Zodiac Killer: Unsolved Mysteries, Ciphers and the Dark History of the Hunt

[00:00:01] Kyle Risi: the taxi driver has just rolled to a stop beneath the glow of street lights above him

inside the driver is slumped forward, his shirt is covered in blood and he has been shot in the head

[00:00:12] Adam Cox: So this is what, at nighttime?

[00:00:15] Kyle Risi: Three teenagers watch in shock as they witness the passenger of that taxi cab with a seemingly eerie, calm, wiped down the cab of any prince.

He then tore away a piece of the driver's shirt, folded it neatly, and then slips it in his pocket before slipping away into the darkness

Adam, not only did the cops come face to face with a mysterious passenger, they actually spoke to him twice.

[00:00:42] Adam Cox: What?

[00:00:42] Kyle Risi: But the cops thought that they were looking for a black man.

And so Adam, the Zodiac killer, was able to slip away undetected.

But Adam, to this day, we have never caught him.



[00:01:19] Kyle Risi: welcome to the Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground and any social gathering.

[00:01:27] Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the draw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

[00:01:34] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode,

[00:01:37] Adam Cox: and I am Adam Cox, or otherwise known as Sam, the security guard this week.

[00:01:42] Kyle Risi: Just Sam.

[00:01:42] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:01:43] Kyle Risi: No role. No responsibilities.

[00:01:45] Adam Cox: Security guard.

[00:01:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but come on. You can be like,

[00:01:47] Adam Cox: he's really boring. No one wants to speak to Sam. Yeah. I'm like the guy that you see at work that you're like, oh, please don't see me. Please don't see me. You're like, oh, I've got make conversation. Yeah. That's Sam, the security guard

[00:01:58] Kyle Risi: oh, you're one of them.

[00:01:59] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:01:59] Kyle Risi: I'm like that with you. I wake up in the morning, I go make some coffee and you're getting up and I'm like, oh, please don't see me. Please don't see me. Oh, Adam, hi. Oh, okay.

[00:02:10] Adam Cox: Shit, you see me

[00:02:13] Kyle Risi: guys. If you're new to the show and you wanna support us, we'd really appreciate it, and the absolute best way that you can do so is by joining us on Patreon because signing up is free and you'll get access to next week's episode a whole seven days before anyone else.

[00:02:25] Adam Cox: And did you know Kyle, that for as little as $5 a month, you can become a fellow freak of the show, which will unlock our entire back catalogue of our classic episodes.

[00:02:33] Kyle Risi: To be fair, I did know that.

[00:02:35] Adam Cox: I know you set it up.

[00:02:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah, I did. I wrote this script so I knew it.

But let's be honest, Adam, because the real reason to sign up as a certified freak or as a big top tier member is that you get access to our exclusive compendium key chain. And as we always say, every week, sole purpose in this world is so that we can always be there

[00:02:54] Adam Cox: dangling right near your crotch.

[00:02:56] Kyle Risi: Wow, that was, that was great. Bit of like radio voice you had going on there.

[00:03:00] Adam Cox: Well, that's why I do a podcast.

[00:03:03] Kyle Risi: Just the way you said it. Pacing it was perfect.

[00:03:06] Adam Cox: Oh

[00:03:06] Kyle Risi: yeah. We wanna be there by your crotch.

[00:03:08] Adam Cox: Yeah,

and lastly, guys, please follow us on your favourite app and leave us a review. 'Cause your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:03:17] Kyle Risi: Adam, that is enough for the housekeeping.

Because today on the compendium, we're diving into an assembly of lovers, lane terror newspaper games, and a mystery that refuses to die.

[00:03:29] Adam Cox: Oh, do you know what I'm getting? Monster of Florence vibes from that.

[00:03:33] Kyle Risi: Oh, really?

[00:03:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Plug in little episode there. I like that.

[00:03:36] Adam Cox: No,

[00:03:37] Kyle Risi: it's good. It's good. But yes, it's not too dissimilar. Adam, let me start with painting a picture for you.

[00:03:42] Adam Cox: Go on.

[00:03:43] Kyle Risi: On the 11th October, 1969, following the hot summer of that year. And the taxi driver has just rolled to a stop beneath the glow of street lights above him.

His engine is still ticking over, but inside the driver is slumped forward, his shirt is covered in blood and he has been shot in the head.

[00:04:02] Adam Cox: So this is what, at nighttime?

[00:04:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Across the street, Adam. Three teenagers watch in shock as they witness the passenger of that taxi cab with a seemingly eerie, calm, wiped down the cab of any prince.

He then tore away a piece of the driver's shirt, folded it neatly, and then slips it in his pocket before slipping away into the darkness.

[00:04:24] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:04:25] Kyle Risi: The three teens, of course, they immediately called the cops It felt like, of course, that it will only be a matter of minutes before the police closed in on this mysterious passenger.

But officers were working off wrong information. Something that if they hadn't gotten wrong, would've led them to one of the most infamous serial killers in American history right there and then, instead, not only did the cops come face to face with a mysterious passenger, they actually spoke to him twice.

[00:04:56] Adam Cox: What?

[00:04:56] Kyle Risi: But the cops thought that they were looking for a black man. And so Adam, the Zodiac killer, was able to slip away undetected.

That's right. Adam, today on the compendium, i'm gonna be telling the story of the infamous Zodiac killer.

[00:05:12] Adam Cox: Ah, the legend. That is the Zodiac killer.

[00:05:15] Kyle Risi: What do you know about him?

[00:05:16] Adam Cox: Well, actually I'm pretty sure he did come up in the monster of Florence episodes because there was a theory that maybe the two were connected based on when, the crimes in Italy were, carried out. And when the crimes of the Zodiac care level carried out,

[00:05:30] Kyle Risi: or when they had stopped. Right. 'cause there was a moment of like, pause, wasn't

[00:05:33] Adam Cox: there? There's a gap Yeah. For Mons of Florence.

I don't think it is proven, but it's just one of those wild theories out there. But I guess what I know the Zodiac killer is he was this notorious killer, targeted couples and Yeah. Didn't he like, send a lot of notes to the police? Mm-hmm. And yeah.

[00:05:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's what he's famous for. And he's c cyphers, which gave him his name rights.

[00:05:51] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:05:52] Kyle Risi: But he has popped up in another episode. We've done, do you remember

[00:05:55] Adam Cox: or was it my episode?

[00:05:56] Kyle Risi: No,

it was one of mine for

[00:05:57] Adam Cox: then. No, I don't remember

[00:05:59] Kyle Risi: you so rude. The chow chiller episode.

[00:06:04] Adam Cox: Oh, really?

[00:06:05] Kyle Risi: Because infamously in one of the zodiac killer's cryptic letters He threatened to target a busload of kids, and of course people just assumed that it was the Zodiac following through with his promise.

[00:06:19] Adam Cox: Oh,

[00:06:19] Kyle Risi: very scary.

But yet Adam, the story is an absolute true crime staple. So it's a little bit embarrassing that we haven't really covered it up to this point. But for those of you who don't know, just so add to what Adam had said, the Zodiac killer was this infamous serial killer who operated in the Northern California region between 1968 and 1974.

Now, how he was operating is up for debate because whether or not he was killing people in their time is different. But we had communication with him and he was on our radar. Mm-hmm. During this period of time.

And Adam, in total, do you know how many people he killed?

[00:06:53] Adam Cox: No, I mean, he's kind of like this legend, but is it because of all the, like the media about him? Or is it because he was a massive killer?

[00:07:01] Kyle Risi: So he is confirmed to have killed five people

[00:07:04] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:07:04] Kyle Risi: Which is a lot of people. But still, it's quite surprising to me that it wasn't a lot more considering his infamy.

[00:07:09] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:07:10] Kyle Risi: But his infamy doesn't really come down to the people that he killed. It's about how he operated his mo, his shifting mo, but also how he taunted the police.

[00:07:19] Adam Cox: And also, I guess these might be the deaths that we're aware of.

[00:07:22] Kyle Risi: Yes. But Adam, to this day, we have never caught him. So this is a true crime case that has endured and haunted true crime enthusiasts for more than 50 years.

And honestly, it comes down to the conundrum at the heart of the story, because throughout his reign of terror.

The Zodiac didn't just kill, he taunted the police through a series of letters, and cryptic cyphers, which promised would reveal his identity if anyone managed to crack them.

[00:07:51] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[00:07:52] Kyle Risi: But across the entire time that he was active, only one of those cyphers has ever been solved. And in it he had lied.

He did not reveal who he actually was.

And so the identity. May be locked away in the other three mysterious cyphers. Who knows?

[00:08:09] Adam Cox: And so we haven't cracked the code of those others then.

[00:08:12] Kyle Risi: Not in the telling of this story, no.

[00:08:15] Adam Cox: Okay. But has anyone

[00:08:19] Kyle Risi: We'll get to it.

[00:08:20] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:08:21] Kyle Risi: And even though the Zodiac killer has been credited with a total of five murders, he was eager to convince investigators that he had killed many, many more, possibly as many as 33 people.

Was that lie as well? Because Adam, no other body's ever turned up.

There were murders reported, but the Zodiac's propensity to mix up his MO to such degree made it almost impossible for investigators to definitively establish if he was in fact responsible for those murders.

But also amazing, some of his victims, they did manage to survive.

And even more terrifyingly though, Adam, their descriptions of what he did were even more horrifying than what our mind would let us to imagine that he did.

But then Adam, just like that, the Zodiac disappeared never to be heard of again. And so 50 years later, his identity is still just a complete mystery to us.

[00:09:11] Adam Cox: And he's probably dead at this point. Right?

[00:09:13] Kyle Risi: Got to be.

And this is what's the interesting part. From the year 2000 to right up, even today, they are still getting tips about who he may be.

And it's largely from family members who think their dad could have been the Zodiac killer or their uncle or someone that they knew or they went to school with.

[00:09:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:29] Kyle Risi: So the question is, Adam, what happened to him? Where did he go? Why did his reign, his terror just suddenly stop?

And All that remained in the eerie silence were the three remaining cists promising to reveal his true identity.

[00:09:40] Adam Cox: Yeah, I'm really intrigued to find out about these cyphers, like how were they cracked or how was one cracked in the first place? Because all I can think of is, I dunno, like a Sudoku puzzle that said

[00:09:53] Kyle Risi: Adam, imagine a giant Sudoku puzzle.

Uhhuh. So what they look like, uh, pretty much, yeah. We'll go through it in a little more detail.

But Adam Uhhuh, today in the compendium, I'm gonna tell you about the Zodiac killer, one of America's most frightening murderers. I'll tell you about his reign of terror, his known victims and some of his speculated victims too. We will also explore how he taunted the police and the media through his cryptic c cyphers and letters.

And maybe just maybe, we might solve this.

[00:10:19] Adam Cox: Do you know what? I'm feeling good today. So we, we just might,

[00:10:23] Kyle Risi: Can you imagine?

[00:10:24] Adam Cox: Okay, let's see. Gimme the suspects. And, I'll tell you who. It's okay.

[00:10:28] Kyle Risi: So let's get started by not going back straight to the beginning, but we're going back to where he first comes onto our radar.

Because Adam, on the 20th of December, 1968 in Vallejo, California, two Hogan High students, 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen, and 17-year-old David Faraday were heading out on their first date together.

David was instantly captivated and so he decided to shoot his shot and he asked Betty Lou to be his date to the Hogan High Christmas concerts.

And getting very, very sixties vibes. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Betty, of course, she bashfully agrees and so eager to impress David negotiated terms with his mother to let him borrow her car.

