WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.379 Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to close 00:00:01.379 --> 00:00:04.660 your eyes for a second. Imagine it's the late 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.580 1960s. You're in the San Francisco Bay Area. 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.820 Now, we all have this cultural image of that 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.880 time, right? Flower crowns, Haight -Ashbury, 00:00:14.179 --> 00:00:17.100 the Summer of Love. The golden era of peace and 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:19.100 expansion. That's the postcard version. Exactly, 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:21.859 the postcard version. But if you actually dig 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:23.600 into the source material we have in front of 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:27.449 us today, the reality on the ground... It was 00:00:27.449 --> 00:00:30.109 shifting into something much, much colder. It 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:32.369 was a very specific type of curdling. I mean, 00:00:32.390 --> 00:00:35.689 that optimism was fading and fast. How so? Well, 00:00:35.850 --> 00:00:38.189 you had the Manson murders happening down south 00:00:38.189 --> 00:00:41.229 in 69, which sent this shockwave of fear through 00:00:41.229 --> 00:00:44.030 California. You had the Altamont concert disaster 00:00:44.030 --> 00:00:46.329 just on the horizon. There was a fog rolling 00:00:46.329 --> 00:00:48.990 in, you know. both literally and metaphorically. 00:00:49.049 --> 00:00:51.390 The whole atmosphere was turning paranoid. Deeply 00:00:51.390 --> 00:00:54.289 paranoid. And walking right out of that fog is 00:00:54.289 --> 00:00:57.369 a figure who I think really defines that paranoia. 00:00:57.490 --> 00:00:59.429 We're talking about the Zodiac Killer. Now, I 00:00:59.429 --> 00:01:00.609 know what you're thinking. You've probably seen 00:01:00.609 --> 00:01:02.729 the David Fincher movie. Which is a masterpiece, 00:01:02.869 --> 00:01:05.989 by the way. An absolute masterpiece. And we'll 00:01:05.989 --> 00:01:07.950 definitely get to that. Or, you know, maybe you've 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:10.189 just seen the memes on the internet. Right. But 00:01:10.189 --> 00:01:12.750 our mission today is a little different. We aren't 00:01:12.750 --> 00:01:15.150 here to just retell the campfire story. We have 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:18.189 a massive dossier in front of us. Police reports, 00:01:18.510 --> 00:01:21.569 ballistic analysis, transcriptions of the letters, 00:01:21.810 --> 00:01:24.590 the complete timeline of the investigation. We're 00:01:24.590 --> 00:01:27.790 treating this as a case study because the Zodiac 00:01:27.790 --> 00:01:31.489 isn't just a slasher villain. He is, and I think 00:01:31.489 --> 00:01:33.670 you could argue this pretty strongly, the first 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:37.069 modern serial killer to truly understand branding. 00:01:37.450 --> 00:01:39.890 Branding. That's a chilling way to put it. But 00:01:39.890 --> 00:01:41.609 it's true. He didn't just kill. He launched a 00:01:41.609 --> 00:01:45.010 media campaign. That's exactly. So today we're 00:01:45.010 --> 00:01:47.409 going to look at the canonical crimes, the ones 00:01:47.409 --> 00:01:49.890 the police actually agree on. And we're going 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:52.030 to contrast that with the myth that's built up 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:54.349 around him. We're going to look at the ciphers, 00:01:54.370 --> 00:01:57.390 some of which took, what, 51 years to finally 00:01:57.390 --> 00:02:00.450 craft? 51 years. An incredible amount of time. 00:02:00.549 --> 00:02:02.890 And I have to admit that puzzle aspect of the 00:02:02.890 --> 00:02:04.750 case is what usually hooks people. It hooked 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:06.849 me. It feels like a game he designed for everyone 00:02:06.849 --> 00:02:10.030 to play. And see. That's the trap. That's exactly 00:02:10.030 --> 00:02:13.009 what he wanted. He wanted to gamify murder. He 00:02:13.009 --> 00:02:15.050 wanted us to get so obsessed with the puzzles 00:02:15.050 --> 00:02:18.469 that we'd sort of ignore the bodies. Right. But 00:02:18.469 --> 00:02:21.389 my role here is to keep pulling us back to the 00:02:21.389 --> 00:02:24.210 reality of it. This wasn't a game for the victims 00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:26.669 or their families. It was an absolute tragedy. 00:02:27.009 --> 00:02:30.210 He manipulated the press to amplify his own power. 00:02:30.330 --> 00:02:32.610 But underneath all the ciphers and that cool 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:36.020 spooky symbol, there was just a pathetic. brutal 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:38.539 man with a gun. A really important distinction 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:40.120 to make. So let's start with the hard numbers, 00:02:40.139 --> 00:02:42.479 because even that is just a mess of misinformation. 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.400 It really is. If you read the Zodiac's final 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.460 scorecard, he claimed to have killed 37 people. 00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:50.860 That is a staggeringly high number for a serial 00:02:50.860 --> 00:02:53.400 killer. It is. But let's be clear. There is absolutely 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:56.340 zero evidence to support a number anywhere near 00:02:56.340 --> 00:02:58.599 that high. So it's just bluster. It's bluster. 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:01.400 If we look at the canonical attacks and what 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:04.379 we mean by that. are the crimes where law enforcement 00:03:04.379 --> 00:03:06.979 agencies in Benicia, Vallejo, Napa, and San Francisco 00:03:06.979 --> 00:03:09.159 all agree, yes, this is the same perpetrator. 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:12.340 We're looking at exactly four events. There's 00:03:12.340 --> 00:03:14.879 four attacks. Four attacks. They involve seven 00:03:14.879 --> 00:03:18.060 victims, five of those people were killed, and 00:03:18.060 --> 00:03:22.060 two miraculously survived. And the timeline for 00:03:22.060 --> 00:03:24.240 those attacks is surprisingly compressed, isn't 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:26.500 it? We tend to think of the Zodiac as this figure 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:29.120 who haunted California for a decade. Right, like 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:32.259 he was a permanent fixture. But the actual spree 00:03:32.259 --> 00:03:34.939 of violence, the core attacks, they lasted less 00:03:34.939 --> 00:03:37.039 than a year. Less than a year. It all happens 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:41.300 between December 1968 and October 1969. That's 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.280 it, 10 months. 10 months of brutal violence, 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:46.319 followed by years and years of psychological 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:49.080 terrorism conducted through the mail. Okay, so 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:51.680 let's go back to night one, December 20th, 1968, 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:56.060 Lake Herman Road. This is in Venetia. Now, to 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:57.879 really understand this first crime, you have 00:03:57.879 --> 00:03:59.580 to understand the geography. Lake Herman Road 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:02.580 is this winding, dark, two -lane stretch of road. 00:04:02.740 --> 00:04:05.379 It connects Benicia to Vallejo. And there's nothing 00:04:05.379 --> 00:04:07.580 out there. Nothing. No streetlights. It's surrounded 00:04:07.580 --> 00:04:10.180 by these rolling hills. It is exactly the kind 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:12.500 of place that local teenagers go to be alone. 