00:00:10
n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:00:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who knows that if you want our attention you just
00:00:50
got to show us a little ear baby here is the c yeah or you could drop your pants
00:00:55
it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:00:59
a friends [Music] this week we are featuring hazy pale ale by the hardworking Folks at standard
00:01:10
deviate Brewing this is a delicious traditional hazy it's hoppy but still on the lighter bodied side with plenty of
00:01:18
grapefruit to smooth it out giving it a refreshing finish garage grade three and
00:01:24
3/4 bottle caps out of five and let's give some thanks and praise to our good garage friends for helping us fill up
00:01:32
the garage fridge for this week's shows first up a shout out to Emily and Dan from Pottstown Pennsylvania and a big we
00:01:41
like your jib goes out to Mary from Columbus Ohio and last but certainly not least we have Debbie Wales in Asheville
00:01:49
North Carolina our thoughts and prayers shout out to everybody in Asheville and everybody affected by all of the tragic
00:01:56
weather events that we've had recently hanging there everybody we're thinking of you everyone we just mentioned went
00:02:03
to True Crim garage.com they clicked on the Pint glass and that helped us out with this week's shows and for that we
00:02:10
thank you yeah BW R you in beer run you need more True Crime garage just go to YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube
00:02:19
channel putting out all the old episodes of off the Record and Colonel that's enough of the business all right
00:02:27
everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] cry the Zodiac serial killer claimed the
00:02:59
line Liv of at least five young victims between the years of 1966 and 1974 and mocked the police with telephone calls
00:03:09
taunting letters and encrypted messages thousands of men have been accused nearly 2500 have been investigated yet
00:03:16
the Zodiac has never been identified from the Zodiac's cold calculated attacks and taunting letters to the
00:03:24
media has grabbed the attention of several Generations this true story continues to Fascinate because its
00:03:33
brutality and the lingering question who is the Zodiac and here to help us with that question and that answer perhaps is
00:03:44
a one Dr Mark hwit who is the author of several books that focus on the Zodiac murders case and some of the suspects as
00:03:56
well and those books are titled Hunted the Zodiac serial killer book one the Zodiac murders as well as profiled the
00:04:05
Zodiac examined exposed the Zodiac revealed and Dr Mark huitt you have a new book that is hitting the shelves why
00:04:15
don't you tell us about your latest work yes good morning um first of all thank you for having me it's a it's a pleasure
00:04:22
to be here following the Zodiac serial killer Trilogy that I wrote back in 1617 and 18
00:04:30
I've been Fielding a lot of questions people have been asking me how did you get into the zodiac what what fascinates
00:04:35
you about it how far did you go as far as uh your research and so I wrote A Memoir that I just released three weeks
00:04:44
ago it's entitled obsessed my Relentless pursuit of the Zodiac Killer it doesn't
00:04:50
have um a whole lot of new information on the zodic serial killer it's actually my perspective on what I did it's it's
00:05:00
uh an explanation of the 11 years of research I did to produce the Zodiac serial killer series uh earlier and so I
00:05:08
go into some of the places that I've went some of the people that I've I spoke to and some of the granularity of
00:05:17
uh what I looked into and how How deep the obsession took me let's go back in time Mark and let's talk about some of
00:05:25
the things that were featured in your very first zodiac book so in your book hunted you describe the known facts of
00:05:35
the infamous zodiac case mainly the attacks and the murders and you go on to talk about the Zodiac phone calls and
00:05:44
the letters that the Zodiac sent as well now a lot of our listeners are going to
00:05:49
know the longtime listeners because we have covered the Zodiac here in the past in the garage and it's a very Infamous
00:05:57
case it's it's well known and many people have Tak a look at this case but for those that may not know and those
00:06:04
that would like a little bit of a refresher maybe a primer on some of these attacks and murders could you take
00:06:10
the listeners through the attacks and murders starting with the lake Herman Road case from December 20th
00:06:18
1968 sure I'd be glad to uh you guys have done very good work on the Zodiac case I know that you have a
00:06:27
comprehensive I think it's a five-part podcast series that goes into great detail and uh so I won't repeat all of
00:06:34
that um but my first book hunted the Zodiac murders has been heralded as the most accurate and most detailed
00:06:42
retelling of the zodiac case I sat down and put a lot of work into telling the story from the from primary sources a
00:06:53
lot of Mythology is created into this the retelling of the zodiac case and I attt to get away from that on a number
00:07:01
of occasions I included both sides of arguments because people couldn't agree in fact there's differing testimony on
00:07:09
precisely what happened but if you looking for a a comprehensive Deep dive that's the the most detailed and most
00:07:18
accurate retelling of the case that would be in hunted the uh zodiac serial killer is a
00:07:23
serial killer who attacked in Northern California predominantly the valo area the canonical
00:07:32
attacks uh are are only four attacks that resulted in the death of five people but like many serial killers
00:07:41
exactly when the killer started and when the killer ended is not entirely clear there are attacks before the canonical
00:07:50
four and there are murders following and some have tried to implicate the Zodiac
00:07:57
in them but it's not clear whether the Zodiac was responsible or not the first canonical attack took place at Lake
00:08:06
Herman Road on December 20th 1968 a young couple David Faraday who was 17 and Betty L Jensen who was 16
00:08:16
were going on a date they had been boyfriend and girlfriend for a couple weeks these two high school students but
00:08:24
this was their first serious date their first actual scheduling of a time to get
00:08:29
together together and it's kind of a cute story David went to Betty Lou's home and met her parents and talked to
00:08:36
them and assured them that he would have Betty Lou Back by 11 o'clock unfortunately for the two of them he
00:08:44
