This edict identifies Jesus of Nazareth as a heretic and a blasphemer. This season, on the Chosen. There are those for whom this was set off a series of events, and my followers won't understand. Nazareth, come out! I guess you're not holding back anymore. I can't. I'm out of time. See season 4 of The Chosen in theaters on February 1st, starting with episodes 1, 2, and 3. Get your tickets now at the ChosenRiseUp.com.
On the night of July 4th, 1969, couples were celebrating Independence Day across the country. The same was true in Blue Rock Springs in Vallejo, California, where lovebirds drove to secluded spots to watch the fireworks crackle over the night sky in relative peace while they shared a moment together. One such moment was being shared by Michael McGue and Darlene Farron, who were parked in their car in an isolated and empty spot of the park.
Some teenagers having just left as they had found their spot. They sat in the leather seats and began to talk to one another. Their conversation broken by a car entering the park along the road behind them. The two watched as it rolled forward until it stopped behind their car. They looked back, Michael with confusion and Darlene with fear. The headlights were bright and the engine was rumbling idly. The darkness made it impossible to see inside.
It lingered for an eternity until the engine kicked in and the car spotted forward. Relief came immediately as they watched the car leave the park through the winding road. It was probably just someone who was lost, they rationalized, between themselves. It was only moments later that the car returned and the fear crept back in louder now. The person wasn't lost. The car rumbled behind them once more as a door opened and footsteps pushed forward to their own car.
A bright light pierced their windows, blinding them both before glass shattered alongside the sound of deafening gunshots. The figure, a silhouette beyond the flashlight, fired into the car indiscriminately. As quickly as it started, it was over and the figure walked to his car and drove calmly away from the scene. The figure would go on to be known by the public as the zodiac killer. A figure so enigmatic, he still remains a mystery to this day, 50 years later.
But this is just one of many stories from the zodiac's case that we aim to explore in this week's episode of The Red Thread. The show where we cover cold cases, cryptids, conspiracies and cults, I do like a litteration. I'm Jackson and I'm joined by Isaea and Charlie and this is what we do. This is what we do. This episode is what to you. By our lovely sponsors at me, Andi's Adam and Eve and A.G. One, you'll hear more about them later on in the show.
And another very quick note before we start, boys. I just want to shout out that we have show notes in the description. I shouted this out last week, but I want to shout it out again. You can head below and see everything we talk about in written detail with pictures and other notes and additional details and stuff like that. Stuff that we might miss during the actual recording. And the link is in the description to go check it out.
And also thanks to everyone for watching and listening to the show over on Spotify. We'd really appreciate it if you click follow so you get the latest episodes delivered directly to you. And feel free to leave a rating as well because that really helps us out as well. All right, that's enough notes before the show. How are you guys going? Going great, Jackson. Thanks for having me.
It's your show as well. I'm not having you. I'm not having you. You're part of the show. I don't know what you're saying. You know what, Jackson, thank you for inviting me on as a guest for this episode. It really does mean a lot. We're just guests in your world. Yeah. It's Jackson's podcast. We're just living in it. It wouldn't be the same with that. You guys I just be here talking about fan fiction to myself about C-Rude kill isn't stuff like that, which would be an entirely different mood.
It's people would watch it probably, you know, I'm sure they'll do that. Your therapist would at least. This time around your intro wasn't really fanfic. It was just describing one of the one of the murders. Yeah, after last week with the whole Jeffrey Epstein. I'm a little disappointed. It wasn't in the first person just to be honest. I kind of want you to be like, you you're on the ground. You look down in a puddle. You're the zodiac killer.
That's how you've made it a rest these last 50 years. It's you. You're the zodiac killer. Yeah, I don't know. I really didn't want to do that again. Honestly, I didn't want to get too much into it like that. But yeah, it was more just a description of one of the actual events because I don't know. I find it interesting. Anyway, it is admittedly in better taste to not put you in the shoes of like murdered teenagers. So that's fair.
Yeah, but then we lose the personality of it. It's a balancing act. That's true. All right. From the top. You're setting in a car suddenly. You hear someone tap outside. You know, you have to understand Jackson. You can get more creative instead of putting you in the perspective of the killer or the victims. You could have done like a bystander, like a bird or something in a tree that you don't know what you're seeing, but you know it's not good.
You are the local woodpecker. You just had a delicious breakfast of worms. You look over a gunshot. You can't understand it because you are simply a bird. You know, you must flee. You look over as a human holding a really loud bird. Nothing makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. I'll get more creative with it next week. No, no, it was perfect. You're beautiful. Continue. I appreciate it. So the zodiac. I'm sure you guys are both very aware of the zodiac killer.
I don't think there's a single person out there that isn't at least somewhat aware of the zodiac killer. It's a very popular name. How, how much detail do you guys know? I definitely knew a lot more when I was in college because I watched a bunch of documentaries and movies on it and looked into it. But it's been a while. So I'm a little foggy on a lot of the specifics. Do you remember, do you remember anything specific? Like in terms of who I thought it was.
That or just like really specific elements of the case that jumped out. You that like you were interested in. Yeah, of course, obviously the one the biggest one being like all the notes that got sent. But like in terms of who I thought it was at the time, I believe the one I was leaning mostly towards was Kane. Okay, interesting. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of suspect that we'll get into down the line. There is a lot of suspects and a lot of different points to one or the others.
So I'm interested in seeing where we differ on that. I say, what do you, what do you think? I think that the zodiac killers, one of the serial killers that I'm most familiar with. Like I don't know if I could list off every name and date of the victims. But I know all the broad strokes of the killings. I know the number of victims. I know like what was included in the letters he sent. I always thought that the killer was Lee Allen. But it's been a while since I've looked at it.
Like I know last year information came out that made a bunch of people say it was Gary post. That I haven't looked at that much. So I could be swayed, but I was kind of in the Lee Allen camp for a long time. I remember. Yeah, I think I'm pretty familiar with the case. Yeah, before we get into it, can we shout out the hit 2007 movie starring Jake Gillinghall and I think Robert Downey, Jr. It's just called zodiac by David Fincher. I think that was that was what started my interest in zodiac.
It's pretty, it takes some liberations. Like it's definitely like a dramatization and plays a bit loose and fast with the facts of the case. But it's still pretty accurate to what I read over the last research period for creating this document. It went fantastic film. Yeah, the like if we're arguing it as like sort of a docusy series or whatever, it went a bit hard in the Lee Allen camp. Like a lot of the scenes between the two. Oh, yeah. Listen Lee Allen were fabricated.
As far as a film, great work. I mean, Fincher pretty much exclusively puts out bangers, but it's a great film overall. It's one of his good works. Yeah, fantastic movie. I love rewatching it. It's a great watch. Definitely recommend it to anyone out there who hasn't watched it. If you haven't watched it, highly recommend go watch it. Right. So I figured the best way of tackling the zodiac killer because there's just so many different details. It's just to do it like a timeline.
Basically what we did for Jeffery Epstein, we'll just go over the murders as they happened. There's five specific cases or five specific murders that 100% confirmed to be the zodiac, which we're going to be focusing on in this episode. Otherwise, it would probably run for about 10 hours.
So we needed to like cut down on a bit of the fat and make sure that we just stuck to what was the most conclusive information available to us and then we'll also go over the clues and the letters that he would send in as well because those are very important to the zodiac case itself. And it's basically what gives it its entirely unique perspective or spin on the whole crime thing. Like he would send letters into a to journalists and stuff like that. And that's why he was so well known.
So the first such case or first murder was in December 20th, 1968. And it was the murder of Betty Lou Johnson and David Faraday. They were 17 and 16 and they chose the secluded Lake Herman Road in a Benicia, California, which is north of San Francisco and South of Belayjo. And they would go out. It was about 1015. And they would go out in their cars to what was basically like a lover's lane and hang out there.
And around 11pm, local resident Stella Borges left her house to pick up her son from a show. And she was driving with her mother-in-law and daughter and she passed Lake Herman Road a few minutes later spotting Faraday's car. And the front right door was open and two figures laid on the ground covered in blood. She made the choice not to stop and offer help or anything like that and instead drove to the nearest Benicia police station.
Which like I kind of get given that she had her own her own child in the car. I guess that would be and she was basically a woman on her own with her mother-in-law. So if she sees like a scene, you know, a crime scene, I get why she would just drive straight to the Benicia police station and not stop to help or anything like that. But it is rather unfortunate because they were still the two victims in this case were still alive at the time.
Which if they had have received help quicker than perhaps they both would have survived. That is one of those. I was just going to say that's one of those things where like I don't what kind of help would she have offered for gunshot wounds. Like I guess the best she can really do would be like CPR if they start to flat line. But it's really understandable why she wouldn't stop because the killer could still be there. Like you know, then she's not safe or daughters not safe.
I think she made the smartest choice in this situation. It's the choice I would have made myself if I was in that situation. Yeah, you're also fucking coward though. What would you have done? I would have absolutely stopped and I would have stopped. I would have been in the Sinsu being like it would have been smooth if I was on the case. Pop culture reference. Let's go. There it is. You would have hunted down the Zodiac Kille yourself and then challenged into Beth is like, bro.
Put down the gun. It's time for some huge elistic combat. Which way did he go? Point pointed out today. Yeah, would have followed the track. Charlie gets out of the car. There's like a girl bleeding on the floor. Where is he? Speak. There's no time. Drops her runs into the box to the case. Yeah, he's never seen again, either. You would have to help them out. You'd be up to the hunt yourself.
Also like in 1968, it wasn't as common knowledge as it is down unless she was like a nurse or something about like, oh well if someone has a bleeding wound, you know, apply pressure or stuff like that. All that would have done in 68 is keep her from getting help because it's not like she could have called the police from there. So yeah, I think she did the right thing driving away. And once again, as a woman, the killer could still be there.
Absolutely. Like I'm not saying all of this to blame her or anything. I'm just saying it is unfortunate because they were still alive. I can't believe you blamed this woman for the death of these two. Coward. No, for example, like if she had a, I don't know, dragged the bodies over and put them in her car and like dragged, drove them to the Benessia police station with her, then like 25 minutes would have been saved. That's what I would have done. I would have stolen the bodies.
Yeah. I would have been like, hmm. I'm just saying it's just unfortunate that Helped didn't arrive soon or I guess because there was, he didn't stick around to finish the job basically. So it's entirely possible that they could have survived if Helped got to them quicker. So upon reaching the scene, the police observed an absence of signs indicating any kind of struggle or robbery.
The police noticed Chernobyl motive was identified in the following investigation and all car doors except the open right front door were securely locked. Show casings were discovered on the floorboard and a bullet had pierced through the back window leaving a hole in the car roof. And the police concluded that the assailant had utilized a 22 caliber semi automatic pistol loaded with Winchester, Western, Super X.
That's important. Super X copper coated long rifle ammunition and pulled up alongside the park car and shot into it repeatedly. So it was basically just he he rocked up to the side of the car and just shot indiscriminately into the car. Spamming spamming shots into there hitting them repeatedly. And Betty Lou was located a few meters away from the vehicle suggesting that she did not die immediately and attempted to the best of her ability anyway to flee. So she was located away from the car.
So maybe he wasn't the best shot and he had to kind of finish her off after she had left the car. Well, it's also a 22 so it's going to take a ton of effort to kill someone with it anyway. Good. Yeah, good. I don't know anything about firearms. So I'm glad you. 22 is like a squirrel caliber like you use it for hunting squirrels. It's like the size of an air rifle like a pellet gun.
Right. It's very small bullet doesn't do a lot of damage. You have to I mean, they're used to martyrs a lot because they're cheap and like easy or whatever. But you've got to typically unload into someone to kill them with it. Gotcha. So is that probably yeah, is that probably why they survive so long? Yeah, that's definitely why if he had like a nine millimeter or something and he shot them like five times they're dead.
But with the 22, it's very reasonable. They could have lived for hours afterwards. Yeah, okay. So does this speak to some level of unawareness on his part? Like if he was intending to kill them, would he have chosen a better weapon at the time? I've always had the theory that the zodiac killer was very like full of himself obviously because of the letters and like I think he likes thinking.
Yeah, very egotistical. I think he like thinking about killing people more than actually killing them because he was really bad at it. Yeah, most of the murders he only got away with or like the suspect died because of how incompetent the police were or because it was the 1960s. Because he is his final kill count was five people and he attempted to murder seven or eight I believe confirmed. So that's like that's just over a 50% success rate.
Yeah, that we know of to be fair. He did he does claim himself that he's got a high kill count. He claims to be 37 but I also don't know about that because he loved gloating about the ones we know he did so much. Yeah, I feel like he would have attached proof. Yeah, we'll get into that later on. But yeah, so she suffered five bullet wounds on the right side of her back. The shots had traversed her heart, lungs, liver and right kidney.
Resulting in an instant death in that situation. So she had fled the car and she had been shot in those vital organs and died pretty much immediately for her. Whereas David was discovered beside the car and was barely alive but actually alive upon police arrival. He was shot near his left ear with the bullet entering his brain which wow the bullet entities brain and he was still alive for about a bit of 22 is.
There's actually that happens more often than you think there's a pretty famous case of that you can actually watch it on YouTube. There is a guy who I think it was during a burglary got shot in the head and I if I remember correctly he didn't know he got shot in the head. So he ended up going to the like the police came and they started interviewing him and they realized that he was a little out of it.
And then the police investigator during the investigation looks and he said like did you hit your head and he's like no not that I know of and then he realized that he got shot in the head and he just had a bullet lodged in his brain the entire time and he was totally lucid having a conversation just seemed a little off. Like when you it's not instant death or anything when you get shot in the head off like all the time.
I got to be well yeah I got to imagine where in the like brain like there might be less sensitive areas of the brain. I think if you hit the brain stem or whatever I think that's like an immediate death from what I understand. Yeah there's also another one where like a wife shot her husband while he was sleeping in the head and then he just woke up with a headache and never realized he got shot until he like went to the doctor for something totally unrelated like there's a fucking bullet here.
