Every Town - Who Was the Zodiac Killer? The Real Suspects Exposed

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

We all know the story of the Zodiac Killer, the mysterious psychopath who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s. But what many don't know is just how many legitimate suspects there are in America's most baffling serial killer case. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://youtu.be/GVewgo7DUbg 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy International & Other Ways To Watch: https://www.anangryboy.com/ 💀 MERCH: https://scary-mysteries.teemill.com/ 💀 Free 7 Day Trail on Exclusive Episodes, Podcasts & Perks! https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT👁 X: https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1 👁 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 👁 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 👁 X: https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1 🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Every town has a dark side. We all know the story of the Zodiac killer to some degree. A mysterious psychopath who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s taunting police with encrypted messages and claiming responsibility for dozens of murders. But what many don't know is just how many legitimate suspects there are in America's most baffling serial killer case. And for decades, the story is centered around one man, Arthur Lee Allen. The former elementary school teacher became the prime suspect and was the only person ever named publicly by police. Netflix's latest documentary puts him back in the spotlight, presenting what seems like an airtight case.

But here's a thing. The Zodiac case is far more complex than that neat narrative suggests. While police confirm five murders and two attempted murders, the killer himself claimed 37 victims. investigators believe the real number could be anywhere between 20 and 28. These numbers alone should tell us something, but we're not looking at a simple case with an obvious suspect, or we're looking at one of the most complex criminal investigations in all of America's history.

Hey guys, it's Andrew, and thanks for tuning into this episode of Everytown, but today we're going to look into all the other suspects who very well could be the Zodiac, and the evidence is beyond scary. So let's head over to California. Check out the truth about the Zodiac Killer case. Lots of people think the infamous Zodiac Killer is dead and that his mysterious code has died with him. But there's a cop in Central California who says he can prove otherwise.

Let me take you back to where it all began just for a quick refresher, so we're all on the same page. As a thick fog rolled in from the Bay on December 20th of 1968 in Benicia, California, Two innocent teenagers out for a cruise were unsuspectingly about to become the first victims of America's darkest serial killing mystery. On Lake Herman Road, a lonely stretch of payment connecting Benicia to Vallejo. 17-year-old David Faraday had borrowed his mother's rambler for his first date with 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen. It was a big night and they were good kids. Their parents expected them home by 11 at the latest, but of course they never made it. At 11.10 p.m., a passing motorist spotted their bodies by a turnout.

And David was still breathing, barely, with a bullet in his head. Betty Lou was lying face down 28 feet from the car, shot five times in the back as she ran for her life. And the veteran first responders later said it was the worst crime scene they'd ever come across. And this is the origins of how it all began. And two teens on a first date were also the first confirmed. to be targeted by the Zodiac. But nobody knows that yet at the time.

Nobody is aware that this is just the opening act in a performance of terror that would span decades and claim anywhere from five to 37 lives. The six months pass July 4th, 1969. While America celebrates Independence Day, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Maggio

Park at Blue Rock Springs, which is less than four miles from where David and Betty Lou died. It was just past midnight, when a car pulls up beside them, shines its headlights and drives away. And ten minutes later, the same car returns. This time, someone steps out carrying a flashlight in a nine-millimeter pistola. Without uttering a single word, they fire nine shots through the window. Darlene dies instantly, and Michael jumped into the back seat when his instincts tried to get him as far away from the shots as possible. And somehow, he manages to survive.

He'll later describe the shooter as a heavyset man wearing glasses, approaching their car with a purpose as if he'd done this all before. 40 minutes later, a man calls the Vallejo Police Department. The call is taken by Vallejo Police Dispatcher, Nancy Slover, and the caller speaks in a very low, monotone voice, and describes where two bodies can be found. He also states that they've been shot with a 9-millimeter luger, and before he ends the phone call, he also says,

I also killed those kids last year. The caller knows details that haven't been released to the public. He knows about David and Betty Lou, the type of gun used, and soon he'll start writing his letters. September 27, 1969, Lake Beriesa. Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepherd are enjoying a peaceful afternoon by the lake when a man approaches them. He's wearing a black executioner's hood with a white cross circle symbol on the chest. He carries a gun and a foot-long knife. The man tells them he's an escaped convict from Colorado prison.

He needs their car and money to flee to Mexico. It's all alive, of course. He binds them with plastic clothesline, then brutally stabs them both. Cecilia is struck ten times, and Brian's six. As Cecilia lies dying, the killer walks calmly to their car and draws his signature symbol on the door, a circle with a cross through it. Brian and Cecilia both underwent surgery, and Cecilia survived for two more days, but then she died from her woots. Brian survived and was able to describe what happened and provided description of the killer.

