Zodiac Killer /// Part 1 /// 795 | Forensic Files

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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] cry the Zodiac serial killer claimed the
line Liv of at least five young victims between the years of 1966 and 1974 and mocked the police with telephone calls
taunting letters and encrypted messages thousands of men have been accused nearly 2500 have been investigated yet
the Zodiac has never been identified from the Zodiac's cold calculated attacks and taunting letters to the
media has grabbed the attention of several Generations this true story continues to Fascinate because its
brutality and the lingering question who is the Zodiac and here to help us with that question and that answer perhaps is
a one Dr Mark hwit who is the author of several books that focus on the Zodiac murders case and some of the suspects as
well and those books are titled Hunted the Zodiac serial killer book one the Zodiac murders as well as profiled the
Zodiac examined exposed the Zodiac revealed and Dr Mark huitt you have a new book that is hitting the shelves why
don't you tell us about your latest work yes good morning um first of all thank you for having me it's a it's a pleasure
to be here following the Zodiac serial killer Trilogy that I wrote back in 1617 and 18
I've been Fielding a lot of questions people have been asking me how did you get into the zodiac what what fascinates
you about it how far did you go as far as uh your research and so I wrote A Memoir that I just released three weeks
ago it's entitled obsessed my Relentless pursuit of the Zodiac Killer it doesn't
have um a whole lot of new information on the zodic serial killer it's actually my perspective on what I did it's it's
uh an explanation of the 11 years of research I did to produce the Zodiac serial killer series uh earlier and so I
go into some of the places that I've went some of the people that I've I spoke to and some of the granularity of
uh what I looked into and how How deep the obsession took me let's go back in time Mark and let's talk about some of
the things that were featured in your very first zodiac book so in your book hunted you describe the known facts of
the infamous zodiac case mainly the attacks and the murders and you go on to talk about the Zodiac phone calls and
the letters that the Zodiac sent as well now a lot of our listeners are going to
know the longtime listeners because we have covered the Zodiac here in the past in the garage and it's a very Infamous
case it's it's well known and many people have Tak a look at this case but for those that may not know and those
that would like a little bit of a refresher maybe a primer on some of these attacks and murders could you take
the listeners through the attacks and murders starting with the lake Herman Road case from December 20th
1968 sure I'd be glad to uh you guys have done very good work on the Zodiac case I know that you have a
comprehensive I think it's a five-part podcast series that goes into great detail and uh so I won't repeat all of
that um but my first book hunted the Zodiac murders has been heralded as the most accurate and most detailed
retelling of the zodiac case I sat down and put a lot of work into telling the story from the from primary sources a
lot of Mythology is created into this the retelling of the zodiac case and I attt to get away from that on a number
of occasions I included both sides of arguments because people couldn't agree in fact there's differing testimony on
precisely what happened but if you looking for a a comprehensive Deep dive that's the the most detailed and most
accurate retelling of the case that would be in hunted the uh zodiac serial killer is a
serial killer who attacked in Northern California predominantly the valo area the canonical
attacks uh are are only four attacks that resulted in the death of five people but like many serial killers
exactly when the killer started and when the killer ended is not entirely clear there are attacks before the canonical
four and there are murders following and some have tried to implicate the Zodiac
in them but it's not clear whether the Zodiac was responsible or not the first canonical attack took place at Lake
Herman Road on December 20th 1968 a young couple David Faraday who was 17 and Betty L Jensen who was 16
were going on a date they had been boyfriend and girlfriend for a couple weeks these two high school students but
this was their first serious date their first actual scheduling of a time to get
together together and it's kind of a cute story David went to Betty Lou's home and met her parents and talked to
them and assured them that he would have Betty Lou Back by 11 o'clock unfortunately for the two of them he
didn't it was Betty L's first date ever so it was kind of an event and kind of a
tragic ending around 11 o'clock the two were parked at a turnout along Lake Herman Road by Witnesses who drove by
there was a a six-minute window if all of the Witnesses were saying what they saw and remembering correctly there was
a six-minute window in which somebody drove up beside them parked the car and apparently shot the two of them to death
the person um in this vehicle was able to escape without notice or much uh description in it of itself this
particular case became one of the largest unsolved murder murders in California a number of neighbor ing
jurisdictions assured uh salano County that they would assist in the in the explanation and assist in the
investigation to this day it has never been solved seven months later on the fourth of July a second zodiac attack
occurred at the Blue Rock Springs Park it's a three mile drive from the turnout at Lake Herman Road where the first
attack took place and it's only about two miles as the crow flies Michael Mao who was 19 Darlene faren who was 22
arrived at the park on the 4th of July evening as fireworks were going off around the town they were there to talk
and at some point while they were there a car drove up behind them parked and acting like a police vehicle a spotlight
emerged and the couple thought that they were being accosted by the police so they started to Fumble for their
