Criminology - Looking In Lake Tahoe

Episode Date: September 23, 2017

In this episode, we explore the aftermath of the discovery of Zodiac's Riverside connection being exposed. There are a number of incidents that could be related to the Zodiac and we discuss those in detail. Zodiac would even resume his correspondence and take credit for a murder in Lake Tahoe. Donna Lass went missing from the Lake Tahoe area and Zodiac would revel in corresponding about the disappearance. Paul Avery would also receive new communications from Zodiac. One, in particular, is in response to an article written about a movie of all things. So join Mike and Morf as they continue their discussion on the infamous 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. I want to welcome everybody to episode seven of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as my co-host, Mike Morford. Morf, how are you? I'm doing super. How about you, Mike? I'm great, man. I'm ready to get another episode started.

We're here at episode seven. we spent the last couple episodes, five and six, talking about the 1966 Sherry Joe Bates murder in Riverside and its connection to the Zodiac case. And I'm not sure how you feel, Mike, but for me, Sherry's case was a tough one to cover.

While every murder is terrible, hers was especially disturbing. Not was, but it was also a case that we needed to cover in-depth morph to allow listeners to see just how it was connected to the Zodiac case and also what clues came from that case. We finished off episode six by talking about how Zodiac had initially shied away from taking credit for the Bates murder before finally writing to the LA Times on March 13th,

1971, at which point he admitted to his involvement in Sherry's case. In this episode, we're going to move forward. to the aftermath of Zodiac's Riverside Connection being exposed. It was now coming up on the one-year anniversary of the strange Kathleen John's incident out on Highway 132 near Modesto. Fresh off the heels of the Riverside connection being made by Paul Avery, an incident came to light. Although the incident had happened way back in the summer or fall of 1968 and been forgotten,

it suddenly took on new life here. The incident happened on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. Berkeley was situated right between Vallejo and San Francisco. And Telegraph Avenue was in the late 60s and into the 1970s, becoming a landing spot for young people who wanted to join the hippie or counterculture movement. And it was right next to Berkeley, the prestigious college. In this Telegraph Avenue incident, two girls were walking when a man stayed, stopped and asked them if they wanted to ride. They refused pointing at their VW bug, which was

right next to them. The man drove off and the two young ladies went into a nearby snack bar to grab a bite to eat. They were in this snack bar for about 45 minutes before walking to the Volkswagen bug. When the two girls arrived at the VW, they got in and tried to start the car. It wouldn't start. At that moment, the man who had offered them a ride 45 minutes earlier showed up. He offered to help the girls. This time, the girls accepted the offer of help. The man and the girls decided to push the car out of this spot to another spot a bit more out of the way. And while the three are pushing the car, another man who was passing by saw them and ran over to help. It was the second offer of help that angered the first man greatly that was already

pushing the car. At this point, he became enraged, stopped pushing the car, and walked off. The girls at that point were a little confused, and the second man that had come along to help didn't know what to think either. Once they opened the hood on the VW bug, it was discovered that distributor had been yanked loose from the engine, similar to the way in which Sherry Joe Bates VW bug had been tampered with. The man that the girls had seen at two different times was described as being about 30 to 40 years old with brown hair. He was never identified. And while we can't say that this was definitely Zodiac, the MO is quite similar to the Bates

case as this man likely sabotaged the VW bug and waited for the female driver to come along before offering to help. Nine days after Zodiac mailed out a letter to the LA Times on March 13. 1971. A strange postcard was mailed to San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery. This would be in the form of a sinister and mysterious postcard. It was postmarked March 22nd, 1971, one year to the day after the Kathleen John's incident. It's not known where this postcard was postmarked from, but the postcard on the front had a cross-circle drawn in the top left where you would normally write a return address. It was of a slightly larger design and a little different than the Zodiac usually made.