Then comes Paul Stein, October 11, 1969. He's a taxi driver working a Saturday night shift in San Francisco. His last fare takes him to the wealthy Presidio Heights neighborhood. At the intersection of Washington and Cherry Streets, the passenger shoots him in the head. Then in an act of chilling deliberation, he tears a piece from Stein's shirt, a trophy, a later mail to the San Francisco Chronicle with a letter. These are the five confirmed kills and two attempted ones we all know about. But here's where the story gets darker. Because while police can only prove five murders, the Zodiac claims there are many more.

And sure, Arthur Lee Allen might have been the most famous suspect, but when you look at the other ones, the forgotten man who might have been the Zodiac, but you could see why this mystery isn't entirely solved yet. Let me introduce you to Lawrence Kane. Kane's story starts with a woman named Kathleen Johns. In 1970, Johns was driving on Highway 132 near Modesto with her infant daughter when a man forced her car off the road. He offered to help and then held her captive for two hours as he drove aimlessly through the dark. John's eventually escaped, and years later, when shown a photo lineup, she pointed to Kane without hesitation. That's him, she said. That's the man who took me. Let's slow down and really understand what happened that night because the details are scary.

It's March 22nd, 1970, around 11.30 p.m. I had left in the evening, and the car behind me started flashing it. It's lights, bright and damn, right and damn, and the car pulled up behind me, and this guy got out, and he said that my back wheel was wobbly. He then pulls up beside her, gesturing frantically about her wheel. Being pregnant and alone on the highway with a baby, Johns feels she has to pull over if something is seriously wrong. The man then parks and gets out. He seems polite and is well-spoken, and he points to her tire explaining that it's loose, offering to tighten it up for her.

And John's watch is, as he apparently fixes the problem, but when she tries to drive away, her wheel nearly falls off. As it turned out, the man had actually loosened all the lug nuts, but she didn't realize it. And what happens next is two hours of psychological torture. He offers to drive her to a nearby service station, but instead of helping, he begins a nightmarish journey through the back roads of Tracy, California. Every time John's ass where they were going, he calmly changes the subject. He drives in circles, running stop signs, speaking about casual things while John sits frozen in terror, clutching her baby.

He was so calm, Johns would later say. That's what scared me the most, like he'd done this before, like he was enjoying it. When Johns finally managed to escape, jumping from the car and hiding in a field with her daughter, the man circled the area with his headlights for hours, hunting them in the darkness. But here's where Kane's story gets darker. Eight years before this incident, in 1962, Kane suffered a traumatic brain injury and a car crash that changed him forever. Doctors documented damage to his left frontal lobe, a part of the brain that controls impulses and aggressive behavior.

The medical records show he developed an inability to control his urges for self-gratification. And this is something that many people have experienced, suffering severe head trauma and coming out a totally different person. After the accident, Kane's criminal behavior escalated. Police records show multiple arrests for voyeurism and prowling in the months leading up to the first confirmed zodiac killings. Kane would hide in the shadows, watching women, learning their routines, And one of those women may have been Darlene Ferrin.

Ferran was murdered at Blue Rock Springs Park on that July 4th night, as mentioned. But for months before her death, she told friends about a man who was following her. He'd show up at the restaurant where she waited tables, as if her hours without ordering, just watching. Her sister Pam Huckabee later identified Kane as the stalker. And just five days after Ferran's murder, Kane traded in his car for a new woman. one. So is that just a coincidence?

And Kane's movements also mirror the Zodiac's timeline with an unsettling precision. He lived near the Lake Herman Road murders. He worked at the same casino as Donna Lass when she disappeared in Lake Tahoe, another suspected Zodiac victim. Officer Donald Fook, who saw the Zodiac fleeing after the Paul Stein murder, said Kane resembled the killer more than any other suspect he'd seen. Police files show that even after the Zodiac killing stopped, Kane continued to be investigated for harassment and stalking,

always with the same pattern, watching, following, terrifying his victims, while maintaining a calm, almost pleasant demeanor. But he died in 2010, taking whatever secrets he had to his grave. But while Lawrence Kane haunted the highways and casinos of Northern California, another suspect was creating his own dark lake. legacy in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His name was Gary Francis Post. It wasn't identified as a suspect until 2021 when a team of 40 former law enforcement officials, intelligence officers,

and forensic experts called the case breakers, named him as the most likely candidate to be the Zodiac. At first glance, their claim seemed out there, but as you dig deeper into post-life, you most certainly do uncover a web of disturbing behavior that spans decades. Sacramento attorney Mark Reichel and his longtime investigator John Kennedy named Gary Post as the likely zodiac killer years ago. Let's start with the obvious connections. Post was an Air Force veteran who lived in California during the Zodiac killings. He had military training, weapons knowledge, and access to the areas where the murders took place. But it's what happened after the Zodiac Killings.

