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: After the attack at Lake barri Essa, the Zodiac fell silent.
Speaker 2: There were no more letters, there were no more phone
Speaker 2: calls after that initial phone call to the Napa Police Department,
Speaker 2: and we don't know why. But two weeks after the
Speaker 2: attack at Lake Barriessa, the Zodiac resurfaced in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: And while he had already sent a letter to the
Speaker 2: San Francisco Chronicle establishing himself as a link to San Francisco,
Speaker 2: he hadn't committed any crimes there that we knew.
Speaker 3: Of in the newsroom, our ears perked up, obvious a
Speaker 3: little more about this kind of case. Now you've got
Speaker 3: three cases and the one guy claiming responsibility and providing
Speaker 3: in some of these letters details and only the police
Speaker 3: would know, so they'd verify that he was at the
Speaker 3: actual scene. But it wasn't until October eleventh, nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 3: when Zodiac first struck in San Francisco, that I think
Speaker 3: the Chronicle went into full on serial killer mode if
Speaker 3: you will. For a couple of reasons. One is in
Speaker 3: this case, Zodiac hailed a taxi in front of the
Speaker 3: theater in the current theater on Geary Street in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: He asked to be taken out to a fairly upscale
Speaker 3: neighborhood called Presidio Heights, where he instructed the driver to stop,
Speaker 3: and once he stopped, he asked them to go another
Speaker 3: block for reasons no one's ever figured out, And when
Speaker 3: they got to the next corner, Zodiac shot the guy
Speaker 3: in the back of the head and killed him. This
Speaker 3: cab driver's name was Paul Stein.
Speaker 4: A man in a mask robbed, tied, and stabbed him,
Speaker 4: leaving them for day.
Speaker 5: Subject stated, I want to report a murder, no a
Speaker 5: double murder.
Speaker 6: I did it a man who wore a medieval style
Speaker 6: executioners hood, carried a knife and gun and intended to
Speaker 6: use them.
Speaker 5: They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing.
Speaker 3: I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Speaker 7: Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 8: iHeartRadio, Housetuff Works and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 9: This is monster, the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 8: Taxi drivers are the unspoken experts of their cities, the
Speaker 8: unofficial tour guides per se. In a big city like
Speaker 8: San Francisco, taxi drivers are ubiquitous, They're everywhere, They're a constant,
Speaker 8: a given, and because of this, they were also an
Speaker 8: easy target for the Zodiac.
Speaker 10: Think about it.
Speaker 8: There are a few people more trusting of strangers than
Speaker 8: a taxi driver. They pull over, pick you up, drop
Speaker 8: you off. You never even see their face for exchange names.
Speaker 8: There's intimacy here. You are sharing this small place, but
Speaker 8: the stranger. Do you really know who's in the car
Speaker 8: with you. The Zodiac didn't stalk his victims for weeks.
Speaker 8: He chose them at random because of their environment, their unawareness,
Speaker 8: and in some cases, their occupation. What's more frightening than
Speaker 8: someone who prays on the unexpecting.
Speaker 2: San Francisco is directly linked to the Zodiac killer. There's
Speaker 2: no escaping it, which is ironic because it's not where
Speaker 2: he started. He started in Valleo and Benetia.
Speaker 1: This is Zodiac expert Michael Butterfield.
Speaker 2: And maybe that was something that he wanted. Maybe he
Speaker 2: lived in San Francisco. Maybe it was easier to write
Speaker 2: to the San Francisco Chronicle and make sure that he
Speaker 2: could read that newspaper than it was to drive all
Speaker 2: the way to wherever he had to go to get
Speaker 2: a Valeo Times Harold, I don't know. One thing that
Speaker 2: we know for sure is that the Zodiac wanted the
Speaker 2: attention that.
Speaker 10: He wanted when he wanted it.
Speaker 2: Now. What he wanted in July of nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 2: was for as many people to see this as possible,
Speaker 2: to get as much attention as possible, and to cement
Speaker 2: his image as a real threat. And it worked. And
Speaker 2: then after that, I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: he started to realize was I'm going to do better
Speaker 2: if I keep going to the Chronicle, then if I
Speaker 2: keep going to another newspaper. And there's some evidence that
Speaker 2: the Vleo Times Herald was not as willing to keep
Speaker 2: playing this game with him. Maybe he sensed that maybe
Speaker 2: when he was looking at their coverage he didn't like
Speaker 2: what he saw. So after that he started focusing on
Speaker 2: the San Francisco Chronicle and they were happy to play alone.
