The Zodiac /// Part 4 /// 473 | Forensic Files

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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Mike Morford is a true crime Rider blogger researcher and podcast host he
co-hosts the True Crime podcast criminology he has extensively researched and consulted on the Zodiac
Killer and Golden State killer cases the morph as he is often affectionately referred to as is an expert on all
things Zodiac Killer and all things Golden State killer so Mike welcome to the garage and I want to start off by
asking you why are those two cases so important to you you've spent years researching both why those cases well
thanks off uh for inviting me to come on it's it's a pleasure and uh you guys are
one of the people one of the teams that inspired me to become a podcaster so thank you for that the Zodiac case I
started out on actually reading about it in high school I was one of those weird teenagers in
the 80s that just the name zodiac and the Persona that came with it I want to learn a little bit more about it so I
had a book on serial killers that I read and that I got the book zodiac by Robert
graysmith you know from there I just read it and did a book report on it and the the teacher wasn't too happy that I
picked that as a subject to write a book report on but you know something just the Sinister aspect of that case just
grabbed me and the fact that someone would call themselves zodiac and write letters to the press and then attack
people wearing an Executioner's Hood just really reeled me in and I just it sort of stuck and grew up watching
Unsolved Mysteries and stuff like that but the the Zodiac was one thing that really really I attached to and stuck
with before the Golden State killer ears ons you know the case with so many names
was Saul Joseph James D'Angelo has been arrested a man who is I take a lot of joy out of seeing how frail he looks
these days hopefully his time is coming to an end soon he's like 75 or so years old when you started diving into the
Golden State killer case was that you kind of looking for some more zodiac cases I mean zodiac claimed that he
would go on to kill and kill again and he kept taunting us sending Communications with a growing number on
it where you look looking for additional zodiac cases is that what led you to Golden State killer not really there the
Golden State killer before the East area rapist and Iran's a thousand names yet I
was aware of the case because of some other researchers that thought they might be connected to the Zodiac case I
never did they're two different kinds of killers in their ammo and um just totally in opposite ends of the
spectrum but I was aware of the case and I used to communicate an email back and
forth with the late Michelle McNamara who obviously wrote pretty impactful book on the Golden State killer case and
she had reached out and asked if I had any interest in poking around in the Golden State killer case and I told her
you know thanks but I'm sort of wrapped up in all things zodiac at the time so she went on down her rabbit holes in the
Golden State killer case and then after she passed away I sort of reflected and felt guilty that I hadn't taken her up
on that offer so I sort of dove into the case and you know I knew some different
people that were investigators and they opened some doors for me and I became friends with some of the survivors and
victims of D'Angelo's and that's how I sort of went down that that path do we have an idea of how the Zodiac came up
with his name or is it just something random well that's and that's sort of thing we don't really know he's the one
that gave himself that name in one of his early letters he said this is the Zodiac speaking and he signed most of
his letters with a Crosshair looking across Circle and there's a watch that's a zodiac name brand watch and it has a
Crosshair logo as it's sort of as a symbol so if you put those together that seems to me like the most likely place
that it came from but there's all kinds of theories that he was maybe into the astrology and stuff like that yeah and
we see things like mathematics coordinates on maps astrology of course horoscopes have been famous and popular
throughout time especially in the late 60s so there's all kinds of thoughts that can be applied to how this
individual came up with the name obviously he's going to want to pick something that sounds ominous he wants
to be threatening and terroristic almost in nature and so it almost seems fitting
to pick such a vague name but also something that sounds sounds a little evil or at least mysterious yeah that's
that's my take on it as well now we all know that Killers can Inspire other Killers or at least they tend to imitate
one another on occasion and as far as the Zodiac goes some cases that come to mind immediately for me are Like Son of
Sam I've always kind of thought of him as a zodiac wannabe kind of a sloppier dumbed Down version of the zodiac the
Phantom killer case out of Texarkana sounds like early zodiac type stuff and then just the idea of writing the
letters and communicating with law enforcement and the the Press I mean that takes us all the way back to Jack
the Ripper what do you take Mike from any of these other Killers out there what do you think zodiac took from any
of these other Killers well with the attacks of of people in some of those areas like on lovers Lanes where the