driver's license the man got out of the vehicle walked up to the driver's side and opened fire on
Michael Mao and Darlene faren Darlene faren was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital Michael Mao
miraculously survived despite being shot in the thigh and the jaw and in the arm
about seven or eight weeks later at Lake beresa the third zodiac attack occurred
you'll notice the progression from a seven-month break to a 7 week break at Lake Bessa 20-year-old Brian Hartnell
and 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard were reclining by the water enjoying the beauty of the day on a Saturday
afternoon and a man walked up to them who was dressed in a black Square Hood with a black bib pulled down over his
shirt and he was training a gun on the two he talked to them for as much as 15 minutes he cajoled them into being tied
up he hog tied them he assured them throughout the time that he was only interested in their car keys and in some
money because he claimed to be an escaped convict but once they were hogtied on the ground he pulled out a foot long
bayonet style knife and began to stab them he stabbed Brian hartell as many as six times and then
turned his attention to Cecilia who he stabbed 10 times five times in the front five times in the back I'm going to jump
in here because you talked about the progression and this is something that I want to make sure that we really
underline for everybody out there listening because what we're seeing here is a morphing a change of the mo as well
as the killer himself so with the first two cases it's it's no mistake right we we know that he is arriving on scene
prepared to do something we have to assume that it's prepared to murder because he he fires bullets into both of
these cars and in both situations we know he's arriving on scene with a firearm with a flashlight and then
there's no we don't have confirmation that he ever entered the vehicle or touched physically touched put hands on
any of those victims but then when we get to the lake beresa case it's very strange because he's using a car to
attack people in cars in two situations and now he's on foot he's abandoned the vehicle
parked it likely at the parking lot and then he's approached the two persons that are in this let's call it a park he
approaches them on foot but he comes so well equipped to this scene right he's ready to tie them up and now this is a
very handson attack which is completely different he's he's actually even had interaction with them telling them that
I'm I'm just going to take your your wallet they're talking with him as well so it's not only the progression of the
how quickly we are going from murder to murder in such a short window of time now it's also this one's very Hands-On
and it feels quite different than the first two precisely yes he uh um was was dressed differently in an obvious
disguise it happened before nightfall he approached them and spoke with them for
as much as 15 minutes so yes there there seems to be a progression in the the the
manner in which he approached the two of them uh following the the stabbing he left the couple for dead and walked back
up to where he left his car which was about a quarter mile walk from the lake Brian hartel miraculously
survived uh Cecilia Shephard slipped into a coma and she passed away two days later then exactly two weeks following
the lake beresa attack the Zodiac showed up in the pacif prid Heights district of
San Francisco he apparently hailed a cab in the Theater District of San Francisco
near the intersection of Mason and giri took a cab out to precidio Heights and once Paul Stein the 29-year-old cab
driver pulled over to the side of the road the Zodiac shot him a single time in the head before getting out of the
vehicle this occasion the Zodiac took the cab driver's car keys and wallet and he also tore off a tail from the shirt
that the cab driver was wearing and took these with him as he fled the scene into
the precidio park to to disappear so those are the four attacks and apparently he made a major change
following that because he was cited by a couple of teenagers who were looking out
the window and notice what was taking place and they called the police and the police arrived on the scene within
minutes it seems to have terrified the Zodiac so much that in a follow-up letter he said he was going to change
the way he was doing things and that he would no longer announce the murders that took place and he would try to make
them look like accidents or murders of anger or other um deceptions so as far as we know this was
the last known zodiac serial killing crime but the way that he announced that he was going to change it left everybody
wondering well did he actually stop or did he continue from that point he morphed into a serial killer who was
more interested in sending letters than he was in killing because we know of no future murders that definitively tie to
the Zodiac but for the next five years he sent as many as a dozen additional letters to the police to the press and
then in 1974 the last known confirmed zodiac letter was sent and from there we have no idea what happened to the Zodiac
despite the fact that there were additional letters that came that may or may not have been from the Zodiac there
were additional murders that may or may not have uh been the responsibility of the zodiac and as far as anybody knows
for certain following 1974 the Zodiac slipped off the pages of history and disappeared forever do you think and
this would be pure speculation here of course but what else can we do with these types of cases especially this
this these many years later I've often wondered with the the final murder in the canonical 5 do you think that the
Zodiac put him in himself into a position I.E a cab the back of a cab and at that time of course the majority the
overwhelming majority of cab drivers are going to be male but do you think think
that his lack of success in killing the males in the previous attacks led him to placing
himself into a situation where he would be killing a solo male to not necessarily prove something to
