Criminology - A Killer Changes His MO

Episode Date: August 26, 2017

In this episode, we pick up the investigation of the Lake Berryessa attack that we covered in episode 2. There are some very good clues found at the crime scene. A murder of a cab driver in San Francisco appears to be random, most likely committed during a robbery. But very quickly the Zodiac resumes his communication with the press. He has a need to take credit for his work and to poke fun at the police. Police will see just how close they were to catching this killer.  We're joined in the episode by Dr. Katherine Ramsland who weighs in with her thoughts on Zodiac. Expect to hear more from Dr. Ramsland and other experts in their field as this season of Criminology unfolds. The hunt for the Zodiac is just beginning. You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology Follow us on Twitter @criminologypod You can find us on Facebook by searching Criminology Podcast      An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This guy is a pathological, a psycho killer. There's no doubt about it. Is there any doubt in your mind that there is or is not any connection between Balletio and various? This, we're sifting out now. I wouldn't say that there is any connection, yet I wouldn't want to tell you that there isn't at this time. We have some pretty good physical.

evidence that we're working on now. And of course, we're going to get together with the Vallejo authorities. We've been in contact with them since the incident and we definitely will pool our resources. Welcome everyone to

Criminology Season 1, episode 3. That clip you just heard was from 1969. It was Napa Sheriff's Department Captain Donald Townsend, speaking about the Zodiac Killer in the wake of Zodiac's attack at Lake Beriasa. Now in episode two, we detailed just how bad this attack was.

Celia Shepherd was killed and Brian Hartnell was critically injured. In this episode, we're going to pick up with the investigation of the Lake Beriasa attack. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my co-host Mike Morf Morford. Morph, how are you to? today. I'm doing good. How about you, Mike? I'm doing great, man. Ready to get episode three rolling. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. We had some some really good feedback on episode two and hoping to follow that up with another, another good episode. So a lot has happened in the span of two episodes, morph. Episode one, multiple attacks. Episode two, we have another attack, but then we get into the communications. We get

into the ciphers. Things are starting to get very, very interesting in the case of the Zodiac. So at the end of episode two, you'll recall that the investigators had found a few clues at the crime scene. In addition to getting some physical descriptions of Zodiac as far as this height, weight, clothes, etc. They also had tire tracks from his car. They had footprints leading to and from the crime scene and that sinister handwritten message scrawled on the passenger door of Brian's car. And Morif, let's talk a little bit about the footprints. Investigators measured and photographed the prints and they were able to tell that they came from a size 10 and a half boot. They also did compaction tests and were able to tell that based on how far the prints sunk into the ground, Zodiac was well over 200 pounds.

And this backed up Brian and Cecilia's descriptions of the Zodiac. Later, based on the pattern of the tracks, police would be able to figure out that Zodiac was wearing size 10 and a half wing walkers. And this was a very substantial clue in the case. Yeah, Mike, these wing walkers were a military issue boot designed to walk on the wings of planes. They were issued to military personnel and to civilian personnel on many bases. Now, there were several military bases in the Bay Area and all over the state of California. The problem was there were thousands of these boots in existence, and to make matters worse,

many of the pairs of boots wound up being sold at military outlet or surplus stores. So while the tracks could mean Zodiac was in the military, there was no guarantee of it. Investigators next turn their attention to trying to find out if they could identify any potential witnesses that were at Lake Beriasa on the day of the attack. and they would be able to find several people that said they were there that day. The police found a father and son who claimed that they had seen a man walking not far away from where the attack took place at Lake Beriasa. He was wearing dark clothes, was about the right height, and had a heavy build. What piqued investigators' interest even more was that the pair said that when the man

saw them, he turned around and walked in the other direction. So this sounded very promising to police. But when investigators pinpointed the exact area where the man was seen, it would end up being close to a mile from where Cecilia and Brian had been attacked. And the father and son's story also put the sighting of this man at the same time that police knew the attack happened. So in the end, they just didn't feel that this guy would have been able to cover that amount of ground quickly enough to get to where the father and son were. There was another promising lead from multiple witnesses. Earlier on the day of the attack,

sometime around 2 p.m., three Pacific Union College girls had gone to the lake to sunbathe. They chose a spot not too far from where the attack would later happen. The girls weren't there, very long when a light blue two-door car, possibly a 66 or 67 Chevy pulled in and drove past the girl's vehicle. It then backed up so close to the rear bumper of their car that their rear bumpers were almost touching. The girls noticed the man and he seemed to be looking down as if he were reading something. However, the girls felt that he wasn't. The girls continued to enjoy themselves not paying much attention to the man, but they later noticed him watching from trees nearby. After about 20 minutes, the man walked within 20 feet of the girls. They described him as wearing dark trousers

