Original subtitles

**

Nock: Diane, how does it feel to be back here

at Betty Lou's grave?

What goes through your mind when you come here?

I miss her. I miss her so much.

Man: Betty Lou Jensen shot dead in a dark

and desolate lovers' lane.

I just always think about what she'd be like

if she had a chance to grow up.

[ Sniffles ]

She'd have been an outstanding person.

I know.

[ Sighs ]

So sad.

Horan: I can't stop thinking about the fact

that none of these people

and their families ever got any justice.

Zodiac, a symbol that now stands for terror

in San Francisco.

There is a myth of the Zodiac Killer

which has taken over.

Woman: The Zodiac Killer, whose killing spree and ciphers

around the Bay Area draw worldwide attention to this day.

Puzzled authorities with a number of coded letters

sent to newspapers and law enforcement.

Nobody has come close to cracking this case

for over 50 years.

And that's because there was no single killer involved

in these murders

and the person writing the letters

didn't commit any of the murders.

[ Film projector whirring ]

Beeson: When he first came out with the theory,

he knew he was gonna get a lot of pushback.

Butterfield: Thomas Horan has staked his reputation on this theory,

and that's part of the problem with the Zodiac case.

Most of the theories are basically just nonsense,

and people refuse to give them up.

I think it's important to start

with the original police reports,

the FBI files, and any other official documents

you can get ahold of.

That's where you'll find the facts.

I'm the first person I know of who read all of the case files,

all of the contemporary newspaper clippings.

And what I discovered was the single biggest reason

Zodiac was never caught

is because the Zodiac Killer

is a fictional character.

He's a literary invention.

Butterfield: You'd have to believe in all kinds of hoaxes

and conspiracies to believe this.

The simplest explanation that's in keeping with the known facts

is that one person was responsible

for the crimes and the letters.

Horan: If we change how we look at the Zodiac case,

a whole different reality becomes possible.

Nock: To make a breakthrough in America's most famous cold case,

I'm trying something that's never been attempted

in the Zodiac saga --

an analysis through computational linguistics

and artificial intelligence.

If the A.I. points towards a single letter writer,

then Professor Horan is flat-out wrong.

And then, of course, the biggest question is,

is, if I'm right, the letters were a hoax,

then the Zodiac itself is a hoax.

**

Man: Somebody says he committed all five murders

and will commit yet more.

Man #2: Zodiac, a symbol of terror in San Francisco.

**

**

**

Nock: Coming into this investigation,

I suppose I was like everyone else

who had taken an interest in this iconic case.

I believed all the murders were committed by one person. Why?

Well, partially because when you search online for Zodiac,

that's the prevailing narrative.

It's the mainstream belief.

But also just look at the first two crimes side by side.

December of 1968 was the shooting deaths

of two high-school students

in a lovers' lane in Benicia, California.

The second so-called Zodiac crime

was about seven months later.

It was also a shooting in not quite a lovers' lane,

but a teen hangout in Vallejo,

just a few miles down the road from the first crime.

Law enforcement didn't connect these two crimes

until about a month after the second crime...

when three pretty terrifying letters arrived at newspapers

in San Francisco and Vallejo claiming credit for the kills.

So all of this makes sense.

But where it really goes off the rails for me

and where it really spirals

for Professor Thomas Horan, who already has questions

about a single killer after the first two crimes,

is the third so-called Zodiac crime,

which happens a month and a half

after the "I am the Zodiac" letter.

Horan: There is no evidence

that connects any two of these murders,

let alone connects all of the murders

and let alone connects them to the letters.

And the attack where we can see this most clearly

is the third attack at Lake Berryessa.

**

**

The third canonical Zodiac crime

is what we call Lake Berryessa.

The two victims were Bryan Calvin Hartnell

and Cecelia Ann Shepard.

Bryan had run into Cecelia at Pacific Union College,

which they used to attend together.

Cecelia was currently attending college in Riverside,

but had come up to the Northern California area

to visit a few friends.

She ran into Bryan at the cafeteria that day,

and they had previously dated,

so they decided to go spend some time together.

They were originally gonna go into the city of San Francisco,

but at the last moment, they decided to go to Lake Berryessa.

**

Nock: So I'm here at Lake Berryessa

in Napa, California.

This is the site of the third so-called Zodiac attack.

I'm gonna meet Dave Collins.

Dave Collins was one of the original detectives on the case,

one of the last few people who are still alive

who can walk me through exactly what happened that day.

Dave? Collins: Yeah.

There you are. Nice to meet you.

Andrew Nock. Andrew. Hey. Dave Collins.

Thanks so much for coming down.

I really appreciate it. Nice meeting you.

Maybe you can walk me down to the murder site, please.

Sure. Sure.

This all happened over 50 years ago.

Trees are gone. The grasses are a little different.

The water level's lower.

But it's all basically the same.

Right here is where the crime scene actually was.

**

How does it feel to be back here?

Not that good.

I don't have good memories of this

because this was a terrible crime that was committed.

A lot of sorrow, a lot of people upset,

and rightfully so.

We didn't have this type of a crime at Lake Berryessa.

And even since then, there hasn't been a crime

like that here at Lake Berryessa.

So can you point out

where Bryan and Cecelia first saw this mystery man?

They were here. where I'm standing.

There was a large oak tree right -- right here.

And it cast shade.

And so they had put a blanket down.

Butterfield: They settled along the shoreline,

and they were there together for some time, when Cecelia

noticed a man walking through the trees above them.

And he's not wearing a costume or anything,

and she just knows that it's a white male.

