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.
Speaker 2: Zodiac a symbol that now stands for terror in San Francisco. Today,
Speaker 2: there was a possibly significant development in the terrifying case
Speaker 2: of the man who calls himself Zodiac and has boasted
Speaker 2: that he is responsible for five murders in the last
Speaker 2: nine months. In Zodiac's latest letter last week, he threatened
Speaker 2: to make a busload of school children his next victims.
Speaker 2: Since then, school buses have been discreetly guarded and parents'
Speaker 2: fears have openly risen. This morning, the people of San Francisco,
Speaker 2: during a television conversation program with attorney Melvin bell I,
Speaker 2: heard a man who claimed to be Zodiac talking on
Speaker 2: the air.
Speaker 3: A man asked, robbed, tied, and stabbed them, leaving them
Speaker 3: for dad. Subjects stated, I want to report a murder,
Speaker 3: no a double murder.
Speaker 4: I did it a man who.
Speaker 5: Wore a medieval style executioner's hood, carried a knife and
Speaker 5: gun and intended to use them.
Speaker 3: They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing.
Speaker 4: I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Speaker 6: Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 5: iHeartRadio, Houstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. This is monster the
Speaker 5: Zodiac Killer. Fear spread across northern California as the Zodiac's
Speaker 5: pace accelerated. He continued to send letters to newspapers and
Speaker 5: to prove authenticity, he included squares of bloody clothing from
Speaker 5: the cab driver's shirt. But apparently letters weren't enough. The
Speaker 5: killer craved more attention. In October nineteen sixty nine, Californians
Speaker 5: gathered around their television in anticipation of the Zodiac's on
Speaker 5: air debut. They were desperate to finally hear the voice
Speaker 5: of unspeakable evil.
Speaker 7: That was the voice of a man who called himself
Speaker 7: the Zodiac Killer. He's talking to attorney Melvin Belli by
Speaker 7: phone on a television conversation show. This bizarre situation began
Speaker 7: at two o'clock this morning when the so called Zodiac
Speaker 7: telephone police headquarters. He said he was sick, he needed help,
Speaker 7: and he wanted to talk to Attorney Melvin bell I
Speaker 7: on television.
Speaker 1: The Oakland Police Department contacted Belli that night. Bell I
Speaker 1: was a well known celebrity lawyer whose clients included the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones in Muhammad Ali. With only hours notice, bell
Speaker 1: I came on the Jim Dunbar Show to speak with
Speaker 1: the Zodiac live on TV.
Speaker 7: All the scheduled guests were canceled. Bell I waited for
Speaker 7: Zodiac to call on the private line. The phone was
Speaker 7: not tapped. The telephone twelve times. He spoke very little
Speaker 7: with Attorney Belly trying to draw him out that maybe
Speaker 7: he's afraid of being beaten up or something like that.
Speaker 8: Now, why don't we just ask Sam to tell us
Speaker 8: a little bit more about what he's feeling right now?
Speaker 8: Tell us about your feeling, Sam, you know, just tell
Speaker 8: us anything you want to.
Speaker 9: And then we'll come back and I'll give you a specific.
Speaker 7: Answer to this question. And are going to the gas chamber.
Speaker 7: Talk to us.
Speaker 4: Just tell us what's going on inside of you right now?
Speaker 10: Sam?
Speaker 9: Please, I have a headache.
Speaker 11: How long do you had those headaches?
Speaker 9: Sam?
Speaker 7: In a long time?
Speaker 6: I killed a kid. If it all balls down to
Speaker 6: the question that you're giving yourself up, if you could
Speaker 6: be assured that you wouldn't.
