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Hey weirdos. I'm Ash. I'm Elena. And this is [Music] Morbid. That was a rushed intro because
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we're having a fight. We are. And it's serious. The pod might be. No, I'm just kidding. Imagine serious. It's serious.
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So, buckle in for the last episode. Here's the I don't Okay, so the fight is over. The fight. The fight. It's a
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fight. The brawl. We're going to come to blows soon. Whether you can use the word
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aesthetic as an adjective, and you can. I say no. The Oxford dictionary disagrees. I don't give a [ __ ] what the
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Oxford dictionary says. I I've never Oh, I have never You heard it here first. I
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don't That does not sound correct to me to say like, "Wow, that's so aesthetic."
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Like what? I don't know. I like it. I don't I don't because it can be an adjective. It say it on on the line it
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says adjective concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty. Yeah, I don't get that. I think Mikey's on my
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side here. Yeah, cuz he's old. Yeah, Mikey just reached for that mic. He said, "I'm sorry. What? They've been
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attacking me all day." That's We'll go into specifics. She's rallying the morbid listeners. Is this real? She's
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like, "Guys, they've been attacking me all day. They've been making Ash sad all they have. I cried in the bathroom
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earlier." That's dirty. That's dirtiest cuz you know that everyone's going to be
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like [ __ ] forks. I know it's true. Do it. That's irresponsible usage of your power
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is what that is. You know what? Irresponsible. That's wielding power like a dictator.
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You guys, this might be the last episode. Oh my god. Your dogs. That's fake. My dogs are like
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[ __ ] I got the listeners, but you get literal hell hounds. Hell yeah, I do. I don't think Oh, they're pissed. I don't
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think it's I don't think it's I don't think that's fair. We're just angrily drinking water at each other now. That's
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a real thing. No, but we're both just going, which is ridiculous because we're both just holding I'm holding a Stanley
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and you're holding a [ __ ] broomate and we're just going like snarling at each other across the microphones,
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taking aggressive sips. See, we're sisters. It's fine. I'm not actually her. I never cried in a
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bathroom. I'm reading this off a script. It's true. She was not. She was not. Say
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it again. Say it with more feeling now. Say it with aesthetic. So, [ __ ] that. No, that that actually doesn't make any
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sense. [ __ ] that. But yeah, what do you guys think? Um, weigh in. Do you even know what we're fighting about? Do we
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make it? Can you use aesthetic as like or do I shouldn't say can you do you use aesthetic in that way as like this is a
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big I've seen people argue about this before. Like I didn't even know this was a thing. I think it's a generational
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thing. I think you're right. I think I since I tow the Gen Z Millennial line and I don't Listen, Jenz, I love you,
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but I don't always love to, you know, head over that way. I think I'm on that way with this one. You are on that way.
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I feel like that's definitely more of a Gen Z thing. I think it is. I think they
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like reworked the the word. Yeah, I'll agree with you there. Yeah, but that that word
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has been retoled, I think. Yeah, I think so, too. For sure. I like it. And you know what? Here's here's where we come
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out. You can like it. Thank you. And I can raise your broom. Raise your little broom. I'll raise my broomate.
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Cling. You have to drink, too. Actually, you really shouldn't. Cheers with water. I think that's bad luck. So,
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maybe the show is ending. Oh. So, is it technically water anymore? You know what's crazy? Usually, mine has my
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little arm in there, but today it doesn't because that's wa I just wanted ice water. It's just wa I don't like waw
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wa. I don't like that you're saying that. I don't like that. I actually hate it so much. I don't really know why
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you're I just horrified myself. You you Oh man, we're taking a little bit of time off, but you won't know. So, we're
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batch recording a lot of things right now. So, if we sound insane, that's why. Like, so we're taking time off, but like
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it's not going to affect episodes. Yeah. Like, your episodes will come out the same time. So, we have to record like a
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bunch of stuff in advance. And that makes us cuckoo crazy. that makes us cuckoo crazy right now. I'm actually
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excited question mark to talk about this case. I think this is a really fascinating case. It's obvious this is
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obviously if you're here you know it's the Zodiac case. This is like a obviously incred obviously I just keep
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saying that over and over again. This is a very devastating case but I think it's
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very interesting and it's wild to me that don't come at me in the comments because it still is unsolved that it's
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still unsolved. Yeah. You can sit there and you can tell me that it's solved all
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you want. It's still technically unsolved. It's not solved. It's the same thing as the Jack the Ripper thing.
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Yeah. No, I feel that way. I'm going become a zodiologist. A zodiologist also. Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to. Go
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ahead. Go ahead. [Laughter] Also, I didn't I can't find the little I wrote down on a card who sent me this,
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but a listener and if you're listening, you're [ __ ] awesome. And I'll make sure to figure out your name. Um, and
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you better be on her side of the aesthetic argument. Better be on my side. No, a listener sent me went to
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London and went to the Jack the Ripper like uh tour and all that and sent us like in the PO box like sent me a pin
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that says ripperologist on it from the like like the museum. That's so cool. And I put it on my leather jacket that I
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wear all the time. She opened it and goes, I'm putting this on my leather jacket cuz I use it. So excited. So you
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rule. Thank you so much. That was such a cool gift. I loved it. And I wear it now. I wear it all the time. She was
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very genuinely excited to to get that cuz I was like, I'm officially a riperologist. Yeah. Yeah. You have been.
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I feel like it's already been official. If that pisses some people off so hard, though. Oh, get a life. Touch grass. So,
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let's get into it. Let's get into it. People are like, "Wow, you guys really have been batch recording. Leave it in."
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So, let's get into it. So, the Zodiac Killing started with the Lake Herman Road murders where 17-year-old David
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Faraday and his girlfriend, 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen, were killed. Betty Lou. I know. Betty Lou. What an adorable
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name. 16 and 17 years old. My god. Literal babies. Mhm. And they were your typical American teenagers in the fall
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of 1968. David was one of Vallejo High School star wrestlers. He was a popular student. He was an Eagle Scout, not a
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cub. That year he had actually been awarded the Scouts God and Country Award which is like a pretty high honor. Whoa.
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Uh similarly, Betty was said to be a popular and responsible student at Hogan High School where she was in her junior
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year. So young junior in high school. Yeah. They were both active in after school activities. They both
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participated a lot in community events. Like they were just like very all American teenagers. In fact, it was one
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of those community events actually decorating the decorating committee for a winter dance that was being put on by
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the city that brought the two of them together in mid December. And within a week of meeting, they had fallen for
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each other hard and they started rearranging their schedules so they could spend more time together outside
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of school. Just young love. Oh, I love it. Now, Betty's parents had always forbidden her from dating. They really
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wanted her to focus on school instead. But that December, she did manage to convince them to let her go out with
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David. And she and David made plans for Friday, December 20th, which was going to be Betty's first ever date. So, this
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was a big deal. And it's literally less than a week before Christmas. So, when the day finally arrived, David picked
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Betty up from school. They spent a few hours together just kind of like hanging out before their official date that
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night. But David dropped her off at home around 6:00 p.m. and then came back to pick her up a few hours later, a little
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bit after 8:00 p.m. Betty invited him inside. Of course, he had to go meet the parents. And the four of them chatted
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briefly for about 20 minutes. And then David and Betty left the house. They told Betty's parents that they were
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going to the Hogan High Christmas concert and then to a party at a friend's house and that they'd
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definitely be back in time to make Betty's 11:00 p.m. curfew. Uh, it turns out they didn't really have any plans of
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going to the school concert. Oh, they actually went to visit one of Betty's friends and they left that friend's home
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around 900 p.m. Okay. Then where they went from there is unknown, but some speculated that maybe they visited
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another friend along the way or stopped at like a fast food restaurant. But whatever the case, by 11 p.m. David's
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station wagon was seen parked at the entrance to Benica pumping station on Lake Herman Road, which was a very
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popular Lovers Lane area in Vallejo. They parked right at the start of a shift change at the pumping station,
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too. So, a lot of people remembered seeing the car and saw the two of them inside. Okay. Like many, many witnesses.
