Criminology - A Killer's Epilogue

Episode Date: September 30, 2017

In this episode, we continue to explore both confirmed and unconfirmed Zodiac activity. This includes possible early murders as well as additional correspondence.  Join Mike and Morf as they continue the discussion on the infamous Zodiac. Upcoming planned episodes will focus on suspects as well as Zodiac's influence on pop culture. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and rate/review on Itunes or your favorite Android app. You can help support the show through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/criminology For news about the podcast, old episodes and more, visit our website.  We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Youtube - Twitch - Tik Tok  Find all of our social media in one place at: https://linktr.ee/criminologypodcast   Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I want to welcome everyone to episode eight of season one of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as my co-host, Mike Morford Morf. How are you today? I'm doing good. I'm excited to wrap this case up, Mike. Yeah, me too, man.

We put so much work into this. and we're heading into the home stretch, but there's still more to go. Yeah, we've got some interesting episodes coming up, and I think next week is going to be a good one too, so I'm pretty excited. So before we move forward with episode eight, I think it's important to recap episode seven just a little bit. You know, the Zodiac had been away from the San Francisco Bay area for quite a while, almost three years.

Well, let's say this. At least there was not a confirmed Zodiac letter in almost three years. Yeah, the last Zodiac letter had been mailed to the LA Times in March of 1971, taking credit for the Sherry Joe Bates murder, and hinting about his other Riverside activity. But after sending that letter, he dropped from sight. During that three-year stretch, there was a possible Zodiac letter in Albany, New York, all the way across the country. but it was never confirmed to be a real Zodiac letter. We talked about Donna Lass's case being tied to the Zodiac and also the attack on Isabel Watson.

But none of this was ever confirmed to be the work of Zodiac. So in reality, there's nothing that can be positively linked to Zodiac from March of 1971 until January of 1974 when he sent the Exorcist letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then only a couple weeks later, he meld what we talked about, we referred to it more as the SLA letter. And this was him basically trying to capitalize on the publicity that the radical SLA group was generating. And that's what you call a recap.

And that brings us to where we left off with episode seven. So almost three months. after the SLA letter, May 8, 1974, the Zodiac mailed another letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. Sirs, I would like to express my consternation concerning your poor taste and lack of sympathy for the public, as evidenced by your running of the ads for the movie Badlands, featuring the blurb. In 1959, most people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people. people. In light of recent events, this kind of murder glorification can only be deplorable

at best, not that glorification of violence was ever justifiable. Why don't you show some concern for public sensibilities and cut the ad? A citizen. This letter was a messy and rambling letter. It was almost as if it was scrawled in chicken scratch type handprinting. It was the complete opposite of the nice, clean, stylized writing in the Exorcist letter. But like other letters, Sherwood Morrill would be able to verify that this was indeed a real Zodiac letter. In this letter that's referred to as the Citizen or Badlands letter, Zodiac is actually complaining to the paper that they should stop running ads for violent movies.

In this case, he was apparently upset by the movie Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spaceek. The movie was loosely based on the real-life 1958 crime spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate. And you have to wonder if this letter was sarcastic in nature

by Zodiac. Or if by this point, he had really turned a new leaf and was against any acts of violence. On July 8, 1974, Zodiac would mail his third letter of the year to the San

Francisco Chronicle. Editor, put Marco back in the hellhole from when it came. He has a serious psychological disorder. Always needs to feel superior. I suggest you refer him to a shrink. Meanwhile, cancel the Count Marco column. Since the count can write anonymously, so can I. The Red Phantom.

Red with Rage. This letter by Zodiac was another one that was written very artistically. It was in a fancy, stylized type of print. It also made reference to a Count Marco. Count Marco was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle back in the 1960s and 70s. In his column, Marco would field questions from female readers and answer them in an egotistic sexist fashion. He was not a favorite with women as he shamelessly gave them advice on how to please their men and be good housewives, something that wouldn't go over very well today. Count Marco's real name was Mark Spinelli.

And Spinelli had angered a lot of women, but he also seemed to do something that upset Zodiac as well. And he would be so frightened by this letter that he moved from the San Francisco Bay area, temporarily. The Count Marco column was syndicated, which meant that it ran in newspapers all across the country. One letter sent from a reader to Spinelli and published back in October of 1962 really jumps out. Dear Count Marco, instead of sneaking up on women like a red phantom with black paint, you should work openly and usefully to help this free and generous country which feeds your nasty face. And this letter to Spinelli was signed off with Chicago. So this letter that was sent to Spinelli all the way back in 1962 contained the phrase red phantom and used the word nasty.

