Criminology - Zodiac Finale

Episode Date: October 28, 2017

This is the final episode of season 1 of Criminology and the end of the Zodiac series. We have a couple of great interviews in this episode. We discuss the effect of Zodiac on pop culture, the books, and the movies that have been made over the years. Gibby from True Crime All The Time makes a guest appearance to discuss some of the Zodiac movies and lend his encyclopedic knowledge. This is the final episode of season 1 but we'll be back soon with a new season of Criminology. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss the new episodes!    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'd like to welcome everyone to episode 12, the final episode of criminology, season one on the Zodiac. And Morf, it's hard to believe that we're at episode 12 already. I mean, it's finally here. We're wrapping up season one of criminology. and it's been an amazing ride to get here. Covered a lot of ground.

I want to say how much, and I know you're with me on this, how much we appreciate all of the listeners, all the people that downloaded that took this ride with us. Yeah, it's been really cool experience doing this first season and we've had a lot of interaction with the listeners on social media and stuff.

And it's just been, the feedback has been, you know, something that's been really awesome to hear, you know, after putting the effort in and trying to bring this case to everybody in a way that hasn't been done before. So, you know, I agree. It's been sort of a long season. But I think it paid off because a lot of people have told us how much they appreciate the podcast. And that means a lot to us. So thank you, everybody. Well, and you just said it, right? It's been a long season.

we never thought we would go 12 episodes. And there's no case, I don't think, that we could cover that we'll probably ever come close to 12, right, in upcoming seasons. Whatever season two is, we haven't decided yet, but I can't see it being 12 episodes. So I think we can safely say that it will be less than 12 episodes for season two. Yeah, but it's been really exciting to bring this case to the audience. I mean, this is one of America's greatest true crime mysteries. So, you know, hopefully we've laid the case out to you with as much detail and facts as possible. Now, Morph, a lot of people have written in, sent emails about what they thought was one of the coolest, creepiest parts of season one.

And that was what they're calling the voice of Zodiac. And you and I, we wanted it to be creepy because, let's face it, this case is creepy. And we wanted a voice that sounded like what we thought Zodiac and his creepiness would sound like. Yeah, and there's been descriptions of Zodiac's voice, you know, having a monotone, just speaking with a certain cadence. And I think Robert Yanez, who portrayed Zodiac on the podcast, for season one had a lot of challenges with those long letters and stuff, but he did a really great job. And he came across as very creepy,

and that's what the audience told us. So we thought it would be really cool if we had Robert on just to talk for a few minutes and let the audience hear him and what he has to say about being the Zodiac for season one. So we just wanted to have a quick talk with Zodiac himself, Robert Yanez. How you doing, Robert? Doing good, Marv. How are you doing it? Good.

Now, wait a minute, Morph. Let's clarify this. Robert Yanez is not the actual Zodiac. You said the Zodiac himself, like a big reveal. It's a dramatic moment. It's a dramatic moment. We've got the Zodiac on. Come to find out that it was really him talking on all the episodes. Right. I just want to clarify that before we go in. So Robert Yanez is a voice actor. He's not the Zodiac.

You've heard it here first. but a lot of you wrote in, sent email, sent messages saying how cool his voice was and how creepy it made the voice of Zodiac during some of those letter readings. So, you know, we appreciate you coming on just to talk to us for a little bit, Robert. Yeah, not a problem, or if I'm glad to be here. So, Robert, you know, I go back and I edit the episodes. And there were times, and I'm not kidding you, where I was a little creeped out. I mean, that's how powerful that some of that voice acting, the reading, I mean, I knew what the letters said. I had read the letters and seen the letters, but it added this whole different element to, you know, have it read in that type of voice.

And I think, you know, more like what you said, I think people just really kind of thought that it brought this extra dimension. You know, when I listened to some of the voices that we were potentially going to use, I listened to probably a dozen. And then I heard Roberts, and I was like, wow, this sounds like the voice. And the first letter that he read was the Sherry Joe Bates confession letter. And I just said, wow, he nailed it. That is the creepiest version. I just knew from right then it was going to work. What did you think when you first started reading some of these letters, Robert?

Well, you know, when you sent me the first letter, and I was kind of going to. going over it. And, you know, you, you, you were very clear with the instructions that you wanted something that was really creepy. And I was kind of playing around with a couple of different, you know, tones and styles. And, you know, the one thing with, with voice acting is I get a lot of luxury in multiple takes. So if I do something that sounds like crap, you guys never get to hear it. So, you know, I got to play around with it. And when I found, when I started hearing them, back. I was listening to him back. And that one was like, I got to send Mike this one. I got to send more for this one. They'll like this one for sure. And when you gave me back the feedback and you said it

was awesome, I was like, okay, we can do this. You know, the way it worked out, we sent so many, you know, letters a couple of times and then you did a couple. And then all of a sudden, I said, you got to do all of them. We got to do all the letters. They can't just be a couple of them now. You got to read them all. And then you even went back because we, I think you sent some back and we lost them somehow. I don't know. you were even cooling up to redo them. So we really appreciate all the work you did on them. Yeah, and that's part of it. There's always going to be, you know, back and forth.

You got to fix something, maybe mispronunciations or misread words, things like that. So that's expected. That's just the nature of the beast in voice acting. So amazing voice work. But then come to find out, Robert, you're actually into the Zodiac. Yeah, I mean, you know, growing up in Sacramento, like I said, I'm like maybe an hour and a half from Vallejo and a couple hours from San Francisco. It's like you can't get around this area without hearing about it, especially growing up. You know, I grew up in the 80s where we did hear a lot about, you know, things like the Zodiac and stuff.

So you can't get away from it. And what did you think when we first asked you to do the Zodiac where it was that something you felt like this is weird? but hey, it's some voice work, or did you feel like it was something you thought you would really enjoy doing? You know, in the beginning, I wasn't too sure, to be honest. Morph, I was like, well, this is kind of creepy. But, yeah, man, as we went through, you know, the next couple of letters, and I was like, man, this is getting really cool, you know,

and I was like, I really got into it. And the one thing we did with the phone call, I even got my wife in on it. And that was, that, that was. That's a story in itself. But yeah, she got on board, too. So it was really cool. Yeah, thank you, Mrs. Janice.

Yeah. So she played the dispatcher then, right? Yeah. Yeah, she was the dispatcher on the Vallejo call, the first Vallejo call. I'm really happy with the way you guys are doing the podcast. My wife and I are big fans. You guys are doing a really good job. And I'm not just saying that because I'm on the podcast a little bit.

But we do really like what you guys are doing. A lot of in-depth information that you guys are given. Even me living out here, the information I was not privy to in regards to the case. Yeah, I think, Morph, that's what we set out to do, right? I mean, when you and I first talked about this concept, it was, you know, nobody has ever done X number of episodes on the Zodiac. Yeah, you know, it's always been an hour here or maybe a couple of hours, but to go this far in detail, was something we really set out to do that we really, you know, it was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. It was, you know, pretty enjoyable. And then getting you involved,

just added that extra something that, and I told you at the beginning, I said, I know people are going to be talking about how creepy you are. And I said, I just, I can foresee that. And sure enough, that's, that's how it's been. So you definitely did a good job with the, with the voice acting. Oh, thank you, man. Appreciate that. Well, listen, Robert, we really appreciate it, man. what you brought to the podcast, it can't be overstated. I really can't because it just added this other level. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, Mike, I really appreciate that, man.

