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GameChanger [Music] [Music] 2 weeks after the attack at Lake Barry Essa we are now at October 11th
00:01:51
1969 on our zodiac timeline this is when a white male hailed a taxi cab driven by
00:02:00
29-year-old Paul Stein the passenger would hail the taxi cab at the intersection of Mason and
00:02:08
Gary streets this is one block west of Union Square in San Francisco this is in the Heart of the City the passenger
00:02:18
requesting to be taken to Washington and maple streets in the prido Heights area
00:02:25
that's about a 13 to 15minute drive from the location of where Paul Stein picks up his passenger to where the passenger
00:02:35
is requesting to be dropped off for reasons unknown the taxi cab did not stop at the requested destination
00:02:45
instead Paul Stein drove one block past Maple Street to Cherry Street and you say well how do we know that the
00:02:53
passenger requested to be dropped off elsewhere one block prior to where the location where they do drop off it's
00:03:00
based off of the taxi cab driers journal or log sheet for picking up the passenger at that location and where the
00:03:11
passenger requested to go now we know that it made the cab made it an additional block based off of eyewitness
00:03:19
testimony right the only reason why I question this is is it possible that the Zodiac said take me to this location and
00:03:27
the guy goes well I don't know exactly where that's at and he said well it's right by whatever and then that's what
00:03:35
the the cab driver put into his log that's interesting because it's always been pondered why go the additional
00:03:42
block and we can put in some uh speculation as to that but as you just pointed out that could be a possibility
00:03:49
maybe it's just the error a human error on the part of the taxy cab driver in his log sheet the white male passenger
00:03:59
then shot Paul Stein once in the head with a 9 mm gun he took Paul Stein's wallet and car keys and tore away a
00:04:12
section of Paul Stein's bloodstained shirt tail this all went down Captain right at about 9:55 p.m. on that night
00:04:23
of October 11th the passenger SL shooter was witnessed by three teenagers across
00:04:31
the street at that same time at 9:55 p.m. right this is very cool because they were actually able to call in the
00:04:41
murder to police while the crime was still in progress the way that this goes down is about 50 ft from where the
00:04:50
murder took place down there in the street we have a birthday party going on and one of the witnesses this would have
00:04:59
been a a young teenage girl witness the crime in action calls over her two brothers and they witness this whole
00:05:09
event going down as well and they phone the police and say hey there's a a robbery or a shooting or something
00:05:15
that's going down in the streets below yeah and this is going to give us probably our best eyewitness account of
00:05:23
the zodiac that's correct because in the second attack where Mike mou was able to
00:05:28
offer up a suspect description keep in mind he had been shot several times and was in a good deal of pain and Trauma
00:05:36
when he saw the suspect and then later we have Brian Hartnell who offers up a description but by this time our killer
00:05:45
the Zodiac he is disguised from head to toe right these Witnesses are not even a
00:05:51
part of the crime they're just simply witnessing the crime from AAR not very far about 50 ft would be the estimation
00:05:59
so they're going to get a decent look at this guy now mind you it is dark but this is a The Heart of the City it's a
00:06:06
the busy part of the city where we should have pretty well-lit streets now the witnesses say that they saw the
00:06:13
killer wiping the cab down before he walks away not running just calmly walks away from the crime scene toward the
00:06:24
precidio area yeah and because we have three eyewitnesses we're going to get a better description of this individual
00:06:31
because we got three different perspectives yes as well as the description of the suspect so he the
00:06:38
suspect is heading to the precidio area again that would be one block north of the the crime now two blocks from the
00:06:47
crime scene was another birthday party yeah is a San Francisco patrol car that is responding to this very call they obs
00:06:59
observed a white male walking along the sidewalk East on Jackson Street and stepping onto a Stairway leading up to
00:07:07
the front yard of one of the homes on the north side of the street this encounter lasted maybe 10 seconds or so
00:07:16
this has always been a strange part in the whole zodiac conversation in the whole
00:07:24
investigation itself because we'll we'll see there's some weird movements going on on here where we may have had San
00:07:31
Francisco police actually interact with the killer however they've never been super forthcoming and completely
00:07:40
Cooperative with that type of statement right there were two officers in this patrol car they later said that a white
00:07:48
