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Lake Herman Road was just a sleepy
little road, two-lane road.

It was a shortcut from Vallejo
to the Benicia area, the Benicia township.

It was not very well-traveled.

It was not lit at all.
Of course, there were no street lights.

The turnout area
where the crimes were committed...

...was kind of a little lovers' lane.

People would stop there, you know,
and kids knew that.

The Benicia High School kids knew that.

You know, Hogan High,
the Vallejo High School kids...

...all knew that that transaction
was there.

I mean, back and forth in that road.

But you did not have
a whole lot of traffic.

If there was any traffic in the evening,
it was teenagers or somebody just coming--

Getting off work late
and coming back over to Benicia.

The population
was probably around 5000.

It was a sleepy little community,
middle class.

Crime rate was very, very low
per population...

...almost nil.

Major crime at that time within the city...

...would be a bar fight, a stolen car...

...minor thefts,
some family disturbances.

There were not any murders prior to that
for at least five or six years.

I was the first officer...

I was on patrol that night
and my partner was sick.

He couldn't make it.

And Wayne Waterman
was a new kid on the job.

He was working the jail.
We all worked the jail first.

And he asked if he could ride with me.

And I said,
"Sure, I'd be glad to have him."

And we got a call from the sergeant...

...that a man from Benicia,
who fishes at Lake Berryessa...

...wasn't home.
And that was around 7:00, 8:00.

He asked us to look down
Lake Herman Road...

...and see if his truck was there.

It was a blue truck.

And just as we turned on
Lake Herman Road...

...we had a call to go to
the Hells Angels' pad on Warren Street.

We were there about 30, 40 minutes.

When we got back in the car...

...we were told we had a double 187
on Lake Herman Road.

During that night,
we had served a search warrant at the--

What we called "the cottage"
at Lake Herman...

...which was owned by
the city of Benicia.

A narcotics search warrant,
my partner and I.

And we have-- We confiscated
about a pound and a half of marijuana...

...which, you know, in the 1960s,
that was a big drug bust.

Today it wouldn't get very high
on the Richter scale.

We had left, were heading back
to the police department...

...to put the marijuana into evidence.

And as we drove by, we did not observe
or see anybody in that area...

...because it's a turn there...

...and your headlights shine right in there
as you go by.

As we're pulling into the lot
in the police department...

...we heard the Benicia Police Department
dispatcher put out a call...

...of possible shooting and victims
on Lake Herman Road...

...and described the location.

My partner and I turned around at that time
and responded to the call.

When we got there, there was already
a marked police unit from Benicia...

...and one of our police sergeants
was on scene at that time.

The car was heading east...

...near a place where they had
a pumping station...

...or something down below.

Because I remember we used to
see the fella check it out every night.

It was a Rambler.

A two-tone Rambler.

We first saw the first victim...

...the male, who was lying outside of
the passenger door of the vehicle.

It appeared that he had a gunshot wound
above the left ear.

He appeared--
Or was, actually, breathing.

It was a fairly cold night, it was late,
on a December night...

...and you could actually see his breath.

I think that that was just because...

...his respiratory system
was still intact to some extent...

...and his brain hadn't actually
shut down yet, which-- Shut him down.

We never had too many murders.

We solved them all,
but that was just a few, but this one...

And there was a gal who lived in the--

A woman, who lived in a house
about a mile up...

...going towards Vallejo.

And she saw the Benicia Police Department
and she told them about it...

...and they were there first on the scene.

Of course, the sheriff's office was called
because it is their jurisdiction...

...and Solona County Sheriff's Office
responded...

...and actually handled the investigation.

We stood around
to assist their deputies...

...and keep the press
and other people away...

...as they worked the crime scene.

We contacted the office...

...told them to have
Sergeant Les Lundblad come.

He was in charge.
I was a patrolman at that time.

The boy was an Eagle Scout,
the girl was on her first date...

...and there's no record of any misbehavior
on either one of them.

Why did this happen?

It was a senseless murder, I believe.

He told me, he says,
"Follow the ambulance down...

...and see if you can get any information,"
you know?

That's where I found out about the ring.

I noticed he had it like this.

Holding it-- Holding it like that:

Holding it like somebody
was trying to take it from him.

And the nurse, she said he died
before he came in the hospital.

Looked to the rear of the vehicle
and saw the female victim.

Approximately 29 to 30 feet...

...facedown and had been shot
multiple times.

She was shot full of holes,
I forget how many.

We got several shells from her,
where she was shot in the back.

The female victim had bled out...

...and it was obvious without even
taking a pulse, which I did do...

...she was expired at the scene.

I mean, she just completely--
There was a lot of blood...

...and she completely just bled out,
it appeared.

Where the female victim was laying,
there was expended casings from a .22.

And there was also casings, I believe,
on the right side of the vehicle.

There was one round that was fired
through the right rear window...

...and we tried to figure out...

...was that a warning shot
to get the victims out of the car?

But I don't think that that
was ever decided.

Although that round did not--

To the best of my recollection
did not hit the male victim...

...that it went into the headliner
of the vehicle.

Possibly they were ordered out of the car
by the responsible.

And the boy was shot
right at the side of the car...

...and the girl apparently tried to run...

...and she was shot
and found 28 feet further on.

There was one bullet hole that penetrated
one of the windows of the car.

Was this a stray bullet...

...or was this one of the bullets
that hit the victim and went on through?

This could be a stray bullet
or a warning bullet of some sort.

We can't connect it with the bodies,
but it's the same type of shell.

So I came back to the scene.
Les was there.

We went over everything...

...and that was it for that day.

We worked until about
4:00 in the morning...

...checking every place and that,
and all the bullets we could find and that.

Then the next morning I got a call
and told them--

They told me I was gonna be
an investigator on it.

It wasn't handled
as you would handle it today.

I don't think there was the experience there
to actually handle it that way.

And you gotta realize the first concern
was the male victim:

"Is he still alive? Let's get him--
Let's save a life here."

Then, of course, they marked the bodies
and I'm sure they parked the patrol cars...

...and they walked around and looked
and picked up the empty casings...

...and so on and so forth.

But under today's circumstances...

...because of the technology we have today
that we didn't have then...

...they would have
worked that crime scene for 24 hours.

I mean, they would have taken
earth samples...

...they would have looked for fiber...

...you would have looked for folic hairs,
any hair.

I mean, it would have been a lot more
in-depth...

...just because they have the technology
that-- Today that we--

They did not have in those days.

You know, in that half-hour,
we accounted for--

There were people around that area...

...except for six minutes.

And during that six minutes,
that's when it all happened.

We felt that we were probably only
minutes from the actual crime scene...

...when it happened.

And again,
to the best of my recollection...

...we did not pass any other vehicles
or traffic.

And I'm pretty sure of that...

...because that was one of the things
that we told the sheriff's office.

We did not see any other vehicles
coming our way.

Now, we take a bit of a shortcut,
so what could have happened is...

...that depending where a vehicle
turned on to Lake Herman Road...

...if it came from behind us, from Vallejo,
we would not have seen them.

Our feeling at that time
is that the person came-- Or persons.

Came from the Vallejo area
and did not come from the Benicia area.

Once the Blue Rock Springs,
the Vallejo case, had occurred...

...I think that it really set in
to the residents of Benicia, at least--

And Vallejo also.

--that we've got some kind of a crazed--

And that's the term
they were using at that time.

Crazed killer out there.

People couldn't figure out
what is he or she doing.

What is this all about?
What's the motive?

And, you know, most homicides
in my experience...

...you know, if you can find the motive,
you're gonna find the responsible.

And I think-- You know, I've been
out of law enforcement for a few years...

...but I think that the FBI statistics
are still somewhere in the high 80s...

...that most victims know their assailant.

But when you have a random killing
or killings without a motive...

...without any method of operation--

And the method of operation were different
between the two, theoretically.

Except it was a couple.

It really starts to set in and really panic
and then you start thinking of, you know--

And, again, what they were talking about
is a crazed killer, a madman...

...or mad person, that was out there,
just taking human life.

Why wasn't the Zodiac caught?

Beats the heck out of me.

I don't know.
We could never nail down anybody on it.

I'm not sure that if we had, you know,
like I said, the science we have today...

...that he'd be able to beat that.

I really think if it-- If we had--

And, again, it's like putting the cart
before the horse...

...but if we could take what we have today
and go back then...

...I think that he, you know,
would have been arrested, period.

But, again, everything's academic
at this point.

But, again, everything's academic
at this point.

Back at that time, Blue Rock Springs,
that was a more or less rural area.

Vallejo had not expanded its city limits
that far yet...

...so it was a rather rural area.

On the weekends especially...

...there would be large crowds of people
out there, they'd barbeque.