It was, like I said, it was a lot of fun to do. Yeah, we definitely enjoyed having you on. And I think you really added, like Mike said, added something special to the podcast. So we really appreciate it. Yeah, I really appreciate you guys saying that, man. Thank you so much. All right, Robert, we're going to let you go, buddy. Thank you so much.

give our thanks to your wife for participating and tell her hi from us and we appreciate it. We'll do, my friends. Thank you so much, guys. Take it easy, Robert. So we've covered it all, the crimes, the victims, the suspects, the letters, the hunt for the killer. And we wanted to wrap up season one with another interview. And then we wanted to touch on the books, the movies, and the influence that Z. Zodiac had on pop culture. Now, there's a good chance that after listening to season one, diving into the Zodiac case,

many of you out there might be hitting the internet in an effort to go even further into the case. After all, this is one of those cases that you can become obsessed with. We want to help you find some of the best sources for Zodiac material if you want to go out there and do some of your own investigation. So there's a lot of Zodiac Killer-related sites on the net. Some of them are good and others are not so good. And just some good ones off the top of my head would be Dave Aranchax ZodiacKillercers.com. Of course, that's all about the Zodiac Cyphers.

And then there's Zodiaccyphers.com, which is an awesome site by Richard Grinnell. There's Zodiac Killer Facts, which closely examines the facts and myths in the ZodiacCifers. ZodiacCase and ZodiacRevisited.com, which contains a nice mix of information about the ZodiacKillersight.com, hosted by yours truly, just saying. But one site I highly recommend is ZodiacKiller.com, which is hosted by Tom Boyt. And that site is the longest running Zodiac Killer-related website on the net. It's been around since 1998. Tom Boyt is an authority on the Zodiac case, and he's done a lot of work in the state.

case. So we wanted to have Tom on to discuss the last 20 years hunting the Zodiac killer. So here's how our interview with Tom Boyt went. So Tom, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? What made you decide to start a website about the Zodiac? Let's see. My earliest memories were in Southern California in the late 60s when, you know, all the crazy stuff was happening, all the rioting and all the college, I mean, there was arsons, there was bombings. It was unbelievable. It was so scary. I didn't understand any idea of it, but it was on the news every night, and the Zodiac was part of it, and I just remembered that name Zodiac, and we ended up moving to Oregon because the Mansons were running wild.

And then in Oregon, we had stuff like Bigfoot and D.B. Cooper and more crazy stuff happening, and so I kind of was just used to all that, and I think when I got old enough, I got interested in whatever happened to Zodiac, you know. There was a show, I think it was on Solve Mysteries. did a their first zodiac show. And I hadn't thought about Zodiac by 10 years and I decided to go get a book and read it. And that got me hooked. And by that time, the internet was the thing.

But there weren't really any good Zodiac sites like I thought there should be. So I kind of took it upon myself. And the idea was to get all the information put it on the internet for people around the world. And anybody could theoretically solve the case at any time. from anywhere in the world instantly. And it's been almost 20 years. It'll be 20 years exactly March 20th of next year. So in about five months, I guess, six months.

And I feel like they're closer than ever to solving the case. And I've said for a while that I thought 2017 would be the year. And if the case isn't solved this year, there'll at least be some huge advancements. One thing I've read, Tom, was that millions of people visited your website. And I think that shows just how fascinating in the Zudiac Key. is for so many people. What kind of numbers have you seen coming to your site

and do those numbers surprise you, you know, that there are so many people interested in the case? The only thing that surprises me is I can't figure out how to make any money from having such a popular website. I mean, I get people who are just, they think that if they have a popular website, it automatically translates into money, and that's not the case.

The most hits I've ever had in a month was, I think it was like $35 million in March of, 2007 when the movie was out. That, you know, and then I stopped checking hits. I used to check them every month, but after you get 35 million, it's like, how can you top that? So it's popular. Now, now Zodiac is part of pop culture. So everybody knows about Zodiac.

Everybody knows he was some guy in California. But when I started ZodiacKill.com, you know, there was like one book you could buy and a couple websites that were sort of based on that book. And I remember my mother was when I started the site, she was really, whenever she'd mentioned it to her friends, she was always surprised when someone had heard of the Zodiac. And now she's surprised when they haven't heard of the Zodiac because times have changed in 20 years. Everything's been done with the case, but solved it. So Tom, I think the next question we have is, how often do you get tips or emails from people? every day. How many times do I get good tips and emails rarely? That's probably a better question.

Most of the emails I get are from girls named Brittany in junior high. They want me to do their assignment for them. You know, they chose a Zodiac Killer is the topic for their report. And they go to my website where all the information that they could ever need is right there. And they click on the contact button. And then they email me and ask me if I can send them all the information. Yes, that's a every week it happens. Different Brittany.

There's a lot of Britney's. And how much stuff do you get that's actually relevant or, you know, that you feel strong enough that you can pass along to, you know, to law enforcement? Oh, that is rare. Most of it is just a theory based on a mistake that was in a newspaper article or a cook website that somebody happened to cross. and they go to my site and they don't see that cuck suspect. And so they email me to chew me out. You know, like, why isn't Donald Hardin on your suspects page? You know, he's obviously the Zodiac or why isn't Jack parents or why don't, you know,

occasionally somebody will mention Thomas Horan, but that's extremely rare. Unfortunately, the Donald Hardin crap is something that I get once in a while. So it's pretty rare when I get anything even remotely credible. Before I pass it along, I check it out usually just a little bit. of fact-checking or digging, you know, it'll turn out that this is just a mirage. It's mirage information. And then as sort of a follow-up to that, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever gotten through the mail? On the Clyde Lewis show, I brought my bag of DNA. It's a Ziploc bag. Every time somebody sends me their grandpa's used Kleenex, I put it in my DNA bag. And I get used

Q-tips and use Kleenex and used all sorts of stuff. I don't know what they think I'm going to do with it. But they send it to me and I keep it just for fun for parties. It's a great conversation piece. You know, you can just toss it to somebody and they'll catch it instinctively tell them what they just caught. Maybe Tom, they think that you're just able to run DNA from your house. But I get it in the mail and I'll keep it, but it's usually for party purposes. Turns out I got in the Malayal Police Department. Detective Poizzer brought me into the viewing room, which I call the evidence room, because it's the room they brought the evidence into that I got to view.

So, tactical it's the viewing room. The evidence is behind the cage. But anyway, they get some of the same stuff that I get. So in other words, some random cook digs through their uncle's garbage and gets Q-tips, and they don't just keep one Q-tip and send it to me. They keep two Q-tips and send one to me and one to Detect Poison. So between the two of us, we have a match. So Tom, we talked about you running Zodiackiller.com,

but you're also a hands-on researcher, actually going out to crime scenes, talking to investigators. Can you tell us a little bit about those experiences? Yeah, I still do. I'm pretty much overdoing all that, except for, I'm kind of jaded now because Mike Seacrest, he's an attorney in Florida, and he recently released a Zodiac book,

and the link is, on the main page of my website and he's he's a really cool guy he came out to california earlier this month and he'd never been to the sites or anything like that he was like a little kid he was so excited and i was just bored i mean he was jumping around i'd pull the car over and just start not doing crossword puzzles but it was equivalent of the same thing and he's taking pictures and selfies and he was just thrilled he couldn't understand why i wasn't why i wasn't into that i was like you know i used to live in san francisco i moved there for case research i've been to all the crime scenes 500 times and now the bar's really high because now i'm getting

and getting to see evidence and so forth. So I can't, I just, I'm just kind of bored with, with looking at microfish and sending away for, for F.OIA requests. And I just want to solve the case, get it over with, it's been 20-7 years for me. But research is fun. There's, uh, but I think really all the research has been done. I, I always have felt that Zodiac probably sent letters to the police, not necessarily in their own name. But when I was looking through the boxes that they had at Valao PD, you know, They saved all of the stuff that was sent to them.

