Timesuck with Dan Cummins - BONUS 12 - The Zodiac Killer

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

Who killed five people for sure and possibly many more in central California in late 1968 and 1969 and then taunted the entire Bay Area with letters sent in to the press revealing details of the crimes only the killer and the police would know? Who sent in threats of more violence and strange cyphers that if decoded would allegedly reveal his identity? Someone killed again and again and again, all the while daring the police to discover his identity. And they got away with it. Who is the Zodiac killer? Will we ever know? Today, I present the details of the five murders we know he committed, details of a few other crimes he may have committed, examine the letters and cyphers he sent in to the Bay Area press, and look at the most likely suspects. And then I make my guess. And, once you have the information, you can make yours. Murders, mystery, and a city that lived in fear - all that and more on today’s taunting, threatening, and terrible Timesuck. Get tickets to the Feb. 16th Detroit show NOW so we can get many more live Timesuck podcasts going in 2018! Come see me and the guys from Small Town Murder and Crime in Sports. If enough tickets are bought in the next few weeks, a live podcast will be added and more live podcasts dates will appear. CLICK HERE for tickets to the 7:30 show at the Magic Bag. Timesucker Mike Jerningan needs your help. He's had a crazy series of medical calamities, and if you'd like to help him cover some massive medical debt, CLICK HERE! Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG, @timesuckpodcast on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast

Who killed five people for sure, and possibly many more in Central California in late 1968 and 1969, and then taunted the entire Bay Area, with letters sent into the press revealing details of the crimes only the killer would know, threats of more violence, strange ciphers that have decoded would allegedly reveal the murderer's identity, someone killed and killed again and again, all the while daring the police to discover their identity. Someone taunted an entire city for several years, and then just as mysteriously as they announced their presence disappeared. Who is the zodiac killer?

Will we ever know? Today, I present the details of the five murders we know he committed, details of a few other crimes he may have committed, examine the letters and ciphers he sent into the Bay Area Press, and look at the most likely suspects. And then I make my guess as to who I think did it. And you can make yours. Murders, mystery, and a city that lived in fear, all that and more on today's taunting, threatening, and terrible time suck. So happy Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever the hell you're getting your suck

on there, time sucker. I'm Dan Cummins and this is the cult of the curious. This is time suck. Hail Nimrat. Thank you so much for all your wonderful emails this past week. Seems like I'm not the only one who got a little freaked out, a little spooked by Monday's shadow people episode. I got a lot of spooky emails sent my way from you time suckers,

some great time suckers shadow people in counter stories that I will share at the end of today's episode. And welcome all you new time suckers who hopped on over here from the fantastic land of FUN and the hello from the Magic Tavern podcast and also from the previous weeks fantastic astonishing legends podcast. I hope the time suck can provide your earholes even more joy than they were already receiving. Appreciate all the reviews.

We are well over 1500 reviews now and ratings on iTunes, so you have at least three more bonus episodes heading your way. One every three weeks, starting on Friday, November 24th, I'll figure out a vote for what the topic should be for that bonus suck the next one very soon and post the choices on at-time suck podcasts on Instagram like we've done the past few times. So thank you for making that bonus episode seem to be regular every three-week occurrence now. As long as they keep rolling in it's gonna keep happening. Some important new announcements.

I just added a Detroit show. The doors are gonna open at 7 p.m. on Friday, February 16th at the Magic Bag on 229-20 Woodward Avenue in Ferndale, Cool Rock venue, where I'll be headlining a 730 show with James Petrogallo and Jimmy Wisman, the guys from Small Town Murder and Crime in Sports. Tickets go on sale today. There is a link in the episode description, $20 for the show,

which is a great price for a live show, all three of us. And if you want more live podcasts in your future, very important, if you live in the Michigan area that you buy these tickets soon. If ticket sales go well in the following month, a 10 p.m. live swap cast podcast with James, Jimmy and I is also gonna go on sale. Basically, since I don't have a big track record of doing live podcasts, these venues wanna know that the tickets can sell, they wanna know that the standup show is going to sell first.

And then if that sells well, they're willing to take a gamble on the live podcast show. And then if that sells well, I can do many more live podcasts, some with James and Jimmy, some solo. But it starts with the support of these first live shows. And don't worry if you're like, you know, a true purist with time suck, you're like, I don't know if I want

one of these episodes to be a mashup. It's just bonus. It's just for extra fun. It will not replace a Monday episode. It will not replace a Friday bonus. It's just even, it's just for extra fun. It will not replace a Monday episode. It will not replace a Friday bonus, but it's just even more suck out there. And something special and unique, a nice hybrid of a tale told in parts by James Jimmie and me.

Just a fun mashup, you know, where we just break down our murderous tale together. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun, especially doing in front of a live audience. I really love those guys. And I need you guys, you time suckers to rally and make it happen. So again, you got to get those tickets soon for the Detroit show or there will be no late night live podcast, which hurts the chances of there being future live podcasts anywhere else. Also, I'm in Dayton, Ohio for a few more shows

this weekend. I'm in Spokane, Washington, this coming week, November 9th through the 11th. Dr. Grins and Grand Rapids, Michigan, November 30th through December 2nd. St. Louis, funny bomb. St. Louis, Missouri, December 7th through the 10th. Comedy Club on state and Madison, Wisconsin, December 14th through 16th. Appleton, Wisconsin was added on December 13th. One night only at Skyline Comedy Club in Appleton. And then, around and out the year, the comedy works in Denver, Colorado.

I've heard as one of the best clubs in the country, December 28th through New Year's Eve. A bunch of additional 2018 dates will be posted soon on the website. And there's going to be a lot of just kind of one night here, one night there, test shows, see who can show up for one night. And if those go well, it'll bowed well for my future as a comic and as a live podcaster. So come to the shows. All right, now enjoy this suck in your ear holes right now on the Zodiac Killer.

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OK, so the tail of the Zodiac starts for sure at least in late 1968 and lasts until the early 1970s. So we will start our tail in late 68 and we will march to a series of murders and cryptic messages before we break down who I think may have done it with little time suck timeline. Shrap on those boots soldier, we're marching down a time suck timeline.

December 20, 1968. The first murders unanimously attributed to the Zodiac Killer. The Zodiac has since been the suspected killer and a few other murders dated back to 1966, but 1968 is the year of the first definitive Zodiac homicides. David Faraday, age 17, and Betty Lou Jensen age 16 were two young high school students out on their first official date. David was a popular high school student, a Eagle Scout member of the Vallejo High School wrestling team. Betty Lou was a well-liked, hard-working student with excellent grades, two solid middle-class

California kids with blue collar families. Betty Lou's family had moved to California from Colorado. David's family was from the area. According to Betty Lou's friend Sharon, Betty Lou had met David at a party a few months prior. That night she was killed. It wasn't really their first date. They've been seen each other in a secret for a couple months.

Betty Lou's older sister Melody had gotten pregnant recently, married and then divorced at a young age. So Betty Lou wasn't supposed to date at all. But she'd use me here. Sharon says as an excuse to get out of the all. But she'd use me, here Sharon says, as an excuse, to get out of the house, and then she'd see David that way. So two teens, young and in love, and what should have been the very beginning

of their adult lives. The couple had a tenetty, a pre-Christmas concert, a Vallejo's Hogan High School. It was the last day of school before Christmas break, and it was also their first official date as Betty Lou's parents had just given their consent for her to see David. The official plan was for them to go to a local restaurant slash diner called Mr. Reds after the concert, whether they actually made it there and grabbed a bite to eat or not

as unknown Mr. Eds may have just been a cover. You know, maybe in the official story in the real plan was for those two bundles of teenage hormones to get to the make out spot they were heading to later as quickly as possible. During the late evening hours of December 20th, they made it to an unlit area of the two lane lake hermin gravel road, somewhere near the jurisdiction align between Benetian Vallejo. An area known to be frequented by young lovers seeking some privacy, young couples looking to dry hump themselves into a horny mess of blue balls and wet panties.

Sorry, I know a lot of of blue balls and wet panties. Sorry, I know a lot of women hate to term wet panties. How about moist panties? Is that is that better? I'm pretty sure that's much, much worse actually. But that's what we all know went on at the old make out spot on Lake Herman Road. So back in 1968 to turn out, we're David and Betty Luke Park for some neck and for some heavy pet and some fooling around at

Approximately 11 p.m. Local residents Peggy and Homer. Your were returning from Sacramento heading west on Lake Herman Road Homer, your what an unfortunate name. That's an odd name. I bet he gets teased a lot You're named seriously Homer, your well, yes, it's Homer. Your why would I make up a name like that? Well, you think I haven't been teased I make up a name like that? Well, you think I haven't been teased my whole life? Homer the boner, the your bore. Let's take a snore, the your boards here. Where's your boner? Homer your boner, your boner, your boner, your homer, this boring and stuff like that, but maybe not quite as wordy. Anyway, Homer wanted to check out, check out some pipes as he was a word for construction company, laying pipes in the area. Probably also wanted

to personally lay some pipes. So he drove his wife to the make out spot. Hey, oh, sorry. Just went full bro there for a second. As they passed, he turned out Peggy, your would recollect in the police report. As they were driving west and lay, her and rode at the turn off to the Benesha water pumping station, she observed a rambler station wagon parked with front and heading east. There were two Caucasians in the front seat, male and female. When the lights from the car came upon the station wagon, the male sat up in the seat. I'm sure you did. Mrs. Yourr said it was a cold night and she noticed no frost on the station wagon. They proceeded toward the Marshall Ranch, approximately 30 seconds driving time beyond the turnout

where they encountered two raccoon hunters who would let me identify this Frank Gasser and Robert Connolly. As they turned into the gated entrance, they noticed one of the men had long brailed gun, the other had a flashlight, they decided to reverse, head east back to Benesha. When they passed the turnout for a second time, the rambler of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen was still there. The time was a few minutes after 11 p.m. All right, so as of 11 p.m.

these two kids appear to be fine. Now the weird so far is to, there's a couple of raccoon hunters, you know, out hunting raccoons at 11 o'clock a night. Just do a little night time raccoon hunting. Just get them, get them, get them, shoot them, shoot them, shoot them, yeah, yeah, ah, shoot them. Yeah.

Yeah. So, where does that is? I realize it's not that crazy for country life in this area, while it would be much more urbanized and suburbanized now. It was pretty rural at this time. I grew up in a very country area and I spent many a weekend as a kid growing up and I had a hell watch my stepdad and his buddies just drink beer and shoot groundhogs on a Saturday afternoon.