Speaker 7: Get count for the punishment for myself, I want to
Speaker 7: kill a kid. Bell I finally arranged to meet Zodiac
Speaker 7: in Daily City, a suburb south of San Francisco, to
Speaker 7: talk in person. So inside the thrift shop Saint Vincent
Speaker 7: de Paul Tourney, Melvin Belli and the San Francisco police
Speaker 7: waited for the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 8: We were told to he would lead us at the
Speaker 8: Saint Vincent de Paul Society locks in on Mission Street
Speaker 8: in Daily City. We waited about, I guess over an
Speaker 8: hour and no evidence that he was there. So, yeah,
Speaker 8: is there anything more to this afternoon that leads you
Speaker 8: to believe that the man who called indeed might have
Speaker 8: been the legitimate Zodiac killer? Well again, you know my
Speaker 8: opinion on a dime will buy you have a couple
Speaker 8: of coffee. I don't really know. The only thing I
Speaker 8: can conclude, as I'm sure anyone listening might have concluded,
Speaker 8: is it's sounded like a fellow who does have a
Speaker 8: pretty serious problem and is pretty seriously disturbed. Whether it's Zodiac,
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 7: The man did not show, So now all we can
Speaker 7: do is wait, perhaps for that next phone call from
Speaker 7: the man who calls himself Zodiac, who has killed five
Speaker 7: says he's going to kill again, Dickchmaker, ABC News, San Francisco.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more news.
Speaker 1: In a moment, police brought in the witnesses who had
Speaker 1: heard the Zodiac speak, Brian Hartnell, the survivor from the
Speaker 1: Lake Barriesa stabbing, and two phone operators who had heard
Speaker 1: the Zodiacs calls. No one knew whether it was the
Speaker 1: real Zodiac. The Zodiac had now killed five people, and
Speaker 1: his attacks seemed to be accelerating. Half a year separated
Speaker 1: the first two shootings. Then only three months later was
Speaker 1: the Lake Barriessa attack, and then just two weeks after that,
Speaker 1: the Zodiac shot cab driver Paul Stein in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: The La Times reported that the threat of his next
Speaker 1: crime galvanized one of the most massive manhunts and one
Speaker 1: of the greatest waves of public alarm in San Francisco history.
Speaker 1: The manhunt extended as far as Atascadero, four hours south
Speaker 1: of San Francisco. There, police checked up on three hundred
Speaker 1: ex inmates of a hospital for the criminally insane, But
Speaker 1: despite this intensive search, the case went cold until two
Speaker 1: months later when Melvin Belli, the famous attorney you heard earlier,
Speaker 1: received a strange letter The Zodiac had sent a letter
Speaker 1: directly to Belli's home with a piece of the cab
Speaker 1: driver's bloody shirt to prove its authenticity.
Speaker 9: Dear Melboyn, this is the Zodiac speaking. I wish you
Speaker 9: a happy Christmas. The one thing I ask of you
Speaker 9: is this, Please help me. I cannot reach out for
Speaker 9: help because of this thing in need.
Speaker 4: Won't let me.
Speaker 9: I am finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check.
Speaker 9: I'm afraid I will lose control again and take my
Speaker 9: ninth and possibly tenth victim.
Speaker 4: Please help me. I am drowning at the moment.
Speaker 9: The children are safe from the bomb because it is
Speaker 9: so massive to dig in and the trigger mech requires
Speaker 9: much work to get it adjusted just right. But if
Speaker 9: I hold back too long from number nine, I will
Speaker 9: lose complete all control of myself and set the bomb up.
Speaker 4: Please help me.
Speaker 9: I cannot remain in control for much longer, Signed Zodiac.
Speaker 1: It seemed like maybe the Zodiac really was reaching out
Speaker 1: to the lawyer to get help, but the letter also
Speaker 1: had his usual threats. He mentioned the bus bombs and
Speaker 1: was now claiming eight victims. The Zodiac had included specific
Speaker 1: details about his first five murders in his letters, but
Speaker 1: then he said he would start to disguise his killings,
Speaker 1: making them look like routine robberies, killings of anger, or accidents.
Speaker 1: Because of this, police were unsure which recent.
Speaker 4: Murders might be the Zodiacs.
Speaker 1: After attorney Melvin bell I received the Zodiac's letter, he
Speaker 1: published a response in the San Francisco Chronicle. He said
Speaker 1: he was willing to meet the killer any time, any place.
Speaker 1: Bell I said, if you want to meet with me alone,
Speaker 1: I will come alone. He continued, I believe he wants
Speaker 1: to stop killing. He knows eventually he will get apprehended,
Speaker 1: and that unless he gets proper legal representation, he will
Speaker 1: most probably be sentenced to die in the gas chamber.
