WEBVTT - The Most Dangerous Game [3] 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.239 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:07.080 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.960 and do not necessarily represent those of iHeartMedia, How Stuff Works, 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:11.960 or its employees. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.800 For law enforcement, every homicide case is a puzzle, some 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:21.000 more difficult than others. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.200 Two hundred pieces versus two hundred thousands. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.720 The Zodiac killer took the idea of a puzzle quite literally, 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.080 forcing everyone to play his little game. This may be 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.479 with the Zodiac is known for best codes and taunting 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.400 letters to press and police, But would there be any 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:40.440 answers to his riddle? 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:42.199 Any content to his code? 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.400 Was all this affront a powerplay and not worth the 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.239 attention he so desperately sought That was left up to 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:50.760 the press. 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:51.960 Game on. 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.760 A man in a match, robbed, tied, and stab them, 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:01.480 leaving them for. 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:06.200 Damn subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:07.560 a double murder. 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.479 I did it a man who wore a medieval style 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.520 executioners hood, carried a knife and gun and intended to 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:16.400 use them. 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.240 They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.399 I'm not the damn Zodiac. 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.160 Who is the Zodiac? And where is he. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.440 From iHeartRadio, Helstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:32.720 This is Monster, the Zodiac Killer. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.399 When he committed the murders on Lake Kerman Road, he 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.680 didn't make any effort to communicate with the media or 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.520 take responsibility for it, but there was a lot of 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.000 media attention around it. And then when he struck again 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.880 in July of nineteen sixty nine, there was enormous media coverage, 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.960 largely because of the phone call he made afterwards where 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.480 he took credit for that crime and the murders on 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:56.400 Lake Kerman Road. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.320 If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway, 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.480 you'll kids in a brown car. They were shot with 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.240 a nine milimeter luger. I also killed those kids last year. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.520 So now he's created this sensational story that there's a 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.320 psychotic killer out there, a serial killer who's responsible for 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.440 two crimes, not just one. Twenty six days later is 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.440 when I get the first Zodiac letters. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.959 A strange letter arrives at the offices of three Northern 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:28.560 California newspapers. 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.000 He's created a whole other game. 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:31.320 Now. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.680 On July thirty first, nineteen sixty nine, the zodiaccent envelopes 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.079 to three Bay area newspapers. Each envelope included two sheets, 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.960 a handwritten letter, and one third of a three part 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.960 coded message known as a cryptogram or a cipher. This 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.760 coded message is very important to the case, but let's 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.600 focus on the letter first. Duffy Jennings was working at 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.000 the San Francisco Chronicle when the first or arrived. 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.959 I'll never forget my first day walking into the Chronicle. 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.440 The day before, I had come in to do an interview, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:07.920 but it was in the morning, and there's not a 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.560 lot of activity, you know, mostly activity in the morning papers, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.280 late afternoon. But when I came in to start work 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.400 the next afternoon, I think it was probably two o'clock. 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.200 It was equivalent the first time I walked into the 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.160 Yankee Stadium and saw that grass, and everybody talks about 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:26.160 that first experience overwhelming. It is the majesty of it. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:32.520 And that's what I sensed at the Chronicle. It was 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:37.360 total chaos. Desks were disheveled and crowded with papers, and 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.400 there was stuff everywhere, and people were smoking. I could 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:46.600 smell pencil shavings, glue, printers, ink, lots of people talking 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.280 loudly and guys yelling copy and guys at the desk 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:55.600 yelling first edition. It was just a typical day. But 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.080 that's how it was every afternoon. The closer I got 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.080 to five o'clock, people were on deadline. Editors were yelling, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.280 you need to explain this, or rewrite this, or you know, 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.280 whatever it was, And I was just captivated. But I 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.000 was mesmerized by this. It was just kind of an 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:16.200 overwhelming sensory experience to be in and around this environment. 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.280 I would come in and wait to be assigned to 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:30.360 cover something. When the first letter came, I was among 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:34.720 the copy boys sorting mail. The first letter didn't cause 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.440 a lot of consternation in the sense that nobody knew 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.680 quite what to make of it. Time. It was viewed 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.160 really as here's a nutcase playing games and say if 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:44.480 you can guess what this is. 