didn't it was Betty L's first date ever so it was kind of an event and kind of a
00:08:49
tragic ending around 11 o'clock the two were parked at a turnout along Lake Herman Road by Witnesses who drove by
00:08:58
there was a a six-minute window if all of the Witnesses were saying what they saw and remembering correctly there was
00:09:05
a six-minute window in which somebody drove up beside them parked the car and apparently shot the two of them to death
00:09:13
the person um in this vehicle was able to escape without notice or much uh description in it of itself this
00:09:22
particular case became one of the largest unsolved murder murders in California a number of neighbor ing
00:09:30
jurisdictions assured uh salano County that they would assist in the in the explanation and assist in the
00:09:39
investigation to this day it has never been solved seven months later on the fourth of July a second zodiac attack
00:09:47
occurred at the Blue Rock Springs Park it's a three mile drive from the turnout at Lake Herman Road where the first
00:09:54
attack took place and it's only about two miles as the crow flies Michael Mao who was 19 Darlene faren who was 22
00:10:03
arrived at the park on the 4th of July evening as fireworks were going off around the town they were there to talk
00:10:12
and at some point while they were there a car drove up behind them parked and acting like a police vehicle a spotlight
00:10:22
emerged and the couple thought that they were being accosted by the police so they started to Fumble for their
00:10:28
driver's license the man got out of the vehicle walked up to the driver's side and opened fire on
00:10:35
Michael Mao and Darlene faren Darlene faren was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital Michael Mao
00:10:43
miraculously survived despite being shot in the thigh and the jaw and in the arm
00:10:50
about seven or eight weeks later at Lake beresa the third zodiac attack occurred
00:10:55
you'll notice the progression from a seven-month break to a 7 week break at Lake Bessa 20-year-old Brian Hartnell
00:11:03
and 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard were reclining by the water enjoying the beauty of the day on a Saturday
00:11:10
afternoon and a man walked up to them who was dressed in a black Square Hood with a black bib pulled down over his
00:11:18
shirt and he was training a gun on the two he talked to them for as much as 15 minutes he cajoled them into being tied
00:11:27
up he hog tied them he assured them throughout the time that he was only interested in their car keys and in some
00:11:33
money because he claimed to be an escaped convict but once they were hogtied on the ground he pulled out a foot long
00:11:40
bayonet style knife and began to stab them he stabbed Brian hartell as many as six times and then
00:11:49
turned his attention to Cecilia who he stabbed 10 times five times in the front five times in the back I'm going to jump
00:11:55
in here because you talked about the progression and this is something that I want to make sure that we really
00:12:02
underline for everybody out there listening because what we're seeing here is a morphing a change of the mo as well
00:12:11
as the killer himself so with the first two cases it's it's no mistake right we we know that he is arriving on scene
00:12:21
prepared to do something we have to assume that it's prepared to murder because he he fires bullets into both of
00:12:29
these cars and in both situations we know he's arriving on scene with a firearm with a flashlight and then
00:12:36
there's no we don't have confirmation that he ever entered the vehicle or touched physically touched put hands on
00:12:45
any of those victims but then when we get to the lake beresa case it's very strange because he's using a car to
00:12:53
attack people in cars in two situations and now he's on foot he's abandoned the vehicle
00:12:59
parked it likely at the parking lot and then he's approached the two persons that are in this let's call it a park he
00:13:07
approaches them on foot but he comes so well equipped to this scene right he's ready to tie them up and now this is a
00:13:14
very handson attack which is completely different he's he's actually even had interaction with them telling them that
00:13:23
I'm I'm just going to take your your wallet they're talking with him as well so it's not only the progression of the
00:13:32
how quickly we are going from murder to murder in such a short window of time now it's also this one's very Hands-On
00:13:40
and it feels quite different than the first two precisely yes he uh um was was dressed differently in an obvious
00:13:49
disguise it happened before nightfall he approached them and spoke with them for
00:13:54
as much as 15 minutes so yes there there seems to be a progression in the the the
00:14:00
manner in which he approached the two of them uh following the the stabbing he left the couple for dead and walked back
00:14:08
up to where he left his car which was about a quarter mile walk from the lake Brian hartel miraculously
00:14:15
survived uh Cecilia Shephard slipped into a coma and she passed away two days later then exactly two weeks following
00:14:24
the lake beresa attack the Zodiac showed up in the pacif prid Heights district of
00:14:30
San Francisco he apparently hailed a cab in the Theater District of San Francisco
00:14:36
near the intersection of Mason and giri took a cab out to precidio Heights and once Paul Stein the 29-year-old cab
00:14:44
driver pulled over to the side of the road the Zodiac shot him a single time in the head before getting out of the
00:14:51
vehicle this occasion the Zodiac took the cab driver's car keys and wallet and he also tore off a tail from the shirt
00:15:01
that the cab driver was wearing and took these with him as he fled the scene into
00:15:07
the precidio park to to disappear so those are the four attacks and apparently he made a major change
00:15:14
following that because he was cited by a couple of teenagers who were looking out
00:15:19
the window and notice what was taking place and they called the police and the police arrived on the scene within
00:15:25
minutes it seems to have terrified the Zodiac so much that in a follow-up letter he said he was going to change
00:15:32
the way he was doing things and that he would no longer announce the murders that took place and he would try to make
00:15:39
them look like accidents or murders of anger or other um deceptions so as far as we know this was
00:15:47
the last known zodiac serial killing crime but the way that he announced that he was going to change it left everybody
00:15:56
wondering well did he actually stop or did he continue from that point he morphed into a serial killer who was
