Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily represent those of iHeartMedia, how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: or its employees. In earlier episodes of Monster, we've mentioned
Speaker 1: all the witnesses that might be able to identify the
Speaker 1: Zodiac killer, Michael Majeaux, the young man who survived the
Speaker 1: attack at Blue Rock Springs, Brian Hartnell, the survivor of
Speaker 1: the knife attack at Lake Barriessa, and SFPD officer Don
Speaker 1: Fouk that encountered the Zodiac fleeing the Paulstein murder scene.
Speaker 1: A combination of the physical descriptions from these brief encounters
Speaker 1: were used to create the infamous police sketch you've probably
Speaker 1: seen floating around the internet. But in nineteen seventy, there
Speaker 1: was another possible witness that had the best chance yet
Speaker 1: of identifying the Zodiac Kathleen Johns.
Speaker 2: In March of nineteen seventy, a young woman claimed that
Speaker 2: she had been driving along a freeway and a vehicle
Speaker 2: pulled up alongside her, and the man inside gestured towards
Speaker 2: her vehicle as if there was something wrong.
Speaker 3: Was there any any sensation to your vehicle that there
Speaker 3: was something wrong with your vehicle while you're driving.
Speaker 4: You know, it was an old Wrangley car. Anything could
Speaker 4: have been wrong. The back of lights would have been out,
Speaker 4: anything could have been wrong with it.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't it was running fire.
Speaker 2: So she pulled over, and according to the story, the
Speaker 2: man pulled over and said, hey, your tires loose. I'll
Speaker 2: tighten it for you.
Speaker 4: So he went back and got a tire iron, came back,
Speaker 4: went to the back, settled around, stopped again at the
Speaker 4: window and said.
Speaker 6: It's okay.
Speaker 4: You know her, it should be okay.
Speaker 2: What he did was actually loosen the tire and.
Speaker 4: I'll go too far on the year across the street,
Speaker 4: not even.
Speaker 5: And the tire fell off.
Speaker 2: That gave him a perfect opportunity to pretend to be
Speaker 2: the good Samaritan and offer her a ride.
Speaker 3: A man in a mask robbed, tied, and stabbed them,
Speaker 3: leaving them for dead.
Speaker 7: Subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no a
Speaker 7: double murder.
Speaker 6: I did it.
Speaker 3: A man who wore a medieval style executioner's hood, carried
Speaker 3: a knife and gun and intended to use them.
Speaker 8: They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing.
Speaker 8: I'm not the damn Zodiac?
Speaker 3: Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 9: iHeartRadio, Houstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster the
Speaker 9: Zodiac Killer. In this episode of Monster, we're going to
Speaker 9: hit rewind and talk about some things you've likely never
Speaker 9: heard before. Until the early nineteen seventies, everyone believed the
Speaker 9: first Zodiac killing was in nineteen sixty eight, the murder
Speaker 9: of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday in Benetia. But
Speaker 9: after a while, investigators realized that the Zodiac's trail might
Speaker 9: go back a few more years. Today, as the Zodiac
Speaker 9: case passes the fifty year anniversary without any arrests, without
Speaker 9: any answers, we're taking the opportunity to examine a few
Speaker 9: earlier unsolved cases, including the case of Kathleen John's.
Speaker 1: On March twenty second, nineteen seventy, Kathleen Johns and her
Speaker 1: infant daughter Jennifer had a terrifying experience on a dark
Speaker 1: and desolate highway. After more than two decades of silence,
Speaker 1: Kathleen finally spoke of this incident.
Speaker 4: I had more sense than to stop on this dark road.
Speaker 4: You know, I wanted to get where there was one
Speaker 4: night when I could hope they hurt. But when I
Speaker 4: got onto the freeway where I could see a gap
Speaker 4: the enemy, I stopped on the sidelok.
Speaker 1: Two men interviewed Kathleen at a diner in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: We've come into possession of a rare copy of this interview.
Speaker 1: Kathleen John's account of that evening is one of the
Speaker 1: many unsolved cases that some believe to be the work
Speaker 1: of the Zodiac.
