.

[Elena]

That's different. That's different.

[Ash]

Yeah. It definitely.

[Elena]

For sure.

[Ash]

I can't imagine living in this area at that time. No, because I. For me, it's the costume, but also the fact that literally, like I said earlier, no one is safe.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Couples, cab drivers, kids. And he would just switch at a moment's notice. So in the wake of the most recent letters from the Zodiac, the Sheriff's department assigned more than 70 deputies to guard the school buses as they transported children to and from school. It seemed like the killer was expanding his geographic range to a degree, too. So a kind of interagency task force was assembled which included officers from all local and regional law enforcement agencies with the intention of pooling resources and evidence that could lead to an arrest. Which is kind of profound because it doesn't happen a lot. Yeah, no, these agencies work together.

[Elena]

No, that's actually the most shocking.

[Ash]

And I think it also points to how desperate they were to catch this guy. Almost a year had passed since the Zodiac first struck in Vallejo. And in that time, he had now killed five and seriously wounded two others, again, leaving very little evidence behind and just openly taunting investigators and the public. But while it seemed like the Zodiac was only just starting his rampage, interestingly, Paul Stine would turn out to be the last victim officially linked to the Zodiac.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

I don't know for sure if Paul really was the Zodiac's last victim, but officially, he is okay. That being said, a lack of victims didn't mean a lack of attention. And the man known as the Zodiac Killer was about to be elevated to a status that had never been seen before in American history. Within a few days of receiving and publishing the Stein letter, public concern over the threat posed had reached a point where the law enforcement agencies couldn't ignore it. It so Chief of Police Martin Lee released into All Points bulletin containing instructions for school bus drivers who might find themselves the target of the killer. The bulletin read, and this is just. I can't imagine putting my kids on a school bus during this time.

[Elena]

Oh, God.

[Ash]

It read, if a tire is punctured or shots are heard, keep the bus in motion at all costs. Instruct passengers to lie on the floor. Attract as much attention as possible by sounding the horn, flashing the lights, and erotic driving if necessary.

[Elena]

What the.

[Ash]

Like, what if you can't keep the bus in motion?

[Elena]

Well, not in the.

[Ash]

Have you ever popped a tire? You could sometimes.

[Elena]

You can't keep going, and you want to say, like, oh, I. I would never put my child on the bus.

[Ash]

What else do you do?

[Elena]

But some people didn't have a choice. Like, they didn't have any other way to do anything. And it's like, what the. Imagine reading that.

[Ash]

No. And what do you do? Yeah, what do you do? I would just be, like, at home. I think I would.

[Elena]

I just lose everything down and we'll lose everything because that's so scary.

[Ash]

Yeah, absolutely. It is. Holy. And then thinking, like, these little kids getting on the bus and, like. Like, if that were to happen, the bus driver's just supposed to tell them to lay on the ground.

[Elena]

These little kids.

[Ash]

Like, that's awful. So somehow the notice from Lee did help reassure a lot of the drivers. But he still couldn't help but take a swipe at the killer, the police chief. He referred to the Zodiac as a, quote, clumsy criminal, liar, and a latent homosexual.

[Elena]

Huh.

[Ash]

Like, what. What, if anything, indicated his sexual preference?

[Elena]

Did you come out with that?

[Ash]

That's. That's something really, that all. That's neither here nor there.

[Elena]

That I. I just am like. Please point to where you found that.

[Ash]

Like, what point? It's just guys being dudes sometimes, dudes being bros, you know, it's just what you can call that guy a lot of things. To just pull out of thin air and be like. To just be like, he's a latent homosexual.

[Elena]

He's gay.

[Ash]

He's gay, and he's pretending he's not. Okay. Alrighty. I don't think that's why we're here, but damn, sounds good. Thanks for being professional about it.

[Elena]

Let's focus on the thing that will definitely help us catch him.

[Ash]

Yeah, exactly. I'm also like, yeah, that's good. Needle. The crazy man threatening to shoot up a bus full of children.

[Elena]

Yeah. And that's the other thing. It's like, oh, yeah. Cause first of all, we have no fucking clue what his sexual orientation is, nor should it matter.

[Ash]

Nope.

[Elena]

But also, are we really pretending that straight people don't kill people more often than not really pretending that straight men have not, like, made up the majority of serial killers in the entire history of the world? Like, are we really pretending that right.

[Ash]

Now it was just an opportunity?

[Elena]

Gotta be guy like, okay, like, I'm.

[Ash]

Not defending the Zodiac by any means here, but that was just stupid. No, of course you're not defending Jesus Christ.

[Elena]

It just doesn't help. No, it's just not helpful.

[Ash]

And it doesn't help the public.

[Elena]

This person. No, we're looking to catch this person. Give me things that I can see with my eyeballs and witness with my eyeballs.

[Ash]

And if you want to kneel him, do it in a way to drag him out.

[Elena]

Yeah, just be like, he's. Say he's fucking pathetic.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

Say he's a fucking pathetic loser who has nothing else to take control of. So he's taking control of vulnerable people in vulnerable positions.

[Ash]

Exactly.

[Elena]

There you go, yeah, I just did it. Oh.

[Ash]

So the California Attorney General, Thomas lynch, also got involved, acting as a coordinator for various state and local agencies involved in the now growing manhunt, and he provided updates to the public. In his initial statement, lynch acknowledged the threat to the public. You couldn't not.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But assured them that a competent task force was pursuing the killer. He said, our law enforcement officers are competent, they are concerned, and they will provide all the protection possible. And in an effort to quell public hysteria, he told them, the odds are that no tragedy will occur. But it's like, I feel like the odds are actually the opposite at this point. If we're actually, like, being real, if we're, like, really looking at this, if.

[Elena]

We'Re living in a place of reality, I feel like.

[Ash]

Because odds are that the Zodiac will strike again. Because if history has told us anything, he has. Yeah.

[Elena]

Let's be on alert.

[Ash]

Luckily, here, it worked out for him.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

This statement, but that up. I was like, what was that based on?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Anyway, at the same time, he also issued an appeal to the Zodiac, urging the killer to turn himself in. He said, he's obviously an intelligent individual. He knows that eventually he'll be taken into custody, so it would be best that he give himself up before tragedy is written in blood. That's the way you go about that.