Both of these were used in the red phantom letter sent by Zodiac. It leads you to wonder if Zodiac was somehow aware of that particular letter to count. Marko 14 years before or if he may have even written it to Count Marco. The term Red Phantom was new. Zodiac had never referred to himself as that before. Police did some research on that term, but it led them down a lot of blind alleys. I mean, there was a type of fish called the Red Phantom. There had been a wrestler called the Red Phantom.

One promising possibility was a silent movie called El Expectro Rojo, which meant the Red Phantom. This movie had been shown in a San Francisco area theater in April 1974 just a few months before the Red Phantom letter was sent. And when we start talking about Zodiac suspects, we're going to find out that there are multiple suspects that had ties to San Francisco Bay Area movie theaters. There was one other really fascinating possibility connected to the phrase, red phantom. This had to do with a December 1947 news article that ran in various papers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The article dated December 23, 1947 read, while everyone else was getting Christmas and New Year's greetings, William J. Keating was getting ominous sounding note signed, The Red Phantom. They sailed over his backyard fence attached to bamboo spears.

Keating called police after he got one warning to him to, quote, Keep your cat away from the house with the Skylark flag, and another saying, beware, three clues will follow. Officer Dave Perkins found the Red Phantom, a nine-year-old pigeon fancier, who said his birds were threatened by Keating's cat. The Skylark flag flew from his loft. Attempts by online Zodiac researchers to identify the nine-year-old boy that sent these notes to William J. Keating back in 1947,

were unsuccessful. However, one thing is worth noting. While William Keating is actually a pretty common name in California, there is a man by this name that is associated with family members of one of the Vallejo victims. We don't know if he might be the son of the William J. Keating mentioned as receiving the threatening letters in this article. We definitely don't want to give any more information that might personally identify this man or which family of a Zodak victim he's associated with. Again, he may not have anything to do with the William J. Keating mentioned in this article. And Morp, this is absolutely fascinating to me because you have a nine-year-old boy using the term Red Phantom. And this would put this boy later in life in the age range to possibly be the Zodiac.

And nobody's been able to figure out who this nine-year-old boy was. And the other thing we have to talk about that to me is very, interesting is that this is the third letter in a row mailed by Zodiac in which he doesn't refer to himself as Zodiac. In the SLA letter, he referred to himself as a friend. The Badlands letter before this one, he referred to himself as a citizen. And then in this letter, he calls himself the Red Phantom, which, you know, in itself sounds pretty sinister, but it's still isn't Zodiac. And that's the name that he had built up over the last several years. I mean, that's his brand. You know, this may have been a sign that Zodiac was growing tired of this whole

persona that he had built. And maybe in a way he was killing himself off. After all, there had not been a confirmed Zodiac murder in over four years. But a lot of people have theorized that there's no way that a serial killer like Zodiac could just simply stop killing. But we know that's not always true. Well, there's there are reasons why they can. First, you have to consider whether the motivations have become addictions. Not all serial killers are addicted. Like let's say profit motivated serial killers aren't necessarily addicted to, but sexually motivated serial killers tend to be. So there's that question. it an addiction? If it is, they will have difficulty stopping, but as they get older, the

level of the intensity of the addiction tends to decline. Now, we do have a few older serial killers like Chickatillo was in his 50s, and we have, I think, somebody who was in his 60s, but that's pretty rare. So the intensity of addiction begins to decline, and they begin to, you know, let the fantasy life take over. And I know Raider was saying things. like, well, he didn't have the opportunities to go out. He didn't have good excuses anymore. So he had to make the most of whatever small time he could get with his errands. So then he began to just fantasize more rather than looking for opportunities to actually do it. And this, you know, by this time he's in his 50s and it's just not as important to him to put himself

out there as it was when he was in his 30s. I mean, it's a myth that Syria, can never stop because we definitely have serial killers who have stopped themselves and gone to the police and turned themselves in. It's not a lot of them, but that has happened. We have a few others who stopped. Gary Ridgway was one, for example, when he got, I guess, his third wife or something, he was happier. So he didn't go out and looking for prostitutes as much as he had been before. So I think it's on a case-by-case basis in terms of who might slow down or even bring it to a stop. And in part, that's going to be about what has satisfied them or not, and also about their

personal circumstances and how much risk they're willing to take. That was Dr. Catherine Ramsland again. You've heard her on earlier episodes of criminology. And she's discussing whether or not a serial killer like Zodiac can truly stop. And as you heard, her opinion is that there are certain facts. that can cause a serial killer to stop killing? I think that's the kind of thing you look at on a case-by-case basis. Because some of them will realize that, okay, their fame has peaked.