Speaker 2: Kathleen Johns was pregnant at the time, and she also
Speaker 2: had her infant daughter with her. That's something that the
Speaker 2: person may not have known when he was driving alongside
Speaker 2: that car and trying to get her to pull over,
Speaker 2: and he may not have realized that until the last moment,
Speaker 2: when he had already offered her a ride and she
Speaker 2: gets out of the car with her stomach and her baby.
Speaker 2: It's possible that at that moment the person reconsidered what
Speaker 2: they were doing and may have decided, well, I was
Speaker 2: intending to kill this person, but now I know she's
Speaker 2: pregnant and she's got a baby with her, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure I really want to go through with it.
Speaker 5: Okay, let me ask you this why did you stop
Speaker 5: your car?
Speaker 4: Well, I wanted to see what when they was wrong,
Speaker 4: but you know, I wanted to get word of it
Speaker 4: was more night in lahaw I could see a gas station.
Speaker 2: We don't know for sure what happened, but we do
Speaker 2: know that Kathleen John's got in the car with that
Speaker 2: individual and that he appeared to be driving aimlessly away
Speaker 2: from gas station. He promised to take her to and
Speaker 2: at a certain point she became suspicious.
Speaker 7: Now you know he said to you that he was
Speaker 7: going to kill you? Did he utter that or infer
Speaker 7: that again?
Speaker 4: Many times? In this monotone, no feeling, no looking at me,
Speaker 4: driving on.
Speaker 2: In her earlier statements, it indicated that he did not
Speaker 2: threaten her, but later on she claimed that he said
Speaker 2: that he was going to kill her and throw the
Speaker 2: baby out the window.
Speaker 4: Did he change the wording or was it always you
Speaker 4: know you're gonna die. You know I'm going to kill
Speaker 4: you and throw that baby out?
Speaker 3: How many times did he ask you to throw Jennifer off?
Speaker 4: Quite a few? I mean you don't have a dozen.
Speaker 4: We were out there, seemed to go for a long time.
Speaker 2: Kathleen became very concerned. She asked him at a certain point,
Speaker 2: do you always go around helping people like this? And
Speaker 2: she said that he replied by saying, when I'm through
Speaker 2: with him, they don't need help, or something to that effect.
Speaker 2: This scared her enough that after I guess about two hours,
Speaker 2: she decided that the next time he slowed down that
Speaker 2: she was going to jump out. So she seized the
Speaker 2: first opportunity that came along. She grabbed your child, jumped out,
Speaker 2: ran away.
Speaker 4: When I bailed, he got out to you like car
Speaker 4: like Kemon hadn't that vineyards everywhere, because he was yelling.
Speaker 6: Come back here.
Speaker 2: According to various reports, he either screamed at her from
Speaker 2: the car or got out of the car and tried
Speaker 2: to find her, But then another vehicle pulled up and
Speaker 2: he apparently got spooked and drove away. She got into
Speaker 2: the car with that individual, and that person took her
Speaker 2: to the nearby police department, where she was describing what happened.
Speaker 2: And while she was in the course of giving her
Speaker 2: story to police, she saw a composite sketch of the
Speaker 2: Zodiac killer and said, that's the guy who did this.
Speaker 2: Shortly after that, which I believe four months later, another
Speaker 2: Zodiac let her arrived.
Speaker 10: This is the Zodiac speaking. I am rather unhappy because
Speaker 10: you people will not wear some Zodiac buttons. So I
Speaker 10: now have a little list, starting with a woman and
Speaker 10: her baby that I gave a rather interesting ride for
Speaker 10: a couple hours one evening a few months back that
Speaker 10: ended in my burning her car where I found them
Speaker 10: signed Zodiac.
Speaker 2: Kathleen John's station wagon was burned. We don't know whether
Speaker 2: or not the killer did that. We don't know whether
Speaker 2: or not the person who abducted her was actually the Zodiac.
Speaker 2: And maybe the Zodiac was just taking credit for it
Speaker 2: because that's what the media was saying. It's possible that
Speaker 2: the Zodiac liked to create confusion and thought he would
Speaker 2: benefit from that. So if he did abduct Kathleen John's
Speaker 2: and he took the credit for it, then he was
Speaker 2: just acknowledging his involvement as already reported by the media.
