Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The following episode
Speaker 1: is satire. It's not true crime. Sorry. It was released
Speaker 1: on April first, twenty nineteen as an April Fool's joke,
Speaker 1: and the immediate response on social media was pretty overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and I freaked out and pulled the episode after it
Speaker 1: had only been live for a couple of hours. Many
Speaker 1: of you disgraced Sense subscribers did not hear it, and
Speaker 1: you emailed me and tweeted at me asking how you
Speaker 1: get your ears around it. And for those of you
Speaker 1: who did hear the episode and wrote me to curse
Speaker 1: me out or were eager to share a laugh at
Speaker 1: your own expense as you found yourself pulled over on
Speaker 1: the side of the road, on the subway, in a bus,
Speaker 1: or in your bed frantically googling for breaking news on
Speaker 1: the identity of the Zodiac killer. I'm sorry, not sorry,
Speaker 1: edited lightly to protect the identity of the victims. Here
Speaker 1: is the episode as it originally appeared, in its entirety,
Speaker 1: including the breathless fake intro that went like this, YO, quick,
Speaker 1: heads up. I recorded this episode quickly last night, trying
Speaker 1: to respond to the breaking news and to contextualize fast
Speaker 1: moving story that's just developing, and to tell it in
Speaker 1: a Disgraceland way. I want to thank Payne Lindsay and
Speaker 1: Donald Albright from Tenderfoot TV for quickly making available their
Speaker 1: source material for their monster season on the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 1: And also a special thanks to the Vallejo City Chronicle
Speaker 1: for their dogged reporting and for being first to get
Speaker 1: this news out. Also, David Fincher, I'd be nowhere fast
Speaker 1: on this had I not watched your film Zodiac a
Speaker 1: thousand times. Okay, let's get into this special Monday edition
Speaker 1: release of Disgraceland. Buckle up, It's going to be a
Speaker 1: wild one. A singer I'm going to tell you about
Speaker 1: and the crimes he committed were insane. He shot a
Speaker 1: random cabby in the back of the head on a
Speaker 1: Sand Francisco street corner. He slashed to death backseat lovers
Speaker 1: and picnicing couples, and for a brief period in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, his legend gripped the nation. You already know
Speaker 1: him by many names, the Lizard King, Mister Mojo, Rising, Jimbo,
Speaker 1: but never before by his original alternate identity, the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 1: Until this morning's news started to break. This alternate identity
Speaker 1: was the secret. The idea that this worldwide recognizable rock
Speaker 1: star could also be one of America's most notorious serial
Speaker 1: killers was and still kind of is unfathomable. But we've
Speaker 1: seen this kind of double life in our culture before,
Speaker 1: as recently as twenty fourteen, when we learned that a
Speaker 1: star tight End Aaron Hernandez from history's most successful NFL
Speaker 1: franchise in New England, Patriots, was a gangbanging, drug dealing murderer.
Speaker 1: And let us not forget Oj Simpson, America's prom king
Speaker 1: who ended up slashing his way into infamy. It took
Speaker 1: a while, but the unbelievable nature of these stories eventually
Speaker 1: set in and the truth was accepted. It's unclear to
Speaker 1: me how long it will take for us to accept
Speaker 1: the truth of this story, because right now it just
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous that the fame Zodiac Killer was one of
Speaker 1: the most popular musicians of all time a musician. You
Speaker 1: made great music, and that music I played for you
Speaker 1: at the top of the show, And that wasn't great music.
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my melotron called mellow
Speaker 1: Fast Waves BK two. I played you that loop because
Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights. It's My Party by Leslie Gore,
Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
Speaker 1: weepy jukebox cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
Speaker 1: the number one song in America on June fourth, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, And that was a day that a pent
Speaker 1: up small town teenager in search of his own identity,
Speaker 1: with a fire in his eyes and a song in
Speaker 1: his heart, struck a deal with the devil that would
Speaker 1: change history forever. On this episode, mellow Fast waves a
Speaker 1: murderous identity crisis, weep be Cheese, one of the greatest
Speaker 1: front men of all time, the Zodiac Killer. I'm Jake
Speaker 1: Vernon and this this disgrace laand fuck you. The kid
Speaker 1: deadpanned to his father. Even in teenage anger, his voice
Speaker 1: was low and broody. His mother did her best to
Speaker 1: ignore the latest in a series of daily tensions between
Speaker 1: her son and her husband by turning up pat boone
Speaker 1: on the transistor radio and busying herself with the dishes.
Speaker 1: The kid was home in Alameda, California, after a year
Speaker 1: of junior college in Florida, and he dared to bring
Speaker 1: up transferring to art school over my dead body, was
Speaker 1: his father's predictable response. His dad was a navyman, a
Speaker 1: rear admiral, and wanted something professional for his son, James.
Speaker 1: If not the military, then law school or an MBA.