himself but prove something to the general public or law enforcement what law enforcement may have thought of him
that's entirely possible you mentioned specul I tend to shy away from speculating when
I'm ask questions I will respond from the facts of the case but a number of theories have grown up around the case
relating to why Paul Stein why a single male why San Francisco and it may be that he was trying to prove his manhood
because two men survived his attacks it's also possible that he moved to San Francisco because he wanted to increase
his catchment area of attention he wanted uh the San Francisco press to be more involved in the San Francisco
Police Department to elevate his status as a serial killer and one way to find somebody and call them from the crowd is
to get in a cab and direct the cab to where you want to go and precidio Heights is a rather quiet neighborhood
with respect to San Francisco and its situation right near the prido park gave him an ample opportunity to escape the
situation so it could have been either of those or could have been something entirely different we are not
sure he never explained why he apparently altered his situation um in the Press he was described as being a a
potential latent homosexual and he may have been responding to that because we know that
the Zodiac it seems Apparent from his attacks and his letters that he followed his own press and responded to it so
that may have been part of it as well well I feel like it could be a culmination of all of those aspects of
the the Paul Stein case and then you're right because zodiac clearly I mean one thing he did tell us is he expected to
have some kind of Nationwide notoriety so we know that he was seeking that or or at least expected to have
that and a large city like San Francisco May provide that on that scale for and then unfortunately for Paul
Stein a cab driver is a easy victim yes there's also a theory that the Zodiac was plotting out his attacks
on a map so that they fit in a certain criteria cab driver is a good opportunity to take somebody and place
them where you want them to be on the map so that may have some something to do with it as well but until we know for
certain that's just speculation can you explain that a little more well the Zodiac in one of his letters mentions a
radian angle and he mentions it in combination with a code that he sent and a piece of
map that he sent to uh to the the newspaper to publicize his attacks and publicize himself and he said if you
solve this code it relates to where he has placed a bomb and he mentions the code will describe in radians and inches
the location of a bomb that has been set well no bomb was ever found but people began to ask questions such as what is a
radian angle turns out it's an angle about 67 68 degrees and people have plotted that angle on the collection of
attack sites and speculated that the attack at in the pridal Heights made a one radiant
angle between that and the other crime scenes now there's been debate as to whether that is
precisely true or whether that was the intention of the zodiac because he mentioned radians in a entirely
different situation he mentioned it in reference to his code but people are are applying it to
the layout of the the map and where the crimes took place maybe the Zodiac was trying to express something that way
maybe there was a per a purpose for having pulin killed in the precidio Heights we can only speculate at this
point in hunted we talk about the phone calls and some of the letters as well how many phone calls do you think that
the Zodiac made we we will never know for certain but how many phone calls do you think that the the Zodiac made and
what are the nature of these these calls you know we have the the phone calls from zodiac to police
and to news outlets but we do know he made calls that were for example the to the Vallejo police after the Blue Rock
Springs shooting and murder yes the zodiac is known to have made two telephone calls in post- attack Behavior
both times notifying the police that an attack had taken place and that a murder
had taken place and that he was responsible for it we don't know of any phone call after the lake Herman Road
attack he may have if it's never been reported following the Fourth of July attack about 40 minutes following the
attack he made a telephone call to the valo police department and claimed credit for the attack and described
where the victims could be found in their car following the attack at uh Lake Barry ASA he drove
to apparently drove to Napa and made a call to the uh Sheriff's Department claiming credit for the attack that took
place up at Lake beresa why precisely he did this is not entirely clear it's a rather unusual activity generally uh
murders do not like to get caught do not like to be put in prison so they do what
they can to not be caught because the Zodiac did this two times and did it in conjunction with
murders this is a signature activity because it was in no way necessary to carry out the murder and it put him at
Great risk to do that the fact that he made telephone calls from the from from payones meant that the police could
capture fingerprints and they collected a number fingerprints from foam booths unfortunately none of them have ever
been traced back to the Zodiac or Trace to anybody for that matter but it was a very risky Venture there are other phone
calls that may have been made in conjunction with attacks prior to the Zodiac's canonical five murders in
Southern California he may have been responsible for the murder of a cab driver and that
murder included a telephone call to the police prior to the attack and another phone call following up after the attack
we're not certain whether this was even the Zodiac but the fact that it was a cab driver and included Associated
telephone calls give some evidence that maybe it was connected maybe it was the same perpetrator and also in the Sher
Joel Bates attack in Riverside California in October of 1966 one month following the murder of a
young coed the perpetrator evidently sent a letter to the police and to the Press