Below the drawing was the word Zodiac. And where the addressee info would go in the middle or the center of the postcard was what appeared to be pasted newspaper clippings that read The Times San Francisco Examiner San Francisco Chronicle Finally written down on the lower center part of the postcard

were the words Paul Averly Chronicle The word Avery had been spelled wrong as Averly And this is an identical spelling error to the one That was on the Halloween card Sent by Zodiac to Paul Avery

It appears that this was an intentional misspelling. On the reverse side of this card was a posted cutout section of newspaper. The newspaper section contained a drawing of workers carrying tools and shovels. Prominently on top of the image was another cutout section of newspaper that read Sierra Club. Down close to the bottom center and upside down were more pasted words, around in the snow. finally along the very bottom was another section of pasted words these read sought victim 12 peeked through the pines and past lake Tahoe areas finally at the very bottom right was a cross circle which was one quite similar to zodiac's normal cross circle drawn there were half moon like holes on the edges of this card

which had been created with a conductor's punch this design was quite similar to the suspect mailings of October 5th, 1970. The overall design and appearance was similar, as was the use of a conductor's punch to create the holes. Could it be that the October 5th, 1970 postcard, and this latest one, were both relating to a single victim? So you have to think more,

Paul Avery is probably thinking to himself, you know, here we go again. It's obvious from the design, the cross circle, and the words on this postcard, that it's, either from Zodiac or from a Zodiac copycat. Avery turned this postcard over to the SFPD and it was examined by Sherwood Morrill.

Despite the fact that it didn't contain much writing, Moral was able to confirm that Paul Avery had indeed received his second genuine piece of mail from the Zodiac. Sherwood Moral by this point was so familiar with looking at Zodiac's writing that he was quoted as saying, I've got him down cold. If he were standing beside me, say, in a bank, filling out a deposit slip, I know I'd recognize that printing anywhere. Basically, I identify handwriting, inks, typing, erasures, obliterations, alterations, even the paper itself. Handwriting is as individual as a fingerprint. With sufficient samples of a person's handwriting or in Zodiac's case printing, I can tell if he wrote the document in question.

This postcard seemed to be giving some clues, or hinting about a possible crime Zodiac had committed. The issue for police was to figure out who and where the victim might be using the possible clues included on the postcard. The first clue was the Sierra Club, prominently on the postcard. There was a San Francisco chapter of the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club was founded in San Francisco in 1892. The club is an organization that is heavily involved in preserving and protecting land and advocate for green policies. Could Zodiac have been connected to that club or could a victim of his? Another clue that's on the card is the drawing of men working on some sort of construction site and the words peeked through the pines and pass

Lake Tahoe areas. This gave police a general area to look for. It wasn't long before they were able to discover some very important things. The first of which was that the newspaper drawing of the men working was taken from an ad for a condo village called Forest Pines. And Forest Pines was currently under construction near Inclined Village. This area was on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada, about 200 miles away from San Francisco. The ad and the mention of past Lake Tahoe areas made police think that they should be looking for possible victims in that area. But this was pretty far away from Zodiac stomping grounds. Investigators started looking into possible Zodiac cases in the areas around Lake Tahoe along the California and Nevada border.

This search area would include the areas of South Lake Tahoe in California and inclined village in Nevada. Police couldn't find any attacks or murders in that area that seemed to match Zodiac's M.O. However, they did find a couple cases of missing persons in that area. On October 26, 1970, a man named Dr. Charles Hall and, Hollingsworth disappeared from the South Lake Tahoe area. Although Zodiac had attacked Paul Stein, who was a lone male, this was not his normal MO. Zodiac either usually attacked couples or if he was responsible for the attacks on Kathleen Johns and Sherry Joe Bates, then he also targeted lone females.

Police learned that Hollingsworth had been despondent over some family trouble, And it was possible that he may have harmed himself. His body has never been found. The only other suspicious case in that area was the missing person's case of Donna Ann Las of South Lake Tahoe. Donna Las, a 25-year-old nurse, had been missing since September 6, 1970, after working a shift at the Sahara Hotel and Casino in state line Nevada, a few miles from her South Lake Tahoe apartment. on the night of September 5th, 1970, Donna worked her overnight shift at the Sahara Casino Hotel. You have to think that a nurse at a hotel and casino working an overnight shift, it's probably going to be a relatively quiet shift. How many people are going to be sick or hurt during the overnight hours?

Donna performed her normal duties that night and at 150 a.m., Early on the morning of September 6, 1970, she logged an entry into the nurse's logbook just moments before her shift was to end at 2 a.m. After that, it's as if Donna Lass vanished off the face of the earth. Later on, on September 6th, the day Donna went missing, her employer received an odd call. A man told Donna's employer that due to a family illness, Donna would be away. and couldn't come into work that night. At around the same time, Donna's landlord also received an identical call from a man telling them that Donna would be away.