and a sweatshirt that was bunched up in the front with what looked to be a white t-shirt hanging out of the back of his pants. He was in his late 20s and had dark hair. He was between six foot and six foot two and was over 200 pounds. These female witnesses also described the man as rather good-looking. The clothes he was wearing matched Zodiac's clothes closely. Could the white t-shirt they saw hanging out of the pants actually been a white belt, as Brian Hartnell reported. When the girls left the area at 430, they did not see the man or his car. The three women participated in making a sketch of this man. Investigators went about trying to identify him as they wanted to question him, but they never did identify him and he never came forward. By this point, the Solano County Sheriff's Department,

Vallejo PD, and now the Napa County Sheriff's Department were all hunting the same. killer. And while they were not officially working together, they all began to notice a pattern in his attacks. He always targeted lone couples in secluded areas. He attacked the first set of couples in cars that were parked in lovers lanes. And in these attacks, he used a gun. But then in the third attack, he chose victims that were outside of their car and would use a knife as his main weapon. So there does seem to be a slight difference in MO between the first two attacks and the third. There are some really distinct differences in what goes on here, which is not to say that serial killers always do the same thing because they don't. One of the myths I start my course on serial

killers is that people think they always use the same weapon and they always target the same kind of victim and always use the same MO. That's a, that's a myth. that comes out of fiction and TV shows it's not true. There are a few serial killers who tend to do the same thing, but quite a few don't. So Morph, that was Dr. Catherine Ramsland. You and I had the opportunity to sit down with her and have a very lengthy conversation about the Zodiac. We're going to use a lot of what she said, as well as some other experts over the rest of

this season, one, of criminology. Dr. Catherine Ramsland is an accomplished author who's researched and written about the Zodiac killer specifically, but also a bunch of other serial killers. Some of her books include the mind of a murderer and the criminal mind. She teaches forensic psychology, and you can learn more about her work at catherine ramsland.com. Yeah, Mike, we were very lucky to have Dr. Ramsland come on and talk with us. She was a wealth of information. And you can hear her talking about the myth that serial killers always use the same M.O.

And so in that third attack, there was some slight differences in M.O. But the one thing that was consistent is that all three attacks involved couples. But Zodiac's next attack is going to completely break the pattern. So after this attack in Napa County, People all over the Bay Area realized that this killer wasn't confined to a single town. And they wondered when and where this maniac would strike next. And they wouldn't have to wait long to find out. So two weeks to the day after the Lake Beriasa attack, on Saturday, October 11th,

1969, a San Francisco cab driver named Paul Stein started his shift around 9 p.m. Paul Stein worked for the yellow cab company, and he drove cab number 912. Stein had once done some newspaper reporting and had been attending college. So this job as a cab driver was not supposed to be a long-term gig for the married 29-year-old Paul Stein. Right after his shift started, Paul Stein got a quick run out to the airport. He then decided that the San Francisco Theater District would be a great place to stake out on a busy Saturday night. And that as people left the theaters, Stein could pick up plenty of fairs. He parked in the vicinity of Mason and Gary Streets.

At around 9.40 to 9.45 p.m., Stein picked up a fair around that location. The passenger instructed Stein to drive to Washington and Maple Streets. This location was in the prestigious Presidio Heights neighborhood about three miles away. This ride would take about 10 to 15 minutes depending on traffic. Stein logged the address in his fare book and started driving. Stein drove to Washington and Maple as his fair book indicated. But then he went one block further before putting the cab in park at the intersection of Washington and Cherry. At that moment, the passenger in his cab placed a gun to the right side of Stein's head and pulled the trigger.

Blood went everywhere. There's been speculation that the passenger may have fired this shot from the front seat of the cab. So he would have had to have been sitting in the passenger seat as opposed to the backseat where passengers normally sit when they're picked up by cab drivers. But this is a fact that police are never going to make an official decision on. And the other thing that police are not going to be able to figure out is why. exactly Paul Stein parked the cab one block further than his fair book indicated. A group of young teenagers in the house on the corner of Washington and Cherry looked out from their upstairs window and saw the cab across the street. They never heard a shot, but what they

saw led them to believe that the cab driver was possibly being robbed. The passenger was outside of the cab on the passenger side, the side that was out of the teenager's view. They could see Stein lying across the front seat of the cab with his head out of view towards the passenger side. The man had climbed into the cab and appeared to have Stein's head in his lap. They could tell he was doing something and decided to come downstairs to get a better look from a window on the ground floor level. Fearing that the cab driver was being robbed, they called police while they continued to spy on the cab.

