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Instagram at True Crime garage and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Mike Morford is a true crime Rider blogger researcher and podcast host he
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co-hosts the True Crime podcast criminology he has extensively researched and consulted on the Zodiac
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Killer and Golden State killer cases the morph as he is often affectionately referred to as is an expert on all
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things Zodiac Killer and all things Golden State killer so Mike welcome to the garage and I want to start off by
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asking you why are those two cases so important to you you've spent years researching both why those cases well
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thanks off uh for inviting me to come on it's it's a pleasure and uh you guys are
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one of the people one of the teams that inspired me to become a podcaster so thank you for that the Zodiac case I
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started out on actually reading about it in high school I was one of those weird teenagers in
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the 80s that just the name zodiac and the Persona that came with it I want to learn a little bit more about it so I
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had a book on serial killers that I read and that I got the book zodiac by Robert
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graysmith you know from there I just read it and did a book report on it and the the teacher wasn't too happy that I
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picked that as a subject to write a book report on but you know something just the Sinister aspect of that case just
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grabbed me and the fact that someone would call themselves zodiac and write letters to the press and then attack
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people wearing an Executioner's Hood just really reeled me in and I just it sort of stuck and grew up watching
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Unsolved Mysteries and stuff like that but the the Zodiac was one thing that really really I attached to and stuck
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with before the Golden State killer ears ons you know the case with so many names
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was Saul Joseph James D'Angelo has been arrested a man who is I take a lot of joy out of seeing how frail he looks
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these days hopefully his time is coming to an end soon he's like 75 or so years old when you started diving into the
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Golden State killer case was that you kind of looking for some more zodiac cases I mean zodiac claimed that he
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would go on to kill and kill again and he kept taunting us sending Communications with a growing number on
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it where you look looking for additional zodiac cases is that what led you to Golden State killer not really there the
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Golden State killer before the East area rapist and Iran's a thousand names yet I
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was aware of the case because of some other researchers that thought they might be connected to the Zodiac case I
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never did they're two different kinds of killers in their ammo and um just totally in opposite ends of the
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spectrum but I was aware of the case and I used to communicate an email back and
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forth with the late Michelle McNamara who obviously wrote pretty impactful book on the Golden State killer case and
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she had reached out and asked if I had any interest in poking around in the Golden State killer case and I told her
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you know thanks but I'm sort of wrapped up in all things zodiac at the time so she went on down her rabbit holes in the
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Golden State killer case and then after she passed away I sort of reflected and felt guilty that I hadn't taken her up
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on that offer so I sort of dove into the case and you know I knew some different
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people that were investigators and they opened some doors for me and I became friends with some of the survivors and
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victims of D'Angelo's and that's how I sort of went down that that path do we have an idea of how the Zodiac came up
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with his name or is it just something random well that's and that's sort of thing we don't really know he's the one
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that gave himself that name in one of his early letters he said this is the Zodiac speaking and he signed most of
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his letters with a Crosshair looking across Circle and there's a watch that's a zodiac name brand watch and it has a
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Crosshair logo as it's sort of as a symbol so if you put those together that seems to me like the most likely place
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that it came from but there's all kinds of theories that he was maybe into the astrology and stuff like that yeah and
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we see things like mathematics coordinates on maps astrology of course horoscopes have been famous and popular
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throughout time especially in the late 60s so there's all kinds of thoughts that can be applied to how this
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individual came up with the name obviously he's going to want to pick something that sounds ominous he wants
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to be threatening and terroristic almost in nature and so it almost seems fitting
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to pick such a vague name but also something that sounds sounds a little evil or at least mysterious yeah that's