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Yeah. Now, around 11:20 p.m., a local mom, Stella Borges, was driving past the pumping station on her way to pick her
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son up from a local movie theater. And when she rounded the corner by the entrance to the station, her headlights
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swept across the lover's lane, where she and the other passengers in her car could clearly see two bodies lying on
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the ground outside of the station wagon. Stella would later tell police it looked
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like David had fallen out of the open door. Yeah. Obviously very frightened by what she'd seen, she sped past the scene
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in the direction of the nearby downtown Benica, where she flagged on the first police cruiser that she could find. And
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after listening to her story, Captain Dan Pitta and his partner called in the report to the station, rushed to the
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scene, and called for an ambulance on the way. Okay. Now, Captain Dan Pitta's arrival at the scene was followed very
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quickly by members of the Benica and Vallejo Police Departments and uh also deputies from the Salano County
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Sheriff's Department. It was the latter department who did have jurisdiction over the entire area that night. Betty
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was declared dead at the scene, but when paramedics checked on David, he was still breathing. He was just barely
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conscious. Holy [ __ ] Weirdly, that happens a lot in this case. Really? And I It's It doesn't seem to be
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intentional. It's just a strange thing that happens with a lot of these killings. That's interesting. Yeah. So,
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David was rushed to Vallejo General Hospital, but unfortunately it was too late. He did end up being pronounced uh
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dead at the hospital at 12:05 a.m. He had been shot once in the head just behind the left ear, and Betty had been
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shot five times in the back with one of the bullets piercing her heart. Holy [ __ ] Yeah, this was intense. A search
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analysis of the crime scene really didn't yield much as far as clues, and there were even fewer leads,
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unfortunately. From what investigators could tell, the couple had been parked on that lover's lane when a second car
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arrived and pulled right up behind them, which is just so creepy to me. Yeah. Based on the locations uh where shell
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casings were discovered, they theorized that the driver of the second car fired into the station wagon, evidenced by the
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bullet hole in the back window of the car. Mhm. That gunshot obviously forced the couple out of the car where David
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was likely shot in the head while he was still on the ground. Betty, it seemed, had tried to run away from the shooter,
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but she only made it they estimated about 20 ft when the the gunman started firing from his position next to the
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station wagon with five of the six shots hitting Betty in the back. Jesus. Once the killer believed he had executed the
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two teenagers, he left the scene without even collecting the bullet casings. Wow.
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Just calmly left the scene. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. Intense. Now, the crime scene was frustrating and it was frustrating from
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the moment investigators arrived because it was December. The ground was practically frozen solid. So, that made
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it impossible to identify any kind of tire tracks from the second vehicle. Deputy Sheriff Russell Butterbach told
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reporters, "I just couldn't say how or what happened. We haven't got that far in the investigation, but there was
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really nobody any anyone could think of as a potential suspect because both victims seemed like really the last
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people anybody would want dead. Yeah. It's not like they had all these ties to crime or something, you know? No. And
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again, they're 16 and 17 years old. They're involved in their community. Like there's not even people really at
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school that don't like them. Yeah. They like hung out at like church events like
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Yeah. So days later, investigators had swept the crime scene several times at that point, but had made almost no
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progress in the case. Lead investigator Ledley Lunblad said, "We gathered all the physical evidence that was available
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at the scene, cartridge cases and other items, and these will be tested in the laboratory." Meanwhile, investigators
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started interviewing, of course, friends and family, hoping that one of them could shed light on to who might have
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wanted David or Betty dead. Unfortunately, while David and Betty's friends were able to provide a lot of
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information about their day-to-day lives, nobody had any information about who would have wanted to kill them. And
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even though this had been Betty's first date, in the absence of a clear suspect,
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detectives started wondering whether the killer was maybe a young man who had been rejected by Betty in the recent
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past. It's always a possibility. Yeah, I mean, sure. We had really not like they
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didn't really have anything to go on, so you got to start somewhere. And honestly, that is the most that's the
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easiest route to go down. Exactly. Investigator Lunlad said, "We're looking into it, but at this stage, we're not
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overlooking any possibilities whatsoever." So, she was like, "We're looking into it, but we're looking into
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everything." Which again, you have to like you can't you can't discount any possibilities when you have nothing to
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go on. Exactly. Like, you you got to start somewhere. You got to honestly, at that point, you got to like pull [ __ ]
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out of the air. You have to start pulling strings. Now, when interviews with the victim's families turned up
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really no useful information, investigators had to start considering alternative theories like we were just
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saying, including the potential that the teenagers had quote met their deaths Friday night at the hands of a murderous
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maniac who was not acquainted with either of his victims. Like theory. Yeah. And this theory was
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given a little more weight when sheriff's deputies received a call from a teenager, William Crowe, who reported
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having a strange experience about an hour and a half before the murders occurred. According to Crowe, he'd been
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parked with a friend in the same act in the same exact area where David and Betty were discovered, and he noticed
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another car parked in a dark area just a short distance away. He said the driver
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was watching them for sure. He said, "When I saw his uh when I saw its backup lights come on, I gunned our car out of
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there." Good for him. The driver followed Crow and his friend until they reached downtown Venica where he turned
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off and dropped out of sight. But Crow said, "As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it until I read Saturday
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what happened in the same spot where we were." Huh. Imagine like knowing that you were in the same spot. I was going
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to say and like knowing that you somehow had an instinct that got you out of there like trust your gut. No. Now
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toward the end of December after exhausting the really small amount of leads that they had anyway. Sheriff's
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investigators had grown more confident in the murderous maniac quote unquote theory. Llad said, "I think they were
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ordered out of the car at gunpoint and when they didn't come out quickly, the killer fired a warning shot through the
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rear side window of the vehicle." The asalant then shot the boy and when he fell, the girl started running and was
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killed as she ran, which so they're sad pretty much thinking the same thing here. Yeah. Nothing of value had been
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taken from the vehicle, so robbery was ruled out as a motive. Nobody had been sexually assaulted, so that was ruled
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out now, too. But the problem investigators faced was that there was virtually no way of connecting the
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killer to the victims, and that made solving this case seem very unlikely. M by the dawn of the new year, the story
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had unfortunately slipped from the front pages of the local papers and into the back. And by mid January, it really
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stopped getting coverage altogether. That's crazy. I know. As the end of January approached though, student
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groups from Vallejo and Hogan high schools established a reward fund and they went doortodoor around the
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community to collect donations, hoping that the offer of a reward would elicit some kind of help from the community in
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jumpstarting the case, which they knew was getting colder and colder and they did. They they got a good reward fund
00:17:04
up, but nobody ever attempted to collect it. Well, and you look at it now and you're like, knowing that we are now in
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2025 and we don't know who this person is, like that's crazy. Like, cuz think about
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it back then, they probably never in their wildest dreams could fathom that in 2025, we still would not possibly
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know who this person is. Probably couldn't even fathom the year 2025. Never mind the fact that they would like
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that this case would make it this far without getting any kind of so crazy. You know, obviously it's had moments
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where it's come back up and people have found out new things, of course, but you
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know, it's really sad. So, a few months later on March 30th, though, the story did pop up again in the Vallejo Times
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Herald, only to remind readers though of how little progress had been made. Leslie Lunblad told reporters, "There
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isn't a day that goes by that I don't work on it. I've got a case file about 4 in thick. All the information I've been
00:17:58
able to turn up, and I have a fairly sizable evidence locker." But even with all that information, she did
00:18:04
acknowledge that investigators were quote only a bit nearer to the solution of the crime than they were when they
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first arrived on the scene that cold Friday night in December. Damn. Yeah. Really sad. Yeah. By that time,
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everybody had pretty much settled into the belief that David and Betty's killer was completely unknown to the both of
00:18:22
them and the crime was, as far as they knew, motiveless. Betty's father, Vern Jensen, said, "I don't feel vindictive,
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but I am apprehensive. I feel some nut is on the loose, which I mean, yeah, you would feel that way. Yeah. David's
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mother, Jean, was similarly unnerved by the idea that her son had been killed by
00:18:39
a deranged stranger who was still on the loose and all like might kill again. I think that would be the scariest part of
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all. For sure. She said, "And he'll find it easier next time. We know he's a nut,
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but what kind of nut?" Which I mean, and we're still asking that. Yeah. Truly. And really, they weren't wrong. And soon
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they were going to find out just what kind of person killed their children. So true. Scary. I just feel so bad. Imagine
00:19:03
that being she goes out on her first date. Her first date ever. And her parents were like reluctant to even let
00:19:09
her go. That must be that I can't an awful feeling. My brain just can't wrap around that. Nobody should have to feel
00:19:17
that way. So by the summer of 1969, David and Betty's murders had faded completely from the newspapers and life
00:19:23
in Vallejo was starting to get back to normal. Then in early July, that feeling of terror and helplessness returned when
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two more young people were gunned down by an unidentified killer. 22-year-old Darlene Faren worked at a local diner,
00:19:38
and she was wellliked by everybody knew who knew her. Yeah, it seemed to everybody that she and her husband Dean
00:19:44
had a pretty good life. They were living together, raising their infant daughter
00:19:47
in a pretty nice neighborhood. Uh even though she was married, Darlene was known to date other men on occasion. And
00:19:54
that summer, she had been seeing 19-year-old Mike. I think it's Majou, who she had met at the diner. Okay. So,
00:20:00
on the afternoon of July 4th, Mike and Darlene made plans to see each other later that evening. First, Darlene was
00:20:06
going to go to a Fourth of July party with her sister, and then she'd go see Mike after. Okay. It was around 11:30
00:20:12
p.m. when she finally arrived to pick Mike up, so they decided to go out to a late dinner together. A short time
00:20:18
later, Darlene pulled off the road into the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs, which is just a local park, and turned
00:20:24
the engine off. A few minutes earlier, she actually had mentioned to Mike that there was something she wanted to talk
00:20:30
to him about. But before she could actually get out what she wanted to say, their conversation was interrupted
00:20:35
because a carload of teenagers pulled into lot and were just like throwing firecrackers everywhere. Teenagers being
00:20:42
teenagers. But so they couldn't talk really cuz every time she went to say something, there would be a loud blast.