Were the groundhogs popping out of their groundhog holes in search of human babies to smother in their cribs? You know, was it justified killing just damn you baby smother an evil vermin? Oh, shoot it for last one of you on your holes. No, no, were the groundhogs bothering anyone anyway at all? No, they were not. Were they being hunted for their sweet, succulent groundhog meat? Get some of that tasty lean groundhog

bacon. Now of course not. Shooting groundhogs on the weekend was just a thing that people did because they were bored. Just for fun. Just a game, a country whack a mole, where instead of bonking a fake plastic creature on the head with a rubber mallet when they pop out of their little hole in the game, you just literally blew a real animal's head clean off when it popped out of its real hole out of its home Think of that for the animal. It's just you know curled up in bed one second It's like I'm gonna get on the stretch in the sun and then pop off fucking exploded head Ah the things people you know would do when the internet didn't exist in your town Didn't have a mall or a movie theater at price still do it

But I digress approximately between 11.05 pm and 11.10 pm David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were parked up in Lake Herman Road turnout when it was believed the Zodiac Killer pulled up beside their Rambler and ordered them both out of the car with a 22 handgun firing off at least two warning shots that struck the Rambler. One bullet shattered the rear window lodged in their left rear wheel well while the second bullet struck the headliner of the vehicle. Betty Lou is thought to have exited the passenger side of the rambler followed by David Faraday. What follows is subjective, but we do know that David Faraday was shot through the lower portion. Lower portion of his left ear causing a fatal brain injury and fell to the rear of the vehicle. Betty Lewis jensen apparently

fearing the worst either made a desperate attempt to flee or was ordered to run by her killer. Whatever the case, she made a desperate attempt to flee or was ordered to run by her killer, whatever the case, she was gunned down by five bullets to the right side of her back, succumbing at about 33 feet from the rear, uh, right rear of the rambler and falling backwards. Minutes after the murders, at approximately 11.20 pm, both victims were discovered lying on the gravel turn out

by passing motorist Stella Madero's. Uh, she had left her ranch, situated 1.5 miles west of the Lake Herman Road turnout only minutes earlier, then raced off towards Venetia at high speed to alert the police. She eventually ran into Captain Daniel Pitta, who would recall arriving at the Lake Herman Road crime scene at roughly 11.28 p.m. Stella Medeiros detailed her recollections on page 19 to 20 of the official police report

for this incident. She states that no cars were going in either direction while she was on the road. When she arrived at the scene, headlights picked up the car and she observed a boy and he had looked like he had fallen out of the open door. The girl was lying on her side facing the road. She had a purple dress on and looked well dressed. She saw only one car at the scene. It looked like a rambler, grayish in color.

It had a chrome rack on top. She stayed. She drove 60 or 70 miles an hour in route to Benesha to report the incident. When she saw the police car, she honked her horn and blinked her lights to attract the attention of the police officers. When police arrived, David was still breathing and Betty Lou Jensen was not. David was rushed from the scene and then pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby Vallejo hospital at 12.05 a.m. Ten expended bullet casings were found strewn at the scene, one of which was found on the front passenger side floor board of the Rambler and by the nature of bullet tracks found in the vehicle, it was considered the killer may have fired warning shots to force the

couple from the car. However, no tire tracks or footprints were found in the turnout on account of the extremely cold temperature in Benesha on December 20, 1968, falling to a low of 22 degrees Fahrenheit or negative five Celsius. Despite the aftermath of a rigorous investigation, spearheaded by Sergeant Les Lundblad, stationed in Solano County, the horrific murders went unsolved, the police never narrowing down the investigation to any notable suspects. Again, with the names Les Lundblad. Is it just me or is that also an unfortunate name? It just, it doesn't paint a picture of someone

on top of their game, right? Like a kid saddled with the name of less-lond-blad. I just probably not gonna become a CEO. I do feel the names are somewhat important. You know, like I feel like I have a name that's not like great but not horrible. It's just, it's average, Dan. It's a common, you know, it's not not worthy. It's not shitty, it's not cool. It's just Dan, Dan. It's a common, you know, it's not noteworthy.

It's not shitty, it's not cool. It's just Dan. Okay. And then Cummins, maybe kind of on the shitty side, because of the cum reference, you know, you get a lot of that with the last name of Cummins. So you're ludging your high jokes. But again, you know, people grow out of that and it's not like, it's like a weird sound, you know, but, but, but, London bl less lond blad. Like, which sentence feels more

accurate? Ladies and gentlemen, the 1969 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for advancement and molecular biology, less lond blad. Or ladies and gentlemen, a word from the Benesha Elk's Lodge, number 47 semi annual Can Food Drive Committee, Sarge Novarms, less lung blood. You decide. Various lines of motive were considered the initial zodiac killings, including jealousy with lung blood checking reports

that included David Faraday clashenia with another youth over Betty Lou Jensen on the Wednesday before the murders, and pretty typical, you know, young lover stuff, high school stuff. Crime scene investigators felt that David Faraday may have fought back against his attacker, but nothing ever came from the investigation. And at this point, the mystery man, known as the Zodiac Killer, had not announced his presence

and taking credit for the murders. July 4, 1969. The second confirmed attacks. Shortly before midnight, Darleen Elizabeth Farron, 22, and Michael, Renau, Mizo, 19, pulled into the parking lot of the blue rock springs park in Vallejo, approximately six months, and four miles apart from the Lake Herman murder site. Darleen was a married waitress with a young daughter, working at nearby Terry's waffle shop. She was, shall we, say, vivacious. She was married for the second time, but known around the time of her murder to be dating a lot of young men in the area like a considerable amount

including Michael. This was 1969 though, so maybe not as scandalous as it would be now. And I don't and I don't say this to do any kind of what is you know now become known as slut-shaming by the way, I just include this detail of her promiscuity because it'll come up again later in this story. We'll get back to one of these men later. Darleen actually may be the best key to finding the true identity of the zodiac. If only she would have lived. She is like the one victim where people

think later like through interviews maybe could have positively identified the killer. Anyway, years after her murder, her's Pam and Linda would talk to various reporters about their beliefs that one of the men she was dating is who killed her. Like I just said, apparently she had a stalker. However, that's according to the sisters. However, no one told the police about the stalker during the initial investigation, which is a little troubling.

Like, why would you wait when your sister had just been murdered to give important clues to help catch her attacker? Sadly her sister's may have just wanted to exploit all the interest in the Zodiac Killer that would come in the subsequent years after her death to gain attention for themselves. I don't know, maybe they just weren't thinking clearly. Her sister didn't exactly seem to have their shit together. And Pam in particular would end up on a lot of those kind of tabloid shows like Heroldo, Sally Jessie Raphael, Cherry Springer type programs,

making all kinds of wild claims about the zodiac killer and what she claims she knew that she somehow didn't know back after the crime actually happened. Like, you know, like Darleen was part of a satanic cult, all kinds of weird shit. Nevertheless, we are going to come back to Darleen's story later about some of these possible men, one in particular that may have been the killer. So back to July 4th with Michael and Darleen. Michael, a new both Darleen and her husband, this one weird interview on a documentary I watched, he talks about like being buddies with a husband,

but also dating Darleen. So okay, it doesn't make sense that I wouldn't work in my household, that doesn't add up for me, you know. I'm not gonna, you know, have my wife sleep with some dude and know about that. Like apparently this guy claimed and also just be like, you know what, yay, he's fucking my wife. But that's, okay, that's the glass half empty.

Wait a look at it. The glass half full is, you know, he comes around and he helps with the chores. He had to do the garbage out last night. He mowed the lawn last week. You know, yeah, he bays my wife a couple times week. But he also is always showing up for Poker Night on time. So that's the positive. I don't know. But anyway, this is this Michael. He knew both Darling and her husband. In fact, he and his brother had recently helped Darling and her husband paint some rooms in the house, a part of a house painting party, which

I have heard of before this story. It always sounds terrible. That's if you're not familiar with a house painting party, it's a party, quote unquote, where in exchange for beer and pizza, you exploit a bunch of your friends into helping you paint your house instead of doing it yourself or paying someone to do it. And if you're going to start on one of these parties, I feel like there's a decent chance you're an asshole. And it sounds like Darling invited over a bunch of dudes. She was

either banging or head banged or was leading to believe, you know, making them, you know, I feel like that she may bang them in the future and then to help paint her place. And her husband was there too. Again, how fucking awkward this guy is like the definition of a cuckold, you know, just this poor cuckold just at this party, I can just imagine, hey, baby, this is Stephen. He's the mechanic who fixed my car for free last week. Remember, you thought that was weird. You just, yeah, no, you fixed it for free.

Like your gene, Stephen, is that a roll of quarters in your pocket? Or have you been looking at my skirt? Or have you been holding my ladder for painting? Oh, you Tomcat. Baby, this is Michael. He lived down the street, wanted to come, paint our place for hours, just for fun. I guess he's just friendly.

And real good with his fingers. He plays guitar or something. Maybe he strummed something at that right, Michael. And baby, this is Donnie, James, Lee, Ronald, and Jamal. Remember when I came home a few weeks ago with my hair messed up and a few bruises on my legs and I was pregnant? Well, these are the guys that took me to the abortion clinic

after we played some basketball and all showered up together with the YMCA. And baby, this is John Lucas, this is Fong, Paco, Andre, Silvio, Thor, this is Nathan, Nathan's father Jack, Zeke, Zeke's cousin Jimmy, Arlo, Mikhail, Jr. I volunteered to judge a pocket pool tournament and well, yeah, you could get the idea. Anyways, at least according to interviews later, Michael was convinced that

Darling was going to leave her husband and marry him. Quite the charmer, the starling, she apparently cast a pretty powerful spell. Michael also claimed that his twin brother, Steve, was also dating Darling. I mean, for fuck's sake, Michael and Darling, just like David and Betty Lou before them, had plans to visit Mr. Ed's diner and also chose to skip it and head to another lover's lane. Man, if only Mr. Ed's would have had better food. All these people might actually have went there and eaten instead of just using it for a cover.

And so be alive. While sitting in a park car at the Blue Rock Springs Park parking lot, some local teens set off some firecrackers, Starling Michael and Dardaline. Seems laid out pretty well actually in the 2007 movie Zodiac starring everyone. It's actually a really good movie. Really long, about two and a half hours, stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, members him from ER, Brian Cox, Chloe Sevenye Seven Yay, Dermott, Mulroney, such a good cast. Dermott's one of those guys where it's like,

you might not recognize the name when you see his face, like, oh yeah, I fucking love that guy. 89% approval, and Rotten Tomatoes as well. Anyway, the firecracker pranksters, they take off, leaving the couple alone for a moment, the parking lot, then a few others, cars come and go, then the Zodiac shows up. About five minutes before the shooting occurred, a vehicle pulled into the lot, coming from the direction of Springs Road and Vallejo. The driver turned the lights off on the car, pulled around to the left or east side of the car, approximately six or eight feet away, sat there for a minute, and then left. Michael asked Arlene if she knew who it was, she seemed to insinuate that she did, but

then stated, ah, never mind. Damn it. If she would have just said a fucking name, this guy may not have killed any more people, but she didn't. According to Michael, approximately five minutes later, the same brown car thought to be a Chevrolet Corveyor for Mustang returns. This time draws up to within 10 feet of the rear of their car, slightly to the right side. Only this time, the lone driver exits the vehicle,

carrying what Michael described is a high powered flashlight, the loan driver exits the vehicle, carrying what Michael described is a high-powered flashlight, the type you carry with a handle, and although not known at the time was in possession of a 9-millimeter luger. He casually approached the couple's car, believing the person to be a policeman, because of his demeanor, because the light Michael reached for some personal identification, at which point the man raised the gun and without uttering a word, fired five rounds at point blank range through the window, striking Michael and Darleen several times each. Michael stated he heard a muffled sound,

surmising the gun, sounded like a silent tronon, the first shot hitting him right kind of in the face, a face neck, George Bryant, the son of a caretaker at Bloop Rock Springs Park was embedded, his house located just 800 feet from the parking lot, Also heard these shots. He would recall later that he could hear laughing and a few firecrackers being shot off,

but he couldn't see anybody. And approximately midnight, he heard what appeared to be a gunshot that was much louder than any of the firecrackers. A short time later, he heard what appeared to be another gunshot. After another short pause, he heard rapid fire of what appears to be gunshots.