[Elena]

There you go.

[Ash]

And it's like, that's the way to go about that. You do have to do a little, like, complimenting, and then you kind of threaten them a little bit, like, you know what I mean? There's a way to go about it. Lynch's assurances were more than just lip service, though, or him trying to simply placate a very increasingly worried public. In Napa county, the school district, 64 school buses were given armed police escorts every day as they covered roughly 4,000 miles, transporting children to 28 different schools.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

So they really put in a lot of resources.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And additionally, a volunteer spotter was added to every school bus, and their job was to watch for any unusual activity along the bus route.

[Elena]

What a scary job.

[Ash]

Yeah. Seriously. But the statements in the press coverage of the manhunt prompted a massive public outpouring, and within a few days, the San Francisco police had received hundreds of tips, but none provided any useful information. Among the most bizarre was a call from a man claiming to be the killer and offering a strange offer of surrender. Basically, on October 21, the caller told investigators he wanted them to arrange for a nationally recognized lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, to appear on the local Morning show AM San Francisco the next morning. And he said he would call in to discuss a possible surrender. And he said if Bailey's not available, he would settle for California defense attorney Mar Melvin Belli, who had made a name for himself. He actually represented Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin Ruby and plenty of other high profile people. But San Francisco attempted to reach F. Lee Bailey, but when he was unavailable, they contacted Belly and he happily agreed to appear on the show. A recording of the call was played for Brian Hartnell, who was one of the last victims attacked, in an effort to identify it as the man who had attacked him. But he wasn't able to provide confirmation, unfortunately. So the next morning, host Jim Dunbar, who was joined by Melvin Belly, urged regular listeners not to call in so that the lines would remain completely for the killer. For nearly an hour, the two men just chatted on air as they waited for this supposed killer to call, who finally called in about 50 minutes into the show. In the clip, Belly can heard be heard saying, did you hear me? And a disembodied voice replies, yes, I did. And then hangs up the phone.

[Elena]

Huh.

[Ash]

A few minutes later, the man claiming to be the Zodiac called back and they started a strange conversation where he told Belly to refer to him as Sam. Like the name Sam.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

Yeah. Throughout the conversation, both Dunbar and Billy tried to get some confirmation that the caller was the man who had called the police the night before, if not the actual killer. But Sam, quote unquote, dodged their questions and just continued insisting that he was the killer. He said, I don't want to give myself up. I want to kill those kids. I'm getting one of my headaches now. I've got to kill. I've got to kill. And this is just in like a morning show. Like, damn, that's the scariest thing ever.

[Elena]

Hello.

[Ash]

Literally, hello. After roughly 20 minutes, the caller told Belly, meet me on top of the Fairmont Hotel with nobody else or I'll jump.

[Elena]

No, thank you.

[Ash]

So Belly refused to meet the man on the roof.

[Elena]

Thank you.

[Ash]

But he said they, they ended up agreeing on an alternate location. He was like, I'll meet you somewhere. So they made plans to meet at 10:30am but when belly arrived at this secret location, there was no one there to meet him.

[Elena]

Huh.

[Ash]

He waited until 11:15, but when Sam, quote, unquote, failed to show up, he just abandoned the plan and left.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

Now that Sam didn't show up at the agreed upon location didn't come as a surprise to a lot of people. Captain Lee not The below deck star.

[Elena]

I knew you were gonna say that.

[Ash]

The report he, an officer told reporters, I think the caller has a problem, but whether he's involved in the killings I cannot say. Yeah, so he was like, I think this might just be a sick and individual.

[Elena]

Makes sense.

[Ash]

The dispatcher who had taken the call from the supposed killer the night before, listened to the audio from AM San Francisco and was certain that the voice of the caller from the night before was not the same voice that called to speak to Belly.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

According to the dispatcher, the caller, quote, revealed knowledge about one or more of the five murders charged to the Zodiac that had never been made public. So she was like, they told the dispatcher, said they said that the night before, but, but they didn't sound like the guy who called in. So whether it was the killer who called or not, the opportunity to continue contact was lost once the show was over.

[Elena]

Ah.

[Ash]

Unfortunately. So after the botched interview on AM San Francisco, the Zodiac went quiet for a few weeks until finally popping back up with a greeting card and yet another cipher sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, followed a day later by a rambling seven page letter known now as the Dripping pen card and the Bun Cross bomb letter.

[Elena]

The Dripping pen card.

[Ash]

The Dripping pen card. Crappy, very crepe. On the front of the greeting card was an illustration of a wet fountain pen hanging up to dry and pre printed text that said, Sorry, I haven't written, but I just washed my pen. Wow, like what?

[Elena]

That's upsetting. I don't know why, but it is.

[Ash]

No, I know that's so creepy, but you can't explain why.

[Elena]

Sorry, I just washed my pen.

[Ash]

Sorry, just washing my pen. Inside the card contained the pre printed message. And I can't do a thing with it.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

So the card just said like, just like on the front, Sorry, I just washed my pen and I can't do a thing with it.

[Elena]

Nope, I don't like that at all. What? I don't like it.

[Ash]

Into this pre printed message the killer added, this is a Zodiac speaking, which is a dumb thing to say because you're not speaking.

[Elena]

And also like we know. Yeah, like you don't need to. Yeah, you don't need to do that. It doesn't need to be so official.

[Ash]

He continued, I though, but it's supposed to say, thought you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. P. S, could you print this new cipher on your front page? I get awfully lonely when I'm ignored so lonely I could do my thing and the do my thing so lonely I could do my thing Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. And the word thing was written in bold, dark letters and underlined six times.

[Elena]

Huh?

[Ash]

Yeah. Underneath the text, the writer drew the crosshair symbol, of course, with some text beneath that read DES. Like December, July, Aug, Sept, Oct.7. So the dates on the bottom were quickly interpreted as a taunt to the police, with the killer trying to indicate that he had actually killed seven people, not five.

[Elena]

That makes sen.

[Ash]

According to author Michael Cole, there was a high profile double murder in San Jose on August 3, 1969. Two young women, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy, were savagely murdered, each being stabbed more than a hundred times.

[Elena]

Oh, my. What?