00:20:47
interrupted. So, they resumed their conversation a few minutes later after the group of teenagers had left, but
00:20:54
then they were interrupted again. This time by another car that had pulled into the lot. By this time, the entire
00:21:00
parking lot was empty. But this driver, who was alone in his car, pulled about 8
00:21:05
ft behind Arlene's car, turned off his headlights, and sat motionless in his car for a minute or two, started his car
00:21:13
again, and drove out of the lot. Huh. Creepy. I would hate that. Creepy. Yeah. Obviously, that was a strange situation.
00:21:24
So, Mike asked Arlene if she knew the driver of that vehicle. It sounds like she was getting pretty annoyed at this
00:21:30
point cuz she was clearly trying to have like an important discussion and she kept getting interrupted. So, she just
00:21:35
said, "Oh, never mind." And Mike didn't know what to make of Darlene's confusing
00:21:39
response, but he knew that she seemed irritated or overwhelmed. So, he decided not to push for an explanation. Mhm.
00:21:44
With a distraction behind them, they got to talking again, but it wasn't long before again they were interrupted.
00:21:50
About 5 minutes after leaving the parking lot, that second car, the one who had pulled behind them, returned.
00:21:56
This time, parking a little bit farther away from Darlene's car about 10 ft behind on the passenger side. With the
00:22:03
headlights still on this time, the driver got out of the vehicle and walked toward the passenger side of Darlene's
00:22:09
car. It was especially dark in the lot that night and Mike couldn't really make out any details of the driver of the
00:22:15
other car, only that he appeared to be carrying a large flashlight, like a police officer's flashlight.
00:22:21
Interesting. So, he figured he they were getting hassled by the police for some reason, like maybe they couldn't park
00:22:26
there or something. Yeah, that would be the first thing I would think. Yeah. So,
00:22:29
he reached into his pocket for his wallet and was looking for his driver's license. But when the man reached Mike's
00:22:34
window and shined the light in, he didn't ask for ID. He just started firing into the car with a
00:22:40
semi-automatic handgun, shooting Mike in the back, neck, and mouth. Everybody knows this case, but I fear
00:22:50
that, and I can count myself among these people, I fear that we don't truly, a lot of people don't truly recognize like
00:22:57
how uh brutal and intense it is cuz I think it's like it gets painted a lot of times
00:23:07
with a very broad brush of like a lover's lane. Yeah. People know the ciphers and the more the ciphers and all
00:23:14
like which very interesting the more salacious parts of the story. I'm not taking away that that's interesting. I'm
00:23:19
saying me personally, I've never um this is one case I never uh looked super far
00:23:25
into. Yeah. And like hearing details like this that it was like a highowered weapon being just shot into a car at
00:23:34
point blank range. Like I don't I didn't fully appreciate how gnarly. No, neither did I. Like that
00:23:42
is horrifying. reading about this, your jaw just like Yeah. is open the entire time. Yeah. And I'm shook. Just wait. So
00:23:52
convinced that Mike was dead, the shooter turned the gun toward Darlene, who sat in the driver's seat, obviously
00:23:58
paralyzed with fear at this point. Yeah. And she was shot several times, hitting
00:24:02
her in the arm, shoulder, chest, and back. As the killer was walking back to his vehicle, Mike yelled out in pain cuz
00:24:09
he's still alive, causing the shooter to return to the vehicle where he shot each
00:24:14
of them two more times. Holy [ __ ] Now convinced that he killed the couple in the car, the man returned to his vehicle
00:24:20
and sped out of the parking lot. But as the shooter pulled out of the lot, Mike,
00:24:25
still alive, managed to get the passenger passenger door open and fell onto the pavement. He had been shot
00:24:33
multiple times at this point, but somehow he was still able to get a good look at this person's car and described
00:24:40
it later as a similar to Darlene's brown Corv, although perhaps a lighter shade of brown. And he also was able to get a
00:24:48
look at the license plate. He didn't get numbers, but he recognized it as an older style that was no longer used by
00:24:54
the state. Holy [ __ ] To have the wherewithal after being shot that many times at that close range is
00:25:02
unthinkable. I It really is. That's miraculous. Yeah. I I can't And I can't believe it's happened twice that
00:25:11
somebody was at least left surviving for any period of time and it happens again.
00:25:16
That's weird. It is weird. And it's just weird. It's not intentional. No, you can
00:25:21
tell it's not like is he's leaving these scenes very much thinking that he's killed. I mean, and he's done he's done
00:25:27
a lot to make sure he has killed everybody. So, it's even more miraculous that people even like when Mike yelled
00:25:33
out, he went back to the scene to make sure and not only shot Mike again, but shot Darlene again as well. Jesus. So,
00:25:39
Mike laid there on the ground for about 10 minutes until he was finally discovered by three teenagers who
00:25:44
luckily pulled into the lot. Wow. Yeah. They checked on We're following up like [ __ ] teenagers with like good teen.
00:25:53
We're following up with teenagers. Let's go. Yes, teenagers. So, he was bleeding
00:25:58
badly, so they left to get him help. And not long after, Vallejo police arrived in the parking lot where they found Mike
00:26:04
still lying on the ground beside the car. He was in bad shape, but he still took the time to provide officers with
00:26:10
the details of everything that would had happened, including his basic description of the shooter's car. Wow.
00:26:16
Darlene, unbelievable. It is. Darlene, on the other hand, was barely breathing and couldn't speak. Both victims were
00:26:23
rushed to the hospital where Mike was immediately rushed into emergency surgery and he was placed in the ICU.