00:16:04
more interested in sending letters than he was in killing because we know of no future murders that definitively tie to
00:16:12
the Zodiac but for the next five years he sent as many as a dozen additional letters to the police to the press and
00:16:22
then in 1974 the last known confirmed zodiac letter was sent and from there we have no idea what happened to the Zodiac
00:16:32
despite the fact that there were additional letters that came that may or may not have been from the Zodiac there
00:16:37
were additional murders that may or may not have uh been the responsibility of the zodiac and as far as anybody knows
00:16:45
for certain following 1974 the Zodiac slipped off the pages of history and disappeared forever do you think and
00:16:55
this would be pure speculation here of course but what else can we do with these types of cases especially this
00:17:02
this these many years later I've often wondered with the the final murder in the canonical 5 do you think that the
00:17:14
Zodiac put him in himself into a position I.E a cab the back of a cab and at that time of course the majority the
00:17:24
overwhelming majority of cab drivers are going to be male but do you think think
00:17:29
that his lack of success in killing the males in the previous attacks led him to placing
00:17:39
himself into a situation where he would be killing a solo male to not necessarily prove something to
00:17:48
himself but prove something to the general public or law enforcement what law enforcement may have thought of him
00:17:56
that's entirely possible you mentioned specul I tend to shy away from speculating when
00:18:02
I'm ask questions I will respond from the facts of the case but a number of theories have grown up around the case
00:18:10
relating to why Paul Stein why a single male why San Francisco and it may be that he was trying to prove his manhood
00:18:18
because two men survived his attacks it's also possible that he moved to San Francisco because he wanted to increase
00:18:26
his catchment area of attention he wanted uh the San Francisco press to be more involved in the San Francisco
00:18:33
Police Department to elevate his status as a serial killer and one way to find somebody and call them from the crowd is
00:18:41
to get in a cab and direct the cab to where you want to go and precidio Heights is a rather quiet neighborhood
00:18:49
with respect to San Francisco and its situation right near the prido park gave him an ample opportunity to escape the
00:18:56
situation so it could have been either of those or could have been something entirely different we are not
00:19:03
sure he never explained why he apparently altered his situation um in the Press he was described as being a a
00:19:12
potential latent homosexual and he may have been responding to that because we know that
00:19:18
the Zodiac it seems Apparent from his attacks and his letters that he followed his own press and responded to it so
00:19:27
that may have been part of it as well well I feel like it could be a culmination of all of those aspects of
00:19:34
the the Paul Stein case and then you're right because zodiac clearly I mean one thing he did tell us is he expected to
00:19:42
have some kind of Nationwide notoriety so we know that he was seeking that or or at least expected to have
00:19:51
that and a large city like San Francisco May provide that on that scale for and then unfortunately for Paul
00:20:01
Stein a cab driver is a easy victim yes there's also a theory that the Zodiac was plotting out his attacks
00:20:12
on a map so that they fit in a certain criteria cab driver is a good opportunity to take somebody and place
00:20:21
them where you want them to be on the map so that may have some something to do with it as well but until we know for
00:20:29
certain that's just speculation can you explain that a little more well the Zodiac in one of his letters mentions a
00:20:37
radian angle and he mentions it in combination with a code that he sent and a piece of
00:20:44
map that he sent to uh to the the newspaper to publicize his attacks and publicize himself and he said if you
00:20:52
solve this code it relates to where he has placed a bomb and he mentions the code will describe in radians and inches
00:21:03
the location of a bomb that has been set well no bomb was ever found but people began to ask questions such as what is a
00:21:13
radian angle turns out it's an angle about 67 68 degrees and people have plotted that angle on the collection of
00:21:24
attack sites and speculated that the attack at in the pridal Heights made a one radiant
00:21:32
angle between that and the other crime scenes now there's been debate as to whether that is
00:21:40
precisely true or whether that was the intention of the zodiac because he mentioned radians in a entirely
00:21:47
different situation he mentioned it in reference to his code but people are are applying it to
00:21:53
the layout of the the map and where the crimes took place maybe the Zodiac was trying to express something that way
00:22:03
maybe there was a per a purpose for having pulin killed in the precidio Heights we can only speculate at this
00:22:10
point in hunted we talk about the phone calls and some of the letters as well how many phone calls do you think that
00:22:20
the Zodiac made we we will never know for certain but how many phone calls do you think that the the Zodiac made and
00:22:26
what are the nature of these these calls you know we have the the phone calls from zodiac to police
00:22:35
and to news outlets but we do know he made calls that were for example the to the Vallejo police after the Blue Rock
00:22:45
Springs shooting and murder yes the zodiac is known to have made two telephone calls in post- attack Behavior
00:22:53
both times notifying the police that an attack had taken place and that a murder
00:22:58
had taken place and that he was responsible for it we don't know of any phone call after the lake Herman Road
00:23:05
attack he may have if it's never been reported following the Fourth of July attack about 40 minutes following the
00:23:14
attack he made a telephone call to the valo police department and claimed credit for the attack and described
00:23:22
where the victims could be found in their car following the attack at uh Lake Barry ASA he drove
00:23:31
to apparently drove to Napa and made a call to the uh Sheriff's Department claiming credit for the attack that took
00:23:41
place up at Lake beresa why precisely he did this is not entirely clear it's a rather unusual activity generally uh
00:23:51
murders do not like to get caught do not like to be put in prison so they do what
00:23:56
they can to not be caught because the Zodiac did this two times and did it in conjunction with