Speaker 1: Bell I was next contacted by telephone. While bell I
Speaker 1: was out, a man claiming to be the Zodiac called
Speaker 1: and asked to speak with him. Bell I alerted the
Speaker 1: FBI and the San Francisco Police Department. They tapped his
Speaker 1: phone so they could trace future calls, and again they waited,
Speaker 1: hoping the Zodiac would call back. Eventually, another call came.
Speaker 1: Police managed to trace the call and detect stives. Tosky
Speaker 1: and Armstrong drove out to arrest the Zodiac. They arrived
Speaker 1: at a mental hospital. The caller had been a patient,
Speaker 1: a man named Eric wil He was a hippie and
Speaker 1: an amateur photographer. The detectives determined that while was the
Speaker 1: caller to the Jim Dunbar show, but ultimately they also
Speaker 1: ruled him out as a suspect. The voice on the
Speaker 1: television call in show was not the Zodiac. Reporters accounts
Speaker 1: about Eric Wylde differ. Some say he was at a
Speaker 1: mental hospital in Oakland, others say it was in Napa,
Speaker 1: north of Valeo, and it's unclear exactly how the detectives
Speaker 1: ruled out Eric Wyle as a suspect. But serial killer
Speaker 1: expert Eric Hakey told us that while there's obviously something
Speaker 1: wrong with them, it's rare for serial killers to be mentally.
Speaker 10: Ill killers definitely, but they don't have mental illness. When
Speaker 10: you talk about mental illness, we're talking about people who
Speaker 10: they hear voices, they hallucinate, their schizophrenic, they're psychotic. That's
Speaker 10: mental illness. We treat people for that, we get them
Speaker 10: medications for it. But then there's another group of people
Speaker 10: who have mental disorder, like serial killers. Now some percent
Speaker 10: of them are Claire thinking, but they're they're narcissistic, they're
Speaker 10: they're antisocial, and they have those kinds of issues going
Speaker 10: on with them, but they know right from wrong. In
Speaker 10: a court of law, they would not be found to
Speaker 10: be insane. People get confused. I think, well, look at
Speaker 10: Jeffrey Dahmer. If you killed seventeen people and eighthan for dinner,
Speaker 10: you must be insane. Well, the behavior is insane. A
Speaker 10: Dahmer was never mentally ill. He knew right from wrong.
Speaker 10: He even admitted he always knew it was wrong to
Speaker 10: do what he was doing. Now, yet there are other
Speaker 10: people who are truly mentally ill when they do these
Speaker 10: types of things. So that always has to be figured out.
Speaker 10: And you're looking at a crime scene, is this someone
Speaker 10: who's mentally ill or is this someone who's psychopathic. In
Speaker 10: my field, we examine psychopathology. What level of psychopathology would
Speaker 10: the Zodiact be? At one scale that's used or studies
Speaker 10: psychopathology goes from zero to forty points. Most people are
Speaker 10: going to be between a four and eight on the scale,
Speaker 10: and then the occasional criminal that does things once in
Speaker 10: a while they're going to rate in the low teens.
Speaker 10: But then you get people who are kind of antisocial.
Speaker 10: Most people in prisons today are what we call sociopaths.
Speaker 10: You know, they probably rate eighteen to twenty nine on
Speaker 10: that scale. They're impulsive, they don't learn from their mistakes,
Speaker 10: they have high recidivism rates and so on. They are
Speaker 10: anti social, but they still love their moms, they still
Speaker 10: have emotional attachments to people, whereas a true psychopath, they're
Speaker 10: thirty and above. And these people do not have emotional
Speaker 10: attachments to people. They don't have empathy, they don't have
Speaker 10: a conscience. There aren't that many of them out there,
Speaker 10: and a lot of psychopaths. True psychopaths never get caught
Speaker 10: because what differentiates them from sociopaths is that they have
Speaker 10: a skill set that's incredible. They can manipulate and lie
Speaker 10: and charm people, and they're so good at their social
Speaker 10: skills that people just don't believe that they could be
Speaker 10: doing anything wrong. And that's a smaller group called those psychopaths.
Speaker 10: One of the mist about serial murder is that you
Speaker 10: know they're all psychopaths. Well, this is not true. Only
Speaker 10: twenty five thirty percent were found to be true psychopaths.