If they try to fan it more, they're putting themselves more at risk, and they kind of weigh the risk factors against, you know, the return on investment, we might say. Maybe the risk isn't really worth it anymore. I got my jollies and and they begin to just decide no. So according to Dr. Ramsland, it's very possible that Zodiac could have stopped both killing and writing letters as Zodiac to get attention. And that sort of bust that old myth that serial killers will never stop. So this Zodiac letter would actually end one chapter and begin another one.

After this July 1974 letter from Zodiac, he vanished. He was never heard from again, at least not in any confirmed instance. But there would be some more unconfirmed mailings from Zodiac after he vanished in 1974 that are worth mentioning. And we'll get into those shortly. But Morf, I think this is a good time to discuss Zodiac's infamy in the Bay Area during his reign of terror from 1968 to 1974. There's no doubt that people during that stretch of time were terrified of Zodiac.

There were a lot of murders going on in Northern California during the 60s and 70s. In fact, there were a lot of serial killers operating in and around each other during the same time periods. But Zodiac was one of the most well-known. I mean, he got so much publicity. And there were a lot of people that blamed Zodiac for all kinds of different murders. But in reality, he was only confirmed. to have murdered five people. And he's a strong suspect in some other attacks,

which we've covered up to this point. But there's one more case that Zodiac is a strong suspect in that we want to cover. And that's the June 1963 double murder of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards in Santa Barbara County and Southern California. Remember, in episode seven, we mentioned that possible Zos and Linda Edwards, in Santa Barbara County, and Southern California. Zodiac victim, Donna Lass, had actually spent time down in Santa Barbara. Robert Domingo's 18 and Linda Edwards 17 were seniors at Longpoke High School in Santa Barbara County. They were engaged to be married. On June 4, 1963, two days before they were to graduate,

the pair decided to take part in Senior Ditch Day, a day when most seniors would skip school and hang out with friends and have fun. Robert and Linda wanted to spend a quiet day together. So they decided that they would drive out to a secluded stretch of beach south of Gaviotta, about 25 miles from Santa Barbara. The area they headed to was a popular hangout among local kids. And this was a place that Robert and Linda had gone to before and knew pretty well. The couple left for the beach around noon. When Robert and Linda arrived at the stretch of beach, they wanted to spend time at that day. They parked up along Highway 101, which is a major highway.

that stretches all the way from southern to northern California. There were no good parking areas, so they actually had to park in the median between the northern and southern lanes of the highway. Robert and Linda had to walk down a pretty steep hillside to get down to the beach area. And there was also a railroad track that ran parallel to the ocean that they had to walk over to get down to the beach. I mean, Mor, if we're talking about 600 feet down to the beach area from the top of that hillside. Once the pair made it down, they apparently got set up and began to take in the ocean breeze while they laid down to sunbathe. As the pair laid out enjoying each other's company, sometime in the later afternoon, likely around 3 p.m., an unseen person made their way down to the beach where they were.

It's likely that this intruder walked down the same path that Robert and Linda had gone down to get to the beach. And before the pair could even react, this unknown person was on them. This was likely one lone man. The police would come up with their own theory of how events unfolded that day. They thought that the man was likely brandishing a weapon, probably a 22 rifle. He ordered Linda to tie up Robert using pre-cut lengths of rope that he had brought to the scene. It also appeared that the man forced Robert to lie down on his stomach while Linda tied his hands behind his back. Once Robert was tied, the man attempted to tie Linda's hands.

At that point, Robert likely got free from his bindings and lunged at the man, possibly knocking him down. Robert and Linda took off running up a stream bed that led back up towards the highway above. The man got up and using a gun shot at Robert and Linda as they ran hitting them both. after he shot them, the man walked up to the spot where Robert and Linda had fallen. He stood over the wounded pair and shot Robert 10 times in the back. Then he turned the gun on Linda shooting her eight times in the chest. And the police could tell that the gun was very close to Robert and Linda when it was fired because both of their bodies had powder burns on them.