00:24:04
murders this is a signature activity because it was in no way necessary to carry out the murder and it put him at
00:24:11
Great risk to do that the fact that he made telephone calls from the from from payones meant that the police could
00:24:19
capture fingerprints and they collected a number fingerprints from foam booths unfortunately none of them have ever
00:24:26
been traced back to the Zodiac or Trace to anybody for that matter but it was a very risky Venture there are other phone
00:24:35
calls that may have been made in conjunction with attacks prior to the Zodiac's canonical five murders in
00:24:43
Southern California he may have been responsible for the murder of a cab driver and that
00:24:50
murder included a telephone call to the police prior to the attack and another phone call following up after the attack
00:24:59
we're not certain whether this was even the Zodiac but the fact that it was a cab driver and included Associated
00:25:06
telephone calls give some evidence that maybe it was connected maybe it was the same perpetrator and also in the Sher
00:25:13
Joel Bates attack in Riverside California in October of 1966 one month following the murder of a
00:25:21
young coed the perpetrator evidently sent a letter to the police and to the Press
00:25:30
claiming credit for the attack and mentioning the fact that yes it was him who made the phone call following the
00:25:38
murder well we don't know anything about the phone call it has never been reported upon but the apparent killer
00:25:47
evidently took credit for making a telephone call in the followup of the of this murder and you asked about the
00:25:55
contents of the the phone calls he boast about what he had done he presented details in a very unemotional manner
00:26:06
there was no regret in his voice there was no um sense of the horror that was involved he merely reported on these
00:26:14
murders and people were left to wonder why did he communicate this the police were able
00:26:22
to quickly get to the crime scenes and find out that yes indeed he had carried out the murders in the way he said he
00:26:28
had uh it seems to be uh evidence of his need to prove that he had done these and
00:26:34
also to um to to claim credit the phone call that he made following the Blue Rock Springs Park attack he also took
00:26:44
credit for the earlier attack at Lake Herman Road which was the first indication that the two attacks were
00:26:50
indeed linked to a single person [Music] when it comes to ensuring the safety of
00:27:04
your home and loved ones it's more than a priority it's everything the problem is old school home security systems only
00:27:13
take action once somebody is already inside your home Simply Safe home security is changing that with its new
00:27:21
active guard outdoor protection it's the only home security designed to prevent crimes before they happen with active
00:27:29
guard simply saves 24/7 monitoring agents keep close watch over your property and actually stop crimes before
00:27:37
they happen the cameras use Advanced AI to tell the difference between friendly faces like family and neighbors and
00:27:45
potential threats alerting agents to suspicious individuals before they get close to your home these agents can talk
00:27:52
directly to the Intruder sound a loud siren flashlights and even alert the Police why other systems only react
00:28:00
after a break-in Simply Safe combines live monitoring and proactive protection both outside and inside your home here
00:28:09
at the garage we love Simply Safe we use Simply Safe to protect our homes and the
00:28:14
garage Studios it's so easy to use and the customer service is amazing protect your home with 50% off a new Simply Safe
00:28:23
system plus a free indoor security camera when you sign up for fast protect mon mon a tring just visit simplysafe
00:28:30
docomo that's simplys safe.com garage there's no safe like [Music] simplysafe he's connecting the murders
00:28:47
for the police via these phone calls especially with that first one after the Blue Rock Springs shooting and murder
00:28:56
but to me he feels like a bit of a headline prostitute right he loves these headlines can't wait to read about
00:29:04
himself and his acts and the the terror that he has bringing to these areas and to the people that live there and it's
00:29:14
it's almost like to me like he he couldn't get that payment for what he had done fast enough so I gotta phone
00:29:21
this in so they find these people right away make no mistake he's not phoning it
00:29:25
in hoping that that paramedics can show up on the scene and save anybody no he he's I think he's phoning it in wants to
00:29:33
see those headlines as quick as possible what some speculation that I've seen over the years that I thought was very
00:29:39
fascinating as well is that that he likely had got some kind of kick out of hearing the sirens after the call is
00:29:47
made and they rush off to the scene to to go and to discover and shock complete shock what he had just done yeah these
00:29:55
are entirely entirely reasonable speculations the phone calls were placed from locations at phone booths close to
00:30:02
the police stations that the Zodiac had called into so it is possible that he heard the
00:30:09
sirens um though police police cars at that time were contacted by radio so it's unlikely that a police car would
00:30:18
have left the police station to respond but nevertheless he put himself in a little bit of danger by being very
00:30:26
close to a police department Department why why exactly he made these phone calls it's not certain it's a very
00:30:34
reasonable suspicion that he was looking for headlines I believe following some of his attacks he received front page
00:30:42
coverage in some major newspapers for as many as 21 days in a row when he sent a
00:30:48
letter they were generally reproduced in newspapers and obviously when he made his attacks these were reported upon it
00:30:56
seemed to be that was looking for attention in fact he wrote to the Los Angeles Times in a later letter decrying
00:31:05
the fact that the the Bay Area papers weren't putting him on the front page anymore so it's precisely that that he
00:31:11
may have been looking for front page coverage looking to uh Revel in his handiwork and show himself to be
00:31:20
important which tends to be a theme among serial killers they tend to be very ineffectual people
00:31:28
and um they they do what they do to demonstrate for themselves or for the world that they have control that they
00:31:37
can control another person and what's the ultimate manner of control is actually taking somebody else's life do
00:31:43