00:26:29
But unfortunately, Darlene died before they reached the hospital. That's sad. It's awful. And she's a
00:26:35
young mom. She was a 22-year-old mother. Yeah. At 12:40 a.m., as investigators were still processing the scene at Blue
00:26:43
Rock Springs, a startling call came into the Vallejo Police Department. The caller said, "I want to report a double
00:26:49
murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you
00:26:53
will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm lugger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.
00:27:01
Wow. Can you imagine being on the other end of that [ __ ] phone call? That is so cold. Goodbye. Goodbye. And
00:27:09
they said I also killed those kids. Bye. They said that it was like cold, chilling, freaky. I hate that. So
00:27:17
investigators quickly determined that the call had been placed from a gas station pay phone a little less than a
00:27:22
mile from the crime scene which had closed several hours earlier. Of course, by the time they arrived, the caller had
00:27:28
gone. But what was clear from the caller's tone was that it wasn't a confession made out of guilt or some
00:27:33
sense of moral responsibility, anything like that. It was very much intended to mock investigators. Yeah. Like
00:27:39
absolutely. I did it again. Try to catch me. Yeah. Like huh. Like the attack on David Faraday and Betty Jensen, the Blue
00:27:46
Rock Springs crime scene didn't turn up much as far as clues or leads. Despite having had the flashlight shine in his
00:27:53
face when the killer approached, Mike did feel confident that he would be able to identify the shooter if he saw him
00:27:58
again, which is crazy. That's a like he's honestly shocking as a human being. Like I can't believe that. Yeah. He
00:28:07
described the man as young, short, and heavy set and driving a brown car. Wow. At the time, this was the best
00:28:13
description that he could provide. And even that was a struggle because one of the slugs had entered his neck which
00:28:19
injured his tongue and fractured his jaw. Oh my god. So, he's providing all of this information you have to remember
00:28:27
while dealing with those kind of injuries. Oh my god. I don't know how you concentrate on anything but the
00:28:33
horrific pain that you are probably in. Yeah. And the trauma of what you've gone
00:28:37
through. Like that's incredible. It's crazy. Another important witness was George Bryant, who was the son of a
00:28:43
local golf course owner about 800 feet away from the parking lot when the two were shot. According to George, he had
00:28:50
been looking out his bedroom window a little after 11:30 p.m. that night, and he couldn't see into the parking lot,
00:28:56
but he could hear everything very well. He told investigators he initially heard
00:29:00
a group of young people laughing, followed by the sound of firecrackers, that group of teenagers. And around
00:29:06
midnight, George said he heard what he thought was the sound of a single gunshot. A short pause, another series
00:29:11
of shots fired in rapid succession. Damn, I can't imagine hearing that. Yeah. And he said once the shots finally
00:29:18
stopped, he heard the sound of a car start and pull out of the parking lot. In a press conference the next day,
00:29:24
representatives of the Vallejo Police Department didn't and really couldn't do much to calm the public's fears over now
00:29:30
four shootings having occurred in the span of about 7 months. Wow. Yeah. One officer put it really simply, saying,
00:29:37
"We've got a crazy man on the loose." Yeah. Which Yeah, I get why you said it. They
00:29:45
hadn't really identified any specific motive for the shootings, but it was clear that the suspect had set out
00:29:50
intending to kill people. Uh, of the setting semi-automatic hand weapon used in the killings, the officer said, "It's
00:29:57
an offensive weapon made to kill people. It packs more power than a .45." Holy [ __ ] Yeah. When asked why the shooter
00:30:04
would have left the scene without being certain that the two were dead, the officer replied, "I think he left
00:30:08
because he emptied his gun." Wow. Which turns out that hunch was a good one. Technicians at the scene ended up
00:30:16
finding the exact number of cases you would find in a loaded 9mm pistol, leading investigators to theorize that
00:30:22
yes, the killer had only stopped because he hadn't brought additional ammunition.
00:30:27
That is terrifying. Yeah, that he would have kept going probably. and that he just totally unloaded his gun. Also,
00:30:35
imagine being Mike and hearing that like that you only are here because of your own like you know insane like like
00:30:44
strength. Strength. Yeah. Yeah. And like but you know perseverance but like also
00:30:48
just some wild thing that like there was nothing left. But if there was he would have he
00:30:56
would have kept going. It was like that must I don't know what that feeling would be but it must be wild. Mhm. Under
00:31:03
the circumstances, Darlene's husband, Dean, was the most logical suspect in this case, but he had an alibi. At the
00:31:10
time of the shootings, he was working a shift at the Tennessee Street restaurant, and his presence was
00:31:14
verified by every single one of his co-workers. Okay. Otherwise, there was no other suspects or really any evidence
00:31:21
that would have pointed investigators in the direction of the killer. And given the phone
00:31:26
call, detectives had pretty good reason to suspect that the shooter in this case
00:31:31
was the same person who killed David and Betty the previous December. This wasn't
00:31:35
an a one-off, you know. Yeah. They weren't like, "Maybe this is a different situation." No. So, those suspicions
00:31:40
were strengthened a few weeks later when the San Francisco area newspapers all received similar letters from somebody
00:31:46
claiming to be the killer. The first letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle was written in crude block
00:31:51
printing and read, "Dear editor, this is the murder of the two teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman plus the girl
00:31:58
on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo. To prove I killed them, I shall state some facts which only I plus
00:32:05
the police know. Christmas one brand name of ammo, SuperX." Two 10 shots were fired. Three, the boy was on his back
00:32:14
with his feet to the car. Four, the girl was on her right, side, feet to the west. Fourth July, one girl was wearing
00:32:21
pattern slacked. Two, the boy was also shot in the knee. Three, brand name of ammo was western over indicating to them
00:32:29
to flip the sheet of paper over. Here is part of a cipher. The other two parts of
00:32:34
this cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo Times plus SF Examiner. And I kind of tried to pause
00:32:42
where he breaks. Yeah. So you can see like where written very interestingly like it's a new line when you don't
00:32:49
necessarily need a new line. It's interesting. Yeah. The it's very unsettling. It's very unsettling.
00:32:55
There's a lot to be made of the way that the Zodiac communicates. Yeah. In time the letters to the news outlets would
00:33:02
become a hallmark like we know of the Zodiac Killer and the press would eventually dub him the Zodiac Killer.
00:33:07
But when they got these initial letters, everybody was incredibly confused and really they could have just been easily
00:33:14
dismissed as the confession of a mentally ill person who maybe hadn't committed these crimes. Yeah. I mean,
00:33:20
that happens all the time. So, so nobody was taking them too too seriously at first, but detailed. Very detailed. And
00:33:26
we'll get there. For one thing, though, the grammar and punctuation were noticeably inconsistent with some
00:33:32
statements ending in a period and others having no punctuation at all. Okay? And
00:33:36
each letter had a solid number of misspelled words. Like uh for example, he spells Christmas uh c h r i s t m a
00:33:46
ss. Okay. Two letters. That kind of thing. That's really the only one I can point to in that letter. Uh he spelled
00:33:52
patterned wrong. I think there's a few things that are spelled wrong. But people got the feeling that maybe these
00:33:57
mistakes were also intentional. Like he's trying to look a little off. Especially the added S in Christmas. It
00:34:04
almost feels like it's like, yeah, I'll just put this in. Yeah, who knows? But now accompanying each letter was a
00:34:09
cipher. Each of the three ciphers were handdrawn and were unique, but they all went together. So in order to solve one,
00:34:15
you needed access to all three, but they were all sent to separate newspapers. There was also an ominous warning in
00:34:22
each letter that read pretty much as an ultimatum to the editors of the papers. Publish the the ciphers by the next
00:34:28
afternoon or the killer threatened to quote go on a killing rampage. and he said he would kill a dozen or
00:34:34
more people. As indicated in the letters, the killer definitely, like you caught on to, did
00:34:40
know information about the murders that hadn't been disclosed by investigators, including the brand of ammunition used
00:34:47
in the shootings. So, detectives did have every reason to believe that the letters were genuine. But still, only
00:34:53
the Chronicle complied with the killer's demand and published the cipher the next
00:34:57
day. Oh [ __ ] The Examiner ran a story the day after receiving the letter, but didn't publish the cipher itself. And
00:35:04
the Times Herald published their cipher a few days later and didn't put it on the front page like the killer wanted.
