The Zodiac Series - Part 1
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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you.

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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Weyborg Thun.

Welcome, dear listener, to a long-awaited expose. Tonight, we begin the tale of the serial killer your humble host find most fascinating. I am, of course, talking about none other than the elusive serial killer known only as the Zodiac Killer. He is almost as famous as Jack the Ripper,

but far more interesting, and the myth, legend, and facts about his murderous reign continue to this very day. No one knows who he is, or if he is still alive, although many have strong opinions. Four men and four women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted by the Zodiac.

between October of 1966 and October of 1969. Of the eight attacked, six died in the Californian cities of Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco. Six kills is not a very high kill count when compared to notorious killers such as Pedro Lopez or Ted Bundy.

But there are many facts and circumstances connected to the Zodiac case that indicate he may have killed many, many more than six. The Zodiac series will be somewhat different than many of the other exposés covered here on the Serial Killer Podcast.

as there are so many podcasts, movies, books and articles written about him, that it is difficult to give you quality content that differs from the mainstream. This episode will focus on the main, known timeline of the Zodiac murders and his taunting of the media, police and general public.

And this episode is thus made to give you, dear listener, a basic understanding of what the Zodiac did and how. In later episodes, I will interview experts, present detailed biographies of the victims, and go in-depth in the various theories surrounding who the Zodiac Killer truly was.

As an added bonus, the lovely introduction music you just listened to is now available. Go to theserialkiller.com to download this exclusive ringtone now, and you won't regret it. Also, do not miss out on exciting news, such as the Kickstarter project we got going with a premium mug that changes color as it heats up.

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The larger my fanbase gets, the more stable this program becomes, and the more resources I'll be able to devote to it in the future. Imagine, if you will, dear listener, Northern California in the late 1960s.

On Sunday, the 30th of October, the day before Halloween 1966, Sherry Jo Bates, an 18-year-old student, was murdered near the library parking lot of the Riverside Community College in San Francisco. The killer had disabled her lime green Volkswagen by removing the distributor coil and condenser, and disconnected some wires.

He had waited for Bates to return to her car from the library, shortly before it closed at 9 p.m. When Bates' car would not start, the man probably went over to offer her help. He then maybe tinkered with the engine for a while and then, saying he couldn't fix it, offered her a lift. He managed to lure her into a dark driveway between two empty houses, owned by the college.

Here, they spent approximately an hour and a half, during which time no one knows for certain what really happened. What is known is that Bates' dead body was later found covered with large knife slashes, three across her chest, one across her back, and seven across her throat.

Police determined the murder weapon to be a small knife with a blade approximately three and a half inches long and a half inches wide. The neck wounds were so brutal they had severed her larynx, carotid artery and jugular vein and nearly caused her decapitation.

Bates had also been beaten, choked and slashed about the face, but she had not been raped or robbed and her body was found fully clothed. Two separate witnesses had heard a terrible scream at around 10.30 p.m. and then a more muted scream, immediately followed by the sound of a car starting.

This matches the coroner's estimated time of death at around 10.30 p.m. The fact that Bates had spent over an hour in a dark driveway before she was heard screaming suggested to police that she knew her attacker. They surmised he might have been an ex-boyfriend, a spurned suitor, or someone connected to Bates. A month later, on the 29th of November 1966,

Riverside Police and the Riverside Press Enterprise were posted carbon copies of an anonymous typed letter. It was entitled The Confession, with a byline of the word BY, followed by 12 underscores, and it claimed responsibility for the Bates murder, warning that she was not the first and would not be the last.

At least one of the details in the letter had not been made public, leading police to believe it was genuinely from the Bates killer. They found a single fingerprint on the envelope, but it was never matched to any suspect. It could have been from the author of the letter, or a postman, or a policeman. The letter read as follows: "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game."

This letter should be published for all to read it. It just might save that girl in the alley. But that's up to you. It will be on your conscience, not mine. Yes, I did make that call to you also. It was just a warning. Beware, I am stalking your girls now.

A few weeks later, in December of 1966, a poem underneath a desk in the library of Riverside Community College was discovered. It read, Sick of living, unwilling to die. Cut. Clean. If read, clean. Blood spurting, dripping, spilling, all over her new dress. Oh well,

It was read anyway. Life draining into an uncertain death. She won't die. This time someone will find her. Just wait till next time. End quote. It was signed R.H. on the 30th of April, 1967, exactly six months after her death.

Sherry Joe's father, Joseph Bates, as well as the Riverside Police and the Riverside Press Enterprise, were sent nearly identical copies of another letter. Two of the letters were signed with a symbol resembling a Z, joined with a 3. The letters read as follows. Bates had to die. There will be more.