claiming credit for the attack and mentioning the fact that yes it was him who made the phone call following the
murder well we don't know anything about the phone call it has never been reported upon but the apparent killer
evidently took credit for making a telephone call in the followup of the of this murder and you asked about the
contents of the the phone calls he boast about what he had done he presented details in a very unemotional manner
there was no regret in his voice there was no um sense of the horror that was involved he merely reported on these
murders and people were left to wonder why did he communicate this the police were able
to quickly get to the crime scenes and find out that yes indeed he had carried out the murders in the way he said he
had uh it seems to be uh evidence of his need to prove that he had done these and
also to um to to claim credit the phone call that he made following the Blue Rock Springs Park attack he also took
credit for the earlier attack at Lake Herman Road which was the first indication that the two attacks were
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for the police via these phone calls especially with that first one after the Blue Rock Springs shooting and murder
but to me he feels like a bit of a headline prostitute right he loves these headlines can't wait to read about
himself and his acts and the the terror that he has bringing to these areas and to the people that live there and it's
it's almost like to me like he he couldn't get that payment for what he had done fast enough so I gotta phone
this in so they find these people right away make no mistake he's not phoning it
in hoping that that paramedics can show up on the scene and save anybody no he he's I think he's phoning it in wants to
see those headlines as quick as possible what some speculation that I've seen over the years that I thought was very
fascinating as well is that that he likely had got some kind of kick out of hearing the sirens after the call is
made and they rush off to the scene to to go and to discover and shock complete shock what he had just done yeah these
are entirely entirely reasonable speculations the phone calls were placed from locations at phone booths close to
the police stations that the Zodiac had called into so it is possible that he heard the
sirens um though police police cars at that time were contacted by radio so it's unlikely that a police car would
have left the police station to respond but nevertheless he put himself in a little bit of danger by being very
close to a police department Department why why exactly he made these phone calls it's not certain it's a very
reasonable suspicion that he was looking for headlines I believe following some of his attacks he received front page
coverage in some major newspapers for as many as 21 days in a row when he sent a
letter they were generally reproduced in newspapers and obviously when he made his attacks these were reported upon it
seemed to be that was looking for attention in fact he wrote to the Los Angeles Times in a later letter decrying
the fact that the the Bay Area papers weren't putting him on the front page anymore so it's precisely that that he
may have been looking for front page coverage looking to uh Revel in his handiwork and show himself to be
important which tends to be a theme among serial killers they tend to be very ineffectual people
and um they they do what they do to demonstrate for themselves or for the world that they have control that they
can control another person and what's the ultimate manner of control is actually taking somebody else's life do
you think it was just attention that he was seeking or do you think the Zodiac was trying to give some message to
society it's all it's all an area of speculation and a whole lot has been a lot of ink has been spilled in that area
it's not clear if he had a message in a couple of his letters he let know that he was killing people
because he was collecting slaves for the afterlife and what exactly was meant by
that is not entirely clear people have spent a lot of time looking into world religions where there's an idea that if
you kill somebody they become your slave for the afterlife um that could have been
something just to lead investigators astray it may have meant something very personal to him it's never been made
entirely clear always got this feeling of this guy that's trying to best everyone and that's really what it felt
like and it's like after the Paul Stein murder he gets so close to getting caught in my humble opinion then later
has to rub the cop's noses in it going oh well if you just would have stuck around I was hiding in the park you
would have found found me but oh you guys are too dumb to to to get the best of me I once again I got the best of you
but he almost gets caught and it's like a little boy who picks up the ball and says I'm going home because he because
he finally lost a game and and I always thought of that like he's always constantly trying to best
everyone and this slaves in the afterlife thing is not something that we haven't heard from other serial killers
BTK talked about it captain correct me if I'm wrong but I think there was some we talked about this a little bit with
Israel Keys as well but this this afterlife of well I I am infinite I will go on these people I've ended them and
while while all of you can't find me and continue to look for me and identify me
uh you never will and I will be reaping the rewards of my the the fruits of of my adventures and these horrible acts
that I've done I believe that's entirely reasonable in the six-page letter that was sent a month after the Paul Stein
murder the Zodiac comes across as a petulant child who is bragging to the police of how smart he is and all of the
different acts of subterfuge that he has used against them he talks about buying
his guns out of state or through the mail he talks about wearing fingertip guards on his hands to not leave any
fingerprints behind etc etc basically saying I'm so smart I I have outsmarted you you can't find me even mentions in
the letter I've been too clever for the police now why do you do all this because you're clever no it's because