Like it happens from time to time. Jesus Christ imagine like I'm imagining told by the doctor you are almost assassinated. Yeah that one was a wacky case. Be questioning my whole life at that point. That'd be insane. Yeah there's a lot of factors like what part of the brain, what calibers use, you know, how much energy it carries because there's also stories like there was one guy who he he shot.
I don't know if we could say that he tried to commit what was it from the Epstein one hang up on a live. Yeah he tried to hang up with a pistol and he put it in his mouth fired and then it like obviously did a lot of damage. But he lived police show up and anyway he ends up surviving this scenario and it turns out doing that cured his schizophrenia. Oh I remember that one. Yeah still like there the brains really weird wacky stuff can happen.
Yeah brains are fucking crazy crazy shit so that was at the end of 1968 I believe yeah December 20th 1968 and it would take another six months until he struck again with the attack on darling Ferrin and Mike my goo. I don't know how to pronounce it my measure measure. I don't know it feels a bit offensive. Yeah I definitely don't think it's me. I'll be honest with you. I think you're just a big Leslie Nielsen fan and just got a little bit of your head from it. Yeah probably.
I'll take this one of you. Yeah yeah go. So around midnight on Independence Day of 1969 22 year old darling Ferrin and 19 year old Mike. Mago almost said me go. Mago were on route to Mr Ed's diner after darling picked up Mike from his house before heading to the diner. Darling asked to have a private chat with Mike turning around on spring was road and heading to blue rock Springs Park in Benesia.
A popular local spot for teenagers at the time similar to the lovers lame where the previous two murdered victims were found. When they arrived at the spot they put the car in park and settled in for their conversation. There were other teenagers at the park at this time setting off firecrackers. In the park they turned off the car light but left the radio playing. The other teens left about five minutes before the attack occurred.
Alone again a car entered the parking lot pulling alongside Darling's car a brown Corveir or a Ford Mustang. Mike asked Darling if she knew the driver and her response was to the effect of oh never mind Mike was. That was a great response by the way. If I had someone like hey do you know that guy they go oh never mind I'd be like what the fuck she's like. I'm immediately weirded out yeah hey do you know this random guy who followed us to this like make out location at night.
Oh don't worry about him. No. Mike was unsure if she knew or didn't know the driver but didn't press further. The car quickly left heading south along Columbus Parkway towards Vallejo and Springs Road. Approximately five minutes later it returned and parked at the rear of Darling's car. A man emerged from the vehicle carrying with him a high powered flashlight along with the 9mm semi automatic handgun. Believing the stranger was a policeman Mike began searching for his ID.
Suddenly the stranger raised his gun and fired five shots through the car window targeting Mike first. Some bullets tore through Mike's body and hit Darling as well. Mike recalled hearing a mothling sound suggesting the possibility of a silencer on the gun. However local resident George Brian about 800 feet away heard the gun shots.
It is possible that due to the low proximity of the get to the close proximity of the gun shots Mike suffered temporary hearing loss and therefore thought the gun had a silencer. However it is also possible that George Brian had heard fireworks or firecrackers given the holiday. I say have you ever had a gun shot go off like by your ears like unprotected? Yeah. So what happens is you don't hear the gun shot that much. All of a sudden your ears are ringing and everything is quieter.
Like obviously you hear the gun shot, you hear the pop but that mothling he's talking about was likely because he had never been around a gun getting fired near his face. So yeah you immediately lose hearing you know pop happened but mostly everything is dampened for a while after that. Right. So I don't think the zodiac killer ever used a silencer in any other cases.
So I'm leaning towards the likelihood that it is that that that he just wasn't used to gun shots going off near his ears and that's why he's for the law. It was a new experience for him as it would have been a lot of people. Now one thing I will add is silencers aren't like movie quiet. Yeah. The only time you get close to that's when you're using subsonic ammo.
If you use regular caliber or regular velocity ammunition like nine millimeter ammunition through a suppressor, it will dampen the range that the shot is heard. But the bullet will still hit supersonic speeds and make the loud crack. So it will still sound like a gun shot up close. The silencer just tapers how far out or the visible flash of the gun going off. So it's also true that he could have a suppressor but it still sounds like a really loud gun shot close to it. But I am I am.
Would you still get you do to still get the effects of the hearing loss if it's like a weapon with a silencer or a gun shot. Or a gun with a silencer or a gun off near you. You definitely would like for some calibers like for example AR 15s to shoot 556. The bullets going so fast that even with a suppressor on you're not supposed to shoot it without hearing protection still. Even with a silencer now nine millimeters not that fast or it's not that power like that.
It doesn't have that much powder as a 556 so it's not to the same intensity. But I imagine if the muzzle is in your face when it's fired you're still going to get a hearing deaf deafening. Now I still I'm still with you and that I think a silencer wasn't used in any of the other crimes. He probably was just getting the muffling from the gun. But it is worse noting that it's both could be true. Yeah, it's possible. That was a nerd rant. I apologize. I'm continuing.
This information necessary information with the sudden adrenaline rush Mike pushed himself into the backseat of the car away from the immediate danger in the process of bullet entered his knee. Darling was then shot on each arm and her back as she attempted to turn away. The attacker began walking back to his car but returned upon hearing Mike's moans of pain shooting two additional bullets at each victim. Totally nine shots fired. He then left the park towards Vallejo.
Both Mike and George Bryant heard the killer drive away at high speed. But when the attacker later made a call, he claimed to have stayed under the speed limit. After I like how that's on the record like he's like, don't worry. I didn't break the speed limit. That's where we chose the line. I may have attempted murder back there but you bet your sweet bippy. I was bang the road rules. You know that defined me. He's on the phone with the police and it's like I killed two people.
Did you speed away? No. Why would I do that? Stop it. After receiving reports of gunfire, officers Richard Hoffman and Ed Rust were the first to arrive on the scene that night. Hoffman quickly attended to Mike who was on his back on the ground next to the car while Darling remained motionless behind the steering wheel. Attempts to get information from Darling were met with only mumbled responses.
Rushed to Kaiser hospital, Darling tragically passed away due to her injuries and was pronounced dead at 12.38 a.m. Miraculously, however, Mike survived the attack and provided a description of the assailant to Ed Rust. He depicted the man as heavy set around five foot eight inches tall, weighing at least 195 to 200 pounds, but not quote, blubbery fat with a large face and short curly light light brown blonde hair.
Approximately 40 minutes later, a call was made from a pay phone at the gas station of spring roads and told young, sure, to the operator and the lay hope police headquarters. I'm so happy I didn't have to pronounce that one thing. You know what? If it's fucking butchered that. I'm sure I did, but I'll take one for the team. I've typed it so it's the least I can do. The caller possessing a mature male voice spoke evenly and consistently.
Despite the operator's attempts to inquire about the caller's identity and location, he spoke as if reading from a script. The quote went as follows. I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east of Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a nine millimeter Louger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye. In quote. There's something about like the casual delivery of that. I also killed those kids last year.
Like man. It's. It's. I think this was clearly a man that wanted to or a person that wanted to be like. He wanted the reputation. Again, Mike survived and these were nine millimeter rounds. Does that change anything? It makes it much more likely that he would have died. Nine millimeters is a much, much larger bullet compared to 22. And he got shot like multiple times. Yeah, it is wild that he lived. Nine millimeter is like the quote unquote standard handgun size. Right. Police.
A lot of police in the US use 40 caliber, but nine millimeter is a very popular handgun round for police. Like in the military, that's what their sidearms are. So yeah, it's really, really absurd that he lived being shot that many times. Incredibly lucky. Yeah. I mean, he went back. The zodiac killer went back and double tapped basically after hearing him cry. So you got lucky twice really when you think about it.
Because that second time he came back, you shoot like I'm assuming he went there to really finish the job and make sure that he placed the bullet correctly or whatever. And still he survived. It's crazy. It is. It is crazy. I also will mention this is the last point of gun nerdism. I'll bring up for this. That because he said the phrase nine millimeter Louger, most depictions of him have him with the literal World War two. Louger.
I'm pretty sure he was just specifying the caliber nine millimeter. Louger nine millimeter Louger is the full name for nine by 19 parabellum, which is like the common nine millimeter round. But because he said the word Louger a bunch of people think he uses like World War two weaponry. Which I don't think is true. Just a way is that is that is it impossible that he would. I mean, he could have been using a World War two pistol just for aesthetic points, I guess. But there's much more.
There's more reliable more easily accessible, less expensive firearms out there in nine millimeter. But every every drawing every like artwork you see of the zodiac killers, he looks like an SS officer because they're like, oh, here you go. Full Nazi regalia. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, some some weird kids OC. Yeah, oh man. Oh man, that's scary. Uh, before we continue, let's take a quick brief break to thank the sponsors of this episode of the red thread. It's Valentine's Day coming up.
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So in on August 1st of 1969, this is when the first zodiac letter started to come to or came through. So the zodiac sent nearly identical letters to the Vallejo Times Harold San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. And these letters he confesses to the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. He also claims responsibility for the death of Darleen Farron around the 4th of July that same year.
The validity of these letters is undeniable due to it containing unsettling and specific details about the murders that were only known to the police. The letter also the letter also had the zodiac symbol displayed at the bottom, which was a circle with a cross through it that would divide the circle into four quadrants. It is thought that the zodiac symbol represents a gun site, though it's impossible to know for certain. So this is from the letter.
Dear editor, this is the murderer of the two teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman and the girl last 4th of July. To prove I killed them, I shall state some facts which only I plus the police know. Christmas, one brand of ammo, super X, two. Ten shots were fired, three. The boy was on his back with his feet to the car, four. The girl was on her right side, feet to the west, 4th of July, five.
Girl was wearing pattern pants, six. The boy was also shot in the knee, and seven brand name of ammo was Western. Here is a cipher, or that is, here is a cipher, or that is part of one. The other two parts of the cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo Times plus San Francisco Examiner.
I want you to print this cipher on the front page of Fry, on the front page by Fry afternoon August 1st, 69. If you do not print this cipher, I will go on a kill rampage, Fry Night, that will last the whole weekend. I will cruise around and pick off all stray people or couples that are alone, then move on to kill some more until I have killed over a dozen people.
So he's making these big threats about if you don't publish this, you're going to be responsible for the rampage that ensues to try and pressure them to get his cipher out there. And the attention on him obviously he any one of that reputation and it's undeniable because he offered all of this information that only the police would know like it's obviously undeniable.
Also another thing to note is you read that verbatim, but I want to really, I really want to point out just a raw amount of spelling mistakes in the letters themselves. Like he smells Christmas with two asses. There's just a lot of like just random errors throughout it. Like he spoke cipher with like CYIPHER. And this is constant throughout all of these letters. Thanks for a mind of been a reason for that.
That's what I think they say the mistakes. I don't think he's like an uneducated person, but from everything that I've come to understand. I'm just saying mistakes that could be unintentional. Like for example, he spells Friday, like the abbreviation stuff for I says, FRI. There's got to be some reason for that because the guy knows, you know, the three letters that abbreviate Friday.
So maybe I've heard some theories that maybe he misspelled stuff to make the cipher more difficult in sections to prevent double letters or from easily recognizable short letter combinations from popping up. So maybe that was part of it. It's also possible that he was trying to mislead the investigators into thinking he wasn't uneducated person or something like that.
Or yeah, it's just some way of like throwing off throwing them off their game. Like it definitely, I don't know, it definitely seems intentional to me, but. Well, at 100% is these aren't these really are mistakes you could accidentally make. So I believe there's definitely a reason behind it. Just don't I just I don't know how many illiterate people that were in the 60s and how common it was and like I don't really know what illiteracy looks like in adults.
Well, it doesn't look like this. If you're illiterate, you're not writing a note that looks like this. It wouldn't get this far. Plus there's no one making ciphers mailing them to the news. Like people take the zodiac killer a bit far as being like an Einstein level genius. I think that's too much, but he was definitely like above average intelligence.
Yeah, he was a smart enough guy. I also don't agree with him being like some kind of super genius genius. Yeah, I feel like when it comes to making a cipher, you can really make shit that's almost impossible to crack. If you just get ridiculously abstract with it, and I don't think it takes like a super genius to do that. Exactly. But it does take someone that it does take someone that's at least somewhat educated. Well, you can definitely make a cipher that's completely uncrackable.
You can absolutely just do that. But I think he wanted the possibility of them solving it as well. Yeah, yeah, because I could send here. I could sit here and make up a language and then speaking it and be like, I'll never crack it because I'm the only one who made up how this language works. But it does take some level of a shirt was the 1960s. But for the level of police evasion he did for making decipherable ciphers, I'll say is more complicated than impossible ones.
So that there was some level of intelligence on display. He wasn't just some dumb average killer. I agree. So each of the letters contained one portion of a cipher known as the Z408 cipher named after the number of characters it contains. The zodiac demanded that each newspaper publishes cipher on the front page. All three newspaper published their respective parts of the cipher. The first of the zodiac ciphers was solved by North Selenis schoolteachers Donald Harden and his wife Betty.
Cipher itself was a simple substitution cipher and a substitution cipher each letter of the plain text original message is replaced by a different letter of the alphabet. The replacement is consistent throughout the cipher meaning that the same plain text letter is always replaced by the same cipher text letter.
Some elements made the Z408 cipher more unique however, like the fact that the zodiac killer created a unique set of symbols drawn from distorted alphabetic letters, numbers, mathematical symbols, and seemingly arbitrary shapes and signs and symbols that seem to have been inspired by ancient scripts or even astrological symbols. And their solution was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and the deciphered message revealed the words.
I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous. It's misspelled. Animal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl. The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise again misspelled and all that I have killed and all the I have killed become my slaves.
I will not give you my name because you will try to slay a down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife. Yeah, I mean this yeah like you said there's spelling mistakes constantly throughout he spells paradigm and the spelling mistakes are consistent across letters as well like for example in this one paradise he spells it constantly paradise like I see on the end.