And Bryan wasn't too concerned about it

because at this point, he's pretty far away.

Butterfield: But at a certain point,

the man approached Cecelia and Bryan,

and he was wearing a dark hooded costume

with a white crossed circle on the chest.

He was carrying a gun.

He had a knife and a sheath on his belt.

And he also had some precut lengths of plastic clothesline.

When he came out, she said, "He's got a mask on."

And that was my first inkling

that there was anything actually wrong going on.

He had this black hood on, came clear down to here.

Just little slits in the eyes

and where -- you know, these clip-on glasses.

They were clipped into those little loops.

Beeson: This black ceremonial-type hood has a logo on it,

which is the Zodiac's crossed-circle logo.

And Bryan said that this was done with care

as if it was sewn. Very elaborate costume.

The man confronted them and said,

"Don't worry. I just need your car keys and your money.

I'm not going to do anything to you."

He was apparently trying to lull them

into a false sense of security.

Beeson: And Bryan says,

"Hey, I have a little bit of change in my pocket.

That's all I have. But you're welcome to it."

And he says, "No, what I need to do

is get you two guys tied up."

So Cecelia tied Bryan, and then the man tied Cecelia up.

Then, without any warning,

the man pulled out a long knife.

Beeson: What Bryan would later describe as a foot-long knife,

and he starts stabbing Bryan in the back.

And Bryan just starts hearing

this "chomp, chomp, chomp" sound.

Butterfield: He stabbed him approximately six times,

and Bryan decided to play dead.

At that point, the man stopped, and he turned on Cecelia,

who was, of course, terrified

after watching Bryan being stabbed.

She's tied up, and she's frantic,

and he starts stabbing her multiple times.

More times than Bryan.

She was apparently stabbed at least 10 times,

five times in the front and five times in the back.

Beeson: And then he just calmly walks off, doesn't say anything.

He calmly keeps his costume on, and he quietly walks away.

After the two were stabbed,

Bryan thinks his bindings are loose enough,

and Cecelia helps Bryan get his hands untied.

And he's in a lot of pain.

And Bryan starts crawling his way to start trying to get help.

I made it up about 300 yards up,

up almost to the road, and it was a slow process

because I kept black-- I couldn't see.

I kept blacking out, and my legs kept getting weak.

But I was getting progress.

I think I could have made it to the road.

Eventually, Bryan's picked up by park ranger Dennis Land,

and he gets in his car.

The police are called. They show up to the crime scene.

[ Siren wailing ]

Collins: I was the deputy sheriff at the time.

I'm here on the scene.

I've arrived, and Cecelia's on the blanket

and having a very difficult time speaking,

in a lot of pain.

I asked her, I said, "Well, how do you describe this guy?"

She was estimating he was probably almost 6 foot.

It was bulky. He looked sloppy.

She said, "I saw his face when he stood behind the tree."

Said it was more of a round-type face.

And he had just a normal haircut, brown hair,

but enough so that when he pulled the hood on,

it showed on his forehead through the mask.

And I had asked her, I said,

"Well, how old do you think he was?"

And she said he was in his mid-20s then.

"I would say mid-20s."

And she herself was 22.

After the killer walked away from the victims

at Lake Berryessa, he apparently walked up the hill

to where Bryan Hartnell's Karmann Ghia was parked.

And then he used a marker to leave a message on the car door.

Beeson: The killer put the dates of Lake Herman Road,

and then he puts the dates of Blue Rock Springs,

and then he writes out the date of the attack

that just occurred.

He writes "Sept. 27."

There is, as far as I'm concerned, a definite pattern.

The message left on the side of the victim's door

with the dates of the Solano County murders

and ours,

along with other items that are on there,

have definitely indicated to us that they're one and the same.

Nock: So, Thomas, there isn't a letter sent

after the murder at Lake Berryessa,

but the writing on the car door

and what is said on the car door

has the local authorities convinced

that this crime is connected

to the Benicia and Vallejo killings

that we've talked about? That's right.

Before we get into whether you agree with that assessment,

I want to know if you are aware that it wasn't just Cecelia

and Bryan who saw the so-called Zodiac Killer that day.

Oh, yes. There were others at the lake

that day who witnessed the killer.

And, in fact, Cecelia and the college girls

gave very similar accounts of what the attacker looked like.

Nock: The college girls Professor Horan is referring to

have remained in the shadows of the Zodiac story

for half a century.

But I found one of them.

And bravely, she's coming on camera for the very first time.

**

So, Linda, thank you very much

for coming to meet with me here at Lake Berryessa.

How does it feel to be here?

Not good.

It's very emotional still.

I have a lot of anxiety.

I still -- You know, I carried fear for decades.

You haven't spoken about this incident

from September 27, 1969, very often, have you?

No, I've never talked about it.

I've kept it really quiet.

My family doesn't even know the details.

You know, I did not want my face out there, my name.

So everything, I wanted kept quiet, shut down.

Because if I am one of the only witnesses

to seeing the Zodiac,

I just assumed he might come for me.

**

**

Just being out here today, here it comes again.

I feel anxious and unsettled.

But he can't possibly be still alive, is what I'm thinking.

And so I'm trying to use this experience

as a way of healing for me

and just let it be a story from the past.

**

Bryan was my class at Pacific Union College,

and Cecelia was my dormitory monitor.

She's radiant, tiny, petite,

just glowing with light.

She's kind, she's funny. She was a music major.

Very talented.

Can you tell us what and who you saw that day?

It was a girlfriend and her friend.

And we drove to the lake,

laid our towels down,

and a few minutes later, I looked up.