Speaker 2: If he wasn't involved and he decided to take credit
Speaker 2: for it because people were already accusing him of that,
Speaker 2: that tells you something about him too, that he thought, well,
Speaker 2: this just adds to my image. It makes me look
Speaker 2: all the more scary. And at the same time, if
Speaker 2: it wasn't him, what happens. When Kathleen Johns identifies the
Speaker 2: person or describes that person, it's not him, right, So
Speaker 2: that just creates more confusion. If the Zodiac was not
Speaker 2: responsible for that crime, he certainly enjoyed exploiting it because
Speaker 2: it added and it patted his resume. So in the end,
Speaker 2: Kathleen Johns is listed as a suspected Zodiac victim. But
Speaker 2: since she's also passed away and there was no solid evidence,
Speaker 2: I don't think we'll ever be able to answer that question.
Speaker 1: Her interview was recorded in nineteen ninety eight, nearly twenty
Speaker 1: eight years after her encounter. By this time, Kathleen's name
Speaker 1: had changed to Smith.
Speaker 7: On January one, nineteen ninety eight, meeting with Kathy Smith,
Speaker 7: Howard Davis is also here present.
Speaker 5: I hope, Kathy, that this comes out with all.
Speaker 8: Of the background noise and everything.
Speaker 4: But I'm going to ask.
Speaker 5: You to kind of speak up a little bit, if
Speaker 5: you would.
Speaker 1: Even after so much time had passed, Kathleen still remembered
Speaker 1: the incident vividly.
Speaker 2: Did you have any sense at all that views behind you?
Speaker 4: There was the car behind me and.
Speaker 5: Kept watching his light. I had always hoped to be
Speaker 5: able to talk to Kathleen and we were fortune to
Speaker 5: talk from before she passed away.
Speaker 1: This is Howard Davis, one of the men who interviewed Kathleen.
Speaker 5: He had secured an interview with Kathleen at a local Dennis.
Speaker 5: When we interviewed Kathleen for a while and then John,
Speaker 5: a reporter went out for battery. We really just got
Speaker 5: the basics from her. We just went through the interview.
Speaker 5: He really didn't get much, but we did get some
Speaker 5: information that no one had heard about before. I don't
Speaker 5: think there were any other interviews after that.
Speaker 1: Howard Davis wholeheartedly believes that Kathleen encountered the Zodiac that day.
Speaker 1: Kathleen's description of her abductor closely resembled other eyewitness descriptions
Speaker 1: of the Zodiac.
Speaker 5: He was wearing the bell bottom pants, the naval appearance,
Speaker 5: military dress shoes, military dress shoes. Footprints were found at
Speaker 5: the base scene where her car was That a part
Speaker 5: she was a Zodiac victim. She's the only one to
Speaker 5: escape the Zodiac, not only with her life but unharmed,
Speaker 5: even right next to the Zodiac.
Speaker 2: The Kathleen John's abduction does not fit the Zodiac's previously
Speaker 2: established pattern, but also at the same time, he also
Speaker 2: deviated from his pattern, going from couples to a cab driver.
Speaker 2: Then he said that he was no longer going to
Speaker 2: announce his murders and they were going to look like
Speaker 2: fake accidents and routine robberies and killings of anger. So
Speaker 2: maybe he had some plan for what he wanted to do,
Speaker 2: but it did involve a drastic change in his mo
Speaker 2: Maybe he was going to murder her and make it
Speaker 2: look like an accident. Maybe he was going to come
Speaker 2: back and wreck her car or do something. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but there's some people who believe that if he was
Speaker 2: responsible for that crime, that he burned the car to
Speaker 2: cover up evidence, because he may have touched the car
Speaker 2: when he was loosening the lugnuts on the wheel. There's
Speaker 2: also the possibility that he had intended to kill John's
Speaker 2: and then decided not to go through with it because
Speaker 2: she was pregnant and had a kid, and then was
Speaker 2: frustrated and needed to do something, so he drove back
Speaker 2: to where the car was and set fire to it.
