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foreign [Music] August 1st 1969 three letters were received one at the Vallejo Times Herald
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one to the San Francisco Chronicle and one to the San Francisco Examiner the nearly identical letters took credit for
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the shootings at Lake Herman Road in Blue Rock Springs each letter also included one-third of
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what is referred to as the Zodiac 408 Cipher it is called this because the author used 408 different symbols in the
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cryptogram which the killer claimed that when solved you'll have my name so the cryptogram is to contain his identity
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the author demanded that the letters and the cipher be printed on each paper's front page
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let's go through each and give a good description of everything that was received first the Vallejo times
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the envelope to the Vallejo times is addressed to Vallejo Times Herald Vallejo Calif as to say California
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c-a-l-i-f please rush to editor with four stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope so way too much postage the
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back of the envelope says please rush to editor the envelope to the San Francisco
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Examiner is addressed to S period F period examiner San Fran period caliph please rush to editor with two postage
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stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope the back of the envelope again says please rush to editor the envelope
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to the San Francisco Chronicle is addressed to S period F period Chronicle San Fran period caliph please rush to
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editor again with two stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope and again the back of the envelope says
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please rush to editor all three envelopes are postmarked from San Francisco and dated as mailed on July
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31st 1969 the day before they're received so when we talk about where zodiac lived and What murders he might
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be quote local too we know one simple fact and that is on Thursday July 31st 1969 the Zodiac was in San Francisco
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right now for the letters all three letters say basically the same thing with subtle differences throughout each
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I even went to the exercise of sitting down and examining all three and comparing them so that I could write
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down every subtle difference between the three they are not identical letters but
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they are basically delivering the same identical message but real quick they're all three handwritten they're all three
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handwritten and the exercise that I did to find the subtle differences between the three was Pilates it does not work
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well for our audio presentation of this case it would be something that would be
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interesting to visually show to everyone drop your pants there we go the letters
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read dear editor this is the murderer of the two teenagers last Christmas Christmas spelled with m-a-s-s
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at Lake Hermann and the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo to prove that I killed them I shall
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State some facts which only I and the police know Christmas again spelled m-a-s-s brand of ammo Super X 10 shots
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were fired the boy was on his back with his feet to the car the girl was on her right side feet to the west and real
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quickly there's no way he would know this as far as this was imprinted somewhere where
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any Layman would know this information so from what I could find based off of the newspapers and and their versions of
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the story of the attacks prior to this right that's why I purposely went through the
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fact that they were saying in the first attack that each victim was shot three times we know that's not the truth the
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female victim was shot five times and that would have been hold back information they did not want anyone to
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know the number of shots fired even though the police themselves did know that they said each victim shot three
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times they said something like four shell casings were found near the vehicle one thing that he is telling us here
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that only the police would know one is ten shots were fired and two he's naming the brand of ammo that was used
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to shoot the two teenagers right he goes on to say fourth July girl was wearing patterned slacks the boy was also shot
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in the knee brand name of ammo was Western so again the name of the ammo would not be known and from what I could
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find to the the statement of the boy was also shot in the knee this does not seem
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to have been general knowledge at the time then he writes over on the page to make sure that you do not fail to flip
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it over because he's wrote some more on the back here is part of a cipher the other two
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parts of this Cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo times in San
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Francisco Examiner now right you're going to change those titles depending on which of the three letters you're
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reading I want you to print this Cipher on the front page of your paper in this Cipher is my identity if you do not
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print this Cipher by the afternoon of fry f r y first of August 69 now for August he just put OGG Aug I will go on
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a kill Rampage fry night I will Cruise any misspells cruise around all weekend killing lone people in the night then
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move on to kill again until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend so as he stated in each letter