At night, it really got dark.

There were some street lights out there,
but only a couple of them.

It was kind of out in the boondocks.

And kids would use it perennially
as a lovers' lane.

You could drive your patrol car by there
and there would be five cars out there.

People listen to the radio and doing
whatever else they do in lovers' lane.

It was July 4th, a holiday...

...and my partner, John Lynch--
He was also a detective sergeant.

He was the senior of our team.

--we worked a late shift,
like, 3 to midnight.

Something like that.
And we were driving around.

I was driving the, you know,
plainclothes car.

We were, you know,
plainclothes detectives.

And we were down-- I think down
around the downtown area in Vallejo.

The old part of town.

It was close to midnight...

...and we heard reports
of a possible shooting...

...at Blue Rock Springs Park
come over the radio.

They dispatched a patrol car.

And so I said-- You know,
I'm the younger by far of the two of us.

So I told John, "Why don't we--?
You wanna head out there?"

And he said, "No, it's probably just
firecrackers or something."

At 12:10, the first call...

...I received was from
a young white woman...

...I would say, in her late teens.

Seventeen. Sixteen, 17, 18.

Somewhere around there.

And she was really agitated,
excited or whatever.

And she reported that there were kids
being shot at at Blue Rock Springs.

So since I was driving, I kind of started
meandering in that direction.

And a few minutes later, we got I think--
I believe another report of shots fired...

...and, again, at Blue Rock Springs.

And the officer--

I think it was Dick Hoffman,
a patrol officer.

--got there first
and said he had a shooting.

Two people involved.

So then obviously I put it in high gear
and took off...

...and we got out there pretty quickly.

I was working as a patrol officer
in the Juvenile Division.

That was a plainclothesed assignment.

Now, I had just been at Blue Rock Springs
a half-hour or so before that...

...and checked the area
and found it closed.

My purpose out there was to make sure
there were no teenagers hanging out...

...drinking, fighting, whatever.

The park was closed.

And there was no activity out there...

...when I passed through a half-hour or so
ahead of that time.

So I took the call
and I gave it to the dispatcher.

And I remember her saying:

"I don't know who I'm going to send.
I don't have anybody free."

And I wasn't far away, so I turned around
and went back out there.

Told Dispatch that I was gonna go out there
to check on that report.

Hoffman was at the scene.
We pulled in the parking lot...

...and I saw this little--
I think it was a 1963 light-brown Corvair.

It had its headlights on,
the passenger door was open...

...and there was a male person
laying on the ground.

And Hoffman was ministering to him.

And I got up close.

And with my flashlight,
I looked down there...

...and there was a young guy down there
laying on his back.

Obviously had been shot.

He was reaching up towards me
or the flashlight I was holding...

...kind of gurgling. Obviously in pain.

From him, I looked over
in the front seat of the car...

...and saw a young girl...

...sitting behind the steering wheel
of the car.

She had been shot too.

Blood all over the front in the car.

And I asked Hoffman,
"What you got here?"

And he says, "I've got two.

The driver in there, the girl,
she's been shot.

And this guy--"
Later identified as Michael Mageau.

"--was laying on the ground
and he had just been shot to pieces."

He had a bullet, I think,
went through his neck...

...and came out of his cheek.

I got up and walked around
to the driver's door...

...and the window was down.

And the girl,
later identified as Darlene Ferrin...

...she had her eyes, you know,
slitted open a little bit...

...and I could see she was breathing.

And I asked her
if she could tell me what happened.

And she kind of tried
mumbling something.

I got up real close and I never could
distinguish any actual words.

I checked her pulse,
the carotid artery pulse.

I found nothing.

Ambulance came.

They loaded Mageau up first
and then got Darlene out of the car.

And one of the things I did
when they lifted Mageau up, I--

You know, we had marked--

I think Hoffman had outlined his body
with a crayon.

And so I was shining a light down there
for whatever reason.

I saw there was a bullet slug underneath
where Mageau had been laying.

And I picked it up and it looked like
a 9 mm Parabellum bullet, they call it.

I thought it kind of strange...

...when they undressed that man.

He was wearing a lot of clothes.

He had several pairs of pants on...

...and some sweaters
and a long-sleeved shirt.

And that weather was hot that night
out there.

And he was-- I don't know why
he was dressed so hot.

I was real skinny. I was so skinny.

Back in 1969, I was so skinny
that I had to wear three pairs of pants.

So I was so thin, you know...

...that I wore three pairs of pants
to cover up my thinness.

And she knew about it.
She used to joke about it.

"Why are you wearing so many pants?"
I told her, "I'm thin."

I found Darlene's purse in the back seat
and got her identification out.

And her blood all over the seat.

And then I walked around...

...and Mageau's wallet was up on
the right rear fender of the car.

And I later learned that Hoffman
had gotten it out and had laid it up there.

So I took that and the purse
and those things were all put into evidence.

And when the ambulance left...

...we told Hoffman to ride in the ambulance
and keep trying to get a statement.

Both of them
were put in the ambulance...

...and I rode the ambulance with them
to Kaiser hospital in Vallejo.

Did you try talking to her?

There was no talking to her.

I was there to record anything
that would have been said...

...but I couldn't speak with her.

She was--

There was an ambulance attendant
giving her CPR...

...during the ride to the hospital.

And, of course, her shirt or sweater
or whatever she was wearing was off.

And each time that ambulance attendant
blew air into her chest...

...there was a little piece of material
from her bra that I could see...

...fluttered with every breath
he blew into that girl.

This piece of material
would flutter on the side.

I could see that.
There was no talking to that girl.

-You knew her before the attack, right?
-I never laid eyes on her.

-Never laid eyes on her before?
-No, no.

I had heard that she was a waitress...

...at an all-night restaurant in Vallejo.

But I didn't know the girl at all.

Graysmith wrote a book
about the Zodiac...

...and he mentioned in his book...

...that I was at her, Darlene,
and her husband's house...

...on a house-painting party
prior to her death.

And I don't know anything about that.
That wasn't me.

But that's what he says in his book.

Darlene was my girlfriend at the time
and I was dating her.

And she was planning to get married.
She was already married.

Everybody knew her husband
worked at a restaurant as a cook.

His name was Steve.

Steve was a real nice guy,
a good friend of mine...

...but he knew that we were dating.

She also dated my twin brother, Steve.

My identical twin brother, Steve,
she was dating him.

And we had a big fight.
Me and Steve had a big fight about that.

Because I pretended
I was Warren Beatty, the actor.

I said, "I'm Warren Beatty, the actor,
and this is my brother.

He just shot somebody."

And she said, "Oh, that's cool.
I'll take care of you guys."

She didn't say that, yeah.

But I told Steve, "How about that?"

So she--
To make a long story short, she--

It started out as a joking thing...

...but it's too bad she ended up
losing her life behind it.

You know, seriously,
it's too bad she got murdered...

...as a result of our meeting.

I went to my house
and she picked me up from my house.

Because we were gonna
go out that night.

See, we couldn't see each other
the next day...

...so we decided to see each other
that night...

...after midnight, after midnight...

...to have a lovers' lane-type thing.

To kiss and talk
and hold each other's hands.

Is that what Blue Rock Springs--?

Yeah, it was the lovers' lane park
for young people.

I was 19 at the time.
Now I'm 57, but I was 19 at the time.

She was 22.

We were chased by this guy,
chased by him from a restaurant.

He was chasing us
and I told her to pull off at the park.

He chased me all night long,
the restaurant.

He chased her to a coffee shop
named Paul's or whatever it was called.

Then he chased us all the way
to the park and then we--

That's where we ended up
at Blue Rock Springs Park.

I thought he drove off, drove away,
but he came back later on and shot us.

Michael Mageau
was the only one of the two...

...that was able to talk to us at all.

And he gave just a very brief description.
He thought--

I believe he told Hoffman
he thought it was a car like Darlene--

It was Darlene Ferrin's car, the Corvair.

And he said he thought...

...a car pulled up
a few feet away from them...

...just, you know, a couple minutes
before the shooting.

He's not-- Wasn't sure
if it was the same car.

It was like a brown Renault car.
Small compact car.

Small compact car.
But it could have been a Cadillac too.

I'm not really sure.
I can't really remember.

He says this car pulled up...

...and he asked Darlene,
"Do you know who that is?"

And she said something like,
"Never mind."

She told me it was a friend of hers
and not to worry about it.

That he was just jealous.

That's all she said about him,
"He's just jealous."

She never mentioned his name,
but she said something about a Richard.

All I heard was his name was Richard.
I kept hearing the name Richard.

And I think that was his name...

...because she referred to him as Richard,
the Zodiac Killer guy.

She said he really had a mean temper...

...and that if he ever found out,
he would kill her.

