WEBVTT - In the Shadows [1] 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.400 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.440 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.520 and do not necessarily represent those of iHeartMedia, How Stuff Works, 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:12.560 or its employees. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:39.239 Christmas Time, nineteen sixty eight, All was not calm, All 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:39.920 was not bright. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.920 Sorry, could you briefly describe what apparently happened last night? 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.320 We had a devil homicide that took place out on 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.159 a county road sometime after eleven o'clock. 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.200 Sixteen year old girl and a seventeen year old boy. 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.600 How did this incident occur? 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.520 Apparently well, they were shot. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.520 Photographer Tom Balmer arrived on the scene. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:12.720 The night of December twenty was an interesting one. Photographers 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:18.520 back then were ambulance chasers. We had radios with the 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:22.959 local police and fire frequencies and we followed what was 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:30.319 going on. I remember a dispatch to Lake Herman Road 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.760 in Benetia and they said that there were two victims 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.399 there and they thought it was a murder suicide. The 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.160 woman there that was shot was fairly small in size, 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.720 and they were thinking it was an adult and a child. 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.400 That was what the original dispatch was, as I recall it. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:02:01.480 So I headed out that way. It was dark that 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:06.920 night out in the Boonies. There it was along the side. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:07.200 Of the road. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.520 Who's fairly quiet, no traffic going by, as I recall, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.520 really not a sense of place there other than just 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.760 out in the open. As it turned out, there was 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.639 one person. His name was David Faraday. He had been 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.760 shot and his girlfriend, Betty Lujensen, had also been shot. 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.440 She was dead at the scene and they had taken 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:40.000 him by ambulance. He had died en route. The woman's 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:44.280 body remained under a blanket, and the investigators came out. 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:54.560 The blanket was between me and the investigators. They lifted 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.760 the blanket with them behind it and looking, so I 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.000 never got to see, but I shot a pictures of 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:06.760 the investigators looking. The newspaper then ran the pictures on Sunday. 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.600 The one thing a photographer learns to do right away 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:16.280 is go into a work mode. Just start recording and 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:21.640 not experiencing. If you started to get emotional over everything 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.359 you saw, you could never do anything. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.760 Do you have any idea what the possible motive might 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:28.600 be for this killing? 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:31.680 We have no motive at this time. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.040 Every time I see the word zodiac, I flashed back 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:41.960 for the moment. Wow, I was there. You can say 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.839 I photographed what then was thought to be the first 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:49.360 victims of the Zodiac Killer. That's something that not everybody 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:49.880 has done. 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:10.560 The Boogieyman a monster, a scare tactic, a mythical creature 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.880 dating back to as early as the Middle Ages. If 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.920 there's one thing I've learned from our first season Atlanta Monster, 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.919 it's that sometimes there's more fact than fiction to this 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:24.359 elusive nightcrawler. After all, what's the difference between the Boogeyman 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.800 and a rampant killer unidentified after nearly fifty years. The 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.120 Zodiac Killer is one of the most notorious serial killers 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.880 to date. He's a dark mark on San Francisco's Era 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.400 of Love. He wears his signature on his chest like 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.480 Superman gone horribly wrong. It's the infamous crosshair symbol, a 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:51.680 circle intersected with perpendicular lines. A target. The Boogeyman may 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.960 not be under your bed, but it can't exist, and 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:59.120 even more frighteningly, there's more than one to examine this 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:03.280 demon properly. It's important to understand what societal and psychological 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.320 elements allowed this evil to exist. This is our new 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:27.200 exploration the Zodiac Killer. I'm payin Lindsay. Last year, I 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.400 worked with the team at how Stuff Works to create 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.640 Atlanta Monster. Matt Frederick was one of those people. You 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.200 may remember Matt from last season. 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.880 A police officer who didn't know what a railroad trestle 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.279 was became the Achilles heel of a murder investigation that 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:44.520 cost more than nine million dollars. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.120 For any Avid House Stuff Works listeners, you may know 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.360 Matt from Stuff they Don't want you to know. It's 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.719 a podcast about conspiracy theories, from the bizarre to the possible. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.000 Matt's a questioner and an information junkie. This makes him 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.360 the perfect person to guide you through this story, presenting 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.280 the facts and the follies that riddle this case. Take 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:06.960 it away, man. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.880 I've been researching unsolved mysteries for over ten years now, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.039 separating the truth from the noise. I first became aware 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.480 of this case in two thousand and seven when David 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.600 Fincher's film Zodiac was released in theaters. I was hooked 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.919 and I needed to know more, so I read the 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.799 book from Robert Graysmith. It's also titled Zodiac. I started 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.960 scouring websites and message boards, and I quickly realized that 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.200 the book and movie had only scratched the surface. The 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.159 story of the Zodiac is about much more than just 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.599 a serial killer. It's about a country experiencing tremendous changes. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.360 In the late sixties, a perfect storm was brewing and 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.240 the eye was squarely centered around San Francisco. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.320 The Summer of Love is an expression of this awakening. 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.679 We call upon the world to help. 0:06:55.520 --> 0:07:00.159 Us celebrate the infinite holiness of life. 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.240 The Summer of Love is the summer of nineteen sixty 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.960 seven when something like one hundred thousand young people flock 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:09.200 to San Francisco. 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.240 This is Peter Richardson. He's a historian and lecturer at 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:14.920 San Francisco State University. 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.760 They're told not to come by city officials, which is 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.840 the best way to get people to come, and they 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:22.400 do come. 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.040 You know, you know, America is so obsessed with bad 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.240 breath and with underarmed deodorant. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.160 These are the biggest problems in the world. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.760 If you watch television, I think that a generation of 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.440 kids which says we don't. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.679 Care about your concepts of friendliness is a revolutionary generation. 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.800 When the LSC hits the streets, it really kind of changes, 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.280 kind of morphs into the hippie counterculture that people are 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.720 so aware it turns San Francisco into kind of a 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:52.000 global rock capital. 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.920 San Francisco police say that nine persons have been arrested 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.560 and a narcotics trade on the headquarters of the Grateful Dead, 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:00.680 a widely popular singing group. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.480 There are a lot of bands. They're very creative and 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:09.040 innovative and influential. What was happening in San Francisco is 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:14.280 something much more improvisational, exploratory. It was part of a 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:19.160 larger art scene that included psychedelic posters and light shows, 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:23.400 and even the hippies didn't realize how many of them 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.160 there were, and they start getting publicity, national publicity. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.800 Were all children in the nineteen sixties Offense of America, 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.040 Children of Blood Pole. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.520 The scene kind of unravels fairly quickly. Despite its utopian aspirations. 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:49.080 The San Francisco counterculture is surrounded by all these other 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.960 forms of strife, so it's not a peaceful place to live. 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.880 The new Communist campaign in Vietnam continues. Just after midnight 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.560 their time, a band of Vietcong readers blew up a 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.680 power installation and attack two police stations in Saigon. 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.400 It's a really kind of heady mix. By the end 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:10.880 of the nineteen sixties, there's a larger backdrop of real 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.280 problems political violence against to emerge. 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.959 Doctor Martin Luther King, the apostle of nonviolence in the 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.080 civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.880 And that segues into what author David Talbat calls the 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.760 season of the Witch, where you get the Zodiac Killer. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.560 It would sound like a cliche Hollywood script if it 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:41.120 weren't true. A serial killer stalking victims, taunting police, even 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.160 keeping bloody mementos from his slayings, and boasting about his 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:46.720 deeds to the news media. 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:53.600 The randomness and the tone of the Zodiac Killer was very, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:58.600 very traveling for people. We think of the Zodiac crimes 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.320 as being urban crimes, an associated with San Francisco, but 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.600 most of the confirmed killings actually happen farther north, pretty 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.319 far out there, and I think that adds to the creepiness. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.160 The places are so isolated, and there is a kind 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.960 of theme in American cinema history where they really crazy 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.320 stuff happens out in the country. It's in these isolated 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:35.840 places that you really have to worry. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.440 This case begins on December twentieth, nineteen sixty eight, on 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.040 Lake Herman Road in Benetia, California. 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:46.440 My name is Lorraine de Grot, I living NAPA from Valeo. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.720 That was Christmas vacation and we had a rally on 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.480 Friday where you know, everybody joined in the big auditorium 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.120 and it was a rally. We set together, and when 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.880 we walked home, I said bye, and she said I remember. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.760 She said, Okay, I'll see you next year, and I go, oh, yeah, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.400 I'll see you next year. And that was the last 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.600 time that I spoke or saw Betty Lou. 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.760 David and Betty Lou were high school students. They met 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.880 at a church function and were smitten with one another. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.360 This is Michael Butterfield. He's been researching this case for 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.720 over a decade and he's one of the people who 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:29.000 knows this story best. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.840 Within two weeks they were on their way to becoming 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.480 a couple. David Faraday was a young, intelligent, very civic 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.959 minded individual, cared about other people, was well liked, good student. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.520 Betty Lou Jensen was a very popular student, had many friends. 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.040 She was also a very talented artist. When David Faraday 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.880 asked her out. That was to be their first date 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.439 together and her first date totally. That night, they promised 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.240 Betty Lou's parents that they would be home by eleven PM. 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:07.200 They did not go home by eleven pm. At some point, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.040 the two of them wound up on Lake Herman Road, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.120 which is a kind of dark and isolated area that's 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.600 known as a lover's lane spot. Another vehicle pulled up 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.400 into the area. We don't know for sure what happened 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.560 after that because there are no witnesses, but the person 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.120 got out of the car. There were some shots fired 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.760 into the vehicle. David and Betty Lou escaped out of 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:35.120 the passenger side of the Rambler station wagon, but David 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.480 Faraday was shot at almost point blank range in the head. 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.679 Betty Lou Jensen appeared to have run away, and at 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.000 that point the killer shot at her at least five times, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.720 hitting her in the back. Shortly after that, a driver 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.560 was passing through and saw the bodies laying on the ground, 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.000 drove into town, notified the police, and then the police 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:01.080 came on the crime scene. There was no discernible motive, 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.520 no personal animosity, no rape, no robbery or anything like that. 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.079 They're investigating people involved in the victim's backgrounds. People may 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.960 have had a grudge, career criminals, the so called usual suspects, 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:17.880 but none of that was working. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.440 This is a yearbook. This is very special to me 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.520 because it's got Betty Lou in it. Bottom right, that's 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.640 Betty Lou. I hold this just dear to my heart. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.679 I just think it's terrible. I've never been a situation 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.080 where you knew somebody and they got killed. You know, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:43.160 it stayed with me. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.560 After a period of months had gone by. It was 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:59.600 a cold case. The absence of any discernible motive made 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.839 it vertually impossible to keep investigating it. Serial killers were 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.200 not a national phenomenon back in the nineteen sixties. The 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.559 term serial killer did not even exist in popular language. 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:18.559 Most law enforcement agencies were not experienced in investigating serial homicides. 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:27.520 I'm so consumed to this day about Zodiac. I don't 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.160 think he'll ever be caught. My ears just pop up 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:32.960 if I hear the name Zodiac. 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.080 They were used to dealing with a killer who commits 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.240 a crime for a traditional motive and who could be 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.960 tracked down through traditional investigation. When you have someone who 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.520 commits a bunch of murders for no apparent reason. Innocent 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.400 people minding their own business out on a date. That's 0:14:55.440 --> 0:15:00.440 bad enough. But when a person brags about it, wants 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:05.080 to taunt you, and threatens going to happen again, that's 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.040 a whole other level of terror. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.160 The search goes on in San Francisco for the man 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.320 known as the Zodiac Killer. 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:18.920 Zodiac rags. 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.080 He's killed seven people, he tossed the police for not 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.400 finding him, and he says he will do his thing again. 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.680 We have reason to believe that he's a maniac. 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:30.360 Who is the Zodiac? 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:31.400 And chheer is he? 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.160 The story that you hear about the Zodiac case is 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.120 not the real story, and as you examine the facts, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.080 that story starts to disintegrate, and behind it is this 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:54.000 other story. When I was twelve years old living in Phoenix, Arizona, 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.560 I worked as a paperboy in my neighborhood. I was 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.160 rolling the newspapers every morning and seeing stories about the 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.360 Atlanta child murderer and all kinds of things. So I 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:07.160 was already following true crime even as a young child. 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.400 Around that time, another twelve year old paper boy was 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:16.520 abducted and apparently murdered in our neighborhood. That was the 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.400 first time that I ever really realized that there were 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.680 people out there that wanted to kill you. Here in Phoenix, 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.840 they stopped the paper boys. That's when your newspaper started 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:28.720 being delivered by an adult in a van who was 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.960 throwing a paper out the window. And it woke me up. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.560 And so that was the end of innocence in my 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:36.960 life in many ways. But it really wasn't until the 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.640 nineteen nineties that I started doing what you might call 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:41.240 legitimate research. 