After the killer was done shooting Robert Linda, he dragged Robert's body face down to a makeshift old shack that was about 30 yards away. He then went back and druged Linda's body face up back to the shack and placed her body on top of Roberts. The killer then cut open Linda's bathing suit, exposing her breast, but she was not sexually assaulted. So we know more that the killer brought a gun because he shot the victims multiple times. But we also know that he brought a knife because he used that knife to cut Linda's bathing suit. The other thing we know is that he brought pre-cut links of rope to the crime scene. And you've got to think back to the crime scene at Lake Beriasa because the pre-cut links of rope should sound very familiar. You know, in that attack by Zodiac in Napa County, pre-cut links.

lengths of rope were used to bind the victims. Yeah, Mike, you're right. This MO is very similar to Zodiac's MO at Lake Beriasa. Besides the things you just mentioned that were similar, the secluded area and approach of the killer was quite similar as well. And like at the Lake Beresa attack, it appears that the killer made Linda Ty Roberts' hands behind his back. There was a tarp of some kind that covered the door of this little wooden shack and the

Killer attempted to set it on fire. But he couldn't get the material of this tarp to catch fire. But police concluded that he had tried several times to get this the light on fire. He eventually gave up and fled the scene. But the killer did leave some valuable clues behind in the shack. He left some unused pieces of pre-cut rope as well as boxes of unused 22 rifle ammo. One other thing the killer left behind were footprints in the sand. Details have not been publicly shared by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department

that would wind up investigating this double murder. But there have been some rumblings that the tracks left behind by the killer may have indicated that he was wearing a size 10 and a half wing walker boots. We can't verify this to be true since it's a detail not released. But if it is true, then it would be possibly the biggest link of all to the Zodiac case. since Zodiac left size 10.5 wing walker tracks at the Lake Berry Us a crime scene. 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. When Robert and Linda didn't return home by that evening, their parents became worried.

Robert's father called everybody he could think of that might know where they would be. But nobody knew anything. The next day, June 5th, Robert's father went to the Lompoc Police Department to file a missing person's report around noon. But the Lompoke PD, would not take action because they said that the couple hadn't been missing for 24 hours.

But at that point in time, it had been around 24 hours since Robert and Linda had last been seen. Despite police not taking action right away, family members of the pair did, and they started to help look for the missing couple. One of the searchers was a cousin of Roberts, who remembered that they used to go to an isolated stretch of beach south of Gaviota. The cousin and his father, along with Robert's father, all jumped in the car and headed for that isolated stretch of beach. It was early evening when they finally spotted Robert's car, a 1957 Pontiac, parked up near the highway and the median. Right about that time, a California Highway Patrol officer was in the process of making a traffic stop. The search party alerted the patrol officer and he accompanied the three men down to the beach area below the. the highway. And it was not long after they got down to the beach that they found signs of a struggle,

blood, and spent shell casings. So at this point, they had to know something bad had happened. The cousin who had been at this beach before told the officer about the wooden shack close by, and the officer went over to check it out. When he looked inside the shack, he found the bodies of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards, where the killer had left them. This officer would detail in his report that the bodies were found at about 9.30 p.m. on June 5th, 1963. He also wrote in his report that he found pre-cut length of rope, some tails, both burnt and unburnt matches, and boxes of shells. So at this point, the officer undoubtedly knows that this is a crime scene, and he had to try and keep it preserved. And can you imagine the shock and horror for the Domingo's family members who are standing

nearby. The officer went back up to the highway to Robert's car, found it locked, and could see Linda's purse on the floorboard inside. An all-out investigation was conducted. Several officers and detectives converged on the scene to look for evidence and clues and to try and lay out what exactly had happened to Robert and Linda. In 1963, the sheriff of Santa Barbara County was James Webster, and he had his hands full. He was already busy working on a murder from the day before Robert and Linda were murdered. So three murders in the span of two days was a lot to handle for the sheriff's department of this usually peaceful seaside community. The murder that Sheriff Webster was already investigating was that of 63-year-old Vern Smith,

who was killed by three young men near Lompoc. Two of the young men were captured very quickly. Their names were James Coleman, 16 years old, and J.C. Reed, 17 years old. They had recounted for sheriff's investigators that the third youth had actually committed the murder of Mr. Smith by stabbing him, but they didn't know who this third kid was.