He would kill her. She mentioned that.
She said those words:

"He would kill me if he ever knew
I was talking to you about that."

She told me that.

And the car left and then
just very shortly after that...

...this car pulled up behind their car
with the headlights on...

...and he thinks it might have been
the same car...

...but he didn't see the car
to be able to tell.

I told her we were on the run.
We were literally on the run. Literally.

On the run.
This guy was chasing us bigtime.

I don't think you told the police that night
that you had been chased.

No, I didn't. No, I didn't. I left that out.

I don't know why, but I left that out.
I forgot about it or something.

-But you're sure now that you--?
-But I'm sure that happened, yeah.

I'm not sure if he told Hoffman
before we got there...

...that when he was shot...

...that he was able to get out of the car
and fell down on the ground.

And as he lay on the ground...

...he saw the assailant's car
drive away toward--

Back toward the city of Vallejo
at a high rate of speed.

He drove off quietly.

He didn't peel out,
he drove real quietly in his car.

And quietly drove out.

You could barely hear the engine
as he drove off.

I believe he said that it looked like
it might have been...

...that same car that pulled up,
you know, next to them...

...just a few minutes
before the actual shooting...

...but I can't be positive about that.

We thought he just left
and he wasn't gonna bother us anymore...

...but he came back.

And got out of his car.
He had a blinding light.

He had a big beamer,
just blinding my eyes.

Like, right in my eyes.

I thought it was the police
with a flashlight.

But it wasn't the police,
it was him, the Zodiac Killer.

You know, I thought it was a policeman.

That's why I didn't--
I rolled down the window.

I rolled down the window so--
Because I was--

So I could have my ID.

And that's when he started shooting me.

I thought he hit me.

I looked down and saw blood
spurting out of my mouth.

And I knew I had been shot.

I just asked the policeman,
"Why'd you hit me?" You know?

And then I realized I had been shot.
It wasn't a policeman.

That's the first time I realized
it wasn't a policeman, it was the killer.

I got shot five times.

Shot in the face. Went through my right--
Into my right ear.

Went through my tongue and my jaw
and came out here and went into her.

Bullet went into her and killed her.

And shoulder, elbow, my side
and twice in my left leg.

It lasted a long time
because he shot me and shot me...

...and shot me and shot me and shot me.

It took forever, man.

It might have been a silencer,
might have had a silencer, but I don't know.

Because I didn't hear a big bang
like a gun, a 9 mm, would make.

But I heard a snapping sound,
like a firecracker. So I think he--

To me, I thought he had a silencer
because I didn't hear a--

I mean, I could hear, you know, but I--

But it wasn't a loud, booming bang.

It was just a like a pop,
a pop and a crack, you know?

Like:

That's what it sounded like,
like a firecracker gun.

Or a BB gun, you know?

When we got there,
the headlights and taillights were on.

And I believe the radio. The ignition
was turned to the accessory position.

And the radio was on and playing low.

I did later learn...

...that Michael thinks that Darlene
flashed the lights on and off...

...the headlights,
trying to attract attention.

He says he's not sure
if he asked her to do that...

...or if she did it on her own.

Because he said one day--

Michael told me later
that when they first--

They pulled into the parking lot...

...she turned the lights off,
but had the radio on.

And apparently if she was
flashing the lights for attention...

...she ended up leaving the headlights on
because they were on when we got there.

But Michael told me
that when they had pulled in...

...she turned the headlights off.

When he came up and shot me,
I did have an idea of what he looked like.

He looked like a tall white guy,
about 6 feet tall.

Jet-black hair, curly hair.

He looked like an average-looking person.

But he wasn't ugly, he wasn't handsome,
just an average, nondescript guy.

A plain guy, you know?

But he had long-- Dark-- Tall, dark--

He may even have worn glasses
like yours or mine, you know?

Reading glasses.

He may have had glasses.
I recall he did have glasses on, as I recall.

He did have glasses.

I remember that.
He definitely had glasses on.

The gunshot threw me
in the back seat of the car.

I was upside down,
my left leg was around my shoulder.

My arm was around--
I was strangling myself with my own arm.

And I opened the back door to get out.
I fell out to the ground.

And she was already dead.

So how long was it
before the police showed up?

About nine hours.

Literally, from the time I was shot,
I was in the blood for, like, four hours.

I was on the ground for four hours.

July 4, 1969.

And everybody was having
fun and games and I--

People came by and saw me there
and wouldn't call the cops.

I was there for four hours.

People would walk up and say,
"Are you all right?"

"No, I'm not all right," you know?

They said, "Let's run."
They ran screaming, you know?

So, yeah, it was a horrible night for me.

It was.

Because, man, she died, you know.
It wasn't just me. I knew she was dead.

Well, I was gonna marry her.
I was really gonna marry her.

So I took it really hard that she died...

...because I felt I should have saved her,
you know?

Because I was there to protect her
and I couldn't protect her.

I'll always regret the fact
that she got killed.

I'll always feel partly responsible for it,
you know?

Physically, I'm fine.
No, physically, I'm fine. I feel fine.

But mentally, the scars of emotions,
the scars are still there.

I'd feel really good if he was caught.
I'd feel really good.

Put an end to that.
Put that guy on death row or something.

It would just make me feel closure.

I'd feel better because they solved
the murder case against Darlene...

...who was a nice, innocent good person.

Innocent victim of circumstance.

You know, she-- People put her down,
say she was a whore or whatever.

She wasn't.
She was a very nice human being...

...and I did love her and I still love her.

I'll always love her, you know?

And she got murdered needlessly.
She was 22 years old. I was 19.

I lived. I had a long, good life
after that shooting...

...but she got killed that day
and I can't forget that.

It's a black mark on my life.

I'd like to get closure for her case
and her family...

...who suffered never knowing
who murdered their daughter...

...Darlene's parents.

I think I could see the color.
She had blue eyes.

Her eyes were, you know,
partially opened.

And she-- I could tell she was breathing.

And she, you know, she responded to me
when I asked her:

"Can you tell me what happened?"

She was trying to say something...

...but she was just so gone at that time
that just--

I got my ear right up next to her mouth
and I, you know--

Just nothing.
I couldn't make anything out.

After the shooting
at Blue Rock Springs Park...

...the Zodiac, the shooter,
apparently drove back into Vallejo...

...and drove down a street
called Tuolumne Street.

And there's a-- At that time,
there was a Union 76 gas station...

...that was closed at the time.

There's a public phone booth there.

And he called the Vallejo Police Department
and claimed responsibility.

Then the next call I got
was about 12:40.

And that's the call that I received...

...from the man
who was subsequently called the Zodiac.

He spoke in a monotone.

It's like he had rehearsed it
or was reading what he was saying.

He had a very non-emotional...

...voice, you know?

His first words were,
"I wanna report a double murder.

If you go one mile east
on Columbus Parkway...

...to the public park..."

And I said, "Yes, sir, we have a report
of a shooting in that area.

I still need to get your name
and your location."

And he said,
"You'll find the kids in a brown car.

They were shot with a 9 mm Luger.

And I also killed those kids last year."

I got a very taunting...

...scary-type, creepy feeling
from the call.

And when he got to the end
of his statement--

It's hard for me to duplicate.
--but instead of just saying--

If you read my report, it means nothing.

But if you hear...

You know, if you could have heard...

I can't explain it as well as I still hear it.

You know, it was from somebody
who was really out there.

But his voice really changed
when he came to "goodbye."

And it wasn't just "goodbye"--

Now it may sound a little silly to people.

It didn't to me at the time.

--but he said something like:

"Goodbye."

And he hangs up
and I'm just kind of sitting there...

...thinking, "Oh, my God."

We went up there
and just kind of on an impulse--

I think there was a car
at the first turnout...

...from the south end of the lake
going north.

And the second one or the third one
was open.

I turned in. I said,
"Let's go walk down by the lakeside."

And we did.

It was about probably a couple hundred
yards down to the edge of the lake.

Because this particular turnout...

...it wasn't necessarily
just going down to the shoreline...

...it was actually out on a peninsula.

And the peninsula during the wintertime
would be an island...

...when the water was higher.

And there were about three live oak trees
out on the peninsula.

And we laid down a blanket,
and we're chatting.

I ran into Cecilia in the-- At the cafeteria.

It's a fairly small school and campus.

Most of the meals are taken on-campus.

And I ran into her.

Probably a couple,
300 people in the cafeteria.

And I happened to run into her,
she came to me, I don't remember which.

We were still good friends.
We dated a couple of years before.

-What school was this?
-Pacific Union College.

And we decided to go into
San Francisco.

We'd been in there many times
when we went to school there together.

She was going, I think, to UC Riverside
at the time...

