Morbid - Episode 668: The Zodiac Killer (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Despite the passage of fifty years since his last activity, the case of the Zodiac Killer continues to fascinate and frustrate law enforcement, the media, and the American public, making America’s most notorious unsolved murder case.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesBlankenstein , Andrew, and Wilson Wong. 2021. 'The case remains open': FBI rebuts claim Zodiac Killer case is solved. October 7. Accessed February 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/case-remains-open-fbi-refutes-claim-zodiac-killer-case-solved-n1281002.Chabria, Anita. 2018. "Vallejo police have sent Zodiac Killer DNA to a lab. Results could come in weeks." Sacramento Bee, May 3.Chronicle, San Francisco. 1970. "A Zodiac threat to newsman." San Francisco Chronicle , October 31: 7.Cole, Michael F. 2020. The Zodiac Revisted: The Facts of the Case. San Francisco, CA: Twin Prime Publishing .Drake, Rossiter. 2007. "A magnificent obsession with the Zodiac killer." San Francisco Examiner, March 2: 28.Flaherty, Frances. 1969. "New letter by Zodiac claims seven slayings." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), November 12: 1.—. 1969. "Teenagers' s;ayer still at large." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), March 30: 1.Flaherty, Francis G. 1968. "Investigators lacking clues in 2 slayings." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), December 22: 1.Glover, Malcolm. 1969. "Hundreds of 'Zodiac' tips flood Bay police." San Francisco Examiner, October 18: 1.Lowe, Lindsay. 2024. Who was Arthur Leigh Allen? October 29. Accessed February 14, 2025. https://www.today.com/popculture/zodiac-killer-arthur-leigh-allen-rcna176996.McClatchy Newspapers Service. 1969. "Vallejo Police seek gunman who killed woman, shot man." Sacramento Bee, July 5: 1.Michelman, Jordan. 2020. "What If You Solved the Zodiac Killer Mystery and No One Believed You? ." Portland Monthly, December 16.O'Connell, Oliver. 2021. Gary Poste: Who was the alleged Zodiac killer identified by ‘Case Breakers’? October 7. Accessed February 14, 2025. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/gary-post-zodiac-killer-suspect-b1933700.html.Peterson, Dave. 1969. "2 survivors tell what they can on 'Code Killer'." Times-Herald, October 1: 1.Sacramento Bee. 1969. "Officers check leads in Berryessa killing." Sacramento Bee, October 3: 27.San Francisco Examiner. 1969. "'Cipher Killer's' new letter." San Francisco Examiner, August 4: 1.—. 1969. "'Cypher Killer' hunt is pressed." San Francisco Examiner, August 6: 57.—. 1969. "School bus alert on mad killer." San Francisco Examiner, October 17: 1.—. 1969. "Sketch made of killer in taxi slaying." San Francisco Examiner, October 14: 6.—. 1970. "Zodiac 'greeting' to police: 'enjoy yourselves at my blast'." San Francisco Examiner, May 1: 50.Smith, Dave. 1971. "17-plus victims claimed in letter by Zodiac Killer." Los Angeles Times, March 16: 3.—. 1969. "Zodiac Killer--chilling portrait of madness." Los Angeles Times, October 15: 1.—. 1969. "'The Zodiac' lives inconspicuously, but murders with flourish." Sacramento Bee, October 10: E12.Smith, Jane. 1969. "Girl stabbing victim dies in Napa hospital." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), September 30: 1.Times-Herald. 1969. "Cryptogram deciphered by teacher." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), August 9: 1.—. 1968. "Hunt maniac in murders of teenagers." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), December 23: 1.—. 1969. "Lake attacks linked to Vallejo slayings." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), September 29: 14.—. 1969. "Mystery ciphers not decoded yet." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), August 2: 1.—. 1968. "Vallejo teenagers are shot to death near Lake Herman." Times-Herald (Vallejo, CA), December 21: 1.—. 1969. "Police seeking clues in Vallejo shootings." Times-Herald, July 6:1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey weirdos, before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about a place where the darkness never ends. Wondery Plus. It's like stepping into a haunted mansion where the floorboards creak with ad-free episodes and early access to new episodes lurks around every corner. So come join us, if you dare. Morbid is available one week early and ad-free only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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I'm Ash. And this is Morphe. I didn't like the look in your eye when you were saying that at all. That, Mikey said, nope. Everybody's just shaking their head at me like, no, absolutely not. You went like, like she got low sort of. No. Yeah. I just wanted to be weird about it and I succeeded.

Congrats. High five across the room. That was weird. Yeah, I don't know. I'm in a weird mood. Same. Same. Weird day.

Yes. You know? Maybe, hold on. Hold on. everybody sit tight. Guys, just hold on a second, just pull over, okay? You know what, while she's looking that up, we had our 666th episode recently. 666.

The Mark of the Beast! Wait a second. Oh. Mercury is out of retrograde. Oh. Doesn't feel that way. I know. Well, we're in the after effects right now.

It got out of it stopped retrograding. I think that's how you say that, right? On April 7th. Oh, right now I think it's April 9th. So we're still feeling the yeah, we're circling the toilet drain. Sometimes I feel like that's when it's the worst is the after effects. Yeah. So maybe that's why we feel so weird and why everybody's so annoying.

Yeah, it also might just be like facts. Everything's just like... You know when you have that moment where everything just feels like it's taking fucking forever to move forward? Anything? Any answers you need? Anything? You're just like, God! Literally anything.

Yeah, it's that. Sorry, I interrupted you. What? Back to the Mark of the Beast episode. That was so much fun. It was. It was so much fun. It was, it was so much fun. And we had a ghost join us named Nicholas. My special guest, if you will.

He was sassy, he was spicy. He was that friend. He called me dull, I think. Well, he was that friend that will be honest with you. And I like that about him. So you agree you think I'm dull? No, he thought that the tail, like whatever tail I told was dull. He wasn't calling you dull.

It's not about you, Ash. No, no, but you said that he, what was it that you weren't dull or something? I don't know, I think- I don't know, I think I said. I can't remember what he said. No, did he compliment at one point and you were like, that's for me.

He complimented and I took it. I received that. For you. And then he said something mean and I said, I don't receive that. And you said, mm-mm. Because I received that. For you. And then he said something mean and I said, I don't receive that. And you said, return to center. Because I think that I understand Nicholas. Well, he's in your home, so.

He is, so I think I vibe with him. Maybe he's related to us. Maybe. I was gonna say maybe he's related to you and then I was like, well, then he would be related to me as well. No, I think he was fun. It was fun to have him during the episode.

We just put on Ghost Tube and just kind of like let him chat with us. And I think we have a spooky episode coming up. Like, you know, one of our like spooky insert thing here. Spooky Lucy Goosey. Roads, lakes, schools, graveyards, towns, all that. We're going to do one of those coming up. I think spooky butts probably. Spooky butts I think is where we're going to land on.

And during our spooky butts episode, our spooky boots, we're going to have Nicholas come back. We're going to throw on the ghost tube and just let him kind of comment throughout the episode. I hope it's him again. I feel like it will be. Well when we turned off the episode and we kept doing something, somebody named Jacob came. Yeah, we just got a gaggle of guys just floating around.

I don't know how any of us feel about that, but... Not great. I love Nicholas personally. I love Nicholas, yeah. I feel very connected to him. Jacob, I don't know. We haven't really had time to get to know each other. Yeah, we turned it off too soon.

Yeah, we did. We said bye. So maybe Jacob will come through. But I think it'll be fun to do for our spooky episodes to have our pod lab spirits join us and just kind of comment. Yes. I think hopefully you guys will think that's kind of fun. You can let us know after the episode

if you're like, that was not fun. Yeah. Then totally let us know. Yeah. But we figured it would be something fun to add to the episode. I think you'll love it. I think you're going to love it. Personally. I love Nicholas, so,. I think you're gonna love it.

Personally. I love Nicholas, so, you know. Ghost Tube's fun and I think it's for reals. You're like, I'm just saying. Yeah. I stand on Ghost Tube. I think it's fun as hell. No matter what it is, it's fun.

I agree. Yeah. What's not fun is the Zodiac Killer. No, he's not fun. No. And he's probably dead. I think. Yeah, I would assume.

