WEBVTT - Rabbit Holes [12] 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.480 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:07.160 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:11.000 and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, Stuff Media, 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:18.680 or its employees. Some Zodiac researchers don't like people saying 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.479 that they're obsessed with the case. I don't either, but 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.520 for a different reason because I blew past obsession about 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.520 five years ago. It's far more than an obsession to me. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.240 My name is Mark Hewitt. I'm a true crime author. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.680 I've been researching the Zodiac case for about eleven years now. 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:42.239 Various times I've looked at online websites and talk with 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.360 other people about the case. Back in two thousand and seven, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.720 around the time that David Fincher's movie Zodiac came out. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.960 That was the beginning of my fascination with the case 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.720 that became an obsession eventually. There are a couple of 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.600 times in my life back between two thousand and three 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.440 and two thousand and seven, when I looked into the case. 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:05.959 I spent a little bit of time on the three 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.319 forty cipher and I thought about visiting different crime scenes, 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:12.640 and it came a point where I said, you know what, 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.640 either I'm gonna have to throw myself into it wholeheartedly 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:17.480 or I'm gonna need to back away from it. It. 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:19.119 It's got to be one of the two. I can't 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.200 just dabble in it and feel like I'm doing anything seriously, 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:26.520 So round about sometime in two thousand and seven, I 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:28.760 made the decision that I was going to throw myself 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:32.000 in it wholeheartedly and read everything I could read and 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.160 talk to everybody I could talk to and figure out 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:39.319 everything I could about the case. Threw myself into the case, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.520 knowing that it was a high profile case. It was 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.760 eleven years of my life. A couple of years ago, 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:50.440 my wife left me. I'm now divorced in part because 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.360 of the case. Not fully, not not, but I threw 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.880 myself into the case and neglected friendships, neglected my family, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.080 neglected my career. It's something that I had to do 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:09.280 because of my my makeup as a person. This this 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.280 case has actually been my life for eleven years. And 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:14.440 I'm going through the process now that the book has 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.639 come out in September, of what am I going to 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.600 do now with my life. I can't live off the 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:29.240 zodiac forever. In fact, I've even thought to myself at times, well, 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.320 you know, maybe I just need to walk away from 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:36.280 it and just form new social communities, social circles, and 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.720 just just leave it completely. And yet I can't do 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.880 that because I have great friendships here and the case 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:45.840 is still being looked at by the police, and people 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.480 are still reading my book, and reporters keep calling me 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.239 and asking for comments, asking for quotes. So I suspect 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.000 I'll be involved with the Zodiac the rest of my life. 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.240 A man in a mask robbed, tied, and stabbed them, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.360 leaving them for dad. Subjects stated, I want to report 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:13.160 a murder, no a double murder. I did it. A 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.679 man who wore an evil style executioner's hood, carried a 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.040 knife and gun and intended to use them. They have 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.960 an arrestipe because they can't move it. I'm not damn Zodiac. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.600 Who is the Zodiac and where is he? From My 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.079 Heart Radio, How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV, this is 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:41.240 Monster the Zodiac Killer. From the very beginning of this podcast, 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.720 we've been asking the big question who is the Zodiac? 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.360 The theories seem endless. A few searches on the Internet 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.480 and you can be lost in a sea of conjecture. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.760 No other murder in history has drawn so many names 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.320 in speculation as to the killer's true identity. With all 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.800 this information out there, how can we possibly find that story? 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.720 How long have you looked in the wrong places? Is 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.280 it possible that there's more than one man behind the mask? 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:11.160 The case details are so vague, so disconnected, they easily 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.880 lend themselves to wild interpretation. And the unfortunate truth is 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.440 this might be part of the reason why the Zodiac 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.320 has gotten away with these atrocities for over fifty years. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.640 So there are a lot of myths out there about 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.600 the Zodiac, and they often are attached to various theories 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.839 about the case. So if someone has a suspect, they 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.640 sort of tailor the story of the Zodiac to fit 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.279 that suspect. So depending on who you're talking about, the 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.760 story will change. This is Zodiac expert Michael Butterfield. He 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.320 says he's heard a lot of unlikely theories about the Zodiac. 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.440 While many are based in truth, others are pure conjecture. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.640 Butterfield now listens to every new story with a skeptical year. 