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. The Zodiac was now in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: He had killed a cab driver and took credit for
Speaker 1: the murder in a new letter inside a piece of
Speaker 1: bloody cloth from the cab driver's shirt. The Zodiac now
Speaker 1: had the city's attention, and he gripped the entire Bay
Speaker 1: Area in fear with his deadly game. It was clear
Speaker 1: that anyone could be next. People walked the streets with
Speaker 1: caution as they went about their everyday lives. But as
Speaker 1: Michael Butterfield says, Pallstein's murder wasn't the most terrifying detail.
Speaker 1: For the first time, the Zodiac had included a very
Speaker 1: real threat.
Speaker 2: School children make nice targets. I think I shall wipe
Speaker 2: out a school bus some morning, Just shoot at the
Speaker 2: front tire and then pick off the kiddies that they
Speaker 2: come bouncing out, signed Zodiac.
Speaker 3: This was, of course terrifying, because he had already demonstrated
Speaker 3: that he was capable of extreme acts of violence, and
Speaker 3: now he was threatening school children. The fact that he
Speaker 3: had moved to a major metropolitan city and murdered a
Speaker 3: cab driver for no apparent reason, which was completely outside
Speaker 3: of his previous victim preference, indicated that this man was
Speaker 3: very unpredictable, and when he started threatening school children, there
Speaker 3: was no reason to believe that he was bluffing.
Speaker 4: In San Francisco, we have been since the first day,
Speaker 4: since the reception of this note, we have a number
Speaker 4: of playing clothes officers following buses in the morning and
Speaker 4: in the.
Speaker 3: Evening, so there was a concerted effort to protect school
Speaker 3: children on school buses and all around the Bay Area.
Speaker 3: There were police officers that were following the buses, police
Speaker 3: officers sheriff's deputies who were assigned to ride on the
Speaker 3: buses with shotguns. There were helicopters following buses, and bus
Speaker 3: drivers were given instructions on what to do in the
Speaker 3: event that someone did shoot at them.
Speaker 5: We have specifically requested that they alert their drivers to
Speaker 5: not stop under any conditions if a shot is fired
Speaker 5: or if the bus is subjected to a flat tire
Speaker 5: by the sniper. Further, that they get the children down
Speaker 5: immediately and proceed with all speed out of the airth
Speaker 5: to try and attract all the possible attention by blowing
Speaker 5: their horns and therefore get out of the situation.
Speaker 3: So every effort was made to avoid the scenario that
Speaker 3: the Zodiac preferred, and that of course created a rather
Speaker 3: traumatic childhood for a lot of children who were growing
Speaker 3: up in the Bay area and who at this time
Speaker 3: now remember him as some sort of boogeyman who scared
Speaker 3: them the death.
Speaker 6: I heard this loud shot from the left hand side
Speaker 6: of the bus.
Speaker 7: What do the children do?
Speaker 6: They heard it. My reaction was get them off the bus,
Speaker 6: get them into school as fast as I could, and
Speaker 6: I was right behind them.
Speaker 3: Now, conversely, there's also a great piece of video from
Speaker 3: that period, a piece of film footage shot by a
Speaker 3: local news station where they're interviewing one of the bus drivers.
Speaker 8: Have any of the drivers trust any concern over their job?
Speaker 9: Now, there's naturally talk everybody, so I guess there's chanced
Speaker 9: about it, but they all seem to be in good
Speaker 9: spirits and all seem to be going on with the job.
Speaker 9: I don't know of anybody that's quit.
Speaker 3: And the bus driver saying, well, you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: really that concerned about it or whatever, but we're going
Speaker 3: to be careful. And in the background there's a little
Speaker 3: kid who shouts out, you're not afraid.
Speaker 9: No, no, no, not too afraid.
Speaker 3: And it kind of puts things in perspective for you
Speaker 3: that children really didn't understand what was going on. They
Speaker 3: knew enough to be scared, and they knew enough that
Speaker 3: there was something happening around them, but they had no
Speaker 3: concept like the adults did, of what was really going on.
Speaker 3: The children just knew someone was threatening them. The adults
Speaker 3: knew that they were being threatened by a man had
Speaker 3: already killed before and was perfectly capable of doing it again.
