Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - ZODIAC SERIAL KILLER CASE CRACKED? LINKED TO DISMEMBERED ACTRESS?

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Elizabeth Short was an American woman found nude, murdered in Los Angeles, California, in 1947.  She became known as the "Black Dahlia." The case was highly publicized due to its gruesome nature, and remains unsolved. The Zodiac killer, pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer, murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay Area over the span of about nine months. He claimed in letters to have killed 37 people, but he was never identified. A new book suggests a conclusion, a connection between the death of the "Black Dahlia" and The Zodiac killer.  Alex Baber, Director at 'Cold Case Consultants of America'  says he's used AI and his code breaking skills to crack the Zodiac Killer's letter. The Zodiac Killer and Black Dahlia killer are the same. Joining Nancy Grace today: Alex Baber - Director at 'Cold Case Consultants of America' Neama Rahmani - Former Federal Prosecutor-turned-trial Attorney; Author: “Harvard to Hashtag;" INSTAGRAM: @Neamarahmani; X: @NeamaRahmani Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Sheryl McCollum - Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Host of podcast: Zone 7 --  and Author of a new book: "Swans Don't Swim in a Sewer: Solving the Cold Case of the Flint River Killer's Daughter;" X: @149zone7 Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author of "Blood Beneath My Feet," and Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;" X @JoScottForensic, Instagram @JoScottForensic Rachel Sharp - Crime Reporter from DailyMail.com Sydney Sumner - Investigative Reporter, ‘Crime Stories’ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Has the Zodiac serial killer case finally been cracked? And is it linked to a starlet? A dismembered actress, repeat, dismembered. Her limbs not attached to her body, severed just above the world. waist and positioned for a mom and her child out on a walk to find half her body?

Are they connected? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. An active serial killer terrorizes Northern California launching a violent rampage and identifying himself through the media as the Zodiac Killer, spreading fear across the state. The Zodiac Killer's case. very complex. But what we need to know, bottom line, he was a mad dog killer that killed

seemingly at random. The MO, modus operandi, method of operation, is very, very different between the known zodiac murders, a slew of dead bodies, typically found on lover's lanes where couples were alone together. Very, very different from the murder, the intricately planned, meticulously carried out, murder of a young Hollywood Starlet. Listen. It was headlines for 30 days straight.

They had a thousand law enforcement officers working on the case. This is Los Angeles' most notorious unsolved murder. It was Elizabeth Short. She was nude. She had been bisected at the waist. Bottom half of her body was posed obscenely. Her body bore torture marks, and her mouth was cut ear to ear into a hideous grin. I started looking at the crime itself, and what I discovered, to my surprise, was that the killer was a surgeon.

Not a meat cutter, not a butcher, a skilled professional surgeon. Well, that's a lot of content, a lot of information to digest. That's from our friends at 48 hours in E.T. Entertainment Tonight. Okay, let's take that one thing at a time. When you're trying a case, you do not want to mix up your evidence in front of that jury. A thousand L.E. Law enforcement on the case of Elizabeth Short. They said, nude, bisected at the waist. The bottom half of her body posed obscenely.

I guess that means with her legs apart. Her body had torture marks. Her mouth cut ear to ear in a hideous grin a la la the Joker in the Batman series is called a Glasgow smile. That is when the victim's face has been cut from the edges of the mouth up toward the ears to make a permanent smile. Who would do that? And then we hear Steve Hodel of retired LAPD state that the killer of Elizabeth Short, aka Black Dahlia, was not a meat cutter, not a butcher, but a skilled professional surgeon. Joining me in an all-star panel, what does Elizabeth Short's murder and bisection have to do with the Zodiac killer?

Years later, are they one and the same? Straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and host of a hit podcast series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. First of all, you and I have seen a fair many dismemberment. Bissection. That's a whole other can of worms, Joe Scott Morgan. Bissection, explain it. Yeah, we're not cutting in the vertical plane.

we're cutting in the horizontal plane, which means across the body. If you just think about where your umbilicus is, your navel, cut inferior to that area all the way across the body. The interesting thing about the incision, that particular incision, Nancy, is that the margins are what are referred to. And this is the reason Hodel is making this comment. The margins are very neat and clean. So this gives you an indication that this wasn't a standard butchery type of event. This is something that would have taken time. It would have taken a certain amount of skill.

And also going back to dismemberment, Nancy, these cases that we've seen both in practice and in covering in the news, it requires privacy. It requires a location that you can go to where no one else is going to see you. And it takes time. So you have to have time with the body alone. And the body has been prepped here. We have to think about that. There were reports where they were talking.

talking about that her body had actually been cleaned, Nancy, washed down, those sorts of things. And even in one bit that I read at some point in time, part of her bowels were actually tucked beneath the body. So this is somebody that not only felt comfortable in a private space with her, doing this to her, but also out there at that scene and laying her out, I guess in the early morning hours, where you could run the risk of being caught or being seen out there. This person had no compunction about this. Well, you know what, Joe Scott Morgan, the way that Elizabeth Short was murdered and bisected is even more intricate. Listen. The crime is extremely personal. Elizabeth's organs removed her body drained of blood before she's moved to the

lot where she's discovered. The heinous nature of the crime leads to floods of vague tips that leave officers waiting through suspects. A grand jury hears evidence regarding more than 20 possible perps, but never indicts. Before I go to our expert on the connection, the perceived connection between Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Shorts, murder and bisection and the Zodiac Killer, that would be Alex Weber joining us, director at Cold Case Consultants of America. Joe Scott, I'm sure that you must have seen Debtious. for Pete's sake, and one of his arch-nemesis, I don't want to spoil it for anybody, if you're

watching reruns, was that the ice truck killer was his own bio brother. The ice truck killer was one of the first time the general population had heard about draining a body of its blood before disposing of the body. Black Dahlia, aka Elizabeth Short, who was bisected, her body had been drained of blood before moved to the lot where she's discovered. What does that tell you? And how in the hay do you drain a body of blood? Well, even if you look at, there's classic image from Ed Gein's house where you've got one of his victims has been trust. up and just like you would a deer. And the body that lady's body was actually inverted. So my,

my speculation, there's no way to really drain up side down. Yeah. And so my thought is that the quickest way to do this is to you have to suspend the body. So let's just say that that you do this by section, you would literally have to take the lower torso and suspend it perhaps by the ankles so that you can drain the blood in that. Whereas with the upper torso, you've made this major incision. You can't just count on gravity to gently pull the blood out. You would need to do it as quickly as you possibly could. So perhaps suspend the body by the wrist or, and if this is done in a post-bordom state, you're not necessarily going to see any contusions on the wrist. Now, you might see some kind of abraded areas, but I haven't heard of anything like that. So that's kind of school of big.