00:35:09
Uh-oh. Despite not fully complying with his demands, there luckily was no mass shooting. Wow. Yeah. Surprising. Yeah,
00:35:17
it is. So, in hopes of drawing the killer out of hiding, or at least maybe getting some additional information,
00:35:23
Vallejo Police Chief Jack Stiltz told reporters he was not convinced the letter was written by the actual killer
00:35:29
if it was, he would like the letter to supply more facts to prove it. Wow. He's just nagging him. Yeah. In response, the
00:35:36
San Francisco Examiner received a second letter on August 4th that read, "Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking. I
00:35:43
answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in Vallejo. I shall be very happy to supply
00:35:48
even more material. By the way, are the police having a good time with the code?
00:35:52
If not, tell them to cheer up. When they do crack it, they will have me. On the 4th of July, I did not open the car
00:35:58
door. The window was rolled down already. And he wrote already, like, "Are you all ready?" instead of, "It
00:36:05
already happened." Yeah. Like a ll. Yep. The boy was originally sitting in the front seat when I began firing. When I
00:36:12
fired the first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on his uh
00:36:18
on the back seat, then the floor, thrashing about violently with his legs. That's how I shot him in the knee. I did
00:36:24
not leave the scene, spelled Ce neing with squealing tires plus racing engine as described in the Vallejo
00:36:32
paper. I drove away slowly so as not to draw any attention to my car, and that was it. I that's like so like um I
00:36:41
wasn't freaked out and like skitting away. I was actually going slow. But thanks though. Like that's very like
00:36:49
somebody who's very uh insecure with their own situation and is trying to be like um I'm actually a tough guy and I
00:36:56
wasn't scared at all. It definitely comes off as a very insecure person. You're not a tough guy and like an
00:37:02
attention grabber. somebody who's like, I want you to know all the facts and like I want you to know how I set out to
00:37:09
do this. Yep. Like I am fixing my this story. It's it's very BTKish to me where it's like where he was and which tells
00:37:16
you exactly what kind of person this person is or was because it's like he has to be like, "Well, wait a minute.
00:37:24
You have it wrong. This is why I did that. This is what happened and this is how I did that. I did it." like you
00:37:28
can't say these things and it's like there's a there's a story here and it's like babe you killed people so I think
00:37:33
that's really the most important thing here nobody's worried about how you if you like skidd it out of the place or if
00:37:41
you slowly drove like it that really makes no difference to any part of this that one is just like I like you said
00:37:47
like I wasn't scared yeah it's very much like a personal thing I was being brave
00:37:50
I drove out slowly after I murdered two teenagers but okay two like people who are unarmed yeah while I'm armed
00:37:58
like, "Yeah, tough guy." Now, the letter had no signature, just a simple symbol in the shape of a crosshairs, which will
00:38:04
become very familiar. Yep. The publication of the letter so soon after the killings did emphasize to the public
00:38:10
that there definitely was something to fear in their community. Yeah. In an interview with The Examiner, Police
00:38:15
Chief Jack Stiltz encouraged all residents to quote, "Stay out of lonely areas." A warning reiterated by Captain
00:38:22
Wade Bird, who said, "We could be looking for a very dangerous man." Yeah. I can't imagine being a teenager or like
00:38:31
we'll come to find out being anybody at this point. Yeah. Just it's so It must have been so scary. Yeah. It's very much
00:38:39
like like the David Burkowitz like kind of situation where it's like you just don't know when they're going to hit
00:38:46
next. Yeah. You know, it's so true. Really scary. And whenever I do read about this case, I always think of that
00:38:52
movie The Town that dreaded sundown. Oh my god. Yeah. So that is a scary movie. That's a terrifying movie and it's
00:39:00
really so similar Yeah. to the facts of this case. Like obviously it's you know dramatized but yeah of course
00:39:06
dramaticized. Dramaticized. Dramaticized. Dramaticized. Dramatized. Dramatized. We don't know. Mikey right in. Is the
00:39:15
word dramatized or dramaticized? Dramatized. Dramatized. Yeah. Doesn't dramaticize also sound right though? I
00:39:24
don't think it is, but it sounds I don't think it is, but I I see why. Yeah. Yeah. Traumatized. So, because that
00:39:32
one's the um the Tex Arcana Moonlight murders of 1946, which I think you covered at a live show once. Yeah, I
00:39:39
think we Yeah, you're right. Actually, our first one of our first live show. Very early live show, I think. But um
00:39:45
yeah, it's a similar It's got similar vibe to it where it's one of those things too where it's like they're
00:39:51
telling people not to like to be careful. Don't go to lover's lanes. Yeah. And they just like you don't know
00:39:56
when they're going to hit. It's really scary. Yeah. It's got Oh, I hate that so much. It's got all the makings of this.
00:40:02
Yeah. So, while spokespeople for law enforcement did their very best to keep the public calm, investigators were
00:40:08
working behind the scenes to crack the cipher that had been received by the three news outlets. Uh, Stilts enlisted
00:40:15
the help of the cryptographic unit of the US Navy radio station on nearby Skags Island. They were a group who had
00:40:22
a lot of experience with encrypted messages and very complex ciphers. But before the Navy had made any progress on
00:40:28
the cipher, investigators received a call from a couple in Selenus who had seen the puzzle in the paper and managed
00:40:34
to crack the code themselves. Oh, I remember this part of it. That's like that blew my mind. That's awesome. In
00:40:41
the few days since the cipher was published, high school teacher Donald Harden and his wife Betty spent several
00:40:46
hours just focused on the code before they were able to decipher the symbol spelling kill. From there, it was just a
00:40:53
matter of identifying the remaining symbols. And after about 20 hours, they decoded the entire message. My god,
00:41:00
there were some hiccups. Of course, Donald told a reporter, "As you can tell, his spelling is rather poor." And
00:41:06
in some places, he had made errors in the use of his own cipher, which he did. I love how like they are roasting this
00:41:13
person. They're just like, "As you can see, he's a [ __ ] idiot. He's an idiot." You gota It's like us when we
00:41:18
call people wet, lettuce, and [ __ ] So, the message with errors intact read, "This is so fucked." And it's all in
00:41:25
capital letters, which freaks me the [ __ ] out. E, I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more
00:41:31
fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most It's hunger to,
00:41:36
so people don't know if it was meant to say hungry or dangerous, maybe. Yeah, nobody really knows. But, uh, the most
00:41:42
hunger to animal of all. To kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is even better than
00:41:48
getting your rocks off with a girl. I feel like you haven't. The best part of it I a thy. So like I a t h ae e. But he
00:41:58
was very clearly trying to write the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise
00:42:05
spelled uh p a r a d i c e and all the I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you
00:42:15
will tr try to sl oi slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife. And then it was signed ebo
00:42:25
riot mth hip. What the [ __ ] Yeah. What the [ __ ] Yeah, that is unhinged. Unhinged for sure. unhinged as [ __ ]
00:42:43
[ __ ] Neither Donald or his wife were able to decipher those last four words that I very clearly struggled through,
00:42:50
but they suspected that it was a signature of some kind. When you say it out loud, it sounds like some kind of
00:42:54
Latin. So, I don't know if he's like guising it in his own way as Latin. I'm not sure. Um, maybe we'll get we'll get
00:43:02
there someday. Who knows? We'll get there someday. So, the next day, a second decryption arrived in the mail.
