The Zodiac /// Part 5 /// 474 | Forensic Files

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let's talk some true [Music] crime Mike I tell you what you had some involvement maybe more hands off than
Hands-On I don't know but you were at least the one that brought it to my attention that the 340 zodiac Cipher if
I got that title right was in the process of of being solved and and was in fact solved what 51 years later you
want to tell us a little bit of that story yeah so the the Zodiac's first Cipher 408 was 408 characters was solved
pretty quickly by the gens couple out of Selenas California but then the next cyer zodiac scent the 340 people thought
okay the first one is easy enough let's crack this one and the uh Navy uh CIA people like that over the years had no
luck cracking it and then a million so-called code Breakers you know professional and
amateur um develop programs and everything else trying to solve it and and the issue was a lot of them went
about trying to solve it by forcing things to fit in their words they expected to find people's names they
expected to find they sort of went into it trying to solve it with a a preconceived notion of what should be in
there and um that's not the way right way to uh approach that one of my friends Dave Warren who runs who runs a
good site about it and has a good YouTube channel about the ciphers he's uh been an expert and consulted on many
programs and stuff for this specific topic and he developed software along with a team that he put together and
they actually were able to come up with the correct solution you know after looking at so many fake ones and false
ones that people had presented over the years you know I think he was a little bit surprised when when what they found
revealed some real words that weren't you know jammed in there they just naturally fell into place so once they
tinkered a little bit more with it uh the message came out pretty clearly and they sent the uh results to the the FBI
obviously and and they confirmed that they were right it was a little bit U unar moving the message that was
actually there um I liken it too that scene out of a Christmas story when Ralphie gets the little docoda ring and
it's be sure to drink your oval team this was essentially something like that it was just very uneventful and um not
really much to it now based on the codes because it's one thing to make calls to
police or write letters to police but the to the level of sophistication jumps up significantly by
adding codes and ciphers into the equation of zodiac do you think that zodiac had either just a higher level of
IQ or do you think he had some higher level of training or possibly higher education well there's definitely some
military connections and some of the clues you know there were wing walker boots found at the you know the lake
barasa crime scene there tracks there and those were sold at pxs for the most part designed to walk on the wings of
planes for for Airmen so there's always been the possibility that zodiac was military and maybe because of that he
could have had training in code codes and ciphers in the military but then again a lot of the stuff that he used
some of the symbols specifically were available in books that were available at the library as well so I I think it's
it's possible that he could have just been an amateur who liked codes and ciphers sort of like the hardens that
solved the first one you know they had an interest in in C he too could have had an interest but it doesn't
necessarily mean that he was an expert or trained in in ciphers zodiac screams Navy to me for whatever reason I think
it's I think it's partly the area some of the things that you touched on the astrology angle of it and you said wing
walker boots but I don't know about 1968 1969 I'm assuming so but the Navy has more planes than any other branch of the
military so so um it screams Navy if in fact he does that have that type of background the while we're on the topic
of communications I wanted to check in with you Mike about the Melvin belly Communications there were some phone
calls and a um at least one letter or postcard sent to Melvin belly he was an attorney in the area at the time and and
pretty famous one at that what are your feelings I know that one of the communications received by Bell
contained an additional piece of Paul Stein's bloody shirt so we know that at least that one is authentic but we also
have the situation of bell sitting on a morning talk show talking to somebody on
the phone who calls himself Sam claiming to be responsible or at least calling in
under the guys that he is the Zodiac and that seems to like have been not the case that the caller calling himself Sam
was not the Zodiac I don't know if was that person identified I know that that phone call on the talk show was traced
to a uh uh I believe a mental institution yeah he was he was identified his name was Eric wheel and
he was in that in that mental institution but the the way this started was someone called into uh the Jim
Dunbar show which was a local San Francisco TV show and claimed they were the Zodiac and
they wanted to speak to attorney fle Bailey who was pretty well known at the time and he wasn't available so they
said would you settle for Melvin belli and and they agreed to that so essentially the TV show said hey keep
the airwaves open someone claiming to be the zodiac is calling in and they're going to be speaking with Melvin belly