Speaker 1: He'd even settle for a liberal arts degree if his
Speaker 1: son promised to get a master's. Later, to James, his
Speaker 1: parent's life was a lie. Raised a military Brat all
Speaker 1: the moving in the new schools, James had seen the
Speaker 1: military industrial borders of suburbia, and he had no place there.
Speaker 1: Without friends and with parents he didn't understand. He was
Speaker 1: thoroughly alienated, and so he turned inward and became an artist.
Speaker 1: His curiosity was bottomless. He read European philosophers Nietzsche and
Speaker 1: William Blake by sixteen sixteen. Have you read Nietzsche and Blake?
Speaker 1: I've tried as an adult, and let's just say I'm
Speaker 1: a little more comfortable with the musings of the great
Speaker 1: American philosophers Daffy Duck and Bill Murray. They're more my speed.
Speaker 1: But by the time James was a senior, his English
Speaker 1: teacher made a habit of researching his student bibliographies to
Speaker 1: make sure James wasn't just inventing type to support his papers.
Speaker 1: The joke was on teach. The citations were real medieval
Speaker 1: pamphlets about demonology, only available from the Library of Congress.
Speaker 1: James was an occasional d student, but only because school
Speaker 1: was a drag. He found it to be crushingly bourgeois,
Speaker 1: just like his family. There's no future in the arts.
Speaker 1: You don't have the talent, the Rear Admiral shouted. Why
Speaker 1: couldn't they recognize the brilliance inside him? He stormed up
Speaker 1: to his bedroom, slammed the door. Fucked them. They didn't
Speaker 1: realize their picket fence was a cage. The grand mysteries,
Speaker 1: the dark depths of the universe. James knew that's where
Speaker 1: the truth was. His parents would never look beyond the veil,
Speaker 1: but he would. He'd already started. James grabbed Alister Crowley's
Speaker 1: Magic and Theory and Practice from his bookshelf. He was
Speaker 1: that deep now, the satanist Crowley, the occultist Helena Blovatski.
Speaker 1: James wanted to get high, but any smell would tip
Speaker 1: off the Rear Admiral and lead to a good old
Speaker 1: corporal punishment ass kicking, So James had to hang his
Speaker 1: head out of the window to smoke the joint. He
Speaker 1: just rolled his version of howling at the moon like
Speaker 1: his hero bluesman Howl and Wolf. He leaned backwards over
Speaker 1: the sill, sparked the jay, and thought about Wolf's great
Speaker 1: and terrifying song. Evil. Once high, James duck back inside
Speaker 1: and started a new Crowley chapter entitled of the Bloody
Speaker 1: Sacrifice Matters Cognate. He read the first ethical lesson in
Speaker 1: the Bible is that the only sacrifice pleasing to the
Speaker 1: Lord is the sacrifice of blood. For the highest spiritual working,
Speaker 1: one must choose that victim which contains the greatest and
Speaker 1: purest force. Hanging outside of the window, he took another hit.
Speaker 1: The O G. Mendocino weed crossed James's soft palate. The
Speaker 1: poetry of dark ritual passed his lips. He had a
Speaker 1: moment of clarity, Pins and needles all around his head
Speaker 1: like a hand rising from his throat to grab his brain.
Speaker 1: His crowned chakra was on fire with the dark spirit energy.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: He knew who he was and what he had to do.
Speaker 1: In that instant, he understood the cheat codes written into
Speaker 1: morality by God for those willing to play by the
Speaker 1: devil's rules. James wandered over to his record player and
Speaker 1: put aland Wolf on the turntable. Wolfe's raspy, demonic voice
Speaker 1: and raptured the very stoned young James. But his mom
Speaker 1: would never forgive him for what he was about to do.
Speaker 1: Neither would his father. It didn't matter. He was nobody's son.
Speaker 1: He was no longer their James. He was simply Jim.
Speaker 1: It was June third, nineteen sixty three, and Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: had broken through to the other side and blown the
Speaker 1: doors of his perception wide open. The next day he
Speaker 1: took off. Before he split, he lifted the twenty two
Speaker 1: pistol from the family gun cabinet. It was a woman's weapon,
Speaker 1: a historical piece. The rear admiral would never miss it.
Speaker 1: There was a chance he'd missed the rope and the
Speaker 1: jackknife from the garage, where the pair of old military
Speaker 1: issue wingwalker boots that Jim took, But Jim didn't care.
Speaker 1: He bought a ticket on the first thing, smoking a
Speaker 1: Greyhound headed south. The driver parked at a rest area
Speaker 1: overlooking the beach. Ten minutes he hollered next stop, Lompoc.
Speaker 1: Jim looked out his window and laughed dryly at his look.
Speaker 1: He was senior Skip day for the local high school kids,
Speaker 1: and there they were down on the dunes free range
Speaker 1: hunting season. Jim thought all the lush beauty of pure
Speaker 1: American youth. He honed in on a flirty couple walking
Speaker 1: away from the crowd, somewhere private. Jim presumed, He shouldered
Speaker 1: his knapsack and slipped off the bus before he lost them.