00:04:12.699 --> 00:04:16.040 A classic lover's lane. Precisely. It's a Friday 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:19.079 night. It's freezing cold. Out temperatures were 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:22.199 in the low 20s. So the ground was hard as a rock. 00:04:22.569 --> 00:04:25.230 And we have two high school students, David Arthur 00:04:25.230 --> 00:04:28.149 Faraday, who was 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, who 00:04:28.149 --> 00:04:30.410 was 16. And the source material we have notes 00:04:30.410 --> 00:04:32.170 this was actually their first official date, 00:04:32.230 --> 00:04:34.449 right? It was their first date. They had promised 00:04:34.449 --> 00:04:37.009 Betty Lou's parents they'd be home by 11 .00 00:04:37.009 --> 00:04:39.829 p .m. They went and visited a friend, they grabbed 00:04:39.829 --> 00:04:42.370 a bite to eat, and then they drove out to this 00:04:42.370 --> 00:04:44.769 gravel turnout near a water pumping station. 00:04:45.069 --> 00:04:47.050 It's completely isolated. They probably felt 00:04:47.050 --> 00:04:49.649 invisible out there. You'd think so. But they 00:04:49.649 --> 00:04:52.709 weren't. So what happens? Around 11 .10 p .m., 00:04:52.709 --> 00:04:55.790 a passing motorist notices their car, a Rambler 00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:58.490 station wagon. Then, just moments later, another 00:04:58.490 --> 00:05:00.930 car pulls into the turnout. Okay. Now, typically 00:05:00.930 --> 00:05:02.670 in these situations, you know, if a car pulls 00:05:02.670 --> 00:05:04.750 up to a lover's lane, the couple usually just 00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:07.449 leaves to avoid the awkwardness. But the second 00:05:07.449 --> 00:05:10.910 car, it pulls up right alongside them. It basically 00:05:10.910 --> 00:05:13.160 blocks them in. And this is where the forensic 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:15.939 reconstruction gets just terrifying. He doesn't, 00:05:15.939 --> 00:05:18.019 like, snipe them from the bushes or something. 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:20.459 No, no. He gets out of his car and walks right 00:05:20.459 --> 00:05:23.160 up to them. Oh, wow. He's using a .22 caliber 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:26.560 semi -automatic pistol. And the first thing he 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.120 does is fire into the rear right wheel well of 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:31.180 their car, and then he shoots out the rear window. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:36.000 He is aggressively, violently forcing them out 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.220 of the vehicle. So it's just panic, absolute 00:05:38.220 --> 00:05:42.300 chaos in the pitch dark. Total chaos. David Faraday 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:45.279 is in the driver's seat. He opens his door, maybe 00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:48.199 to surrender, maybe to try and confront the attacker. 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:50.480 We'll never know. But as he's stepping out of 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:52.399 the car, the killer shoots him point blank in 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:54.060 the head. And he falls right there. Right there 00:05:54.060 --> 00:05:56.339 by the wheel. And Betty Lou. She sees this happen. 00:05:56.379 --> 00:05:58.540 She opens the passenger door and she just runs 00:05:58.540 --> 00:06:00.680 for it. She sprints across the gravel turnout 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:02.699 trying to get to the road. The killer tracks 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:05.600 her. He fires five shots into her back as she's 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:08.220 fleeing. Does she? Does she get away? No. All 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:10.720 five shots hit her. She falls about 28 feet from 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:13.420 the car. And here's the detail that tells us 00:06:13.420 --> 00:06:16.660 this wasn't just a robbery gone wrong. Nothing 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:18.480 was taken. Nothing at all. He didn't check their 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:20.959 pockets for a wallet. He didn't sexually assault 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:24.519 Betty Lou. He just got back in his car and drove 00:06:24.519 --> 00:06:27.060 off into the night. It's an execution, plain 00:06:27.060 --> 00:06:29.740 and simple. And at this point, nobody knows the 00:06:29.740 --> 00:06:32.839 Zodiac exists, the name, the symbol, none of 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:35.860 it. The police must have been completely baffled. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:37.800 They were completely in the dark. The Solano 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:40.279 County Sheriff's Office investigated it as maybe 00:06:40.279 --> 00:06:43.339 a drug deal gone bad or a jealous ex -boyfriend. 00:06:43.579 --> 00:06:45.740 They were looking for a rational motive. They 00:06:45.740 --> 00:06:47.639 had no idea they were dealing with a stranger 00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:49.860 -on -stranger thrill kill. And so the case goes 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:52.259 cold almost immediately. Immediately. For nearly 00:06:52.259 --> 00:06:55.800 seven months, there's just silence. And then 00:06:55.800 --> 00:06:59.899 we get to Independence Day, 1969. We're technically 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:03.139 the early hours of July 5th. Exactly. We're at 00:07:03.139 --> 00:07:05.579 Blue Rock Springs Park. Now, geographically, 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:07.740 this is really important. It's only about four 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:10.199 miles away from the Lake Herman Road site. So 00:07:10.199 --> 00:07:11.980 it's his hunting ground. It seems to be. It's 00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:13.860 another secluded spot, this time in Vallejo. 00:07:13.939 --> 00:07:16.699 And we have another couple, Darlene Farron, 22, 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:21.019 and Michael Mago, 19. Right. Darlene is a waitress. 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:23.500 She's really popular, knows a lot of people in 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:26.120 town. Michael is her friend. They park their 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:28.819 car in the lot around midnight. It had been busy 00:07:28.819 --> 00:07:31.600 earlier with people watching fireworks, but by 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.060 now it's completely deserted. And then it happens 00:07:34.060 --> 00:07:36.879 again. A car pulls in. A car pulls into the lot, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.160 sits there for a moment with its lights off, 00:07:39.259 --> 00:07:41.660 and then it just tears away. That's strange. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:44.420 It's like he was scouting them, checking to see 00:07:44.420 --> 00:07:46.420 if there were any witnesses. Or maybe psyching 00:07:46.420 --> 00:07:49.560 himself up. We don't know. But about five minutes 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:53.019 later, the same car comes back. He parks directly 00:07:53.019 --> 00:07:55.899 behind them. And to the left, once again, blocking 00:07:55.899 --> 00:07:59.360 them in. He gets out. But this time, he has a 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:01.420 prop. What kind of prop? A high -powered flashlight. 00:08:01.740 --> 00:08:04.139 He shines it right in their eyes. He keeps it 00:08:04.139 --> 00:08:07.480 trained directly on their faces. Now, you have 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:09.560 to think about the psychology of that. Michael 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:11.620 Mago later said he thought it was a police officer. 00:08:12.139 --> 00:08:14.319 You know, a cop come and check on some kids in 00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:16.720 a parked car. So they aren't panicked yet. They 00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:19.759 think it's official. Not yet. Michael actually 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.579 reaches for his ID. He starts to roll down the 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:25.800 window to say, everything is okay, officer. Without 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:28.480 saying a single word, the man walks right up 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:31.120 to the passenger side window and just opens fire. 