on the show well loone the whole the Call Comes Back in once they're they're rolling and it's this guy Eric wheel
from this mental institution he turns out not to be the Zodiac but it seems like that
conversation is where the interest in Melvin Bell starts for zodiac um in fact the Sal 340 Cipher basically said it
wasn't me that called into the TV show so that you know 50 years to find out something we already knew but it just
interesting that's where he decided to start communicating with with Melvin Bell and sort of uh Melvin belli was
open to communicating back yeah I always found the caller Sam to you know to sound uh weak or vulnerable and I don't
think the Zodiac would come off like that just like in the one call when he when he calls police and he ends with or
uh something to the effect of like okay bye now you know and it's it's very like
yeah Joker like or like the Riddler yeah and they had at the time there were three people known to have heard
Zodiac's voice for sure and that was the um the person that took the phone call the dispatcher in valo ancy Slover there
was also the uh sheriff's deputy in Napa that that took the call there and then you had finally uh Survivor Brian harell
from Lake beresa uh and they all sat together and listened for who knows how long just over and over to that audio of
the morning show and they all confirmed that it was not the voice they heard it wasn't Zodiac's voice on December 18th
1969 supposedly Zodiac's on the phone with Melvin belly's housekeeper or somebody working at Melvin's
home and they have a nice I guess casual conversation between the two and later she tells Melvin that the caller
claiming to be the Zodiac said that today's my birthday again we we've talked about we know on several
occasions zodiac has been a liar and we've also said maybe he's really putting in strong attempts at
misdirection towards the the investigation itself but I just found that fascinating that uh we have this
conversation and my not say December 18th 1969 he says today's my birthday any thoughts on that Mike yeah some of
that I don't know some of that conversation is not 100% verified um I I think part of it comes from Robert Grey
Smith's claims in his book that that's how the conversation went and that's the date that book was pretty much an
attempt steering the the conversation towards his favorite suspect who happened to have that that birthday
December 18th so but I don't know that that's actually confirmed to be accurate as far as what was said and and uh
verified you're exactly right it's page 324 in zodiac un Mass where he says that
that conversation took place saying that today's my birthday or today was his birthday and of course we know anybody
that's followed zodiac long enough that Arthur Lee Allen was born December 18th 1933 one thing that I found fascinating
and again I know we know that one one communication to Bell is authentic based off of the Paul Stein bloody shirt but I
I found this to be a a bizarre coincidence that that is also the the birthday of Ed ker and on that day we
know that Ed keer is not the Zodiac because he he was locked up until his 21st birthday but uh I found it
fascinating that on that day is the day that he another Infamous notorious serial killer
is being released on that same day back into the public to kill again and here we have a conversation that may have
happened between zodiac and somebody saying today's my birthday that's pretty interesting I didn't even know that was
at keer birthday let's talk about some of the other possible victims because somebody that's always been linked and
really tied to the Zodiac case as a possible you know extra victim outside of the confirmed five but maybe even
possibly the first victim would be Sherry Joe Bates who was killed October 30th 1966 now from my understanding Mike and
correct me if I'm wrong the way that we kind of start linking this is that it sounds like somebody maybe in Riverside
or somebody that had knowledge of Jerry Joe bates's case and and even the communications that followed her murder
that they Tred to suggest to the local police the Riverside Police that that this is a possible zodiac connection and
when they Shrugged him off he then gets Paul Avery and notifi notifies uh Paul Avery that hey there's zodiac may have
struck first back in October of 1966 in Riverside to me Sherry uh sher's case is
probably the most important piece of the zodiac puzzle because I think if if we can verify with certainty that zodiac
was there in Riverside during that time we would we would definitely shrink down
the the possible suspects and and Persons of Interest you know just to sort of briefly walk through it I'm sure
you guys are are really detailing this too he she was killed outside the the Library the library she attended she had
gone there for some books and she went in and her car was disabled while she was inside interestingly enough and a
lot of people aren't aware of this but you know she was stabbed she was slashed um after Lake beresa um the Riverside
Police reached out to Napa sheriff's department and said hey we had a stabbing uh attack here
1966 and they sort of wanteded to compare notes and I I don't really know why because it wasn't a very similar
case I didn't think in my opinion but they they did reach out a lot of people don't know that but what's interesting
is 30 days after Sher was murdered you know you've got this tight confession letter that's mailed to Riverside Police
um from someone claiming to be her killer and what's interesting is you know the memos from the Riverside Police
