All language subtitles for The.Most.Dangerous.Animal.Of.All.S01E04.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTG.EN

WOMAN:
The problem with the people
that run tech companies

is that they become fanatics,

end up thinking
they're messiahs.

GARY: I have come to the conclusion that my father

might have been
the Zodiac Killer.

REPORTER: The psychotic killer has already murdered five.

SUSAN: What are the odds
that Gary Stewart thinks

his father was
the Zodiac Killer

and they've got
the same handwriting?

And they've got
the same scar,

and the police sketch, it's
like it's the same person,

and they are in
the same places.

GARY: I discovered
that my father

was sentenced
to 90 days

in Atascadero State
Mental Hospital.

My father married
Edith Kos,

his social worker
from prison.

That relationship ended
with Edith

leaving to go live
with her father

back in
Styria, Austria.

We have more evidence now
then we had

when we released the book.

REPORTER: You're looking
at the Zodiac Killer's

genetic identity.

SUSAN: That would tell us
the odds

of The Zodiac
being Gary's father.

GARY: Lieutenant Hennessey
asked if he could gather

a voluntary sample of my DNA.

That was the last time
I ever heard from Hennessey.

Based on the DNA results,

there is a 99.8 percent
probability

that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.

I hadn't heard
from Hennessey in years,

so I contacted
the San Francisco
Police Department,

and they put me in touch
with the current inspector

who is handling
the Zodiac cold case.

Gianrico Pierucci.

GIANRICO PIERUCCI: When I met with Gary Stewart,

he wanted to make sure
that his DNA

was actually...

done, it was
actually analyzed.

So I contacted the lab,

and I told him that
the DNA had been analyzed.

GARY: And what Pierucci
was about to tell me

was going to be huge news.

I told him that his father

wasn't going to be excluded.

GARY: Pierucci confirmed it.

And then he said,

"By the way, this is gonna do wonders for your book."

[theme music playing]

This is a photo
of Earl Van Best,

with a sketch
of the Zodiac,

superimposed
over his face.

ZACH FECHHEIMER:
When I read the book,

I was skeptical at first,

but I kept coming
across names

and writing them down
on a notebook

next to my bedside table.

Then when I'd go and run them through the system,

seems like Gary did
a lot of pretty accurate

genealogical research
about Earl Van Best.

And Gary's project
was sparked initially

off of a quest
of a son trying

to find his father.

And that sparked
my interest.

[indistinct chatter]

My father's been a PI
in San Francisco

for the past 50 years,

and during that time
he's come into contact

with lots of the people
who've been involved

with the Zodiac case.

He knew Paul Avery,
he knew Toschi.

Here's this FBI report.

DAVID FECHHEIMER: There's
the driver's license number.

You know, you could
probably get a transcript

of this driving record.

When you wanna dig
for a criminal record

in San Francisco,

there is no easy way
to do it,

other than to go down
to the Hall of Justice

and to dig through
handwritten volumes.

So that's what I did.

So what I have
to rely on

are the historical documents

that exist
in the public record

that we could then use
to piece together

a chronology.

Earl Van Best Jr.
bounced around

all over the country.

Yes, so a big challenge here
is trying to figure out

was there overlap

with where Earl was

during the time the Zodiac crimes were committed.

And if there was, is there
a connection with SFPD

and is there anything there that would suggest a cover-up,

as Gary's put out
in his book?

I've never really believed

that the San Francisco
Police Department

was a corrupt organization.

But it wouldn't surprise me
in the least

if through carelessness,
sloppiness,

or foolishness,

they had failed to...

figure out who
the Zodiac was.

REPORTER: San Francisco Police displayed a blackboard

with excerpts of
the latest Zodiac letter

at a news conference
last night.

Police said,
it's the first since 1974.

For the last nine years,
the Zodiac investigation

has been headed
by homicide inspector

David Toschi.

I have always felt, uh,

a gut feeling that,
that he was not dead

and that he was
out there somewhere

and that he would
communicate.

JENNINGS:
When the letter came in

we did a big story
and Zodiac is back

and he's claiming new victimsand making new threats.

TOSCHI:
It's a boasting-type letter.

He, he takes a little slam
at me because, uh,

I've been one
of the policemen

that's been working
on the case for, uh,

almost nine years.

