All language subtitles for Deciphering.The.Zodiac.Killer.2023.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

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[Pulsing News Style Music]

[VHS Ejecting Noise]

[News Reporter]
The search goes on

in San Francisco for the man
known as the Zodiac Killer.

The psychotic killer
has already murdered five.

[Detective] He claims that he
has murdered 13 individuals.

Of course,
our records reflect five.

[News Reported] The Zodiac
killer seems to crave publicity.

He sent letters and cryptograms
to newspapers and the police.

[Dick Carlson]
Police are now convinced

that it was the killer
of a San Francisco cab driver

who sat in a swatch
of bloody cloth

with a letter to the San
Francisco Chronicle.

[Police Chief] This guy is a
pathological psycho killer.

[Melvin Belli]
You have those headaches, Sam?

[Caller] Since I killed a kid,

[Detective] School children...

make find 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.

[Detective Lundblad] We have
no known motive at this time.

However, we're not overruling
any possibility.

[Reporter] How about leads?

[Detective Lundblad]
We have several leads

that we're working on,
and some of them have

been barred.

We have ruled them out.

[Detective] No, we're just about
position.

We're still following
a tremendous amount of leads.

We're getting a tremendous
amount of information every day,

not only from the Bay Area
but from all over the nation.

[Reporter] The murderers
terrorized the Bay Area decades

ago, the killer taunted police
by sending letters to the media.

But now a team of independent
investigators

says it has identified
the Zodiac killer

[Killer] I also killed those
kids last year.

[Killer in taunting voice]
Good.....Bye.....

[Jason] Can we put “documentary
filmmaker” instead of “YouTuber”

Unless one of you guys can think
of something more pretentious.

The Zodiac case was one of
the earlier cases at a time

that was rife
with serial killers in the USA

between the 1960s
and early eighties,

there was a multitude
of serial killers

[News] by a killer who's become
nown as the Night Stalker

A killer

The police are calling
the Hillside Strangler

the vine or intent to effect
the death of Lisa Lehey.

This is where they live.

Among the stables,
barns and phony buildings

of an old rundown movie
location.

20 miles from Los Angeles

has had three of its followers
arrested in the investigation

of the murder of Sharon Tate
and six others.

Well, he said, you've got me.

Police say those words
ended the biggest manhunt

in New York City history
with a capture of Son of Sam.

More bodies
unearthed from the basement

crawl space of Gacy's Norwood
Park Township home today,

bringing to 15 the number of
found there since Friday.

I'm called the banana
and I'm looking really good.

[Static Noise]

[Jason] And there
was obviously serial killers

outside of that time frame,
but there was very much

a grouping of them
around that time.

And specifically in California,
it was awash

with serial killers.

And there was a few reasons
for this.

All of which
added up to the key reason.

And that was the fact
that it was just easier

to get away with murder.

[News Reporter] Big city
police rejected evidence

from small town cops like Harvey
Irons and police rivalries

hampered
the Zodiac investigation

of possibly 30 murders
all over the state.

[Detective] It wasn't handled,
as you would handle it today,

eh...

because I don't think

there was the experience there
to actually handle it that way.

[Jason Narrating] Today,
of course, this would have been

a very different investigation
at the crime scene.

Forensics
would have been on site

for at least 24 hours, taking
everything from soil samples

to deep diving into every piece
of available DNA on site.

Unfortunately, back
in those days, that technology

just wasn't available
to the investigators.

They had to make do with
what they had.

The interdepartmental politics
where police would be fighting

that a case is

theirs or the case is
someone else's,

along with the fact
that DNA evidence just didn't

exist and forensics in general

was nowhere near what it is
today, just made it a lot

easier for people to get away
with murder back then.

And serial killers
thrived in that environment.

And the Zodiac Killer
was one of the most famous.

And it got more and more famous
as each year

where it was unsolved
went by

[Dramatic Music]

[News Reporter]
between 1968 and 1987,

someone calling himself

the Zodiac

claimed responsibility

for up to 40 murders

[Host]
and he left behind

a trail of bodies
and taunting letters.

Then suddenly the murders
stopped and he went silent.

[Robert] Something about this
case that was different.

And it became,
I think, a battle,

you know, a chess game
between the killer and people

like Captain Narlow of Napa,
who were highly intelligent

police officers
who really did their best.

[Jason Narrating]
And if you watched a 27 movie

Zodiac with Mark Ruffalo,
Robert Downey Jr,

Jake Gyllenhaal, you would be
forgiven for assuming

that this case was solved,

but it couldn't be further
from the truth.

[Show Host] Officially,
it remains unsolved.

Are people going to be
dissatisfied with that?

I'm going to give them the full
ending of the movie,

but dissatisfied
with the ending.

[Talk Show Host]
Why has he not been caught?

[Robert] Extremely intelligent.

This man has crafted ciphers
that have never been broken

to this day.

A certain amount of luck
involved too.

And he's highly skilled.

He is skilled in explosives,
cryptography...

[Talk show Host] A master
criminal?

[Robert] A master criminal.

And uncaught to this day,
I still get calls almost daily

[Inspector] I still get calls
almost daily

from people who believe
they know who the Zodiac is.

[Jason] Part of its fame
as well was definitely helped

by the fact that the lead

detective on the case
was this rock star detective.

[Reporter]
For the last nine years,

the Zodiac investigation
has been headed by homicide

inspector David Toschi

David Toschi, a San
Francisco homicide detective.

And the model for the Dirty
Harry movies

vowed to catch the Zodiac,
but he never did.

[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
in every manner.

[Jason] and everyone
man and his

dog thought their father
or their dog did it.

Um...

But this case remained unsolved
for a very long time.

Now, though, it seems like
we are closer than ever

to getting a final answer
on who the Zodiac is.

But to really understand how,
why and who

we need to first go back

to where it all begins.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

The first murders in this case
took place

in a very quiet and small town
in California called Benicia.

[Detective] The population
was probably around 5000.

It was a sleepy little
community, middle class

crime rate was

very, very low.

[TV Show Host]
The first killings

and the enduring mystery began
not far from San Francisco.

It is late one night.

Five days before Christmas,
in December of 1968, David

[Another TV Host]
in December of 1968, David

Faraday took Betty Lou Jensen
out on their first date.

[Jason Narrating] The two
teenagers made the unfortunate

choice to park up in a secluded
area in Benicia, California,

shortly after a car
pulled up behind them

with its headlights
on full blast.

A man emerged
and began firing into the car.

A shots fired report was

called in to the police

and shortly after dispatchers

called out,
the closest police officers

to arrive on scene
as soon as possible.

[Reporter] Sergeant,
could you briefly describe

what apparently happened
last night?

[Det. Lundblad] Yes, we had a
double homicide that took place

out on a county road about,
sometime after 11:00 last night.

A double homicide
involving victims were,

16 year old girl
and a 17 year old boy.

[Reporter] What were the
circumstances involved?

[Lundblad] Possibly they were
ordered out of the car by the

[Pensive Piano Music]

the boy, was shot
right at this side of the car.

And the girl
apparently tried to run

and she was shot
and found 28 feet

further on.

[Reporter] 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?

[Det. Lundblad]
This could be a stray bullet or

a warning
bullet of some sort that,

we can't connect it
with the bodies,

but it's the same type of shell.

[Robert] He reached his gun
through the window

and shot David as he exited,

and Betty Lou
was running toward Benicia

when he shot her
some 26 feet away.

Five times.

[Pensive Music Continues]

[Jason] This was a particularly
brutal murder.

The killer placed the gun
right up against

David's skull for the last shot.

And then as Betty
Lou started running

as fast as she could
away from the killer, he fired

several shots into her back in a
in a very, very close pattern.

Whoever did
this was clearly a marksman.

They knew how to use a gun,

obviously, given the fact
that there was no known

related killings at the time.

The police were a little bit

dumbstruck by what
the motive could be for this.

[Reporter]Do you have any idea
what the possible motive might

be for this killing?

[Detective]
We have no motive at this time.

[Jason] And within a few days,
a picture started to form

that this could be drugs
related, which was at first

thrown out because Betty
Lou and David didn't even drink.

But there was then a report

that came
to the attention of the police

that David had threatened
someone who was pushing drugs

in the local area.

A recent spike in biker
gangs and drug related

violence in the Vallejo
area was quickly linked

and thought to be the cause
of this execution style murder.