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

And Cole claims there are many who believe these to be the Zodiac 6th and 7th victims. But there's no evidence conclusively linking him to either murder.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

And actually, several years later, a man named Carl Werner pleaded guilty to the murders of Furlong and Snooze and Snoozy, as well as a third victim. Oh, okay. Who knows?

[Elena]

All right.

[Ash]

But the second letter received by the examiner, which was much different than anything the Zodiac had sent before, among the more obvious differences, according to Cole, was that the previous communication, quote, had been noticeably matter of fact and somewhat detached. But this letter exhibited a clear sense of palpable hostility, primarily at law enforcement. The letter read in part, this is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of October. I have killed seven people. I have grown rather angry with the police for telling their lies about me. So I shall challenge the way of collecting slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone when I commit my murders. They shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, plus a few fake accidents, etc. The police shall never catch me because I've been too clever for them. If you wonder why I was wiping the cab down, I was leaving fake clues for the police to run all over town with. As one might say, I gave the cops some busy work to keep them happy. Hey, pig, doesn't it rile you up to have you nose rubbed in your boo boos? If you cops think I'm going to take on a bus in the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads for someone.

[Elena]

Using the term boo boos. That's very aggressive. Boo boos. Very aggressive letter for someone using the word boo boos. Last year long crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe, with her car. Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution.

[Ash]

We continue to find ourselves at an impasse.

[Elena]

I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. But now the case is back in the spotlight and one question still did Karen reed kill John O'Keefe?

[Ash]

The evidence is overwhelming that Karen Reed is innocent.

[Elena]

How does it feel to be a cop killer? Karen I'm Kristen Thorne, investigative reporter with Law and Crime and host of the podcast the Retrial. This isn't just a retrial trial. It's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be. I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her. Listen to episodes of Karen the Retrial exclusively and ad free on Wondery plus.

[C]

Lamont Jones's world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. From Wondery comes Death County, Penns, a chilling true story of corruption and cover ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many and powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried. With never before heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County, Pennsylvania pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now. Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

[Elena]

That's upsetting and I don't like it. Like, nothing about that is something I want to be around. I don't like that. The fact that he's saying I'm gonna make him look like routine robberies and accidents and shit so you can't trace them to an actual murder or trace them back to me is so scary.

[Ash]

It's so scary. And it's possible he did that.

[Elena]

Well, that's the thing. I'm like, so did you do that?

[Ash]

Because remember, like I said, Paul Stine is the last official victim. Yeah, but did he kill like, who knows how many other people he could have killed and made it look like accidents? Because obviously there's a degree here where people are like, I don't even Know that he's that intelligent. Like, look at all the grammatical mistakes he makes. I think those are on purpose. Yeah, possibly. And it's like, he has gotten away so far. So he does know how to make things look a certain way, you know?

[Elena]

Yeah. I mean, he definitely.

[Ash]

I think he was capable of making accidents.

[Elena]

So it's like he's. He's, at the very least, capable of doing that.

[Ash]

Right.

[Elena]

And. But then you also have to look at it like, the Jack the Ripper letters, and you have to say which ones are from him, which ones are copycats, because, you know, there's always going to be some, you know, level of people who want to get involved with this shit.

[Ash]

Oh, yeah. And they're. And we'll get into it. There were plenty of letters that were sent that were not from the Zodiac.

[Elena]

This one is talking about the seven victims again. It's talking about Wiping down the cab.

[Ash]

Wiping down the cab. And there were certain things that were not made.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

That the public was not made aware of.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So it's interesting, but to the whole ending of, like, if you cops think I'm going to take a bus in the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads. Like, whoa.

[Ash]

And it's also, like, why wouldn't we think that?

[Elena]

Well, it's like, that's like, I don't.

[Ash]

Get what your aim is.

[Elena]

Are you trying to say that you do have a victim profile and, like, that's totally against it? So, like, you're dumb for thinking I was serious.

[Ash]

Yeah, I mean, I guess I feel.

[Elena]

Like it's him being like, oh, you just don't get my humor, maybe, like, to him, that's humor, maybe.

[Ash]

Yeah. You know, I mean, because he's a sick individual.

[Elena]

Yeah. And I feel like that's him being like. Like, you don't get my eyebrow humor. You know, like, that's. That feels like that.

[Ash]

It does, yeah.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Well, the letter goes on to describe the killer's new plan, where he would place a bomb described as a, quote, death machine and quote, my masterpiece on a local bus.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

And the letter included a list of components used to create the bomb, as well as a kind of crude diagram in the same blue felt tip pen used to write the letter. The letter ended in a postscript instructing the editors to print the diagram of the bomb. And on the back, final page was a second postscript that said, to prove that I am the Zodiac, ask that Vallejo cop about my electric gun site, which I used to start my collecting of slaves.

[Elena]

It's so weird to me when killers do this.

[Ash]

Yeah. Like taunt like this because it's such.

[Elena]

Like, it feels like such 12 year old kid behavior to be like, ask him. Ask him. Yeah, Like Dave. Yeah, I did that. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like what?

[Ash]

It's like in his mind, he's like a super villain, not a murderer.

[Elena]

Yeah. It's like, it's very strange. It's such immature behavior. It is to be begging for attention for these awful things you have done. Oh. And he's like, it's very acting out, like child acting out in a negative way for any kind of attention.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

Situation. So I'm just like, what? It's so weird when they do this.

[Ash]

No, it's bizarre.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Well. Six weeks or so later, on December 20th, the one year anniversary of David Faraday and Betty Jensen's murders, the Zodiac wrote again. This time to Melvin Belly in the now familiar blue felt tip pen. In much better handwriting, though he writes.

[Elena]

The fact that he writes with blue ink. Yeah, I'm sorry, I hate blueing.

[Ash]

I don't like blue ink either.

[Elena]

Yeah, I get frustrated with blue ink.

[Ash]

But he wrote and again in much better handwriting. Interesting. He said, dear Melman, this is the Zodiac speaking. I wish you. I wish you a happy Christmas. Spelled incorrectly the same way he had in the first letter. The one thing I ask of you is this. Please help me. I cannot reach out for help because of this. In me won't let me. I'm finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check. I am afraid I will lose control again and take my 9th and possibly 10th victim. Please help me. I am drowning at the time. At the moment, the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig it in. Plus the trigger mech requires much work to get it adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long from no. 9, I will lose all control of myself. Plus, set the bomb up. Please help me. I cannot remain in control for much longer. That one was really hard to read because the grammatical errors are aplenty. Yeah. The letter was signed with the same crosshairs now common among all Zodiac letters. And it included another swatch of fabric from Paul Stein's shirt.

