Copycat [13]

Betty lu Jensen. Days earlier, a threat was made to harm anyone who showed up at the Lake Herman site on the anniversary. The Zodiologists decided to go anyway, and we joined them. Yeah, I know there were threats made for people who came here tonight. What do we have about people here right now and over the next half hour.

I expect maybe another dozen people are more coming here, though I know there are other people who would be here tonight if those threats have not been made, people who want to be here and remember the anniversary and remember David and Betty lou N She did nice, yet Lourest David A M. You're looking at the crosses where it would be a good place to have them set

for a while. Right now, I came up here. If I didn't know if anybody we're gonna be here because that threat about a shooting or something, SAM would drive off here. Anyway, I'll take my chances. It's really interested to see a police officer here from the Venetia Police Department. About twenty people who came over here. There's none of us who were going to cause any problems. But we have no idea who else is going to be here

this evening. There will quite likely be a number of other cars of people that we don't know that it will show up. I'm Corporal Cruise with the Inanitia Police Department. We're here because of the fiftie anniversary of the Zodiac killing. We're just here for extra patrol and just kind of make sure everyone that comes here wants to be here and stay safe. What makes she wonders how the Zodiac? I mean, you hate trail him out here? You find

them by accident? And where was the car park? It was parked about where the where the taller of the arrow science right there, headed right towards this way. I don't know. They show the crime sheet photos, but you can't in there were the backup facing. I think David was found this is Tom's territory, but I think he was found outside the passengers side door because he tried to get away and she had gotten out and got she got down here and he got he was killed

right there. It's it's been a real treat to hang out with other zodiologists and talk about the anniversary. This being the fiftieth anniversary is kind of sobering time. You know, fifty years ago today there was a couple who was holding hands and kissing in the front seat of a station wagon. But an hour from now, less than an hour from now, we will commemorate the time that they were shot dead for no purpose apparently, and the perpetrator

has still not been identified or brought to justice. A man in a mask robbed, tied, and stabbed them, leaving them for day. Subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no a double murder. I did it. A man who wore an evil style executioner's hood, carried a knife and gun and intended to use them. They haven't arrested me because they can't prove it. I'm not damn zodiac. Who is the zodiac and where is he from? My Heart Radio, How Stuff Works, and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster, the

Zodiac Killer. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, and if that's true, the Zodiac may have had some admirers. By now, you've heard about the range and murder weapons and all the other inconsistencies between the Zodiac killings. In this episode, we'll see double confronting the unpleasant idea of a Zodiac copycat. Unspeakable evil is one thing, but consciously replicating that evil that may be worse. There are people who are totally wrapped up. They don't celebrate, but they

commemorate every anniversary of these murders. People they never met, they didn't know. That's Rachel Raskin's Rhian, who you heard on last week's episode. She's a reporter at the Times Harold in Valleo, a paper that's been involved with the case since the very beginning. What's funny is the people who did know, the people who has happened to don't do that. I haven't met one that does that. They may remember it in their head, but they don't go

to the site in the middle of the night. Why would you have a fan club for something like a serial killer. I guess it's not unusual. Like Manson, Charles Manson, he's got followers. Still, I can't explain it. They can't explain it. I've asked. Rachel says she's heard a lot of strange stories about the Zodiac. Some people even claim to have escaped the unknown killer. I've had a couple of people tell me that they are positive that they encountered this person and escaped death, and they can't let

it go. It just becomes a part their life, and some people have becomes more of a part of their life than other people. But I imagine if you thought you encountered a serial killer and lived to tell the tale, it probably sticks with you. After the incident happened with Betty, you know, of course, everyone's talking about it in Valleo kind of were a close knit town at that time. The population wasn't like it is now. This is Lorraine de Groat. You heard her from an earlier episode when