These calls would later prove to be baseless. Nobody in Donna's family was sick or knew about Donna going away. When it was realized that Donna was missing and that the details of these calls were lies, Donna's family got the South Lake Tahoe police involved. The police started their investigation. trying to backtrack through Donna's movements. The police knew that Donna had completed that log entry at 150 a.m. However, none of the other employees witnessed Donna leaving work.

Next, the police focused their attention to Donna's apartment at the Moni Verdi apartment complex. Donna had very recently moved into her apartment here only days before. Donna had a distinct red 1968 Chevy Camero convertible. And from what police could establish, the car had been parked and not moved when Donna had gone off to work the night before. This made it likely that Donna had walked to work or taken some other mode of transportation. Police searched Donna's apartment and they didn't find any sign of her, but they also didn't find any signs of foul play. All of Donna's belongings appeared to be in place. The only things missing were her purse and the clothes she was wearing when she dismal.

It's been reported in at least one newspaper that Donna was possibly witnessed talking to a blonde-haired man near her apartment, but this has not been verified. No sign of Donna has ever turned up, and she remains missing today 47 years after she was last seen. Police believe that Donna is dead and was murdered very soon after she vanished. They do not believe that she chose to drop from sight and make a new life or an identity for herself. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show her. up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which 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 but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Donna Last was a lot like Sherry Joe Bates in many ways. She was smart. She was ambitious, attractive. She actually even looked a lot like Sherry Joe Bates.

Donna was 5'4 foot four, had blonde hair and blue eyes. And also, like Sherry Joe Bates, Donna was by all accounts a very good person and not the kind of person to get into trouble or find themselves in with the wrong crowd. So there are some possibilities here that we really need to look closely at. One possibility is that somehow Donna never made it out of the casino alive and that whatever happened to her happened there. The one thing that does kind of support this is the fact that none of the other employees

at the casino ever saw her leave. Another possibility is that she was attacked as she made her way home around 2 a.m., possibly walking, or perhaps riding with somebody that drove her home from work. She could have been attacked at any spot along the way or may have been attacked once she arrived back at her apartment. This theory seems to be a possibility because the mysterious male caller most likely was involved in Donna's disappearance. The fact that he was trying to keep her employer and landlord from wondering where Donna was might show that he was trying to buy himself some time while he cleaned up her apartment or got rid of Donna's body.

If this is the case, then maybe Donna and the mysterious man were closely acquainted and not strangers. This last scenario morph sounds very possible and more likely perhaps than Donna actually crossing paths with the Zodiac killer. But when we look into Donna's background, we find some interesting things that make it seem possible that Donna could have. have been a Zodiac victim. Yeah, Mike, you're absolutely right. I think we have to start with the date that Donna went missing, September 6th, 1970. Just over a month later, the 13-hole punch postcard was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 5th, 1970.

So just about a month and a day after Donna went missing. We have already seen how Zodiac liked to write in certain intervals of crimes, writing to Melvin Belai one year to the day after the Lake Herman Road murders. Mail in the confession letter a month after the murder of Sherry Joe Bates. So I think we've definitely seen that Zodiac marked intervals of time or dates. And to back up your point, Morf, we see this with the latest postcard that Paul Avery received. That was connected to Donna Lass. Again, it was mailed March 22nd, 1971, the one.

year anniversary of the Kathleen John's incident. So to say the least, the dates of these mailings are very interesting. So we just finished saying how Donna Lass had only just recently moved in her apartment. She had previously lived in San Francisco on Balboa Street and had worked as a nurse at Letterman Hospital. Balboa Street was about two miles from where Zodiac killed cab driver Paul Stein. And the Letterman Hospital was in the Presidio. remember, the Presidio Army base was right next to Jackson Street, where Zodiac was witnessed walking as he fled the night of the Stein murder. And as you dive into Donna's past even further, she had once worked in Santa Barbara in

Southern California. This was from 1967 to 1969. Now, Santa Barbara isn't right next to Riverside. It's about 150 miles away. But it's still a sudden. California connection. But Santa Barbara is important for another reason because down in the Santa Barbara area in 1963, there was a double murder with some pretty striking similarities to Zodiac. And this is a double murder that doesn't get talked about a lot in Zodiac discussions, but maybe it should. And we're going to dive into that case in more detail in an upcoming coming episode. So the postcards that might be related to Donna Lass, presumably mailed from Zodiac to the Chronicle, didn't provide any smoking guns. There's nothing concrete linking Zodiac to her murder,

and in fact, we can't say for sure she's even dead because there's no body. For all we know, Zodiac may have only read about Donna's case and wanted to take credit for her. But there are some interesting things that seem to indicate a possible tie to Zodiac. There's one interesting thing worth mentioning that was discovered in recent years. And I have to give credit to my partner Morf because he's actually the one that discovered this. And it's the fact that Donna Lass had a cousin named Wayne Lass who lived in Vallejo where Zodiac started his crimes and also worked in San Francisco where Zodiac mailed most of his letters from. And Wayne Las was married to a woman named Donna Las.