You've gone, deaf come for. What I think he just said, and I'm just a trial lawyer, is that because she was likely already dead at the time she was bisected, that you're not going to see bruising. Once you're already dead, your heart's no longer beating and you don't bruise anymore. So any bruises, if this was done post-mortem after death, there would be no bruises. He said, braided. That means maybe an oppression was left on the skin. Let me think. Okay, so if I take this teacup

and I sit it right here after a while, there'll be a mark on my skin. Okay. So that could be left post-mortem. Yeah, it's potential, but we can tell the difference between post-mortem and antimortem prior to death.

But the watchword here, Nancy, in the draining is going to be gravity. So you've got this gravitational pull where, you know, blood is like any other fluid. It's going to seek the lowest point of gravity. So the blood would have to be pulled out and hence drain. And this is something that is commonly done in butchery.

You see it everywhere. You know, when bodies are actually embalmed, the fluids are pushed through the body with a pump. I don't think that that's what's happened here. There's no indication that there's any kind of injection sites or anything like that. Let me cut the chase, Joe Scott. Yeah. Weber and others believe that Elizabeth Short's body was bisected and likely drained at a

motel, the Zodiac motel, possibly, in the bathroom, in the bathtub. I don't see that. I'm not saying Zodiac is not the killer of Elizabeth Short yet, but I'm saying I don't think that could go

down in a motel bathtub because you have to suspend the body to drain it of blood. That's where I'm going with this. Yeah, well, it would depend upon how prepared the person was to do this that they could bring something with them. just like they would bring tools, all right?

So if this is something that they've planned out in their mind, you know, and here's something curious about the bathtub, and you could not go back and do this now, but, you know, in modern cases like this, I know of at least three off the top of my head that I've covered, where you go into all of these, all of these, to the plumbing, and you pull out the drain traps, and you can find blood, you can find other tissue.

People think that everything gets washed away, and that's not necessarily the case. That's something that would have had to have. to have been done back then. But yeah, I do not believe that was done in this case, Joe Scott, and you're absolutely correct. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Dr. Angela Arnold joining us, we're now a psychiatrist at Angela Arnold MD.

Angela, I'm asking you for a forensic reason. I find it hard to believe in. Babor disagrees with me that the second. A man that murdered Elizabeth Short so meticulously bisected her like a surgeon. Him is his MO, modus operandi, method of operation. In that case, it's entirely different than he wasn't seen, he was never spotted, even though he put the remains in a neighborhood area for pedestrians to find, never seen. So how does that jive with the M.O. of the Zodiac Killer who basically hunts down whoever

he can find on Lover's Lane and shoots him dead? He's actually spotted, for Pete's sake, an eyewitness sees him, is very haphazard compared to the murder of Elizabeth Short. How could that be the same person? Because I believe Elizabeth Short's killer had to go through this process, this almost religious moment where he kills the woman. He bisects her. He drains her blood.

He wipes her body down and cleans it. He poses her in a certain way. He gives her a Glasgow smile. Is that the same guy that sneaks up on lovers on lovers lane and shoots him dead? I do agree with you, Nancy. I, since when we look at serial killers, we try to see commonalities in what they And these two things are so completely different between the ritual and the haphazardness, between the way the dahlia, the black dahlia was touched and manipulated.

And the others were not. They were stabbed and shot. But that was completely different than the way she was killed. Joining us from the Cold Case Research Institute, Forensic Expert, and author of a brand new book, Swans Don't Swim in a sewer, solving the coal case of the Flint River. killer's daughter. Cheryl, also the star of a highly popular podcast, Zone 7. Cheryl, the MOs are entirely opposite. However, think of Ted Bundy. He changed his M.O.'s. Boy, did he? I think what's key for me here are MOs can change, but the signatures won't. The underlining

intent will not change. So what that killer needed and wanted with these murders, that's what I would be looking at. To me, that's critical, is the signature, not the MO. What signature? Well, for example, with, you know, Zodiac, his signature, he's going to shoot from a distance. He's going to stalk first. He's going to let them know he's there, almost frighten them. He wanted that to happen.

He wanted that interaction. Here, the other killer took great time. He tortured. He sexually assaulted. Those are two different signatures, baseline. Okay. I agree with you. Even though I know M.O.s can vary.

One killer can change an M.O. However, it's not typical. Usually the killer keeps the same M.O. joining me now a renowned trial lawyer from this jurisdiction. You know him well. It's Nima Ramani. Nima Romani, former federal prosecutor turned trial attorney, president, West Coast trial attorneys, author, Harvard to hashtag.

Nima, thank you for being with us. What do you make of the tenuous, well, some would say tenuous. Others say it's clear. Clear it's the same person. What do you make of it, Nima? Well, if you're looking at the evidence and if it's going to come in, whether it's a 404 analysis prior about acts or 1101, which is the evidence code here in California, no judge is going to let this in. It's far too speculative. It's far too tenuous.

You've got to present cases based on facts and evidence and not just speculation. So it's great to talk about it. People love serial killers. But this type of connection will never make it into any courtroom in this country. When you analyze evidence, Nima Romani, you and I have both brought in similar transactions in front of a jury. For instance, say the Zodiac killing is your case in chief. Killings are multiple victims. You would try to bring in the Elizabeth Short murder as a similar transaction.