Phantom killer struck or Son of Sam struck those are easy opportunities and to find
people that aren't paying attention they're out in isolated areas they're easy targets and I think that's perhaps
why he searched for people like that and so I went searching for different cases
across the United States with Lovers Lane scenario attacks and I did they just started piling up some so many I
couldn't keep track so that's that's a trend that's that's been going on early bet as far as back as the early 1900s
where people would be attacked the key difference is is Someone Like Son of Sam or Jack the Ripper sending letters and
notes and correspondences that's very rare So when zodiac did that you know that was rare you can go
through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases in California and and there were
lots of bad guys running around but most of them didn't want to communicate with
police they wanted to stick to their own their own attacks and and not give the police anything to work with whereas
zodiac seemed to Crave the press and I think that actually took over as his main motivation and and comparing that
to the Golden State killer case for example Joseph D'Angelo didn't really taunt the police or newspapers he
taunted victims because he liked reliving the pain that he inflicted on them so he would call them years
afterwards but a little bit of a different thrill for him versus zodiac wanting to see his name in the
newspapers I think that was a key difference the first confirmed attack for the Zodiac at Lake Herman Road was
in essence a success for the killer he achieved what he set out to or what we can believe he set out to achieve anyway
he successfully attacked and killed both of the victims and didn't find himself in a situation where there was much of
an eyewitness to identify him as the killer with the exception of one witness saying they they possibly saw a white
vehicle parked near David Faraday's vehicle on that night that leads us to a similar but slightly different situation
at the next confirmed attack at Blue Rock Springs where he is unsuccessful in the sense that he leaves one of the
victims alive he intended to kill both of them we know that based off of his phone call he's calling to report a
double murder not realizing that he left one of the the victims alive Mike Maggio
one thing I found interesting about this attack in particular variations of so stories uh and and what went down how
the attack went down and just the the couple of events leading up to the two of them being parked at Blue Rock
Springs Park can you take us through maybe not necessarily the changing stories or the different versions but it
looked to me Mike that most of these different versions are coming from Mike majo
is is that correct and what are your feelings on on the different variations of these stories yeah Mike Maggio's
story has changed a lot over the years from July 1969 when it happened till recently he was featured in a 2007
documentary that came out with the Zodiac movie DVD release and his story changed quite a bit in essence early on
he said that he had been picked up by Darlene Farren and they decided to go to Mr Ed's a local hangout that was popular
with you know most younger people for whatever reason Darlene got creeped out while there and decided to
drive away and go get some privacy and they decided to go to Blue Rock Springs Park which is very dark and again it's
one of those areas where people might go to hang out to make out whatever and that's where they wound up some key
things that happened were after they were there for a couple minutes some some kids came in threw some
firecrackers and stayed there raised hell for about five minutes and then left but just after that a car came in and
pulled up next to Darlene's car and sort of just sat there and Darlene and Mike had the conversation do you know that
person who is that and they didn't really know and after a minute or two the car drove off so they sat there
listening to the radio talking and then about five minutes later car came back that they Mike thinks was
the same car and it came into the parking lot pulled up directly behind them someone got out shined a bright
light into Darlene's car blinding essentially Darlene and Mike and then he walked up to Mike's side and they
actually thought it was the police so they proceeded to start getting their licenses out and
Mike looked up and was shot immediately through the window and Darlene was shot both of them were shot several times
that's been consistent for for the most part the shooter got back in his car and
was about to leave and Mike started flailing around after being shot and the shooter got back out of the car
and fired two more shots into the into Darlene's car hitting Mike again and Darlene and then this time he drove away
that's always been consistent that's what he said early on but in the in the documentary years later there's some
things that change he he mentions that they were being chased and pursued from Mr Ed's at high rates of speed and
that's not what's in the police for nothing like that he says that they just decided to go there instead Darlene was
driving and then in early on they didn't know who the shooter was and when they were having conversation amongst
