The Zodiac /// Part 2 /// 471 | Forensic Files

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GameChanger [Music] on Friday August 1st 1969 three letters were received one at
the Vallejo times heral one to the San Francisco Chronicle and one to the San Francisco Examiner the nearly identical
letters took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs each letter also included onethird of
what is referred to as the Zodiac 408 Cipher it is called this because the author used
48 different symbols in the cryptogram which the killer claimed that when solved you'll have my name so the
cryptogram is to contain his identity the author demanded that the letters and the cipher be printed on each paper's
front page let's go through each and give a good description of everything that was received first the Vallejo
times the envelope to the Vallejo times is addressed to Vallejo times heral Vallejo califf as to say California c a
l i f please rush to editor with four stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope so way too much postage the
back of the envelope says please rush to editor the envelope to the San Francisco
Examiner is addressed to S period F period examiner San Fran period Calif mhm please rush to editor with two
postage stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope the back of the envelope
again says please rush to editor the envelope to the San Francisco Chronicle is addressed to S period F period
Chronicle San Fran period Calif please rush to editor again with two stamps in the upper right corner of the envelope
and again the back of the envelope says please rush to editor all three envelopes are postmarked from from San
Francisco and dated as mailed on July 31st 1969 the day before they're received so when we talk about where
zodiac lived and What murders he might be quote local to we know one simple fact and that is on Thursday July 31st
1969 the Zodiac was in San Francisco right now for the letters all three letters say basically the same thing
with subtle differences throughout each I even went to the exercise of sitting down and examining all three and
comparing them so that I could write down every subtle difference between the three they are not identical letters but
they are basically delivering the same identical message but real quick they're all three handwritten they're all three
handwritten and the exercise that I did to find the subtle differences between the three was botes it does not work
well for our audio presentation of this case it would be something that would be
interesting to visually show to everyone drop your pants there we go the letters
read dear editor this is the murder of the two teenagers last Christmas Christmas spelled with
M at Lake Herman and the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo
to prove that I killed them I shall State some facts with which only I and the police know Christmas again spelled
m s brand of ammo Super X 10 shots were fired the boy was on his back with his feet to the car the girl was on her
right side feet to the west and real quickly there's no way he would know this as far as this wasn't printed
somewhere where any laymen would know this information so from what I could find based off of the newspapers and in
their versions of the story of the attacks prior to this right that's why I purposely went through the fact that
they were saying in the first attack that each victim was shot three times we know that's not the truth the female
victim was shot five times and that would have been hold back information they did not want anyone to know the
number of shots fired even though the police themselves did know that they said each victim shot three times they
said something like four shell casings were found near the vehicle one thing that he is telling us here that only the
police would know one is 10 shots were fired and two he's naming the brand of ammo that was
used to shoot the two teenagers right he goes on to say 4th July girl was wearing
pattern slacks the boy was also shot in the knee brand name of ammo was Western so again the name of the ammo would not
be known and from what I could find too the the statement of the boy was also shot in the knee this does not seem to
have been general knowledge at the time then he writes over on the page to make sure that you do not fail to flip it
over because he's wrote some more on the back here is part of a cipher the other
two parts of this Cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo times in San Francisco Examiner now
you're going to change those titles depending on which of the three letters you're reading I want you to print this
Cipher on the front page of your paper in this Cipher is my identity if you do not print this Cipher by the afternoon
of fry f r y first of August 69 now for August he just put a Au ug I will go on a kill Rampage fry night I will Cruise
any misspells Cruz around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again until I end up
with a dozen people over the weekend so as he stated in each letter it contained
one third piece of this Cipher the chronicle published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the next
day's Edition well again he he's telling them post this on the front page and again I'll bring up the Zodiac movie and
I know it's a dramatization but it's the idea is that these newspapers then had to contemplate do we don't want blood on
our hands but at the same time we don't want to meet all the demands of a serial
killer Yes and so the cryptogram was printed on the fourth page of the chronicle and what's interesting here is
the article was printed alongside sorry there was an article that was printed alongside the code that quoted Vallejo
police chief Jack stilts as saying quote we're not satisfied that the letter was