He then heard a car taking off at super speed and burned and it burned rubber and was squeal and tired as it sped along the road. He wasn't sure if it's direction of travel. He didn't check as it was the 4th of July and thought it was just somebody celebrating. Well, the fact that George Bryant seemingly heard gunshots tends to negate the premise of the weapon

had a silencer or suppressor attached, you know, the more reasonable suggestion being that Michael, you know, Mizo, was just temporarily deafened by the first gunshot so close to his head. Immediately after the attack began, Michael and Abid to prevent further injury or blind terror propelled himself

to the rear passenger seats. After the five initial shots, the shooter retreated, but then re-approached the car when Michael started to yell and then he shot Michael and Darlin each twice more. Then he calmly walked away and got back in his car. Michael stated he grappled for the outside door handle and fell out into the blue rock springs car park at which point the shooter fled at a high rate of speed. From the scene in the direction of the Leihau in springs wrote, a short time later three other four that July revelers showed up saw a bloody Michael sitting outside his car, quickly found a phone,

reported the attack to the police, Richard Hoffman and Ed Rust were the two were two of the first responding officers that night. When Ed Rust arrived, he noticed Hoffman tending to Michael Mizo who was lying on his back on the ground by the open door of the car. Darling Ferrin was observed motionless behind the steering wheel of the car. Ed Russ tried to ask Darleen Feren what happened. She was still alive. She did mumble something, but he could not distinguish what she said. She just wasn't able to speak clearly

due to the severity of her injuries. Both were rushed to the hospital, but despite Darleen Feren receiving extensive Cardo pulmonary, Cardo, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation from the ambulance crew that night, she finally succumbed to her multiple injuries Sadly, Darleen Farron was pronounced dead at 1238 a.m. upon her arrival at the hospital Miraculously, Michael Mizo who took the initial brunt of the cold blooded attack survived and was later at his bedside

able to give a description of the killer to investigate and detective at Rust stating he was a heavy set man standing about five foot eight inches tall beefy build, you know, but not like, blubbery fat. That's his words. I love it. You would be beefy, but not blubbery. Possibly 195 to 200 pounds, short curly hair, light, brown, almost blonde.

He added that the man was not wearing glasses, but stressed that his assailant did possess a particularly large face. On July 5th, at 12.40 AM, approximately 40 minutes after the attack a call was received from a phone booth at the gas station of Springs Road and to Loom, close to Farron's home where the zodiac killer made his presence known.

Claiming responsibility for the attack of Blue Rock Springs Park and also the previous Lake Herman Road murders. The police dispatcher who took the call and the early hours of the life of 1969 was 26-year-old Nancy Slover. She was to become one of only three people to speak directly to the zodiac killer. Nancy Slover described his voice and tone as though he was mocking and taunting her for shock value claiming it worked. The collar spoke the following words in a monotone, rehearsed fashion.

I wish to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot by a nine millimeter luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye. It is like some weird sing song and goodbye. You goodbye. For the first time, the man who'd become known as the zodiac killer had spoken with authorities, sadly, this call was never recorded as police dispatcher Nancy Slowver did not have the equipment at her disposal to record incoming calls at the time. And if only technology had been a little more advanced back then, there would be no zodiac mystery today. The main reason

the zodiac murders remain unsolved is because the error the crimes took place in. Had this happened today, the Zodiacs call would have been blasted out, you know, would have been recorded, and then blasted out by news outlets across the country to hear on TV, radio, the web, and odds are someone would recognize the voice. Someone would recognize the cadence, you know, and there'd be a tip. But this is 1969 and it didn't work out that way. Also knowing what we know about human memory now, and knowing that Nancy Slowver, the police dispatched her attempted to talk over zodiac to acquire details and didn't immediately write down this message after receiving it, at best this close, this quote is just kind of close to verbatim. It's close to, you know, it's like a paraphrase of what was actually said.

Best, it's her best memory, that's what was said. On July 31, three separate letters were mailed by the Zodiac Killer to three different Bay Area newspapers. This is the first time that investigators at this time know that he actually sent something to the press. Well, later we'll come up against some previous incidents where whoever the Zodiac Killer was may have actually sent some things in back in 1966.

There's a good possibility that he did, but this is the first for sure letters. And they were sent to the Vallejo Times, Harold, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. And the letter to the Vallejo Times, or Vallejo Times, Harold stated, dear editor, I'm the killer of the two teenagers,

last Christmas at Lake Herman, and the girl last fourth of July. To prove this, I'm the killer of the two teenage teenagers. Last Christmas at Lake Herman and the girl last 4th of July. To prove this, I shall state some facts which only I plus the police know. One brand name of ammo. Super X, two, 10 shots fired. Three, boy was on back feet to car. Boy was on back feet to car. That makes way more sense in the way I read it at first. He was on his back feet.

There's apparently there's a four-legged boy. Four. Girl was lying on right side feet to west. Fourth of July, girl was wearing pattern pants. That's the first one. And that crime scene too, boy was also shot in knee. Three brand name of ammo was Western. Here is a cipher. This is part first one. And that crime scene too, boy was also shot in knee. Three brand name of ammo was Western. Here is a cipher.

This is part of one. And I'm reading this as he wrote him. He doesn't spell that well. And he adds words in weird places. That's why it sounds kind of fucked up because that's the way he wrote it. The other two parts have been mailed to the SF Examiner plus the SF Chronicle. I want you to print this cipher on your front page by fry afternoon, August one through six nine. If you do, if not, if you do not do this,

I will go on kill RAM page, Friday night, that will last the whole week end. I will cruise around and pick of all pick off. I'm assuming, all stray people or couples that are alone then move on to kill some more until I have killed over a dozen people. And then the letters signed by this symbol that would become known as Zodiac Symbol. It's like a vertical line intersected by a perfectly perpendicular horizontal line of roughly equal length and intersecting each other at the line centers. And then there's a circle encompassing this intersection. It's like a crudely drawn gun target is what it reminds me of.

The two other letters said virtually the exact same thing, but then each included a different third of the cipher, a coded message. These coded messages are kind of what the zodiac would become, I guess, most famous for. A grid of letters, asphological signs, symbols, geometric shapes, worked into a code, only the Zodiac knew, but one that theoretically could be cracked. And some would be cracked. All three papers published letters that week, although not all published them on the front page.

The Chronicle published, it's third of the cryptogram on page four of the next day's edition, an article printed alongside the code, quoted Vallejo Police Chief Jack E Stilts as saying, we're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer, and they requested the writer to send a second letter with more facts to prove their identity. Despite not getting in front page treatment, the threatened murders did not happen. The Zodiac did however send another letter on August 4th. August 4th, the Zodiac sent the following letter

to the San Francisco Examiner, the first letter he identifies himself in as the Zodiac. Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking. In answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in Vallejo, I shall be very happy to supply even more material. By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up. When they do crack it,

they will have me. On the 4th of July, I did not open the car door. The window was rolled down already. The boy was originally sitting in the front seat when I began firing. When I fired the first shot at his head, he'd leave backwards at the same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on the back seat, then the floor, in back, thrashing out very violently with his legs. That's how I shot him in the knee. I did not leave the scene of the killing with squealing tires, plus racing engine, as described in the Vallejo paper. I drove away quite slowly, so as not to draw attention to my car. The man who told the police that my car was brown was a negro about 40 to 45, rather shabbily dressed.

I was at this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cops when he was walking by. When I hung the phone up, the damn thing began to ring and that drew his attention to me and my car. Last Christmas. In that episode, the police were wondering as to how I could shoot and hit my victims in the dark. They did not openly state this, but implied this by saying it was a welded night. And I could see the silhouettes on the horizon bullshit. That area is surrounded

by high hills plus trees. What I did was tape a small pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun. If you notice in the center of the beam of light, if you aim it at a wall or ceiling, you will see a black or dark spot in the center of the circle of light, about 3-6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike exactly in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose. There was no need to use the gun sites.

I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage. Then, just a few days later, on August 8, 1969, Donald and Betty Hardin of Selena's California cracked the original 408 symbol cryptogram, which is amazing to me, because I am horrible at riddles and things like that. Like really, really bad. Like I've played games with a variety of other people.

We have to solve riddles. Easily the worst, almost every single time I've played. I'm pretty sure I don't have whatever part of the brain requires you to do that. Or constant binge drinking in my young adult life killed whatever brain cells you need for that. I feel like if I was assigned a crack and that eventually I would just get so frustrated I would just make up shit. Just, you know, well I did crack it.

Yeah, no I got it, I got it, I got it. Do I have my notes? No, that's for me. There's a magician reveal his secrets. Now, I'm the code breaker. I keep my code breaking notes to myself. Here's what it is. For sure. He says he loves fruit loops. He says he tastes good and they have lots of vitamins. So what's a big deal? If a grown man wants to eat him, you know, he says a grown up should be able to eat fruit loops and not be made fun of by the grownups. And he says unless every diner in San Francisco starts to carry him, more people are gonna die.

Are you, are you sure that's what it says? Don't you like fruit loops? Hey, hey, you fucking, you see that little circle symbol? That's a loop. See that triangle thingy? That's an ancient, uh, Egyptian symbol for fruit. I don't think that's true. Hey, who's the official decoder?

You or me? It's me. I'm fucking telling you. You want to fuck it for a loose. I don't know. That's I probably I'd snap. Okay, here's what the message really said. Said, uh, I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than a killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all. To kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and They have killed though. I don't know the TAGI and fucking and those people who I've killed will become my slaves

I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife. And again, it's like full of misspellings. That's why my pauses are there. And then there were 18 additional letters at the end that either just have them in deciphered or are just complete absolute gibberish. Just eb, you have to be busy, busy, busy. Part of what made these messages, you know, tough to decode is that while the zodiac complete absolute gibberish. It's just eb-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b to code when some of the words you're going to be decoding the symbols into are not actually real words. Tons of misspellants. Okay. September 27, 1969, the Zodiac kills again.

I consider this to be his most disturbing attack. This afternoon, 20-year-old Brian Hartnell ran into an old girlfriend, 22-year-old Cecilia Sheppard, and suggested they drive to Lake Berriessa, a scenic reservoir, about 45 minutes east of Napa, not far from the Pacific Union College, where there were both students. They found a secluded spot next to the water's edge, spread out a blanket so they could relax and catch up. That's how the article describes it,

so they could catch up, quote unquote. I love how all the news reports from these killings back then refer to these romantically linked young couples. Heading out to secluded make out spots in isolated areas to either like talk or catch up. They're just trying so hard to be proper. They weren't catching up. They were knocking it out. You catch up over coffee without a people around. When you're young and you have roommates, you know, or still live with your parents, you head out to a secluded area to fuck. I think Lane of Blanket out in the woods, and

a secluded area of woods was the late 1960s versions of today's Netflix and chill, right? I used to invite girls over to watch a movie alone in my place and the intention was never to quietly talk or catch up or watch a movie. Anyways, Cecilia Shepherd, Brian Hartnell, were enjoying a picnic area, knocking it out at a remote location on Lake Berryaza called Twin Oak Ridge. It was a little before 6 p.m.

when Cecilia noticed a man in the distance acting strangely. Shortly thereafter, the man snuck behind a tree and when he emerged, he was wearing a costume with a hood and a long bib. Prominent on the front was the now famous symbol used as a send-off in the Zodiac letters. It was all black. The hood and the bib with this zodiac symbol on the front. I believe it was white. And the later police gets it out,

it looked like an old hangman's hood, like an executioner kind of mask. Super creepy. Like when you see a man dressed like this, heading towards you with a gun, especially a good party, you have to know there's zero chance. You're talking your way out of whatever's coming up. You know that at the very least,

an extreme amount of violence is in your future. No, and you know that most likely they're trying to kill. You have to know that. So the man in the creepy black hood approaches a couple. Ames Gunnedom claims to be a recent escapee from some Montana prison. I think somewhere around Lincoln, Montana, needed money to get to Mexico.

Brian offers the man his wallet. The intruder is not interested. Instead he pulls some clothesline from his pocket and demands a Cecilia tie Brian up. When she was finished, he used the clothesline to bind her as well and then he hogtied both of them. And if you don't know what that is, it's when you have your hands tied together behind your back.