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it contained one-third piece of this Cipher the chronicle published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the
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next day's Edition well again he's telling them post this on the front page and again I'll bring up the Zodiac movie and
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I know it's a dramatization but it's the idea is that these newspapers then had to contemplate do it we don't want blood
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on our hands but at the same time we don't want to meet all the demands of a serial killer Yes and so the cryptogram
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was printed on the fourth page of the chronicle and what's interesting here is the article was printed alongside sorry
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there was an article that was printed alongside the code that quoted Vallejo police chief Jack stilts as saying quote
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we're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer and requested that the writer send a second letter
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with more facts to prove his identity I think that was a way to bait him well and what's interesting too Captain is
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that the his demands were not carried out as he instructed right and the threatened murders did not happen he you
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know nobody drove around shooting people until they killed a dozen people that weekend
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but eventually all three parts were published right just not on the front page but look when you think of all the
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cases that we covered this blows my mind the level of sophistication yeah okay you spell some
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words wrong uh and I think you know I think the spelling Christmas like that is probably some just stupid joke he's
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trying to make just like the flip over right I mean like I said it's just there's this level of sophistication of
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we're going to send this to three papers because now I get to see the reaction of three companies and their heads and
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what they're going to do whether they print it on the first page or the fourth page and then there's different readers
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for every paper so now I'm going to hear and feel the reactions of when I'm going through my
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daily life not as the Zodiac right just as as a regular dude and I'm going to hear the the Rumblings
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about my work about what I'm creating it's uh I I I can't think of another crime off the top of my head of of
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something that ballsy well if the police chief from Vallejo was trying to in fact
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bait the killer or at least the author of that letter well they took the bait because on August 7th 1969 another
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letter was received this was a three-page handwritten letter and it was received by the San Francisco Examiner
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with the salutation deer editor this is the Zodiac speaking okay so now this monster has officially given himself a
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name this will be the first time the killer had used this name for identification right the letter was a
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response to Chief stiltz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday Jensen and farron this
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letter says Dear editor this is the Zodiac speaking in answer to you're asking for more details about the good
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times I have had in Vallejo I shall be very happy to supply even more material by the way are the police having a good
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time with the code if not tell them to cheer up when they do crack it they will have me on the 4th
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of July I did not open the car door the window was rolled down already the boy was originally sitting in the front seat
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when I began firing when I fired the first shot at his head he leaped backwards at the same time
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thus spoiling my aim he ended up on the back seat then the floor in the back thrashing out very violently with his
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legs that's how I shot him in the knee I did not leave the scene of the killing with squealing tires Racing Engines as
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described in the Vallejo paper I drove away quite slowly so as not to draw attention to my car the man who told
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police that my car was brown was a negro about 40 to 45 rather shabbily dressed I
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was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking
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by when I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring and that Drew his attention to me plus my car
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last Christmas again m-a-s-s in that episode the police were wondering how I could shoot and hit my victims in the
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dark they did not openly State this but implied this by saying it was a well-lit
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night and I could see silhouettes on the horizon [ __ ] that area is surrounded by high
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hills plus trees what I did was tape a small pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun if you notice in the center of
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the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or dark spot in the center of the circle of
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the light about three to six inches across when taped to a gun barrel the bullet will strike in the center of the
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black dot in the light all I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose there was no need to use the gun sights
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I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage and then this is where he signs it with what we would
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later refer to as the zodiac symbol the circle with the cross in the center of it and then he wrote no address so let's
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think about this for a second what does this tell us about our killer well first