00:43:08
This time from an anonymous source. Despite some discrepancies in the two solutions, they were more or less the
00:43:13
same. Several months later, when he was asked for comments on what he thought the cipher revealed about the killer,
00:43:19
Donald Harden said he's bright enough, but not necessarily of high intellect. Interesting. Which I agree because I
00:43:24
mean, you're there's got to be some level of intelligence to create a cipher to begin with. It's not an easy thing to
00:43:31
do, especially one that will stump as many people as this one did. Yep. But it is strange that it's like that's why it
00:43:39
feels like these spelling mistakes and [ __ ] are like I think they're intentional. Absolutely. Uh but Harden
00:43:45
suspected the killer actually had no experience with cryptography and that he had either made up the cipher on his own
00:43:52
which is impressive or had pulled it from some obscure detective story that he read somewhere. He said there's no
00:43:58
continuity, no fidelity in his code. There are no special characters in these cryptograms. They are all just something
00:44:04
he dreamed up. Interesting. Yeah. Even scarier. Yep. So, the next eight weeks passed pretty quietly in and around
00:44:11
Vallejo in San Francisco. Not even the publication of the decrypted message uh prompted another letter from the killer.
00:44:18
He was probably pissed. Yeah. Then in late September, the silence was broken when yet another young couple was
00:44:23
attacked. This time at Lake uh Lake Bonesa, about an hour outside of Vallejo. 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard and
00:44:31
20-year-old Brian Hartnell, two students at Pacific Union College, had met in 1968, quickly fallen in love and started
00:44:39
spending all their free time together. By the fall of 1969, though, their relationship had cooled off a bit, and
00:44:45
eventually they drifted apart with their breakup becoming final when Cecilia decided to transfer to UCLA, Riverside.
00:44:52
The breakup was pretty amicable, but Cecilia ran into a problem. She still had some things in her dorm up at
00:44:59
Pacific Union. So on the afternoon of September 27th, she decided to make the trip to campus to grab the last of her
00:45:05
things. Okay. After grabbing what she needed from her dorm, she stopped into the cafeteria for some lunch. And
00:45:11
wouldn't you know it, she ran into Brian. Of course, they ate together. They caught up. But when they finished
00:45:16
lunch, they didn't want to go their separate ways just yet. A So the two of them, along with a friend, Judy, decided
00:45:22
to go to a rumage sale in nearby St. Helina. After leaving the rumage sale around two that day, Brian and Cecilia
00:45:28
dropped Judy back at campus, but still weren't done hanging out yet. Oh and decided to visit Lake Baronessa. They
00:45:34
weren't done. I know. A location that Brian had really always loved. So after parking the car, they started walking
00:45:42
the short distance to the shoreline where Brian laid out a blanket on the grass for the two of them, and they just
00:45:47
sat there chatting. Now, a short time passed when Brian started hearing something large moving around in the
00:45:53
bushes about 15 or 20 ft behind them. He was laying on his back and wasn't wearing his glasses, so he knew he
00:45:59
wasn't going to be able to see what was happening. And he asked Cecilia, who was
00:46:03
laying on her stomach facing him. He said, "What was making the noise?" She looked off in the distance and she saw a
00:46:09
man standing at the treeine and then saw him disappear. Oh, I hate that. Yeah. It
00:46:14
sounds like something out of a movie. It really does. Brian just chuckled to himself and was like, "He's probably
00:46:20
went into the woods to relieve himself and was like embarrassed that you saw him." But Cecilia was like, "No, I feel
00:46:25
like he was watching us." And she couldn't shake that feeling. Yeah, that would freak me the [ __ ] out. Literally
00:46:32
moments moments after that man disappeared behind the tree. He reappeared, this time much closer to the
00:46:39
couple than either of them had expected. And Cecilia then shouted, "Oh my god, he's got a gun." Holy [ __ ] And that the
00:46:47
worst part is that you know they have seen all the stories. Yeah, I know. They know like
00:46:55
you they've seen that like think about seeing all these stories, hearing the horrible things, feeling the fear. Yeah.
00:47:01
And then you find yourself face to face with this person and again they're not like this is the middle of the day.
00:47:08
They're not thinking doing something risky and they're at a park. They're not at a quote unquote lonely place, you
00:47:13
know? That's the thing like you're not even like you've watched you've seen the the articles you've watched right quote
00:47:19
unquote and you've thought that fear and you've sat there and said oh my god I like what if that was me kind of thing
00:47:25
all the things that we do sit here and be like oh my god I can't imagine blah blah blah that would be so scary and
00:47:31
then you find yourself in that position in the middle of it yep like it just I that stuff always freaks me out it's so
00:47:38
scary after the attack Brian would describe for the police the incred incredibly surreal and confusing moments
00:47:45
leading up to the attack. In the time between ducking behind the tree and reappearing in front of them, the man
00:47:50
dawned what appeared to be a heavy canvas executioner's hood that covered his entire head and came all the way
00:47:57
down to his stomach. That's so [ __ ] scary. Oh, just wait. It gets crazier. The top of the hood seemed to be flat
00:48:03
with four corners like a paper bag. It clearly looked like it had been made by somebody who didn't really know how to
00:48:09
sew. Embroidered on the front chest area was a concentric cross uh and circle about three inches in diameter that
00:48:18
looked like crosshairs. And possibly the strangest part of the attire, the eyeholes of the hood were covered with
00:48:26
what Brian thought were clip-on sunglasses. What the [ __ ] I don't know why, and tell me if I'm crazy, but for
00:48:35
some reason, the scariest part of that is the sunglasses. I That's so weird. Like it's just so unsettling. I mean,
00:48:43
the scariest part is the fact that he's wearing an execution or hood, but cuz why clip on sunglasses so you can't see
00:48:49
his eyes, but like why that? You could have chosen any other way to do that. Like you could have put like a darker
00:48:56
fabric that you like still gauzy that you could see through and that would have been less like that's for some
00:49:02
reason that is just beyond and it just it feels unhinged. it 100% like it feels like
00:49:10
a scary ass move to make. Absolutely. As Cecilia had said, the man did have a gun
00:49:17
in his hand, but he didn't appear to be advancing on them with menacing energy, per se. The man told Cecilia and Brian
00:49:23
that he was an escaped convict from Deer Lodge Prison in Montana and that he was
00:49:27
on his way fleeing to Mexico. He said he had no intention of hurting them. He just wanted their money and the keys to
00:49:33
Brian's car so that he could leave the country. So they were like, "Okay." Like, "Cool, man." Obviously sensing
00:49:38
that they're in danger here, though. Brian spoke calmly to the man wearing the hood and tried to engage him in
00:49:44
conversation. He even offered to write him a check. He was like, "I only have 75 cents on me, but I'll write you a
00:49:49
check." Yeah. The man just ignored what Brian was saying and instead told him he
00:49:54
was going to have to tie the two of them up. Oh, I hate that. I hate it because why would he have to tie you guys up if
00:50:01
he's just taking your car? Yeah. That's when you know [ __ ] is gonna arrive. Yep.
00:50:05
So, the gunman pulled a length of plastic clothes line from his back pocket and tossed it to Cecilia, telling
00:50:11
her that she needed to tie Brian's hands behind his back. She did as she was told, but she didn't want to hurt Brian,
00:50:17
so she tied the knots loosely. When she finished, the man tied Cecilia's hands behind her back using very tight knots.
00:50:24
Yeah, I figure. And then retied Brian's hands with similarly tight bindings. Once their hands were bound, the gunman
00:50:30
told Brian to lie on his stomach so that he could tie his feet. But Brian protested at this point. He said, "We
00:50:36
might not be found here for hours and we could get hypothermia. Like we're we're
00:50:40
tied up. Just like the car, take what you want." Irritated, the man placed the barrel of the gun to Brian's head and
00:50:47
shouted, "I told you to get down." The dramatic tone was obviously horrifying, so Brian just did what the guy said.
00:50:55
Now he was hog tied on the ground and the man turned his attention to Cecilia binding her ankles in the same way. As
00:51:04
the man was tying Cecilia's bindings, Brian noticed that as he was doing it, the guy's hands were shaking.
00:51:10
Interesting. So he asked him, "Are you nervous?" And the gunman replied, "Yes, I guess so."