Speaker 2: It also possibly had nothing to do with it, and
Speaker 2: Kathleen Johns was wrong in her identification. But then you
Speaker 2: come to the fact that During that same period of time,
Speaker 2: there was also speculation that the Zodiac may have been
Speaker 2: involved in another murder in nineteen sixty six at Riverside
Speaker 2: City College. After the Zodiac murders were being reported in
Speaker 2: the media, investigators in Riverside were watching and saying, this
Speaker 2: looks kind of familiar and maybe these crimes are connected.
Speaker 2: So they contacted the Zodiac investigators and reported their suspicions,
Speaker 2: and after investigators looked at this, they thought it was
Speaker 2: very possible that the Zodiac had committed the crime in Riverside.
Speaker 2: You had a young woman who was apparently visiting the
Speaker 2: college library, and while she was inside, someone disabled her car,
Speaker 2: and when she came out and her car was start
Speaker 2: this person allegedly offered her a ride, and then when
Speaker 2: she went with him, he took her off into a
Speaker 2: darkened area and stabbed her to death. So if the
Speaker 2: Zodiac was responsible for the murdered Riverside, then that does
Speaker 2: provide some indication that he may have been responsible for
Speaker 2: the Johns event, because there's a similarity of selecting a
Speaker 2: single woman, disabling her car and such. Then later on
Speaker 2: San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery learned of this possible
Speaker 2: connection and reported it in the media in what was
Speaker 2: called the Riverside Connection.
Speaker 1: Was the Riverside killing of Sherry Joe Bates somehow connected
Speaker 1: to the midnight abduction of Kathleen John's and were both
Speaker 1: of these crimes three and a half years apart committed
Speaker 1: by the Zodiac. We learned there was a possibility of
Speaker 1: finding some unprocessed film footage of Paul Avery just after
Speaker 1: he made the Riverside connection. There was only one place
Speaker 1: to go in search of a rare piece of film
Speaker 1: like that, the Bay Area Television Archive in San Francisco.
Speaker 8: My name is Alex Cherrian. I'm the film archivist at
Speaker 8: San Francisco State University's John Paul Nnard Library. The Bay
Speaker 8: Area Television Archive is in our Department of Special Collections.
Speaker 8: This is where we preserve and remaster local news film,
Speaker 8: documentary broadcast video tape from the nineteen fifties through to
Speaker 8: about two thousand. Before we work on it, it's just
Speaker 8: old film and tape. By the time we finished with it.
Speaker 8: What you're looking at is a screener which is viewable
Speaker 8: online for free. I enjoy local, specific regional history a lot.
Speaker 8: I like being able to relate to it, to look
Speaker 8: at a building and know what happened there fifty years ago.
Speaker 8: I also like being on the cutting edge of finding
Speaker 8: stuff and making it available. If someone comes up with
Speaker 8: some kind of kookie idea which is patently ridiculous, I
Speaker 8: don't care. It needs to be explored in order to
Speaker 8: rule it out. And making all of our stuff available online,
Speaker 8: I enjoyed doing that. I get an excitement from doing it.
Speaker 8: It could be the Zodiac, it could be a chess tournament,
Speaker 8: it could be something to do with Jerry Brown, who
Speaker 8: features in our collections way back to the early seventies.
Speaker 8: I don't mind. You either enjoy that or you don't,
Speaker 8: and I love it. So this is the raw news film.
Speaker 8: This is how it was put into cans before it
Speaker 8: came to us in the early nineteen eighties. So what
Speaker 8: you're looking at there is a reel of sixteen milimeter
Speaker 8: film from the early nineteen seventies. It doesn't even have
Speaker 8: a plastic core on it, which means you can't even
Speaker 8: project it. This is just coming raw from the lab.
Speaker 8: I guarantee you no one's touched that for over forty years.
Speaker 8: It may have been covered in a similar fashion by
Speaker 8: a different tea v station. But the sound of the
Speaker 8: reporter or the eyewitness or the detective talking about a
Speaker 8: zodiac in nineteen seventy two, no one's ever heard that,
Speaker 8: and it will be decent quality because no one's been
Speaker 8: messing around with it.
Speaker 3: What things in this evidence you've got from the Riverside
Speaker 3: police actually lead you to believe that there could be
Speaker 3: or is some connection.