[Det. Bidou] 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

[Jason] Earlier

that same day, a substantial
drug bust took place.

A pound and a half of marijuana
was confiscated,

which by today's standards
would barely be noticed.

But that was a large drug bust
in those days.

David Farraday was a member
of the community who stood up

for his values as an Eagle Scout
who was on the wrestling team,

who would

push back on these dark elements
within the community.

And it was reported to police

at the time of the incident
that just days

before this took place,
he had confronted

someone from his school
about selling drugs in the area

and telling them that he was
going to personally stop to it.

So for the first while after the
murders this is where the police

were looking
...but that would change

[Det Bidou] I think that the FBI
statistics are still somewhere

in the high eighties that most
victims know their assailant.

[Ominous Droning Music]

[Jason] The next murders took
place in Vallejo

at a place
called Blue Rock Springs,

which was only about a six
or seven minute drive

from Lake Hermon Road where
the first murders took place.

Again, another fairly quiet,

fairly small and peaceful place.

[Det. Butterback]
Never had too many murders.

We solved them all,
but there was just a few.

[Jason Narrating] Darlene
Ferrin was the next victim.

She was a 22 year old
local waitress who had gone out

for a nice drive with a friend,
Mike Margo, that evening.

[TV Host]They were cruising
around Vallejo when a car chased

them out of town
and cornered them.

[Mike Mageau]
We were chased by this guy.

Chased by him from a
restaurant.

He was chasing us and I told her
to pull into the parking lot.

[Melancholic Piano Music]

[Jason Narrating]
According to Mike Mageau,

they were chased throughout
the evening to restaurant

and location after location
until they got to blue

rock Springs, where they thought
they had lost him.

[Melancholic Piano Music
Continues]

And this guy pulled up
beside them.

Darlene and Mike

looked across at them
and apparently Darlene knew

who this guy was.

That was chasing them.

[TV Host] 22 year old Darlene
Ferrin and 19 year old Mike

believe the man approaching
their car is a policeman.

[Robert] And then suddenly the
door was open and this crew cut

Man with glasses,
really pronounced stomach

gets out,
shining a light into their eyes.

They're totally blind.

And Mike
had reached for his wallet,

almost as if he thought
it was some sort of policeman.

And he fired bullets
into the car and the bullets

passed through.

Mike,
who was very badly wounded.

He had extensive surgery,
but Darlene was killed.

He survived.

Mike Mageau miraculously
survived.

[Piano Music Ends]

[Silence]

This was a pretty brutal murder
once again.

And most of the bullets

were pumped into Darlene.

Mike obviously took a few
pretty brutal shots, but

it seemed like the killer
was very focused on Darlene.

At least that was what
the police

and what the reports would say
at the time.

[Det] And he asked Darlene,
do you know who that is?

And she said something like,
Never mind.

[Jason] And the fact is as well
that Darlene had been

saying to people,
including her sister,

that there was someone who
she was afraid of,

someone who basically she

apparently had witnessed
do something before.

[Pam] She said that she's
seen them do something.

She's seen them kill
someone

[Mike]
She never mention the name.

But she...
Something about a Richard.

I remember Richard.

Named Richard

[Jason] So the initial thoughts
were that someone clearly knew

the victim

because of

how brutal
it was, particularly to Darlene.

For example, she was out with
Mike while her husband

was apparently at home
with the kids at the time.

You know, and Mike has said that

he was her boyfriend
at the time.

[Myserious Piano Music]

[Jason Narrates]
According to her husband, Dean,

she liked to go out and dance

and enjoy a time
with her friends.

And while there were rumors

spread
that she was off with other men,

Dean says
he never took this to heart

and didn't believe it.

[Mysterious Music Continues]

So there was a lot of intrigue
around this idea that it was

someone that Darlene knew
that was chasing them.

And the police officer
angle was quite interesting.

This was one
that was put forward

very much by, I think, Graysmith
in his book at one point.

And that was an interesting
one for a few reasons,

not least the fact that Mike

has admitted in his testimony
that they thought

it was a police officer
behind them

the way

the car parked behind them
apparently

was quite like a police officer.

And another part of that theory

that would make
you think that perhaps this guy

has some sort of insight
with the police or is police

is that according to Mike,
in Graysmith’s book,

the door handle on
the passenger side was removed

and he couldn't
actually get out of the car

until the zodiac opened the door
to shoot him.

But in the police reports,
that door handle was then back,

which would mean someone

who had access to the crime scen

[Officer Richard Hoffman]
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, I don't know anything
about that.

I wasn't me.

[Music Slowly Ends]

[Jason] Dick Hoffman was the
police officer who arrived on

scene first before the rest
of the cavalry rode in.

He collected some of her items
and waited for the ambulance

and was told to ride
with them to the hospital.

[Silence]

[Interviewer] You knew her
before the attack, right?

[Officer Richard Hoffman]
I've never laid eyes on her.

[Interviewer]
You never laid eyes on her?

[Officer Richard Hoffman]
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.

[Jason] Initially,
there was obviously the thought

that this was someone she knew.

Some of those roads
would have pointed

for obvious reasons
to her ex-husband.

But there is

a variety of other people
that could have been involved.

Darlene definitely
was afraid of someone.

[Ominus Music]

[Jason Narrating]
In cases such as this,

those closest to the victims
are normally the ones

who are investigated first,

especially when
there is not only a husband

but an ex husband involved.

And especially in this case
where her ex-husband

had a criminal record to beat.

And Dean had said that
she and her ex-husband

had had a lot of issues
throughout their time together.

And he had even stalked her
at times.

Those closest to Darlene
also talked

about how her ex-husband
was a strange character.

All of this
leading police to believe

that was the best place to look,
at least at first.

All of those thoughts
and ideas, though, quickly

went out the window
after one terrifying phone call.

[Police Operator]
Then the next call I got

was about 12:40

[Operator] Vallejo Police
Department

[Caller] I want to report
a double murder.

If you go one mile east
on Columbus Parkway,

a public park, you’ll find
kids in a brown car.

They were shot with a
nine millimeter lugar.

I also
killed those kid last year.

[Droning Music]

[Caller in Taunting Voice]
Goooood....bye.....

[Jason] the lead investigator,
sent police

to go and dust the phone booth
for fingerprints.

But even today,
this would have been difficult

as they found dozens
and dozens of fingerprints

that still have not been
verified or identified.

This was no easy task,

especially in the sixties.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason]
Then the case's

most famous
signature would be introduced.

[TV Narrator] The killer sent
letters between to the

Newspapers.
The San Francisco

Chronicle, The Examiner
and The Vallejo Times Herald.

They were the beginning
of a flood of written evidence.

He would pour forth
for years to come.

He gave himself a name....
Zodiac!

[Robert] Knowing such things as
describing what the woman was

wearing. You know,
enough details

to tell the police that he was
the man.

[TV Narrator]
Print these pages...or else

[Voice Recreation of Zodiac]
If you do not print this cipher,

I will cruise around all weekend
killing

lonely people in the night
and until I end up with a dozen.

[Host] And what did that do
to this community?

[Robert]
It terrified everyone.

Three newspapers gave
their front pages to this man.

I mean, that's how terrible
they were.

[Det.] In this particular code,
the Zodiac used what we referred

to as a common letter
numeral substitution code,

where you might substitute
the letter

C for E,
and A for B and etc., etc.. And

coupled with that, he used

some symbols
that you might describe as being

something like semaphore flags,
where he'd

take a square and color
in half of it diagonally,

or he used some Greek symbols.

[TV Host] The published codes
stumped hundreds of amateur

cryptographers

and several intelligence
agencies

[Jason]
Police, the CIA, and

a variety of law enforcement
and governmental

offices
tried to break the cipher

that was given
with these letters, but

it was solved
by an unlikely couple.

Husband and wife who were
teachers in San Francisco.

[Building Hopeful Music]

[Robert] And finally,
Donald Harden and his wife,

simply sat down and through
sheer stick-to-itiveness

worked around the clock.

And they were the only ones,
the CIA, Naval intelligence,

None of these people were able
to crack the three cipher codes.

And this was certainly
for his wife,

the very first attempt at any

sort of cryptography
for Don Harden.

I think he'd done the crossword
puzzles.

He had some various books
on ciphers.

But what they had begun to do

is they looked
for a double combination

of symbols, the most common
being a double “L”.