And I was looking for familiar handwriting. I found a lot of stuff, a lot of really weird stuff, a lot of stuff that could have been something significant. There's more boxes to go through. So that's more like, I can't go back to, like, printing out newspaper articles and stuff like that. I've been there, done that. And so I've kind of, the bar has been raised.

I don't know if I can ever top being in that room and seeing those items, but hopefully I'll get to you one day. What are your thoughts about some of the books that are being published? You know, you mentioned one that's on your site right now. You know, some of them claim the case has been solved. Obviously, it's not. What do you think about the books and the people that make up claims, you know, that they know who the Zodiac was or their dad was the Zodiac?

The only one that I find credible is Mike Seacrest. And it's not because I necessarily agree with his solution or whatever. It's because he's a really intelligent guy. and he's a really good researcher and he's got integrity and so forth. Let's say, you know, down the road, the case is solved or whatever, and you decide you want to write a book about your experience. Is that something you've considered Don't? Yeah, I had a book.

I had an offer from a publisher that I turned down. So stupid I am. And a firm offer. And I've had other feelers, but it's a firm offer. but I just keep putting everything I get. I could put out there on the website. In 1998, when I first got access to the police information, that SFPD and a Napakini Sheriff's Department in late 1998,

I got behind the scenes, all their boxes out, and they were photocopied everything I wanted. If I wanted to, if I was smart, if I had to do it over again, I'd probably put all that information in a book and probably be, you know, I'd be living in a castle right now. Because most of the pages of the Zodiac letters, most of the envelopes, all that stuff debuted at my website. Only a small, maybe 35, 40% of the Zodiac's writings had appeared in newspapers or on TV shows or anywhere else. And I got the remaining 60%, scan and put them on my site for free.

And that's on one hand, that's what made the site so popular. But on the other, that could have got me a book deal. And I didn't do it. And the same with the crime sheet photos and the police reports. that was all really unique information. Of course, back then the case wasn't as popular. Brittany didn't know about it. You know, there's only two.

So it's popular. People are making Ted Cruz jokes. That started about January, I think, of 2016, the Ted Cruz crap. But that just goes to show. It's a mainstream pop culture. Everybody knows about the Zodiac case. Is there anything new that you're working on or have coming up? No, the documentary is on.

We're the goal of the documentary is to follow the DNA evidence. It's not to come up with the theory and then try to support the theory and all that crap. It's to actually solve the case. And to do that, we need access to all the evidence. And we're aiming very high and we don't have access to all the evidence. We only have access to part of it. And so until we get access to all of it, then we're on hold. And hopefully any day I get the call that says, hey, we can proceed.

but there are a lot of legal matters involved, you know, accessing evidence and then all the logistics about where do you have a tested. We have an unlimited budget to pay for everything and to just basically what we're doing is we're going to solve the Zodiac case for all the jurisdictions involved. So Tom, before we wrap up with you, give us your thoughts about, you know, is this case moving along? Do you see it making progress? Oh, it's moving. It's moving forward. I'm thrilled. I mean, I'm so, I can't believe that since early 2016, you know, my project is stalled. And, and, but, but something's replaced it, you know, so like there's an incredible amount going on behind the scenes. So, um, from, you know, it's from confirmed zodiac letters that have never been revealed to the public. from details about Zodiac's crimes. I mean, I'll give you a hint. If you're wondering why a particular Zodiac crime might have been authenticated as being the Zodiac, definitely for sure,

well, it's because of something that may or may not have been included that was held back. The same with Zodiac letters. If there's a Zodiac letter that was authenticated, and even though there wasn't very much handwriting or any handwriting, well, there's a lot that the public doesn't know. I'm really thrilled about that. I'm so thrilled. I've always felt like Lake Burius was a Zodiac, but there are people that some people that

don't think so, and Thomas Horan and people like that. The cooks. Not everybody's a cook who doesn't think that Lake Burius was a Zodiac, but there are some ragers out there that, you know, that I can't wait until the big reveal. The same with the letters.

You know, there was stuff that was included at Crime's Even in letters, stuff that was held back, that that authenticated different aspects of the case. So I give credit to the original investigators. They really did everything that most everything that we would hope they would have done. And I'm really happy that there's a lot of information out there that was not revealed publicly.

Because if we knew everything the police knew and there's nothing left and there's nothing held back, then Zodiac definitely wins. Unless we're lucky to get a DNA match somewhere. But, you know, who knows? The contents of those letters that were held back, at the time, they may not have meant anything. It might have been just nonsensical, but today it might point directly at a suspect. You know, and that seems like a pretty good point to end it on, you know, according to Tom Boyt, sounds like 2017 could be a big year for Zodiac. It is based on, and I don't mean to be a tease, but, you know, if someone asks, you know,

don't share something publicly for now. I'm not going to do it. But what I know is mind blowing. I mean, Zodiac was not, there was a lot more to what he was doing. And there was a lot more to him as a criminal. He was a, he was prolific. And he, think about this. Think about how much he changed from Lake Herman Road to Paul Stein.

From out in the middle of nowhere at night, without witnesses, an easy target, a couple in a car. And then he ends with Paul Stein. High risk crime, escaping on feet. You kill him. a populated neighborhood in front of people, witnesses. I mean, what if he kept, just imagine, what if he kept evolving in terms of risk-taking and experimentation? Well, I think that's what you got.

Oh, Tom, you got me excited. I'm, I, the worst part is I can't really talk to anybody about this. I've just been like, oh, but when I can, you know, if I can, I think, you know, I'll be glad when I, if I ever get the call that says, you know, we're ready to go public or go ahead and send out a tweet or whatever. Wow, that's going to be crazy. I'm going to need a laxative or a set of both. That's cool.

We want to thank Tom Voight for coming on to talk to us about the Zodiac case and the work he's done. Be sure to go out and check out his site, Zodiackiller.com. All right, Morph, so let's talk a little bit about the books related to Zodiac. I mean, book-wise, there's a bunch of books. based on the Zodiac Killer Case, most of them focus on that author's particular theory or suspect. You know, some of these books are good. Some of these are not so good.

Just like you mentioned with Zodiac websites, some of them aren't worth reading at all, but there are a few good ones out there. You know, this is the Zodiac speaking by Michael Kelleher and David Van Nuys is a, pretty good book that dives into the mind of the zodiac based on his crimes and his letters. Another good book that is aimed towards younger readers just learning about the case is the Zodiac Killer Terror and Mystery by Brenda Hoggin.

So Mike, I think that you and I both agree that the best Zodiac book out there is Zodiac by Robert Graysmith and to a lesser extent the sequel Zodiac Unmast. they're probably two of the best, or at least well-known and most popular books on this case. Yeah, for many of us, the Zodiac the Original by Robert Graysmith was one of the first books that introduced us to this case. And for a lot of people, this is one of their first true crime books at all that they ever read. So we have to say right up front that Robert Graysmith's books were not always accurate. There were certainly some mistakes.