They described the would-be cab robber as being white, stocky, in his 20s or 30s with glasses and a crew cut. When they got downstairs, the man had exited the vehicle and was walking around the driver's side of the cab. Along the way, he appeared to be wiping some parts of the cab with a rag. Then the man simply walked off around the corner heading north on Cherry Street, towards Jackson Street, one block over. And it's at this point that an incredible miscue happens on the part of the police because the police description that went out to squad cars was that of a black adult male instead of the correct description which should have been a white adult male. Now just a few minutes after the man walked off around the corner, one of the teenagers,

for whatever reason, morph, you can call it bravery, you can call it foolishness, ventures out of the house towards the cab. And the teenager was just a few yards from the cab when the first San Francisco PD officer Armand Pellissetti pulled up at the scene. And again, we have to stress, this is literally just a minute or two after the shooter walked off around the corner. And at this point, police don't even know that the cab driver had been shot. And like I said, police are also on the lookout for a black male.

And this error in the description that was sent out to police is going to be huge. Yeah, you're right, Mike. That is a really big screw up because at the same time Officer Pellissetti was arriving at the corner of Washington and Cherry. Another police car was making its way down Jackson in the direction of the cab. on board were officers Donald Falk and Eric Zelms. Falk was behind the wheel. Ahead of them on the sidewalk, they saw a stocky white man with glasses walking on Falk's side of the car. Fout slowed down to get a look at him, but since they were looking for a black male, he kept going.

Back at the crime scene, Officer Pellissetti has to stop this teenager from walking up to the cab. and Pellissetti tells him to turn around, but quickly questions the teen about what he had seen. The youth tells Pellissetti that a stocky white male with glasses and a crew cut had walked off from the crime scene and around the corner heading to Jackson Street. Pellissetti races to get to his radio in the car to call this in and correct the description of the assailant. As soon as the dispatcher corrected the description, Officer Falk heard it on his radio, and he realized that they had just passed a man walking by on Jackson that fit that description. They immediately did a U-turn and raced back to where they had seen the man, but he was gone. The street was dark, and it bordered the U.S. Presidio, an army base, which had a heavily wooded area.

In addition, there were nearby playgrounds and any number of areas to hide. The shooter could have hidden in any of those areas, or if you had a lot of those areas, or if you have a lot of a car hidden nearby, could have simply jumped into it and fled. At the same time that officers, Falcon, Zelms are trying to find the man they had seen, Pellissetti is taking a closer look at the cab and at Paul Stein. He can tell immediately just by looking at Stein that he was dead. But he checked his pulse to verify. Stein's body was lying across the seat and his head was hanging out.

of the passenger side of the cab, almost touching the ground. This crime scene was extremely bloody and gruesome. Pellissetti went around the corner and followed the path of the shooter. He was being extremely cautious because he knew at this point that the killer was probably only minutes in front of him and there was no doubt that he was armed and dangerous. Pellissetti turned right on Jackson and while he's walking, down Jackson Street, he sees a man in a robe with a leashed dog. But this man didn't fit the description, so Pellissetti quickly moved on, not finding anything

unusual and wanting to get back to the crime scene to make sure that no one disturbed it. Pellocetti headed back to the cab. By the time Pellocetti got back to the scene, multiple police cars had arrived. This whole crime was something that the neighborhood of Presidio Heights was not used to. This was an upper class, wealthy neighborhood with very little crime. To have a bunch of police cars with sirens and lights flashing after 9 p.m. on a Saturday night there was very unusual. The officers there secured the crime scene and requested police dogs to search the area. The homicide department was called to the scene to investigate. At first glance, it looked like a cab

robbery gone wrong. The on-call detectives that night were inspectors Dave Tosk, and Bill Armstrong. While police waited at the scene for the arrival of inspectors Toski and Armstrong, the manager of the yellow cab company, Leroy Sweet, was asked to come down and ID the driver. Mr. Sweet arrived and he identified the murder victimist Paul Stein. Toski and Armstrong were two really good detectives. They had a massive amount of experience between them. And Toski was actually sort of a local legend.

because he had been the inspiration for the character played by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullet. And this was a big blockbuster movie filmed in San Francisco that had recently been released. So when Toskey and Armstrong arrive at the scene, they're brought up to speed on what happened. They learned the idea of the driver being Paul Stein, and they got an official eyewitness statement from the teens that saw the shooter leaving the crime scene. Toskey and Armstrong learned that the shooter was a white male adult, about 5'8, with a heavy build, a crew cut, and wearing glasses. He was also described as wearing a navy blue or black parka. Tosky and Armstrong quickly discover that Paul Stein's keys and wallet are missing.