00:51:17
Oh, yeah. That's very like I'm I'm so impressed to that Brian had the uh wherewithal to ask that question. I
00:51:27
think he was trying to appeal to this guy's humanity in any way. Yeah. Show them. You don't have to do this if
00:51:33
you're having a conversation where people Yeah. like So in his mind, he interpreted the guy's hand shaking to
00:51:40
mean that maybe he wasn't as dangerous as he appeared and maybe he wasn't going to harm them. But unfortunately, the
00:51:45
gunman's nervousness was probably less of a sign of inexperience as it was excitement. Yeah. He may have been
00:51:52
shaking because he was so excited, which is horrifying. Especially judging from that cipher. Mhm. Like the way he was
00:52:00
talking seems like he said he gets so excited that it's even better than Yeah. So sex. Mhm. Yeah. So accounts about
00:52:09
what happened next have varied depending on when the story was told. According to
00:52:13
the park ranger who discovered Brian and Cecilia a short time after the attack, Brian initially said that the man
00:52:18
produced a knife from a holster and said, "I'm gonna have to stab you." Yeah. At hearing this, Brian reportedly
00:52:26
told the man, "Stab me first. I'm chicken. I couldn't stand to see her stabbed first." Oh my god. Which like
00:52:31
that's a [ __ ] gentleman. That just shattered my heart. I know. Sometime later though, Brian told detectives he
00:52:38
couldn't remember whether he saw the man produce the knife or if he heard him say
00:52:41
anything and that it was equally possible that he said nothing before he plunged the knife into Brian's back.
00:52:48
Whatever the case, he then stabbed Brian in the back eight times. Oh my god. And
00:52:54
Brian pretended to be dead again. Wow. And then when Brian, you know, as Brian was pretending to be dead, the man
00:53:03
turned his attention to Cecilia and started brutally attacking her. He stabbed her more than 10 times in the
00:53:09
back, abdomen, and groin, all while she was fighting back. Oh my god. Confident that he'd be leaving both victims for
00:53:16
dead, he stood up and calmly walked away, leaving Brian's wallet and the car keys laying right on the ground beside
00:53:24
the couple. He had no intention. He had no intention of taking that car. Holy [ __ ] Once he was sure that the man had
00:53:30
gone, Brian called out to Cecilia. And despite the brutality of the attack, they both started discussing how they
00:53:38
could get their bindings off and go for help. She's still alive. They're both alive. They're both still alive.
00:53:45
Holy [ __ ] So, using his teeth, Brian was able to loosen Cecilia's bindings enough to free one of her hands, but the
00:53:52
clothes line had been tied so tightly and for so long at this point that both of her arms had gone numb. Oh my god.
00:53:58
And she wasn't unable to tie his hands or her own ankles. Desperate to find help though, they just started screaming
00:54:05
in the hopes that one of the boats on the reservoir nearby might hear them and investigate the sound. Oh my god. It
00:54:12
took some time. But about 15 minutes later, which imagine 15 days? Yeah. Easy 15 years, a local
00:54:20
fisherman, Richard Fong, heard the cries for help and he went to get a park ranger. In the meantime, Cecilia
00:54:26
actually luckily had regained the use of one of her arms, and she managed to free
00:54:30
Brian's hands, which let him untie all the remaining bindings. Believing that no help was coming cuz they can't hear
00:54:37
anything coming back at them, Brian decided he needed to get to the main road and flag down a passing car. He's
00:54:44
been stabbed in the back eight times. I was just going to say, like, Jesus. Luckily, he only had to make it about
00:54:49
225 yards, but even still, that is incredibly impressive. when he was spotted by Ranger Dennis Land, who had
00:54:56
heard the broadcast about Fong's report and started making his way to the scene.
00:55:00
At the that same time, Fong and park ranger William White had gone back to the shoreline by boat along with another
00:55:07
couple who had also heard the noise. So, a ton of people are arriving on scene. By the time everybody reached Cecilia,
00:55:13
it was clear that her injuries were a lot more serious than Brian's. Oh, God. Cuz she's been stabbed in the abdomen,
00:55:19
too. Like the groin. The groin. And a few more times. and they're more serious than Brian's, but his injuries are still
00:55:26
really bad, too. Like that. So, that's saying a lot that hers were so bad. Ranger White would later say, "I've seen
00:55:32
a lot of things. People cut by boat blades and such, but never anything like these two nice kids just cut to pieces."
00:55:39
Oh my god. So, White immediately called an ambulance and the group started tending to Cecilia the best they could
00:55:45
while they waited for help to arrive. But unfortunately, the lake was in a remote area pretty far from any main
00:55:51
road, so it took the ambulance and additional law enforcement almost 45 minutes to arrive. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. The
00:55:58
MTs, when they got there, loaded both victims into the ambulance and wasted no time getting to the hospital. But by the
00:56:05
time they reached their destination, almost 2 and 1/2 hours had gone by since the attack. And though Brian was still
00:56:12
conscious, Cecilia had fallen into a coma. Oh no. At 7:40 p.m., a little over an hour
00:56:18
after Brian and Cecilia were attacked at Lake Beressa, a call came in to the Napa
00:56:23
Police Department for an anonymous call from an anonymous caller who said, "I'd like to report a murder." No, a double
00:56:29
murder. They are 2 miles north of park headquarters. They are in a white Volkswagen Carmen
00:56:35
Gia. Just told them the [ __ ] Assuming the caller was some uh simply reporting a crime they witnessed, officer David
00:56:42
Slate asked the caller for their name and location. But the man on the end ignored him and just kept talking,
00:56:47
saying quietly, "I'm the one that did it." And then just hung up. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. The officer on the other end said
00:56:56
he literally heard the phone being nestled back on the cradle. What a nasty [ __ ] Yeah. Later, Officer Slate, who
00:57:03
took the call, would describe the voice as possibly in his early 20s. In the background, he said he could hear the
00:57:09
noise of traffic and background chatter just before the caller had hung up. When
00:57:13
they traced the call to its origin, investigators discovered it had been placed from a pay phone in downtown
00:57:19
Napa. In total, 35 latent prints were lifted from the pay phone. Wow. Including one promising palm print. And
00:57:27
some of the prints were actually so fresh that they still showed beads of moisture, which is cool.
00:57:33
But unfortunately, they didn't do much in identifying their killer. Back at the crime scene, investigators were having
00:57:40
little luck finding any leads. After Brian and Cecilia were removed from the scene, a well-meaning park ranger moved
00:57:47
their belongings and the bindings back to the park headquarters, which effectively
00:57:53
compromised any evidence that could have been collected. They just Oh, that's unfortunate. They were They didn't know
00:57:58
back then. You know, it's not like they were trying to [ __ ] everything up. No,
00:58:01
they were trying to help. There was, however, one strange and intriguing clue left at the scene. On the passenger side
00:58:08
door of Brian's car written in felt tip pen. The gunman wrote the following message. Vallejo
00:58:17
122068 7469 September 27th 69 630 by knife. What the [ __ ] So, he's laying out the
00:58:27
first murders, the first set of murders, the second set of murders, and now the third set of murders with a timestamp
00:58:34
and how he killed them by knife. I hate that. Yeah. Or how he thought he killed them. Holy [ __ ] Above the message, the
00:58:42
killer drew the now familiar uh symbol of the crosshairs. Within a few days, the message would be made public in the
00:58:48
area papers, but smart investigators withheld the final line by knife, knowing that they could use that
00:58:55
information to later verify the identity of their killer. Good call. Yeah, they were like, he's definitely going to
00:58:59
contact us again, so let's keep that. Despite a solid amount of critical evidence having been compromised, there
00:59:06
were still other clues at the scene that helped reconstruct what happened. The day after the attacks, investigators
00:59:12
discovered a clear set of footprints leading from the scene back to where Brian's car was, uh, which it was parked
00:59:18
on Knoxville Road. And they also discovered a set of clear tire impressions leading from where the
00:59:23
gunman had parked, right behind Brian's car, out to the main road. And luckily, the tire impressions revealed a unique
00:59:30
detail that the two front tires on the man's car didn't match, which would be invaluable should they ever find the
00:59:36
car. Yeah. So, that's good. Now, that same day, investigators discovered the tracks. Detectives got a
00:59:43
call from the dean of Pacific Union College, who reported that three students had come uh had come forward
00:59:48
with some information that might be of help. According to the three young women, they were also at the lake that
00:59:54
day. They had gone to Sunbathe, and they were settled on a spot near the western shore, which is
01:00:00
where Brian and Cecilia had been attacked. As they were getting out of their car, they said they all noticed a
01:00:05
man quote in a light blue Chevrolet with California license plates and he was parked nearby. They thought really
01:00:12
nothing of it at the time, but an hour a half hour later, all of them saw the man
01:00:17
from the parking lot standing about 50 ft away and he was clearly watching them. Yeah. However, whenever they would
01:00:24
look in his direction, he'd look away, which is [ __ ] creepy. I hate that. He's such a [ __ ] creep. He's creepy.