On the night of the concert, David picked Betty up at her house, ran about 4:00 PM.

But Adam, that night, neither of them were in any rush to actually go to the concerts because they were never intending to go in the first place.

[00:11:21] Adam Cox: Oh, they're gonna go to make Cow point.

[00:11:23] Kyle Risi: Exactly. This was just something basically that they just told their parents. Right.

And so when David went to go pick up Betty, they first headed over to Betty's friend where they hung out for a few hours.

After 8:00 PM the pair of them left likely making their way to a local restaurant where they had something to eat and maybe got to know each other a little bit.

Eventually though at 10:15 PM David pulled his mom's vehicle into a remote, gravel turnout to just off Lake Herman Road.

This was basically a popular horns for high school kids, locally known as Lover's Lane. So as you can probably guess, Betty and David weren't intending to catch up on their homework.

[00:11:57] Adam Cox: No.

[00:11:57] Kyle Risi: They were looking to get second base. Adam,

[00:11:59] Adam Cox: I know this is two weeks in, right?

[00:12:01] Kyle Risi: What is second base?

[00:12:03] Adam Cox: It's more than kissing.

[00:12:04] Kyle Risi: Okay. Is it like under the shirt touching or over the shirt touching?

[00:12:08] Adam Cox: I think it might be under the shirt touching.

[00:12:10] Kyle Risi: Okay.

I

[00:12:10] Kyle Risi: always But you're not in the pan touching?

[00:12:11] Adam Cox: I don't think it's that far.

[00:12:13] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:12:13] Adam Cox: It's really confusing. I don't dunno.

[00:12:14] Kyle Risi: It is. It's very American isn't it?

[00:12:16] Adam Cox: Yeah. We don't have baseball here. I know. Basically first base and the last base, what you do in between is up to you,

[00:12:23] Kyle Risi: doesn't matter.

Adam, just after 11:00 PM that night, local resident Stella Borges drove past the turnout and noticed the car's headlight was illuminating the surrounding area. She noticed that the passenger door to the car was wide open and she could see a figure slumped over the driver's seat.

30 feet from the car she could also make out a body of a young woman laying on the ground.

Of course, for Stella Instant kicks in at that moment and Stella sped off to alert somebody.

Eventually she sees a patrol car and began flashing her headlights and blasting her horn and a few minutes later, captain Daniel Pitter arrived at the scene.

And Adam, it was confirmed that both Betty and David had been murdered.

[00:13:04] Adam Cox: That is, quite a violent death, I'm guessing.

[00:13:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah, Adam.

It is horrific. Immediately, of course, an investigation got underway.

More cops descended to the scene pass aby obviously, they stopped to kind of see what was going on, and through the limited forensic capabilities available at the time, the cops eventually determined that another car had likely pulled in a few minutes after the couple had arrived and parked up right beside them.

From the surrounding disturbances in the sand, they figured that the killer lightly exited his car. He ordered Betty and David out, and then as David was halfway out of the car, the killer shot him in the head.

[00:13:37] Adam Cox: And then did Betty try and make a run for it?

[00:13:40] Kyle Risi: Exactly as Betty Lou ran for her life. The killer then delivered five shots into her back, which is where she then collapsed 30 feet from the car.

It's grim, isn't it?

[00:13:48] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:49] Kyle Risi: Of course, the killing horrified the quiet town. But in the end, with very little evidence to go on, this was dubbed a random thrill kill like how is that even a thing? It's almost like giving it a whole pass, right?

[00:14:02] Adam Cox: I guess maybe what I can understand from that is. It doesn't sound like it was premeditated. Yes. This couple wasn't targeted specifically. It was random in that sense. Or opportunist, I guess, maybe.

[00:14:13] Kyle Risi: But Adam, this wasn't random.

This was only the start because six months later, on the 4th of July, 19 6, 9, just before midnight, 22-year-old married mother of one Darlene Ferrin, parked her car at Blue Rock Springs. Again, another favourite meetup spot for couples.

And so, naturally Darlene isn't alone, right?

[00:14:33] Adam Cox: Who's she with?

[00:14:34] Kyle Risi: Well, not her husband put it that way.

[00:14:36] Adam Cox: Oh, so she's doing a little something on the side.

[00:14:38] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. Instead in the passenger seat was her 19-year-old friend, Michael Magoo.

[00:14:44] Adam Cox: Magoo

[00:14:45] Kyle Risi: Hey, this is a serious story. Don't smile.

[00:14:47] Adam Cox: It's a great name, but 19. So both, again, very young. I guess tends to be very young couples that go to these points.

Right,

[00:14:54] Kyle Risi: exactly.

[00:14:54] Adam Cox: oh God. So what happened?

[00:14:55] Kyle Risi: Well, there is a lot of debate whether or not anything sexual was going on between them anyway, Based on Darlene's other extramarital of encounters.

[00:15:02] Adam Cox: Oh, so there's an assumption. So she was cheating on her husband and it's assumed this was perhaps what was happening.

[00:15:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and I think it's safe to say that they probably were, I even get the impression from some of the deep dives that I've listened to, that they were probably in the process of breaking up at this point. Oh,

[00:15:18] Adam Cox: okay.

[00:15:18] Kyle Risi: In some of Michael's testimony, like entire songs would go by and they would just be sitting in silence. So they were having a difficult conversation.

[00:15:24] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:25] Kyle Risi: So they were clearly more than friends in my estimation. But Adam, as they sat there, Darlene and Michael noticed the vehicle pull up alongside them.

This was strange, but also really uncomfortable. Like This is a big parking area, right. with plenty of space. Like people come here for privacy and so for a second their immediate thought was that maybe this was the cops.

It's a safe assumption, right? We've been in that situation.

[00:15:47] Adam Cox: Please don't tell that story again.

[00:15:50] Kyle Risi: Again, if we told it before,

[00:15:51] Adam Cox: I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

[00:15:52] Kyle Risi: Okay. Long story short, me and Adam, we went dogging.

No, we didn't.

[00:15:57] Adam Cox: We did not.

[00:15:58] Kyle Risi: We went to go check it out.

[00:16:01] Adam Cox: We went to see if actually it was a dogging spot.

[00:16:03] Kyle Risi: And

[00:16:04] Adam Cox: showed up, but we did wanna partake.

[00:16:05] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But

[00:16:05] Adam Cox: the police showed up and we got scared.

[00:16:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And um, and my car wouldn't stop.

[00:16:08] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Kyle Risi: And the trouble is, is when you wanna start the car, you gotta turn the engine on and then the headlights come on. And then the engine failed to tick over and then had to turn the engine off, which made it look like

[00:16:20] Adam Cox: you were

[00:16:20] Kyle Risi: flashing your lights. Exactly. And they were like likely story guys.

[00:16:26] Adam Cox: That all happened.

[00:16:28] Kyle Risi: It's all true.

And so this car pulled up, they think it's just the cops, but just as they were about to compose themself, the car slowly pulled away and then drove off.

10 minutes later though, Adam, the same car returned once again, parked up right beside them again.

Darlene and Michael then watched the man exit, exit his car, he flicked on a flashlight and started to make his way towards the passenger side.

This time they are convinced this is the cops. And so almost by instinct, Darlene and Michael, they start rummaging around for their identification.

[00:16:56] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:56] Kyle Risi: But then through the glare of the flashlight, Michael notices the man holding a nine millimetre Lugar, and he's pointing it directly at him. And just as he was beginning to comprehend what he was seeing.

The man fired several rounds, which blasted through the passenger window, travelled right through Michael, like he is shot from top to bottom. One of the Buddhists goes through his face, embeds into Darlene.

[00:17:18] Adam Cox: Oh my God.

[00:17:19] Kyle Risi: And kills her.

[00:17:20] Adam Cox: But the way that you said this, did he survive, Michael?

[00:17:24] Kyle Risi: Someone's clearly survived, haven't they?

[00:17:25] Adam Cox: Yeah, because there was obviously a level of detail there that I don't think we would know

[00:17:29] Kyle Risi: exactly. Now. The man walked back to his car as he was about to get into his car. Michael let out a deep agonising moan. This was the man's signal to then return. And when he did, he fired two more shots into Darlene and Michael. Oh, the silence was then his cue to finally leave

So yeah, it's grim, isn't it?

[00:17:48] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:17:49] Kyle Risi: Let's find out what happened, shall we? Because at 12:40 AM a dispatch officer at the Vallejo Police Department, a woman called Nancy receives a call from a man with a gravelly voice saying that he wanted to report a double murder.

So it was a bloody grim moment. But Nancy's routine mindset instantly kicks in right she was about to ask for more details about where it was. Mm-hmm. Until she heard the man say he was the one who shot them. And he had done so with a nine millimetre luga.

The voice obviously now had her full attention, and he told her that if they travelled one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, they would find a couple of kids in a brown car.

just as Nancy was about to ask for more details, the man interjected saying, I also killed those kids last year.

And then before hanging up the gravelly voice, man taunting said goodbye.

[00:18:38] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:18:39] Kyle Risi: And he hung up the phone.

[00:18:40] Adam Cox: So this is the first time he's. Corded in. And why,

[00:18:45] Kyle Risi: it's awful, isn't it?

So the cops immediately trace the call, they find the phone box, the story of how they do this is incredible. They track it to a particular area. And because the phone is left off the hook, right? Mm-hmm.

What they have is this cop just driving down the road going, can you hear me? And then the dispatcher on the other end is listening out to see if they can hear a voice. And that's how they find the phone box.

[00:19:06] Adam Cox: How long does that take?

[00:19:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Doesn't take them very long, 'cause it's not that far from the police station. But the interesting detail is, is that payphone was just 500 metres from where Darlene actually lived.

So the question is, is that a coincidence? Did the man know who Darlene was?

[00:19:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. Either that or he's been perhaps watching or, yeah. It's a weird coincidence, if not

[00:19:24] Kyle Risi: Adam, after the officers arrived at the scene, both Michael and Darlene, they are still alive. They are, however, in critical condition, remember, Michael's been shot in the face.

[00:19:34] Adam Cox: Yeah. And like they've been shot several times as well. Yeah.

[00:19:36] Kyle Risi: Both of them are of course sent by ambulance to the nearby hospital. But Adam, upon arrival, Darlene is pronounced dead.

Amazingly though, Michael does manage to survive. And so this is how we know so much detail about the events of that night.

[00:19:49] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:49] Kyle Risi: Immediately, of course, following the attack, the story is all over the front pages of the newspapers.

Michael's testimony was harrowing, but the cop's detail about the eerie phone call, how the killer just brazenly took responsibility for this attack, and the murders carried out the previous year, just made this story now even more terrifying.

Mm-hmm. It wasn't just a thrill kill. Right. This is someone going off targeting people.

[00:20:11] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:11] Kyle Risi: And so for a short time, this attack dominates all the front pages. But as the month went on, the police hadn't made any progress. It was simply down to the lack of motive and the seemingly randomness of this attack that didn't leave much for them to work with.

[00:20:24] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause I guess we've got this guy who, witnesses that have seen him rub down his fingerprints or whatever in the car, so he's clearly very careful about what he leaves and what he decides to tell the police.

[00:20:36] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[00:20:36] Adam Cox: But yeah, at the moment this just seems so random,

like

[00:20:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and so, of course. Over that course of month, the story starts slowly disappearing from the news, which I think is about to tell us something very interesting about the killer.

Because Adam, on the 31st of July, 1969, just three weeks later, three individual letters arrive at the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco examiner.