...and was just coming up
to visit friends.

So we went down to Saint Helena...

...and I think we looked in a
rummage sale or something.

We got distracted.
We didn't make it all the way out of town...

...and then when we looked
at the clock...

...it was clear that we were not gonna
make it to the city and back.

I had some responsibilities that evening
that I had to be back for.

So we decided instead
to take the loop up to Lake Berryessa.

There's a lot of activity up at Berryessa
during the summer...

...but after Labor Day, it quiets down.
And this was September 27th...

...probably three and a half weeks
after Labor Day.

So it was a very, very quiet
Saturday evening up there.

The weather was nice.

Napa's kind of a secluded community.

We're bordered on both sides
by major highways:

Highway 80 to our east
and Highway 101 to our west.

So we don't get a lot of the traffic
coming through Napa...

...that some of the other cities do.

So we have a relatively low crime rate.

We sometimes go several years
without a homicide.

I think that particular year
we had five or six...

...which was unusual.

It was a Saturday late in the afternoon,
around 6:15.

I was on patrol.
The dispatcher notified me by radio...

...that he had received a report...

...of a double stabbing at Lake Berryessa
and I was to respond.

So I notified my partner,
who was Deputy Ray Land--

At the time was in Saint Helena.

I was in Napa
on the northeast side of town.

We both began to proceed
to Lake Berryessa.

The shoreline at that spot
was a little on the steep side...

...so that I could lay on my back
and pretty much see out across the lake.

She was laying somewhat diagonally
with her hands on my chest...

...and we were probably about 12 inches,
our faces, apart and we were talking.

And I noticed that she was
becoming distracted.

She said, "There's a man over there."

And I assumed,
since we were out on a peninsula...

...and there was a spit of water between
where we were and the next area over--

It's kind of hard to describe.

With a reservoir, you have more peninsulas
and irregular shoreline...

...because you're filling up a ravine,
if you will.

Where a lake, if it's been there a long time,
it's pretty much rounded around the edge.

This wasn't that old a reservoir...

...and so as a consequence,
you had a very irregular shoreline.

And we're at one area,
then there was water in between...

...then there was another area,
another place where people could go.

And I thought they were
on the other side of the water.

And everybody who's not a tree,
could we clear out this way?

See, that's a tree,
that's a tree, that's a tree.

And that's the one
he probably was behind.

We're a little closer, but...

Remember we talked about the fact
that this is all eroded.

So that was the closest tree.
There was a tree there.

That puts me probably
about in here, okay?

And I'm facing this way,
laying on my back.

And Cecilia is on her stomach,
facing this way.

Actually, facing kind of like this.

So she's-- Her head's facing that way.

And we're talking. And when she says,
"I see a man over there"...

...what I'm thinking is,
if you look to the left of her...

...you can see those trees on that hill.

That would be another picnic area.

So seeing someone on that hill...

...you know, would be of interest
but not of any great urgency.

But seeing someone as close as her
would obviously be some cause for concern.

And so I'm continuing to talk,
and then she says, "He went behind a tree."

And so he goes behind the tree
where she is.

And again, I'm thinking
behind those trees over there.

So then when she says:

"Oh, he's got a gun"...

...he's walking this direction.

And I turn around.

And from there to here,
he's probably made it to about here.

So we're about half the distance
between the tree and me.

And so that was
my first running into him.

And it was really somewhat of a surprise
that he was that close...

...because, again, I was looking
at the other area.

I'll tell you another thing that probably made
me think that it was somebody over there.

It wasn't an improved park site.

There wasn't regular
established bathrooms...

...so if you had to use the restroom...

...you'd just kind of get out of eyeshot
of whoever you were with...

...or go behind a tree
or something like that.

So when she says,
"He went behind a tree"...

...that actually validated
what I thought was happening...

...on the-- You know,
thousand feet away...

...that someone was actually relieving
themselves behind a tree, and I commented.

She still wasn't paying attention...

...which, to me,
was kind of distracting...

...because why should you worry
if someone that far away...

...was doing whatever they were doing?

And then her eyes got wide
and she says:

"Oh, my God, he's got a gun."

And I turn around
and I'm faced with this man...

...not running,
but walking briskly toward me...

...with a gun in his hand,
wearing a hood.

Black hood. It comes down in the front,
across his chest and back up...

...like an overlay or a dickey.

I'm assuming
it was on the back as well...

...although I don't remember
seeing it on the back.

And on the front was about
a 4-inch-across circle with cross hairs.

And it looked like it was made with
a machine or with some degree of care.

It wasn't just scrawled on
with white paint.

It was proportional.

But, you know, at the time,
it really didn't strike me...

...because it was just something that
a person was putting over themselves...

...so that they wouldn't be seen.

I mean, it could have come
from a costume shop or a novelty store.

The symbolism on it
really didn't mean anything.

He didn't identify himself
as being the Zodiac.

In fact, as soon as I get up, he goes:

"Okay, hold on, everybody.
Nothing to be afraid of.

All I want is your money.
And I need your car.

If everybody stays cool,
nobody's gonna get hurt."

And I believed him.

The only thing, to me--
This came out since then.

But he told me, at that time...

...that he had killed a guard
getting out of a prison.

And so I did take him as a killer.

To me, a killer isn't a normal person...

...so I assumed, at the time,
that something was wrong...

...but as far as a psychopath
or any other aberration...

...I really didn't realize at the moment.

I wasn't concerned,
because I was cooperating with him...

...and I expected
that he would cooperate with me.

And I tried to be as accommodating,
under the circumstances, as possible...

...to save the girl, you know, any harm.

He wanted our money.

And I actually laughed at the moment...

...because I told him, I says,
"I've only got 75 cents in my pocket."

And I said, "You're welcome to have it.

But if you need help,
I'm sure I can give you help otherwise."

And I asked him what his problem was.

And he mentioned that he was a convict
trying to get to Mexico...

...and needed money and transportation.

And I offered him assistance.

I told him what I was doing in school...

...and that if I could be
of any assistance whatsoever...

I offered him my phone number,
anything like this.

This just isn't what he wanted.
He said he wanted money.

And I was really sorry.
I said, "I've got a check.

I'd really like to help you
if you'd be willing to accept help."

He said, "Well, what I need right now
is to get you tied up."

He pulled some cuts
of 3-foot lengths of clothesline.

It's actually plastic.
It's the kind that's hollow in the center.

And he handed those to Cecilia
and asked her to tie me up.

Of course, she was real nervous,
and tied me rather loosely.

And he came
and he tightened the knots up.

And then he tied her up.

And we continued to dialogue
along most of this time.

I'm trying to engage him
in conversation the whole time.

"Where you been? What's--?"
You know, "Where are you headed?"

Trying to ask follow-up questions.

I was taking a sociology class and I thought
I might be able to squeeze a paper out of it.

While she was tying me up...

...I mentioned to her
that I thought that I could get the gun.

That if I was just to move
a little bit closer...

...I could reach over and get it.

And she said,
"Oh, no, no, don't try anything."

Well, he stepped back
about two or three feet from that...

...and I never really had
an opportunity again.

You know, the odds are,
if someone's robbing you...

...you should cooperate...

...and don't try any heroics...

...because you stand a much greater chance
of having harm occur.

And I felt
if I was gonna change the odds...

...I probably at least ought to ask her.

And obviously she declined
and I never had the opportunity again.

As soon as we were tied...

...he then said he wanted me to get down
and lay on my stomach...

...so that he could tie my feet and tie...

And I kind of fussed with him a bit
and I said--

You know, it was really cold
in the evenings.

Which really wasn't so much cold...

...it was just the inconvenience
of being stuck out all night.

And he said, "I said, get down."

And he put the gun at me.

He tied us up, with our feet,
then our feet to our hands.

So we were essentially hogtied.

And I got the impression
we were kind of getting near the end.

I mean, there wasn't anything much more
he could do.

He was gonna leave, he was gonna take
my keys, take whatever money I had there.

And I kind of looked around, and I said:

"Can you do me a favor?
Tell me, was the gun really loaded?"

I don't know where I'd read it,
but I'd read it someplace...

...that people that do robberies...

...didn't wanna ever be convicted
of shooting somebody...

...so that on many occasions,
they would leave the gun unloaded...

...so if something happened,
they wouldn't shoot somebody...

...and their penalty,
if they were caught, was less.

It sounds preposterous
in this day and age...

...because, I mean,
everybody has loaded guns.

But that's what I had read.
And I asked him. I said:

"Is the gun really loaded?"

He pulls the gun and pulls out the clip...

...and shows me a full clip.

Puts it back, sticks it back in his--
Sticks it in his holster.

And I'm thinking,
"Okay. You know, that's interesting."

And I put my head down because
it's like he put the gun away.