Department as well as the FB FBI reports dictate uh quote the letter writer had details only the killer would know so
they're they're thinking whoever sent this confession letter early on is is definitely sher's killer uh and that the
details of disabling her car were not published in the paper that her coil wire had been pulled so when she tried
to start her car it wasn't um it wouldn't start but it it's it's not true within two days local papers published
that her her middle wire had been pulled and the conf the confession letter uh author uh wrote that he pulled the
middle wire so the very least we know that the letter writer in the baates case whether it's
zodiac uh killed her or not the letter writer um could have learned these details from the newspaper to include in
the the confession letter and then after that of course there's more letters and
more correspondence down there and and that's sort of how the Cherry Joe bait's connection gets rolling yeah because
looking at that case it looks like not only did the letter writer send something to Riverside Police
Headquarters but also the the Press Enterprise uh which would be an office there and I and I believe that something
was sent to her father as well and I find that to be interesting I don't know if all three were mailed at the same
time but if so that kind of well that that really Echo shows what took place in July 31st of 1969 when we know that
the Zodiac was in San Francisco because he dropped three envelopes into a mailbox and mailed them to the the SF
examiner the chronicle and the Vallejo times yeah absolutely and you know that confession letter came on the one Monon
anniversary the three letters you just mentioned came on the six-month anniversary and and you know as you
mentioned one went to the police one went to the newspaper one went to sher's Dad which is sort of out of the play you
know zodiac Playbook and these letters you can find them online for anyone that's listening that wants to to find
them there's there's they hand scw they're very messy someone obviously went through trouble trying to disguise
their their writing but there's a little Z like symbol at the bottom it's hard to
argue that it's anything else but you know it looks like a z so you've got that as well but what happened is you
know when the Zodiac murderers started making headlines in Southern California there's a man named Phil sins and he
started saying now this zodiac letters these sound just like the Sher Joe Bates murder uh letters here um early on and
he kept going to the rofs side police saying you need to look into the Zodiac connection maybe zodiac struck here
first in October and killed Sherry but they kept rebuffing him but eventually they again they did send out that memo
to Napa in 1969 and I I think it was probably with a little bit of pressure from Mr sins
continually badgering them to check this link out and when that failed Paul ay got his Halloween card from zodiac in
October 1970 and that made headlines so Phil sins decided to go to him and tell him
to investigate the bait's connection and that's how that connection offici started so in the Bates case you have
the letters and one of them um says something like Bates had to die there will be more and then again signed with
a what most people would consider to be a z there are a few that will argue maybe it's a it's the number two rather
than the letter Z I think it I think it strongly much more strongly looks like the letter Z one thing I found
fascinating in that case and a bit weird too and the captain earlier referen the the Genesis you know where
did the the name Zodiac come from not for us as the public but for the killer himself what where does he pull this
name from and if we know one thing about the zodiac is he enjoys taking credit so
to speak for his crimes he he wants police in the public to know of the crimes he did so much so that he has
even tried to make us believe that he's admitted some other murders uh even after the Paul Stein murder but one
thing I always found and and this is is quite trite compared to the the ciphers the sophisticated ciphers he sent later
but with the in the Bates case there was an inscription that was left at the Riverside College library and that was
the same library that she that Bates attended the night that she was killed they found this later I believe it was
discovered the following year in 1967 where somebody left like a a poem that they had uh inscribed on this desktop
and at the end they signed it RH and again this is is very simplistic compared to the ciphers later but if
they did start connecting this RH might be a little too close to home for our killer and then later when he reaches
out he signs it Z well I mean r is the 18th letter H is the eighth letter together that's the that's 26 Z is the
26th letter is is Rh to the Z to the Zodiac the Genesis of this name yeah that that's definitely an interesting
Theory I hadn't heard that one of R r& equaling 26 I know they they poured through lots of people with those
initials obviously looking for any rhes that that could have written that poem and and that poem I should point out was
uh found by Sherwood moral who was the state's top handwriting expert that was found to match the other baits letters
and envelopes and the Zodiac letters and envelopes so um if you follow that link
and and you believe that the same author authored all of that stuff than we've got zodiac in that library and and