Speaker 11: Well, the key papers in San Francisco were the Chronicle
Speaker 11: and the Examiner. They were very different. At the end
Speaker 11: of the day, the Examiner was a kind of symbolic power,
Speaker 11: but it was losing its circulation war with the San
Speaker 11: Francisco Chronicle.
Speaker 1: Here's Peter Richardson, historian and lecturer at San Francisco State University.
Speaker 11: Was never a gray paper journalistically, but they had some
Speaker 11: very interesting columnists. It was kind of a fun read
Speaker 11: for that reason. But the city had never really distinguished
Speaker 11: itself journalistically. It didn't have a paper during this time
Speaker 11: like the Los Angeles Times, much less the Washington Post
Speaker 11: or the New York Times. They were widely read, but
Speaker 11: they were not any great shakes.
Speaker 1: Despite this, the San Francisco Chronicle had the highest readership
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, and Peter Richardson says that this
Speaker 1: was the only thing that mattered to the Zodiac.
Speaker 4: The Psychotic killer has already murdered five, one at a
Speaker 4: lover's lane near a lake just north of San Francisco,
Speaker 4: three others in nearby Vallejo, the latest a taxi driver
Speaker 4: in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: He apparently was in the area of Mason and Geary
Speaker 2: in San Francisco and hailed a cab, and that cab
Speaker 2: was being driven by Paul Stein, who was a student
Speaker 2: and a husband. The plan was to direct Paul Stein
Speaker 2: to the intersection of Washington and Maple, which was in
Speaker 2: an upscale neighborhood of San Francisco known as Presidio Heights. So,
Speaker 2: from what we know, paul Stein took the passenger to
Speaker 2: that location. What we don't know is why the cab
Speaker 2: eventually ended up one block further west at Washington and
Speaker 2: Cherry Streets. Some kids were in a house across the
Speaker 2: street and they heard some kind of commotion and looked
Speaker 2: out the window and they saw a man in the
Speaker 2: front seat doing something to the cab driver. They thought
Speaker 2: that he was stabbing him or doing something to him,
Speaker 2: and they watched as the man handled the driver, and
Speaker 2: then they called the police. And apparently while they were
Speaker 2: talking to the police dispatcher and they were describing what
Speaker 2: they were seeing, something went wrong. Instead of describing the
Speaker 2: killer as a white man, the radio dispatch to responding
Speaker 2: officers described the killer as a black man. The witnesses
Speaker 2: watched as the man finished whatever he was doing in
Speaker 2: the cab. He got out of the cab. He walked
Speaker 2: around to the driver's side and appeared to have some
Speaker 2: sort of light colored cloth in his hand as he
Speaker 2: was wiping down the cab or doing something on the
Speaker 2: driver's side of the cab. He then turned and walked
Speaker 2: north up Cherry Street.
Speaker 3: Two days later, the Chronicle received a letter and only
Speaker 3: the Chronicle from the Zodiac.
Speaker 1: This is former reporter Duffy Jennings. He was there when
Speaker 1: the San Francisco Chronicle received this now infamous letter.
Speaker 3: As the woman opened it in the editorial department, a
Speaker 3: piece of bloody shirt fell out with the letter.
Speaker 12: This is the Zodiac speaking, I am the murderer of
Speaker 12: the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street
Speaker 12: last night. To prove this, here's a bloodstained piece of
Speaker 12: his shirt. I am the same man who did in
Speaker 12: the people in the North Bay.
Speaker 3: Area, so they knew that this was Paul Stein's killer.
Speaker 3: And now he's again taunting police to catch him. And
Speaker 3: the fear factor went way up, and now he's in
Speaker 3: San Francisco.