There's a good theory. Oh, okay. I think he died. Oh. Personally. I mean, it makes sense considering the time period. I guess like, there's a possibility. Yeah, so it was like-

He's dragging his bag of bones around. The late 60s and everybody thought he was 20. So let's do some math. I mean, you say let's, I will not be joining you. So it's 2025 minus we'll just say 1970 for the hell of it. I like that. That was 55 years ago. If you were 20, let's say he was like 25. He could be 80. Yeah, which is very possible. Yeah, I know 80-year-olds. Damn. Imagine if the Zodiac Killer is still out.

Just imagine if he's just someone's grandpa. Oh, my God. Well, it's like Joseph James D'Angelo. Just like he was like in his late mid to late 70s when he got caught. Just being a douchebag still. Absolutely. The thing about the Zodiac though is like, I don't think he would have just gone away because he loved the theater and the dramatics.

And like loved even when it seemed as though he stopped killing people, like they stopped linking crimes to him officially, he was still sending shit in to like newspapers and to the police and everything. So. But maybe he's like a BTK, but like a BTK with restraint. Maybe, you know, because like BTK went away for a long time. Yeah. But then he couldn't help himself.

And then he couldn't help himself. But like, who knows if, you know, whoever the zodiac is, if something took precedent that maybe changed the... The urge. The urge. The urge. The urge. I just, I am not ruling it out.

Like it's definitely possible, but something about this dude, I feel like he wouldn't be able to resist that urge. And that's just me who has like no profiling experience whatsoever. But that's what my gut tells me. Hey, I'm willing to listen to your gut. Thank you. I'll listen to it over here. Thank you.

She's trashed, but... We're working on her. My gut's very loud and you have to listen to it all the time. That's true. Even if I don't want to listen to your gut, she's telling me things. Yeah, she's always talking. It's usually just... I know.

And it's never, like I'm never in distress. No, and sometimes it's not even when you're hungry. Yeah. It's just that's how my gut works. It's just loud. My gut doesn't work. Like in distress. No, and sometimes it's not even when you're hungry. Yeah, it's just that's how my gut works. It's just loud. My gut doesn't work. Like in general, but it works with instinct. Yeah.

So that's a little bit about our guts. Now let's get into it. So we're back. We're back. Everybody with part two back in part one, we went over the first of the attacks, which started with the murders of 17 year old David Faraday and his girlfriend, Betty Lou Jensen. She was 16 years old, and this was her first boyfriend ever. That broke my heart.

Awful, and her first date. And then we went over the attacks of two more couples, 22-year-old Darlene Farron and 19-year-old Mike Maggio. Then lastly, 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard and 20-year-old Brian Hartnell. And if you remember from part one, those last two attacks, both of the men survived. It doesn't actually seem like that was intentional, like, on the part of the killer, but, you know, it happened.

And, of course, we got into the theatrics that's around the case, as far as the taunting letters to the media, the weird ciphers, the fucking crazy costume that he was wearing with the clip-on sunglasses. So unsettling. I'll never be over the clip-on sunglasses. And the flat top of the head, like the executioner's head being flat-topped. Something about it.

I just don't know. In an executioner's head, in and of itself. Horrifying. Yeah. So now let's get into part two, which, as most of us know, unfortunately does not end with the capture of this fool. But luckily, the attack at Lake Berryessa produced more evidence than the first two

attacks because remember, the first two attacks, there was like nothing to go off of basically. This gave us a little bit more. But not so luckily, detectives had pretty much exhausted any lead that they had within like two weeks. Not great. No, not great at all. No, not great at all. The witness descriptions and communications with the killer allowed investigators to get

some kind of insight into the person that they were looking for. But funny that I was just talking about profiling. At that time, psychological profiling was still years away. It wasn't a thing that was really, you know, tapped into yet. And any kind of profile that they developed at that time was really just speculation. For example, a psychiatrist in Napa, quote, suggested that the killer may be psychotic rather than psychopathic, thinking that the cipher revealed the zodiac's delusional thinking. Oh, okay. Now, if you're like me and you found that quote a little bit confusing,

thinking. Okay. Now, if you're like me and you found that quote a little bit confusing, according to a quick Google, psychosis, aka being psychotic, is a symptom of mental illness involving a loss of touch with reality. Oh, interesting. But psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy and remorse. Okay. That's the difference between those two things. Yeah. Because when I first heard that I was like, isn't that the same thing? Really? Excuse me. And Google said, no. No. She sang it to me.

She said, nor. She said, nor, girl. So within a matter of a few weeks, all the theories from a ton of sources started to merge into kind of one big theory that created a kind of unofficial and obviously again highly speculative profile of the killer. In early October, a reporter from the Sacramento Bee wrote, he's fairly bright, but his spelling and grammar indicate a poor education.'" This is a quote. "'He is fat, so he probably does not do too well with girls. In fact, he has unwittingly

indicated a sexual inadequacy. Oh, and he is an astrology fan. And when the signs are right, he goes out and finds young boys and girls together, who symbolize everything life has denied him. Wow. Oh, the 60s. I don't even know which thing they hit on first. Yeah. To be quite honest.

Yeah. Damn. That was journalism. Yeah, sure was. But like a lot of the theories about the identity and motives of the zodiac that have come out in, you know, five decades since the first attacks, it's unclear what led reporters and investigators to like some of these conclusions and most of them. But while everybody was speculating and piecing together the clues that they did have, the Zodiac was back out on the streets.

On the afternoon of October 11th, 29 year old cab driver Paul Stein got ready to head out for his shift for the night. Paul was a PhD candidate at San Francisco State College and he was working as a cab driver just to cover the cost of his education. He was just a few months away from finishing his degree requirements and would have been on track to graduate in January. Not far at all. By 9.30 PM, Paul had finished his first fare of the night and he got a notification from the dispatcher about another fare needing to be picked up. While he was on his way to get the second fare, he stopped to pick up a single passenger,

a man who hailed him at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets. The man asked to be dropped off at Washington and Maple Streets, which was in a pretty wealthy neighborhood in San Francisco, Presidio Heights. So Paul entered the location in the logbook and started the meter and then pulled away from the curb. What happened next is really just based off of speculation based on evidence found at the scene. When they arrived at the intersection the passenger had requested, the man instructed Paul to drive just one block further to the corner of Washington and Cherry Stre streets. Once there,

the man produced a 9mm handgun and placed the barrel to the back of Paul's head just behind his right ear and pulled the trigger, killing Paul instantly. Nobody was really around to witness the actual shooting itself, but the sound of the gunshot was loud enough to attract the attention of three teenagers who were in an apartment building across the street. And by the time they went to the window to see what the hell was happening, they actually saw the killer move from the back seat to the front passenger seat, where it seemed like he was going through Paul's pockets and some kind of robbery. So while one of the kids called the police, the other two went down to a lower floor of the building to try to get a better look at the guy in the cab. And

from their new position, they could see the shooter wiping down the surfaces on the cab with what looked like a cloth. Oh, and then he moved Paul's body into an upright position and exited the cab through the passenger door. Oh, he wiped down the handle before and after closing it. Once he was outside the car, the shooter walked around to the driver's side, opened the door and repositioned Paul's body again, since it had kind of like slid down when he got down and forward when he got out. And then after wiping down the inside and outside of that, the driver's side door, the man closed it and just calmly walked away from the scene toward Cherry Street,

like he was just some normal fucking dude walking down the street after taking a cab. That's fucking creepy. You imagine watching that as a teenager, watching that ever. Like moving this body around? Multiple times. And wiping the door? No. Wiping the doors down?

No. I hate it. So when the witnesses placed a call to the police, for some reason, there was some kind of miscommunication. And for whatever reason, the dispatcher thought that the shooter was a black man and advised responding officers to that detail. As a result, on their way to the scene, those officers drove right past the actual shooter as they traveled down Jackson Street, paying no attention to this white man casually walking away, even

though he was the only person in the vicinity of the crime scene at that point. Oh, come on. How did that happen? How? Now, was he wearing the outfit? That I don't know, actually. Do you think, because maybe the miscommunication was like, the Black Hood.

You know what I mean? Like, maybe that was not relayed correctly or it didn't get heard correctly? That is possible. I don't think so, though, because I mean? Like maybe that was not relayed correctly or it didn't get heard correctly. That is possible. I don't think so though, because I think that would have been like a major detail that the kids would have called. So maybe straight up racism.

It might have been straight up racism. That's probably it. Because it was again, like late 60s or 70s. Cause I don't think he would have been wearing the outfit because I think Paul, like I think it would have been. That would have been startling. Yeah, it wouldn't have got to the final destination. No, definitely not. Like if he just popped that hood on.