What's similar other than you've got a dead body? Not a whole lot. And this evidence is very powerful. We see it typically in sexual assault cases. right, Weinstein, Cosby. I mean, really, they really tip the scales in those cases. So judges are very sensitive to this type of evidence because you can really dirty up a defendant. It's great for the prosecution. But if you don't have a clear connection, an MO, a pattern, something, and you're relying on what we have here, which frankly is not enough, it's not going to make it in,

Nancy. You and I both know that. Isn't it true, Nima Romani, that a jury is told, during the jury instructions that they can consider if they choose to, evidence that occurred before, during, and after the murder. Isn't that true? Absolutely. They can. But the judge is the gatekeeper. Well, listen to this. According to Alex Weber, therein lies the rub.

What happened after the murders. That is the link between the two. Listen. Richardson, the Los Angeles Examiner editor, receives a phone call from a man claiming to have killed Short, who promises to send Richardson souvenirs. Three days later, the examiner receives a manila envelope containing Short's birth certificate, business cards, and an address book, with the message, Here is Dahlia's belongings, letter to follow. The paper then receives a handwritten note, quote, turning in Wednesday, January 29th, 10 a.m., had my fun at police. Black Dahlia Avenger.

Police wait at the location the writer specifies, but no one appears to turn themselves in. And now joining us, the man of the hour, Alex Baiber. Alex Baer is the director of the Cold Case Consultants of America, and he is the investigative consultant who says he has used AI and his own code-breaking skills to crack the Zodiac Killer's letter. He also says Zodiac is also the Black Dahlia Avenger, the killer. Alex, thank you for being with us tonight. Alex, before I get into the evidence in the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short case,

tell me about what happened after the murders. Both killers began taunting the police and the media. That's correct, Nancy. Thank you for having me. What we discovered was that in both incidents, the perpetrator mailed in multiple letters to multiple newspapers to announce his crime that he committed and to take credit for it. San Francisco has a killer in its midst. He had this black hood on little slits in the eyes. He goes around killing me by rope, by gun, by knife. And he says, I'm going to call myself a Zodian.

American law enforcement has never seen anything like this. It turned into a public obsession. The TV shows, the books, the movie. I want you to print this cipher on your front page. Zodiac was different. He got away with it. This from Netflix, this is the Zodiac speaking.

The Zodiac killer taunts law enforcement sending cryptic letters and coded messages to newspapers daring police to stop. him while threatening more violence. Has the Zodiac serial killer case been cracked and is the Black Dahlia Avenger who murdered a young starlet and bisected her body? One in the same. Is it the Zodiac killer?

Joining me in an all-star panel straight out to a special guest, Rachel Sharp, joining us. Investigative Crime Reporter for DailyMail.com, who got a worldwide experience. exclusive on this case. Rachel Sharp, what do you make of it? Well, to me, the evidence is, you know, the case Alex has presented is very compelling. There's a lot of links between the two crimes connecting the suspect Marvin Margolis to both cases. Rachel Sharp, you say there are a lot of links between the two. I find the ciphers, the taunting in both cases, to...

be a link. What other link do you think is probative proves that they're one and the same? So a lot of the links between the two is a lot of circumstantial evidence that, you know, through Alex's investigation, he has unearthed. Obviously the big one being the solving of the Z-13 cipher. Now, many people have tried to solve that before. Alex has found a solution and And the solution actually points to the name of one of the prime suspects in the Black Dahlia murder. What makes that quite compelling is that that evidence was presented to the chief US codemaker and codebreaker for the NSA at Giorgio. And he has verified it. So, you know, you have one of the top cipher experts saying that they believe that that solution is correct.

Rachel Sharp, is there any forensic evidence or any proof at all that Black Dahlia's killer, Elizabeth Schwartz killer, actually killed her at the Zodiac Motel? So at the time, police believed that she was murdered elsewhere because, as mentioned previously, she was found without blood. There was no blood at the crime scene. So they believe that she was killed elsewhere. and the theory that police were searching for was that she was killed in a bathtub, and that was how they, you know, they didn't find this grisly crime scene anywhere else. Okay, so I'm not hearing anything

that says she was killed at Zodiac Motel. Do you have any evidence suggesting she was killed at Zodiac Motel? Anything. I mean, you're saying a bathtub. I don't know that. What bathtub? Where? Is anything?

I know Alex Weber that there was an eyewitness. at the time that stated he saw a male at Zodiac Motel that generally fit the description of your PURP. But there was never a positive ID. No blood? Is there something else linking him, Margolis, to Zodiac Motel? Yeah, actually the account wasn't at the motel itself. What it was is there's three independent eyewitness accounts,

three managers of three other motels that evening on the 14th where this individual fit in Margollus's description. and his vehicle parks a block away, goes in, and asks for a room with a tub in specific. They say they don't have one. If you mark the hotels, you follow the line, then you have a credible witness at the end, which is a DMV investigator.

Her name's Irene Donaldson. She says she sees them coming northeast on San Antonio, turning north on orange. And at that point, she witnesses Elizabeth Short in the back of the vehicle being pinioned by a male figure with two other individuals in the front seat, one being a male driver. and the pastor's side being a female.