Yeah, that's constant and as well as Christmas with two asses Friday is in FRY stuff like that is that these consistent spelling mistakes which are just so odd to me. You think he would get Friday right at least once you know so I don't know I think it is deliberate. Hold on let me get a bit conspiratorial here for a second wasn't the original spelling of Friday I'm talking like back when the word was first invented wasn't the original spelling like FRY D.A.Y.
You're asking the wrong people. I have to speak to like so there was this thing Kaczynski would do where and I know people say that Kaczynski and the zodiac killer of the same person I'm not saying that but another killer who like to taunt investigators there's the same Kaczynski would do where if he knew a word was spelled like quote unquote a correct way in the 1400s or whatever and we've changed the spelling of it.
He would intentionally say the same or spell the thing in the old way it was done because like the way he views it we've dumbed down language so he's correcting it by doing everything the correct way it's almost like an attack on the establishment or what it's got it's been a smart Alec right like I know how this word spelled even though you all spell it the simpleton way right so you only issue with this is that I don't think the word slow has ever been.
Yeah, you know what that puts a bit of a damper and where I was going with that I don't think there were like many evil peasants walking around like you're shouting at sloy down like that you know what fair point so yeah continue I'm gonna press down on that one but I still I still think like the I still think that the the misspellings are deliberate I don't know it just really feels deliberate to me like this so
that's what it's all kind of is hidden message in it itself. I don't think I don't necessarily think there's a hidden message in it I think it's all just to portray this character because I also don't believe that he thinks that by killing people he's gathering slaves for the after life to me it seems like he was going for more of a showmanship angle because he's egotistical about all of this I never really believe that that was something that he or that was his motive behind it that he's killing them to gather slaves for his after life when he dies.
To me that just seems like something that he would have drummed up in his head is like a real villain like a super villain not of like a crack book or something or some kind of an idea. Yeah, because like that's kind of the question about the ciphers itself because this this was the deciphered part right the whole thing about I need to kill people to have slaves for the afterlife.
So and also that mentioned you had about like the symbols were made up of like astrological symbols ancient symbols stuff like that so the one theory is that he was some kind of a cultist practitioner who was putting praxis to it so to him these symbols maybe they really meant something maybe they actually lead into his true belief.
And maybe he is thinking about souls for the afterlife the other idea is as you just said Charlie he's doing it to put on a show and if that's the case then maybe the ciphers don't matter that much because most of them do stuff like this of kind of showing off being a showman.
So it's in that way it's almost like the ciphers themselves are a taunt to the police like he does his whole message to get attention then he's like haha wouldn't it be funny if I leave some code saying that I think I'm the devil or whatever. Yeah, to me to me it definitely feels more like just raw serial killer trolling as opposed to an ideological message to me that's just how I feel but I'm not I don't know for sure.
At the end of the decoded message there was also 18 letters remaining that did not form a coherent message and the letters were e b e o r i e t e m e t h h p t i so e b or to meth p p t before the meth got it. Yeah pretty much saying that out loud sounds like I'm casting like an intanto or something it is still unknown what he's what he said. It's actually his name. It's easy to solve ever. They just don't really fucking phone book it. They find his name in there like that.
E b e or to meth p p. Of course it's the required it's the retired cop officer meth pit we messed up.
It's still unknown what these remaining letters mean and there's much speculation about them though nothing has been satisfactorily explained or decoded from them it's likely that they might be meaningless and intended to confuse or mislead investigators in response to the cyford message valetho police chief jack e stilts expressed doubt indicating that the police were not fully convinced that the letter had indeed been written by the
murderer and further set to further establish the identity chief stilts requested a second letter containing additional factual details. And that's when the response letter comes in if you want to take it Jackson. Yeah I just briefly on that I feel like I feel like there's enough information the first one to prove that like he was the actual zodiac killer. I feel like what police chief Jackie stilts was doing there was kind of coding him into giving them more information.
Yeah I just I don't see any any reality where that wasn't enough information to convince the police that they're dealing with the actual killer here. There was just so much information there. But yeah August 4th 1969 that is roughly a week later no just a couple days later just three days later.
In 1969 the response letter is received by the San Francisco examiner in response to stilts request it reads as follow dear editor this is the zodiac speaking in answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in valetho. So I'll be very happy to supply even more material by the way of the police having a good time with the code if not tell them to cheer up when they do crack it they will have me.
Okay all right hold on hold on that immediately gives away that he's he's just trolling trolling them with the whole like I am the soul kill because they cracked it and the answer was. I'm trying to kill people to get souls and it is letter he's like don't worry I'm sure when you crack it you'll figure out who I am yeah that gives it away he's clearly trolling. Yeah or he's ebbfmfp it. You're right we can't throw out the other possibility.
I did no one see that on the fourth on the fourth of July I did this is him by the way not Jackson speaking I'm going back to the letter on the fourth of July I did not open the car door the windows rolled down already the boy was.
Originally sitting in the front seat when I began firing when I fired the first shot at his head he leaked backwards at the same time thus spoiling my aim he ended up on the back seat then the floor in backsfrashing out very violently with his legs that's how I shot him in the knee I did not leave the scene.
So he's about seen C E and E like yeah seen of the killing with squealing tires and racing engine as described in the village paper I drove away quite slowly so as not to draw attention to my car the man who told the police that my car was brown was a Negro about 40 to 45 rather shabbly dressed I was at this phone booth having some fun with the village
of the lay who cops when he was walking by when I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring and that through his attention to my car to me in my car last Christmas to us is on Christmas last Christmas in that episode the police were wondering as to how I could shoot and hit my victims in the dark they did not openly state this but implied this by saying it was a well lit night and I could see the silhouettes on the horizon.
All right that one wasn't even close silhouette are you serious to be fair if there was any word that I would like think that someone may get wrong it would be silhouettes I still yeah that's the hard word to continue sorry I'm just getting mad at him now the killing kids I can let by right but silhouettes is unforgivable.
Yeah it's it is kind of frustrating because it kind of feels like someone pretending to have like dyslexia or something yeah or like a learning disability maybe it's like it's fell. I mean maybe I was saying early maybe he does have dyslexia well even if you have dyslexia I don't think it would present itself like this and this commonly for each word.
What dyslexia can end up doing is you do still have spelling difficulties later on because you just have a fundamental issue with like understanding the language itself I've definitely seen dyslexic people that have a lot of difficulty spelling words. Bullshit this is him again. Bullshit that area is surrounded by high hills and trees what I did was tape a small pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun.
If you notice in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or dark he spoke dark D.A.R.C.K. Dark spot in the center of the circle of light about three to six inches across when taped to a gun barrel the bullet will strike exactly in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose there was no need to use the gun sites I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage.
So there we go that they didn't put him on the front page I think for that murder anyway so he he's a he's an attention hall basically he wants as much attention as he can get. So I'm still mad about everything that was spelled that way but that does raise because the first I was trying to find a reason to the misspelling but now yeah maybe he didn't. Is it there a kind of I'm forgetting the name for it isn't there kind of had trauma that leads to spelling spelling difficulties.
I'm sure there is yeah probably a lot of different ones yeah but but not necessarily a decrease in intelligence or something like that. Oh yeah I've heard of a few mental conditions where like you retain intelligence but you lose a lot of functionality in speech obviously and things like writing and stuff like that yeah maybe maybe that leads to something anyway. I could take this next section if you want about the next killing.
So this is on the 27th of September so this is just a month later right off of that string of letters of the police so just over a month later the stabbing of Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepherd. A month later a couple by the names of Cecilia Shepherd 22 and Brian Harnell 20 we're unwinding on a blanket near the shoreline at Lake Berriessa near Napa California.
In the secluded surroundings the two were reminiscing about their college days during their conversation Cecilia heard a wrestle and noticed a man seemingly watching them from the bushes. Cecilia told Brian about the stranger she saw who nonchalantly suggested that the man might be searching for a restroom. The stranger would later be described as heavy set dark haired and standing between 5 foot 8 to 6 feet tall. He wore glasses a dark jacket and disheveled clothing.
He allegedly disappeared behind a tree briefly and then emerged once more dawned in dark pants and a windbreaker. A black executioner style hood concealing his shoulders and torso hit his identity. To ensure his eyes remain unseen he also wore clip on sunglasses. On the chest of his hood there was a white circle with a cross symbol prominently displayed. The same symbol recurring in his ciphers. Completing his ensemble a sizable sheath knife hung from the right side of his belt.
Approaching Cecilia and Brian the man shared that he had escaped from a Montana or Colorado prison accounts very and urgently needed money and a car to escape to Mexico. Responded to his plea Brian handed over the keys to his Volkswagen and whatever spare change he had mostly coins. Concerned for their safety Brian offered assistance to prevent any potential harm to which the man replied no time is running short.
Brian later noted that the man's voice was unremarkable, lacking any discernible accent but carrying a slight draw. The situation took a turn when the man ordered Cecilia to hog tie Brian. As she complied tossing her wallet aside which the man ignored he eventually hog tied her as well before drawing a gun. The zodiac spoke I'm going to have to stab you people. In a desperate plea Brian requested to be stabbed first unable to bear witnessing Cecilia's potential fate. The attacker complied.
The knife with a double-edged blade appeared either handmade or meticulously crafted featuring a wooden handle, two brass rivets and white tape in place of the guard. Brian was stabbed six times in the back before the attacker turned to Cecilia and stabbed her ten times. They both survived and played dead and hopes the man would leave and it worked. The attacker then went to Brian's car and using black marker wrote on his car, Vallejo 12 20 68 7 4 69 September 27 69 6 30 by knife.
So those were the murders the previous murders as well I'm pretty sure. Yes, yeah. 12 22 days. Fourth of July and December 20th. So he's saying that this is now his third killing by knife. Yeah, this note was accompanied by his circle with a cross logo once sure the man had left Cecilia and Brian yelled for help nearby fisherman heard them and alerted the authorities. After getting free Brian went to find a park range of her assistants while Cecilia stayed by the lake.
They were taken to the Queen of the Valley hospital Brian later survived but Cecilia fell into a coma during the ride and passed away two days later. Just fucking insane it just insane how many like people actually survived this case because they're so isolated in every single case and he never like never finished the job. That's what I met when I said I don't think he liked killing as much as he did talking about killing.
It seems that the murders are very like like sure the whole I'm going to skip convict I'm trying to get out of here was to lower their guard because that's that's a thing that like killers do a lot in these cases is they'll try they'll be like I just want your wallet or I just want you know something to take you off guard and then from there they'll do the killing so that's all that was.
To just like to to finally be at the moment that you theoretically plan months for and then you stab someone six times and then you stab the other person a few times and then you leave and then you just glowed about it for the next you know month to come in the papers or whatever it feels like he liked the attention and the notoriety it got him more than the actual aspect of killing and also this is another thing to note the zodiac killers unique because most serial killers have a preferred method or they'll do something to the victim or.
Something like that but the zodiac killer doesn't really have any of that sometimes he kills them with a knife sometimes a gun sometimes he ties him up other times he just shoots them and drives away it's like the killing is just a means to an end for him.
Yeah 100% I also think that it's it's very clear that this is still all premeditated like he clearly goes to great lengths to still do the things that he's doing because like he showed up with a fucking executioners would like with a son on zodiac symbol on the fucking breast of it like yeah that takes premeditation to a whole new.
I don't mean I don't mean any of that to say I don't think it was a premeditated or spree or anything like that it's just unique in how much he doesn't relish it at least in the moment you know in the in the actual killings yeah he definitely relishes yeah super relishes that he creates yeah of course yeah yeah yeah yeah 100 I agree with you I don't think the I think the killings will like you said a means to an end yeah yeah yeah so this was October 11th
of 1969 the murder of Paul Stein 29 he was a cab driver for the yellow cab company in San Francisco and he started his night shift around 845 PM after his initial fair lyroy suite the assistant traffic manager for the cab company directed Paul to pick up a passenger at 500 ninth avenue on the western side of San Francisco.
This would be the last known contact with Paul less than 15 minutes later he was discovered lifeless covered in blood in the passenger seat of the Ford Galaxy taxi cab he was driving at 1046 PM the taxi meter red 625 $6.25 allowing the police to estimate that Paul Stein's likely picked up his second fair around the Mason and Geary intersection or union square the intended destination was
Washington and Maple Street near Presidio however for reasons still unknown the cab drove around drove about a block away from its intended destination to Washington and Cherry Street at 955 PM Paul's wallet and keys were missing and have never been recovered a significant portion of his shirt was torn off later mailed with a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle
additionally bloody fingerprints were recovered from the car just across from the cab three teenagers witnessed the event unfold through their house's window they observed the attacker meticulously removing a portion of Paul's shirt and wiping down various areas of the vehicle including the interior door including the interior driver side compartment exterior right from passenger door and the driver side door handle.