Yeah, I think he was just dressed like a man. Wow. And actually, you know what? Yeah. No, it does. The more I think about it, yeah. And later on, the teenagers describe him. So, yeah. That makes sense. So, San Francisco police officers, Armin Pellissetti and Frank Pita were the first to arrive at

the scene, and they found two of the three teenagers, teenage witnesses just standing near the cab. Just taking the scene in. Jesus. After moving them to a location further from the scene, they took their statements, which is when they realized that that initial description of the shooter had been wrong, like somehow lost in translation. Pellicetti quickly radio-dispatched with the update of a corrected description, and that

went out to responding officers. But by the time the additional officers got to that area on Jackson Street, where they had just passed a white man and like the only fucking man in the vicinity, he was gone. Completely gone. So back at the crime scene, Officer Pellissetti approached the cab and looked inside. By that point, Paul's body was again slumped forward. And the officer could see that there was a hole in his head right behind his right ear.

Between the injury and the large amount of blood in the front of the cab, it was obvious that Paul had died, unfortunately. In the back seat of the cab, the killer had left a pair of size 7 black leather gloves, which was a noticeably small size for a man at that time. They also found a single 9mm shell casing and 30 fingerprints. Which remember it's a cab, so tons of people. But among the fingerprints was one that belonged to Paul Stein and one unidentified print that was streaked with blood indicating that it most likely belonged to the shooter. Pellicetti and the other officers

also noticed that Paul's wallet and keys to the cab were missing, which actually at that point did make them think that this was a robbery that had gone wrong. So Pellicetti requested an ambulance and additional officers with dogs to comb the area in search of the suspect, and within a few minutes all seven K-9 units had responded to the request along with a ton of San Francisco police officers. A large number of San Francisco firefighters were also called to the scene so that they could set up their ladders and high-powered lamps to kind of like illuminate the area more. And once they collected all the evidence and removed the body, investigators left the scene still thinking that this was some kind of robbery. Because actually at that point, it was pretty common for cab drivers to get robbed or face some kind of violence like this.

So, you know, they just thought that that was it. And the search teams and the dogs didn't turn up anything else in search for the killer. Based on the description of the shooter from the teenagers who reported the shooting, investigators were actually able to produce a sketch of the killer, which was published in the local papers a few days later. This man was described as a white man. So the teenagers, the teenagers had not said to the... Yeah.

So that was clearly either just straight up racism or there was some very strange miscommunication happening. I'm leaning towards the former. The racism, yeah. I don't understand how the black man comment was made because all three said he was a white man, 25 to 30 years old, five, eight or five, nine inches tall and weighed about 150 pounds.

They said he had red hair. Yeah, definitely. I always wonder how people come up with that. I have no fucking idea. I don't even know how tall I am. I couldn't tell how tall someone is or how much they weigh if you paid me a zillion dollars. No, not at all.

I could not. I'd be the worst witness ever. A hundred percent. I also just like remember people looking completely different than they do. I'm not great at that either. Yeah, this would not be great for me. No. But they also said he has reddish-brown hair, which he wears in a crew cut,

and was wearing heavy-rimmed glasses and a navy blue or black jacket at the time of the slaying. Okay. So, not the outfit. No. Lamont Jones's world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story.

From Wondery comes Death County PA, a chilling true story of corruption and cover-ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern. Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many and powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried. With never-before-heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County PA pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now. Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad free right now by joining

Wondery Plus. Last year, long crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe with her car. Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The six-week trial resulted in anything but resolution. We continue to find ourselves at an impasse. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. But now the case is back in the spotlight, and one question still lingers. Did Karen Reed kill John O'Keefe? The evidence is overwhelming that Karen Reed is innocent. How does it feel to be a cop killer, Karen? I'm Kristin Thorn, investigative reporter with Law and Crime

and host of the podcast, Karen, The Retrial. This isn't just a retrial, it's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be. I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her. Listen to episodes of Karen, The Retrial, exclusively and ad free on OneDream Plus. Now it wasn't until two days later on October 13th that Paul Stein's murder was linked to the Zodiac. That afternoon a letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle containing one single page note written in

what was now familiar writing and in a blue felt tipped handwriting of the killer. He said, this is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington street and Maple street last night. To prove this here is a bloodstained piece of his shirt, which he did include. He said, I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay area. The SF police, San Francisco police, could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding road races with their motorcycles, seeing who could make the most noise. The car driver should have just parked their cars and sat there waiting for me to come out of cover. School children make nice targets. I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire and pick off the kitties as they come bouncing out.

Wow. What? I remember hearing that specific line. I do too. I've read that. School children make nice targets and then they said like come bouncing out of the bus. The little kiddies as they come bouncing out. Like I remember reading that and just being horrified. Sinister. By how sinister and depraved that is. And it's just like he starts with couples, then he targets this cab driver.

So that's a complete diversion. And now he's saying maybe I'll just kill kids now. And now he's just like, he starts with couples, then he targets this cab driver. So that's a complete diversion. And now he's saying, maybe I'll just kill kids now. And now he's going to kids. Like what the fuck? Nobody safe. No. Which we're gonna get into. Literally nobody safe.

Now just like the other letters, the latest note was signed simply with those crosshairs, the symbol, and as proof of its authenticity, like I said, the letter writer also included a swatch of fabric ripped from Paul Stein's blood soaked shirt. So he was like, this is me. And they also did an analysis of the handwriting and it concluded that it matched the other

letters that the San Francisco area papers had gotten a few months earlier. Police Captain Martin Lee told reporters, there are very strong indications, including the handwriting, that we are dealing with the same person. All of the evidence is pointing toward this." And that inclusion of Paul's gray and white striped shirt was irrefutable proof that the killings were linked. And if the previous attacks were any indication, there was going to be more murders to follow. The Zodiac had already made mention of shooting a bustlet of school children, and as far as the public knew, the police were no closer to stopping him

than they had been after the first murders of David Faraday and Betty Jensen. They made no progress on this case. They didn't have the slightest idea who this guy was. And in a city as large as San Francisco, he could have been anywhere. He could have been anyone. Absolutely.

An article from the LA Times read, he could be old Mrs. So-and-so's boy who never says boo and still loves at home, or that bachelor who keeps to himself and never seems to have any fun, or that poor guy who works so hard at that lousy job and never complains and never lets on

that his marriage is miserable. Yeah, that's bleak. The way that they wrote back then. Yeah. And I remember that clip. I remember he could be Mrs. So-and-so's boy who never says boo. Yeah.

For some reason that always stuck out to me. But if we know anything about the 60s and 70s in California or really anything about the last few episodes of morbid, we know that Californians had to contend with killers in the past. Yeah. Some of these killers obviously like we've talked about were theatrical and like eagle maniacal, but the zodiac wasn't like anything anybody had ever experienced before. Like, we were just saying, he changed his method of killing unexpectedly, changed his preferred victims,

he performed his attacks and murders with a kind of showiness, too. And a killer with an unpredictable victim pattern hunting the streets of San Francisco was terrifying enough, but this guy's doing it while wearing a fucking executioner's hood. Yeah. Like that adds to everything. That's different. Yeah, that hits different.

Yeah, it definitely does. For sure. I can't imagine living in this area at that time. No. Because for me, it's the costume, but also the fact that literally, like I said earlier, no one is safe. Yeah. Couples, cab drivers, kids, and he would just switch at a moment's notice.

Mm-hmm. So in the wake of the most recent letters from the Zodiac, the Sheriff's Department assigned more than 70 deputies to guard the school buses as they transported children to and from school. It seemed like the killer was expanding his geographic range to a degree too. So a kind of inter-agency task force was assembled,

which included officers from all local and regional law enforcement agencies. geographic range to a degree too. So a kind of inter-agency task force was assembled, which included officers from all local and regional law enforcement agencies with the intention of pooling resources and evidence that could lead to an arrest, which is kind of profound because it doesn't happen a lot. Yeah, I know. These agencies work together. No, that's actually the most shocking. And I think it also points to how desperate they were to catch this guy.

Almost a year had passed since the Zodiac first struck in Vallejo, and in that time he had now killed five and seriously wounded two others, again, leaving very little evidence behind and just openly taunting investigators and the public. But while it seemed like the Zodiac was only just starting his rampage, interestingly, Paul Stein would turn out to be the last victim officially linked to the Zodiac. Interesting.