If you draw a line from that to the location of her bodies was discovered, the only motel in between is the Zodiac Motel, which was just opened in June of 1946, six months prior, and it had specifically a tub, which was not common, according to records in the area at that time. Most of them had showers. Okay. So you have someone generally fitting Margolis description

with a woman in the front seat. Mm-hmm. and the only motel that had a tub in the area was Zodiac, but I don't have anybody placing him or her as Zodiac. I don't have a receipt, nothing like that, but you are triangulating the location and determining that was the only motel with a tub at the time. Well, we also discovered the fact they found that Canvas Ice Bag

just north of where her body was dropped. That Canvas Ice Bag is marked with one letter, which is a red letter Z doing our research. We discovered that at that time, the ice trucks that came along usually labeled the canvas ice bags at the first initial of the hotel or motel they were dropping off the ice at. And this was

again discovered just north of where her body was. And there's documentation on this in the reports. The leap from Elizabeth Short Black Dahlia Avenger Killer to Zodiac. Okay, I've told you what happened in Black Dahlia

in her murder, her bisection, in her posing, meticulous murdered and her body very, very carefully prepared for a display. Let's analyze what happened with Zodiac. December 20th high school students, Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday drive to the outskirts of Vallejo and park on a secluded lover's lane. Passing drivers noticed the couple around 1030 and 11 p.m. Minutes later, another driver parks 10 feet behind and fires shots at the car. The teens scrambled to exit and David is shot in the head. head. Betty Lou is shot in the back five times as she flees. The couple is found 10 minutes later,

neither surviving. The killer leaves no evidence. But that's not the end. The Zodiac killer goes on. Listen. Six months later, Darlene Farron and Michael McGough are parked at Blue Rock Springs Park when what they think is the cop car pulls up. Michael rolls down the window and is shot in the arm. The bullet hits Darlene in the neck. The attacker shoots the couple twice more each. and disappears. Three months after that, Cecilia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell are attacked on the beach of Lake Berry Yessa. Bound and stabbed, Hartnell survives describing a man in a black hood with a scope symbol on his clothing. The attacker wrote the same symbol on their car door with the message 12-268, 7-4-69, September 2769, 630 by knife. Wow. Okay, Alex Baiber, that's very convincing

to me that the same person attacked all of the couples. Did you notice where the dates of those murders were written on the side of those last victim's car? That the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, is not mentioned. It's not part of the Zodiac moniker at that point. What it is is Elizabeth Short's murder or homicide was personal. Everybody agrees upon that. He stopped her for three months.

He found her at the last minute before she left town. He isolates her. He mutilates her. He bisects her. And he end he stages her body. The Zodiac taking place some 23 years later has no personal connection. At this point, he's older. There are connections between the location.

We know Elizabeth Short arrived in Vallejo in 1942 on December 20th, the same date as the initial attack. We also know that her father's stages drowning on October 11th, 1930. The exact same date that's Paul Stein. was murdered. There's all these other links that are in there. They're circumstantial, right? But what we do have is physical evidence supporting our circumstantial evidence. And us knowing that Elizabeth had a personal connection to Vallejo. There's over 450 cities in towns in California. And you have these two. And Vallejo's not a very, very well-known city outside of the zodiac attacks, right? It's kind of a mom-and-pop town or it used to be at that time. With that being said,

if it wasn't personal for him to commit the strides in Vallejo, why not just go 30 minutes, you know, to the west and take all of his attacks in San Francisco. So as far as an M.O. goes, he changes M.O. within his own M.O. You start out shooting couples with firearm. And then you change to killing or attacking couples with a bladed weapon. And then you isolate an adult male in a cab in an upscale neighborhood. So the whole M.O. things, it's not going to stand with most people out there.

The fact is that other people like DeAngelo, his M.O. Evolve, the Golden State Killer, you mentioned Bundy. I can give you a list of infamous cases that are very similar. So the signature has even changed. But what happens is when somebody evolves, they get older, their signature does change. The killer keeps his identity hidden, targeting young victims in isolated locations while the public lives in fear, never knowing when or where he may strike next. Interesting that choice of words that the killer keeps his identity hidden because he was actually spotted by some of the victims wearing a black hoodie, Unabomber style, with a cross in a circle that many people state is a scope, like a gun scope. He was spotted. The real similarity is the taunting of the media.

The Vallejo Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Examiner receive letters taking credit for the killings of David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, and Darlene Farron. Each copy contains a third of a 408 symbol cryptogram, which the writer demands be printed on their front page. Days later, a second letter arrives, the first line, Dear Editor, This is the Zodiac speaking. It describes the killings in detail and earns the self-proclaimed murderer the title Zodiac. killer. Later letters include more ciphers, information on the murders, including swatches of Paul Stein's shirt, and taunts that police have no leads on the Zodiac's identity. That's absolutely the killer. He has swatches of one of the victim's bloody shirt and included it in his letters to the media. Just as Elizabeth Shorts, the Black Dahlia's killer taunted, so is Zodiac. But that by far, just... Scott Morgan would not be the first killer to taunt media or police. You've got son of Sam Berkowitz, B.TK, Dennis Raider.

He couldn't stop himself from taunting. The Unabomber, Teghazinsky, and his massive manifesto, his brother recognized terms and phrases he would use and turned him in. Gary Ridgway typed a letter. and, of course, Zodiac remains unknown. So many killers have taunted. But what do you see is a connection between the taunting by Zodiac and the taunting by Black Dahlia's killer, if any?

Yeah, I don't know that I necessarily see connectivity here. I do find it very, very interesting that the geographical connection. when you begin to think about Vallejo. And also, if you go back and you look at Elizabeth Short's remains, not only were they bisected and certainly abused post-mortemly. But, you know, she was there. She also had stab wounds as well, Nancy. If you go back to the couple at the lake, they had multiple stab wounds.

you know, when this character comes out of nowhere and is dressed in this weirdo costume, some people described it as almost looking medieval. And those stab wounds were there. So I don't, the problem is, I think it's hard to have connectivity from a scientific standpoint. I'm talking about as a forensic scientist here, you know, what are you going to do to go back? A few years ago, we had this Gary, I think Gary Stewart guy came out and said that, You know, his dad was the Zodiac killer. I remember being on a program at some point in time, relative to that,

claim that there was genetic connectivity in that case. And I've heard other people make this claim before. So for me, scientifically, I'm going to have to have something. I'm going to need to see something that is scientifically connective here, the tissue here. You know, we can talk about cuts all day long. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I hear you.

not only is there the taunting that is similar, not exactly the same, but there is more. I want you to hear this. We have identified the individual who committed these crimes. He is probably the smartest criminal to ever live. He had a medical background. He was a USC medical student, and he was also a former Marine. Alex Baer, the co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America, claims AI helped him definitively solve the Z-13 cipher. Weber says the program narrowed down 71 million possible names to 14 based on age, gender, and possible experience with World War II code-making methods.

