Criminology - A Killer Takes Credit

Episode Date: September 2, 2017

In March of 1970, a woman traveling through California with her 10-month old daughter would have a frightening experience. A man would trick her into thinking something was wrong with her car on the highway. The woman and her baby would be lucky to escape with their lives. But later she would say that the man she saw that night was the Zodiac. In this episode, we dive into the details of this harrowing experience as well as a number of Zodiac communications that come out. Was it really Zodiac who had terrified this woman on the highway? He would later take credit for it as well as a host of other crimes. But all of these crimes were in the news well ahead of his communications. So the question that comes up is whether or not Zodiac is really committing murders or whether he is merely taking credit for those happening around him. Join Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford as they continue to explore the fascinating details of the Zodiac case.     You can support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to season one, episode four of criminology. My name is Mike Ferguson, and with me is my co-host, Mike Morford. Morf, how are you? I'm doing good. I'm excited to be here for episode four. Can you believe episode four already?

Yeah, it seemed like it was taken forever to get going, and now we're just cruise. cruising along. So to be episode four already is pretty cool. And we got so much more ahead of us. That's what's amazing. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. So like we said, this is episode four. If you've not listened to the first three episodes, you got to stop, go back, download episode one. This podcast will make so much more sense if you do it that way. So Morph, let's talk a little bit about how we ended episode three. We talked about Zodiac's communication with Melvin Belli, mailing a piece of Paul Stein's shirt, and then we kind of did a little cliffhanger action like we like to do, talking about March of 1970, a woman on a lonely dark stretch of highway

near Modesto, California. So Morph, that leads us into March 22nd, 19th. And the woman that we were talking about is Kathleen Johns. And Kathleen lived in San Bernardino in Southern California. She decided to make the eight-hour drive to Petaluma, California, in the northern part of the state, to visit her sick mother. Now, Petaluma is a town that's about 40 miles north of San Francisco. Kathleen was accompanied in her 1957 Chevy station wagon by her 10-month-old daughter, Jennifer. On this trip, Kathleen left sometime after 4 p.m., and this should have put her in Petaluma no later than 2 a.m. Yeah, one thought for me, Mike, that comes to my mind is I'd be afraid if my wife was out driving that late at night with a young daughter.

because we're talking some desolate areas in California. Especially back then before cell phones, there's no navigation. So she had to make that trip by herself with no help. But Kathleen had made this trip several times before, and she took the same route. She never had any issues. The road trip was pretty uneventful for the pair as they drove along. It was just before midnight around 1145 p.m.

and Kathleen was about two hours away from Petaluma. On a stretch of highway west of Modesto along Highway 132, she noticed that a car had come up close behind her on the nearly deserted stretch of highway, and this car started to flash its headlights on and off. After a few minutes of this, Kathleen felt that the driver behind her was trying to alert her that there may be something wrong. So she decided to pull the car over and as she did, the other car pulled in behind her.

The car appeared to Kathleen to be a light tan, two-door model with old-style California tags. She thought she pulled over around the area of May's Road close to Interstate 5. The man in the other car got out and walked up to Kathleen's car on the driver's side. When he got to her window, he told her that her rear wheel appeared to be very loose and that it was wobbling. He told Kathleen that he would be happy to see if he could tighten the lugs up for her.

And more, if you have to imagine being in Kathleen's position, you're on a dark road, out in the middle of nowhere, and you've got a 10-month-old baby with you. It seems to me that Kathleen's choices were very, very limited, and because of this, she accepts the man's offer of help. Kathleen sat in the car while the man walked back to his car to get out some tools. After a minute, he came back to the rear of Kathleen's car and he started working on her tire. She could hear the man as the lug wrench was applied to her wheel. And after a couple minutes, he yelled up to her that he was done and she was all set. So at this point, Kathleen is relieved.