you feel like you're not clever and you have a point to make I think it's um very easy to overlook how close the
Zodiac got to being captured that night because he was seen by teenagers a composite picture was created in the
aftermath and it was posted all over San Francisco a police officer rushing to the scene drove by who he thought to be
the Zodiac later on because it went out over the radio that they were looking for an africanamerican male and this
police officer as he drove to the scene noticed a white man walking along the road and he slowed down took a look at
him saw that he wasn't African-American as assumed he had nothing to do with the
the attack and then sped off to the crime scene the Zodiac in a follow-up letter said no you you almost had me and
essentially claimed that that was the person who was responsible but the zodak added that the police officers pulled
over and spoke to him so there's a disagreement there as to precisely what happened did the police officers talk to
the Zodiac or did they just drive by that's never been completely answered but had they ex realized that it was the
Zodiac he could have been caught at that time or there could have been a gunfight
that ensued from that only by sheer luck and the incorrect reporting that uh he was able to escape
into the pidal park and that may have terrified him from ever killing again or at least terrified him from ever killing
up close and personal he's not lying when he says that he wears you know I wear disguises okay so he's not lying
because we know clearly the lake beresa attack he's wearing a disguise he's he's
wearing a hood with with sunglasses and and a whole getup it doesn't get more of
a disguise than that but at the same time let's let's pretend and look at this from the angle that he's not
wearing disguises at the other attacks but when he's seen at the Paul Stein attack by Witnesses and then potentially
by police with maybe an interaction with police as well of course he's got to say
I wear disguises right because either he was wearing one in the moment when he's
witnessed or now it's planting the seed of well don't believe too much of what you've seen because I wear disguises so
he's certainly no dummy on that front that seems to be the motive behind claiming to wear a disguise he wrote
that he wears a disguise but only wears it during his attacks and that draws into question the
accuracy of the photos that were circulated and so that suggests that it the likeness was at least close enough
to give him fear that he could be captured as a result of the pictures that were being circulated unfortunately
at the time everybody wore short hair and so the Zodiac pictures that have been circulated look like pretty much
every male in high school their graduation picture it looked exactly like that with very short cropped hair
and uh so precisely who was the Zodiac um eyewitness reports tend to be very poor so um obviously he hasn't been
caught as a result of his uh the circulated picture staying away from naming any specific suspects or good or
otherwise you said something that I think is very intelligent and Powerful in regard to the Zodiac's Communications
with the media with police phone calls letters but in particular with the letters and I've heard you say in the
past that one doesn't write I guess it was what about uh as many as two dozen how 20 letters so you don't write 20
letters yeah without telling something about yourself take us take us through that what in your opinion with all the
research Arch that you've done Mark what do the as many as two dozen letters tell us about the author who
penned those letters that many letters obviously say something about their creator what precisely it says is open
to debate a new area of forensics and criminology that has opened up recently is the area of forensic
Linguistics and I believe there is great opportunity there to not only discover something about the Zodiac but identify
precisely who he is I I guess it's based on the idea that everybody uses language
differently the way I speak is different than the way you speak the word selection that I choose over the course
of a conversation or the course of writing a letter would be different than the words that you would choose and
precisely how we place them across the page with punctuation with Grammar with layout on the
page is is different it's based on our childhood experiences it's based on our experiences in life it's based on the
culture around us what type of words are used how they are used so I think there's a there's a great opportunity
there and yet this is a very new field it's been used um more recently in certain crimes where people leave behind
a note um obviously if they misspell something and that perpetrator in other notes misspells the
same word you get an indication that maybe the same person is responsible for both of them what makes it exceedingly
difficult in the Zodiac case is that there's evidence that the Zodiac faked his handwriting faked what he was saying
faked his level of intelligence and even faked his ability to use punctuation and
use grammar so how can you identify somebody who is pret end in not to be himself through words but I believe with
developments in Ai and supercomputers it may sometime become uh a viable Avenue of Investigation to look
into how people use words I mean can you imagine if you took all of the 20 or some odd zodiac letters analyzed them
down to the minutest detail and then compared them to the use of language across the entire internet what type of
responses you might get you might find people on the internet unwittingly have been using the same type of words or the
same type of grammar and whatnot now this is kind of sketching it out in very broad brush strokes but that may be an
idea of uh of of looking into who the zodiac is people spend a lot of time looking at the Zodiac letters and trying
to say something about him but the question is is how honest was he being in the
letters letters in conjunction with the crime scene are pieces of staging in and