she remembered losing her childhood friend Betty lu Jensen. Lorraine believes that she too had a chance encounter with the Zodiac when her cousin and a few friends decided to visit the murder scene at Lake Herman Road. This is her story as a teenager. This one night, my cousin talked to us all in. We agreed, the four of us, okay, let's take right out there. And it was kind of late. It was like tan ten thirty eleven, and my cousin's driving Henry and I'm behind him, and then Nadine is

passenger and my boyfriend's behind her. We go out there and it's totally black dark, there's no street lights, you can't see nothing, and the headlights. There's a guy standing in the road. So what was so noticeable was he was wearing this like I want to say it's an army jacket, but it was big, it was loose, and it went down to just about probably between his knees and his thighs. We were focusing and I go, oh, there's a there's a guy. I'm sitting behind my cousin

and I'm kicking him. I'm going, don't stop, don't stop, because I'm scared. I didn't even want to be out there, so I'm saying don't stop, don't stop. So we had to slow down because the guy wouldn't get out of the road. So we're slowing down. Nadine rolls the window down and so does my boyfriend and as we rolled the window down, my cousin said, can we help you? What's up? Then the guy leans kind of leans in towards Nadine looking at us, and he said, I can't

find my girlfriend. We were out on a fishing boat on Lake Herman. We're going oh and it's eleven at night, you know, and I'm really kicking my cousin. I'm going go, go go, because it just didn't sound right. And he said, if you could just park over here and um help me find her. Well, that was just totally stupid. It didn't even make any sense. So then my cousin like

acted like, okay, we'll help you. Of course, there's no phones, no cell phones, and I think we mentioned something like, well, where's your car and he said he didn't have one. So we said, well, we could call the police for you, and then my cousin just kind of sped off the minute he the guy stood up, and we were also scared, and I said, that's Zodiac. I kept saying that is Zodiac.

So we drove that whole road because there's no turning around to come back so as we're speeding away, about a mile mile and a half from where we left him was a car. Was a car on the right hand side. It was the only car during our whole speeding venture to get off that road. My guess is it had to have been his car, because there was Like I said, there was no houses, there was no that was his car. We drove that road and it comes straight into Benicia. So we go straight up to

the police station. We told him the story. There's a guy out there, we just ran into him. He said his girlfriend, he lost her. And then I remember I told the officer I was saying, I think that was Zodiac. He said, well, we're gonna go check that out. We will drive out there. And then I said, can I call you back tomorrow so you can tell me if they found his girlfriend. When I called the police station the next day, of course, my curiosity is just off

the chart. So I said, what happened? And he said, we went out there, and he goes, there was nothing out there, there was no car. I think he was gonna kill whoever was in the car, but there was four of us. That's what I think. I'm so consumed to this day about Zodiac until the day I die. I believe that was Zodiac. Lorraine said it was curiosity that led her and her friends down Lake Herman Road that night. In five decades later, Lorraine's fascination with the

Zodiac continues. But what can happen when someone's fascination with a killer becomes an obsession and even an opportunity to pick up where a killer left off. This happened in the late nineteen eighties when another Zodiac killer showed up in New York City. In the area that was involved, basically East New York Brooklyn. At the time, it was like the motor capital of the world. It was the most violent precinct in New York City. It still is,

but back then it was really, really terrible. We were averaging over a hundred homicides plus an additional five hundred montreto shootings within five square miles. So it was a very hectic time for the police and the detectives. And in the midst of all this violence was an emerging serial killer who was calling himself to Zodiac. My name is Joseph Herbert. I'm a deputy chief in a New

York City police department. I recently retired and my final position was to commanding of the Joint TOEWS On Test Force. Deputy Chief Joe Herbert played a key role in the Zodiac case, which took place in New York City. On November the NYPD received an unusual letter. It stated that one person for each of the twelve zodiac signs would be killed. Authorities believed it was a hoax and nothing to be alarmed about, and there was no reason to

follow up. The first letter came into the Semi five precinct, and that letter he was taken credit for a shooting that we never identified. They didn't marry it up to any actual shooting. It had the circle, it had rambling writing, and it wasn't taken seriously. I think it ended up into somebody's lacker. Authorities would soon realize the threats were no joke. His first him was a handicapped individual who was returning home from work late at night. His name

was Mario Roscoe. He was walking approaching Atlantic Avenue coming home from the train and he was approached from the rear and shot once in the back by an individual who had a vandanna over his face and did not rob him, did not saying they just shot him and ran away. Three weeks later, the second victim, who was also coming home from the subway station. The name was