JENNINGS:
The letter itself said,

"Tell that city pig Toschi
I'm still here."

Shortly thereafter,
a writer

atThe Chronicle
mentioned that

he'd gotten fan mail
from Dave Toschi.

REPORTER: Toschi is under fire for writing phony fan letters

about himself to a newspaper feature writer.

I received the bogus fan lettersin the fall of 1976.

I chose to turn the matter
over to police

only when I noticed
certain similarities

between the tone
of the letters

and the tone
of the last Zodiac letter.

JENNINGS:
Dave Toschi had written

this latest
Zodiac letter himself,

to reignite interest
in the case.

REPORTER: Inspector Dave Toschi is out of it.

He had been
officially reprimanded
by being transferred

from the homicide detail
to the pawn shop detail.

I, I don't know
what his thinking was.

I never asked him
or remember his--

He, he was a broken man.

It was all ego.

CARROLL: Zodiac is
the kind of thing

that people just crawl into

and lose themselves
in terms of the rabbit hole.

CRAIG SILVERMAN:
The Zodiac Killer is a story

that gets people
completely wrapped into it.

And this case has created
obsession for people

that really has
taken over their lives.

And this book is,
I think, also an example

of how the Zodiac Killer
once again

has taken over somebody's life.

But this is about more
than a book,

it's actually about identity.

JUDE: When you're adopted,

you spend your whole life
making up stories

of who you are.

They're never right,
of course.

But you have
to have a story.

You can't just not have
an identity.

So the only thing you can do
is make it up.

LYN OVERTON: One of the reasons I wanted to read the book

was because
I thought at last

I'm gonna find out
what really happened.

But it starts off
right away with

things that are,
are inaccurate

and fabricated.

I think my hair was on fire,

the first read-through
of the book.

And there was a lot
of talk about

getting off a school bus.

There were no school buses

We didn't get off
a school bus.

School buses were for elementary school children.

GARY: I'll tell you,
my first manuscript

says street car.

One day, my mother told me

honey, I was wrong
about the street car.

I got off the school bus.

I didn't,
I didn't create that,

I didn't create that
having known that,

the Zodiac Killer, uh,

taunted the policethreatening to shoot kiddies

as they come bouncing off
a school bus.

My mother corrected me.

SUSAN: Jude told me
specifically

that I used to think
it was a street car,

but now I remember that
it was a school bus.

I have it in my notes.

And memory is subjective.

When I look
at my childhood

I remember things
a certain way,

my older brothers and sistersremember it a different way.

It's hard to know who's rightand who's wrong.

JUDE: In the book,
they talked about

Van driving up and down
the state of California,

on his way to
or from Mexico

so that he'd be
in the places

where these crimes occurred

But when I knew Van,

he wasn't driving to Mexico,

he was always flying.

And so, for me, that was
right from the beginning

that was preposterous.

After the book was published,

Susan called me

and I said to her,

why did you have
to make the dialogues

so preposterous.

And she said,

well, those were all right from the police reports.

We took the police reports
and changed the name

to my father or Van.

And I said, if that was
your investigation,

then I rest my case.

SUSAN: Sometimes you do have
to use the techniques

of fiction in true crime.

Use things like foreshadowing and description.

But every single thing
that we did in that book

was based on...

what we were told
by relatives,

by friends,
police reports,

every single thingin that book was based on fact.

JUDE: I believe that
many things changed

from Gary's original book

when they bought in
his co-author.

There is a possibility that
Gary wants to protect Susan

because she did
bring this to the point

where a publisher
like Harper Collins

would be interested in it.

As a publisher,
we embrace the sensational

in a measured way, um...

because it sells books.

In a narrative presentation,

the language in the book,
it's imagined,

but we weren't making
factual claims.

We were sort of
setting a scene

of how this would
have played out

given the evidence we have.

I don't think it was done
to mislead anyone.

It was more...

you, you know,
it was, it was

a sort of
a narrative touch-up,

I'd say.

SILVERMAN: When I
was reading the book,

there were kinda
two things going on.

One is Gary's pain
in Gary's search,

and that is real
and that is,

uh, I think
without question.

Then there's other element
of claiming to have solved

one of the most legendary
cold cases

really of anywhere
in the world.