Speaker 1: George Hernandez and Melinda Johnson were straight out of Central
Speaker 1: Casting American, his apple Pie high school seniors, already engaged
Speaker 1: to be married, good kids, pure at least for a while.
Speaker 1: Like all kids, they wanted to do what comes natural,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's called what comes natural. They were
Speaker 1: engaged now, and it was senior skip day. One thing
Speaker 1: was indeed going to lead to another thing, and that
Speaker 1: thing made Jim's chest swell with excitement. That thing is
Speaker 1: why Jim stocked Georgia Melinda like pray. Georgia Melinda's pent
Speaker 1: up urges made them the most alive and Alistair Crowley
Speaker 1: had told Jim that if he stole the life from
Speaker 1: them through sacrificial rights, he could steal their life energy,
Speaker 1: bottle it into his own being, make their souls work
Speaker 1: for him from the other side. And with this unnatural power,
Speaker 1: Jim knew he could escape his family's cage and one
Speaker 1: day achieve greatness. He caught Georgia and Melinda in the act.
Speaker 1: Cherry's half popped, he pulled out the dainty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Jim had the drop on them. When he emerged from
Speaker 1: the dunes. They saw the gun and pissed themselves in fear.
Speaker 1: Jim held them a gunpoint more them to shut the
Speaker 1: fuck up. He instructed them to get on their feet
Speaker 1: go sit on the drift with a few steps to
Speaker 1: the right. He then clumsily tied them up with the rope.
Speaker 1: It was Jim's first time, just like it would have
Speaker 1: been theirs, and because he was nervous, he got sloppy.
Speaker 1: Georgia and Melinda slipped their bonds ran for it. Jim
Speaker 1: saw his dreams slipping away with every footfall.
Speaker 3: Shit.
Speaker 1: He planted his father's old wingwalker boots in the sand.
Speaker 1: There were ten and a half, a little tight on
Speaker 1: Jim's size eleven feet, but they anchored him to the
Speaker 1: ground like they were supposed to, just like the elegant
Speaker 1: pistol the boots did with the stolen rope didn't got
Speaker 1: the job done. Po po pow went the bullets down,
Speaker 1: went George and Melinda. If these kids are re Via Kong,
Speaker 1: Dad would be proud, Jim thought. But no ritual blood letting.
Speaker 1: He couldn't let the kills be for nothing. He took
Speaker 1: a beat, collected himself. There was no time to wallow
Speaker 1: in the mire. Jim dragged Georgie and Melinda into a
Speaker 1: rotting bead shack on the other side of the nearest dune.
Speaker 1: Inside their young love would become a funeral byer. Jim
Speaker 1: had to stake a claim to this flame fire magic
Speaker 1: transfer the energy of the recently departed to him their killer.
Speaker 1: He took the jackknife, the last of his stolen tools,
Speaker 1: and carved a spell of his own into the soft wood.
Speaker 1: He took the M and the R from his last name, Morrison,
Speaker 1: and brought them to the front to spell mister. He
Speaker 1: took the M and the J from his first name, Jim,
Speaker 1: and added the two o's from Marrison to spell Mojo. Finally,
Speaker 1: he took the remaining letters R, I, S I, N
Speaker 1: and bunched them together to spell risin and there you
Speaker 1: had it, playing as the red on the Devil's dick,
Speaker 1: Mister Mojo Rising. In the summer of sixty six, Jim
Speaker 1: hid in his bedroom again, but this bedroom was different
Speaker 1: from his old diggs back at the Rear Admiral's house.
Speaker 1: He was living in a Venice Beach studio apartment. He
Speaker 1: blocked out the windows, listened to the blues, and did
Speaker 1: so much LSD it could reasonably qualify as a main
Speaker 1: source of his bodily fluids. While there, he poured psychedelic
Speaker 1: truth into a small notebook, feverishly drafting poem after poem
Speaker 1: for what he didn't know, but it kept his mind
Speaker 1: off of killing. After the night he disappeared from the
Speaker 1: family house to make his first kill, he returned home. Miraculously,
Speaker 1: the Rear Admiral gave in and allowed Jim to transfer
Speaker 1: into UCLA as a film student. He made exactly one
Speaker 1: film while at school, but he did graduate. After graduation,
Speaker 1: his brain scrambled by too much acid and too much
Speaker 1: Alister Crowley, still a slave to the dark arts, looking
Speaker 1: to make his way in the world and to establish
Speaker 1: his own identity. While now on his own, he quietly
Speaker 1: disowned his family and fully embraced the bohemian lifestyle. He
Speaker 1: ran into a college buddy on the beach, a keyboard
Speaker 1: player named Ray Manzaic. He shared his poems with him,
Speaker 1: and Ray recognized him as nothing short of magical. Soon
Speaker 1: Jim found himself and raised little rock and roll combo
Speaker 1: alongside two other inspired musicians, Robbie Kreeger on guitar and
Speaker 1: John Densmore on drums. They called themselves The Doors. Ray
Speaker 1: had met Robbie and John in a meditation retreat, which
Speaker 1: Jim thought was lame. Jim wasn't into this self care bullshit.