The letters are all handwritten, they're not a hundred percent identical, but they're largely the same in terms of premise.

Notably they are riddled with mistakes, like many of the words are written phonetically. So instead of spelling the word like front F-R-O-N-T, he would spell it F-R-U-N-T.

[00:21:17] Adam Cox: I see. And do we think that is someone who is poorly educated?

[00:21:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:21:23] Adam Cox: Or do we think that's just someone that's trying to throw people off the scent?

[00:21:26] Kyle Risi: It could be either one of those two things.

I am more inclined to think that he's maybe unintelligent rather than calculated.

[00:21:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:33] Kyle Risi: But each one of the letters, the writer claimed responsibility for the tax of Betty Lou, David, Darlene, Michael, the letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle specifically said.

Dear editor, this is the murderer. Like I've always said, I'm crack proof. Ask the Vallejo Cop about my nine millimetre.

Print this cypher on the front page of Friday afternoon, August the first. Or I will go on a kill ramp page Friday night.

I will cruise around killing people who are alone and then move on to kill again until I end up with a dozen people. Over the weekend.

Proof Blue Rock Springs victim was shot with a super X nine millimetre.

Each letter that Adam then contained one third of a 408 symbol cypher which the murderer claimed would reveal his identity if anyone successfully cracked it.

And then all three letters were signed with a symbol of a single circle with cross hairs.

[00:22:29] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like a target almost. So. These three letters. We know that they're same handwriting. We know that there's spelling mistakes, whether deliberate or not. And then this cypher,

[00:22:39] Kyle Risi: as a newspaper, are you printing these?

[00:22:41] Adam Cox: I mean this is obviously great for publicity. If anything, this says great marketing. You've got three different

[00:22:46] Kyle Risi: marketing.

[00:22:47] Adam Cox: Yeah. You've got three different cyphers. Uhhuh. They're going to three different newspapers and it's almost like collect every newspaper.

[00:22:53] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And

[00:22:53] Adam Cox: then you've got them all. that's quite interesting. 'Cause looking at these cyphers, they're almost like hieroglyphics in a way.

[00:22:59] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:22:59] Adam Cox: It's like a Very

[00:22:59] Kyle Risi: blocky, aren't they?

[00:23:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's like a word search one for each newspaper. Some of them are look like letters. Some look like symbols. And so, yeah, like if you've got the Rosetta Stone

[00:23:10] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:23:11] Adam Cox: Equivalent. Yeah. You could start to like un you know, work out what this meant perhaps, but.

So did they print these, uh, cyphers?

[00:23:17] Kyle Risi: Well, the editors contact the police who advise them not to publish him because of course they're part of an active investigation and they felt that these might actually be a hoax.

[00:23:26] Adam Cox: I mean yeah, we don't know for sure.

[00:23:27] Kyle Risi: But like as a paper, that's not what you want to hear, right. Is exactly as you just said. Sure. They did the responsible thing by alerting the cops, but the last thing they want to hear is not to print them.

[00:23:37] Adam Cox: Were they like, uh, oops. As As it's like printing in the background.

[00:23:41] Kyle Risi: Keep them going boys. But also what if the writer's threat of going on a kill ramp page was real? Right. So it's kind of like a conundrum, like, if we don't do this, what if he does go and kill all these people?

[00:23:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. But then I, I guess what the Zodiac killer has he, he hasn't referred to himself as that yet, right?

[00:23:56] Kyle Risi: No, not yet.

[00:23:57] Adam Cox: So just this target or the killer.

[00:23:59] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:00] Adam Cox: Um, is he wanting just the general public to see all try and work out who he is?

[00:24:04] Kyle Risi: Hmm.

[00:24:04] Adam Cox: Almost like this giant big game or cover of cat and mouse. Right?

[00:24:08] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:24:08] Adam Cox: So do any of the newspapers print.

[00:24:10] Kyle Risi: In the end, the examiner, they decide to publish the letter, but not the cypher.

[00:24:14] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:24:15] Kyle Risi: The Vallejo Times Herald and the Chronicle, they do print it, but it wasn't until the 2nd of August and also it wasn't on the front page either, so you get in the sense that the sky is very much someone who likes the attention. You can imagine this is something that's gonna piss him off.

Right?

[00:24:29] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause he thinks like, why are people not taking notice of this?

But then looking at the C cyphers, this looks like a, it's a giant riddle, so it makes me think he's not poorly uneducated. Mm. He must be using that as a front,

[00:24:43] Kyle Risi: But Adam, alongside the cypher that the Chronicle print is a quote from the police chief, a guy called Jack e stilts saying that he's not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer and requested that the right to send definitive proof

[00:24:56] Adam Cox: okay.

[00:24:57] Kyle Risi: So they are trying to essentially engage with him, which I think is smart in a way.

[00:25:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. Better that he's writing than killing.

[00:25:02] Kyle Risi: Yes.

like clockwork on the 4th of August, the examiner, the paper who chose not to publish the portion of their cypher, receive another letter and it said.

Dear editor, this is the zodiac speaking.

[00:25:14] Adam Cox: Oh, so he's named himself now?

[00:25:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah, he's named himself, what a loser this letter is basically criticising the paper for not publishing the cypher, saying, I gave you fair warning. And I had to do what I said I would kill a dozen over the weekend.

But here's the thing, over that weekend there were no additional murders reported. Like the way that this guy was going around killing people. Someone would've reported that, right? If he was using the same mo

[00:25:35] Adam Cox: Yes. And in like probably a very similar area. That would not have gotten unnoticed.

[00:25:40] Kyle Risi: So was this a hoax? That's the question. Either way, this detail only added to the notoriety of these letters.

The letter did also address police chief Jackie stilts call for kind of proof. And it described basically more details of the killings that weren't made public at the time, including how he shot David as he walked towards him from the driver's side, but also how he shot Betty Lou as she was running away.

And so after receiving the letter the same day, the examiner decides to publish their portion of the cypher.

[00:26:08] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:08] Kyle Risi: And so now all three portions of the cypher are out there in the public domain.

Which Adam brings us to the 8th of August. 19 69, 4 days later.

Because at 6:35 PM that day, the Vallejo Police Department received a phone call from a Donald and Betty Harden telling them that they had managed to crack the 408 symbol cryptogram.

[00:26:29] Adam Cox: Oh wow. Impressive.

[00:26:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So just four days later. They said that they cracked it using frequency analysis and pattern recognition

[00:26:35] Adam Cox: huh?

[00:26:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So they, they're plugging away. Donald, he's a smart guy. He's a history teacher. He's got like a childhood interest in code breaking from what I've read in some sources, it's Betty who's really instrumental though in cracking this as well. So, not quite sure, but either way, they're both kind of banded together to crack the cypher.

And they say that when they first saw the cypher, they suspected that the writer had used what they call homophobic substitution.

And this is where you use multiple symbols to represent the same letter, which helps to hide frequency.

So for example, one symbol could be used to represent both the letter K and W, which makes it harder to solve words that contain double letters like, E or O's. Do you know what I mean?

[00:27:15] Adam Cox: So if you wanted to spell the word, wow, you could use W and then, I don't know, a triangle for an O and then an owl for another W

[00:27:21] Kyle Risi: or well, more like if you were trying to write the word book, you might use like, one symbol for the B, one symbol for the first O and then a different symbol for the second O. So you hide the fact that there is a double letter there.

[00:27:34] Adam Cox: I'm pretty sure that's what I said, there's no double letter in. Wow. Two W's.

[00:27:38] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah.

[00:27:39] Adam Cox: Oh my God. Thanks for mansplaining that to me.

[00:27:44] Kyle Risi: Wow. I'm just addicted to humiliating myself.

Anyway,

so they've used this harmonic kind of substitution. And so with that in mind, Donald Abet were able to kind of devise a strategy around this.

Basically, once they cracked the opening line, which is the words I like killing, they said that all the other pieces started falling into place.

They then tested guesses like kill people and forest, like things that you would expect maybe a killer to write.

[00:28:13] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:13] Kyle Risi: The hardest part they say was how bad the zodiac spelling was. So I find that really interesting and very smart that he also reflected his bad spelling into the cypher.

[00:28:26] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:28:27] Kyle Risi: Which makes you think his spelling was genuinely bad.

[00:28:29] Adam Cox: No, I think it's just keeping it all linked. It makes that puzzle a lot harder to solve.

[00:28:35] Kyle Risi: It does. Yes. And so as they understood that he had a propensity to spell phonetically cracking the code just became easier and eventually they cracked it.

It said,

I like killing people because it's so much fun. It is more fun than 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.

Very 1960s language, right?

[00:29:01] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:01] Kyle Risi: The best part of all is that when I die, I will be reborn in paradise. Those I've killed will become my slaves.

[00:29:08] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:29:09] Kyle Risi: He says, I will not give my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife.

And then there's 18 random letters in the cypher that are just gibberish. They don't make any words whatsoever, which is thought to deliberately make it harder to try and solve the actual cypher itself.

And so Adam, Donald, and Betty, they did it, but the Zodiac did not reveal who he actually was when he said that he would.

[00:29:35] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:29:36] Kyle Risi: So, yeah,

[00:29:37] Adam Cox: I mean, I'd be very surprised if a killer would ever put their name out there like that.

[00:29:42] Kyle Risi: This murderer has zero integrity as a bad guy.

[00:29:45] Adam Cox: Zero integrity. This is what we should be annoyed about.

[00:29:48] Kyle Risi: Yes.

So following this, several weeks go by when on the 27th of September, Brian Hartnel and his girlfriend Cecilia Shepherd.

They are both students at Pacific Union College, and they're out basically having a picnic on a small island on Lake Berryessa.

While they're cuddling on a blanket, they are approached by a man wearing a black executioner's hood with a white circle, with a cross symbol through it on his bib.

Over the hood's eyes. The wearer was wearing a pair of clip on sunglasses to disguise his eyes. He was also dressed dark clothing, and Brian Ceded described him as being maybe five foot, eight to six foot tall, maybe around about 250 pounds. They said he was stocky, but he wasn't fat, and they estimated based on what they could tell of how he moved and how he held himself, that maybe he was between the ages of 25 and 35.

[00:30:39] Adam Cox: Okay, so quite young.

[00:30:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

They said though that through the rim of his hood, they could tell that his hair was brown and shaggy, but also greasy.

As he approached them, they said he was carrying a gun, but also a 10 inch bayonet style knife as like a hunting military knife.

[00:30:54] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:54] Kyle Risi: Then in a calm, monotone voice, he told them both that he was an escaped convict from Dear Lodge in Montana where he had killed a prison guard and then stolen his car, and now he needed money to escape to Mexico.

[00:31:06] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:31:07] Kyle Risi: He then proceeded to pull out a couple of lengths of plastic clothesline cord and then ordered Cecilia to tie Brian up. As he was about to tie Cecilia up. noticed that she had tied Brian up or far too loosely, and so he's a little bit pissed.

I'm not sure if this was intentional. It sounds like it would be a smart move

[00:31:24] Adam Cox: yeah, I think that's probably what she would've done. I would've done the same thing.

[00:31:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Or she could just be really shitted knots.

[00:31:31] Adam Cox: I'm gonna say that she probably wants her and her boyfriend to try and survive.

[00:31:34] Kyle Risi: Survive exactly.

Either way, the man then tightens up a cord and then he ties the cler up. Adam, as soon as he is finished, he begins repeatedly stabbing them both.