that's an important clue you know obviously because you've got again suspects and Persons of Interest that
were there at that time that would definitely shrink the pool um and and there's some some key things you can see
in some of those letters in in in the Bates case U you know I'm not a documents examiner I'm not a handwriting
expert he you know Sherwood moral concluded that they were the same author but what I see is clues in the
writing itself as far as words and terms uh I'll give you an example in the confession letter in
1966 the author wrote She squirmed and shook as I choked her her lips twitched the author in that letter misspelled
twitched is T wi c h e d in a July 1970 zodiac letter uh zodiac wrote watch them
scream and twitch and squirm zodiac also misspelled twitch the same incorrect way so you've got someone
using the words twitch and squirm uh in the same sentence four years apart it's just you take that plus the
the writing expert already saying the writing is the same I think it's hard to ignore that and just one more word
choice or phrase Choice confession letter included a line I plunged the knife into into her and zodiac used that
similar line in 1974 he plunged himself into the bowy grave so I think you know I think he's sub subconsciously drawing
on some words and phrases in his natural writing that came through and happened to link not just the handwriting is a
match but his choice of words and phrases it makes it hard to think that there that that could be anyone else but
zodiac so for me I really focus in on on Riverside 1966 to 1967 and I bet my house that whoever uh zodiac was he
lived in Riverside in' 66 to 67 but to be clear does not necessarily have to be the murderer of Sherry Joe Bates yeah
that's Absol absolutely correct you know whether I'm sort of on the fence whe whether he killed her or not and and we
don't know what's going on behind the scenes in in the investigation I I know there's DNA there was uh some cigarette
butts found uh there was hair with some tissue on it found in Cherry's and and and Riverside for for 50 years has had a
favorite suspect that they refus to let go of despite the DNA evidence ruling him out um but they've they've ignored
any possible zodiac connection to her case cuz they felt it they felt it was a it sidetracked the investigation and
they sort of refused to to accept that there could be some connection even if it's just the writing and that he didn't
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[Music] that and I thought that the Riverside Police they did a hell of a job investigating the baates murder it's not
like they you know ran out of ideas a day or two later they were reconstructing the crime they were
asking for people that were there that night to come and and position themselves and their vehicles where they
were during the time in question the other bizarre thing about her murder is we know the library where she was she
was that night closed at 900 p.m that would be their traditional hours and it's it's assumed or at least we have
some witnesses to say that she would have left at closing time but it's believed that that there were
earwitnesses to her attack and those people place the attack as going down in the 10:00 hour early on in the
10:00 hour so it's you know how long between her discovering her vehicle is inoperable to the Zodiac or or whoever
killed her luring her away from the vehicle and then attacking her in that uh that alley if you will yeah it's a
very good point because I personally think an 18-year-old girl isn't going to walk down an alley and hang out talk
talk to them for an hour at a time you know worth of time if she didn't have some kind of comfort maybe he's a
similar age maybe she knew him even if not you know well maybe she knew him uh casually I I think if that's the case
and she spent a good amount of time with them down in that dark alley it's safe to say it's not some creepy looking
Stranger in in my opinion but what's interesting about that scream and the time it was heard that weekend happened
to be daylight saving time and you set the clocks back I I I don't know this and and I've never been able to find any
documentation of this I wonder if somehow the person hadn't set their clock back from
the night before and it was really 9:00 and when they looked at their clock it was 10:00 on their clock and and that it
really the screen came at around 9:00 so I think that's open uh for for debate there and with that case as you said
said as far as evidence goes in finding the the killer of Sherry Joe Bates she put up a hell of a fight she clawed the
[ __ ] out of the her attacker and it you know we have the attacker's skin and such under her fingernails and and maybe
even some of his hair as well I'm hoping and praying that that was preserved in a
manner that we could still use it today or very soon to find uh Sher o bites murder yeah there's no doubt she she put
up a fight and she actually RI wrist watch off of her attacker too it was a men's size seven if I remember correctly
and the watch itself was purchased at a military base possibly in England if I recall correctly so again we get back to
the possibility is zodiac military in in some fashion you say England and I find
that to be very interesting because on the Melvin Belly Christmas communication from zodiac he says I want to wish you a
happy Christmas which I associate that with with English people where I I feel like Americans go to to Merry Christmas