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he seems to read all three papers and would appear to expect to have access to all three to double check their work on
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Friday night or as he says fry night because that's when he's going to start killing people if he doesn't see his
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work in the papers yeah but again we don't know how much time this guy has on his hands he could make the time if it's
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that important to collect these resources again I don't have the notes in front of me like you do but there's
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not a lot of misspelled words this guy isn't a Dennis Raider he's not misspelling a bunch of words
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and he's also explaining to you how he basically jimmied his gun to have light in the dark
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I I I don't want to give this guy too much credit but again I think you're dealing with a somewhat of an
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intellectual yeah and I think that it's a strong possibility that the Zodiac has
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some type of military background now talking about where he may live or what he has access to again I don't believe I
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I can't believe that he threw out this threat and didn't want to double check their work I really firmly believe he
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would have been in a position to have the ability to access all three newspapers that
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Friday night to see his work that's what he that's what he loves yeah you wonder
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if he's a some kind of driver or Delivery Man or well what I find interesting is we know that on the day
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before he would have been in San Francisco because that's where the letters were mailed from right all three
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yet of the newspapers the Vallejo times would be the smallest of the three papers and I wonder how much
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availability at the time that Vallejo paper would have been in the bigger city of San Francisco I could see being in
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Vallejo and being able to get the San Francisco papers I just wonder could one get the Vallejo paper in San Fran the
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other thing that I want to point out here too is we also know that he reads the San Francisco Examiner and that
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seems like a dumb statement but I want to include that because we know that he reads the San Francisco Examiner
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specifically because he responded to Chief stiltz's request for more details that was only printed in one of the
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three papers but what's interesting for whatever reason he's responding to something he read in the San Francisco
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Examiner but he sends those additional details to the other paper to the San Francisco Chronicle right so it's it's
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weird it's uh why why the preference of having it printed in the San Francisco Chronicle when you respond to something
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that was in The Examiner or is it just another one of his weird little games and here comes Captain Obvious for you
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again a little bit of sophistication a little bit of cat and mouse a little bit of
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I I want to see how people react but the intellectual part the cipher dividing up the cipher in three parts
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and I'm not great at cryptograms or anything like that so I'm not going to pretend to fully understand this but
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some things that I do know is one you're looking for words that have the common double consonant use that's that's one
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key indicator that you could quickly pick up on right as well as the the most common letter used in the English
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language is the letter e and he was sophisticated enough to know this that he used I believe it was seven different
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symbols for the letter e so it you know you couldn't one couldn't easily pick this up and figure out the letter e
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immediately just by looking at it you know you would you would count up the number you would count up the symbols
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that were used repeatedly and the one that was repeated the most you would say well that should be e right and start
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from there well he used seven different symbols if not more for the letter e now
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interestingly enough on August 8th so he's already responded to their request for more information to prove that he's
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the killer before the cipher is solved because it's solved on the eighth and this was solved by Donald and Betty
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Hardin of Salinas California they were the ones that cracked the zodiacs 408 Cipher are they mathematicians they were
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I believe teachers nerds um and I don't know if it was math or or what but both of them had an interest in code cracking
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and it was kind of a hobby of theirs the the interesting thing too it seems like
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Donald was a little more schooled in this ability but it was Betty that kept the two of them at task like they were
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multiple times where he's like it's impossible just give up and she's like no we got we're going to
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stick with this we'll be able to solve it and so the husband and wife yeah behind every great man is an even better
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woman a smarter woman but what I like about it is I love the people that go don't don't give up we're almost there
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well and we'll get into the decipherment here in a minute but the cipher contained misspellings as you said
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and the killer seemed to be referencing the most dangerous game now for those that don't know the most dangerous game
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was also it's a story that was also published as the hounds of Zaroff it's a short story by Richard Connell after