Once again, one fingerprint was found on the letter, but it was never matched to any suspect. Let us then fast forward a year. The year was chilly, but this, being coastal California, it was still relatively mild outside and no snow, even though it was close to Christmas. We find ourselves in the city of Benicia,

a well-to-do city in Solano County, on the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It's not a large city, with only around 27,000 inhabitants as of today, and only 8,000 residents in the late 1960s. It was a picturesque city that functioned as a suburb of San Francisco.

And as often is the case on this podcast, the environment was that of classical post-war Americana, i.e. middle-class white families, father the breadwinner and mother the typical housewife. Teenagers and young couples were regularly going for their drives in their new General Motors vehicles, often stopping for sundaes, delicious burgers and maybe a drive-in movie theater.

It was also quite common for those happy young couples to park in secluded romantic places to make out and maybe make love as well. And so it was that on the 20th of December 1968, a local resident, Stella Borges, found a young couple next to their parked car on a gravel area.

next to Lake Herman Road, Benicia, California, a few moments after they had been killed. They were Betty Lou Jensen, 16 years old, and her boyfriend, David Faraday, 17 years old. Jensen had been shot in the back as she was trying to escape. Faraday had been shot once in the head and died before regaining consciousness.

It later emerged that a witness had seen two cars parked on the gravel area, but had not noticed any occupants. The next murders linked to the Zodiac Killer occurred around midnight on the 4th of July 1969, Independence Day, in the parking lot of the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course, Vallejo, California. Only four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site,

The killer pulled up next to the couple in their parked car, shot them with a 9mm Luger handgun. The victims were 19-year-old Michael Renaud Majot, who survived gunshot wounds to the face, neck and chest, and his girlfriend, Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22 years old, who was unfortunately pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Only 40 minutes later, on the 5th of July, 1969, at 12.40 a.m., Vallejo Sheriff's Department received an anonymous phone call from a man claiming responsibility for the Blue Rock Springs shooting, as well as for the Lake Herman Road murders six months earlier.

The call was traced to a public phone booth at a petrol station close to both Ferryn's home and the Vallejo Sheriff's Department. The dispatcher, Nancy Slover, still remembers the voice calling her almost 50 years ago. The message was recalled by her as follows. I wish to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park,

You will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot by a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye. The final phrase, goodbye, was said in a very slow, drawn-out way, almost like the killer wanted to sound ominous.

A month later, on the 1st of August 1969, three local newspapers received almost identical letters regarding the shootings. The letters gave details of the ammunition used and the wounds and positions of the victims, information which had never been officially released. The letters were signed with a symbol of a circle overlaid by a cross.

Each letter also had a separate sheet with a message of 360 characters printed in a cipher, in which the author of the letter claimed his identity was hidden. Each editor received only a third of the message. The message reads as follows, except of course the cipher, which is still not completely solved.

Dear Editor, I am the killer of the two teenager at Christmas at Lake Herman and the girl last 4th of July. To prove this, I shall state some facts which only I and police know. Christmas. 1. Brand name of ammo, Super X. 2. 10 shots fired. 3. Boy was on back, feet to car.

4. Girl was lying on right side, feet to west. 4th of July. 1. Girl was wearing patterned pants. 2. Boy was also shot in knee. 3. Brand name of ammo was Western. The letters contained the demand to be printed on the front page of the newspapers with the threat of further killings the next weekend if this was not heeded.

The weekend killing spree did not take place, and the letters were eventually printed, in the hope that they may help out the police investigation of the murders. Three days later, on the 4th of August 1969, another letter was received by the San Francisco Examiner newspaper, in which the author began, Dear Editor, This is the Zodiac speaking.

The press and the police pounced on the name. The reign of the Zodiac Killer had begun. Californian code experts Donald and Betty Harden cracked Zodiac's first code, except for the last string of 18 letters on the 8th of August 1969, a week after the cipher had been sent with the first letters.

Disappointingly, the cipher did not contain the Zodiac's identity, as he had promised, but instead an explanation of why he killed. The decoded cipher read as follows, but be mindful that the message contains several grammatical errors, probably inserted deliberately in order to further complicate the cipher.

I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest, because man is the most dangerous animal of all. To kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. It is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl.

The best part of it is that when I die, I will be reborn in paradise, and all that I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name, because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife. E-B-E-O-R-I-E-T-E-M-E-T-H-H-P-I-T-I End quote.

The Zodiac was far from finished, and as he promised, in his cipher he soon collected more victims. On the 27th of September 1969, Brian Calvin Hartnell, 20 years old, and Cecilia Ann Shepard, 22 years old, were enjoying a picnic on the shores of picturesque Lake Berryessa,

when they were approached by a man, wearing an executioner-type hood, sunglasses to hide his eyes, and a symbol on his chest, bearing a circle intersected by a cross. The man pointed a gun at them, and, explaining he was an escaped convict, demanded money and their car.

Using pre-cut strips of clothesline, the man forced Shepard to tie up her boyfriend, and then he bound her wrists. After both victims were tied up, Zodiac checked how Shepard had tied up her boyfriend. Apparently she hadn't done a very good job, as the knot was quite loose, something Zodiac commented on.