male pedestrian was about 35 to maybe 45 years of age 5' 10 in tall with a crew cut similar to but slightly older than
00:08:00
the description the teenagers who observed the killer said the killer to be the teenagers say that the man that
00:08:08
they saw stepping out of Paul Stein's cab they have him as about 25 to 30 years of age with a crew cut and again
00:08:17
it's a white male that they are describing the teenage Witnesses put the killer at about 5' 8 in to 5'9 in tall
00:08:27
one we have to remember this is 196 9 so that's actually going to be somewhat tall for the average male well one thing
00:08:34
that I find interesting about this piece of the story here Captain is that we have a discrepancy in age described by
00:08:42
the two different parties here the police officers describing someone older than the teenagers describing right and
00:08:49
I think that that could be for several reasons I think they're talking about the same guy because the general
00:08:54
description other than the age is in fact the same it's very very similar ilar so what we have here is a situation
00:09:02
where the officers in the patrol car one likely got a better look at the individual head on face to face eye to
00:09:11
eye sort of situation where the teenagers would have been up on the second floor and they would have been
00:09:17
seeing the killing and observing the suspect from from an elevated height right which might change some things the
00:09:26
other thing though too again the officers in the car they might have this perspective and a
00:09:32
better gauge on this suspect's age because they're probably likely most you know they're definitely more close in
00:09:40
age to the suspect himself now still to this day captain and no one seems to be sure why or can agree why this took
00:09:49
place but for whatever reason the police radio dispatcher initially alerted officers responding to this call this
00:09:58
Rob robbery the shooting call to be on the lookout for a black male suspect so when the officers saw this
00:10:10
white guy and zodiac would tell us later that that they interacted the officers interacted with
00:10:18
him that night as he was running or walking away from the crime scene they they did not suspect him to
00:10:26
be the person they were looking for at that time because of this flawed description this just wrong description
00:10:34
of the suspect they should be looking for as they drive to the crime scene well again with the Zodiac Killer it's
00:10:41
very fascinating because it's the the change of actual crime look confirmed killings you can debate other killings
00:10:51
but the confirmed killings that we have the four attacks Tu being Lover Lane shootings another one similar to lover
00:11:00
Lanes but it's stabbing victims and then you have this attack on a taxi c cap driver it it makes almost no sense yeah
00:11:11
it doesn't stick to the victimology and it doesn't stick to the mo that we saw in the first two attacks and and it even
00:11:21
I mean you one could argue the third attack has a very strongo to the first two and this one the attack the murder
00:11:29
of Paul Stein is significantly different now we mentioned that the Zodiac says that he spoke to
00:11:35
the officers San Francisco Police Department their stance has always been we didn't speak to the Zodiac Zodiac
00:11:43
says in a letter he did but again he's been proven to be a liar on more than one occasion but according to this other
00:11:52
version again the police actually stopped the man who might have been the zodiac and they ask him if he's seen or
00:12:01
heard anything suspicious to which the man that they stop says yes I saw a man waving a gun
00:12:09
on Washington Street heading east so the police squeal their tires to rush off to go looking for this
00:12:18
non-existent man with a gun and again very likely let the Zodiac Killer walk off into the night and it's
00:12:26
almost as if the zodiac is like daring himself to do a crime that's in the Public's eyes that people will see him
00:12:35
and how will he react when the police arrive on the scene at the murder scene Captain they find Paul Stein he's lying
00:12:43
across the passenger seat he was dead from the single bullet fir to his head damage to the entry of the bullet proved
00:12:52
the killer placed the gun to Paul Stein's head before firing the gun so this would be Point Blank Range that the
00:13:01
killer used to kill Paul Stein the killer managed to take only approximately $ 25 from the cab driver they were able to
00:13:11
come up with that dollar amount based off of again the driver's log for that night on the fairs that he had picked up
00:13:19
throughout the night so it was called in as a robbery in progress with a possible
00:13:25
shooting however we now know that this being a zodiac case the robbery is just secondary it it doesn't likely have
00:13:36
anything to do and it was not the motivation for the murder itself as we know in the three previous attacks the
00:13:44
killer didn't molest any of the victims did not steal any of their money so then
00:13:50
we have the perpetrator of Paul Stein's murder wiping down the cab this is based