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decoded the cipher reads as follows I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing
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Wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all not true that's mosquitoes to kill something
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gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of
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it is that when I die I will be reborn in Paradise the I have killed will become my slaves
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I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife
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and then there are 18 letters e b e o r i e t e m e t h h p i t i so the 408 symbol Cipher next time won't you single
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as the captain pointed out includes several misspellings and grammar errors now the meaning if there in fact is any
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meaning at all of the final 18 letters has never been determined okay but how can they say that the couple cracked the
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code well this is really interesting and this is this like throws some psychology
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into it as well because the couple they were saying look obviously this guy wants attention or he wouldn't have
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bothered to write the letters in the first place right I agree so they said said you know we went into this after
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examining it for a while with the idea that someone's so self-centered would likely begin the letter or the whole
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message with I with the word I also Betty She suspected that the word kill would obviously appear in the message at
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some point right so that's a good question yeah and she said that she took it as far as to suggest that the message
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might even begin with the phrase something to the effect of I like killing so if you use that and apply it
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and say all right well we we think that maybe it will start with the word I and that we will see the word kill at some
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point in there you're looking for the double consonants the two L's and kill two symbols the same next to each other
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to be used or you apply that uh I like killing as a possible first phrase and then
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work it out through there I think we talked a little bit about this off record but the type of killing that he's doing
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yes I mean by having two individuals it seems like it there's more cause for possibly a
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mistake for one of them to get free and to live and then become a eyewitness but
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it's one of the less risky crimes he's uh he's prey on people in in areas that that they know they're going to be
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vulnerable and they're going to be alone and you can take advantage of that yeah
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yeah it's again It's tricky to completely we were talking about decoding it's it's
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difficult to decipher how he's coming up with his victims but one thing that seems to be going on in this situation
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is that killing might not be the number one objective here no it almost feels like
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the the reaction the suspense of him killing again is what really truly excites him
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and that's where I go back to the idea of the threat of oh I'll drive around if you don't print print this on your front
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pages like I asked you to I'm going to drive around all weekend shooting people until I end up with a dozen dead over
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the weekend we didn't do that we know he didn't do that and so you go well why didn't he do that
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because he got just as much enjoyment out of seeing the reaction the Panic the people working to try to to solve the
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cipher and the reaction that it was putting out there for that weekend he achieved enough excitement over that
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that he didn't have to go out and actually shoot and kill anybody yeah I agree and I think that's because the the
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excitement is actually higher because I would actually think that you have more chances of getting caught they're
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asking for the letter so they know it's coming so how much information can they find out about where that letter is
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coming from but that's what baffles me a little bit is their demand is a higher risk that he could get caught
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then him going on to kill other people yes and that's why it's a good kind of proactive
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technique to try to bait the author into sending something again because look if
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you can't shake the bushes and get the killer to come out then your second goal is well let's
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shake the bushes and maybe the author comes out and it turns out that they weren't the Killer
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and yeah and if you can shake the bushes well enough then you're a masturbator but what happens is they when they bait
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the author they end up getting more confirmation that yes the author is in fact the person that killed all three of
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those victims foreign [Music] [Music] foreign welcome back you True Crime addicts
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cheers mates cheers all right Captain we have another attack so brace yourself this time the Zodiac
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Killer will strike in broad daylight the date is Saturday September 27th 1969. the location is Lake Berryessa
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Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County Florida located in the Vaca mountains to give a general location to
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the listeners in relationship to the previous attacks Lake Berryessa is located about 36 miles north of Vallejo
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so quite a quite a good distance considerable distance considering the first two attacks were within about two