And Mrs. Harden thought that
he would use the word kill.

And so
once they figured that word,

killing or kill was somewhere,

and those were double L's

that they were seeing
throughout these ciphers

that eventually gave them
the key to to break it.

[Zodiac] I like killing people
because it is so much fun.

It is more fun than killing
wild game in the forest

because man is the most
dangerous animal of all.

[Jason] There's an interesting
piece in the cipher, which is

about humans being the most
dangerous animal of all,

which is a quote
from “The Dangerous Game”.

And this definitely stood out
to police officers

and got them a little bit
worried

because at the end of the day,
that is a movie about a man

who hunts humans
basically for sport.

So a little bit
worrying that even

with these letters, the police
essentially had nothing.

[Det.] The status of the case is
just as bad as it was.

We're getting many, many letters

and telephone calls
and everything.

There's no no specific person
that we suspect at this time.

[Jason] And it was about
to get much, much worse.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Detective]
Napa was kind of a secluded

community were bordered
on both sides by major

highways.

Highway 80 to our east and
highway one on one to our west.

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

Some of the other cities do.

So we have a relatively low
crime rate.

We sometimes go several years
without a homicide.

[Jason] Napa in those days
would have been very quiet

in terms of crime.

However, that year

there had been five
or six homicides, which was

quite unusual for the sixties
in Napa

Lake Berryessa

at that time of year
was also extremely quiet.

So this was an unusual day,

[TV Show Host]
September

27th, 1969,
for his new role of executioner.

Zodiac chooses
a peaceful setting

in the heart of California's
wine country.

[Reporter] Celia Sheppard and
Bryan Hartnell,

both in their early twenties,

were sitting
on this knoll of land

overlooking part of Lake Barry.

They thought they were

alone, but there was a third man
on this knoll.

A man who wore a medieval style
executioner's hood,

carried a knife and gun
and intended to use them.

[Building Suspensful Music]

[Police Chief]
They were approximately a quarter of a mile

from the road down
near the water front,

and they were laying down
on a blanket.

The talking,
they were schoolmates.

And the subject approached them.

They saw

a subject come up by them.

[Bryan Hartnell] I happened to
hear some rustling in behind us

and I asked her to look as
she was facing that direction.

I was facing toward
the water and

I asked her to note, you know,
what was going on.

And she said,
there's a man walking around.

And she became concerned
about it.

And I said, Well, actually,
don't worry about it.

It's something there's a lot
of people, picnickers, etc..

And just, you know,
if you kept coming, let me know.

And she kind of kept watching.

I noticed she wasn't
following my conversation.

She told me

he was stepping behind a tree
and the tree was about

30 feet behind us.

And 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.

[Police Chief] They didn't think
too much about it.

And the next thing I knew, the
subject was upon him with a gun

and demanded the keys
to the car and money.

[Bryan] And I actually
laughed at the moment

because I told him, I said, I've
only got $0.75 in my pocket.

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

I considered him a robber.

I had absolutely no thought

that he was anything but that.

And when we were
at this robbery stage,

I didn't consider
any real threat to my life

or to or to the girl
or anything.

I didn't consider this,
but I really wanted to help him.

[Bryan] He pulled some cuts of a
three foot length of clothesline

It's actually plastic.

It's the kind
that this hollow in the center.

[Police Chief]
The young man

stated that,
you're going to have my money.

I've only got a few cents,
75 or $0.80.

And with this he says, Well,
I'm going to tie you up.

And he had the young lady tie

her friend up,
and then he tied the girl up.

[Bryan] He said, Well, what I
need right now is to get you

tied up. And so he had the girl
tie me. Of course she was real

nervous and tied me rather
loosely.

And he came
and he tightened the knot up,

and then he tied her up.

And we continued the dialog
along

most of this time,

[Officer] and the kid said
the money is in my pocket.

He said, I don't want the money.

All I want to do is
just kill you.

The boy asked him, said,
You really mean that?

And he said, yes.

I mean it

he said, well
if you're going to, then kill me

first because I can't stand
to see the girl be stabbed.

He said, Well, I'll do that.

So he started
stabbing the kid in the back

[Police Chief]
and laid him face down.

And with this,
he proceeded to knife

both of them numerous times.

[Jason] Still on his knees,
the man gave a ghastly,

frenzied sound and letting out
a long, low exhalation

began stabbing
the girl in the back ten times.

The knife fell.

Instinctively,
Cecilia rolled over on her back

and the dark hunter continued,
thrusting.

Once he plunged the knife
full length into her chest.

sated at last,
the stocky man stood up

and tossed the money
and keys onto the blanket next

to his victims.

He walked slowly across the open
peninsula

and was soon lost
in the empty twilight.

[Reporter]
Bryan will probably be able

to leave Queen of the Valley
Hospital fairly soon,

but where he's going from here
is being kept secret.

In the event
that the man who attacked him

and killed
Cecilia Shepard on Lake

Barryessa a week ago
Saturday tries again.

Bryan made it for two reasons
some people might regard

as intangibles, but reasons
that for him were enough,

a strong faith and
an equally strong will to live.

[Bryan] I got, I was able to
untie one of her hands

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

Finally, one fisherman who's
going real slow, he stopped.

He shut off his motor

and we cajoled and called
and we did everything to try

to get him to come.

He sat there
for about 15 minutes and he

he did finally come closer, but
he wouldn't come to the shore.

I guess he was afraid that
the man might still be around.

He said he'd go get help.

So I got...encouraged her
enough to get me untied, and

I got one wrist loose so that
I could get the rest untied.

[Interviewer]
How were you finally?

How were you finally found?

[Bryan] Well, she was found out
on the blanket.

Still...I made it up
about 300 yards up

almost to the road.

And that it was a slow process
because I kept black.

I couldn't see, you know,
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,

but a pickup

truck, was coming along

with these dirt roads,
and apparently

this man had called for help.

[Jason]
Such a change in crime.

He was clearly evolving

and getting,

let's be honest, much worse.

[Officer]
I've had 11 years

patrol on this lake
and I've seen a lot of people

cut up by boat
accidents and this.

But this is one of the worst
things I ever witnessed.

So for no reason at all,

a hooded man came out
with a pistol drawn on them,

tied him up, and then told me
he had to kill them. So.

[Jason] So there have been this
theory that park ranger

Dennis Land

was somehow involved in this,

and his activities
and his actions during and after

the crime are definitely cause
for suspicion.

[Mysterious Piano Music Starts]

There has been one man
who is a source of controversy

around this particular incident,
a man who fit the description

of the killer who was nearby
and who tampered with evidence.

And this was park ranger
Dennis Land.

In fact, when Dennis Land
arrived on scene,

Brian Hartnell
even said he thought

it was the killer returning
to the scene of the crime.

[Detective]
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.

[Jason Narrates]
Dennis Land

has been the cause of suspicion

ever since that day
by a variety of people.

And the reason for this

is that he packed up
the entire crime scene

and brought it back to the park
ranger station.

This is not something
an investigator

or a police officer would do.

And in fact,
it is something that normally

they would be trained

not to do in order
to preserve the crime scene

and allow the lead investigators
to look at the crime scene

as it was at the time that
the crime itself took place.

Now, according to the
investigator and Dennis Land,

it seemed like Dennis Land
was trying to do the right thing

to preserve the crime scene
from being blown apart

and blown away
in such an open area.

However, this did upset
the police,

who really would have preferred
to see the blood,

the hair follicles and so on
in their correct location.

Another reason
why Dennis Land has been a cause

for suspicion
is that he radioed himself

going into the dark
before the crime took place

and put himself back into radio
contact

only after the police
had been called.

One crucial piece of evidence
that was found during

this was
a very unique boot print.

One piece of evidence that
would become synonymous with

this crime was the footprint
left behind at Lake Berryessa

A very unique boot print

that was easily identifiable
by the police

to a very unique shoe
known as a wing walker.

This shoe was used specifically
so as not to build up static

so that military personnel
could walk on the wings

of aircraft
in order to service them.

[Bryan] Well,
the pictures are in the paper.

This last one that they put out,

I think is probably as accurate

as any of that they have put up.

He was of medium
to short height, a kind of

pouchy

real casually casual,
I don't want to say sloppily,

but casually,
real casually dressed,

of course,
a little dusty from the lake.