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:58.280 So he's either a brilliant Harvard lecturer or he's part 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.040 of the Manson family. For all these things, and so 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.359 each portrait of the zodiac changes with each theory, but 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:09.280 none of them correspond with reality. The list of possible 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.400 suspects is long and bizarre. There are dozens of names, 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:18.160 including the improbable Charles Manson, Dennis Rader, and even Texas 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.440 U S. Senator Ted Cruz. But there are also a 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.840 number of more plausible suspects, and many investigators have explored 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:30.760 these extensively, often spending years finding the clues and connections. 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.919 And for these investigators, their suspect is everything. This is 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.760 what they believe. It's their truth, and I'm reporting what 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.440 they believe. If there's another side to it, I report 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.440 that too. I'm Rachel Raskins Raghan, and I'm a journalist 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.120 with The Times Harold the layo. When I got with 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.880 The Times Harold, it just came with the package because 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.719 The Times Harold was involved from the start. I think 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:01.520 the time I got a phone call from someone who 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.000 knew the zodiac was I talked with someone about it. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.359 They say, oh, yeah, we get those all the time. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.880 You get letters, you get phone calls. They know for sure, 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.359 and they want to tell you. And most of the 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:19.120 time there's nothing. Really you can do to disprove it. 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.799 It happened a long time ago, and it happened to them. 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.760 They developed their theory in their head. There's no way 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:31.039 really to disprove it. So I don't normally try, you know, 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.719 unless something comes up in the story that that presents 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.520 itself of an opportunity to talk to somebody else to 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.320 see if there's another story out there that would contradict 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:45.599 it or confirm it, then I do that. Well, Clearly, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.480 some have gotten so into it that it's cost them 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.159 other important elements in their life. I've, you know, known 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.960 of people who have lost marriages and families over it 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.839 because they can't let it go. One of these people 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.080 is Mark Hewitt, who you heard at the beginning of 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.760 the episode. After more than a decade of research, Mark 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.680 recently published a trilogy of books on his Zodiac suspect. 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:13.920 I had to look at myself in the mirror a 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.840 number of times over this past year and do a 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.640 very serious gut check because I was going to go 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.960 live and I was going to publish a book that 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:26.840 identified Ted Kaczynski as a Zodiac serial killer. I put 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.000 my credibility on the line, my research ability on the line. 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.160 A lot of people have criticized it and ripped it 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.040 apart online and called me an idiot and a fool, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.280 and a one person said that they wouldn't have been 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.800 more surprised if I had named the Easter Bunny as 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.520 being responsible for the Zodiac murders. We met up with 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.080 Mark if the Late Herman Road fiftieth anniversary gathering, and 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.000 it quickly became clear to me Mark had been through 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:57.040 a lot. Regardless of the criticism he's received, Mark has 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.560 done his homework. So we're going to hear Mark out 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.440 and into his theory. What I came up with with 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.200 six or seven clusters of evidence, one for instances, the 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.120 whole use of mathematics. As you get to know the 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.840 Zodiac letters, you realize there are awful lot of numbers 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:19.360 in his writings. There are equations, There are umpteen symbols. 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.520 This is important because Ted Kazynski studied mathematics religiously, and 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.200 according to Mark, there's one particular symbol that had special 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.800 meaning to Kazynski, a circle with a cross through it. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.640 The cross hair symbol is a mathematical picture and illustration 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.000 of the equation X squared plus y squared equals one 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.079 which is so basis to mathematics that it has its 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.320 own term. It's called a unit circle. Ted Kazynski in 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.160 a number of his papers uses the phrase a unit circle, 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.240 and a unit circle is used widely in his area 0:08:54.320 --> 0:09:00.560 of expertise boundary functions within mathematics. For another clue, Mark says, 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:04.320 you can look to author Joseph Conrad's book The Secret Agent. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.200 If you read The Secret Agent, you realize, oh my goodness, 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.199 they're an awful lot of numbers. They're awful lot of phrases. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.320 Are a large number of vocabulary words that come straight 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:18.440 from The Secret Agent into the Zodiac Letters. One example 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.839 of this comes from the Zodiac letter received on November eleven. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.240 This was Zodiac's threat to bomb a school bus. It 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.800 won't do to reroute and reschedule the buses because the 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.920 bomb can be adapted to new conditions. In Conrad's The 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.800 Secret Agent, the main character says that he wants to 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.640 quote invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:46.000 conditions of action and even to unexpected changes of condition. 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.160 Why that's significant is because that is one of Ted 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.720 Kazinski's favorite books. He claims to have read it a 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.040 dozen times, and one time when he was trying to 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.560 explain himself to his parents and his brother, he said, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.760 you know, you have to read this book to understand me. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.640 Another tie between Zodiac and Kazinski is the use of 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.480 written declarations sent to the media. Mark says there are 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.800 a lot of similarities between the Uni Bomber manifesto and 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.600 the Zodiac letters. A lot of the wording and a 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:20.760 lot of the explanation of the Unibomber manifesto is merely justification. 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.840 So Ted Kazinski killed because he enjoyed killing the Zodiac. 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.040 In his far away Cipher said, I like killing people 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.360 because it's so much fun. So both Kazinski and the 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.360 Zodiac killed for the pleasure of it, and both of 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.360 them bragged about it and letters sent to local newspapers. 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.560 Like many theories about Zodiac suspects, a lot of the 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.640 evidence here is circumstantial. However, there are things that do 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.360 eerily add up, like the timelines between Zodiac and Ted Kazinski. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:57.040 Ted was in California nine six interviewing for positions to 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.400 become a math professor. Seven he moved to the Bay 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.760 Area and was a professor at Berkeley from sixty seven 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:12.000 to sixty nine. He abruptly resigned his position. Four days later, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.840 four days after his last day of work was the 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.800 Blue Rock Springs murder. Over the next two years of 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:24.040 his life, Ted Kazynski was missing in action, and during 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.120 those two years the bulk of the Zodiac murders and 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.760 the bulk of the Zodiac letters took place, culminating with 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.079 the letter to the l a times in March of 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:39.160 ninety one, the last time the Zodiac used the word Zodiac, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.760 the last time he used his cross here symbol. Why 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.920 is that significant because several months later, in June of 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:49.160 nineteen seventy one, Ted Kazynski moved to Montana, built his cabin, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.400 and lived in Montana. Between nineteen seventy one and nineteen 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.439 seventy four, new Zodiac letters were sent to the San 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:01.360 Francisco Chronicle. However, these letters were print They were signed 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.400 with other aliases such as the Red Phantom or simply 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:09.960 as a friend. There are maybe one, maybe a couple 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.439 additional Zodiac letters after Ted moved to Montana, but they 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.520 never used the word Zodiac and they never used the 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:22.080 crossroads symbol. So the timelines of the Zodiac and Ted 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.600 Kaczynski line up very well. But what about the way 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.800 Zodiac killed people versus the Uni bomber. Zodiac only ever 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.240 used guns and knives to kill. Is it possible he 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.280 did follow through on his threat to make bombs? The 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.880 truth is the Zodiac killed up until the murder of 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:45.920 Paul Stein, in which he was cited, and that changed 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.000 the Zodiac. As far as we know, he didn't attack 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.800 after that. However, at that time, the Zodiac became more 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.320 of a letter writer and began to write many, many 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.920 letters to the police. And in those letters he included 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.640 a bomb diagram where he threatened to kill a school 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.439 bus with a bomb. So the Zodiac himself morphed from 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.960 a up close and personal killer to somebody who threatened 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.360 with bombs. This isn't just some far fetched theory. In 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:22.120 San Francisco, detectives announced they were investigating Ted Kazinski as 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:26.120 a possible Zodiac suspect. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.760 local investigators found distinct similarities between the Uni bomber and 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:35.040 Zodiac crimes, among them where details Mark Hewitt had also 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.520 found both sent letters to newspapers bragging of their crimes. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.559 Ted Kazinski was in the Bay Area at the same 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.319 time as the Zodiac murders, and Kazinski often used a 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:51.320 symbol similar to the Zodiac crosshairs symbol. Ultimately, police never 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:56.560 confirmed any viable connections between Kazinski and the Zodiac crimes. However, 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.199 his name still exists on the roster of possible suspect, 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.640 and for Mark Hewitt, that possibility keeps his research alive. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.120 People have said to me, where are you gonna go 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:08.960 with us? So you're gonna try to talk the police 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.960 into it? Are you going to try to convince everybody? 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.079 I don't feel that's my job. I'm a researcher. I'm 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.280 a writer. I've researched the case, I've written about it. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:33.360 People can respond to it anyway they want to. There's 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.800 so much detail to the Kazinski case that covering everything 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.600 in this episode would be impossible, and that's true for 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.360 nearly all of the high profile Zodiac suspects. In fact, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.720 the sheer amount of information and circumstantial evidence on these 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.520 suspects is intimidating. But there's one journalist who's combed through 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.000 almost all of it. The main San Francisco Chronicle reporter 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.400 assigned to the Zodiac case. Oh you can go into 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.440 zodiac r Kenya. Like many rabbits down many holes. I'm 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.280 Kevin Fagan. I'm gonna report at the Sanrancisco Chronicle. I 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:13.280 have thousands of tips and a drawer over there. It's 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.240 a series of file folders and books dating back to 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.360 six I believe it is right around then. Of of 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:28.400 theories and tips and proclamations from people who believe they've 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.040 solved the Zonia case. It's gonna spill over. This may 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.320 be the first. Yeah, this is one of the first ones. No, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:39.360 it's not that the first. You could spend all your 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.560 days sorting this tune, this one, and this is this guy. 