Speaker 1: Doctor Hickey says the Zodiac is likely a true psychopath.
Speaker 1: You're the top of that forty point scale because of
Speaker 1: his self obsession and craving for fame.
Speaker 10: Narcissism is one of the traits we see in true psychopaths.
Speaker 10: They are quite narcissistic and thus they want to be
Speaker 10: recognized for what they've done. So it is not surprising
Speaker 10: that the Zodiac killer that it's all about him because
Speaker 10: he's smarter than the police, he's smarter than his victims.
Speaker 10: He'll never get caught. That's kind of thinking that he's
Speaker 10: better than everybody else, And the fact that he did
Speaker 10: get him with it for this long shows that he
Speaker 10: was right.
Speaker 1: The whole TV call in saga and then subsequent contact
Speaker 1: with Melvin Belly was puzzling. Investigators determined the caller to
Speaker 1: both the TV show and to Belly's house was mental
Speaker 1: patient Eric Wyle, and that Wyle couldn't be the Zodiac,
Speaker 1: but the actual Zodiac had written to Belly and he
Speaker 1: included a piece of Paulstein's shirt as proof. What was
Speaker 1: going on was the Zodiac's letter a real cry for help.
Speaker 1: Had the Zodiac set up the TV call in but
Speaker 1: then Eric Wyle interrupted it, or had Wyle set up
Speaker 1: the call in, and then the Zodiac wrote to Belly
Speaker 1: to try and stir up more media attention. The timing
Speaker 1: of this letter to Belli was interesting. It was mailed
Speaker 1: the day after another California killer's face was plastered on
Speaker 1: the cover of Life.
Speaker 6: Magazine, December nineteenth, nineteen sixty nine. Life Magazine the strange
Speaker 6: story of Charlie Manson and his brood of New Bile
Speaker 6: flower children charged with murder life in a sex and
Speaker 6: drug devoted communal family that lived on the far edge
Speaker 6: of society under the absolute, almost mystical domination of Charles Manson.
Speaker 6: Manson gave the orders and the family carried them out.
Speaker 6: Charlie Manson so disturbed the American millions last week when
Speaker 6: he was charged with sending four dociled girls and a
Speaker 6: hairy male acolyte off to slaughter strangers in two Los
Speaker 6: Angeles houses last August. What failure of the human condition
Speaker 6: could produce a Charles Manson? What possible aspects of such
Speaker 6: a creature's example could induce sweet faced young women to
Speaker 6: acts of such numbing cruelty.
Speaker 1: The Manson story was a media sensation the next day
Speaker 1: when the Zodiac sent his letter to Melvin BELLI was
Speaker 1: he trying to regain the attention he seemed to so
Speaker 1: desperately crave. The Manson trial and its press coverage stretched
Speaker 1: on for months, and America was repeatedly shocked by new
Speaker 1: revelations about the Manson family, but the Zodiac wasn't willing
Speaker 1: to give up his place on the front page. If
Speaker 1: you pay attention to when the Zodiac sent his letters,
Speaker 1: it seems as if for every article published about Manson,
Speaker 1: the Zodiac responded within days with a new letter, taunting
Speaker 1: police with an ever increasing kill count and demanding the
Speaker 1: press give him the coverage he felt he deserved.
Speaker 6: April nineteenth, nineteen seventy. San Francisco Examiner cult chief's pal
Speaker 6: guilty and.
Speaker 4: Killing April twentieth, nineteen seventy. This is the Zodiac speaking.
Speaker 6: Busile A twenty two testify it was Manson who killed Hinman.
Speaker 6: The baby face defendant said, Manson, leader of a nomadic
Speaker 6: hippie style clan, sought twenty thousand dollars from Hinman. Charles
Speaker 6: pulled a sword from behind his leg and stabbed busil At, said, I.
Speaker 9: Hope you do not think that I was the one
Speaker 9: who wiped out that blue Mini with a bomb of
Speaker 9: the cop station. Even though I talked about killing school
Speaker 9: children with one, it just wouldn't do to move in
Speaker 9: on someone else's territory. I've killed ten people to date.
Speaker 6: April twenty first, nineteen seventy. Gas chamber for a musician.
Speaker 9: Slayer April twenty eighth, nineteen seventy. I hope you enjoy
Speaker 9: yourselves when I have my blast.