Speaker 3: So that bus threat changed everything in the case. It
Speaker 3: not only terrified people and created this whole situation where
Speaker 3: they'd have to protect children all over the Bay area,
Speaker 3: but it also elevated the Zodiac to a level he
Speaker 3: had not been at before, which was someone who could
Speaker 3: attack anyone at any time.
Speaker 8: A man in a mask, robbed, tied, and stabbed them,
Speaker 8: leaving them for.
Speaker 5: Dam subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no
Speaker 5: a double murder.
Speaker 7: I did it.
Speaker 8: A man who wore an evil style executionershood, carried a
Speaker 8: knife and gun and intended to use them.
Speaker 9: They haven't arrested me because they I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Speaker 2: Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 10: iHeartRadio, Houstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. This is monster, the
Speaker 10: Zodiac killer. There's nothing like the hysteria and paranoia of
Speaker 10: fearing for their child's life. The Zodiac preyed on hysteria
Speaker 10: and fear like the Joker from Batman. Fear made him
Speaker 10: feel powerful, and it created a difficult problem for journalists
Speaker 10: and civic figures. Should one continue reporting the misdeeds of
Speaker 10: the Zodiac or does that only fuel him? Is that
Speaker 10: doing what he wants? The worst part about fear mongering
Speaker 10: is it a bomb doesn't even have to be there
Speaker 10: to accomplish the goal of Mayhem.
Speaker 1: Zodiac's threat to harm school children created a ripple effect
Speaker 1: across the Bay Area. In Valeo, the local community was
Speaker 1: still reeling from the recent attacks. It had only been
Speaker 1: a few months since the Zodiac killed Darlene Farrin at
Speaker 1: Blue Rock Springs. Now Valeo police were also taking precautions
Speaker 1: to protect school buses. While San Francisco was no stranger
Speaker 1: to high pressure situations, Valeo was different. Suburban quiet back then.
Speaker 11: Valeo was a really really nice town, nice place to live.
Speaker 11: Me and my little sister walked to school all the time.
Speaker 11: I was, you know, ride along Sonoma Boulevard there at
Speaker 11: seven eight years old, and nobody thought anything of it.
Speaker 11: My name is Mark Ibner. I'm fifty six. I live
Speaker 11: in Loomis, California, and I was born and raised in Balo.
Speaker 11: In the neighborhood that we lived in California Meadows, we
Speaker 11: had a huge, huge field or lot. As kids, we
Speaker 11: could just go play around and collect lady bugs and
Speaker 11: a lot of friends. You know, we'd just go ride
Speaker 11: bikes and do kid things. I'd be five six years
Speaker 11: old and be gone for hours with my friends in
Speaker 11: the neighborhood and out in that field, and I think
Speaker 11: my mom ever had any worry about that until.
Speaker 4: Just shoot out the front tire and then pick off
Speaker 4: the kiddies as they come bouncing out.
Speaker 11: I remember as a kid having a cop car follow
Speaker 11: behind us, and I remember that because as kids we
Speaker 11: would all kind of run to the back of the
Speaker 11: bus and wave with the cop out the back window
Speaker 11: of the bus. And then certainly for a couple of years,
Speaker 11: our trick or treating had to be done in the daylight. Obviously.
Speaker 7: With adults, what is most noticeable is the lack of
Speaker 7: teenagers and young people out at night or in the weekends.
Speaker 7: It seems that the parents are are keeping the children home.
Speaker 11: I don't have a recollection of saying that, you know,
Speaker 11: the Zodiac killers out there. I heard the name. I
Speaker 11: just knew that there was something going on. You know,
Speaker 11: you'd see the headlines in the Valeo Times Herald. Nobody
Speaker 11: was really thinking about a serial killer so much as
Speaker 11: just a couple people that were murdered. I think that
Speaker 11: started taking on that life, you know, in the in
Speaker 11: the following years.