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miles of each other in the evening hours Pacific Union college students this is 20 year old
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Brian Hartnell and 22 year old Cecilia Shepard are picnicking at Lake Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand
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spit to Twin Oak Ridge a man approached them now as he got closer they could clearly see that the man was wearing a
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disguise and holding a handgun the disguise or as I would call it the Zodiac's costume is described as a
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hooded mask with a symbol sewn onto the chest The Mask resembles a paper grocery
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bag in shape flat on top with the corner sticking out it was black with slits cut in it for
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the eyes and mouth over the eye holes there were clip on sunglasses The Mask draped down over the
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chest and back of the man the symbol sewn onto the chest portion of the Mask is a circle with a cross in
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it the now familiar cross hairs looking symbol that the Zodiac uses as his logo so to speak yeah so now we have the guy
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gives himself the name the Zodiac a very ominous name the Zodiac and now he's wearing this costume and he's given
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himself a logo as well we have a killer that's really kind of coming to life as almost like a super villain from a comic
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book yeah but hearing that his mask is similar to like a grocery sack it's that's a little disappointing hey look
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at me I'm captain sackhead give me some candy well let's get into that after we go through what happened on that day the
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hood that we're talking about came down over a dark colored windbreaker the windbreaker was worn over top of what
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has been called a rusty black shirt I don't know exactly what that means my guess is anybody that's owned you know
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you wear a black shirt a whole bunch of times it can can get faded but sometimes
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it almost takes on this Rusty appearance yeah so he's wearing black gloves as well
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he's wearing baggy pleated pants tucked into boots he has on a belt with a wooden holder
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attached to the belt and the holder is for a long knife now the knife resembles a bayonet with a wooden handle
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he had some lengths of rope stuffed inside his belt I've seen several sources state that these were very
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likely cut clothesline probably cut into 18 inch or two feet long pieces given the time period in other cases we have
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reviewed cut clothesline makes good sense the attacker was five feet ten inches to
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six foot two inches tall the hood is often described as a black Executioner's type Hood so given that
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description and the general shape of this Hood I would believe this may make his exact height a little more difficult
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to determine and that's why I think he may have chose that oddly shaped grocery bag type shape for the hood right plus
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he has it cut in a way that it's going to drape down the front of him and the back of him it just really makes his
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exact height very difficult to determine yeah and also doesn't hug the features of his face correct
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he's described it does not hug the face it doesn't hug my face he's described as
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possibly 225 to 250 pounds so a big boy stocky and build again given the fact that he was clearly very overdressed
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with unnecessary layers of clothing and baggy pants he may appear to be heavier than what he actually is and I know this
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is a point of contention in the Delphi case with the bridge guy a glimpse into the space this is very interesting a
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glimpse into the space behind those clip-on sunglasses right by our one of our victims revealed brown hair
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and what he said a glimmer suggesting that maybe the attacker is wearing glasses underneath the hood
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his voice it is said sounded like he was in his twenties Brian Hartnell believed that the gun
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that the man had was a 45. now the way that a 45 looks traditionally is very consistent with what some in law
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enforcement say was the likely used in at least one of the earlier attacks that that Browning high-powered uh handgun
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that we spoke of okay so again let's let's take a step back for a second because we have a guy that now we think
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he has access to multiple guns has access to multiple Vehicles he is now sending letters not just calling and
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taking responsibility but sending letters taunting different Publications different entities if you will and then
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this one seems a little more Brash because it's in the daylight he's wearing a costume so he's going to stick
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out like a sore thumb or a sore loser it's also on a remote part like you said almost an
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island so it seems like again setting himself up in more of a dangerous scenario to get caught yes yes and maybe
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no and I have a lot of thoughts on that why he's kind of changing what he's doing I think he's in a way evolving and
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adapting to to the battlefield if you will I actually believe that this guy is playing a game and he's not informed the
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rest of us that this game is going on right and it is a type of game that he's playing and he doesn't he's chosen not
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to tell us the rules of this game but his objective is to kill terrorize put the fear of the community into the