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that's my take on it as well now we all know that Killers can Inspire other Killers or at least they tend to imitate
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one another on occasion and as far as the Zodiac goes some cases that come to mind immediately for me are Like Son of
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Sam I've always kind of thought of him as a zodiac wannabe kind of a sloppier dumbed Down version of the zodiac the
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Phantom killer case out of Texarkana sounds like early zodiac type stuff and then just the idea of writing the
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letters and communicating with law enforcement and the the Press I mean that takes us all the way back to Jack
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the Ripper what do you take Mike from any of these other Killers out there what do you think zodiac took from any
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of these other Killers well with the attacks of of people in some of those areas like on lovers Lanes where the
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Phantom killer struck or Son of Sam struck those are easy opportunities and to find
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people that aren't paying attention they're out in isolated areas they're easy targets and I think that's perhaps
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why he searched for people like that and so I went searching for different cases
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across the United States with Lovers Lane scenario attacks and I did they just started piling up some so many I
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couldn't keep track so that's that's a trend that's that's been going on early bet as far as back as the early 1900s
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where people would be attacked the key difference is is Someone Like Son of Sam or Jack the Ripper sending letters and
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notes and correspondences that's very rare So when zodiac did that you know that was rare you can go
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through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases in California and and there were
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lots of bad guys running around but most of them didn't want to communicate with
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police they wanted to stick to their own their own attacks and and not give the police anything to work with whereas
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zodiac seemed to Crave the press and I think that actually took over as his main motivation and and comparing that
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to the Golden State killer case for example Joseph D'Angelo didn't really taunt the police or newspapers he
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taunted victims because he liked reliving the pain that he inflicted on them so he would call them years
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afterwards but a little bit of a different thrill for him versus zodiac wanting to see his name in the
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newspapers I think that was a key difference the first confirmed attack for the Zodiac at Lake Herman Road was
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in essence a success for the killer he achieved what he set out to or what we can believe he set out to achieve anyway
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he successfully attacked and killed both of the victims and didn't find himself in a situation where there was much of
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an eyewitness to identify him as the killer with the exception of one witness saying they they possibly saw a white
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vehicle parked near David Faraday's vehicle on that night that leads us to a similar but slightly different situation
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at the next confirmed attack at Blue Rock Springs where he is unsuccessful in the sense that he leaves one of the
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victims alive he intended to kill both of them we know that based off of his phone call he's calling to report a
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double murder not realizing that he left one of the the victims alive Mike Maggio
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one thing I found interesting about this attack in particular variations of so stories uh and and what went down how
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the attack went down and just the the couple of events leading up to the two of them being parked at Blue Rock
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Springs Park can you take us through maybe not necessarily the changing stories or the different versions but it
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looked to me Mike that most of these different versions are coming from Mike majo
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is is that correct and what are your feelings on on the different variations of these stories yeah Mike Maggio's
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story has changed a lot over the years from July 1969 when it happened till recently he was featured in a 2007
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documentary that came out with the Zodiac movie DVD release and his story changed quite a bit in essence early on
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he said that he had been picked up by Darlene Farren and they decided to go to Mr Ed's a local hangout that was popular
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with you know most younger people for whatever reason Darlene got creeped out while there and decided to
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drive away and go get some privacy and they decided to go to Blue Rock Springs Park which is very dark and again it's
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one of those areas where people might go to hang out to make out whatever and that's where they wound up some key
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things that happened were after they were there for a couple minutes some some kids came in threw some
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firecrackers and stayed there raised hell for about five minutes and then left but just after that a car came in and