written by the murderer and requested that the writer send a second letter with more facts to prove his identity I
think that was a way to bait him well and what's interesting too Captain is that the his demands were not carried
out as he instructed right and the threatened murders did not happen he you know nobody drove around shooting people
until they killed a dozen people that weekend but eventually all three parts were published right just not on the
front page but look when you think of all the cases that we covered this blows my mind the level of sophistication yeah
okay he spells some words wrong uh and I think you know know I think the spelling
Christmas like that is probably some just stupid joke he's trying to make just like the flip over right mhm I mean
like I said it's just there's this level of sophistication of we're going to send
this to three papers because and now I get to see the reaction of three companies and their
heads and what they're going to do whether they print it on the first page or the fourth page and then there's
different readers for every paper so now I'm going to hear and feel the reactions
of when I'm going through my daily life not as the Zodiac right just as as a regular dude and I'm going to hear the
the Rumblings about my work about what I'm creating it's um I I can't think of another crime off the top of my head of
of something that ballsy well if the police chief from Vallejo was trying to in fact bait the killer or at least the
author of that letter well they took the bait because on August 7th 1969 another
letter was received this was a three paged handwritten letter and it was received by the San Francisco Examiner
with the salutation dear editor this is the Zodiac speaking okay so now this monster has officially given himself a
name this will be the first time the killer had used this name for identification right the letter was a
response to Chief sz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday Jensen and faren this letter
says Dear editor this is the Zodiac speaking in answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have
had in Vallejo I shall be very happy to Supply even more material by the way are
the police having a good time with the code if not tell them to cheer up when they do crack it they will have me on
the 4th of July I did not open the car door the window was rolled down already the boy was originally sitting in the
front seat when I began firing when I fired the first shot at his head he leaped backwards at the same time thus
spoiling my aim he ended up up on the back seat then the floor in the back thrashing out very violently with his
legs that's how I shot him in the knee I did not leave the scene of the killing with squealing tires Racing Engines as
described in the Vallejo paper I drove away quite slowly so as not to draw attention to my car the man who told
police that my car was brown was a negro about 40 to 45 rather shabbily dressed I
was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking
by when I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring and that Drew his attention to me plus my car last
Christmas again M SS in that episode the police were wondering how I could shoot
and hit my victims in the dark they did not openly State this but implied this by saying it was a well-lit night and I
could see silhouettes on the horizon [ __ ] that area is surrounded by high hills plus trees what I did was tape a
small pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun if you notice in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a
wall or ceiling you will see a black or dark spot in the center of the circle of
the light about 3 to 6 in across when taped to a gun barrel the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in
the light all I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose there was no need to use the gun sights I was not
happy to see that I did not get front page coverage and then this is where he signs it with what we would later refer
to as the zodiac symbol the circle with the cross in the center of it and then he wrote no address so let's think about
this for a second what does this tell us about our killer well first he seems to
read all three papers and would appear to expect to have access to all three to double check their work on Friday night
or as he says fry night because that's when he's going to start killing people if he doesn't see his work in the papers
yeah but again we don't know how much time this guy has on his hands he could make the time if it's that important to
to collect these uh resources again I don't have the notes in front of me like you do but there's not a lot of
misspelled words this guy isn't uh a dentist Raider he's not misspelling a bunch of words and he's also explaining
to you how he basically jimmied his gun to have light in the dark I I I don't want to give this guy
too much credit but again I think you're dealing with a somewhat of an intellectual yeah and I think that it's
a strong possibility that the Zodiac has some type of military background now talking about where he may live or what
he has access to again I don't believe I I can't believe that he threw out this threat and didn't want to double check
their work I really firmly believe he would have been in a position to have the ability to access all three
newspapers that Friday night to see his work that's what he that's what he loves
yeah you wonder if he's a some kind of driver or Delivery Man or well what I find interesting is we know that on the
day before he would have been in San Francisco because that's where the letters were mailed from right all three
yet of the newspapers the Vallejo times would be the smallest of the three papers and I wonder how much
availability at the time that Vallejo paper would have been in the the bigger city of San Francisco I could see being