00:13:57
off of the three teenage eyewitnesses however the killer still managed to leave two fingerprints smeared in Blood
00:14:05
on the outside of the rear door on the driver's side now detective Bill Armstrong and David tshi were assigned
00:14:13
to the case they arrived there that night and anyone who has seen the 2007 zodiac film will know exactly the
00:14:21
detectives that we are talking about as the movie follows them for a good deal of their investigation now of course
00:14:28
because it went down in a taxi cab Paul Stein's murder was initially believed to
00:14:35
be a robbery turned homicide but then 2 days later on Monday October 13th the San Francisco Chronicle received a
00:14:44
letter from the Zodiac I call this one the Paul Stein letter because it contained a torn section of Paul Stein's
00:14:53
bloodstained t-shirt I think the Zodiac added that because they're started becoming questioning
00:14:59
amongst law enforcement and probably the community saying is he actually responsible for these murders or is he
00:15:06
just taking claim to them well and in this communic what we have here Captain is we have a very similar envelope
00:15:14
addressed in a similar manner to the the previous letters received this says S period F period
00:15:22
Chronicle San Fran period Khalif we see that Calif of the abbreviation the abbreviated California please rush to
00:15:32
editor one difference that is is obvious and noticeable right away in the way that this letter is addressed opposed to
00:15:41
the others is in the upper leftand corner where one would typically expect to see a return address we have the what
00:15:50
we're calling the Zodiac logo the crosshairs the circle with the cross in the middle is in place of the return
00:15:59
address and again we see two stamps for this letter so in typical zodiac tradition here we're seeing more postage
00:16:09
than what is needed the letter reads as follows this is the Zodiac speaking I am
00:16:16
the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night to prove this here is a Blood
00:16:25
Stained piece of his shirt I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay Area the S period F period for San
00:16:37
Francisco the San Francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of
00:16:45
holding road races with their motorcycles seeing who could make the most noise MH the car drivers should
00:16:54
have just parked their cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come out of cover school children make nice
00:17:04
targets I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning just shoot out the front tire and then pick off the
00:17:14
kitties as they come bouncing out and of course he signs it with the Zodiac logo
00:17:21
the cros hairs well again zodiac likes to come off a little smug a little pompous
00:17:29
you know hey I'll just uh I'll just wreck a bus kill everybody I I still don't understand why he would take such
00:17:37
a high risk to kill somebody basically in a public place with a bunch of eyewitnesses well I think that's a
00:17:43
perfect question here Captain because you're right it changes emo completely he's now attacking a single male in a
00:17:52
taxi cab and as you pointed out this is going to be a busy area there's there is
00:17:58
a high risk for an eyewitness if not multiple eyewitnesses the other thing too is now the Killer is also going to
00:18:07
be dealing with the San Francisco Police Department rather than the Napa County Sheriff's Department or valo where they
00:18:15
you know much smaller departments San Francisco is going to have better resources more officers more cars
00:18:23
motorcycles as he calls them and we even know that helicopters were flying around
00:18:28
that night trying to look for the man that they know fled on foot from the murder scene you mean helicopters yeah
00:18:36
motorcycles and helicopters that's right yeah so let's examine this one and compare it to the previous attacks what
00:18:45
we have here Captain is the first attack confirmed zodiac attack is Friday December 20th
00:18:52
1968 and this was the murder the double homicide of David Faraday and Betty l Jensen now about 2 miles away and about
00:19:02
6 and 1/2 months later on Friday July 4th 1969 Michael Mao and Darlene faren are
00:19:11
gunned down as they sit in Darlene's vehicle and thankfully Michael Mao survives that attack then let's fast
00:19:19
forward just a brief period here to September 27th of that same year 1969 on Saturday
00:19:29
when Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard are attacked by a massed gunman who pulls a knife on them and stabs the both
00:19:38
of them and again Brian Hartnell survives now the Zodiac claims to be the attacker of all
00:19:46
three of these attacks in fact when he sends letters to the chronicle The Examiner and Vallejo times the letters
00:19:56
received on August 1st first he is giving detailed proof that he is in fact the murderer of the person that
00:20:06
conducted the first two attacks and then when he attacks Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard in at Lake baresa right