stopped that makes his case truly disturbing. In a small mountain town of Groveland, California, Post began recruiting young men in their late teens and early 20s. Locals called them the posse, a group of followers who stayed loyal to Post for decades. He would take them deep into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, teaching them what one former member described as killing techniques. They often practiced on animals, and here's something interesting for all times. true crime buffs. If you know anything about killers, then you understand they each have their own unique way of doing it. It's a big part of how many of them get caught. Some like to strangle their victims, others shoot them, and they really change up their tactics. Some like to go for a specific

type of victim, filtering them out by a certain age range, or always having a characteristic like blonde hair. And whatever it is they choose to do, well, they do it, because they're it's the thing that gets the mom. And with the seven victims we know of as belonging to the Zodiac, well, they're all over the place. Yes, many were young couples, but some were shot, others stabbed. The lone taxi driver, Paul Stein, was shot. Murders were done at night and in the daytime.

And sometimes, the killer wore a hooded mask and sometimes not. The point being that, even though it's circumstantial, it sounds a lot like these murders were done by different people, perhaps people who are part of this group, and guys who are imitating one another, but each of them adding their own spin to it. And two of the victims surviving suggest a sort of panic and not finishing the job, the type of panic one might feel if this were, say, their first rodeo. On top of that, who the zodiac is remains a mystery that seems impossible to solve. And maybe that's because it's not the work of just one person. And getting back to post, there were reports that he attacked one of his disciples with a hammer when he confronted his mentor

about his resemblance to the zodiac. This violent response to questioning would become a pattern. Anyone who probed too deeply into Post's past faced serious consequences. And Post had distinctive scars on his forehead that matched witnesses' descriptions of the Zodiac as well. His military background explained the Wingwalker boot prints found at the Lake Beriesa crime scene. Even more intriguing, the case-breakers claim that Post's full name has been uncovered from one of the Zodiac's unsolved ciphers. When Pose died in 2018, he was living under a mental health conservatorship, supposedly suffering from dementia. Those who knew him best, including his former stepson, believed this was his final act of deception, a way to avoid questioning about his past. His remains were scattered in the Sierra Mountains

in the same wilderness where he trained his killing posse. While Kane stalked the streets and post-trained killers in the mountains, another suspect lived a seemingly quiet life operating movie projectors in San Francisco. A Richard Marshall's connection to the Zodiac case is less about violent encounters and more about a web of eerie coincidences that perfectly align with the killer's patterns. A Marshall lived in a basement apartment at 143 Scott Street, San Fran, just blocks away from where Paul Stein picked up his final fare. This location becomes particularly significant when you consider the Zodiac's November 9th, 1969 letter, where he wrote about having a death machine in his basement.

But it's not just where Marshall lived, it's when and where he moved that got him on the authorities' radar. He had a habit of appearing in key locations just as the Zodiac became active there. In 1966, he was in Riverside when Cherry Joe Bates was murdered. Then he moved to San Francisco where his basement apartment was less than a mile from the Stein murder site. Later, he relocated a front street in San Rafael just before the Zodiac started sending letters, some with references to almost unknown occult films. Richard was obsessed with a 1908 silent film called the Red Phantom.

Years later in 1974, the Zodiac sent his red phantom letter, a reference so obscure that investigators had to dig to even figure out he was talking about a movie. Of all the suspected Zodiac communications, this one seemed oddly specific, mentioning a film that few people even knew existed. And Marshall also worked as a ham radio operator, giving him technical knowledge, that align with the Zodiac's communications and codes. The killer's letters often showed someone with an understanding of both old films and communication systems,

two areas where Marshall was an expert. If that doesn't raise enough alarms, then how about this? On more than one occasion, Marshall was known to mention to his friends and acquaintances, that he had found something much more exciting than sex. He never said what it was, but it's an odd comment that gets even weirder when connected to the Zodiac's letters,

where he talks about hunting humans being more fun than killing wild game. When confronted with these connections in 1989, well, Marshall didn't deny them. Instead, he acknowledged the similarities, but claimed they were coincidental. ...bristics you just mentioned fit me almost to a tea.