Speaker 1: He wanted sensory overload at all times, and we want
Speaker 1: the world, and we want it now. Jim took to
Speaker 1: the mic and imagined what Howling Wolf would sound like,
Speaker 1: reciting the evil musings of Alistair Crowley. What came out
Speaker 1: was dark, mystical, poetic, and powerful. Jim's musical inexperience was
Speaker 1: no obstacle. In no time, The Doors became the house
Speaker 1: band at the Whiskey at Go Go Nightclub on LA's
Speaker 1: Sunset Strip, opening for every headliner betwe He made twenty
Speaker 1: third in August twenty first, they released their first single
Speaker 1: in November break on Through. Jim had broken through years earlier,
Speaker 1: and he'd tried to hide, but that was impossible. Now
Speaker 1: that he had a stage, The Door Is notoriety spread
Speaker 1: and their popularity exploded. Still, Jim found it impossible to
Speaker 1: get from music what he got from murder. That feeling
Speaker 1: from killing Bob and Linda, he couldn't shake it. It
Speaker 1: was stronger than the feeling he felt on stage or
Speaker 1: in the studio. He loved playing music, but the payoff
Speaker 1: was different, maybe because he wasn't as confident a performer
Speaker 1: as one would think. If he had more faith in
Speaker 1: himself as a musician, lives might have been saved. But
Speaker 1: the rear Admiral's words rang out in his drug addled
Speaker 1: head constantly, you don't have the talent son. It fucked
Speaker 1: with Jim, even though he's making a name for himself.
Speaker 1: But for how long Jim's goal was in making do
Speaker 1: on Aleister Crowley's promise eternal life, not pop stardom, real greatness, transcendence.
Speaker 1: The music just wasn't enough. So just weeks before The
Speaker 1: Door's first single release, Jim felt the need to kill again.
Speaker 1: He drove to Riverside, an LA suburb, his victim would
Speaker 1: be Mary Anne Kate's, another poster child for American beauty.
Speaker 1: A twentieth century fox. She cut his eye at the
Speaker 1: whiskey one night and ever since and is then still anonymous. Downtime,
Speaker 1: he followed her, learned her routines. She was uplate at
Speaker 1: her college library and Jim Morrison was waiting. Raised keys
Speaker 1: played in Jim's mind like the organ at a pagan church.
Speaker 1: The demonic voice spoke out in Latin whispered into his ear.
Speaker 1: A man, James, do you renounce the Lord of Christendom,
Speaker 1: god of colonial pigs, imperiod as dogs and capitalists pomp?
Speaker 2: I do, Jim whispered back.
Speaker 1: Do you believe this god must be overthrown? I do,
Speaker 1: Jim said, as he removed the distributor cap from Mary
Speaker 1: Maranne's car, ensuring that her car wouldn't start. He crouched
Speaker 1: down out of sight and waited. Somewhere nearby. A baby
Speaker 1: cried from an open window. Mary Anne exited the library
Speaker 1: and mister Mojo ris and hid quietly behind her car.
Speaker 1: Coiled in attack move, Mary Anne stepped into her driver's seat.
Speaker 1: Her car would start. She realized something was wrong and
Speaker 1: stepped out Jim sprang from behind, tackled her, beat her
Speaker 1: perfect body bloody. To Jim and his manic fury, his
Speaker 1: memory wires had crossed. This murder brought on the total
Speaker 1: recalls the Lompock kill from three years before. His brain
Speaker 1: synapses firing off like the familiar sound of those twenty
Speaker 1: two shots from years earlier, replaced by the sound of
Speaker 1: his fist pounding mary Anne's flesh. All he heard were gunshots, gunshots,
Speaker 1: and the voice of the devil whispering in his ear.
Speaker 1: James Douglas, Morrison, do you renounce Jesus Sherry? Joe screamed,
Speaker 1: but nobody came. And then the chaos. His fists on
Speaker 1: her flesh sounded like a flurry of gunshots. I do renounce,
Speaker 1: and all his works. His knuckles to her ribs made
Speaker 1: a loud crack. I do renounce that, and all his promises.
Speaker 1: I do renounce that more punches, more cracks, since she
Speaker 1: still hadn't gone limped.
Speaker 4: James Douglas, will you pledge your soul to Satan?
Speaker 1: I will it nominated?
Speaker 4: Diabli ed feeley ed spirit is Satan. James Douglas going evil,
Speaker 4: and may Lucifer.
Speaker 2: Be with you hell Satan.
Speaker 1: With those words whispered Hail Satan. Jim's transformation was complete.
Speaker 1: His soul had been sold for what. It wasn't entirely clear. Fame, transcendence,
Speaker 1: beyond the bourgeois status quo, eternal life, any combination of
Speaker 1: those things. Jim didn't know, but he was certain of
Speaker 1: one thing. The power that raised aged through him at
Speaker 1: the moment was like an electric coil pulled tight from
Speaker 1: the tips of his toes to the crown of his skull.