themselves but then he injects hey the name was Richard she said it was something about Richard and if you watch
this documentary it's plain to see that he's suffering from maybe mental illness
maybe some kind of addiction I don't know I'm not I don't know what he might be suffering from but I think that's
affected his account of what's happened over the last you know 50 years in his initial report he's saying that the
vehicle was very similar to Darlene's so it would have either been a Chevy Corvair or others have said maybe
a Ford Mustang because they would have had similar body type and he says it was pretty much the same color as Darlene's
maybe a little bit lighter what are your thoughts on the vehicle description well
I think it because it's so dark out there and he's probably his intentions are to make out with Darlene he probably
wasn't paying a lot of attention and and I think a lot of horseback then looked a
lot of like so for him not to be able to pinpoint the details of the car I I totally get that I understand that but I
think based on what he said it did have some kind of similar features to Darlene's own car the thing that jumps
off the page to me in regards to the first two attacks not only are they very close in proximity I think it was
roughly about two miles distance between the first double murder and then the double murder attempt that left Mike
Maggio alive when you cross-reference the events of that night the stories I found Mike say that both couples went to
Mr Ed's restaurant and Drive-In prior to going and parking and I mean that just jumps off the page to me
because I'm I'm sitting there thinking if I'm some dude in my late 20s or however old zodiac may have been at the
time if you're looking for a car involved in Young Love Mr Ed's makes a perfect sense to to park there hang out
there in in the dark hours of a weekend night or a Friday night for that matter and find your prey there and follow them
to where they end up parked yeah that's that's the happening place back then was
Mr Ed's you know there's an interesting Connection in that one of the lake Herman Road Witnesses just not long
before the shooting on the road that night worked at Mr Ed's so there's that connection as well one thing that's very
different about the Blue Rock Springs attack in comparison to the lake Herman Road attack is that the Zodiac then
calls the police dispatcher and says hey I just committed a double murder here's
where you're going to find the kids in a brown car and by the way I killed those
kids last Christmas as well there there's a a decent Gap in time minutes missing there about 20 to 30 minutes
based off of our ear Witnesses of when the the couple was shot at Blue Rock Springs and when the phone call came in
what are your thoughts on what Zodiac could have been up to during that time frame I've always found it a bit bizarre
we know he wants to report it or else he wouldn't have called it in but it doesn't seem like he made a Mad Dash
from the crime scene to the pay phone which would have been depending on which route you use roughly 7 to 11 minutes
travel time he didn't make a Mad Dash to get to that pay phone any thoughts on that Mike yeah it's that's one of the
most interesting things about that attack because the calls probably at least 30 minutes they're probably closer
to 40 minutes later but it's you know rounding it it's around a half hour we can say that and to go that distance
it's it's only a few miles um and the phone booth was at Springs and Tuolumne which is you know in a more
populated section of town whereas Blue Rock Springs Park is this dark undeveloped area up out in the Vallejo
at the time so if the Zodiac wanted to get away and make a clean getaway and and just keep
driving there's Unlimited phone booths he could have called from but yet he called from
a phone booth in Vallejo which is interesting to me my my opinion is and I try and put
myself in the shoes of zodiac when he's doing that is that perhaps he would want to get rid of his
car get rid of his gun stash it because you know I wouldn't want to be driving around on a car with a gun in there just
in case someone saw me so I was thinking maybe he lived close to that phone booth
and perhaps put his car in the yard put his gun in the house and walk to the phone move but there's you know again
that's that's speculation but he certainly could have made it out of Vallejo if if he didn't live in Vallejo
and wanted to get away and then called uh from a different phone booth do you think he called police to mimic somebody
like Jack the Ripper or or do you think it was simply because I committed these crimes and because it's stranger on
Stranger crimes the police might not make the connection that it was me yeah I think maybe a combination of that I
think number one he wanted the attention he wanted police to know what he had done I
think it was a way to rub salt and wounds of these police officers to to say hey
um I did this I'm bragging about it and there's nothing you can do about it the phone booth was actually not far from
the police station which was interesting so he might even be able to see police when they finally got the call racing
out of there and maybe got some kind of thrill from that foreign [Music] [Music]
do you think that he was local to Vallejo because I found it interesting that in the phone call he doesn't just
say Blue Rock Springs Park but rather he gives directions to find the victims if