And he had this black hood

on, came clear down to here,
just little slits in the eyes.

And you know, these clip
on glasses,

they were
clipped into those little.

[Voice fades into Silence]

[Jason]
One piece

of evidence that baffled police

was why
this man would wear a mask

if he intended to murder
someone,

as the police said at the time.

Normally, if you knew
you were going to kill someone,

you don't need to hide
your identity.

But very quickly,

there was some clear
and evident links

that would tie this right back
to the prior zodiac killings.

[Police Chief]
At 7:40 p.m.

Officer Slaight at the Napa Poli
Department received this call.

[Jason] The local police
switchboard was one of the old

style switches where you had to
manually plug the

cables in and out.

And that evening

one of the operators
got a very ominous call.

[Operator]There was a male voice
on the other end of the phone

and he said,
I want to report a murder,

[Caller] A Double Murder.

two miles north of the park
headquarters.

They were in a white
Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.

I'm the one that did it

[News Reporter]
the call to Napa.

Police came within an hour
after the stabbings.

A young man's voice
reported the double murder.

He described the couple their
car at the scene and hung up.

[Detective]
And then the dispatcher knew that the phone was not hung up.

It just went silent.

And just minutes later,
one of the officers said

that he had discovered
a phone off the hook at the

at this car wash,
which was only five

or six blocks from the local
police department.

[Jason]
David's first thought

was that
this had been the park ranger

having issues with his radio
and sending someone

to the nearest
payphone to report the crime.

While that call was terrifying.
For me,

it does do one thing,

and that is dissuade

the idea that this could have
been Dennis Land,

because he was at the
crime scene with the detectives

when that call was placed.

And therefore, I don't think
he could have done it.

You could get around that

by saying perhaps these killings
are done by two people.

But for me, it

kind of dissuaded me away
from the idea that Dennis Land

had any involvement.

Personally.

[Detective]
I saw the white Carmen Ghia

and I saw tracks
leading away from it.

[Jason Narrating]
Police assumed that these tracks were tracks of the Zodiac car

leading away, and this gave them
a couple of potential clues.

First of all, there was,
of course, the fact

they were able to identify the
tires, which were mismatched,

which led the police believe
that this was an older

model car that
wasn't very well-maintained.

But then, of course,
there was the biggest clue,

the connection in all of this,

where they found a list of dates

written
on the door of the Carmen Ghia,

which matched
to the previous crimes

and finally led to September
29th.

6:30 p.m.

by knife, which was this crime.

[Bryan]
Pretty thin point.

You can see a little OCD,
though,

with the circles
being filled on the time.

You know, if you're in a hurry,
you wouldn't even know

[Criminal Profiler]
he was into time.

You know, he's continually
telling us

how far something has went,
how long it's been

[Muffled Chatter
in the background]

[Bryan] except this right here
is the only thing

that really nails down with
some degree of authenticity.

We think the connection
between the pieces.

[Profiler]
I agree with you.

[Jason] the killer was evolving.

He was getting more brutal,
this time

He actually talked
to the victims.

He was experimenting.

He was getting far more brutal.

This was becoming a
big issue for the local area.

[Police Chief] There
is, as far as I'm concerned,

a definite pattern
between their killings and ours.

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

eh...

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.

[Reporter]
Does it seem to you as if

you're pretty much on the verge
of finding this man?

[Police Chief] Well,
I wouldn't want to say that.

Dave. We're hoping

we've...we've got some good
things working for us,

but it takes time
and to be able to reach out

and pluck this guy
out of the air isn't done

in most murder cases.

You'll find a motive.

But of course,
this guy is just a killer,

a mad killer,
and you have no motive.

So it makes it a little bit
harder for us to track him down.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason] In early
October, the police interviewed

a man who would go on to become
the most famous suspect

in this case.

And the man that I think Toschi
and Graysmith

very, very quickly
set their focus onto

and they still are
fairly certain

that this is the guy who did it.

[Reporter]
There's a retired homicide

investigator
in Vallejo, California,

who thinks he knows
who the killer is.

His name is Jack Mullinax.

18 years ago,

when he was a homicide
detective,

he was assigned a case
involving the Zodiac.

What was your feeling once

you got

once you got close to him,

did you feel strongly
that he was the guy?

[Jack]
I did.

I mean,

I had...the only...
of all the people

that I was involved
in investigating Zodiac.

He was the only one that really,

really turned me on.

[Reporter]
Where is he now?

Do you know?

[Jack] the last I heard,
he was working in

a hardware store
in Northern California.

[Host]
His name is Robert Graysmith, and this man has spent ten years

researching the Zodiac
before he wrote a book on it

[Robert]
to know about Zodiac.

Before there was a Zodiac, to us
the symbol, to wear that watch

and and to be at the crime
scenes and to know the victims.

He would have to be Zodiac.

And there are a lot of strange
theories and things.

But if it's one man,
if it's one man only.

[Norman, Friend of Suspect]
He liked the children's world.

He liked kids.

He liked to be
a part of that world.

He went a little
too far with it, obviously.

But he enjoyed
children and they loved him.

[Interviewer]
But he admitted to using the screams of a child as a sex toy.

[Detective]
Yeah. Yes, he did.

He....he said...he...
he enjoyed listening

to the screams of a child
being beaten.

[Robert] as far as I can tell,
Alan is the best suspect

they come up with.

[Jason]
And the heart of the Alan's choice of very specific boots

would also add suspicion
to his character in this case.

[Detective]
And it was determined to be

what was referred to
as a wing walk or shoe

that was used primarily
with the Navy and the Air Force

in maintenance duties of static
free soul and the shoe.

[Robert]
Our suspect wears them.

It's not just that
he's a size ten and a half.

The shoes
that were pressed into the dry

sand at Lake Berryessa,
a size ten and a half.

[Jason] There were various
people over the years

who pointed at Arthur Lee
Allen more so than just

Robert
Graysmith and Dave Toschi.

There was, of course, Cheney
who said that Arthur Lee Allen

had asked him to write
and help him stamp envelopes

where he was talking about
being the Zodiac killer.

There was Spinelli who said that
he had offered services

to do things in so far
as to kill people

or other acts
of that nature for a fee.

And the police

were interested in him
for a variety of reasons,

especially given his background,

the fact that he was in the area
and the fact that he wore

a watch
with the Zodiac name on it

and a few detectives went so far
as to say that in reality

he should have been looked
at a lot harder

by the investigating detectives
at the time.

Personally,
I don't think Arthur Lee

Allen looked like this sketches
in any way.

In fact,
one of the sketches definitely

looks more like me,
I think, than Arthur Lee Allen.

But that could be explained away
very, very quickly.

[Zodiac] I look like the
description passed out

only when I do my thing.

The rest of the time
I look entirely different.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason]
A couple of years before

the Lake Herman, Blue Rock Sprin
and Lake Berryessa

murders, back in 1966,
there was another case

that would eventually end up
being very much tied

to the Zodiac case,

and that was the case
that took place in Riverside.

Sherri
Jo Bates was stabbed to death,

nearly decapitated
by her killer.

She was an athletic girl, strong
girl who was able to fight back.

Unfortunately, she couldn't
fight off her killer,

but she did manage

to knock his wristwatch off,
which was found by the police.

And it was sputtered
with white paint, which perhaps

would allude to the job
of the killer at the time.

This was the only at the time,

at least unsolved murder
in Riverside history.

And six months later,
the police received a letter

from supposedly the killer

outlining what he had done
and taking credit for it.

There was a few reasons

why this letter would later
be tied to the Zodiac, not least

because it was signed off
with the letter Z.

But some instances in it.

At one point in the letter

he said, I then finish the job
by cutting her throat.

I am not sick, I am insane.

But that will not stop the game.

The fact that
he put the game in there

obviously was later

linked to

the fact that he talked
about ”The Dangerous Game”

in later letters, but the

Z was obviously the big thing
that was brought up,

but that connection wasn't made
until four years later

by Paul Avery.

[Paul Avery] six months later.

Other...other things
that make me think that

it's quite possibly him.

I received a letter
from an individual

in Southern California
pointing out the similarities

actually
was an anonymous letter.

And I.

I felt that
there might be something to it.

So I contacted the Riverside
Police.

They were very cooperative.

Gave me information
on the phone and then sent me

some information, Xerox
copies of certain documents,

and then they included
kind of as an aside, a letter

that had been received

six months after the suicide
girl had been killed.