He's gonna leave now.

Obviously, we couldn't do anything.

We're tied up and I'm obviously
not gonna be making any moves.

And I'm just kind of trying
to collect my thoughts:

"What are we gonna do?
How am I gonna get out of this?"

You know, figuring out
what options we had.

And I saw out of the-- Just a kind of a flash
out of the corner of my eye...

...he pulls the knife, and the next thing
I know is I feel it in my back.

He stabbed me, I think, six times...

...and they were
in fairly quick succession.

The difference, of course, was Cecilia.

She saw what was happening.

She saw what was happening then...

...and I'm sure she must have known
what was gonna happen to her.

So she's saying, "Stop, stop."

She's trying to roll away.

She's petrified, obviously.

I mean, she was scared to begin with...

...and then when she saw this, it--
She knew what was gonna happen.

When he goes to stab her, she's moving.

I mean, I'm basically a stationary person.

He has a place to stab and he's doing it.

With her, she's rolling away...

...and, you know,
to be perfectly frank, if...

What they've captured on the film...

...that you see
when Cecilia is being stabbed, that's--

And I never had anything
to do with the scene.

But that's the flash I saw happening.

And I had to look away.

At about the time you would look away,
that's when that piece ends in the film.

It's an eerie reproduction
of what happened in my vision.

I couldn't have scripted it better.

Because it was--
You know, that was happening.

And I was seeing-- I remember saying,
"She's gonna die."

And I put my head back.
I just could not look any further.

Now, when I put my head back...

...it flashed upon me
that if I'm moving around...

...he's gonna come back
and finish me off.

So I froze. Quit breathing.

I swear I could have stopped breathing
for 10 minutes.

But I-- Pretty soon,
she lost consciousness...

...or he felt he'd done
an adequate job to kill her...

...and I sensed
that he was standing there looking...

...and then he just walked off.

I thought I was dying.

It started to get real dark around me.

It's kind of like if you're going
into an anesthetic, I suppose.

You're just-- All of a sudden,
your consciousness is disappearing.

It's probably like an electric motor.

When you shut off an electric motor,
it doesn't turn off right away.

There's a flywheel
that takes a while to slow down.

And I felt that just slowing down.

And I knew I was gonna die.

And then it-- Just before
it was, like, lights out...

...it kind of leveled off.

I mean-- You know, it's kind of
you're waiting to hit the ground...

...and you don't hit the ground
and I'm thinking:

"Wait a minute.
Maybe I've got a shot here."

And so I started talking to her and...

She was in a lot of pain.

Crying...

...really upset, obviously.

I was able to, with my teeth,
loosen her knots enough to--

But her hands were-- It was so tight
that her hands were still numb.

And I asked her if she could get mine
undone and she couldn't move them.

She really wasn't
in any position to move.

I mean, she was pretty badly injured.

I got till I was able
to untie one of her hands.

But she was too weak to untie me
at that time.

So I scooted into a position where
I could be looking out across the lake.

And after calling several times,
I found one position...

...that had a little more echo to it,
that I thought was a little louder.

I called, and several boats went by,
but they didn't stop.

I don't know if they thought
we were joking.

But finally, one fisherman
who was going real slow...

...he stopped. He'd shut off his motor.

And we cajoled and called and we did
everything to try to get him to come.

If I recall correctly, there was an island
about maybe 50 yards off the edge.

Probably not even that.

The island was fairly close
and the little boat went in between.

And I got its attention...

...screaming and hollering at them.

Turned off the engine and looked.

It seemed like forever. And I'm begging him
to come over and help us.

I could see two figures in the boat.

He turned the engine on,
went down the lake.

I thought, "We're sunk.
I don't know what we're gonna do."

At about that time,
I felt hands at my back.

And she'd gotten enough strength
and enough energy in her hands...

...that she was able
to get one knot loose enough...

...that I was able to--
Then with my own hands and working it...

...be able to get my hands free.

I untied her legs and my legs and feet.

Started getting some circulation
back in it.

And after a little bit, I thought,
"You know, I'm gonna--

The only way around this, I'm gonna
have to make it back up to the road."

So I got up
and I made it about five feet...

...and the sparkles
and the darkness came back...

...and I had to drop down immediately
to keep from passing out.

I just-- I'd lost too much blood.
I had no energy to move.

So I waited a minute,
got some more strength.

"Okay, I'm gonna have to do this
a little slower."

I made it another five feet
and dropped down myself.

So I just started
taking five-, 10-feet intervals.

And I found that if I wasn't
really trying to walk fast...

...if I would bend over
and hold my hands around my chest...

...and kind of walk bent over
and walk slower...

...I could make more distance
between having to stop and rest.

I made it about halfway to the road.

There was a little kind of a utility
dirt trail, road, what have you...

...that the Forest Service
must have used for their patrols.

And I saw some lights coming.

And so I stopped in the road...

...and kind of on my hands and knees,
I was waving at them.

The vehicle stopped.

And I saw somebody
get out of the truck...

...that was wearing a heavy jacket
and a flashlight and I couldn't see the face.

And I thought,
"Oh, no, he's come back."

Well, then he turned slightly,
when he came around as far as the lights...

...and I could see that he had some type
of an official emblem on the side.

And he'd come to help us.

Apparently, the fisherman, knowing that
there was a Ranger station up the way...

...had gone up and alerted them,
and then they came to find us.

He...

The most remarkable thing,
in my mind, about this...

...is how Bryan Hartnell fought...

...to stay awake
and fought to keep his consciousness...

...and fought to get help for Cecilia...

...more than himself.

That must have been--

That was a heck of an ordeal,
crawling up to that road.

And I just admire the guy.

Deputy Land and myself arrived
at just about the same time.

It took us a half-hour
from Napa and/or Saint Helena...

...to arrive at the location.

And we later found out, of course...

...that the whole crime had been committed
at least a half-hour before we were notified.

So we feel that a good hour has gone by.

The road that we traveled over
to get to this location...

...is a very mountainous,
curving, two-lane road...

...with a lot of blind curves.

And so driving in an emergency...

...it was very difficult to get there
any faster than we did.

It took me 30 minutes from the intersection
of Vichy and Monticello Road in Napa.

And I figure, with the timing
that we have discovered...

...that the Zodiac came down the road...

...and passed me at some point,
going into the city of Napa...

...to make his boastful phone call.

At that time, I was a police officer
assigned to the Patrol Division.

Because we were a small department,
when the dispatcher--

We had a one-person dispatch.

When they went on their lunch break...

...the rookie cop got to go in and fill in...

...as the relief dispatcher.

On this particular night,
that's what happened.

I was out on patrol...

...went in to relieve the dispatcher
for her lunch break...

...and it was during the time period
that I was filling in for her...

...that the call came into
the police department.

Our switchboard was the old cord type...

...that you plug in when a call comes in.

The phone rang...

...and I recall saying:

"Officer Slaight,
Napa Police Department."

There was a male voice
on the other end of the phone...

...and he said,
"I want to report a murder.

No, a double murder.

They're two miles
north of park headquarters...

...and they were in
a white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia."

My first thought was the Ranger
that had found these young people...

...had stopped someone and said:

"I can't get out on my radio.

Would you get to a phone and call
and let someone know what's going on?"

So my impulse was
to find out where he was...

...so we could get someone to him
to talk to.

I ask, "Where are you now?"

At that point, he said, very calmly:

"I'm the one that did it."

He had a very precise cadence
to his voice.

Not an accent, but slow and measured:

"All I want's your money."

Had a real distinctive tone about it...

...which I told the police then
that if I ever heard it again...

...I would be able to recognize it.

I haven't heard it again,
but it had a very unique sound.

And all of a sudden, I heard a clatter.

Didn't exactly understand what it was.

And what he had done, apparently,
is just dropped the phone from his hand...

...and let it dangle.

We learned later
that it was a phone booth.

As I sat there with the open phone...

...I could hear voices in the background
and the traffic.

So at that point I called
the sheriff's office on another line...

...kept the one line open...

...told the sheriff's office
what had happened...

...called the operator, asked if we could
trace where this phone call had come from.

I believe it was about 8:30
in the evening...

...when I was at the
Queen of the Valley Hospital...

...or maybe right after I'd left there...

...that the police department
had called the sheriff's office...

...and said that they'd received a phone call
from an unknown individual.

The sheriff's office had broadcast--

I possibly had broadcast,
I'm not absolutely positive...

...that they have-- This person
had left the phone off the hook.

As it turned out, one of the local
reporters for the newspaper...

...had heard this broadcast
on his scanner...

...and so he started driving around
the city of Napa...

...to see if he could find a phone...

...and he was the one
that actually saw the phone.

He then was yelling,
"Can you hear me? Can you hear me?"