in Vallejo and being able to get the San Francisco papers I just wonder could one
get the Vallejo paper in San Fran the other thing that I want to point out here too is we also know that he reads
the San Francisco Examiner and that seems like a dumb statement but I want to include that because we know that he
reads the San Francisco Examiner specifically because he responded to Chief sz's request for more details that
was only printed in one of the three papers but what's interesting for whatever reason he's responding to
something he read in the San Francisco Examiner but he sends those additional details to the other paper to the San
Francisco Chronicle right so it's it's weird it's uh why why the preference of having it printed in the San Francisco
Chronicle when you respond to something that was in The Examiner or is it just another one of his weird little games
and here comes Captain Obvious for you again a little bit of sophistication a little bit of cat and mouse a little bit
of I I want to see how people react but the intellectual part the cipher dividing up the cipher in three
parts and I'm not great at cryptograms or anything like that so I'm not going to pretend to fully understand this but
some things that I do know is one you're looking for words that have the common double consonant use that's that's one
key indicator that you could quickly pick up on right as well as the the most common letter used in the English
language is the letter e and he was sophisticated enough to know this that he used I believe it was seven different
symbols for the letter e so it you know you couldn't one couldn't easily pick this up and figure out the letter e
immediately just by looking at it you know you would you would count up the number you would count up the symbols
that were used repeatedly and the one that was repeated the most you would say well that should be e right and start
from there well he used seven different symbols if not more for the letter e now
interestingly enough on August 8th so he's already responded to their request for more information to prove that he's
the killer before the cipher is solved because it's solved on the eth and this was solved by Donald and Betty Harden of
salinus California they were the ones that cracked the Zodiac's 408 Cipher are they
mathematicians they were I believe teachers nerds um and I don't know if it was math or or what but um both of them
had an interest in code cracking and it was kind of a hobby of theirs the the interesting thing too it seems like
Donald was a little more schooled in this ability but it was Betty that kept the two of them at task like there were
multiple times where he's like it's impossible just give up and she's like no we got we're going to stick with this
we'll be able to solve it and so the husband and wife yeah behind every great man is an even better woman a smarter
woman but what I like about it is I I love the people that go no don't give up we're almost there well and we'll get
into the decipherment here in a minute but the cipher contained misspellings as you said and the killer seemed to be
referencing the most dangerous game now for those that don't know the most dangerous game was also it's a story
that was also published as the hounds of zarof it's a short story by Richard Connell after decoded the cipher reads
as follows I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing Wild game in the forest because
man is the most dangerous animal of all not true that's mosquitoes to kill something gives me the most thrilling
experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is that when I die I
will be reborn in Paradise the I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name
because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife and then there are 18 letters
e b e o r i e t e m e t h HP I ti so the 408 symbol Cipher next time won't choose
single as the captain pointed out includes several misspellings and grammar errors mhm now the meaning if
there in fact is any meaning at all of the final 18 letters has never been determined okay but how could they say
that the couple cracked the code well this is really interesting and this is this like throws some psychology into it
as well because the couple they were saying look obviously this guy wants attention or he wouldn't have bothered
to write the letters in the first place right agree so they said you know we went into this after examining it for a
while with the idea that someone so self-centered would likely begin the letter or the whole message with I with
the word I also Betty She suspected that the word kill would obviously appear in
the message at some point right so that's a good call yeah and she said that she took it as far as to suggest
that the message might even begin with a phrase something to the effect of I like
killing so if you use that and apply it and say all right well we we think that maybe it will start with the word I and
that we will see the word kill at some point in there you're looking for the double consonants the two L's and kill
mhm two symbols the same next to each other to be used or you you apply that uh I like killing as a possible first
phrase and then work it out through there I think we talked a little bit about this off
record but the type of killing that he's doing yes I mean by having two individuals it seems like
it there's more cause for possibly a mistake for one of them to get free and to live and then become a eyewitness but
it's one of the less risky crimes he's uh he's pray on people in in areas that they that they know they're
going to be vulnerable and they're going to be alone and can can take advantage of that yeah yeah it's again It's tricky
to completely we're talking about decoding it's it's it's difficult to decipher how he's coming up with his