I if I had to guess it's almost like he didn't know the name of the Park yeah he
does direct them pretty well and if he would have said Blue Rock Springs Park obviously they would have found it but
he gives them specific directions and I I wonder if it could be because maybe he
does live there he knows the area and he knows how to direct them there easily but it also could be that he wants him
to have no doubt that he did it and he's going to direct them right to the bodies
and at the time he thinks they're they're going to be dead but you know Mike majo Super survived and I think he
wanted to get them there as soon as possible so he could Revel and what he had done and very interesting as well
that given Mike Maggio's description of the shooter you know when the shooter comes back and then shoots Darlene twice
and shoots Mike again two more times he's able to get a description of what this guy looks like and
if you know given what took place in the second attack we have to believe that the first attack with no survivors
likely went down very similar So based off of that we can assume that in the description Mike gives us Zodiac's not
using any type of the skies at this point and yet the next attack at Lake Berryessa is going to be
significantly different where the guy is disguised from head to toe is this guy is he evolving why is he changing well
that would on my part that would be speculation but I think that the most likely reason is he realized after Blue
Rock Springs he left eyewitness an eyewitness to the the crime and then the next attack at Lake
Berryessa he's attacking during daylight hours so he's already left the witness he knows that and now he's doing
an attack during the daytime so I think maybe to to keep himself from being identified if something goes wrong or if
a witness goes by he's got that hood on and and another reason it could be just to scare the [ __ ] out of the people is
attacking because a guy walking up to you with that kind of Executioner's hood on and a gun in his hand saying
everything's gonna be okay I you know if it was me in that situation I wouldn't I
wouldn't believe him but he tried to calm them down when he attacked there and that's what he was wearing yeah I
almost feel like it had the mask had two purposes like you said one it's going to
scare them more and it seems like he's loves to see people's reactions but also if if they do survive they can't
identify him yeah I think it it definitely serves multi-purposes and and I think he was
very theatrical we know that from a lot of the clues and I think he probably enjoyed making that hood it had the
Zodiac Crosshair logo on the on the chest and he never mentioned you know to Brian Hart now and it's a
silver Shepherd uh at Lake Berryessa that he was the Zodiac it never came up um and and maybe that's because if
something went wrong he didn't want uh anyone to know that he was the Zodiac by that point and connect him to another
crime but it was you know later determined after he uh wrote on the side of their card or that sort of changed
everything and and they knew it was zodiac do you have any thoughts on what the mask was made out of or the account
varied from from Brian he said it was made with care it wasn't just like some plastic bag that someone
spray painted a white circle on he said that the the Crosshair logo was stitched
uh very nicely and professionally almost on the front and the hood was was made with characters draped over his entire
shoulders and face and there were a clip-on sunglasses that were attached to the to the mask itself so he pointed out
that it was definitely made with care it was made with some kind of professional uh quality it wasn't just
some some bag that was had white paint on it or something like that that's very interesting because oftentimes with
these serial killers we will find that someone killing in the nature of someone like the Zodiac where they're going out
and they're killing people in a park near the lake or or at Lake Harmon Road or at the
Blue Rock Springs Park they're going out and they're finding their victim and they're killing them
out on the streets or out in public in these you know secluded areas usually that suggests that they cannot kill at
home they cannot abduct people and bring them home that they don't have privacy that they don't have their own place but
then everything else that the Zodiac does implies that he does have a certain level of privacy the making the mask in
disguise with care that's something that took time the putting together the ciphers and the letters that he would
later send that takes time and and it takes especially with the ciphers and the the letters I've seen it suggested
that he probably had what he considered to be some type of Workshop that maybe maybe if he did live with other people
he had to keep under lock and key or or guarded very tightly but it's it's weird
the contrast between the two Natures of the Beast if you will I've often thought
about that but I I also wonder if it's just simply location a lot of those housing developments in California you
know where these little cracker jack-sized houses and they had really small yards so it could be possible
where he's going well I have privacy with inside my house but I don't have privacy on the outside because the