you think it was just attention that he was seeking or do you think the Zodiac was trying to give some message to
00:31:51
society it's all it's all an area of speculation and a whole lot has been a lot of ink has been spilled in that area
00:31:59
it's not clear if he had a message in a couple of his letters he let know that he was killing people
00:32:07
because he was collecting slaves for the afterlife and what exactly was meant by
00:32:13
that is not entirely clear people have spent a lot of time looking into world religions where there's an idea that if
00:32:22
you kill somebody they become your slave for the afterlife um that could have been
00:32:27
something just to lead investigators astray it may have meant something very personal to him it's never been made
00:32:34
entirely clear always got this feeling of this guy that's trying to best everyone and that's really what it felt
00:32:41
like and it's like after the Paul Stein murder he gets so close to getting caught in my humble opinion then later
00:32:49
has to rub the cop's noses in it going oh well if you just would have stuck around I was hiding in the park you
00:32:57
would have found found me but oh you guys are too dumb to to to get the best of me I once again I got the best of you
00:33:05
but he almost gets caught and it's like a little boy who picks up the ball and says I'm going home because he because
00:33:11
he finally lost a game and and I always thought of that like he's always constantly trying to best
00:33:18
everyone and this slaves in the afterlife thing is not something that we haven't heard from other serial killers
00:33:25
BTK talked about it captain correct me if I'm wrong but I think there was some we talked about this a little bit with
00:33:31
Israel Keys as well but this this afterlife of well I I am infinite I will go on these people I've ended them and
00:33:41
while while all of you can't find me and continue to look for me and identify me
00:33:47
uh you never will and I will be reaping the rewards of my the the fruits of of my adventures and these horrible acts
00:33:57
that I've done I believe that's entirely reasonable in the six-page letter that was sent a month after the Paul Stein
00:34:04
murder the Zodiac comes across as a petulant child who is bragging to the police of how smart he is and all of the
00:34:13
different acts of subterfuge that he has used against them he talks about buying
00:34:19
his guns out of state or through the mail he talks about wearing fingertip guards on his hands to not leave any
00:34:27
fingerprints behind etc etc basically saying I'm so smart I I have outsmarted you you can't find me even mentions in
00:34:36
the letter I've been too clever for the police now why do you do all this because you're clever no it's because
00:34:42
you feel like you're not clever and you have a point to make I think it's um very easy to overlook how close the
00:34:51
Zodiac got to being captured that night because he was seen by teenagers a composite picture was created in the
00:35:00
aftermath and it was posted all over San Francisco a police officer rushing to the scene drove by who he thought to be
00:35:09
the Zodiac later on because it went out over the radio that they were looking for an africanamerican male and this
00:35:17
police officer as he drove to the scene noticed a white man walking along the road and he slowed down took a look at
00:35:23
him saw that he wasn't African-American as assumed he had nothing to do with the
00:35:29
the attack and then sped off to the crime scene the Zodiac in a follow-up letter said no you you almost had me and
00:35:39
essentially claimed that that was the person who was responsible but the zodak added that the police officers pulled
00:35:46
over and spoke to him so there's a disagreement there as to precisely what happened did the police officers talk to
00:35:52
the Zodiac or did they just drive by that's never been completely answered but had they ex realized that it was the
00:36:01
Zodiac he could have been caught at that time or there could have been a gunfight
00:36:07
that ensued from that only by sheer luck and the incorrect reporting that uh he was able to escape
00:36:15
into the pidal park and that may have terrified him from ever killing again or at least terrified him from ever killing
00:36:24
up close and personal he's not lying when he says that he wears you know I wear disguises okay so he's not lying
00:36:30
because we know clearly the lake beresa attack he's wearing a disguise he's he's
00:36:36
wearing a hood with with sunglasses and and a whole getup it doesn't get more of
00:36:42
a disguise than that but at the same time let's let's pretend and look at this from the angle that he's not
00:36:49
wearing disguises at the other attacks but when he's seen at the Paul Stein attack by Witnesses and then potentially
00:36:59
by police with maybe an interaction with police as well of course he's got to say
00:37:04
I wear disguises right because either he was wearing one in the moment when he's
00:37:10
witnessed or now it's planting the seed of well don't believe too much of what you've seen because I wear disguises so
00:37:18
he's certainly no dummy on that front that seems to be the motive behind claiming to wear a disguise he wrote
00:37:26
that he wears a disguise but only wears it during his attacks and that draws into question the
00:37:33
accuracy of the photos that were circulated and so that suggests that it the likeness was at least close enough
00:37:40
to give him fear that he could be captured as a result of the pictures that were being circulated unfortunately
00:37:47
at the time everybody wore short hair and so the Zodiac pictures that have been circulated look like pretty much
00:37:54
every male in high school their graduation picture it looked exactly like that with very short cropped hair
00:38:01
and uh so precisely who was the Zodiac um eyewitness reports tend to be very poor so um obviously he hasn't been
00:38:12
caught as a result of his uh the circulated picture staying away from naming any specific suspects or good or
00:38:21
otherwise you said something that I think is very intelligent and Powerful in regard to the Zodiac's Communications
00:38:31
with the media with police phone calls letters but in particular with the letters and I've heard you say in the
00:38:41
past that one doesn't write I guess it was what about uh as many as two dozen how 20 letters so you don't write 20
00:38:50
letters yeah without telling something about yourself take us take us through that what in your opinion with all the
00:38:57
research Arch that you've done Mark what do the as many as two dozen letters tell us about the author who
00:39:07