In total he stabs Brian six times in the back. He punches his lungs, slashes his, oh my God, D diaphragm. He stabs the Clia 10 times five in the front, five in the back again ing her chest, her abdomen, and also her diaphragm as well. Completely severing it then as they both lay dying on the ground.

The zodiac. Then hikes up to the main road where he then drew the Zodiac cross symbol on Brian's car using a marker pen. Underneath that, he then wrote Vallejo 12 20 68. Underneath that he wrote 7 4 69, and then underneath that he wrote September 27 69, 6 30 by knife.

[00:32:23] Adam Cox: So he is just literally said, time of the kill or murder.

[00:32:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:32:27] Adam Cox: Giving them all these clues.

[00:32:28] Kyle Risi: so the 12, So the 12 20 68 is the date of the Lake Herman Road where he murdered Betty Lou and David Uhhuh. That's the coordinance for that place. The 7 4 69 is the Blue Rock spring shooting for Darlene and Michael, and then September 27, 69. Six 30 by knife is referring to, of course, this latest attack at Lake Berryessa.

[00:32:48] Adam Cox: Wow. What messed up guy,

[00:32:50] Kyle Risi: isn't it wild? Seems so keen for people to know that this is his work.

[00:32:56] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:32:56] Kyle Risi: Doesn't he? But also tells us something interesting that there was a randomness in this attack.

He didn't write down the coordinates for the Lake Berryessa attack. So it's likely that he didn't know it and tells us that he went hunting for a couple, not deliberately coming there to find a couple. Otherwise he would've looks up the coordinates and maybe written them down there. He was obviously cruising around trying to find someone.

[00:33:16] Adam Cox: Yeah, that would make sense. And I'm trying to think of what is this guy, because he's got a knife. You mentioned what kind of knife did you call it?

[00:33:23] Kyle Risi: A bayonet

[00:33:24] Adam Cox: almost for hunting. Right?

[00:33:25] Kyle Risi: Hunting. But also in the military you sometimes pop it onto the end of your rifle or whatever, and you can use it to kind stab people.

[00:33:31] Adam Cox: But then you did say oh, he enjoys this far more than killing animals. Which he could have just been line, but is it actually that he could have killed animals in his career or whatever?

[00:33:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Oh, that's very good, Adam.

[00:33:43] Adam Cox: And then he is wearing, obviously a very custom made cloak.

[00:33:47] Kyle Risi: It's just an executioners hood.

[00:33:48] Adam Cox: Executioners hood. Okay.

[00:33:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:33:50] Adam Cox: But you said he's got like the mark on him.

[00:33:52] Kyle Risi: It's got like a bib, it hangs down. Imagine just getting a giant pillowcase, putting it over your head and then cutting out the edges so it flaps down like a bib.

[00:33:59] Adam Cox: Oh, I thought he had some kind of custom gown that he made.

[00:34:01] Kyle Risi: No, no gown. Just the hood,

[00:34:03] Adam Cox: right?

[00:34:04] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Doesn't really top off that look, does it?

[00:34:06] Adam Cox: No, I thought like he's, you know, got a dab hand at, needle and thread maybe. But. How do we know he's dressed like that?

[00:34:11] Kyle Risi: Clearly someone survives, right?

[00:34:12] Adam Cox: Well that's what I'm hoping.

[00:34:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So a little while later at 7:40 PM the Napa County Sheriff's Office get a phone call from a payphone. Again, it is the Zodiac calling to report the attack.

The cops, again, they managed to trace a call to a payphone and a car wash on Main Street.

This Adam is just a few blocks away from the police station that he rung up, and yet the attack took place 27 miles away. So he travelled quite some time before calling it in, but also then calling it in brazenly close to this police station.

[00:34:42] Adam Cox: Like what is, yeah,

[00:34:44] Kyle Risi: it's so weird, isn't

[00:34:45] Adam Cox: it? Like he's, I dunno, is he that smart that he's so ahead of like, protecting himself?

[00:34:51] Kyle Risi: I dunno. Yeah, I don't know.

Adam. When the cops finally get to the payphone, they find the receiver again still off the hook. And it's because again, he wanted the cops to trace their phone call. That's how you get them to do it. Right?

Incredibly though the cops, they managed to lift a palm print off of the receiver. And Adam, to this day, they've never been able to successfully match that to any suspect

[00:35:11] Adam Cox: Do you think. He is a police person.

[00:35:13] Kyle Risi: Why do you say that? Well, because he can destroy the evidence.

[00:35:16] Adam Cox: Well, that's one thing. He just seems quite ahead or know what maybe the police are gonna do. If he knows that they're gonna trace his call.

[00:35:23] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:35:23] Adam Cox: I feel like it's someone that knows criminology semi well at least.

[00:35:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. The reality is we don't know, but from all these suspects that I've seen, I don't think I've ever seen that really thrown around that it could been a, police officer.

[00:35:34] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:34] Kyle Risi: But it makes sense from what you've said.

The amazing thing is, is that immediately following this attack against Brian and Cecilia, a man and a son were actually out fishing on the lake and they actually heard Cecilia screams.

They of course went to investigate.

They find both Brian and Cecilia and they then just basically dart off to call the Rangers.

It's really sad because they're driving by on their boat, they see them. Brian is like trying to call for them, and the guy just drives straight past them. And Brian's like, that's all the energy I had to scream for someone.

[00:36:02] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:36:03] Kyle Risi: Um, but the guy did see him. He was just going straight off to call someone. Yeah. So luckily he came back.

When the emergency services get there, Celia is still conscious. In fact, she's in a state where she's able to actually give the cops a very clear description of the killer, telling them about the herd, the glasses, the bib, and how basically he told them that he had escaped from a prison.

Both Brian and Cecilia are taken to Hospital in Napa Valley. But Adam, soon after arriving, Celia falls into a coma and sadly two days later she dies.

[00:36:30] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:31] Kyle Risi: Brian, however he does survive, and again, was able to corroborate everything that Cecilia had told the cops.

And of course, like the others, this story is all over the papers. But now that the attacks have shifted from being the series of random shootings to something, quite honestly, way more disturbing, especially since the last attack was carried out in broad daylight, right?

Mm-hmm. But again, the cops, they try, they investigate, they collaborate with neighbouring jurisdictions, but in the end, just like the others, there's no breakthroughs.

[00:37:04] Adam Cox: So do we think like the killer, he's getting more brazen, right? Like he's pushing the boundaries

[00:37:10] Kyle Risi: gearing out in the, in the daytime.

[00:37:12] Adam Cox: Yeah. So getting more confidence, more arrogance.

He's obviously got a big ego.

[00:37:17] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. For sure. But also notice something, his MO is so almost very different across these murders, right? Stabbing people, shooting them, he's using different weapons.

[00:37:26] Adam Cox: I mean, the only thing that does add up is it, it's a kind of a thrill kill. He's doing it for fun.

[00:37:31] Kyle Risi: Oh yeah.

I mean the letters would absolutely tell us that, right?

[00:37:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:34] Kyle Risi: But I also think what's interesting is that it is not so much, about the killing as much as it becomes about the attention that he gets for it. And it's almost as if the killing is required in order to get the attention. I see. And if he could get the attention without the killing, I think that's what he would do.

[00:37:50] Adam Cox: God, they had Instagram back then.

[00:37:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it would be fine.

[00:37:53] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:37:54] Kyle Risi: Scratch that itch.

[00:37:55] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:37:55] Kyle Risi: And so, as you can imagine, the entire region is left in the state of panic and paralysis. This means that with no additional leads or clues, once again, the story starts stagnating the press.

[00:38:08] Adam Cox: Well, it means he's probably gonna kill again then.

[00:38:11] Kyle Risi: And Adam, that's exactly what he does.

Because we're actually now at the point that we opened up the episode with, two weeks later, on the 11th of October, 1969, around 9:00 PM a passenger got into Paul Stein's taxi at intersection on Mason, and Reary streets, and asked Paul to take him to the corner of Washington and Maple Street in Presidio Heights.

Now we don't know why, but Paul Stein ends up driving past the request of destination and onto Cherry Street.

But as Paul pulled into Cherry Street, the passenger shot Paul in the head. Paul dies instantly. He slump forwarded over the steering wheel and slowly his taxi rolled to a stop. The passenger then proceeds to take Paul's wallet, his keys, he wiped down the inside of the taxi of any prince. And then just as he was about to get out the passenger then tore off a section of Paul's shirt. He folded it up neatly. Place it into his pockets before then disappearing into the night.

[00:39:05] Adam Cox: And so there was these kits that had witnessed this.

[00:39:08] Kyle Risi: Yes, that's right. These three teenagers were watching the entire thing unfold from their window.

[00:39:13] Adam Cox: And is this the first time that he's taken a souvenir like this?

[00:39:17] Kyle Risi: Seems like it, right?

[00:39:18] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:18] Kyle Risi: Of course. Those three kids, they immediately called the cops when the call came in, there were already two cops stationed like two blocks away, Adam.

And so Don Folk is the first to respond as he's making his way to the scene. He sees a white man walking along the pavement before stepping into a stairway, leading to the front yard of one of the homes. Don was told by the dispatcher to be on the lookout for a black man. And so he just let, he's like, oh, I'm not looking for that guy.

[00:39:42] Adam Cox: we think it's a black man because they said it was a man in black.

[00:39:45] Kyle Risi: We don't actually have the original dispatch recording. So it's not clear where the mix up occurred. But the reality is, is that if they got their facts straight, this is the moment that they could have caught the suspect.

[00:39:54] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:55] Kyle Risi: And so from there, The cops work with the kids to come up with, a composite sketch. Remember, at this point, they have no idea that this killing is the work of the Zodiac. They just think it's a random, kind of like robbery. and again, It's because the mo just doesn't match what the Zodiac had done before, right? Mm-hmm.

And so following this, on the 13th of October, the San Francisco Chronicle, they received a hand delivered letter and it said, Adam, again, this is the Zodiac speaking.

I'm the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington and Maple last night to prove this. Here is the blood stain piece of his shirt. And sure enough, including the letter was a piece of Paul's bloody shirt.

[00:40:32] Adam Cox: Wow. That is, pretty gruesome.

[00:40:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So he took it basically for proof.

[00:40:36] Adam Cox: This, he's just out for fame, isn't he?

[00:40:39] Kyle Risi: No notoriety. Yeah.

[00:40:40] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:40:40] Kyle Risi: It also said, I am the same man who did the people by the North Bay area talking about Lake Berryessa, Brian and Cecilia.

He says, the San Francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly. Instead of holding road races with their motorcycle, seeing who could make the most noise.

The car drivers should have just parked the car and sat there quietly waiting for me to come outta cover.

He then says, school children make nice targets. I shall wipe out a school bus some morning, just shoot out the front tyre and then pick the kitties off as they come bouncing out.

[00:41:13] Adam Cox: So this is the link to Cella then?

[00:41:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's it. So it's a scary premise that his next target is going to be kids.

[00:41:20] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:21] Kyle Risi: So that letter gets printed, but then on the 8th of November, just a month after Paul's murder, the San Francisco Chronicle receive another letter.

This one is dubbed the dripping pen letter because it contains a sketch of a, a pen, basically dripping with blood alongside the line.

Sorry, I haven't written, I just washed my pen,

[00:41:38] Adam Cox: That's the best you can come up with.

[00:41:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah, again, the letter said, this is the zodiac speaking. I thought you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news.

You won't hear the news though for a while yet. Included with this letter. Adam is another piece of paw shirts,

but also another cypher. So our second one.