I don't know for sure if Paul really was the Zodiac's last victim, but officially he is. That being said, a lack of victims didn't mean a lack of attention, and the man known as the Zodiac Killer was about to be elevated to a status that had never been seen before in American history. Within a few days of receiving and publishing the Stein letter, public concern over the threat posed had reached a point where the law enforcement agencies couldn't ignore it. So Chief of Police Martin Lee released an all points bulletin containing instructions for school bus drivers who might find themselves the target of the killer. The bulletin read, and this is just, I can't imagine putting my kids on a school bus

starting this time. Oh God. It read, if a tire is punctured or shots are heard, keep the bus in motion at all costs. Instruct passengers to lie on the floor. Attract as much attention as possible by sounding the horn, flashing the lights, and erotic driving if necessary.

What the fuck? Like, what if you can't keep the bus in motion? Well, and that's in the other thing. Have you ever popped a tire? You could, sometimes you can't keep going. And you want to say like, oh, I would never put my child on the bus. But what else do you do?

But some people didn't have a choice. They didn't have any other way to do anything. And it's like, what the fuck? Imagine reading that. And what do you do? Yeah. What do you do? I would just be like at home. I think I would lose everything down and we'll lose everything because that's so scary. Yeah, absolutely. It is. Holy shit.

And then thinking like these little kids getting on the bus and like, like if that were to happen, the bus drivers just supposed to tell them to lay on the ground. These little kids. Like that's awful. So somehow the notice from Lee did help reassure a lot of the drivers, but he still couldn't help but take a swipe at the killer, the police chief. He referred to the Zodiac as a quote, clumsy criminal liar and a latent homosexual. Huh? Like what?

What if anything indicated his sexual preference? What? What the fuck did you come out with that? That's something. Like really? That's neither here nor there. I just am like, please point to where you found that. Like what?

Point to it. It's just guys being dudes sometimes. Dudes being bros, you know? Just what? You can call that guy a lot of things. To just pull out of thin air and be like, But to just be like, He's a lightened homosexual. He's gay.

What? He's gay and he's pretendin'. What? Okay. Alrighty. Okay. I don't think that's why we're here, but. Damn.

Sounds good. Thanks for being professional about it. Let's focus on the thing that will definitely help us catch him, for sure. Yeah, exactly. I'm also like, yeah, that's good. Needle the crazy man threatening to shoot up a bus full catch him. Yeah, exactly. I'm also like, yeah, that's good. Needle the crazy man threatening to shoot up a bus full of children.

Yeah, and that's the other thing. It's like, oh yeah, because first of all, we have no fucking clue what his sexual orientation is, nor should it matter. Nope. But also, are we really pretending that straight people don't kill people? More often than not. Are we really pretending that straight men have not made up the majority of serial killers in the entire history of the world?

Are we really pretending that right now? It was just an opportunity to be a douche. I'm not defending the zodiac by any means here, but that was just stupid. No, of course you're not defending this. Jesus Christ. It just doesn't help. It's just not helpful. And it doesn't help the public.

To catch this person. No. We're looking to catch this person. Give me things that I can see with my eyeballs and witness with my eyeballs. And if you want to needle him, do it in a way to drag him out. Yeah, just feel like he's, say he's fucking pathetic. Right. Say he's a fucking pathetic loser. Right.

Who has nothing else to take control of. So he's taking control of vulnerable people in vulnerable positions. There you go. His fuck is easy. Yeah, I just did it. So the California Attorney General, Thomas Lynch, also got involved acting as a coordinator for various state and local agencies involved in the now growing manhunt. And he provided updates to the public.

In his initial statement, Lynch acknowledged the threat to the public. In his initial statement, Lynch acknowledged the threat to the public. You couldn't not. But assured them that a competent task force was pursuing the killer. He said, our law enforcement officers are competent. They are concerned and they will provide all the protection possible.

And in an effort to quell public hysteria, he told them the odds are that no tragedy will occur. But it's like, I feel like the odds are actually no tragedy will occur. But it's like, I feel like the odds are actually the opposite at this point if we're actually like, being real, if we're like really looking at this, we're living in a place of reality. I feel like because odds are that the Zodiac will strike again. Because if history has told us anything he has, luckily on alert, luckily here, it worked out for him. Yeah, this statement. But that I was like, what was that based on?

Yeah. Anyway. At the same time, he also issued an appeal to the Zodiac, urging the killer to turn himself in. He said, he's obviously an intelligent individual. He knows that eventually he'll be taken into custody. So it would be best that he give himself up before tragedy is written in blood. That's the way you go about that.

There you go. And it's like, that's the way to go about that. You do have to do a little like complimenting and then you kind of threaten them a little bit. Like, you know what I mean? There's a way to go about it. Lynch's assurances were more than just lip service though, or him trying to simply placate

a very increasingly worried public. In Napa County, the school district's 64 school buses were given armed police escorts every day, as they covered roughly 4,000 miles transporting children to 28 different schools. So they really put in a lot of resources. And additionally, a volunteer spotter was added to every school bus, and their job was to watch for any unusual activity along the bus route. What a scary job. Yeah, seriously.

But the statements and the press coverage of the manhunt prompted a massive public outpouring, and within a few days the San Francisco police had received hundreds of tips, but none provided any useful information. Among the most bizarre was a call from a man claiming to be the killer and offering a strange offer of surrender basically. On October 21st, the caller told investigators he wanted them to arrange for a nationally recognized lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, to appear on the local morning show AM San Francisco the next morning. And he said he would call in to discuss a possible surrender. And he said if Bailey's not available,

he would settle for California defense attorney Melvin Belli, who had made a name for himself. He actually represented Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin, Jack Ruby, and plenty of other high profile people. But San Francisco attempted to reach F. Lee Bailey, but when he was unavailable, they contacted Belly, and he happily agreed to appear on the show. A recording of the call was played for Brian Hartnell, who was one of the last victims attacked, in an effort to identify it as the man who had attacked him, but he wasn't able to provide confirmation, unfortunately.

So the next morning, host Jim Dunbar, who was joined by Melvin Belly, urged regular listeners not to call in so that the lines would remain completely open for the killer. For nearly an hour, the two men just chatted on air as they waited for this supposed killer to call, who finally called in about fifty minutes into the show. In the clip, Belli can be heard saying, Did you hear me? And a disembodied voice replies, yes, I did, and then hangs up the phone. A few minutes later, the man claiming to be the Zodiac called back and they started a strange conversation where he told Bellie to refer to him as Sam. Like the name Sam. Interesting.

Yeah. Throughout the conversation, both Dunbar and Bellie tried to get some confirmation that the caller was the man who had called the police the night before, if not the actual killer. But Sam, quote unquote, dodged their questions and just continued insisting that confirmation that the caller was the man who had called the police the night before if not the actual killer but Sam quote-unquote Dodged their questions and just continued insisting that he was the killer. He said I don't want to give myself up I want to kill those kids. I'm getting one of my headaches now. I've got to kill. I've got to kill And this is just in like a morning show like damn. That's the scariest thing ever Hello, literally hello Damn. That's the scariest thing ever.

Hello? Literally, hello. After roughly 20 minutes, the caller told Bellie, meet me on top of the Fairmont Hotel with nobody else or I'll jump. No, thank you. So Bellie refused to get the man on the roof. Thank you. But he said they ended up agreeing on an alternate location.

He was like, I'll meet you somewhere. So they made plans to meet at 1030 AM. But when Bellie arrived at this secret location, there was no one there to meet him. He waited until 1115. But when Sam, quote unquote, failed to show up, he just abandoned the plan and left. Okay. Now that Sam didn't show up at the agreed upon location didn't come as a surprise to a lot of people. Captain Lee, not the below deck star, the report you were gonna say that. The reporter, an officer, told reporters, I think the caller has a problem, but whether he's involved in the killings, I cannot say.

Yeah. So he was like, I think this might just be a sick individual. Makes sense. The dispatcher who had taken the call from the supposed killer the night before listened to the audio from AM San Francisco and was certain that the voice of the caller

from the night before was not the same voice that called to speak to Belly. According to the dispatcher, the caller quote, revealed knowledge about one or more of the five murders charged to the Zodiac that had never been made public. So she was like, they told the dispatcher said they said that the night before, but they didn't sound like the guy. So whether it was the killer who called or not, the opportunity to continue contact was lost once the show was over, unfortunately. So after the botched interview on AM San Francisco, the Zodiac went quiet for a few weeks until finally popping back up with a greeting card and yet another cipher sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, followed a day later by

a rambling seven page letter known now as the dripping pen card and the bus bomb letter. The dripping pen card. The dripping pen card. Creppy. Very creppy. On the front of the greeting card was an illustration of a wet fountain pen hanging up to dry and pre-printed text that said, sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen.