Speaker 12: There's a lot of Valeo ones who have been here
Speaker 12: for generations. A lot of them you know, of course,
Speaker 12: worked at Mare Island, at the shipyard, and so even
Speaker 12: though we're in a major metropolitan area, especially, I think
Speaker 12: at that time it really had kind of a small
Speaker 12: town feel to it. It just just another typical suburb,
Speaker 12: which is why I think the events with the Zodiac
Speaker 12: were so surprising, because it doesn't seem like the kind
Speaker 12: of thing that would happen in a town like Valeo.
Speaker 12: My name is Jim Kern. I'm the executive director of
Speaker 12: the Valeo Naval and Historical Museum. You hear about murders
Speaker 12: and violence, and it's always been, unfortunately a part of
Speaker 12: human nature, but sometimes it takes place in an environment that's,
Speaker 12: you know, a little scarier, or something that's that's not
Speaker 12: germane to people's everyday life. So this is different because
Speaker 12: this was just everyday people that might have been your
Speaker 12: next door neighbors, and suddenly it's it's right here in
Speaker 12: your town, So that makes it quite a bit more scary.
Speaker 12: There's always been murders, and there's always scandals and crimes,
Speaker 12: and people are interested in that kind of thing. People
Speaker 12: were kind of fascinated by it, but I think the
Speaker 12: fascination is when they can read about it or see
Speaker 12: a movie, or when it's sort of one or two
Speaker 12: or three steps removed from their everyday life. But suddenly,
Speaker 12: when it's happening all around you, that's a different thing altogether,
Speaker 12: and it's no longer quite so fascinating. It becomes more terrifying.
Speaker 1: Valeo would be forever changed by this chapter. That feeling
Speaker 1: of small town charm had begun to fade, and maybe
Speaker 1: that's exactly what the zodiac wanted in San Francisco police
Speaker 1: took these threats even more seriously. Patrols followed dozens of
Speaker 1: buses on their routes each morning and afternoon, and this
Speaker 1: lasted for months. To achieve this, police had to dedicate
Speaker 1: a huge amount of manpower and this got me thinking
Speaker 1: could they pull that off today? And if not, how
Speaker 1: would San Francisco officials respond to such a threat.
Speaker 13: The response nowadays would be very different from what we
Speaker 13: probably saw in the late sixties with regards to manpower
Speaker 13: and being able to have the people to do that
Speaker 13: would be very tough. My name is Paul Cassada and
Speaker 13: I'm the director of Crisis Response and Emergency Preparedness for
Speaker 13: the San FRANCISCOO Unified School District. Crisis response is being
Speaker 13: able to deal with the day to day issues that
Speaker 13: might be affecting our schools. There's a case, an example
Speaker 13: that I share with my staff. Two teachers were outside supervising.
Speaker 13: One of them heard loud pops from a distance. She
Speaker 13: had no idea what it was, but it felt wrong
Speaker 13: to her. She had never heard it before. The pops
Speaker 13: were getting closer and she felt we need to move
Speaker 13: the kids inside, and so she did. Small school, maybe
Speaker 13: hundred and thirty kids there, and it was a gentleman
Speaker 13: who had gone out in his vehicle and was shooting
Speaker 13: at anything he could and pulled up into the school. Unfortunately,
Speaker 13: no one was out there because the teacher brought everyone inside.
Speaker 1: Paul Casada deals with situations like these every year. However,
Speaker 1: he had never heard of anything like Zodiac's threat to
Speaker 1: shoot a school. Thus, these days school threats are very different.
Speaker 13: We're following that breaking news story for you out of
Speaker 13: Texas this hour.
Speaker 14: Police have confirmed there are multiple casualties at a local
Speaker 14: high school in Santa Fe, which is south of Houston.
Speaker 13: These unfortunate things have been happening for years, right, and
Speaker 13: usually the warning comes from the sounds of gunfire, or
Speaker 13: the voices and distress or what have you. I think
Speaker 13: information is always key for all of us, and I
Speaker 13: think when people don't have it, that's when panic mode
Speaker 13: tends to kick in.
Speaker 1: Luckily, Paul Casada says, the response time of law enforcement
Speaker 1: has only gotten better. That's due in large part to
Speaker 1: advancements in technology.
Speaker 13: There was no mass way of getting this information out quickly.