Teenagers called the police at 958 PM but a miscommunication regarding the attacker's description led to patrolling officers being told to be on the lookout for a black male this confusion allowed the actual zodiac killer to escape the teenagers were approximately 50 to 60 feet away from the taxi and described the suspect as 5859 heavy build reddish blonde hair glasses dark brown trousers a dark or navy blue jacket
but Parker jacket and dark shoes on that same night police officers Donald folk and Eric Zelmus unaware of the corrected description were patrolling and spotted a white male with a crew cut he wore a navy blue jacket and rust or brown trousers along with tan engineering style footwear walking east on Jackson Street mistakenly looking for mistakenly looking for a black adult male the officers did not find the man suspicious
upon receiving the correct description the officers were viewed a composite sketch and began to consider the possibility that they had encountered the killer that night the man they observed bore resemblance to the description provided by the witnesses though notably he didn't appear to be carrying anything the officers dispute that they communicated with the individual with some accounts suggesting that they stopped the individual to ask if he had seen anything suspicious to which you replied that he had seen a man walking the other direction waving a firearm this situation is such a deviation from all the other situation
the situation that he like think about he was in the middle of a residential area and it almost feels like I know we're talking about how meticulous and methodical he was this this feels like just a random killing almost like you just domed the taxi driver in the back of the head like it doesn't it doesn't feel like all of these other killings
yeah this is definitely the most like different one usually he does it like incomplete isolation like in his only so far had only targeted couples this is the first individual that he's targeted and he does it in an area where he didn't like survey the surroundings to make sure he was even alone
there are plenty of people to witness it he didn't drive away he walked away like it's all very different so it seems more like this kind of was a spur of the moment thing that he did I'm sure probably wasn't but it definitely does feel like a spur of the moment thing also just the difference of victims right like this is just a random cab driver
is all the others a couples I feel like that's that's such a deviation it's interesting and then the this is a very famous image the police sketch of the man this is the one that I think most people have probably seen floating around to represent with the zodiac killer looked like yeah I don't
want to say about it and it looks it looks like it looks like a really normal like in PC level dude like it's not someone that would be really like alarming to see just looks like a normal guy fits the description of what the officers described in there still looking for the wrong like working under the wrong description of who this aspect was so I think it's really a chance they did see this man and again like think about how comfort do you think that this situation happened
because he was feeling like an unprecedented level of confidence and he was trying to escalate he's put him put himself into more tricky circumstances to get out of because he was feeling so confident. Um not necessarily if I had to spitball why he would have done this I think it was probably maybe out of frustration like is now he's had two victims survive and maybe like he's trying to get better at it potentially would be something I'd
consider because he's now like he almost had a third victim survive as well like she passed away two days later like he's not like like as I said he's not very good at killing people so maybe this was one of those things where he wanted to guarantee that he could kill somebody like he was feeling
resentful yeah that's that's actually an interesting theory because the two people that did survive were both men so maybe he's like I go to get the men count back up was like I go to I've got a kilo man basically yeah what does it take to actually finish a man off or something potentially yeah potentially I think that's that's because again it's just such a big deviation from every other murder
and it was it was such a deviation to the point where I'm like maybe this isn't the Zodiac killer but we would later on go on to find out that he himself confirmed that he was the killer of this this man well is confirmed as it can be you there's still I mentioned this before the show but there's still a theory that there is multiple Zodiac killers like was it all one guy
so I don't necessarily believe that but it's also important to note that there's no way of knowing beyond 100% a shadow of a doubt that it really is the Zodiac we can say that about everything to do with this I know I know the identity of the Zodiac killer because there's just we will never know honestly we I don't think we will ever know October 13th 1969 led into the San Francisco Chronicle following the murder
a letter was sent to the San Francisco examiner short I actually I think it's the Chronicle from the Zodiac killer shortly after the murder of Paul Stein where he tormented police for their failures on the night of the killing the letters validity is considered undeniable due to the fact that it included a portion of the bloodstained shirt from Paul Stein that was removed from the scene of the crime
so it's definitely the letter is definitely from the person who killed Paul Stein that's undeniable but what child is saying it could not be the Zodiac it could be something could be a copycat killer it could just be another random killer as well that's just taking the mantle I think that that does like I've seen that theory as well I don't personally subscribe to it because I think that the handwriting is pretty similar
like they they had handwriting specialists on hand to confirm the similarities between letters so I think would be extremely hard to like replicate replicate oh maybe not because they were published letters as well so maybe they were in the paper someone could get really good at replicating it you could absolutely emulate it if you spend enough time
I know it's something I think experts might still be out of tell like this such I don't know much about the art of handwriting or whatever but I think there's a lot of subtleties that your conscious mind doesn't pick up on that handwriting experts may pick up on so I'm not sure regardless it's commonly said by you know police investigators that this was these odiac killer so I'm counting it as a Zodiac killer kill and I believe that it was
so he goes on to say in the letter this is the Zodiac speaking I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night to prove this here is a bloodstained piece of you shirt I am the sane man who did in the people in the North Bay area the SF police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding road races with their motorcycles seeing who could make the most noise
the car the car drivers should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come out of the cover school children and this is this is where it's concerning school children make nice targets I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning just shoot out the front tire and then pick off the kitties as they come bouncing out so he's he's trying to spread as much terror as possible yeah also I do think it's him because you messed up motorcycle
I was actually going to say there's like a lot less misspellings in this one which there's less you're right you're right yeah but the characteristic misspelling of motorcycles a dead giveaway so shortly after saying that you know he's going to shoot a bunch of kids which is you know something that San Francisco is absolutely threatened about on October the 22nd it says during a live broadcast of a talk show on KGOTV and San Francisco
a person pretending to be the zodiac killer called into the talk show to talk to the host the show was hosted by Jim Dunbar and prominent attorney Melvin belly the caller spoke in a soft monotone voice he sounded distressed and occasionally in coherent he complained of severe headaches and requested help claiming that he was afraid he would kill again
belly acted as a mediator and tried to gain the trust of the caller offering to arrange a meeting between the two he asked the caller to reveal his identity so that he could receive assistance nothing fruitful was gained through this however
and law enforcement was unable to trace the call due to the caller not staying on the line long enough for a successful trace there were doubts as to whether the caller was actually the zodiac killer and later the police and FBI concluded that it was likely a hoax after analyzing the call
yeah I'm not 100% sure like I was trying to research into it and there's no real direct confirmation either way that it was or wasn't the zodiac killer apart from the zodiac killer later himself writing that it wasn't but I don't know
I feel like the zodiac killer himself is a liar and I also feel like with how confident he was getting it's not impossible to believe that he might have called into like talk shows and stuff that's not out of the room with possibility for me so I think I used to think this talk show or like what I was first researching all this I thought the talk show was a total fake until the letter he later since where he says that he can't stop himself and it almost sounds like he has some kind of I know they say that the DSM
no longer recognizes multiple personality disorder as a thing but it's some kind of schizophrenia that may lead to similar conditions so I don't know me I don't entirely write that off yeah I don't think it's out of personality or anything like I was saying this person clearly love the attention and clearly got some kind of gratification out of the attention
and there's like going on and it also like throughout throughout the story there's this kind of escalation in what he does and how how he acts and the next escalation from talking to journalists or the newspapers is to go on a talk show
shortly so yeah I don't consider it out of out of the wrong with possibility but I guess the police and FBI concluded that it was like they are hoax I tried to look into what they meant by analyzing the call like how they determine that it was a hoax but I couldn't find anything
conclusive or concrete as to how they rule it out so not sure what what they what they did to do like rule it out so I don't know November 8th 1969 the San Francisco Chronicle received a card from the Zodiac Killer the front depicting a picture of a hang pen with liquid dropping of it it read sorry I haven't written but I just washed my pen so this was like he was he was trolling again like he's sending like greeting cards now with like funny funny like pictures on them and stuff like that
and obviously obviously the letter about like sorry I haven't written in a while is because he has he hadn't written in a month or so in two months yeah so guys it's me again yeah it's been a while.
This is the Zodiac speaking I thought you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news you won't get the news for a while yet PS could you print this new cipher on your front front spelled F-R-U-N-T front page I get awfully lonely when I'm ignored so lonely I could do my thing thing is capitalized and there's like a hundred
exclamation points after it and then it's going to symbol and he spells he says December July August September October equals seven so he's saying that he's killed seven people at this point which we only have five confirmed victims so unless he's counting the two people that survives as that seven or he's insinuating that he's killed two other people that the police don't know about I'm not 100% sure I don't think anyone is I
probably say he's counting the people who survived yeah that's kind of what I think as well yeah I it is possible that well I don't know I was going to say it is possible that he was also killing other people though that the police don't know about it again like we were saying I can't remember we said on it on this episode or before the recording started I I don't think he would be capable of killing someone I'm not bragging about it so I feel like we would know
another note here he's felt the December DES that's another thing that's like that doesn't even sound right OK so at this point maybe the misspellings are part of his way of letting the police know it's actually him good point yeah if he remains consistent in his misspellings like it gives a bit of validity yeah yeah interesting yeah potentially yeah
because someone thinking to pretend to be him it's in the police letters wouldn't think to misspell so unless they saw the misspellings beforehand yeah yeah true that's something to think about attached with this letter was what was called the three four zero the three forty cipher which was only decoded in December 2020 so it took 50 years for this
for this decryption to take place and unlike the earlier 408 character cipher that the zodiac sent the three forty cipher was far more complex obviously it's believed to involve things such as transposition which is rearranging the letters in the cipher homophonic substitution which uses it's using multiple symbols to represent the same letter or a combination of both so he up the
difficulty level on the cipher itself he realized that he needed to make it a bit more difficult the difficulty curve may have been a bit extreme though there the zodiac killer because it took 50 years for the son of a bitch to be solved so maybe maybe ease it back a little bit this made it harder to find a consistent pattern and wait a crack it and there was also the fact of the zodiac killer himself potentially making mistakes
whether intentionally or unintentionally that could add complexity to solving the code so we don't know if he would like because he of course he is he's coming across as a bit of a troll to me so maybe he was trying to make it as impossible like unfair as possible that could be that
could be a part of it maybe he made the mistakes in the cipher on purpose just to frustrate them that's that's potentially a thing but whatever it was solved in 2020 through private citizens using advanced code breaking software and algorithms that the code was finally cracked and the following
message was found so we needed like AI to solve this fucking we needed AI to solve this cipher a read I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me that wasn't me on the TV show which brings up a
point about me I am not afraid of the gas chamber just a quick note the guy on the TV show was talking about how scared he was of the gas chamber anyone is to stop killing and stuff like that and begging for help basically so he says I'm not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me where
everyone else has nothing when they reach paradise so they are afraid of death I am not afraid because I know that my new life is life will be an easy one in paradise death yeah I'm still on the troll theory yeah that that whole sections just to mess with them. It's disappointing that that took like that that was the out of 50 years of 50 years just this guy talking about that was me on TV I'm going to go to paradise with all my slaves.
What a fucking lame dude what a lame fucking end to that 50 years that's why like there's a bunch of people like if we can solve all the ciphers will know who it was I don't believe him. No you would have never put his actual name or anything in there to be fair not I know well we'll get to it soon but I still think no matter what the there was no chance he was ever going to give any like real identifying information was all the game yeah.
On November 9th of 1969 this is the death machine or bus bomb letter which is already a great start sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. In his seven page letter to the San Francisco Chronicle the zodiac posted of having murdered seven people and expressed growing frustration with law enforcement. He disclosed that the police had indeed encountered him on the night of Paul signs murder referring to the officer as a quote blue pig.
He revealed that he was present in the nearby park when questioned by the police about a man with a gun. He deliberately misled the officers by directing them away from his actual location. The officers contested this however and it is unsure whether or not it is entirely accurate or not regardless it's widely believed and corroborated that the officers did at least notice or come into the proximity of the zodiac killer as he fled the scene.
The letter which arrived the following day after the previous letter also contained the bad news that the zodiac killer had mentioned the letter reads as follows. This is the zodiac speaking up to the end of October 1st I have killed to the end of October I have killed seven people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me so I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. Yes so I shall change the way the collecting of slaves.
I shall no longer announce to anyone when I commit my murders they shall look like routine robberies killings of anger and a few fake accidents etc. The police shall never catch me because I have been too clever for them. One I look I hate that I hate that he wasn't quite immediately like he so braggadocious I hate it. So my falling off point with him is the misspelling yours is that again again no one none of us are you know hurt by the killings. That's not the issue no it's the attitude.
It's the attitude it's you know what it is it's his bad sportsmanship that's what makes him it's sufferable yeah. One I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing the rest of the time I look entirely different there's that misspelling so I think this is him. I shall not tell you what my.
Discice consist of when I kill disguise I think that is that is that is it's not D.E.S. C.I.S.E. that is crazy I thought he was trying to say decision or size size it was I. I hate this guy even more now alright to as of yet I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what the police say groups of parking about 10 minutes apart then the motorcycles went about 150 feet away going from south northwest.
PS 2 cops pulled a goof about 3 minutes after I left the cab I was walking down the hill to the park when this cop car pulled up and one of them called me over and asked if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in the last 5 to 10 minutes and I said yes there was this man who was running by waving a gun and the cops peeled rubber and went around the corner as I directed them and I disappeared into the park a block and a half away never to be seen.
Yeah a block and a half away never be seen again I run on sentences to that's it we got to catch this guy. Hey pig doesn't it rye you up to have your nose rubbed in your boo booze he's no nose and O.Z.E. what the fuck. It's on purpose like he's doing this just to keep taunting the officers.
I can't get it away with this. I didn't remember this part was this was it published at any point that the officers may have seen someone that looked like the description of the zodiac was that ever publicly published. I remember whenever I researched about this years ago reading that detail that the police talk to him possibly and then he ran away.
Yeah but Charlie saying was it published at like with the zodiac killer. I don't know about that information or someone know about that information in the public at the time. I don't think so I don't think they would have published that information themselves. Because until this letter came out that was just a normal interaction with the police. Yeah I guess that makes sense true. Then this letter comes down there like oh that might have been the guy. Yeah potentially.
Anyway the guy who's like yeah someone's over there waving a gun whatever. So if you cops going back to read it letter. Oh yeah you did read the boo booz pot continue. Yeah yeah yeah. Going back to read letter if you cops think I'm going to take on a bus the way I stated I was you deserve to have holes in your heads.
I think one bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and one gallon of stove oil and dump a few bags of gravel on top and then set the shit off and will positively ventilate anything that should be in the way of the blast. The death machine is already made. I would have sent you pictures but you would be nasty enough to trace them back to the developer and then to me so I shall describe my masterpiece to you.
The nice part of it is all the parts can be bought on the open market with no questions asked one batch that one that power clock one battery powered clock will run for approximately one year. One photo electric switch to copper leaf springs to six volt car batteries one flashlight bulb and reflector one mirror to 18 inch cardboard tubes black with shoe polish inside and out.
Does anyone know why you would need a mirror for a bomb just in case you want to like see yourself when you put it down or something look how cool you look with your zodiac outfit on. So the explosive he described was the fertilizer bomb but this is a battery powered clock photo electric switch.