I really am startled at the mass and accuracy of the detail. And obviously, if they had been that forthcoming about that at the time, I would have understood why they were investigating me. My innocence notwithstanding, the details do fit. Now, 2022 brought a seismic shift to Zodiac research when author Gerrit Kobich published How to Find Zodiac, pointing to his suspect hiding in plain sight for over 50 years.

and Paul Dorr, a North Bay resident whose paper trail reads like a blueprint for becoming the Zodiac killer. The evidence begins simply enough, and Dor maintained a post office box in Vallejo, ground zero for the first Zodiac murders. At 42 years old and 5'9 foot 9 in 1969, he perfectly matched witness descriptions. Though at the 1960s and 70s, Dore obsessively published fanzines and letters and his, Hidden in these writings lay shocking parallels to the Zodiac's communications. And three days after the killer sent his infamous, My Name is, Cipher, Dore published his own cryptogram and his Tolkien fanzine, Habitalia. And Kobach goes into detail and argues the solution to Dora's puzzle

matches one of only three possible solutions to the Zodiac's unsolved message. Then there's the Lake Beriesa attack, where the killer appeared in that iconic, executioner's hood. Dora, as it turns out, was deeply involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism, medieval cosplayers who specialized in period-accurate clothing in combat. Renaissance Fair even took place near the lake the day of the attack. Whoever the Zodiac really was,

well, we know they were into cryptograms and had the ability to make their own costume, which, when you narrow it down, not a whole lot of people can hit on both these, but Door certainly did. Furthermore, an undated photograph shows Dorr wielding a knife, matching witness descriptions from Beriesa. Then in his fanzine called Pioneer, Door detailed the exact formula to make an info bomb of the Zodiac would later threaten to use.

And this was in common knowledge before the anarchist cookbooks publication in 1971, so once again a very specific detail between Door and the Zodiac. His reading preferences also tell their own dark connections. Among his book collection, the strange ways of man, which describes headhunters killing victims to create slaves in the afterlife, mirroring the Zodiac's infamous claim about his mission being to collect slaves for the afterlife. Perhaps most interestingly, Doer's own daughter read Kobach's book planning to sue. Instead, she found herself convinced, confirming her father's violent tendencies.

We still have one more suspect to talk about, but it takes us way back just before the Zodiac terrorized Northern Cali. Back then, a young woman named Cherry Joe Bates, was brutally murdered outside the Riverside City College Library. The killer disabled her Volkswagen Beetle, waited in the dark until closing time and then attacked when she came out, stabbing and slashing her. The date was October 30th of 1966, and her body was discovered right. there on the school's grounds the following morning. Among the library staffed who were questioned,

suspicions immediately fell on one man, Ross Sullivan. At first glance, Sullivan seemed an unlikely murderer, a library assistant with an extensive knowledge of codes and ciphers. He was known for writing cryptic poetry that left his co-workers a bit unsettled. Beneath his quiet demeanor lay a troubled mind. He suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, requiring multiple hospitalizations throughout his life. But it wasn't just Sullivan's odd behavior that caught everyone's attention. It was the fact that he disappeared. After Bates's murder, he was gone for several days without explanation. When he returned, the staff noticed some unsettling habits he'd picked up, like how after his shift The way he stand by the library pit walls for hours not moving, just watching students go by.

In 1967, Sullivan moved up to Santa Cruz, right when the Zodiac's activities started shifting to Northern California. His background in codes and literature matched up perfectly with the killers, literary references, and complex ciphers. The Zodiac's letters showed knowledge of the Mikado and medieval literature. Both subjects, Sullivan had studied deeply. But the official investigation paints a different picture. Police claimed Sullivan had an alibi for the Bates' murder, though the details on that are still pretty hazy. That famous sketch photo of the Zodiac,

the one where he wears the glasses. Above all other suspects, very much so, looks a whole lot like Sullivan as well. So there's that too. Each of these men had the means, motive and opportunity. Each had strange connections to this case that can't be easily explained away. And each adds another layer to America's most enduring criminal mystery. And think about it, if the Zodiac really did kill more than 20 people, as many investigators believe, then looking at

just Arthur Lee Allen means ignoring a huge part of the story. The true scope of the Zodiac's crimes might be far larger than we imagine, stretching from California to Nevada, and possibly even beyond that. When you step back and look at all these suspects together, you start to understand why the Zodiac case has never been solved. It's not just about finding the right suspect. It's about understanding how many different men could have been behind a mass. How many different paths could have led to those brutal murders and taunting letters?

And maybe it was Arthur Leigham after all. But maybe it was Lawrence Kane or Gary Post or Paul Dorr. or maybe it was somebody else. Someone who's name, and we don't even know. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. Hope you all enjoyed it. And check us out at patreon.com slash scary mysteries

for exclusive podcasts and an entire library if you're in need of some more true crime stories. Remember to come back next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, mysterious stories. Because you never know. Maybe your town will be next. Thank you.