She's ready to get back on the road and drive off. but she only makes it a few yards and her rear driver's side wheel falls partially off. And this forces Kathleen to once again pull off to the side of the road. The man hadn't driven off yet. And when he saw that Kathleen had pulled back off to the side of the road, he pulled his car up alongside hers. And he told her that he would be happy to drive her to a service station. Kathleen didn't feel that she had much choice other than to accept his offer.

She gathered her young daughter up and got into the man's car. He was just about to drive off when Kathleen realized that she had forgotten to turn off her lights and take her car keys. She mentioned it to the man and he said no problem. He stopped and got out himself to shut off her lights and get her keys before getting back in his car. At this point, it's around midnight. The man drove away from Kathleen's car while Kathleen held Jennifer in her arms. It wasn't long before they passed. Arco gas station.

But the man drove right by it. And while they were driving, Kathleen asked the man if he always went around helping people in the night. And his reply would be a sinister one. The man said, when I'm through with them, they don't need any help. Yeah, Mike. So at this point, Kathleen is getting nervous. She's getting a really bad feeling.

She started taking mental notes of the man in his car. She noted that he looked like he might be in the military, and he was wearing shoes that were shined in the way that a military man might shine his shoes. Kathleen saw that the man was wearing horned rim glasses, and she thought he was about 30 years old, around 5'9, and about 160 pounds. One interesting thing that Kathleen noticed was that the man's car was very messy. And this seemed to clash with his overall appearance. There were clothes spread all over the car,

And what was even more strange was that the clothes appeared to be children's clothing. The man continued to drive through the dark deserted roads someplace near the towns of Tracy and Patterson. Kathleen would later recount that he drove her around for an extended period of time, perhaps one and a half to two hours, never stopping at any gas stations along the way. At this point, Kathleen was growing nervous. And you know she felt that she might be in some type of. of danger. And there comes a point in time when the man driving came to a stop. Kathleen hugged

Jennifer very tightly and she leapt from the car and ran into a field. The man drove off leaving Kathleen and Jennifer all alone out in this field. Kathleen claims that a few minutes later another vehicle came along, she flagged it down, and she asked for a ride, explaining to the driver what had happened. Kathleen Johns walked into the Patterson Police Department at about 2.30 a.m. on the morning of March 23rd, 1970. According to one report, she was hysterical. While giving her account to a police officer, Johns looked up on the wall and screamed out, oh my God, that's the man. She was pointing at a wanted poster on the police bulletin board. The wanted poster was of the Zodiac.

So, Morph, this really is an amazing story. You have a woman driving out in the middle of nowhere almost 100 miles from where Zodiac had last struck. She winds up being picked up by a man who she would later claim is the Zodiac. But this account of what happened to Kathleen Johns, while very fascinating, it does have some pretty big holes and it leaves more questions than answers. Kathleen John's account of that night would be detailed in a book called Zodiac written by Robert Graysmith. And Morph, we're going to talk a lot about this book in later episodes.

But the one thing that's important right now is that some of the things mentioned in the book are not mentioned in the Kathleen John's police reports. Yeah, you're right, Mike. Some of the things that are mentioned in the book were that the man said things to Kathleen like, you know you're going to die and I'm going to throw the baby out the window. The book also claims that the man went up the wrong way on a freeway exit. He had to stop. According to the book, that's when Kathleen jumped out and ran into the field.

It's also written that the man went out into the field with a flashlight looking for Kathleen, but he was scared off when a man in a truck drove down the exit ramp. None of these details written by Robert Grace Smith appear in any of the Kathleen John's police reports. So we used three different reports to gather details about this Kathleen John's incident. One report was from the Patterson PD, the second was from the Stanislaus Sheriff's PD, and the third is from the San Joaquin Sheriff's PD. Not a single one of these reports mentions that Kathleen was verbally threatened by this man. In fact, some of the reports include statements from Kathleen John, such as, the man was quite friendly, did not make any advances or threats towards her.