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:34.220 And he's upgraded his weapon. He has. He's using 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:36.919 a 9mm Luger this time. Much more power than the 00:08:36.919 --> 00:08:41.279 .22. He fires five shots into the car. Both Darlene 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:43.759 and Michael are hit multiple times. The killer 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:48.779 starts to walk away. But then, he hears Michael 00:08:48.779 --> 00:08:50.950 moaning in pain. Oh, this is the part that just, 00:08:51.009 --> 00:08:53.029 it turns my stomach. He hears that they aren't 00:08:53.029 --> 00:08:54.950 dead. Michael was trying to scramble into the 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:57.330 backseat, trying to hide. The killer hears this 00:08:57.330 --> 00:09:00.210 sound, turns around, walks calmly back to the 00:09:00.210 --> 00:09:02.629 car, and fires two more shots into each of them. 00:09:02.669 --> 00:09:04.710 He wants to make sure he's finishing the job. 00:09:04.750 --> 00:09:06.710 Absolutely clinical. But Michael McGough survives. 00:09:07.470 --> 00:09:09.690 Miraculously. He's shot in the jaw, the leg, 00:09:09.690 --> 00:09:11.730 the shoulder. It's an incredible story of survival. 00:09:12.070 --> 00:09:14.629 And because he lives, we get our very first description 00:09:14.629 --> 00:09:16.529 of the Zodiac. What does he say he looked like? 00:09:16.830 --> 00:09:20.429 He describes a white man, heavyset. Beefy was 00:09:20.429 --> 00:09:24.289 the word he used. Roughly 5 '8", maybe 200 pounds, 00:09:24.450 --> 00:09:28.230 a large face. But interestingly, Michael was 00:09:28.230 --> 00:09:31.389 adamant about one thing. The man was not wearing 00:09:31.389 --> 00:09:34.759 glasses. Which is a huge detail because it completely 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:37.440 contradicts the famous composite sketch that 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:39.620 we all know. The one from the Stein murder. We'll 00:09:39.620 --> 00:09:41.240 definitely get to that discrepancy. But yeah, 00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:43.000 this first description is very different. The 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.360 attack itself is horrific, but what happens 40 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:47.620 minutes later, that's what changes this from 00:09:47.620 --> 00:09:50.360 just a murder case into a full -blown phenomenon. 00:09:50.620 --> 00:09:53.129 The phone call. This is the turning point for 00:09:53.129 --> 00:09:55.509 the entire case. The killer drives a few blocks 00:09:55.509 --> 00:09:58.169 to a payphone at the intersection of Tuolumne 00:09:58.169 --> 00:10:01.090 and Springs Road. And this payphone is practically 00:10:01.090 --> 00:10:02.990 within sight of the Vallejo Police Department. 00:10:03.330 --> 00:10:06.250 That is incredibly brazen. The audacity. It's 00:10:06.250 --> 00:10:08.570 pure arrogance. He dials the police chief directly. 00:10:09.009 --> 00:10:11.370 The call is answered by a dispatcher named Nancy 00:10:11.370 --> 00:10:14.639 Slover. She later described his voice as completely 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:17.340 monotone. She said it sounded like he was reading 00:10:17.340 --> 00:10:19.460 from a script or maybe like he'd rehearsed it 00:10:19.460 --> 00:10:21.019 in the mirror over and over. And what does he 00:10:21.019 --> 00:10:24.259 say? He says, and this is a direct quote, I want 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:26.840 to report a double murder. If you will go one 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:29.919 mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, 00:10:30.139 --> 00:10:34.120 you will find the kids in a brown car. And then 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:36.779 he connects the dots for them. He says, I also 00:10:36.779 --> 00:10:40.659 killed those kids last year. Goodbye. Wow. So 00:10:40.659 --> 00:10:43.750 he confesses. to the Lake Herman Road murderers, 00:10:43.769 --> 00:10:46.429 he's officially claiming credit. He's doing more 00:10:46.429 --> 00:10:48.129 than just claiming credit. He's taking ownership 00:10:48.129 --> 00:10:50.350 of the entire investigation. He's telling the 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:53.210 police, you didn't catch me last time, and I'm 00:10:53.210 --> 00:10:55.269 literally handing you this one on a silver platter, 00:10:55.330 --> 00:10:57.389 and you still won't catch me. It's an act of 00:10:57.389 --> 00:10:59.909 extreme ego. Before we move on from this attack, 00:11:00.049 --> 00:11:02.169 we have to address the Darlene Farron connection 00:11:02.169 --> 00:11:04.590 theory. Right. Because if you look at the pop 00:11:04.590 --> 00:11:06.730 culture versions of this story, especially Robert 00:11:06.730 --> 00:11:09.009 Graysmith's book, there is this whole narrative 00:11:09.009 --> 00:11:11.490 that Darlene actually knew the killer. That he 00:11:11.490 --> 00:11:13.590 was a stalker named Richard? We have to be very, 00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:15.669 very careful with that theory. The stalker theory 00:11:15.669 --> 00:11:18.889 is incredibly compelling for a movie script because 00:11:18.889 --> 00:11:21.049 it gives the killer a personal motive, right? 00:11:21.110 --> 00:11:23.049 It makes it about obsession, not just random 00:11:23.049 --> 00:11:25.909 violence. It gives it a why. Exactly. But if 00:11:25.909 --> 00:11:28.070 you look at the cold, hard facts in the dossier, 00:11:28.190 --> 00:11:31.529 the evidence for it is very, very thin. Michael 00:11:31.529 --> 00:11:34.190 Mago's story changed over the years. At the scene, 00:11:34.309 --> 00:11:36.909 he was clear he didn't know the man. It was only 00:11:36.909 --> 00:11:38.769 years later that he started remembering these 00:11:38.769 --> 00:11:41.600 details about a Richard. And the Zodiac himself, 00:11:41.779 --> 00:11:43.679 in all his letters, he never mentioned her name, 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.240 did he? Never once. In his letters, he refers 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:49.860 to her simply as the girl. It's so dismissive. 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:52.320 It's impersonal. If this was a crime of passion 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:54.440 or some deep obsession with her specifically, 00:11:54.700 --> 00:11:57.080 you'd expect him to focus on her identity to 00:11:57.080 --> 00:11:59.840 name her. But to him, she seems to have been 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.059 just another prop in his grand terror campaign. 00:12:02.240 --> 00:12:04.600 OK, so we have two attacks, both at night, both 00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:06.960 targeting couples in cars, both with guns. But 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:10.980 then comes September 27, 1969. Lake Berryessa. 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:14.279 And this, this is where the nightmare just shifts 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:16.620 gears completely. It breaks every single pattern 00:12:16.620 --> 00:12:18.559 he had established. First, it's in broad daylight, 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.659 late afternoon. Not night. No. Second, it's not 00:12:21.659 --> 00:12:24.259 in a city or on a roadside turnout. It's at a 00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:27.440 remote recreational lake up in Napa County. And 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.870 third, the costume. The costume is the single 00:12:30.870 --> 00:12:33.909 most theatrical, terrifying detail in this entire 00:12:33.909 --> 00:12:36.429 case. I want you to describe it for the listeners 00:12:36.429 --> 00:12:37.690 because it sounds like something straight out 00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:39.730 of a comic book. It's completely absurd, which 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:42.710 somehow makes it even scarier. One of the victims, 00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.450 Brian Hartnell, he survived and he described 00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:48.690 a man stepping out from behind a tree. He's wearing 00:12:48.690 --> 00:12:51.659 a black executioner's hood. It's square on top 00:12:51.659 --> 00:12:54.840 that drapes all the way down to his waist. Unbelievable. 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:57.100 And it has clip -on sunglasses sewn over the 00:12:57.100 --> 00:12:59.659 eye holes. And the symbol. He's wearing the symbol. 