And it's a huge selling point for book publishers.

And that's important
to keep in mind because

the vast majority
of non-fiction books

are not fact checked.

You would think
that a big publisher
like Harper Collins has

a budget for fact checking,
but they don't.

The book publishing industry, they don't require it.

They need to sell books
that are as compelling

and maybe sensational
as they could possibly be.

And so all of
the responsibility

for making sure that
the work is true

and accurate and not copied
or other things

is actually put
on the author.

Gary and Susan wanted
to make

the most compelling book
possible.

Of coursethere's gonna be times

where maybe you downplay
certain things,

where maybe you speculatein a certain way.

It's very hard
to kinda look up one day

and say, wait a second
have we,

have we taken
a few steps too far.

And your editor's
not gonna say that

because they wanna sell
the book too.

Everybody is invested

in this guy being
the Zodiac Killer.

ZACH: Many of the claims
that are made in Gary's book

largely come
from human sources

who've all since passed on.

But Gary had made freedomof information act requests

for Earl Van Best Jr.'sFBI file

and he was also able to obtain a CLETS criminal history.

So Gary used addresses
that were contained,

uh, in those documents

to put together
his address history

for Earl Van Best.

So I was able to take that
and cross reference it

with the Polk
City Directories.

After digging through
the records

at the public library,

I felt like we had
a pretty complete

address history
for Earl Van Best.

So in the book,
Gary says that

Earl lived at 797
Bush Street in 1969.

The story goes that Paul Stine picked up his fare

two blocks from 797 Bush,

but I don't see any evidence
that he lived there in 1969.

He did live there in 1967,

which is two years prior
to the murder of Paul Stine.

Another claim that
Gary makes in his book

is that Earl Van Best did
some time at San Quentin,

but Earl Van Best Jr. was convicted of a federal crime,

and San Quentin

is a state prison.

So there was no reason
why he would have gone
to San Quentin.

But in my research,
I, I didn't come across
any evidence

to suggest that he ever did
any time in San Quentin.

The only thing I'vecome across was that

he did time
at FCI Lompoc.

ZACH: I was able
to assemble

a pretty complete chronology
for Earl Van Best.

And we've laid that out
on this side

and on this side

we put together
the key events

of the Zodiac case.

And what we see
in this timeline is that

we have a pretty complete
chronology for Earl Van Best

starting in 1957
and going through to 1968,

roughly 1968, 1969.

And then there is a gap.

Earl Van Best seems
to have fallen off the radar

between 1969 and 1974.

And most of the Zodiac murdersseem to have taken place

during that gap
in his timeline.

So what I'd like
to figure out

is where was Earl Van Best
during 1969 and 1974?

GARY: My original draft

ofThe Most Dangerous
Animal Of All was

about my emotional journey.

When it came
to the Zodiac,

it was, this happened, this happened, this happened.

That's as far as I went

with the whole Zodiac murders.

Susan took that and made

you know, a whole
book section out of it.

She put pieces together
based upon

my father's behavior
and stories from the family

and William
that fit perfectly.

SUSAN: There are parts
of the story

that just sound unbelievable.

There are things
that seem like

they were made to fit
into the story.

But every time
I had a doubt,

Gary could produce
a document

that verified it.

Especially his conversations
with William Lohmus.

Each time I was like,
uh, did that really happen?

Then, I would have
an email that said

here's William saying it
right here.

There were certain things

where I did have to take
a small leap of faith,

but I got to a point where
when Gary told me something

I didn't doubt him because
he always had evidence

to back it up.

GARY: I take my own flak
from the critics,

and I don't blame Susan
for any of it.

It would've never happened
if I hadn't told her

with a hundred percent
certainty

that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.

And she just told the story
in a way that...

I wasn't trained to do.

One of the things
I never considered doing

was a handwriting analysis.

But Susan took that
one step further.

MICHAEL WAKSHULL: Well, I'm
convinced that whoever wrote

the marriage certificate
also wrote the letters.

But when I was presented
with the marriage certificate,

I was told by Susan

that Judy saw
Earl Van Best Jr.

write on
the marriage certificate.

But when I read the book,
I realized that

Judy was in a dressing room
and came out

and the marriage certificate
was completed.