Wow. Like what? That's upsetting. I don't know why, but I just washed my pen. Wow. Like what? That's upsetting. I don't know why, but it is. No, I know. I don't like that. It's so fucking creepy, but you can't explain why. Sorry, I just washed my pen. Sorry, just washing my pen.

Inside, the card contained the pre-printed message, and I can't do a thing with it. No. So the card just said like, on the front. Just like a goofy ass card. Sorry, I just washed my pen, and I can't do a thing with it." No. So the card just said like, on the front, Sorry, I just washed my pen. And I can't do a thing with it. Nope.

I don't like that at all. What? I don't like it. And to this pre-printed message, the killer added, this is the zodiac speaking, which is a dumb thing to say because you're not speaking.

And also like, we know. Yeah. Like you don't need to, you don't need to do that. It doesn't need to be so official. He continued, I though, but it's supposed to say thought, you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet.

P.S. could you print this new cipher on your front page? I get awfully lonely when I'm ignored. So lonely I could do my thing. Do my ignored. So lonely I could do my thing. And the word thing was written in bold dark letters and underlined six times. Underneath the text, the writer drew the crosshair symbol, of course, with some text beneath that read, DES, like December, July, AUG, CEPT, AUGT, equals seven. So the dates on the bottom were quickly interpreted as a taunt to the police, with the killer trying to indicate that he had actually killed seven people, not five. According to author Michael Cole, there was a high-profile double murder in San Jose on August 3rd, 1969. Two young women, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy, were savagely murdered, each being stabbed more than a hundred times.

Oh my... what? Holy shit. And Cole claims there are many who believe these to be the Zodiac's six and seven victims, but there's no evidence conclusively linking him to either murder. Interesting. And actually several years later, a man named Carl Werner pleaded guilty to the murders of Furlong and Snoozy, as well as a third victim. So, who knows?

But the second letter received by the examiner, which was much different than anything the Zodiac had said before. Among the more obvious differences, according to Cole, was that the previous communication, quote, had been noticeably matter of a fact and somewhat detached, but this letter exhibited a clear sense of palpable hostility, primarily at law enforcement. The letter read in part. This is the Zodiac speaking. Up to the end of October I have killed seven people. I have grown rather angry with the police for telling their lies about me.

So I shall challenge the way of collecting slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone when I commit my murders they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger plus a few fake accidents, etc. The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them. If you wonder why I was wiping the cab down, I was leaving fake clues for the police to run all over town with. As one might say, I gave the cops some busy work to keep them happy. Hey, pig, doesn't it rile you up to have you nose rubbed in your boo-boos?

If you cops think I'm going to take on a bus in the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads. For someone using the term boo-boos, that's very aggressive. Boo-boos. It's a very aggressive letter for someone using the word booboos, that's very aggressive. Booboos. It's a very aggressive letter for someone using the word booboos. That's upsetting and I don't like it. Like nothing about that is something I want to be around.

I don't like that. The fact that he's saying, I'm going to make him look like routine robberies and accidents and shit so you can't trace them to an actual murder or trace them back to me is so scary. It's so scary and it's possible he did that. Well, that's the thing. I'm like, so did you do that? Because remember, like I said, Paul Stein is the last official victim. Yeah. But did he kill like, who knows how many other people he could have killed and made it look

like accidents, robberies. Because obviously, there's a degree here where people are like, I don't even know that he's that intelligent. Like, look at all the grammatical mistakes he makes. I think those are on purpose. Yeah. Possibly. And it's like, he has gotten away so far,

so he does know how to make things look a certain way. You know? Yeah, I mean, he definitely... I think he was capable of making things look like accidents. So it's like he's at the very least capable of doing that. Right. And, but then you also have to look at it like the Jack the Ripper letters.

And you have to say which ones are from him, which ones are copycats, because you know there's always going to be some, you know, level of people who want to get involved with this shit. Oh yeah, and they're, and we'll get into it, there were plenty of letters that were sent that were not from the zodiac.

This one is talking about the seven victims again. It's talking about wiping down the cab. Wiping down the cab. And there were certain things that were not made that the public was not made aware of. Yeah. So it's interesting. But the whole ending of like, if you cops think I'm going to take a bus in the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads.

Like, whoa. And it's also like, why wouldn't we think that? Well, it's like that's- Like I don't get what your aim is there. Are you trying to say that you do have a victim profile and like that's totally against it? So like you're dumb for thinking I was serious? Yeah, I mean, I guess. I feel like it's him being like, oh, you just don't get my humor.

Maybe. Like to him, that's humor. Maybe, you know? I mean, because like it's him being like, oh you just don't get my humor Maybe like to him that's humor. Maybe you know, I mean like he's a sick individual. I feel like that's him being like Like you don't get my eyebrow humor, you know, like that's that feels like that. It does. Yeah Yeah Well, the letter goes on to describe the killer's new plan where he would place a bomb Described as a quote death machine and, my masterpiece on a local bus. And the letter included a list of components used to create the bomb, as well as a kind of crude diagram and the same blue felt tip pen used to write the letter.

The letter ended in a postscript instructing the editors to print the diagram of the bomb and on the back final page was a second postscript that said, to prove that I am the Zodiac, ask that Vallejo cop about my electric gun site, which I used to start my collecting of slaves. It's so weird to me when killers do this. Yeah, like taunt like this. Because it's such like, it feels like such 12 year old kid behavior to be like, it feels like such 12-year-old kid behavior to be like, ask him, ask him.

Like, Dave. Yeah, I did that. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like, what? It's like in his mind, he's like a super villain, not a murderer. Yeah, it's like, it's very strange. It's such immature behavior.

It is. To be begging for attention for these awful things you have done. Oh, and he keeps doing have done. Like it's very acting out, like child acting out in a negative way for any kind of attention situation. So I'm just like, what the? It's so weird when they do this. No, it's bizarre. Well, six weeks or so later on December 20th, the one year anniversary of David Faraday and Betty Jensen's murders, the Zodiac wrote again, this time to Melvin

Belly. And the now familiar blue felt tip pen, in much better handwriting though, he wrote... And the fact that he writes with blue ink. Yeah. I'm sorry, I hate blue ink. I don't like blue ink either. I like that. Yeah, I get frustrated with blue ink.

But he wrote, and again, in much better handwriting. Interesting. He said, Dear Melvin, this is the Zodiac speaking. I wish you a happy Christmas, spelled incorrectly, the same way he had in the first letter. The one thing I ask of you is this, please help me. I cannot reach out for help. Because of this, in me won't let me.

I'm finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check. I am afraid I will lose control again and take my ninth and possibly 10th victim. Please help me, I am drowning. At the time, at the moment, the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in. Plus the trigger mech requires much work to get it adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long from no nine, I will lose all control of myself plus set the bomb up. Please help me, I cannot

remain in control for much longer." That one was really hard to read because the grammatical errors are plenty. What the fuck? Yeah. The letter was signed with the same crosshairs, now common among all Zodiac letters, and it included another swatch of fabric from Paul Stein's shirt. That's fucked up. Which meant it was an authentic letter. It's...

He's like devolving in such a strange way. Yes. Like they're so different. Like from that one where he's like, oh, I think like shooting the kiddies as they bounce out of school will be fun. And then here he's like, I don't want to kill anyone else. I need help. I need help.

And you're like, what the fuck? But he's still saying he's making this bomb, but like it's too much work. And he can't get help. he's going to use it. He's going to do it. And his first letter that he wrote like a long time ago was like saying how killing people was something he loved to do. And it gave him excitement. It was better than sex.

But now he doesn't want to. And now here he's like, I don't want to take my ninth and 10 victims. And it's like, what the, what is happening? Yeah. And this is some scary, scattered thinking. It is. Whoever this individual was, they were sick. Scary.

And scary. All of the above. Yeah. A few days later, Melvin Belli contacted The Chronicle, who did agree to publish his response to the Zodiac on the front page of the December 28th edition of the paper. Belli said, you have asked for my help and I promise you I will do everything in my power to provide you with whatever help you may need or want. He offered to meet the killer in a private location of his choosing. But as the days

passed without a response, it became clear that the Zodiac had no intention of actually turning himself in or meeting with Belley. You wonder if that was just a ploy to get him to get a response. Yeah ploy to get him to... Get a response. Yeah, and to get a response that's like, we'll help you, we'll do whatever you want. You know, like that gives him what he needs. And I think it probably would have made him like laugh, like chuckle.