houses are so close together yeah that's an interesting point and in one of his letters
he did mention of storing something in his basement and police seized on that and thought maybe that's a clue because
most houses in the Bay Area did not have basements so they thought maybe he had a
little workshop down there or some place where he could get away from anyone else
in the house and and Tinker around down there but then again zodiac wasn't always honest in his letters so it could
have been an attempt at misdirection maybe he didn't have a basement but that was something police were interested in
I think it it also goes into what kind of killer he was whereas you know someone like a golden state killer wants
to spend time with his victims stay there terrorize them stretch it out as long as possible get them alone the
Zodiac never had an interest in that kind of activity he wanted to attack quickly
and get out so I think perhaps he never had an intention of bringing them back to his house or something like that I
think he was more of a of a thrill killer that got a thrill out of the attack itself and then later on reliving
it I think that gave him some satisfaction yeah that's very interesting because yes I think he was a
thrill killer but I also think he executed the first murder so easily that by maybe contacting the police it was
another brush because it was another point in the crime where he could get caught yeah and he he was about all
about cat and mouse activity with police in in getting them to engage with him and there's some evidence that he was
inspired by comic books and movies like The Most Dangerous Game and I think he thought of himself as this villain or
made himself into this this villain called zodiac and I think part of the the fun for him part of the
thrill from him was that interaction with police I mean his murders confirmed murders anyhow they range from December
68 until October of 69 but then he's got a letter writing campaign that stretches
until 1974. so he at some point it seemed like the thrill of uh the interaction with the
police and the Press was his letter writing and not so much the murders it seemed like he got some kind of pleasure
out of out of that part of it could you list some of these comic books you think
the Zodiac was reading yeah there's there's one called and it's a Tim Holt comic book and and to give a little bit
of a backstory he sent a Halloween card to reporter Paul Avery and in that card it was written by fire by uh rope I'm
trying to remember it off the top of my head but it was laid out in in a specific image and there's a comic book
by Tim Holt it's a DC Comics one and I don't remember the title of it but it's if you go what you'll find it and
there's a wheel on it and death by fire death by knife death by gun death by rope same things mentioned in
the the card to Avery so from that it's almost definite that's where he had to have got that from when you base that
when you base on some of the other Clues he mentioned uh the short story The Most
Dangerous Game he makes references to theatrical stuff like the Mikado so it seems like he was in his own Fantasy
World um and this this person that he created this Persona I really think he he wanted
to be some kind of arch villain or be known as as one yeah I just looked up the Tim Holt comic so it looks like it's
it's actually titled Tim Holt I think he's supposed to be maybe the hero and it's issue number 30 according to what I
found but it's you're right it's the you have a man there and I guess his name is
red mask he's tied up and there's a wheel of chance behind him and it's as you said death by gun death by knife
death by rope and yeah it's very very theatrical very zodiac-like and it appears that this
comic may have some value because it has some linkage to uh the Zodiac name well
and also around that time period there was a lot of comics that were you know these Detective Comics that's where we
eventually get Batman from I wonder if there's other Comics that he was influenced by that
people just haven't got the references yet yeah that could definitely be the case and I I think on the very
least we can tell that he's into fantasy stuff you know between the theater and the the comic books he's got
perhaps he's living in a uh a fantasy world you know when when I I look at it as when most of these victims or young
couples being attacked they're out enjoying each other's company and making out doing whatever those couples do he's
home reading comic books and this is his world uh so he goes out and Strikes against those people that are doing the
things that he wishes he could do yeah it's very in the captain and I were talking about this earlier it's very
comic book theatrical like with the Zodiac he's given himself this name the Zodiac he's given himself a logo the
crosshairs and then he's supplying all these threats to Via the newspapers and such and then the costume at Lake
Berryessa it's almost I mean that's that's what a superhero super villain is the name the logo the costume now with
you had mentioned the confirmed five and there's a lot of suspicion that there are other attacks and we can get
into that later but lay down for us why these are the confirmed five murders of the Zodiac Killer they're they're linked
by ammo and by handwriting there's some latent fingerprints along the way there's some palm prints on some of the