of themselves letters are sent not to say something about the criminal but to lead the criminal astray to lead the
police astray and not find the criminal so what can we believe about sentences that he is reproduced in
letters what can we say about him uh some things about him Geographic locations or descriptions are not going
to be sent or they're going to be edited out of the letter before it's sent but other things might get through
unwittingly that the the Zodiac may have revealed more about himself than he realized and done it quite accidentally
one thing I point to is that in the more material letter the Zodiac used three semicolons and he used them exactly
correctly and nowhere else in his entire body of letters would a would a semicolon be appropriate now that says
something about somebody because I don't know about you but I didn't start using
semicolons until my grad school education I know I was first I first learned about semicolons in high school
but I didn't know how to use them and never even attempted it and most people who are not educated uh do not use
semicolons and here is a writer who's using a semicolon three times in the course of a three-page letter now that
says something about his education it says something about his intelligence it says something about his ability to
write but what exactly it does say is open to interpretation well that's an interesting point cuz like you said our
our language not just spoken but written language comes from our background but you could also fake that on some level
uh the great writer David Foster Wallace used to say if you put me in a room by myself for long enough I'll come up with
intelligent things to say and intelligent points of view I do agree with you that the writings show some
level of higher education yes at the same time he misspelled words he misspelled firing f i r e i n g or
having ha a V iing and he spelled kid C so what's going on here with somebody who's sophisticated enough to use a
semicolon but can't spell a basic third grade word of having or firing but to your point is he choosing to misspell
those words I think it's it's not only quite possible I think it's the general generally accepted view that he was
attempting to fabricate his level of language by spelling those words I know people who are convinced that the zodiac
is dyslexic um I I'm not convinced of that but it appears that he is messing with his
level of intelligence people today still argue about how intelligent was the Zodiac some people say well no he was
just some some idiot who uh scrawled a bunch of letters and didn't have a whole lot of education and there are other
people who say no no he was quite intelligent he was a criminal mastermind why is it that 50 years on we're still
discussing how intelligent he was and coming up with such incredibly diverse answers to that question well that would
seem to imply that he was indeed attempting to fool people with what he was writing and also in conjunction with
that there's a broad enough amount of information and data on this criminal that you can make the evidence fit
pretty much any suspect that you pick provided you look at similarities and downplay or completely ignore anything
that would tend to point the the the finger the other direction so that's part of the fascination that people have
with the Zodiac that it there's so much information in there and yet the information points in a lot of different
directions so through the letters there could be M Direction on one his identity
and also the level of intelligence but maybe that's a clue into the ciphers because if I give you a bunch of ciphers
to solve but I create a couple ciphers that you can't solve then that would also be misdirection on my level of
intelligence as well sure sure um we don't know how deeply embedded some of this misinformation is for instance in
one letter the Zodiac claims kind of almost matter of fact to have a basement in his house or in his living location
he mentions storing a bomb in his basement well people immed mediately start saying ah he has a basement okay
he didn't tell us he had a basement but he implied that and therefore he must be
one of these rare individuals in the Bay Area who lives in a place that has a basement because not a lot of bay are
Bay Area Homes have basements other people have said well maybe basements referring to something else like a
garage that's called a basement so it it becomes an open an open question maybe the zodiac realized that if he said
something like that and made the implication that he had a basement it would send the police running a certain
direction looking for a basement where he had none and if he was quite intelligent and quite criminally
sophisticated he could be leading people running around all over the place I contend that the Zodiac as he reveals
himself in his letters never actually existed and the reason people have not been able to catch him is because they
feel like they know him they read all of his letters and they get a sense of his
personality and his his goals and his identity and so they start looking for this person who never actually existed
it's a complete fabrication it's an exaggeration or a fictitious character of himself that he's putting forward in
these letters I think is what a great way to describe that in your second book mark titled
profiled you make a solid attempt at an evidencebased criminal profile of the Zodiac Killer what did you do to learn
how to attempt this and just how difficult of a task do you think this was yeah thank you my my second book
profiled is already examined it's actually the it's the second book of the trilogy and my publisher is uh very high
on the book because he says that it acts as a compendium to serial killers and general not just the Zodiac uh in the
second book I take the information from the first book and attempt to do a deep dive into the details trying to unlock
what it is that we know about the killer the FBI has done a lot of work into serial killers over over the decades
however it did not start until after the Zodiac had quit killing in fact while the Zodiac was active the term serial