Speaker 1: It surged and provided a powerful, manic, high voltage confidence.
Speaker 1: It made him feel as though he could do anything.
Speaker 1: Jim thought to himself, that was it. This was what
Speaker 1: all the poets raved about. That feeling, the one that
Speaker 1: the scientists and astrologists could never figure out, but that
Speaker 1: the wordsmiths had on lock, That thing that inspired countless artist, painters,
Speaker 1: songwriters and directors to keep going back to the well
Speaker 1: for to try and to capture, to express that feeling.
Speaker 1: This was it love. Jim dropped Marianne to the asphalt
Speaker 1: and slid himself down the side of the car and
Speaker 1: to exceed on the ground next to his kill. He
Speaker 1: was exhausted. He rifled through Marianne's purse for her smokes,
Speaker 1: found one, lit it with her letter, took a deep
Speaker 1: cleansing drag, tilted his head back against the car and exhaled.
Speaker 1: He then pulled the small notepad and pencil he carried
Speaker 1: with him everywhere and began writing.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: There were no stars, and they were empty, hollow like him,
Speaker 1: But unlike his words, the stars were small. Words were bigger.
Speaker 1: They could be anything, which is what the scientists and
Speaker 1: the astrologists never understood about love. With words, the possibilities
Speaker 1: for love were limitless. Science was fixed, limiting compared to poetry.
Speaker 1: Science was bullshit. Poetry gave wings to our desires. Astrology
Speaker 1: the zodiac science of compatibility. It was all bunk, made
Speaker 1: up to sell newspapers to board suburban housewives like his mom.
Speaker 1: Could the zodiac science have predicted how Jim now felt
Speaker 1: about Maryanne, what she meant to him now now that
Speaker 1: she become his kill? Was the goddamn Sunday morning horoscope.
Speaker 1: Going to read Arias is a fellow fireside for you,
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, the Sagittarius, He'll find a worthy partner mentally
Speaker 1: and physically. The chemistry between you is awesome, and when
Speaker 1: you pierce her skull with the sharp end of your knife,
Speaker 1: you'll know you've found your soulmate. Jim had no idea
Speaker 1: when mary Anne was born, but he knew it didn't
Speaker 1: matter for shit. He knew that she was for him,
Speaker 1: his girl, and he knew that their chemistry was quote
Speaker 1: unquote awesome. He pulled her dead body over closer to
Speaker 1: him and placed her bloody skull on his lap. He
Speaker 1: felt for her, He really did something deep, a connection.
Speaker 1: It was different than the feeling he had for George
Speaker 1: and Melinda. That was more bloodlust, craven, clumsy, like it
Speaker 1: is when you lose your virginity. With mary Anne, it
Speaker 1: was different. The kill had a rhythm to it, like
Speaker 1: great sex with an experienced partner. Was it because they'd
Speaker 1: hooked up after Jim had formally sealed the deal in
Speaker 1: his mind with the devil, before he'd gotten high on
Speaker 1: satan stoned immaculate into a deeper understanding of the cosmos
Speaker 1: and the power of his poetry, before he fully understood
Speaker 1: the futility of God, science and the stars. And what
Speaker 1: did the astrologists know that the poets didn't thing? Jim
Speaker 1: was in love and Satan had his back. Fuck with
Speaker 1: the horoscope said mary Anne was his first love and
Speaker 1: no disrespect to Georgia Melinda under the empty stars that night.
Speaker 1: Mary Anne was Jim Morrison's first Zodiac kill. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after this word were word like the mister
Speaker 1: Mojo Rising carving he'd made after the Georgia Melinda murders
Speaker 1: in Lompoc. Mari Anne's death wasn't tied to the killer
Speaker 1: who would become known as the Zodiac for years. When
Speaker 1: Georgia Melinda's bodies were eventually discovered, the Mister Mojo Rising
Speaker 1: carving went unnoticed because it had no significance because at
Speaker 1: the time, the Doors weren't yet a band, the song
Speaker 1: wasn't yet a hit. It was just a line in
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison's head that he would later write into the
Speaker 1: lyrics for the song La Woman. So at the time
Speaker 1: it just looked like some teenage graffiti, and so the
Speaker 1: clue was missed until now. And for Jim Morrison, a
Speaker 1: young man who craved recognition, whose goal it was was
Speaker 1: to be infamous, whose prime motivation for killing in the
Speaker 1: first place was to build an army of souls to
Speaker 1: fight for him in perpetuity to achieve his twisted notion
Speaker 1: of greatness. The fact that authorities were too stupid to
Speaker 1: connect him to those first few kills it really pissed
Speaker 1: him off. It wasn't until nineteen seventy that authorities even
Speaker 1: began to piece together the murders. San Francisco police believed
Speaker 1: the killer racked up five confirmed kills between December nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight and October nineteen sixty nine, a couple on
Speaker 1: Lake Herman Road in Benicia, one in Blue Rock Springs
Speaker 1: Park in Vallejo, one more in Napa County, and a
Speaker 1: cabby in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. And
Speaker 1: they didn't even know about Georgia, Melinda, and Marianne. This
Speaker 1: infuriated Jim. He wanted the credit for all those kills
Speaker 1: and then some. He later claimed to the public that
Speaker 1: he was responsible for a total of thirty seven murders.