And the oak tree closest to us on the beach,

there was a man standing behind the oak tree.

And he would kind of move his head to watch us.

So, you know, we're whispering to each other,

"Just don't look at him. Don't look at him.

And just don't pay any attention."

But every now and then, I would look up,

and he would be watching us,

and he would move to another tree to get a little closer.

We're completely freaked out

because now he's between us and our car,

which is parked way up on the bank.

And we were really, really nervous.

**

We probably just lay there tense,

wanting to leave for 45 minutes or something.

And eventually we looked up, and he was gone.

Didn't see him.

And grabbed our towels, ran up to the car.

Noticed there was a car parked, a little white car,

a little bit down the road to our left,

but there was nobody in it.

That was Bryan and Cecelia's car.

About the time we left, Bryan and Cece arrived

and they were literally the next little inlet over from us.

And then the next morning, really early,

we got word that Cece and Bryan had been attacked.

And when we heard the word Lake Berryessa,

we thought, "Oh, my God."

So I went to the girls' dean and told her our story.

And so the girls' dean called the police

and they asked us to come down and be interviewed.

I spent hours and hours there the first day and the next day

and the next day just trying to remember

and trying to place the timing

and trying to describe exactly where we were.

And then working with the artist

to get an Identi-Kit face out there.

**

When the funeral happened, the FBI was on site,

and I'm not sure that's widely known.

I only know because they contacted me directly.

And two agents and two cars came to the funeral,

and they asked me to stand with them outside the church

and just to observe everybody coming

on the thought that maybe he would show up at the service.

It was horrible.

And I felt like I was the only person with a possibility

of identifying somebody.

And this is the photo that was taken of me by the FBI.

I could just see the headache and the stress and the focus.

It felt really unfair for me

to have to carry that kind of a load.

It was -- It was really difficult.

I was concerned for my safety for years.

The police report says approximately 28 years of age,

6' to 6'2", 200 to 225 pounds.

Black hair, possibly be styled with a parting on the left.

Yes.

He had very smooth, parted hair

and combed really straight.

So he looked really conservative and really straight,

just very intense, you know, like focused.

It just -- The vibes coming off of him were were...

were bad, dark.

All of us felt that.

Pass this to you right now.

When you see that, what's going through your mind?

[ Exhales sharply ]

I see predator.

I mean, I get fear.

Um...

It's accurate?

I would say...

certainly the hair was exactly like this.

It was conservative. Parted this way.

Eyes, the shape is right. The mouth is right.

So, Linda, do you feel like the person that you saw

was responsible for the attack on Bryan and Cecelia?

What are the chances that somebody would follow us

right there, right at that timing,

and then there's a crime committed right next to it,

and when we had such negative reactions to this person?

I felt like we saw the Zodiac that day.

**

But there are other, you know, drawings

that came out of the Zodiac

that looked nothing like what I thought I saw that day,

so that confuses me.

Now, what Linda is referring to is this.

This is the famous Zodiac sketch that was made by law enforcement

after the fourth so-called Zodiac crime in San Francisco.

I'm jumping ahead right now in our documentary

because you need to see this sketch.

This is considered by experts

to be the best representation of the Zodiac Killer

because it comes from witnesses of that fourth crime

who gave police what they believed

was an accurate description.

But the problem with it is this.

It looks nothing like the Identi-Kit

made from Linda Jensen's description in the third crime,

perhaps reinforcing Horan's theory

that there is not one killer.

So this is the Identi-Kit

that was taken that day at Lake Berryessa.

Collins: Yeah. This is what Cecelia

had described as the suspect, Zodiac.

This is -- This is a good likeness of him.

This description, just to clarify,

was from the three students.

Right. But you think that it matches...?

Yeah. Yeah, it matches what she said.

So let me show you this.

This is the sketch from San Francisco.

Not even -- Not even close.

That's my question, because one of the things

I'm investigating is the idea... Not even close.

...that there was possibly two different killers. No. No.

And this would suggest that it was two different people,

to me. Yeah.

I don't think there are two different people.

I think there's only one,

but I think this is an accurate description.

And this one?

Well, my statement is this is the accurate description.

So you're more -- you're inclined to believe

that there was one killer. One killer.

And that one killer looked like the person

that was seen at Lake Berryessa. Correct.

Okay, so let's just take stock of where we are.

Without even examining the fourth crime,

what we know is that the witness of a potential killer

at Lake Berryessa, Linda Jensen...

and a deputy sheriff who talked to Cecelia Shepard

before she died, Dave Collins,

both state that the alleged killer at Lake Berryessa

looks nothing like the alleged killer in San Francisco

at the Paul Stine murder.

Now, that's a clear win for Professor Horan,

who theorizes that the notion of a single person

as a Zodiac Killer is a myth.

So if the killer of the third and fourth murders

is a different person, then the question becomes this --

could the killer of the third crime at Lake Berryessa

be the same killer of the first two crimes

in Benicia and Vallejo?

Do the MOs match up?

Or are there more differences than similarities?

Thomas, there is no letter sent

after the murder at Lake Berryessa,

but the killer writes on the car door

and very clearly connects this crime to the first two crimes.

But you're not convinced?

Horan: That message that was written on the car door

is the only thing that ties this crime

to any other Zodiac murders.

So the attacker at Lake Berryessa,

he wrote this message on the door of the victim's car,

implying that he's the guy

writing the letters to the newspapers.

But he used a black felt-tip pen

because he didn't know that the real "Zodiac letter writer"

used a blue felt-tip pen.

Point after point after point,

there is zero evidence that this is not a copycat killer,

and all the evidence points to your typical copycat slaying.