Which meant that
what I was told earlier,

it was not true.

It raises a question to me,
did the minister write

the text on
the marriage certificate?

GARY: All I have is
what my mother told me.

You know,

your father filled this out,

and this is how
we were married.

WAKSHULL: As part of my
due diligence and follow-on,

I contacted the church
where they got married.

I wanted to find outdo they have examples

of the preacher's writing?

And they did.

I did a comparison...

which caused me to come to the virtually certain opinion

the minister Edward Flagir wrote the marriage certificate.

Because we know that
the police sketch

of the eyewitnesses
of the Zodiac

matches Earl Van Best Jr.,

It raises the question...

Did the minister andEarl Van Best Jr. work together,

one writing the letters,
one doing the killing?

GARY: That's quite a theory.

I thought we had picked
a stable guy.

But I didn't go looking
for a handwriting expert,

that was Susan's idea,

and I didn't get involved
in that whatsoever.

SUSAN: I thoroughly disagree
with Mike Wakshull.

He gave me a report,

and he gave me examples.

And I'm looking at the examples and I can see...

you know, here's a J
and that's exactly the way

that the J's are
in Van's handwriting.

I'm looking at the examples
he gave me,

and they seem conclusive.

PATRICIA FISHER: I was asked to take a look at a report...

to see if it met
the ASTM standards

uh, for handwriting
examinations,

starting with one of the most important standards

which is having
a reliable comparison.

And we scan in the writings

and then
when I am finished,

I can take and see

what the letters don't have
in common with each other.

And what's important here isonly till we get down

to the S-A-N and the O-F

where there aresimilar words.

Otherwise, there were no wordsthat were similar.

An additional step that he tookwas to make comparisons

of certain letters.

It's really important
when a document examiner,

especially working
on anonymous writings,

does not simply pick
and choose letters.

For example, he illustrates
capital J.

They are standard ways
that persons make a J.

There is nothing
individualizing

or significant
about this letter.

So what he did is
he selected these

and I guess two or three other characteristics

that didn't have
really much value.

The biggest problem is

there are so many
absent characters

and words...

the examination was flawedfrom the very start.

Michael should have saidI need more writings.

He did not do that.

And that's why
it's really critical

for the document examiner
to have very good judgment

and not sacrificethe principles

or the standards

just to satisfy
somebody else.

GARY: If Wakshull
has been proven...

to be wrong,

okay.

That's handwriting.

That doesn't change
Earl Van Best's standing

as a suspect
in the Zodiac case.

People in
the virtual world say,

they just didn't have
enough proof, right?

The handwriting didn't match,the fingerprints didn't match.

But here is that
one last smoking gun.

If you look to the DNA,

there's one guy left.

And that DNA
has been confirmed

with Sergeant Pierucci.

SUSAN: Pierucci said Gary's father could not be excluded.

That Earl Van Best Jr. is
the only person in history

who cannot be excluded

as being the Zodiac.

That's a pretty damning
piece of evidence.

CARROLL: In the late '90s,

the Zodiac case
was essentially

in an inactive status.

And so I made
a suggestion

to police administration
regarding

establishing
a cold case squad.

One of the reasons
I'd made the proposal

was because of advances
in technology,

specifically the advent
of DNA

and so I'd submitted
the envelopes

and the result of the publicity that attended the case,

the news media
was interested.

And ABC contacted us

through a producer
named Harry Phillips.

HARRY PHILLIPS: I produced
a documentary

on the Zodiac investigation
in 2001.

DNA technology had
gotten to a point

where they could begin testingsome of the Zodiac evidence

We get an adrenaline rush
knowing that

part of this puzzle
has been revealed to you.

REPORTER: You're looking
at the Zodiac Killer's

genetic identity...

PHILLIPS: The San Francisco
Police Department found

five of a potential nine
genetic markers.

These notes are what
we use to create

a computer-generated graphic
to show

what the partial DNA profileof the Zodiac

would've looked like.

And I can tell youI put instructions

on how to fill inthe numbers,

what color to,
to put in.

and then instructions
to obliterate

the actual numbers
that are there.

But these numbers
don't represent

the actual numbers
from the Zodiac profile.

The actual resultsnever left the lab

and were never broadcast.