And said this might be
of interest to you.

It’s signed with a Z

[Jason] in 2016, according
to, I believe, the FBI,

someone had called in
to a police department

or somewhere and basically said
that, look, that was a prank.

I wrote that letter.

If that is the case, it was
in really, really poor taste.

But that would essentially

dissuade the idea that it was
linked to the Zodiac in any way.

And there was another case
that very much lines up with

similarities to the Zodiac case,
and that was the 1962

killing of Ray Davis,
who was a cab driver.

And letters also appeared
after that murder.

But personally,

I think the Ray Davis killing
was very much only linked

to the Zodiac because of
what would happen next

in San Francisco after Lake
Berryessa

[Ominous Droning Sound]

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,

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

[Reporter] The latest,
a taxi driver in San Francisco

[Guest on TV Show]
came here to San Francisco to commit a deliberate murder

so that he might

garner that attention
that had remained so elusive.

And with the murder
of Paul Stine

He gained that notoriety.

[Detective]
Driver for Yellow Cab in San Francisco picked up a fare

in downtown San Francisco,
and some were in route to

the Sunset District.

The fare asked him to stop
at a certain location,

and at that time, the Zodiac
killer shot the cab driver.

[Jason]This was a very different
crime by the Zodiac,

a crime that wasn't against
a couple in a remote area,

but instead
in a wealthy neighborhood

using a weapon, which was loud
and could draw attention.

A stark departure

[Detective] The description that
came out over the air was of an

NMA, Negro
male adult at the time.

The only person
that could have given

that information
would have been the child

who called it in
to police dispatch.

[TV Host] What did you see
when you came down this road?

[Officer] My headlights

went on to an individual who

was walking in the shadow
of the trees at the time.

The individual I saw that night
was a white male adult,

approximately
35-45 years of age,

five feet, ten inches
tall, 180 to 210lbs.

[Robert]
Unfortunately, as I was told,

they were looking
for a black man.

They had been given
wrong information on the phone.

[Officer] Since we were looking
for a Negro male adult,

we proceeded on Jackson

Street towards Arguello,
continuing our search

as we arrived
at Arguello Street.

The description of the suspect

was changed
to a white male adult,

believing that this suspect
was possibly the one involved

in the shooting.

We entered the Presidio
of San Francisco and conducted

a search on West Pacific Avenue

on the opposite side of a wall
in the last direction.

that we observed the suspect
but did not find the suspect.

[Jason]
Police were dubious, though,

that folk had actually seen
the Zodiac killer.

The reason being that
this was a brightly lit area

and the assailant would likely
be covered in blood,

which would have been
noticeable.

The moment the headlights
focused on the killer,

[Robert]
He claimed later in a letter that he had been watching

the whole time

[Reporter]
finding one psychopath in this city could be a tall order.

This latest communication from
the killer who calls himself

Zodiac adds very little
substantially to the case,

except that
he may be a conservationist.

Ed Leslie, News
13 San Francisco.

[Jason] It very much seems like
he only committed this murder

to prove a point

just to get the bloody cloth
that he later sent in

to the newspapers
from Paul Stine’s shirt.

[Dick Carlson]
Police are now convinced that it was the killer

of a San Francisco cab driver
who sent in a swatch

of bloody cloth with a letter
to the San Francisco Chronicle.

[Paul] And two days
later, the Chronicle,

where I worked, then received
a letter from the Zodiac.

The the envelope was opened.

It was addressed to the editor,

and it was like a letter
to the editor and the secretary

who handled that correspondence
opened envelope,

saw this

bloody, bloodstained shirt
and read

the letter then rushed it in
to the executives at the paper.

[TV Host]
Over the next several weeks, Zodiac sends two more swatches

of the bloody shirt,
along with letters

taunting the police
for failing to catch him

and confirms
that he was spotted that night.

[Dick] All of the letters sent
by the killer have been posted

from San Francisco, and police

believe the man either
works or lives in the city.

Laboratory tests on the cloth
torn from the shirt of Paul

Stine prove

that it came, in fact,

from the cab driver
when he was murdered

last Saturday night in
Presidio Heights.

And handwriting analysis
of a foreboding letter indicates

the writer is the same man
who's committed five murders.

One here, three in Vallejo,

and one in Napa over the last
ten months.

His chilling allusions to future
slayings are being counted

with an intense drive

to prevent him from fulfilling
any promises.

Dick Carlson reporting
for Newsbeat from San Francisco.

Hall of Justice

[Jason] There has also since
been suspicion

that the Zodiac could live

very close
by, given the fact that,

according
to one of his later letters,

he was watching the entire thing
unfold afterwards

as the police were
running around looking for him.

[Zodiac]
I enjoy needling the blue pink.

Hey, blue pig.

The dogs never came

within two blocks of me
and they were to the west.

Motorcycles
went by about 150 feet away.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason] Nearly
50 years after the first murder.

There was still a big push
to try and break the codes.

They couldn't crack them.

The CIA had tried.
The FBI had tried.

Various code breakers had tried.

They were alluded by these.

And these were to codes in
general.

Z 13 because of 13 characters
and likewise Z 340.

The Z 13 in 2017

was thought to have been broken.
Apparently...

Once the Z 13 code was broken,
the shorter of the two.

It alleged that
the name of the person was Kane

K.A.N.E....the FBI, though,
very much had their doubts

about this and the accuracy
of that code break.

And the problem
with cryptography and encryption

and so on

is it's very hard to verify
something with a small subset.

Realistically, it's
much easier to verify something

along like the 340 code
than it is with the 13 code,

because you don't have much

to compare it to to check
whether the rest is gibberish.

So the FBI still weren't 100%

sure that the Kane finding
was actually accurate.

Back in the late
sixties, though, while

the police were still trying

to crack these codes
and hunt the killer

things were going from
bad to monumentally worse.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Detective] Schoolchildren...
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.

[Reporter] That was the threat
of the Zodiac killer.

Now, every day, police cars
follow the busses,

which would be likely targets.

Officers armed with shotguns
take the threat seriously.

[Jason] Parents were obviously

terrified of this threat.

And now there was
a renewed effort to find

this guy as quickly as possible
before something horrible

happened to local schoolchildren

[Detective] 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 plainclothes
officers

following busses in the morning
and in the evening.

You know,

somebody shoots at your tire,
don't stop, keep driving.

So there was a great panic.

[Jason] As you can imagine,
there was immense pressure

on the police
to ensure that nothing happened

and to get on top of this
as quickly as possible.

And I think

even the word immense there is
probably the understatement,

the century.

[Reporter]
The bus patrol was started first in this county Wednesday.

Police units

from various agencies
using marked and unmarked cars

follow busses on their runs
to and from schools

assisted by aerial patrols
and some busses

now equipped with two way
police radios.

The massive patrols
are responses

to the Zodiac Killer's threat to
stop a bus and shoot children.

The patrols are concentrated
in the remote sections

of the county, similar to areas
where five were murdered.

The Napa School District is
the third largest in the state.

In bussing, its 70 busses travel
more than 4000 miles a day.

These patrols have been expanded
to several counties

and the highway Patrol
has written guidelines

for bus drivers.

[Detective] We have specifically
requested that they

alert their drivers
to not stop under any conditions

if a shot was fired
or if their busses

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

and therefore
get out of the situation.

We're satisfied that it is
all that can reasonably be done

under the circumstances

that might be present
at the particular time,

giving due

consideration to the vast
number of busses operating.

[Interviewer]
Have any of the drivers

expressed
any concern over their job now?

[Bus Driver] Well,

there's naturally
talk, everybody,

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.

[Interviewer]
You're not afraid?

[Bus Driver]
No.

Just not too afraid.

[Jason] On top of all of this,
even worse, there was then

a bomb threat thrown in on top
of a potential sniper situation.

[Detective]
If you did not want me to have this blast,

you must do two things.

Tell everyone about the bus bomb
and all the details.

I would like to see some nice
zodiac buttons

wandering about town.

On the face of which says,
I hope you enjoy yourselves.

When I had my blast,

[Robert] the killer sent a
diagram for an explosive device

that was in the hillsides
around Napa.

And this was working on
an electric system

where everything else
could pass.

But a school bus
would set this bomb off.