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.280 And with all of this research, Michael created a massive 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.600 online archive dedicated to the Zodiac case. It's called Zodiac 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.400 Killer facts dot com. 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.360 Gathering all the police reports I could, the FBI files 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.000 and everything, and then interviewing those who were involved in 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:03.800 the case, the original investigators, surviving victims, some of the witnesses, suspects, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.000 and the people who accused them and their families, and 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:11.119 so over a period of years, I built up a database, 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.679 you might say, of information. I've devoted my website to 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.280 spreading information for people who are out there just like 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.480 I was years ago, struggling to find something and not 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.399 being sure what's true and what isn't true, what's fact 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.880 and fiction. I try to devote my research and make 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:31.920 some use of all the work that I've done by 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.639 providing accurate information so people can separate fact from fiction 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.760 and reach their own conclusions. There are a lot of 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.040 major differences between the true story of the Zodiac and 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.000 the myth. A major component of the myth is that 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.760 the Zodiac was some kind of master criminal who was 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.639 playing some sort of elaborate game, who knew the victims, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.560 who was an expert marksman, who was responsible for dozens 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.600 of murders. It's easier for someone like me, who doesn't 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.560 have a suspect or a theory, when I'm asked a question, 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.560 it's easier for me to say I don't know, because 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.480 that's the truth, and that's the most honest answer someone 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.280 can give you. But a lot of people aren't satisfied 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.200 by the truth, and they're not satisfied by a mystery. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.119 People crave answers, and if someone's telling you I have 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.440 all the answers, that can be very attractive, very compelling 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:24.639 for a lot of people. And I think, like a 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.840 lot of things in society, someone would rather be satisfied 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.080 with the wrong answer than be satisfied with no answer 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.760 at all. The name Zodiac is very much like the Boogeyman. Especially, 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.600 it's the American version of Jack the Ripper. In many ways, 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.520 we don't know who the Zodiac was. He's a mystery. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.400 That name. For me, it still scares me a lot, 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.120 to be honest with you, it's terrifying what he did 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:53.879 and what he got away with, the fact that he 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.400 got away with it at all is terrifying. So when 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.280 I hear that name, the first thing that pops into 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:04.200 my mind is he's still out there there. We don't 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.160 know who he is. We don't really know anything more 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.600 than what we did almost fifty years ago about him. 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.159 He could be anyone. He could be you know, that 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.160 guy that lives across the street from you and comes 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.240 out to pick his newspaper up in the morning, or 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.840 someone in your family. The name Zodiac it's come to 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.240 stand for many different things in the popular culture about 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:24.720 true crime. You know, he's either a master criminal, or 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.119 he's some kind of drooling maniac or whatever. But for me, 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:33.120 I've always viewed him more as a person. That makes 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.000 him much more terrifying to me. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.000 At this point, I had heard and read so much 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:42.680 about the Lover's Lane on Lake Herman Road, but I 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.280 had never seen it with my own eyes. I wanted 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.520 to know exactly what David Faraday and Betty lou Jensen 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.720 saw when they encountered the Zodiac that night. So the 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.040 team and I, including our executive producer Jason Hoak, flew 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.040 out to the Bay Area, and the Lake Herman Road 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.760 site was our first destination. We headed east from Valeo 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.240 on Lake Herman Road for a little over three miles. 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:06.879 One of the first things you see is a huge 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.840 rock quarry on the left, and then the relatively small 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.720 Lake Herman on the right. But other than that, it's 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.840 just rolling hills and very few signs of civilization. The 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.280 site itself is located about a mile across the current Benisha, 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.639 California line. What we're referring to as a Lover's Lane 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.920 is actually just a small turnoff to a private road. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.879 That road leads down the hill to a Benicia Police 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.199 Department shooting range. There's a large metal gate blocking the 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:39.360 road and it's secured by numerous single key locks. It's strange, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.040 this is it? This is a turnoff? 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.280 Yeah, there's nothing here. 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:45.800 Carve right here. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:48.720 It feels unlikely right, it. 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:49.720 Feels very unlikely. 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.960 This is in the middle kind of a country road 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:54.480 with a little pull off. 