00:20:15
he phones it in just like he did in the second attack phoner and he writes on Brian hartel's car door the zodiac
00:20:24
symbol followed with the previous dates of two attacks and that he is claiming to be the
00:20:31
attacker of Brian and Cecilia that day at Lake beresa what do we have here now Captain the final confirmed attack is a
00:20:42
Saturday October 11th 1969 of Paul Stein one I find it intriguing alone that the
00:20:50
first two attacks both take place on a Friday and then the second two attacks attack number three and four both take
00:20:57
place on on a Saturday for whatever reason the zodiac is a weekend warrior and I do not know why cuz he has a job
00:21:06
he there must be something keeping him from killing during the week it's just so much more convenient for him to do
00:21:14
what he does on the weekend now in this situation the first attack he's successful he kills both of the people
00:21:23
parked in the vehicle he gets away with what maybe no eyewitness at all at least
00:21:30
to his person there is one eyewitness saying that they saw a vehicle parked near Faraday's car that night and that
00:21:37
comes into question but then on the fourth of July he proves that he is not perfect he's not as good as he claims to
00:21:46
be or he believed himself to be because he leaves the crime scene before he he's
00:21:53
successful in killing both of the victims Mike Mao survives and even offers up a description of the suspect
00:22:00
and the suspect's vehicle so what does he do he adapts a little bit he's going to have to take his car out of the next
00:22:08
crime I don't want my vehicle seen oh I can't be seen as well because I know that I'm not perfect if I if I screw up
00:22:18
again and I leave a witness if I leave a Survivor at the crime they can describe
00:22:25
me they can tell the police what I look like they can tell the public what I look like this time I'll wear a disguise
00:22:31
the thing with Paul Stein's murder that fascinates me is the complete difference
00:22:37
in Mo and I have to wonder in three attacks the last two he failed to kill the male in both of those attacks in the
00:22:46
last two attacks he failed to kill both victims and left a a victim alive in both attacks has he evolved to the point
00:22:55
of understanding that maybe I do not want to go and kill two people again I've just not been that great at it the
00:23:03
last two times but for whatever game that he's playing he needs to keep killing to terrorize the San Francisco
00:23:10
Bay area and then take that a step further he's killed in Vallejo he's killed at Lake beresa he's not killed in
00:23:18
San Francisco yet and yet he's been mailing threatening letters and ciphers to San Francisco to two of their
00:23:26
newspapers what the hell do people in San Francisco got to be afraid of he's not even done an attack here we just
00:23:33
keep reading about this guy in the newspaper I feel like zodiac wanted to do a crime in San Francisco San
00:23:40
Francisco proper like you said right in a busy area yes it's super risky but that's the thrill this guy's getting out
00:23:49
of this he's a terrorist at his heart well like you said it's possibly the hometown of the
00:23:56
zodiac and is it possible to that yes he was doing these killings but was there something that was allowing him to get
00:24:05
away and maybe had these all all these plans of what he was going to do that weekend and for some reason he couldn't
00:24:12
leave but the urge to keep this going was too much so it's like oh well I'll just go downtown yeah and it's it's also
00:24:20
a situation of I think he planned a lot of this out of going okay well I need to
00:24:28
I I want to kill someone in San Francisco I need them to be by themselves because I don't want to
00:24:33
attack two people again and foul up and leave somebody alive and I think he came
00:24:39
up with a vulnerable situation a taxi cab driver is a dangerous profession because they get robbed at a higher rate
00:24:50
than than other professions just simply based off of that they are often alone with whomever they choose to let in
00:24:58
their vehicle and so the Zodiac knew this and some people have said that maybe the coordinates of where he wanted
00:25:07
to kill the cab driver it was important to zodiac and maybe that's why he picked
00:25:13
the cab because they'll go where you ask them to go I don't want to play that game
00:25:20
because I don't want to get into the uh mathematics or geography of of that portion of it but I find it fascinating
00:25:28
that not only did he I feel like he wanted to prove that he could kill the male and I feel like he didn't want to
00:25:37
keep pointing out his flaws that he wasn't Perfect by leaving a Survivor so I'm going to choose one victim I'm going
00:25:44
to go after one individual I think he wanted a male victim but the other thing we have here too Captain is he takes the
00:25:53
time to rip off a piece of Paul Stein's shirt tail why because he's already given proof when he offered up details
00:26:02