So we're not saying that this means anything per se. We're drawing it out there, but it's a very interesting nugget in this case. There's one sinister note regarding the Donna Last case. On December 27, 1974, a Christmas card was mailed to Donna's sister, Mary Pilker, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The card had a picture of snow-covered pine trees on the front. When it was opened, the card read, Holiday Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year. Written in cursive was the message,

Best Wishes St. Donna and Guardian of the Pines. The writing was in cursive, not something Zodiac had previously done. So this cursive writing couldn't be matched to Zodiac's printed writing. However, the envelope included extra stamps, something Zodiac was fond of doing. This card also was mailed from Alameda County in California outside of San Francisco. This was the same county from which Zodiac had mailed his letter to the L.A. Times.

Over the years, Donna's family has tried to keep her case in the spotlight. They've even gone as far as making their own Zodiac-like code to go on missing person flyers in an effort to communicate with Zodiac. They've never received a response. Donna's case and photos still appear on various missing persons' websites to this day. The March 22nd, 1971 postcard would be the last Zodiac-related correspondence for a while. In fact, the next confirmed Zodiac letter wouldn't be received for almost three years. What would cause this absence from the spotlight for Zodiac?

People started wondering if he was dead or in jail or had simply gotten bulls. Lord with taunting the police. But I think one thing is clear, Morve, just because there weren't any confirmed Zodiac letters for almost three years in the Bay Area, that didn't mean that Zodiac could stop. We're actually going to see some very interesting things that might be Zodiac-related during this three-year stretch. On April 7, 1972, a woman named Isabel Watson was walking home on Pine Hill Road in Tamalpice. in Marin County, California.

This was about 12 miles from San Francisco. The time was about 9 p.m. As she walked, a light-colored vehicle, possibly a white Chevy, swerved off the road, striking Isabel, and knocking her to the ground. A man got out of the car, walked up to Isabel,

and offered to take her home. The man was insistent, but she refused his help. At this point, the man became enraged and pulled out a knife. He stabbed it, Isabel, catching her with a knife in her neck and shoulder. Isabel's screams drew the attention of local residents. At this point, the man jumped back in his car and took off.

Watson was taken to Marine General Hospital where she was treated for her wounds. Luckily, she survived. And Isabel Watson was able to furnish police with the description of her attacker. She described him as being in his 40s and where, wearing black horned rim glasses. She said that he was about 5'9 with short brown hair. And Morp, you know this description

sounds very, very similar to the description that Kathleen Johns gave to police of the man that picked her up. And on top of that, it's also very similar to the description of the Zodiac seen fleeing the Paul Stein murder. Unfortunately, this man was not caught, but Napa County Sheriff's Department Detective Ken Narlow, who had been hunting Zodiac since the Litt Berryessa attack, was quoted in Robert Grace Smith's book

Zodiac as saying, I think it's a good chance it was the Zodiac, a better than 50-50 chance. I've been chasing the SOB for two and a half years now, and Mrs. Watson's description seems to fit him to a T. It was a Friday night and every one of Zodiac's attacks has been on a Friday or Saturday. I kind of hope it's him because it gives us another eyewitness and lets us know he's still around. So Isabel Watson's attacker and whether or not he was the Zodiac would remain a mystery. Meanwhile, there hadn't been a confirmed Zodiac attack since October of 1969, almost three years earlier. While the residents of the San Francisco Bay area were happy, it seemed as if the press was getting bored with the absence of Zodiac. On July 22nd, 1973, a newspaper article ran about the absence of the Zodiac killer.