Speaker 13: You know, you had to put it in the newspaper,
Speaker 13: print it and send it out, and then you had
Speaker 13: to hope yet people buying the press right to be
Speaker 13: able to see it. I think today, given our technology,
Speaker 13: where we can, you know, send out a quick message
Speaker 13: to everybody, a mass message, you know, I mean, heck,
Speaker 13: we can send out a message and a phone call
Speaker 13: to all fifty seven thousand of our students in a
Speaker 13: matter of two seconds. It's impressive how we can do
Speaker 13: that now versus back then when you weren't able to
Speaker 13: do that.
Speaker 15: So the first letter came, you know, and was printed
Speaker 15: in the Sunday paper, and when the second letters came,
Speaker 15: we printed our story and Examiner printed their story.
Speaker 1: Remember Duffy Jennings, he was a copy boy who became
Speaker 1: a crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. I met
Speaker 1: up with him at a park near his home.
Speaker 15: You know, I still don't. I still don't have a
Speaker 15: sense that this was the biggest story of the day.
Speaker 15: But it was decided that yes, there's a bona fide threat,
Speaker 15: there's evidence that whoever wrote this letter committed these shootings,
Speaker 15: and we'd better take it seriously enough that if we
Speaker 15: don't print it and he does take out a school
Speaker 15: bus full of kids and they find out that we
Speaker 15: knew about it ahead of time, didn't tell anybody. It's
Speaker 15: that same dilemma that editors go through every day. Is
Speaker 15: it in the public interest and benefit to publish this
Speaker 15: even though it might panic people? And the decision was
Speaker 15: made that in the interest of public safety, it was
Speaker 15: sort of compelling to publish the threat so people could
Speaker 15: take their own measures as they saw fit. And it
Speaker 15: did panic people a lot of kids. The kids were
Speaker 15: kept home from school or at least kept off their
Speaker 15: school bus. Parents were walking their kids to school or
Speaker 15: driving them to school, and buses were you know, were
Speaker 15: empty to a large degree just because of this. So
Speaker 15: that was the impact. But I don't remember it as
Speaker 15: a story that had a lot of legs that there
Speaker 15: was a follow up the next day and the next
Speaker 15: day and the next day, as you as big stories
Speaker 15: tend to do. Also, in nineteen seventy seventy one, there
Speaker 15: was the kidnap of the chow Chillis school bus out
Speaker 15: in the Central Valley, where three guys commandeered a school
Speaker 15: bus with twenty six kids on it, age five to fourteen,
Speaker 15: took the bus to a quarry in Livermore and buried
Speaker 15: it for several days until the driver and the kids
Speaker 15: were able to dig their way out, and the three
Speaker 15: guys who did it went to prison. So Zodiac wasn't
Speaker 15: the only sort of school bus situation that occurred. Then
Speaker 15: here was a guy who learned to manipulate the media,
Speaker 15: a threatned public safety, and nobody knew where the next
Speaker 15: attack was going to come from. Now we have, in
Speaker 15: my view, one of the early terrorists.
Speaker 1: The Zodiac's threat to shoot kids on a school bus
Speaker 1: was only the beginning.
Speaker 3: Once he had committed his murders and started writing his
Speaker 3: letters and terrifying people, and then he started threatening to
Speaker 3: shoot school children and things. That wasn't enough for him.
Speaker 3: Then he moved on to the next level, where he
Speaker 3: started threatening to blow up a school bus full of children.
Speaker 3: He claimed that he had planted bombs along roadsides that
Speaker 3: would take out a school bus full of kids. He
Speaker 3: would send these diagrams, these elaborate drawings of these bombs.
Speaker 3: He would describe the ingredients that were going to be used,
Speaker 3: and he referred to this as his death machine.
Speaker 2: The death machine is already made. I would have sent
Speaker 2: you pictures, but you would be nasty enough to trace
Speaker 2: them back to developer and then to me, So I
Speaker 2: shall describe my masterpiece to you. Take one bag of
Speaker 2: ammonium nitrate fertilizer and one gallon of.
Speaker 1: Still will again. The San Francisco Chronicle had a difficult
Speaker 1: choice to make. Would they publish the Zodiac's threat or not.