Herman Montenegro. He was a little intoxicated. He was out partying and he's coming home from the subway and he gets approached from the rear again and he shot in the back for no reason, although in his case he

believed that his passport was taken from him. With that being said, there was no letters left at that and there was no connection by the police that these two incidents were connected, and they were investigated as random shootings and they want some The first two victims of the unknown shooter had survived, the victim of the third attack would not be so lucky. The next shooting was Joseph Proachy.

He was an elderly male. We used to walk around the East New York section of Brooklyn to collect bottles and cans for the deposit. He was very friendly with people in the community. One night, he's returning home from collecting bottles and cans and he's approached from the rear as he's entering his building and he shot once in

the back. Also, the difference was at this scene the shooter left a note, and he weighed the note down with three stones, which could indicate that he might have left notes at the prior incidents and they might have blown away in the wind, but you know well uncertain of that. So anyway, he leaves a note at the proachy scene, and in the note he takes credit for three shootings, and he articulates and the letters the proper zodiac sign of each victim. The killer was apparently selecting

victims based on their birthday the New York Zodiac. Then sent letters to the New York Post in sixty minutes. These letters were studied for DNA and latent fingerprints. Please ramp up heavily. They had detected a couple of patents. One pattern was the incidents occurred in multiples of twenty one days. The first attack occurred on March, then twenty one days later there was a second attack, and then sixty three days later was the Dot shooting. So they

saw it that it was in multiples. On the twenty one day at the shooting, they flooded the area incredibly like a massive presence of undercovers, uniforms, detectives. Everything they could do and what happened is the individual does strike, but he doesn't strike in East New York section of Brooklyn. He took the train into Manhattan and he should Labby Pawham, who was sleeping on a park bench in Central Park

at that scene. He leaves another note and was also weighed down by a stone with the appropriate zodiac sign of Labby Paham, now taking credit for four shootings with the appropriate zodiac signs of all four victims. Now that letter was very important. Everybody was aware of what was

going on in Brooklyn. So when they came up upon a shooting in Central Park in Manhattan and they recovered the letter, the climb scene was pristine, and they were able to recover a fingerprint from that letter, which were about to be very important later on in the investigation. This story may be starting to sound familiar. A string of letters taunting the police hopes that a fingerprint would help catch the killer. The killer in New York was

following in the footsteps of the Zodiac. When let his first came in, he actually claimed that he was one and the same as the Zodiac killer. He actually jew a sketch of the California Zodiac, wearing a hood on one of his letters and he said to me in the park. So, you know, we had no idea, you know, if it was the same individual the fingerprint that we had from the PAM letter, they sent it to the San Francisco dohities and was not a match too to

that letter. The killer was still on the loose and authorities were trying to find any leads that would put the city's fear at ease. There was a lot of havoc and a lot of chaos in the city at the time because the Post was getting the letters and they were producing headlines, and there was putting a lot of fear into the city. So anybody who asked anybody for their birthdays in a in a random conversation, people

would panic and they would call the cops. So when Mr Piam got shot in Central Park, he recovered and they interviewed him and he says, a couple of days before the shooting, he was sitting on a park bench in Central Park and an individual he was talking and the birthdays came up. A composite sketch was made of the man who spoke with Parum about birthdays just days before the shooting. So that was the basis of that sketch.

They actually ended the investigation extensively by putting that sketch out. Took us in a long direction for a very long time. When you put out a sketch, you're going to get a lot of response. Make sure that you're putting a sketch out of someone who you have a witness scene doing the climb. It was a male black initially, and the Zodiac was actually a much in a malismanic just like the original Zodiac. The media played a key role in this case, and not one that was always helpful.