Their assumption was that the shooter had taken these items. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. As Toski and Armstrong are working the scene, they quickly find evidence related to the crime.

They find a 9mm shell casing on the floorboard of the cab. And tests are later going to reveal that the gun that was used to kill Paul Stein was most likely a browning. They also find a pair of men's size 7 black leather gloves in the cab. But there's a lot of speculation around these black leather gloves. Police don't know if they belong to the killer or possibly belong. along to a previous passenger that had left them in the cab. So police combing the scene along with dogs were not able to find the suspect. He seemed to have slipped away in the night.

It must have been very frustrating for the police at the scene to be only a minute or so behind the killer and not be able to catch him. The incorrect radio description that went out likely caused Falc and Zelms to drive right by the killer on Jackson Street. Before the cab was towed away, investigators found one crucial clue, a bloody fingerprint located on the post between the front and rear driver's side doors. Having a fingerprint and a description of the shooter seemed like a good start for the San Francisco Police Department. On October 13th, the SFPD started to circulate a sketch of the suspect in the area

and they heavily focused on bringing the sketch to the attention of cab drivers around the city. Reports would come in the next day that witnesses had seen a stocky man matching the shooter's description escaping into a secluded playground. And this playground was not far from where Falks and Zelms had passed the man walking on the night of the murder. Moore, if you talked earlier about what a Ritzie area of San Francisco this was, we're talking about big money. and a cab driver being killed in what appeared to be a robbery, this type of thing just didn't happen in that area. Now, two days after the attack, a letter would be mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle

that would turn this murder investigation in a completely different direction because the San Francisco Police Department would soon realize that this wasn't a random cabby shooting at all. The following letter postmarked October 13, 1969, was received by the San Francisco Chronicle. Although the letter was shocking, what accompanied it was even more shocking. 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 his shirt.

I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay Area. The San Francisco 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 drivers should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come out of cover. School children make nice targets. Okay, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning.

Just shoot out the front tires and then pick off the kitties as they come bouncing out. And Morph, this letter is an absolute bombshell. in many different ways. So not only does the Zodiac take credit for the murder of Paul Stein, but he's proving how demented he is by including a bloody piece of Stein's shirt as evidence. And then he talks about the threat of shooting kids as they get off of their school buses. This really shows just how disturbed the Zodiac was. In his violent movements, or rather the violent periods that he has been in, he's an absolutely ruthless, completely merciless killer.

He calmly goes about his business of, in one case, telephone the police and another tearing a strip off the shirt of the dead body of the immediately killed victim. He doesn't get great excitement over it. He just, he thinks killing is just killing. So somebody like that is going to be a very serious problem for us. That clip was Captain Martin Lee of the San Francisco Police Department responding to the letter that they believe was from the Zodiac. And you can hear it in his voice just what a serious situation this was. In this letter, Zodiac ratchets up the level. of terror when he makes the threat against school children because this threat is going to cause a

citywide panic. He wants to be sure that his name and the impressions he's trying to give are all consistent, that nobody is at any time is going to actually saddle him with a name that is going to undermine his mission. And his mission is to terrorize a city, a state, a country if possible. But certainly the, you know, the most immediate arena that matters to him, the people of Northern California. He wants to terrorize them and make them think that he's out there among them and he could strike at any time and he could kill their kids and he could kill couples out, you know, making out that nobody's safe and that's because he's there. So that was Dr. Catherine Ramsland again. And you can hear her talk about the fact that

she believes the Zodiac's mission is to terrorize the people of Northern California. And Morph, I think he succeeded in his mission because this letter is going to terrorize the people of Northern California and put the whole area on edge. Yeah, Mike, I think this letter definitely put the entire area on edge and shocked the San Francisco Police Department. They now had reason to believe that the Zodiac, had struck in their city. If Zodiac really had murdered Paul Stein,

then they knew he was capable of killing without hesitation due to his previous attacks. So they had to take the threat against school children seriously. But they had to know for sure. Did the Zodiac really kill Stein? Or was Stein's killer trying to pretend he was the Zodiac? Morph, there was no doubt that the letter had come from Stein's killer. I mean, it included bloody pieces of Stein's shirt.