Speaker 1: Jim couldn't deal with with the slowness of the San
Speaker 1: Francisco detectives, so he did what he did best, turned
Speaker 1: to words, poetry, a twisted poetry, but poetry. Nonetheless, he
Speaker 1: started to write letters to the press to claim responsibility
Speaker 1: for the murders, so the poetry needed to be twisted
Speaker 1: to conceal his identity. Jim Morrison, the fame whor couldn't
Speaker 1: resist the rush of notoriety. These claims came in letters
Speaker 1: called cryptograms, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and other
Speaker 1: newspapers word games like Mister Mojo Rizen, howbeit it a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot more complex. Basic cryptograms are substitution codes.
Speaker 1: Each letter replaces another. A's become bees, bees become c's,
Speaker 1: and so on. Jim digging on the maryannekill the ironic
Speaker 1: astrological poetry he penned while she laid dead on his lap,
Speaker 1: Her soul lovingly transferred to his for eternity as an homage.
Speaker 1: Signed his letter with a Z for Zodiac, and he
Speaker 1: peppered his cryptograms with pages full of Zodiac occult symbols
Speaker 1: as a subversive fuck you to the astraelogists from Jim
Speaker 1: the poet, Jim hinted at his cryptogram fascination and the
Speaker 1: doors tuned soul Kitchen. His psychotic pr made the front
Speaker 1: page of the San Francisco Chronicle as well as other
Speaker 1: local papers, taunting the nation into an obsession with a maniac.
Speaker 1: He sent the first cryptogram in three pieces to three
Speaker 1: separate California papers, demanding maybe published, or he would drive
Speaker 1: around the state committing random drive by shootings, and it
Speaker 1: worked like gangbusters. All three papers printed the cipher. When
Speaker 1: finally cracked, it read I like killing people.
Speaker 2: It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest,
Speaker 2: because man is the most dangerous animal of all the
Speaker 2: best part is that when I die, I will be
Speaker 2: reborn in paradise and all that I have killed will
Speaker 2: become my slaves.
Speaker 1: When he went out as a Zodiac, Jim would alter
Speaker 1: his appearance as best he could witness descriptions vary in
Speaker 1: hair color and length, maybe because he had his famous
Speaker 1: locks tied back or under a net or a wig.
Speaker 1: The zodiac sketches include eyeglasses, but this was to help
Speaker 1: preserve his anonymity as his fame rose. More tellingly, testimony
Speaker 1: puts the zodiac's height at around five ten, and Jim
Speaker 1: was five to eleven Weighed. Estimates for the Zodiac ranged
Speaker 1: from one hundred and eighty pounds to two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: Jim was one hundred and eighty and more when he
Speaker 1: was drinking heavily, which was more often than not. But
Speaker 1: the clue that always tied Jim and the Zodiac together,
Speaker 1: the one we can now fully appreciate, was his dad,
Speaker 1: the rear Admiral and his wingwalker boots, the Big ten
Speaker 1: and a Half's, the ones that left the boot prints
Speaker 1: that were found at several of the murder scenes, and
Speaker 1: that led investigators to suspect that the Zodiac had a
Speaker 1: military background. The Zodiac didn't, but his dad did, and
Speaker 1: the boots were the last thing connecting James Morrison aka
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, aka the Zodiac Killer from his old life
Speaker 1: to his new one. He was a killer just like
Speaker 1: dear old dad. Morrison's father, George, had been the military
Speaker 1: commander at the Gulf of Tonken, the shady nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four false flag operation by the US government to justify
Speaker 1: escalating the Vietnam War. Yes, Jim Morrison's dad basically started
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. This is a fact. Look it up.
Speaker 1: And it was a fact that drove Jim crazy. He
Speaker 1: literally sold his soul for his art. But even when
Speaker 1: it came to spilling blood, he was stuck in his
Speaker 1: father's shadow. His new Zodiac persona could never approach that
Speaker 1: body count but he could try. How did he manage
Speaker 1: this double life? It was easier than you'd think. When
Speaker 1: you're a notoriously unreliable rock star, nobody questions it. When
Speaker 1: you disappear for a couple of days between gigs, one
Speaker 1: hand washes the other. Let's lay out the timeline. In
Speaker 1: December sixty eight, the Doors played a local show at
Speaker 1: the Forum in Inglewood. Afterward, Jim was on his own
Speaker 1: with no gigs for two weeks. That's opportunity. The band
Speaker 1: had started recording their next album, Soft Parade, and the
Speaker 1: sessions were not going well. Jim needed a fix, that's motive.