Due to the methods used in the Z-480 and Z-340 ciphers, Bayber then eliminated 13 of those names with old-fashioned detective work, leaving Marvin Merrill as the solution to the cryptogram. Ed Giorgio, former NSA chief codebreaker and maker, reviews Baber's work. and says the methods are sound. To the man of the hour, Alex Baber, who claims that Zodiac and the Black Dahlia Avenger is one in the same. You, by cracking that cipher along with help from AI and more, you cracked it.

You're saying that it absolutely proves that Marvin Meryl is Zodiac. What did Marvin Meryl have to do with Elizabeth Short. Okay, so to start out, we know that Marble Margo Liss was the last known boyfriend, Elizabeth Short, according to the files. They lived together for 12 days in October.

We know she left October 22nd under threat from him. She's on the street. She gets picked up by a guy named Glenn Kearns, who gives her a ride. They make an agreement. Glenn returns to apartment 726 to Margois lived in and gathers her belongings for her. And she does not go.

He does it for her. how scared she is he then goes on her she goes on a run from him for three months she gets on a bus even heads to san diega where she has no friends no family no money no food is discovered in a 24-hour theater called the ashtack by by the french daughter who takes her in for 30 days of her mom Vera she tells them i'm fearful of my ex-marine boyfriend who's searching for me that's why i'm down here hiding and then he finds her because he makes a phone call and asks for 20 dollars from mark hanson so he shows up the door beating on it that night the next day she has read mainly take her back to LA. So he's stalking her for three months leading up to her murder. And there was no missing

week. We identified reports, including one from Officer Merrill McBride, who had reported her approaching her in the state of hysteria on the evening of the 14th. She identified Elizabeth Short's body after she looked at the pictures and confirmed them. She comes back two hours later. She says, I'm not so sure about the identification, you know. Why is that? Is someone tell her to change her perspective? You can't have a police officer in the last individual to see a woman who's just mutilated and murdered, right? So that being said, she goes and she identifies the body at the coroner's office. That tells you right there that we have the right individual. It is Elizabeth's short. So there is no missing week. So you're telling me, Alex Weber, that by cracking the cipher, you identify Marvin Merrill.

By cracking the cipher, we never used it as a piece of evidence, Nancy. It was an investigative tool. He was just one of hundreds of thousands of potential names or solutions, right? Well, What we did do is do the end of the investigation, eliminate all the individuals that were real world living beings opposed to just letter frequency name gathering or groupings. So we were able to eliminate 94% of the $74 million at that point, right? A little over $71 million. And once we get that name, we're able to say, okay, does this guy have a background? Is he the right race? Does he have the height?

Does he have the features? Does he have the background? You know, we identified a vehicle that was witnessed at Lake Beriesza an hour and a half because, before the murders were committed on Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard. That vehicle, once he's arrested in 71, is put for sale in a classified ad, the exact same vehicle that was used at Lake Bariessa. Is that a coincidence?

And he listed under his wife's name to sell the vehicle. That's a lot of evidence, Alex. After you crack the cipher, you then do all the investigation work, you just described and more, and you come up with, in the real world, applying the knowledge from the cipher to the facts, the description, the car, the circumstances, and you come up with one individual where it fits, and it's Marvin Meryl. Then you learn years before Marvin Meryl, who you now believe is Zodiac, dated, lived with for, I think,

about 12 days, and stalked Elizabeth Short just before her murder. Is that correct? That is correct. I believe that Marvin Merrill was always a good suspect on Elizabeth Schwartz homicide, probably one of my top five when I got the original DA files. But connecting him directly to Zodiac did not happen. And so I uploaded his information as Marvin Merrill about the Social Security Administration report and realized that he filed the name Margolis and Merrill under the same exact security number.

At that point, I knew it was the same individual. So to you, Nima Romani, is it starting to get real? Potentially, yes. Look, if you're talking about the cipher, Nancy, that's an admission to me. That's not any type of link. And obviously, I'm no code breaker. I've got to defer to the experts on that. So what I'm hearing are three types of evidence, right?

The fact that maybe the Black Dahlia Killer stayed at the Zodiac Motel, or that's where the murder happened. I don't think that's enough. Then you have the taunting, and he went through it, Nancy. There's a lot of different killers over the years that have contacted the media, even taunted the media. I mean, throwing Bob Durst as one. that happened here in LA, right? So the famous Beverly letter to LAPD. So, you know, and now you have the third piece of evidence that I've heard. And again, I'm not an expert. Maybe I've got to talk to Joseph and others is that bayonet from decades before World War II,

which may have been one of the murder weapons, again, unless I have something. We know as lawyers, Nancy, it's not what you think. It's not even what you know. It's what you can prove. But I don't think This evidence would get a guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt, maybe in the Black Dahlia case, but certainly not in the Zodiac Killer case. In Okinawa, Margolis was under bombing for 29 days, then ordered to set up a hospital. He worked long hours with little sleep, under frequent air raids, saw many buddies in mangled shape. His setup was in a small cave. A rain caused the sides to cave in. He was buried, all but his head, which was held tight like a vice.

The next morning he dug out. He became amnesic, emotional with depression and instability. By today's standards, he would be flagged at the local VA, meaning that doctors would say, okay, this soldier here has just come back from active duty overseas in combat, that he needs to be watched. He needs to have further psychological evaluations. We are talking about the potential Zodiac killer being Merrill, aka Margolis, and there's more.

The psychiatric diagnosis is as follows. The subject is calm, quiet, and a resentful individual who shows ample evidence of open aggression. At present, this man shows a lack of interest, aims, and ability to concentrate. Margolis is sullen. His personality is not pleasing, apathetic, and inclined to sarcasm. He said that the next time there is a war, two of us are not going, the one who comes after me and myself.