Speaker 6: Boussolet maintained it was Manson who killed Hinman.
Speaker 9: If you don't want me to have this blast, you
Speaker 9: must do two things. One tell everyone about the bus
Speaker 9: bomb with all the details. Two, I would like to
Speaker 9: see some nice Zodiac buttons wandering around town. Everyone else
Speaker 9: has these buttons like peace, black power, Melvin EAT's blubber
Speaker 9: cheer me up considerably. If I saw a lot of
Speaker 9: people wearing my button, please know nasty ones like Melvin's.
Speaker 6: June twelfth, nineteen seventy. Manson battles with bailiffs. Charles Manson
Speaker 6: fought with three bailiffs trying to force him into his seat,
Speaker 6: then was led shouting out of court along with three others,
Speaker 6: charged with murdered conspiracy and the slayings of actress Sharon
Speaker 6: Tate and six others. The women sat down, then jumped
Speaker 6: up again. Miss Krinwinkle raised her arms and addressed newsmen
Speaker 6: seated in the jury section. We gave our lives once before.
Speaker 6: Don't you know who we are? You put us on
Speaker 6: the cross once before. Why don't you do it again?
Speaker 9: June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy. This is the Zodiac speaking.
Speaker 9: I have become very upset with the people of San
Speaker 9: fran Bay area. They have not complied with my wishes
Speaker 9: for them to wear some nice Zodiac buttons. I promised
Speaker 9: to punish them if they did not comply by annihilating
Speaker 9: a full school bus, but now school is out for
Speaker 9: the summer, so I punished them in an I shot
Speaker 9: a man sitting in a parked car with a thirty
Speaker 9: eight Zodiac twelve.
Speaker 4: San Francisco Police Department zero.
Speaker 6: July twenty fourth, nineteen seven. State tells bizarre Tate killing's motive.
Speaker 6: Charles Manson hoped to touch off a Negro white blood
Speaker 6: bath in the United States by making it appear that
Speaker 6: blacks had committed the Tate LaBianca murders. Manson, thirty five,
Speaker 6: appeared in court with a red cross slashed on his forehead,
Speaker 6: framed by his dangling hair. Manson did it with two
Speaker 6: slashes of a razor blade. Manson has in the past
Speaker 6: called himself Christ and Jesus.
Speaker 9: July twenty fourth, nineteen seventy. I am rather unhappy because
Speaker 9: you people will not wear some nice Zodiac buttons. So
Speaker 9: I now have a little list, starting with a woman
Speaker 9: and her baby that I gave a rather interesting ride
Speaker 9: for a couple hours one evening a few months back.
Speaker 6: July twenty fifth, nineteen seventy, Manson wanted race war with
Speaker 6: a Beatles song spinning in his mind, Charles Manson and
Speaker 6: ordered the murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others
Speaker 6: in hopes of igniting a black white war. To Manson,
Speaker 6: Helter Skelter, one of the Beatles' songs, meant the black
Speaker 6: man rising up against the white establishment and murdering the
Speaker 6: entire white race. Manson believed the race war would wipe
Speaker 6: out all whites except Manson and his clan, who intended
Speaker 6: to escape by going to the desert. Helter Skelter was
Speaker 6: scrawled in blood on a wall at the home of
Speaker 6: two of the victims. The scrawlings and other evidence were
Speaker 6: aimed at making it look like black people had murdered
Speaker 6: the five tape victims.
Speaker 4: July twenty sixth, nineteen seventy.
Speaker 9: Being that you will not wear some nice Zodiac buttons,
Speaker 9: how about wearing some nasty Zodiac buttons. If you do
Speaker 9: not wear any buttons, I shall, on top of everything else,
Speaker 9: torture all thirteen of my slaves that I have waiting
Speaker 9: for me in paradise. Some I shall tie over an
Speaker 9: hills and watch them scream and twitch and squirm. Others
Speaker 9: shall be placed in cages and feds salt beef until
Speaker 9: they are gorged. And then I shall listen to their
Speaker 9: pleas for water, and I shall laugh at them. Others
Speaker 9: will hang by their thumbs and burn in the sun.