This sounds like I know more of an electric fusion thing because there's no actual actual accelerant unless I'm missing something in that description of you have a clock a switch to copper springs car batteries flash bulb one isn't isn't the emotive nitrate fertilizer and stuff like that is this the same thing he's just. I think this is the stuff like the battery power clock and stuff I think that's the machinery and then this is the chemical the ammonia fertilizer is the chemical components.
Yeah so that's your accelerant that's your actual blast I guess this is a trigger mechanism. I guess he's going to describe it the rest of it in a second but this is some kind of like electrical mechanism. So he's after describing that says the system checks out from one end to the other in my test what you do not know is whether the death machine is at the site or whether it is being stored in my basement for future use.
I think you do not have the manpower to stop this one by continually searching the road sides looking for this thing and it won't do to re route it won't do to re route and rescheduled the buses because the bomb can be adapted to new conditions. Have fun by the way it could be rather messy if you try to bluff me.
PS be sure to print the part I marked out on page three or I shall do my thing to prove that I am the zodiac asked the Vallejo cop about my electric gun site which I used to start my collecting of slaves. Yeah I looked up about the electric gun site and I could not find any information but I'm assuming the Vallejo cops or police department like that was something significant to them but I couldn't find any information on it so I don't know.
Yeah so to start the collecting of slaves would have been the first murder. Yeah isn't that the murder when he said he used the flashlight. Yeah he said that he used the black in the middle of the the bulb burn. Is that what he means by electric gun site maybe yeah maybe but he had published letters previously with that information in as well so yeah that would have been.
Is he just resurfacing yeah information that's already been established I don't know I assume that it was new information but I couldn't find anything on it so not 100% sure. December 20th of 1969 this is the letter to Melvin belly so on the first anniversary of the Lake Herman Road murders a letter arrived to Melvin belly from the zodiac killer. To verify his identity the zodiac included a piece of Paul Stein shirt.
Dear Melvin this is the zodiac speaking I wish you a happy Christmas the one thing I ask of you is this please help me I cannot reach out for help because of this thing in me because of this thing in me won't let me. I am finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check I am afraid I will lose control again and take my ninth and possibly tenth victim.
Please help me I am drowning at the moment the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in in the trigger Mac requires much work to get it adjusted just right but hold back too long from no nine I will lose complete all control of myself and set the bomb up please help me I cannot remain in control for much longer.
So I don't know how you boys feel about that but to me that just sounds like a bunch of like bullshit like it doesn't seem like this is genuine being genuine or anything at all just once again trying to cause a bit of a panic and he's you know I don't think this is a situation where he's suffering from like this demon inside of him I think it's all just part of his game.
Yeah the reason I mentioned this letter earlier is because if you did if someone did say that the person who called into the talk show was the zodiac killer then this letter makes sense as to why he would be in a position where he would call and say he needs help and then send a letter that says that wasn't me on the show because there's like he has some level of schizophrenia that's causing you know both sides of his mind to kind of compete against each other or you know some kind of mental disorder that causes that.
So maybe this letter could be a manifestation of it but I think the more than likely solutions what you said that this is all just like the police want to think I'm some troubled person who has this condition as though I just a troll similar to the slave thing. Yeah it's also worth noting that this is like I think one of the first times he's reaching out to people outside of the police department and outside of the media like the news page.
This is like Melvin Belly is a attorney and he I feel like the zodiac killer would have only known about him because he appeared on that talk show as a co-host during that segment or whatever so I feel like now he's reaching out to people even just loosely connected to the case. So he's trying to get into as many people's lives and start trolling them as much as possible as well.
Yeah I agree with you guys though I don't think that this is genuine by any means I don't think I think it's the troll. Yeah I agree. So this next one is the one that I find to be very interesting to that last one was so short. Yeah so this was on April 20th of 1970 so this is the my name is cipher letter was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle with the Z 13 cipher claiming to contain the zodiac's name.
It wasn't until years later that French engineer fake fake call Zeroy claim to have cracked the cipher with it apparently saying my name is care. This is close to Lawrence Kay who is a suspect in the zodiac murders. It is important to note the accuracy of this is disputed in the letter he claims to have killed 10 people even more if his bus bomb worked but it had been a dud in the letter he depicts a new bomb set up.
This is the zodiac speaking by the way if you cracked the last cipher I sent you my name is cipher I am mildly serious as I am mildly serous as to how much money you have on my head now. I hope you do not think that I am the one who wiped out that blue meany with a bomb at the cop station. Even though I talked about killing school children with one it just wouldn't do to move in on someone else's territory. There is more glory in killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back.
I have killed 10 people to date. It would have been a lot more except that my bus bomb was a dud. I was swamped out by the rain we had a while back. The new bomb is set up like this. PS I hope you have fun trying to figure out who I killed. And then he drops like schematics in here to like a design he came up with.
Yeah another bomb like diagram slash schematics like you said just a quick note you said Lawrence K that was my own type I would it would appear it's Lawrence cane yeah that's the suspect instead of Lawrence K it would have had to be he got two letters wrong in the my name is.
Yeah my name is K which is K a Y R that's what the cipher apparently comes out as and the closest suspect that matches that kind of that kind of name is Lawrence cane K a and E. But again it's like I don't believe in that I don't believe in it because like again I don't think he actually would have included his name or details anyway.
I think if he found out that he would have had a suspect that wasn't him he would he's the type of guy to just be like that's me like you know to make them chase up a rain guy. It's super possible but as we get to the cane profile I think there's a lot that lens credibility to it actually just being him. At least from what I remember like I thought like to me a lot of what came was I'll just wait I'll just wait.
He's getting excited we can we can all go over what we think but to me it came was always the one that stood out as the most probable but maybe I'll change my mind as we keep going. You you really hate cane. I don't know just everything seemed to make sense.
April 28th 1970 the dragon letter to San Francisco Chronicle just over a week later another letter was received the letter was in a jolly Roger brand card depicting a character writing a dragon and the card says sorry to hear your ass is a dragon. I don't want to see if I'm like your ass like dragon ass. I'm not sure if these cars were just popular at the time or what I'm not sure what this even really insinuates I doubt he stabbed himself and then his girlfriend.
So I'm not sure if this is unintentional or what but it's just I thought it was an interesting note.
And then the actual letter says if you don't want me to have this blast you must do two things one tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details to I would like to see some nice zodiac buttons wondering about town every what everyone else has these buttons like peace sign black power Melvin eats blubber etc well it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my button please no nasty ones like Melvins. What a loser thank you zodiac.
Please don't be mean to me guys I'm trying my best out here what I want also just a real quick note what is Melville Melville eats blubber I found the pin on what is that do you know saying like an election it's probably something political.
Yeah so he wanted people to wear Zodiac buttons around town as a sign of exerting power and control over people obviously and and getting the recognition that he desperately wanted and this is what kind of upsets me about this case because we kind of gave it to him you know what I mean like this movies about him now when we're fucking podcast about him he kind of got what he wanted which kind of fucking sucks when you think about it.
I guess he's still dead though I guess he's still lost in the end. Yeah true. The unrelated to the zodiac case but look at a Googled Melville eats blubber apparently it's about Herman Melville the guy who wrote Moe B Dick and it was apparently a counter culture thing against the book Moe B Dick I guess. Oh I don't know why they had beef with him over that.
Well maybe it was just oh you mean the people I assume that he only knew about it just because it was yeah that's why I'm sure he only knew about I'm like why did they make that though. Fuck Moe B Dick I guess sorry I'm connected but continue. I didn't expect Moe B Dick to be loosely connected to Zodiac 2 months later the Zodiac and another led to the San Francisco Chronicle upset that people in the San Francisco Bay area were not complying with these polite requests to wear nice Zodiac buttons.
He knows that due to the time of the year he's promised to punish them by targeting a school bus was not possible because of school holidays but he would punish them eventually in another way. He also claims to have shot a man sitting in a park car with a 38 firearm 38 millimeter firearm but I couldn't find any so 38 confirmation on that 38 millimeters like a caliber like an anti aircraft like artillery show. We could have been that.
He rolled up on someone with the howitzer like aimed at their window. That's actually some widely came. I don't know anything about guns you're going to have to fact check me on that so so you see how it says 0.38 right so that is in relation to one like like it's that it's 0.38 away from being one so in America guns are married calibers are by inches so that means it was 0.38 of an inch.
Like the actual size of the bullet whereas in millimeters which is what like European rounds are 38 millimeters like like a single 30 shell like. Yeah. Yeah the Zodiac killer had air support. I'm going to show them in another way I just got my chopper gunner kill streak. Yeah wait wait what is he's killed streak and he was at like 80 if he's at 10 if he's at 10 he's definitely got his pay blow right so he's. He said in a predator missile yeah. Hey if he had hard line that he did have his AC one.
Maybe that's what he was on about. The world's first cod player IRL. He includes the fourth and final Z32 symbol. So this is the very last side foot and a map of San Francisco and vicinity like the area around it I think.
I'm claiming to lead to where a bomb is set and giving the police till next fall to dig it up no bomb was ever found the Z32 was unable to be broken at the time as it had 29 different characters for the 32 simple cipher again Zerau the French I think it was French code breaker from before.
Injure from before claim to have cracked the cipher which apparently reads Labor Day find 45.069 north 58.719 west so those are obviously directions following these coordinates on the earth magnetic field at lands close to a school not far from South Lake Tahoe which would align with the Zerau the X threats to target a school bus and of course it's in the areas so that seems like too much of a coincidence to you know not be true.
It's accidentally gives of you know a date and location nearby yeah. Yeah, but I wonder why it didn't it didn't go off why why he didn't like go through with this plan maybe he just couldn't get the bomb to work or maybe he got distracted or maybe I think there was probably just never a bomb in the first place he was just making these threats to scare people. He seemed to have some knowledge of bomb making though.
Yeah, some like room entry knowledge of it that I feel like it doesn't mean that he's making it you'd still have to make it which is a very difficult component.
I'll also say guys like this who like to see a panic not to pour more gas on the unibomber is the zodiac killer fire but Tedk is enski did make several bombs and then in one of his letters he threatened to blow up an airplane leaving the Los Angeles airport and it never happened and then later he was like I never had any intention to I just want to rob people up. So fully possible that this was all just again so to put on a show for him.
Or maybe he did plant the bomb or whatever and buried it and it just never went off and still out there somewhere. We can suck at making bombs. It would I think it would have been found by now. I'm confident they probably would have dug at those coordinates and everything nearby. Maybe he got the coordinates wrong like he put those coordinates down but it was completely wrong and he was in the wrong area. He just spelled the coordinates.
I think we need to I obviously I hate to say it but he's probably a smart smart guy but we should treat him like a stupid idiot just to take some of the power back I think. I agree. Look at this dumb guy doesn't know how numbers work. It does not know direct comic bomb nerd nerd oh you like cypher you like puzzles idiot. It will lame fucking boy scout shit. This is the zodiac speaking.
I have become very upset with the people of San Fran Bay area they have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice zodiac buttons. I promise to punish them if they did not comply by a nia a nia lading a full school bus. He almost felt bussy there but you. Thank you but now school is out for the summer so I punished them in another way. I showed a man sitting in a pot car with a 38 38 caliber. I look at you zodiac 12 San Francisco PD zero wait so no he's up to 12.
I think he's just making this shit up it's not right it's not accurate. I think what happened I think what happened you remember how earlier I said I feel like the killings are a mean to a means to an end. I think he got five kills and then he got what he wanted everyone was talking about who he might be deciphering codes having talk shows about him right.
So I think all he needs to do now is just set at home and write letters every now and then raise like up I've killed three more I've killed five more I've killed six people just in those off and it's enough yeah he doesn't even need to do the work anymore yeah exactly he could just say he's killed more people and he gets the result he wants.
Yeah I mean yeah potentially it's interesting I've never considered that the map coupled with this code will tell you where the bomb is set you have until next fall to dig it up and then nothing ever happened with that. Well that was weird anyway that that concludes the bomb arc of the story is it still out there it's interesting somewhere maybe we'll find out one day I guess.
So on July the 24th of 1970 Kathleen Johns is considered a potential victim of the zodiac killer although this has not been definitively proven on March the 22nd of 1970 while driving on highway 132 near Patterson California. Johns experience car trouble when a stranger when a stranger signaled for her to pull over due to a wobbling wheel he offered assistance but after she resumed driving the wheel completely detached the stranger then persuaded Johns to accept a ride with him.
However she soon sent something was a miss when he started to drive to isolated areas he then allegedly went on to threaten her verbally for two hours. Johns managed to escape and sought help at a local police station where she identified the zodiac from a wanted poster as her a doctor her car was later discovered bird.
Johns described the man as around 30 years old 5 foot 9 inches tall weighing 160 pounds with short dark hair heavy rim glasses and dark clothing while she claimed her life was threatened during the ordeal the police report lacked specific details leading to disputes over its accuracy.
However the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter on July the 24th of 1970 where the zodiac claims responsibility for this interaction quote this is the zodiac speaking I am rather unhappy because you people will not wear nice zodiac buttons. But a loser. We're shut up about the fucking buttons. So I now have a little list starting with the woman and her baby that I gave a rather interesting ride for a couple hours. No he did not spell hours like that.
The H.O.W.E.S. Hours for a couple hours one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car where I found them. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think you. What do you have known about it? I have no idea but it just doesn't make any sense for him. It doesn't make any sense for him to suddenly go from like wearing the car driving up to people and shooting them to then be like, oh I'm going to sabotage a woman's car and then I'm going to drive her around for a couple hours.
Supposedly not get a chance to kill her and then she gets away like I don't know. But again with the poolstein murder there was such a deviation from what he would normally do in that situation as well. It's like he was very random with how he did stuff. What if this? Okay. So this letter could be a copycat.
Right. Because enough letters have come out at this point that someone can just claim to be the zodiac and then follow the way he writes his letters because they've been publishing the paper. Or what if this maybe pushing it a little bit, but if the zodiac is just like farming. I was about to say farming engagement. I'm truly. I'm truly YouTube brain. YouTube a brain. Yeah. I'm too far gone. I need to be put down.