00:12:59.860 --> 00:13:02.620 Right on his chest, there is a white bib, kind 00:13:02.620 --> 00:13:05.059 of like a tabard, with a white circle and a cross 00:13:05.059 --> 00:13:07.980 woven into it. The Zodiac symbol. He's wearing 00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:10.419 his own logo. He is literally branding himself 00:13:10.419 --> 00:13:13.620 in person. He's become his own mascot. He's holding 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:16.039 a gun, but he also has a long knife in a sheath 00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:18.879 on his belt. The victims are Brian Hartnell, 00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:22.299 who's 20. and Cecilia Shepard, who's 22. They're 00:13:22.299 --> 00:13:24.600 just college students, picnicking on a small 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:27.639 peninsula by the lake. They see this figure approaching 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:30.000 them. Do they try to run? I mean, what do you 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.679 do? He's on them too fast. He points the gun. 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:36.759 But then, he starts a conversation. And this 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:39.740 is totally unique to this attack. He starts telling 00:13:39.740 --> 00:13:43.220 them a story. Story? He says, I'm an escaped 00:13:43.220 --> 00:13:45.980 convict from a prison in Montana. I killed a 00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:48.340 guard and I need your car and your money to get 00:13:48.340 --> 00:13:50.820 to Mexico. But why lie? He's going to kill them 00:13:50.820 --> 00:13:53.899 anyway. Why create this elaborate backstory about 00:13:53.899 --> 00:13:56.179 being an escaped convict? It's a control tactic. 00:13:56.460 --> 00:13:59.639 It's brilliant in a sick way. If he just comes 00:13:59.639 --> 00:14:01.639 up and starts shooting, they might scatter. They 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:04.000 might fight back. But if he says, I just want 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.350 your car. They're much more likely to cooperate. 00:14:06.669 --> 00:14:08.649 Yeah. He needs them compliant for what he's about 00:14:08.649 --> 00:14:11.549 to do. So they believe him. They do. He instructs 00:14:11.549 --> 00:14:15.009 Cecilia to tie Brian up using some plastic clothesline 00:14:15.009 --> 00:14:17.169 that he brought with him. Then he checks her 00:14:17.169 --> 00:14:20.230 knots, says they're too loose, and he ties Cecilia 00:14:20.230 --> 00:14:22.529 up himself. Brian Hartnell survived this, and 00:14:22.529 --> 00:14:24.490 his account is just fascinating. He actually 00:14:24.490 --> 00:14:26.649 tried to talk to the guy, didn't he? Brian was 00:14:26.649 --> 00:14:29.029 studying pre -law at the time. He was incredibly 00:14:29.029 --> 00:14:32.090 calm under the circumstances. He tried to reason 00:14:32.090 --> 00:14:33.990 with the man. He asked him questions like, is 00:14:33.990 --> 00:14:36.870 your gun loaded? He thought if he could just 00:14:36.870 --> 00:14:39.169 keep the guy talking, maybe they'd lose their 00:14:39.169 --> 00:14:41.070 car and their money, but they'd keep their lives. 00:14:41.429 --> 00:14:44.590 But once they were both hogtied, face down on 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:47.409 the ground, the tone changed. The whole dynamic 00:14:47.409 --> 00:14:50.230 shifted. The killer stops talking. The performance 00:14:50.230 --> 00:14:52.190 is over. The performance is over. He puts the 00:14:52.190 --> 00:14:54.370 gun away. He draws the knife. The violence here 00:14:54.370 --> 00:14:56.490 is so distinct from the shootings. Shooting is 00:14:56.490 --> 00:14:59.830 distant. Stabbing is horribly intimate and brutal. 00:15:00.009 --> 00:15:02.350 And he attacks them both. He stabs Brian six 00:15:02.350 --> 00:15:05.330 times in the back. He stabs Cecilia ten times. 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:08.750 It's a frenzy. It is. Cecilia was fighting back. 00:15:08.929 --> 00:15:11.230 She was rolling around screaming. Brian just 00:15:11.230 --> 00:15:14.610 played dead. The killer eventually stopped, wiped 00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:16.309 the knife on his pants, and just calmly walked 00:15:16.309 --> 00:15:18.970 back up the hill. But he didn't just leave. He 00:15:18.970 --> 00:15:22.669 left a calling card, a receipt. This is one of 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:24.470 the most chilling pieces of physical evidence 00:15:24.470 --> 00:15:27.289 we have in the entire case. Yeah. He walks over 00:15:27.289 --> 00:15:29.690 to Brian Hartnell's car, which was white Karmann 00:15:29.690 --> 00:15:32.850 Ghia. He takes out a black felt -tip pen. And 00:15:32.850 --> 00:15:35.490 on the passenger door, he writes a list. A list 00:15:35.490 --> 00:15:38.250 of his crimes. It's unbelievable. He writes Vallejo, 00:15:38.370 --> 00:15:42.470 then the dates 12 -20 -68 -7 -4 -69, and then 00:15:42.470 --> 00:15:47.190 the new one, Sep 27 -69 -6 .38. And then he adds 00:15:47.190 --> 00:15:50.809 the method. By knife. By knife. He's categorizing 00:15:50.809 --> 00:15:52.830 his own work. He's keeping a ledger. And he calls 00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:54.370 this one in, too. Once again, he calls it in. 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:56.960 He drives 27 miles to a car wash in the town 00:15:56.960 --> 00:15:59.899 of Napa. He finds a pay phone. He tells the operator, 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:02.240 I want to report a murder. No, a double murder. 00:16:02.580 --> 00:16:04.919 And he just sets the phone down off the hook 00:16:04.919 --> 00:16:07.200 and walks away. They found a palm print on that 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:08.940 phone, didn't they? A key piece of evidence. 00:16:09.139 --> 00:16:11.740 They did. But it was smeared. It's never been 00:16:11.740 --> 00:16:13.879 enough for a definitive match, though it has 00:16:13.879 --> 00:16:15.679 been used over the years to rule certain suspects 00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:18.860 out. Cecilia Shepard tragically died two days 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:21.559 later in the hospital. But Brian Hartnell survived 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:24.889 to describe the costume and the voice. So now 00:16:24.889 --> 00:16:28.909 the police in Napa, Vallejo, and Benicia, they 00:16:28.909 --> 00:16:31.509 all realize they're hunting the same man. The 00:16:31.509 --> 00:16:33.690 panic is spreading across the whole Bay Area. 00:16:33.950 --> 00:16:36.529 And the killer knows it. He thrives on it. He 00:16:36.529 --> 00:16:39.009 decides to escalate again. He moves from the 00:16:39.009 --> 00:16:42.350 secluded rural areas, the lover's lanes, right 00:16:42.350 --> 00:16:45.490 into the dense urban center of it all. He goes 00:16:45.490 --> 00:16:49.210 to San Francisco. October 11, 1969, Presidio 00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:52.679 Heights. This is a wealthy, quiet, residential 00:16:52.679 --> 00:16:55.279 neighborhood. The complete opposite of a lover's 00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:58.000 lane. That's right. He hails a yellow cab driven 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.179 by a man named Paul Lee Stein, who is 29. He 00:17:01.179 --> 00:17:03.019 gets in and directs him to the corner of Washington 00:17:03.019 --> 00:17:06.019 and Cherry Streets. When the cab stops, the Zodiac 00:17:06.019 --> 00:17:08.279 shoots Stein once in the head, point blank, behind 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:10.200 the right ear. And to any passerby, this would 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:12.019 just look like a robbery, a cabbie getting held 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.339 up. And he deliberately staged it that way. He 00:17:14.339 --> 00:17:16.700 took Stein's wallet and his keys. But then he 00:17:16.700 --> 00:17:18.359 did something that confused investigators at 00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:19.910 first. He took a piece of Paul Stein. shirt. 00:17:20.130 --> 00:17:22.349 He actually tore it off the body. He carefully 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:25.190 tore a large rectangular section from the back 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:27.049 of the shirt, which was of course soaked in blood. 00:17:27.309 --> 00:17:29.609 He folded it up neatly and took it with him. 00:17:30.170 --> 00:17:32.849 This wasn't a robbery trophy. This was going 00:17:32.849 --> 00:17:35.190 to be his proof. This knight is so famous in 00:17:35.190 --> 00:17:37.869 the Zodiac lore for the what if, because the 00:17:37.869 --> 00:17:40.890 Zodiac was seen, he was almost caught. So close. 