Speaker 6: Oh there's police lineage, the motors OPERANDU of the killer,
Speaker 6: the Cherry bas space and river Side and zodioacil. Are
Speaker 6: there many eagle media wanting to get recognition for the
Speaker 6: killer writing to a new State the fact that in
Speaker 6: no cases, including the Sharrybase, has there ever been sexual molestation.
Speaker 6: Usually in a killing of a coat, it's usually a
Speaker 6: sex herely just for the shares Ler phone, I received
Speaker 6: the letter individual in southern California pointing outre similarity was
Speaker 6: actually it was an anonymous letter, and I felt that
Speaker 6: there might be something for it, so I contacted the
Speaker 6: Riverside Police. Were very cooperative to computer and gave me
Speaker 6: information on the phone and then sent me some information
Speaker 6: zerox copies of thirsty documents. This is the first one
Speaker 6: of the first two letters that was received by the
Speaker 6: newspaper in Riverside and by the police department. The inside
Speaker 6: was a typewritten confession, and this is known to be
Speaker 6: from the murder sary base because of details in the
Speaker 6: unsigned profession. This was received exactly one month of the
Speaker 6: day after she was killed.
Speaker 9: You're about to hear the letter that Paul Avery just described.
Speaker 9: This letter contains graphic details. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 10: Miss Bates was stupid. She went to the slaughter like
Speaker 10: a lamb. She did not put up a struggle, but
Speaker 10: I did. It was a ball. I first pulled the
Speaker 10: middle wire from the distributor. Then I waited for in
Speaker 10: the library and followed her out. After two minutes, the
Speaker 10: battery must have been about dead by then. I then
Speaker 10: offered to help. She was then very willing to talk
Speaker 10: to me. I told her that my car was down
Speaker 10: the street and I would give her a lift home.
Speaker 10: When we were away from the library walking, I said
Speaker 10: it was about time. She asked me about time. For
Speaker 10: what I said, it was about time for her to die.
Speaker 10: I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over
Speaker 10: her mouth and my other hand with a small knife
Speaker 10: at her throat. She went very willingly. Her breast felt
Speaker 10: very warm and firm under my hands, but only one
Speaker 10: thing was on my mind, making her pay for the
Speaker 10: brush offs that she had given me during the years prior.
Speaker 10: She died hard. She squirmed and shook as I choked her,
Speaker 10: and her lips twitched. She let out a scream once,
Speaker 10: and I kicked her head to shut her up. I
Speaker 10: plunged the knife into her and it broke. I didn't
Speaker 10: finish the job by cutting her throat. I'm not sick,
Speaker 10: I am insane, but that will not stop the game.
Speaker 10: This letter should be published for all to read it.
Speaker 10: It just might save that girl in the alley, but
Speaker 10: that's up to you. It will be on your conscious,
Speaker 10: not mine. Yes, I did make that call to you also,
Speaker 10: it was just a warning, beware, I am stalking your
Speaker 10: girls now.
Speaker 2: Now, some of that information appears to have been available
Speaker 2: in the public media at the time, but it's still
Speaker 2: possible that it was the actual killer who wrote it,
Speaker 2: or someone who was trying to misdirect the investigation. I'm
Speaker 2: sure that if things did go down the way that
Speaker 2: it's described in that letter, she thought that man was
Speaker 2: going to help her, and just like a lake Barry Essa,
Speaker 2: that person took advantage of her and forced her to
Speaker 2: participate in her own murder, and in the letter, he
Speaker 2: said she went to the slaughter like a lamb.
Speaker 1: So the police potentially had a Zodiac letter as early
Speaker 1: as nineteen sixty six, just one month after the Bates murder.
Speaker 1: At the time, police thought the note was written by
Speaker 1: the actual killer because the information included in the letter
Speaker 1: was highly detailed, specifically the manner in which the attacker
Speaker 1: disabled the victim's car. I can't help but wonder why
Speaker 1: didn't the Sherry Joe Bates case get more attention prior
Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixty eight killings, but there was even
Speaker 1: more madness to come. Presumably the same person also sent
Speaker 1: another series of letters, this time to police, the newspaper,
Speaker 1: and even to the father of Sherry Joe Bates. Paul
Speaker 1: Avery explains.