This one is catalogue as the Z three 40 cypher on account of having 340 letters. And the letter said, PS, could you print this new cypher on the front page? I get awfully lonely when I'm being ignored, so lonely, I could do my thing.

So twisted underneath. He then signed it with his usual circle and cross hair symbol.

And then the words, December, July, August, September, October equals seven.

Basically saying He has now killed seven people.

[00:42:29] Adam Cox: Is that right? Or is there some deaths that we don't know about yet?

[00:42:32] Kyle Risi: That's what he's saying. Yeah. It does not match up to the actual current death toll that we know is associated with him.

But then Adam, the next day, on the 9th of November, the San Francisco Chronicle, they receive another letter.

This one is the longest letter that he sends, and he says, again,

this is the Zodiac speaking. I've grown rather angry with the police for telling their lies about me. So I shall change the way of collecting slaves.

I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I commit my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, and a few fake accidents, et cetera.

The police shall never catch me because I have been too clever for them.

He says, I look like the description passed out only when I'm doing my thing. The rest of the time. I look entirely different. I should not tell you what my disguise consists of when I kill.

As of yet, I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what police say.

In my killings, I wear transparent fingertip guards. That's not a thing. All it is is two coats of aeroplane cement coated on my fingertips, quite unnoticeable and very effective.

[00:43:40] Adam Cox: What,

I mean, that would sound quite clever, but one, does that even work? I guess it could work.

[00:43:46] Kyle Risi: I just don't think something like that existed. Not from what I could find.

[00:43:49] Adam Cox: What was, if you use PVA glue, does that stop your fingerprints? For sure.

[00:43:52] Kyle Risi: Maybe. so it's just a lot of rambling. but he says, Two cops pulled a goof. About three minutes after I left the cab, I was walking down the hill to the park when the cops pulled over and one of them called me over and asked if I'd saw anyone acting suspiciously or strange And I said, yes.

There was this man who was running by waving a gun, and the cops peeled rubber and went round the corner as I directed them. And I disappeared into the park a block and a half away, never to be seen again.

[00:44:21] Adam Cox: So he's hiding and playing sight. He's been watching the police obviously try and do their investigation, but why would the police not question him?

He's around the area just to get oh, have you seen anything suspicious? I think

[00:44:33] Kyle Risi: it's because they were looking for a black guy again.

[00:44:35] Adam Cox: Oh, it

[00:44:35] Kyle Risi: comes down to that.

[00:44:36] Adam Cox: Yeah. But then, Where did that confusion come from?

[00:44:39] Kyle Risi: Who knows? It's gotta come from the dispatcher and it could have been also bias as well.

[00:44:43] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:44:43] Kyle Risi: But he does go on to say, this is where his threat comes in. He says, Hey, pig, don't eat. Rile you up to have your nose rubbed in your booboos. If you cops think I'm gonna take a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads.

Take one bag of ammonia, nitrates and fertiliser, one gallon of stove oil, dump a few bags of gravel on top and set the shit off. And it will positively ventilate anything that should be in the way of its blast.

The death machine is what he's referring to.

This is the bomb that he's created is already made. I would've sent you pictures, but you would only be nasty enough to trace 'em back to the developer and then to me.

And then he basically lists just a bunch of components that he is used to make a bloody bomb. And so Adam, this is a terrifying notion that he's going to kill a bunch of kids using basically a homemade bomb.

[00:45:32] Adam Cox: so again, like this guy, he knows how to make a bomb.

[00:45:37] Kyle Risi: Well, he is saying that he does.

[00:45:39] Adam Cox: Okay. So he is read a book, I guess, potentially.

[00:45:41] Kyle Risi: But either way it is terrifying. And this becomes a national news story, which takes a long time to fade away.

[00:45:46] Adam Cox: I guess the thing is he's killed a bunch of people already. why wouldn't people take this seriously?

[00:45:51] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yes. But Adam, thankfully, there's never been an attack on a school bus. It is all just bravado. But at the time, of course, the cops and the public, they don't know that to be true.

Right?

Like I said, when the Chowchilla bus kidnapping case happened, a lot of people instantly just thought of the Zodiac

[00:46:07] Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess that was in the news at that time then. Yeah, that would, people would link the story.

[00:46:11] Kyle Risi: And so Adam, the entire country just has a Ross' clench in this moment, waiting for what might come next.

But Adam, a few days go by and the Oakland pd, receive a phone call from someone claiming to be the Zodiac the call of demanded that two prominent lawyers, either F Lee Bailey or Melvin Bailey appear on a local television show called AM San Francisco. It's like a morning talk show hosted by a guy called Jim Dunbar.

Again, his request for the OID specifically tells us. It's about gaining attention and notoriety because Effie Bailey is an attorney who actually represented Patty Hurst at her trial.

[00:46:49] Adam Cox: Oh, right. So they're quite, well-known lawyers there.

[00:46:51] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yeah. It was national news at the time. Mm-hmm.

So having him involved, he knows this is only gonna attract attention.

Bailey will also later go on to represent OJ Simpson in his trial. But of course, like that hasn't happened yet.

Melvin Bailey, he's an attorney known as the King of Torts, mostly covering high profile personal injury and civil rights kind of cases.

So he's a real showman in court. So the media love reporting on him.

Unfortunately, Bailey is not available to actually appear on the morning show. It's purely logistical. He's based in like Boston or whatever, but Melvin Belly is available

and so a couple days later, Jim Dunbar is live on air with Melvin.

He asks you as not to call in so they can keep the line open for the Zodiac. Eventually, Adam, someone calls in

[00:47:36] Adam Cox: This doesn't feel real. It feels like nonfiction.

[00:47:39] Kyle Risi: it's crazy, isn't it?

[00:47:40] Adam Cox: So who calls in it can't have been the zodiac live on air.

[00:47:44] Kyle Risi: So someone calls in claiming to be the Zodiac and over the course of 12 individual calls, 'cause he keeps hanging up, he doesn't want the cops to trace the call, right? Mm-hmm.

He basically engages with Jim and Melvin. It starts with Jim basically saying, who am I speaking to?

To which the man says this is the Zodiac speaking.

And so Jim is like, um, is there something less menacing that I can call you? And so the Zodiac goes, yeah, sorry. Just call me Sam.

[00:48:08] Adam Cox: Right. Really? The security guy.

[00:48:13] Kyle Risi: So yeah, he tells them that he has been suffering from these terrible headaches and this gross impulse to kill. And he says that the attacks were not about publicity, but were instead a call for help.

[00:48:24] Adam Cox: Um,

[00:48:25] Kyle Risi: so it's strange. It's very different to the reality of what we're seeing.

Right?

[00:48:28] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:48:29] Kyle Risi: He said that he didn't wanna give himself up in the usual sense because he knew that he would likely face the death penalty. He then says that he wanted Melvin to help facilitate a controlled surrender, but with conditions.

And he wanted Melvin to go to the San Francisco District Attorney to get them to promise to not seek the death penalty in exchange for him giving himself up.

And he even agreed to meet up with Melvin privately in order to negotiate this face-to-face.

[00:48:55] Adam Cox: I don't buy this.

[00:48:56] Kyle Risi: Why don't you buy it?

[00:48:57] Adam Cox: Number one, the police are not even close to catching him why would he wanna give himself up?

[00:49:02] Kyle Risi: Maybe he thinks he's gonna be caught eventually.

But Adam, as you can imagine though, this is terrifying to the public right, who have to hear this on live morning television,

[00:49:10] Adam Cox: has he got the, the deep gravelly voice that we think he had.

[00:49:13] Kyle Risi: I try to listen to it. It's very old footage. It's very difficult to hear anything, but he speaks very calmly,

[00:49:19] Adam Cox: and it's a man,

[00:49:20] Kyle Risi: it, it's not a woman.

[00:49:23] Adam Cox: It's a calm man.

[00:49:24] Kyle Risi: But basically it confirms that this is a man who's very sick, who has a compulsion to kill, which makes the outstanding threat to kill a bunch of kids, even more real of a possibility.

[00:49:34] Adam Cox: But do we buy that?

[00:49:35] Kyle Risi: Well, so following the show, Melvin rushes to the DA's office.

They do come to some sort of arrangement that they wanna negotiate with the Zodiac, but by the time it comes to meet up with Sam, he never reaches out to make those arrangements on where to meet and how to meet,

[00:49:51] Adam Cox: which makes me think he was just doing this phone call again for this notoriety.

[00:49:55] Kyle Risi: Adam, Sam was a hoax caller.

[00:49:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. I didn't think that he would want to ever give his real voice. Yeah. I just feel like he's smarter than that.

[00:50:03] Kyle Risi: But he did ask for those two lawyers to be on the show, so that was the Zodiac.

[00:50:08] Adam Cox: Oh, what?

[00:50:09] Kyle Risi: First of all, the cops eventually trace a court to a guy called Eric Wheel. Right. He's a patient at the Napa State Mental Hospital.

[00:50:16] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:50:17] Kyle Risi: So the caller wasn't the Zodiac, but we do know that the Zodiac had called the police station requesting the lawyers appear. But we don't even know if the Zodiac ever intended to call, or maybe he did try to call, but he couldn't get through. 'Cause Sam was hogging the phone line,

[00:50:32] Adam Cox: or did he ask Sam to call? It feels like something the Joker would do about

[00:50:36] Kyle Risi: Oh, do you reckon? Yeah. Interesting, Either way, it could have been a vital opportunity to catch him if he had actually got on air.

[00:50:43] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:43] Kyle Risi: What is terrifying is, is that while I'm telling a very condensed chronology of the story, Adam, there's a hell of a lot of time between where there is just silence and no new murders. And then him contacting the cops. Mm-hmm.

Like a lot of the people telling the story, like say like he killed someone and then he wrote a letter that he either killed another person, then he wrote another letter, then he called the cops. There are months and months in between sometimes even years in separation.

[00:51:07] Adam Cox: Really? Years.

[00:51:08] Kyle Risi: Yes. And that's what a lot of people don't realise about the story when they talk about, well, what did it feel like experiencing the zodiac at that time?

They're like, well, do you know what the letters were so far? And few between. And also there were so many empty threats. He said he was gonna kill this person. He said he killed 12 people. He said he killed 33 people, but no bodies turned up. People just stopped taking him seriously.

[00:51:29] Adam Cox: I guess there's this panic for a couple of weeks and then Yeah, it dies down.

So I didn't know that because the killer, he just, he's a bit weary about making any more kills. He can be quite brazen initially 'cause it's all within a short space of time. But then he has to be more careful.

[00:51:43] Kyle Risi: I don't think, I think it's about the notoriety and the attention. I think the killing is secondary.

Mm-hmm.

[00:51:48] Kyle Risi: Which is why what we're gonna find out is that he's so willing to claim responsibilities for other murders.

[00:51:53] Adam Cox: Oh, I see.

[00:51:54] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it makes it difficult to pinpoint whether or not he's responsible for those, because his MO changes so much. It's so different from murder to murder. So we just don't know. It's bizarre.

And so three months go by and nothing happens. And people are just like, when's he gonna kill these kids?

That wasn't until the 22nd of March, 1970, when Kathleen Johns, she's seven months pregnant with a 10 month old daughter, and she's driving to visit her mother in Petaluma. At some point during her journey, a car edges up behind her and starts honking his horn and flashing his headlights, trying to get her to pull over.

When she does, a man gets out and says to her that her right rear wheel was wobbling and he offers to tighten up the lugs.