You have a completely different MO.

This is at a lake in broad daylight,

not at a lovers' lane at night.

He talked to the victim for over 15 minutes.

And we know in the second crime,

at least, there was no conversation

between the killer and the victims.

The weapon choice is completely different.

Here, a knife is used and not a gun.

He was wearing this hood costume,

bizarre getup with this circled crosshairs symbol.

All of these clues that supposedly tie

the attack at Lake Berryessa to these Zodiac letters...

...actually, they kind of prove it was a copycat killer

because the entire first letter,

including the circled crosshair symbol,

had been published in some of the papers

about eight weeks before the attack.

So anybody in Napa County who wanted to commit this murder

and try to blame it on this famous code killer

had all the information he needed.

I mean, he's had eight weeks to practice

imitating the handwriting in the letters

that were published in the paper.

He's had eight weeks to sew a circled crosshair symbol

onto his costume.

Nock: Professor Horan isn't alone in his skepticism here.

One of the original investigators,

Napa County Sheriff's Department Detective Ken Narlow,

expressed bewilderment at Zodiac's use of a costume,

as he told filmmakers in the 2007 documentary,

"This is the Zodiac Speaking."

One thing that's baffling is

if you're going to kill somebody,

you normally don't wear a mask

because 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?

**

There's a theory that perhaps this is more than one attacker

claiming to be the Zodiac Killer.

Copycats are relatively rare, but they can happen

because another criminal

is trying to get away with their crimes

and try to hide it under somebody else's persona

so that they're less likely to be caught.

But oftentimes we do see serial killers change course

because they get bored of the first type of killing.

And in order to get the same kind of high from that thrill

that they get from killing,

they have to change the way that they're attacking a victim,

maybe even make it harder for themselves

to get out or get away.

Now, Dr. Ho's point about a change in modus operandi

is backed up by fact.

Serial killer Ted Bundy broke into the houses of women

in his first two attacks,

but then he changed his MO

and lured women into his car.

Four years later, he went back to breaking and entering.

But maybe the best example

is the case of the Sunday Morning Slasher,

Carl Eugene Watts --

one of the most prolific serial killers

in American history.

If you look at his crimes,

he was constantly changing his MOs,

though it's impossible to know if he was looking to keep

the thrill of killing going by finding new ways to kill

or whether he was just trying to perfect his MO.

So if you ultimately are right

and this was the work of a copycat killer,

who's your primary suspect for the Lake Berryessa killing?

Your first two suspects in a murder investigation

are the last person to see the victim alive

and the person who reported finding the body.

Now, there is a person we know was present

at the crime scene that day.

We know he followed the victims to where they parked their car.

We know that he tampered with evidence at the crime scene.

And then he happens to match the description

of the killer pretty closely.

Bryan Hartnell said that his first impression of this man

was that the killer had come back.

That turned out to be park ranger Dennis Land.

**

**

Beeson: After the attack of Bryan Hartnell

and Cecelia Shepard, the police are called.

They show up to the crime scene and the police say,

"Where is the crime scene?"

And they're like, "We don't know."

The park ranger, Dennis Land, removed the crime scene,

which was a blanket with some of their items on the blanket.

Dennis Land had taken that with him

back to the park ranger station.

As a professional investigator,

I can't explain why any trained officer

would touch a crime scene.

You don't ever touch a crime scene

because what you're doing is implicating yourself.

Nock: Park ranger Dennis Land collected up the crime scene

and then put it into a box

and almost like presented it to the sheriff.

Is that -- Is that accurate?

That is pretty ac--

I don't know who gathered it up exactly,

but somebody did gather it up and they did put it into a box

and that box was turned over to the detective bureau.

Nock: It's a moment the original detective recounted

in the 2007 documentary,

"This is the Zodiac Speaking."

It didn't really make me too happy at the time

because I couldn't actually go to the crime scene

because someone, thinking they were doing the good --

the good thing and the right thing by protecting it,

actually bundled up the blanket and the clothing and stuff

that was there and -- and took it into his custody

at Berryessa Lake Park headquarters.

He thought at the time he was doing a very 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.

[ Chuckles ]

Thomas, it's clear that Dennis Land

compromised the crime scene,

much to the chagrin of these investigators.

But you also mentioned something else that piqued my interest.

What else makes you believe he could be the killer?

When you look at the log of the radio dispatcher

at the park ranger station and records of calls

between the station and Dennis Land,

at 6:13 p.m., he radioed in to the dispatcher

that he was going to go 10-7.

He was gonna go out of radio contact and go check the marina.

And 10-8 would mean that he was back in radio contact,

which is procedure.

But Land never radios a 10-8.

So there's a missing time gap of roughly 47 minutes

until they get a report of the stabbing at 7:00 p.m.

And if you look at the total amount of time

that he's out of radio contact,

the killer appears, he attacks them, he leaves.

That's pretty much precisely the time

that Dennis Land was out of radio contact.

Thomas, let's play out your theory.

If Dennis Land is the killer,

did he even have the wherewithal to do this?

Absolutely.

He tampered with the crime scene.

He had his associate's degree in criminal justice

and he had eight years experience

as a military policeman.

So Dennis Land really knew better.

What kind of guy was Dennis Land?

Honest as a day is long. Honest as the day is long.

Would bend over backwards to help anybody with anything.

He was a good man.

I just want to say this to you.

You should be very careful

when Thomas Horan says that certain things happened.

Thomas Horan claims that Dennis Land was under investigation.

There's absolutely no credible evidence

that Dennis Land was involved in the crime at all.