letters but police really haven't said publicly if any of those prints from various scenes or various letters match
each other so we know that they're linked by by handwriting and by the mo you know in Lake Herman Road once he
claims responsibility for that along with the July 4th attack you know he we have a handwritten letter he's detailing
both crimes he's accurately describing both crime scenes so those two are linked together then when you get to
Lake Berryessa you know he's doesn't say he's zodiac but he's wearing a zodiac cross symbol on his outfit and
as he flees the scene he takes the time to write a toning message on Brian hartnell's door and it has the zodiac
symbol and the writing matches the writing in the letters and then we move forward to the murder of Paul Stein
which is the most unlike the first sets of crimes here we have another letter so the
handwriting again matches the previous ones this time he actually sent a piece of a bloody shirt to the Press along
with the letter so you know he's confirming that yes I killed him here's a piece of his bloody shirt they
verified it was so you have all of these different letters and the ammo of calling and and writing to the Press
linking everything here not like we have DNA like we would have today uh or clear-cut fingerprints but all of the
stuff combined tells them that the same person was all these different scenes and is responsible for all these crimes
do you have a ballpark number of crimes that you think the zodiac is responsible
for or do you think these five are the only signature crimes from the Zodiac well there's crimes that he definitely
hinted at that he was involved and I think he had a habit of trying to catch attention for other cases to prop
himself up and make it look like he was even more of a a villain than he actually was you know I try not to
wander too far out of the the five murder victims we know of but you know I do look at some earlier
crimes uh in that area and then in Southern California especially there's some earlier crimes that could
definitely be him but there's so many bad guys running around in California at the time there's so much crime
that it's hard to to go off because then you start looking at well this crime looks like zodiac and this one has some
aspects um so I try to stick with the ones that have the closest Mo to to what we know
zodiac did what are your thoughts on zodiac mentioning Deer Lodge Montana to the victims at Lake Berryessa I think
that's a a really important clue but the the thing I need to point out is is that
Deer Lodge is not necessarily what he said Brian obviously was shaken up he was scared he was badly wounded
um so he when he was telling police word by word the conversation he said it was
something like a two-word name in Montana like and he's trying to you know come up with ideas and someone suggested
Deer Lodge Montana and he said yeah that might be it but there's there's been reports that it
might have been a farm Lodge it could have been a Red Lodge uh something with two words in the in the name of the town
so it's While most people settled on a bean Deer Lodge it's not 100 proof that he did say Deer Lodge but you know there
were no Escape prisoners as the story that he gave them at the time from dear Lodge at that time so I think it's it
could have been just hey I'm gonna tell these people a story about a something I
read three years ago about some kind of escape and I'll tell him you know just to calm them down and get them to
cooperate and and what he told them worked and they cooperated yeah some suspect the Zodiac was a bit of a master
of misdirection and therefore dear Lodge Montana or saying just the state of Montana in general would be another
example that he might be trying to misdirect people should somebody survive because what Zodiac has learned about
himself by the time of the Lake Berryessa attack is that he's not perfect that he did leave a Survivor a
surviving victim in his second confirmed attack with Mike Maggio surviving that attack and let's take that a step
further because there's some thought too that with the brown car because Vallejo
police said they actively said this in the newspapers at the time they gave a brief description of a young white man
and a brown vehicle that they were looking for at the time and he later zodiac later in a letter
confirms this brown car saying oh well yeah somebody saw me in this pay phone when the when I hung up the the phone
the the phone rang and this drew his attention to me and that's when this witness saw me in the pay phone and saw
my brown car and I love the idea of maybe as you pointed out it's dark Mike Maggio has just been
shot several times he's traumatized maybe he doesn't know the color of the vehicle couldn't see it
and maybe zodiac loves this and goes oh they're looking for a a white guy in his
late 20s in a brown car oh well I'll confirm for them that I have a brown car when in fact I I do not yeah what what
perfect way to divert the police and get them looking down a totally blind alley
and he and why would you describe the witness that that so he says that there was a a black man that was shabbily
dressed saw him in the phone booth they never identified anyone that reported seeing someone in that phone
booth but it sounds to me like that could easily be I'm gonna make this fake witness up so they're spinning their