[00:52:33] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:52:34] Kyle Risi: Amazingly, Kathleen was like, oh my God, thank you so much. You're so kind. Like, I would not be, I'd be like, no, thank you.

[00:52:41] Adam Cox: I guess that's the thing. Now, these days we're so sceptical,

[00:52:44] Kyle Risi: but think of everything that's happened. I know it's been three months, but still think of everything that's happened up to this point. Surely she's seen the news.

[00:52:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. True. But I don't know. Do you, I guess maybe there's this thing of, well, it's not gonna happen to me, is it?

[00:52:56] Kyle Risi: Mm, yes. True. when he's done, she gets back into her car and just as dries off the wheel immediately falls off.

[00:53:02] Adam Cox: Oh. So he loosened it.

[00:53:03] Kyle Risi: He loosened up the lugs. Rather than tightened them up.

The man then offers to drive it to the nearest petrol station again. Kathleen is like, oh my God, that would be amazing. Thank you.

[00:53:12] Adam Cox: Yeah. Mm. Then now I'd be like, no, you don't take me anywhere.

[00:53:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly.

[00:53:17] Adam Cox: You, you said you were gonna help, you did a bad job.

[00:53:19] Kyle Risi: Yes. So she gets in, they start driving. Remember she's seven months pregnant and she's got a 10 month old with her as well.

Mm-hmm. As they're driving, the man drives past a petrol station. He does not stop. Kathleen is like, why didn't you stop? And the man just changes the subject.

And so she's now quietly panicking and so she realises she has to do something. So she's thinking on her feet, and as the car pulls up to an intersection, Kathleen immediately jumps out, no easy feet. Remember, she's seven months pregnant and she's got a 10 month old with her. Right. It's also pitch black, and so she runs into an adjacent field. She ducks down really low, and she's creeping through the fields to try and kind of throw him off.

Meanwhile, the man gets out, he grabs his flashlight and he starts looking for her. Mm-hmm. He's yelling telling her that he's not gonna hurt her. Of course, Kathleen, she's staying perfectly still at this moment.

I imagine her with her hand firmly over that bloody kid's mouth.

[00:54:12] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:12] Kyle Risi: Then like after 15 minutes he gives up and he dries off.

When it is safe to come out, Kathleen then flags down a car, which is fucking scary because what if that's the same guy coming back? Right?

[00:54:22] Adam Cox: Yeah. You don't know who to trust at this point.

[00:54:24] Kyle Risi: Luckily it's not him. the guy drives her to a police station in Patterson, and while she's giving her statement, she spots the composite sketch of the Zodiac and she's like, that's the guy who did this.

[00:54:34] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:54:36] Kyle Risi: Creepy as fuck.

Even creepy Adam is that when the cops go to recover Kathleen's car, it's been set on fire.

[00:54:42] Adam Cox: So we can be quite confident now that composite sketch is the Zodiac killer.

[00:54:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah, there's been two composite sketches. One from the three teenagers, and one from Brian,

[00:54:53] Adam Cox: okay, so they look similar then.

[00:54:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:56] Adam Cox: Wow. She is lucky. Well done on her.

[00:54:59] Kyle Risi: So Adam, about a month after this, on the 20th of April, 1970, the San Francisco Chronicle, get another letter, but also another cypher. This is the shortest letter that he sends, and the letter says.

This is a Zodiac speaking. Have you cracked the last cypher? sent you? Question mark. My name, ISCORE. And then there's a 13 character cypher underneath, which again, promises to reveal his name

[00:55:23] Adam Cox: Ah. So if you crack that clue, you can then crack that.

[00:55:26] Kyle Risi: But again, do we really believe that if you did crack it, that's what it would say? If it is, we know that there's 13 characters in his name, but then he has also included roe characters in some of the other cyphers. Yeah, in the one that was cracked.

[00:55:37] Adam Cox: Yeah. We just can't believe this guy.

[00:55:39] Kyle Risi: Eight days. Following this though, on the 28th of April, the Chronicle get another letter. And this time he's very upset because his last letter about the bomb threat that he made, the death machine didn't get the immediate attention that he wanted.

And he says, if you don't want me to have this blast, you must do two things.

Number one, tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details.

Number two. I would like to see some nice zodiac buttons wandering around town.

[00:56:07] Adam Cox: Why? He wants people wearing his symbol.

[00:56:09] Kyle Risi: Yes.

Everyone else has these buttons like peace, black power, Melvin eats, blubber, et cetera. Well, it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my button.

Please. No nasty ones like Melvin's. 'cause Melvin's is like Melvin he's blubber. Thank you. Is how he ends the letter.

[00:56:26] Adam Cox: That is so weird. Does anyone wear his button? No. Well, I just wonder if there's some weird people that will kinda worship him and be like, oh yeah.

[00:56:34] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I don't think that they do, but yeah, it's wild, isn't it?

[00:56:37] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:56:37] Kyle Risi: On the 26th of June, the San Francisco Chronicle received another letter and another cypher.

This is his final cypher. And again, this one has never been cracked.

This one is known as the map code because it apparently details where he's planted that bomb And again, the letter starts in the usual way.

This is the Zodiac speaking. I've become very upset with the people of San Francisco Bay Area.

They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice zodiac buttons. He's obsessed with these buttons.

I promise to punish them if they did not comply by annihilating a school bus of kids, but now school is out for the summer and so I punish them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a 38 millimetre.

[00:57:21] Adam Cox: Did he,

[00:57:22] Kyle Risi: well, nobody turned up. You would see that, right?

That would be reported,

[00:57:26] Adam Cox: yeah.

[00:57:26] Kyle Risi: Even if it's an abandoned car, days later, whatever. Nothing turned up at point. Yeah.

Then underneath the letter, he wrote the number 12 indicating that he'd now killed 12 people.

And then he says, the map coupled with a code will tell you where the bomb is set. You have until next fall to dig it up, implying that's when it's gonna explode.

I promise you now, no bomber's gonna survive out there in the wilderness, buried in the dirt until next fall.

[00:57:47] Adam Cox: I know. That feels like, yeah. That's never gonna happen.

[00:57:49] Kyle Risi: No, and I think the cops probably see through that. And again, you can get the sense that now, like every time we get a letter, we're rolling our eyes

[00:57:57] Adam Cox: a little bit. It to begin with, it felt like, oh God, it's like very on edge.

[00:58:02] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:58:02] Adam Cox: Very scared. But now I'm like, what is this guy's deal?

[00:58:05] Kyle Risi: Exactly. This is how the public are now receiving these as well. They're just like, It's more of a spectacle rather than like, oh my God, he is gonna kill some kids. Right? Mm-hmm. But he is now saying that he has killed 12 people. Like I said, there's been no reports of additional murders that have surfaced.

Maybe he'd killed them. Maybe he hid their bodies. It's doesn't seem to be how he operates.

And so Adam, over the next few months leading up to October, there are a few more letters. Again, people are a little bit bored by them. now. It's difficult to know if they're all from him or now. There are just other people sending them in as hoaxes.

But they all largely echo the same sentiments that he was now angry that nobody was wearing his zodiac buttons. And I just think that people just found that really funny, that like his ego is bruised. So they're writing hoax letters in as well.

[00:58:46] Adam Cox: Really? Oh, I see. Yeah. And I guess like the police can link all these letters up, like they know they're all coming from the same person, then they can rule out some of the hoaxes.

[00:58:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, largely they can, in total, across his entire reign, he sends 60 letters. we believe that he is responsible for 18, maybe 20 of those. The ones that we spoke about are defensively from him.

[00:59:09] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's a lot of communication, isn't it? Actually? Yeah. Even if it's just 18.

[00:59:12] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And over a long period of time as well. Mm. And so you can understand, again, in the telling of the story, a lot of people just focus on the C cyphers and a couple of the letters, but when you've got so many people are just like, oh, another letter.

[00:59:22] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:59:23] Kyle Risi: But in one of the letters he does talk about how his ride with Kathleen was interesting. And so he claims a responsibility for that one.

But he doesn't really provide concrete evidence, like details that weren't released to the public. So there is a question whether or not that was the Zodiac and maybe Kathleen got it wrong.

[00:59:40] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:40] Kyle Risi: Then on the 27th of October, 1970, Paul Avery, he is the San Francisco Chronicle reporter that had been covering the Zodiac story.

Adam, he receives a Halloween card directly to his house from the Zodiac. And all it says is peekaboo. You are doomed. Scary. Huh?

[00:59:59] Adam Cox: But he's reporting on the zodiac.

[01:00:01] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:00:01] Adam Cox: If anything, he's helping to keep his Yeah,

[01:00:03] Kyle Risi: exactly. Come on.

[01:00:04] Adam Cox: Like he is, he's like a fan almost.

[01:00:06] Kyle Risi: So Paul publishes the letter, which sparks like a member of the public to send in anonymous letter saying that they think that there are some odd similarities between the Zodiac's killings and a murder of a woman called Cherri Joe Bates four years earlier in 19 66, 400 miles away in Riverside.

[01:00:23] Adam Cox: And that's before his first known killing.

[01:00:25] Kyle Risi: Yes. predates the Zodiac. The question is, why did he not admit to this murder when he was so keen to claim responsibility for the others?

[01:00:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:00:33] Kyle Risi: So at the time, Cherri was 18 years old, she's a student at Riverside, and she was spending the evening at the campus library.

At 10 30 that evening. On her way home, neighbours reported hearing a scream. And then the next morning, her body is found between two abandoned buildings. She, Adam was basically beaten and then stabbed to death.

It's horrific nearby the cops find a Timex watch and that Cherri's car had been sabotaged because the distributor Cap Ys had been ripped out.

Then a month after the murder, a typewritten letter was sent to the Riverside Police and the local press titled Confession, where the writer basically claims responsibility for the murder and even provided details of the crime scene that again, were not made public at the time.

in that letter he warned that Cherri would not be the last.

So could this be his first murder? Because four years later the Zodiac was out killing people under the Zodiac, Monica.

[01:01:23] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's someone that has admitted to the killing

[01:01:27] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[01:01:27] Adam Cox: And knew a lot that wasn't released. It was kind of that bit kind of matches.

[01:01:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:01:31] Adam Cox: But like you say, why would the Zodiac killer not have brought this to people's attention afterwards, unless there's a reason he didn't want that to be linked to him?

[01:01:39] Kyle Risi: The Timex watch that they found.

[01:01:41] Adam Cox: Oh, the watch.

That was my first thought is , the only reason he wouldn't want to be associated is because Yeah, he didn't want the connection. There's a reason for that, right? Yeah. And maybe four years or however many years have passed. No one's linked him. And so now he feels more comfortable to admit to it.

[01:01:58] Kyle Risi: But here's a more outlandish theory. Maybe it's a branding thing. Bear with me. So there are no symbols or calling cards in connection with Cherri's murder, right?

[01:02:07] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:07] Kyle Risi: Maybe there's Zodiac brand hadn't been established yet.

His identity as the Zodiac is the name and the symbol of a very popular Swiss watch brand called Zodiac, and they even has the same symbol.

Did he get the idea? Because he had to replace his lost Timex watch. He bought a nice Zodiac watch and he was like, that's a nice symbol. Let's use that as my branding.

[01:02:30] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

Maybe, but for me it still doesn't quite add up. I'm still not sure I don't feel like we can be confident that this

[01:02:37] Kyle Risi: was, no, we can't be. But I just think it's really interesting he must have got his name from this watch brand. And his very next murder after that, if it was him, was under the Zodiac. So did he replace the watch and is like, Hmm, I'm gonna be the Zodiac.