[Elena]

That's fucked up.

[Ash]

Which meant it was an authentic letter.

[Elena]

It's. He's like devolving in such a strange way.

[Ash]

Yes.

[Elena]

Like they're so different like you from that one where he's like, oh, I think like shooting the kitties as they bounce out of school. Will be fun. And then here he's like, I don't want to kill anyone else.

[Ash]

I need help.

[Elena]

I need help. Help. And you're like, what the.

[Ash]

But he's still saying he's making this bomb, but, like, it's too much work. And he. Yeah, but, like, can't get help. He's gonna use it.

[Elena]

He's gonna do it. And his first letter that he wrote, like, a long time ago was, like, saying how killing people was something he loved to do, and it gave him excitement. It was better than sex.

[Ash]

But now he doesn't want.

[Elena]

Now here he's like, I don't want to take my ninth and 10th victims. And it's like, what the. What is happening? Yeah.

[Ash]

And it's.

[Elena]

This is some scary, scattered thinking.

[Ash]

It is whoever this individual was, they.

[Elena]

Were scary and scary. All of the above.

[Ash]

Yeah. A few days later, Melvin Belly contacted the Chronicle, who did agree to publish his response to the Zodiac on the front page of the December 20th, 28th edition of the paper. Belly said, you have asked for my help, and I promise you I will do everything in my power to provide you with whatever help you may need or want. He offered to meet the killer in a private location of his choosing. But as the days passed without a response, it became clear that the Zodiac had no intention of actually turning himself in or meeting with Belly.

[Elena]

You wonder if that was just a ploy to get him to get a response. Yeah. And to get a response, that's like, we'll help you. We'll do whatever you want. You know, like, that gives him what he needs.

[Ash]

And I think it probably would have made him, like, laugh, like, chuckle.

[Elena]

Well, and I think it makes him feel powerful because he just got them all to tuck their tails between their legs and say, which. And I'm not saying that against them, because what else did they. What other choice did they have?

[Ash]

Yeah, they're scared that he's going to.

[Elena]

Be like, go yourself. Go kill some kids. Like, right. They're not going to set him up for that. So it's like, it's not their fault. But that is what he wanted, I think.

[Ash]

Yep. I agree. After the letter was sent to Belly in late December, communication from the Zodiac ceased for several months until a pair of letters showed up at the offices of the Chronicle in late April, about a week apart. Part like the other letters, the latest seemed to be an attempt to manipulate the press into keeping the story alive on the front pages. Because, remember, there's no new leads. He hasn't killed anybody. That the police can link to him. So this isn't being reported on exactly how it was when it was like, when everybody was in the thick of it, but in these letters, the Zodiac demanded that investigators release, quote, all of the details of his bus bomb threat and called on San Franciscans to wear. To start wearing quotes some nice Zodiac buttons.

[Elena]

Oh, this. He's delulu in a way that you can't even.

[Ash]

And it's just. It's like spiraling out of control.

[Elena]

It's power. He's looking for power. He's looking to be in control. That's why he's gonna be like, let me see if I can get people to start wearing buttons. My signature, like, with my. The Krugo there on it, you know, I mean, like, let me see how far I can flex this power I have over everybody.

[Ash]

Just the fact that he thought that people might be willing to do that.

[Elena]

Is so wild, because he thought he scared. If he scared people enough that they would think they were safe if they wore those buttons. Like, we're listening to you. We'll do what you say, right? Because he just saw them bend and say, we'll help you however we can. We'll do whatever you want. What do you want? He says, print it on the front page. They print it on the front page. So he's sitting there going, how far can I take this?

[Ash]

I'll get them to wear buttons.

[Elena]

So this is power. This is all power. Like, I've. This is such a clear case of power trip. It is in the worst way possible.

[Ash]

Yeah. Well, the April letters repeated their earlier claims that the killer had developed a massive bomb and was planning to leave it in an undisclosed public location in order to cause. Now he's at the most damage possible. Like the previous threats, this obviously caused considerable panic among the public. But after a few weeks without an evidence, any kind of evidence about an actual bomb, things slowly started to return to normal. And like the previous letters, the April letters stated that the killer had taken more lives, of course. But the police had yet to catch on. He said, I have killed 10 people to date. It would have been a lot more, except I was swamped out by the rain. We had a while back, the, like, oh, okay.

[Elena]

Oh, cool.

[Ash]

More letters followed. A few months later, in late June, the editor of the Chronicle received a note along with a new cipher saying, this is the Zodiac speaking. I've become very upset with the people of the San Fran Bay area. They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice crosshair symbols. Button. I promised to punish them if they did not comply by annihilating a full school bus. But now school is out for the summer, so I punished them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a.38. Oh, now this is interesting.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

The note was signed with the usual crosshair symbol, of course, and text indicating that the Zodiac had now killed 12 people and was accompanied by what would be his fourth and final cipher. So a lot of people think that the line about the man being shot in his car with a.38 was a reference to the June 19th death of 25 year old San Francisco police officer. I looked up his name. I'm not positive there's a few different pronunciations, but I think the best one is Richard Radek.

[Elena]

Okay, right, yeah.

[Ash]

So around 5:30am, this officer was sitting in his car and had started writing a parking ticket for a vehicle parked in front of him, or sorry, parked in front of a hydrant, when an unknown assailant approached him from behind and fired three shots through the driver's side window.

[Elena]

Damn.

[Ash]

Yeah. It is worth noting though, when referencing the first five murders in his letters, the Zodiac offered some form of evidence that validated his claims, like an unpublished detail or in the case of Paul Stine's murder, a piece of physical evidence. But the claims made in the letter since Paul Stine's death didn't include any verifications, and he probably could have. He very likely did learn about them through the press.

[Elena]

Oh, so there you go.

[Ash]

Yeah. But still, the letters are believed to have been sent by the Zodiac himself.