Kathleen recounted that when she would ask him when he planned to stop, he would quickly change the subject. After taking Kathleen's statement, the Patterson PD contacted the San Joaquin Sheriff's PD and relayed Kathleen's details in her report. They asked San Joaquin Sheriff's Department to attempt to locate Kathleen's 57 Chevy. It wasn't long before they were able to locate her car, and it was right in the same area that she had estimated that she had pulled over originally. The car was completely burned out.

The rear wheel was on the car, but it was very loose with only two lug nuts on it. The other lug nuts were missing, as was the hubcap for that wheel. The car keys were nowhere to be found. So, Mike, one thing is for certain. Someone would have had to have driven all the way back to the scene to set the car on fire. Now on March 23rd, the morning after Kathleen was picked up by this man, Kathleen's car was removed from where it was parked by Reed and son tow service and taken back to their tow yard. Sometime that day, a man and woman came into the tow company and asked about the car.

The owner assumed that the couple were the owners of the car, but he didn't know for sure, and the couple left. So this couple asked questions about the car, but they never asked for the car, and then they just left. Sergeant McNatt said she had several good looks at her captor since he had walked in front of her headlights. And the article ends by saying authorities later this morning encountered another curious happening about which they have not yet theorized. Mrs. John's car was found totally burned at Bird Road and Highway 132 near where she thinks she stopped. So, more if I think the article is very interesting, you know, it comes from the very next day. But there are a lot of differences between what the article says and what the actual police reports indicate. First of all, the police reports, as we said, state that when the car was found, there were two lug nuts on it.

The article says one lug nut, but this comes from the mouth of Kathleen Johns, I think, Morp. And, you know, the question that I have is, how did she know how many lug nuts was on? Couple that with the fact that she said the wheel fell off. And obviously, the wheel can't fall off if you have lug nuts. still on the wheel. Yeah, Mike, you're right. That article had some things that caused some confusion, but there was something good that came out of it. A pair of men after reading the article contacted police with an interesting story. On the night of the Kathleen John's incident, the two men had been driving in the same general area when what looked like a white Pontiac

passed them. About a mile up the road, the man that was driving the white Pontiac attempted to signal for the men to pull over. The men didn't pull over. They didn't give much thought to the incident until they read about Kathleen John's account in the paper. Police had planned to follow up with the two men to get more details, but apparently this never happened. So, Morph, to me, this is an interesting piece of the Zodiac mystery, but unfortunately, it's also one of the biggest rabbit holes in this case. You know, over the years, some people have doubted that either all or part of Kathleen. claims are even true. Yeah, Mike, one theory is that at the time of the incident, Kathleen needed money badly,

so she decided to burn her own car to collect insurance money. But for her to do this, it would involve staging the entire thing, making up the whole story, not to mention hiding out in a field in the middle of the night with her baby, waiting for a car to drive by so she could flag it down. So even if the entire story is true, and Kathleen Johns really did accept, a ride from a man that intended to do her harm, it doesn't mean that this guy had to be Zodiac. Because up to this point, there had not been a known attack by Zodiac of a motorist on the highway. And you have to talk about her description of him being 160 pounds.

you know, that clearly doesn't fit with Brian Hartnell's description of Zodiac at Lake Berryessa being well over 200 pounds. So it's been over 47 years since this incident and we still don't have a complete understanding of what's true and what's not or even if any of it's relevant to the Zodiac case. But what we do know is that on April 13th, 1970, the Zodiac mailed another letter to the Sothec. San Francisco Chronicle. This is a Zodiac speaking. By the way, have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is, I am mildly curious as to how much money you have on my head now. I hope you do not think that I was the one who wiped out that blue meaning with a bomb at the

cop station. Even though I talked about killing school children with one, it just wouldn't do to move in on someone else's territory. But there is more glory in killing a cop than a kid because a cop can shoot back. I have killed 10 people to date. It would have been a lot more, except that my bus bomb was a dud. I was swamped out by the rain we had a while back. It seemed as if Zodiac wanted to know if the police were making any progress with the last