And although police believe that the letter was from the Zodiac, they would need some type of confirmation to be 100% sure. And it would not be until a questioned documents examiner named Sherwood Moral becomes involved in the investigation that the Paul Stein murder would be officially listed as a Zodiac crime. Sherwood Morrill was the state of California's top question documents examiner. He was a well-respected expert in the field of documents examination with years of experience. The SFPD knew that they had to take this letter to him in Sacramento to get his opinion as to whether the writer really was the Zodiac. Moral concluded that the letter definitely was written by the Zodiac. This was a huge connection. The Zodiac had killed Stein and now had a San Francisco murder under his belt.

on top of the previous attacks in Solano and Napa counties. And this was new territory for investigators in all three of these jurisdictions. Because back then, police departments, they didn't do a whole lot of communicating with each other. Now, a big part of that is because we're talking about a time before computers, before fax machines. not to mention the fact that police were very secretive about their own cases. So sharing and helping out other jurisdictions wasn't all that common. There was some competition back in those days. Detectives were going to have to figure out a way to work together

if they were going to have any chance to stop the Zodiac. Because they all had little bits of evidence and clues. Solano County had shell casings and a phone call. Napa County had the Wingwalker tracks. And San Francisco PD may have had the best evidence of all in the eyewitness description of the killer and the bloody partial fingerprint that was found on the cab. Yeah, Mike, that fingerprint was huge

because over the years, it would wind up rolling out over 2,500 suspects. So in the time before DNA, a fingerprint was. the holy growl of evidence. Find the man that left that bloody print on the cab, then you find the Zodiac. And investigators didn't waste any time. On October 18th, just a week after the murder of Paul Stein, San Francisco PD released a new and updated version of the sketch of the Zodiac, reflecting some slight changes. And most people have likely seen this Zodiac sketch. It's very well know. So both sketches show a man and glasses, but in each sketch, the hairline is just a bit different. And while overall, they both look very similar to each other, the descriptions of the Zodiac,

at least as far as his age are concerned, are a bit different. In the original sketch, Zodiac is described as being between 25 and 35 years old, but in this revised description, you know, description, he's listed as being between 35 and 45 years old. This updated side-by-side sketch is circulated all over the San Francisco Bay Area. People all over Northern California know there's a maniac on the loose. And now they have a face to put to the name Zodiac. So in the middle of the chaos that resulted from the Zodiac's murder of Paul Stein and the fear spreading in San Francisco, A call came into the Oakland Police Department early on the morning of October 22, 1969.

The caller claimed to be Zodiac, and he requested that one of two high-profile attorneys, either F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Beli, appear on a morning talk show in the Bay Area. This morning show, hosted by Jim Dunbar, was on KGO TV. Zodiac told police that if either F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Beli appeared on the show, that he would call in and speak with them. F. Lee Bailey was not available, but Melvin Belli agreed to appear on the show, and this was something that was right up his alley.

It really was morphed because Melvin Belli was a larger-than-life character. He was the type of guy that thrived on publicity. He loved the spotlight. In the early 1960s, Belli had defended Jack Ruby, the man who had shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. He had even done some acting appearing on the TV show Star Trek. Beli was a high profile attorney and over the years he would go on to represent the Rolling Stones,

Muhammad Ali and many other celebrities. So getting a chance to go on TV in the spotlight, this was a big ego boost for Beli. So Melvin Beli and Jim Dunbar appeared on the show that morning awaiting a call from Zodiac. The station asked all viewers not to call in so that the Zodiac could get through with no problem. It wasn't long before the phone rang, and a man's voice could be heard on the other end of the phone. Dunbar and Belize started talking to him, and they asked if they could call him something other than Zodiac. The man told them that they could call him Sam. This is how it sounded.

Talk to it. Just tell us what's going on inside you right now, Sam. I have headache. Right. How long have you had those headaches, Sam? In a long time? If I killed a kid. What?

Was it before December that you had the headaches? Yes. Were you in service that you might have had an injury in service? Did you ever fire out of a tree or downstairs, or ever unconscious? I don't know. You don't remember. Does aspirin do you any good?