And I could hear the voice
and that's how we located the phone.

The operator had not gotten back to us
with the location of that phone at that time.

Of course, I immediately called
for an ID man...

...to go to the phone booth and preserve
whatever evidence was possible.

And he spent quite a few hours there
and recovered literally...

...dozens and dozens of fingerprints...

...that have not been identified
to this day.

Some of them were so fresh
that he had to artificially dry them...

...so that he could lift the print,
because it was too moist.

When we arrived at the scene,
Cecilia Shepard was in a fetal position...

...on the ground
at the base of an oak tree.

She was laying on a blanket
and had been wrapped in a blanket.

I immediately went to her
to see if I could administer first aid...

...or do something to help her.

She was crying
and she told me she was so cold.

She was having a hard time talking...

...so I asked Ranger White
to please go to the patrol car...

...get my uniform jacket
and bring it down, which he did.

And while we were
putting the jacket onto her...

...I could see multiple areas on her clothing,
front and back...

...where she had been stabbed.

The blood was showing through
the clothing.

She said, "Bryan and I
were here on the blanket...

...were down by the water,
and we're just enjoying the afternoon...

...we're having a nice time talking,
and I saw this guy, he's--

He was coming down the hillside
and he seemed to stop and watch us.

He's looking-- Looking at us."

And I said, "Well, what distance,
how far away was he?"

And she pointed to an area, and I said:

"That's about--
Looks like 200 to 300 yards away."

She said, "That's where I first saw him.

And then, as we continued
enjoying the afternoon...

...and watching the water and reading...

...I would glance and I'd notice
he'd get closer and he was closer...

...and then pretty soon
he was within 75 to 100 feet away.

And I told Brian, I said,
'That guy has come down here.'"

And then she looked again
and she said, "He was gone."

And I said, "Well, where did he go?"

She said, "He stepped behind a tree.
And when he s--"

And the tree was 50 to 75 feet away.

"And when he stepped out
he was pulling a hood over his head."

And I said, "A hood?" She said, "Yes."

And that was the first that we had known
that we had something more...

...than the usual crime
that had been committed.

One thing that's baffling is,
if you're gonna kill somebody...

...you normally don't wear a mask.

You got it in your own mind
you're gonna kill them...

...so why do you have to hide
your identity?

So that's always been
a puzzling matter in this case.

Why did the Zodiac
go through such a effort...

...to make this mask to horrify people
if he knew he was gonna kill them?

And I asked her if she saw him clearly
before he put the hood on...

...and she said, "Yes, I did."

And I said, "Well, what did he look like?"

And she said, "Well, he had--"

I said, "What color was his hair?"

She said, "Well, it was brown."

"And what race was he?"
"He was white."

And I said, "Well, how about his eyes.

Could you see--?
Could you see the color of his eyes?"

And she said, "No, he had dark glasses on
underneath the hood."

But she said his hair hung down
across his forehead...

...and was showing
through the eyeholes.

I said, "Well, how tall?

Let me stand where he was
when he came up to you...

...and look at me, I'm 5-foot-10...

...tell me how he matches my height."

Because she was laying on the ground.

She said, "Well, he's just
a little bit taller than you.

Probably an inch or two taller than you."

I said, "Okay, how much did he weigh?"

She said, "He was overweight.
He was bulky-looking.

His clothing was all dark:
dark pants, dark shirt, dark jacket.

And the jacket was bulky."

And I said, "Well, I'm 170,
look at me and judge by my weight...

...and see if you can tell."

She said, "Well, he'd have to be
at least 20 or 30 pounds heavier."

The information
that I'm relaying to you now...

...is information that I got
directly from Cecilia Shepard.

It is accurate for what she told me...

...because I kept notes and I immediately
did a report the following morning...

...so that nothing would be lost.

And if things have changed
in the course of the investigation...

...I can't comment on it, because
I can only report what she told me...

...and that is what I've just relayed.

Why doesn't anybody know
that she saw his face?

Why is that unknown?

I didn't report it.

Why didn't you report it?

You know, at the time
I didn't think it was important.

It wasn't until Monday
around noon, I believe...

...that I was notified that Cecilia Shepard
had died of her wounds.

And then, of course, it was no longer
a felonious assault, it became a homicide.

This whole thing took place
in about a 20-minute time period.

From the time I arrived
until the ambulance arrived...

...it's about 20 minutes.

And this is the time
that I get all this information.

So your assignment
was to go the hospital?

Go to the hospital and try to get statements
from the victims.

I talked to the doctor
and he told me there's no way...

...that I could talk to the female victim,
Cecilia Shepard.

They brought the two victims in
on gurneys...

...and tried to interview them
to get some idea of what had taken place...

...but the girl was already in a coma.

We were unable to talk to Cecilia Shepard,
the female victim.

But Bryan Hartnell
was in quite a bit of agony...

...and he was answering questions
in short bursts, so to speak.

And then the doctor finally said:

"We have to take him into Emergency,
so you'll have to conclude this interview."

Well, we went up there that night
to process the crime scene.

It was about midnight
when we got up there.

We had several deputies on the scene,
I interviewed the officers that were there.

One was a park ranger
by the name of Dennis Land...

...and the other one was a park ranger
by the name of William White.

Bill White, sergeant.

And at that time Bill White
turned over to me...

...some of the articles that were found
at the crime scene.

Didn't really make me too happy
at the time...

...because I couldn't actually go
to the scene...

...because someone,
thinking they were doing the good thing...

...and the right thing by protecting it...

...actually bundled up the blanket
and the clothing and stuff that was there...

...and took it into his custody
at Berryessa Lake Park headquarters.

He thought at the time
he was doing a good thing...

...but at the same time
it took us away from the opportunity...

...to actually view the crime scene.

So put it in a few simple words,
there wasn't really a crime scene to view.

After the ambulance took the victims
to the hospital in Napa...

...and while waiting for detectives
from the sheriff's department to arrive...

...Deputy Land talked to the witnesses
that were there...

...and obtained statements from them.

I began a search for evidence
and discovered a footprint...

...that led from Berryessa-Knoxville Road
to the victims and back again...

...which was totally separate
from the shoes that they were wearing.

Later on, we were able to determine
that it was a military-type shoe...

...and we were able
to come up with an identical shoe...

...an identical footprint in the same size.

And it was determined to be what
was referred to as a wing walker shoe...

...that was used primarily with the
Navy and the Air Force in maintenance...

...due to the static-free sole
on the shoe...

...so the maintenance people
could walk around the wings of aircraft...

...without creating static electricity.

So we thought that was
a very crucial piece of evidence.

When I went to the roadway
I saw the white Karmann Ghia...

...and I saw tracks
leading away from it...

...which we felt may have been tire tracks
from the Zodiac's vehicle.

The two front tires were different,
which is unusual.

Most people buy a set of tires,
or at least in pairs...

...but here we had two tires
that were distinctively different...

...on the front of this vehicle.

Which kind of led us to believe
it was an older model car...

...by someone that probably couldn't afford
to keep up the maintenance on the vehicle.

I looked at the Karmann Ghia,
and on the passenger door...

...the circle with the vertical
and horizontal line running through it...

...was displayed on the door...

...and there were several dates
and then it ended with:

"September 27th, 1969,
6:30 p.m., by knife."

Which was our crime.

And so he had left his calling card,
is what he had done.

I recognized the symbol on the door...

...as being the same symbol
she had described on the hood.

How's it going, Ken?

Age before beauty, huh?

First time I've seen it in 38 years.

Critical piece of evidence.

-Don't-- Don't-- Don't open it up.
-Don't touch.

-Don't touch it.
-I'm not touching it.

You know, that's before the days of the--
Of the--

What do you call
the ones now that we have?

You know what I'm talking about,
the little indelible markers.

-Sharpie.
-Sharpie. Yeah, that's pre-Sharpie days.

This must be permanent.
Is this permanent marker or is it...?

It's pretty thin point.

You can see a little OCD, though, with
the circles being filled in on the time.

-Yeah.
-If you're in a hurry you wouldn't do that.

-It's true.
-Like I wouldn't put a dot on J.

I mean, L-E-J-O.
You know, I wouldn't come back.

But then to go and take the time
to put it on the time is a little--

He was into time.

You know, he's continually telling us
how far something is...

...how long it's been. He's very specific.

Except this right here is the only thing...

...that really nails down, you know, with
some degree of authenticity, we think...

...the connection between the pieces.

I agree with you.

Because there's-- There's, what?
Is there 30 or so that people think...?

And, you know,
there's just no connection.

You've basically got
these four plus Stine.

That's right.

Then it stopped.

Which was kind of cool, actually.

I was no fan of reading the paper
for another one.