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pulled up next to Darlene's car and sort of just sat there and Darlene and Mike had the conversation do you know that
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person who is that and they didn't really know and after a minute or two the car drove off so they sat there
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listening to the radio talking and then about five minutes later car came back that they Mike thinks was
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the same car and it came into the parking lot pulled up directly behind them someone got out shined a bright
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light into Darlene's car blinding essentially Darlene and Mike and then he walked up to Mike's side and they
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actually thought it was the police so they proceeded to start getting their licenses out and
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Mike looked up and was shot immediately through the window and Darlene was shot both of them were shot several times
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that's been consistent for for the most part the shooter got back in his car and
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was about to leave and Mike started flailing around after being shot and the shooter got back out of the car
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and fired two more shots into the into Darlene's car hitting Mike again and Darlene and then this time he drove away
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that's always been consistent that's what he said early on but in the in the documentary years later there's some
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things that change he he mentions that they were being chased and pursued from Mr Ed's at high rates of speed and
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that's not what's in the police for nothing like that he says that they just decided to go there instead Darlene was
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driving and then in early on they didn't know who the shooter was and when they were having conversation amongst
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themselves but then he injects hey the name was Richard she said it was something about Richard and if you watch
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this documentary it's plain to see that he's suffering from maybe mental illness
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maybe some kind of addiction I don't know I'm not I don't know what he might be suffering from but I think that's
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affected his account of what's happened over the last you know 50 years in his initial report he's saying that the
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vehicle was very similar to Darlene's so it would have either been a Chevy Corvair or others have said maybe
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a Ford Mustang because they would have had similar body type and he says it was pretty much the same color as Darlene's
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maybe a little bit lighter what are your thoughts on the vehicle description well
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I think it because it's so dark out there and he's probably his intentions are to make out with Darlene he probably
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wasn't paying a lot of attention and and I think a lot of horseback then looked a
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lot of like so for him not to be able to pinpoint the details of the car I I totally get that I understand that but I
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think based on what he said it did have some kind of similar features to Darlene's own car the thing that jumps
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off the page to me in regards to the first two attacks not only are they very close in proximity I think it was
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roughly about two miles distance between the first double murder and then the double murder attempt that left Mike
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Maggio alive when you cross-reference the events of that night the stories I found Mike say that both couples went to
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Mr Ed's restaurant and Drive-In prior to going and parking and I mean that just jumps off the page to me
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because I'm I'm sitting there thinking if I'm some dude in my late 20s or however old zodiac may have been at the
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time if you're looking for a car involved in Young Love Mr Ed's makes a perfect sense to to park there hang out
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there in in the dark hours of a weekend night or a Friday night for that matter and find your prey there and follow them
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to where they end up parked yeah that's that's the happening place back then was
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Mr Ed's you know there's an interesting Connection in that one of the lake Herman Road Witnesses just not long
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before the shooting on the road that night worked at Mr Ed's so there's that connection as well one thing that's very
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different about the Blue Rock Springs attack in comparison to the lake Herman Road attack is that the Zodiac then
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calls the police dispatcher and says hey I just committed a double murder here's
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where you're going to find the kids in a brown car and by the way I killed those
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kids last Christmas as well there there's a a decent Gap in time minutes missing there about 20 to 30 minutes
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based off of our ear Witnesses of when the the couple was shot at Blue Rock Springs and when the phone call came in
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what are your thoughts on what Zodiac could have been up to during that time frame I've always found it a bit bizarre
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we know he wants to report it or else he wouldn't have called it in but it doesn't seem like he made a Mad Dash