about the first two crimes however he wants the papers and the police and the public to take him seriously if any of
00:26:11
you were out there doubting anything that I've said because a lot of the details I gave you so far only the
00:26:17
killer Andor police would know well here's your proof baby here's your bloody shirt I am who I say I am I'm the Zodiac
00:26:29
I'm the person responsible for these murders and I'm why you should be afraid right every night why you should
00:26:38
not be out on the streets at [Music] night this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
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animals extra filthy animals filthy animals if you're nasty on November 8th 1969 the Zodiac mailed a
00:29:11
card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters or symbols and this Cipher was dubbed the
00:29:21
z340 cipher which remained unsolved for over 51 years it was in fact just solved
00:29:29
December of 2020 the Zodiac would continue to mail letters and threatening letters and he
00:29:37
even mailed some letters to famous attorney Melvin belly at some point and so he continued his open wave of
00:29:47
communication to the newspapers and police it's strange Captain because from here this is where we go
00:29:57
from confirmed zodiac attacks to the rest are open for speculation there are some attacks that the Zodiac has claimed
00:30:07
over the years there are some attacks that people have claimed were conducted by the Zodiac but we never have any type
00:30:14
of definitive proof like offered up in these four attacks that resulted in the five confirmed homicides committed by
00:30:22
the Zodiac Killer one a lot of people will throw this Sherry Joe Bates case in with zodiac research I think that's fair
00:30:32
but what we have is we have the killer that is calling himself or identifying himself as the Zodiac he doesn't make
00:30:41
those claims and you would think that he would yeah that's interesting because he
00:30:48
throughout these four attacks never does he ever mention the murder of Sher Joe Bates in Riverside California and it's
00:30:56
not in until the police and others are already kind of hip to the idea that the Riverside killer might be the same as
00:31:05
the Zodiac that the Zodiac does finally hint around the idea that that he might have been the murderer of and he doesn't
00:31:14
even name the victim which was Sher Joe Bates another crime that is often linked
00:31:22
to the Zodiac whether it be confirmed or not is the Catholic John's story and Kathleen John's was a
00:31:31
young mother she had a 10-month-old daughter with her and she was pregnant at the time and in March of
00:31:40
1970 she's driving from San Bernardino California to Petaluma this was to visit her mother with the purpose of you know
00:31:50
letting her 10-month-old daughter visit with her mom she chose to because she would be driving with a child I mean
00:32:00
10-month-old is a baby they need a lot of attention you need a lot of attention she decided you know what this is a long
00:32:06
drive it's like 300 400 miles I think that she would do most of this driving at night because the baby would sleep
00:32:17
for a large portion if not the entirety of the drive right and she could focus on driving and not have to pay attention
00:32:25
to her young daughter well this is pretty late at night and she was heading west on Highway 132 near
00:32:36
Modesto California and she said that a vehicle SE behind her was trying to get her attention now I do want to be clear
00:32:46
here Captain this is a difficult story to tell because there are different versions of the story that have come out
00:32:54
through the years right and Kathleen John's not that I don't believe her it's just she's told a slightly different
00:33:03
story on more than one occasion but the gist of it so that means you don't believe her well it it makes it
00:33:10
confusing to pass along this story and and say that I feel super confident I believe it went down I believe this
00:33:18
story went down 100% I just the the subtle variations are difficult yeah the problem with these types of accounts are
00:33:27
these are victims and the situation that they were in is might be the highest stress situation they've ever been in
00:33:35
and so I think not always are they lying or that they're trying to be you know manipulative or something
00:33:45
they're they're I think they have a hard time recounting the events because of how stressful it would have been or how
00:33:54
traumatic it would have been yes that is very like I mean she has a lot to be concerned about not only her own life
00:34:02
but the life of her very very small child at the time too so stressful situation does not begin to describe the
00:34:10
situation at all but the gist of this story Captain is that the driver who is on the highway behind her is indicating
00:34:19
that she should be pulling over and once she pulls over the driver of the other vehicle male guy male driver and people
00:34:29
that have seen the Zodiac movie The 2007 film know exactly what we're about to talk about because this is a terrifying
00:34:37