[Elena]

Okay, so who knows?

[Ash]

It's possible two more letters were sent that year. One to The Chronicle on October 5, and another to Chronicle writer Paul Avery directly on October 27. Like the others, these letters seem to be an attempt to keep the story on the front page as a power move, since it had started to be replaced by other more pressing matters. The difference in the case of the Oct. 27 letter, though, was that it was one of the rare instances where the killer addressed a single person. The only other time he had really done that was when it was Marvin Melvin Belly.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

In this case, the killer sent a Halloween card to Avery, who had done the bulk of the reporting on the Zodiac for the Chronicle and made a vague threat on his life.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

But in an interview, Paul Avery said, I'm really not scared. I've needled him in some of my stories. Maybe that's why you wrote me.

[Elena]

I love that he's just like whatever.

[Ash]

He'S like, I'm not afraid.

[Elena]

That's fine.

[Ash]

I'd be.

[Elena]

I needle terrified. Damn.

[Ash]

Five months after Avery received the Halloween card threatening his life, the editor of the Los Angeles Time received its first letters letter from the killer. And the latest letter, the killer noted the number of victims was now 17. So he's going up like, X. I.

[Elena]

Was just gonna say that was a jump.

[Ash]

And he said, the reason that I'm writing to the Times is this. They don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others. Wow. He used this as an opportunity, obviously, to declare a high. A higher victim number. Of course, it was mostly yet another letter taunting the police who had failed to make any significant progress on the case. He said, like, I've always said, I'm. I'm crack proof. If the Blue Meanies are ever going to catch me, they had best do something, because the longer they fiddle around, the more slaves I will collect for my afterlife.

[Elena]

Ew. I hate that. That's, like, what he's claiming.

[Ash]

This is so gross to go from boo boos to Blue Meanies. I'm like, you were calling them pigs at one point. Like, that's rude and, like, shitty. Now you've. Now you're saying Blue Meanies.

[Elena]

He feels like he has, like. And I'm. I'm by no means armchair diagnosing anybody. I'm just saying in these letters, it seems like there's different personalities coming through. No, I think, in a way, like, some of them are much like the one pleading for help.

[Ash]

Help.

[Elena]

Yeah, please stop. And then the next one is like, it's better than sex. And then there's one that's just like, my boo boos. And then the other one's like, Blue Meanies, pigs. Like, it's just like, what?

[Ash]

It's. It's very. It's various different tones.

[Elena]

Feels like there's very different people coming through here, but the same person.

[Ash]

Yeah, there's some kind of, like, mood disorder, something going on here. But after sending the letter to the LA Times, the Zodiac went quiet for almost three years, until the Chronicle received what would prove to be the final communication from the Zodiac himself on January 29, 1974. In his latest communication, postmarked from the Santa Clara from Santa Clara county, the Zodiac gave no indication of why he'd gone silent for such a long period of time. Which is interesting, and we'll touch on it later. But instead, he offered only three thoughts. He said, I saw and think the Exorcist was the best satirical comedy I've ever seen. Signed, yours truly. He plunged himself into the billowy wave, an echo aroused from the suicider's grove. Tit, willow, tit willow, tit willow P. S. I. If I do not see the note in your paper, I will do something nasty. Which, you know, I'm capable of doing.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

So now he's just like, I'll just do something.

[Elena]

He's like, oh, yeah, I'll come up with something. You know, I will. That just. I'm like, is that where Beetlejuice got it?

[Ash]

Oh, maybe.

[Elena]

Is that where, like, the Exorcist and it gets funnier every time I've seen it?

[Ash]

Maybe.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Good call.

[Elena]

As soon as I heard that, I was like, beetlejuice. What?

[Ash]

Oh, shit, that's creepy.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I hate that.

[Elena]

Because, I mean, that's exactly what he says, essentially.

[Ash]

It is. Yeah.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Well, that makes it even scarier.

[Elena]

Beetlejuice. I'm like, oh, God.

[Ash]

In small script, on the bottom right corner of the page, he included me 37. SFPD0. Like, San Francisco Police Department. So now he's claiming he's killed 37 people.

[Elena]

I mean, and at this point, though, too, it's like, who knows?

[Ash]

He might have.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Additionally, the signature on the letter wasn't the actual recognizable crosshair symbol. This time, a series of strange markings that looked like maybe Chinese or Japanese writing, but they've never been identified as any known language.

[Elena]

Scary.

[Ash]

Yeah. What is probably the most noticeable and unusual about the final Zodiac letter isn't the missing signature, but the lack of any real substance, because in the past, the letters sent by the killer were sent to claim one of his murders, to talk to police or, you know, give the press some kind of fucking puzzle to solve.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But here he just makes a snarky joke about the Exorcist, which had been released in theaters a couple months earlier, and then he just quotes line from the Rodgers and Hammerstein play the Mikado and makes what feels like, we were just saying is, like, a pretty vague threat of violence just for the hell of it.

[Elena]

Yeah. Just to do it.

[Ash]

Yeah. But the letter has been analyzed thoroughly, and it is believed by law enforcement officials to be authentic.

[Elena]

I wonder why. Like, what about that feels authentic?

[Ash]

I don't know if it was, like, maybe the blue felt pen or maybe.

[Elena]

Because I'm like, are you guys sure?

[Ash]

I know that One I'm not positive about. Especially the fact that it didn't have the crosshair symbol.

[Elena]

I'm like, this feels very Jack the Rippery where it's like, yeah, it's totally a real one.

[Ash]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Elena]

I don't know about that.

[Ash]

What? I don't know. I mean, like, obviously handwriting analysis is a real thing, but it's also like a tricky science. Yeah, so it can definitely be tricky. I don't know. But the Chronicle did publish the letter in full. Either way, they left out the strange markings on the bottom, though, at the request of the San Francisco Police. But in the years that followed, investigators would receive hundreds, if not thousands of letters and cards claiming to come from the Zodiac. But as far as investigators are concerned, this was the last time any news outlet or law enforcement agency would hear from the Zodiac.

[Elena]

Interesting. Yeah.

[Ash]

So who the was this guy? Yeah, we gotta talk about it.

[Elena]

We do.