victims but one thing that seems to be going on in this situation is that killing might not be the number one
objective here no it it almost feels like the the uh reaction the suspense of him
killing again is what really truly excites him and that's where I go back to the idea of the threat of oh I'll
drive around if you don't print print this on your front pages like I asked you to I'm going to drive around all
weekend shooting people until I end up with a dozen dead over the weekend well he didn't do that we know he didn't do
that and so you go well well why didn't he do that because he got just as much enjoyment out of seeing the reaction the
Panic the people working to try to to solve the cipher and the reaction that it was putting out there for that
weekend he achieved enough excitement over that that he didn't have to go out and actually shoot and kill anybody yeah
I agree and I think that's because the the excitement's actually higher because I would actually think that you
have more chances of getting caught they're asking for the letter so they know it's coming so how much information
can they find out about where that letter is coming from but that's what baffles me a little bit is their demand
is a higher risk that he could get caught than him him going on to kill other people
yes and that's why it's a good kind of proactive technique to try to bait the author into sending something again
because look if you can't shake the bushes and get the killer to come out then your second goal is well let's
shake the bushes and maybe the author comes out and it turns out that they weren't the
Killer and yeah and if you can shake the bushes well enough then you're a master
baiter but what happens is they when they bait the author they end up getting more
confirmation that yes the author is in fact the person that killed all three of those
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lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check
out rosettastone.com it's a GameChanger Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
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Crime addicts cheers mates cheers all right Captain we have another attack so brace yourself this time the
Zodiac Killer will strike in broad daylight the date is Saturday September 27th 1969 the location is lake beresa lake
beresa is the largest lake in Napa County Florida located in the vka mountains to give a general location to
the listeners in relationship to the previous attacks lake beresa is located about 36 M north of Vallejo mhm so quite
a quite a good distance considerable distance considering the first two attacks were within about 2 miles of
each other in the evening hours Pacific Union college students this is 20-year-old Brian Hartnell and
22-year-old Cecilia Shepard are picnicking at Lake beresa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin
Oak Ridge a man approached them now as he got closer they could clearly see that the
man was wearing a disguise and holding a handgun mhm the disguise or as I would call it the Zodiac's costume is
described as a hooded mask with a symbol sewn onto the chest The Mask resembles a
paper grocery bag in shape flat on top with the corner sticking out it was black with slits cut in it for the eyes
and mouth over the eye holes there were clipon sunglasses The Mask draped down over the chest and back of the man the
symbol sewn onto the chest portion of the Mask is a circle with a cross in it the now familiar crosshairs looking
symbol that the Zodiac uses as his logo so to speak yeah so now we have the guy gives himself a name the zodiac a very
ominous name the Zodiac and now he's wearing this costume and he's given himself a logo as well we have a killer
that's really kind of coming to life as almost like a super villain from a comic
book yeah but hearing that his mask is similar to like a grocery sack it's that's a little disappointing hey look
at me I'm captain sackhead give me some candy well let's get into that after we go through what happened on that day the
hood that we're talking about came down over a dark colored windbreaker the windbreaker was worn over top of what
has been called a rusty black shirt I don't know exactly what that means my guess is anybody that's owned
you know you wear a black shirt a whole bunch of times it can can get faded but sometimes it almost takes on this Rusty
appearance yeah so he's wearing black gloves as well he's wearing baggy pleated pants tucked into boots he has
on a belt with a wooden holder attached to the belt and the holder is for a long
knife now the knife resembles a bayonet with a wooden handle he had some lengths
of rope stuffed inside his belt I've seen several sources state that these were very likely cut clothesline
probably cut into 18 in or 2 ft long pieces given the time period in other cases we have reviewed cut clothesline
makes good sense the attacker was 5T 10 in to 6' 2 in tall the hood is often described as a black executioners type
Hood so given that description and the general shape of this Hood I would believe this may make his exact height a
little more difficult to determine and that's why I think he may have chose that that oddly shaped grocery bag type
shape for the hood right plus he has it cut in a way that it's going to drape down the front of him and the back of
him it just really makes his exact height very difficult to determine yeah and also doesn't hug the features of his
face correct he's described as doesn't hug the face doesn't hug my face he's described as possibly
225 to 250 lb so a big boy stocky and build again given the fact that he was clearly very overdressed with
unnecessary layers of clothing and baggy pants he may appear to be heavier than what he actually is and I know this is a