Speaker 9: Then I will rub them down with deep heat to
Speaker 9: warm them up. And all billiard players, I shall have
Speaker 9: them play in a dark and dungeon cell with crooked
Speaker 9: cues and twisted shoes. Yes, I shall have great fun
Speaker 9: inflicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves. San
Speaker 9: Francisco Police Department, zero Zodiac.
Speaker 6: Thirteen October twenty seventh, nineteen seven. Witness describes Manson's visions
Speaker 6: of racial warfare. Manson had compounded a theory of eminent
Speaker 6: racial strife from the Bible and the Beatles. After the killings,
Speaker 6: whites were to go into the black ghetto and kill
Speaker 6: then the blacks would wipe out the white survivors. But
Speaker 6: after the blacks had won, they would not like the
Speaker 6: responsibility of governing and would call Manson and his followers
Speaker 6: from the desert. Houston said he was under the influence
Speaker 6: of LSD in June sixty nine when he met Manson
Speaker 6: in the Sunset Boulevard home of a member of the
Speaker 6: Beach Boys rock group. He asked me if I could
Speaker 6: make love in front of twenty five people, said Postin
Speaker 6: He said he thought Manson was Jesus Christ.
Speaker 9: October twenty seventh, nineteen seventy Paradise Slaves by fire, by gun,
Speaker 9: by knife, by rope peek a boo, you are doomed
Speaker 9: fourteen boo signed Z.
Speaker 1: Melvin Bellie wasn't the only one to receive a personal
Speaker 1: message from the Zodiac. That last correspondence you heard from
Speaker 1: the Zodiac was actually a Halloween card, a black card
Speaker 1: with a dancing skeleton. The writer had used white out
Speaker 1: to draw cryptic symbols and thirteen peering eyes. He sent
Speaker 1: it to Paul Avery, a reporter at the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Chronicle who'd been covering the Zodiac. Duffy Jennings remembers when
Speaker 1: Avery received the card.
Speaker 12: During the course of my a couple of years as
Speaker 12: a copy boy, I got to know all the reporters
Speaker 12: pretty well, and that included Paul Avery. He'd been a
Speaker 12: war correspondent in Vietnam and he loved to do crime stuff.
Speaker 12: He kind of took a shine to me and we
Speaker 12: became sort of friends. He was a few years older
Speaker 12: around nineteen seventy. As I started to work as a
Speaker 12: reporter and we became closer friends. I'd go with him
Speaker 12: out following the leads about certain suspects or types of
Speaker 12: evidence that would come in. Only one Zodiac letter was
Speaker 12: actually personal to Paul Avery. It was a Halloween card
Speaker 12: he sent and had kind of a creepy message to it, peekaboo,
Speaker 12: You're doomed, I think it said.
Speaker 3: The two homicide inspectors who were working with the Zodiac
Speaker 3: case came in and tapped me on the shoulder and
Speaker 3: pulled me outside and said we received another letter from
Speaker 3: the Zodiac, and it was a to you. It was
Speaker 3: a Halloween card interpreted as being a threat to me.
Speaker 3: At that point, he had been claiming thirteen victims. This
Speaker 3: one mentioned fourteen, and the presumption was that either he
Speaker 3: had killed fourteen people at that point and maybe I
Speaker 3: was number fifteen, or maybe I was supposed to be
Speaker 3: number fourteen.
Speaker 12: At that time in the seventies, reporters didn't get killed
Speaker 12: in the line of duty. I think maybe in that
Speaker 12: whole decade there might have been, up to that point,
Speaker 12: one reporter, a guy named Don Bowles at the Phoenix,
Speaker 12: who had his car blown up by some organized crime
Speaker 12: figures he'd been writing about. But otherwise, reporters it wasn't
Speaker 12: an unsafe job. As we talked, there's an assault on
Speaker 12: the media going on, and there's a lot of fear
Speaker 12: of what people might do. But at that time in
Speaker 12: the seventies, you never thought about your own safety. So
Speaker 12: when Avery was threatened, somebody in our newsroom engaged in
Speaker 12: a bit of sort of Maudlin newsroom humor, which you
Speaker 12: know we are one to do, and they had these
Speaker 12: buttons made up, big white buttons like campaign buttons, and
Speaker 12: it said, in big black block letters, I am not Avery.