killer did not even EX exist in the uh in in the words of the English language it was not until Robert westler penned
that phrase in the early 1970s that we have the word serial killer the FBI attempted to understand what makes a
serial killer what different types of serial killers there are and what we can know and learn about each type so I go
through a lot of that information and I do a deep dive onto a lot of the for pH that's available from the the story of
the zodiac from the various attacks what precisely what forensic information do we have and what can we continue to look
into and the fact that we have letters I mentioned that we can look into the wording and the specific use of words
but there have also been fingerprints collected in the aftermath of the attacks there have been
bootprints there are ballistics shell casings were collected at the crime scenes and eyewitness and
ear witness reports from people in the vicinity so all of these we can kind of get a handle on some of the information
that we have about the Zodiac I use a lot of FBI research and attempt to narrow down the type of
person that we're looking for who would be the Zodiac I attempt to put together at the
end of the book a criminal psychological profile of the uh of the perpetrator I am not a profiler and so I
had to be very careful on what I said and what I conjectured but I believe I followed
very closely to FBI principles and what they now know about serial killers the fact that they've been studied gives us
information that serial killers in reality are much different than the Hollywood caricature of serial killer in
in ollywood serial killers are looked at looked at as big and menacing and scary
and people are given the false sense of security that if they saw a serial killer they would recognize him um
unfortunately this is not the case when a serial killer is active in an area people get all afraid and they they look
for somebody who's big and scary and menacing and yet what always happens following the arrest of the serial
killer the neighbors say oh he was such a quiet person we never knew uh this about him he he was friendly he seemed
to love his family well that's because the Hollywood version of serial killer just does not exist in reality profilers
have said that uh a serial killer looks like your Banker looks like your neighbor looks like uh somebody in your
community because for 99% of their lives that's precisely what they are serial killing is something that they only do
and only only look like when they're engaged in that activity and engaged in Murder not a lot of people when they
hear that a serial killer is active in their Community think of oh Ted Bundy maybe he's a good-look young man or they
don't think of uh um Dennis Raider BTK who was a president of his local church and an upstanding member of his
community but that's what we now know about serial killer because of FBI research CH so I um put together a
psychological profile of the killer that runs four or five pages in length looking at a lot of the details based on
what we now know about serial killers and the types of and that the people who have been arrested for serial killing
and so I I Venture guesses that that he was probably a a firstborn or oldest child or only child he was approximately
30 years of age simply because that's the general age that serial killers tend to they tend to start in ages 18 to 25
so anywhere from 25 to 30 is is a likely guess but there have also been estimates
from eyewitnesses that he was 35 to 45 years of age so that that's kind of the the things that I say about this the
killer in the profile I say that he has a certain level of uh of uh rage in his life he is uh likely
alienated from other people has problems in relationships his problems in his relationship with women and all this is
kind of um basic information from the crime seams themselves yeah one thing it doesn't take I don't have to go to the
extensive training and exercise work that you did to come up with a profile but I the thing that jumps off the page
to me that is that is just obvious this is not a uh love what I kill kill what I
love situation this is a guy who he he's killing he's killing what he cannot be he's killing what he hates he's
destroying what what others have that he does not and and and I feel like given the ciphers and a lot of this extra work
that goes into what he's doing it feels like a very loner type to me uh a very loner type for for much of his life
before much before the killings and especially during during these five murders yeah yeah obviously somebody
who's going out and attacking strangers and killing them there's something wrong
with that person there's there's something um something not right in their relationships with other people
their friendships and their other relationships are not supplying them with something did you include any post
offense behaviors suspected or otherwise in your profile of the Zodiac Killer yeah um FBI research has noted that
organized serial killers those who are under great control and put a lot of effort into not being caught they tend
to gravitate toward alcohol in either pre- or post offense Behavior whereas somebody who is uh a disorganized serial
killer would tend to Ward using a prescription medication or other street drugs then that's not a hard and
fast rule but because of that General tendency I suggested that if the Zodiac was into some type of uh mood enhancing
behavior that alcohol might be involved and some of his letters give a sense that they start very neat and very
carefully scripted but then tend to fall apart in slop by the end of the letter gives the idea that maybe he was
drinking as part of his post offense Behavior but also his activity of writing letters and making telephone
calls that also seemed to be very important Behavior to him something that he repeated yeah because the the letters
the ciphers and all of that it's it's the same it's all a part of what he's doing it's it's like Dennis Raider said
he didn't separate the trolling from victims from actually tying someone up and it was all aart it was all one one