are we dealing with a with a guy from overseas or or uh or what well he could have just been stationed overseas to
your point zodiac used the word shall I don't know how many times I shall do this I shall do that
I don't know in my lifetime other than talking about this case that I ever use that word it's just not something that
we use here in the United States but the Zodiac frequently used that word in his
his writings um so as did the the Riverside writer assuming they're one and the same in the confession letter
that word was used as well so it's interesting to you know is there some kind of connection to London uh or
England I should say the UK or is it just maybe they've learned it because they spent time there or maybe in some
of their movies or books going back to the the fantasy uh and the theatrical stuff are they using that word because
they've heard it and and some of the art stuff that they've they've taken in uh so that's an interesting thing that that
people have pondered over the last you know five decades Mike do you have like a top three suspects or what what does
your suspect pool look like um you know there's I could thr some names real quick that are the most common ones and
people can find a million things on them but Rick Marshall he he was an older guy
that ran a projection uh machine in a theater in San Francisco he was a little bit Shady had uh a couple IDs he used
Larry Kane is a name that gets thrown out there left and right it's not not in my my book I don't think he's a good
suspect Richard gayowski is someone whose name is out there and these are names that are presented for a variety
of different reasons obviously the top one that's out there is Arthur Lee Allen he's been looked at by everyone Under
the Sun you know when search warrants were executed on his home they didn't find any of the
weapons his handwriting didn't match his fingerprints didn't match the um print on Stein's cab one of the zodiac letters
had a palom print on it his pom print didn't match that so in my opinion he's rolled out Every Which Way but you know
from an interesting standpoint there was a guy in Robert graay Smith's book actually who called himself zodiac and
he lived in San Bernardino in 1964 to 1965 I I had to check that out I I knew his name I I found out his name and I
said I've got to call this guy and actually see if he really called himself zodiac because my thinking is you know
he's right down there in San Bernardino which is next to Riverside he's calling himself zodiac in 1964 to 1965 you know
this guy's either going to tell me to screw off or he's going to you know fill me in and sure enough this guy I talked
to him and I talked to him for hours he admitted he called himself zodiac in' 64
65 he was picked on he he by most accounts he'd be an odd person someone that probably fit the profile he lived
with his parents he told me he never had a date as he's telling me all this I'm likeing wow this guy really he checks a
lot of boxes but the thing was he was never up in the San Francisco Bay area and you know just after talking to him I
knew that he was harmless but had he lived in the San Francisco Bay he probably would have been on a lot of
raadar because he checked so many boxes but I always wondered if could one of his friends or one of the schoolmates
used that name zodiac and stole that moniker from him a little bit of a s side note he was interested in Melvin
belli as well and he attended a little Junior law College uh down in that area and Melvin Bell came in and it's it's in
the the graysmith book he tells the story and there's undercover police there and they actually confronted this
kid and said Is it true that you used to call yourself zodiac and um you know he's [ __ ] his pants
basically you know squirming around he's like no and they check this guy out police are aware of him he wasn't zodiac
but just that interesting tidbit was someone that interested me uh because someone I think could have stolen his
persona but the the best suspect I found personally um is a guy named Ross Sullivan because he can be placed he's
the only person ever named publicly that we know with 100% certainty was in the Riverside Library because he worked
there as a volunteer and he was a he was a student there yeah so he would be a great zodiac suspect but also primarily
Sher Joe Bates murder suspect yeah um he obviously he's there he you know he has
the location we can put him there and and his name was thrown out on an old Google form years ago I'm going back
like 20 years ago when the internet first started and uh you know I seen this name and I I basically had some of
the police reports and I Bas I went down every name that I could find and ran and
threw and checked and cross reference to see who was in what area and how they were rolled out and then I came across
this Ross suvan guy and I said I've got to find more on this guy because there was really nothing about him and then
the first thing I found was a sketch that he a picture from a yearbook of him and I I
couldn't believe my eyes it's he's like a dead ringer for the the Zodiac sketch so the fact he was in the Riverside
Library really caught my attention and the Librarians in the library wrote this like three-page letter of why they
suspected him of of killing Sherry Joe Bates and how weird he was and how creepy he was he liked to write poetry
so he really got got me going as far as interest the suspect well and that also could be one of the reasons why the
Zodiac became a lovers lane killer because if that was his first if that was his first victim that would have