You know. It doesn't do any good. Sam, John Stark never did me. Because either what I had. Sam, let me ask you a question. Did you attempt to call this program one other time when Mr. Belli was with us? What? Did you try to call us one other time about two or three weeks ago when Mel Belli was with us?

Yeah. And you, well, you couldn't get through. Couldn't get through. The phones were tied up. Was that it? Yeah. Sam, let me ask you this. For some reason why you go to a particular dime,

after a particular priest, in some reason why apparently you wanted to talk to me or lead, is it that you feel that we have compassion for people who get in trouble, or is it you feel that we can do something for you, or is it you feel that we have enough integrity that we promise you something, that we're going to skip to it? Well, let's find out why he wanted to talk to. Why did you want to talk to Mr. Belli, Sam? I don't want to be hurt.

So that was the actual phone call that came in that morning to Jim Dunbar and Melvin Belli. You can hear Belli does most of the talking to Sam. And it's almost like he's trying to get a little bit of information out of him. Now that was just a piece of the call. The call is actually much, much longer. And Sam would hang up 11 or 12 different times. and then call back. I believe he was fearful that

they would somehow be able to trace the call. Now, after this phone call on the Jim Dunbar show, Melvin Beli was asked his opinion of the Zodiac by the press and this is how he responded. I think a man that's sick. I think a man that's going into a storm

and it squares away with the pattern of the man from what objectively know. We know that Zodiac did. How can you help him, Bill? All heavens, with the doctor, the people who have called in here that want to give him medical help, he's not going to go to trial until we know that this man is a human being in front of a judge.

In other words, he's got to get his headaches secured, that this man, objectively, without even seeing him, I think any psychiatrist would say that this man is sick, sick, sick. Now, during the call on the morning show, Melvin Beli was able to get Sam to agree to meet he and Dunbar at a place called the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store. And this was a very public place in Daily City. They were scheduled to meet later that day, but Sam never showed. And police actually had been trying to trace the calls. to the TV station, but they were unsuccessful. Now, Mor, if we have to talk about the voice of Sam,

because we know that there were three people up to this point that had heard the voice of the Zodiac. You had Vallejo Dispatcher Nancy Slover, Napa police officer Dave Slate, and surviving victim Brian Hartnell. And all three of them, after he, hearing the audio from this phone call, were 100% sure that the voice they were hearing was not the same voice they knew to be the Zodiac. Later on, Attorney Melvin Beli would get phone calls at his home that he felt were made by the caller who referred to himself as Sam. Police decided to put a trace on Belli's phone.

And sure enough, the mysterious Sam called once again, and the police were able to trace this call. It turned out that the phone call originated at an Oakland mental hospital and to a specific patient there, a man named Eric Wheel. Eric Wheel would be investigated and ruled out as being the Zodiac. This turned out to be a huge dead end for investigators. During the weeks following the call to Jim Dunbar and Melvin Beli, the real Zodiac laid low. There were no letters. There were no phone calls. And you have to say that this was unusual by his standards. Was he afraid at this point that police would catch him after seeing all of the wanted posters that had been circulated all over San Francisco?

He had also been featured on all of the local news programs. Zodiac would not make contact again until November 8th, 1969. This was almost a full month after Paul Stein's murder. And this contact would come in the form of a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. And once again, the letter had a San Francisco postmark on it. Now, this letter didn't contain any pieces of bloody shirt, any other evidence, but what it did contain was a brand new cipher. 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 P.S. Could you print this new cipher on your front page? I get awfully lonely when I'm ignored so lonely I could do my thing. So we have another coded cipher sent by the Zodiac. And we talked about the last one

and how it had been cracked pretty quickly by Mr. and Mrs. Hardin, but this newest one, although it looked very similar in design to the previous cipher. Yeah, Mike, to this day, the cipher known as the 340 has never been solved.

It's called the 340 based on the amount of characters it has. And this is despite the FBI and other codebreakers as well as countless computer programs attempting to break the code. So the very next day, after Zodiac mailed this letter in Cipher,

he sends another letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. And you have to say more that the Chronicle had become the Zodiac's favorite paper to write to. And this new letter sent the next day is another huge threat that would strike fear in the Bay Area. This is the Zodiac speaking. Up to the end of October 1st, 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. 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 like the description passed out only when I do my... thing. The rest of the time I look entirely different. I shall not tell you what my disguise consists of when I kill. As of yet, I have left no fingerprints behind me, contrary to what the