Speaker 1: One week later, the Lake Herman Road murders happened, with
Speaker 1: the killing of Annie Mae Jackson and William Holiday. Then
Speaker 1: on July first, nineteen sixty nine, the Doors returned to
Speaker 1: California from a stint in Mexico City for too much
Speaker 1: needed days off. The excruciating half million dollar eight month
Speaker 1: production of Soft Parade was finally wrapped, and Jim had
Speaker 1: a break. And he needed it because he was an
Speaker 1: insecure wreck. He had no idea if the album was
Speaker 1: good or not, and feared, like most sensitive artists, that
Speaker 1: the critics would tear him apart. So Jim needed something
Speaker 1: soothing again before the upcoming release, and nothing soothed him
Speaker 1: more or gave him more satisfaction or sense of purpose
Speaker 1: than killing than adding to his soul bank. So after
Speaker 1: the recording a soft Parade, he was motivated to kill,
Speaker 1: and with time off, he had the opportunity to go
Speaker 1: out and quench his bloodthirst, which led to the murder
Speaker 1: of Diane Maren only four, nineteen sixty nine in Blue
Speaker 1: Rock Springs. After this, the Zodiac placed a phone call
Speaker 1: to the cops, another classic element of the serial killer profile,
Speaker 1: a desire to get caught. In that recording. When played now,
Speaker 1: the cadence of the voice, the thinly veiled hidden speech
Speaker 1: pattern sounds a lot like the spoken word poetry of
Speaker 1: one Jim Morrison on his album of Poems in American Prayer.
Speaker 1: And with that phone call a line was crossed. The Zodiac,
Speaker 1: the serial killer inside Jim, was done watching Jim Morrison,
Speaker 1: the rock Star inside Jim get the credit. The Zodiac
Speaker 1: was more than that, a poet, a soul shepherd, a
Speaker 1: killer's killer, and as far as he was concerned, Jim
Speaker 1: Morrison the rock Star was a phony, a Charlatan whatever
Speaker 1: he was. Jim was lost in a never ending identity
Speaker 1: crisis and it was coming to a boiling point and
Speaker 1: this body wasn't big enough for the both of them.
Speaker 1: At a show in Boston, Jimbo waxed poetic with the crowd. Hey, listen, listen, listen, listen, man, listen, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of you people believe in astrology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, baby. I'm as Sagittarius, the most
Speaker 1: philosophical of all the size.
Speaker 5: But anyway, I don't believe in that. I think it's
Speaker 5: a bunch of bullshit itself. But I'll tell you this, man,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you this. I don't know what's gonna happen, man,
Speaker 5: but I want to have my kicks.
Speaker 1: Before the whole shithouse grows up in flames.
Speaker 3: All right, all right.
Speaker 1: In the fall of nineteen sixty nine, the Doors were
Speaker 1: deciding that a hiatus was needed, ironically for the sake
Speaker 1: of Jim's health. During that hiatus, the Zodiac notunched two
Speaker 1: more attacks in under a month by far As Flashy
Speaker 1: at Tor. For the first, he dressed in a hood
Speaker 1: with a zodiac symple on it. Then hogtied and stabbed
Speaker 1: a couple on a picnic Nostalgia perhaps for his first
Speaker 1: time was Georgia Melinda, and the hood was needed now
Speaker 1: because Jim's face was just too damn famous. And for
Speaker 1: the second attack, he blew the brains out of a
Speaker 1: cabby in prosidio heights, tore off the dead man's shirttails
Speaker 1: and nailed them with the chronicle as a six souvenir
Speaker 1: fame horror that he was. Both murders preceded the recording
Speaker 1: of the Doors album Morrison Hotel by just a few weeks.
Speaker 1: Jim knew he needed to fill the soul bank his
Speaker 1: soul kitchen before the growing studio sessions were to start,
Speaker 1: and inevitably ended with Jim once again landing face down
Speaker 1: in the critics den of soul crushing jackals ever since
Speaker 1: Marrison Hotel came out. However, it was the Zodiac and
Speaker 1: not Jim who became all talk and no action. Sure,
Speaker 1: he teased the squares through the cryptograms he'd lay out
Speaker 1: on the newspapers with threats of blowing up buses and
Speaker 1: attacking children, but he never did. Jim even leaked a
Speaker 1: little more Zodiac into his lyrics blood Stains the Roof
Speaker 1: and the Palm Trees of Venice, blood and My Love
Speaker 1: and the Terrible Summer. But it was clear the magic
Speaker 1: was fading and the art was winning. Now is Jim's
Speaker 1: chance to free himself with this demon, the Zodiac, once
Speaker 1: and for All of Jim's many friends and lovers, the
Speaker 1: only one he trusted was Pamela Corson. She had been
Speaker 1: the first to suggest he should quit the doors, get away,
Speaker 1: focus on his poetry, in other words, get into something real,
Speaker 1: some semblance of her real life beyond the madness of
Speaker 1: being a rock star serial killer. Jim didn't tell Pam
Speaker 1: he was the Zodiac. Of course, he didn't have to.