penned those letters that many letters obviously say something about their creator what precisely it says is open
00:39:15
to debate a new area of forensics and criminology that has opened up recently is the area of forensic
00:39:24
Linguistics and I believe there is great opportunity there to not only discover something about the Zodiac but identify
00:39:33
precisely who he is I I guess it's based on the idea that everybody uses language
00:39:38
differently the way I speak is different than the way you speak the word selection that I choose over the course
00:39:46
of a conversation or the course of writing a letter would be different than the words that you would choose and
00:39:53
precisely how we place them across the page with punctuation with Grammar with layout on the
00:40:00
page is is different it's based on our childhood experiences it's based on our experiences in life it's based on the
00:40:07
culture around us what type of words are used how they are used so I think there's a there's a great opportunity
00:40:14
there and yet this is a very new field it's been used um more recently in certain crimes where people leave behind
00:40:22
a note um obviously if they misspell something and that perpetrator in other notes misspells the
00:40:30
same word you get an indication that maybe the same person is responsible for both of them what makes it exceedingly
00:40:38
difficult in the Zodiac case is that there's evidence that the Zodiac faked his handwriting faked what he was saying
00:40:46
faked his level of intelligence and even faked his ability to use punctuation and
00:40:52
use grammar so how can you identify somebody who is pret end in not to be himself through words but I believe with
00:41:02
developments in Ai and supercomputers it may sometime become uh a viable Avenue of Investigation to look
00:41:13
into how people use words I mean can you imagine if you took all of the 20 or some odd zodiac letters analyzed them
00:41:22
down to the minutest detail and then compared them to the use of language across the entire internet what type of
00:41:30
responses you might get you might find people on the internet unwittingly have been using the same type of words or the
00:41:38
same type of grammar and whatnot now this is kind of sketching it out in very broad brush strokes but that may be an
00:41:46
idea of uh of of looking into who the zodiac is people spend a lot of time looking at the Zodiac letters and trying
00:41:54
to say something about him but the question is is how honest was he being in the
00:41:59
letters letters in conjunction with the crime scene are pieces of staging in and
00:42:05
of themselves letters are sent not to say something about the criminal but to lead the criminal astray to lead the
00:42:13
police astray and not find the criminal so what can we believe about sentences that he is reproduced in
00:42:23
letters what can we say about him uh some things about him Geographic locations or descriptions are not going
00:42:31
to be sent or they're going to be edited out of the letter before it's sent but other things might get through
00:42:37
unwittingly that the the Zodiac may have revealed more about himself than he realized and done it quite accidentally
00:42:45
one thing I point to is that in the more material letter the Zodiac used three semicolons and he used them exactly
00:42:53
correctly and nowhere else in his entire body of letters would a would a semicolon be appropriate now that says
00:43:03
something about somebody because I don't know about you but I didn't start using
00:43:07
semicolons until my grad school education I know I was first I first learned about semicolons in high school
00:43:16
but I didn't know how to use them and never even attempted it and most people who are not educated uh do not use
00:43:24
semicolons and here is a writer who's using a semicolon three times in the course of a three-page letter now that
00:43:31
says something about his education it says something about his intelligence it says something about his ability to
00:43:37
write but what exactly it does say is open to interpretation well that's an interesting point cuz like you said our
00:43:44
our language not just spoken but written language comes from our background but you could also fake that on some level
00:43:55
uh the great writer David Foster Wallace used to say if you put me in a room by myself for long enough I'll come up with
00:44:02
intelligent things to say and intelligent points of view I do agree with you that the writings show some
00:44:08
level of higher education yes at the same time he misspelled words he misspelled firing f i r e i n g or
00:44:19
having ha a V iing and he spelled kid C so what's going on here with somebody who's sophisticated enough to use a
00:44:30
semicolon but can't spell a basic third grade word of having or firing but to your point is he choosing to misspell
00:44:40
those words I think it's it's not only quite possible I think it's the general generally accepted view that he was
00:44:48
attempting to fabricate his level of language by spelling those words I know people who are convinced that the zodiac
00:44:55
is dyslexic um I I'm not convinced of that but it appears that he is messing with his
00:45:04
level of intelligence people today still argue about how intelligent was the Zodiac some people say well no he was
00:45:10
just some some idiot who uh scrawled a bunch of letters and didn't have a whole lot of education and there are other
00:45:17
people who say no no he was quite intelligent he was a criminal mastermind why is it that 50 years on we're still
00:45:24
discussing how intelligent he was and coming up with such incredibly diverse answers to that question well that would
00:45:31
seem to imply that he was indeed attempting to fool people with what he was writing and also in conjunction with
00:45:39
that there's a broad enough amount of information and data on this criminal that you can make the evidence fit
00:45:47
pretty much any suspect that you pick provided you look at similarities and downplay or completely ignore anything
00:45:56
that would tend to point the the the finger the other direction so that's part of the fascination that people have
00:46:04
with the Zodiac that it there's so much information in there and yet the information points in a lot of different
00:46:10
directions so through the letters there could be M Direction on one his identity
00:46:16
and also the level of intelligence but maybe that's a clue into the ciphers because if I give you a bunch of ciphers
00:46:26
to solve but I create a couple ciphers that you can't solve then that would also be misdirection on my level of
00:46:35