You then have your feet tied together, and then your hands tied to your feet behind your back. You can Google hogtied, but be careful where you are when you Google it and who's around. I did it at a coffee shop when I was doing my research and almost nothing but porn sites came up. Do not do a Google image search for hogtide in a public place unless you're very comfortable with everyone around.

You've seen images delivered by sweets, Luciferina herself, 60 temp for some time suck. That's siren doing her best to lure me away from my research and instead send me to places like kink.com, porn hub, red tube, hogtide.com. Other places full of pictures of people doing something far more exciting and unusual with their day than I am. Apparently getting hogtide is super popular in the world of BDSM. I didn't quite realize that. And if I were gonna do that, I'm gonna say that I

need to be the person doing the time. Yes, I did look at some images, of course I did. I'm not gonna be the person being tied up. Holy shit being hogtied. I was zero appeal for me. It doesn't, I still don't even trust my wife. It just doesn't sound fun at all. Especially when you get the gag ball, putting your mouth, a lot of people in pictures, had gag balls in the mouth. Like, what if, what if you said, I have to go to the bathroom, no bad?

How do you let anybody know that? How can you have a safe word if you got a gag ball in your mouth and you're fucking hogtight? There's lots of, lots of sign up for them, man. There's put a lot of faith in your partner. What if you have gas? I'll just say, like a lot of gas, you know. What if you get a cramp?

Like, what if you get one of those weird, bad cramps you get in your calf, the kind that wake up in the middle of the night? What if, in all the weird, being twisted around and hogtied you, slip a disc in your back, right? And you gotta get a fucking muscle relaxer right at the hospital. What if you just suddenly remember, wait, wait a minute, why did I do this? I fucking hate this.

This is a horrible idea. Please don't tie me. No, no thanks on hog time for me. Holy shit though, I can't imagine the level of terror those two poor people felt that day. It's armed, hooded dude. Claiming use escape from prison. It's kind of like an executioner's mask.

If I can hold the gun, it has your hog tied out in the woods. Man, what a buzzkill. Minus earlier, you're getting on with your old flame on a blanket by the water. Now this asshole shows up. Then of course, you know, it gets worse when the hooded man produces a long wooden handled knife with a 10 to 12 inch blade. I think it's way worse when he starts stabbing the shit out of you too repeatedly. Cecilia stabbed 10 times, Brian has stabbed six times. Again, you can see this play down the movie zodiac, which seems

to do a pretty good job of accurately portraying a lot of the details of the zodiac killings. Cecilia screams thrashes as she stabbed. As I imagine, one is likely to do in that situation. Man, my God. The zodiac continues to stab her until she's quiet. Brian is somehow able to play dead after six stab wounds and he survives. Not sure how you pull that off unless your body starts to go into shock at that point or something.

And the pain of each subsequent stab wound just is considerably less than the previous ones. After the hooded man left, Brian manages her to get the attention of a fisherman passing by and a boat who then speeds off her help, which is great. You know, great that he goes for help. Not so great that he leaves Brian hog tied. Not sure how that call was determined. You know, I would think you would pull up and untie Brian and Cecilia, put him in a boat,

take him to a doctor, something, but I don't know, maybe the water didn't allow the boat to reach the shore on that spot. Maybe the fishermen wasn't strong enough to carry either of them to the boat. Maybe he really just didn't want to risk being Hawkeye, which, you know, pretty reasonable. Please help us. Help us. We've been stabbed. Oh my God. You've been stabbed. All right, I'll be back with help. Can't you untie us and take us with you? What?

I didn't catch that last part. I'm gonna go for help now. How could you not hear that? You're in the same spot you were when you heard me yell the first time. Okay, then, can't hear you still. I'm taking off for help since that's what that's what all I heard, is that part. After the fisherman leaves, and then Brian slash real-life Superman manages to get loose

from his ties and climb up towards the road from the shore and he alerts a park ranger. You know, no big whoop. It's not like he was hog tied, stabbed with a fucking foot long knife half a dozen times or anything. The ambulance takes an over an hour to arrive Brian survived. Of course he did It's not like Zodiac had kryptonite that would be necessary to destroy him Cecilia actually was still alive when the ambulance arrived also dying a few hours later She was really tough as well apparently somehow not immediately dying from 10 stab wounds

Juh when recovering in the hospital Brian Hartnell described the attackers heavy set between 225 250 pounds about, 10, having brown hair. You can see the edges inside the hood. This aligned with the description provided by Mike Mejah or Mike Mejah. At the scene, police found a hand-scrolled message on the door of Brian's VW Carmen Gia, which is an awesome vintage car by the way. I didn't know about this model. Super slick look and little two-door coupe man much sexier and more masculine in my opinion than the beetle. On the passenger door this coupe was a message from

the Zodiac. The message listed to date to the two previous Falejo killings attributed to the Zodiac along with his new third date, you know, third killing date. Near the car police also found a size 10.5 shoe print that matched a military boot called a wing walker. Based on the pressure, it was determined that the wear was probably around 220 pounds. So in the range, the two witnesses described. About an hour after the attack, Napa police received a call from a phone booth in downtown Napa, 27 miles away from a man taking responsibility for the crime, telling police where to find

the bodies. The police raced to the phone booth, but the man was long gone. They were, however, able to grab a latent set of prints that could have come from the killer. Officer Dave Slate took the call and heard the killer. Out of the words, I want to report a murder. No, a double murder. They are two miles north of Park Headquarters.

They were in a white Volkswagen Carmen Gia. Then after a brief pause said, I'm the one that did it. And hung up, no letter was sent to the press immediately following these killings. Open instead, two weeks later on October 11, 1969, the killer struck again this time right in San Francisco. Paul Stein was a 29 year old husband and student who had moved to San Francisco from nearby Modesto and was studying at San Francisco State University where he was working towards earning his doctorate in English. To pay for school, he worked nights at the Yellow Cab Company. At 8.45 pm on the evening of October 11th, Stein reported for work. He's given a waiting fare from Pier 64. San Francisco

to the San Francisco Airport. He picks up his fare at approximately 920, drives to the airport, and then rather than waiting along Q for an airport, pick up fare, he decides to head to the theater district slash downtown, which was known to be busy this time. 945, he receives radio dispatch at 509th Avenue. This address is in the Richmond District of San Francisco,

about 3.3 miles from his current location with a traveling time of about 13 minutes, as he heads to the new fair, Stein is hailed by a single male on foot who requested a destination of Washington and Maple Streets. Although this was not the most convenient direction for his planned, you know, previously planned destination for the pickup he has scheduled is close enough that he can deliver his new fair cut across a few city streets, make it to the scheduled fair, a ninth avenue and a reasonable event of time. So just before 10 p.m. Stein drives past Washington, Maple to Cherry Street to drop off this intermediary fare, I guess, topsis taxi and then has immediately shot at point blank range

on the right side of the back of his head and dies instantly. Police arrive at the scene, minutes later and at 10 minutes after minutes after 10 PM, he's pronounced dead on the scene. From a house on the opposite side of the street, three teenage eyewitnesses heard the gunshot, saw the subsequent details of the crime. As the killer removed a rear section, they saw the killer remove a rear section of the victim's shirt. So I'm wiped down various parts of the taxi,

including the driver's side, compartment, the exterior, including the driver's side compartment, the exterior right front passenger Portion of the car the external driver's side door handles soon after the team he does this the teenagers ring the police They're called came in at 9.58 pm However crossed wires or misinterpretation of the telephone call or basic racism interpretation of the telephone call or basic racism caused the radio operator to unfortunately inform patrolman to look out for a black male

which would ultimately benefit the murderage to few short minutes later and in what would turn out to be the best chance the police would ever have of capturing the elusive zodiac killer when the first police officers arrived in the area officers Donald Falk and Eric Zelman's observed a heavy set white male approximately 510, 35 to 45 years old, roughly 200 pounds walking near the intersection of Jackson and Maple Street. And they didn't question him due to the description mix up. Little racial profile, unless the zodiac killer just fucking walk away. Damn it. The officers respond to what they thought of the time or are responding to what they think of the time is, is an assault and robbery of a taxi. They don't realize it's

a murder and they don't certainly don't realize it's one committed by the Zodiac killer. Well, on October 13, the Zodiac sends another confession letter and a piece of a bloodstained shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle saying, this is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and maple last night to prove this here as a bloodstain piece of his shirt. I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay area. The San Francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding road races with their motorcycles,

seen who could make the most noise. The car driver should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly 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, then pick off the kitties as they come bouncing out. Wow, well, the park that he'll refer to

is likely a wooded area of the Julius Con playground and invest area investigators did search, but not as thoroughly as they probably could have, you know, they clearly did not find the killer there. A large search was conducted minutes after the killing, but by this time investigators, you know, once they were looking for the correct suspect description, it was probably too late. And, you know, just because he said he was hiding there, doesn't mean he was. He was known to lie, a fair amount of his letter just harassed the police as well.

So you could have noticed them looking in the park as he walked off and been completely out of the area. Anyway, the Zodiacs threat to assassinate school children terrifies kids and parents everywhere in the Bay Area. As it should have, created a nightmare of security concerns for police and school officials. Whole city is scared in the fall of 1969.

The sick mother fuckers could at least five people at center city is scared in the fall of 1969. This sick motherfucker has killed at least five people in central California in the past 10 months, nearly killed two others, has now killed right in San Francisco proper, and he has been taunting local press authorities about the murders for a little over two months. And no one has any idea who's doing it. Think about the level of paranoia going on right now. The police and papers are being bombarded with reports of someone thinking their neighbor is Zodiac Killer or their co-worker or their brother-in-law, crazy people are showing up police stations claiming that they are the Zodiac Killer.

Two years removed from being the heart of 1967 summer of love, it is now the fall of fear and paranoia. Our men are escorting children to and from schools while patrol cars and even aircraft are following along and monitoring the surrounding area. Whoever did this was fucking loving it. Right, in late 1969, one man terrorizing millions. One man making it to like fools, making reported like idiots. Must have been hard for Zodiac to walk around at this time, just a constant satisfaction and power and control boner just raging out of the top of his jeans.

As media coverage of Zodiac's murderous plans increase in fears of a horrific ambush grow, local television station becomes a setting for another chilling scene with the Zodiac. Just under two weeks later, in the early morning hours of October 22nd, 1969, the Oakland Police Department received a phone call from a man claiming to be the Zodiac. The caller said he wanted famous Boston attorney, Eiffli Bailey, to appear on a local television talk show, but told the operator that he would settle for San Francisco lawyer, Melvin Belli. And the event, uh, Bailey was unable to appear. Well, hours later, Belli, uh, would be the guest on the show with host Jim Dunbar, a man called the KGO television station several times. And in conversation with Beli,

claimed he was a zodiac and that his real name was Sam. One exchange revealed that Sam had been interested in Beli for quite some time. Okay, so I'm gonna play some of a recording of this call in, sorry for the hum. This is the best quality recording I could find of this event. Tom George, just tell us what's going on

inside you right now. That's Dunbar talking. I have headache. Right. How long have you had those headaches? Just lie. And around time, I've been like kill the kid. And then he just kind of goes on to ramble on, you know,

for the most part, and then everyone's to say something outrageous. Like at one point, he just threatens, you know, I'm gonna kill those kids. Bellae persuades Sam to meet with him in person, but due to the media circus around in the secret meeting, no one is surprised when Sam fails to appear. The great agreed upon location, because there's all kinds of police and reporters around.

Efforts to trace Sam's call to the KGO switchboard, were unsuccessful. However, that didn't matter that they were unable to trace the calls and it didn't matter that he didn't show up because it probably was not him. Very highly likely that it was not the zodiac killer. It was that was talking there. Scared the shit out of the city, sure the real zodiac got a big kick out of it, but Brian Hartnell was surviving the zodiac stabbing victim and the two other police dispatchers who had spoken with the real zodiac after listening to audio tapes of the caller's voice during this call all agreed that this

Sam was an imposter and this imposter, you know, he had just proved how much power the zodiac held over the city of San Francisco. On November 8th, 1969, the real zodiac once again corresponds with the press, mail in a card and a 340 character cipher to the San Francisco Chronicle. The front of the card features an image of a wet pen hanging from a string and says, sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen. Inside it says, this is the Zodiac speaking.