point of contention in the deli case with the bridge guy a glimpse into the space this is very interesting a glimpse
into the space behind those clipon sunglasses right by our one of our victims revealed brown hair and what he
said a glimmer suggesting that maybe the attacker is wearing glasses underneath the
hood his voice it is said sounded like he was in his 20s Brian Hartnell believed that the gun that the man had
was a 45 now the way that a 45 looks traditionally is very consistent with what some in law enforcement say was the
likely used in at least one of the earlier attacks that that Browning high-powered uh handgun that we spoke of
okay so again let's let's take a step back for a second cuz we have a guy that now we think he has access to multiple
guns he has access to multiple Vehicles he is now sending letters not just calling and taking responsibility but
sending letters taunting different Publications different entities if you will and then
this one seems a little more Brash because it's in the daylight he's he's wearing a costume so he's going to stick
out like a sore thumb or a sore loser it's also on a remote part like you said almost an island so it seems like again
setting himself up in more of a dangerous scenario to get caught yes yes and maybe no and I have a lot of
thoughts on that why he's kind of changing what he's doing I think he's in a way evolving and adapting to to the
battlefield if you will I actually believe that this guy is playing a game and he's not informed the rest of us
that this game is going on right and it is a a type of game that he's playing and he doesn't he's chosen not to tell
us the rules of this game but his objective is to kill terrorize put the fear of the community into the people in the
community and not get caught for it and I think what you see here is too you mention access to multiple weapons or
now we're potentially seeing different guns used and a bayonet type knife this guy his makeup his profile very much
would indicate this guy has to be kind of a weapons Enthusiast of some sort he's not
somebody that just purchased one gun or or his daddy died and gave him a gun no this is a guy that that is actively
collecting using practicing with different guns and weapons so much so that he explains to them look you made
it sound like oh I could I was just shooting at the silouettes as they ran from me no that's [ __ ] I purposely
outfitted my weapon so that I could hunt in the night and make it easy on me it's
dark I don't want to use my sites it's almost nearly impossible if not impossible to use them in the pitch
black so I taped a pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun anybody that's ever
aimed that at a wall or ceiling knows that you will see this and the gun behaves and reacts in relationship to
the flashlight in this manner yeah this means this is all stuff this dude has practiced and tried on his own the only
thing he was missing was an audience and the audience unfortunately would be his
future victim when he played this out again yeah but I also think when he said hey look here's
my demands put these notes in the the ciphers on the front page and then they didn't instead of going with his
original plan they zigged he zagged he was killing people at night okay now they're on to that I'm going to show
them can kill a different way I'm willing to kill in the daylight so now we don't have a killer that we're just
worried when the when the sun goes down we have a killer that we need to be worried about all the time there in lies
the terrorist aspect of this killer it's you're you're only truly good at the terrorism game if people are afraid of
you all of the time and this is to suggest to the community look I don't just hunt at nighttime baby I do this
whenever I feel like it and until I am caught you all should be very afraid continuing on with the description of
the attack at Lake beresa the hooded gunman demanded the couple's money and car keys saying he wanted to drive to to
Mexico right he said he escaped from a prison in Deer Lodge Montana where he had killed a prison guard he said that
he had no money and was driving a stolen car Brian gave the attacker his money and keys to his Volkswagen Carmen Gia
then using the pre-cut lengths of of clothesline he instructed Cecilia to tie up Brian then the hooded man tied up
Cecilia put her face down next to Brian the killer then checked and tightened Brian's bindings the couple seem to
believe the man's story they thought they were simply being robbed this is until he told them that he was going to
stab them both right then he drew his knife and he stabbed them both repeatedly he began by stabbing Brian
first in the back and then he moved on to Cecilia and did the same but she rolled onto her back in like in in the
struggle and ended up being stabbed repeatedly on in the front as well Brian said that he pretended to be dead now
after the attack the attacker tossed the money and keys onto the couple's blanket
and simply walked off so he came up with this story I'm here to take your money in your your car and then tossing them
on the blanket indicates he didn't want their money nor did he need their car the killer then hiked 500 yard back to
Knoxville Road this is to Brian hartel's Volkswagen Carmen Gia right before the killer left using a black felt tip
marker he wrote a message on Brian hartnell's car he drew a cross circle symbol on hartnell's car door and wrote
beneath it Vallejo 12-20-18 7-4 d69 September 2769 630 by knife so the zodiac symbol
followed by Vallejo the location of the first two attacks followed by the dates of those attacks then the date of the
current attack September 27th the Lake beresa he even provided the time 6:30 and the method for which he intended to
kill the victims by knife again what did we do here I'm killing my victims with a gun at night now I'm