And some people have accused Graysmith of making things up. My personal feeling is that some of the errors or emissions in Zodiac were due to Graysmith not being an experienced or professional writer. It's really a shame. You know, we wanted to have Robert Graysmith on the podcast. That would have been amazing. And, you know, we invited him multiple times, but we didn't get a response. So I think more without having him on, the next best thing is to just talk a little bit about the book.

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. So Zodiac, the original book by Gray-Smith, has often been referred to as the yellow book because it was published with a yellow cover. And a lot of people say, when I'm going to check my facts, I'm going to check the yellow book.

So when you hear that terms in Zodiac circles, that's what the yellow book refers to. Well, it was definitely one of the first true crime books that I read. By far, it was the one that captivated me. It's the reason why I've been so fascinated by this whole Zodiac case for so many years. Yeah, it's definitely a good read, whether parts of it may be accurate or inaccurate. But I remember it was published in 1986, and I was in high school, and my teacher assigned me to do a book report on whatever book I wanted to do. I somehow saw the Zodiac book and thought it sounded cool. They didn't know anything about the Zodiac Killer, but I picked it up.

read it. I looked at some of the pictures that were in it. And I did a report on the Zodiac. And the teacher wasn't too happy. And I remember she gave me a paper back. And the paper said A minus or B plus or whatever the grade was. I don't remember. But there was a big comment that she wrote in big bold letters subject matter with a question mark. I still see that. But you know, the one thing, and I don't know more if you agree or disagree on this, but you know, Robert Graysmith, he put a lot of. effort into that book and a lot of years. Yeah, Mike, you're right. He worked on that book for, I don't remember how many years it was. I want to say it was seven or eight years, but he started

in the 70s and by the time he finally got it published, it was 1986. And it was really a good reference book because it has a lot of good photos and case information. So as far as presenting it to the public for the first time, his book definitely did a good job with that. Well, and the other thing you have to think about is the time. The time that he's writing this, you didn't have all of the source material that you have today. Right. He didn't have all the material that you and I had to do this podcast. Absolutely. That's a good point, Mike. And he had to go out and question people and talk to people and knock on doors. So you got to give them credit for doing that. So we've mentioned some books. We hit on Robert Grace Smith's Zodiac again, which we mentioned in the podcast numerous times,

but it's a perfect segue to discuss some Zodiac-related movies. And I think this is a perfect time to introduce our guest host for the movie section, and it's none other than Mike Gibson, Gibby, my co-hosts from True Crime All the Time and True Crime All the Time Unsolved. Gibby, say hi to everybody. Hey, what's going on? You didn't say man. You're supposed to say man.

Man, what's going on? All right. And Gibbs is such a movie aficionado. You know, he can't always remember all the details about movies, but it's really hard to have a movie discussion and not bringing him in more if we had to do it. I agree. And I'm pretty excited. And is it true, Gibby, that you said, is that the movie where,

the guy goes to somebody's house at the end? It might be. I am efficient and a noddo. Uh-oh. It's efficient and a noddo. This should be fun. This should be fun. All right.

So let's talk about some movies and some of these more, if they just have zodiac ties, right? Or they're based in part maybe on the zodiac case. And that's definitely the situation with the first one. and that's Dirty Harry, 1971, starring Clint Eastwood. And this is a movie where he's chasing a serial killer called Scorpio. Yeah, that's a classic movie. And, you know, everybody loves the Clint Eastwood movies.

And that's one where he's chasing the guy and the guy is sending letters extorting the city. And it's, you know, it's San Francisco. So you know it's just entirely based from, based off a Zodiac. Well, just the word Scorpio, right? I mean, Zodiac, Scorpio. Yeah, it's something that they just take right out of the headlines and make a movie out of it. And it's pretty ingenious. Is that the, is that the go ahead, punk, make my day?

I don't know if he said that in the original. He might have. We have to see it now. We have to go back and look at that. I think he might have. Yeah, I don't know if that's that one or not, to be honest with you. It was definitely dirty Harry that said that. I just don't remember if he said it in the first one or not.

Yeah, he says it. as dirty Harry. I don't know if he says it in the first one or not. I mean, he also says what? It's a 44 magnum, the most powerful handgun ever made or something like that. That's another famous line. But I don't know if it's from this one either. Punk.

He definitely says punk. He adds to punk. And then I think the next one you have to talk about is Exorcist 3. Now, we're jumping up to 1990. what happened to one and two well it didn't have anything to do with Zodiac it would have been interesting if the Zodiac popped up in

Linda Blair's bed with her you know in one of those movies but he wasn't there I'm surprised he didn't everything else popped up man that was who that's a great what we're talking about popping up here not to get off not to get off on a tangent but

I remember seeing that movie at an age that I should have not been watching that movie, that scared the bejesus out of me. Same here. That scene, you know, with the rotating head and the, the green pea-sou vomit. I mean, it was, who, man, I didn't sleep for weeks. Willie Wonka scared you, so, you know.

Well, there's something scary about Willie Wonka. And Oompa's and all that stuff. But Exorcist 3, right? So Gibbs 1 and 2 doesn't have anything, Zodiac, related, but number three had George C. Scott, and it had a plot line of a police officer chasing a serial killer, and this time they called him Gemini. George, is this like after Patton or before Patton? After Patten.

This is like downhill of his career. Older George C. Scott, for sure. Yeah, I think Patton was from, what, 1970 something? Yeah, it's also after Taps, which I are. really liked. Oh yeah. That was a great. I don't watch Taps Sean Penn and Tom, a young Tom Cruise. Oh yeah. Do they like a bugle thing or something? Have you not seen Taps? No, Taps got played a little song on the, you know, no, it's where those kids were at like a, uh, what do you call it?

Oh, is that the military military. Military. There we go. There we go. Yeah. I mean, the good thing I didn't go to that. You were in it. A young Sean Penn. I mean, that was you. I've seen you back in the day you looked just like Spacoli. Hey, I'd be the young Sean Penn that went to, got himself arrested to go back to prison to beat up the guy that assaulted his wife or something. Remember that? Remember he put all the Coke cans in a pellet case and just beat the crap out of the guy? No. Is that a movie?

Yeah. Is that a movie with Sean Penn? I do remember a movie with him, and I can't remember the guy's name, but he does go to prison and he fights somebody, and I can't remember, but it was an old one. Gibby might be on to something, but I'm not quite sure it was that one. What's the name of the movie, Gibbs?

Beech up with a pillowcase of pop cannons. I don't know. It was a bad movie, though. But it sounds like you got a lot of the details right, so I give you that. I give you that. Yeah. So somewhere out there, there's a Sean Penn movie,

and somebody gets beat with some cans. Yeah. That's exactly it. I'm sure we'll hear about it. Somebody's going to get into us. But it wasn't Exorcist 3. No, it definitely. No.

It definitely would not. Those movies are kind of not really Zodiac related, right? But there are several movies about the Zodiac case. So you had Zodiac from 2005, which was a fictionalized account of a cop and his family's lives during the investigation of the case. So another movie based on Zodiac is awakening the Zodiac. And that's pretty new. That's from this year.

Have you guys seen that? I have not seen that one. Why would you want to awaken the Zodiac? Well, I don't know. It can't be good for anything. I wouldn't want to awaken them, but that's what they wanted to do in this case and this movie. And that's what they did.