The pair stated that they had met this kid in Santa Cruz and he had called himself Sandy. Sandy claimed to have run away from his home in San Francisco. The two boys added that they, along with Sandy, had robbed a woman, stolen a car, before making their way down to Lompoc, and that after the murder of Vern Smith, Sandy went off on his own. At first, it seemed like Sandy may have been a character made up by the two young men to pass blame on for the murder of Mr. Smith.

But as the investigation continued, the police started to believe that Sandy was real and considered him as a possible suspect in the Domingo's Edwards murders. In the days following the murders of Domingos and Edwards, the local Lompoch papers reported various details of the murders. Some of these details seem to match official police investigation details, but some of what the papers printed seemed to clash with the actual evidence. One detail that was accurately reported after the murders was that the shell casings found at the Domingos Edwards crime scene were 22 caliber shell casings. The sheriff reported that the ammo used in the attack was Western Super X-22 caliber long rifle ammo. This ammo was the exact same ammo that was used five and a half years later in the first confirmed Zodiac murders on Lake Herman Road. This is another huge clue that this double murder may have been committed by the man that would later become the Zodiac.

In addition to looking for the mysterious Sandy, the investigators also searched for a man named Clyde, who they thought had concerned. the little makeshift shack where the bodies of Robert and Linda had been dumped. They wanted to question Clyde as well. Police tracked down a young man who they thought might be Sandy, but ruled him out as being Sandy or having anything to do with any of the murders. On June 13th, nine days after the murders of Robert and Linda, and 10 days after the murder of Mr. Smith, the Lompoc record newspaper released a composite sketch of the mystery.

serious young man known as Sandy. The description of Sandy in the paper was of a young male 17 to 18 years old, approximately 5 foot 8 and 150 pounds. He had blonde hair with black rimmed glasses. After the composite of Sandy was released, police made some progress in their attempts to track down where the ammo used in the attack had been purchased. They used serial numbers,

manufacture numbers on the boxes of ammo, to figure out that it could have been purchased at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is nine miles northwest of Lompoc. This could point to the murderer of Domingos and Edwards being in the military. And remember that in both the Zodiac and Sherry Joe Bates cases, there were lots of clues that popped up indicating a possible military connection. ballistic tests would come back indicating that a single weapon was used to murder Robert and Linda.

One interesting report that came out was that in the days leading up to the murders of Robert and Linda, there had been reports of a sniper taking shots at people near two different beaches close to where they were murdered. Some of these shots came from up along the highway near the railroad tracks. The sniper was not identified, and after the murders, there were no other reports of snipers.

The investigation into the murders of Domingos and Edwards gained some steam when a similar double murder happened in Southern California in 1964. Newlyweds Joyce and Johnny Swindle were killed as they walked along the beach in San Diego on February 5th of that year. Police would determine that a sniper took aim at Joyce and Johnny from an elevated position above the beach. and shot both of them. He then walked down to the victims as they lay on the beach, shot both of them in the head. Joyce died instantly

and Johnny died a few hours later. So there are enough similarities in the Swindle murders to peak the interest of the investigators of the Domingos and Edwards murders. Investigators in the Swindle murders developed a suspect early on

but they never put together enough evidence to close the case. And even though investigators tried, they couldn't connect the Swindle murders with the Domingos Edwards murders. And to this day, the Swindle's murders remains unsolved. After the possible connection to the Swindle murders fell through, the Domingo's Edwards investigation cooled. Suspects and persons of interest were looked at, but none were arrested.

The man thought to have built the little shack where the bodies of Robert and Linda were found was located and after investigation, he was cleared as a suspect. The suspect known as Sandy was never identified. Years later, an arrest warrant was issued for him in absentia for the murder of Vern Smith. In December of 1972, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department Detective William Baker was assigned to take a look at the Domingos Edwards case. At this point, the case was almost 10 years old. In an effort to generate leads and find possible clues that might be connected to the murders, Baker put out a notice to law enforcement officers all over California to contact him if they had any similar cases. San Francisco PD inspectors Dave Toskey and Bill Armstrong,

who had been working the Zodiac case for three years at this point, saw the notice and contacted Baker. After this possible connection was made, Baker came to the conclusion that the Domingo's Edwards murders were quite possibly the early work of Zodiac. On November 13, 1972, Santa Barbara County Sheriff John Carpenter held a press conference stating that there was considerable evidence