If he is just farming publicity, then maybe he heard about this case in the paper that was linked to him. He writes a letter like yep, that was me. I'm still out there still hunting. Yeah, except she I mean she also I positively I did him to the wanted poster. That came before the letter though. So it was already circulating in the papers as a zodiac attempted killing and then the killer takes credit for it. Or someone takes credit claiming to be the zodiac killer.
Yeah, also again, we're that he didn't try to kill her like he was. Yeah, it is. You know, normally obviously. I mean, he's in situations where he pulls guns on people as I'm tied to other upstabs. I'm like, you know, he he goes a lot more intense because how does she say she got away, threatened her verbally, managed to escape and got to a police station. Yeah, I believe she like hopped out of the car or something. I feel like he would just I feel like he just shoot her before she got away.
I'm not saying he'd be successful at shooting her as we've seen, but I don't know. It's it's but again, the guy changes up his M.O. every time constantly. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. It's weird. That's a weird one. This is July 26, 1970, little list letter. So it was two days after the Kathleen John's letter in the zodiacs and another one to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Talking about the ways he would torture his slaves in paradise at the end of the letter he provides a clue relating to Mount Diablo code, which is in reference to the button letter above where he claims to have planted a bomb. This is the zodiac speaking being that you will not wear some nice buttons. How about wearing some nasty zodiac buttons or any type of zodiac buttons that you can think up.
If you don't, if you do not wear any type of buttons, I shall on top of everything else torture all 13 of my slaves that have waiting for me in paradise. So my shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream in twitch and swarm. Other shall have pine splinters driven under their nails and then burned. Others shall be placed in cages and fed salt beef until they are gourds. Then I shall listen to their pleas for water. And I shall laugh at them. Others hang by their thumbs and burn in the sun.
I rub them down with deep heat to warm them up. Others I shall skin them alive and let them run around screaming in all billiard players. I shall have them play in a darkened dungeon cell with crooked cues and twisted shoes. Yes, I shall have great fun and flicking the most delicious of pain to my slaves. SFPD zero zodiac 13. I just hate this guy so much. Just writing letters to the police.
Like, oh, what if you all don't like my buttons? Well, guess what? Those people like killed they don't get any water. Well, he's trying to go for like whimsy unhinged approaches. He's like, when is the police? Yeah, I don't think he's killing anyone at this point. I think he's just like gloving. Yeah, having fun. I think I think he goes fucking wild on the Dr. Sushit in this next paragraph. It becomes pretty fucking weird. Okay, continue.
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found. I've got a little list. I've got a little list of society offenders who might well be underground who would never be missed, who would never be missed. This is the pest. Wow. This is the pest, a lintual nuisances who write for autographs. All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs. All children who are up and dates and implore you with I'm plat. All people who are shaking hands, shake hands like that.
And all third persons who with unspoiling take those who insist they'd none of them be missed. They'd none of them be missed. There's the banjo serenader and the others of his race and the piano organist. I got them on the list. All people who eat peppermint and fump fit in your face. They would never be missed. They would never be missed. And the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone of centuries with this in every country but his own.
And the lady from the provinces who dress like a guy who doesn't cry and singularly abnormally the girl who never kissed. I don't think she would be missed. I'm sure she won't be missed. And that nice, impreased that is rather rife that judicial, humorist I've got them on the list. All funny fellows, comic men and clowns of private life. They'd none of them be missed. They'd none of them be missed. And uncompromising kind of what you call it.
Thing of a bob and likewise, well never mind and tut tut tut tut. And what's his name? And you know who but the task of filling up the blanks. I rather leave up to you. But it really doesn't matter who you place upon the list for none of them be missed. None of them be missed. PS the Mount Diablo code concerns radians and number inches of radians. That's a part of the rhyme that. Yeah. So that's just like fucking whole blown legacy Finnegan's wake type shit.
Is it fake lunacy though? Like, yes, playing into it. I 100% think so. Yeah. I mean, it's too good at being insane. Like, it's not like every letter is like this. It's like he switches in and out of this. It's like it's not uncontrollable. Obviously, he's a fucking lunatic. He's killing people. Yeah, evil, evil person. But that doesn't mean he's like, yeah, but people. No, it controls insane. Yeah, people use the word insane is too much of like an excuse.
Oh, most of like thought processes are ideas behind actions. He's certainly evil, of course, but that doesn't mean he's crazy, per se. Yeah, definitely. I think he's fully aware of everything he's doing. And I think it's all just part of his play. His show that he's trying to put on. Well, he doesn't think he killed anyone after the first five. Nope, I do not think so. I'm I'm sure. I don't know. I can't point one way or the other.
I'm not sure about the what the the woman we just talked about with the abduction. Like if yeah, I don't know either way on that. And he goes for he goes from this fucking Dr. Sus lunacy that whatever that is. And then immediately goes back into like talking about the Mount Diablo code and stuff like that. Like this is all obviously just a giant game to him. October 5th, 1970 the pace postcard to the San Francisco Chronicle arrives. And he claims to now have 13 victims.
There are 13 hole punches in the letter also referencing the 13 victims. It's worth knowing that the score tally on the previous letter also stated that he had 13 victims. It says dear editor, you'll hate me, but I've got to tell you the pace isn't any slower. In fact, it's just one big 13th. Some of them thought it was horrible. Zuriak, PS there are there are reports city police pig cops are closing on me. FK, I'm crackproof. What is the price tag now?
And this is an interesting one because it's made entirely out of like newspaper clipping. So there's no hand writing or anything like that. I'm not sure how they were able to confirm that it was directly him or not, but it's considered. Yeah, I don't know. It seems like at this point there's not a ton of like sure when he sends in the clippings of that good, the cab driver shirt. I get it. But other than that, like I don't know what the vetting process is. This guy, you know.
Yeah, this is considered to be from him though. Like, yeah, wildly so they must have a nice idea. And then October 27th, this is a Halloween card. The Zuriak killer then mailed a Halloween card, depicting a skeleton and a pumpkin to the San Francisco crime reporter at the Chronicle Paul Avery, who's played by Robert Downey Jr. in the Zuriak movie. Lately, due to the fact that Paul Avery was frequently writing articles about the Zuriak killer at the time.
And on the bottom right of the card, there are also three symbols, one unknown, one Z, like the letter Z, and the Zuriak symbol. On the card also, he writes out the word paradise again and writes around it with by fire, by gun, by knife, by rope, and then slaves through the middle. So he's saying that he's going to collect these slaves through these means, through these four means. Although I don't think he's ever like lit anyone on fire, at least as far as I know.
And then deliver them to his paradise, basically. What is the, what's a Halloween card say from your secret pal? I fill it in my bones, you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in. But then why spoil the game, me, why spoil the game? Yeah. Yeah. Which is a fuck. Did he custom make that card? Why would the big card? That's a great card. That's a great card. That was a weird card before he had all the paradise and slave stuff.
Oh, is it meant to be like, is it meant to be like, I know they do it for like Valentine's Day where you send a non-alcohol. Like a secret Santa thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So weird fucking cards. Secret skeleton. He clearly was having a lot of fun with like finding these cards and stuff. Yeah. I can't imagine this guy like a CVS. Like, I was like, I don't know. I found the perfect one. Like, makes these day. That's where they need to be looking for this guy at the hallmark session.
The symbols down the bottom of this card. There's a Z, which is I assume means Odeak. And then there's Odeak symbol itself, which we've come to know by this point. And then the third symbol is like this little V with like dots around it. I have no idea what that is. Almost Nordic the way it's like strong lines, but then there's not a lot of dots in Nordic, I don't think. I doubt this is like a real symbol from something. I'm sure he's just made this up.
Well, actually, wait, I was just thinking about it. When was the bomb thing that was like 90 end of 1970 or middle of 1970? Let me scroll up and look at the threat of the bomb. The first one. Yeah. Yeah, I think this was still it was November 9th of 1969. Okay, and they were saying that they were saying that the bomb was like around the mount Diablo area. I'm pretty sure that he said that. What if this is like a clue towards them where the bomb is set in the mount Diablo area?
Maybe it's like the silhouette of the mountain ranges or something unique to the mountains from a certain angle to find those dots lining up with it to find the interesting. That is interesting point. Look at you. Is there a mount Diablo in California? There is. Yeah, the mount Diablo range. I'm pretty sure. Yep. Wow. Could you, maybe, could be something? Yeah, I just came to me because I look like mountain peaks to me the little.
At this point, it's been two years since the initial threat, but like you said, maybe the bomb's still out there. Yeah, yeah. I think he said that it was going to explode this coming fall or something like that previously. So in the middle 28th of 1970, he does the one talking about the whole Labor Day, like giving the location and all that. So 11 months later is when this letter shows up. Yeah, but he said I remember. I mean, there's been so much information.
Yeah, after summer break, he said it blow up in the fall. Yeah, in the fall. So is I don't know. It should have gone off by now because this is now into the spring. Maybe it didn't. Maybe the bomb's still there. Okay, I was just going to say it's October full, I guess not. All right, so much 13th, 19th. Oh, wait, wait, sorry. I was looking at the wrong date. You're right. October is in the fall. So I was looking at the March 13th down there down here and get confused. No, you're right.
This got did get sent Halloween. So yeah, that does kind of place it in light fall timeline. So yeah, maybe. If he's still like going along with the bomb thing, then this could potentially be a clue to the bomb to some degree. Yeah, yeah. Such a brand new. Okay, I see that that does make sense with the timeline. We may we may have cracked something. Yeah, imagine we might be able to find the bomb now. Imagine you just got this like right on the money.
They go there check it and it's the bomb and it has like DNA evidence of who the zodiac was. Everything gets picture of the zodiac killer on it. Yeah, he's like, it's it. He left his driver's license. You know, you know, who we need to collaborate with now, the fucking geo-guessor wizard guy. He needs to find this. Yeah, yeah, show him that drawing and he'll be like, well, clearly this is eighth avenue on. I know exactly this is a mouthy oblo range. I've looked at it multiple times actually.
It's right here. This just in a freak accident. A YouTuber in New Zealand blew up last week. Yeah, you're an Australian Australia. Sorry, fuck. All you I'm sorry. All you I'd see people I get. They got the wrong guy. Some full guy in New Zealand. Good. All right. So continuing on March 13, 1971. So that is a few months later, five months later. In this letter, he said he sent it to the Los Angeles Times, which we've never heard of from before.
So he's branching out the zodiac killer now claims to have 17 victims. In this letter, he calls the police the Blue Meanies. Come on, man. Which is a term connected to yellow submarine, a fictional army of beings who allegorically represent all the bad people in the world. And he says, this is the zodiac speaking. Like I have always said, I am crackproof. If the blue meanies are ever going to catch me, they had best get off their fat asses and do something.
Because the longer they fiddle and fart around, the more slaves I will collect for my afterlife. I do have to give them credit for something across my Riverside activity. But they are only finding the easy ones. There are a hell of a lot more down there. The reason I'm writing to the Times is this. They don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others. SFPD 0, zodiac 17 plus. So now he doesn't even know how many he's killed.
Maybe, maybe not to play, not to give him more credit than he deserves. And I still mostly believe that he only killed five people. But he did say in that last letter, he's no longer going to announce specific killing. So maybe, you know, I mean, how many homeless people die and it goes unreported all the time? Or, you know, like there's accidents, so to speak, but don't get connected. Maybe he was killing more people during this time. Who knows?
Yeah, like you said, he did say he was going to stop reporting it. Yeah. It's possible, I guess. I don't know. I feel like you just killed five. I still think he just killed five. Because I also don't think he could help himself. But it is possible that mentioned about down at Riverside, the police stumbling across my Riverside activity. Maybe there was like a local, you know, bodies found or whatever the murder and never got caught.
Because I mean, a lot of murders in big cities, especially back then, go, you know, unsold. So could be. Yeah. I could take this next part. So I marched the 22nd of 1971. So this is just about a week after the, a little over a week after the last letter. While not making any direct connections. And also while not being definitively attributed to the zodiac by law enforcement.
This letter seems to make claims as to the disappearance of Donna last, a 25 year old woman who went missing six and a half months in the Lake Tahoe area prior to the postcard arriving. The postcard itself being sent to Paul Avery. The postcard again has cutouts from newspapers with the message created that read quote, peek through the pines past Lake Tahoe areas. It was mailed six and a half months after the disappearance of a woman named Donna last. Yeah. So I'm. That's what I read.
I don't know how directly like connects to Donna last, but that's what people seem to believe it's him. Maybe that case was very prolific at the time. Yeah. He's gloating about another victim maybe. It's both the notes. The postcard seems to have sought victim 12 and then peeked through the pines past Lake Tahoe. Maybe that that was just a very public thing at Lake Tahoe at that time. The disappearance of Donna last and he's just saying it was me.
But again, it could be something completely unrelated and he's just aside. It was during the time and went to Paul Avery. So that's what people lead to believe. Why people leave to believe it may be connected. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, and I'll take this next one too because it's short on the 29th of January 1974. So this is like three years after the last letter. The last definitive letter that was sent to the Los Angeles Times and let it. It's been a while. Yeah. It's been a minute.
Yeah. So this is the exorcist letter that was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. Nearly three years after the Lake Tahoe postcard, the zodiacs in a letter and now claim to have 37 victims in total. The included poem appears to be an original creation and does not appear to be from any work of fiction. Here's the poem. I saw and think the exorcist was the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen. Signed yours truly.
He plunged himself into the billowy wave and an echo arose from the suicides grave. Tit willow, Tit willow, Tit willow. PS, if I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing. Me 37, SFPD zero. He is a past and he's added about 20 on to the count. Also, he's not using the zodiac symbol anymore. Oh, he did misspell truly though, and satirical and comedy. Yeah. Yeah, it's likely maybe. I don't know.