intelligence as well sure sure um we don't know how deeply embedded some of this misinformation is for instance in
00:46:44
one letter the Zodiac claims kind of almost matter of fact to have a basement in his house or in his living location
00:46:53
he mentions storing a bomb in his basement well people immed mediately start saying ah he has a basement okay
00:47:00
he didn't tell us he had a basement but he implied that and therefore he must be
00:47:05
one of these rare individuals in the Bay Area who lives in a place that has a basement because not a lot of bay are
00:47:13
Bay Area Homes have basements other people have said well maybe basements referring to something else like a
00:47:19
garage that's called a basement so it it becomes an open an open question maybe the zodiac realized that if he said
00:47:29
something like that and made the implication that he had a basement it would send the police running a certain
00:47:35
direction looking for a basement where he had none and if he was quite intelligent and quite criminally
00:47:41
sophisticated he could be leading people running around all over the place I contend that the Zodiac as he reveals
00:47:49
himself in his letters never actually existed and the reason people have not been able to catch him is because they
00:47:56
feel like they know him they read all of his letters and they get a sense of his
00:48:01
personality and his his goals and his identity and so they start looking for this person who never actually existed
00:48:10
it's a complete fabrication it's an exaggeration or a fictitious character of himself that he's putting forward in
00:48:20
these letters I think is what a great way to describe that in your second book mark titled
00:48:28
profiled you make a solid attempt at an evidencebased criminal profile of the Zodiac Killer what did you do to learn
00:48:37
how to attempt this and just how difficult of a task do you think this was yeah thank you my my second book
00:48:45
profiled is already examined it's actually the it's the second book of the trilogy and my publisher is uh very high
00:48:52
on the book because he says that it acts as a compendium to serial killers and general not just the Zodiac uh in the
00:48:59
second book I take the information from the first book and attempt to do a deep dive into the details trying to unlock
00:49:08
what it is that we know about the killer the FBI has done a lot of work into serial killers over over the decades
00:49:17
however it did not start until after the Zodiac had quit killing in fact while the Zodiac was active the term serial
00:49:25
killer did not even EX exist in the uh in in the words of the English language it was not until Robert westler penned
00:49:33
that phrase in the early 1970s that we have the word serial killer the FBI attempted to understand what makes a
00:49:42
serial killer what different types of serial killers there are and what we can know and learn about each type so I go
00:49:51
through a lot of that information and I do a deep dive onto a lot of the for pH that's available from the the story of
00:50:00
the zodiac from the various attacks what precisely what forensic information do we have and what can we continue to look
00:50:09
into and the fact that we have letters I mentioned that we can look into the wording and the specific use of words
00:50:15
but there have also been fingerprints collected in the aftermath of the attacks there have been
00:50:21
bootprints there are ballistics shell casings were collected at the crime scenes and eyewitness and
00:50:29
ear witness reports from people in the vicinity so all of these we can kind of get a handle on some of the information
00:50:37
that we have about the Zodiac I use a lot of FBI research and attempt to narrow down the type of
00:50:46
person that we're looking for who would be the Zodiac I attempt to put together at the
00:50:53
end of the book a criminal psychological profile of the uh of the perpetrator I am not a profiler and so I
00:51:02
had to be very careful on what I said and what I conjectured but I believe I followed
00:51:10
very closely to FBI principles and what they now know about serial killers the fact that they've been studied gives us
00:51:18
information that serial killers in reality are much different than the Hollywood caricature of serial killer in
00:51:26
in ollywood serial killers are looked at looked at as big and menacing and scary
00:51:32
and people are given the false sense of security that if they saw a serial killer they would recognize him um
00:51:40
unfortunately this is not the case when a serial killer is active in an area people get all afraid and they they look
00:51:47
for somebody who's big and scary and menacing and yet what always happens following the arrest of the serial
00:51:54
killer the neighbors say oh he was such a quiet person we never knew uh this about him he he was friendly he seemed
00:52:02
to love his family well that's because the Hollywood version of serial killer just does not exist in reality profilers
00:52:11
have said that uh a serial killer looks like your Banker looks like your neighbor looks like uh somebody in your
00:52:18
community because for 99% of their lives that's precisely what they are serial killing is something that they only do
00:52:26
and only only look like when they're engaged in that activity and engaged in Murder not a lot of people when they
00:52:33
hear that a serial killer is active in their Community think of oh Ted Bundy maybe he's a good-look young man or they
00:52:41
don't think of uh um Dennis Raider BTK who was a president of his local church and an upstanding member of his
00:52:51
community but that's what we now know about serial killer because of FBI research CH so I um put together a
00:53:00
psychological profile of the killer that runs four or five pages in length looking at a lot of the details based on
00:53:08
what we now know about serial killers and the types of and that the people who have been arrested for serial killing
00:53:15
and so I I Venture guesses that that he was probably a a firstborn or oldest child or only child he was approximately
00:53:26
30 years of age simply because that's the general age that serial killers tend to they tend to start in ages 18 to 25
00:53:36
so anywhere from 25 to 30 is is a likely guess but there have also been estimates
00:53:43
from eyewitnesses that he was 35 to 45 years of age so that that's kind of the the things that I say about this the
00:53:52
killer in the profile I say that he has a certain level of uh of uh rage in his life he is uh likely
00:54:01
alienated from other people has problems in relationships his problems in his relationship with women and all this is
00:54:08