No other police officer in any of the Zodiac murder cases

was asked to swear out a formal affidavit under oath.

Only Dennis Land.

He's the only person who was known to be at the lake

that day who's not accounted for.

Nock: You know, there's simply no way to know

if Dennis Land was connected.

But I'll go back to this.

This is the Identi-Kit of

the man both Cecelia described

and Linda Jensen, the witness, saw.

And this is what makes the Zodiac cold case so fascinating,

so infuriating and so curious to so many.

Thomas brings up good convincing points about Land,

but it appears obvious that these two images,

they don't look alike.

After the murder at Lake Berryessa,

no one was arrested,

but the investigation continued on

and the authorities now felt certain

that this attack was not an isolated incident.

Man: There have been three slayings

in the Vallejo area in the past year,

and activities at the sheriff's office today

were centered around linking the cases.

Because of the writing on the car door at Lake Berryessa

and because of its proximity to the murders in Solano County,

which is the county next door,

the authorities begin to connect all three crimes.

Horan: That's right.

But the biggest hole

in the whole Zodiac theory of all

is that where's the Zodiac letter about the attack

at Lake Berryessa?

Where is it?

Nock: Now, there wasn't a letter sent

after the attack at the lake.

It's not until the Paul Stine murder in San Francisco,

which comes more than two weeks later,

that a flurry of letters arrives again

and apparently doesn't stop until July 1974.

28 more letters come after the Paul Stine murder.

And it's these 28

that Professor Horan has an issue with.

In my opinion, the only really authentic Zodiac letters

are the first three letters

that were mailed to the papers with the code.

Then immediately there was a follow up letter.

After that, there were serious doubts.

Nock: So Professor Horan believes that the first four letters

that arrived after the so-called second Zodiac murder

could be legitimate.

But the remaining 28 that arrived

after the Paul Stine murders are not.

It's these 32 letters that I sent to the French experts.

**

The men specialize in computational linguistics,

meaning they apply computer science to the analysis

and synthesis of language and speech,

and they run it through a customized artificial

intelligence model.

Computational linguistics could offer empirical evidence

to support Thomas's claims.

Now, as far as we know, this is the first time

the 32 letters have ever been analyzed in this way.

[ Ringing, computer chimes ]

Hi, Florian. Hi, Jean-Baptiste.

Hi, Andrew. Cafiero: Hi, Andrew.

It's been a few weeks since I sent you the Zodiac letters,

and I'm dying to find out what you've discovered.

**

Nock: Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.

So, I would like to start by explaining what you're doing

with computational linguistics and stylometry

and how it differs from handwriting analysis.

Is that something that's easily changeable?

Okay, that's interesting because what we're trying to

understand about these letters is not so much who wrote them,

but whether or not one single person

wrote all of those letters

or if there's multiple letter writers.

And so if you see a change

in this individual stylistic genome,

as you call it, at some point in the sequence of the 32 letters,

then that could indicate

that there's more than one letter writer, right?

And so just so I understand what you're doing here,

you know, can we walk away with a certainty of the results

or the findings, whatever they are,

that they're gonna be 100% accurate?

Okay.

Okay, understood.

So when you're looking at the Zodiac letters,

what's the first step in your process?

Okay. Let me just stop you for a second.

You said that at a certain point you see a subtle change.

When is that point?

But that subtle change in style, couldn't that be purposeful?

Couldn't it be intentional

to kind of throw off the investigators?

Okay.

Okay. Just let me summarize

because you're seeing noticeable changes

in the function words from the four letters

before Paul Stine's murder

to the 28 letters after the Paul Stine murder.

You're able to conclude that there is likely a change

in the letter writer?

That is likely more than one person

writing these letters -- at least two?

Okay. Wow.

That's -- I think that's really significant that

that's a possibility, because a lot of researchers,

a lot of Zodiac researchers and detectives,

they all believe that these letters are from one person.

**

**

**

Butterfield: Approximately two weeks after the attack at Lake Berryessa,

someone hailed a cab in San Francisco.

29-year-old cab driver Paul Stine

apparently picked up a fare somewhere near the intersection

of Mason and Geary in San Francisco.

The passenger allegedly directed him to an intersection

at Washington and Maple Streets,

which was in an upscale residential neighborhood

known as Presidio Heights.

**

**

[ Gunshot fires ]

[ Engine idling ]

[ Car door opens ]

Some kids who were in a house across the street heard a noise

or saw something suspicious which alerted them,

and they looked outside and saw a man

inside the cab handling Paul Stine's body.

The man had apparently shot Paul Stine once in the head.

The witnesses watched him get out of the cab

and walk around to the driver's side

with a piece of cloth in his hand.

And he appeared to be wiping down

that side of the cab on the driver's side.

The man then turned, went around the cab

and walked north on Cherry Street.

**

The kids called the police.

We don't know exactly what happened or why,

but at a certain point, their description of the killer

was broadcast incorrectly to responding officers

as a Black man instead of a white man.

It's possible that when they were describing

the killer's clothing as dark or black,

that that was misunderstood as the race of the killer.

Whatever happened, the killer went north on Cherry Street

and apparently turned east on Jackson Street,

one block further north.

Falzon: There was a white man

seen walking away from the crime scene.

In fact, responding officers stopped him.

There was an officer named Donald Fouke

who was with his partner that night, Eric Zelms,

and they believed they saw the man

walking in the Presidio that night,

and they're pretty sure, just based on where Stine was shot,

that they did see the attacker.

It's mostly believed that Donald Fouke

did witness the Zodiac Killer that night,

and he described him as a barrel-chested man about 5'10".