There's no way
that Gary Stewart's DNA

would match the values
that we put

in the DNA profile
that we broadcast

because we did not broadcast
the specific values

of each of those five markers because that was evidence.

And they didn't want us
to release that.

CARROLL: The DNA profile
that you saw

on television
was not provided

by the San Francisco
Police Department.

That would be reckless.

So... only one of...

the allele values
for one of the STR loci,

based on my father's
genetic profile

matches what this producer,

uh, gave you
as being a blurred value.

That's fair.

That's fair.

And that had...

You know,
we, we, um...

We looked at it thinkingwe were gonna,

um, either identify
or eliminate...

uh, the possibility that
any of my father's match

but what we saw
we saw the same thing...

and it, it was blurred
so it doesn't matter.

It's, it's, it,
it's irrelevant

because that's not even
the markers

of the Zodiac Killer.

Okay, so--
But what I'll tell you is

we didn't do anything...

with those values.

We didn't get anybody
to do anything for us.

We didn't get Scales Lab
to do anything for us

based on what
we thought we saw.

So, on the Special,um,

they show a whole
16 marker profile,

and some of them are blank.

But what ABC did is
they highlighted

the five markers

that they extracted, okay,

and then they put values
in there.

I don't care if they put thewrong values or blurred them,

but what's very clear
is what values,

what, what STR loci
they had.

We told Scales

which five of the 16

that the San Francisco
Police Department, ABC

had looked at--
had, had discovered.

That's all we gave them.We didn't give them any numbers.

Their statistical basis
for this new analysis

is the fact that Pierucci saidmy markers match.

It has nothing to do
with the ABC show

The value of the allele
may have been changed,

may have been blurred,
it doesn't matter.

The values that we got--

Susan and I got excited about,

were never presented
to the Scales Lab.

Pierucci said
he can't eliminate Van.

So Schiro made the assumptionbased upon what

Pierucci told me.

The fact that my father
can't be eliminated

as Zodiac suspect means,

means all five
of these match,

so they've got the single valuenot a double value

of the, the, the loci.

They've got at least one
of the two for--

that, that are
the Zodiac Killer's.

Because they match
Van, right?

If they don't match Van,

they can be eliminated.

So D8, D3, D5, vWA,

match these values.

If one doesn't match,

then it's out.

I still
don't have anything

that says Susan sent
blurred values.

INTERVIEWER: Susan told us
that you sent

those blurred numbers
to the lab.

I don't believe that.
I don't believe it.

INTERVIEWER:
That's what she told us.

I don't believe that.
I don't, I don't.

I don't believe
she did that.

INTERVIEWER:We can ask her.

We will ask her because

I can't believe that,that Susan would have told him,

here's what we think we saw.

Susan's a better researcher
than that.

I didn't say,
I didn't say that.

SUSAN: That makes
absolutely no sense.

Gary sent the email
asking Schiro to compare

the blurred numbers
that we came up with

when we watched
the Primetime Special.

But Pierucci... told Gary

his father
could not be excluded.

If Pierucci told me,
hey, we ran that DNA

and Van's markers
didn't match

I would be like, oh my God,I have so screwed up.

Until I hear Pierucci
tell me that,

I'm gonna stick
with my story.

INTERVIEWER: So,
in Gary's manuscript

he retypes
the police report,

and it showed that Van
actually went to Atascadero.

When we review
the actual report

from the SFPD,

everything was the same
except that

Atascadero was added.

- So in the manuscript...
- What?

he put in Atascadero.

[exclaims]

I can't speak to that.

The CLETS reportthat I saw

had Atascadero in it.

Could you give me
a minute?

[exhales heavily]

Motherfucker.

Since I discovered that

some of the things
in the book weren't true,

I was devastated.

My integrity means
a whole lot to me,

and it really sent me
into a tailspin.

I wrote a book

that there were
discrepancies in,

and I felt like
I had not done my job.

And so I began
to search for the truth.

I went back through
newspaper articles,

through police reports,

through all
of the communication

Gary and I had about this.

He was my source
for this book,

and I trusted
what he told me.

One of the things
Gary told me was that

Earl Van Best Jr.
was in Atascadero

and when I read
his original manuscript

one of this sentences
for fraud by wire

the sentences was 90 days
Atascadero State Hospital.