Speaker 1: The Chronicle decided not to publish.
Speaker 16: I think it's extremely unnerving to think that there's somebody
Speaker 16: out there preying on young people more or less randomly,
Speaker 16: and then taunting the culture at large through the media.
Speaker 1: This is Peter Richardson, historian and lecturer at San Francisco
Speaker 1: State University.
Speaker 16: I mean, if you want to compare it to a
Speaker 16: similar case, you can think of the abduction of Patty Hearst.
Speaker 8: Good Evening, Patty Hurst has been taken into custoding. The
Speaker 8: FBI says Patty Hurst was picked up today in San Francisco,
Speaker 8: the Hearst newspaper. Heiress has been missing for nineteen months.
Speaker 8: First she was kidnapped, Then she announced that she had
Speaker 8: joined ranks with her kidnappers, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Speaker 8: She called herself Tanya. She was later indicted in connection
Speaker 8: with the San Francisco bank hold up and labeled a
Speaker 8: fugitive with.
Speaker 16: The abduction of the granddaughter of this great media titan,
Speaker 16: William Randolph Hurst and her father, who was still connected
Speaker 16: with the San Francisco Examiner. The media frenzy that resulted,
Speaker 16: predictable as it was, was a huge part of the
Speaker 16: story itself. So in some ways we start to see
Speaker 16: the media become a player in the stories that they're covering,
Speaker 16: partly because it had to do with the media. And
Speaker 16: I think that was really true both with Zodiac but
Speaker 16: also with the Patty Hurst induction. Whether or not the
Speaker 16: media made the right call there, I know they struggled
Speaker 16: with it. It's not obvious that you want to turn
Speaker 16: your newspaper over to a nut and let them communicate
Speaker 16: directly with your readers. We see that again with the
Speaker 16: unibomber case.
Speaker 17: On January twenty second, nineteen ninety eight, the unibomber ted
Speaker 17: Kazinski pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. Kazinsky sent
Speaker 17: sixteen mail bombs to universities and airlines over a seventeen
Speaker 17: year period, killing three people and injuring twenty four before
Speaker 17: his arrest in nineteen ninety five. The Washington Post and
Speaker 17: New York Times reluctantly printed his thirty five thousand word
Speaker 17: manifesto under threat Kazinski would strike again if they.
Speaker 16: Didn't, which turns out to be the key to the
Speaker 16: arrass maid in the unibomber case, because somebody realizes, Hey,
Speaker 16: that letter, that writing sounds a lot like my brothers.
Speaker 16: So you can make arguments both ways. I think if
Speaker 16: you let this information out, you might get new information
Speaker 16: from somebody that says, boy, that sounds like you might
Speaker 16: get leads that way, but there's a real risk because
Speaker 16: if you know that your perpetrator is kind of getting
Speaker 16: energy from this and that it becomes something that he
Speaker 16: wants to keep doing, if you open that door, then
Speaker 16: you really have a kind of moral decision and a
Speaker 16: moral responsibility if you're the media.
Speaker 14: When it comes to the ethics governing how you report
Speaker 14: on serial killers, terrorists, mass there's tons and tons of
Speaker 14: journal articles written by people trying to assert certain journalistic
Speaker 14: codes of conduct and stuff like that, but there's no
Speaker 14: clear consensus because it's so incredibly debatable.
Speaker 1: Adam Rgusia is a professor of journalism at Mercer University.
Speaker 14: So many of the arguments about how you should absolutely
Speaker 14: publish this or you shouldn't publish that are predicated on
Speaker 14: unprovable counterfactuals, right, like it asks us to believe that
Speaker 14: if a newspaper hadn't published a thing, then somebody wouldn't
Speaker 14: have gotten killed. Well, we can't know that. And then
Speaker 14: there's another point of view that says no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 14: we shouldn't concern ourselves with outcomes. In journalism, that's not
Speaker 14: our job. We're not activists and we're not cops, right,
Speaker 14: we're journalists. Our job is to put information out there.