Well, and I think it makes him feel powerful because he just got them all to tuck their tails between their legs and say, which, and I'm not saying that against them because... No. What else did they, what other choice did they have? Yeah, they're scared, but he's gonna put a bomb on a boss. tails between their legs and say, which I'm not saying that against them because what else did they, what other choice did they have? Yeah, they're scared. They're not just going to be like, go fuck yourself, go kill some kids.

Like, right. They're not going to set them up for that. So it's like, it's not their fault, but that is what he wanted. I think. Yep. I agree. After the letter was sent to belly in late December, communication from the Zodiac ceased for several months until a pair of letters showed up at the offices

of the Chronicle in late April about a week apart. Like the other letters, the latest seemed to be an attempt to manipulate the press into keeping the story alive on the front pages. Because remember, there's no new leads, he hasn't killed anybody that the police can link to him. So this isn't being reported on exactly how it was when it was like

everybody was in the thick of it. But in these letters, the Zodiac demanded that investigators release quote all of the details of his bus bomb threat and called on San Franciscans to wear, to start wearing quote some nice Zodiac buttons. Nicole Zichalos Oh, this he is the Lulu in a way that you can't even. And it's just, it's like spiraling out of control. It's power. He's looking for power. He's looking to be in control. That's why he's going to be like, let me see if I can get people to start wearing buttons

with my signature, like what my logo that's on it. You know what I mean? Like, let me see how far I can flex this power I have over everybody. Just the fact that he thought that people might be willing to do that is so wild. Cause he thought he scared, if he scared people enough that they would think they were safe if they wore those buttons. Like we're listening to you, we'll do what you say.

Right. Cause he just saw them bend and say, we'll help you however we can. We'll do whatever you want. What do you want? He says, print it on the front page. They print it on the front page. So he said, and they're going, how far can I take this?

I'll get them to wear buttons. So this is power. This is all power. Like I've never, this is such a clear case of power trip. It is. In the worst way possible. Yeah. Well, the April letters repeated their earlier claims

that the killer had developed a massive bomb and was planning to leave it in an undisclosed public location in order to cause now he's at the most damage possible. Like the previous threats, this obviously caused considerable panic among the public, but after a few weeks without any kind of evidence about an actual bomb, things slowly started to return to normal. And like the previous letters, the April letters stated that the killer had taken more lives, of course, but the police had yet to catch on. He said, I have killed 10 people to date.

It would have been a lot more, except I was swamped out by the rain we had a while back. The fuck? Like, oh, okay. Oh, cool. More letters followed a few months later. In late June, the editor of the Chronicle received a note along with a new cipher saying this is the Zodiac speaking. I've become very upset with the people of the Chronicle received a note along with a new cipher saying, this is the Zodiac speaking. I've become very upset with the people of the San Fran Bay area.

They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice crosshair symbols button. I promised to punish them if they did not comply by annihilating a full school bus, but now school is out for the summer. So I punished them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a 38. Oh, now this is interesting. Yeah. The note was signed with the usual cross air symbol, of course, and text indicating that

the Zodiac had now killed 12 people and was accompanied by what would be his fourth and final cipher. So a lot of people think that the line about the man being shot in his car with a.38 was a reference to the June 19th death of 25-year-old San Francisco police officer. I looked up his name. I'm not positive. There's a few different pronunciations. But I think the best one is Richard Raddick. Okay. Right?

Yeah. So around 5.30 a.m., this officer was sitting in his car and had started writing a parking ticket for a vehicle parked in front of him, or sorry, parked in front of a hydrant, when an unknown assailant approached him from behind and fired three shots through the driver's side window. Yeah. Yeah. It is worth noting though, when referencing the first five murders in his letters, the Zodiac offered some form of evidence that validated his claims, like an unpublished detail

or in the case of Paul Stein's murder, a piece of physical evidence. But the claims made in the letter since Paul Stein's death didn't include any verifications, and he probably could have, he very likely did learn about them through the press. Oh, so there you go. Yeah. But still, the letters are believed to have been sent by the Zodiac himself. Okay. So who knows? It's possible. Two more letters were sent that year, one to The Chronicle on October 5th, and another to Chronicle writer Paul Avery directly on October 27th.

Like the others, these letters seemed to be an attempt to keep the story on the front page as a power move, since it had started to be replaced by other, more pressing matters. The difference in the case of the October 27th letter, though, was that it was one of the rare instances where the killer dressed a single person. The only other time he had really done that was when it was Melvin Belli. Oh yeah.

In this case, the killer sent a Halloween card to Avery, who had done the bulk of the reporting on the Zodiac for the Chronicle and made a vague threat on his life. But in an interview, Paul Avery said, I'm really not scared. I've needled him in some of my stories. Maybe that's why he wrote me. I love that.

It's just like whatever. He's like, I'm not afraid. That's fine. I'd be fucking terrified. Five months after Avery received the Halloween card threatening his life, the editor of the Los Angeles Time received its first letter from the killer. And the latest letter, the killer noted the number of victims was now 17.

So he's going up like exponentially. I was just going to say that was a jump. And he said, the reason that I'm writing to the Times is this, they don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others. Wow. He used this as an opportunity, obviously, to declare a higher victim number. Of course. It was mostly yet another letter taunting the police who had failed to make any significant

progress on the case. He said, like I've always said, I'm crackproof. If the Blue Meanies are ever going to catch me, they had best do something because the longer they fiddle around, the more slaves I will collect for my afterlife. Ew. I hate that that's like what he's claiming this is for. It's so gross. To go from boo-boos to blue meanies.

I'm like, you were calling them pigs at one point. Like that's rude and like shitty. Now you're saying blue meanies? He feels like he has like, and I'm by no means armchair diagnosing anybody. I'm just saying in these letters, it seems like there's different personalities coming through. No, I completely agree. Some of them are much like the one pleading for help.

Yeah. Please stop. And then the next one is like, it's better than sex. And then there's one that's just like, my boo-boos. And then the other one's like, blue beanies, pigs. It's just like, what? It's various different tones. Feels like there's very different people coming through here, but the same person.

Yeah, there's some kind of like mood disorder. Something going on here. But after sending the letter to the LA Times, the Zodiac went quiet for almost three years until the Chronicle received what would prove to be the final communication from the Zodiac himself on January 29th, 1974. In his latest communication postmarked from Santa Clara County, the Zodiac gave no indication of why he'd gone silent for such a long period of time, which is interesting and we'll touch on it later. But instead, he offered only three thoughts. He said, I saw and think The Exorcist was the best satirical comedy I've

ever seen. Signed yours truly. He plunged himself into the billowy wave and echo aroused from the suiciders grove. Tit willow, tit willow, tit willow. P.S. If I do not see the note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing. Wow. So now he's just like, I'll just do something. He's like, I'll do something nasty. You know I will. That just, I'm like, did that where Beetlejuice got it?

Oh, maybe. Is that where like the exorcist, and it gets funnier every time I've seen it? Maybe. Yeah. Good call. As soon as I heard that, I was like, Beetlejuice? What? Oh shit, that's creepy.

Yeah. I hate that. Because, I mean, that's exactly what he says essentially. It is, yeah. Well, that makes it even scarier, Beetlejuice. I know, I'm like, oh God. In small script on the bottom right corner of the page, he included, me 37, SFPD 0, like San Francisco Police Department. So now he's claiming he's killed 37 people.

I mean, and at this point though, too, it's like, who knows? He might have. Yeah. And additionally, the signature on the letter wasn't the actual recognizable crosshair symbol this time. A series of strange markings that looked like maybe Chinese or Japanese writing, but they've never been identified as any known language.

Scary. Yeah. What is probably the most noticeable and unusual about the final zodiac letter isn't the missing signature, but the lack of any real substance. Because in the past, the letters sent by the killer were sent to claim one of his murders, to talk to police or give the press some kind of fucking puzzle to solve.

But here he just makes a snarky joke about the Exorcist, which had been released in theaters a couple months earlier. And then he just quotes line from the Rogers and Hammerstein play, The Mikado, and makes what feels like we were just saying is like a pretty vague threat of violence just for the hell of it. Yeah, just to do it. Yeah. But the letter has been analyzed thoroughly and it is believed by law enforcement officials to be authentic. I wonder why. Like, what about that feels authentic?