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people in the community and not get caught for it and I think what you see here is too you mentioned access to
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multiple weapons or now we're potentially seeing different guns used and a bayonet type knife this guy his
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makeup his profile very much would indicate this guy has to be kind of a weapons enthusiast
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of some sort he's not somebody that just purchased one gun or or his daddy died and gave him a gun no this is a guy that
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that is actively collecting using practicing with different guns and weapons so much so that he explains to
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them look you made it sound like oh I could I was just shooting at the Silhouettes as
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they ran from me no that's [ __ ] I purposely outfitted my weapon so that I could hunt in the night and make it easy
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on me it's dark I don't want to use my sights it's almost nearly impossible if not impossible to use them in the pitch
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black so I taped a pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun anybody that's ever
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aimed that at a wall or ceiling knows that you will see this and the gun behaves and reacts in relationship to
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the flashlight in this manner yeah this means this is all stuff this dude has practiced and tried on his own
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the only thing he was missing was an audience and the audience unfortunately would be his future victims
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when he played this out again yeah but I also think when he said hey look here's
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my demands put these notes in the the ciphers on the front page and then they didn't instead of going with his
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original plan they zigged he zagged he was killing people at night okay now they're on to that I'm gonna show them I
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can kill a different way I'm willing to kill in the daylight so now we don't have a killer that we're just worried
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when the when the Sun goes down we have a killer that we need to be worried about all the time therein lies the
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terrorist aspect of this killer it's you're only truly good at the terrorism game if people are afraid of you all of
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the time and this is to suggest to the community look I don't just hunt at night time baby I do this whenever I
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feel like it and until I am caught you all should be very afraid continuing on with the description of the attack at
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Lake Berryessa the hooded gunman demanded the couple's money and car keys saying he wanted to drive to to Mexico
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right he said he escaped from a prison in Deer Lodge Montana where he had killed a prison guard he's said that he
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had no money and was driving a stolen car Brian gave the attacker his money and keys to his Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
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then using the pre-cut lengths of clothesline he instructed Cecilia to tie up Brian
00:35:06
then the hooded man tied up Cecilia put her face down next to Brian the killer then checked and tightened Brian's
00:35:14
bindings the couple seemed to believe the man's story they thought they were simply being robbed this is until he
00:35:22
told them that he was going to stab them both right then he drew his knife and he
00:35:28
stabbed them both repeatedly he began by stabbing Brian first in the back and then he moved on to Cecilia and did the
00:35:36
same but she rolled onto her back in like in in the struggle and ended up being stabbed repeatedly on in the front
00:35:46
as well Brian said that he pretended to be dead now after the attack the attacker tossed the money and keys onto
00:35:57
the couple's blanket and simply walked off so he came up with this story I'm here to take your money in your your car
00:36:04
and then tossing them on the blanket indicates he didn't want their money nor did he need their car the killer then
00:36:11
hiked 500 yards back to Knoxville Road this is to Brian hartnell's Volkswagen Carmen Ghia right before the killer left
00:36:21
using a black felt tip marker he wrote a message on Brian hartnell's car he drew
00:36:28
a cross circle symbol on hartnell's car door and wrote beneath it Vallejo 12-20-68
00:36:38
7-4-69 September 27 69 630 by knife so the zodiac symbol followed by Vallejo the location of the first two attacks
00:36:53
followed by the dates of those attacks then the date of the current attack September 27th the Lake Berryessa he
00:37:01
even provided the time 6 30 and the method for which he intended to kill the victims by knife begin
00:37:11
what did we do here I'm killing my victims with a gun at night now I'm going to switch to killing
00:37:18
my victims during the day with a knife yes and what's interesting to me Captain I actually I say that I believe that the
00:37:25
Killer is evolving he's evolving for the purpose of his game again his game is to terrorize
00:37:33
continue to terrorize and not get caught I mean but that's your blanket statement
00:37:38
is that it's that's what my belief as a game of terrorism but there's no like there you don't have deeper details that
00:37:46
you no the Zodiac has not told me that I'm correct so I'm just guessing I'm a [ __ ] I'm just guessing here but I also
00:37:53
believe that his main goal out of all of this is not to get caught so if I apply
00:37:58
that to these crimes let's think about this for a second the first the first attack the
00:38:06
first 100 confirmed zodiac attack took place just before Christmas 1968. he's successful and to the point
00:38:16
of not only killing both victims but there's no real Witnesses you know the problem for him then becomes on July
00:38:24
4th he does a very similar attack or what we can believe would be a very similar attack as the first one however
00:38:34
he screwed up he left before killing both victims one of the guys survived to the point where he could offer a
00:38:42
description of the zodiac yeah it was a couple but the the male survived correct
00:38:49
Michael Maggio he survived and what does he provide police he provides them with
00:38:55
a description of the shooter as well as a somewhat vague but a description of the vehicle here's what I think is super
00:39:04
interesting why is he changing I don't think it's so much so to terrorize and prove that he can kill in any method or
00:39:11
any manner that he chooses I think it's all kind of convenient because he's learning what he did wrong
00:39:18
so he knows now that he's not perfect he's had two attacks on four victims one survives