Speaker 6: Six months later, after her murder, the Riverside Place, the
Speaker 6: local newspaper, the Press, enter Prize, and the girl's father
Speaker 6: each received a letter. And this is where Ibole he writing,
Speaker 6: you're very very similar to zodiacs. You are other things
Speaker 6: that make me think that it's quite possibly human. And
Speaker 6: inside of these onlined pre whole notebook paper. It said
Speaker 6: Bates had to die, there will be more, and right
Speaker 6: at the bottom, this is a Z.
Speaker 1: The stylized Z at the bottom of the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six letter is undeniable, but it's also unlike the Zodiac's
Speaker 1: other signed letters, the ones that he ended with his
Speaker 1: circle cross signature. But even nineteen sixty six may not
Speaker 1: be the start of the Zodiac's reign of terror. His
Speaker 1: work may go back even further. Investigators on the Sherry
Speaker 1: Joe Bates case connected her murder to another fatal incident
Speaker 1: in the area. This time it was a young couple
Speaker 1: on the beach three years earlier in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: On a tip, we reached out to k EYTTV in Sacramento, California,
Speaker 1: regarding a feature from twenty ten that revealed the only
Speaker 1: known footage of the crime scene. It's a seventeen second
Speaker 1: look at an old shack on the beach where the
Speaker 1: bodies of two murdered teenagers were dragged and then burned.
Speaker 7: If Sherry Joe Bates was not the first, who was.
Speaker 7: The answer may be buried in these forty three year
Speaker 7: old files in the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's.
Speaker 1: Cold Case Unit.
Speaker 7: On June fourth, nineteen sixty three, Lompo teenagers Lynda Edwards
Speaker 7: and Robert Domingo's celebrated senior Ditch Day by going to
Speaker 7: a secluded beach shack twenty five miles west of Santa Barbara.
Speaker 7: They planned to graduate in two days then get married,
Speaker 7: but the next night a CHPI officer discovered their bodies
Speaker 7: inside the shack. Robert had been shot eleven times, Linda
Speaker 7: eight times. This is the remote beach where Edwards and
Speaker 7: Domingos were gone down.
Speaker 3: As you can see, the old beach shack is long gone,
Speaker 3: just like the killer and any evidence that might identify it.
Speaker 3: This old newsreel, just discovered in the.
Speaker 7: KYT archives, is the only known film footage of the
Speaker 7: crime scene. It shows the area around the beach shack
Speaker 7: where the killers shot the teens, and inside where he
Speaker 7: dragged their bodies and tried to burn it down to
Speaker 7: hide the evidence. The last time this footage aired publicly
Speaker 7: was forty two years ago, when no one could have
Speaker 7: known its significance. It's only seventeen seconds long, but even
Speaker 7: Sheriff's investigators who worked on the case more than thirty
Speaker 7: years ago didn't know the film existed. They're also convinced
Speaker 7: a young, inexperienced Zodiac murdered Edwards and Domingos more than
Speaker 7: five years before his reign of terror in San Francis.
Speaker 1: But there was more to the story. This case had
Speaker 1: several similarities to other known Zodiac crimes, especially the Lake
Speaker 1: Berriessa attack in nineteen sixty nine that left Cecilia Shepherd
Speaker 1: dead and Brian Hartnell fighting for his life. The attacker
Speaker 1: approached the teens while they were sunbathing and relaxing on
Speaker 1: the beach at gunpoint. One of the teens, Robert Domingos,
Speaker 1: was bound using rope the attacker brought to the scene.
Speaker 1: The weapon used to kill the couple was a twenty
Speaker 1: two caliber semi automatic, possibly a rifle, again with the
Speaker 1: Winchester Western Super ex ammunition, the same rounds used by
Speaker 1: the Zodiac during the nineteen sixty eight murders on Lake
Speaker 1: Herman Road. There were no witnesses and there was no
Speaker 1: evidence of robbery or sexual assault. Attempting to hide then
Speaker 1: burn the bodies of his victims was unique to this case.
Speaker 1: That could have been due to the attacker's lack of experience.