going to switch to killing my victims during the day with a knife yes and what's interesting to me Captain I
actually I say that I believe that the Killer is evolving he's evolving for the purpose
of his game again his game is to terrorize continue to terrorize and not get caught I mean but that's your
blanket statement is that it's that's what my belief it's a game of terrorism but there's no like there you don't have
deeper details that you the Zodiac has not told me that I'm correct so I'm just guessing son [ __ ] I'm just guessing
here but I also believe that his main goal out of all of this is not to get caught so if I apply that to these
crimes times let's think about this for a second the first the first attack the first 100% confirmed zodiac attack took
place just before Christmas 1968 he's successful and to the point of not only killing both
victims but there's no real Witnesses you know the problem for him then becomes on July 4th he does a very
similar attack or what we can believe would be a very similar attack as the first one however he screwed up he left
before killing both victims one of the guys survived to the point where he could offer a description of the zodiac
yeah it was a couple but the the male survived correct Michael Mao he survived and what does he provide police he
provides them with a description of the shooter as well as a somewhat vague but a description of the vehicle M here's
what I think is super interesting why is he changing I don't think it's so much so to terrorize and prove that he can
kill in any method or any manner that he chooses I think it's all kind of convenient because he's learning what he
did wrong so he knows now that he's not perfect he's had two attacks on four victims one survives he now knows that
he's not perfect after his second attack doesn't go down the way he wanted it to
right so what has he taken from this well they've already kind of there's a description out there about my vehicle
there's a description out there about me okay well I'm going to attack now in a manner that does not have me pulling
my vehicle up to their vehicle or up to the victims because if I accidentally leave one of them alive his intent is to
kill let's let's not be confused here his intent is to kill everyone he attacks but he knows that he's not
perfect so I do not want to have to put my vehicle where if one of these people manages to survive somehow we'll have a
description of my vehicle also I'm going to wear a disguise because if in fact one of them do survive they can't give a
description of me because I've worn this elaborate disguise right the potato sack
how about I take it a step further one a gun is pretty loud and I'm doing this at
Lake beresa which is in fact just basically a huge gigantic Park all that noise is going to cause a lot of people
awareness of me and they might be seeing me so let's use something much more quiet Like a Knife oh and that's even
better too because then I'm not leaving behind bullets and casings that they can
match it to my previous crimes or to or or back to me because it's a firearm arm
that I own yeah and I also wonder if he changed the way in which he was attacking victims not just to throw off
law enforcement or to like show people hey look I I can kill people however I want and and that will strike fear into
the community but in the in that moment you have to stab that individual more times than you'd have to shoot them and
you'd have to be at a closer range so do you get more of whatever he's getting off on he's getting off on chaos and
rage and their fear and how they're reacting to him you think I would think that attack with a knife would be more
intimate yes he's certainly becoming more violent and whether that's because he aspires to become more violent or if
it's through necessity of changing his Mo right the other thing with the inroad day see I feel like the Zodiac would
want all of us to go oh wow I mean he's so he he's so confident that he's out there killing in broad daylight and now
he's handson and and but he's wearing a a potato sack I think that he would enjoy and would want us to think that
where I think that he's actually fairly inadequate where I think that he does not have a whole lot of confidence even
though he tries to tell us that he does I think that he has made these moves and these
Maneuvers to change what he's doing because he is afraid that he's going to get caught that he does know that he has
made mistakes I think if it were up to him he would have simply kept doing what he did in the first attack and been
successful all along but because he was learning that he's not perfect he's deciding that he has to change well I
was talking to a a season Detective retired and he just said hey what's your next case and I said uh zodiac and he
goes you know this was this was a real detective he he he didn't read a lot about uh true crime stories or other
cases going on he worked his cases he's like how did he kill his victims again uh wasn't he lover Lovers Lane shooter
or something I said uh yeah yeah Lover Lover Lane and he and and he basically was saying cow
and so we also don't know what people were saying around the Zodiac when he's in his
normal life he could have just had a buddy that he was like man that zodiac man he's going around killing people and
and the guy went oh what a wuss you know guy pulls up on unsuspected victims in the middle of night with a
gun what kind of f what kind of fair fight is that you know what I mean well it never is with these guys and that's
why in fact they are all cowards at at the at the core of it at the core of of their being they're all I mean he's
ambushing teenagers unarmed people it's not a it's it's not a fair fight and he knows that going into it yeah but that's