that linked Zodiac to the murders of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards, evidence beyond what is known to the public. Today, 54 years after the murders of Robert and Linda, their case remains officially unsolved, and whatever strong ties or physical evidence might link Zodiac to their case remains undisclosed. So, Morif we definitely see some striking similarities in MO between the Domingos Edwards murders and the Zodiac's late Beriesa attack. And this is the reason why a lot of people think that, these two cases are connected. But there's no official link between the two. You know, at this point,

it's just a very interesting possibility without any real answers. So the double murder of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards is a fascinating piece of the Zodiac mystery. If you want to learn more about this case, I suggest you check out the five-part documentary by Dr. John Avert about the murders of Robert Domingo's and Linda Edwards. This documentary is filled with great information about this double murder. So at this point, we've covered all of the confirmed Zodiac crimes and the other crimes where police feel the strongest that Zodiac is a good suspect. We've covered all of the confirmed and unconfirmed writings from Zodiac up until July of

1974. And Morif, like you mentioned, Zodiac vanished. in 1974. But there were a couple of other possible Zodiac correspondences after that point. One we've already talked about back in episode seven, and that was the Christmas card that was sent to the sister of Missing Nurse Donna Lass, Christmas time, 1974. One big difference in the card sent to Donna's sister was that the writing in it was curse of not printed.

Zodiac had never mailed any letters with curse of writing. Donna's family was suspicious of this writing, and it's been reported that they passed it along to Zodiac investigators. It's not known what became of the card or if investigators were able to gain any clues from it. From 1979 to 1981, there was a serial killer in Atlanta, Georgia, attacking and murdering young African-American children. This series of murders dubbed the Atlanta Child Murders

had the entire city of Atlanta living in fear and the case was making national headlines. In June of 1981, Wayne Williams would be arrested for the crimes and later convicted. However, just a few months before his arrest, a letter was mailed to a TV station in Atlanta. This letter writer claimed that he was the Zodiac. The letter read,

Hello, it's me. Haven't you people figured out who is killing these little people yet? I'll give you a hint. I used to be in San Francisco. I used to stalk women, but I like to kill children now. At all my victim's bodies, I have left certain clues, but I guess it's too hard for you rebels to handle. So I guess I'll have to tell you. I'll try to kill children because they're easy to pick off. By the way, if you still have letters from the other, murders, I am not writing with the same handwriting. The letter was signed off with Zodiac and a cross circle. Now, this letter doesn't look anything at all like previously confirmed Zodiac writing. You can see that somebody went to great lengths in order to hide their handwriting. The authorities took the letter serious enough to include it in the Atlanta Child Murder's file. They also sent a letter to the FBI for examination, and their experts stated in their report, quote, although a definite conclusion could not be reached, some characteristics were noted, which indicate that the writer of the Zodiac letters should not be eliminated as the author of this letter.

So at first glance, it doesn't look like Zodiac's known handwriting, but the FBI experts felt strongly enough not to rule out Zodiac. The case of the Atlanta child murders would certainly be the kind of big news that Zodiac might want to capitalize on for attention. So if this letter was really from him, then it would make sense. But with this letter, there wouldn't be a lot to go on for a definite connection. In 1986, 1987, in 1990, there would be a series of questionable documents,

letters, or cards thought to be from a Zodiac copycat. And in fact, most of these were dismissed as having nothing to do with the real Zodiac. However, in 1978, there was one possible letter that would make waves in the Zodiac case, causing grief for many people involved with the case.

It had been four years since the Zodiac had mailed a confirmed letter to a newspaper. On April 24th, 1978, a letter was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle. The letter's author claimed that they were the Zodiac. Now, this letter wasn't written directly to Paul Avery because by this time, Avery had left the Chronicle to go work for the Sacramento B. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Duffy Jennings took charge of this letter. The letter read, Dear Editor, this is the Zodiac speaking.

I am back with you. Tell Herb Kane, I am here. I have always been here. That city, Pig Toski is good, but I am smarter and better. He will get tired than leave me alone. I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me? I am now in control of all things.

Yours truly. It was signed off at the bottom with a cross circle that Zodiac had used and a score that read Guess and SFPD Zero. The Herb Kane mentioned in this letter was another San Francisco Chronicle columnist. And Dave Toskey being singled out was the first time that a specific inspector had been mentioned by name in any confirmed or unconfirmed zodiac letters. A columnist at the Chronicle, Armistead Mopin, read the letter, and it troubled him. Some of Mopin's writings included a series called Tales of the City.