been all the mistakes that he would have made during the attack he he would have
learned that you can't uh commit a crime like that if if you want to not get caught yeah definitely and and and when
we researched Sullivan a little bit more we found out he had been in and out of mental health institutes institutions um
his brother married Sher Joe bat's best friend so we start looking at these little things these little connections
we already have the Librarians suspecting him he transferred to Santa Cruz University in
1967 right after the last baates letter was mailed in Riverside so all the stuff
as far as this timeline adds up and then we've got him matching that criteria meeting that criteria and we
were able to find out through additional research uh that he had checked out books on cryptography at the library he
had some training with that so he checked a lot of boxes and and one thing that's interesting as well is that in
1977 he died and his on his death certificate it's listed how long have you lived in Santa Cruz and it said 3
years that goes back to 1974 when the Zodiac letters were last received so and then we can place him in
Santa Cruz in 1968 early 68 and we can place him in Santa Cruz in 1977 and then 3 years prior to
1974 the the time frame where he gets lost and we don't have any idea where he was and any confirmed addresses it
happens to coincide with the Zodiac cries well and with Arthur Lee Allen I believe he died in '92 so that's a long
period you say the last known letters were in 74 that's a long time for the Zodiac to
be if it's Arthur Lee Allen to be alive and not making any contact at all at all
i' make more sense that okay well there's this three-year Gap and then the guy passed away yeah and some people say
that the reason why the letter stopped in 1974 is because zodiac went to jail or he died or he moved or maybe he just
outgrew whatever is driving him to write these letters um we really don't know but we do know that the last confirmed
zodiac letter was received in in 1974 what I find interesting about the Zodiac in comparison to lot of other
serial killers in a way that he seems to differ from them is that a lot of times
we have serial killers that they they spiral out of control or they get lazy or overconfident that they'll never get
caught and here we have the opposite with the Zodiac where it seems to to be the case where he was so worried about
getting caught that he didn't have to be impulsive about his kills and did not have to continue to kill the the need
for him to stay a free man and not get caught took you know took over the the whatever was driving him to kill where
with these other serial killers the the the addiction to murder is their their un you know their their downfall and
their undoing yeah and I don't know that that zodiac was a master criminal I think he
was sloppy at times I think he um was took risks um and you know just striking and leaving multiple Witnesses
alive um writing a message on a door when someone could drive by as he's you know parked their doing
this message on Brian Hart's door being seen and witnessed by kids from across the street after he shot Paul Stein he
he definitely slipped up and made some mistakes I mean he if you believe Don Falk passed him while was on patrol um
that story uh after Stein was shot then he could have easily been apprehended but you know an incorrect description of
the suspect uh went out they were looking for a black Mound here they drive by this stocky guy with glasses
and a crew cut and they're looking for a black male and you know a minute later it's corrected they spin around to go
back and and find him and he's gone um so you know it doesn't seem like he's a master criminal I think he could have
been C and and luck was on the side do you think the incident involving Kathleen Jones is in fact a
zodiac incident uh she changed her story um multiple times it's it's interesting
that's what I found as well it's I mean it's portrayed one way of course in the movie and the story's told different
ways throughout the the decades but uh just to fill everybody in we're talking about the the woman that says that she
was tricked into to Zodiac's car with her and her baby and uh she becomes terrified of the man who's supposed to
be driving her to the service station yeah and I mean we have as in the Sher Jo Bates case we have a disabling of the
car so it has that going for we also have her driving north from San Bernardino up towards the bay area which
is right next to Riverside the person that attacked her she claims drove up from behind her so they were also coming
from that way so if there's some kind of Riverside to Bay area connection that sort of works in the favor but I I think
what we have to remember is again there's a lot of lot of bad guys down there doing a lot of bad stuff um during
that time and the only reason this was even linked to zodiac is because when she got to the police station she saw
zodiac sketch the composite on the wall that had been passed around every uh agency in California she said oh my God
I think that's the guy that kidnapped me well I hate to keep on bringing up Arthur Lee but there's been so many
documentaries about the Zodiac or just about Arthur Lee but wasn't he a pedo yeah he had been busted for uh messing
around with with some kids in one in uh I think one of the schools uh possibly and one of his friends in in fact the
the person that first brought him to the attention of the police and and came up