Speaker 13: Captain Lee at this particular time is satisfied that the
Speaker 13: individual who sent this piece of shut in and the
Speaker 13: letter to the Chronicle was in fact connected with the
Speaker 13: is the person who killed the cab driver. Let me
Speaker 13: put it that way. The contents of the letters, the
Speaker 13: language of the in other cases are very similar to
Speaker 13: the language and the form of the letters in this
Speaker 13: particular case, and because of the fact that the shirt
Speaker 13: matches the shirt as I understand that we would have
Speaker 13: to assume that there is validity to the claim of
Speaker 13: this individual.
Speaker 1: That was San Francisco Police Chief Thomas Cahill. The SFPD
Speaker 1: confirmed the killer was in fact the Zodiac. They knew
Speaker 1: this because the striped cloth found in the letter matched
Speaker 1: the striped shirt paul Stein was wearing, and when investigators
Speaker 1: checked paul Stein's shirt, they found that a rectangular portion
Speaker 1: was missing. With the San Francisco Police department involved, this
Speaker 1: crime now crossed over multiple cities and jurisdictions, and those
Speaker 1: individual departments weren't necessarily working together. In Napa, where the
Speaker 1: last murder occurred at Lake Barriessa, sheriffs had made their
Speaker 1: own assessment of the murder in San Francisco.
Speaker 7: But pulmonary tests of certain evidence such as fingerprint and
Speaker 7: handwriting have been made to where we are certain that
Speaker 7: the man that we're looking for is the same man
Speaker 7: responsible for the killing of the cab driver in San Francisco,
Speaker 7: plus the shooting deaths in Solano County. In Leo Well, Sheriff,
Speaker 7: what type of person is this man?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 7: We have reason to believe that he's a maniac. However,
Speaker 7: he is a cunning man. He knows just exactly what
Speaker 7: moves he's going to make. He knows where he's going
Speaker 7: to be from one minute to the next. He knows
Speaker 7: where he's going to start and when he's going to end.
Speaker 7: He plans these things out, and he knows just exactly
Speaker 7: how this thing is going to turn out. We think
Speaker 7: it appears to us that he is killing just for
Speaker 7: the thrill of killing.
Speaker 1: So how did the killer avoid the police in Presidio Heights?
Speaker 1: In the Bloody Shirt letter, the Zodiac gave his own
Speaker 1: account of what happened that night.
Speaker 12: The San Francisco police could have called me last night
Speaker 12: if they had searched the park properly. Instead of holding
Speaker 12: road races with their motorcycles seen who could make the
Speaker 12: most noise. The car drivers should have just parked their
Speaker 12: cars and sat there quietly waiting for me to come
Speaker 12: out of cover.
Speaker 1: But there was more. In another letter sent just a
Speaker 1: few weeks later, Zodiac gave even more details about what
Speaker 1: happened after Paulstein's murder.
Speaker 12: If you wonder why I was wiping the cab down,
Speaker 12: I was leaving fake clues for the police to run
Speaker 12: all over town with. As one might say, I gave
Speaker 12: the cops some busy work to do to keep them happy.
Speaker 12: I enjoy needling the blue pigs. Hey, blue pig, I
Speaker 12: was in the park. You were using fire trucks to
Speaker 12: mass the sound of your cruising prowl cars. The dogs
Speaker 12: now came within two blocks of me, and they were
Speaker 12: to the west, and there was only two groups of
Speaker 12: parking about ten minutes apart. And then the motorcycles went
Speaker 12: by about one hundred and fifty feet away, going from
Speaker 12: south to northwest ps two cops pulled a goof About
Speaker 12: three minutes after I left the cab, I was walking
Speaker 12: down the hill to the park when this cop car
Speaker 12: pulled up and one of them called me over and
Speaker 12: asked if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in
Speaker 12: the last five to ten minutes, and I said, yes,
Speaker 12: there was this man who was running by waving the gun.
Speaker 12: And the cops peeled rubber and went around the corner
Speaker 12: as I directed them, and I disappeared into the park
Speaker 12: a block and a half away, never to be seen again.
Speaker 2: Paul Stein, unlike the other victims, became a victim because
Speaker 2: of his job. That seems very unfair to me, and
Speaker 2: I know that's an odd way to describe it, but
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't have a chance, He had no idea.
Speaker 2: He was just doing what he thought he was supposed
Speaker 2: to do. He thought he would take this person where
Speaker 2: he wants to go and go on his way. He
Speaker 2: didn't know that the passenger he picked up had other plans.