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.920 Sure it's someone in I think Scotland. Maybe they're right, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.040 who knows, but they're just so damn many of them 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.240 there sorting out which one is the real one. That's 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.240 for the cops. That's why a lot of people when 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.440 they call I say, you know, my standard response, which 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.560 I truly belief, is you know, thank you, I'm glad 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.960 you're sharing this. When the cops move on it, that's 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.240 when it's the best time to report on this. Because 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.080 if I wrote a story on every and in the 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.880 plausible one, a restaurant, every plausible zodiac tip that came in. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.320 You know, it'd be a weekly caller. This is just 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.080 every one that came in. It's just moving. Come on. 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.480 I wrote about this one because two thousand nine my 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.640 dad did it. The dad do it, you know. And 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:38.680 then I started getting a ton of stuff from people 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:43.560 who thought their dad's zodiac, their moms maybe the zodiac. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.640 The guy upstairs as the zodiac. It's no, it's a 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.040 bunch of cops. No, it's a guy in Scotland. Wait, no, 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.000 it's a crazy guy who lives downstairs. And I'm writing 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.040 this letter as he's down there right now. If you 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.480 if you read the cipher's I get letters, oh hack, 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.000 so many every year, and packets and and handmade books 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.360 from people who have gone through the ciphers and oh 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.960 my god, they've solved it and it says, you know, 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.560 fell in the blanks. And people who have gone through 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.880 the handwriting say, oh my god, it's my grandpa's handwriting, 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.480 or it's the guy down the road's handwriting, or the 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.000 Sero Keller and presidents his handwriting, and they're dead sure. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.960 And they get experts who confirmed their their theories. It 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.920 comes back my dad did it two thousand nine. No, 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.919 my dad did it. Fagan is talking about a phenomenon 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.600 that we also noticed in our investigation. In recent years, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.919 several individuals have come forward to claim they have direct 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.920 family ties to Zodiac. One of those individuals is Gary Stewart. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.840 In two thousand fourteen, Stewart went public to suggest his 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.960 biological father, a man named Earl Van Best Jr. Was 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:02.000 the Zodiac. His primary evidence was found in one of 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.680 the Zodiacs unsolved cryptograms. Stewart claims his father's name could 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.000 be found in the so called three forty cipher. Remember 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.919 this was a later cryptogram sent to the San Francisco 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:17.240 Chronicle on November nine, nineteen sixty nine. Zodiac sent a 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.600 follow up thirteen symbol cipher on April twentie, nineteen seventy. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.240 Unlike the first ciphers, these were never officially decrypted. My 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.280 father's name is in that cipher, he said, my name is, 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.080 and then he put thirteen symbols. Those thirteen letters are 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.200 E A, R, L V A N B, E S 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.840 T j R. That was Gary Stewart, speaking on a 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.920 talk show in He published a book on these findings 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.520 and more, but not everyone was convinced on solved cryptograms. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.840 It's like the equivalent of a treasure map, trying to 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.600 figure out what whereas the treasure buried. Sometimes I go 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.240 through a period we I'll spend a lot of hours 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.480 on it, and other times I don't because I get 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.199 burned out on trying it. This is programmer and amateur 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.560 cryptographer David A. Rancheck. We talked with him early in 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.720 the season about the first Cipher's. He's tried to solve 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.679 the three forty cipher, but like everyone else, has had 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.600 no success. People have written endless books about their suspects, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.840 and you know, their claims about solving the solution, and 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.679 in some cases they're rewarded for it, you know, financially, 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.880 their books are wildly popular even though they haven't really 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.200 solved the codes. You know, if they can convince enough 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.720 people that they have, then they know they're they're able 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.440 to make a decent buck from it. So that's that's 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.440 the other strange aspect of this whole thing. And like 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.640 the case of Gary Stewart, who claimed his biological father, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.320 I guess was the Zodiac. You know, he's got very 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.400 flimsy evidence on that, and I looked at his codework 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.360 in his book. He got a publication deal from Harper's 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.840 and he's a big publishing house. It was a best 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:53.880 selling book for a while. It hit the New York 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.160 Times Best Sartlist, and he was going around to all 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.080 these news shows. They would bring him on and saying, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.920 you know, Zodiac is solved. Here's the guy who solved it. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:04.560 A lot of people go into it and they don't 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.119 bother to learn cryptography. They just have kind of an 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.760 intuitive feel for what needs to be done, and that 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:13.800 I think is what gets people stuck in these traps 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.280 of you know, they got a name to pop out, 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.479 or they got a phrase the pop out, but they 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.640 can't prove that it was intentional. There is a sort 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.800 of intoxicating effect when you plug in what do you 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.560 think Zodiac might have said? And it happens to fit. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.439 So you come up with this long phrase, but invariably 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.120 the message turns into gibberish for the rest of the message. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.840 It's easy to get caught up in that first feeling 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.680 of Wow, this it's working, it's fitting, this message is 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.480 coming out. But that's just because the ciphertext gives you 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:48.000 enough room to make an early mistake, and it looks 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.720 right at the beginning, but then later on it it 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.080 just turns into nonsense. I often compare it to you know, 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.360 seeing faces and clouds. Well, a lot of times you'll 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.320 see something that seems to be there and it's not 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.760 really there. It's just making your brain think that there's 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.320 a pattern there, but it's actually happening because of just 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.360 random chance. And that's a frequent mistake that people make 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.560 when they look at the ciphers. So that's the kind 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.480 of trap that they're in. They're kind of stuck in 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.880 this place where they can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.480 that the message is real. Somebody will go through a 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.040 procedure that generates a name, and so that will be 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.000 their solution. But if you repeat the process, you can 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.000 make the same process generate other names. But they ignore that. 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.440 Some of them are just so fixated on their suspect 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.720 that they get locked into a particular way of solving it. 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:40.960 What it's resulted in is, you know, a lot of 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.960 people are so severely misinformed on the case they think 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:51.679 that it's already been solved. I stopped playing that game 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:54.000 a long time ago, but people a look, they make 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:55.400 it sound like if you can show them that piece 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.800 of information, it'll be really compelling. And then you go 0:21:57.880 --> 0:21:59.440 to the trouble to upload it and they say, no, 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.880 big deal, doesn't prove anything. I didn't say it did, 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.359 Jack Won. That's why I have the delete feature. I 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.960 can ban people at all, but I've melted out a lot. 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.600 This is Tom Voyd of Zodiac Killer dot com. As 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.200 you heard last episode, he started the Zodiac Anniversary meet ups. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.160 In many ways, he's a key figure in this Zodiologist community. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.320 Tom has explored the three forty cipher extensively. He echoed 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.280 David ranchek sentiment that the unsolved cipher theories are bogus. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.520 People are so influenced by the fact that three of 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.640 those codes didn't get solved. Well, they're just rubbish. There's 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.080 no solution to be had. It's just to manipulate people 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.240 and get him to keep focusing on that instead of 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.240 on the government. Does that you throw out something a 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.680 press release about a controversial topic to get people not 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:46.880 to talk about you know what they should be talking about. 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.760 It's fake news. Zodia convented it. Zodiac invented fake news 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.080 with the code has my Name in it and all 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.879 this other every letter was fake news and it was 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:01.520 to get manipulate the people or the police into following 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.400 the wrong path. Even still, Tom Void developed his own 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.159 suspect through the ciphers. Many years ago, he received a 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:13.120 tip from an informant named gold Catcher. This informant also 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.920 spoke with the police, but at the time they didn't 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:20.080 consider him a reliable source. Tom, however, was so convinced 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:24.280 by this new info he began his own investigation. Eventually, 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.879 Tom found the name of this new suspect in the 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.760 initial three parts cipher. These were the three letters sent 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.520 to separate newspapers in July of nineteen sixty nine. The 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:39.720 name Tom found was Richard Geikowski. At the time that 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.960 the Zodi X that his three part cipher, Richard was 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.320 working for a counterculture newspaper and he would publish articles 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:48.320 and he would call himself Dick Geike, So he would 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:50.280 shorten his last name to the first syllable, and he 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:54.399 spelled it different ways. I have found evidence, the actual 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:56.720 proof that where he spelled at g A i K, 0:23:57.160 --> 0:23:59.440 g i k E and g U y k, there's 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:01.920 only one they're spelling to get that Gike sound, and 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:03.879 that's g y k E and that was found in 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:06.560 the cipher before it's translated. You can see it with 0:24:06.600 --> 0:24:10.159 your own eyes. G y k E. Zodiac chose the 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:12.760 g y k E was going to go right there, 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.680 and he chose that it would represent when solved, the 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:18.720 last four letters of the word because I will not 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.320 give you my name, because so in the word, because 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:24.399