And that's one of the questions always is,
"Why did he stop?"

And that's one of the questions always is,
"Why did he stop?"

This has always been known
as a city of mystery...

...and it seems now to have
a new and real one on its hands.

Five murders and somebody who says
he committed all and will commit yet more.

The search goes on in San Francisco
for the man known as the Zodiac Killer.

The elements involved tod--

Zodiac, a symbol that now stands
for terror in San Francisco.

Today there was
a possibly significant development...

...in the terrifying case of the man
who calls himself Zodiac.

The psychotic killer
has already murdered five.

One at a lovers' lane
near a lake just north of San Francisco...

...three others in nearby Vallejo.

The latest, a taxi driver in San Francisco.

I was the first officer
that responded on the scene.

I was working with an officer
who's since deceased...

...Frank Peta, an excellent police officer.

And we responded to a radio call...

...told us that a cab driver was being
robbed and/or possibly assaulted...

...at the corner of Cherry
and Washington Streets in Pacific Heights.

We, fortunately, were very close
and responded to that corner...

...and were able to do so red light and siren
at 9:55 at night...

...and got there very quickly.

I parked the car
in the middle of the intersection...

...facing a yellow cab that was sitting
a little bit back from the corner...

...of Cherry Street on Washington...

...facing west on Washington.

There were three children
that were heading over to that car...

...they weren't too far away,
but I'd say a good 15 or 16 feet away.

I made the assumption they were
coming from the home on the corner...

...and I was correct and I herded them
immediately back to that alcove.

I didn't know if the suspect
was still there.

The description that came out
over the air was of an NMA...

...Negro male adult, at the time.

The only person that could've
given that information...

...would've been the child
who called it into police dispatch.

Whether somebody wrote it incorrectly...

...and the child actually said a white guy,
I don't know.

My regular partner was off...

...I don't recall the reason why
he was not working that night.

However, Eric Zelms was assigned
as my partner that night.

We were patrolling the eastern side...

...of the Richmond District...

...going northbound on Presidio Avenue.

We had passed Washington Street
when a broadcast came in...

...of a shooting
at Cherry and Washington Street.

Went over to the cab,
I could see Mr. Paul Stine...

...who was slumped over the front seat...

...with his head into the well
on the passenger side in the front.

There was blood all over the cab, on him,
and I was 99.9 certain he was dead.

And it was at that point...

...that I retook the description
of the suspect.

And that's when I was told
it was a white male.

I couldn't get to the radio fast enough
at that point...

...to let everybody else know.

The kids had told me that whoever
had done this crime left the cab...

...went out the door,
seemed to be wiping the cab down...

...reaching into the cab and then ambling
or walking down Cherry Street...

...in a northerly direction
kind of towards the Presidio.

I walked that way myself...

...I did not run, because there are
innumerable alcoves and parked cars.

So I went down,
following every technique I knew...

...so I didn't get my head blown off.

Got down to the corner of Jackson Street,
had to make a choice.

I was on the east side of the street,
so I turned right to the east...

...went up in that direction.

I couldn't see anybody
in either direction...

...nor could I see anybody
scaling a wall into the Presidio.

Got all the way down to the next corner,
which was Maple...

...decision number two,
which way to go.

Looked to the left toward the Presidio,
saw absolutely nothing.

It was much darker there...

...I figured the chance of finding somebody
was almost nil.

I turned to the right
and I saw a man walking his dog.

He was somewhat older
than the description I had...

...a whole lot thinner and he had
absolutely no blood on his clothes.

I asked that gentleman if he saw anybody
walking in the area and he told me no.

We turned west on Jackson Street.

As we approached Maple Street...

...I noticed on the north side of the street...

...a white male adult
dressed in a Derby...

...or three-quarter, waist-length jacket...

...with elastic at the waist
and on the cuffs...

...and regular flapped-down collars.

He had a crew cut...

...he was wearing rust-colored,
pleated trousers...

...which were unusual for the time.

He had on engineering-type boots,
low-cut shoe...

...three-quarters of the way in length,
tan in color.

The initial radio description
of the suspect...

...was that of a black male, 5'10",
or something like that.

Seeing that it was a white male
in an affluent neighborhood...

...walking along the street,
we didn't think it was a suspect.

So we proceeded the next block at--

Which was Jackson and Cherry,
turned southbound on Cherry Street...

...saw Armond Pelissetti, one of the officers
who had responded directly to the scene.

And at that point, Office Don Fouke...

...who was accompanied by what I believe
was a rookie officer...

...Eric Zelms, at the time...

...pulled up very quickly in their police car,
called out to me...

Did I see anybody? Did I know anything
about where the suspect could be?

I told them no.

He stopped us and said
that he was looking for the white male...

...that had just gone down the street.

There was a little conversation
about what the initial description was...

...and he said,
"No, he was a white male."

I then used a slang term...

...and said, "Oh, that was the suspect."

He did not mention to me
that he had seen anybody at that point...

...or had stopped anybody.

We turned around to get to the Presidio
and our reasoning on th--

My reasoning on that
was because turning down Maple...

...would lead through the Presidio wall
directly into Julius Kahn playground...

...which had a lot of foliage.

So we turned, went down looking
for the alleged suspect...

...in the area of Julius Kahn playground.

Nothing was observed.

I got back to the scene...

...and it was some time shortly thereafter
that the ambulance crew...

...the coroner, a fire truck...

...Inspector Walt Krake
of the Homicide detail...

...and then about three or four minutes,
five minutes thereafter...

...Inspector Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong,
two of the best, arrived at the scene.

I briefed Inspector Toschi, who seemed
to be taking the lead on the investigation.

As we walked over to the car...

...I assured him nobody
had contaminated the scene...

...and then I went about uniform business
and let him take care of his detective work.

In his violent movements, or rather,
the violent periods that he has been in...

...he's an absolutely ruthless,
completely merciless killer.

He calmly goes about his business of,
in one case, telephoning the police...

...in another tearing a strip off the shirt...

...of the dead body
of the immediately killed victim.

He doesn't get great excitement over it,
he just--

He thinks killing is just killing.

So somebody like that is gonna be
a very serious problem for us.

Can you guess how fast you were driving
down the street when you saw him?

Well, until I saw him,
probably about 35 or 40 miles an hour...

...on a 25-mile-an-hour street.

Slowed down as we passed him,
I don't know, we're still rolling.

Saw that it's a white male,
step on the gas.

Five, 10, 15 seconds tops...

...from first spotting him till passing him.

I spoke to Officer Fouke
later that evening...

...and was unaware
that he had stopped anybody.

Black, white or any other color.

However, in subsequent conversations
with him...

...he told me that he did stop somebody.

We never stopped the man,
we never talked to him.

That is an emphatic statement by me.

I wouldn't make the denial.

He told me he saw a man walking by
and that he asked him:

"Did you see anybody go by?"

The person said no.

One month later...

...when the composite
drawing came out at Richmond Station...

...and was posted on the wall...

...he looked similar to the man
that I had seen on October 11th.

I then wrote a scratch,
or interdepartmental memorandum...

...to my lieutenant
to forward to Homicide Division...

...so that they would have
the additional information...

...about the appearance of the suspect.

I believe that Fouke
would've been honest...

...but that scratch
and what he told me do not coincide.

It seemed Officer Fouke,
in that amount of time...

...felt that he had stopped the Zodiac.

We did not stop the Zodiac.
We didn't stop anyone.

I wish Eric Zelms were alive today
to tell you so.

Well, it's very hard to say
whether he did or not.

It would be a point of conjecture at this
point and he seemed quite upset.

It is purported in the works
of Zodiac Unmasked...

...that I tearfully told inspector Toschi:

"You know, Dave,
we could've been killed that night."

I never spoke to Toschi
that I personally know of or remember.

He may have been the inspector
who came out...

...and asked me
about the composite drawing...

...and I told him the suspect
was older and heavier.

Beyond that...

...I had no further contact
with the investigation.

Fouke was also very clear
as to what the person was wearing.

Well, it just so happens
that area is extremely well-lit...

...and I cannot imagine his not seeing
the shine of blood on the clothing...

...if it had been Zodiac.

I feel bad for him if he believes
that was the Zodiac.

I don't think it was.

I would like to say he made eye--
The Zodiac made eye contact with us...

...but I can't picture it.

I remember seeing his eyes,
I couldn't tell you what color they were.

It was dark enough
that his eyes were concealed...

...but you could say
he sort of looked down.

Perhaps this lumbering gait...

...sort of stumbling along
like a semi-limp...

...might have come up in my mind...

...because he was putting his head down
when he spotted the police car...

...and turned into the entranceway
of a house.

By "entranceway," I mean stairs
leading up that are concrete to a path...

...that leads to a front door.