00:17:41.250 --> 00:17:43.750 He was seen by three teenagers in a house right 00:17:43.750 --> 00:17:46.150 across the street. They were watching from a 00:17:46.150 --> 00:17:48.670 second story window. They saw him in the cab. 00:17:49.019 --> 00:17:50.779 They saw him wiping down the dashboard and the 00:17:50.779 --> 00:17:52.940 door handle with a cloth, trying to remove his 00:17:52.940 --> 00:17:55.299 prints. They called the police while he was still 00:17:55.299 --> 00:17:57.799 there. And the police were just minutes away. 00:17:58.039 --> 00:18:01.259 Seconds away. But a tragic, catastrophic error 00:18:01.259 --> 00:18:03.900 occurred in the dispatch center. The teenagers 00:18:03.900 --> 00:18:07.119 described a white male suspect. But for some 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:09.299 reason, the dispatcher put out an alert for a 00:18:09.299 --> 00:18:11.779 black male suspect. That is an unbelievable mistake. 00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:16.059 It changed history. Two SFPD officers, Don Fook 00:18:16.059 --> 00:18:18.000 and Eric Zelms, were responding to the call. 00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:19.819 As they're driving toward the scene, they see 00:18:19.819 --> 00:18:22.619 a white man walking away. He matched the description 00:18:22.619 --> 00:18:25.200 of the Zodiac, perfectly stocky, kind of a rolling 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:27.619 gate, but the radio just said blackmail. So they 00:18:27.619 --> 00:18:30.279 drove right past it. They slowed down, maybe 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:32.779 even exchanged a glance, and just let him go. 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:34.880 Officer Fuki realized this later, didn't he? 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:37.279 He did. He said the man looked down as their 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.039 car passed, then turned up a walkway to a house 00:18:40.039 --> 00:18:42.799 as if he lived there, just to melt into the shadows. 00:18:43.259 --> 00:18:46.279 If they had stopped him, Paul Stein's bloody 00:18:46.279 --> 00:18:48.970 shirt was in his pocket. The murder weapon was 00:18:48.970 --> 00:18:51.950 likely in his waistband. The entire reign of 00:18:51.950 --> 00:18:53.829 terror would have ended right there on Jackson 00:18:53.829 --> 00:18:56.150 Street. And the Zodiac knew it. He mocked them 00:18:56.150 --> 00:18:58.529 for it later in a letter. He did. He wrote about 00:18:58.529 --> 00:19:01.490 the cops pulling a goof. He even claimed he actually 00:19:01.490 --> 00:19:04.210 spoke to them, though Officer Fuki always denied 00:19:04.210 --> 00:19:06.690 that they exchanged words. But the point is, 00:19:06.750 --> 00:19:09.490 he slipped through the net. And that brings us 00:19:09.490 --> 00:19:12.720 to the end of the canonical murders. But in a 00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:14.799 way, that's just the beginning of the Zodiac 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:17.480 persona, because now the violence moves off the 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:20.279 streets and onto the page. The pen becomes mightier 00:19:20.279 --> 00:19:22.700 than the sword or the gun in this case. We have 00:19:22.700 --> 00:19:24.660 to talk about the correspondence. This is where 00:19:24.660 --> 00:19:26.779 he differentiates himself from any other killer 00:19:26.779 --> 00:19:29.380 in history. He'd sent his first batch of letters 00:19:29.380 --> 00:19:31.440 back in August, demanding they be printed on 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.220 the front page. But after the Stein murder, the 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:36.980 letters become his primary weapon. Let's go to 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:41.240 August 4th, 1969. The debut of the name. He writes 00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:43.039 a letter to the San Francisco Examiner and it 00:19:43.039 --> 00:19:46.779 starts. Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking. 00:19:47.160 --> 00:19:49.400 It's such a theatrical opening. It sounds like 00:19:49.400 --> 00:19:52.619 the intro to an old timey radio drama. It creates 00:19:52.619 --> 00:19:55.299 a brand instantly. He isn't just a killer. He 00:19:55.299 --> 00:19:58.480 is an entity, a personality. And in these letters, 00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:01.119 he lays out his supposed motive. He claims he 00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:03.160 is collecting slaves for the afterlife. Right. 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:05.819 He writes, when I die, I will be reborn in paradise 00:20:05.819 --> 00:20:08.299 and all that I have killed will become my slaves. 00:20:08.859 --> 00:20:11.799 Paradise, spelled P -A -R -A -D -I -C -E. The 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:13.880 misspellings are a huge point of debate, aren't 00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:16.799 they? Was he genuinely uneducated, or was he 00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:19.039 faking it, doing it on purpose to look more deranged 00:20:19.039 --> 00:20:21.380 or to throw people off? That is the million -dollar 00:20:21.380 --> 00:20:23.380 question. I mean, if you look at the dossier, 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:26.440 Detective Dave Tosche, the famous SFPV inspector, 00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:29.119 the inspiration for Steve McQueen's character 00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:32.059 in Bullet, he was convinced the Zodiac was actually 00:20:32.059 --> 00:20:34.940 quite intelligent. Really? Oh, yeah. He uses 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:37.900 words like promenading. He references Gilbert 00:20:37.900 --> 00:20:40.680 and Sullivan operas like the Mikado. He clearly 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:44.380 understands geometry and maps. The misspellings 00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:48.859 feel. They feel like a disguise, like a deliberate 00:20:48.859 --> 00:20:51.259 affectation. Let's talk about the proof. After 00:20:51.259 --> 00:20:53.359 the Stein murder, people were saying, OK, maybe 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:55.339 this letter writer is just a crank, just some 00:20:55.339 --> 00:20:57.940 guy taking credit. So he proved them wrong in 00:20:57.940 --> 00:21:00.690 the most gruesome way possible. He sent a letter 00:21:00.690 --> 00:21:02.470 to the San Francisco Chronicle that contained 00:21:02.470 --> 00:21:04.690 a piece of Paul Stein's bloody shirt. He sent 00:21:04.690 --> 00:21:06.710 another piece to the famous attorney Melvin Bell. 00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:08.710 He kind of has a cry for help. Can you even imagine 00:21:08.710 --> 00:21:12.029 opening your mail and finding that? A piece of 00:21:12.029 --> 00:21:14.970 a murdered man's bloody shirt. It was undeniable 00:21:14.970 --> 00:21:17.869 verification. It was his way of saying, I am 00:21:17.869 --> 00:21:19.490 the one who killed the cab driver. I have the 00:21:19.490 --> 00:21:22.319 blood on my hands and here it is. And then. The 00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:24.920 threats just escalated. He stopped talking about 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:26.819 shooting couples in cars and started talking 00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:29.279 about mass casualties. The school bus bomb, this 00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:31.640 is the one that really terrified the entire Bay 00:21:31.640 --> 00:21:35.099 Area. He sent a diagram, a detailed hand -drawn 00:21:35.099 --> 00:21:38.259 schematic of a roadside bomb. He claimed he could 00:21:38.259 --> 00:21:40.940 detonate it as a school bus passed by. And he 00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:44.079 wrote in what is maybe his most monstrous sentence, 00:21:44.339 --> 00:21:46.720 just shoot out the front tire and then pick off 00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:49.099 the kiddies as they come bouncing out. It's just... 00:21:49.450 --> 00:21:52.349 It's purely monstrous. It created absolute panic. 