It's pretty bad movie. And there's very little true Zodiac stuff in it. But it's based on the case. So, you know, that's one thing we figured we'd throw in here. So they're not, this is not like an investigation or into the Zodiac. The premise is this couple gets a storage locker and in the storage locker they find Zodiac's hidden materials and the stuff that he's been hiding all these years and all of a sudden he's trying to hump them down. So, I mean, it's not a real bad horror movie, but it's just not if you're trying to find something that's like true Zodiac and accurate Zodiac stuff. you know this isn't it that'd be kind of cool though imagine you know you do like that storage wars

you win the bid pay your 300 bucks crack it open and then there's a little chest of drawers and yeah it's like the i was the zodiac and here's all this stuff you wear this wear this mask and you become me that's like pretty cool that's like morph's dream to find a treasure trove of like all real unknown zodiac information. I wasn't sure where you're going with that. You said it was his dream. To be the zodiac, go out, you know. No.

Well, with my look, I'd find the zodiac's underwear drawer, and it would just be old socks and stuff like that that I have no interest in. That's more of Mike's dream right there. He's in the men's underwear. Don't ask me why. I don't want to know how you know that. It's weird.

It's all I can say. So awakening the zodiac, You see how I twisted that or back around, Gibb? Yeah, deflect. Deflect. Awakening the Zodiac. So morph, just to encapsulate this movie, we're talking about what a B horror movie that is based on a premise of the Zodiac, kind of.

Yeah, so they basically, I don't want to say still, but they basically use the Zodiac case as a premise for this movie to make a movie and make some money. Not wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that. I've seen worse movies. So then we have a movie back from 71 called The Zodiac Killer. And this was a movie directed by Tom Hansen. And this one, I guess you would have to call kind of a cult classic.

So this movie was based on the Zodiac. You know, it was loosely based on it very loosely. And a lot of the things in the movie weren't fact-based. And they just wanted to capitalize on the Zodiac case, which was, in full swing at at that time in 1971. But this movie was shown in San Francisco in 1971 when it was released.

And the police were so confident that the real Zodiac killer could not resist seeing a movie about him that they staked out the theater. They had undercover police officers scattered all around. And there was even a contest giving away a prize to moviegoers

that wrote their theory about Zodiac on a piece of paper and dropped it in a box in the theater. Hidden in the box was a police officer that was using a flashlight to read these notes that were dropped in. And if the officer saw any that looked like they may have been written by Zodiac, he had the ability to radio out to other officers and they were going to try to nab the Zodiac.

Do you say nab? I did say nab. Nab. You got a problem with it? No, if you were okay with nap, I'm good with it. Like nab to nab someone. Yeah. Not nag.

Nab. It's police lingo, man. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you're on that. I'm hip. I'm hip. You're hip. You're hip, all right.

We're talking about 1971 here. Yeah. But it didn't work. Zodiac didn't drop any entries into the slot or at least that they matched up. But you have to think about it, guys. I mean, that was kind of innovative. I mean, it was an idea at least to try to catch Zodiac. Yeah, I think that was a pretty ingenious idea to do that.

Because he had to show up. If that movie is showing in San Francisco and that's where he was stalking, then you would think he couldn't resist going in there. but maybe he just sensed it was a trap. I don't know. Or maybe he actually showed up to the theater, watched the movie, but knew better than to put his handwriting into that box.

Yeah. What do you think, Gibby? What's in the box? What's in the box? Don't open the box. That's classic. A great movie. That is a great movie.

Directed by David Fincher, by the way, which leads into our next movie. It does. That's a really good catch. If I actually had forgotten that he directed that. I call it a segue. It is a segue. All in all, there's a lot of other bad Zodiac movies out there that you can find on the net, find on YouTube or whatever.

But hands down, the all-time best Zodiac movie without question has to be Zodiac by David Fincher. Did Fight Club. He did, Zodiac, of course, he did... What's the one rule, Fight Club? Don't talk about Fight Club. Yeah, don't talk about Fight Club. You guys already ruined it. And he does Mind Hunter, which, you know, you've all heard me raving about, is a tremendous Netflix show.

And I watched, I've watched the whole first season. Did you binge it? Yeah, I binged it. I loved it. The only thing that kind of caught me off guard was the naked guy. And I'm not, I don't think I'm ruined in this if anybody hasn't seen it. The naked guy, like, within the first five minutes, kind of jumped out at me a little bit. That was a pretty graphic setup to the rest of the show.

It was, but, you know, the one thing that was amazing about that, and they actually interview a lot of the people that Gibby and I have profiled on true crime all time. I mean, you know, we did Jerry Brutow's. We've talked about, we haven't done a full episode on Kemper, but we've talked about him in relation to other cases. Is this venture movie? Is this the one would, what's his name, Jillendale, Jillendale? Yeah, Jillendale.

Robert Downey Jr. Hillendale. And Chippendale. Roughly, the guy that played the Hulk, Ruffalo. You know. Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo, yes, yeah. Yeah, the Hulk.

See, interesting. The Hulk. And Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man. Oh, connection. Connection. And I think he did this before Iron Man. I think before he became a superhero, I think he did Zodiac. Yeah, I think so, 2007.

So was this movie based off of that, the Zodiac book, or is this based off of something else? Yeah, so Zodiac, the movie from 2007 by David Fincher, is based on Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac. And I think that's one of the main reasons why Jake Gyllenhaal's character, who is Robert Graysmith, is kind of featured so probably. It's like Tarzan's name, isn't it? Gray Smith? Oh, that's Gray Stroke. Grace Stroke. Grace Stroke. All right, Gibby, your accuracy percentage is about 12 at this point.

Out of what? 14? It's good. As we go. And you know what's a shame, guys, is this movie is an excellent movie. And, you know, I could watch this movie repeatedly. But at the box office, it did not do very well. And I think it's because people were expecting just

another slasher flick. I think they went in thinking there was going to be a serial killer movie and people were going to get hacked up and chased and everything else and it just wasn't that. So that's a shame that the movie wasn't, didn't do well at the box office, but it's a, it's

definitely a great movie and everybody that watches. It definitely, you know, pretty much agrees with that. I mean, I remember watching it. It was just a good story. Like you said, it didn't have all that hack and cut up and gore. Not that I recall. I just remember it being a, you know, good plot, a good, good story all the way through.

Well, and it was also very suspenseful without having all those, right? You don't have a guy in a mask. You don't have a guy with a knife coming around a corner. But, I mean, he does an amazing job at creating suspense in this movie that I'm with you more of. I've seen it. probably, I bet you I've seen it 20 times. I just watched it last week. Yeah, it's definitely one of those movies you can just get into. And it's, you know, the first, it's a long movie. It's probably two and a half hours. But the first 40, 45 minutes is focused on the killings, the attacks. And then from there, it's just the obsession and the investigation into trying to,

trying to track down the Zodiac. So it's, if you haven't seen Zodiac, go out and watch it. It's definitely an excellent movie. And some things, yeah, one thing I'm, wanted to say about the movie and morph back me up on this but i think the first you mentioned the first 45 minutes it's pretty accurate yeah it's and it's pretty accurate and it is you know a lot of the details in there do match up with the actual case files the one thing that david fincher doesn't show in the movie are the attacks where there was no surviving witness to corroborate everything so

you know you don't see the lake herman road murders because there's nobody left there to tell exactly how it went So anytime there wasn't some kind of witness to what happened, you don't see that in the movie. It's the second half, or it's actually more than half, but it's the second part of the movie, I'll call it, where, you know, Gray Smith is becoming obsessed. He's really getting involved in his own investigation. And, you know, he's looking at Arthur Lee Allen. I mean, that, that is the person that he's kind of fixated on. But that makes sense because the book Zodiac, his suspect is Robert Hall Star, who is in fact Arthur Lee Allen. Yeah.