police say. In my killings, I wear transparent fingertip guards. All it is is two coats of airplane cement coated on my fingertips. Quite unnoticeable and very effective. Three. My killing tools have been bought in through the mail order outfits before the band went into effect, except one, and it was bought out of the state. So as you can see, the police don't have much to work on. If you wonder why I was wiping the cab down, I was leaving fake clues for the police to run all over town with, as one might say, I gave the cops some busy work to do to keep them happy. I enjoy needling the blue pigs. Hey, Blue Pig, I was in the park. You were using fire trucks to mask the sound of your cruising prowl cars. The dogs never came within two blocks of me

and they were to the west, and there was only two groups of parking, about ten minutes apart. Then the motorcycles went by about 150 feet away, going from south to northwest. P.S., two cops pulled a goof about three 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 me if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in the last five to ten minutes. And I said, yes, there was a 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 again. Hey, pig, doesn't it rile you up to have your nose rubbed in your boo-boos? 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. Take one bag of ammonium nitrate, fertilizer, and one gallon of stove oil and dump a few bags of gravel on top, 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. 1 battery-powered clock will run for approximately 1 year 1 photoelectric switch

2 copper leaf springs 2 6-volt car batteries 1 flashlight bulb and reflector 1 mirror 2 18-inch cardboard tubes black with shoe polish inside and out mirror bus bombs one bag each

6 volt battery 6-volt battery Bus goes bang, car passes by okay The system checks out from one into the other in my tests What you do not know is whether the death machine is at the site Or whether is being stored in my basement for future use I think you do not have the manpower to stop this one By continuously searching the roadsides looking for this thing

And it won't do to reroute and reschedule 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. P.S. 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, ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun site, which I used to start my collecting of slaves. So obviously, this letter was much longer than previous communications. And it was very detailed. So you have the Zodiac threatening to set off.

bombs and the police at this point, they have to take all of his threats seriously. They know how capable he is of killing. And it's not just that he talks about the bombs, Mike, but he also makes some other big claims as well. First, he says that he was leaving fake clues to keep the cops busy and that the fingerprint found at the crime scene was not really his. He also mentions that he only looks like the description in the wanted posters when he does his thing. One other interesting thing he mentions is that two cops pulled a goof and drove by him and stopped and talked to him. This car would likely have to be the car with officers

Falk and Zelms in it that passed him on Jackson Street. SFPD to this day has strongly denied that any of their cars ever stopped Zodiac that night. He's giving a lot of facts in this letter. And one of them that really interests me is when he talks about... storing the bomb because he makes mention of the fact that it could possibly be stored in his basement. And I think this is a big deal because there are not a lot of basements in that area of California. So if he's being truthful, it's a big clue that could possibly narrow down the suspect list. So at this point, the entire city of San Francisco, and really the whole Bay Area, for that matter, is concerned about what the Zodiac might do next, but things actually go very quiet. No bombs go off. No school bus tires are shot out. Zodiac doesn't follow through on any of his threats that he's made in these communications.

On November 12th, 1969, Officer Falk, who had passed Zodiac on Jackson Street the night of Paul Stein's murder, sends the following Inter-Dapartment memo to homicide inspector Dave Toskey. Sir, I respectfully wish to report the following, that while responding to the area of Cherry and Washington streets, a suspect fitting the description of the Zodiac killer was observed by all. Officer Falk walking in an easterly direction on Jackson Street and then turned north on Maple Street. This subject was not stopped as the description received from communications was that of a black male. When the right description was broadcast, reporting officers informed communications that a possible suspect had been seen going north on Maple Street into the Presidio, the area of Julius Khan playground and a search was started which had negative results. The suspect that was observed by Officer Falk was a white male adult 35 to 45 years,

about 510, 180 to 200 pounds, medium heavy build, barrel chested, medium complexion, light colored hair, possibly graying in the rear. May have been lighting that caused this effect. crew cut wearing glasses dressed in dark blue waist-length zipper-type jacket navy or royal blue elastic cuffs and waistband zipped part way up brown wool pants pleaded type baggy and rear rust brown may have been wearing low-cut shoes subject at no time appeared to be in a hurry walked with a shuffling lope slightly bent forward head down. The subject's general appearance to classify him as a group would be that he might be of Welsh ancestry.