I thought you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. PS, could you print this cipher on your front page? I get awfully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my thing. Lots of exclamation points after thing, there are things and caps. I mean, this asshole is just so happy with himself. Must've been so hard not to share his joy with someone, just anyone.

Kind of remarkable in a way that he keeps such a powerful secret to himself. I couldn't. If I had an entire city afraid of me, I'd fuck it up. For sure. I probably have too much to drink one night. Over here, some people talking about, you know, reading about me in the papers and eventually I'm like, you know, that's me. I did that. You know what you're just talking about? That's me. It's all me for real. I'm Zodiac. I'm Zodiac, so you know, you don't want to fuck with me. Can I, uh, can I buy you, can I buy you ladies of drink? No, no, hey, cool. Come down. I'm not gonna kill you. I'm not gonna kill you. I just want to talk to you

You know about the other other people that I have killed. Where are you? Why are you leaving? Come on. Don't don't do that Let me let me give you drink stick around and Stick around and I'll write I'll write the next letter while you're here while we're gonna write it together stick around Why are you calling the police? If they catch me, you're not gonna have a mystery anymore. Come on, come on, don't make me hug, Ty, you. Don't make me hug, Ty, you. This is how you people get killed.

Yeah, be fucking, I would just, I'm amazed that a murderous lunatic could keep a secret like this. While the cipher was unable to be decoded by authorities at the time, later codebreakers will claim to decode it. And we'll talk about one of those codebreakers later in this episode, who broke it in a way that makes sense to me. We'll see if it makes sense to you, see if you feel like it's legit.

November 9, 1969, day after that, I just washed my pen card. The Zodiac sent a seven-page letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, starts with, 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 their telling lies about me. So I still change the way of the, change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I commit my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, a few fake accidents, etc. And then he goes on to say the sketch artist description of him is a disguise. And he only looked like that when he kills.

He says he's never left a fingerprint because he wears transparent finger guards. Comprised of two layers of model airplane glue applied to his fingerprints, talks about leaving false clues at crime scenes to throw off investigators because he likes quote, needling the blue pigs. He talks about how close the police came, he catched him after the taxi driver murder, even claims that some police spoke to him 10 minutes after the homicide, asked him if he'd seen anyone suspicious,

and then he sent them on a wild goose chase. That did happen, the police didn't report it. He states, hey pig, doesn't it rally you up to have your nose rubbed in your boo-boos? Oh, this guy's a real ass. He refers to his earlier school bus threats riding, if you cops think I'm going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads.

And then he alludes to bombing school buses with a homemade bomb, a.k.a. a death machine. And he claims to have stored this death machine in his basement and he lists the ingredients for this bomb. Clear of this guy has issues with authority. You get the feeling he enjoys, fuck him with the cops more than he actually enjoys killing people. And then on December 20th, 1969, the first anniversary of the Lake Herman Road murder,

the Zodiac sends another letter, this one to the home address of prominent attorney Melvin Bly, the attorney he to spoke to that we heard. And he writes, Dear Melvin, this is the Zodiac speaking, I wish you a happy Christmas. The one thing I ask you is this, please help me. I cannot reach out for help because of this thing and me won't let me.

I am finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check. I am afraid I will loose control and take my ninth and possibly tenth victim. Please help me I am drowning. At the moment, the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in and the trigger mech requires much work to get it adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long from no from no nine, I will lose all control myself and set the bomb up. Please help me. I cannot remain in control for much longer. And they sign with the symbol and attaches another piece of taxi driver Paulstein's

bloody shirt to prove authenticity. Well, someone claiming to be the Zodiac had also called Bely's residence a couple days earlier on December 18th, claiming that it was his birthday. This detail of the birthday being December 18th is important and will come up again later when we talk about suspects.

March 22nd, 1970, Kathleen Johns claims that her and her infant daughter, kidnapped by the Zodiac Killer on Highway 132, near Patterson, California claims that her life was threatened for two hours that she was finally able to flee. But this claim, while prominently included in the Zodiac movie, likely never happened. The Zodiac Killer was not one to hang for a few hours

with a victim and then just let them get away. While Johns claimed publicly to have been threatened, place reports of the event do not back up this claim. While the Zodiac Killer would later claim responsibility for this incident in a future letter, he would also fail to provide any crime details that weren't already publicly available, like he had done with past attacks. So probably not a real Zodiac attack. On April 20th, 1970, Zodiac killer sent another letter

to the San Francisco Chronicle claiming 10 total victims and offering a cipher that supposedly revealed his name, but one that has never been solved. He ends the letter with a score, Zodiac 10, SFPD zero. Just over a week later, in April 28th, he sends another letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, a greeting card where he again references wanting to blow up a bus.

He also asked the paper to ask its readers to start wearing buttons with a zodiac symbol on them, stating, everyone else has these buttons like black power, melvin eats blubber, etc. Will it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my button? Please no nasty ones like melvins. Thank you. Signed with the zodiac symbol. So apparently there was some some other causes, the head buttons around town, some save the whale. I don't

know. I don't know what the male animal I really want. I didn't think it was worth looking into who gives a shit, some fucking blubber cause, some black, the black power cause, and uh, and he would like a button. What a delusional nut. What an odd request for a murderer, right? What a strange, he's been coming across like an evil genius and then he makes this weird button turn. Just first, I will kill several innocent people. Yes, yes, that is stage one for my plan for total domination of the Bay Area,

spilling the blood of the innocents. And then stage two, I will taunt the police and the papers with threatening letters and undecisurable codes. Yes, I will baffle, I will terrify millions, and then ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo of thousands of my little crosshair zodiacs and more buttons worn by adults and children alike. And the police, most of all the police, mostly the police were wearing my 10 buttons on their uniforms, but no less than 10, but also no more than 20. That's too many buttons. It would start to look silly if someone had like a hundred zodiac buttons and it would, you know, they would feel patronizing. And then, you know, once that once the entire city is wearing the proper amount of my buttons stage four and stage four stage four is Stage I have I thought of it stage four is more buttons, but a different color and size of button

First you will well wear my small buttons, then you will wear a larger, different colored button. And then finally I will have a successful button business, which is all I ever wanted in the fun. I don't know. Weird, weird button shit. So 1970, more letters flow into the chronicle, a letter post-Mart June 26, 1970, he complains that he's he's bummed out that no one's wearing his buttons. It's fucking buttons in this guy. It actually writes, I am rather unhappy because you people will not wear some nice zodiac buttons. Really hung up on the whole button thing. He claims another murder in the letter to the Chronicle post-March July 24th, 1970.

The zodiac takes credit for Kathleen John's abduction as well. You know, do you want me to kill? Is that what you want? Do you have any idea how infuriating to walk all over town and not see a single fucking button anywhere is? I must have seen a thousand buttons yesterday, a hundred alone for the grateful dead. None for me. I even saw some CCR buttons. What the fuck? July 26, 1970 letter, the zodiac paraphrase, the song from the Macato, zodiac paraphrase a song from the meccato. Later 19th century British opera, adding his own lyrics about making a little list of the ways he's planted tortures, slaves and paradise. His current score is zodiac 13 SFPD zero. Card was sent on October 7th to the chronicle with a skeleton on the front in the words, from your secret pal, I feel it in my bones. You ache to know my name and so I'll clue and so I'll clue in dot dot dot and then on the back

it says by fire by gun by knife by rope paradise slaves kind of in this weird paradise slaves are like paradise is running vertically slaves are running horizontally through them forming that little kind of zodiac symbol and then the other ones are it's like strangely arranged all those words October 27th 1970 Chronicle reporter Paul Avery who had been covering the zodiac case received a Halloween card signed with letter Z And the zodiacs cross circle symbol handwritten on the card was a note peekaboo. You are doomed Scared of shit out of him. Yeah, of course it would that threat was taken seriously received front page story on the Chronicle Still no buttons, but at least she's getting that you know front page treatment. He loves Soon after receiving this letter, every receives an anonymous letter

alerting him to the similarities between the zodiacs activities and the unsolved murder of Sherry Joe Bates, which had occurred four years earlier at City College in Riverside in the greater Los Angeles area, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco. He reported his findings in the Chronicle in November 16, 1970, on October 30, 1966, 18-year-old Sherry Joe Bates, student at this college, Riverside Community College, spent the evening at campus at the campus library, Annex, until it closed at nine. Neighbours reported hearing a scream around 10 and 30.

Bates was found dead the next morning, a short distance from the library between two abandoned houses slated to be demolished for campus renovations. The wires in her Volkswagen's distributing capitol been pulled out. She was brutally beaten and stabbed to death. However, police don't believe this was actually a Zodiac murder. Despite a fair amount of evidence, Lincoln has crime to the killer.

A month later, on November 29, 1966, nearly identical typewritten letters were mailed to the Riverside Police and the Riverside press enterprise titled The Confession. The author claimed responsibility for the baits murder providing details of the crime that were not released to the public. The author warned that baits is not the first and she will not be the last. In December 1966, a poem was discovered, carved into the bottom side of a desktop in the Riverside City College Library. Titled Sick of Living, Unwilling to Die.

The poem's language and handwriting resembled that of the Zodiac's letters. It was signed with what we, what was assumed to be the initials R-H during the 1970 investigation. Sherwood, mortal, California's top question documents examiner slash handwriting and analyst expressed his opinion that the poem was written by the Zodiac. On April 30, 1967, exactly six months after the Bates murder, Bates fathered Joseph, the press enterprise, and the Riverside police all received nearly identical letters.

A handwritten scroll, the press enterprise and police cop, he's read that says, Bates had to die, there will be more. With a small scribble at the bottom, it resembled a letter Z. Joseph Bates copy read, she had to die, there will be more. This time without the Z signature. Again, though, because of police investigation information that has never been released, local authorities did not think the Zodiac did.

They haven't had another guy that there was a prime suspect, not the Zodiac. They, I guess, were open to the possible. The Zodiac somehow gained information about these, you know, crimes and tried to take credit for them. Others do think the Zodiac probably did do it. So these are like out of the unsolved crimes of the Zodiac. These are like the most unsolved. On March 22nd, 1971, going back to our timeline in the chronology of it, a postcard of the Chronicle addressed to reporter Paul Averley, believed to be from the Zodiac appeared to claim responsibility for the disappearance of Donald Lass. On September 6, 1970, it was made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, featured a scene from an advertisement for Forest Pines condominiums in the Texi Era Club, sought victim 12, peeked

through the pines, passed Lake Tahoe areas, around in the snow. Zodiac's cross circle symbol was in both the place of the usual return address and the lower right section of the front face of the postcard. However, no evidence has been uncovered to connect the last disappearance with the Zodiac killer definitively. Mostly because the body of last, the 25 year old nurse who worked at a first aid station for the Sahara casino just never been found. In 1974, after the Pines card, the Zodiac remained silent for nearly three years. The Chronicle then received a letter from the Zodiac post-marked January 29, 1974, praising the exorcist as the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen. Weird.

The letter included a snippet of verse from the Macado again and an usual assemble at the bottom that has remained unexplained by researchers, zodiac concluded the letter with the new score, me37sfpd0. Numerous letters are popped up since but none have been thought to be produced by the zodiac by most experts, even the 1974 ones questionable by some. Something you did that when some don't, after that most think letters that came in later were not written by the zodiac killer. So who did it? Who was the zodiac killer? Let's pop out of this timeline and take a little look. See? Good job, soldier. You made it back.