with a story of how Allan supposedly said I'm going to kill people and I'm going to call myself the Zodiac before
the Zodiac crimes it it's been alleged that that person's daughter was molested by by Allen so that would certainly give
them a reason to want to see him uh have some trouble with the police that could
be a motive for that person to go forward and say Hey Arthur Le Allen told me this story because he's messed with
his daughter and in regards to Allen what about the uh the speeding ticket that he gets up near Lake beresa on the
day of the attack yeah that was one thing that placed him there also reports that he was fishing up there uh or scuba
diving he had gone to that area before so he he did travel to that area very popular spot for a lot of people in the
Bay Area a lot of Wildlife and a big lake a deep lake so he definitely had connections to being there and and as
far as other things that we talked about you know he lived at home with his mom he wore a a a watch a zodiac brand watch
with the Crosshair logo on it after a while he knew he was being investigated for the Zodiac crimes and I personally
wonder if he got some kind of pleasure out of being sort of chased even though he knew he
didn't commit the crimes because what a way to mess with the police knowing that
they can't they can't convict you because you haven't killed any anyone but you know if you want to mess with
the police what a better way to do it yeah I believe he was identified by one of the survivors my problem with him is
he doesn't pass the eyeball test for me that's one of the the most troubling things in this case I mean if you look
at across the board the the views you start with Mike maou at Blue Rock Springs obviously he's got a light being
shining in his eyes well he's being shot at he only saw like a a peripheral or side view he gave the best description
he could but you we don't know how accurate that is and then you go to Lake berasa he's wearing a hood the entire
time although interestingly enough um one of the EMTs tending to uh Cecilia said said in the police report
that Cecilia told told her that before he as he put the hood on before he attacked them she saw him and he was
wearing glasses underneath the hood so that's one item in there that he appeared to have glasses on underneath
the hood and then of course there were clip on glasses on top of the hood and then to confuse things there was another
person seen at Lake beresta that day that police were never able to identify it was a stocky younger looking guy that
was described by some girls that were sunbathing as watching them and he was wearing the same general clothing that
zodiac was wearing although he looked um you know again he had darker hair no glasses um he didn't
look like the description of zodiac and then you finally get to the the sketch of the Stein killer zodiac and he looks
nothing like any of the earlier reports would have you look at so it's hard to say which one is probably the best but
I'd have to go with the best description is the one where they saw him from across the the street after the Stein
murder it's never been clearly stated how that sketch came to be if it was a combination of the the kids that uh saw
the the crime unfolding or if it was had something to do with officer Falk uh you
know describing what he had seen um but again you have the two amended versions of of that zodiac sketch falling Stein's
killing and and they look nothing like the earlier descriptions of zodiac how optimistic
are you that we solve the Zodiac case how optimistic are you that we solve the Sherry Joe Bates case if in fact the two
are not connected if you had asked me about either case a year ago two years ago I wouldn't have been
optimistic based on some developments and things that are going on behind the scenes I feel more confident now than
ever that both cases maybe in uh in the near future could be solved whether they're independent of each other or
whether they're you know they're solved together um you know is it remains to be seen because again I
hate to speak ill of the police but uh as good a job as they did early on in in sher's case holding that reenactment
trying to line up things they really put blinders on for the last five decades and and zoned in on this one guy despite
DNA ruling him out and I just feel they they dropped the ball in her case especially and only recently maybe
because of pressure and and seeing success with so many old cases maybe they're going to go down that genealogy
Road and and try that and we still don't know police have have always discounted
in Riverside that zodiac was even involved so we don't know if there's any prints or DNA or anything somehow that
matches zodiac we don't know if if these cases are being worked together or independent of each other was there
anything off the top of your head that you think were missing or were leaving out I I was going to say there are some
interesting things about Lake Herman Road in particular that that we could discuss real quick definitely the night
of uh December 20th for being a secluded Lovers Lane area there were a lot of witnesses that night a lot of people
drove by and saw you know Dave and Betty their the spot before the the murders happened
they constructed a good timeline they were able to identify all these Witnesses build a timeline check their T
their clocks even to see if they were accurate and and and and jelled with each other and and essentially what you