Yeah, and then that's that's basically there was a few more letters after that that he didn't sign as the zodiac. He would call himself the red phantom and stuff like that. Those ones are disputed. They're not known for sure if it was actually the zodiac killer setting them, but they are. They talked about a fair bit and one of the lead investigators at the San Francisco homicide in, you know, in police squad, whatever you want to call them, police department.
Dave Toshy does stand by that some of the letters after that are actually from him and they were confirmed by by forensics. But like handwriting analysis, but it's not known for sure. I don't think that was the last situation where the zodiac killer inserted himself into the conversation that 29th January 1974 exorcist letter. Beyond that, it's all just up in the air like no one knows for sure. Nothing happened after that point really.
So I guess now we can talk about the potential suspects and theories and stuff like that. Starting with let's just go over let's just knock out a few quick ones. Dialine, which was the victim from the second killings where independence day killings. She had two husbands. Well, she had an ex husband and a current husband at the time who were both potential suspects, but they were both quickly ruled out because they both had alibis.
And then the next big one was Arthur Lee Allen, which is probably the one most people are familiar with. I have to imagine like he's the prime suspect in people's eyes. He's the one I always thought it was. Yeah, he's the one that I always thought it was as well. So he was born 18th December 1933 and is often considered a prime suspect in the zodiac case. Due to several compelling connections at the time of Sherry Joe Bates murder on October 30th 1960s.
Though the zodiac's involvement remains unproven but suspected Allen and elementary school teacher in California took sick leave on November 1st claiming to have been in the area where the murder occurred. So that was another murder that's not directly attributed to the zodiac, but like looking back, he was in the area at the time. So there's that may have been his first murder.
Additionally shortly after the murder, a desk was found at the RCC campus bearing a scratched poem that some believe may reference Sherry's killing potentially linking it to the zodiac. These circumstances among others have led to speculation about Allen's involvement in the zodiac case. Allen, this is this is one that I found very fucking interesting and I think it's pretty wild.
Allen received a watch for Christmas from his mother in 1967. The watch had the label zodiac on it, which I think was the brand of the watch with the same circle with a cross symbol that zodiac the brand I guess would use. So I mean, yeah, that's pretty weird. I also don't know how people didn't make the connection. I was just about like, oh, there's a brand called so do you that has that symbol.
Well, I don't know how the brand themselves wouldn't say something about it. Like, hey, he's infringing on our copyright. If you actually if you look at zodiac watches, like, right, not okay, hold on hold on. I'm sure they're great watches and I'm not meaning to imply them in anything that's happened. Of course, but if you look up zodiac watches right now, that's still their logo. That's like their I cannot believe they didn't really brand that that's actually crazy.
Yeah, I kind of want one now. Maybe maybe it was a CEO of zodiac at the time, you should go in completely wild. Yeah, the Australian guy saying that for the CEO, listening, not the two. He's got American boys who know better. Anyway, maybe it was a marketing move like the marketing department marketing department came to him like you got to go out there and start killing. It's going to be great.
I never yeah, yeah, I had to thought about this before. But yeah, like on every zodiac watches, just that symbol. The cross in the circle. Yeah, yeah. And he had one. He was definitely pleased like saw him having one. So it's not contested. He was seen it from his mother in Christmas. I mean, with all already with like the connections, it's pretty wild.
And so a friend of Alan's dong dong chaney claimed that Alan would make disturbing claims with his friend such as he would like to kill couples at random. He would talk to police with letters detailing his crimes. This is a quote by the way. He would sign the letters with the cross circle symbol from his watch. He would call himself zodiac. He would wear makeup to change his appearance.
He would attach a flashlight to the barrel of his gun in order to shoot at night. He would fool women into stopping their cars in rural areas by claiming they had problems with their tires and loosen their lug nuts and eventually take them captive. Don claimed that these statements were made to him under the premise of Alan writing a novel. So he was saying that Alan was saying all of this stuff like.
I don't think I believe Don because neither on God's earth when the killings were happening. Did he not think this was good to take the police? And then afterwards he's like, Oh yeah, all that killing stuff. Yeah, he told me he did that for a book. Like what? I did read that he did go to the police like as soon as the murder started happening, but they didn't take him seriously. No, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Yeah, Don went to the police and said he says that he's taunting them with the zodiac letters or whatever. And the police were like, yeah, yeah, get in line. Yeah, well, basically, I think he went to them and said like, I've got a friend that's concerning. And I want to talk about it. And I just brushed him aside or took his statement and didn't worry about it. They thought he was like just making shit up, I think.
So he estimated conversations took place on January 1st, 1969, which was shortly after the first killings. Don would eventually take these claims to the police, allowing them to obtain a search warrant for Alan as a suspect of the zodiac killer. They didn't search his home in Vallejo, but instead a trailer that Alan used nearby in Santa Rosa. And they found nothing of note.
Alan is said to have had a conversation with his friend where he claimed to have a fascination with the concept of hunting people. And according to him, they would be more challenging to hunt than animals due to humans having intelligence. This is obviously a reference to the most dangerous game, which was a story by Richard Connell about a man who would hunt people because man is the most dangerous game of all. So that comes up quite a bit like that book and stuff him liking that book.
Yeah. And in 1968, Alan was fired from his job as an elementary school teacher after being caught molesting a student. He was also dishonorably discharged from the Navy 10 years prior. He moved back in with his parents, but did not have a good relationship with them. He fell into a spiral of depression, which hit the worst around his birthday December 18th and Christmas. The Lake Herman Road murders occurred on December 20th, so this fell within this kind of time frame.
Alan also owned the same type of ammunition used to kill the victims in this attack as proven by a search warrant executed by Vallejo police department later on in 1991. Yeah, keep in mind this guy was like a suspect for like 20 plus years. Yeah, yeah, a long time and they just couldn't they couldn't find concrete like forensic evidence.
They couldn't find conclusive forensic evidence tying him to the murders, which is ashamed because there's so many fucking compelling and and I don't know just over the top evidence here that feels way out like impossible to just be a coincidence. Like this, the blue springs attack occurred a mere four minutes from Alan's residence, notably Alan had a friend attempting to sell a brown Corveire, which was a vehicle he occasionally drove.
This of one of the survivors Mike recalled the vehicle involving the attack as brown, possibly a Corveire. Furthermore, between 1966 and 1977, Darlene Farron worked at the International House of Pancakes on Tennessee Street in Vallejo, which was one tenth of a mile from Alan's home. Like, come on, how what are the odds of that during this time Alan reportedly expressed admiration for a waitress from the restaurant to his friend Don, Don Cheney.
Additionally, in mid 1992, Mike identified Alan from a lineup at the Vallejo police department, basically stating that's him. He's the man that shot me in a lineup of the pictures. Mike was, I believe, the the victim that survived from the Independence Day shooting. Yeah. A man named Lee was also said to have been an associate of Darlene's as described by her sister and as corroborated by a police report.
Arthur Alan's middle name was Lee, LEIGH and he would often go by the name spelling it Lee LE. Another thing to mention isn't Darlene the one who would ever the guy pulled up she the man said, do you know that guy? And she said, oh, never mind. Yeah, she said something like if she didn't, she would be like, no, of course not. Or something like that, but she like acted unnaturally. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it was Lee and she didn't know him. Maybe she knew him. Yeah, that's what I'm leaning towards.
Alan was well versed in the Barry S.A. area often engaging activities such as trapping scuba diving and camping there. That's where that the stabings took place. On the day of the Barry S.A. attack Alan informed the Leihou police sergeant lynched during a 1969 interview that he intended to visit Barry S.A.
But ultimately went to the coast instead providing a cryptic alibi involving meeting a couple from Treasure Island, which with which he had spent time with though he couldn't substantiate this claim and the couple were never located for validation. So he's alibi was like, I met this couple at the beach and hung out with them. And like there was no no further examination of that or like confirmation. Where were you on this day? I was with other people. Can we meet them?
No. They go to their names. They go to a different school. They go to a different school. Well, what's ominous about that was if he was the killer, he was with another couple at the time when you think about it. So maybe he was playing a game with the places. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, Mr. No, that was a funny. Yeah, that wasn't a joke for me. No, I know. I'm just getting more annoyed by him. That's what it goes on.
In a 1971 police interview, Alan confessed to possessing bloody knives on the day of the attack. Weird confession. Attributing it to slaughtering a chicken. Size 10.5 shuprin's found at the crime scene matched Alan Shou's size. And during a 1991 search, while police discovered a foot long knife with a sheath and rivets in Alex possession, though they were not compared to the victims' wounds for some reason. Well, to be fair, those wounds would have been over 20 years old at this point.
Yeah. And I doubt there was good forensics back then taking. Yeah, you don't think they had taken photos or something? I'm sure they told us. You still would be able to match definitively. You would, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. A photo from the 70s, like with the level of detail they were looking for back then, wouldn't have been enough to match like the jagged pattern on the knife with the stabs or anything. Right.
But in 1971, that 1971 police interview, he did confess to possessing bloody knives on the day of the attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still weird. Don't give me a wrong. Still very weird. I don't know.
A man named Ralph Spinelli, who Alan had previously fought in 1958, which caused Alan to be arrested with the charges dismissed, came forward to police claiming that prior to Stein's murder, so the cabbie, the cab driver, Alan had admitted that he was the Zodiac killer and would prove it by going to San Francisco and killing a cabbie.
After the murders, the Zodiac had mailed letters with bomb diagrams and ingredients saying that the bomb was stored in his basement, where Alan lived had a basement, which, as I understand, is irregular in California. It's not a common thing. Well, if in the city of San Francisco, probably not. Yeah. So him having a basement, and also the Zodiac having said that he had a basement, is kind of concerning.
And police found handwritten diagrams of bombs with the same ingredients listed by the Zodiac. So they found what the fuck? Wait, wait, wait, wait. They found handwritten diagrams for bombs in Arthur, Liale and basement. Yeah, that's what I've written here. So that must have been in the research that I found. No. What happened? Did you not remember that? There's so much research here. Yeah, I guess yeah. Hold on, hold on, there's no way. There's no way.
They found bomb instructions in his basement. I'm going to lose my mind. Well, here we go. They worked through it's tough. There was also mail order catalogs for guns, bombs, and booby traps. Alan was also a fan of the movie The Most Dangerous Game. So he had that film there as well. In August 1971, police detectives interviewed Alan at his place of employment in Pinolay. Oh, this is a really important information in my opinion. Pinolay, California.
Lots of verified zodiac letter had been mailed in March 1971, just a few months prior. However, after this interview by police, it would be another two and a half years before the zodiac would send in another letter. So by reading it like that, it sounds like the zodiac got spooked because they finally interviewed Alan, this prime suspect. And so he stopped sending in letters for two and a half years.
Furthermore, Alan was arrested by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department on a charge of child molestation in 1974. The zodiac had ridden several times in 1974, breaking his two and a half years silence. Once again, however, once he was arrested for that for that child molestation charge, no proven zodiac letter was ever received again after he's incarceration and arrest. Like that's so suspicious, right? Yeah, as soon as Alan gets arrested, the letters stop. Yeah. Yeah, both times, twice.
No, like once. Sure, but both times like he got spooked and then the letter stopped and then he got arrested again and the letter stopped again. Like, come on. And that's on top of all these other evidence or circumstantial sure, maybe like there's no forensic evidence. Hold on. This is from zodiackiller.com just to further the point you made. This is a direct quote, okay?
In 1991, the search warrant executed by the VPD revealed Alan had in his basement handwritten diagrams for bombs composed of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and gravel. Well, there's no stove oil there. So I can't, no, no, no, he forgot the stove oil. So I can't be the same guy. Let's look at the police department said. He's clear of all charges. Yeah. Well, he's innocent in my eyes now except for being a child molester. Yeah, not that part.
Yeah. Oh, every, every, every crime case I read, every single true crime case, the killer only gets away because the police are blind. They get like they're like just bumbling. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, the main reason he was ruled out in the police's eyes was that he's handwriting did not match that or the zodiac. I'm going to strangle him. Whoever came to that conclusion, I'm going to get him. I can't, I can't do this anymore. That Canada's forensic evidence back then though.
So, and also another note is that apparently Lee was ambidextrous. So it's, it's entirely possible that he could have ridden the letters with one hand and then all these other like in real life. He, he had bond diagrams of the exact materials the killer was using in his basement in San Francisco and they said, no, the handwriting's different. I was, I was sold on this guy when he had the fucking watch was already accidentally on it.
I mean, to, to be fair though, to be fair, like if you, you wrote this as well. This guy does not match any of the depictions of the zodiac that any of the victims had given. He runs counter to all of them in a big way. Like he's taller, he's heavier, and he looks much older. Like how much? How tall was he? Jackson doesn't have it written here, but even just looking at his mug shot, he is a lot bigger than 58. I know that. The shoe size does match. The shoe size is 22.
Alan's driver's license states he's height as six foot tall. Well, I would put him in the, okay, I'd put him in the 58 to 6 feet tall from the first victims, I guess. Any piece of slouch is about? Yeah. Yeah. So, Arthur Lee Allen died on August 26, 1992, age 58 of natural causes. The police conducted another search two days after his death.
They had been secretive about what was found in the search, but were apparently looking for a videotape labeled Z was the, what was on the tape has never been revealed, although police have said there was no confession. I don't know why the fuck they wouldn't reveal this shit. Yeah, I don't know. What's the whole news? I found a tape title Z. No, they were apparently looking for a videotape labeled. We don't know if they found it or not, and it's been 30 years since that happened.
I don't understand why they would be so tight-lipped about it, unless it was a fucking... They probably just never found it, I'm sure. Well, then why not just say it? Like it's such a cold case at this point. Yeah, I know, I know. But because you know how bad it looks for the police if the guy they talked to like five times turned out to be the killer, and they just never... True, that would kind of be like a P.O. disaster for them. Yeah, yeah. All right, another big suspect is Richard Gekowski.
Gekowski was a journalist and editor who lived in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960s and 70s near where the events of the Zodiac killer occurred. Gekowski was intentionally arrested for refusing to sign a traffic citation in 1965. He wanted to write a story on the conditions of the county jail from the perspective of an inmate. That is where the muckshop of him originates from. However, when he became a suspect of the Zodiac murders 20 years on, records of his fingerprints were long gone.