wheels looking for this witness that doesn't exist I don't know why any anyone that had just killed rafati
killed two people would volunteer that information willingly I always thought thought too given the both of the first
attacks took place on a Friday night in or around Vallejo again only separated by about two miles of distance or so
I always thought that that in a sense was a bit of misdirection as well that he he thought that he may have found the
perfect place to kill it worked out the first time let's kill there again now people think that I'm local to Vallejo
and that's why I always felt like he purposely made the call from a Vallejo pay phone yet didn't know the name of
the park where where he shot the two kids it seemed to me this is the early stages of some of this misdirection it
definitely could be that and I I sort of go the other direction I sort of go with
a lot of killers start out close to home and then expand from there you know you've got someone mentioning these two
areas I'm gonna attack there so close together like like you're saying and then call from the the phone booth in
the same town what better way to get people looking in Vallejo one something that's interesting is just about all of
the letters zodiac mailed were postmarked on weekdays from San Francisco and and most of his attacks the
exception of Paul Stein were on weekends outside of San Francisco so it does he live in San Francisco and he hunts on
the weekends in Vallejo or is it the Reversed does he live in Vallejo and he's working in San Francisco during the
week I think one of the two is is the most likely scenario if you guys had to bet would you bet that zodiac is single
and living alone or do you think zodiac is married I've wrestled with that especially in the wake of the Golden
State killer case I you know I never thought the Golden State killer was going to be a cop I never thought he
would have a wife and kids so that sort of has made me go back and forth on the fence with zodiac I would tend to think
that he's a loner that wants to be out with a girl on a date in a Lover's Lane parked in a car but he's not he is the
one stalking those couples and attacking them so I tend to think that he he was one of those loner types that didn't
have successful relationships but again after seeing what happened with the Golden State killer case nothing would
surprise me he could have had a big family and a nice job and everything else well I think uh I think Mike is
right and I think that we can see some of that in his crimes itself we we definitely see Overkill in the women and
that's why we have more female victims murder victims and we have two situations where he attacks
a couple and and twice a male victim survives so the female is definitely the receiving the brunt of his anger
in those attacks and as Mike is pointing out he is he's he's attacking and killing essentially what he envies Young
Love parked in a car somewhere is what he would have liked to have been doing when he was a teenager or in his early
20s he wasn't capable or wasn't successful in that realm and so he this is this is his lesson to you uh general
public this is what you get when you park out in the middle of nowhere in the dark at night in these lovers Lanes this
is this is what you get this is the lesson to be learned don't be out there at night they're achieving something he
wished to achieve but did not and then when you take it to how is he living who may be living with I think that he
probably had some brief relationships with women and they they failed and didn't work out
and that only added to his anger toward the the female gender and I think that a
lot of his actions at least once we get past the double homicide or I'm sorry the the second attack at Blue Rock
Springs so this would be now we're we're at July 4th 1969. I think after this point he he has
a certain level of privacy he has a certain ability to spend a lot of time working
on these letters these ciphers the costume that he built for Lake Berryessa so he has time now that may mean maybe
he lived with his mom alone and had the run of the house for most of the time but yeah I think that's what's
interesting about the makeup of of this guy I think he had some level of privacy
and maybe that's because he was unsuccessful with with women or traditional type relationships well and
since you bring that up my question do you put a zodiac uh younger or older than 30. I can say with all confidence
today he's older than 30. well I'm just saying because it it seems to me like somebody that you know any
friend of mine or or people I've talked to that you know look back on high school and it wasn't the best time in
their life normally by the time they're 30 they're they're over that and they could really care less they don't hold a
lot of resentment towards that that's why I always wondered is a zodiac in like mid-20s or late 20s and he's still
uh angry about his unsuccessful attempts with women well you have to be an extremely angry individual to do any of
the things that he's doing so he's he's not normal like the normal people that you just discussed he he's not going to
get over any of this and that's obvious from his crimes so with the in regards to his age
one we have several crimes where he's described as being in his 20s late 20s maybe 25 to 35 this is from surviving