00:21:52.509 --> 00:21:54.509 For months, police cars had to escort school 00:21:54.509 --> 00:21:56.250 buses on their routes. They had helicopters flying 00:21:56.250 --> 00:21:58.490 over bus roads. He held the entire school system 00:21:58.490 --> 00:22:00.809 hostage without ever having to plant a single 00:22:00.809 --> 00:22:03.769 device. It was pure psychological terrorism by 00:22:03.769 --> 00:22:05.930 letter. And he was keeping score. At the bottom 00:22:05.930 --> 00:22:07.690 of so many of the letters, he'd draw a little 00:22:07.690 --> 00:22:12.509 box score. Zodiac NT number. SFPD equals zero. 00:22:12.990 --> 00:22:15.880 And the numbers just kept climbing. Ten. 12, 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:19.200 17, eventually all the way up to 37. He was almost 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:21.380 certainly taking credit for random murders he 00:22:21.380 --> 00:22:23.140 was just reading about in the paper, just to 00:22:23.140 --> 00:22:25.160 puff up his own score. Which brings us to the 00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:28.279 thing that really cemented his legacy in a way 00:22:28.279 --> 00:22:30.380 that, you know, even the murders didn't. The 00:22:30.380 --> 00:22:33.440 ciphers. The puzzles. With cryptograms. There 00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:35.519 were four main ones that he sent. Let's start 00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:38.240 with the first one, the Z -408. This was the 00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:41.099 big one, sent in three separate parts to three 00:22:41.099 --> 00:22:43.680 different newspapers. And if you look at it... 00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:46.400 It just looks like a wall of gibberish. It's 00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:48.920 full of Greek symbols, weather icons, Morse code 00:22:48.920 --> 00:22:52.799 dots, Navy semaphore flags. The FBI's crypto 00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:55.220 unit couldn't crack it. The CIA couldn't crack 00:22:55.220 --> 00:22:57.680 it. The NSA couldn't crack it. So who did? Who 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:00.259 broke it? A high school history teacher from 00:23:00.259 --> 00:23:03.420 Salinas, California, named Donald Harden and 00:23:03.420 --> 00:23:06.359 his wife, Betty. They were sitting at their breakfast 00:23:06.359 --> 00:23:08.519 table with a newspaper. I love that. A couple 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:10.619 of amateurs beat all the pros at the national 00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:13.200 security agencies. How on earth did they do it? 00:23:13.480 --> 00:23:16.220 Well, it was a homophonic substitution cipher. 00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:18.599 That's a fancy way of saying he used symbols 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:21.119 to replace letters of the alphabet. But he made 00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:23.539 it tricky. He used multiple different symbols 00:23:23.539 --> 00:23:26.420 for common letters like E and T, so you couldn't 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:28.359 just count the frequency of the symbols to figure 00:23:28.359 --> 00:23:31.400 it out. So how'd they find a way in? It was Betty 00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:33.799 who had the brilliant insight. She said, This 00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:36.599 guy is a complete egomaniac. He's going to talk 00:23:36.599 --> 00:23:39.500 about killing. Look for the word kill. They looked 00:23:39.500 --> 00:23:41.519 for a pattern of double letters, like the double 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:44.190 L in kill. Exactly. They found a four -symbol 00:23:44.190 --> 00:23:46.289 pattern that repeated. They guessed it might 00:23:46.289 --> 00:23:48.710 be K -I -L -L. They plugged in those letters, 00:23:48.750 --> 00:23:51.769 and from there, the whole lock just clicked open. 00:23:52.029 --> 00:23:54.730 And the message was? I like killing people because 00:23:54.730 --> 00:23:57.650 it is so much fun. It went on to talk about man 00:23:57.650 --> 00:23:59.730 being the most dangerous animal and reference 00:23:59.730 --> 00:24:01.829 to the short story, The Most Dangerous Game. 00:24:02.170 --> 00:24:05.589 But the one thing everyone wanted, his name. 00:24:06.150 --> 00:24:09.529 It wasn't there. No. He taunted them about it. 00:24:10.009 --> 00:24:12.769 The message ended. I will not give you my name 00:24:12.769 --> 00:24:15.109 because you will try to slow down or atop my 00:24:15.109 --> 00:24:18.210 collectiag of slaves. More of those deliberate 00:24:18.210 --> 00:24:20.470 misspellings. So that one was solved in a matter 00:24:20.470 --> 00:24:24.670 of days. But then he sent the Z340. Ah, the masterpiece. 00:24:25.210 --> 00:24:29.430 His magnum opus of code. Sent November 8, 1969. 00:24:30.710 --> 00:24:34.210 340 characters. A much tighter, more complex 00:24:34.210 --> 00:24:37.829 grid. This one went unsolved for 51 years. 51 00:24:37.829 --> 00:24:40.210 years. I mean, just think about that. The entire 00:24:40.210 --> 00:24:43.049 original investigation went cold. DNA technology 00:24:43.049 --> 00:24:45.329 was invented. The internet was born. And this 00:24:45.329 --> 00:24:47.769 single piece of paper just sat there, completely 00:24:47.769 --> 00:24:50.890 unread. Until December of 2020. And again, it 00:24:50.890 --> 00:24:52.910 wasn't the FBI who finally cracked it. It was 00:24:52.910 --> 00:24:55.549 an international team of civilians. An American 00:24:55.549 --> 00:24:58.230 software engineer named David Orenchak, an Australian 00:24:58.230 --> 00:25:00.529 mathematician named Sam Blake, and a Belgian 00:25:00.529 --> 00:25:02.750 programmer, Arl van Eyck. And they used modern 00:25:02.750 --> 00:25:04.670 computing power, right? They did. They used a 00:25:04.670 --> 00:25:06.789 program called AZD Crypt. They ran, I think, 00:25:06.809 --> 00:25:09.210 something like 650 ,000 different simulations, 00:25:09.410 --> 00:25:11.529 trying every possible way of reading the grid. 00:25:11.789 --> 00:25:13.549 They finally realized the Zodiac didn't just 00:25:13.549 --> 00:25:15.730 swap symbols for letters. He scrambled the reading 00:25:15.730 --> 00:25:17.630 order. You had to read it diagonally, then shift 00:25:17.630 --> 00:25:20.130 down one row, then over two columns. It was incredibly 00:25:20.130 --> 00:25:22.970 complex. And after 51 years, the secret message 00:25:22.970 --> 00:25:26.329 was? It was. Well, from an investigative standpoint, 00:25:26.690 --> 00:25:28.490 it was a bit of a letdown. No name, no confession. 00:25:28.809 --> 00:25:31.529 It basically said, I hope you're having lots 00:25:31.529 --> 00:25:34.710 of fan in trying to catch me. I am not afraid 00:25:34.710 --> 00:25:36.450 of the gas chamber because it will send me to 00:25:36.450 --> 00:25:38.829 paradise all the sooner. But it did prove he 00:25:38.829 --> 00:25:40.190 was still watching the news coverage because 00:25:40.190 --> 00:25:43.009 he mentioned a TV show, didn't he? He did. A 00:25:43.009 --> 00:25:46.069 few weeks before he sent that cipher. A man claiming 00:25:46.069 --> 00:25:48.930 to be the Zodiac had called in to a local TV 00:25:48.930 --> 00:25:52.390 show called AM San Francisco. The cipher message 00:25:52.390 --> 00:25:55.549 explicitly says, that wasn't me on the TV show. 00:25:56.109 --> 00:25:58.589 So it proves he was obsessively monitoring his 00:25:58.589 --> 00:26:00.849 own media coverage. What about the unsolved ones? 00:26:00.930 --> 00:26:03.470 There's the really short one, the Z13. That's 00:26:03.470 --> 00:26:05.630 the one that haunts everyone. It starts with 00:26:05.630 --> 00:26:08.960 the text, my name is Till. followed by 13 symbols. 00:26:09.420 --> 00:26:12.859 The problem here is pure mathematics. A 13 -symbol 00:26:12.859 --> 00:26:15.259 cipher is just too short to verify a unique solution. 00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:18.019 You could force almost any name to fit. What 00:26:18.019 --> 00:26:20.019 do people think it says? Oh, the theories are 00:26:20.019 --> 00:26:22.119 all over the place. Some think it's a joke, that 00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:24.299 it decrypts to Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine. 00:26:24.500 --> 00:26:26.920 Others think it's a real name. But unless we 00:26:26.920 --> 00:26:29.559 find the original key he used, it's functionally 00:26:29.559 --> 00:26:32.220 unsolvable. And then there was the map, the map 00:26:32.220 --> 00:26:34.799 puzzle. Right. He sent a map of the San Francisco 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:37.940 Bay Area centered on Mount Diablo. He drew his 00:26:37.940 --> 00:26:40.440 crosshair symbol over the peak and told police 00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:44.000 to set the map to magnetic north. He claimed 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:45.900 that this would show where a bomb was buried. 00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:48.440 Did they find a bomb? No bomb was ever found. 