00:39:27
he now knows that he's not perfect after his second attack doesn't go down the way he wanted it to right
00:39:33
so what has he taken from this well they've already kind of there's a description out there about my vehicle
00:39:41
there's a description out there about me okay well I'm going to attack now in a manner that does not have me pulling my
00:39:52
vehicle up to their vehicle or up to the victims because if I accidentally leave
00:39:56
one of them alive his intent is to kill let's let's not be confused here his intent is to kill everyone he attacks
00:40:03
but he knows that he's not perfect so I do not want to have to put my vehicle where if one of these people manages to
00:40:11
survive somehow we'll have a description of my vehicle also I'm gonna wear a disguise because if in fact one of them
00:40:19
do survive they can't give a description of me because I've worn this elaborate disguise right the potato sack how about
00:40:27
I take it a step further one a gun is pretty loud and I'm doing this at Lake Berryessa which is in fact just
00:40:33
basically a huge gigantic Park all that noise is going to cause a lot of people awareness of me and they might be seeing
00:40:43
me so let's use some something much more quiet Like a Knife oh and that's even better too because then I'm not leaving
00:40:49
behind bullets and casings that they can match it to my previous crimes or to or
00:40:57
or back to me because it's a firearm that I own yeah and I also wonder if he changed the way in which he's attacking
00:41:05
victims not just the throw off law enforcement or to like show people hey look I I can kill people however I want
00:41:13
and and that will strike fear into the community but in the in that moment you have to stab that individual more
00:41:23
times than you'd have to shoot them and you have to be at a closer range so do you get more of
00:41:30
whatever he's getting off on he's getting off on chaos and rage and their fear and how they're reacting to him
00:41:40
you think I would think that attack with a knife would be more intimate yes he's
00:41:47
certainly becoming more violent and whether that's because he aspires to become more violent or if it's through
00:41:53
necessity of changing his Mo right the other thing with the in broad daylight see I feel
00:42:01
like the Zodiac would want all of us to go oh wow I mean he's so he he's so confident that he's out there killing in
00:42:11
broad daylight and now he's hands on and and he's wearing a potato sack I think that he would enjoy and would want us to
00:42:19
think that where I think that he's actually fairly inadequate where I think that he does not have a whole lot of
00:42:25
confidence even though he tries to tell us that he does I think that he has made these moves in
00:42:32
these maneuvers to change what he's doing because he is afraid that he's going to get caught
00:42:39
that he does know that he has made mistakes I think if it were up to him he would have simply kept doing
00:42:45
what he did in the first attack and been successful all along but because he was learning that he's not
00:42:53
perfect he's deciding that he has to change well I was talking to a a seasoned detective retired and he just
00:43:01
said oh what's your next case I said uh zodiac and he goes uh yeah this was this was a real
00:43:08
detective he he didn't read a lot about uh true crime stories or other cases going on he worked his cases he's like
00:43:17
how did he kill his victims again uh wasn't he lover Lovers Lane shooter or something I said uh yeah yeah Lover
00:43:25
Lover Lane and he and he and he basically was saying coward and so we also don't know
00:43:34
what people were saying around the Zodiac when he's in his normal life he could have just had a buddy
00:43:44
that he was like man that zodiac man he's going around killing people and the guy went oh what a wuss you know guy
00:43:53
pulls up on unsuspected victims in the middle of night with a gun what kind of [ __ ] what kind of fair
00:44:01
fight is that you know I mean well it never is with these guys and that's why in fact they are all cowards at at the
00:44:09
at the core of it at the core of of their being they're all I mean he's ambushing teenagers unarmed people it's
00:44:16
not a it's it's not a fair fight and he knows that going into it yeah but that's
00:44:21
what I'm saying is what I think is interesting is how much of the decision is he making based off this game he's
00:44:29
playing or this uh zigging zag game that he's playing with law enforcement or it
00:44:35
could be simply he you know he's talking to people about the crime in his regular
00:44:39
life and they make some observations and then he goes well I gotta change it up because uh Zodiac's not impressing
00:44:47
people enough you know in this killing in broad daylight I don't think that it shows that his confidence is growing I
00:44:54
think it's just out of necessity he's killing at basically what is a big giant park right so when do parks close when
00:45:02
the Sun goes down so if you want to drive there looking for a victim your likelihood of finding a victim after
00:45:07
Sundown is less likely so he I again I think because of him choosing this area he's kind of forced into attacking
00:45:16
during broad daylight now Captain it looks like our two victims they were able to crawl some distance
00:45:24
from the scene their screams and cries for help were in fact heard by a man who was with his son they were on a fishing
00:45:32
trip uh in the area that day the man contacted the park rangers now Cecilia was conscious when Law Enforcement
00:45:41
Officers arrived right this was Napa County Sheriff's Office that arrived on scene but she very quickly slipped into
00:45:49
a coma during the transportation to the hospital and never regained consciousness
00:45:56
she died two days later from her injuries Brian Hartnell the the male victim survived and was able to provide
00:46:05
law enforcement with the details of the attack and the attacker the details that
00:46:09
we just went through right at 7 40 PM by the Killer's own words this would be a little more than one hour after the
00:46:18
attack A call came into the Napa County Police Department on the call the unidentified
00:46:25
male caller sounded to be maybe early 20s according to the person taking the call said he wanted to report a double
00:46:34
murder and before he hung up he said he was the perpetrator of those murders not
00:46:40
just reporting the murders right but I'm the guy that did the call was from a pay
00:46:46
phone at a Napa car wash on Main Street in Napa the phone was found still off the hook minutes later by a radio
00:46:56
reporter this pay phone is located only blocks away from the Napa Sheriff's Office this is 27 miles though from the
00:47:07
crime scene again weird that this guy okay he's going to carry out these attacks and again by his own words
00:47:14
he thinks he was successful he's calling in a double murder and fortunately Brian Hartnell survived
00:47:23
yeah but in an hour to an hour and 10 minutes uh roughly and then this location probably a 30-minute drive would be my
00:47:34
guess I don't find too much of a problem with the missing time here and that's because we know several facts
00:47:42
about this crime one the killer walked a considerable distance from the parking area to where he
00:47:50