He had a blondish colored crew cut

and was wearing what he called an engineer's type boot.

[ Police radio chatter ]

Unfortunately, when they make the stop,

coming over the police radio

is a suspect has been described as a Black male.

So when he said he didn't see anything or hear anything,

they thanked him and he walks away.

They drive off. They later put two and two together.

It wasn't a Black suspect.

It was him, the man that killed Paul Stine

the cabdriver.

**

Beeson: Because of this screw up with the police dispatch,

they missed a golden opportunity.

He slipped into the darkness,

into the park area after the murder and was never seen again.

**

The famous Zodiac Killer sketch

comes from the eyewitness accounts from those kids.

That sketch was developed and later

shown to Officer Donald Fouke, who pretty much agreed with it,

said that pretty much looked like the man that he saw.

I think that sketch may be the most accurate portrait

of the Zodiac we'll ever get.

**

Horan: With the attack at Lake Berryessa

and the shooting in San Francisco,

both sets of investigators think they know

what the attacker looks like,

but clearly these sketches don't appear to be the same person.

So, Thomas, if the sketches of the perpetrator

look nothing alike,

there's got to be other aspects of the murder that match

what happened in the other three Zodiac crimes before this,

leading investigators to think all four crimes are connected.

No.

Here's the funny thing about the Paul Stine murder.

It is totally different from all the other

so-called Zodiac killings.

It's a single man. It's not a couple.

This is obviously not a lovers' lane.

They didn't meet randomly at the crime scene.

The victim actually drove the killer to the crime scene.

The motive seems to be more like an assassination.

It's a similar weapon to the shooting

at Blue Rock Springs Park.

It is a .9 millimeter handgun.

It's a very cold, calculating, almost professional killer.

I mean, we don't see any of this behavior

with the other Zodiac crimes,

especially the first two shootings.

It's show up, bang, bang, bang, get the heck out.

All of these things just seem to be completely different.

So did San Francisco PD ever investigate Paul Stine?

Beeson: Yes, and nothing ever came of it.

I was very fortunate to get to interview somebody

that knew Paul Stine really well,

and he said, "I knew Paul Stine, and I could tell you

that he is actually the sweetest man I ever knew.

He was driving a cab, but he had a lot further aspirations."

He was a newlywed.

It was just extremely tragic

that that would happen to him like it did.

So you don't think that he had any enemies?

You think it was just a random killing as a taxi driver?

I think the Paul Stine murder was completely random.

I've never seen anything credible

to make me think that he was targeted.

Nock: And so for those reasons,

along with the fact that San Francisco is 31 miles away

from Vallejo and 71 miles away from Lake Berryessa,

law enforcement at the time figured Paul Stine's murder

was just another routine robbery and murder of a cabbie.

No one suspected this crime might be related to the Zodiac.

That is until a few days later, on October 13th.

Two days after the murder of Paul Stine,

a letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle

that said...

Falzon: "This is the Zodiac speaking.

I am the murderer of the taxi driver

over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night."

Butterfield: Obviously, the fact that the killer started killing

in San Francisco

in a wealthy, upscale neighborhood

changed the narrative of this case.

But we have to remember also that in the letter

where he took credit for the murder of Paul Stine,

he threatened to attack a school bus full of children,

and that escalated things dramatically.

Lee: "Schoolchildren make fine targets.

I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning."

Now there's a visible rise of adrenalin in the newsroom.

Nobody's ever seen anything quite like it.

Beeson: When the Zodiac wrote that letter,

it was the pinnacle of fear in the city of San Francisco

because they absolutely believed he was gonna act on this

and actually start shooting schoolchildren.

Falzon: How scary.

It was threats that needed to be followed up, taken seriously.

Man: Police units from various agencies

using marked and unmarked cars

followed busses on their runs to and from schools.

After that, the hunt for the Zodiac increased.

There were many more people involved looking for him,

and he became a villain that had to be stopped.

So, Thomas, in the middle of all this mass hysteria

with everyone hunting the Zodiac Killer,

the police also share information

that this letter contains something unique.

What was it?

This particular letter,

he's including a piece of physical evidence

that seems incontrovertible.

It turned out to be a piece of Paul Stine's bloodstained shirt.

**

**

Horan: The Paul Stine murder is totally different

from all the other Zodiac killings.

You talk about a murder with the MO and victim profile

are totally different.

It's a single man. It's not a couple.

This is obviously not a lovers' lane.

So you would think there's no connection

to these murders whatsoever.

But this time he includes a physical piece of evidence

to prove that he was there --

a bloody piece of cloth torn off Paul Stine's shirt.

There's a lot of speculation and debate

about which Zodiac letters are authentic,

which are possible forgeries.

But there are certain letters

which we accept as being from the Zodiac,

and those are primarily the ones that were sent

with a piece of a victim's clothing.

There was the first letter sent in October of 1969,

which contained a bloodstained piece of the cab driver's shirt.

And then there were two other letters

that were accompanied by pieces of that shirt.

Horan: This letter came into the Chronicle,

and the Chroniclecalled the police and said,

"This guy claims here's a piece of the victim's shirt."

And then the police lab realizes that it is a piece of the shirt.

Man: To prove his authenticity,

the Zodiac sent along this time, as he did before,

a piece of the shirt belonging to the cab driver he murdered.

Police don't doubt that the letter writer is the killer.

Nock: So here's where we are.

Again, Horan's theory is that 28 of the letters are different

from the four that arrived before the Paul Stine letters.

And our linguistics experts have doubts

that the letters are written by one person.