00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:51.759 But investigators later realized something very 00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:54.440 curious. If you place a compass on the peak of 00:26:54.440 --> 00:26:57.240 Mount Diablo on that map, the locations of his 00:26:57.240 --> 00:27:00.160 first two attacks align along a specific radian 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:03.160 angle. A radian? That suggests some kind of technical 00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:04.839 knowledge. It implies he knew the difference 00:27:04.839 --> 00:27:07.119 between magnetic north and true north. Maybe 00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:09.700 he had military training, maybe surveying or 00:27:09.700 --> 00:27:12.299 engineering experience. It was another tantalizing 00:27:12.299 --> 00:27:15.099 but ultimately frustrating clue. Okay, so we 00:27:15.099 --> 00:27:18.119 have the canonical crimes, the letters, the ciphers. 00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:21.140 But he claimed 37 victims. Who else is on that 00:27:21.140 --> 00:27:23.180 unconfirmed list? This is where it gets really 00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:25.519 murky. This is the unconfirmed list. Once the 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:28.299 Zodiac became a media celebrity, basically every 00:27:28.299 --> 00:27:31.259 unsolved murder in California from that era got 00:27:31.259 --> 00:27:33.460 looked at through a Zodiac lens. And the Riverside 00:27:33.460 --> 00:27:36.700 case is the biggest one. Cherry Jo Bates. 1966. 00:27:37.559 --> 00:27:39.400 This is two years before the official start of 00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:41.779 the canonical murders. Sherry Jo was a college 00:27:41.779 --> 00:27:44.259 student in Riverside who was found brutally stabbed 00:27:44.259 --> 00:27:46.500 to death in an alleyway near her library. And 00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:48.980 the details of that case are just eerily similar 00:27:48.980 --> 00:27:52.279 to Zodiac. Incredibly so. A confession letter, 00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:54.980 typed, was sent to the press and police, taking 00:27:54.980 --> 00:27:58.160 credit. A macabre poem was found carved into 00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:00.720 a library desk where she studied, talking about 00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:04.210 being sick of living, going to die. The handwriting 00:28:04.210 --> 00:28:06.869 on the desk looks disturbingly like the Zodiac's. 00:28:06.950 --> 00:28:09.609 The whole tone feels like him. Did the Zodiac 00:28:09.609 --> 00:28:12.809 himself ever claim it? He did. In a 1971 letter, 00:28:12.890 --> 00:28:14.630 he wrote to the press and essentially credited 00:28:14.630 --> 00:28:17.049 the police for finally finding his Riverside 00:28:17.049 --> 00:28:20.299 activity. But, and this is a huge catch. In the 00:28:20.299 --> 00:28:23.259 2000s, DNA was recovered from under Sherry Jo 00:28:23.259 --> 00:28:25.720 Bates' fingernails. It didn't match the partial 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:27.779 DNA profiles we have from the Zodiac letters. 00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:31.000 So was he just taking credit for another killer's 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:33.559 work to boost his score? It's very, very possible. 00:28:33.740 --> 00:28:35.380 It's one of the great debates in this case. What 00:28:35.380 --> 00:28:37.279 about the abduction of Kathleen Johns? This one 00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:39.339 is terrifying to me because she spent hours with 00:28:39.339 --> 00:28:42.680 him. March of 1970. She's driving on Highway 00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:45.400 132 at night with her infant daughter in the 00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:49.089 car. A man in another car starts honking and 00:28:49.089 --> 00:28:51.329 flashing his lights at her, signals that her 00:28:51.329 --> 00:28:54.369 back wheel is loose and wobbling. The good Samaritan 00:28:54.369 --> 00:28:56.750 trap. The oldest trick in the book. She pulls 00:28:56.750 --> 00:28:59.710 over. He gets out, pretends to tighten the lug 00:28:59.710 --> 00:29:02.730 nuts, and sends her on her way. A few miles down 00:29:02.730 --> 00:29:05.450 the road, the wheel falls completely off. He 00:29:05.450 --> 00:29:07.529 had sabotaged it. And then he just happens to 00:29:07.529 --> 00:29:09.990 drive up behind her. offers her a ride to the 00:29:09.990 --> 00:29:11.690 nearest service station. She gets in with her 00:29:11.690 --> 00:29:14.170 baby. But he doesn't take her to a station. He 00:29:14.170 --> 00:29:16.450 just starts driving her around these dark, deserted 00:29:16.450 --> 00:29:19.609 back roads for nearly two hours. Two hours in 00:29:19.609 --> 00:29:21.390 a car with a killer? What did they even talk 00:29:21.390 --> 00:29:23.970 about? She said he was silent for long, long 00:29:23.970 --> 00:29:25.970 stretches. Then he would just turn to her and 00:29:25.970 --> 00:29:28.289 say, very calmly, you know I'm going to kill 00:29:28.289 --> 00:29:30.329 you, don't you? And then just keep driving in 00:29:30.329 --> 00:29:32.930 silence. That is pure psychological torture. 00:29:33.410 --> 00:29:36.170 Absolutely. Eventually, she saw a chance at a 00:29:36.170 --> 00:29:39.039 stop sign. She grabbed her baby. threw open the 00:29:39.039 --> 00:29:41.960 door and jumped out, hiding in a ditch. He drove 00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:44.710 off. When she finally got to a police station, 00:29:44.869 --> 00:29:47.369 she saw the composite sketch of the Zodiac suspect 00:29:47.369 --> 00:29:49.849 from the Stein murder and reportedly screamed, 00:29:50.009 --> 00:29:53.289 that's the man. So we have a profile. We have 00:29:53.289 --> 00:29:55.329 descriptions from survivors. We have handwriting. 00:29:55.490 --> 00:29:58.250 We have DNA, albeit partial. We have to talk 00:29:58.250 --> 00:30:00.809 about the suspects. Police investigated, what, 00:30:00.930 --> 00:30:03.509 2 ,500 people? But there is one name that just 00:30:03.509 --> 00:30:06.329 eclipses all the others. Arthur Lee Allen. If 00:30:06.329 --> 00:30:08.170 you've seen the movie, if you've read any book 00:30:08.170 --> 00:30:10.279 on the case, he's the guy. Why was he such a 00:30:10.279 --> 00:30:12.779 prime suspect? Circumstantially, he is a perfect 00:30:12.779 --> 00:30:16.019 fit. I mean, perfect. He lived in Vallejo, minutes 00:30:16.019 --> 00:30:18.480 away from the first two murder sites. He was 00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.500 a convicted child molester, so he had a documented 00:30:20.500 --> 00:30:22.839 criminal history. He's known to be smart, but 00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:25.200 also very weird and had an unhealthy obsession 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:26.900 with his mother. And then there's the watch. 00:30:27.059 --> 00:30:29.500 The watch. This is the detail that convinced 00:30:29.500 --> 00:30:32.579 Robert Graysmith, the author of Zodiac. Alan 00:30:32.579 --> 00:30:37.460 wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. The logo on the 00:30:37.460 --> 00:30:40.200 face of the watch is a circle with a crosshairs 00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:42.700 over it, the Zodiac symbol. I mean, that feels 00:30:42.700 --> 00:30:45.119 way too on the nose to be a coincidence. And 00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:48.099 it just keeps going. A friend of Alan's, a man 00:30:48.099 --> 00:30:50.220 named Don Chaney, went to the police and told 00:30:50.220 --> 00:30:52.039 them that Alan had talked about hunting people 00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:54.779 with a gun and a knife. that he wanted to attach 00:30:54.779 --> 00:30:57.099 a flashlight to the barrel of his gun, just like 00:30:57.099 --> 00:30:59.200 the killer did at Blue Rock Springs, and that 00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.460 he would call himself Zodiac. This was before 00:31:01.460 --> 00:31:03.859 the killings even started. Allegedly, yes. So 00:31:03.859 --> 00:31:05.599 you have the name, the symbol, the location, 00:31:05.819 --> 00:31:08.579 the specific weapon modification. On paper, it 00:31:08.579 --> 00:31:10.940 looks like a complete slam dunk. But we are here 00:31:10.940 --> 00:31:13.000 for the deep dive. Does the forensic evidence 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:15.000 actually hold up? And this is the great tragedy 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:17.480 of the Zodiac investigation. It doesn't match. 