The article read in part, Zodiac, a screwball with two hobbies, killing and cryptograms, hasn't been heard from for quite a spell now. and San Francisco's leading Zodiac watchers are firmly convinced he's in jail, we're in a mental hospital, we're just dead. This story gets picked up by the Associated Press and is shared in newspapers all over the United States. And it wouldn't be long before somebody claiming to be Zodiac responds directly to this article with a letter and issues another threat. But this letter wasn't mailed from.

the San Francisco Bay Area, it would be mailed from across the country in Albany, New York. If Albany sounds familiar, it's because we discussed it all the way back in the first episode in relation to Zodiac victim, Darlene Farron. Darlene had actually moved to Albany, New York, with her ex-husband for a stretch prior to her murder before they returned to California. Her ex-husband, Jim, had a short stint working at an Albany newspaper. At the time of her murder, Darlene still knew people in Albany, New York,

and had several Albany contacts in her address book. In later episodes, when we get to suspects, one of the suspects we'll discuss had also worked for a newspaper in Albany before coming to California. A letter postmarked August 1st, 1973 in Albany was mailed to the Albany Times Union paper. The envelope was hand-printed,

and in the return address spot was a crossed circle. The hand-printed letter itself read, You were wrong, I am not dead or in the hospital, I am alive and well, and I'm going to start killing again. Below is the name of my next victim, but you had better hurry because I'm going to kill her August 10th at 5 p.m.

when the shift change. Albany is a nice town. At the bottom of the letter was a cipher that consisted of roughly 50 characters. This cipher didn't appear to look much like the symbols used in any of the confirmed Zodiac ciphers. While it's not clear if this letter was examined by Sherwood Morrill, who had examined all the California Zodiac letters, this letter was examined by the writing experts with the FBI. The FBI couldn't confirm the letter was a genuine Zodiac letter, but based on certain aspects

of the writing, they couldn't rule out Zodiac as being the author of it. either. The FBI was actually able to crack the code included in this letter. The cracked code read in part Albany Medical Center. This is only the beginning. But only part of the solution has been released by the FBI. The part that was never released apparently revealed the name of the intended victim at the Albany Medical Center. As far as we know, there were no attacks on employees at the medical center in in 1973. The fact that the letter mentioned after the shift change

at the Albany Medical Center is reminiscent of Nurse Donna Lass vanishing after her shift ended. The July 1973 newspaper article asking where Zodiac had gone mentioned that Zodiac watchers were convinced that Zodiac was either

in jail, in a hospital, or dead. This Albany letter started off with you were wrong. I am not dead or in the hospital. I am alive and well. So there's no question that this threatening Albany letter was a direct response to the newspaper article from only a week or so earlier. The question is, was it really from Zodiac? And there's one more Albany tie-in that we wanted to mention because it's been discussed over the years in Zodiac circles. But this is not a very well-known one. It involves a double murder of two young Scientologists in Los Angeles in November of 1969.

19-year-old Doreen Gull and 15-year-old James Sharp were found brutally murdered. The pair had been beaten, stabbed 50 times, and their eyes were slashed. Their murders were horrible. Police investigating the double murder looked in the room that Doreen Gull was staying in at a local hippie Scientology commune. They discovered a note in her possessions that read, So you think you can fool the old killer. Ha ha.

I know all your movements and the time they are made. Time is short. Enjoy life while you can. You are too beautiful to live and I must kill you. The Zodiac Killer. This letter was likely a letter given to Doreen as a prank or a joke. Since when she was killed, the Zodiac was in all the headlines across

the state of California. In fact, the police had some pretty strong persons of interest at this time. But the part about this double murder that has an Albany connection is the fact that Doring Gall had moved out to California from her home in Albany, New York. Gall's family lived at 422 Myrtle Avenue in Albany, which was across the street from the Albany medical center. Although the case has never been solved. police have always had a number of suspects.

One of those suspects was Bruce Davis of the Manson family, who some say was romantically involved with Gaul. And we're going to talk more about Bruce Davis and the Manson family when we get into suspects in later episodes. The remainder of 1973 was quiet as far as Zodiac went. There were no other communications or murders attributed to the Zodiac. By the start of 1974, the San Francisco Bay Area had started to move on from Zodiac and tried to put the pain he caused behind them. By January of 1974, Paul Avery of the San Francisco Chronicle wasn't writing about Zodiac.

There simply wasn't any Zodiac news to report. Instead, Avery chose to do a story about a hit film that had recently made headlines due to its shocking. violence and subject matter. The movie he chose to write about was The Exorcist. Avery's article was titled Weird Goings On at the Movies. The article detailed crowd reaction to the movie, which was playing exclusively at the North Point Theater in San Francisco. The article was published in the Chronicle on January 11, 1974.