what I'm saying is what I think is interesting is how much of the decision is he making based off this game he's
playing or this zigg and zag game that he's playing with law enforcement or it could be simply you know he's talking to
people about the crime in his regular life and they make some observations and then he goes well I got to change it up
cuz uh Zodiac's done impressing people enough you know and this killing in broad daylight I don't think that it
shows that his confidence is growing I think it's just out of necessity he's killing at basically what is a big giant
park right so so when do parks close when the Sun goes down so if you want to drive there looking for a victim your
likelihood of finding a victim after Sundown is less likely so he I again I think because of he him choosing this
area he's kind of forced into attacking during broad daylight now Captain it looks like our two victims they were
able to crawl some distance from the scene their screams and cries for help were in fact heard by a man who was with
his son they were on a fishing trip uh in the area that day the man contacted the park rangers now Cecilia was
conscious when Law Enforcement Officers arrived right this was Napa County Sheriff's Office that arrived on scene
but she very quickly slipped into a coma during the transportation to the hospital and never regained
Consciousness she died two days later from her injuries Brian Hartnell the the male victim
survived and was able to provide law enforcement with the details of the attack and the attacker the details that
we just went through right at 7:40 p.m. by the Killer's own words this would be a little more than 1 hour after the
attack A call came in to the Napa County Police Department on the call the unidentified male caller sounded to be
maybe early 20s according to to the person taking the call said he wanted to report a double murder and before he
hung up he said he was the perpetrator of those murders not just reporting the murders right but I'm the guy that did
it the call was from a pay phone at a Napa car wash on Main Street in Napa at the car wash the phone was found still
off the hook minutes later by a radio reporter this pay phone is located only blocks away from the Napa Sheriff's
Office this is 27 mil though from the crime scene again weird that this guy okay he's going to carry out these
attacks and again by his own words he thinks he was successful he's calling in a double murder and fortunately Brian
Hartnell survived yeah but an an hour to an hour and 10 minutes uh roughly and then this
location probably a 30 minute drive would be my guess I don't find too much of a problem with the missing time here
and that's because we know several facts about this crime one the killer walked a
considerable distance from the parking area to where he attacked both of the victims and then
walked then had to walk back he wrote on the vehicle and then he left the area the detective Ives were able to lift a
still wet palm print from the telephone used by the killer but it looks like they were never able to match it to any
one suspect at the crime scene Captain there were tire tracks found near Brian's car
so someone parked behind Brian's car it is believed that this is the vehicle of the Killer and here's why they said that
the front of this car that that left track they could tell by the tracks that the front of this car seemed to have
tires that were not only worn but they were actually two different sizes okay so we believe this to be the
Killer's vehicle because Footprints led to the murder scene and then back again to that parking area that went right up
to the door of Brian's Carmen Gia the shoe size was 102 the subject was estimated to weigh
at least 22 20 lb so this fits with Brian's description as well right the prints were from a wing walker type of
boot this type of boot was produced under government contract and distributed on the west coast to Navy
and Air Force some people at the lake that day provided descriptions of a man that they said seemed to be
suspicious this unidentified male was in a light blue or silver Chevy with California tags smoking cigarettes he
was 6 foot tall or more 200 to 230 lb mid-20s to mid-30s with straight dark hair side part clean cut they have him
wearing a black sweatshirt with sleeves long sleeves I'm sorry dark blue slacks and a t-shirt was visible hanging out of
the pants uh in the back and W was hanging out in his front and here's another I unidentified male description
maybe the same person maybe not we don't know this person was described as 5'10 stocky wearing a dark long sleeve shirt
with some red on it and dark pants now longtime listeners of this show we'll know from our John Douglas mind Hunter
episodes as he said the FBI did not investigate the Zodiac crimes at the time but did so later Douglas however
suggests that maybe the killer at this attack provided us a clue to his identity specifically the I escaped from
a prison in Deer Lodge Montana and Douglas who even lived in Montana at some point in his life says
that Deer Lodge Montana is not just the kind of place that you just pick at random or pull it out of thin air M he
believes that there's a likelihood that this the attacker the killer the Zodiac has some some connection to that area
now he did say that it was specifically looked at there was not a recent escape from a prison there there was not a
recent murder of a prison guard there that part was made up but Douglas firmly believes that this Deer Lodge
Montana is real is is more truth Than Fiction so I always just thought it was a a ruse just to throw him off the set
Douglas actually suggested using some proactive techniques and he said that he would use this Deer Lodge Montana idea
in maybe snuffing out the snuff up iess sniffing out the killer mhm he says what