[01:02:50] Adam Cox: But whilst he's writing the letter, oh, this looks good.

[01:02:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, what am I gonna call myself? Ah, I know the Zodiac.

[01:02:55] Adam Cox: Mm, I don't know.

[01:02:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's a little bit outlandish, but that's my theory.

And so of course, once Paul creates this link between Cherri Bates murders and the other Zodiac murders, this kind of kicks off a bit of a flurry of cops looking into past cold cases to see if they can link any other ones back to the Zodiac.

They don't really find many, but a disappearance of a woman is reported. And when that is made public with the insinuation that this might be the zodiac, lo and behold the zodiac pops up and he's like, that was me too.

[01:03:23] Adam Cox: So she's missing, she's ever found.

[01:03:25] Kyle Risi: She's not found, not until 1986, but at the time she's not found. But I don't buy this one. And let me see what you think.

So on the 6th of September, 1970, so this is the current timeline that we're in. Donna Lass, a nurse from the Sahara to HOA Hotel and Casino. She finishes her shift at 2:00 AM in the morning. So she's a nurse at a hotel. Weird at a casino maybe.

[01:03:48] Adam Cox: Maybe people have, I dunno. Too much to drink.

[01:03:50] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Maybe.

Later that day.

Donna's boss and her landlord receive a phone call from a man saying that she had left town for a family emergency. And from there on Donna was never seen again.

So this is very different to how the Zodiac usually operates.

We know that he has a propensity to change things up, but I feel like this is too different. For one, there is most definitely a coverup element here in Donna's case. Right.

The killer calling the boss and the landlord saying that she's left town right. the Zodiac never does this. he wants his victim's bodies to be found.

Mm-hmm. is why I don't think he's killed more than five people. With the exception of Cherri Bates.

[01:04:27] Adam Cox: Yeah. He would be calling the police, not like their boss. He doesn't really care about

[01:04:31] Kyle Risi: that laying the body out in the street for people to find, do you know what I mean?

Now, I do need to mention when it comes to phone calls, the Zodiac has called people before, and I didn't mention this before, but after Darlene was murdered, remember she was suspected of having an affair with Michael Magoo.

[01:04:45] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:45] Kyle Risi: Scott, that's her husband. And Scott's parents, they actually both received a phone call from what they think is maybe the Zodiac killer after she was murdered, and then the call had hung up. So it was just a silent call.

But I think that the circumstances here are different. Do you remember me saying that when the man approached Darlene's car, they initially thought that it was a cop and so they were trying to get their ID out?

Mm-hmm. The thinking is that when he murdered them, the Zodiac Lance Darlene's id and then looks her up in the phone book, the Zodiac likely didn't know that Darlene was married because he likely didn't know her. Right. He assumed that she was just another young girl with her boyfriend in a lover's lane.

[01:05:21] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:05:22] Kyle Risi: So when he saw her id, he probably just assumed Faron was her, her maiden name. And so he went and looked up Faron in the phone book. He came across two, he called the first one.

It was a man. He was like, Hmm. The young guy, probably not Hung up, called the next one. A couple parents answered the phone. He was like, oh, that's her parents. And took like gratification in that.

[01:05:41] Adam Cox: Okay. And

[01:05:42] Kyle Risi: then he hung up

[01:05:43] Adam Cox: and this is the only instance that we got that or

[01:05:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:05:46] Adam Cox: Interesting. Yeah. But I guess, is that just speculation?

[01:05:49] Kyle Risi: It is speculation and a lot of it is right. And so calling Donna's boss and a landlord, to me, this is information you already know if you know the person.

[01:05:56] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:56] Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean?

The caller said that she had skipped town. And that's what you do when you wanna buy yourself some more time or to cover something up.

so I think whoever killed Donna was counting their lucky stars that the Zodiac was more than happy to take responsibility for that murder.

[01:06:10] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause it takes the heat off them, right? Cause for me to call someone's boss or family member or whatever is a sign that you probably know the victim. So yeah, it feels like a very different sort of scenario, E motive there.

[01:06:24] Kyle Risi: But following this, the cops, they get hold of a cold case from 1963. And to them they are Sure.

This one was a Zodiac again, another couple of high school seniors named Robert Domingo and his fiance Linda Edwards. They were basically shot dead on a beach after skipping school for the day in a very eerily similar fashion to what happened at Lake Mary essa.

At the scene, the cops find evidence that they had been tied up. They think that they might've successfully escaped only for the killer to then shoot them repeatedly with a 0.2 calibre weapon.

But this is where the mo deviates, because the killer then tried to conceal their bodies by putting them into a beach shack and then unsuccessfully burning nothing down.

[01:07:05] Adam Cox: Oh, so we trying to burn it down? Yeah. To destroy the evidence, I guess.

[01:07:08] Kyle Risi: Yes. This potential link is very widely publicised, and yet the Zodiac never writes to claim this one. And yet is the one that seems the most similar to what happened at Barry ESSA attack.

Right?

[01:07:20] Adam Cox: Or is that because he, again, he might have left a clue or something like that, that he doesn't want to be associated. it feels like he does this when he knows he's quite confident that he's got away with it. But when he perhaps, maybe there's an error of doubt.

[01:07:33] Kyle Risi: That does make sense to me. I also keep going back to the branding thing. Maybe it was like, oh, I did this. Not under the Zodiac brand, but I dunno, who knows?

Mm.

Here's the other thing. This potential link surfaces during a period of about three years where the Zodiac killer seems to have just vanished. There's no new letters, there's no murders, there's just pure silence.

And yet

[01:07:55] Adam Cox: he doesn't write in.

[01:07:56] Kyle Risi: And so like, where is he? What is he doing? Is he travelling

[01:08:00] Adam Cox: is he laying low? Is he out of the country? Yeah. And it doesn't sound like the police are close to catching him, so why? Yeah. I feel like you'd lay low if you felt like they were onto you.

[01:08:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's so bizarre.

Now, don't get me wrong. There were some letters during this period, but the cops almost certainly think that they were hoax letters .

But the silence does eventually break because on the 29th of January, 1974, so this is over three years later, the San Francisco Chronicle received what is considered to be his final letter, and it's dubbed the Exorcist letter.

[01:08:33] Adam Cox: Okay.

[01:08:34] Kyle Risi: He writes, I saw and think the Exorcist was the best satirical comedy I've ever seen.

[01:08:41] Adam Cox: I mean, at that point in time it was pretty horrendous people were like running, screaming from the theatre. Yeah. So for him to say that,

[01:08:47] Kyle Risi: yeah, exactly. Signed yours truly. He then writes, he's so bad at writing, why signed yours truly in the middle of a letter. He then, he then writes, he plunged himself into the billowy wave, and then an echo arose from the suicide grave.

Tit willow, tit willow, tit willow

[01:09:05] Adam Cox: what?

[01:09:05] Kyle Risi: This is a quote from an opera called The Mercado, and people think that this is the Zodiac hinting at his name essentially, because in that same song, there is a line that goes on to say.

Now I feel just assure my name isn't Willow.

And so he doesn't write that in the letter, but people think that he's hinting to his identity because in the original song it's, it's a few lines down.

[01:09:28] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:28] Kyle Risi: What it means, Adam, is that nobody knows,

[01:09:32] Adam Cox: so a whole pile of nothing.

[01:09:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He then finishes his letter with Ps. If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing.

[01:09:43] Adam Cox: Yes. But you also talk like a good game. Maybe that's not the right phrasing, but Yeah,

[01:09:48] Kyle Risi: He's just bullshit. Nothing else happens after this. This is his last letter, and then he draws a few symbols which look meaningless, like some people think, like if you rearrange it, it spells out the word to kill.

Then under this, he writes me 37 San Francisco Police Department, zero implying he's now killed 37 people, and that the San Francisco Police Department have caught zero zodiacs.

[01:10:09] Adam Cox: I see.

[01:10:10] Kyle Risi: His last letter was claiming like 12 to 13 people. And four years later, it's now jumped massively up to 37 people.

But where are they?

[01:10:17] Adam Cox: Unless he's visited other countries and he was in fact the monster of Florence, even though there was different moss there. And it's not the same at all.

[01:10:25] Kyle Risi: But he does have a propensity to change up his mo

[01:10:27] Adam Cox: That's true in

[01:10:28] Kyle Risi: the proven ones

[01:10:29] Adam Cox: because in the monster of Florence, it was very much couples that were going to Lover's Lane. Um, but he would mutilate the female victim. Yeah. Which he doesn't really do. He just kills. And then, writes a letter

[01:10:40] Kyle Risi: which makes you think is not about the killing. Killing is secondary to the attention.

[01:10:43] Adam Cox: Yeah. That was clearly ritualistic and he would lay bodies out in a certain way. It feels different. Yeah. But I can understand why people did draw parallels because of the periods and time well, they're both targeting couples.

[01:10:55] Kyle Risi: But again, there is no evidence that he killed any more than five people. And I think for him, like I said, killing was secondary. A means or a vehicle for him to play games with the cops and the public. And so, like I said, this is considered to be his final proven letter.

In total between 1968 and 1974, around 60 letters were received, but only 18, maybe 20 are considered genuine. And of course the four infamous cyphers.

And at this point, only one of those cyphers has been solved, which promised to reveal his identity and it didn't. And so the Zodiac just faded away for the final time.

His entire reign was just a wave of popping up, antagonising the cops, fading away again. And they're repeating that cycle again and again.

Which I think is an important element in the story, especially how it's viewed by the people towards the end.

All of the retellings of the story are fairly concentrated, where people jump from one event to the letter to a murder to the next, et cetera.

But living through the Zodiac reign was very different to the recounting of it. Mm-hmm. The reality was months or years of silence and uncertainty rumour, half incredulous threats, which did dull the fear and make it less of an urgent threat to people that were living through this.

[01:12:11] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[01:12:11] Kyle Risi: sure. Like the early killings were terrifying, but they were all relatively condensed. But following this, especially towards the end, the general feeling was that this guy was just full of shit. People probably just stopped taking him seriously. I think this is something he possibly picked up on as well. And as a result, he just decided I'm just gonna fade away permanently.

[01:12:31] Adam Cox: If he can't get in the news anymore then, or he's not getting the same thrill clearly from

[01:12:36] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And not willing to actually kill anyone.

[01:12:37] Adam Cox: Yeah. Then I know he's retired essentially. Did the police ever arrest anyone It doesn't feel like we've got any names at the moment.

[01:12:44] Kyle Risi: The police investigated more than 2,500 people.

[01:12:47] Adam Cox: That's a lot.

[01:12:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Even today, the cops received roughly 50 to a hundred new tips every single year, even today.

[01:12:53] Adam Cox: And I, and I guess most of 'em are just rubbish, but they have to look into them.

[01:12:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Out of these, like there have only ever been roughly half a dozen credible suspects. Everyone else is effectively been ruled out.

The cops as prime suspect, in fact, the only person ever to be officially named is a guy called Arthur Lee. Allen. And the evidence against him is, and has always been purely circumstantial and even then has been largely debated.

But the interesting thing is that Arthur Lee, Allen has actually been on the cops radar ever since the first murders of Belu and David Faraday, the first ones they suspected of him.

[01:13:26] Adam Cox: Really? And can they link him to all of the murders then, or

[01:13:29] Kyle Risi: They can't, but they do have reason to believe that he may be the zodiac for a start. Arthur was a former elementary school teacher. He ended up being sacked though when he was charged and convicted of molesting a string of young boys between 1971 and 1974 after Lu and back to his trailer.