00:31:17.799 --> 00:31:20.180 None of it. What do you mean? Arthur Lee Allen's 00:31:20.180 --> 00:31:22.500 fingerprints. didn't match the prints found on 00:31:22.500 --> 00:31:26.279 Paul Stein's cab or on the Napa payphone. The 00:31:26.279 --> 00:31:28.740 top handwriting experts, including the best at 00:31:28.740 --> 00:31:31.619 the FBI and the U .S. Postal Service, all concluded 00:31:31.619 --> 00:31:34.259 that Allen's writing was definitively not the 00:31:34.259 --> 00:31:37.460 Zodiac's. And what about the DNA? In 2002, they 00:31:37.460 --> 00:31:40.660 developed a partial DNA profile from saliva found 00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:43.940 on a stamp from a Zodiac letter. It did not match 00:31:43.940 --> 00:31:46.150 Arthur Lee Allen. Now, people will argue, well, 00:31:46.250 --> 00:31:48.269 maybe he had someone else lick the stamps for 00:31:48.269 --> 00:31:50.329 him, or maybe the DNA profile was contaminated. 00:31:50.690 --> 00:31:53.130 But every single time they tried to pin hard, 00:31:53.210 --> 00:31:56.369 objective science on Allen, it failed. Dave Toshi, 00:31:56.569 --> 00:31:59.609 the lead SFPD investigator, he struggled with 00:31:59.609 --> 00:32:01.589 this until the day he died, didn't he? He did. 00:32:01.730 --> 00:32:03.769 He famously said something like, he looks like 00:32:03.769 --> 00:32:06.250 a good suspect on paper, but all the physical 00:32:06.250 --> 00:32:09.269 evidence is negative. And the fear is, if it 00:32:09.269 --> 00:32:11.609 wasn't Arthur Lee Allen, then the real Zodiac 00:32:11.609 --> 00:32:14.269 got away completely because for 30 years, everyone 00:32:14.269 --> 00:32:16.130 was looking at Allen. There are other suspects, 00:32:16.230 --> 00:32:18.069 of course. The community of amateur sleuths, 00:32:18.069 --> 00:32:20.549 the zodiologists, they love to debate this stuff. 00:32:20.890 --> 00:32:23.210 It's a cottage industry, a whole subculture. 00:32:23.369 --> 00:32:26.009 There's Richard Gajkowski, who was a newspaper 00:32:26.009 --> 00:32:29.150 editor at the time. There's Gary Francis, a poster 00:32:29.150 --> 00:32:31.670 group called the Case Breakers, recently claimed 00:32:31.670 --> 00:32:33.990 scars on his forehead match the composite sketch. 00:32:34.309 --> 00:32:37.170 But law enforcement has never officially validated 00:32:37.170 --> 00:32:39.630 any of these other suspects. It's so frustrating. 00:32:40.279 --> 00:32:43.039 We have modern forensic genealogy now. We caught 00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:45.140 the Golden State Killer by checking his distant 00:32:45.140 --> 00:32:48.519 cousin's DNA on ancestry websites. Why hasn't 00:32:48.519 --> 00:32:51.619 that worked here? They tried. In 2018, the Vallejo 00:32:51.619 --> 00:32:53.440 Police Department sent the envelope evidence 00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:56.440 to a private lab. They wanted to do exactly that. 00:32:56.660 --> 00:32:59.299 But the samples are over 50 years old. They're 00:32:59.299 --> 00:33:01.380 incredibly degraded. And we don't even know for 00:33:01.380 --> 00:33:03.380 sure if the Zodiac ever licked the stamps himself. 00:33:03.680 --> 00:33:06.180 He might have used a wet sponge or water. If 00:33:06.180 --> 00:33:08.039 there's no usable DNA on the envelope, there's 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:10.190 no genealogy match to be made. Let's talk about 00:33:10.190 --> 00:33:12.609 the legacy, because in a strange and very dark 00:33:12.609 --> 00:33:15.369 way, the Zodiac achieved his goal. He wanted 00:33:15.369 --> 00:33:18.450 to be immortal, and he is. He absolutely created 00:33:18.450 --> 00:33:20.769 the archetype of the modern media -savvy serial 00:33:20.769 --> 00:33:23.710 killer. Before him, you just had Mad Men. He 00:33:23.710 --> 00:33:26.569 made murder a multimedia performance. He directly 00:33:26.569 --> 00:33:29.289 inspired the villain Scorpio in the Clint Eastwood 00:33:29.289 --> 00:33:32.130 movie Dirty Harry. He completely changed how 00:33:32.130 --> 00:33:34.640 the press covers crime. Dodie Harry came out 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.660 in 1971. The Zodiac was potentially still active 00:33:37.660 --> 00:33:40.380 then. Oh, yeah. Can you imagine sitting in a 00:33:40.380 --> 00:33:42.900 theater in San Francisco, watching a movie about 00:33:42.900 --> 00:33:45.339 a killer who is directly based on you while you're 00:33:45.339 --> 00:33:47.819 still at large? There was even a low -budget 00:33:47.819 --> 00:33:50.160 B -movie called The Zodiac Killer, where the 00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:52.799 director actually set a trap in the theater, 00:33:52.980 --> 00:33:55.220 hoping the real killer would be so arrogant he'd 00:33:55.220 --> 00:33:57.640 show up to the premiere. Unbelievable. And today 00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:00.200 we have the memes, the endless internet jokes 00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:02.660 about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac. Which is funny. 00:34:03.019 --> 00:34:05.079 On one level, but it also shows how the figure 00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:07.759 has morphed from a genuinely terrifying murderer 00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:12.739 into a kind of a caricature, a pop culture bogeyman. 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:14.840 And when that happens, we lose sight of Betty 00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:16.619 Lou Jensen running for her life in the dark. 00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:18.780 We lose sight of Paul Stein bleeding out in his 00:34:18.780 --> 00:34:20.960 cab for a few dollars and a piece of his shirt. 00:34:21.159 --> 00:34:23.320 So where does that leave us today? Is the case 00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:25.800 technically still open? In Napa County and Riverside 00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:29.420 County, yes, it's still an open cold case. SFPD 00:34:29.420 --> 00:34:32.780 officially marked it inactive in 2004. But then 00:34:32.780 --> 00:34:36.059 they quietly reopened it in 2006. But realistically, 00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:39.099 unless a deathbed confession surfaces somewhere, 00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:43.159 or some pristine, perfectly preserved DNA sample 00:34:43.159 --> 00:34:45.719 is found in an old evidence locker, this case 00:34:45.719 --> 00:34:48.380 will likely remain unsolved forever. The letters 00:34:48.380 --> 00:34:50.840 and ciphers? They just stopped coming around 00:34:50.840 --> 00:34:54.059 1974. Why? Why did he stop? And that's the final 00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:56.360 mystery, isn't it? Serial killers don't usually 00:34:56.360 --> 00:34:58.460 just retire. They get caught, they get incarcerated 00:34:58.460 --> 00:35:00.739 for something else, or they die. Or maybe they 00:35:00.739 --> 00:35:03.199 just get bored. It's a possibility. In one of 00:35:03.199 --> 00:35:06.300 his very last confirmed letters from 1974, he 00:35:06.300 --> 00:35:08.280 wrote a review of the movie The Exorcist, calling 00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:10.699 it the best satirical comedy that I have ever 00:35:10.699 --> 00:35:13.639 seen. The tone was so relaxed, almost nonchalant. 00:35:13.880 --> 00:35:16.219 Maybe he felt he had won the game. Maybe the 00:35:16.219 --> 00:35:18.400 fear he created wasn't feeding his ego anymore. 00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:21.199 That is a genuinely terrifying thought, that 00:35:21.199 --> 00:35:23.250 he could have just stopped. He could have just 00:35:23.250 --> 00:35:26.110 melted back into society and been the quiet old 00:35:26.110 --> 00:35:27.989 man at the grocery store for the next 30 years. 00:35:28.210 --> 00:35:30.550 And he took the secret of his name to the grave 00:35:30.550 --> 00:35:33.389 with him. The final score he ever posted was, 00:35:33.469 --> 00:35:41.730 And as of today, for the police, that zero is 00:35:41.730 --> 00:35:44.130 still on the board. And that void, that complete 00:35:44.130 --> 00:35:46.969 lack of a face of a resolution, is what keeps 00:35:46.969 --> 00:35:49.250 us all so obsessed. If you want to try your hand 00:35:49.250 --> 00:35:51.730 at the unsolved Z13 cipher or look at the Mount 00:35:51.730 --> 00:35:53.829 Diablo map, all the resources are out there online. 00:35:53.969 --> 00:35:56.849 But be warned, thousands and thousands of people 00:35:56.849 --> 00:35:59.210 have gone down that rabbit hole and never found 00:35:59.210 --> 00:36:01.269 the bottom. Question the narrative. Look at the 00:36:01.269 --> 00:36:04.070 primary sources for yourself. And most importantly, 00:36:04.210 --> 00:36:06.530 remember the victims. Thanks for listening to 00:36:06.530 --> 00:36:08.909 this deep dive. Stay curious. And stay safe.