Yeah, because that just happens apparently. That just happens. A police informant who went by the name Goldcatcher brought Gekowski to the police's attention having worked with him previously at the Bay Area newspaper. According to Goldcatcher, Gekowski seemed to know too much about the Bay Area murders. He was also an editor for the Food Times newspaper in Santa Cruz, which received a letter from someone claiming to be the Zodiac killer.
Gekowski was a trained medic in the army, which would link to the military-style boot impressions that were found at the crime scene in Lake Beriesa. And he could be trained in the quick removal of clothing, which is present at the murder of Paul Stein, where his top was removed and appeased worn off. Which I don't think is like a super difficult talent, by the way. Being able to cut clothing is kind of easy. I don't think you need to go. But he did it really efficiently, you see.
It was that military-undressing, that professional. That's a whole, you learn that in boot camp, probably. Nancy's lover, the operator, took the call from the Zodiac in July 1969. As Lager said, Gekowski's voice is the closest she has ever heard of the Zodiac's voice that night. Richard Gekowski died of lung cancer in 2004, age 68. Yeah, there's not much there, apart from just the phone operator, really. Like, all the other stuff seems really fucking weird and stupid.
Yeah, I don't put a whole lot of stock in him being one of them. Or him being the Zodiac killer. I guess his physical appearance is kind of more like what the Zodiac kind of look like, I think, compared to Arthur Lialin anyway. Yeah, there's not much evidence there to support him. Moving along here, I want to talk about the one that I, for a while, thought it was, but after hearing more from the prime suspect, yeah, I'm starting to lean towards maybe there being more evidence there.
But I thought Cain made the most sense for a while. So Lawrence Cain suffered a brain injury to his left front a little bit 1962 after a serious car crash. And doctors diagnosed him with an inability to control his urges for self-grantification and was arrested several times for being a peeping Tom. He was left with paralysis on the left side of his face.
And former detective Harvey Hines was convinced Lawrence Cain was involved in the Zodiac murders after he learned that Cain worked in the same building as 25-year-old nurse Donna Lass, who was abducted in Tahoe, and Hines noted a comparison between the Bay Area Letters and Cain's handwriting. The sister of Darleen Farron, one of the victims, Pam Huckabee, has stated that she believes Cain was following and trailing her sister in the run-up to the night she was murdered.
Five days after the attack, Cain actually traded in his car for a different vehicle. And Cain was also living nearby to where Paul Stein was murdered. And additionally, Kathleen Johns, which was one of the potential Zodiac victims, the one that got away from the car, identified Cain as her abductor. And then of course, the famous my name is Cipher, a lot believed to be decrypted, saying Cain, because it looks so close. Now, the reason why that was so compelling to me is he fits the height.
He is five, eight, and some change, like almost five, nine. His physical appearance matches what everybody said about him, like from all of the stories from the accounts, like even the police that may have encountered him leaving the night of the murder of Paul, all of it matches exactly what this guy looks like. Plus his proximity to that cab driver, plus being identified by somebody, even if it's not like a potential victim, even if she wasn't a victim of the Zodiac.
Like, it's still all very hard to believe it's a coincidence. Plus having a reputation of being a peeping Tom would explain why it always go for like teenagers at the make out points. Like all of it just kind of fits that M.O. Not being able to control urges and all of that. To me, it all just had a criminal record. Yeah. Yeah. To me, it all just painted this, like, him as someone that would very likely do this.
Having that frontal lobe injury and like leaving him with some kind of traumatic brain injury, like that would explain, like maybe his spelling being all over the place and all fucking this shoveled and caddy wampus. And maybe he really did have like this split personality type thing where he just had this monster inside of him that he couldn't control. It's just one of those things where everything about this guy sounds like what the Zodiac killer would be to me.
But there's just not enough real evidence there that makes him like more convincing than Arthur Le Allen unfortunate, well, not unfortunately, but like. Arthur Le Allen has a lot more evidence backing it. It's just Lawrence canes. Situation makes more sense for the murders to you. Yeah, yeah, to me. Yeah, something something that I just noted while reading this. He was left with paralysis on the left side of his face.
I remember during this episode that someone described him as having a draw like his voice had a draw like it. Could it potentially be like a slur almost, you know, have some people after losing, you know, having paralysis on one side of their face, that could impact speech. Yeah, it's a really good point. That would probably would have an impact on the way that he speaks. That's also something that never got brought up again is that draw. Well, he never really talked to anyone.
Wasn't that mentioned with the stabbing with the stabbing is the stabbing ones, which was the only case where there was a victim left who we talked to him. Yeah, but then if it was actually him that called into the station, they would recognize a draw. Yeah, which means that it might not have been the person that probably will have a station.
Yeah, interesting, but again, like the previous police operator said that a rich guy Kowski voice was the closest that she had heard to whatever here Lawrence canes voice though. Yeah, I would assume so like she would have been shown all them, right? I don't have a confirmation on that, but I don't see why she wouldn't have been shown all of them. Maybe he just wasn't available for I have no idea, but you're probably right there.
I would have been shown that I say, do you want to take Rick Marshall real quick just to give because I know he's like a really popular theory as well. Yeah, yeah, just to knock it out. So Rick Marshall, an engineer resided in key areas during the majority of the attacks. Notably, he lived in a basement residence just a few miles from where a taxi driver Paul Stines was murdered a detailed azote act with later reference when describing the location of the bomb he claimed to be instructing.
Marshall's favorite movie was the red phantom and he possessed knowledge of electricity as well as being an enthusiast of ham radio suggesting he could have technical awareness to create a bomb. And if you remember that last letter that got sent to the police in 1974 that's debated if it was a zodiac killer or not. Signed it as the red phantom.
However, Ken Narlo, a lead investigator, concluded that Marshall was not a viable suspect. Additionally, the fingerprints held on file of the killer, including the bloody fingerprints left on the taxi cab did not match those of Rick Marshall. Marshall was interviewed by crimes of the century in 1983 saying, quote, I must have a double floating around.
I hope the poor guy doesn't look like me, but the fact is the characteristics you just mentioned fit me almost to a tee. I really am startled at the at the mass and accuracy of the detail. And obviously, if they had been that forthcoming about that at the time, I would have understood why they were investigating me by innocent, notwithstanding the details do fit. I feel like this is the zodiac killer because he's like, wow, you're right. That does sound like me. Maybe I did do it.
Yeah, he's almost convincing himself like, I did kill those people. Damn. Fucking fiend. What's going on here? Sorry, guys. Yeah, he's like, weirdly polite about it. Take me away. I deserve it. Like he's crying at the police's feet. I must have done it. One more suspect I wanted to mention that I wanted to take some more time to read about before we mentioned him in the episode is someone named Gary Post.
So a lot of you probably remember last year there were a bunch of like news articles and headlines with titles like the zodiac killers been identified or like finally after 50 years, the killer revealed those are insane exaggerations. The killer was not definitively identified. Instead, a group of people called the code breakers who are a bunch of like retired police or detectives who worked on the case before their retirement.
They determined that they believe Gary post to be the killer, which is still pretty, you know, something to be taken into account. That's pretty serious accusations. But that doesn't mean they've 100% identified the killer. But anyway, yeah, Gary post was a former airman. He has a long, long history of violence. There are people who lived with him after you move from California and live for a while in upstate New York.
Who said that he was incredibly violent. He killed animals just for fun. He's believed to be responsible in some other killings in other parts of the country. He's his own can of worms to get into. He's also dead now. He died in 2018. But the reasons that the code breakers consider him to be the killer is partial DNA that was found on one of these odiac letters matches two Gary's again only part of the story.
Again, only partially the way partial DNA works is if you don't have a whole sequence, it can narrow down the results of who you're looking for. But I can't find information as to exactly how partial that DNA was. So it could be a match for like half the population or you know, 10% the population or some big number.
The other reason is his perpetuate his his need for violence. A lot of people attribute that basically after all the information I get why people consider him to maybe be the zodiac killer also apparently the name Gary works for a lot of the ciphers within the actual
the actual zodiac ciphers. So that's pretty good evidence right that the killer's name might be Gary. But also that's been debated by other people who say it only works if you kind of make it work and it doesn't, you know, exactly apply but anyway, basically there's a lot of debate as to if Gary post is it or not if you saw the headlines saying the killers but been identified that's who they're talking about.
I just wanted to mention it because now because of all those headlines a lot of people think Gary post is the killer and while I get that and there's people far more qualified than you know ourselves who have said that I still think Lee Allen's the best guy for I'm still place my cards there. But yeah, Gary post is definitely someone worth mentioning.
Yeah, that's that's all of the biggest I think it's all of the biggest suspects in the case there were there were like 2500 other people that the police were investigating but these ones are always the biggest names that are brought up when talking about it personally I'm on I'm on the Lee Allen train I just there's just so many different elements there that just add up to him being the zodiac killer to me.
Other than that, I think the only other possibility for me because I don't buy I don't really buy the other three maybe a little bit Lawrence came but not so much as Alan the only other thing is that it's just someone that completely went by unnoticed by the police and hasn't been brought up at all I think that's entirely possible as well. Yeah, yeah, that is possible.
I don't know I think I think the zodiac killer like I like we talked about I think he gets too much credit for being like a ninestein level genius but he did know how much he could get away with I think he killed a few people probably the first five attention to kill seven and then from there he just starts gloating taunting and he gets the attention that he wants.
I do think Lee Allen's the most likely possibility which explains why he can the zodiac killer completely shut up after Lee Allen went to jail but despite all of that it is wildly frustrating that he never got if that is the case it's wildly frustrating that he never got payment for it in this life you know he was never prosecuted or anything I will say the one detail that kind of shuns me away a bit is if Lee Allen was a sexual pervert.
Like you know but he got you know fired for like touching kids why wasn't any of that scene in the killing yeah you think you would act out sexually as well yeah he tied up women completely defenseless stab them and then from everything we know did nothing to them before after they were dead so.
I don't know maybe it was just children that he was fascinated in so maybe he just wanted the attention of the killings and then that's where his sick fantasies came out at maybe that's why he talked about school buses I don't know but that is the one thing that kind of makes me squint a bit at it but I still do think Lee Allen's the most likely I know that Gary post a lot of people have faith in him but that's using one of the biggest problems about this case is I think there's a lot of people who are trying to get the right to get the right answer.
So the case is I think there is a world where we've correctly identified the zodiac killer if we took better care of evidence because all of the evidence that is on file has been torn to pieces there are investigators from around the country who were requesting pieces of the evidence so they could research the case themselves for fun I guess it was so there's cases of after police retire from the department they would take little pieces of evidence is like souvenirs everything was so.
So I understand out of the forensics we do have like people bank on Gary post being the killer and I get that but I don't think the evidence we do have that is enough to take me off of the Lee Allen train and also think it's really frustrating that the police incompetence then let him get away with it and police incompetence up until the end of the day
and police incompetence up until today let's him continue to get away with it yeah it's a frustrating case especially his dead bellings I hate that guy yeah he's dead I mean they're all dead I think all the prime suspects are at this point he's almost certainly dead yeah.
Oh yeah I definitely think that the zodiac killer is dead which means will never conclusively know who the zodiac killer is which is the most disappointing aspect of this whole puzzle to me is that we'll never get it like a concrete answer I don't think we will I don't think we'll ever see it.
What's wild is like a lot of these cases these high profile cases again like the unibomor or like Dahmer or stuff like that it's like they go on for so long and it's normally some gigantic mistake that's made at least to them getting caught or it's something that never could have been accounted for like the guy's brother
writing him out to the police right it's frustrating how these people can get away with it you know so easily or at least I couldn't before you know modern tech yeah I was going to say I think this is like the last case of that because with the way mass surveillance works currently there's no way I don't think there would be a zodiac killer in the modern age yeah good luck you you you it had I mean like there are killers who get away with this but it takes you have to be so far removed from society you have to be so like it takes a lot more time to get away with it.
It takes a lot more effort than it did back in the 60s well no I don't think there could be a zodiac killer in the sense that I don't think you'd be out of sending letters to the Oh no absolutely not yeah like this they would find the micro fibers of the stamp and find your home address they find that would fly yeah they'd have surveillance footage of air like the person
let it in the box basically yeah sending it off like there's no way they'd be able to get you pretty good like like I said Kaczynski was in the 90s and they were like using his stamps to like find micro fibers of tree samples to figure out what region of the countries and 2024 your your toast you're not getting away with it no way yeah so I think the zodiac is the loss of he's he's kind really which is good Charlie do you have any final thoughts
nothing on my end just another another great adventure with the boys here going to another happy you know fulfilling conversation yeah I think we'll agree instead that it's like like the most likely suspect is authorly Allen but yeah I also don't feel bad saying that because he was at least definitely a child molester right
who cares throwing everyone on the same yeah yeah yeah official statement of the red thread we don't like him if you're going to attribute to someone at Mayas will be the child molester yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a safe out yeah who for some reason had bomb instructions at his basement but whatever whatever for some reason yeah all right that's going to do it for this week's episode of the red thread we really appreciate you guys all hanging out with us and listening to this
just disappointing information really it sucks but at least we had fun while we did it and I'm hoping you guys have fun at home or you listened in if you're listening on Spotify just a reminder like if you follow it and rate it that's really appreciated it definitely helps that was discoverability on Spotify so lots of thanks to everyone who does that and lots of
thanks to everyone for just listening in general you it all it means so much to us and we really appreciate it we have a blast doing this it's a lot of fun so we hope that comes across to you guys and you guys enjoy it as well that's it for me if you guys want to say anything else thanks everybody yeah thank you also much for being here I'm having a ton of fun with the show
and it means a lot to see you guys show up and support it so thank you we can't say thank you enough means a lot yeah thank you and fuckly Allen for all that show on the station shit and also possibly being the zodiac killer but mainly the child stuff yeah alright thanks guys I'll see you next time thanks again bye bye