His conviction, 1974, that aligns perfectly with when the letters stopped being received.

[01:13:51] Adam Cox: And so he went to prison.

[01:13:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:13:52] Adam Cox: Interesting. Well, yeah, that could be a reason, but obviously it seems like there's enough doubt to say it wasn't him as well.

[01:13:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. The biggest one is Arthur was a teacher and the Zodiac was very bad at spelling, but then again, you've got that flip side of what's he trying to be very clever with.

[01:14:06] Adam Cox: I think it was all part of the plan.

[01:14:08] Kyle Risi: It's also known that Arthur owned a Zodiac watch, but again, so did a lot of people probably.

Right. It's a big Swiss brand.

[01:14:15] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:14:16] Kyle Risi: Arthur also owned a 0.2 calibre gun, which we know was what was used at a couple of the attacks.

Social testimony from people who knew Arthur did speak about how he boasted about having a fantasy of shooting people at night, and how he explained that he would do it by taping a flashlight to a gun in a very eerily similar fashion to what the Zodiac did.

But of course this testimony is discounted because ultimately it's hearsay, essentially. They can't prove it. It could be used as character evidence, but still they need a concrete evidence to time to the murders before they can use that, right?

[01:14:51] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:14:52] Kyle Risi: Brian Hartle, one of the Lake ESA victims. He also says that Arthur's voice and appearance was actually very similar to what he remembered.

[01:15:00] Adam Cox: Really?

[01:15:01] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[01:15:01] Adam Cox: Did he have slightly greasy hair?

[01:15:03] Kyle Risi: Well, that's the thing. He didn't have any hair.

[01:15:05] Adam Cox: Oh.

[01:15:05] Kyle Risi: So I don't understand where that comes from.

[01:15:07] Adam Cox: Could have wore a wig, but

[01:15:08] Kyle Risi: he may have had it the time. But still, I just didn't really understand Michael Magoo. was uncertain about the voice, but he does pick Arthur out of a lineup.

[01:15:16] Adam Cox: But then I guess that could be anything. Like he's like the most, like the person doesn't mean to say that

[01:15:20] Kyle Risi: he

[01:15:20] Adam Cox: is the person. Yes,

[01:15:21] Kyle Risi: exactly.

However, the evidence that really discounts Arthur was of course the palm print that the cops lift from the phone receiver, but also ballistic evidence that they pick up just never matched his height and his stature and his weight and stuff like that.

[01:15:36] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:36] Kyle Risi: So, yeah.

As well as that though handwriting analysis carried out, that never matched any of Arthur's handwriting as well, which I think would be pretty big evidence.

[01:15:45] Adam Cox: But then can you not like fake that?

[01:15:47] Kyle Risi: I think you can, but he is written so many letters that maybe one or two would slip up. I don't know, so because of the absence of any concrete evidence, the cops were never able to officially arrest him.

But in 1992, Arthur ends up dying from a heart attack and so the cops are able to get clearance to search his house where they managed to pick up a DNA sample from a saliva using some old envelopes and some stamps that DNA did not match. And I think that would be pretty concrete.

[01:16:17] Adam Cox: Oh, so they were able to get DNA traces of the killer then?

[01:16:21] Kyle Risi: Maybe from the hand print.

[01:16:22] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. '

[01:16:23] Kyle Risi: cause it was still wet with sweat.

[01:16:24] Adam Cox: Ah, yeah.

[01:16:26] Kyle Risi: But also looking at pictures of Arthur and looking at pictures of the Zodiac, like the composite sketches, they just do not match. They look nothing like each other.

Arthur has a much fuller face, whereas the sketches of the zodiac has got more of a heart shaped kind of pointed face. So it doesn't surprise me that he was discounted based on that.

The Zodiac in. All the composite sketches he's wearing reading glasses. I didn't see any photos of Arthur wearing reading glasses.

Oh,

[01:16:48] Kyle Risi: okay. So, I dunno, and honestly, out of everyone the cops investigate, it's pretty wild that Arthur was the only suspect that they ever really focused on, and yet the DNA definitively ruled him out.

[01:16:59] Adam Cox: And yet there's no one else, no one that came close.

[01:17:01] Kyle Risi: There are a few that come a lot later on.

But what this means is that in 1990, the Zodiac case was officially closed, but it doesn't end there because in 2007, a guy named Dennis Kaufman came forward claiming that his stepfather, Jack Terence, may have been the Zodiac after he found an executioner style hood amongst his belongings.

Now, I'm not sure how common that is.

[01:17:22] Adam Cox: I imagine it's more common that like for someone at least to have another one of those.

[01:17:26] Kyle Risi: However, DNA sampling completely rules him out.

[01:17:29] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:17:29] Kyle Risi: potential, Another potential suspect came to light after a dodgy lawyer named, uh, Robert Tha Box. Dodgy because he was disbarred by California Supreme Court in 1975 for failing to pass on damages to clients and stuff like that.

But Robert says that in 1972, a merchant merrier. So someone who works on, like in the Navy or on cruise ships and stuff like that walked into his office and confessed that he was a zodiac.

But when the cops went to seek more details, Robert changes his mind about telling the cops anything, stating that it would breach attorney Kline privilege.

But like, this is 2009 and he has since been debarred. You're no longer a lawyer, so what does it matter?

[01:18:08] Adam Cox: Okay. Then yeah, I'd like calm down.

[01:18:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Apparently the only reason why he says he came forward though, was because the cops were too transfixed on Arthur Lee, Allen being their suspect, and he says that he was trying to help the cops think a bit broader, which is also bullshit because this is 2009.

The cops accepted Arthur wasn't the Zodiac back in 1992 when his DNA ruled about. So I don't buy that. I don't buy that theory.

[01:18:35] Adam Cox: And if the case is closed, then why? Why is he trying to like bring it up again? I dunno.

[01:18:39] Kyle Risi: Exactly. I dunno.

Another later potential interesting suspect comes to light in 2014 when a man named Randy Kennedy says that in 2001, his best friend Joseph Meyers confesses on his deathbed that he was a Zodiac killer.

Now, the police do not take this seriously one bit, and I'm not sure why, because I think it's worth a closer look. Randy says that Joseph went to the same school that Betty and David went to.

[01:19:07] Adam Cox: Okay, so he is local.

[01:19:08] Kyle Risi: Yes.

He also allegedly works at the same restaurant that Darlene Farrin worked at, and he also owned the same type of boots that matched the footprints that they found at the Lake Berryessa attacks.

[01:19:19] Adam Cox: Wow. To go back that far to say, yeah, he was wearing those type of boots back, back in the seventies or whatever.

[01:19:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Randy also says that during that period between 1971 and 1973, when the Zodiac went through his longer stretch of silence, Joseph was stationed overseas with the military.

[01:19:36] Adam Cox: Interesting.

[01:19:37] Kyle Risi: Randy also says Joseph deliberately targeted young couples because he himself was dealing with a breakup, and so was like looking for revenge.

[01:19:46] Adam Cox: But is that just, I dunno what the word is. What they use is in court. Is it like conjecture?

[01:19:50] Kyle Risi: It's hearsay.

[01:19:51] Adam Cox: Hearsay, yeah. It's just him putting maybe two and two together based on this supposed confession.

[01:19:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Maybe it's 'cause they can't use it in court, but surely they can go and see if there's anything. It's a lead, right? Yeah. That they can go and see if they can find anything concrete.

[01:20:04] Adam Cox: Sure. Dig it up. But yeah, just based on Randy's account, I don't know. But that's interesting about him being in the military. So that would show he knew how to kill.

He might have used knives before. Maybe he had killed 37 people or whatever the number was. But it was during, I dunno, a war or whatever. Battle.

[01:20:20] Kyle Risi: Another country, another jurisdiction. Yeah, possibly. This is why a lot of people maybe link people like the Montserrat of Florence because there was that silence, right?

[01:20:27] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:27] Kyle Risi: So who knows? But Adam, the case remains unsolved and it seems like the only hope of finding who the Zodiac is lies hidden within the three unsolved cyphers where maybe he wasn't lying about his true identity.

[01:20:40] Adam Cox: So is anyone still looking at this?

[01:20:42] Kyle Risi: So, as you can imagine, Adam, how exciting it was when in 20, 51 years after it was first sent a team of three international mathematicians, and software developers managed to crack the Z three 40 cypher.

[01:20:56] Adam Cox: I reckon if they left it just a couple of years chat, GPT could have done it.

[01:20:59] Kyle Risi: That's what I was thinking. Like why, why is AI not doing this?

So if you remember, that was the cypher that was sent after the infamous a San Francisco, TV show Uhhuh that he was on. Do you wanna hear what it said?

[01:21:09] Adam Cox: Go on.

[01:21:09] Kyle Risi: It said, I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me. That wasn't me on the TV show. Which brings up another point about me.

I'm not afraid of the gas chamber it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing

[01:21:29] Adam Cox: so is that's him basically saying I'm done with the killing.

[01:21:32] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, this is his second cypher that he sent two more after that.

[01:21:35] Adam Cox: And did he kill after that?

[01:21:36] Kyle Risi: No, he didn't, but yet he wasn't,

[01:21:39] Adam Cox: he says he's got enough slaves.

Yeah. So it's almost yeah, I'm done, but I'm gonna carry on taunting you.

[01:21:43] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's a very good point. Maybe he was done killing, that was him saying that he was done, but then he continued to mop up all the other reports that came forward. That's true. Pop up in the press. So who knows.

But maybe he was done with the killing,

but Adam, again, in it, he did not reveal who he was. And so the only other cypher that could potentially reveal who he is, where he literally says, my name is. And then there's the cypher.

The other one we course we know is the map one, where it's just where he's buried a bomb.

Mm-hmm

. Which I think is bullshit.

[01:22:13] Adam Cox: But has anyone cracked those?

[01:22:15] Kyle Risi: No, those two are still out there. And it's difficult because the, they're much shorter and there's a lot less clues to go on, right? Mm-hmm. Because they're using the other letters around it to devise and deduct what the solution is.

And I guess they're way more difficult.

[01:22:30] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And Adam, that is the story of the Zodiac killer.

[01:22:33] Adam Cox: Well, do you know what? I thought we were gonna crack it. And I have no idea.

[01:22:37] Kyle Risi: it's just a quite a bit of a jumble, isn't it?

[01:22:39] Adam Cox: It is. Especially towards the end when you got is this theory, but the nut didn't pan out, I reckon.

Let's just flip a coin and we'll decide it right here now.

[01:22:46] Kyle Risi: I think Joseph is a good one that we should investigate because I think it's likely that it could have been him.

[01:22:51] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:51] Kyle Risi: Like he seems to have a connection there. At least they should look into it and properly rule him out

[01:22:55] Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess they could open the case, but what's the likelihood of solving it now?

[01:22:59] Kyle Risi: Anyway, I don't have a member shout out for today 'cause I didn't, I wasn't prepared.

[01:23:05] Adam Cox: Bad Kyle.

[01:23:06] Kyle Risi: Bad Kyle. But fancy run in the outro for this week.

[01:23:09] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:23:10] Kyle Risi: And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things.

[01:23:15] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favour and follow us on your favourite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

[01:23:25] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget that next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon. And as always, it's completely free to access.

[01:23:31] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then you can join our certified Freaks Tier. To unlock the entire archive, you get to delve into some exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next.

[01:23:41] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember, sometimes the most frightening thing left behind is not a body, but a question.

See you next time.

[01:23:50] Adam Cox: See you.