Nock: So this is one of the things that leaps out to me

that it could be different killers,

because in the Paul Stine case, he takes part of the shirt.

He doesn't seem to take trophies in any of the other crimes.

So now he decides to take a trophy?

Ho: It could also still signify the same person.

And the reason is people can change their ideas

about what might be exciting to do.

I also think that he understood

that as these crimes were piling up,

he's gonna have to prove to the press

and to police and detectives that he is who he says he is.

Why would he go out of his way to do that

when he didn't do that in any of the other murders?

Why does he think he needs to do this?

And if he's interested in clothing,

why wouldn't he take some of Cecelia Shepard's clothing?

Why would he not do this at Lake Berryessa?

You know, it's interesting in the police report

for David Faraday's murder the night of the first murder,

they make a big point of him holding this class ring.

Right.

You would think that would be an obvious trophy

for a serial killer to take

and not to leave it there in between his fingers, right?

Right. It's certainly the kind of trophy

you'd think a serial killer would take.

Some people would say the answer is simple --

serial killers sometimes change their MO.

But, Thomas, if you don't believe that he did it

to prove he was the killer, what's your theory?

I reviewed that case file, and I discovered

Paul Stine's car keys and wallet and money were missing.

And there had been a string of odd cabdriver robberies.

The cabbie would pick up a fare

and then the fare would ask to be driven to Presidio Heights,

very close to where Stine was shot.

And then he would rob the cabbie and then leave.

Beeson: When it did happen that evening,

they absolutely thought it was just another robbery

because there were robberies going on in San Francisco

and surrounding areas of cab drivers

just because they were pretty easy targets

back in the day, unfortunately.

But the shirt meant definitively that the person

sending the letters had access to Paul Stine's shirt.

Horan: And that is technically true,

but it's not from that very first rectangle

that was torn off the shirt by the killer.

Someone has torn off another piece of shirt.

You can see that multiple tears.

And then that piece of shirt

is mailed with different Zodiac letters or cards.

So to be clear, Thomas,

you're suggesting someone other than the killer

is inserting themselves into this homicide case?

Yes. Those pieces of shirt

were taken by someone other than the killer.

There's more than one person who had access to Paul Stine shirt.

**

**

Nock: So what's your theory as to how they got

ahold of the shirt if it wasn't the killer?

Who would have access to the crime scene evidence?

Once the body arrives at the morgue, they undress the body.

They take all the clothing, which is blood soaked.

They take it to the crime lab and they spread it out

for several hours under the heat lamps to dry.

Anybody who could have gotten into that crime lab --

and in those days, reporters had free

run of the Hall of Justice -- could have gone in there,

saw a piece of cloth missing from Paul Stine's shirt

and tore off a couple more pieces of bloodied shirt

and used them to write Zodiac letters.

But what's the motivation?

To prove that the Zodiac was real,

to keep the story going.

And the big problem with the serial killer story

is when the killer is finally caught, the story's over.

So I think someone was twisting these investigations

by writing these letters to the newspapers.

Would anyone but police officers

have access to the crime lab -- like journalists, for example?

No journalist would be allowed in there

under any circumstances.

Nobody's allowed in that area except the homicide squad,

the investigating officers, the coroner's people,

the crime lab, photo lab.

So Detective Falzon says absolutely impossible

that someone could have gotten a hold of this

and tampered with the crime scene evidence.

I have quite a bit of evidence that it was very, very possible.

You read the San Francisco Chronicleday by day by day,

there's a story in there almost every day about corruption

at San Francisco Police Department,

including tampering with evidence in homicide cases.

So I've read that back in the day,

reporters had much better access to law enforcement

than they maybe do today.

Is that true? Jennings: Yes.

So at that time, late '60s, early '70s,

police and reporters had a very collaborative relationship,

and there was a newsroom in the Hall of Justice.

Reporters would go to cops to try to get inside information

about a case, make a better story out of it.

You'd be shocked to learn how often a reporter

was the one taking down the witness statements.

Then he would type up the report for the cop

and be allowed to keep a carbon copy

and take it back to his newspaper.

Jennings: So it was very chummy.

It was a very congenial atmosphere for the most part.

But I don't imagine ever that some journalist

wrote a Zodiac letter

just to make a bigger story out of something.

**

So what happens after these three letters arrive

with the bloody swatch at the end of 1969?

Horan: Law enforcement zeroed in on this letter writer

as the sole killer.

But consider this -- I can definitely see a change in style

and a change in personality in these letters.

The handwriting changes.

The purpose for writing the letter changes.

There's no longer any souvenirs, physical evidence.

There's no longer any details about any crime.

As an English professor, it's pretty obvious to me

that another person takes over writing the letters.

Jennings: "This is the Zodiac speaking.

I have become very upset with the people of San Fran Bay Area.

They have not complied with my wishes for them

to wear some nice buttons."

Horan: And then, conveniently enough,

Zodiac doesn't write any more letters to any other newspapers.

He only writes to the Chronicle

from that point forward.

The other newspapers have to give

the Chroniclefree publicity for a story that's gonna be

exclusive to the Chronicle from now on.

Jennings: Now it's the Chronicle's domain exclusively

because he didn't send pieces of shirt to The Examiner,

to other papers.

So it's sort of cemented this relationship,

if you will, between Zodiac and the Chronicle.

Thomas, the Chronicle becomes ground zero

for the Zodiac at this point.

Why do you think that happened?

Horan: Well, I think that journalists at the Chronicle

had a motive to keep this story going in the Chronicle.

Is there someone in particular at the Chronicle?

Paul Avery's name comes to mind,

and I wouldn't put it past Avery.