He stated that he, if there was another war, somebody came for him, that two people weren't going. It would be him and an individual who came. So he's basically threatened the life of whoever shows up at his door for a draft. That from Killer in the Code podcast. Back to Alex Weber, who is making a connection between Elizabeth Schwartz, murder, and bisection to the Zodiac Killer. Zodiac still is unsolved.

How do you believe that Margolis, what he endured in the World War, could have affected him? Well, PDSD, they called a shell shock at that time, Nancy. It was quite common for veterans who were returning from World War II. And identifying the fact that he was discharged under 50% mental disability at that time. And his evaluation, which part of it was just read, he was definitely a loose cannon. He was explosive. And the grand jury files indicate that as well whenever they're doing the detective testimony under oath. They make that clear as well.

There is also talk of the bayonet that he, Margolis, brought home the Japanese bayonet. How does that factor in? Listen. Weber also discovers an article on Marvin Margolis' heroism in World War II. Margolis is quoted in the article as bringing home a Japanese rifle and bayonet. He took off a soldier he claimed to have killed. Weber says the specific mention of the bayonet ties Margolis to the Zodiac killings, as the weapon matches that used in the attack on Cecilia Shepard and Brian Hartnell. And symbols commonly etched into the knives make several appearances in the Zodiac ciphers.

I agree with Romani on this, the speculation that the bayonet from Japan in the war somehow connects to Zodiac. I find that very tenuous. This is evidence that I find to be probative, and I believe even Cheryl McCollum and Nima Romani are going to agree. Listen. Weber discovers a striking fact. Margolis was a prime suspect in Elizabeth Short's murder two decades before the Zodiac killings. Elizabeth and Margoas dated several months before her death,

and Elizabeth even lived with Margolis very briefly in an apartment Margoly shared with a wartime friend Bill Robinson, who served as a cryptographer and signal corps officer in the war. When questioned about their relationship with Short, both Margolis and Robinson were deemed untruthful by authorities, but officers had no direct evidence tying Margolis to the murder. What brought Margolis to the attention of the investigator was that he and Elizabeth Short had shared an apartment in Hollywood for 12 days in October, just three months before her murder. Cheryl McCollum, I'm not ready to make that connection yet. Like Romani, I wouldn't quite put it in front of a jury as a similar. But the fact that Margolis, Merrill, lived with Elizabeth Short, even for 12 days,

they dated and he stalked her just before her murders. That's probative. So if he is the Zodiac killer, that suggests to me he could have been the Black Dahlia Avenger. He clearly would be somebody I would want to look at for Elizabeth's murder. But that's a personal connection. Again, that's almost revengeful. That's how her murder looks to me. I'm going to torture you. I'm going to punish you.

I'm going to hit you in the head. I'm going to cut your tattoo off. I'm going to tie you up. I'm going to cut you in half. I'm going to drain your blood. That is not what I'm seeing in Zodiac. It's almost like you have a lust killer in one event and a mission-oriented killer in the other.

They still seem two separate people to me. What about it, Neiman Romani? Again, I think that there's evidence, certainly circumstantial evidence, that Margolis or Merrill is Schwartz killer. I mean, we know that today's stalker, domestic violence, is tomorrow's murder. Look, if anything happens to me, Nancy,

my wife should be the number one suspect. So I understand that. I don't understand, and I can't prove the connection to Zodiac. That's the problem. all we have is the motel, this bayonet. Now again, if the code is an admission, a confession, sure, that's something. But other than that, we don't have enough to prove that these are the same two individuals that killed folks in Vallejo and who killed Elizabeth Short.

Well, there's more. Listen. Weber convinces Merrill's son to meet in person. Weber comes clean about his theory Merrill is Zodiac. and asks the son if he recognizes the handwriting in the Zodiac letters. Babor also mentions his theory Meryl's first victim was Elizabeth Short, and the son perks up at the name Elizabeth, showing Babor his father's last sketch, a nude woman's torso under the name Elizabeth. Weber discovers the word zodiac written underneath dark shading in the sketch.

Looking at a sketch of a nude woman, you know, from the way stop, They appears to have puncture wounds to the torso area with smeared blood. And it has Elizabeth in bold writing. The biggest writing on the entire sketch, it says Elizabeth. It was a smoking gun. We knew that this sketch was a piece of evidence. It was physical evidence for the first time since the package was mailed to the local newspapers in L.A. on January 24th, 1947.

Alex, Alex, Biller, joining us tonight. Alex, tell me what happened when you meet with Meryl's. son. Oh, he was very open to me and my associate. We started to present our findings on his father, the letters of particular. He recognized the handwriting immediately. He became slightly emotional, reached out of all the people I've interviewed, the first time once ever initiated physical contact with me,

reaching across the table and grabbing my hand saying, this is going to be okay. We're going to be all right. That was a red flag to me. As I'm moving through, and I mentioned the black. Dahlia connection we had uncovered through the DA files. He said, it was their name, Elizabeth? I said, yeah. So he said, give me a moment. So he starts flipping through his phone, finds his photograph. And instantly, when I opened it up, he handed me his phone, I zoom in on it. The first thing I see

are puncture wounds to the torso. They're not ribcaged. They're not there for contrast. There are literal puncture wounds to the center of her torso that match up with the autopsy photographs, and it appears to be smeared blood over them. You know, we have what looks like the top of the breast tissue removed from the exposed breasts. We have the clear indication, which we're getting analyzed and forensic experts going to give us an opinion on it, but we know it has the word zodiac hidden underneath the shading. Why would this guy who's just got diagnosed a stage 4 cancer? He has less than a year to live.

He creates a sketch with the big name Elizabeth of a nude woman. There's no navel indicated in the sketch. It could be below that, but if you look at the torso length, it stands out to me that she's lying or sitting in something because there's dark shading in between her torso in her arms and just outside of both of her arms, as if she's laying in a tub. Her hair appears wet. Her eyes look like they're dimmed out and zoom in on them. And then we have these pieces of guilty evidence that are within the sketch. That's not public domain. That's not something that somebody would know unless a, the perpetrator or be there present when her body was discovered. Straight out to Sidney, some are joining us. Crime Stories investigative reporter. Sydney, There are many, many theories out there about who is really Zodiac, right?