part of the story one of one of the more terrifying portions of the movie itself
00:34:43
the man tells her hey your back tire looks to be wobbly looks to be loose I can fix that for you and she says that
00:34:52
she sat in her vehicle while this man fixed the tire okay everything seems fine she thanks
00:34:59
him he gets back in his vehicle he drives off she starts back up on her journey and very quickly the tire that
00:35:06
he was working on comes completely loose and she is now in a situation where her
00:35:13
vehicle is inoperable she gets out to discover that there's only one lug nut still on the tire so while this man
00:35:22
claimed to be fixing her problem he was creating a problem he returns and offers her a ride to the
00:35:30
nearest service station which in some of the versions she says was close enough that she could see it and so she agrees
00:35:39
to get into this individual's vehicle she gets in with her baby they go a driving and she said that they just kept
00:35:48
driving and driving and driving and she kept pointing out hey you're driving past the service station hey there's one
00:35:57
coming up here we're driving past this one as well and in the the police report that I could find it states that she
00:36:07
says that anytime she mentioned service station or that he had just drove past one he would
00:36:12
change the topic of conversation to something else that the two were interacting for the entirety of the
00:36:19
drive now in the movie it appears to be a very short drive when in fact based off the police report says that they
00:36:29
drove around for like an hour maybe even an hour and a half wow but it also seems
00:36:34
like such a zodiac thing cuz he's you it's the misdirection hey I can help you with
00:36:41
your tire there's nothing wrong with her tire but you're going to create the problem you know what I mean like uh
00:36:47
it's it's very zodiac well it's also very serial killer in yeah in general where you're you're setting a trap and
00:36:55
we've seen Bundy do this we've seen serial killers in movies do this in in real life time and time again they're
00:37:02
setting a trap and unfortunately it worked in this situation in some of the accounts there was a threat and when he
00:37:12
takes a turn she bails out the vehicle with her small child and then hides the baby and hides herself and the the
00:37:24
person that picked her up drives off in the police report it's a little different because in the movie he says
00:37:33
again it's a movie I understand but he says before I kill you I'm going to throw your baby out the window and in
00:37:41
the police report there is no such threat of her account of that night in fact there's actually no threat at all
00:37:49
it just says that she became increasingly concerned and became terrified as they just kept driving and
00:37:57
driving and driving and per the per the police report she says that when they got to either a stop light or stop sign
00:38:04
so the vehicle is now stopped that's when she fled the vehicle and she didn't in fact hide but ran into a field and
00:38:13
just kept running out into the field for a while until he left the area and then
00:38:17
of course had to flag someone down what's interesting though here that is not in the
00:38:24
movie is that her vehicle and this is no mistake at all was moved it was moved from the the
00:38:34
location where she left it mhm and Not only was it moved it looked like someone attempted to burn out the vehicle set it
00:38:43
on fire from the inside but was unsuccessful in doing so now the reason why this gets lumped into the zodiac is
00:38:53
one the time frame you know this is just a handful of months 5 months after the Paul Stein murder but then top that off
00:39:01
with the description that she offers up is very similar to descriptions of the zodiac so much so that she sees the
00:39:11
wanted poster for the man in the Paul Stein murder and says that's the guy that gave me the ride that's the guy
00:39:18
that jacked up my tire yeah and gave me the ride that's the son of a [ __ ] well
00:39:24
then you can have you have to double down here because later zodiac will lay claim to this attack in one of his
00:39:33
Communications to the police or to the newspapers but but again he could have read about the attack by that time right
00:39:42
when he when he then claims to have been the man who he says something you know smartass statement like zodiac likes to
00:39:49
give I'm the the man that gave the that poor woman a ride or or the driver that uh help helped out that woman on that
00:39:57
night yeah it's uh do we have any record of her saying uh the the height of this
00:40:03
individual or I mean other than he just looked like the wanted poster well that's interesting because they you know
00:40:11
she would have seen him for the majority of the time based off of that story they
00:40:15
would have been sitting right next to one another yeah so she'd have a decent amount decent idea of his height based
00:40:21
off of the two sitting next to one another of course she saw him out of outside of the the vehicle a couple of