I mean, Avery was always looking for some sensational story.

Paul Avery was a newspaper reporter

who was reporting heavily on the Zodiac crimes.

The killings that have gone on in this area in recent weeks

that have created very big headlines

that possibly he's a little miffed.

He's not the center of attention anymore.

So Paul Avery was always getting the scoop

on the Zodiac for some reason

and the only reporter that received direct correspondences

from the killer.

Nock: Is that suspicious in any way? I mean...

I think it's highly suspicious that the Zodiac Killer

actually sent correspondences directly to Paul Avery,

namely the infamous Halloween card.

The Halloween card said, "This is from your secret pal."

It was how he was referenced in that particular correspondence,

which I always found very interesting.

Another one called the pines card or the Sierra card,

where he spelled his name Paul "Averly"

for some reason.

The Zodiac is just making an idle threat, frankly.

People speculate maybe Paul Avery could have

had access to that shirt,

which is an interesting route to go.

It's just impossible to say

how well they maintained their evidence at the time,

if somebody else could have easily

gotten to that shirt or not.

Nock: I have a quick question about Paul Avery.

Is it true he was called "Unsavory Avery"?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It was a kind of an affectionate sobriquet, if you will,

to call him Unsavory Avery.

But -- But at the same time, it's kind of a testament

to his -- to his aggressiveness as a reporter.

Is it possible that Paul Avery

may have had a hand in writing those letters

to get the story to be bigger and bigger?

Have you ever heard that?

That's preposterous, in my view.

First of all, I never heard that.

Second, you know...

it's hard to imagine any journalist doing that.

If he was, that wasn't his primary job.

His primary job was some kind of criminal.

But I don't -- I just don't see that as feasible at all.

So this -- this is all news to me

and speculation by some armchair detective.

Do you think he would have been keeping the story alive?

You can speculate, but until you show me proof --

I'm an investigator.

I live on facts or something that I can prove to a jury

that is factual and true.

Facts and proof -- two things that have been at odds

since the very first so-called Zodiac murder

on December 20, 1969,

and all the way through the investigation

into Paul Stine's death.

Do you have any strong leads as far as possible suspects?

No, we do not.

We're going through all the leads that we get,

and each one has turned out to be negative.

But someday one of them will turn out to be positive.

That's our hope.

Falzon: We ended up over a period of five, six years

with roughly four file cabinets, three drawers deep,

full of potential suspects of who could be the Zodiac.

Did some suspects look good? Yes.

But nobody was ever charged.

So Zodiac...

remains unsolved today.

Butterfield: The Zodiac letters began in July 1969

and apparently continued into 1974.

And then the killer went silent.

Nock: Michael, the linguistics analysis of the letters

that we conducted seemed to line up

with Professor Thomas Horan's theory

of there being numerous letter writers

after the fourth so-called Zodiac attack.

I think the notion that there was a change in the writing

after the Paul Stine murder could indicate

that there was more than one person involved.

But I also think it could be a psychological shift

in the killer himself.

Well, look what happened to the Unabomber.

He actually delivered a bomb to Salt Lake City.

Someone saw him do it.

He disappeared for six years.

He went into hiding for fear of being caught.

And clearly the Zodiac was not planning on being caught.

And so he ended up then just disappearing.

And then sometimes people like

to insert themselves into cases.

You could make up these letters and send them in,

pretending to be the Zodiac when actually you weren't.

**

Watson: And this was just a little box that she made.

Her mother let Sharon and I go into her bedroom

and pick out whatever we wanted to keep of Betty Lou's,

and that's what I chose.

And inside is a charm bracelet.

Nock: When you think of Betty Lou, what comes to mind?

Funny, wonderful sense of humor.

And just fun to be around.

Very good friend. Very good friend.

**

What do you want people to know about Darlene?

That she was a wonderful woman.

That she was a great gal, and she didn't deserve...

to be killed at his hands or anybody's.

And it was very, very tragic for her daughter to grow up

without her

and me to grow up without my sister.

I miss her so much, and I wish she was still alive.

I'd do anything to find this guy.

I would love to have an actual resolution someday

and know that we know who this person is.

The real tragedy of the myth of the Zodiac Killer

is not just that it robbed the victims

and their families of justice

and that it robbed society of justice,

people have become so wedded to their beliefs

that they hold on to them even in the face of clear,

contradictory evidence.

And that's the whole issue with the Zodiac narrative.

The facts have become secondary to the story,

and Zodiac is such a compelling storyline,

I'd write it into a novel.

It works. It just isn't true.

[ Film projector whirring ]

You have to unlearn a bunch of things.

But when people -- intelligent, trained people --

when they take another look at this case,

they see the same things I see.

But the actual story of what really happened to these poor,

unfortunate young people, cut down on the threshold of life,

that story is much more compelling

than the myth of the so-called Zodiac Killer.

Nock: The dive into the Zodiac story

and the more of the onion you peel,

you don't really get to the core of what happened.

You just get to a muddier place,

because with every Zodiac expert that you speak to,

it's clear that their theory on what happened

in the so-called Zodiac crimes is the strongest theory.

Even when there's solid evidence in front of them

that challenges their position, they're unmovable.

The problem with that is when you're so entrenched in an idea,

like the notion that a single person committed

all four of these horrible crimes

and the same person wrote all of the letters

and the evidence proves otherwise,

what you get is a cold case that stretches on for 50-plus years,

and then there's no justice for any of the victims.

Professor Horan may be eccentric,

but he's studied every document publicly available on this case.

And it's impossible not to walk away wondering,

was there ever a Zodiac Killer?

**