Absolutely. There have been a number of people who have come forward claiming they believe their father, their grandfather was the Zodiac killer, and the same goes for Elizabeth Short. As a matter of fact, here is one theory that George Hodel is the killer. I believe I know who killed the Black Dahlia. His name was George Hodel, but here's the kicker. I also think he was the Zodiac killer. After George's death, his son, Steve, found pictures that resembled the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short.

And since he found that picture, he's been able to catalog enough evidence to make a book. And here's just a few parts of that evidence. There were six prime suspects at the time of Elizabeth Short's murder. Turns out George Hodel was one of them. They even bugged his home for a little bit. And I'm going to read you one of the transcripts. Supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They can't prove it.

They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead. Okay, to Alex Weber. What about Hodel as the Black Dahlia killer? Does it work for you? We already disproved him as did LEP back in early 2000s. They investigated Steve Haudel's findings, and Missy Roberts could probably tell you more about this, but they actually did balk his claims.

There's no connection. There was never any intimate relationship or known relationship between Elizabeth Short and Dr. George Hill Hodel at all. As far as the recording of the house goes, if you're going to be intimate with somebody as his son claims in nine or 13 books, what would make sense to me is when he's talking about it in the privacy of his residence, he's going to refer to her by name, whether it be Elizabeth Beth Betty. He's not going to refer to her as the black dahlia in the privacy of his residence. It makes no sense.

Alex, that jumped out at me as well. Why would he refer to her as the black dog? Alia. Okay. I agree with you on that. You know, Cheryl McCollum, the fact that Hodel was considered a suspect at the time is good police work. You run down every potential suspect so you're ready when you finally accuse someone publicly because everybody you researched or you investigated can then become a defense for the defense. Hey, didn't you think it was Hodel? It's the police duty to run down every single potential suspect, right? It is absolutely their duty.

Nancy, they even looked at Bugsy Siegel for Elizabeth's murder. I mean, they had everybody on their list. A lot of these folks, they heard them, whether they should have or not, but they did. Again, what we're looking at here is zero physical evidence. It would be great if we could pull a fingerprint off one of the letters. If we could get DNA off an envelope that he'd list. for a stamp. We don't have that here. What we have is a great theory, but we had it with Arthur Lee Allen. I mean, we've had it with other people that looked good for some of these murders.

I don't know. The fact that Margolis was actually dating Elizabeth Short and is now potentially the Zodiac, I find that connection right there, very, very probative. But there are other theories. listen. My grandpa is the Zodiac killer. Let's talk about it. My grandpa was a Vallejo police officer. Yes, the same area where the Zodiac killer's killings took place. Darlene Farron and her boyfriend, Mike, were driving around Vallejo one night. The night

that my grandfather happened to be on duty driving an unmarked police car and wearing plain clothes. Mike, who ended up surviving the shooting, said that they were being followed around by this car all night in Valleo before they pulled in the Blue Rock Springs. They said when they parked, the car pulled in, a man hopped out of the car in Darlene, the girl who passed away said,

oh my God, that's Richard. He's going to kill us both. She had a painting party at her house a few weeks before her murder, and it was said that my grandfather, Richard Hoffman, showed up uninvited, and she told her circle of friends that she is scared to death of him. That's from at J-430 on TikTok, and there's even speculation that Ted Cruz is the killer. Could Ted Cruz actually be the Zodiac Killer? So on March 14, 2013, multiple users tweeted, hashtag CPAC alert. Ted Cruz is speaking. His speech is titled, This is the Zodiac Speaking. Ted Cruz himself referenced the meme by tweeting out an infamous picture of a coded letter written by the Zodiac Killer. He did something similar on October 31st, 2018, when he tweeted another Zodiac cipher and included the

caption, Happy Halloween. For most, this just proved that Cruz was in on the joke, but it may have added some legitimacy for others. Some people also feel that there is somewhat of a resemblance between crews and the police sketches of the Zodiac killer. That's from at BuzzFeed Unsolved on TikTok and on and on. I could play you conspiracy theories from now till the end of time about who is Zodiac. To you, Rachel Sharp, what do you find to be the most compelling theory? Yeah, I mean as you point out, there's so many, there's been so many occasions where people have claimed to have solved the Zodiac and the Black Dahlia cases. What I do think differentiates the case here is in the Black Dahlia case, you have someone who was

in a relationship with Elizabeth Short. He was also had that surgical experience. He was in the medical court while he served overseas in World War II. And he was also training at the time. at USC Medical School. So we had both of those characteristics. He also was named as a suspect and that was by the LA authorities at the time. And that was, you know, one of the reasons they gave for that was that he was the only boyfriend that lived with Elizabeth Short, had that medical training and was also the only one who had marine experience. Obviously, we know that a police officer encountered the woman she believed was short the night before, who said that she was afraid of a Marine. So the evidence there is quite compelling. And then couple that with the zodiac

and the solving of the solution to the Z13 cipher, which, as we say, has been verified by one of the top codebreakers in the world. Then, you know, you put the cases together and it is certainly a very compelling argument. You have the space. you have the motel, you have the cipher, you have also a gap in the zodiac's correspondence. So there was a three-year gap in the zodiac correspondence from 1971 to 1974. And what's curious is that that timing actually corresponded with a three-year probation period where Marvin Mogollos had been convicted of fraud and was under probation for that time. So while it does need further investigation, there is a lot of compelling evidence there.

And I think what sets us apart is that it's attracted experts. You know, this isn't sort of theories. This has got the top code breaker who has said the solution is correct to the Z-13 cipher. You have some former LAPD homicide detectives who have actually gone on the record and, you know, said they believe this is solved. And we also know that police are actively reviews things as well. So while there has been a lot of theories, a lot of speculation, a lot of people claiming to have solved these cases, we least know that police are taking this seriously. Sydney Sumner, what about it?