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.880 Here's a portion of the first letter the Zodiac sent 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:50.680 to the San Francisco Chronicle. 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.839 Dear editor, this is the murderer of the two teenagers 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.560 last Christmas at Lake Herman and the girl on the 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.159 fourth of July near the off course in Vallejo. Here 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.760 is part of a cipher. The other two parts of 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.880 this cipher are being mailed to the editors of the 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:11.040 Vallejo Times and San Francisco Examiner. I want you to 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:13.040 print ae cipher on the front page of your paper. 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.720 In this cipher is my identity. If you do not 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.039 printice by the afternoon of Friday, first of August, I 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.320 will go on a kill rampage Friday night. I will 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.719 cruise around all weekend, killing lone people in the night, 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:28.760 then move on to kill again. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.800 The letter was scrawled in blue felt tip pen. The 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.039 handwriting was sloppy and cramped, and it was full of misspellings, 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:41.279 like Christmas with two s's at the end. The style 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.520 of this writing seemed a strange contrast to the other sheet, 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.640 an orderly grid of letters and symbols that the killer 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.560 said contained his true identity. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.320 When the first letters arrived, that was his introduction to 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.920 the world. This is who I am. I am the murderer, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.320 so I'm may be taken seriously. I'm a very dangerous person, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.400 and if you don't do what I tell you to do, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:07.799 there will be real consequences. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.120 The newspapers weren't sure if the letter came from the killer, 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.120 and even if it did, should they publish it. On 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.599 the one hand, you want to take the threat seriously. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.839 On the other it's like bargaining with terrorists or printing 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.400 a mass shooter's manifesto. Do you really want to reward 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.359 a killer with attention and give them a platform to 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.640 spread more fear. Two other papers, the San Francisco Examiner 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.599 in the Vallejo Times, received nearly identical letters but different 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.360 parts of the code, so the papers had to decide 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.560 together whether or not to publish. 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:46.080 When there's any kind of controversy or question about whether 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.440 to publish things like this, particularly around threats, My guess 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.479 is that we talked to the other newspapers and said, 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:54.960 are you going to publish your third of the cryptogram? 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.440 And everybody said, yes, we will. I mean, it's a 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.400 news story when a killer takes credit publicly for what 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.800 he's done and then taunts you or the police to 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:15.080 solve a puzzle. But even that wasn't up front page story. 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.240 Two days later, on Saturday, August second, the Chronicle ran 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.800 the story coded Clue in Murders with a reproduction of 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.520 the cipher. The Valejo police chief was quoted as saying, 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.920 we're not satisfied the letter was written by the murderer, 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.720 and he urged whoever wrote the letter to prove he 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.120 was the killer by sending more details, perhaps trying to 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:41.080 trick the Zodiac into sending something self incriminating. The chief 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:45.280 also warned Vallejo residents to avoid lonely places. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.120 It wasn't until the police asked, would you send another 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.920 letter with more details that the next letter came and said, 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.320 this is the Zodiac speaking. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.320 On August fourth, nineteen sixty nine, just two days after 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.800 the chronicle story, a new letter arrived with the same 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:19.440 slanted handwriting. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:26.200 Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking in answer to 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.520 your asking for more details about the good times I've 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.640 had in Vallejo. I shall be very happy to supply 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:36.240 even more material. By the way, are the police having 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:36.920 a good time. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.280 With the code? 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.720 If not, tell them to cheer up. When they do 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:48.320 crack it, they will have me last Christmas. In that episode, 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:50.400 the police were wondering as to how I could shoot 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.920 and hit my victims in the dark. They did not 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.839 only state this, but implied this by saying it was 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.640 a well lit night and I could see the silhouettes 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:04.160 on the horizon. Bullshit. That area is surrounded by high 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.640 hills and trees. What I did was tape a small 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.520 pencil flashlight to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:13.720 you'll see a black or dark spot in the center 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.080 of the circle of light. One taped to a gun barrel. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:19.840 The bullet will strike exactly in the center of the 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.960 black dot in the light. All I had to do 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.040 was spray them is if it was a water hose. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.880 I was not happy to see that I did not 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:31.280 get front page coverage. 