[Detective]
Bomb, as he described it to us in the past, consist of a bomb

planted in the street
or alongside of a roadside,

which would be triggered
when a school bus passed by.

[Detective]
He is an absolutely

ruthless,
completely merciless killer.

He does not
get great excitement.

Or is he just

he thinks killing is
is just killing.

So somebody like that

is going to be
a very serious problem for us.

[Interviewer]
What more do you know

about the killer today
than you did earlier?

[Police Chief]
Well, we have progressed.

We've been able to come up
with more physical evidence

that will be able
to be used in in court.

What we have to do
is find the suspect,

of course,
and be able to apply those.

[Detective]
And this man is a

psychopath and very,
very seriously

mentally deranged.

He appears to have no conscience
at all,

no remorse after any of the
acts, certainly no reason

or even alleged justification
for anything that he does.

Several of

the shootings have occurred
without a single word

to anybody, just merely
to walk up and start shooting.

This man is a

serious problem to us.

He's very, very sick
and very dangerous person.

[Jason] Thankfully, though,
another letter will arrive

and for the first time,

police were relieved
to get a letter from the Zodiac

[Reporter]
after last month's letters and the murder of a cab driver.

The Zodiac threatened to

kill children on a school bus,
so bus guards were provided

in many Bay Area counties,
including these at Napa.

Police say most of those
precautions have been halted.

And now in the latest letter,
the Zodiac says

if you cops think

I'm going to take on a bus,
the way I stated I was.

You deserve
to have holes in your heads.

[Jason] Sadly, though,
throughout all of this, police

were no closer
to catching the Zodiac killer.

[Interviewer] Are you confident

you will get him
sooner or later?

[Detective]
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.

And that's the only way
to look at it and approach it,

is that...Of course....
Eventually we'll get him.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Reporter] I'm standing
in front of the Vallejo home,

which investigators searched
last Valentine's Day.

The home of the man police

have suspected off
and on for the last 20 years.

Thousands of people
have been interviewed

and the Zodiac bounced in
and out of the news.

And through it
all, there's been one constant.

Arthur Allen

[Arthur Lee Allen]
I’m not the Zodiac Killer

[George] I feel that
there are so many areas

that point directly at Arthur
Lee Allen that I feel

that he is a viable suspect in,
in all probability, the Zodiac.

[Jason] In 1991,
there was a break in the case

when a tip came in
to one of the case.

Detectives still working on this
to make things

even more exciting
for the police.

Mike Mageau,
one of the survivors

of the Zodiac killings,
was able to I.D.

a suspect.

Mike Miguel was given
a set of photos

and immediately
identified within 20 seconds.

Arthur Lee Allen.

[Arthur]
That is mine.

But that's my third Karman Ghia

[Reporter]
Your third. Okay.

According to the affidavit,
it unsealed by a judge late

this afternoon, an armed robbery
suspect arrested in

San Jose last December
told police there

that Arthur Allen, now 52 years
old, is the infamous Zodiac.

That information
led Vallejo police

to obtain a warrant
and search Allen's home

last Valentine's Day.

Police were looking for specific
items, 22 caliber pistols,

a black executioner style hood,
yellow taxicab keys.

Without revealing everything
they found.

I learned
they did confiscate explosives.

Bombs exactly like those

the Zodiac serial killer
described during his murder

spree in the late 1960s
and early to mid 1970s.

[Jason]
Arthur Lee Allen died

just months after this
and was never formally arrested

or formally
a suspect in the case.

Since his death, though,

there was continued intrigue
into him as a suspect.

And this meant
that as the nineties moved on

and into the 2000, new DNA
and forensic technology

allowed investigators
to, with more certainty, decide

whether or not Allen was
in fact, the right suspect

for the case, whether or not
he was the Zodiac.

Police and various interested
parties

continued to try and do
DNA matches.

And after recovering DNA
from the stamps on the letters

that were sent,

as well as taking DNA from
the various pieces of evidence,

they could still not find a hard
evidence match

linking this crime to Arthur
Lee Allen.

[Detective]
Arthur Lee Allen did not donate the biological material

that was recovered
from the stamp.

[Expert] When you write,
you rest the heel of your palm,

a very characteristic part of it
on the paper

and people in those days
weren't really aware

that you could

leave a palm print
and that it could be identified.

They knew about fingerprints.

It was compared to the one
that had been developed earlier

and they don't match.

That is not Arthur Allen's
palm print.

[Jason] It seems then, at least
according to any hard evidence,

that Arthur Lee Allen did not
commit the Zodiac killings.

It seems like the only evidence
left is circumstantial

and under today's burden,
that just wouldn't be enough,

given the fact that there's no
DNA evidence and DNA evidence

from the letters
and so on exists,

that would point to the fact
that it just isn't

Arthur Lee Allen.

[Reporter]
And during an interview here last Friday night with Channel

seven News, Arthur Allen claimed
that he is being persecuted

by Vallejo police

[Jason] And Arthur
Lee Allen would go on until

his dying breath, adamant that
he wasn't the Zodiac killer.

[Arthur] Two types of liars in
the world fishermen & policemen,

and not necessarily
in that order.

And their function is lying to
you is to trip you up.

They can't do it to me because
I have nothing to trip over.

No, I'm certainly most

certainly not the Zodiac killer
having arrested me,

because
they can't prove a thing.

I'm not the damn Zodiac.

Thank God for our Constitution,

because that says a person
is innocent until proven guilty.

Difficult as and it can be.

[Sound of Crying]

It can be terribly depressing.

And if I deserved any of it,
that would be

something different.
But I don't.

[Reporter] Michael Finney,
Channel seven News tonight.

[Jason] So the issue for me
personally with Arthur

Lee Allen is not the fact

that I don't think
he's a good suspect.

He clearly is not a great person
given he was charged

with child molestation,
as far as I'm aware.

It's the fact that we had
a living victim, a survivor

who was able to be used
at various points to check

the voice of the Zodiac killer
against the voice he heard.

And at no point,

as far as I'm aware, did Brian
Hartnell ever point to Arthur

Lee Allen as sounding exactly
like the man who stabbed him?

So that for me was the
the point where

that for me was the indication

that I don't think Arthur Lee
Allen did it, or at least

he didn't commit the Lake
Berryessa stabbings.

But this is an even bigger
problem,

isn't it, for the police?

Because if not Arthur Lee Allen
after all these years, then who

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[TV Sound]
he was the mad man who called himself the Zodiac killer?

And this is the surviving victim
who looked him

straight in the eye and says
she knows who the killer is.

[Detective]
Kathleen Jones was a woman that was down in central California.

[Kathleen] It was late at night
and left in the evening.

And the car behind me
starting flashing its lights and

bright and dim

and the car pulled up
behind me and the guy got out

and said my back

Wheel was wobbly
[Man] It’s not

on good

[Jason] The man pulled up beside
her car told her that there

was an issue with her wheel.

that it was about to fall off

and that she and her child
should get in the car with him

[Kathleen] When we would come to
any kind of stop

sign, he would slow down.
But he didn't stop.

So I jumped finally

saw a man in the field.

Just wait and see what happens.

No, he could have stopped at
any time and physically

been stronger than I was.

I was like

seven months pregnant and
I had the little kid on my lap.

[Jason]
She was seven months pregnant with an infant child in her arms

and managed to jump from the car

and survive

while it was moving.

Terrifying stuff.

[Reporter] But now one
determined cop says he knows

exactly who the killer is
and where he's hiding.

Doug Buckner has the story.

[Jason] She did offer up a clue
to the investigators, though,

a very, very interesting one.

[Host] He says it's her
eyewitness account

that proves the suspect
is, in fact, the Zodiac.

[TV Host] Detective Harvey Hinds
of Echelon says his analysis

of these cryptic symbols reveals
the Zodiac name is Cain.

[Det. Hinds]
We also have another clue.

He installed another clue in the
in the cryptogram.

It reads, Name Cain or name.

Cain's here.

And he reading
from right to left.

She saw him and put her finger
down on the picture and said

that was him.

And she said, it's
not only my eye is telling me

it's my stomach, too.

[Reporter] Indeed, there is a
man who used the name Cain,

who has a criminal record,
who was born in 1924.

He's an ex mental patient

who fits the
profile of the Zodiac killer.

The man called Cain now lives

in rural northern California,
but he hasn't been arrested.