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from the crime scene to the pay phone which would have been depending on which route you use roughly 7 to 11 minutes
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travel time he didn't make a Mad Dash to get to that pay phone any thoughts on that Mike yeah it's that's one of the
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most interesting things about that attack because the calls probably at least 30 minutes they're probably closer
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to 40 minutes later but it's you know rounding it it's around a half hour we can say that and to go that distance
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it's it's only a few miles um and the phone booth was at Springs and Tuolumne which is you know in a more
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populated section of town whereas Blue Rock Springs Park is this dark undeveloped area up out in the Vallejo
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at the time so if the Zodiac wanted to get away and make a clean getaway and and just keep
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driving there's Unlimited phone booths he could have called from but yet he called from
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a phone booth in Vallejo which is interesting to me my my opinion is and I try and put
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myself in the shoes of zodiac when he's doing that is that perhaps he would want to get rid of his
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car get rid of his gun stash it because you know I wouldn't want to be driving around on a car with a gun in there just
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in case someone saw me so I was thinking maybe he lived close to that phone booth
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and perhaps put his car in the yard put his gun in the house and walk to the phone move but there's you know again
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that's that's speculation but he certainly could have made it out of Vallejo if if he didn't live in Vallejo
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and wanted to get away and then called uh from a different phone booth do you think he called police to mimic somebody
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like Jack the Ripper or or do you think it was simply because I committed these crimes and because it's stranger on
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Stranger crimes the police might not make the connection that it was me yeah I think maybe a combination of that I
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think number one he wanted the attention he wanted police to know what he had done I
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think it was a way to rub salt and wounds of these police officers to to say hey
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um I did this I'm bragging about it and there's nothing you can do about it the phone booth was actually not far from
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the police station which was interesting so he might even be able to see police when they finally got the call racing
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out of there and maybe got some kind of thrill from that foreign [Music] [Music]
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do you think that he was local to Vallejo because I found it interesting that in the phone call he doesn't just
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say Blue Rock Springs Park but rather he gives directions to find the victims if
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I if I had to guess it's almost like he didn't know the name of the Park yeah he
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does direct them pretty well and if he would have said Blue Rock Springs Park obviously they would have found it but
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he gives them specific directions and I I wonder if it could be because maybe he
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does live there he knows the area and he knows how to direct them there easily but it also could be that he wants him
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to have no doubt that he did it and he's going to direct them right to the bodies
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and at the time he thinks they're they're going to be dead but you know Mike majo Super survived and I think he
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wanted to get them there as soon as possible so he could Revel and what he had done and very interesting as well
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that given Mike Maggio's description of the shooter you know when the shooter comes back and then shoots Darlene twice
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and shoots Mike again two more times he's able to get a description of what this guy looks like and
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if you know given what took place in the second attack we have to believe that the first attack with no survivors
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likely went down very similar So based off of that we can assume that in the description Mike gives us Zodiac's not
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using any type of the skies at this point and yet the next attack at Lake Berryessa is going to be
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significantly different where the guy is disguised from head to toe is this guy is he evolving why is he changing well
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that would on my part that would be speculation but I think that the most likely reason is he realized after Blue
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Rock Springs he left eyewitness an eyewitness to the the crime and then the next attack at Lake
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Berryessa he's attacking during daylight hours so he's already left the witness he knows that and now he's doing
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an attack during the daytime so I think maybe to to keep himself from being identified if something goes wrong or if
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a witness goes by he's got that hood on and and another reason it could be just to scare the [ __ ] out of the people is
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attacking because a guy walking up to you with that kind of Executioner's hood on and a gun in his hand saying