And it's another interesting thing is that they had three different people play Zodiac because there were so many different, slightly different descriptions as far as age or build or different things. So they actually had three different people play Zodiac to make it, you know, match up a little bit with what different people were. And I think that's very interesting. That's not something that I knew, probably because I just didn't focus that much on, they don't show them. You know, they're pretty silhouetted, if that's a word. Yeah. It's not. I'm using it anyway.

Silhouetted. And also, I mean, the only way I know that is because if you look at the credits, it basically says Zodiac 1, Zodiac 2, Zodiac 3. Morph's kind of a attention to detail kind of guy. he watches those credits he hangs out yeah well not just that but if you watch the bonus footage on the DVD it's uh there's a lot of good stuff that they break down as as they're going along through the movie when they're doing the audio portion now you can you get the bonus footage if you go out the nextflix nextflix next flex yeah how much is nextflix because my netflix is too expensive and i'd rather have some it's it's a little bit better deal that's a little bit if you use

uh promo code gibby it's it's um it's almost Almost free is what I always said. It's almost free, really. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know somebody out there right now is probably going to be typing Netflix promotion code Gibby. Unless they listen to True Crime All the time, then they'll know.

They know the whole story. So, Morph, you mentioned about, I got to get this train back on track somehow. You mentioned the director's cut in that, in that two-part DVD of the Zodiac. And you got to talk about the documentary on there. Yeah, so the documentary is called This is the Zodiac speaking, and it is loaded with really good information. They interviewed, you know, some of the witnesses, some of the law enforcement officers that we've mentioned on the podcast this season. And they really break down a lot of what happened. They talked to Brian Hartnell, who was survivor of the Lake Beriasa attack.

And, you know, the bonus stuff on that, on that. that disc on the collector's edition on the director's copy is from 2007. So it's, you know, it's 10 years old. And the real shame is that many of the people that are on there have died since then. So you really get an idea of just how old this case is when, you know, that documentary from 10 years ago, a lot of the people that were on it are no longer with us. Do the people in the documentary wear some nice buttons? He said documentary. I love it when he says documentary.

And Zodiac even made his way onto TV as well. You know, over the years there have been countless news shows, all kinds of segments featuring the case. And you can find a lot of those from over the years on YouTube. In 2015, you know, they've got this popular show called, called American Horror Story, which I know is one of your favorite Gibbs. It's right up your alley. And they had a segment on there in which the Zodiac killer comes to a dinner party.

Here's this dinner party. Zodiac. I don't know. Do you bring out the steak knives or not? Probably not, I would think. No, I don't think you want to be bringing out too much cutlery. Yeah, because he knows how to use that. He, unfortunately, he used that to his.

to his advantage on one of the attacks he did. He did. I mean, he was mostly a gun guy, but... It was like that September 27, 1969. Yeah. He knows the dates. Look at that, see? I'm a savant.

So criminal minds, I know a lot of people probably watch, and they had an episode called True Genius. I think it was from a few years ago. And in that episode, somebody that was, you know, supposedly the Zodiac Killer was going, around attacking people. And of course, the team by the end of the show was able to crack it and see that it wasn't really the Zodiac. But of course, because, you know, it only takes 60 minutes, right?

In real life to crack some of these tough cases. Yeah. If somebody on TV screen can do the Zodiac case in 60 minutes and catch the killer and put them away, then they're doing something pretty good because 12 episodes in and we haven't been able to do it. And if you got somebody like Gibby on the force, about 42 minutes is his average solve time. That's good. I'm trying to figure if that's a good thing or not. Yeah, 42 minutes to solve a case.

Yeah, that's pretty good. You can get a job anywhere. We can do that. All right, Gibby. We really appreciate you coming on, man. It's been fun. Thanks, dude. All right, thanks, guys.

Thanks for coming on, man. All right. So that was Gibbs, adding a little levity to the show. And we said more. If we wanted us to be a little bit more laid back, we've been pretty serious in the first 11 episodes. Yeah, you're right, because, you know, my wife's always telling me you're too serious all the time. And, you know, I think that's how we wanted to portray the entire season one, lay out the facts and be real serious and, you know, put it out there. But I think for episode 12, we are having a little bit more.

fun cutting loose and I really enjoyed having Gibbyon. Oh yeah, he's always fun. But so we've talked about books, we talked about movies, we talked about some TV shows, either semi-related to Zodiac

or directly you know, related to Zodiac or based on Zodiac. And we talked in the beginning a little bit about pop culture. You have to say that Zodiac has become I don't know what you'd call it, almost like an icon, if that's the right word, in pop culture,

because this case has led to a lot of people that, you know, even outside of true crime circles, taking notice of the Zodiac. So I think some of the things that you're talking about are sort of like the, the Ted Cruz, the Zodiac stuff that was going around on the net and it went away, but now it's back for some reason. And it shows how big this case is that people even bring up the Zodiac to use in a wacky thing like that. So, you know, it's definitely affected pop culture and, you know, people that have never heard of the Zodak killer still use, you know, phrases like that. So I think this would be the time, Mike, to jump into some listener questions, theories. You know, we ask people to reach out,

you know, through social media, send us emails, voicemails. So I think it's a good time now to lay some of that out and maybe touch on some of the things that people contact us about. So all season, we've been asking you to share with us your questions, your theories about the Zodiac case. And we've gotten some good responses. And we really appreciate you taking the time to do that. We love interacting with the listeners and through social media. So now we want to address some of the things that many of you tuning into season one of criminology wanted to discuss. So we had a couple questions from Allison in our podcast discussion group on Facebook.

And Allison wrote, I have a few questions about Zodiac. You mentioned several times about handwriting being verified as belonging to Zodiac. Is that generally undisputed? Or are there legit slash knowledgeable handwriting experts that disagree? So Morph, I'll let you take that one. You're the expert. All right. So overall, the Zodiac's writing was linked in all the, most of the Zodiac writings were linked, I should say. Anything we've said is confirmed on this show is considered a genuine confirmed Zodiac letter.

A lot of them were linked by Sherwood Morrill, who was, you know, a really respected documents examiner. And they didn't just take his word for it. They also sent it off to the FBI, and then there were other documents examiners. Now there were a couple later letters that Sherwood Morrill would say he thought were legitimate, but he was actually retired when he looked at some of these, and he wasn't officially having to look at these for the case, but he did so just to try and help out. And a couple of the ones that he said were legitimate turned out to be other documents examiners didn't think they were.

But pretty much all the ones from 1969 and 1974 that we've talked about on season one, are pretty much all confirmed zodiac letters. And then her second question is actually directed at you, Morph. I heard a Generation Y podcast where you were debating a guy who claimed there was no Zodiac. And what she wants to know is, is that a legitimate theory at all? Or is the guy that was touting that seen as being on the fringe? Yeah. So the Generation Y podcast, which are, you know, Justin and Aaron over there,

really great guys, by the way, was on there a couple times. They have a great show. And we talked to Zodiac and we sort of had a debate. And Thomas Horan had wrote a book about the Zodiac hoax that he perpetuated, put out there. And he claimed that there was no Zodiac killer, that this was just some elaborate plan by law enforcement to generate attention for certain cases. and to build interest and I don't really know what purpose he thought it would serve saying there was a hoax. And he tried to link handwriting even to different investigators.