My partner that night was Officer E. Zelms number 2348 of Richmond Station. I do not know if he observed this subject or not. Respectfully submitted Donald Fowke. So Officer Falk sent a memo to Dave Toskey, essentially outlining what he saw the night of Paul Stein's murder in relation to the man that he believed may have been the Zodiac. Yeah, Mike, and it's been a real mystery over the years just why Officer Falk took a full month to relay this information to Dave Toskey, this information which could have been crucial to Dave Toskey. His overall description matched the description given by the kids that witnessed Zodiac at Stein's cab. So we move forward to December of 1969, and at this point, police are starting to get bombarded with all types of letters from individuals claiming that they are the Zodiac. But police and Sherwood Moral, the documents examiner, they're able to rule many of these letters.

out as nothing more than hoax letters from people out there seeking attention. And you have to think more that there were some troubled people most likely sending some of these letters. These people would have to be troubled to write letters claiming that they were the Zodiac. Meanwhile, the real Zodiac was busy writing his own letter. And he would mail this latest letter on December 20th, 1969, which, you would be a little bit of which just happened to be the one-year anniversary of the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on Lake Herman Road. It turns out that instead of mailing a letter to the newspapers as he had done previously, this letter was mailed to attorney Melvin Belli.

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. 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 and the trigger mec requires much work to get it adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long from number nine, I will lose all control of myself and set the bomb up. Please help me. I cannot remain in control much longer. And Morph, what I think is very interesting about this letter is that he talks about victim number nine.

But when you go back and you count up the known victims of the Zodiac, there's no victim number eight that we're aware of. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Mike. There's no number eight that we know of, but he did say that he would would disguise some of his killings as accidents and would no longer take credit for his murders. And the other thing about this letter is it differs from his previous communications in that this letter is not messy. It's not slanted like his previous letters. This one is very almost fancy, I think, is the word you'd have to use. and the writing is very neat. It's almost like he's trying to impress Melvin Belli with this letter.

And Documents Examiner Sherwood Morrill, who had been working on all of the Zodiac documents and writings up to this point, would conclude that this letter was mailed by the real Zodiac, and that the writing matched all of Zodiac's previous writings, including the message scrawled on Brian Hartnell's car door at Lake Beriasa. But Morales analysis of the letter is really not even needed. Because in this letter that Zodiac mails to Melvin Beli, he also includes a piece of Paul Stein's bloody shirt. And police would later verify that it did match the other pieces of Stee's.

shirt that they already had. Yeah, Mike, it seems as if there's no end to the shocking things that Zodiac is capable of. And again, it's pretty clear that he wants to make sure that there is no doubt in anybody's mind. He wants to get credit for these letters and crimes. Now, after this letter to Melvin Beli, Zodiac goes quiet once again. Both Christmas and the New Year passes and the San Francisco Bay Area tries to put 19 and the Zodiac behind them.

There was hope that 1970 would be a time of peace in the Bay Area. And the new year actually starts off relatively quietly. It wouldn't be until March of 1970, almost three months to the day after Zodiac mailed the letter to Melvin Beli, when Zodiac would be thrust once again into the spotlight. A woman on a lonely and dark stretch of highway near Modesto, California, would have a terrifying experience. But those details will be revealed in episode four. So Morph, that's it for episode three.

But there's so much more of the Zodiac story to come. We've got more experts to weigh in on the Zodiac. We've got suspects to cover, analysis, interpretation. There's just so much more, Morph, that is going to take place in this case. If you like the show, please take the time to rate, review us on iTunes or your favorite Android app. And if you haven't done so yet, please subscribe. And I just want to thank all the listeners and followers that we have that have reached out and given us positive reviews and some really good feedback about the first two episodes. Make sure you follow us on social media.

We're on Twitter at Criminology Pod where you can find us on our Facebook page by search. Criminology Podcast. And we'll definitely be putting up copies of the letters that we talked about in this episode on the Facebook page. Hey, everyone. Morph and I are huge fans of Robin Warder and his podcast, The Trail Went Cold. So listen to this clip from Robin himself telling you all about his podcast. Hello, everyone.

This is Robin Warder, host of the True Crime podcast, The Trail Went Cold. If you grew up watching the classic television show Unsolved Mysteries, then this is the podcast for you. Each week, I profile a new Unsolved Murder or Missing Person's Case and share all the baffling details. Afterward, I provide my own personal analysis and theories about what might have happened. This is a show for true crime buffs who are fascinated by cold cases, and love to discuss them and pick them apart in an attempt to figure out the truth. So be sure to check out our podcast to learn about some truly bizarre unsolved mysteries where the trail went cold. So for Mike Ferguson and Morph. We'll catch you next week on criminology.

Take care, everybody.