Speaker 1: This is Michael Butterfield again. He's interviewed numerous people who
Speaker 1: were on the scene that night.
Speaker 2: And while the kids were watching, the first responding police
Speaker 2: officers arrived, and that was Frank Peta and Armand Pealasetti.
Speaker 2: And Armand Pealasetti told me in several interviews I did
Speaker 2: with him over the years that he arrived at the scene,
Speaker 2: he saw the kids coming out of the house. He
Speaker 2: directed them to stand back. He asked his partner to
Speaker 2: watch the area to guard the crime scene, and he
Speaker 2: approached the cab with a flashlight. He said that when
Speaker 2: he got near the driver's side, he could see some
Speaker 2: sort of impression on the outer door that appeared to
Speaker 2: be blood and maybe fingerprints. He then looked inside the
Speaker 2: cab and he saw Paulstein's body laying in the driver's seat,
Speaker 2: and according to armand Pallasetti, it was obvious that he
Speaker 2: was dead. Palasetti then walked north on Cherry Street in
Speaker 2: pursuit of the killer, and at some point he encountered
Speaker 2: two other police officers who were responding officers, Don Falk
Speaker 2: and Eric Zelm's. At some point the description of the
Speaker 2: killer was corrected to that.
Speaker 10: Of a white man.
Speaker 1: According to the new witness description, the killer was a
Speaker 1: white male in his early forties. He was about five
Speaker 1: to eight with a heavy build. He had reddish blonde
Speaker 1: hair a crew cut, and he wore eyeglasses and a
Speaker 1: dark parka jacket.
Speaker 2: And when that happened, apparently Don Falk realized that that
Speaker 2: was a man that they had driven past on their
Speaker 2: way to the crime scene. So Falc and his partner
Speaker 2: turned around and went back and went looking for the killer.
Speaker 2: They did not find him. Palasetti kept walking and didn't
Speaker 2: see anything. By that time, then the fire department and
Speaker 2: other investigators were arriving. They did find some fingerprints in
Speaker 2: that area where armand Palasetti thought he had seen some fingerprints,
Speaker 2: and those prints were found in the exact area where
Speaker 2: the killer was last seen making contact with the cab.
Speaker 2: According to the witnesses, no one touched that cab in
Speaker 2: between the time that the killer walked away and armand
Speaker 2: Pallasetti arrived, So that's a strong indication that those fingerprints
Speaker 2: did belong.
Speaker 9: To the killer.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of questions about the murder of
Speaker 1: Paul Stein. Why would the killer change his mo so
Speaker 1: dramatically Again, the Zodiac had previously focused on young couples
Speaker 1: in isolated areas, and his weapon of choice was a handgun.
Speaker 1: He escalated his attacks when he wore a costume, then
Speaker 1: tied up and stabbed the couple at Lake Barriessa. This
Speaker 1: time he went back to his regular clothes and back
Speaker 1: to his gun to kill a lone male cab driver.
Speaker 1: It just didn't make sense to me to better understand.
Speaker 1: I first wanted to retrace the Zodiac steps that night
Speaker 1: to take the same route in the back of a taxi.
Speaker 1: So I started where he did, near the intersection of
Speaker 1: Mason and Geary in the Tenderloin district. There's a theater
Speaker 1: nearby that the Zodiac may have gone into.
Speaker 5: My name is Oliver Sutton. I am the head of
Speaker 5: security for the Act Theater for more than twenty yefs.
Speaker 5: I've known this area virtually all the time I've lived
Speaker 5: in South Francisco. The Zodiac, the first murderer could kick
Speaker 5: place in San Francisco. A patriot came out of the
Speaker 5: Act Theater. At that time, it was the Geary and
Speaker 5: the Act American Conservatory Theater. I don't know what show
Speaker 5: was going on at that time, but he could have
Speaker 5: got gone into the lobby, used that as a backdrop,
Speaker 5: or he could actually been a patron of basict that
Speaker 5: came out, had a taxi and murdered him. I'll take
Speaker 5: you into the lobby, turned the lights on and give
Speaker 5: you a chance to see where you know where it
Speaker 5: took place.