And to really explore his hoax theory, you have to read his book, I guess, is the best way to explain it. But essentially, you know, the short answer here is that every Zodiac attack from 1968 through 1969 is connected. either by information that the killer knew and included in his letters, or the letters, the handwriting themselves links all the cases, or, you know, pieces of shirt were sent in, you know, per se, in the Stein case. Part of his shirt was mailed in. And the writing on that letter linked up to the earlier letters and the earlier crimes.

The corridor at Beriesa had the same writing on it. So essentially, you've got physical evidence and or hands. handwriting at every scene linking them all together as the same person. So, you know, for the hoax theory to even be a possibility, you would really have to have several jurisdictions in different cities and different departments somehow planning together to put some hoax together because it happened over Salino County, Vallejo PD, then Napa County and then San Francisco. So you'd really have to have a whole lot of stuff falling in place with a bunch of people involved. And at the the day it's just it's not really you know a legitimate theory and she has a third question which is

what if anything is being done to rule in or out the current best suspects for example is anyone looking at familial DNA and then she ends it by saying i've really enjoyed the season i look forward to the next one so we appreciate that from alison yeah so essentially DNA in the zordiak case is somewhat disputed because the samples are sort of degraded that, you know, they're collecting this evidence before DNA ever came along. So some of the handling and some of the things where they've gotten some of the DNA in this case or, you know, some people are skeptical of how, how accurate that DNA information is. But I can tell you right now, you know, right now as we speak, there's some stuff going on behind the scenes with DNA in that case that we can't say too much about it now,

but they're going to try and see if they can come up with any kind of results that might yield more clues to who Zodiac was. So the familial DNA, there are different people, different relatives of suspects that are coming forward to say that they will gladly give their DNA if it can help rule out, you know, a suspect that's their family member. So the police are doing that, but that's sort of behind the scenes. So I don't know that we'll ever know who was ruled in and ruled out, but I know they are using, you know, that kind of DNA research to rule people. out. Well, I think we would know who was ruled in if they think they've got the right guy. I would hope so. I would hope they would say, hey, by the way, the cases saw it now, but, you know, so far that hasn't happened. All right. The next question is from Gregory, and he sent this through email. Can you guys tell me whatever became of Robert Lee Bell, the initial suspect, thought to be Sandy, who was arrested in the

Domingos Edwards murders. He looks exactly like the... composite and had enough circumstantial evidence against him to be taken into custody, yet mysteriously he must have been let go since the murders remained unsolved. If you remember the episode where we talked about Domingos and Edwards, the murders down in Santa Barbara, we told you about a mysterious Sandy that they were seeking in the murders. And they actually identified somebody that they thought was Sandy. His name was Robert Lee Bell, and this is all public information, public records. So he was actually arrested because they really thought he was Sandy.

But Robert Lee Bell was able to provide an airtight alibi and apparently had a witness that corroborated that he was not down there at that time. So he couldn't have been this mysterious Sandy. So that's what got him off was that he had, again, what was reported to be an airtight alibi that made it impossible for him to be that mysterious Sandy. So I'm really liking the questions so far. people are doing some real digging. So next up is an email we got from Rachel. And Rachel wrote, there was an unknown killer in Texas known as the Phantom Killer,

where the Texarkana Moonlight Murderer. They happened in early 1946. Obviously, this was a few decades before Zodiac was active in California. But there are similarities between the two. Do you think they could be connected? I'll take this one more. you know, the Texarkana moonlight murders or the phantom killer, I mean, you know, it has a lot of different monikers. Gibby and I actually did a multi-parter on this one on our True Crime All the Time Unsolved podcast.

It's a really fascinating case. You know, I really liked digging into that one. The thing that gets me is the timing. those murders happening in in 46 for that killer to later be the zodiac he would have had to have been very very young to then in the late 60s be in the age range that all the eyewitnesses said zodiac was so i mean based on that alone i don't think they could be connected but i don't know jump in more if you got something different. Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think that it's unlikely. You know, one thing, if that killer actually lived in the Texas area,

he probably had a southern accent, and that wasn't reported with, you know, with the Zodiac. And the lovers laying killings are actually pretty frequent. They happen a lot over, you know, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, all over the country. So I think it's just more of an opportune place where you can catch. somebody that's not paying attention. They're, you know, making out whatever they're doing. It's a good way to catch them, sneak up on them, stalk them, and not be caught, not be noticed. So I think that's what we're seeing here is maybe just another killer that used that same, same MO. So the next question we got was an email from Dakota.

And Dakota writes, hey guys, I was listening to a true crime all the time episode on Son of Sam. I know a lot of people think the Zodiac was some mastermind serial killer, but if we take a look at all the killers, we know a lot of them have been institutionalized. Seeing as he's from California, have the police or you guys drawn any suspects from any of the many mental institutes? So appreciate that email from Dakota and, you know, really appreciate the fact that she listens to true crime all time. But I'm going to let you take this one more. So we know the police definitely looked at people that were in mental institutes. As a matter of fact, in the suspects episode, we did, we mentioned a couple that spent time in mental facilities.

And I think the police, especially back in those days, they just assume there's got to be some stark raving maniac on the loose that's escaped from a mental hospital. I think that was the thinking back then. And so they definitely looked at some. We see that in reports, and we definitely mentioned a few in the suspects episode. So to answer your question, so we know that that avenue was definitely looked at by police. And we got an email from Carter, big supporter of the show, and she says, I've loved the mystery of the Zodiac Killer ever since I moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, and learned about the Colonial Parkway Killer. And she wants to know more, could these two, very similar to the question about the Texarkana Phantom Killer, could these two be linked up? And she also goes on to say that this would be an excellent episode of true crime all time unsolved.

And it is an excellent episode. She says she hasn't listened to them all. It's out there. We actually did an episode on the Colonial Parkway murders. And I think the reason why she's bringing the comparison up is it goes back to the lover's lane. Very similar to the Texarkana murders. But Morph, as far as I know, there's no evidence. linking, especially the suspects that we've talked about as, you know, living in Virginia or being

connected to those murders in any way that I know of. Yeah, I agree. Mike, I don't think there's enough information to say that these could be the same killers. And unfortunately, that Lover's Lane, like we mentioned, you know, with the Texarkana Phantom, that's just a spot to find people in secluded areas and take advantage of the isolated locations to attack them. So the next question we received was from Sean all the way from New Zealand, which is awesome.

It's always great to morph to realize how far the podcast is going out, how far it's reaching. And Sean had a lot of questions, but due to time, I'm going to narrow it down because he actually asks my favorite question. and it's around the possibility that there was more than one person involved in the killings as well as the possibility that the killer and the letter writer were two different people. Yes, that's definitely a popular theory, and that's been discussed. You can find a lot of different online discussions about that different forums and whatnot, but that's a possibility that's been out there for years.

one person writing and one person killing could explain the differences of why one suspect's writing doesn't match the letters and, you know, vice versa, a person whose fingerprint isn't on Paul Stein's cab might have actually written the letters. So that's definitely one that's been out there. There's nothing solid to say that that was the case, but there's definitely a couple instances where you could see a couple people having and being part of a Zodiac team. but there's just not enough out there to say that's definitely what is happening. And Sean also says he listens to both true crime all the time and true crime all the time unsolved. So, you know, that is awesome. Appreciate it, Sean, for listening to those two. Criminology.