cipher he had mailed them in November of 1969. And this was the 408 cipher that we talked about, the cipher that has never been solved. And the other thing to take note of is that Zodiac claims that his victim count is up to 10 at this point. Yeah, and this letter also alluded to a police station that had been bombed killing an officer in the San Francisco area recently. During that time, there were a lot of violent and radical groups and people operating. in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of these included the Black Panthers and the weather underground. It was really a time of unrest in the Bay Area, and the Zodiac murders on top of all that made

things worse. And Zodiac had written something in this letter that the police thought was a potential clue. The San Francisco Bay Area had recently received heavy rains, and some areas in particular got very heavy flooding. police thought it was possible that Zodiac may have lived in one of these areas, so they started looking closer at persons of interest on their radar that lived in these areas. One other thing that this letter contained was a bomb diagram, laying out a bus bomb that Zodiac was supposedly working on.

Or it's possible that Zodiac had completed the bomb before calling it a dud. And even though the Zodiac had written that there was more glory in killing a cop, a kid, this once again set off a panic that Zodiac may target school children. And this fact that he called his bus bomb a dud was very unusual for Zodiac. The guy was a braggard that liked to think he was superior and he wanted others to think that as well. So to call his bomb project a dud, this was a bit of a change for Zodiac. He's always about being managing impressions. So what impression is he trying to get across here?

It's clear that he is trying to come across as a superior being because he's always taking pot shots at the police and how they're always bumbling. Another thing about his letters is it shows how closely he's watching the coverage of him. The last thing that this letter contained was a string of symbols, 13 characters long following the line, My Name Is. The thinking was that this line of 13 characters might actually be Zodiac's name, and if the cyphered, might reveal his identity. But of course, you'll remember from episode two that Zodiac wrote in a letter about his first cipher that if it was solved, they would have his identity. And that was a lie.

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. Now, in a later episode, we're going to talk in depth about these ciphers. And we'll actually have a guest on who is an expert with codes and ciphers. and we'll talk about the challenges of trying to solve a cipher or coded message like the one in this letter.

And Zodiac doesn't wait long to send his next communication because it's on April 28, 1970, that he once again writes to the San Francisco Chronicle, this time mailing them a greeting card. I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my blast. P.S. on back. If you don't want me to have this blast, you must do two things. Tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details. I would like to see some nice zodiac buttons wandering about town. Everyone else has these buttons like Peace, Black Power, Melvin eats blubber, etc. Well, it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my button. Please no nasty ones like Melvin's. Evans, thank you. So at this point, Zodiac is writing exclusively to the San Francisco Chronicle. For some reason, Zodiac had singled out the Chronicle to receive his threatening letters. And in this card, the Zodiac, again, is making threats essentially saying, if you don't want me to set off a bomb, then you need to comply with what I'm asking you to do. And I think at this point, we need to make every...

one aware of something, the letters that Zodiac mailed were what caused the FBI to become involved in this investigation? You're right, Mike. The FBI typically doesn't get involved in murder investigations unless there's a kidnap, ransom, or crossing over state lines. But since the Zodiac was using the U.S. mail to extort the newspapers into complying with his demands, that allowed the FBI to become involved in regards to the extortion laws that Zodiac was breaking. The FBI was able to lend a supporting role to the detectives investigating the Zodiac case. They could help by looking at question documents, checking prints against their database. So while not directly investigating the murders themselves, the FBI was a pretty big help to police.

So we have to talk a little bit more about this greeting card. It contained a cartoon of two prospectors, one on a mule and the other on a dragon. And the punchline of the card read, Sorry, your ass is a dragon. In the card, Zodiac wrote a lot about buttons, including one line that read Melvin Eats Blubber. And this was Zodiac trying to take a jab at attorney Melvin Beli, who, as we talked about in the last episode,

Zodiac really seemed to have some sort of infatuation with Beli. In reality, the real buttons that people were wearing around San Francisco were joke slash fad buttons that read Melville eats blubber. And Morph, that's obviously some type of take on Moby Dick and Herman Melville. A couple months passed before Zodiac was heard from again. Then on June 26, 1970, the Zodiac mailed another letter. As in previous letters, it was postmarked in San Francisco and mailed. to the Chronicle. This is the Zodiac speaking.