Speaker 1: Even without knowing the truth, it was obvious to Pam,
Speaker 1: as it was to everyone else, that Jim needed help.
Speaker 1: The two made plans to Lament in France, and it
Speaker 1: was the escape from the madness of rock and roll,
Speaker 1: and it was the escape from the madness of murder.
Speaker 1: But before splitting, Jim reunited with Ray, Robbie and John
Speaker 1: to record the album La Woman. They must have known
Speaker 1: this was the band's last hurrah, even if they didn't
Speaker 1: say it. But when the album was done, Jim flew
Speaker 1: to Paris. He'd had it with the stress of it all,
Speaker 1: his crisis of identity. Was he a killer or a poet?
Speaker 1: The music and the murders, it was all too much,
Speaker 1: No more souls to claim. He'd claimed enough. The only
Speaker 1: soul left up for grabs his own. The official take
Speaker 1: is that Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub on
Speaker 1: July third, nineteen seventy one, but there's a lot that
Speaker 1: officials in the public never knew. In fact, what Jim
Speaker 1: was really doing in that bath was an exorcism. Paris
Speaker 1: was a last ditch attempt to save him from his demons.
Speaker 1: Literally cafes accordions all the cliches. Since Pam couldn't know
Speaker 1: the extent of his depravity even in Paris, he had
Speaker 1: to play a cool and wait. He drank less, wrote
Speaker 1: more poems, chilled, but all the while the Zodiac was
Speaker 1: screaming out from inside, threatening to burst through Jim and
Speaker 1: grab the world by its shoulders and violently shake it
Speaker 1: into an early grave. It's no coincidence that the final
Speaker 1: Zodiac letter received during The Killer's active period reached the
Speaker 1: Chronicle mail room around the same time Jim Morrison fled
Speaker 1: the United States. It was the Zodiac's last gasp. After months,
Speaker 1: the night finally came. Jim saw his chance to exercise
Speaker 1: his demons, that escape the madness of living as a
Speaker 1: serial killer, to get himself whatever that was James. He
Speaker 1: assumed back Pam would be out with friends. Jim could
Speaker 1: do one last accult riche undisturbed. He would submerge himself
Speaker 1: on the claw foot bathtub like a sensory deprivation tank,
Speaker 1: get fully under the surface, chant an entire original Jim
Speaker 1: Morrison's spell without drowning. When he did it, it was dangerous,
Speaker 1: stuck per forming an exorcism on yourself, but Jim didn't
Speaker 1: see it that way. He didn't want to be the Zodiac,
Speaker 1: so he decided he wasn't. He had made a deal
Speaker 1: with the devil long ago for his fame, but he
Speaker 1: had always felt like a fraud because of it. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a rock star. He was a poet all those crimes,
Speaker 1: and that was someone else, entirely, a split personality. So
Speaker 1: he wasn't exercising himself. He was casting out it that thing,
Speaker 1: the monster. Jim closed his eyes and slipped underwater. He
Speaker 1: sang forcefully enough that the water didn't flood his face,
Speaker 1: softly enough that he'd have breath for all the lyrics.
Speaker 1: He wished Pam was there with him now, but he
Speaker 1: hadn't shared this with her. It would have been too cruel,
Speaker 1: and it was too late. An actor out on loan
Speaker 1: and the loan King do no more performance, just a
Speaker 1: final judgment wake up time. Who the fuck are you?
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison? That was for him to know and for
Speaker 1: the rest of us to just find out. Now in Paris,
Speaker 1: he broke on through to the other side one last
Speaker 1: time in a trance. Passed out, submerged, mister Mojo Rising
Speaker 1: went under the Lizard King, shed his skin, the bathwater
Speaker 1: slip streamed into his nostrils, then his lungs, and just
Speaker 1: like that, he was gone. Within hours, Pam found the body,
Speaker 1: and no autopsy was ever performed. Some old timers liked
Speaker 1: to think he faked it, that he slipped the bonds
Speaker 1: of fame and wandered the earth like king. But someone
Speaker 1: died in that tub. The question is who was it?
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison or was it the Zodiac freeing the real
Speaker 1: man and leaving the real Jim Marrison and wander on
Speaker 1: after the mysterious events of his death and perhaps his rebirth,
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison would have been surprised to learn at how
Speaker 1: popular his music and words remained throughout the years, and
Speaker 1: he'd likely also be fascinated that some crazy bullshitter with
Speaker 1: a podcast would someday accuse him of being the fucking
Speaker 1: Zodiac Killer as an April Fool's joke, which, of course
Speaker 1: is what Yours Truly just did. So poor went out
Speaker 1: for the real Jim Morrison and Happy April Fool's Day.
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
Speaker 1: by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. If you're listening as
Speaker 1: a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for some recording
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Speaker 2: Rock a rolla
Speaker 4: He then Man