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everything's gonna be okay I you know if it was me in that situation I wouldn't I
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wouldn't believe him but he tried to calm them down when he attacked there and that's what he was wearing yeah I
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almost feel like it had the mask had two purposes like you said one it's going to
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scare them more and it seems like he's loves to see people's reactions but also if if they do survive they can't
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identify him yeah I think it it definitely serves multi-purposes and and I think he was
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very theatrical we know that from a lot of the clues and I think he probably enjoyed making that hood it had the
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Zodiac Crosshair logo on the on the chest and he never mentioned you know to Brian Hart now and it's a
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silver Shepherd uh at Lake Berryessa that he was the Zodiac it never came up um and and maybe that's because if
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something went wrong he didn't want uh anyone to know that he was the Zodiac by that point and connect him to another
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crime but it was you know later determined after he uh wrote on the side of their card or that sort of changed
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everything and and they knew it was zodiac do you have any thoughts on what the mask was made out of or the account
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varied from from Brian he said it was made with care it wasn't just like some plastic bag that someone
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spray painted a white circle on he said that the the Crosshair logo was stitched
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uh very nicely and professionally almost on the front and the hood was was made with characters draped over his entire
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shoulders and face and there were a clip-on sunglasses that were attached to the to the mask itself so he pointed out
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that it was definitely made with care it was made with some kind of professional uh quality it wasn't just
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some some bag that was had white paint on it or something like that that's very interesting because oftentimes with
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these serial killers we will find that someone killing in the nature of someone like the Zodiac where they're going out
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and they're killing people in a park near the lake or or at Lake Harmon Road or at the
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Blue Rock Springs Park they're going out and they're finding their victim and they're killing them
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out on the streets or out in public in these you know secluded areas usually that suggests that they cannot kill at
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home they cannot abduct people and bring them home that they don't have privacy that they don't have their own place but
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then everything else that the Zodiac does implies that he does have a certain level of privacy the making the mask in
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disguise with care that's something that took time the putting together the ciphers and the letters that he would
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later send that takes time and and it takes especially with the ciphers and the the letters I've seen it suggested
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that he probably had what he considered to be some type of Workshop that maybe maybe if he did live with other people
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he had to keep under lock and key or or guarded very tightly but it's it's weird
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the contrast between the two Natures of the Beast if you will I've often thought
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about that but I I also wonder if it's just simply location a lot of those housing developments in California you
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know where these little cracker jack-sized houses and they had really small yards so it could be possible
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where he's going well I have privacy with inside my house but I don't have privacy on the outside because the
00:28:06
houses are so close together yeah that's an interesting point and in one of his letters
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he did mention of storing something in his basement and police seized on that and thought maybe that's a clue because
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most houses in the Bay Area did not have basements so they thought maybe he had a
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little workshop down there or some place where he could get away from anyone else
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in the house and and Tinker around down there but then again zodiac wasn't always honest in his letters so it could
00:28:37
have been an attempt at misdirection maybe he didn't have a basement but that was something police were interested in
00:28:43
I think it it also goes into what kind of killer he was whereas you know someone like a golden state killer wants
00:28:51
to spend time with his victims stay there terrorize them stretch it out as long as possible get them alone the
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Zodiac never had an interest in that kind of activity he wanted to attack quickly
00:29:07
and get out so I think perhaps he never had an intention of bringing them back to his house or something like that I
00:29:15
think he was more of a of a thrill killer that got a thrill out of the attack itself and then later on reliving
00:29:22
it I think that gave him some satisfaction yeah that's very interesting because yes I think he was a
00:29:28
thrill killer but I also think he executed the first murder so easily that by maybe contacting the police it was
00:29:37
another brush because it was another point in the crime where he could get caught yeah and he he was about all