I don't know if it was like, maybe the blue felt pen or maybe something. Like, what about that feels authentic? I don't know if it was like maybe the blue felt pen or something. Yeah, sure. I know that one I'm not positive about, especially the fact that it didn't have the crosshair symbol. Like this feels very Jack the Ripper-y where it's like, yeah, it's totally a real one. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about that. Well, I don't know.

I mean, like obviously handwriting analysis is a real thing, but it's also like a tricky science. Yeah, it can definitely be tricky. I don't know. But The Chronicle did publish the letter in full either way. They left out the strange markings on the bottom though, at the request of the San Francisco police. But in the years that followed, investigators would receive hundreds, if not thousands,

of letters and cards claiming to come from the Zodiac. But as far as investigators are concerned, this was the last time any news outlet or law enforcement agency would hear from the Zodiac. But as far as investigators are concerned, this was the last time any news outlet or law enforcement agency would hear from the Zodiac. Interesting. Yeah. So who the fuck was this guy? Yeah. We got to talk about it. We do.

So obviously a lot of the Zodiac story is, you know, result of the media attention, the public fascination that surrounded the case. But at the same time, there's also a massive and very long rangingranging investigation, or there was, that went on behind the scenes. Countless law enforcement officers from local cops to FBI all work together to try to stop him. Their efforts obviously didn't make it into the endless stream of press coverage because there wasn't a lot to say beyond, we don't really have much to go on, but we're trying. Well, and you don't want to be like, here's what they're doing to catch him. Because he's just going to be like, cool.

First, they started here. Then they went here. And like we know, he had left some evidence behind at the crime scene and he provided some clues throughout everything that he was doing, but they never got any major, major breaks in the case. But there were actually at least 13 other murders where the Zodiac was briefly considered a suspect. It's just that they could never be confidently connected. He could never confidently be connected to the case.

Which is what he wanted. Yep. And while it's true that there were never any major breaks in the case, like I just said, there have been close to 2,500 suspects over the course of the case. That's horrible. Which is wild. That's pretty terrible. Yeah, over 2500 in general, with at least a handful of them being considered by investigators to be serious. Wow. Yeah.

But with a suspect list so long and one that includes a number of actually high profile killers like Ted Kaczynski and Charles Manson, it would be pretty impossible for us to sit here and go through every single suspect. So we're going to get into the three most popular suspects. Just kidding. We're going to sit down and we're going to go through 2,500 of the suspects. Okay, are you sitting down? Does anybody have to go to the bathroom? The next three years of morbid is going to be just dedicated to the suspects of the zodiac. Okay, so today we're going to imagine. All right, so the first one is Richard Gaikowski. When the zodiac murder started, he was living in the San Francisco area.

He had been living there for about six years, and he was working as the editor at the popular newspaper Good Times. Good Times. Good Times, man. He would have been within a short distance of two of the Zodiac crime scenes, which were the Lake Herman Road and the Blue Rock Springs attacks. He does bear a resemblance to the sketches of the Zodiac released in the press. And all of the evidence against him is circumstantial, but some of it is pretty compelling. So when Mike Maggio gave his statement to the police after his attack, he mentioned that he had actually been chased by one of Darlene's former boyfriends

just before they were assaulted that night. Yeah. He said, I thought he drove off and drove away, but he came back later and shot us. So that's, he really thought it was that person. And he does resemble the sketch. He does. He very much does. And Mike continued, she told me it was a friend of hers and he was just jealous. She mentioned his name and she referred to him as Richard. And later, Darlene Ferran's sister, Diane, claimed her sister did in fact have a former

boyfriend named Richard who was a journalist. So those two things link up. Interesting. Now, another circumstantial piece of evidence. Nancy Slover, I think it is, a former police dispatcher who took the call from the Zodiac after the Ferren murder, after Darlene's murder. She listened to a tape of Gaikowski's voice in 2009, and she was very confident that it was the same voice she heard on the night of's murder. She listened to a tape of Gaikowski's voice in 2009 and she was very confident that it was the same voice she heard on the night of the

murder. Interesting. She said, I listened to the voice of Richard and I felt shock and deja vu. In my opinion, he was the same person I listened to in July of 1969. Wow. This one, this next one creeps me out. It will give you the chills. Paul Stein, the young cab driver who was murdered. His sister claimed that a man resembling Gaikowski was at her brother's funeral, but she had no idea, like she had no way of knowing who he was at the time. But then later when it was brought to her attention, she was like, oh, I saw somebody that looked just like that.

Well, and if you look at the police sketch, like look at the composite and you look at, there's like a picture of Gaikowski where he's making the exact same face as the composite. Cause in the composite, the like the one where the mouth is closed, he's doing almost like a little like, like a little like smirk, like a, like a sneer almost,

but it's like very subtle. There's a picture where he's doing the same thing with his mouth. Hold on, I'm looking. And the eyebrows are very similar, like they're that low set eyebrow. And he's got the same glasses. He does have the same glasses.

Even the hairline is the same. Yeah. And like the narrowness of the forehead. Yeah. Like the hairline and everything. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, even the lips look very similar. The lips and the way he does that little slight sneer with his lips.

It's pretty compelling. It is pretty compelling. That picture is at least. It is. Well, in the last big piece of circumstantial evidence against him, a lot of his coworkers at Good Times found him to be pretty strange. And in 1971, they actually filed paperwork to have him involuntarily committed to the Napa State Mental Hospital.

Whoa. And there he was diagnosed with an undisclosed mental illness. But that hospitalization would have coincided with the drop off in communication from the Zodiac in 1971. Okay. And remember, when he came back, he didn't say shit all about where he had been, like when they got the next letter. So that's interesting. That's a compelling. That's interesting. He was investigated by the FBI after Darlene Farren's murder, but told investigators that he was out of the country at the time, which effectively ruled him out as a suspect. But according to amateur investigator Tom

Voight, Gajkowski had actually lost his passport just before the murders, so it wouldn't have been possible for him to leave the country. Oh my guys. Yeah. This one seems like a plus suspect here. And Voight alleges that the FBI never bothered to follow up on Gajkowski's alibi, but if they had, they wouldn't have ruled him out. Hey, FBI, what the fuck? Honestly. And after being released from the Napa State Hospital, Gajkowski went back to San Francisco,

where he just opened a small movie theater in a store and managed a few local punk bands. Whoa. Which is just wild. While also advocating for progressive political issues. So maybe he did get some kind of treatment that helped him in the hospital and maybe like obviously speculating here, but maybe received ongoing treatment that got him in check.

But he did pass away in 2004. And at least one former coworker has been very vocal about him being the Zodiac, but he's never been seriously investigated by law enforcement. That's wild. Yeah. That's wild. If anyone that you know, like if you think someone's the Zodiac, you know a wild ass person. Yeah, that's the thing. I can't imagine one of my friends being like, I think that like you might be a notorious serial killer.

Like if somebody thinks that, then like you've really done some stuff. Yeah. You really showed your ass in that relationship. I love that phrase. I think that phrase is so funny. I mean, it is a perfect description. It is.

Yeah. I think he's very compelling. But our next one is Gary Francis Post. In 2021, an independent group of retired investigators known as the casebreakers, which I love. That's amazing. It reminds me of in yellow jackets. Like the web sleuths. Yes. Well, they identified Gary Francis Post as the man who was most likely to have been the Zodiac Killer. He was a former member of the US Air Force and he had a very long history of very violent behavior,

including a history of domestic violence. He lived within a 15 minute drive of several crime scenes while the murders were taking place. And like Richard Gaikowski, the case against Post is built entirely on circumstantial evidence and has been refuted by the FBI, but he remains a popular suspect with the casebreakers and just people who enjoy true crime in general. According to the group casebreakers, photos showed Mr. Post

with supposed scars on his forehead that they believed match marks shown on a police sketch of the Zodiac Killer. And that's among a handful of facts related to physical evidence that they believed matched marks shown on a police sketch of the zodiac killer. And that's among a handful of facts related to physical evidence that they believe makes him a strong suspect. Others include the fact that a size 10 military boot, military style boot print was discovered at one of the crime scenes. And that was similar to the style of boots that he was known to have worn at the time. So that's interesting.

Okay. Also a Timex watch band was discovered at one of the crime scenes, which investigators believe was purchased at a military base around the mid to late sixties, which is when he would have been in the military. Perhaps maybe the most important, at least as far as the case breakers are concerned,

is his supposed link to the murder of Sherry Jo Bates, an 18 year old girl who was killed in Riverside in 1966. That fall, she started her first year at Riverside Community College, and the last time she was seen was when she was studying at the library on the night of October 30th. The next morning, a groundskeeper on the campus had just started street sweeping when he came across her body in an alley on campus. Yeah. And police believe her killer had disabled her vehicle and then waited for her to go back to her car, which is so fucking terrifying.