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.240 When he sends that second letter, now he's the Zodiac killer. 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.640 He has chosen his own name, his own moniker. And 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.199 although a lot of serial killers throughout history have nicknames, 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.760 most don't choose their nicknames for themselves. So that name 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.560 had some meaning to him that we don't know. But 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.760 if you look at the handwriting in the Zodiac letters, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.560 especially the ones that accompany the cipher, the handwriting looks 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.760 very sloppy. It looks kind of rushed and just natural handwriting, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.360 like I just fired off this letter. Then you look 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.080 at the cipher, it's very clean and very careful. Each 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.480 part consisted of a block of symbols, letters from the 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.040 English language, symbols from astrology and other things, you know, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:26.320 half filled circles backwards letters. They're tidy and then straight rows. 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.960 He might have used some sort of graphing paper underneath 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:31.640 when he was doing it to make sure of that, 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.800 which says something in and of itself about the killer 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.439 that tells you right there, this was very. 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:38.080 Important to him. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.200 It was more important than the letter. And when you 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.760 look at the cipher itself, it's chilling just to look 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.480 at it, because you know there's something in it, right, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.840 But once you realize what's in it, it's even more frightening. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.680 If he just wanted to brag about what he did, 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:56.880 he could do that, and he did in that letter. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.840 The cipher is another element of this game he's playing. 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.920 It's not just I'm somebody who has to be taken seriously. 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:09.320 I'm dangerous. It's also I'm really clever, and I have 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.960 something else I want to say. If you want to 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.120 know who I am, you want to understand what I 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:15.960 did and why I do what I do, You're gonna 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:17.600 have to work for it. I'm not going to give 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:18.559 you everything. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.000 The police sent the three parts cipher to the nearby 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.200 Mare Island Naval Shipyard. There, navy code breakers rushed to 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.559 crack the Killer's code and to discover the Zodiac's true 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.760 identity before he killed again. 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.360 On The published codes stopped hundreds of amateur cryptographers and 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:40.880 several intelligence agencies. 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.040 But surprisingly it was actually two amateurs who ended up 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.240 solving it. A school teacher and his wife, Don and 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.120 Betty Harden, saw the code in the newspaper and just 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.240 decided to give it a shot. Tom Voyd, who runs 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.320 the website Zodiac killer dot com, recorded the Harden's daughter, Leslie, 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:58.800 at a two thousand and eight conference. 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.319 Began on a Sunday morning fairly early, went on into 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.439 the afternoon, into the evening, and through the night. They 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.760 really became, in my eyes, the perfect code breaking team, 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.520 because my dad had the scientific approach and very logical practices, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:18.680 and my mother had some. 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.839 Intuition that led them in the direction that they needed 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.760 to go. My father at some point recognized that he 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:26.280 had to go to work the next morning, and when 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:26.680 he went. 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:26.760 To that. 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.120 Not so my mother. She did not sleep and ate 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.439 very little. The next morning, he got up and went 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:36.520 off to work. 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.720 He was a school teacher, came back home and was 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.280 probably mildly surprised to find that there was no dinner 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:44.680 and nothing at all happened in the kitchen. 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.600 She sat in the chair and he stood behind her. 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.240 And what really captured my attention for that moment was 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.160 not the code spread out in front of them at all. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:59.360 It was the look of love on my father's face 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.520 as he paid over her. 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:09.840 And Don Harden. He had a boyhood interest in codes. 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.800 You know, if it wasn't for Betty's persistence, they wouldn't 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:14.959 have finished it. 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:20.480 That's David Auranjak, a programmer and amateur cryptographer. He's spent 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.600 the last decade fascinated by the Zodiacs codes. 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.880 The first cipher was a simple substitution cipher, basically a 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.680 simple way to hide a message. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.200 Essentially, you substitute each letter with a different letter. So 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.800 to make a cipher for the word kill, you might 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.960 substitute J for K, H for I, and b's for 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.679 both l's. And if you know which letters you substituted, 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:50.280 you can then decode JHBB back to kill. But without 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.960 knowing which letters were substituted, how do you crack that code? 