kind of um basic information from the crime seams themselves yeah one thing it doesn't take I don't have to go to the
00:54:17
extensive training and exercise work that you did to come up with a profile but I the thing that jumps off the page
00:54:24
to me that is that is just obvious this is not a uh love what I kill kill what I
00:54:30
love situation this is a guy who he he's killing he's killing what he cannot be he's killing what he hates he's
00:54:38
destroying what what others have that he does not and and and I feel like given the ciphers and a lot of this extra work
00:54:50
that goes into what he's doing it feels like a very loner type to me uh a very loner type for for much of his life
00:55:01
before much before the killings and especially during during these five murders yeah yeah obviously somebody
00:55:09
who's going out and attacking strangers and killing them there's something wrong
00:55:14
with that person there's there's something um something not right in their relationships with other people
00:55:21
their friendships and their other relationships are not supplying them with something did you include any post
00:55:27
offense behaviors suspected or otherwise in your profile of the Zodiac Killer yeah um FBI research has noted that
00:55:36
organized serial killers those who are under great control and put a lot of effort into not being caught they tend
00:55:44
to gravitate toward alcohol in either pre- or post offense Behavior whereas somebody who is uh a disorganized serial
00:55:54
killer would tend to Ward using a prescription medication or other street drugs then that's not a hard and
00:56:03
fast rule but because of that General tendency I suggested that if the Zodiac was into some type of uh mood enhancing
00:56:13
behavior that alcohol might be involved and some of his letters give a sense that they start very neat and very
00:56:22
carefully scripted but then tend to fall apart in slop by the end of the letter gives the idea that maybe he was
00:56:29
drinking as part of his post offense Behavior but also his activity of writing letters and making telephone
00:56:37
calls that also seemed to be very important Behavior to him something that he repeated yeah because the the letters
00:56:44
the ciphers and all of that it's it's the same it's all a part of what he's doing it's it's like Dennis Raider said
00:56:52
he didn't separate the trolling from victims from actually tying someone up and it was all aart it was all one one
00:57:02
thing to him and I feel like with zodiac where we have some killers that are out
00:57:07
trolling for victims and looking where do I procure a victim from and and where can I find someone who's vulnerable and
00:57:15
and and find my Victim type that I'm chasing with him it's it's less of the trolling and it's the behind the scenes
00:57:26
work of manufacturing these ciphers and putting together letters and then the communications with newspapers or the
00:57:36
police and the taunting EV of everyone terrorizing the the area um precisely everything that the Zodiac does is uh
00:57:45
goes to his identity who he is and what he's attempting to accomplish and much of what he is and
00:57:52
what he did we don't know about because we don't know about his trolling we don't know about uh any following he did
00:57:59
or any stalking he was involved in we don't know precisely what it looked like when he sat at a desk and wrote his
00:58:06
letters where he was what he was thinking um but all of this factors into his personality and who he is and what
00:58:15
makes him different than other members of society well and one thing that I really tried to hit home for everyone
00:58:21
when we we did just as you said five episodes on the Zodiac Killer back in 2021 and that was episodes 470 through
00:58:34
474 in March of 2021 one thing I really tried to hit home in several of those episodes that I
00:58:42
think is lost on some of the general public here one thing that that separates the Zodiac from a lot of other
00:58:51
serial killers even ones that communicate with the public in the media and such is he there is a large part of
00:58:59
him that is a terrorist and he because he set forth to terrorize these communities and to scare them into place
00:59:10
to almost force people to stay inside don't let your kids stand at the bus stop don't don't let your kids come
00:59:18
bouncing off of school buses at the end of the day because if you do I done warned you you know and on on several
00:59:25
occa uh at least one occasion he's saying that he's going to go out and kill x amount of people for x amount of
00:59:32
days until something that he wants to happen happens almost like a A List of Demands that he's sending out and one
00:59:40
thing that I like about your books is you that that aspect of his crimes and what he was attempting to do was not
00:59:49
lost on you yeah that's quite true he was a terrorist of the Bay Area I continue to talk to people today who
00:59:59
have very Vivid memories of being a teenager or older and being in fear parents uh jined up the fear by
01:00:07
saying don't go out alone be back by 8 o' um or don't go down this road because this road uh may have the Zodiac on it
01:00:18
people were terrified they didn't understand what was taking place within them all they
01:00:24
knew was that this man was Ro around and suddenly without provocation pulling out
01:00:29
a gun or pulling out a knife and killing people uh and that and that goes to his
01:00:35
identity who he was what he was attempting to accomplish he was not a serial killer who was looking to um
01:00:42
fulfill some type of sexual need where where some serial killers will rape and kill their victims and then disappear
01:00:51
and try not to get caught because they are satisfied at least for the Moment by the act of what they are doing this was
01:00:59
a person who uh was killing but then moving beyond that and the fact that he stopped
01:01:06
killing and continued to write letters gives every indication that maybe the letter writing was more important to him
01:01:15
or the publicity was more important to him than the acts of killing what he was doing maybe he only killed five people
01:01:23
to prove to himself and to others that he could do that and he had earned enough street cred by
01:01:29
that time that he could simply write letters and make threats and cause fear within the community because of what he
01:01:35
had done [Music] previously want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage for this
01:01:50
great discussion on the Zodiac killer tune in tomorrow same B time sbat Channel and until then be good be kind
01:01:59
and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Music]