[Ash]

So obviously a lot of the Zodiac story is, you know, result of the media attention, the public fascination that surrounded the case. But at the same time, there's also a massive and very long ranging investigation, or there was, that went on behind the scenes. Countless law enforcement officers, from local cops to FBI, all work together to try to stop him. Their efforts obviously didn't make it into the endless stream of press coverage because there wasn't a lot to say beyond. We don't really have much to go on, but we're trying.

[Elena]

Well, and you don't want to be like, here's what they're doing to catch him, because he's just gonna be like, cool.

[Ash]

First they started here, then they went here. And like, we know he had left some evidence behind at the crime scene, and he provided some clues throughout everything that he was doing, but they never got any major, major breaks in the case. But there were actually at least 13 other murders where the Zodiac was briefly considered a suspect. It's just that they could never be confidently connected. He could never confidently be connected to.

[Elena]

This, which is what he wanted.

[Ash]

Yep. And while it's true that there were never any major breaks in the case, like I just said, there have been close to 2500 suspects over the course of the case.

[Elena]

That's horrible.

[Ash]

Which is wild.

[Elena]

Pretty terrible.

[Ash]

Yeah. Over 2500 in general, with at least a handful of them being considered by investigators to be serious.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Yeah. But with a suspect list so long and one that includes a number of actually high profile killers like Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson, it would be pretty impossible for us to sit here and go through every single suspect. Yeah. So we're going to get into the three most popular suspects.

[Elena]

Just kidding. We're gonna sit down and we're gonna go through 2,500 of the suspects.

[Ash]

Okay, are you sitting down? Does anybody have to go to the bathroom?

[Elena]

The next three years of Morbid is gonna be just dedicated to suspects of the Zodiac Killer.

[Ash]

Okay, so today we're gonna. Can you imagine? All right, so the first one is Richard Gaikowski. When the Zodiac murders started, he was living in the San Francisco area. He had been living there for about six years, and he was working as the editor at the popular newspaper Good Times.

[Elena]

Good Times.

[Ash]

Good Times, man. He would have been within a short distance of two of the Zodiac crime scenes, which were the Lake Herman Road and the Blue Rock Springs attacks. He does bear a resemblance to the sketches of the Zodiac released in the press. And all of the evidence against him is circumstantial, but some of it is pretty compelling. So when Mike Mageau gave his statement to the police after his attack, he mentioned that he had actually been chased by one of Darlene's former boyfriends just before they were assaulted that night.

[Elena]

Huh?

[Ash]

Yeah. He said, I thought he drove off and drove away, but he can't. He came back later and shot us. So that's. He really thought it was that person.

[Elena]

And he does resemble the sketch.

[Ash]

He does. He very much does. And Mike continued. She told me it was a friend of hers, and he was just jealous. She mentioned his name and referred to him as Richard. And later, Darlene Fern's sister Diane claimed her sister did, in fact, have a former boyfriend named Richard who was a journalist.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

So those two things link up.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

Now, another circumstantial piece of evidence. Nancy Slover, I think it is a former police dispatcher who took the call from the Zodiac after the Feren murder. After Darlene's murder, she listened to a tape of Gowski's voice in 2009, and she was very confident that it was the same voice she heard on the night of the murder.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

She said, I listened to the voice of Richard and I felt shock and deja vu. In my opinion, he was the same person I listened to in July of 1969.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

This one, this next one creeps me out. It will give you the chills. Paul Stein, the young cab driver who was murdered, his sister claimed that a man resembling Gaikowski was at her brother's funeral, but she had no idea. Like, she had no way of knowing who he was at the time.

[Elena]

Oh, shit.

[Ash]

But then later, when it was brought to her attention, she was like, oh, I saw somebody that looked just like that.

[Elena]

Well, and if you look at the police Sketch. Like, look at the composite. And you look at. There's like a picture of Gaikowski where he's making the exact same face as the composite. Because in the composite, the. Like the one where the mouth is closed, he's doing almost like a little. Like. Like a little smirk. Like a. Like a sneer.

[Ash]

Yeah, almost.

[Elena]

But it's, like, very subtle. There's a picture where he's doing the same thing with his mouth.

[Ash]

Hold on, I'm looking.

[Elena]

And the eyebrows are very similar. Like, they're that low set eyebrow. And he's got the same glasses.

[Ash]

He does have the same glasses.

[Elena]

Even the hairline is the same. Yeah, like.

[Ash]

And like the. The narrowness of the forehead. Yeah, like the hairline and everything.

[Elena]

That's. That's pretty crazy.

[Ash]

Yeah. Even the lips look very similar. Yeah, the lips.

[Elena]

And the way he does that little slight sneer with his lips.

[Ash]

It's pretty.

[Elena]

It's pretty compelling. That is pretty picture, at least.

[Ash]

It is. Well, in the last, like, big piece of circumstantial evidence against him, a lot of his co workers at good times found him to be pretty strange. And in 1971, they actually filed paperwork to have him involuntarily committed to the Napa State Mental Hospital.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

And there he was diagnosed with an undisclosed mental illness. But that hospitalization would have coincided with the drop off in communication from the Zodiac in 1971.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

And remember, when he came back, he didn't say all about where he had been, like, when they got the next letter.

[Elena]

So.

[Ash]

That's interesting.

[Elena]

That's a compelling.

[Ash]

That's interesting. He was investigated by the FBI after Darlene Ferran's murder, but told investigators that he was out of the country at the time, which effectively ruled him out as a suspect. But according to amateur investigator Tom Voight, Gaikowski had actually lost his passport just before the murders, so it wouldn't have been possible for him to leave the country.

[Elena]

Oh, my. Guys. Yeah, this one seems like a plus.

[Ash]

Very compelling. And Voight alleges that the FBI never bothered to follow up on Gaikowski's alibi, but if they had, they wouldn't have ruled him out.

[Elena]

Hey, FBI. What the fuck?

[Ash]

Honestly. And after being released from the Napa State Hospital, Gaikowski went back to San Francisco, where he just opened a small movie theater in a store and managed a few local punk bands.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

Which is just wild. While also advocating for progressive political issues. Huh. So maybe he did get some kind of treatment.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

That helped him in the hospital. And maybe like, obviously speculating here, but maybe received ongoing treatment.

[Elena]

Whoa.