00:40:27
times but she said that the man the driver was actually shorter than her now she was a tall woman 5' n and so the
00:40:36
police list the height of this man at 5 fo8 but that also fits with close to other descriptions and like we said
00:40:45
eyewitness reports you have to have a little wiggle room there but as everyone knows Captain the regardless if the
00:40:54
murders continued or not zodiac would have us believe that they did often sending Communications saying that he
00:41:02
has killed more people he puts a tally like a murder number tally on some of his
00:41:08
Communications and the number just keeps going up so he would have us believe that the murders are continuing we can't
00:41:17
confirm that what we can confirm is that the communications continued and this continued up until it's believed to be
00:41:28
1974 yeah with the last murder the last confirmed zodiac attack and murder taking place in late
00:41:36
1969 so it seems like the need to keep the communication going was more important than the actual murders
00:41:45
themselves if in fact he stopped killing in 1969 well and this leads a lot of people
00:41:53
to believe that the Zodiac died in in' 74 as well because the letter stopped he got writer's block it happens well or or
00:42:03
he got to the point where he's like I'm not committing any more real crimes why keep writing to law enforcement the more
00:42:12
you have communication with them the more likely you are to get caught and you're taking claims for crimes that we
00:42:19
can't even prove that he did yes it's keeping the risk level very high when you're communicating with the newspapers
00:42:28
or police or what have you and you know I know that the FBI Mind hunter that type of stuff they would say keep these
00:42:37
communications going and it looks like San Francisco and all involved did the best that they could to keep these
00:42:45
communications going and in fact one of the more famous communic in the whole zodiac investigation is the letter to
00:42:53
Paul Avery which was re received October 27th 1970 now this communication is quite scary for many reasons especially
00:43:03
if you're Paul Avery this was a Halloween card signed with the letter Z and the Zodiac logo this was a threat to
00:43:15
Paul Avery and the Zodiac wanted him to take this seriously because apparently zodiac did
00:43:24
not like what Paul a was writing about him in the chronicle Paul Avery was a well-known reporter for
00:43:32
the San Francisco Chronicle who had been covering the Zodiac case there would be
00:43:38
further Communications but Captain the Zodiac went silent for nearly 3 years before a letter from the Zodiac
00:43:49
was postmarked and received by the chronicle on January 29 1974 this was the letter that was
00:44:00
praising The Exorcist as the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen being the words of the zodiac and the
00:44:10
letter included a the Zodiac Killer thinks he's hilarious yes he does and and this is where he gives us the score
00:44:20
right the San Francisco Police Department equals zero so f f fpd equal 0 me equal 37 giving the indication that
00:44:32
he's killed 37 people and they've not been able to catch him the San Francisco Police
00:44:39
Department yeah I I find the Zodiac Killer to be super fascinated as long as well as so many others and there's so
00:44:49
much that we could talk about it's one of those cases that people have been telling us oh we'd love for you to cover
00:44:56
zodiac really to do the Zodiac case proper I mean you could be talking about months and months of
00:45:08
information from other crimes that people suspect that he did that are not confirmed from suspects to everything
00:45:19
wrong with those suspects and everything right with those suspects it's a lot of
00:45:23
information to cover well you have the Sherry Joe Bates murder which may or may not be connected to the Zodiac it's
00:45:31
forever linked to the Zodiac but should they solve Sherry Joe bates's murder that doesn't mean that they've solved
00:45:38
the Zodiac cases as well we can't confirm that they're in fact connected other than we as the general public have
00:45:46
always kind of linked them together ever since those letters were received in the
00:45:50
70s and so Sher Joe bates's murder investigation alone you could talk about for for several episodes but then you
00:46:00
also have the Domingos Edwards case that's a whole Standalone case on its own we don't know for certain that it's
00:46:07
connected to the Zodiac we also have the the nurse that went missing uh at Lake Taho MH another case of possible zodiac
00:46:17
and then you have right here on this what's often referred to as the Zodiac's Exorcist letter of him saying 30 seven
00:46:26
victims sfpd zero we only have five confirmed victims if you add Sher Joe Bates now we're up to six Domingos
00:46:35
Edwards we're up to eight I mean I'm sure we got a lot of blanks to fill in here uh at 37 yeah but I'm sure that the
00:46:43
San Francisco PD killed some people within that time that zodiac is just not giving them credit for no I don't think