00:29:43
about cat and mouse activity with police in in getting them to engage with him and there's some evidence that he was
00:29:53
inspired by comic books and movies like The Most Dangerous Game and I think he thought of himself as this villain or
00:30:02
made himself into this this villain called zodiac and I think part of the the fun for him part of the
00:30:11
thrill from him was that interaction with police I mean his murders confirmed murders anyhow they range from December
00:30:20
68 until October of 69 but then he's got a letter writing campaign that stretches
00:30:26
until 1974. so he at some point it seemed like the thrill of uh the interaction with the
00:30:35
police and the Press was his letter writing and not so much the murders it seemed like he got some kind of pleasure
00:30:42
out of out of that part of it could you list some of these comic books you think
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the Zodiac was reading yeah there's there's one called and it's a Tim Holt comic book and and to give a little bit
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of a backstory he sent a Halloween card to reporter Paul Avery and in that card it was written by fire by uh rope I'm
00:31:07
trying to remember it off the top of my head but it was laid out in in a specific image and there's a comic book
00:31:14
by Tim Holt it's a DC Comics one and I don't remember the title of it but it's if you go what you'll find it and
00:31:22
there's a wheel on it and death by fire death by knife death by gun death by rope same things mentioned in
00:31:33
the the card to Avery so from that it's almost definite that's where he had to have got that from when you base that
00:31:43
when you base on some of the other Clues he mentioned uh the short story The Most
00:31:47
Dangerous Game he makes references to theatrical stuff like the Mikado so it seems like he was in his own Fantasy
00:31:58
World um and this this person that he created this Persona I really think he he wanted
00:32:06
to be some kind of arch villain or be known as as one yeah I just looked up the Tim Holt comic so it looks like it's
00:32:13
it's actually titled Tim Holt I think he's supposed to be maybe the hero and it's issue number 30 according to what I
00:32:22
found but it's you're right it's the you have a man there and I guess his name is
00:32:27
red mask he's tied up and there's a wheel of chance behind him and it's as you said death by gun death by knife
00:32:35
death by rope and yeah it's very very theatrical very zodiac-like and it appears that this
00:32:44
comic may have some value because it has some linkage to uh the Zodiac name well
00:32:51
and also around that time period there was a lot of comics that were you know these Detective Comics that's where we
00:32:58
eventually get Batman from I wonder if there's other Comics that he was influenced by that
00:33:04
people just haven't got the references yet yeah that could definitely be the case and I I think on the very
00:33:11
least we can tell that he's into fantasy stuff you know between the theater and the the comic books he's got
00:33:21
perhaps he's living in a uh a fantasy world you know when when I I look at it as when most of these victims or young
00:33:31
couples being attacked they're out enjoying each other's company and making out doing whatever those couples do he's
00:33:37
home reading comic books and this is his world uh so he goes out and Strikes against those people that are doing the
00:33:45
things that he wishes he could do yeah it's very in the captain and I were talking about this earlier it's very
00:33:52
comic book theatrical like with the Zodiac he's given himself this name the Zodiac he's given himself a logo the
00:34:00
crosshairs and then he's supplying all these threats to Via the newspapers and such and then the costume at Lake
00:34:11
Berryessa it's almost I mean that's that's what a superhero super villain is the name the logo the costume now with
00:34:20
you had mentioned the confirmed five and there's a lot of suspicion that there are other attacks and we can get
00:34:27
into that later but lay down for us why these are the confirmed five murders of the Zodiac Killer they're they're linked
00:34:36
by ammo and by handwriting there's some latent fingerprints along the way there's some palm prints on some of the
00:34:46
letters but police really haven't said publicly if any of those prints from various scenes or various letters match
00:34:55
each other so we know that they're linked by by handwriting and by the mo you know in Lake Herman Road once he
00:35:04
claims responsibility for that along with the July 4th attack you know he we have a handwritten letter he's detailing
00:35:14
both crimes he's accurately describing both crime scenes so those two are linked together then when you get to
00:35:21
Lake Berryessa you know he's doesn't say he's zodiac but he's wearing a zodiac cross symbol on his outfit and
00:35:30
as he flees the scene he takes the time to write a toning message on Brian hartnell's door and it has the zodiac
00:35:40
symbol and the writing matches the writing in the letters and then we move forward to the murder of Paul Stein
00:35:47
which is the most unlike the first sets of crimes here we have another letter so the
00:35:54
handwriting again matches the previous ones this time he actually sent a piece of a bloody shirt to the Press along
00:36:02
with the letter so you know he's confirming that yes I killed him here's a piece of his bloody shirt they
00:36:08
verified it was so you have all of these different letters and the ammo of calling and and writing to the Press
00:36:17
linking everything here not like we have DNA like we would have today uh or clear-cut fingerprints but all of the
00:36:26
stuff combined tells them that the same person was all these different scenes and is responsible for all these crimes
00:36:33
do you have a ballpark number of crimes that you think the zodiac is responsible
00:36:37
for or do you think these five are the only signature crimes from the Zodiac well there's crimes that he definitely
00:36:44
hinted at that he was involved and I think he had a habit of trying to catch attention for other cases to prop
00:36:52
himself up and make it look like he was even more of a a villain than he actually was you know I try not to
00:36:59
wander too far out of the the five murder victims we know of but you know I do look at some earlier
00:37:09
crimes uh in that area and then in Southern California especially there's some earlier crimes that could
00:37:17
definitely be him but there's so many bad guys running around in California at the time there's so much crime
00:37:24