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.160 The Hardens started by doing what's called a frequency analysis. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.880 You count up all the letters and how many times 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.040 they happen. One of the things about English is that 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.400 certain letters appear more often than others. In particular, the 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.440 letter E is the most frequently occurring letter in the 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.400 English language, and so you can use that information to 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.680 your advantage when you're looking at a ciphertext. If you 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:20.000 find that, say, the letter V is happening a lot 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.640 more often than the other letters, then there's a good 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.920 chance that it stands for the letter E. But the 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.280 way the Zodiac made it harder and the first cipher 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.680 was he would take a common letter like E, and 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.760 instead of assigning one ciphertext letter to it, he assigned 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:35.920 seven seven different symbols. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.600 That's why the Zodiac used backwards letters in astrological symbols 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.040 to make his code harder to crack. Undaunted, the Harden's 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.480 next tried what's called cribbing, plugging specific words into the puzzle. 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.840 On a simpler cryptogram, you could try to figure out 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:53.920 short words first. 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.240 If the ciphertext has spaces in it, then you know 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.280 that certain words are likely to happen. For instance, if 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.920 you see a word that only has one letter, then 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.440 there's only two words that it can be A and I. 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:09.200 But in the first side for text, he did not 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.480 use word spaces, so that made it a little harder 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:12.040 to solve. 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.160 Still, even without the spaces, you can try and guess 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.960 if certain groups of symbols represent common words. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.240 If you have a right guess and you plug it 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.360 in and you do the substitutions, other parts of the 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.680 plaintext will come out. So you'll see fragments of other 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.240 words like thhe. Well, there's a lot of words to 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.000 start with THG, so you might be onto something. And 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.840 if you made a bad guess, then those fragments will 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.840 look like nonsense. There'll be letters that are next to 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.600 each other that wouldn't really be next to each other ZQR. 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.240 That guess is probably wrong. And Betty is attributed to 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.440 the insight of thinking that he would start it by 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.400 talking about himself and so it would start with the 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.160 letter I, and that he would talk about his crime, 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:59.360 so he would mention killing. And those intuitions also came 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.000 from patterns that they observed in the ciphertext. They found 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.480 symbols that were repeating next to each other. Doing a 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.360 little research, they found, well, the most common doubled letter 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.840 in English is LL, and you know LLL appears in. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:16.440 A lot of words all. 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.280 Will and kill, and so that was a good guess 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.800 on their part, because kill does appear in the message. 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.000 So they tried to plug in those words in different 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.840 places and eventually found other patterns, and then, through trial 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.760 and error, were able to crack the code. 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.040 Or at least almost crack the code. At the very 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.720 end of the message was a string of letters that 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.960 so far no one has been able to figure. 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:49.040 Out the remaining eighteen symbols. It's just gibberish sequence of 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.800 letters that doesn't make any sense. Zodiac was claiming that 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.520 his identity was in the message, but when you decode 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.080 it with the Harden's key, it doesn't say anything about 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.720 his identity. But since the last eighteen are still undercoded, 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.920 that's led to a lot of people thinking, well, maybe 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.719 he did something else. There's some other process that is 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.360 different than the key for the rest of the message, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.199 and there might be another message in there. Maybe he 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.440 really did put his identity in there and it's hidden somehow, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.880 and those last eighteen and we just haven't figured it out. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.240 Leslie, the Harden's daughter, remembers waking up in the middle 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.439 of the night after her parents cracked the code. 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:34.040 Once the message became clear, it was a very frightening message. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:39.679 I do recall being in my room, coming in and 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:46.000 out of sleep, mostly nightmares and scary images, because the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.800 words that were floating down the hallway were frightening words. 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:56.120 Kill dangerous animal. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.000 This is the message that was hidden in the Zodia 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:01.360 Acts three parts cipher. 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.280 I like killing people because it is so much fun. 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.600 It is more fun than killing weld game in the forest, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:16.080 because man is the most dangerous animal of all. To 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.080 kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.040 even better than getting your rocks off with a girl. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.040 The best part of it is that when I die, 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.720 I'll be reborn in paradise and all that I have 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:36.639 killed will become my slaves. I will not give you 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.320 my name because you will try to slow down or 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:52.000 stop my collection of slaves for my afterlife. 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.000 All of a sudden, what looks like a message, and 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.800 the question at hand was what do we do now? 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.000 They decided that they would do what the paper suggested. 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.040 The paper had said, I think you might have a solution. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:08.240 Call this number. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.080 So they did. But once they did, it got a 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:13.200 whole lot more interesting. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.560 The decoded message didn't reveal the Zodiac's true identity, as 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.639 he had promised, but it did give clues as to 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:31.840 who the zodiac might be. 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.600 In the Zodiac Seiphered message, he referred to man as 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.560 the most dangerous animal of all, which some people have 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.879 interpreted as a reference to the book and or the 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.480 movie The Most Dangerous Game. A lot of us who 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.520 are older, we had to read that story in high school. 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.040 And if you were a teenager who read that in 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.920 high school and you were harboring some sort of violent fantasies, 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.160 then you're not sympathizing with the victims the way most 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.119 of us do. When you read that story, do you 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.919 think about being the hunter Count Tsarov who lives on 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:13.560 this island where he has constructed things designed to make 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.040 ships crash on the shore so that people will be 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:18.320 deserted on this island. 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:20.600 I'm not trying to intrude, but I'm in sort of 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:22.880 a jam. Are you the owner here? Yes? 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:24.600 I am Count Zubtolf. 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.320 And of course he pretends to be a gracious host 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.560 and invites them to stay and everything. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.639 God made some in kings, some big us me he 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:35.040 made a. 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.480 Hunter, only for them to learn that he really intends 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:39.280 to hunt. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.480 Them like animals here on my island. 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.639 I hunt the Most Dangerous Game. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.920 You write me take half drowned men from ships you 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:50.959 wrecked and drive them out to be hunted. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:56.359 Only after the keel does man know the true extosial. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:01.879 Love Count Tzarov obviously the name starts with the letter Z. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.919 He wears a costume of sorts, and he stalks his 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.159 victims like prey. The whole story is structured around the 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:17.159 idea that killing is sort of an intellectual exercise, that 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.800 it's sort of a right of man to hunt another 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.399 human being, that killing is part of human nature, and 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.399 the Zodiac may have been very drawn to a story 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.880 with those elements. He may have decided to emulate certain 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:33.760 aspects of Count Zaroff. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:39.720 And maybe that might explain the difference between those first 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.600 two attacks the Bliss create shootings at night. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.320 After that, it's not the same kind of crime because 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.560 in the story The Most Dangerous Game, Count Zarov doesn't 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.359 come out saying I'm going to kill you. He makes 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.080 you think that he's a friendly person. He wants you 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.200 to participate in his game. He needs you to feel 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.080 safe so that when you find out that you're no 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.119 longer safe, he can see that fear in you and 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.240 that fearrest part of the hunt, So I think with 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.199 the Zodiac there may have been some element of that 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.200 that he decided it's not enough for me to just 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:17.720 shoot these people. I need to talk to them. I 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:19.880 need to look in their eyes and see them going, oh, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.440 everything's okay now, and then look in their eyes when 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.840 I flip on them and they find out that this 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.920 is not what they thought and that their lives. 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:29.280 Are at statement. 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.199 Why did the Zodiac quote the villain from what at 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.480 the time was almost a fifty year old story. Maybe 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.399 it's how he saw himself a movie villain playing with 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:45.040 his victims. There were other possible clues about the Zodiac's 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.399 identity hidden in the cipher, such as this line, to 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.399 kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.000 even better than getting your rocks off. 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:55.359 With a girl. 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.399 Psychiatrists at the time speculate that this line reflected the 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:05.119 killer's feelings of sexual inadequacy, but it may have also 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.480 been literal. The Zodiac may be a sadist, someone who 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:13.480 feels excitement or pleasure from inflicting pain. To learn more 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:18.679