victims and from uh the phone calls he made where the dispatchers are saying he sounded to be of this age 25 to 35. Mike
uh you you take it from there yeah I I know that the Napa dispatcher uh the police officer took the call from him
after Lake Berryessa described him as a student's voice someone in their in their early 20s
Brian Hartnell described something in the along those lines too not a real deep mature voice but more of a a
younger person but again people have all kinds of voices and you can't always put
a a voice with a face when you see it so we can't always go by that but then you've got the eyewitnesses as you
talked about and the possibility that officer Falk saw zodiac after Paul Stein's murder there he thinks he's a
little bit older and it's interesting uh in in the sketch that came out of zodiac
after killing Paul's time the original estimate in the original sketch was estimating the age to be 25 to 35 and
when you when they amended it it moved it up from 35 to 45. so I sort of look at the 25 the 45 window I know that's a
big spread but I I sort of feel that sometimes some of the things he does is is very juvenile
um I look towards a younger person and and other times some of the things that he's interested in seem like they might
be more of a of a mature person um so like the Mikado Opera you know like nowadays I try and compare it I
don't think there's any kids out there today listening to Opera and if the same thing's true back in 1969 I would I
would think that that might be more mature person so I sort of wrestle myself with with whether he's a younger
or older yeah he definitely did some things that come across to me as very immature I've said it before I'll say it
again I don't trust anybody that doesn't use their real name well it Captain brought up a good point
too he he said that it's almost as Zodiac's heart wasn't in the actual killing he he'd leave before people were
actually dead instead of staying there you know ensuring they were dead or shooting them
in the head it's almost like he was squeamish about that part um and I think that goes back to
he is playing this villain he's putting this villain out there the villain has to have victims so he's got to do that
part even though he may not be committed to it but after a while he realizes hey
I built this persona but built this reputation of people know I mean business I'm a killer
I don't even have to kill anyone anymore now I can just send letters and I'm going to get the attention I've been
craving that I didn't get in my in my everyday life just by writing letters well there's a good chance he almost got
caught in the Paul Stein attack the taxi cab driver yeah we see a lot of times with serial killers that
they take souvenirs from their victims or like you said in the Golden State killer case he's harassing victims
zodiac is harassing police officers it's he didn't seem to take souvenirs it's almost like his victims didn't matter so
much to him it wasn't personal towards the victim yeah there's no real evidence of him taking any kind of souvenirs
taking belongings of the victims uh we don't see any of that whereas uh the Golden State killer would do that kind
of stuff so definitely two kinds of killers and it seems like you know someone like D'Angelo has a a connection
a permanent connection to the victim where a zodiac maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and he
needed to to kill someone to get credit for it [Music] foreign [Music] so much more to get to tomorrow please
join us back here in the garage and if you need more of the captain of the kernel in your ear balls check out our
bonus show called off the Record it's on Stitcher premium thank you to you Captain thank you to Mike for joining us
in the garage you all better join us back here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't glitter
[Music]

The Zodiac /// Part 4 /// 473

Part 4 of 5 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

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. Join us in the Garage with our good friend Mike Morford from the Criminology podcast as we take a deep dive into Zodiac’s communications with Melvin Belli and the still unsolved murder of Cheri Jo Bates. Tapping into Mike's extensive Zodiac knowledge we discuss the evidence, the suspects and of course the “what ifs.”

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Brief Summary

Mike Morford discusses the Zodiac Killer and Golden State Killer, exploring their motivations, methods, and key case details.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Nick introduces the show and sets the stage for the episode.
Featuring Sip and Go Naked. This week's beer is an unfiltered wheat ale with apricot notes.
Mike Morford Joins the Garage. True crime expert Mike Morford discusses his research on the Zodiac Killer.
Zodiac's Name Origin. Exploring how the Zodiac Killer chose his ominous name.
Zodiac's Communication Style. Discussion on how Zodiac's need for attention differed from other killers.
Theater of Terror. The Zodiac Killer's theatrical approach to his crimes, including his Executioner's hood.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The Sinister aspect of that case just grabbed me.

Mike Morford reflects on his fascination with the Zodiac case.

4:14WatchNov 8, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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