01:00:31
That's the thing. A short time later, the man passed by the group as he walked back toward the cars. And when each
01:00:38
witness was interviewed separately, they all described the man in pretty much the
01:00:42
same way. Approximately 30 years old, 6 feet tall, 200 to 225 lb, stocky with dark hair parted on the left side,
01:00:51
wearing dark pants and a short sleeve sweater. And they all agreed he was nicel looking. Okay, which is even
01:00:57
scarier that he's just a I mean who knows if this is the guy it could he's just a normal looking just a normal
01:01:02
looking dude like nothing out of the ordinary and I it there's a good chance it could have been that the Zodiac
01:01:09
because if you look at the earlier descriptions of him everybody says around 20 to 30 they say stocky or like
01:01:16
heavy set kind of Yeah, which makes sense. Yeah. Now, the same day as detectives were interviewing the
01:01:22
students from Pacific Union, investigators held a press conference to provide what few details they could
01:01:27
about the case, identifying the asalant as likely the same man who had attacked the two couples in Vallejo earlier that
01:01:34
year. Napa Sheriff's Captain Don Townsen told reporters, "This man is a psychopathic killer." Yeah. Which, like,
01:01:42
yes, valid. And he went on to say that the attack on Cecilia showed definite sexual overtones, but it's unclear what
01:01:49
that statement was really based on. Uh but he did suggest again without evidence that quote the slayings might
01:01:56
be part uh might be the work of a Napa State Hospital inmate. That's interesting. Yeah. It I think I
01:02:06
It's like didn't the last time he said he was escaped from a Yeah. Huh. Well, he told um Yeah, he told Brian and Brian
01:02:15
and Cecilia that he was, but I don't know. It's Yeah, I mean that does because he said he was an escaped inmate
01:02:21
from like Minnesota. Yeah, something like that. So, that's different, but interesting that it was brought up a
01:02:26
couple times. Yeah, it is interesting. But who knows what the basis was. On the afternoon of September 29th,
01:02:32
unfortunately, just before 400 p.m., Cecilia Sheffford passed away in the hospital, making her the fourth
01:02:39
confirmed murder victim of the man that the press now was referring to officially as the Zodiac Killer. Oh,
01:02:45
that makes me so sad. I know. Brian Hartell remained in serious condition, but would eventually recover from his
01:02:51
injuries. That is unbelievable. And to have that happen three times in a row, in the men, it's Yeah. which is and it's
01:02:59
just by happen stance. Yeah. And it's interesting. I hate it. I do too. Like I like I'm glad that they you know he
01:03:07
survived. I mean like I hate that like Well, we don't know what that's about. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I hate
01:03:14
that coincidence. I think I think it is a coincidence, but it is bizarre. But it's just very bizarre. Yeah. There's a
01:03:20
lot of I don't I'm not saying like supernatural in the way of like ghosty, but there are like a lot of supernatural
01:03:28
paranormally supernatural about this. Not that there is, it's just like I'm not saying there is. It has a a vibe to
01:03:34
it that's very otherworldly. It feels like cuz even his like outfit feels like from another planet kind of situation.
01:03:43
Like you're just like I can't reconcile like someone wearing that. Yeah. And I think obviously the fact that it's
01:03:48
unsolved leads even more like heightens that feeling. Yeah. Like makes it have like an alien quality to it. Yeah. But
01:03:54
it is it it's a case that really leaves you with the chills. But in an interview
01:03:58
conducted shortly after he came out of surgery, Brian described the killer as having brown hair, about 5'9 to maybe 6
01:04:05
feet tall, 20 to 30 years of age, and 200 to 250 lbs with a husky voice. Okay, so pretty similar to all the other
01:04:12
descriptions. Investigators checked other aspects of Brian's story, including the killer's claim that he
01:04:19
escaped from Deer Lodge State Prison in Montana. That's what it was. I think I said Minnesota earlier. Either one. But
01:04:24
officials at Deer Lodge confirmed all their inmates were accounted for. H. Now, like we know, the term serial
01:04:31
killer had not been established at this point. But in the two weeks that followed the attacks at the lake, the
01:04:36
press and public started to process the fact that there was a multiple murderer living amongst them. Yeah. And if the
01:04:43
past was any indication, this guy was going to kill again. Mhm. Some people were starting to think maybe the Zodiac
01:04:50
was sexually motivated, evident in what was described as his quote unquote affeminite handwriting and the quote
01:04:57
sexual aberration suspected by a psychiatrist. I don't know though. The only I think that's kooky to to
01:05:05
attribute it to that. I don't think there's enough. What's I think what's more interesting is the fact that he
01:05:10
literally wrote in the cipher like it's better than getting your rocks off with some girl. Well, and I think that's
01:05:15
really where people were getting that feeling. They're like, let's talk about his quote unquote affeminite
01:05:19
handwriting. It's like really? Yeah. And it's like I don't think these crimes are
01:05:23
nec necessarily sexually motivated. I think he gets probably a sexual thrill from killing. Yeah. Like
01:05:30
maybe that's the thing. Maybe like that's what it's about. Yeah. is that's where he gets his pleasure. Yes. From is
01:05:40
doing this, which is [ __ ] up in a whole different way. Yeah. But I don't know if I would consider that.
01:05:48
I don't know. Maybe it's just like the wording that sounds to me. You know what I Because I always think of like a
01:05:53
sexually motivated murder to include sexual assault or you know which of course it
01:06:00
doesn't always which that's when you really think about it you're like okay well maybe maybe it's just the term
01:06:05
that's throwing me off but perhaps they're correct. Yeah they could be. I mean we don't really know some way shape
01:06:10
or form. Yeah. But to others he was simply a maniac who believed the stars and planets commanded him to kill.
01:06:18
According to an astrologer's prediction made just um just before the Beressa attack, the lake the attack on the lake,
01:06:25
quote, "The heavens indicated the killer might strike a third time, and this astrologer was only off by one day."
01:06:31
Wow. Yeah, that's impressive. But regardless of the killer's motivations, almost everybody believed it was only a
01:06:37
matter of time before he struck again. And unfortunately, they wouldn't be waiting long. Oh man. But that is where
01:06:44
we are going to wrap for part one. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Give you a lot of information for part one. I was going to
01:06:51
say this is just like so heavy. Like there's just so much involved in this case. There really is. And there's still
01:06:58
a lot more to talk about in part two. Damn. But holy [ __ ] We will leave you here because that's a lot to digest.
01:07:05
That is a lot to digest. Crazy. Very crazy. Bonkers case. Damn. So with all that, we hope you keep listening and we
01:07:14
hope you keep it. weird. Keep it so weird that you fight with your sister about the use of the word aesthetic.
01:07:21
Keep it that [ __ ] weird. And keep it so weird that you're on my side. No, my side. I'm not old.
01:07:28
Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Michael Ble. [Music] [Music]