Speaker 14: If it's relevant, if it's newsworthy, then you put it
Speaker 14: out there, and then you let the chips fall where
Speaker 14: they may. There's other people whose job it is to
Speaker 14: concern themselves with the outcomes. Job is to get the
Speaker 14: information out there. And I'm not saying you never withhold stuff,
Speaker 14: but I think if you are going withhold information, it's
Speaker 14: got to be because there's an immediate direct threat to
Speaker 14: somebody's life that would be posed by publishing that information,
Speaker 14: or some very specific way in which publishing that information
Speaker 14: would sabotage a police investigation. You know, when there's a
Speaker 14: really direct line that you can draw, that's when you
Speaker 14: hold back information. But if it's just sort of vague.
Speaker 14: Then I think you.
Speaker 16: Put it out there.
Speaker 14: And I also don't think you should necessarily trust what
Speaker 14: the cops say, you know, because police and government agencies
Speaker 14: they have sort of a bias towards secrecy, they really do,
Speaker 14: and they will sometimes ask you to not publish something,
Speaker 14: and if you try to interrogate them as to why,
Speaker 14: they don't even really have a good answer. You know,
Speaker 14: it's just they have a bias towards towards secrecy. So
Speaker 14: unless they can give you a really good answer, no,
Speaker 14: you publish because that's what you do. You're concerned more
Speaker 14: with matters spiritual than matters temporal, meaning you're concerned more
Speaker 14: with informed the public than with how that information may
Speaker 14: be used out there in the world.
Speaker 3: These bombs, they serve the purpose of removing him from
Speaker 3: the equation. He doesn't have to be there anymore to
Speaker 3: kill you. That's frightening. I'm just going to set this
Speaker 3: up and someone's going to die, and I won't be
Speaker 3: anywhere near where this happens. And I think this was
Speaker 3: part of a change in his mo to where he
Speaker 3: didn't need to actually carry out a crime anymore to
Speaker 3: scare people and get attention. But now he was creating
Speaker 3: crimes in your head. He was making you imagine what
Speaker 3: would happen. But people believed it could happen, and that
Speaker 3: was all the matter.
Speaker 1: Another letter concerning the bombs arrived at the Chronicle.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my blast.
Speaker 2: If you don't want me to have this blast, you
Speaker 2: must tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details.
Speaker 1: Now there was a direct threat. The Zodiac said he'd
Speaker 1: put the bomb to use if the Chronicle didn't write
Speaker 1: about it. And this time the paper decided that they
Speaker 1: had to publish, but they didn't publish everything.
Speaker 14: This whole dilemma of should journalists concern themselves with simply
Speaker 14: informing the public with relevant information or should they concern
Speaker 14: themselves with the effects of their reporting. It's a really,
Speaker 14: really problematic dilemma. There's no clear answer about it. But
Speaker 14: maybe things get a little bit clearer when you start
Speaker 14: talking about things like bomb recipes. You know, it seems
Speaker 14: like it's a pretty clear case of journalism ethics that
Speaker 14: you don't publish a bomb recipe unless the bomb recipe
Speaker 14: is like inherently newsworthy in some way, Because you can
Speaker 14: have a reasonable degree of confidence in thinking that, like,
Speaker 14: if anyone is going to use that for anything, it's
Speaker 14: going to be to film a freaking bomb and kill right.
Speaker 14: There's no no conceivable, legitimate way of using that information.
Speaker 1: The San Francisco Chronicle decided to omit the Zodiac's bomb
Speaker 1: recipes and specifications, even though he demanded they quote publish
Speaker 1: all the details.
Speaker 14: You got to ask yourself, like, what's the more likely
Speaker 14: scenario here that like, this guy who's killed a bunch
Speaker 14: of people is going to kill somebody again, or that
Speaker 14: somebody is going to build this bomb from this creepy
Speaker 14: recipe and kill somebody.
Speaker 16: I don't know.
Speaker 14: I kind of feel like the former is the more
Speaker 14: likely scenario. I don't think that this scenario would even
Speaker 14: present itself today, but let's imagine that it did. Zodiac
Speaker 14: Killer is sending me a whole bunch of stuff to
Speaker 14: my newspaper and asking me to publish it, and I'm
Speaker 14: trying to decide whether or not I should publish it.