[Ash]

That got him in check. But he did pass away in 2004, and at least one former co worker has been very vocal about him being the Zodiac, but he's never been seriously investigated by law enforcement.

[Elena]

That's wild. Yeah, that's wild.

[Ash]

If anyone that you know, like, if you, if you think someone's the Zodiac, you know, a wild ass person.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's the thing.

[Ash]

Like, I can't imagine one of my friends, I can't imagine one of my friends being like, I think that, like, you might be a notorious serial killer.

[Elena]

Like, if somebody thinks that, then, like, you've really done some stuff.

[Ash]

Yeah, really.

[Elena]

You really showed your ass in that relationship.

[Ash]

I love that phrase. I think that phrase is so funny.

[Elena]

Because, I mean, it is a perfect description.

[Ash]

It is.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

I think he's very compelling. But our next one is Gary Francis Post in 2021. An independent group of retired investigators known as the Case Icebreakers, which I love.

[Elena]

That's amazing.

[Ash]

It reminds me of in yellow jackets. Like, the what? I was thinking.

[Elena]

I almost said it.

[Ash]

Like the web sleuths.

[Elena]

Yes.

[Ash]

Well, they identified Gary Francis Post as the man who was most likely to have been the Zodiac Killer. He was a former member of the US Air Force, and he had a very long history of very violent behavior, including a history of domestic violence. He lived within a 15 minute drive of several crime scenes while the murders were taking place. And like Richard Gaikowski, the case against Post is built entirely on circumstantial evidence and has been refuted by the FBI. But he remains a popular suspect with the Case breakers and just people who enjoy true crime in general. According to the group Case breakers, photos showed Mr. Post with supposed scars on his forehead that they believed matchmarks shown on a police sketch of the Zodiac Killer. And that's among a handful of facts related to physical evidence that they believe makes him a strong suspect. Others include the fact that a size 10 military boot, military style boot print was discovered at one of the crime scenes. And that was similar to the style of boots that he was known to have worn at the time. So that's interesting.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

Also, a Timex watch band was discovered at one of the crime scenes, which investigators believe was purchased at a military base around the mid to late the late 60s, which is when he would have been in the military. Perhaps maybe the most important, at least as far as the case breakers are concerned, is his supposed link to the murder of Sherry Jo Bates, an 18 year old girl who was killed in Riverside in 1966. That fall, she started her first year at Riverside Community College. And the last time she was seen was when she was studying at the library on the night of October 30th. The next morning, a groundskeeper on the campus had to just started street sweeping when he came across her body in an alley on campus. Yeah. And police believe her killer had disabled her vehicle and then waited for her to go back to her car, which is so terrifying. At some point in the life of the Zodiac case, Sherry Jo Bates was considered actually to be one of the victims linked to the Zodiac. Oh, and the case breakers believe that Post was responsible for her death. Interesting.

[Elena]

Interesting.

[Ash]

Given the link between her murder and the Zodiac and his history of violent behavior and enthusiasm for guns and military propaganda, they think he's the best, best suspect.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

But despite their enthusiasm, investigators on the Zodiac case completely reject their theory. And they ruled him out completely as a suspect, huh? Yeah. In 2021, a spokesperson for the Riverside Police said, In 2016, investigators received an anonymous letter from a person admitting the handwritten letter sent to our department months after Sherry Joe Bates was murdered was written as a sick joke and that he was not the Zodiac killer.

[Elena]

Which up.

[Ash]

That's not any kind of joke.

[Elena]

That's ridiculous.

[Ash]

Riverside police officer Ryan Railsback went a step further when he told ABC News, we don't know how we can be any more clear. The fifty thousand dollar private reward is still valid. If someone has any information on the Bates case, please come, come forward. So he was like, it's not this guy. Yeah, like we, we looked at him.

[Elena]

That one doesn't, doesn't compel me any further.

[Ash]

No, I feel the same way. So the FBI and the Riverside police and me and Elena might have ruled Gary Post out as a Zodiac suspect. But the case breakers remain committed to their belief that he is the guy. In an interview with Post, former neighbor referred only to as Gwenny the woman, told the reporters he, meaning Gary, lived a double life as, as I'm an adult. Thinking back, it all kind of makes sense now. At the time, when I was a teenager, I didn't put two and two together until I got older. It hit me full blown that Gary's the Zodiac.

[Elena]

I. One of my. This case is so wild because it's so different from any other case where people just confidently indict people to be.

[Ash]

The Zodiac, like that guy over there.

[Elena]

In this case, they're literally like, yeah, just, just fucking hit me like a ton of bricks that Gary over there is The Zodiac. And it's just like, you literally can't say that. You can't do that.

[Ash]

That is quite an indictment, ma'am.

[Elena]

I just can't. Like, that's like, my neighbor's annoying the Zodiac. It's just like, what are we doing?

[Ash]

And just to be like, I never thought about it before, but you know what? The case breaker said it.

[Elena]

It just, zodiac, tap, tap, period. That guy's the Zodiac. And it's just like, you literally can't do that.

[Ash]

That's lawless.

[Elena]

But it's just. This is the only. This is the case that. That really happens.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[Elena]

So often. And has happened for decades. Yeah, for decades. People have not just been like, oh, I think this person should be looked at as the Zodiac. People are like, that is the Zodiac Killer. That man right there is the Zodiac killer.

[Ash]

It's wild.

[Elena]

It's fascinating to watch.

[Ash]

It is. It's also scary.

[Elena]

It's very scary.

[Ash]

Humans do crazy shit.

[Elena]

We're wilding.

[Ash]

Well, this next one and last one that we'll talk about is also very interesting. The Gaikowski suspect is so strong. My guy, he's strong. Post, not so much. This one, back to strong.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

This is Arthur Lee Allen. So Gaikowski and Post may top the list of amateur investigators, but as far as the members of the actual Zodiac task force were concerned, the most compelling suspect and the only person to ever be publicly identified by investigators was former elementary school teacher Arthur Lee Allen.

[Elena]

I hate that.

[Ash]

Yeah, I hate that. He was an elementary school.

[Elena]

Yeah, I hate that a lot.