that it's hard to to go off because then you start looking at well this crime looks like zodiac and this one has some
00:37:31
aspects um so I try to stick with the ones that have the closest Mo to to what we know
00:37:37
zodiac did what are your thoughts on zodiac mentioning Deer Lodge Montana to the victims at Lake Berryessa I think
00:37:45
that's a a really important clue but the the thing I need to point out is is that
00:37:52
Deer Lodge is not necessarily what he said Brian obviously was shaken up he was scared he was badly wounded
00:38:02
um so he when he was telling police word by word the conversation he said it was
00:38:09
something like a two-word name in Montana like and he's trying to you know come up with ideas and someone suggested
00:38:16
Deer Lodge Montana and he said yeah that might be it but there's there's been reports that it
00:38:23
might have been a farm Lodge it could have been a Red Lodge uh something with two words in the in the name of the town
00:38:29
so it's While most people settled on a bean Deer Lodge it's not 100 proof that he did say Deer Lodge but you know there
00:38:38
were no Escape prisoners as the story that he gave them at the time from dear Lodge at that time so I think it's it
00:38:47
could have been just hey I'm gonna tell these people a story about a something I
00:38:51
read three years ago about some kind of escape and I'll tell him you know just to calm them down and get them to
00:38:58
cooperate and and what he told them worked and they cooperated yeah some suspect the Zodiac was a bit of a master
00:39:05
of misdirection and therefore dear Lodge Montana or saying just the state of Montana in general would be another
00:39:12
example that he might be trying to misdirect people should somebody survive because what Zodiac has learned about
00:39:21
himself by the time of the Lake Berryessa attack is that he's not perfect that he did leave a Survivor a
00:39:29
surviving victim in his second confirmed attack with Mike Maggio surviving that attack and let's take that a step
00:39:38
further because there's some thought too that with the brown car because Vallejo
00:39:45
police said they actively said this in the newspapers at the time they gave a brief description of a young white man
00:39:53
and a brown vehicle that they were looking for at the time and he later zodiac later in a letter
00:40:02
confirms this brown car saying oh well yeah somebody saw me in this pay phone when the when I hung up the the phone
00:40:11
the the phone rang and this drew his attention to me and that's when this witness saw me in the pay phone and saw
00:40:19
my brown car and I love the idea of maybe as you pointed out it's dark Mike Maggio has just been
00:40:29
shot several times he's traumatized maybe he doesn't know the color of the vehicle couldn't see it
00:40:36
and maybe zodiac loves this and goes oh they're looking for a a white guy in his
00:40:43
late 20s in a brown car oh well I'll confirm for them that I have a brown car when in fact I I do not yeah what what
00:40:50
perfect way to divert the police and get them looking down a totally blind alley
00:40:55
and he and why would you describe the witness that that so he says that there was a a black man that was shabbily
00:41:02
dressed saw him in the phone booth they never identified anyone that reported seeing someone in that phone
00:41:10
booth but it sounds to me like that could easily be I'm gonna make this fake witness up so they're spinning their
00:41:16
wheels looking for this witness that doesn't exist I don't know why any anyone that had just killed rafati
00:41:22
killed two people would volunteer that information willingly I always thought thought too given the both of the first
00:41:29
attacks took place on a Friday night in or around Vallejo again only separated by about two miles of distance or so
00:41:37
I always thought that that in a sense was a bit of misdirection as well that he he thought that he may have found the
00:41:45
perfect place to kill it worked out the first time let's kill there again now people think that I'm local to Vallejo
00:41:52
and that's why I always felt like he purposely made the call from a Vallejo pay phone yet didn't know the name of
00:42:02
the park where where he shot the two kids it seemed to me this is the early stages of some of this misdirection it
00:42:10
definitely could be that and I I sort of go the other direction I sort of go with
00:42:15
a lot of killers start out close to home and then expand from there you know you've got someone mentioning these two
00:42:25
areas I'm gonna attack there so close together like like you're saying and then call from the the phone booth in
00:42:33
the same town what better way to get people looking in Vallejo one something that's interesting is just about all of
00:42:41
the letters zodiac mailed were postmarked on weekdays from San Francisco and and most of his attacks the
00:42:50
exception of Paul Stein were on weekends outside of San Francisco so it does he live in San Francisco and he hunts on
00:43:01
the weekends in Vallejo or is it the Reversed does he live in Vallejo and he's working in San Francisco during the
00:43:07
week I think one of the two is is the most likely scenario if you guys had to bet would you bet that zodiac is single
00:43:16
and living alone or do you think zodiac is married I've wrestled with that especially in the wake of the Golden
00:43:24
State killer case I you know I never thought the Golden State killer was going to be a cop I never thought he
00:43:29
would have a wife and kids so that sort of has made me go back and forth on the fence with zodiac I would tend to think
00:43:37
that he's a loner that wants to be out with a girl on a date in a Lover's Lane parked in a car but he's not he is the
00:43:48
one stalking those couples and attacking them so I tend to think that he he was one of those loner types that didn't
00:43:57
have successful relationships but again after seeing what happened with the Golden State killer case nothing would
00:44:03
surprise me he could have had a big family and a nice job and everything else well I think uh I think Mike is
00:44:12
right and I think that we can see some of that in his crimes itself we we definitely see Overkill in the women and
00:44:21
that's why we have more female victims murder victims and we have two situations where he attacks
00:44:30
a couple and and twice a male victim survives so the female is definitely the receiving the brunt of his anger
00:44:40
in those attacks and as Mike is pointing out he is he's he's attacking and killing essentially what he envies Young
00:44:50
Love parked in a car somewhere is what he would have liked to have been doing when he was a teenager or in his early