I have become very upset with the people of San Fran Bay Area. They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice crossed circle buttons. I promised to punish them if they did not comply by annihilating a full school bus. But now school is out for the summer, so I punished them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a 38. Zodiac 12 SFPD-0 The map coupled with this code Will tell you where the bomb is set

You have until next fall to dig it up So there's a lot of things to break down In this latest letter I mean the first thing that jumps out at me Is Zodiac can't get over the fact That the residents of San Francisco Are not wearing Zodiac buttons Something he asked him to do in his

last mailing. And the next is Zodiac's insinuation that he shot a man sitting in a parked car with a 38 caliber. Now, Zodiac is somewhat vague here, but it's pretty clear who he's talking about. Because on June 19th, 1970, just a week before this letter was mailed, a San Francisco police officer named Richard Raditich was shot to death while I. out of traffic stop. It turned out that he was killed with a 38 caliber bullet. So it seemed if Zodiac was trying to take credit for any killings that he could. In reality, the police had evidence and eyewitnesses that led them to believe that the radical Black Panthers or Black Liberation Army had actually murdered Radittich. These two groups were at the center

of a lot of violent incidents in the Bay Area around this time. Raditich's murder today is is still unsolved. San Francisco is offering a reward leading to the information that leads to the actual shooter, a shooter that very likely was not Zodiac. Zodiac also wrote what amounts to be a score between him and the police. Zodiac 12, SFPD, zero. There was no way to know if this claim of 12 victims was legitimate or if Zodiac was trying to make his stats look more impressive.

But there really is a lot going on in this letter because we have. have to talk about the cipher and the map as well. Zodiac is telling the police to use the enclosed map along with the cipher to find out where he supposedly buried a bomb and he warns them that they have until the fall to dig it up. Now this map that he includes is a Phillips 66 service station map that you could buy at any Phillips 66 service station in the Bay Area. The map had a crude compass drawn on it in blue felt tip pin, and we really haven't talked about it much more, but the blue felt tip pin, this was something that was commonly used by Zodiac to write his letters. The compass is drawn directly over Mount Diablo, which is a mountain

in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It also included the numbers 0, 3, 6, and 9 going around the compass. And finally, there's a short note on the map that reads, is to be set to magnetic north. It's pretty clear that Zodiac was trying to relay some sort of message to police with this letter and map. But the real question was about the legitimacy of the message. We already know that Zodiac promised in the very first cipher that his identity was included.

But one of us saw his identity really wasn't in the cipher. We also know that Zodiac didn't carry out some of his previous threats like shooting school kids on buses. So you have to wonder if police are starting to doubt some of these wild claims and statements that Zodiac makes. Over the next month, police consider the clues in this letter and map and anxiously wait, but nothing has. happens. It's not until a month later in late July that they finally hear from Zodiac again. This is the Zodiac speaking. I am rather unhappy because you people will not wear some nice Zodiac buttons. So now I have a little list, starting with the woman and her baby, that I gave a rather interesting ride for a couple hours one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car

where I found them. This letter was mailed by Zodiac on July 24th, 1970, four months after the Kathleen John's incident. It's pretty obvious here that the Zodiac is referring to Johns, but it seems very odd to wait this much time to finally mention Kathleen John's and take credit for what happened that night. Yeah, Mike, it does seem odd for Zodiac to wait four months. to mail this letter, linking himself to the Kathleen John's incident. And then the other thing that we have to say is that Zodiac still seems to be hung up on these damn Zodiac buttons. He keeps insisting that he wants people to wear. Now Zodiac does give some details about the Kathleen John's incident, but much of what he writes