Speaker 14: This h the lights on, so uh, the the killer,
Speaker 14: he would have come through these double doors.
Speaker 5: That's they filmed it that way for the movie. That
Speaker 5: he walked out of these double doors and held down
Speaker 5: a yellow taxi, a yellow cabby. Being a hat in
Speaker 5: any city is tough because you don't know who's getting
Speaker 5: in the back seat of the car. According to the story,
Speaker 5: the victim was not chosen. It was just a random
Speaker 5: crime of opportunity.
Speaker 1: From there, the killer called the taxi and was picked
Speaker 1: up by Paul Stein. So I called the cab two.
Speaker 1: I asked to be taken to the corner of Washington
Speaker 1: and Cherry Street in the Presidio Heights neighborhood. It was
Speaker 1: about three miles west, fifteen minutes by car, and oddly enough,
Speaker 1: my cab driver's name was also Paul sat.
Speaker 2: Diane Feinstein.
Speaker 1: Whinstein yea, she lives. Paul and I got to talking.
Speaker 1: He had heard about the Zodiac case but didn't know
Speaker 1: much of the details. He asked me how many people
Speaker 1: the Zodiac had killed. I told him how many of
Speaker 1: the police had confirmed. He wasn't impressed. He's swaw time,
Speaker 1: I know, and she's swawed potatoes. He saw a ton
Speaker 1: of people. The reason why it's it's such a big
Speaker 1: deal is because he was constantly writing to the chronicles.
Speaker 14: Well call, he was one of the first one.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was one of the first, and he
Speaker 1: was in the paper.
Speaker 12: So when he did something, he may should that the
Speaker 12: police knew it was him that did it.
Speaker 9: Right, Yeah, he would send You want him to really claim.
Speaker 1: I did that one?
Speaker 9: I don't want nobody has to try.
Speaker 2: To claim that as the glory.
Speaker 9: This is me.
Speaker 2: I did it.
Speaker 1: Well, here's where it gets crazy, though, man, because he
Speaker 1: like in the beginning, like with that one Paul Stein. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he sent a piece of the guy's cloth with his
Speaker 1: blood on it in his letter to the chronicle, right,
Speaker 1: and it was a cab driver. He was a cab driver, yeah,
Speaker 1: named Paul.
Speaker 12: He gets I'm a gun spooky man.
Speaker 10: I got bumped.
Speaker 1: I got goose bumps onthing, you know how related to
Speaker 1: the Zodiac. When we arrived on the scene of paul
Speaker 1: Stein's final moments, I got out and just listened for
Speaker 1: a while. A few cars drove by, but there wasn't much,
Speaker 1: if any, foot traffic. It felt like a different universe
Speaker 1: from the bustling city that was just a few blocks away.
Speaker 1: That's when I realized the Zodiac sought out these types locations, quiet,
Speaker 1: unassuming areas, places that seem almost peaceful, miles away from
Speaker 1: anywhere you might consider dangerous. A country road, a public park,
Speaker 1: and a popular vacation spot on a lake, in this case,
Speaker 1: a beautiful, upscale neighborhood in San Francisco. It maybe wonder
Speaker 1: did Zodiac want to strip away the feeling of safety
Speaker 1: from these places? And as I'm standing there, lost in
Speaker 1: this thought. I see a man walking towards me. He's
Speaker 1: carrying some takeout. He asked me what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and we got to talking. The man requested we not
Speaker 1: use his name, and we altered his voice for privacy,
Speaker 1: because it turns out he was related to someone who
Speaker 1: witnessed Paul Stein's murder.
Speaker 10: So it was my father, who was actually since past.