After the press leaks that a fingerprint had been taken from one of the letters, the New York Zodiac fell silent. They wouldn't hear from him again until two years later on August. The killer struck again, but Sastafante was the only one that was a little bit different than the others. He approached her in daylight. I was she exited a bus. She was apparently lost in the book area, and he approached her and entices to the golopment to the plot

with him by giving her cigarettes. She had psychological issues and he took advantage of her, and he goes so we allays does a look part of the park and the attacks he saves a one hundred times, killing her. Three more attacks would take place, all within close range of Highland Park, which borders between Brooklyn and Queens. James Webber and John Diacon were both shot and wounded in

June and July. Another near fatal shooting would occur that October, again in Highland Park, when Diane Ballard was shot in the neck. She survived but was left paralyzed. The only one that was able to describe the pip was Dianne Ballad and that was the assis of the male of Spanic with the mus dish and the hat. So she was the one that kind of took us from the heavyset mail black sketch to a male Spanic sketch. The Zodiac had succeeded in putting fear into the citizens of

New York. The NYPD began to ramp up in reaction to the killings, even forming a task force specifically for the case. It was the biggest man hunt in New York since the Son of Sam killings in six It was abouty serious case. The NYPD took a lot of interest, a lot of expense. They were literally being embabrassed because every time you said the lettos going headlines at the

New York Post and all the other those papers. But in the letters, he was actually twenty in the NYPD at one point, zodiac the number of his victims it might have been nine and n YPD zero. Looking for any possible leads in this case, investigators in the media, we're trying to make a deeper connection between the shootings and the astrological calendar. A lot of people dropped dimes,

a lot of people who contacted us. We would contacted from all over the world, Belgium, India, Pakistan, people who were interested in the zodiac, and they studied the zodiac and they were given us ideas. I'm an investigator based all my conclusions on evidence, so I didn't really like get involved with the zodiac angle of it. I concentrated on the finger prints. Joe maintains that ultimately good police

work and logic helped bring this killer to justice. By tracking the locations of the shootings, Joe and his squad were able to hone in on some locations where the shooter was operating the monetary. Earlier letters, he describes an intersection in eastern oak Brooklyn, Elbert Lane and Jamaica Avenue.

There's an l elevated train station. Along Jamaica Avenue, you have Frankman Kay Lane, which is a large public high school and as a large playing field, and around the playing field you have high benches, you know, for people to sit and watch the games. He would follow people from the train station. It was an exit at that intersection. Also, we figured he was concealing himself up on the stands and then he would come down and follow the people to wherever they went and wait for his prime moment

to shoot them when no audi else was around. Remembers his first comfort zone. The second comfort zone was all in Highland Park. Now at Highland Park, there was a large reservoir on top of the park. Around the reservoir, it was a perch where he had the ability to walk around and look for victims. Once he identified his victims from about the top of the reservoir area, he would come down the hill and strike his victims were walking innocently in the park. We identified both those comfort zones.

We drew out a map and we went a mile east, a mile west of north, and a mile south of those comfort zones, so we had probably like you know, like a two or three square mile area. We ran every address that were in the complience of that map, and then we searched about databases for people who had criminal histories in those addresses, came up with about names.

I didn't really have a lot of faith in the computers at that time, so we submitted for manual latent fingerprint evaluation all the people that had criminal histories in those forty addresses. There was a ton of work just collecting these things of prints that, never mind having them board to the evaluated is to to evaluate them. But at the end of the day we injected his name into the investigation. I haven't both us saida. Now they

just had to match the fingerprints. Joe says, due to a charge from a past arrest being dropped that would prove to be impossible. He taken in a rushed for primal possession of a zip gun. The significant of the zip gun was that he would make the guns himself. A zip gun is a homemade weapon made by using pipes and other materials. You can find it a hardware store. This was the same type of gun used in the shootings, but authorities were unable to make the connection at the time.