[Jason]
Later, he would be linked to another crime where Donna Lass

an employee in a hotel
where Cain worked in Lake

Tahoe, went missing
and was never seen again.

And she was seen
last in that area

And a postcard supposedly
from Zodiac, was sent later

on from that area, from Forest
Pines.

[Sheriff]
The limit of my knowledge about the girl at Lake Tahoe,

and we discussed that
at the time

that we were talking during
the investigation of Benelli.

Appears that

She was a nurse, that she got
off duty at a casino up there.

And ostensibly, that's
the last time anybody saw her.

And the similarity between that
and Judith Acaree that Ms.

Acaree was a nurse and

within reason, she got off duty.

She was followed by a fellow
employee to a certain,

you know, location.
And she was never seen again.

[Reporter] I understand
there was also a similarity

in the way
the parked cars were found.

[Sheriff]
The car and again, the girl in Lake Tahoe was apparently found.

And I just learned that today.

It was apparently found
in her parking

stall in front of her apartment
or her cabin

or wherever
she her place of residence was.

And Ms. Acaree’s automobile
was found

in its parking spot
in front of her apartment.

[Jason] And there is a link
between the Riverside case

and the Kathleen Johns case.

And that is the fact
that in the Riverside case,

the killer did actually disable
her Volkswagen Beetle

by removing the distributor coil

and the condenser
so that the car wouldn't start.

And then,

according to a later letter,
if it is to be believed

and according
to police in general,

it seems likely that the killer
offered her help to get to

wherever she was going.

And that's
how we got her in the car.

And this was similar
to the Kathleen Jones case

where he decided
to help with the wheel

but then went and loosened
the wheel.

There was never enough
evidence, though, to either tie

to Zodiac or on Cain in general.

And Cain was never treated
as a official police suspect of

the case In either situation.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

One of the most bizarre

parts of this case, though,
is definitely that call in show

[News Anchor]
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.

[Reporter] Inspector, attorney
Melvin Belli’s office said it

has been contacted by a person
claiming to be the Zodiac.

Have you been able to verify

that the letter received by
his office is authentic?

[Det. Toschi] Yes.

We have, this has been done
by our crime lab.

Basically,
it was a letter written to Mr.

Belli, which was a personal type
letter.

And again,

at this point
of the investigation,

I would not want to comment
on the particular details

of the contents of this letter.

[Reporter]This bizarre situation
began at 2:00 this morning

when the so-called Zodiac
telephoned police headquarters.

He said he was sick,
he needed help

and he wanted to
talk to Belli on television.

All of a scheduled guests

were canceled from the show
on the ABC station KGO.

Belli waited for Zodiac
to call on the private line.

The phone was not tapped.

The killer telephone 12 times.

He spoke very

little with attorney Belli,
trying to draw him out of that.

[Host] Just tell us what’s going
on inside you right now.

[Caller] I have a headache.

[Belli] There Was one moment
when he talked about

killing kids
that I still remember with.

a shiver.

[Caller] I wanna kill those kid

[Reporter] He calls back 11 time

[Belli] how long

have you had those headaches...
Sam?

Been a long time?

[Caller] Since I killed a kid.

[Beli] Just tell us what's going
inside you right now.

[Caller] I have a headaches.

[Belli] Right

Were you in service that
you might have had an injury?

In Service? Did you ever fall

out of a tree or
downstairs or become unconscious

[Caller] I don't know.

[Belli ]You don't remember,

[Reporter]
So no one knows yet.

If they had the Zodiac killer
on the phone,

they'll have witnesses listen
to a tape of the broadcast

to determine that.

But it seems

a solution to the five
Zodiac murders is just

as far away as it was before.

Spencer Michaels, Casey RA News,
San Francisco.

[Jason]
The Supposed Zodiac afterwards even offered to meet up,

but never showed.

[Reporter] Belli, I finally
arranged to meet Zodiac in Daly

City, a suburb south of San
Francisco, to talk in person.

The attorney waited in

an office building,
but Zodiac never showed.

I asked Belli

if he thought the man who called
really was the Zodiac killer.

[Belli] I can’t. Negative,
I can't say.

All I can say is
this man needed help.

This man seemed like a man
who was coming up to a storm or

to a climax, this
very blood curdling thing.

Children kill.

And then sort of an agonized
cut off, enough to turn your

hair whiter than mine.

[Reporter] So inside the thrift

Saint Vincent de Paul, attorney
Melvin Belli

and the San Francisco police
waited for the Zodiac killer.

The man did not show.

So now all we can do is wait.

Perhaps that next phone call
from the man who calls himself

Zodiac who has killed five
says he's going to kill again.

Dick Shoemaker, ABC News,
San Francisco.

[Detective]
Nothing came of that.

We went out to the location
where the meet was to have been.

Mr. Belli was out there.

Mr. Dunbar was out there

and nobody appeared.

[Reporter] Could you tell
us where that was?

[Detective] That was in the
a little out of San Francisco

in the outer
end of the Mission District,

[Reporter] Do you think he reall
the Zodiac?

[Detective] Not necessarily.

I listen to the program.
My opinion my.

For what it's worth,
my my opinion is that

this is no hoax or no prankster.

The man on that show,
I sincerely believe,

has a problem,

has a mental problem,
but he may or may not have been

the so-called Zodiac.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[News Anchor]
I hope you're having lots of fun in trying to catch me.

That's part of the chilling
taunt

from one of the Bay Area's
most notorious serial killers.

Now decoded after 51 years,

[Jason] a major break in
the case came in 2021

when these 340 cipher
was finally cracked.

[Reporter]
This major development in the case comes decades

after that coded message
was sent

to the San Francisco Chronicle
in November of 1969,

and many hope it will help
identify the serial killer.

A coded 340 character message
sent to the San Francisco

Chronicle from the infamous
Zodiac killer of the 1960s

cracked by a group of amateur
code breakers.

In a statement,
the bureau said the FBI is aware

that a cipher attributed to
the Zodiac Killer

was recently solved
by private citizens.

[Samuel]
We we tried several hundred thousand incorrect

of solving the cipher.

And just by chance,
we happened to sort of stumble

upon a fragment of
of how it could be solved.

And using that fragment,
we reverse engineered

the entire solution

and got the entire message out
from the Zodiac.

[Jason]
Sadly, though, there was no name to be found in this cipher.

[Reporter]Fagen said there had
been hope that the killer

would reveal his identity
in one of his coded messages.

[Fagen]
This one didn't do the trick.

[Samuel]
It doesn't reveal his identity.

It doesn't give a lot clues
to his identity.

I think more what it does
is the the method

that he was able to use
to create that that cipher

may help us track down who he is
that the Zodiac was encrypting

is replaced
with multiple symbols.

[Jason] It did, though, confirm
what Brian Cardinal had said

years and years ago
that the voice who called in

to the Jim Dunbar show wasn't
in fact the killer.

And in the cipher it said
it wasn't me on the TV show.

[Bryan] At one point in time,
I was asked to go down

and listen
to a tape of an interview

that had been on the Jim Dunbar
Show.

[Jason]
Hartnell was asked to come to the Jim Dunbar Show studio

and listen to the recordings
of the events of that day

and said that
it wasn't anywhere near

what he had
heard on the day of his attack

and that the cadence wasn't

even close
and that he didn't believe

that man on the phone was the
man who had attacked them.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason] After no new
letters, contact or information

since 1974, police finally
got another break in the case

with a letter sent in
by the supposed Zodiac in 1978.

[Reporter] This letter
from the Zodiac poses

more questions than it answers.

Questions
like Why is he only communicated

twice in the past nine years.

Has he killed in that time?

No clues in the latest letter.

But more importantly,

who is the Zodiac
and where is he?

[Det. Narlow]
Every time the Zodiac would send us a letter.

We were spurred on
because we gleaned

a little bit of intelligence
information

out of every letter
that he sent us.

And we just hope
that we can latch onto one

little thing that might might
lead us to the Zodiac killer.

We knew an awful lot about this
this killer.

[Robert] But in
1978, April 25th, I believe,

we got a letter
that says, I am back with you.

I've never been anywhere else.

You know, I've been with you
all this time.

[Reporter] San Francisco
police displayed a blackboard

with excerpts of the latest
Zodiac letter.

At a news conference last night,

police are convinced
it is authentic.

Deputy San Francisco
Police Chief Glenn D'Amico said

it's the 16th letter
received from the Zodiac killer.