In the series, a character named Inspector Tandy, who was based on real-life SFPD Inspector Dave Toskey, investigated and solved fictitious crimes. At some point, Dave Toskey as himself would appear in the series alongside the fictional Inspector Tandy. At some point, Toski's part in the series ended, and it's been alleged that Toski or members of his family sent fan mail to Mopin, urging him to bring back Toski into the series. This fan mail was supposedly sent to Moppin using various names, but never. under the name of Dave Toskey. Mopin felt that the tone and language of this most recent Zodiac letter matched that of some of the fan mail he had received to revive Toskey in his Tales of the City

series. Most troubling of all was that Mopin suspected that Toski himself had authored this latest Zodiac letter. That's a huge accusation to make against a long time, well-respected San Francisco Police Department detective. Toski's superiors moved in to investigate and take action. In July of 1978, Toski was suspended from his position as a homicide inspector. And an investigation was started to see if Toski had written this or any other Zodiac letters.

Toski was transferred out of homicide while this investigation took place and his reputation was sullied. after the investigation ended Toski's superiors concluded that he had not written any Zodiac letters but the damage was already done Toski was off of the Zodiac case his partner Bill Armstrong had already sometime earlier

transferred out of homicide due to the constant stress of the case Sherwood Morrill the expert documents examiner who had looked at so many confirmed and unconfirmed Zodiac letters had retired by this point in 1978. Even so, he offered his services to help investigators.

And he concluded that this letter was a legitimate Zodiac letter, though it's not certain to what degree he was involved or if he was using original material to examine before coming to the conclusion. Three other documents examiners did not agree with Moral's findings that this 1978 letter was legitimate. Moral, who had not been happy with the way Toski was treated and accused, decided that he would no longer offer his services to the SFPD, and he never again examined anything on their behalf. In the end, this letter was deemed to be a fake by experts and the police.

Many people have accused author Robert Graysmith of creating this fake letter in an effort to generate interest in the book he was writing about Zodiac. In fact, after many delays, his book wouldn't be published until 1986. That's about the time when some of the other Zodiac letters deemed to be fakes were mailed in. The timing of these fake letters paints Greysmith in a bad light. But it could also be argued that when his book was published in 1986, it caused a lot of attention seekers to come out of the woodwork mailing fake Zodiac letters. we have to point out that we attempted to reach out to Robert Graysmith. We invited him to appear on the podcast to discuss the case and his books,

but we never got a response to any of our invitations. Yeah, Mike, and that's too bad because his books are what brought many people like myself into this case. Before the Internet, it really was the go-to source for a lot of Zodiac information, some of which wasn't always right or accurate, but nonetheless, it did. contain a lot of valuable information. Officially, the Zodiac last made contact with the press in his July 8th, 1974 red phantom letter, which is over 43 years ago.

Zodiac's official murder count stands at 5, his last being the murder of Paul Stein on October 11th, 1969. But he's definitely suspected to be involved in several other cases, including all of the murder. of the ones we've touched on in season one of criminology. So this is the end of the road as far as the presentation of the Zodiac case goes. We hope that we've been able to bring you a lot of good, valuable, and accurate information

that you may not have known before. But we're not done yet. We've got some more great Zodiac discussion ahead over the next few episodes. We're going to go into detail about the mysterious ciphers that Zodiac mailed, his influence on true crime history. We're going to talk about the books, the movies, pop culture. But in the very next episode of Criminology, episode nine, we're going to get into what I've been waiting for more,

the Zodiac suspects. I mean, this is what really interests me. Folks, you don't want to miss this next episode. Yeah, Mike, I'm stoked to talk about suspects. We're going to dig through the confidential police reports in the Zodiac case and lay out a bunch of suspects in great detail. Many of these are well-known suspects that you may have already heard of, but some of these will be suspects that you probably haven't heard of before.

We'll let the listeners see if they can find a favorite suspect of their own. If you love the show, make sure you subscribe, go out, rate review on iTunes or your favorite Android app. And remember, everybody, we'd love to do an episode at the end of season one where we try and answer for some of your lingering questions or share your theories on the air. But we need you to email or leave voicemail so we can use them. You can reach us by emailing Criminology Podcast at gmail.com, or you can leave us a voicemail by calling 66177 crime. Don't forget, you can also find us on Twitter at Criminology Pod

and find our Facebook page by searching for Criminology Podcast. And if you want to join the discussion about the ZerneryPriamination, Zodiac or the Criminology Podcast, be sure to join our Facebook discussion group called Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.