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.240 So if you're standing here at the entrance where the 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.320 gate is and you look out, there's no human beings. 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.119 I think this is the kind of place that a 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.639 Zodiac killer knows kids come and make out in a car, 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.119 knows they're going to be vulnerable. They just pitch black. 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:17.800 It's like easy pray for him. Just beyond the fencing, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.240 there's an old sign that says no trespassing and no dumping. 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.600 And on the front of this sign, someone at some 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:39.400 point spray painted a large black Zodiac symbol. The murders 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.800 of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December twentieth, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.199 nineteen sixty eight were senseless and tragic, but at this point, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.840 for the people of Benetia, California, and the surrounding area, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.920 there was no further cause for alarm. As callous as 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:58.600 it sounds, this was just an unsolved crime in a 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.720 small town until that is, the following summer, when the 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:05.480 Zodiac killer struck again. 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.440 The next crime occurred at Blue Rock Springs Park, which 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.840 is approximately two and a half miles away from Lake 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.399 Kerman Road. I think Valeo was a popular city. Was 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.560 also a part of a port of entry, so there 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.119 was a lot of sailors, lots of influx of people 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.959 coming in, but it was still a bustling community with 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.000 lots of good people in it. On the night of 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:31.720 July fourth, nineteen sixty nine, Darlene Farrin, a twenty two 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:34.600 year old mother and waitress, picked up a friend of 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.600 hers named Michael Migeaux. They were friends, they had met 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.639 at the diner where she worked, and they decided to 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.320 go to Blue Rock Springs Park, which is located across 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.800 the street from a large golf course, but it is 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.919 sort of outside it isolated in some ways, but it 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.320 was also another lover's lane area. 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.919 Valeo, California, is the next town over, just northwest of 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.560 Benetia where the first murders took place. To put this 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.480 into perspective, the location where Darlene Ferren and Michael Majeaux 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.639 were attacked in Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo is 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.480 only a seven minute car ride away from the Lake 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.399 Herman Road site, and it's a fairly straight shot. There's 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:20.040 literally one turn. Two similar shootings, two lovers lanes just 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:24.439 miles apart. Things were starting to add up, but in 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.600 July nineteen sixty nine, no one had the full picture yet. 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:39.400 Okay, yeah, my name is Clarence Edward rust are USD. 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:44.480 I'm a retired Bleo Police Department lieutenant. On the night 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:47.520 of July fourth, nineteen sixty nine, I was working at a 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:51.960 lake shift with Mike partner John Lynch when the Zodiet 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:56.040 occurred in Loyo. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.600 A man in a match rob and stab them, leaving 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.840 them for dad. Subjects stated, I want to report a murder, 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:08.040 no a double murder. 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:09.240 I did it. 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:13.600 The man who wore a medieval style executioners hood, carried 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:16.920 a knife and gun and intended to use them. 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:20.720 They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing. 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.760 I'm not the damn Zodiac. Who is the Zodiac and 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:26.520 where is he from? 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:32.240 iHeartRadio, Houstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster the 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:38.000 Zodiac Killer. This season on Monster the Zodiac Killer. 0:24:38.200 --> 0:24:40.080 School children are nice targets. 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:42.960 I shall wipe out his school by some morning, shoot 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:44.400 out the tires, and then. 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:46.680 Pick off the kiddies as they come bounding out. 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:49.840 That was the threat of the Zodiac Killer. 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:53.760 When you talk to the survivors of dictims who can kill, 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:55.600 you get that this is not fun. 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:57.600 There's nothing fun about murder. 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:02.120 LeHo police have submitted letters and envelopes from the Zodiac 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:05.840 Killer to a private lab to obtain a DNA profile. 0:25:06.720 --> 0:25:10.399 I enjoy a good tussle that hey killing just for 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:12.160 the pleasure of it. 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.240 It's got to be him, and then the lab results 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:17.040 would come back and it's an elimination, and that's just 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:18.520 a crushing blow. 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:21.240 He used to go there, even long after he retire 0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:23.440 and park his car and sit there and think about 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:24.359 what did we miss? 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:29.200 Why didn't we catch him? When these individuals are arrested, 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.520 one of the things that strikes us is how ordinary 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:37.239 they are. Their ordinariess is also deeply unsettling. If we 0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:40.680 come pick these people out of a crowd, then we're 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:43.399 faced with a situation, well, how do we know that 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:49.560 anyone is safe? 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.880 Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced 0:25:53.880 --> 0:25:58.479