Speaker 10: He was he was just a kid. He was a kid,
Speaker 10: and he was just playing downstairs and he just you know,
Speaker 10: looked outside the window and saw yellow cab and it's
Speaker 10: being kids there, nosy, and they looked in and I
Speaker 10: guess from my memory of what I was told, saw
Speaker 10: someone slouch over in the car who, you know, come
Speaker 10: to find it was a culprit of the zodiac. And
Speaker 10: you call the police and his family or his mom
Speaker 10: and dad were down the street at a party, and
Speaker 10: you know, they called me. It was crazy. You know,
Speaker 10: I think someone just got murdered. Police came and that's
Speaker 10: what they came to find. And he's been hassled. You
Speaker 10: don't buy every investigator since trying to solve it. But
Speaker 10: I don't think they ever found him. He'd like talking
Speaker 10: about it that much, But I think it was either
Speaker 10: from that window there the first floor, or it was
Speaker 10: from the third floor. Pretty sure it was from the
Speaker 10: first floor. But I think he did feel some sort
Speaker 10: of weight of responsibility of, you know, give accurate information
Speaker 10: to help solve this crime. You know, I mean he
Speaker 10: was young and I think it was only twelve.
Speaker 2: The Zodiacs moved to San Francisco meant there would be
Speaker 2: a lot of changes in the investigation. One of them
Speaker 2: was that that was the first time he had struck
Speaker 2: in a major metropolitan city, which meant that a major
Speaker 2: metropolitan police force would be assigned to the case. Two
Speaker 2: of the investigators assigned to the case who arrived at
Speaker 2: the crime scene that night were David Toski and Bill Armstrong.
Speaker 2: Dave Tosky was sort of known as a celebrity cop.
Speaker 2: He liked media attention. People who lived in San Francisco
Speaker 2: were accustomed seeing his name in the newspaper or his
Speaker 2: face on television, and when the Zodiac crime started, that
Speaker 2: just naturally increased because now he was in charge of
Speaker 2: the hunt for the biggest serial killer in California history.
Speaker 2: He was identified primarily as the Zodiac in the movie
Speaker 2: Bullet Steve McQueen supposedly based a lot of his character
Speaker 2: on Dave Toski, including the way he held his gun
Speaker 2: in things like that, and there's also stories that the
Speaker 2: movie Dirty Harry was inspired by the battle between Tosky
Speaker 2: and the Zodiac.
Speaker 9: Is a mad Matt Loose give him the message at
Speaker 9: the chronicle.
Speaker 10: We'll agree to pay.
Speaker 9: We'll tell him we need time to get the money together.
Speaker 8: Wait a minute, do I.
Speaker 7: Get this right?
Speaker 9: You're gonna play this creeps game.
Speaker 13: It'll get us some more breathing space, so I might.
Speaker 10: Get somebody killed.
Speaker 2: Tosky and Armstrong investigated the scene and at a certain
Speaker 2: point those fingerprints were discovered. There was also a pair
Speaker 2: of gloves that were found underneath one of the seats,
Speaker 2: I believe, as well as the shell casing that appeared
Speaker 2: to have come from the Zodiac's weapon.
Speaker 1: The bullet came from a nine millimeter pistol, but it
Speaker 1: was not the same nine millimeter used to kill Darlene Ferron.
Speaker 1: Tosky and Armstrong would also discover that the gloves belonged
Speaker 1: to a pre vis customer of Paul Stein.
Speaker 2: All this evidence was gathered, the witness statements were taken,
Speaker 2: and a composite sketch of the killer was drawn up
Speaker 2: with the assistance of these witnesses. Tosky and Armstrong at
Speaker 2: the time thought that they were investigating what you might
Speaker 2: call a routine robbery. It was not unusual for cab
Speaker 2: drivers to be robbed or even shot in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: So when they were investigating those first two days, they
Speaker 2: thought they were looking for a career criminal, somebody with
Speaker 2: a record who probably committed this kind of crime before,
Speaker 2: and someone who could be readily identified by searching through
Speaker 2: the pool of usual suspects.
Speaker 10: They had no.
Speaker 2: Idea that in two days the San Francisco Chronicle would
Speaker 2: receive a letter from the Zodiac taking responsibility for the
Speaker 2: murder of Paul Stein, which also included a piece of
Speaker 2: paul Stein's shirt to remove any and all doubt that
Speaker 2: he was actually responsible.
Speaker 6: Since the release of the latest letter yesterday, our office
Speaker 6: has received additional phone calls from persons in the Bay
Speaker 6: Area who feel that they can be helpful in the
Speaker 6: apprehension of the Zodiac suspect.
Speaker 1: This is Inspector David Toski speaking with KPIX News in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 6: My partner, Inspector Armstrong, and I who were handling the case.