in this letter was included in the Modesto B article that was written about it. So this makes you wonder if he's really trying to take credit for things he's reading about. At this point, it's been almost nine months since Zodiac himself could be solidly linked to any attacks. And Morph, I think you bring up a great point because how easy would it be for somebody to sit at home, basically, reading the newspaper, pick out a crime, and then write a letter taking credit for that crime? You know, if that's what the Zodiac is doing, not too tough in 1970s San Francisco to find a crime to take credit for. And just two days after mailing the Kathleen John's letter, Zodiac mails another letter and this one would turn out to be the longest and perhaps most disturbing letter to date. This is a Zodiac speaking. Being that you will not wear some nice cross-circle buttons, how about wearing some nasty cross-circle buttons, or any type of cross-circle buttons that you can think up?

If you do not wear any type of cross-circle buttons, I shall, on top of everything else, torture all 13 of my slaves that I have waiting for me in paradise. Some I shall tie overhand hills and watch them scream and twitch and squirm. Others shall have pine splinters driven under their nails and then burned. Others shall be placed in cages and fed salt beef until they are gorged. Then I shall listen to their pleas for water, and I shall laugh at them. Others will hang by their thumbs and burn in the sun. Then I will rub them down with deep heat to warm them up. Others I shall skin them alive and let them run around screaming.

And all billiard players, I shall have them play in a darkened dungeon cell with crooked cues and twisted shoes. Yes, I shall have great fun inflicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves. SFPD Zero, Zodiac 13. As some day it may happen that a victim must be found. I've got a little list. I've got a little list of society offenders who might well be underground, who would never be missed, who would never be missed. There is the pestilential nuisances, who write for autographs, all people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs, all children who are up in dates and implore you with, I'm Platt, all people who are shaking hands, shaking hands like that, and all third persons who with unspoiling take those who insist, they'd none of them

be missed, they'd none of them be missed. There's a banjo serenator and the others of his race, and the piano organist, I got him on the list. All people who eat peppermint and fomfit in your face, they would never be missed. They would never be missed. And the idiot who phrases with enthusiastic tone of centuries but this and every country but his own. And the lady from the provinces who dress like a guy who doesn't cry. And the singularly abnormally the girl who never kissed. I don't think she would be missed.

I'm sure if she wouldn't be missed. And that nice imprissed, that is rather rife, the judicial humorist, I've got him on the list. All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life. They'd none of them be missed. They'd none of them be missed. And uncompromising kind, such as whatcha ma call it, thingamabob, and likewise, well, never mind. and tut tut tut tut and what's his name and you know who but the task of filling up the blanks i'd rather leave up to you but it really doesn't matter whom you place upon the list for none of them be missed none of them be missed

p s the maldiablo code concerns radians and number inches along the radians so it turns out that much of the disturbing words and phrases in this letter are actually from an english operative by Gilbert and Sullivan called the Macado. This comic operetta was written and first performed by the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company back in the late 1800s. Many times throughout the 20th century, this play would be used from material by such people as Groucho Marx in his comedy routines and by countless school plays and various theater companies.

So, Morph, I know this was a really long letter and very strange compared to the other Zodiac letters, at least it is to me. And the one thing that I've always thought about this one is the dichotomy between who I picture the Zodiac to be and somebody that's into the Mikado. I just can't put those two things together for some reason. Yeah, Mike, it sounds as if there's almost two different sides or parts of the Zodiac. Yeah, I think you have a person that in their written communication can't seem to spell half the words right, doesn't write very well, but yet they're into opera and specifically Gilbert and Sullivan and the Mikado. And more, I think police start to wonder if this letter might be a big clue to Zodiac's identity

because they start to consider whether Zodiac might have been in this play in high school, or if he might have worked with a theater company that had put on this play. And the fact is, nine months earlier, there was a San Francisco theater group called the Lamp Lighters that had performed this play. It opened on October 18, 1969, at the presentation theater a week to the day after the murder of Paul Stein. The presentation theater was located at Turk and Masonic Streets, only one mile from where cab driver Paul Stein was murdered on Washington and Cherry. The Macado lines that were used by Zodiac in this latest letter were the lines of a character in the play called Coco, the Lord High Executioner. Investigators pounced on the Lamplighter's Theater Company and looked closely at every person involved in the production.