Barely. One suspect is the unibomber. Not even kid kidding. The unibomber has been suspect as being a zodiac, the zodiac killer. I know it sounds crazy, but Ted Kuzinski, aka the unibomber, did live in the Bay area at the time of the murders. He was clearly homicidal. He wrote letters to the newspapers as zodiac did. There's even a website for his connection, the unizod.com Bay area detectives looked into this connection in the mid 90s. Kuzinski once signed a high school yearbook with a symbol similar to the Zodiacs and the Zodiac also told one victim that he had resided Montana near Lincoln, the town Kaczynski lived near when he was arrested in 1996.

However Robert Graysmith of San Francisco, author of the book Zodiac in 1906, Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the movie Zodiac, said the similarities are fascinating but undoubtedly purely coincidental pointing out that witness descriptions of a ponchy Zodiac not matched to Lanky Kaczynski and the pop culture writing style of the Zodiac also does not match the Unibombers Terst dry pros And there's Guy Hendrickson in 2009 Debra Perez stood on a busy San Francisco Street corner proclaiming her belief a little press conference that her father guy Ward Hendrickson stood on a busy San Francisco street corner, proclaiming her belief in a little press conference that her father guy, Ward Henry Xen, was the notorious Zodiac Killer who plagued

the San Francisco Bay Area with several murders, but investigation determined that glasses, the glasses did not belong to Stein. Kevin Jones determined that in a inspector in the San Francisco Police Department's homicide bureau. He said they're not Paul Stein's glasses, and added that he's still working on other leads that Perez provided him with during lengthy interviews earlier in the year. Leeds ended up going, leads ended up going nowhere, by the way. Debra Gaihendrickson, Hendrickson's

stepdaughter, claimed guy took seven-year-old Debbie along on some of his murders. And yeah, and then those claims were just ruled out. The shit some people will do for attention. And so weird. I don't know anything about Deborah, other than what I've just told you, but I imagine the kind of, she's the kind of person that's just so bored with her life. That's just somehow things that'll be fun and exciting to accuse her own stepfather of being a serial killer, and then claim to be present during the murders. You know, just make it all up.

Man, just get a fucking hoppy lady. Learn to play guitar. Get a lot of free time, apparently. Go on a cruise, take some zoom of class, there's something, you maniac. Then there's David Joseph Carpenter, aka the trailside killer. David was born and raised in San Francisco,

looks somewhat like the sketch artist description of the zodiac. He was the right age to fit the description. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in 1960 for attempted murder, released two years before the zodiac killings in the Bay Area. And then in 1988, was found guilty of killing one man

in six California women, found guilty of killing one man and six California women, found guilty of raping several others. He's believed to have killed several more victims, and he again was in the Bay Area during the time of the Zodiac murders. He's also known to stalk his victims in California state parks, and he's currently still alive in the San Quentin prison. But his modus operandi did not match the zodiac killings and investigators looked into connection and ruled him out. And then there's Andre Chicatilo, the butcher of Rostov, who may have taken some trips to the Bay Area from Russia in his early 30s to attend the time of the murders to attend

some workshops that were put on in the area on how to coach teen co-ed wrestling classes. I like to wrestle. Some rassles for victory. I mostly rassles for coming. I want to learn how American to wrestle children. Maybe try and pin with aggressive thrusting pelvis, like I teach in private classes, back in most of. Maybe the jerk limp cocked through sweatpants during warm-up to focus mind like I demonstrate in Russia

I do not know maybe I try and open the Bay Area button shop come to chickatillos button factory Come for button stay for tears shed over limp shameful headcock Okay, chickatillo was not as the odiac suspect. I'm just still having fun mocking his voice and impotence Rick Marshall was a real suspect No hard facts tie Rick to any of the killings but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. He lived in Riverside near the murder scene of Sherry Joe Bates 1966 and then an abacement residence in Scott Street San Francisco just a few miles from

Washington Cherry Street where taxy driver Paul Stein was killed with a single shot to the head. Right? Remember the Zodiac? One of his letters reference to having abacement which is not common in California homes. He killed with a single shot to the head. Right, remember, then Zodiac, one of his letters referenced having a basement, which is not common in California homes. He worked as a projectionist at the Avenue Movie Theater, a place to specialize in silent movies. One of his favorite films was the Red Phantom, a film highlighted in possible Zodiac correspondence.

When the Red Phantom letter, letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle in July 8th, 1974, he possessed a royal typewriter, the kind used to write the type confession letter, sent to Riverside Police in 1966, after the murder of Sherry Joe Bates. He also looked a lot like the police sketch of the killer, fit the description of the killer size.

Like when he was interviewed by police, he would say things like, yeah, no, I look like the guy. No, a lot of things, there's a lot of weird circumstances. I mean, basically, he would say stuff like, I would think I did it too. He was investigated by Napa County Police Department, but nothing tangible emerged. Marshall was in later years cleared of from ongoing investigation shortly before his death in Marin County in 2008.

He was also subject to an FBI investigation, but his records were expunged in 1993. No files remained probably not Rick Rick came across to me in my research, like a guy who wanted people to believe he was a zodiac. I could see him being a guy who maybe sent in some of the later letters wanting to keep it going, wanting to keep this attention happening, hoping to have be suspected, you know, knowing that he would not be found guilty because he wasn't actually the dude. And then there's Arthur Lee Allen. Now historically, this is the name tied most closely closely to zodiac suspect list.

He's suspect number one. The 2007 David Fincher movie I've referenced Zodiac, which again, I think it did a great job of making a real effort to stick to the known facts to the case and most commonly held speculation about the Zodiac killer strongly implicates, strongly implicates Arthur as being the killer who gets away with it. The connections and coincidences between Lee

and the Killians are numerous and creepy, and Alan was the only suspect to be served with search warrants by police in this investigation. Strangely, uh, Chiquitilo never even considered by the police. Something about him never actually studying foot in America, you know, whatever. Uh, former friend, Lee's, uh, Don Cheney alerted police to Alan as a possible suspect after numerous conversations he had with Alan before the murders, when Lee had supposedly told Cheney he wanted to kill couples at random, call himself Zodiac, use a flashlight attached to his gun to aid hunting at night. There's a documentary you can watch on YouTube

called His Name was Arthur Lee Alan that really makes you wonder if he was, in fact, the guy. There's a lot of the footage is just an interview with Don Cheney who clearly, clearly, clearly believes this was a guy. And if what he was saying is true, and he was the guy. But, you know, it's kind of a he said she said, we just have his word. Then there's the persistent rumor that Lee could have been one of those unidentified guys

who showed up to Zodiac victim, Darling Ference House painting party, you know, back in 1969. Lee lived in that area, and there is a Vallejo police report that mentions that Darlene sister Linda said that a man named Lee would bring Darlene gifts from trips he'd taken to Tijuana, Mexico around that time. Alan did own a zodiac watch adorn with the now famous crosshair symbol a watch given to him by his mother in 67. He had connections with the US Navy after listing in 1957, which could have

linked him to doing the wingwalkers. The military style boot, he was a size 10 and a half. You know, remember those foot impressions in the Lake Berriessa attacks on Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Sheppard. You know, he wore the right shoes and plus in a confession to police. He did reveal that he was in possession of knives that were covered in blood on the day of those attacks in Lake Berryessa. He stated that they were used to kill a chicken, which is fucking weird to me. Like, who drives out? I know where this is maybe a little bit country again, but who drives out and just finds a fucking chicken wandering around and kills with some knives.

And that just leaves the knives in their car. I don't know. That seems very odd to me. He also owned a royal typewriter, you know, which police removed from his home similar to the one that produced the confession letter and connection to the unsolved stabbing of Sherry, Joe Bates outside the Riverside City College, you know, that's 66 killing. Plus he was identified as the killer by Michael Maggio, who survived the attack of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo in July 4th, 1969, although he did not identify him until 1992 for whatever reason in the investigation.

His residence at 32 Fresno Street was located just 10 minutes, a 10 minute walk from the payphone at the corner of the Springs Road into Lume intersection where the Zodiac made his first call to police. He was fired from the Calaveras Unified School District in 1968, shortly before that first killing, after he allegedly molested a child and lost his teaching credentials. Because that explained his later threats to blow up school buses. Maybe explain his sudden anger towards authority in the world. Darling Farron, who works on Tennessee Street in Vallejo, which was just about one block

from the bottom of Allen's residence at 32 Fresno Street. A police report at the time highlighted that somebody by the name of Lee was apparently often seen in the company of Darling. Then Don Chini again stated that, you know, Allen mentioned to him that he was fond of a waitress at the restaurant, at that waffle where Darling worked are earthly Allen off on by the name of Lee actually spelled it as Lee L.E.E. his middle name was actually spelled L.E. L.E.I.G.H. He would go by Lee often to team investigators um we're actually about to

charge Lee with some of the murders after uh Micheaux identified Allen as the killer in 1992 but then a month later he he was found dead on the floor of his 32 Fresno Street flay hoe residents. Detective George Bawart would say I am 95% sure it was him. It is because so many quenched his point in his direction. What really bothers me about this case is that we were ready to charge Arthur Lee Allen with the idea in mind that it would be taken to a trial So that 12 jurors could make that determination, but he died before we could do that. So it took a long time to get all their ducks in a row,

but they weren't actually going to charge him, according to statements to police by family and friends prior to the publication of Zodiacs codes. Allen had possession of codes featuring identical symbols. Additionally, Allen was known to use the same unusual spelling and phrasing as a Zodiac used in some of his letters, such as spelling, you know, Christmas with two S's, saying trigger mech instead of trigger mechanism.

On September 27th, 1974, Alan was arrested by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department on a charge of child molestation. He'd be found guilty to go to prison until 1977. Now remember, 1974 is the last year a letter most, uh was definitely written by the Zodiac Killer. So that's a hell of a coincidence. And his birthday December 18th, the very same birthday the caller, claiming to be the Zodiac, claimed to have when he called Melvin Belay

that attorney in 1969. So a lot of evidence, a lot of circumstantial evidence, why wasn't he charged? Well, first of all, various handwriting analysts stated that his handwriting just didn't match the handwriting found on the Zodiac letters. Don Chini, though, and others had an explanation for this. They said he was ambidextrous, and Chini swears he could write very well with both hands.

He thinks that Lee normally wrote with his left hand, then Cheney thought that he would write the zodiac letter with his right hand. Now Lee did provide writing samples from both hands to investigators and handwriting analysis ruled out both hands, but you know, I think he could have fooled investigators. You know, he could have just wrote extra shitty with his other hand in front of them for that submission. You know, it wasn't a dummy. He actually scored a 135 on IQ test in his early 20s, five points below genius. According to an article I found in the East Bay Times, also he wasn't investigated further early on because DNA and fingerprints lifted from several items connected with the Zodiac crimes failed to produce a match with Lee, including fingerprints

retrieved from the taxi cab murder of Paul Stein, October 11, 1969, a palm print lifted from the extra system letter on January 29, 1974, 2002 palm print lifted from the extra-sister's letter on January 29th, 1974, 2002 DNA extracted from the stamps and envelopes from the Zodiac letters failed to implicate Allen. He also passed a polygraph examination during his initial investigation. However, I'd still pick him as the killer if I had to choose. If I was forced to pick a guilty party based on which dude looks the creepiest out of the suspects, I would actually definitely pick Arthur Lee Allen.

He looks like a serial killer. He looks creepy. He does fit the physical descriptions of Zodiac. He's the most likely suspect, but now he's dead. And there's a good chance, you know, we'll never know for sure. I did find one more piece of interesting information in criminating him, though. It was that cipher sent to the Chronicle on November 8, 1969.