In the policy unit, they couldn't put together the gun properly and it couldn't discharge it, so because the gun was inoperable, they dropped charges in the book in DA's office.

His fingerprints were taken at that arrest, but because they dropped the charges, they were sealed, so later on when we did dec red searched of all the adjusses and the latent fingerprints from the pocalytta, we couldn't match up to his fingerprints which could have been on file, but because the fingerprints are sealed, we never matched it up. Later on we became aware with at it that we did identify him. M authorities were so close to catching

the killer. Due to some luck, they would again be confronted with SATA when an altercation with his sister led to a three hour shootout in hostage situation. I was a hosh, just negotiated, I had just finished training, and I'm sitting in the office and I get a phone called late morning. I was informed that an individual hot shot his sister and he was actively engaged in a shootout with multiple cops. From his appointment on Kicking Avenue and they needed a Housha negotiator to try to talk

him out. I get there and it is a large climb scene. He had shouted out with about fifteen cops and transit cops of train station at the corner. None of those officers were hit, but he had shot his sister in the EVNT. The reason he shot his sister was because she was in the back bedroom of the apartment with a boyfriend and he didn' improve with a boyfriend. He thought the boyfriend was deal drugs. He had an argument with his sister. He probably once shot through the door.

The sister came out and said, no, you're not sure, what are you doing? And then he shoots his sister and then we EVNT. She runs out of the apartment leading and the boyfriend barricade himself in the back bedroom. Police respond because neighbors called the cops with the sister bleating in the hallway, and he engages all those officers from multiple windows. He had eight I'll call and rifles

of buns. There were long barrels of puns. He's shooting from the back windows, from the front windows at the cops who are covering the area. So I get there, that shooting had stopped. Anybody. Service had set me up behind a barricade, and I have a bull horn on and I started trying to communicate with him. There was a ten days degree was a very hot day, sweating like a dog, and I'm trying to engage from conversation

and all the stone is coming to the window. He's pointing a large battle rifle at me, but he doesn't fire at me, and he's not communicating with me. He's not talking to me. Joe and his squad evacuated the four story apartment building before entering. We climbed into the window of the first flour and we climbed up the four flour and I started talking to him to the doorway. Now I'm having much better the results speaking to him.

He's actually engaged me in conversation. At about a three hour negotiation, he finally tells us that he wants to surrender. We know he had all these scums because he had fired him out the window. I had emerged Services on the roof and they lowered a bucket from the roof to his slunt window and he loads up the bucket, multiple buckets with zip guns, pipes, bullets and so forth, But that wasn't all Sada was holding in the apartment. Joe soon realized that there was a much bigger threat

they were not aware of. Now we believe that we eliminate the teat and we're going to have him opened up the door and surrender. And he says to us to the door, he says, all right, you've got the concert. What should I do with these bombs? So we said, okay, hid bombs. So we had the Bottles squad standing by. They came and they devised us get him out of the apartment, then we'll make an entry into the apartment and evaluate the bombs. And we moved the bombs with

this assistance that we made the service. We had him opened up the door, turn his back to us with his hands in the air. We handcuffed him. We escort him out of the apartment, and we moved him to the seven five. The Bobs squad goes in and they we cover two pipe bombs that he had made and one smoke grenade that he had inside the department. He told us later on he was actually done a graduation

being a serial shooter to Serie Obama. He had actually built a pipe bomb and tested it on a train station late at night with nobody around, and it went off. And you know, so that was in his future plenty bombs in New York City. I escored him personally out of the building, bring him to the seven five squad for the briefing. Sada was in the authorities control. He was interrogated and eventually confessed to shooting his sister. Sada signed his confession letter with a familiar symbol from an

earlier Zodiac letter. He had drew an upside down course on the letters with the numbers seven seven seven, So they brought the letter to me. They knew I was on the Zodiac task Force and very famil with the letters. And as soon as I looked at the letters, I recognized the handwriting to be the same writer as the previous letters that was Senter in the good post and fifteen minutes. So I knew then that we had them through the handwriting. But I also knew that suspicions are

one thing. You know, ME saying it's the Zodiac isn't going to suffice. So we had to evaluate the ballistics, the fingerprints that we had on hand. The DNA DNA was in its infancy back then, and we had to interrogate him and we had to do handwriting analysis. The first thing we did was sending Tommy Moss to mp D Ballistics play with the zip guns and the pipes that were taken out of the apartment, and we matched a couple of shootings from the Zodiac with those zip guns.