At some point in the life of the Zodiac case, Sherry Jo Bates was considered actually to be one of the victims linked to the Zodiac. And the case breakers believe that Post was responsible for her death. Given the link between her murder and the Zodiac and his history of violent behavior and enthusiasm for guns and military propaganda, they think he's the best suspect. But despite their enthusiasm, investigators on the Zodiac case completely reject their theory and they ruled him out completely as a suspect. Huh. Yeah.

In 2021, a spokesperson for the Riverside Police said, in 2016, investigators received an anonymous letter from a person admitting the handwritten letter sent to our department months after Sherry Jo Bates was murdered was written as a sick joke and that he was not the Zodiac Killer. Which fucked up. That's not an any kind of joke. That's ridiculous Riverside police officer Ryan rails back went a step further when he told ABC News

We don't know how we can be any more clear the fifty thousand dollar private reward is still valid If someone has any information on the Bates case, please come forward. Hmm. So he was like, it's not this guy Yeah, like I we looked at him. That one doesn't Doesn't a compel me any further. No, I feel the same way. So the FBI and the Riverside Police and me and Elena might have ruled Gary Post out as a Zodiac suspect, but the case breakers remain committed to their belief that he is the guy.

In an interview with Post's former neighbor, referred only to as Gwenny, the woman told the reporters, he, meaning Gary, lived a double life. As I'm an adult thinking back, it all kind of makes sense now. At the time when I was a teenager, I didn't put two and two together until I got older.

It hit me full blown that Gary's the Zodiac. This case is so wild because it's so different from any other case where people just confidently indict people to be the Zodiac. Like that guy over there. In this case, they're literally like, yeah, it just fucking hit me like a ton of bricks that Gary over there is the Zodiac. And it's just like, you literally can't say that. You can't do that. That is quite an indictment, ma'am.

Like that's like, my neighbor's annoying. The Zodiac. The Zodiac. It's just like, what are we doing? And just to be like, I never thought about it before, but now that the case breaker said it, Zodiac. Tap, tap. Period.

That guy's the Zodiac. And it's just like, you literally can't do that. That's lawless. But it's just, this is the only, this is the case that that really happens so often and has happened for decades. For decades, people have not just been like, oh, I think this person should be looked at as the Zodiac. People are like, that is the Zodiac killer. That man right there is the Zodiac killer. It's wild.

It's fascinating to watch. It is. It's also scary. It's very scary. Humans do crazy shit. We're wildin'. Well, this next one and last one that we'll talk about is also very interesting. The Gaikowski suspect is a strong one. So far he's my guy.

He's strong. Post, not so much. This one, back to strong. This is Arthur Lee Allen. So Gaikowski and Post may top the list of amateur investigators, but as far as the members of the actual Zodiac task force were concerned, the most compelling suspect and the only person to ever be publicly identified by investigators was former elementary school teacher Arthur Lee Allen.

I hate that. Yeah, I hate that he was an elementary school teacher. Yeah, I hate that a lot. He served in the US Navy and he was honorably discharged in 1959. And two years later in 1961, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, found work as a teacher until he was fired in 1968 when a student made accusations of sexual misconduct. Oh. Weirdly, he was generally well liked, but a lot of people in later years did find him to be strange.

And later, friends and neighbors would find similarities between the things that the Zodiac wrote in letters and comments made by Alan over the years. Just like the way he spoke and certain things he would say. It should also be said that Alan was the number one suspect for the lead detective on the case, who was Dave Tosche, and also a former San Francisco Chronicle writer, Robert Graysmith, who covered the case extensively for the paper. He also believed that this was like the number one guy. Really? In a 2007 interview, Graysmith said, Dave and George Bewert of the Villejo Police, they're convinced the Zodiac is Arthur Lee Allen. And Graysmith and others who believe that Allen was the killer are not just speculating,

they do cite some pretty compelling evidence. On the day of the attack at Lake Berryessa, Arthur Lee Allen was known to be only one of nine people to visit the lake that day. Wow. That's compelling. Yeah. Also on that same day, a Vallejo police officer pulled him over for speeding that afternoon, like the same day as the attack at the lake.

And when the officer looked in the back of Alan's car, he discovered a bloody hunting knife, which Alan said he used to kill chickens. Before the killing started, Alan frequently bragged to his friends that he was, quote, going to hunt couples at night, send letters to the press, and call himself Zodiac before any of this happened. I mean, whoa. Allen's coworker, Don Chaney, told police about these statements and voluntarily took and passed a polygraph. Wow.

Yeah. In 1971, Chaney reported Allen to the police after he made several alarming statements indicating a, quote, desire to commit violence, some of which, like, some of the things he was saying were similar to statements made in the Zodiac letters. He said, quote, that phrase about picking the little darlings off, I remembered that and that's what forced me to go to the police. Wow, this is compelling. Compelling, right?

Yeah. Uh, after their interview with Cheney in 1971, police actually interviewed Alan a number of times and they searched his home where they discovered hunting knives inside as well as a freezer of dead hamsters, squirrels and birds. Dead hamsters? I don't know man. But yeah. And in 1991 they searched his home again and this time they found quote some writings, some pipe bombs, and some illegal weapons. Oh. Yeah. Vallejo police captain Roy Conway told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1992, none

of it was sufficient to make an arrest for him being the Zodiac. Huh. Yeah. Now, in 2002, DNA and fingerprint analysis was conducted comparing Alan's DNA and fingerprints to those found on the Zodiac letters, and they were not a match, which ruled him out as a suspect. But I don't know. I don't know. This one's weird. Yeah. Despite that

finding in 2018, Vallejo police detective Terry Poser told reporters, our Vallejo suspect, Alan, is probably still the best lead. There are probably 30 different circumstantial things that point to him. He was extremely intelligent, but a deviant dude. Unfortunately, he died of natural causes in 1992. Yeah. Now, in 2004, the case was officially made inactive by higher-ups at the San Francisco Police Department. They explained that their caseload required them to just set aside some older unsolved

cases. It makes sense. But in 2007, the case was reopened when investigators wanted to do additional DNA testing. And in 2018, after the capture of Joseph James D'Angelo, the Golden State Killer, using familiar DNA testing, another profile was put together actually using the DNA from samples from the zodiac letters. But the results were inconclusive. Of course they were.

Yeah. But as of now, the case does remain open with the FBI. Holy shit. And that is the infamous Zodiac case. I, Gaikowski is still my, is the one that hits. Gaikowski hits really, really hard. Yeah. He's up there.

Especially the fact that he was like involuntarily put in a hospital. And it lines up with the timing. Because there is some mental illness in that in those letters. Absolutely. Very evident. The number one thing for me or the like tied for number one pieces of evidence against Arthur Lee Allen are the fact that he was at like Berryessa that day and only one of nine people. Yeah. And then the fact that he got pulled over that afternoon and had a bloody hunting knife. Yeah, that's pretty wild. He doesn't look like the sketch. I know.

And well, in Richard Gaikowski, he literally looks identical. He looks exactly like the sketch. Not that I'm just going off the sketch. No, you can't just go off that. But when you have all those other circumstantial pieces of evidence that we talked about, and then he looks like he's sketched. And then he also looks exactly like it. It's like, hmm.

Yeah. That is interesting. It's so interesting, too. Like, it's so weird, because you hear like Zodiac, and in your mind, you're like, he killed like so many people. Yeah. But there's only, and it's awful, but there's only five that are confirmed.

Yeah. You just wonder how many people he actually killed. Yeah, because he claimed like somewhere in the 30s. Yeah, I think it ended up being like 37, something like that. And it's like, I don't know. How many people weren't connected? That's the thing. And again, like the police came out and said themselves,

there were cases that were considered, but they just couldn't conclusively like them. It's just like scary. Yeah. Freaks you out. Yeah. It's a very wild, very interesting case. I feel like they can solve it though.

I mean, they solved the Golden State Killer case after how many years? Nope. Like you always say, a cold case is never cold. Never cold. Yeah. Just got to warm it up a little. Just thaw it out. Yeah.

So thaw that out, guys. Yeah. And we hope you keep listening. We hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that we don't solve the zodiac killer case because can you fucking imagine if that's solved within our lifetimes? Let's go. It'd be crazy.

Let's do it. Who knows? I'm sorry. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.