Their investigation into the theater company led no place, and they could find no one in the Macado production that might be Zodiac. But then again, it's entirely possible that Zodiac may have only attended the play. Now, while the Lamplighter group seemed to be a dead end for investigators, they thought at the very least that Zodiac was a Gilbert and Sullivan fan. So they added this information into the collection of clues that they had been gathering, along the way because they thought sometime down the road this might lead to a potential suspect. On October 5th, 1970, a postcard was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle.

On the card were 13 punched holes along with the word zodiac and a cross circle. There was a red cross also written on the postcard that appeared to have been drawn using human blood or red paint. This seemed to be from the zodiac based on the words and symbols. And the 13 holes punched may have represented a victim count he was claiming. But this was different than most Zodiac mallings. This postcard was created using a cut and paste method using news articles and not hand printing like Zodiac usually used. One of the phrases on this card read, Dear Editor, which was a favorite phrase used by Zodiac.

Other phrases included, the pace isn't any slower. In fact, it's just one big thing. 13th. And some of them thought it was horrible. Since this letter didn't include much in the way of handwriting, documents examiner sure would moral would have no way of verifying if this was a real Zodiac communication. And it was anybody's guess who the 13th victim had been or might soon be. Some investigators thought that this may very well be a real Zodiac letter, but others weren't sold. And over the years, this letter would become hotly debated as to whether it was a real Zodiac correspondence or not. Along with that, there would be plenty of rumors of people claiming that they had mailed it.

But at the time, it was simply logged into the SFPD Zodiac. case file. San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery had been writing about the Zodiac since the newspaper got the first letter from him. Avery was a colorful character and a good experienced writer who in the 1960s had been in Vietnam to cover the war. Since 1969, he had personally been trying to do his own amateur Zodiac investigation and come up with his own suspects. During Avery's quest to figure out who the Zodiac was, he had formed some interesting conclusions. Some of these, Avery wrote in an article, The Chronicle published on October 18th, 1969 titled Zodiac Portrait of the Killer. In the article, Avery wrote, The Killer of Five,

who calls himself Zodiac, is a clumsy criminal, a liar, and possibly a latent homosexual. Now, Morph, that's pretty bold to write something like that about a serial killer that you know is more than likely to read that article. But Avery wasn't worried about Zodiac. And he would go on to write a lot of articles about the killer in subsequent years. On October 27th, 1970, a full year after the article Mike just mentioned, Paul Avery was sorting through his workmail when he found an envelope address to Paul Averly. The misspelling of his last name got Paul's attention, along with the fact that the L and Paul and the Avery were underlined. Also, in the spot for a return address, instead of a name or address, there was an odd symbol.

Paul opened this envelope and could see that inside of it was a Halloween card with a skeleton and a pumpkin on the front. Avery read the card. From your secret pal. I feel it in my bones. You ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in. But then why spoil the game? Happy Halloween.

So imagine Morph, you open a card and realize that one of the most wanted serial killers has just sent something directly to you. Yeah, see, after wonder, Mike, if Avery regretted calling Zodiac a latent homosexual because that sort of poked the bear a little bit. Yeah, we didn't talk about it before, Morph, but, you know, thinking about that, it's probably not the smartest move you could make. Because the Zodiac knows who you are. You don't know who the Zodiac is. You could walk by him on the street.

And my thought is he could have got to Paul Avery at any time he wanted to. I really don't feel I am. I think that the Zodiac is just making an idle threat, friend. He is bragged of killing up to possibly 14 people, but there's absolutely no evidence. But he's killed more than five. I put no credence in this. I think he just wanted to get himself a little publicity. You thought maybe things were dying down a bit as far as he was concerned?