Speaker 12: We all got one and wore them when we had
Speaker 12: a great laugh about it, and Herb Caine, who was
Speaker 12: the big gossip columnist, wrote an item about it, and
Speaker 12: then TV stations sent crews over to do stories about
Speaker 12: the buttons, and then it became national news that all
Speaker 12: the people there chronicle were wearing these I'm not Avery buttons.
Speaker 12: Avery himself wore a button and I said, are you
Speaker 12: concerned about this at all? He goes nah, He said,
Speaker 12: I'm not worried about it, but I have to tell
Speaker 12: you that in addition to wearing a button, Paul started
Speaker 12: to wear a holster. He got a handgun permit from
Speaker 12: the police chief.
Speaker 3: I think the Zodiac is just making an idle threat, frankly,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, I'm no fool. I'm going
Speaker 3: to be very careful. There was a conference with the
Speaker 3: police department, a discussion of possible police protection for me.
Speaker 3: He was finally decided that this, you know, at this
Speaker 3: time at least is un warranted. Somebody takes a shot
Speaker 3: at me, that'll be a different case. But at this
Speaker 3: point is we don't feel any need for protection.
Speaker 12: And I have to tell you that whenever I went
Speaker 12: out of the building with Paul. I had to kind
Speaker 12: of look around. You didn't think Zodiac was the kind
Speaker 12: of guy who was going to target someone in particular,
Speaker 12: But what if he did, and what if he missed?
Speaker 12: What if you were with the guy? All this goes
Speaker 12: through your head.
Speaker 3: He is bragged of killing up to possibly fourteen people,
Speaker 3: but there's absolutely no evidence that he's killed more than five.
Speaker 3: I put no credence in this. I think he just
Speaker 3: wanted to get himself a little publicity. Well the killings
Speaker 3: that have gone on in this area in recent weeks
Speaker 3: that have created a very big headlines. Possibly he's a
Speaker 3: little miffed he's not the center of attention anymore.
Speaker 1: The Zodiac had been continuously bragging about new murders in
Speaker 1: the eleven letters and cards he sent in just over
Speaker 1: a year, but he'd stopped supplying any evidence. Had he
Speaker 1: made good on his threat to disguise his murders as
Speaker 1: routine killings, or had he stopped killing altogether and the
Speaker 1: letters were just for attention. We spoke to criminal psychologist
Speaker 1: James Fox about whether serial killers ever do just stop killing.
Speaker 11: I started studying multiple homicide, including serial murder, back in
Speaker 11: the early nineteen eighties. Back then people essentially believed that
Speaker 11: repeat killers were glassy at lunatics, and we found actually
Speaker 11: that they were extraordinarily ordinary, and that was why they're
Speaker 11: so dangerous. If they looked and acted like the serial
Speaker 11: killers in the movies Jason or Freddy Krueger, we'd avoid
Speaker 11: them like the plague. But the fact that they blend
Speaker 11: in so well and have an outward appearance of being
Speaker 11: a nice guy makes them extramely dangerous. Many of them
Speaker 11: were quintessential sociopaths. They cared only for their own pleasures,
Speaker 11: no matter who they hurt in the process. And they
Speaker 11: also had a satiable need for power and control and dominance,
Speaker 11: and oftentimes satisfied those nees through rape and torture and mayhem.
Speaker 11: But one thing that's fairly clear is that lots of
Speaker 11: people have this excessive need for power and control and dominance,
Speaker 11: but they're able to satisfy it in socially legitimate ways.
Speaker 11: They may be a corporate executive who hires and fires
Speaker 11: and enjoys the idea of hurting other people through these firings,
Speaker 11: or they may be a college professor who enjoys funking
Speaker 11: a student and seeing them squirm. But the thing about
Speaker 11: serial killers is they don't have that ability. They don't
Speaker 11: have an outlet to satisfy their needs for power and dominance.
Speaker 11: To give it a good example, Dennis Raider, the BTK killer,
Speaker 11: always wanted to be I'm a police officer, but wasn't
Speaker 11: able to make it onto the force. He started killing victims.