have is you have a witness named James Owen passing the crime scene at 11:14 on his way to work at humble oil in in the
grce Smith book he actually misread the report and said that Owen was on his way
home from from Humble oil but it was the reverse he was heading to Humble oil and
his light shined in that scene and he saw David Faraday's car and he saw a car next to it he didn't see any people in
or around the cars and he went to work and then 6 minutes later we have a woman named Stella Boris who is traveling she
just left her house she's traveling from boo to bisha so the turnout where the shootings occurred her light shineing
and she immediately sees two bodies there so we have a six-minute window of when this happened and the last witness
James Owen he is the one that sees a car next to next to David Faraday and based
on that you know he's the last known person to see the scene before the bodies were found do you call into
question his account or just just pinpointing down to almost the minute of the attack itself oh I I I actually had
some trouble with Owen statements um the next morning when he got off his shift he's heading back home he drives by the
crime scene he sees their still out there working the scene there chalk outlines of the the bodies on the ground
and he pulls over and tells the police hey I I drove by last night on my way here and I saw this Rambler car here and
this car next to it I couldn't really make anything out I didn't see any people around in or out of the cars he
says the cars were about 10 ft apart and while he's there just N9 hours after the
shooting he never mentions hearing any gunshots well he he was questioned three days later on December 24th and his
story changed um he told police that the cars were not 10 feet apart but this time he says they're three to four feet
apart and then you know perhaps more importantly now he mentions that he thinks he heard a gunshot about a
quarter mile down the road after he passed the scene and and to me I'm like wouldn't you remember wouldn't that be
the thing that stuck up the most in your memory nine hours after the attack rather than three days later um so I've
had some some issues with his statements again I don't want to be accusatory of him but early on I did have some some
suspicion about some of the things that he mentioned not being uh not being accurate well we often see with
Witnesses turn suspects that sometimes they put them Place themselves at the scene of the crime and for unknown
reasons some sometimes because they think someone may have seen them there or their vehicle in the area for
whatever reason and and that's certainly an interesting lesser known portion of the zodiac case all right Mike Morford
we truly appreciate you joining us here in the garage today and offering all of your expertise and everything that is
the Zodiac Killer is there anything any projects you're working on anything you want to promote while you're here where
can the listeners find you well I'm on Twitter uh my handle is at True Crime guy also you know podcast wise you
mentioned them earlier criminology is is one a lot of people know me from I also
host the murder of my family and and you know we have a common friend Jess beton
Court I work with her on a couple different podcasts um you know scene of the crime uh which you guys have talked
Deli and mentioned the show I appreciate that we also do DNA ID together um in missing persons so I'm pretty active and
pretty all over the place and as timing would have it since we're talking zodiac
uh I am launching a brand new podcast called zodiac speaking and that releases March 13th and that's all about about
the Zodiac perfect well thank you again Mike it's been a pleasure good luck on the all of the projects you continue to
work on but the the new zodiac podcast as well yeah thank you it was good talking with you guys and anytime I'm
I'm happy to talk shop with [Music] you some fascinating stuff about the Zodiac can't wait to check out Mike's
new podcast when it comes out we'll make sure that we'll post it on social media
so make sure you're following us at True Crime Garage on Facebook on Twitter and
on Instagram and join us back here next week until then be good be kind and don't
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The Zodiac /// Part 5 /// 474

Part 5 of 5 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://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

The episode discusses the Zodiac Killer's cipher, Sherry Jo Bates, and key suspects like Arthur Lee Allen and Ross Sullivan.

Key points

Quality Sleep with Ashley. Ashley offers top mattress brands at winning prices with special financing options.
Zodiac Cipher Solved. The Zodiac's 340 cipher was finally solved after 51 years, revealing unexpected messages.
Melvin Belli's Connection. Melvin Belli received a call from someone claiming to be the Zodiac, but it was a hoax.
Sherry Joe Bates Connection. Investigators link Sherry Joe Bates' murder to the Zodiac, raising questions about earlier victims.
Handwriting Expert Links Zodiac to Riverside. State's top handwriting expert found a match between Zodiac letters and other writings.
Key Evidence in Sherry Joe Bates Case. Evidence suggests a connection between Zodiac and the murder of Sherry Joe Bates.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to see you!

Casual greeting between hosts.

2:03WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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