Never saw him
get to the top of the stairs.

You want the address of that residence?

**** Jackson Street.

I never put it in the report
and I don't think that I've told anyone.

Why didn't you put it in the report?

I didn't think about it in the report...

...because I assumed
that he didn't live in the neighborhood...

...a upper-middle-class neighborhood.

I don't know if he lived there
or he didn't live there...

...let the inspectors follow through.

It didn't seem like an important piece
of information, though...

...that a possible suspect had walked up
to a house in the neighborhood?

I thought that's what I wrote
in the scratch, all these years.

The Zodiac Killer
seems to crave publicity.

He sent letters and cryptograms
to newspapers and the police...

...recounting his crimes,
threatening more murders...

...and making Bay Area residents
very edgy.

Nobody in San Francisco
was aware of any Zodiac...

...until the murderer
wrote to the Chronicle...

...and included that torn piece of shirt
from Mr. Stine.

"School children make fine targets.

I think I shall wipe out a school bus
some morning.

Just shoot out the front tire
and then pick off the kiddies...

...as they come bouncing out."

Now, what are you doing
to protect the school buses...

...particularly in San Francisco, from that?

In San Francisco we have been,
since the first day...

...since the reception of this note...

...and up to now, and continuing--

We have a number
of plainclothesed officers...

...following buses in the morning...

...and in the evening.

We have specifically requested
that they alert their drivers...

...to not stop under any conditions...

...if a shot is fired or if their bus
is subjected to a flat tire by the sniper.

Further, that they get the children down
immediately...

...and proceed with all speed
out of the area.

And...

To try and attract all the possible attention
by blowing their horns...

...therefore, get out of the situation.

There's naturally talk.
Everybody's, I guess...

...tense about it.

But they all seem to be in good spirits
and all seem to be going on with the job.

I don't know of anybody that's quit.

-You're not afraid?
-No, I'm not.

No, not too afraid.

There was a real panic in Benicia.

Benicia had a 10:00 curfew.

Well, that was off after that.

"I shall wipe out a school bus
some morning.

Shoot out the tires
and then pick off the kiddies...

...as they come bounding out."

That was the threat of the Zodiac Killer.

Now every day, police cars follow the buses
which would be likely targets.

Officers armed with shotguns
take the threat seriously.

I would say that the paranoia in Benicia
lasted a good six to seven months.

People were very concerned.

And it escalated every time
after another reported killing.

I suppose the Zodiac created himself
as a media darling...

...because the newspapers started
getting full of Zodiac information.

Today there was
a possibly significant development...

...in the terrifying case
of the man who calls himself the Zodiac...

...and has boasted that he is responsible
for five murders in the last nine months.

-In--
-What about the cryptogram in the letter?

Does it tell you anything new about him?

Well, this is a letter that we've received.

It's just a short cryptogram...

...one line of symbols
which he says reveals his name.

In the original correspondence
we received from the Zodiac...

...he stated that his name was in it.

The cryptogram in that letter...

...was broken
except for the last 18 letters.

And we have been unable to break it.

We since received another correspondence
from him and that was unable to be broken.

The experts felt that there really wasn't
a message within that letter.

Of course, we've already submitted
this recent letter to our experts.

If his name is there,
I'm sure it will be revealed.

It conforms with all the other material
we've received from him in the past, yes.

How can you tell it's authentic?

It's a matter of identifying
the handprinting appearing...

...on the card.

Where was this postcard
postmarked from?

It has no postmark on it.
It was found in the post office.

Postal workers found it...

...before it even got through
the cancellation machine.

We're just about in the same position.

We're still following a
tremendous amount of leads.

We're getting a tremendous amount
of information...

...not only from the Bay Area
but from all over the nation.

As you know,
we have heard from him ourselves...

...through our local press...

...and recently he has written
to an attorney here in San Francisco...

...but as far as any specific piece
of physical evidence...

...or any specific individual,
we're no closer than we were.

I was asked to listen
to a tape of an interview...

...that had been on
the Jim Dunbar show.

And if I recall correctly...

...Melvin Belli was asked
to come to the Jim Dunbar show.

And so I was asked
to listen to the voice...

...and there was some interaction
between Melvin Belli and Jim Dunbar.

My recollection of that voice
is it wasn't-- That wasn't...

...even in the range of what I had heard.

I think I told him
that I didn't think that was the voice.

-Talk to us.
-Tell us what's going on inside you, Sam.

-Please.
-I have headaches.

-Right.
-How long have you had headaches, Sam?

I mean, a long time?

Since I killed a kid.

Well, was it before December
that you had the headaches?

Yes.

Were you in service that you might have
had an injury in service...

...or did you ever fall out of a tree
or down stairs?

Were you ever unconscious?

-I don't know.
-You don't remember.

Does aspirin do you any good?

-No.
-Doesn't do any good.

-Sam--
-That stuff never did me any good either.

Sam, let me ask you a question.
Did you--?

Did you attempt to call this program
one other time when Mr. Belli was with us?

-When you're calling--?
-What?

Did you try to call us one other time
about two or three weeks ago...

...when Mel Belli was with us?

-Yes.
-And you-- Well, then--

-You couldn't get through--?
-Couldn't get through. Phones were tied up.

-Was that it?
-Yes.

-Likely.
-Sam, let me ask you this.

There's some reason
why you go to a particular doctor...

...or a particular priest.

There's some reason why, apparently,
you wanted to talk to me or Lee.

Is it that you feel that we have compassion
for people who get in trouble?

Or is it you feel
that we can do something for you?

Or is it you feel
that we have enough integrity...

...that if we promise you something,
that we're going to stick to it?

Well, let's find out
why he wanted to talk to--

Why did you wanna talk to Mr. Belli,
Sam?

I don't want to be hurt.

It clearly was not the cadence.

But it didn't seem like the voice as well.

I think a man that's sick,
I think a man that's going into a storm...

...and it squares away with the pattern...

...of the man from what, objectively,
we know that the Zodiac did.

Legally, how can you help him, though?

Oh, heavens. With the doctor,
the people that have called in here...

...that want to give him medical help...

...he's not going to go to trial
until that we know that this man is the--

Is a human being in front of a judge.

In other words,
he's gotta get his headaches cured.

This man, objectively,
without even seeing him...

...I think any psychiatrist would say
that this man is sick, sick, sick.

Why can you not make any promises
to the man through Belli?

Because we don't know
if Mr. Belli represents him, number one.

But number two,
we don't know the circumstances...

...that would be evaluated...

...and what the results
of our evaluation might be.

So now Jim and I gotta talk about what
we've gotten into about meeting him here.

I mean, whether he's there or not,
I don't know.

But I know that this fellow
is going to call again.

If we-- If he doesn't meet out there.

Were all calls from the same person?
Do you feel there was a crank?

Not only were they all that we heard
on the air from the same person...

...but the one time
that I talked to him privately...

...with no one listening in, no question
with what that was. The same voice.

As you know,
as soon as he's brought to our attention...

...we'll have no comment to make
on the case.

Because the man is entitled to a fair trial.

I will state this categorically...

...he will receive a fair trial
whoever he is.

And he will receive the consideration...

...that any criminal
who is brought to our attention does...

...in the administration of justice.

From all of your investigations,
what can you tell us about the Zodiac?

Not a great deal.

He's not an unintelligent man
by a long shot.

We are learning more all the time
but there--

I'll put it this way.

There is no one suspect
that we're focusing on at this time.

We've had numerous men assigned
to the investigation, as high as 12.

But sometimes it dropped off
to the original men...

...Inspectors Armstrong and Toschi,
who are handling the case.

They are out of town today.
They're pursuing leads in the investigation.

This is Dick Carlson. This week
we're in the city of San Francisco.

We're here to take a look
at a cunning and evil man...

...who for years has taunted police
and terrorized Northern California.

-His name is the Zodiac Killer.
-Who is the Zodiac? And where is he?

--early '70s by a man
who called himself the Zodiac Killer.

He claimed 37 murders.
Police confirmed at least six.

Four years ago, the killing stopped.

Letter from Zodiac poses
more questions than it answers.

Questions like:

"Why has he only communicated twice
in the past nine years?"

"Has he killed in that time?"

For the last nine years,
the Zodiac investigation has been headed...

...by Homicide Inspector David Toschi.

I have always felt...

...a gut feeling that he was not dead
and that he was out there somewhere...

...and that he would communicate.

I was always hoping
that he would communicate...

...and not commit an act.

A letter I can handle.

Are you confident
you will get him sooner or later?

Well, of course, that's-- I feel that
about all the murders we're involved in.

I mean, that's our business
and that's our job...

...and that's the only way
to look at it and approach it...

...is that, of course,
eventually we'll get him.