[Ash]

He served in the U. S. Navy, and he was honorably discharged in 1959. And two years later, in 1961, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, found work as a teacher until he was fired in 1968 when a student made accusations of sexual misconduct. Oh, weirdly, he was generally well liked, but a lot of people in later years did find him to be strange.

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

And later, friends and neighbors would find similarities between the things that the Zodiac wrote in letters and comments made by Alan over the years. Just, like, the way he spoke and certain things he would say. It should also be said that Allen was the number one suspect for the lead detective on the case, who was Dave Toshi and also a former San Francisco Chronicle writer, Robert Graysmith, who covered the case extensively for the paper. He also believed that this was, like, the number one guy, really. In a 2007 interview, Gracemith said, dave and George Baywart of the Vallejo Police, they're convinced the Zodiac is Arthur Lee Allen. And Grace Smith and others who believe that Allen was the killer are not just speculating, they do cite some pretty compelling evidence. On the day of the attack at Lake. Lake Berryessa, Arthur Leigh Allen was known to be only one of nine people to visit the lake that day.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

That's compelling.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Also on that same day, a Vallejo police officer pulled him over for speeding that afternoon, like the same day as the attack at the lake. And when the officer looked in the back of Allen's car, he discovered a bloody hunting knife, which Alan said he used to kill chickens.

[Elena]

Oh.

[Ash]

Yep. Before the killing started, Allen frequently bragged to his friends that he was, quote, going to hunt couples at night, send letters to the press, and call himself Zodiac before any of this happened.

[Elena]

I mean. Whoa.

[Ash]

Alan's co worker Don Chaney, told police about these statements and voluntarily took and passed a polygraph.

[Elena]

Wow.

[Ash]

Yeah. In 1971, Cheney reported Allen to the police after he made several alarming statements indicating a, quote, desire to commit violence, some of which, like things. Some of the things he was saying were similar to statements made in the Zodiac letters. He said, quote, that phrase about picking the little darlings off. I remembered that, and that's what forced me to go to the police.

[Elena]

Wow. This is compelling.

[Ash]

Compelling, right?

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

After their interview with Cheney in 1971, police actually interviewed Allen a number of times, and they searched his home, where they discovered hunting knives inside, as well as a freezer of dead hamsters, squirrels and birds.

[Elena]

Dead hamsters?

[Ash]

I don't know, man. But, yeah. And in 1991, they searched his home again, and this time they found, quote, some writings, some pipe bombs, and some illegal weapons.

[Elena]

Oh, yeah.

[Ash]

Vallejo police Captain Roy Conway told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1992, none of it was sufficient to make an arrest for him being the Zodiac.

[Elena]

Huh?

[Ash]

Yeah. Now, in 2002, DNA and fingerprint analysis was conducted comparing Allen's DNA and fingerprints to those found on the Zodiac letters. And they were not a match, which ruled him out as a suspect.

[Elena]

But.

[Ash]

I don't know.

[Elena]

I don't know.

[Ash]

This one's weird.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Despite that finding, in 2018, Vallejo Police Detective Terry Poser told reporters, our Vallejo suspect, Allen, is probably still the best lead. There are probably 30 different circumstantial things that point to him. He was extremely intelligent, but a deviant. Dude. Unfortunately, he died of natural causes in 1992. Yeah. Now, in 2004, the case was officially made inactive by higher ups at the San Francisco Police Department. They explained that their caseload required them to just set aside some older unsolved cases. It makes Sense. But in 2007, the case was reopened when investigators wanted to do additional DNA testing. And in 2018, after the capture of Joseph James James D'Angelo, the Golden State Killer, using familiar DNA testing, another profile was put together, actually using the DNA from samples from the Zodiac letters. But the results were inconclusive.

[Elena]

Of course they were. Yeah.

[Ash]

But as of now, the case does remain open with the FBI.

[Elena]

Holy.

[Ash]

And that is the infamous Zodiac case.

[Elena]

I. Gaikowski is still my. Is the one that hits.

[Ash]

Gaikowski hits really, really hard. Yeah, he's up there.

[Elena]

Especially the fact that he was, like, involuntarily put in a hospital.

[Ash]

And it ends up with the timing.

[Elena]

Because there's some mental illness in that. In those letters.

[Ash]

Absolutely. The number one thing for me, or the number, like, tied for number one. Pieces of evidence against Arthur Lee Allen are the fact that he was at Lake Barry Esta that day and only one of nine people, and then the fact that he got pulled over that afternoon and had a bloody hunting knife.

[Elena]

Yeah, that's pretty wild. Like, he doesn't look like the sketch.

[Ash]

I know. And, well. And Richard Gaikowski, like, he literally looks identical. He looks exactly like the sketch.

[Elena]

Not that I'm just going off the sketch.

[Ash]

No, you can't just go off that. But when you go. When you have all those other circumstantial pieces of evidence that we talked about, and then he looks like the sketch.

[Elena]

Looks exactly like it, it's like. Yeah, that is interesting.

[Ash]

It's so interesting, too. Like, it's so weird because you hear, like, Zodiac, and in your mind, you're like, he killed, like, so many people.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

But there's only. And it's awful. But there's only five that are confirmed. You just wonder how many people he actually killed.

[Elena]

Yeah. Because he claimed, like, somewhere in the 30s.

[Ash]

Yeah. I think it ended up being, like, 37, something like that. And it's like. Like, I don't.

[Elena]

How many people were connected.

[Ash]

That's the thing. And again, like, the police came out and said themselves there were cases that were considered, but they just couldn't conclusively like them. It's just, like, scary.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Freaks you out. Yeah, it's a very wild. I feel like, interesting.

[Elena]

Sold it, though.

[Ash]

I mean, they solved the Golden State Killer case after how many years? No, like, you always say, a cold case. It's never cold.

[Elena]

Never cold. Yeah.

[Ash]

Just gotta warm it up a little.

[Elena]

Just thaw it out, you know, so.

[Ash]

Thaw that out, guys.

[Elena]

Yeah.

[Ash]

And we hope you keep listening.

[Elena]

We hope you keep it weird.

[Ash]

But not so weird that we don't solve the Zodiac killer case. Because can you imagine if that's solved within our lifetimes?

[Elena]

Let's go.

[Ash]

It'll be crazy.

[Elena]

Let's do it. SA.

[Ash]

If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery. Com. Survey.