attacked both of the victims and then walked then had to walk back he wrote on the vehicle
00:47:56
and then he left the area the detectives were able to lift a still wet palm print from the telephone used
00:48:05
by the Killer but it looks like they were never able to match it to any one suspect
00:48:12
at the crime scene Captain there were tire tracks found near Brian's car so someone parked behind Brian's car it is
00:48:21
believed that this is the vehicle of the Killer and here's why they said that the
00:48:26
front of this car that that left tracks they could tell by the tracks that the front of this car seemed to have tires
00:48:33
that were not only worn but they were actually two different sizes okay so we believe this to be the Killer's vehicle
00:48:41
because Footprints led to the murder scene and then back again to that parking area that went right up to the
00:48:50
door of Brian's Carmen Ghia the shoe size was ten and a half the subject was estimated to weigh at
00:48:58
least 220 pounds so this fits with Brian's description as well right the prints were from a wing walker type
00:49:06
of boot this type of boot was produced under government contract and distributed on the west coast to Navy
00:49:13
and Air Force some people at the lake that day provided descriptions of a man that they
00:49:20
said seemed to be suspicious this unidentified male was in a light blue or silver Chevy with California
00:49:30
tags smoking cigarettes he was six foot tall or more 200 to 230 pounds mid-20s to mid
00:49:40
30s with straight dark hair side part clean cut they have him wearing a black sweatshirt
00:49:47
with sleeves long sleeves I'm sorry dark blue slacks and a t-shirt was visible hanging out of the pants uh in the back
00:49:56
and what was hanging out in his front and here's another I unidentified male description maybe the same person maybe
00:50:02
not we don't know this person was described as five foot ten stocky wearing a dark long sleeve
00:50:09
shirt with some red on it and dark pants now long time listeners of this show will know from our John Douglas mind
00:50:18
Hunter episodes as he said the FBI did not investigate the Zodiac crimes at the time but did so
00:50:25
later Douglas however suggests that maybe the killer at this attack provided us a clue to his identity
00:50:34
specifically the I escape from a prison in Deer Lodge Montana and Douglas who even lived in Montana at
00:50:43
some point in his life says that Deer Lodge Montana is not just the kind of place that you just pick at random or
00:50:50
pull it out of thin air he believes that there's a likelihood that this the attacker the killer the Zodiac has
00:50:58
some connection to that area now he did say that it was specifically looked at there was not a recent escape from a
00:51:09
prison there there was not a recent murder of a prison guard there that part was made up but Douglas firmly believes
00:51:16
that this Deer Lodge Montana it was real is is more truth Than Fiction so I always just thought it was
00:51:23
a ruse just to throw him off the set Douglas actually suggested using some proactive techniques and he said that he
00:51:31
would use this Deer Lodge Montana idea and maybe snuffing out the stuff up I guess sniffing out the killer he says
00:51:41
what he would have done if he would have been active on the case at the time would be to cooperate with an
00:51:46
investigative reporter in the Deer Lodge Montana area right and have them run some kind of story about the Zodiac and
00:51:56
that they're seeking information from some different people and whatnot he really felt that if you could tie
00:52:03
together Vallejo California Lake Berryessa California and Deer Lodge Montana there's not going to be a great portion
00:52:13
of the population that have lived in both places and that would really shrink down your
00:52:20
suspect pool now the description that we gave of the suspicious man this may not
00:52:27
be the Zodiac at all may not be the killer at all this is just somebody that was spotted at Lake Berryessa that day
00:52:33
by two different groups of people maybe the same man maybe not but they said they all thought this guy to be
00:52:40
suspicious you're asked have you seen anything unusual or anything suspicious in nature you report that to police and
00:52:47
we went through the description of this mail or males this was put out to the public and in a very smart move the
00:52:56
police did not refer to this man as a suspect simply they said this is someone that was at Lake Berryessa on the day of
00:53:03
the murders and is somebody that police would like speak with yeah I mean it's the same thing they did in Delphi with
00:53:09
Bridge guy but I wonder if you know if he was in this prison does that mean that he's catchable well I don't
00:53:16
necessarily think that Douglas thinks that the man served time in prison I think he's just pointing out that not
00:53:24
everyone across this big country would even know that Deer Lodge Montana exists right and
00:53:32
that there is a prison in the area and so he's just saying that this simply means that somebody had some kind of
00:53:39
knowledge of that Deer Lodge Montana area and it's not wouldn't be commonplace for anyone to have that
00:53:46
information all right so again after this one he wants that recognition we don't see this all the time with serial
00:53:54
killers where they want law enforcement to know hey guys I'm out here and I'm not stopping most of the time The
00:54:02
Killers want to hide that aspect but he he places a call again and the interesting thing here is on that call
00:54:10
from the reports that I've seen it doesn't necessarily say that he's taking responsibility for all of the zodiac
00:54:16
murders he's simply saying that he's reporting a double murder at Lake Berryessa and I'm the guy that killed
00:54:23
the two well he knows that he can keep his message his phone call short and sweet he doesn't have to go into the
00:54:30
Vallejo crimes right because he knows that when law enforcement arrive on the scene they're going to find Brian
00:54:36
hartnell's vehicle and on that car door he wrote Vallejo and the two dates of the attack then he
00:54:43
wrote today's date and the time by knife he knows the shock value of that is going to be Supreme when the when law
00:54:52
enforcement show up on the scene and see that on the car door they will immediately know right that he's done
00:54:58
all three and it's fascinating because as you pointed out this is an individual that
00:55:05
he wants some kind of credit for these murders and he wants law enforcement to know that he's a serial killer and you
00:55:13
all he also wonder during this time frame how many calls that they're getting that are hoaxes yeah and the
00:55:21
scary thing too that I've always considered is look if this kind of thing was going on
00:55:27
on a public level this is all very public we have letters going to the newspapers being printed out so anybody
00:55:34
can read them yes the the scary thing I've always thought about in regards to the Zodiac Killer case is if if you had
00:55:42
somebody that you wanted to take out that you wanted to kill at this time well what better way to go and kill that
00:55:52
person and maybe the Zodiac takes credit for it or maybe the public thinks that the Zodiac did it
00:55:58
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