Speaker 14: I feel like the calculus would be a little bit
Speaker 14: different because I would know that this stuff would get
Speaker 14: out anyway, Like the public is going to get access
Speaker 14: to this information. Investigators are going to find it. I
Speaker 14: don't have to publish it. Like you know, I as
Speaker 14: a professionaljournalist and less of a direct and crucial line
Speaker 14: of information today than I was in the seventies. Right,
Speaker 14: this stuff is going to get out there. What's up
Speaker 14: to me is whether or not I boost this killer's notoriety.
Speaker 14: It's whether I amplify the signal of this bomb recipe.
Speaker 14: It's going to be on the internet regardless. If you're
Speaker 14: a serial killer and you want to get your message
Speaker 14: out there, you could just post it pretty much anywhere
Speaker 14: on the Internet today and have a reasonable degree of
Speaker 14: confidence that people would go and find it and disseminate
Speaker 14: it after you had done your deed. I think violence
Speaker 14: is inherently powerful. Violence is power. There's no way to
Speaker 14: take power away from violence. Anyone who is willing to
Speaker 14: wield terrible violence will acquire power as a result, and
Speaker 14: there's nothing that people in the media can do to
Speaker 14: neutralize that effect. If people want to kill somebody, they're
Speaker 14: going to gain notoriety, whether we publish their face or not.
Speaker 1: Zodiac be satisfied without the public knowing all about his
Speaker 1: death machine.
Speaker 2: What you do not know is whether the death machine
Speaker 2: is at the site, or whether it's being stored in
Speaker 2: my basement for future use. I think you do not
Speaker 2: have the manpower to stop this one by continually searching
Speaker 2: the roadsides looking for this thing, and it won't do
Speaker 2: to reroute and reschedule the buses. It could be rather
Speaker 2: messy if you try to bluff me. PS be sure
Speaker 2: to print the part I marked out on page three,
Speaker 2: or I shall do my thing.
Speaker 1: Next time.
Speaker 10: On Monster the Zodiac Killer did.
Speaker 4: Today there was a possibly significant development this morning. The
Speaker 4: people of San Francisco heard a man who claimed to
Speaker 4: be Zodiac talking on the.
Speaker 15: Air my opinion on a diamond by I have a
Speaker 15: cup of coffee.
Speaker 4: I don't really know. The only thing I can conclude
Speaker 4: is it sounded like a fellow who does have a
Speaker 4: pretty storious problem.
Speaker 15: During the course of my a couple of years as
Speaker 15: a copy boy, I got to know all the reporters
Speaker 15: pretty well, and that included Paul Avery. Whenever I went
Speaker 15: out of the building with Paul, I had to kind
Speaker 15: of look around. Paul started to wear a holster and
Speaker 15: he got a handgun permit from the police chief.
Speaker 2: Dear Melboyn, this is the Zodiac speaking. Please help me.
Speaker 2: I cannot reach out for help because this thing in
Speaker 2: me won't let me. I'm afraid I will lose control
Speaker 2: again and take my ninth and possibly tenth victim. I
Speaker 2: am drowning at the moment the children are stay from
Speaker 2: the bomb, but if I hold back too long from
Speaker 2: number nine, I will lose complete all control of myself.
Speaker 2: Please help me, Signed.
Speaker 7: Zodiac.
Speaker 10: Monster. The Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
Speaker 10: by iHeartRadio, How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Alright
Speaker 10: and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 10: alongside producers Meredith Stebman, Mason Lindsay, and Chris to Dana
Speaker 10: Jason Hoak is executive producer on behalf of House Stuff Works,
Speaker 10: along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Keebrick, and
Speaker 10: josh Than Scott. Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick
Speaker 10: is our host. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 10: If you haven't already, make sure to check out the
Speaker 10: first season of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta
Speaker 10: child murders from the late seventies to the early eighties.
Speaker 10: Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments,
Speaker 10: Email us at monster at houstuffworks dot com, or you
Speaker 10: can call us at one eight three three two eight
Speaker 10: five six six sixty seven. Thanks for listening.