00:46:50
that's what he means okay so but then the other thing here though becomes take almost every famous crime expert they've
00:47:01
had weigh in on zodiac you could do a weekl long uh series on just the profiles that people have given the
00:47:09
expert profiles that people have given on the Zodiac well and Robert Grey Smith's top suspect Arthur Lee Allen
00:47:16
alone is is hours of information and that's hours of information that list pros and cons for why he is a good or
00:47:27
bad zodiac suspect there is no perfect zodiac suspect yet because we would have The Man Behind Bars he would have been
00:47:35
caught for at least the five murders that we know the Zodiac to have committed but again what we wanted to
00:47:41
focus on mainly is the confirm Crimes of the zodiac and the confirm letters and communication of the zodiac well and
00:47:51
throughout time Captain ever since the Zodiac went silent in 1974 for and even before that when maybe the murder
00:47:58
stopped in 1969 everyone has been trying to figure out who the zodiac is not just
00:48:03
the San Francisco police department or the Vallejo sheriff's department or Napa County Sheriff's department but the
00:48:10
public in general the state of California the communities and people of California and therefore we have had
00:48:17
probably dozens of suspects that their names have popped up from time to time some of the more famous would be Ted
00:48:24
kazinski the UN bomber he's someone who has been rumored to possibly be the Zodiac you have Rick Marshall who has
00:48:32
been a popular suspect throughout the years and in fact we have Ted Cruz right who was not even alive when the Zodiac
00:48:40
killings took place but he looks a lot like the picture so I mean dispute dispute all you will maybe he's a
00:48:46
vampire I don't know but um the thing is you don't have proof he isn't with with
00:48:52
the Zodiac 2 we know for a fact that the male perpetrators in the Manson family were
00:49:00
looked at strongly they were very strongly looked at and even stated to have been cleared by investigators as
00:49:09
not being the Zodiac one interesting one of late would be Gary Stewart who published a book in
00:49:19
2014 called the most dangerous animal of all in which he claimed that his re search his search for his biological
00:49:28
father which turned out to be Earl Van best Jr he says his search for his father led
00:49:36
him to conclude that van best Jr was in fact the Zodiac Killer and this anytime a new suspect comes about no matter if
00:49:45
it's look we should be clear though Gary Stewart is not the first person to come
00:49:50
forward and say hey my father was the Zodiac there's been other people to say hey I think my stepfather was the Zodiac
00:49:57
or my father was the Zodiac my uncle was the Zodiac one problem with the Zodiac case Captain is the the
00:50:05
famous composite sketch drawing of the zodiac a lot of dudes looked like that in the late
00:50:13
60s in through not just California throughout the United States and what yeah most guys look like they were a
00:50:21
penis wearing glasses in the late 60s but but this is also very similar to Black Dalia um there's a lot of people
00:50:30
that my father or my my stepfather I think it just happens in these huge notorious cases well that's very
00:50:39
interesting because Steve hodell claims his father George hodell was the Black Dalia kill killer and the Zodiac Killer
00:50:49
and then of course everybody who listens to this show or basically any other True
00:50:53
Crime podcast knows the name Ed Edward Edwards or Ed Edwards and it's been claimed that basically any unsolved
00:51:01
homicide Ed Edwards is responsible for now again anytime somebody brings up any of these suspects the zodiac is a big
00:51:10
name okay the Zodiac he was selling papers by writing to the police by writing to the newspapers himself still
00:51:18
to this day newspapers are selling newspapers by putting the Zodiac's name in articles and on their front pages and
00:51:26
so throughout time when any of these suspects pop up we want to get a statement from law enforcement how good
00:51:35
is this new suspect was he somebody that you looked at in' 68 69 or 70 is this name just new to the public or is it new
00:51:44
to law enforcement as well so I found a May 3rd 2018 press release from the Vallejo
00:51:54
Police Department that says the Zodiac case has been an open investigation for several decades in the City of Vallejo
00:52:02
with any open homicide investigation Vallejo police detectives still follow up on New Leads and continually work to
00:52:11
identify a suspect over the course of this investigation Vallejo police detectives have always taken advantage
00:52:19
of emerging Technologies and new advances in forensic science to assist in the identif ification of a suspect
00:52:27
currently we are not close to identifying a suspect nor do we anticipate developing that information
00:52:34
at any time in the near future we have no new information to provide at this [Music]
00:52:50
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