But if you look at the original CLETS report,

Atascadero isn't there.

Gary told me that
when Hennessey handed him

that report, Hennessey said,

your father was
in Atascadero.

In Gary's original manuscript,

he duplicated
the CLETS report

and added Atascadero.

I wrote a lot about that.

That played
a significant role

in determining that
Earl Van Best Jr.

had the psychosis necessary

to be the Zodiac Killer.

It's really been difficult
for me

trying to figure out

did Gary deliberately
tell me things

that were not true,
or does he really believe?

After the book came out,

the one thing I had
that I knew

that nobody else knew

was that Detective Pierucci
had said

that DNA could not be
excluded

Detective Pierucci has agreedto meet with me

and talk with me
about what happened

when he met
with Gary Stewart.

When you were talking
to Gary,

you told him

that Gary's fathercould not be excluded

as a suspectin the Zodiac case.

- Is that correct?
- Right. Because
we'd have to do

more investigating
on his father.

I, I can't just take the bookand say this is perfect.

We've got
all the information here.

Uh, but the terminology"could not be excluded"

is typically reserved
for DNA.

I, I wasn't referring to the DNAwhen I excluded, you know,

when I told him that
he couldn't be excluded.

Okay? What I was trying
to tell him was

and, you know, I think he didmisinterpret me telling him,

no, you know,
I can't exclude your father.

I can't exclude your father
as, as the Zodiac,

only because
we don't have

the knowledge that
the Zodiac actually touched

or licked the stamp.

Gary's DNA was checked
by our lab,

and that's all
I can tell you.

Okay. So I, I
wouldn't give him

any DNA information.

Gary also told me that

you told him the informationthat you gave him

should do wonders
for the book.

Was that accurate?

Information that I gave him
would do wonders for the book?

I, I just told him
that I liked the book.

- Ah.
- I don't know, I--

- [laughs]
- Did you tell him that

Earl Van Best Jr. wasyour number one suspect now?

No, I did not.

- You did not say that?
- No.

And you were
not convinced that...

Gary had solved the casefor the SFPD?

No, I wasn't convinced.

But I did like the book.

Gotcha.

I sure do appreciate

you taking the time
to talk to me.

Detective Pierucci
had no reason

to lie to me.

In my effort to discover
what was true,

I reached out to
a private investigator

in San Francisco

who's been...

researching Gary's claims
in the book.

I sent him
Gary's original manuscript,

other evidence
that I've uncovered

over the past few weeks.

We have an abundance
of great one-liners

and colorful descriptors
and so on,

but we have
a lack of sources.

I wasn't able to interview
Lieutenant Hennessey back then

because Gary told me
SFPD had shut him down.

So two weeks ago,
I called him.

And he didn't want
to talk about it,

but what he did say to me

- when I told him who I was...- Mm-hmm.

...he said, I don't want
to talk about that.

I don't want to talk
to anybody about that,

but I will say
I was so disappointed

that he wasn't honest with me
when I dealt with him.

- Hmm.
- That's what he had to say.

Gary Stewart was
not honest with him

when he dealt with him.

Which makes me wonder

is how much of what I wrote
about Hennessey,

about the San Francisco
Police Department

in that book,
how much of that was true?

In going through the book,

there are other piecesof evidence that didn't...

hold up to scrutiny,

um, and one of themwas The Mikado.

What I've been able to tell,
the Japanese Empire

had banned The Mikado,

and it only became,

released publicly after
the end of World War II

in 1945.

But the Van Best family
leaves Japan in 1941.

What Gary told me

was that he sent
playbills back

to his best
family members

and that Van
became obsessed

with The Mikado
because of

seeing it in Japan.

And now you're telling me
it was banned.

Wow.

So, big part of whatI've been working on

is trying to establisha timeline for Earl Van Best.

There is a blank periodbetween 1969 and 1974

where he, he, he doesn't
appear to have

much of a footprint
in San Francisco.

So after I didall my research,

you know, seeing this letter
that you are able

to share with methat comes from Guinevere,

who is one of
Earl Van Best's daughters

who was born in Austria,

I mean, it really helped
close the gap

on... on this sort
of missing piece

of his US address history.

"They all moved back to Austriawhere I was born in 1970.