It's amazing. So this next email is from Ian from across the pond in England. And Ian writes, hello, great podcast. I have one question. has Paul Avery and maybe other journalists at the San Francisco Chronicle ever been investigated not for being the Zodiac killer but for sending themselves and the San Francisco police some of the later Zodiac letters and other correspondents

to keep the case in the news. They would have information about the killings and also the abduction of the woman and child and could have put this knowledge into Zodiac-esque letters. So one of the theories over the years is that Zodiacs seem to know some things about the newspaper business, some of the language, some of the things involved in newspaper production, sales,

whatever you want to call it. So it's been a theory out there that Zodiac could have been related to newspapers in some manner. And as far as Paul Avery, Paul Avery, you know, infamously received that Halloween card. But as far as him investigated by police, I don't know that.

I do know that Sherwood Morrie. Moral tested his handwriting to see if it matched that day because Paul Avery delivered some material from the Bates letters up to him to examine. So Paul Avery was ruled out with handwriting by Sherwood Morrill after Avery delivered some of the Sherry Joe Bates written materials to Moral. And Moral wanted to make sure that Paul Avery wasn't involved in writing them somehow. So he was definitely ruled out by a handwriting. So we had a series of questions from Richard Grinnell, and we've talked about Richard, and he's a great guy. He runs Zodiacciphers.com. He's been very helpful with some of the stuff that we talked about during this season.

Richard knows the case very well, and he sent us some questions that he knew we'd have to put our thinking cap on for. So question one deals with the fact that, There were 10 shots fired at the Lake Herman Road crime scene, but there were only nine casings detailed out in the police report. What is your opinion of this missing shell casing? Well, I can say this. Obviously, when you're dealing with evidence and older evidence, especially, things can get mixed up, lost.

But in this instance, I happen to know that one of the investigators on the scene took some souvenirs home with them from the Zodiac case. and one of these items that he took home was a shell casing. So I can assume that it may have been the missing shell casing that Richard's asking about, but I can't say for sure. So Richard went on to ask a question about the murder of Sherry Joe Bates. Richard wrote, Before the murder of Sherry Joe Bates on October 30th, 1966,

the last sighting of anybody in or close to the alleyway was given by a female student, who stated she observed a man smoking a cigarette in the alleyway. This cigarette was evidently tested and proved positive for DNA. Do you believe that this cigarette butt could be the smoking gun in the case and signify that this man waiting in the proximity of the library at 930 could be the killer? Are you of the opinion that the killer was known by Sherry Joe Bates or was a complete stranger? So I think I can answer this question. I personally think that the guy whose DNA is on that cigarette but likely killed Cherry Joe Bates.

I think that person that dropped that cigarette butt is somebody that Sherry knew because I don't think she would have walked off into a dark alley with a stranger. And we do know that Riverside has a favorite suspect who they believe for 50 years killed Sherry Joe, but the DNA found on that cigarette butt did not match this individual. There's also hair found in Sherry's hand, which did not match this individual. So despite DNA seemingly ruling him out as being the donor, to the DNA evidence in Sherry's case, the Riverside PD is pretty interested in this guy and still suspects him after all these years. And besides questions,

you know, we've gotten a ton of nice comments more over the span of season one. I wanted to read one in particular. It actually comes from a San Francisco Bay Area detective. And he says, greetings. I'm a police artist and detective in the San Francisco Bay Area. I liked the show and wanted to share that with you guys.

I just found this, so I have some catching up to do on my commute home, way better than some of the other stuff out there, and I listened to a lot of it. So I just wanted to put that out there because we've got a ton of comments like that, and people don't realize how good something like that, three or four lines, makes us feel. Getting a letter like this from law enforcement, really makes us feel good about the work we're doing in season one.

So, Mor, if that's it for the questions and comments, I mean, we had a lot, right? We had to pick and choose. We had to pair it down for time's sake. But we wanted to do this to wrap up season one of criminology. You know, we put so much work into this. It's kind of bittersweet to me because we made it through 12 episodes, but that's, it for the Zodiac. Now, we're planning season two. What's that going to be? We don't know yet. We would reveal it if we knew, but we're still in the planning stages. And I know I speak for more

when I say, you know, we just want to thank everybody so much for the unbelievable support that we've received over season one, the amount of listeners, the amount of downloads. Everything has been amazing. We can't thank everyone enough. Yeah, I can't thank the listeners enough. It's been really positive responses that we've had, reviews, ratings, the iTunes ratings that we have are, you know, five-star. Yeah, we're really glad that everybody's enjoyed it. We've gotten a lot of positive response, you know, emails, different messages on social media and stuff. So that really means a lot to us that you took the time to go 12 episodes with us and listen to this whole story. So, you know, we definitely want to thank you. It means a lot. So before we wrap up

season one, I just wanted to give a shout out to a YouTube channel I've been involved with, and I hope that all of our listeners will check it out. The YouTube channel is called the official East Area Rapist, Golden State Killer Channel. The case of the Golden State Killer East Area Rapist is a case that I'm passionate about, and I've been working on heavily for the last couple years. If you're familiar with the case, you already know that the Golden State killers California's most prolific serial predator responsible for at least 50 rapes and a dozen murders from 1976 to 1986. If you're not aware of the case, this may really be an interesting one to dig into.

We need your help in identifying this man. So I've become friends with one of the surviving victims of this killer, along with several family members of his murder victims. So to me, this is personal. I want to see this man caught, and I hope you can all have. help spread the word, spread awareness about this case. The YouTube channel, again, is called the official East Area Rapist Golden State Killer Channel.

And you can find a link too for it on my true crime blog at truecrime guy.com. And by the way, the FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of this individual. So even though this is the last episode of season one, this is not it for us. But it's a great time if you haven't already to subscribe to the. the podcast to make sure you're ready when season two comes out. And again, if you would, take the time, rate, review us on iTunes or your favorite Android app. And just because we'll be on a bit of a hiatus until season two, we'll still be active on

social media. So don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can find us on Twitter at Criminology Pod. You can find our Facebook page by searching Criminology Podcast. And we'd love it if you join the Criminology Podcast discussion group. on Facebook. That's called Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. As always, you can email us at Criminology Podcasts at gmail.com, or you can leave this voicemail by calling 661-77 Crime.

And before we leave you, we want to talk about the Wine and Crime Podcast. This is a true crime podcast hosted by three amazing women that know how to mix some fun in with their true crime. So have a listen to this quick little promo. for Wine and Crime podcast. And we'll be back soon for season two of criminology.

Hey, true crime fans. Have you listened to Wine and Crime yet? We're a True Crime Comedy Podcast hosted by three childhood friends who chug wine, chat true crime, and unleash our worst Minnesotan accents. Each week, us gals pick a true crime topic

and pair it with a delicious wine before delving into the background and psychology behind the crime. Then we share and speculate wildly about a couple of bonkers cases related to the topic. Past episodes include necrophilia, cults, crimes of passion, cruise ship disappearances, exorcisms gone wrong, all this over a bottle of wine, or, let's be real, three. Listen, anywhere you get your podcasts, you can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Wine and CrimePod,

and check out our website and blog at Wine and Crimepodcast.com. Cheers!