I have to agree, Nancy. It's all very compelling when you look at all of this circumstantial evidence put together. And what Weber's theory really focuses on is that sketch. That is a physical piece of evidence. And while it could mean many things, it just seems like an incredible coincidence that on his deathbed, Marvin Merrill, Marvin Margolis draws this sketch of Elizabeth matching that upper torso, that bisected body. And the word zodiac is just conveniently tucked in there, it really makes you want to believe that this could be the solution.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Back to Alex Weber joining us, Director of Cole Case Consultants of America. You've devoted countless man-hours to solving this. So if you firmly believe that Merrill is Zodiac, not just because of the cipher, but because of other evidence, The connection of Merrill, aka. Margolis, to Elizabeth Short, is clear. They lived together. She was afraid of him just shortly before her death.

And the murder was so intensely personal. Again, why are you convinced that Merrill is Zodiac? Because I think I've got him on short. But what about Zodiac? Good question, Nancy. So here's what we got. We discovered that this individual was living, having two residents under two names, which were aliases. One was Marvin Merrill in the Oceanside, Carlspad location.

And then in the North Bay in San Jose, he's using Skip Merrill, right? At the same time. And his family that we spoke to couldn't account for his whereabouts. One assumed that he was in the Vista Oceanside area. The other ones are like, we don't know where our dad was, right? And then we find out that his background, we can connect directly to, to the area in the north, while also having these overlaps between the events that took place in the crimes and his traveling or where he was at at the time. We can go all the way back to

1962. So when he arrives in Oceanside in February of 62, a month and a half later, a cab driver named Ray Davis's murder. And this was not from me, but if you search the internet, you'll see that there is other people who have linked him as being a possible zodiac suspect back to 62 as a cab driver it mimics Paul Stein attack almost identical there's called a law enforcement mocking them there's uh the murders committed and then they make fun of law enforcement but not catching him and then he threatens to take out a bus it's almost a mirror image of what happened with paul stein so margolus moves into ocean side a month and a half later this murder takes place right and then the same thing happens some what seven years later and is that a coincidence

Every place that this guy goes, every place that he lives, there's either a Zodiac crime committed, there's a suspected Zodiac crime committed, or there's a Zodiac lettermeled across the nation, literally, even in Atlanta. We'll discuss that later in our podcast, but every time this guy's goes somewhere, there's a connection. Either he's the most unluckiest guy on the planet, or he's the perpetrator. When you say everywhere Margolis, aka. A.K. A. Merrill goes. There was a Zodiac type killing. Where?

We have the ones in the Oceanside area. We have the ones in the Bay Area. We have the letters that connect, not just from those two locations or communications, but we also have those that are connected into Atlanta in early 80s. I mean, there's everywhere, literally, where this guy goes, and there's a Zodiac letter, mail or a cry, he's there.

He has connections to it. You know, but that's very, very probative. It proves something to me. What was holding me up was the difference in the M.O.s and the time lapse between Elizabeth Short's murder and the commencement of the Zodiac killings. But if you can nail him, Merrill, and Zodiac, I don't think it's a leap for short because of their relationship. It's very obvious. As Nima Romani said earlier, you look to who is dating or living with the person at that time and it was Merrill. What do you make of all these other theories? I play just a few of them.

Well, there's multiple theories out there. Everybody's accused their brother, their sister, their father, their dog, the mailman. But none of them have substantiated evidence or physical evidence as we do the sketch. And, you know, we have these other things. There's over 132 pieces of circumstantial evidence plus physical evidence that we gather. That's overwhelming. We spoke to one of the active DAs in Los Angeles who said he's convicted people on lesser evidence. Alex, let me ask you, you spent so much time on this cipher. What in the cipher convinces you? It's a Zodiac cipher.

What in the cipher convinces you, Zodiac is Merrill? Well, the fact that the same methodology that was identified in December 2020 by Dave Orncheck and his team, which is a double-layer transposition as well as a substitution. What I did is I took that similar hypotheses and applied it on a scaled down level. So I created a grid as its other ciphers are created, a two by seven adding what's called a null. At that point, identified the permutation username, giving me 5,040 possible names based on that methodology. Eliminate all the other suspects that were within that permutation sequence. And then we submitted it to Ed Giorgio, who had his findings peer reviewed, and they discovered that the key word to that cipher is the name Elizabeth.

Meaning when you apply the key word in the creation of the permutation. Her name is the key word to solving the cipher. That's beyond coincidence, Nancy. Wow. So you would say that based on what you learned in the cipher, the use of Elizabeth as the key word identifies Merrill. It's just another piece, another log on the fire, Nancy. We have so many pieces connecting this guy.

and what's the odds at his name now let me look at this some of the perspective from the viewers so you have to find a suspect in another crime if you're trying to stage this that would be Marvin Margole's and you have to hope he has an alias that matches the letter frequency or character count within the Z13 which is Marvin Merrill then you have to have the luck that it's a double methodology like the Z340 was it was discovered December 2020 and then you have to apply the permutation key which happens to be Elizabeth there's better odds of buying a lottery ticket and hitting the power ball, then there is at all of these being coincidences. So, Alex, are you telling me that the permutation keyword to cracking the cipher is Elizabeth?

And by using that permutation keyword, the name Merrill came out of the cipher. You are 100% correct, Nancy. Wow. Okay. You know what? In my world, Two is a coincidence. Three is a pattern. You have developed so much evidence to point to Merrill being Zodiac and Merrill having stalked Elizabeth Short. Will we ever know the truth? If you know or think you know anything about this case, please go to tips.

FBI gov. There are still family members who want justice. Tonight, we remember an American hero, Officer Andy Chan, of Philly PD, killed in the line of duty,

leaving behind a wife turned widow and three children without a father. American hero, Officer Andy Chan. Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.