he would have done if he would have been active on the case at the time would be
to cooperate with an investigative reporter in the Deer Lodge Montana area right and have them run some kind of
story about the Zodiac and that they're seeking information from some different people
and whatnot he really felt that if you could tie together Vallejo California lake berasa
California and Deer Lodge Montana there's not going to be a great portion of the population that have lived in
both places mhm and that would really shrink down your suspect pool now the description that we gave of the
suspicious man this may not be the Zodiac at all may not be the Killer at all this is just somebody that was
spotted at Lake beresta that day by two different groups of people maybe the same man maybe not but they said they
all thought this guy to be suspicious you're asked have you seen anything unusual or anything suspicious in nature
you report that to police and we went through the description of this mail or males this was put out to the public and
in a very smart move the police did not refer to this man as a suspect simply they said this is someone that was at
Lake beresa on the day of the murders and is somebody that police would like to speak with yeah I mean it's the same
thing they did in deli with Bridge guy but I wonder if you know if he was in this prison does that mean that he's
catchable well I don't necessarily think that Douglas thinks that the man served
time in prison I think he's just pointing out that not everyone across this big country would even know that
Deer Lodge Montana exists right and that there is a prison in the area and so he's just saying that this simply means
that somebody had some kind of knowledge of that Deer Lodge Montana area and it's
not wouldn't be commonplace for anyone to have that information all right so again after this one he wants that
recognition we don't see this all the time with serial killers where they want law enforcement to know hey guys I'm out
here and I'm not stopping most of the time The Killers want to hide that aspect but he he places a call again and
the interesting thing here is on that call from the reports that I've seen it doesn't necessarily say that he's taking
responsibility for all of the zodiac murders he's simply saying that he's reporting a double murder at Lake beresa
and I'm the guy that killed the two well he knows that he can keep his message his phone call short and sweet he
doesn't have to go into the Vallejo crimes right because he knows that when law enforcement arrive on the scene
they're going to find Brian hartel's vehicle and on that car door he wrote Vallejo in the two dates of the attack
then he wrote today's date and the time by knife he knows the shock value of that is going to be Supreme when the
when law enforcement show up on the scene and see that on the car door they will immediately know right that he's
done all three and it's fascinating because as you pointed out this is an individual that he wants some kind of
credit for these murders and he wants law enforcement to know that he's a serial killer and you you but you also
wonder during this time frame how many calls that they're getting that are hoaxes yeah and the scary thing too that
I've always considered is look if this kind of thing was going on on a public level this is all very public we have
letters going to the newspapers being printed out so anybody can read them yes the the scary thing I've always thought
about in regards to the Zodiac Killer case is if if you had somebody that you wanted to take out that you wanted to
kill at this time well what better way to go and kill that person and maybe the Zodiac takes
credit for it or maybe the public thinks that the Zodiac did it [Music] for everything true crime check us out
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The Zodiac /// Part 2 /// 471

Part 2 of 5

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In the late 60’s and early 70’s a hooded serial killer terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area. The killer told the press and police to call him the Zodiac. Few cases in modern True Crime have been discussed and speculated about more, especially on the west coast. In 2018 Law Enforcement in California finally apprehended Joseph Deangelo better known as the Golden State Killer. The Golden State Killer was dormant for 32 years and they still were able to arrest and convict him. The Zodiac, a much different type of killer has been silent for over 45 years. Is there still time to pull off the hood and final identify the one who calls himself the Zodiac? Join us in the Garage as we go through the Zodiac’s confirmed kill timeline and of course we will offer up some speculation and insights along the way.

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Brief Summary

The episode examines the Zodiac Killer's letters, the 408 Cipher, and the brutal Lake Berryessa attack.

Key points

Zodiac Letters Received. On August 1, 1969, three letters claiming responsibility for murders were sent to local newspapers.
Zodiac's First Name. The killer identifies himself as 'the Zodiac' in a letter to the San Francisco Examiner.
The Cipher Decoded. The Zodiac's cipher was cracked by a couple, revealing chilling details about his motives.
The Zodiac Killer Strikes Again. In broad daylight, the Zodiac Killer attacks a couple at Lake Beresa, revealing his evolving methods.
A Terrifying Transformation. The killer's disguise and choice of weapon indicate a shift in his approach to terror.
A Game of Terror. The Zodiac Killer seems to be playing a game, adapting his methods to instill fear.

Episode highlights

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0:08WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

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