Well, I think there would be the killings that have gone on in this area in recent weeks that have created very big headlines that possibly he's a little miffed. He's not the center of attention anymore. What kind of a person do you think the Zodiac is? Well, obviously a very sick person. He's very cunning, too. He's not a brilliant man, but he certainly isn't dumb. I think he's got kind of a shrewd animal cunning to him. And, of course, there is a great sickness in there

that prompts him to go out and kill. Don't you think you're going to start looking over your shoulder once in a while now? Oh, very definitely. As I say, I think it's an idle threat, but at the same time, I'm no fool. I'm going to be very careful. There was a conference with the police department and a discussion of possible police protection for me. It was finally decided that this, you know, at this time at least is unwarranted. If somebody takes a shot at me, that'll be a different case.

But at this point, there's no need, we don't feel any need for protection. So let's talk a little bit about this card in detail. It was essentially a regular Halloween card with a skeleton on it and the pumpkin was covering the genital area of the skeleton. The skeleton hand is holding up some sort of like an a okay sign and the number 14 was written on the hand. Inside there was another skeleton and words were added to. the card with white ink that included 14 and boo. And in addition to that, Mike, there were also 13 little eyes or eyeballs that were pasted onto the card.

There was an odd looking symbol written in white as well as a cross circle and the letter Z. There was two last bits of white handwriting on the inside of the card that were much smaller to read than the rest. The phrases, peekaboo and you are doomed were included. And to me, Morf, this is one that is very intriguing because you can look at it a couple different ways. The 13 eyes or eyeballs, is that the Zodiac saying, my victim count is now 13? But at the same time, he has the number 14 written.

So is that his victim count? or is he sending a message to Paul Avery saying, right now I'm at 13 and you are going to be number 14. And then on the back of the Halloween card, the word paradise was boldly written vertically and was intersected by the word slaves, which was written horizontally. The back of the card also included the phrases by fire, by gun, by knife and by rope. This card was examined by Sherwood Morrill, like all of the other Zodiac writings. And again, he would conclude that this was in fact mailed by the Zodiac.

And there was one last surprise because a closer examination of the envelope revealed that just inside was another message that, read, sorry, no cipher. So based on everything in this card, including the phrase, you are doomed, there was no other way for Paul to take this card than as a threat on his life. Avery took it so seriously that he went out and got a gun to carry around for protection. Newspapers all over the state of California ran the news about the threat on Paul Avery by the Zodiac. A man in Southern California near the town of Riverside, read the details about the threat on Avery and immediately decided that he needed to reach out to him. And what he's going to contact Paul Avery about

would perhaps be the biggest clue in the Zodiac case to date. This clue might finally be the downfall of Zodiac. And it's information about the 1966 murder of a Zodiac. And it's information about the 1966 murder of a a young college student named Sherry Joe Bates. But the story of Sherry Joe Bates is going to come in episode five. And you don't want to miss it. It's unbelievably fascinating. Yeah, Mike, the Sherry Joe Bates case is going to lead the Zodiac investigation in a whole new direction.

All right, Morf. That's a wrap on episode four, season one of criminology. We've got a lot more in story. on this Zodiac case. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. And if you would, please take the time to rate and review us on iTunes or your favorite Android app.

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All right, Morph. I want to give a big shout out to Lainey who does the True Crime Fan Club podcast. I've known Lainey since I first started True Crime all the time. I'm a huge fan of hers. If you're not listening, check out the True Crime Fan Club podcast. And here's a little clip of Laney introducing the podcast to you. Hey guys, it's Laney, host of the True Crime Fan Club podcast. If you're a true crime addict like I am, then my podcast is for you.

It's a podcast for the ultimate true crime enthusiast, giving you a glimpse into the life and crimes of the most demented minds. You won't want to miss an episode. episode.