The one that wasn't decoded. Well, a massive choose its man named Corey Starliper claims to have cracked the code in 2012. He was inspired initially by that 2007 David Fincher movie, Zodiac, then he read Robert Grace Miss books about the killer. And then here's what he came up with. Here's what he says that cipher says,

kill self, doctor, help, me, kill myself, gas, chamber. Then I'm, I'm telling you a word, days, questionable, every waking moment, I'm alive, my pride lost, I can't go on living in this way, killing people. I have killed so many people, can't help myself. I'm so angry. I could do my thing. I'm alone in this world My whole life full of lies. I'm unable to stop by the time you solve this I will have killed 11 people please help me stop killing people please

My name is Bojangles mother fucker. That's right We do know who the zodiac killer was and it was none other than Bojangles, motherfucker. That's right. We do know who the zodiac color was, and it was none other than Bojangles, three-legged, one-eyed pitbull, hellhound, of occasional terror. That's why the handwriting never matched anyone, because it wasn't handwriting. It was Paul writing, okay? Why did he do it? Well because the investigators failed to mention there are many reports that all five zodiac

victims were die-hard, pink-o-russian, communist, intent on bringing America and freedom to its knees. And why did he taunt the police? Well because they were in on it. They weren't real cops. They were free-loving, pot-smoking, hippie people, wishing they could live in some kind of communal communist compound, and he was fucking sick of it. San Francisco got a little too anti-capitalist in the final days of the 60s, and Bojangles

needed to remind everyone that if they didn't value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as he sought, he'd replace it with death, weird, after-life slave references, fear, and possibly a lot of fucking buttons! No, of course not. That's not what happened. That's not what the code revealed. The code actually did reveal after all that, the name to be Lee Allen. So that's pretty big to me. However, other code crackers did not come to Starlipers, same conclusion, authorities, I've not responded to as many requests to explain how we cracked the code. So who knows, a lot of shit out there, a lot of stuff about the Zodiac. You could get lost for days, weeks, months, help people have been obsessed with definitively proving who did it for their entire adult lives. And still, what I've presented is what I believe to be the most credible stuff out there. If I miss something you felt was important, send it to Bojangles at TimeSuckPod.js.com and it may show up in a future TimeSucker update.

So before we get to the top five takeaways, there is one last suspect to discuss. Texas Senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. And to examine his connection to the Zodiac Killer, we must check in with the idiots of the internet. ["The Idiots of the Internet"] ["The Idiots of the Internet"] ["The Idiots of the Internet"] Under a video title, Ted Cruz is ZodiacClear.mov.

Posted in February of 2016, YouTube user, Macer's Racers posted, thank you for spreading the truth. It seems like this should be a bigger news story. And then there are countless comments under numerous zodiac killer videos that say something to the effect of Ted Cruz is definitely the zodiac killer. Under a video titled Ted Cruz admits he's the zodiac killer,

real posted in February of 2016, Iran Harper writes, do you guys realize he wasn't even born yet? The last time the zodiac killer was active to which Deanna Acosta replies, you do realize he could have easily faked his birth certificate. That's right. Take Cruz was born on December 22nd, 1970, over a year after the last confirmed zodiac killing

and yet some people actually think he could still be the killer. A 2016 poll taking in Florida revealed that 38% of the people questioned believe that Ted Cruz could be the Zodiac killer. Asked point blank, do you think Ted Cruz is a Zodiac killer or not 10% said yes. Another 20%, 28% said they weren't sure. Where did this belief come from? Well, according to KnowYourMeme.com on March 14, yes, another 20% 28% said they weren't sure. Where did this belief come from? Well, according to KnowYourMeme.com on March 14, 2013, the Twitter feed at Red Pill America posted

a tweet claiming that an upcoming cruise speech would be titled, this is the Zodiac speaking, the name of a documentary. Then on November 10, 2014, Twitter user at Flash 2844 tweeted that 2014 Twitter user at flash 2844 tweeted that cruises true cruise deathbed confession would be I and the zodiac killer along with the hashtag Ted Cruz is the zodiac killer on December 15th 2015 a Facebook page title Ted Cruz is a zodiac killer was launched garnering upwards of 9,400 likes over the next two months January 20th Twitter user 2016 Twitter user, 2016, Twitter user, at Lenzetta posted a fake quote of Cruz confessing to the Zodiac killer murders. That evening, Twitter user at Zeppel Wilburry

tweeted that Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada and that the Zodiac killer's final victims were named Cal and Gary. And it just kept building and building and building from there getting more absurd, memes are being spread around and it goes truly viral. And yet some people, people like user, Deanna Acosta, even when confronted

with the fact that he was born after the murders were committed, still seem to think he actually did it. All because of some random persons, you know, random comedic tweet. User YouTube user Dude Bro Buddy, a real user name, says under another video accusing Ted Cruz of being a zodiac. Online, I saw a theory that Ted is from the past, so he's a time traveler. And he came to the future and he really is the zodiac killer, but we're giving him that idea of becoming the zodiac killer. And underneath this post, user lady running says, there's nothing wrong with wanting a serial killer as present. What in the fuck are you two talking about? Instead of just accepting the obvious truth that it is mathematically impossible for Ted Cruz to be the zodiac

you jumped into time travel. Something else that may end up proving to be impossible to carry out. And then someone else thinks that there's not a problem with a serial killer for a president. I think there are a lot of problems with that. I think, you know, we all make mistakes, you know, just because maybe you tried some drugs when you were younger or weren't faithful to a spouse, or got a DUI, or committed some misdemeanors, you know, when you're younger. I think you should still be able to maybe run for president if you've proven that you've learned from those mistakes. But killing a series of strangers and then taunting the police and victims' families about it for years, I think that just qualifies you.

I think that's gonna come up, you know, in the debates and hurt your, you know, nomination chances. So Mr. Cruz, when dealing with a member of Congress, ideologically opposed to your legislative agendas, do you think you'll be willing to compromise and still pass some form of your original legislation? Or do you think you'll hogtie and stab them and then send some cryptic letters to the press if you've done previously? Now, look, I know a lot of YouTube posts are left there by kids and there's a lot of posts left there by trolls who don't mean what they say.

However, some of these people do mean what they say, and that's scary. Scary that 10% of people pulled to Florida, thought Ted Cruz was definitely the zodiac killer. These are probably people who heard of the meme associated Ted Cruz with the zodiac, but didn't keep listening until it got to the part, but it's just a joke. And those people terrified me. And there's a lot of those people. People who, you know, they hear crazy shit

that someone posts on the web, and they do zero critical analysis of the information. People with weak logic and critical thinking skills, but strong breeding capabilities. People who don't think, but do fuck often. People who don't research their opinions, but do pass on their opinions to their kids, and vote, and teach, and actively participate in their communities.

And that is why I love it when you people call me on my mistakes and you help me get smarter. You help me learn, you help me evolve, and when you tell me how much you enjoy learning something yourself, something new and having discussions, intellectual discussions about it with other timescook people, you know, talking about other timescook topics, you remind me that not everyone is an idiot of the internet All right, so what do we think about the zodiac? I think I understand why some people are obsessed You know, it's a really rare example of someone not only committing horrible crimes and getting away with it But also taunting the police taunting the press over and over for several years and still getting away with that. And on top of all that, sending in ciphers

and daring the world to crack codes revealing their identity, it's like something out of a movie. Some weird supervillain harassing an entire city, you know, feels like the Joker or something harassing Gotham. Except it's not a movie, it really happened. And then it turned into a great movie.

Mysteries like this bother us, I think, for several reasons, we don't like someone not ever receiving justice for committing the ultimate crime. Murder. It reminds us that the world is definitely not fair. Sometimes karma is not a bitch. Sometimes bad people are never punished for their crimes. And also, it doesn't feel good to be presented with a puzzle, like a cipher and not be able to solve it. Like, I remember the rage I would feel as a kid trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle and not be able to solve it. Like, I remember the rage, I would feel as a kid trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle and not be able to find the piece I needed. Like, it made me feel like a complete idiot,

like a helpless moron, like a failure. Well, the zodiac gave that feeling two millions, and for some, still is giving that feeling to them. In situations like this, I like to pretend that maybe the real color was killed by another statistic killer, and his body has just never been found. Wouldn't that be nice? Kind of poetic?

Or at the very least, if it was someone like Arthur Le Allen, I hope it ate away at him every day for the rest of his miserable fucking life. I hope it devoured any and all joy and happiness he might ever feel again. I hope the burden of those murders just haunted him, just wore him down into that heart failure. You know, because worst case is that he did do it and just didn't give a shit, it didn't bother him one bit. He loved all the attention and had a great life. That is an outcome that is both sadly possible and horribly unsettling.

Okay. So now, time for one final look at the Zodiac. This week with some top five takeaways. Number one, the Zodiac killed five people and wounded two others between December 1968 and October 1969 may have killed countless more, putting his body count at 37 in the last letter, thought to have probably come from him, sent into the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974. Number two, Zodiac survivor Brian Hartnell is one tough son of a bitch.

The guy was stabbed half a dozen times with a roughly foot long knife, and then after that, after plain dead, untied himself, somehow got loose from being hog tied and walked away and got help. Number three, the most likely suspect is the only one the police ever obtained to search warrant for Arthur Lee Allen, who likely knew Zodiac victim Darling Farron, lived very close to where she worked with in the right area for all the other murders. Fifth description had the right shoe size, the right birthday, and amongst many other pieces of circumstantial evidence went to prison at a time that coincided with the end of the

Zodiac letters. He was also years later identified by one of the survivors of a zodiac attack. Number four, Ted Cruz is not the zodiac, like for sure, 100% not him, absolutely not for sure. Number five, new info, the history channel will be premiering a new five-part mini-series called the hunt for the zodiac Killer on Tuesday, November 14th, 10pm Eastern time. The show features the team of top investigators and code breakers working in tandem with a supercomputer known as Carmel, the first of its kind, program to think like a killer,

and the show may be a complete piece of shit, maybe a complete waste of time. The history channel is not sponsored me in any way. I just know a lot of you are really into this topic and I wanted to make you aware of the show. If it sucks, don't blame me. If it sucks in a bad way. If it sucks in a good way, I'll take credit. I can't vouch for it because I feel

like the history channel is very hit miss. But after doing this research, I am interested. If they do, though, conclude after their analysis that it was, in fact, Ted Cruz, I myself may take a gun and start killing random history channel executives and then sending in my own ciphers to whoever is still alive at the history channel. Time suck.

Top five take away. All right, everybody. So that was the zodiac suck. I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to time suckers, Grant Olson, Mac, Mike Walters, Haley Sidel, Colton Black, Drufits Patrick Ben, Tim Epps, Micah, Mike Moses, Larry Hood, Brandon Weimer, Sam Clark, David Lew, John Stooleriner, and I'm sure many others I've missed for suggesting the zodiac.

And the one name, Stool Draher, I don't know, John. Sorry, I'm sure I butchered your name and I'm sure you're used to it because that's a crazy one. Extra big thanks to Sydney Shives for managing all the time-soaked emails, weekend and week out. Blessing to have on the team. Time-soaker Mike Jernigan has had some horrible medical problems lately.

He's a die-hard time-soaker man. One of the first frequent messenger, yet into the show and messenger, I think I said messenger, maybe weird, he's a frequent messenger into the show. And just a good dude, I've met in person a few times at some shows and I will have a link to his GoFund campaign in the episode description.