Speaker 11: But after many years, when he got a position as
Speaker 11: a compliance officer in his neighborhood and he could give
Speaker 11: people citations if their grass was too long, gave him
Speaker 11: the authority that he always wanted to have, and then
Speaker 11: he stopped killing. He stopped killing because he had another
Speaker 11: way to satisfy that power he wanted over other people.
Speaker 1: Were The Zodiac's letters. His outlet did manipulating the police
Speaker 1: and the media quench his desire for power and control.
Speaker 1: Here's Zodiac expert Michael Butterfield.
Speaker 13: The Zodiac went from being a nameless killer on a
Speaker 13: road at night, to being a bizarre killer wearing a
Speaker 13: costume during daylight, to killing a cab driver in a
Speaker 13: populated area, to threatening school children, and then becoming a
Speaker 13: modern terrorist. After his last known murder cab driver Paul Stein.
Speaker 13: The Zodiac wrote a lot of letters but didn't appear
Speaker 13: to engage in any further attacks. There was never any
Speaker 13: bomb found along any roadsides. There's never any attempts to
Speaker 13: bomb any school buses or anything. But he sure created
Speaker 13: weeks and months of terror in the Bay Area that
Speaker 13: is remembered to this day. And I think that was
Speaker 13: part of his goal. These bombs served the purpose of
Speaker 13: removing him from the equation. He doesn't have to be
Speaker 13: there anymore. He knew that all he would have to
Speaker 13: do is draw a little bomb and mail it to
Speaker 13: a newspaper, and it would not only create instant terror,
Speaker 13: but it would be covered all over the place. Even
Speaker 13: though the Zodiac probably had stopped killing and was sitting
Speaker 13: at home just watching TV and reading the newspaper, do
Speaker 13: you still feel scared of it? Has no resolution, no end,
Speaker 13: because you still think he's out there. He became someone
Speaker 13: who could be around any corner and in any shadow
Speaker 13: at any time. But the Zodiac was also sort of
Speaker 13: drowned out at times by other major crime stories. A
Speaker 13: lot of people were paying more attention to things like
Speaker 13: the Manson trial and all the chaos and insanity of that.
Speaker 13: And then as the sixties came to an end in
Speaker 13: the seventies came around. That was the age of the
Speaker 13: serial killer, and I think the Zodiac was sort of
Speaker 13: overshadowed by all of this, and perhaps he sensed that
Speaker 13: in some way that time had moved on, that America
Speaker 13: had become even more violent than he was and moved
Speaker 13: to another level, and maybe that's why he in a
Speaker 13: sense stepped away from it. But then in March of
Speaker 13: nineteen seventy, a young woman claimed that she had been
Speaker 13: driving along a freeway and a vehicle pulled.
Speaker 4: Up alongside her.
Speaker 13: The man inside gestured towards her vehicle as if there
Speaker 13: was something wrong, so she pulled over. The man pulled
Speaker 13: over and said, hey, your tires loose. That gave him
Speaker 13: a perfect opportunity to pretend to be the good Samaritan
Speaker 13: and offer her a.
Speaker 5: Ride next time on Monster the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 13: Investigators at Riverside were watching and saying, this looks kind
Speaker 13: of familiar, and maybe these crimes are connected.
Speaker 9: A young, inexperienced Zodiac murdered Edwards and Domingos more than
Speaker 9: five years before his reign of terror in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: It said, Bates had to die. There will be more
Speaker 3: right at the bottom, is z.
Speaker 8: In his monotone, no killing, no looking at me, Ryan
Speaker 8: or on.
Speaker 3: He said to you that he was going to kill you.
Speaker 2: You're gonna die.
Speaker 9: You know I'm gonna kill you and throw that maybe out.
Speaker 5: Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
Speaker 5: by iHeartRadio, hou Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Alright
Speaker 5: and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 5: alongside producers Meredith Stebman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason
Speaker 5: Hope is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 5: along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Keebrick, and
Speaker 5: Josh Thain. Scott Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick
Speaker 5: is our host. Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 5: If you haven't already, make sure to check out the
Speaker 5: first season of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta
Speaker 5: child murders from the late seventies to the early eighties.
Speaker 5: Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or
Speaker 5: comments email us at Monster at houstuffworks dot com, or
Speaker 5: you can call us at one eight three, three, two
Speaker 5: eight five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 12: Thanks for listening.