"A year later,my father left my mother

and went backto the States."

We've initiated some requestsfor his immigration records

but, unfortunately,

records prior to 1980don't exist.

Gary told me that

his father took
his family

to Austria and immediately
abandoned them there

and that Guinevere's version
of events was not true

because Edith had motive to...

not make her children feel

like their father just broughtthem there and left them.

And instead
of doing my job,

I believed him.

I saw those letters

early on

when I first met Gary.

They were in his
original manuscript.

At that time,
I didn't understand

the significance of that

because I didn't even
really know much more

about the Zodiac than
the average American does.

And by the time I got into the Zodiac Killer part of it,

Gary explained it away

like he explained...

a lot of what
I asked him away.

If Earl Van Best Jr. was notin the country in 1970,

he, he couldn't have beenthe Zodiac Killer.

Case closed.

PREACHER:
Danger in our day.

There's the danger that others would deceive us.

False prophets.

There's another danger.

It's not that someone else
would deceive you

but that you would

be deceived
by yourself.

Today is the day
when you can make ready

to be golden.

Let's stand again.

Every head bow...

VAN NUYS:
Human beings that we are,

we're very good
at constructing stories.

There are people out there
who have belief systems

that are absolute delusions,

and they're unshakeable.

They may build their whole lifearound this story

to the point thatit becomes an obsession,

and they get
so attached to them

that there's no way
of arguing them out of them.

PREACHER:
Pray in Jesus' name...

CARROLL: I don't know
that I've run across

too many con men.

The greater number of folksthat are devoted to this case

actually do believe.

Some aspect of their ego
has them invested

such that it becomes
self-identifying.

Their identity is now related to this case

and once that's fused,

it's essentially impossible

to uncouple that.

VAN NUYS: It may confer on them a sense of self-importance

so that even though
it's a ugly story,

it makes them important
nonetheless.

It's feeding something
in them.

However, people are capable

of fooling people...

particularly if there's

hope for monetary gain...

or for fame.

Thank you.

Thank you.

VAN NUYS: But it's pretty hard to know for sure

whether it's a con
or not.

[indistinct chatter]

JUDE:
I believe to this day

that he believes

he is the son
of the Zodiac.

It goes back
to that adoption idea that

any identity may be better
than no identity.

GARY:
People who love you

can't know...

what it feels like.

This sense of...

inferiority...

not being
good enough.

So...

SUSAN: I think he had
a need to create

the worst possible person

in the world
to be able to explain

to himself

how a father who's supposed
to love his son

could just leave him
like that on a stairwell

to be, you know, found
by whoever or not found.

JUDE: When Gary called me,

he said that
he doesn't not want

the book to be
his legacy.

He wants...

a beautiful family
that doesn't have

these kinds of skeletons
in the closet.

GARY: So...

I wanna show you
where it happened.

So my heart
wants to think

that he put me
in the corner.

So...

when he walked away...

[sniffles]

This entire...

journey to find my father,

and then deal with it...

has taken

an undetermined toll...

on me...

and my family...

but I would sit here
and have to say that

I would have to do it
all over again.

And, and I think

I can continue this journey
for another ten years...

and never...

never...

f...

never feel any better
about me.

[birds chirping]

[rock music playing]

[engine starts]

SUSAN: Today is
Friday the 13th?

So I think tonight I'm justgonna get drunk as shit

and sit outsideon that nice little lanai

overlooking San Francisco

and burn the fuck
out of that book.

Is that what you're going
to put on film?

[rock music continues]

Do I just knock, or what?
What do you think?

I feel like
they're not ever gonna...

Why are you wearing
your sunglasses inside?

Bro, you know I gotta drip, bro.We're goin' to the studioright now.

Snack Time. I didn't--

Okay. You're welcome.

I feel like that did nothing
for my career.

♪ Hi, I'm Dave ♪

- Mom.
- Yes?

- Okay. I want
a big party this year.
- Serious?

- I want a quinceañera.
- Quinceañera?

We can't do that.
We're too white for that.
We're not allowed.

Do me a favor?Never look me in the eye again.

Okay? 'Cause your stare
is way too intense.

It's starting to make
my hair fall out.

- [operatic singing]
- [chattering]

MAN: Check!

Check.