Then we prepared the fingerprint from the Larry pa Haim letter in Center Park and that matched his fingerprints, and then the DNA matched later on, and the handwriting analysis was also confirmed by handwriting experts. We had an eight hour interrogation and then he finally gave it all up. It was a difficult investigation. I mean even me and my guys got involved in and we were four watching it.

That we solved it took him shooting his sister. We were proud that we injected his name into the investigation. But he never took another arrest where we could use our singer prints where they would match up. Because he only had that one arrest with the ziphone. That was not offerable. And they sealed the record to all the evidence, including the DNA, the ballistics, the Laking singer prints. Every

name was critical and very important for the city. Was important because you know what, if we didn't sarve it, he'd still be out there. He's still be out they shooting people. He killed three innocent people who are didn't deserve it, and he armed tremendously. The other five victims, Diane Balance suffered severe no pain. Webber had difficulty with his leg. So I mean he was shooting innocent people

for no reason, only because he could. You don't need people like that walking around New York City, you know. The New York Zodiac Eddie Sada was brought to is six years after his first known crime for the victims of the original Zodiac killings. This justice has yet to be found. Fifty years later, Zodiologists still travel to the murder sites each year to remember these victims. You got

you guys. Like the crosses, the one on the LEFTO courses for for David and it says rest in peace, David, A f for Arthur Faraday, and then the one on the right is done in pink for Betty Lou and it says rest in peace Betty Lou. On the ribbons, it shows that we really do care that they they haven't been forgotten, you know, And that's what we want, you know, something to show that we have not forgotten,

even though it's been fifty years. We will commemorate the time that they were shot dead for no purpose apparently, and the perpetrator has still not been identified or brought to justice. There's a complete seless tragedy. We want to remember David Faraday and Betty Luke Jensen on this anniversary. DNA helped the authorities to definitively pin the murders on Zeta. For many, this technology brings hope that justice will finally

be served for the victims of the original Zodiac. We're just waiting on at DNA to come back, you know. I mean, there's been so many suspects over the years. Everybody looks good on paper at some point, but then you always find something that just seemed to discount them. Soon. If it did come back negative, two things, you might try to try again, which I doubt because layos so broke they're in with or you know, they would have said something to somebody. Somebody would have handed to us

that something's wrong. It's either still in the works, which takes time, as we know, and people need to be patient on that. Maybe they do have samples that they're of suspects that they're ready to go with next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer twenty three and Me is a consumer genetics testing service, so anybody can order a test online spit in a tube, but it's quite a large bit of spit. It takes about thirty minutes to

fill up the whole tube. From a genealogy standpoint, what you're trying to do is you're trying to find people that are the same as you for segments of those DNA, and the more DNA that is the same between people, the more closely related they are. In the Golden State Killer case, you're talking about a semen sample the was left behind it the murder scene. That's a very good source of DNA, whereas if you had DNA like from fingernails or under fingernails, that was a higher chance in

a lower risk. And I think this stamp is probably medium because you never can tell where the stamp has been. We haven't had any real updates on this case in many years. Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced by iHeart Radio, How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Albright and I our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers Meredith Stepmon, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana.

Jason Hope is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Kybrick, and Josh Thane. Scott Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick is our Hope. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you haven't already, make sure to check out the first season of Monster called Atlantic Monster, about the Atlantic child murders from the late seventies to the early eighties.

Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments, email us at Monster at how stuff works dot com, or you can call us at one eight three three eight five six six six seven. Thanks for listening.