00:44:57
20s he wasn't capable or wasn't successful in that realm and so he this is this is his lesson to you uh general
00:45:08
public this is what you get when you park out in the middle of nowhere in the dark at night in these lovers Lanes this
00:45:15
is this is what you get this is the lesson to be learned don't be out there at night they're achieving something he
00:45:23
wished to achieve but did not and then when you take it to how is he living who may be living with I think that he
00:45:33
probably had some brief relationships with women and they they failed and didn't work out
00:45:42
and that only added to his anger toward the the female gender and I think that a
00:45:49
lot of his actions at least once we get past the double homicide or I'm sorry the the second attack at Blue Rock
00:45:57
Springs so this would be now we're we're at July 4th 1969. I think after this point he he has
00:46:07
a certain level of privacy he has a certain ability to spend a lot of time working
00:46:13
on these letters these ciphers the costume that he built for Lake Berryessa so he has time now that may mean maybe
00:46:22
he lived with his mom alone and had the run of the house for most of the time but yeah I think that's what's
00:46:30
interesting about the makeup of of this guy I think he had some level of privacy
00:46:34
and maybe that's because he was unsuccessful with with women or traditional type relationships well and
00:46:41
since you bring that up my question do you put a zodiac uh younger or older than 30. I can say with all confidence
00:46:50
today he's older than 30. well I'm just saying because it it seems to me like somebody that you know any
00:46:59
friend of mine or or people I've talked to that you know look back on high school and it wasn't the best time in
00:47:06
their life normally by the time they're 30 they're they're over that and they could really care less they don't hold a
00:47:13
lot of resentment towards that that's why I always wondered is a zodiac in like mid-20s or late 20s and he's still
00:47:21
uh angry about his unsuccessful attempts with women well you have to be an extremely angry individual to do any of
00:47:30
the things that he's doing so he's he's not normal like the normal people that you just discussed he he's not going to
00:47:36
get over any of this and that's obvious from his crimes so with the in regards to his age
00:47:46
one we have several crimes where he's described as being in his 20s late 20s maybe 25 to 35 this is from surviving
00:47:58
victims and from uh the phone calls he made where the dispatchers are saying he sounded to be of this age 25 to 35. Mike
00:48:09
uh you you take it from there yeah I I know that the Napa dispatcher uh the police officer took the call from him
00:48:18
after Lake Berryessa described him as a student's voice someone in their in their early 20s
00:48:26
Brian Hartnell described something in the along those lines too not a real deep mature voice but more of a a
00:48:35
younger person but again people have all kinds of voices and you can't always put
00:48:41
a a voice with a face when you see it so we can't always go by that but then you've got the eyewitnesses as you
00:48:48
talked about and the possibility that officer Falk saw zodiac after Paul Stein's murder there he thinks he's a
00:48:59
little bit older and it's interesting uh in in the sketch that came out of zodiac
00:49:04
after killing Paul's time the original estimate in the original sketch was estimating the age to be 25 to 35 and
00:49:15
when you when they amended it it moved it up from 35 to 45. so I sort of look at the 25 the 45 window I know that's a
00:49:26
big spread but I I sort of feel that sometimes some of the things he does is is very juvenile
00:49:34
um I look towards a younger person and and other times some of the things that he's interested in seem like they might
00:49:42
be more of a of a mature person um so like the Mikado Opera you know like nowadays I try and compare it I
00:49:51
don't think there's any kids out there today listening to Opera and if the same thing's true back in 1969 I would I
00:49:58
would think that that might be more mature person so I sort of wrestle myself with with whether he's a younger
00:50:04
or older yeah he definitely did some things that come across to me as very immature I've said it before I'll say it
00:50:12
again I don't trust anybody that doesn't use their real name well it Captain brought up a good point
00:50:20
too he he said that it's almost as Zodiac's heart wasn't in the actual killing he he'd leave before people were
00:50:27
actually dead instead of staying there you know ensuring they were dead or shooting them
00:50:33
in the head it's almost like he was squeamish about that part um and I think that goes back to
00:50:41
he is playing this villain he's putting this villain out there the villain has to have victims so he's got to do that
00:50:48
part even though he may not be committed to it but after a while he realizes hey
00:50:52
I built this persona but built this reputation of people know I mean business I'm a killer
00:50:58
I don't even have to kill anyone anymore now I can just send letters and I'm going to get the attention I've been
00:51:04
craving that I didn't get in my in my everyday life just by writing letters well there's a good chance he almost got
00:51:10
caught in the Paul Stein attack the taxi cab driver yeah we see a lot of times with serial killers that
00:51:17
they take souvenirs from their victims or like you said in the Golden State killer case he's harassing victims
00:51:25
zodiac is harassing police officers it's he didn't seem to take souvenirs it's almost like his victims didn't matter so
00:51:35
much to him it wasn't personal towards the victim yeah there's no real evidence of him taking any kind of souvenirs
00:51:43
taking belongings of the victims uh we don't see any of that whereas uh the Golden State killer would do that kind
00:51:51
of stuff so definitely two kinds of killers and it seems like you know someone like D'Angelo has a a connection
00:52:00
a permanent connection to the victim where a zodiac maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and he
00:52:07
needed to to kill someone to get credit for it [Music] foreign [Music] so much more to get to tomorrow please
00:52:25
join us back here in the garage and if you need more of the captain of the kernel in your ear balls check out our
00:52:32
bonus show called off the Record it's on Stitcher premium thank you to you Captain thank you to Mike for joining us
00:52:39
in the garage you all better join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't glitter
00:52:46
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