He just had some horrible, horrible, unlucky infection situations go on. So if you wanna help out under their time sucker, go through some medical maladies, you can find that in the episode description. Excited to step away from the darkness and suck on something positive this coming Monday. Suck on a real life goddamn hero,

Chesty Puller, Lewis Burwell, Chesty Puller born in June 26, 1898, died on October 11, 1971. He was a US Marine Corps lieutenant general who fought guerrillas in Haiti and Nicaragua and World War II, fought in the Korean War as well. And Pullerers the most decorated marine American history. It's one of two US servicemen to be awarded

five Navy crosses and with the Distinguished Service Cross awarded to him by the US Army his total of six stand only behind World War I fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbocker's eight military awards for Valor. And I know almost nothing about Chessy right now, but I'm gonna know a lot of Mondays. It's gonna be a fun Veterans Day, kind of a week presentation for the Suck, and I'm really eager to learn about this American hero. Hope you are as well.

And finally, thanks for the continued PayPal donation. So generous, thanks for choosing to link to Amazon from timesockpodcast.com, help to show. Thanks for buying timesocks, hats and shirts, et cetera. Trying to find time to get some new designs into the pipeline, hoping to do that very soon, just getting some time, so the infrastructure's set up,

so I can stay on top of stuff. All right, let's catch up on previous episodes and recent happenings, some shadow people shit, with some time-soaker updates. Updates? Get your time, sucker updates? Okay, so let's talk about shadow people as promised earlier. This first shadow people encounter is sending from the UK where there is a growing body of time-soakers. I gotta hope it builds a knell for where I can do some shows over there,

one of these days. Hail N'. This is from Monsanga. Hope I'm saying your name right Mons. Hail Nimrod, King of the Suck, Lord of the Suckers, the OG of Sucking. Heard the shadow of people podcast today and now the sun has gone down. I'm already shitty myself for when it comes to bedtime. Go and sleep tonight with the news on.

For some fucked up reason, having the news on makes me feel safe from harm. Fuck knows why. Anyway, I digress about 20 years ago, a friend of mine was seeing a girl that go out drinking and when the night was over, they'd go back to her flat and get down to some jiggery pokery. I love jiggery pokery. In her bedroom, I didn't know him at the time, but he told us that when they were making some sweet music, Michael Motherfuckin McDonald style. You know, he always thought someone or more precisely something was above her wardrobe and was watching him. He said it was real dark at the top of the

cupboard, but he felt some sort of presence. As he was a stoner and he was always half cut, he was pissed, which is drunk for for you Americans who know no British slang. He thought it was just his imagination so he never mentioned it to her. After they split up, he bumped into her at a local pub, which is drunk for you Americans who know no British slang. He thought it was just his imagination, so he never mentioned it to her. After they split up, he bumped into her at a local pub, brought this up with her, he told her that he always thought they were being watched, even when no one else was in the flat and the curtains were drawn, as you can imagine,

he actually shat his pants. When she said she felt the same thing too, being watched by something from the top of the wardrobe when they were together, that is fucking creepy, that she felt it from the same spot or when she was on her own. I didn't touch her or approach her just watched. She said once they split up and he wasn't over on the weekend, she moved out as she didn't feel comfortable.

I do believe they were being watched by a shadow person who was slow-stroke and his misty cock getting off on what he was seeing. I've sent him the link for the episode. Hopefully he'll take the time to listen and conclude that he has experienced for real the shadow people looking forward to the Zodiac Killer bonus suck. Hope you hope you did enjoy. Love in the podcast. Keep on suck and hail Nimrod Mange.

And then even though the name and the email earlier with Sanga, it's it's Hanslow. Hanslow H.O. UN S.O. O.W. Hanslow from the UK. Well, thank you, man. Thank you very much. Man, UN S.O.O.W. Hanslow from the UK. Well, thank you, man. Thank you very much. Man, a shadow stoker.

I think you should tell your friend that it was Chikotilo. That's, it had been. It's honors Chikotilo. The butcher of Rostov is, it was a shadow butcher. I know it. Just what would be the deal? A shadow stroke shadowcock in corner of room. I, I shadows, I sometimes I shadow stroke.

Uh, hi, I sneak, I sneak above covered, in corner of room. I shuttles, sometimes I shuttles stroke up high. I sneak above cupboard, a top of cupboard, and I stay there. It's no big deal. I just, sometimes I shuttles come, a little shadow dust on top of cupboard, but there's no one. I don't understand fuss.

Who bothered by limp playful shadow dick? So yeah, that's my take, is it a shadow chikotilo. Now here's a scary one, from Chet Manlier, time-circuit-name-in-the-chet-manlier, that's a fucking name. That's a Chesty Polar type name. I feel like if your name is Chet Manlier, you'll be able to build a shitload of push-ups.

Can't be Chet Manlier and have just a couple nipples on some ribs for Chest. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Okay, anyway, holy fuck balls, Bojangles, is what Chet writes. I just listened to the Shadow People episode be a chat man there and have just a couple nipples on some ribs for chest. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Okay anyway. Holy fuck balls, Bojangles, what chat writes. I just listened to the Shadow People episode and you're a dick. While listening to this sitting at my shitty cubicle, trying to edit photos, you get into this

topic. Allow me to elaborate on the name calling. Going back to about a year and a half ago, I was talking to my wife, whose motherlike best friend is a paranormal enthusiast about how the house we were staying in had a spirit We only knew as Mary Mary was an old woman that had passed away in the house years prior But never seemed to be a malicious or evil spirit. I said I knew about her But never really encountered her it may have been a couple nights since then, but one night I met Mary I was sleeping and it was around 3 a.m. when I was woken up by a heavy-ass pressure on my chest completely immobilized and

Unable to catch my breath. It lasted for about 30 seconds, best guess. Afterward my wife will go to my erratic breathing and I told her I had met Mary and immediately fell back asleep. I didn't feel threatened as I believed it was her way of saying, hey, here I am. And let it go. Now, about three months after that, I had another experience. To provide backstory, we were going through a rough patch and I'm far from religious,

thus opening up my spirit to outside influence. Her friends words, not mine. My next encounter was far more scary. I would say it was again around 3am, and I woke up, only to find I could not move, but could see. I watched as a dark figure, being about 4' tall, wearing a dark blue Victorian-era dress with a high collarcollar long sleeves and white lace around the neck and cuffs of the sleeves, there was no face, only darkness

as if shadow filling the dress. She entered the room through the window slash wall and then moved in a quick-like motion from the window around the foot of the bed, motherfucker. I'm getting chills again, I thought this scary shit was over. And approached my side of the bed. Once he was at my side, she reached with her hand and proceeded to smother my face while beginning, while beginning to flate me with a rapid movement. I was petrified.

I tried with every ounce of strength to move my hand over to wake my wife, but I couldn't move at all. My breathing now closer to hyperventilating my wife woke up and tried to wake me. She didn't see my eyes open and I thought I was sleeping. Oh, I thought I was sleeping. When I told her I was awake for a few minutes,

I was trying to wake her, she freaked the fuck out and went outside to calm down and catch my breath. According to her friend, I was attacked by a succubus. Being that I was depressed and had no faith in anything, that makes for an open soul for them to attach to. So being that I've never been one to believe ghost stories in such, I now carry my jar of dirt of crystals and sage to cleanse my being, my house, and anything I can. That shit is real, scary real. Like it changed my outlook on all things we can't ratchely explain.

I'm all about science, but holy, holy, my fucking McDonald, there is a whole spectrum of shit we can't see or explain. The scarier part of all of this is when my brother came to visit us a few months after and he proceeded to tell us about when he was in high school and home before our parents how he was in his room, fucking himself. Interesting way to phrase masturbation. And a spirit slash shadow person of the same description appeared in his room. Being that my brother walks into different path in life, he didn't even stop what he was doing. And after I was just going to watch or just going to join in, whether he actually said

that or not, is anybody's guess, but I could absolutely see him saying that. After his story with a matching description of the shadow figure, my wife and I freaked out. Moral of the story, whether you're sleeping or literally fucking yourself, they are here, real and apparently very unafraid of us. Keep on sucking. Hail Nimrod. Now go back on your schedule daily distractions.

I love that I picked these two at random. I think there was a bunch of shadow people, encounter, send in. I just grabbed a couple from different chunks of when emails came in with no idea that both of them would involve some weird sex stuff. All right, one more. Oh, exalted King Cummins magnificent, the aroma of that which thou hast in doth stepeth

and be exceedingly sweet and pleasing in mind humble estimation. I love the emails you guys write, the language you use cracks, my shit up. Seriously, great workers wanted you to know that. It's interesting how the more paranormal topics you cover, smooth through the edge on your skepticism seems to become. I think that's a good thing.

This is the cult of the curious after all, and you couldn't be our leader with a narrow and exclusionary mind. I do agree. And since fringe phenomena will always fascinated, can't hurt your listenership either, especially since you seem to have grown a bit more accepting over the course of this project. Keep in mind that human flight was a stuff of fantasy and failure before the Wright brothers. We went from that first flight, there probably were others lost to ancient history, but fuck them. In 1903, to aerial combat in World War I, and less than a decade to supersonic flight to space in an incredibly short time.

Point is, just because we haven't yet figured out how to qualify something, doesn't make it preposterous or even unlikely. We still have a lot to learn about everything. I mentioned before that I grew up in a haunted house, which I and my mom and brother will always maintain is true. I also said that experience helped force my mind open and I believe that's true too. And yeah, this is referring to a previous email.

I'll never try to convince a devout non-believer, not nor will one of them ever change my mind. That's just the nature of belief. The difference is that mine is rooted in experience. There's is a lack thereof. It works the same for the devout who believe in their hearts that Jesus, Allah, whoever, has manifested in their lives, aided and guided them and related their experiences,

et cetera, but I remain unconvinced because I haven't had that. So it goes. Here's a quick story that's close to home, though. Remember those hikers who got lost in Joshua Tree this summer? I do, actually. A close friend of mine was on the crew that spent every weekend since with the guy's dad looking for them in some of the most rugged and confusing terrain

in the planet, and they recently located them. They were very close to an area that had already been combed over, and in fact, my friend E had scouted that canyon from rim, from the rim, and thought it was just too gnarly for anyone to have made their way into. The search was set to move to a different location the next week, but a clear voyant was called in. And he was there as she worked over the topographical map

with her wand and pendulum and marked a spot. So they went back. He said that with the minutes of arriving at the spot, she pointed out they'd start a finding clues, a bottle of urine, a little alien head gram bag, a partial bag of jerky that coyotes and raven somehow missed. And from where the first clue was located, he could have thrown a baseball to where their bodies laid. He told me this yesterday, said it still gives him chills thinking about how spot on the woman was, hanging around a couple of corpses for most of the day,

waiting for the rangers to release him from the scene didn't phase him. So there you go, everybody was phased by this lady's prediction. So there you go, suck Lord, inexplicable events are a part of our world and the beauties and their mystery. Maybe someday we'll be able to buy some appliance

to repel ghosts or find out that a good stun gun will send a shadow man packing better than knife I bet. Probably or figure out the process by which clairvoyance works. But in the meantime, I love that there's still much we don't fucking know. If you have time for casual listening, there's a great podcast called spooked to spin off from snap judgment. Real stories told by real people, not all paranormal, but it leans that way. Sorry for the rant. Thanks for freaking me out.

I'm alone at a field station in the Mojave, one point, one and a half hours from the nearest town, police EMT, what could go wrong? Rest that throat. You have a lot of suckin' to do yet. Sincerely Reverend handyman GB Green, junior S. wire kind of colleges. Oh man, thank you. Reverend handyman green. Yeah, I am softening man on the paranormal. I am for sure. I'm not gonna run around saying I believe for sure. I'm still gonna, you know, analyze approach things,

but open to the possibility that there is shit that cannot be explained going on around us. So, thanks Suckers. Hope you had a nice Halloween, follow the suck on social media, Time Suck Podcast, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and get those Detroit tickets. Get them quick. If you can make it to that show,

it'll help so much getting the live podcasts going. And stay away from darks included, make out spots and keep on sucking.