Speaker 1: Either way, with little evidence and no witnesses. The case
Speaker 1: had no leads for many years, and it remained open
Speaker 1: nine years later. In nineteen seventy two, the Santa Barbara
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department issued a press release connecting the Domingos and
Speaker 1: Edwards murders to the Zodiac Killer, but that connection was
Speaker 1: never officially confirmed. The Zodiac Killer had taken notice of
Speaker 1: Paul Avery's detective work back in nineteen seventy connecting the
Speaker 1: killing of Sherry Joe Bates and the abduction of Kathleen John's,
Speaker 1: a link that Avery called the Riverside Connection. The killer
Speaker 1: even acknowledged Avery's efforts within a letter to the La
Speaker 1: Times on March thirteenth, nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 10: This is the Zodiac speaking like I have always said.
Speaker 10: I'm crapproof. If the Blumeni's they're ever going to catch me,
Speaker 10: they had best get off their fat asses and do something,
Speaker 10: because the longer they fiddle and fart around, the more
Speaker 10: slaves I will collect from my afterlife. I do have
Speaker 10: to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity,
Speaker 10: but they are only finding the easy ones. There are
Speaker 10: a hell of a lot more down there. The reason
Speaker 10: I'm writing to the Times is this. They don't bury
Speaker 10: me on the back pages like some of the others.
Speaker 10: San Francisco Police Department zero Zodiac seventeen plus.
Speaker 1: The Zodiac was now further mocking police by claiming to
Speaker 1: have taken the lives of as many as seventeen or
Speaker 1: more victims. However, the official body count remained at five
Speaker 1: after the murder of cab driver Paul Stein. Michael Butterfield
Speaker 1: remains unconvinced that Kathleen Johns was truly abducted by the
Speaker 1: Zodiac Killer in March of nineteen seventy. He believes it
Speaker 1: could have easily been someone else. Others, including Kathleen Johns herself,
Speaker 1: continued to believe it was the Zodiac Killer, Yet the
Speaker 1: details and the facts surrounding that evening are still a
Speaker 1: little loose. Also, what was the Zodiac's motivation for abducting
Speaker 1: her and her infant daughter that evening? Was it to
Speaker 1: keep up with the recent media attention Charles Manson was receiving,
Speaker 1: or had the Zodiac been doing this kind of thing
Speaker 1: all along and had just stopped providing details in his letters.
Speaker 1: Whatever the situation, this was exactly the break investigators were
Speaker 1: looking for. If Kathleen Johns truly did spend two hours
Speaker 1: in a car sitting right next to the Zodiac Killer,
Speaker 1: would she be able to identify the right man.
Speaker 9: Time time on Monster the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 6: This is the Ballejo man many investigators considered to be
Speaker 6: the notorious Zodiac Killer, and this is the first time
Speaker 6: his picture has been revealed.
Speaker 10: Are you the Zodiac Killer?
Speaker 8: There would be nothing farther from my mind. No, I'm
Speaker 8: most certainly not the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 3: We're pretty certain we know who he was, and he
Speaker 3: died with bombs in his basement and the Zodiac bomb
Speaker 3: formula disc in his computer that said Zodiac.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that the case is solved.
Speaker 11: The suspect that was focused on and highlighted in the
Speaker 11: film and in Grace Smith's book, and to a certain
Speaker 11: extent even for Tusking Armstrong, Arthur Lee Allen, was what
Speaker 11: they call a good suspect.
Speaker 10: The suspect's brother and sister in law say that Allan
Speaker 10: often spoke of man as the most dangerous game.
Speaker 3: I enjoy oh a good tussle that hey killing just
Speaker 3: for the pleasure of it.
Speaker 9: Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
Speaker 9: by iHeartRadio, House stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Albright
Speaker 9: and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 9: alongside producers Meredith Steedman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason
Speaker 9: Hope is executive producer on behalf of hou stuff Works,
Speaker 9: along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Keebrick, and
Speaker 9: josh Than Scott. Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick
Speaker 9: is our host. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 9: If you haven't already, make sure to check out the
Speaker 9: first season of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta
Speaker 9: child murders from the late seventies to the early eighties.
Speaker 9: Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments,
Speaker 9: email us at Monster at houstuffworks dot com, or you
Speaker 9: can call us at one eight three, three, two eight
Speaker 9: five six six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.