thing to him and I feel like with zodiac where we have some killers that are out
trolling for victims and looking where do I procure a victim from and and where can I find someone who's vulnerable and
and and find my Victim type that I'm chasing with him it's it's less of the trolling and it's the behind the scenes
work of manufacturing these ciphers and putting together letters and then the communications with newspapers or the
police and the taunting EV of everyone terrorizing the the area um precisely everything that the Zodiac does is uh
goes to his identity who he is and what he's attempting to accomplish and much of what he is and
what he did we don't know about because we don't know about his trolling we don't know about uh any following he did
or any stalking he was involved in we don't know precisely what it looked like when he sat at a desk and wrote his
letters where he was what he was thinking um but all of this factors into his personality and who he is and what
makes him different than other members of society well and one thing that I really tried to hit home for everyone
when we we did just as you said five episodes on the Zodiac Killer back in 2021 and that was episodes 470 through
474 in March of 2021 one thing I really tried to hit home in several of those episodes that I
think is lost on some of the general public here one thing that that separates the Zodiac from a lot of other
serial killers even ones that communicate with the public in the media and such is he there is a large part of
him that is a terrorist and he because he set forth to terrorize these communities and to scare them into place
to almost force people to stay inside don't let your kids stand at the bus stop don't don't let your kids come
bouncing off of school buses at the end of the day because if you do I done warned you you know and on on several
occa uh at least one occasion he's saying that he's going to go out and kill x amount of people for x amount of
days until something that he wants to happen happens almost like a A List of Demands that he's sending out and one
thing that I like about your books is you that that aspect of his crimes and what he was attempting to do was not
lost on you yeah that's quite true he was a terrorist of the Bay Area I continue to talk to people today who
have very Vivid memories of being a teenager or older and being in fear parents uh jined up the fear by
saying don't go out alone be back by 8 o' um or don't go down this road because this road uh may have the Zodiac on it
people were terrified they didn't understand what was taking place within them all they
knew was that this man was Ro around and suddenly without provocation pulling out
a gun or pulling out a knife and killing people uh and that and that goes to his
identity who he was what he was attempting to accomplish he was not a serial killer who was looking to um
fulfill some type of sexual need where where some serial killers will rape and kill their victims and then disappear
and try not to get caught because they are satisfied at least for the Moment by the act of what they are doing this was
a person who uh was killing but then moving beyond that and the fact that he stopped
killing and continued to write letters gives every indication that maybe the letter writing was more important to him
or the publicity was more important to him than the acts of killing what he was doing maybe he only killed five people
to prove to himself and to others that he could do that and he had earned enough street cred by
that time that he could simply write letters and make threats and cause fear within the community because of what he
had done [Music] previously want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage for this
great discussion on the Zodiac killer tune in tomorrow same B time sbat Channel and until then be good be kind
and don't litter [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Zodiac Killer /// Part 1 /// 795

Part 1 of 2

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This is the Zodiac speaking… the words of a killer. The haunting words of a killer determined to terrorize and taunt the public in and around the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s. We featured this case at length a few years back with “The Zodiac” parts 1 through 5. Those episodes are available for your listening pleasure and are True Crime Garage episodes #470 to #474, released March 9th through March 17th 2021. This week we revisit one of the most infamous unsolved and unidentified serial killer cases in all of True Crime. The Zodiac killer serial murder case. To help us further investigate we are joined by Zodiac expert Dr. Mark Hewitt. Mark has authored a Zodiac trilogy with his series The Zodiac Serial Killer. The trilogy is available everywhere you buy books with books: Hunted - The Zodiac Serial Killer - book one - The Zodiac Murders Profiled - The Zodiac Serial Killer - book two - The Zodiac Examined Exposed - The Zodiac Serial Killer - book three - The Zodiac Revealed Now his book Obsessed: my relentless pursuit of the Zodiac killer is available.

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Brief Summary

Dr. Mark Huitt discusses the Zodiac Killer's attacks, letters, and psychological profile in this episode.

Key points

The Zodiac's Infamous Legacy. The Zodiac killer claimed the lives of at least five victims and taunted police.
Dr. Mark Huitt's New Book. Dr. Huitt discusses his memoir on his obsession with the Zodiac case.
The Lake Herman Road Attack. The Zodiac's first canonical attack left two young victims dead in a chilling manner.
Zodiac's Phone Calls. The Zodiac made phone calls after murders, possibly seeking attention and headlines.
Letters to the Police. The Zodiac sent numerous letters, revealing insights into his psyche and intelligence.
Misdirection in Communication. The Zodiac's letters may contain intentional misinformation about his identity and intelligence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Mark Huitt's introduction

4:20WatchOct 23, 2024

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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