Almost three weeks later, a letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle, and it seemed to be in direct response to Avery's Exorcist article. I saw and think the Exorcist was the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen, signed yours truly. He pledged himself into the billowy wave, and an echo rose from the suicides grave. Tidwillow, Tidwillow, titwillow. P.S. If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty. which you know I'm capable of doing.

Me 37. S-FPD zero. The Zodiac was back. Sherwood Morrill would confirm that after examining this latest exorcist letter. But why did Zodiac choose this exact time to reach out to the press again? The timing of this latest Zodiac letter with the exorcist making big headlines is pretty telling. It seemed as if Zodiac once again didn't want to be forgotten and felt that he could capitalize on all the attention that the exorcist was getting. For police, it was likely a mixed bag.

On one hand, another communication from Zodiac might provide a clue that would catch him. But on the other hand, Zodiac's latest letter claimed 37 victims, and police would have to start digging to see if that number was accurate. And if so, who were the additional victims? So when Zodiac mailed the Exorcist letter, the Exorcist was a really controversial. movie that had just come out. And if you're a horror fan, you've likely seen The Exorcist, but if not, you got to watch it. The Exorcist was making headlines nationwide.

If Zodiac really had seen The Exorcist and had watched it in the San Francisco area, then he likely had to have seen it at the North Point Theater. It was one of the only theaters in Northern California where the movie had been shown up to this point. Further examination of the Exorcist letter reveals some more clues. And we can see some things in this letter that are worth noting. For one, it's a really neat and stylized letter. The writing itself is clean and contains bold dotted eyes.

These dotted eyes were very similar to the dotted eyes on the envelope that the Sherry Joe Bates confession letter had been mailed in. Another thing that jumps out is that Zodiac used the word plunged. The Bates confession letter had contained the exact same word. word. The phrase titwillow, titwillow, titwillow was from Gilbert and Sullivan opera lyrics, something Zodiac had used before in his letters. At the bottom of the Exorcist letter was an odd-looking set of shapes or symbols that were drawn very boldly, but there was no way to know what the symbols meant. On February 14, 1974, just a couple weeks after the Exorcist letter, a letter was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, which read,

Dear Mr. Editor, did you know that the initials SLA, parentheses, Symbionese Liberation Army, spell, sleigh, an old Norse word meaning kill, signed a friend. This letter would also be confirmed to be from Zodiac

by Sherwood Moral. And Morf, this letter was a lot different from previous Zodiac letters. You know, for one thing, the writing itself look very different. And the Zodiac didn't refer to himself by Zodiac at all, didn't make any threats and didn't mention any scores. In fact, the only reason that it was even linked to Zodiac is because an alert employee at the newspaper had been tasked with looking through the mail for suspicious letters that might be from Zodiac. While the handwriting on the letter didn't appear to be a lot like previous writings, the printed

writing on the envelope was similar enough to catch this employee's attention. And this letter was just another attempt by Zodiac to capitalize on things that were in the news. On February 4th, just 10 days before Zodiac mailed this letter, Aris Patti Hurst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. The SLA, as they were known, was a radical militant group seeking to raise havoc and commit robberies. They planned to use the money they collected from robberies and ransoms to fund their terrorist plans. This kidnapping of Patty Hearst made headlines nationwide.

So it seems as Zodiac once again didn't like being overshadowed. At this point, Zodiac hadn't written in almost three years, but now had mailed back-to-back letters only 15 days apart. But then as quickly as Zodiac could come back into the spotlight, he once again disappeared. He would not be heard from again for almost three months. Zodiac would mail another letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, but we'll have to dive into that letter in episode 8 of criminology. All right, Morph, so that's another episode of Criminology,

season one on the Zodiac. Folks, if you like to show, make sure you subscribe and review on iTunes or your favorite Android app. And don't forget, you can find us on Twitter at Criminology Pod. or on Facebook by searching for criminology podcast. We also have a Facebook discussion group, which is criminology podcast discussion and fans. If you want to join, you can discuss the case

and the podcast with other listeners. We're still looking for emails or voicemails about the Zodiac case or the podcast itself. We plan to use some of these voicemails and emails in a future episode where we discuss theories, answer questions, and go over the case. You can email us at Criminology Podcast at gmail.com or you can leave a voicemail at 66177 crime. Remember, we may use your email or voicemail on a future

episode.