Speaker 6: Have received several phone calls this morning and this afternoon
Speaker 6: on various informants who have given us some information as
Speaker 6: to names, addresses, and locations that we have checked out
Speaker 6: and are checking out at the present time. It's generally
Speaker 6: stirred up quite a bit of interest.
Speaker 2: This of course changed the entire investigation. Tosky and Armstrong
Speaker 2: thought it was a simple crime, and now they were
Speaker 2: involved in what was possibly the most explosive manhunt in
Speaker 2: California history. So obviously moving to San Francisco, changing his
Speaker 2: victim preference, acting out much different kind of crime, sending
Speaker 2: scraps of victim's clothing in the mail. This was all
Speaker 2: a new level, a next step for the Zodiac. It
Speaker 2: was much more terrifying than where it was before. But
Speaker 2: also it sort of began this feud between the San
Speaker 2: Francisco Police Department and the Zodiac. Part of that seems
Speaker 2: to have come from the fact that the Zodiac did
Speaker 2: escape the police that night, and if he did remain
Speaker 2: in the area and watch them searching for him and
Speaker 2: watching them fail, that must have done a lot for
Speaker 2: his ego. He must have felt very powerful, He must
Speaker 2: have felt invincible.
Speaker 1: But This was just the beginning of the San Francisco chapter.
Speaker 1: In the last part of the Bloody Shirt letter, Zodiac
Speaker 1: had one more threat.
Speaker 12: School children make nice targets. I think I shall wipe
Speaker 12: out a school by some morning, Just shoot out the
Speaker 12: front tire and then pick off the kiddies as they
Speaker 12: come bouncing out.
Speaker 4: Signed Zodiac, school children are nice targets. I shall wipe
Speaker 4: out his school bus some morning, shoot out the tires
Speaker 4: and then pick off the kiddies as they come bounding out.
Speaker 7: That was the threat of the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 4: Now, every day police cars follow the buses, which would
Speaker 4: be likely targets. Officers aren't with shotguns take the threat seriously.
Speaker 3: I think that was the thing that ratcheted up the
Speaker 3: paranoia in the fear around this Zodiac guy, who by
Speaker 3: now was a mythical figure of a culking guy walking
Speaker 3: around the streets who could not just kill a couple
Speaker 3: of kids at a lover's lane, but anybody could be
Speaker 3: the next victim.
Speaker 9: Next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer, we have a.
Speaker 7: Number of playing blows. Officers following buses in the morning
Speaker 7: and in the evening.
Speaker 15: I remember as a kid having a cop car followed
Speaker 15: behind us, and I remember that because as kids we
Speaker 15: would all kind of run to the back of the
Speaker 15: bus and wave at the cop.
Speaker 11: The media frenzy that resulted, predictable as it was, was
Speaker 11: a huge part of the story itself. So in some
Speaker 11: ways we start to see the media become a player
Speaker 11: in the stories that they're covering.
Speaker 15: It is just a sense of not knowing what would
Speaker 15: happen next, especially after these letters start coming threatening to
Speaker 15: sort of escalate the violence, and people not knowing whether
Speaker 15: that was serious or not.
Speaker 5: You're not afraid, No, no, You're afraid.
Speaker 2: That wasn't enough for him. Then he moved on to
Speaker 2: the next level, where he started threatening to blow up
Speaker 2: a school bus full of children.
Speaker 12: The death Machine is already made.
Speaker 8: Monster The Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
Speaker 8: by iHeartRadio, House Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Albright
Speaker 8: and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
Speaker 8: alongside producers Meredith Steedman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana.
Speaker 9: Jason Hoak is executive.
Speaker 8: Producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along with producers
Speaker 8: Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, Ben Keebrick, and Josh Thain. Scott
Speaker 8: Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick is our host.
Speaker 8: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you
Speaker 8: haven't already, make sure to check out the first season
Speaker 8: of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta child murders
Speaker 8: from the late seventies to the early eighties. Download the
Speaker 8: ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments email
Speaker 8: us at Monster at houstuffworks dot com, or you can
Speaker 8: call us at one eight three three two eight five
Speaker 8: six six sixty seven.
Speaker 9: Thanks for listening.