[Jason] However,
there was more to this 1978

letter than meets
the eye

[Det. Narlow]
towards the end.

I don't know

we're getting some
some letters that

turned out not to be authentic
Zodiac letters and

and I believe
the last time we heard from them

with an authenticated
letter was in April of 1974.

[Reporter] For the first time
since the Zodiac case began

nine years ago, Inspector
Toschi is out of it.

Toschi is under fire
for writing phony fan letters

about himself to a newspaper
feature writer Armistead Maupin.

And Maupin today came up with
far more serious charges

that there are similarities
between the letters

Toschi admits writing to Maupin

and the most recent Zodiac
letter of last April.

[Jason] And that was it.

Toschi was off the case
and close to losing his career

after being one of the most
famous detectives

only a decade earlier.

[Reporter]
Toschi admits writing the fan letters to Maupin,

but vigorously denies

having anything to do
with the letters

purporting to come
from the killer known as Zodiac.

Toschi was low profile
at the Hall of Justice today.

He had been officially
reprimanded over the fan letters

by being transferred
from the homicide detail

to the pawn shop detail,

and an official investigation
is underway on any connection

he might have
with the Zodiac letters.

Thus far,
the experts can't agree

on the authenticity of the last
letter from the Zodiac.

Right now, Toschi has
admitted to nothing

more than being
guilty of an indiscretion.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[Jason]
As technology moved forward,

the case
continued on in the background

and investigators struggled
to find more on more evidence.

Thankfully, though,

technology also got better
and they had more DNA out there

to either put more pressure
on certain suspects

or completely
clear them from their list.

[TV Host] Careful as he was,
it's unlikely that 33 ago

Zodiac would worry about
leaving behind a genetic trail.

Could this tiny strand bare
Zodiac's DNA fingerprint?

She examines it.

But again, no luck.

[Reporter]
From all of your investigations, what can you tell us

about the Zodiac?

[Handwriting Specialist]
Not a great deal.

He's not an unintelligent man
by a long shot.

His paragraph in his phrasing,
his punctuation is very good.

I'm sure he has deliberately
misspelled words in the attempt

to lead us to believe
that he's illiterate. But

in so doing.

Why he’s...

led us to thepoint that we
believe just the opposite.

[Jason]
And I think that after the Golden State killer was caught

in 2021, investigators had
more hope than ever

that they could potentially
do the same thing with Zodiac

and catch him
while he was alive.

[News Anchor]
That bombshell arrest,

that former police officer
who authorities say

went on a reign of terror
for so many years.

The numbers, as I mentioned,
are simply staggering at.

Least 12 murders, 45 rapes.

They say this is their man,

Joseph D'Angelo, now
72, arrested outside his home.

They surprised him.

He spent years as a California
police officer.

He'd been married.

[Reporter] Law enforcement
now identifying 72 year old

Joseph James D'Angelo
as the Golden State killer.

But D'Angelo,
not a suspect until days ago

when they got a break.
They say cutting edge

DNA testing
allowed them to make a match.

[Jason] Now, though, in 2023,
as each year passes by, becomes

less and less likely that
they'll catch this man alive.

[Ominous Droning Sound]

[News Anchor] There may now
be a break in this case, though.

A nonprofit group claims

that it has identified
the Zodiac killer.

[Reporter]
A group of Independent cold case investigators claims

they have solved

the more than 50 year old
mystery of the Zodiac killer.

It is made up of former FBI
agents, military officials

and forensic investigators
from all across the country.

And they say they're confident
they have solved this mystery.

[Jason] The case now,
though, might finally be closer

to being solved than it ever
has before.

[Investigator] By going to the
library that simple and going through

Bay Area phonebooks
that put him in the Bay Area

at the right times
and there was just no way

you could get around it
that it wasn't this person.

Everything matched up,
including stuff

that wasn't public,
that we had kind of found

and talked

[Reporter]
the long unsolved Zodiac killer case

and a high profile announcement.

We're putting a name
to the suspect's face. It's

no surprise for this Sacramento
investigator and attorney.

The group says Post

had scars on his forehead
from a car crash

that matched scars
on a sketch of the Zodiac.

[Cold Case Investigator]
That is irrefutable.

That Is a mark. That's the same.

It's on him all the way
to his death at 80 years old.

[Reporter] The case breakers
point to Gary Post, an Air Force

veteran and house painter
who died in 2018.

[Cold Case Investigator]
We have six people that he told

towards his last years
that he was the Zodiac.

[Reporter] The group says
evidence like a shoe

match, court affidavits matching
facial features and a clue

that the killer hid his name in
those ciphers proves their I.D.

[Cold Case Investigator]
His name is Post.

He ended it with the stamp

and they couldn't
figure out his last name.

He cleverly used
the postal markings

as Gary Francis...stamp...Poste.

[Reporter] And it's more
than just this little riddle

or the code that was sent
to the San Francisco Chronicle.

They have the scars
apparently on Poste

forehead that match that
drawing of the Zodiac killer.

And they've even gone so far
as to interview Poste’s neighbor

who says that she believed
that Poste was the Zodiac killer

So they've done
an outstanding job.

And it's interesting at first.

Obviously,
we dealt with Bob Durst

after years
and now more than 50 years,

we're getting close to
identifying the Zodiac killer.

Obviously, he's passed if
it is Poste.

He's not going to face
the same justice that Bob Durst.

[Cold Case Investigator]
It's a good feeling.

But there was a bit of,
you know, sadness to it

that we actually
when he was still alive,

we're talking to individuals
in law enforcement about,

you know, we were confident
it was him.

[Reporter]
Sacramento attorney Mark Reichel and his longtime investigator,

John Kennedy, named Gary Poste
as the likely Zodiac killer

years ago after their own
lengthy investigation.

[Cold Case Investigator]
This is the radar station where he worked.

[Reporter]
Kennedy showed me the digital files of his own

Zodiac Killer investigation tied
to Gary Post compiling records

where he was stationed
in the Air Force

before the Zodiac Killer
spree in the fifties.

[Cold Case Investigator]
And in these places,

there were encrypted messages
being sent and received

[Reporter]
and where Post may have picked up a knack for codes.

Kennedy also found a news
clipping of a deadly car

crash Poste was involved in
just outside the base.

So Mark Reichel
and John Kennedy,

While they believe that Poste is
in fact the Zodiac killer.

They do acknowledge
that the evidence that they have

is circumstantial.

They look forward to the day
that science will prove

them right.

[Cold Case Investigator]
An Expert like myself who has

had contact with members
within the bureau that said that

since 2016, Gary
Francis Post was their suspect.

[Jason] They will be releasing

this evidence
if and when the FBI confirms

whether or not
they are accurate,

using the database of evidence
that the FBI has on this case.

[Reporter]
Some aren't convinced.

[Tom]
I woke up this morning.

I really thought it was
April 1st.

[Reporter]
Tom Voight of ZodiacKiller.com calls the claims

hot garbage and says
the theories presented are thin.

[Fagan]
Who are we to say yay or nay?

[Reporter]
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan

has been covering
the Zodiac case for years.

He says he's not so sure
Post is the right guy.

[Fagan] You know,
I got an email two weeks ago

saying that they found Herb
Caen's name in the anagram.

So Herb Caen must be the Zodiac.

Before that,
it was Charlie Manson.

[Reporter]
Back in December,

the FBI confirmed
that the Zodiac cipher

had been cracked by code
breakers.

His message said in part,
I hope you're having lots of fun

and trying to catch me, and I'm
not afraid of the gas chamber.

Now, we did reach out to the San

Francisco Police Department
and the FBI,

and they both told me
that this case remains open.

They have not confirmed
the theory

presented by the case
breakers today.

So at least for now,
the mystery continues.

[Jason]
Until then, we can only ponder.

But I for one

have always been of the opinion
that this is

most likely a gun for hire type.

A man who was hired

to commit murders
on the behalf of others and.

He cleverly used the letters
to make

this look like a serial killer
instead of a gun for hire.

[Reporter]
The San Francisco police say the Zodiac case is still open,

but it's not actively
under investigation.

In fact,

many of the files in the case
have been stored in Sacramento

and the original detectives
in the case every time.

[Jason] And I think given that
that's been my opinion on it

that, makes the idea of Poste
who was a house painter

even more poetic.

[Sad Orchestral Outro Music]