After they both were bound, he forced them to lie on their stomach and proceeded to ransack them and their belongings. The boy, probably in a state of shock or disbelief, combined with youthful bravado, asked Zodiac if the gun he had pointed at them was even loaded. Zodiac didn't say anything, but he bent down.

took out his gun and showed Hartnell how the gun indeed was loaded with live ammunition. He started to walk away and disappeared from the young couple's view. They were both relieved, but not for long. Zodiac emerged behind them and then stabbed the victims numerous times. Hartnell six times and Shepard ten times.

with Cecilia frantically rolling around, clearly terrified by her ordeal. Brian, obviously fearing that they were about to lose their lives, stopped breathing in an attempt to feign death, realizing if he thrashed around, the killer would return to finish him off. Fortunately for Brian, his tactic worked, and the cold-blooded executioner seized his attack and walked off into the distance, back up the trail.

Once the couple had managed to loosen their bindings, Brian Hartnell then struggled his way back up the incline to the nearby road, where he was eventually aided by park ranger Dennis Land. After he had finished stabbing the couple, Zodiac had walked back to where the couple had parked their car and drew a circle and cross symbol on the car door, writing below it, Vallejo 12-20-68.

7-4-6-9, Sept. 2769, 6.30, by knife. Shepard was still conscious when county sheriff deputies arrived at the scene and she was able to give them a detailed description of the man who had attacked them. Both Shepard and Hartnell were taken immediately to hospital. Shepard lapsed into a coma in the ambulance and died two days later.

Whilst Hartnell survived the brutal attack, the Napa County Sheriff's Office received a call at 7.30pm from a man admitting to the Lake Bariesa attack. The call was traced to a public telephone at a local car wash. When police arrived, they found the receiver still off the hook and were able to lift fresh fingerprints. But these were never matched to any suspects.

Napa County Sheriff Detective Ken Narlow was assigned to the case, and he worked on it until his retirement in 1987. It was a dark night on the 11th of October, 1969. Cab driver Paul Lee Stein, 29 years old, was at an intersection in San Francisco.

when a man got into his cab and asked to be taken to Presidio Hates. Once at the destination, and without preamble, the man drew out a 9mm firearm and shot Stein once in the head, killing him. Instantly. He took Stein's wallet and car keys and tore off a piece of Stein's bloodied shirt.

With the fabric, he calmly proceeded to wipe his fingerprints off the cub and then walked off towards the Presidio military base. At 9.55 p.m., whilst the crime was in progress, three teenage witnesses, who were across the street, called police. Officers arrived minutes later and conducted a thorough search of the surrounding area.

but to no avail. The Zodiac had struck again and vanished. However, a police artist worked with the teenage witnesses to create an identikit of the killer. Was a white male, estimated to be 35 to 45 years old. Detectives Dave Tosche and Bill Armstrong of the San Francisco Police Department were assigned to the case.

Three days after the Stein murder, on the 14th of October 1969, the Chronicle newspaper received a letter from the Zodiac with a threat of shooting school children. In the envelope, as proof that he was the killer, was a piece of the fabric that had been torn from Stein's shirt. This letter is handwritten as follows.

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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.

For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. This is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington Street and Maple Street last night. To prove this, here is a blood-stained piece of his shirt.

I am the same man who did in the people in the North Bay area. The SF police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly, instead of just holding road races with their motorcycles, seeing who could make the most noise. The car drivers should have just parked their cars and sat there quietly, waiting for me to come out of cover.

School children make nice targets. I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire, then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out. End quote. The letter is signed only by the symbol Zodiac now had used several times, a circle overlaid by a cross.

At 2 a.m. on the 22nd of October 1969, the Oakland Police Department was called by a man claiming to be the Zodiac and demanding that one of two high-profile lawyers appear on Jim Dunbar's television talk show later that morning. Not wanting to take any risks, police arranged for one of the lawyers, Melvin Belli, to appear on the show.

Dunbar requested that viewers keep the lines open, and someone claiming to be the Zodiac and saying his name was Sam called a number of times. Belli agreed to meet the man who never showed up at a determined time and venue. Police eventually traced subsequent calls made to Belli to the Napa State Hospital, where they had a mental patient named Sam.

Personally, I am not convinced that Zodiac ever called into the Dunbar TV show. In massively publicized events like the Zodiac case, thousands of frauds and wannabes crawl out of the woodwork, claiming to either be the killer or to have intimate knowledge that can be useful. They seldom are.

The Zodiac Killer was perhaps the serial killer to have sent most taunting letters to authorities and the public in history. In total, there are 25 letters credited to him, and you, dear listener, will be presented to all of them during this episode. The same day, as the call demanding an appearance on the Dunbar talk show, the Zodiac sent a second cryptogram,

this time consisting of 340 characters, and on the 8th and 9th of November 1969, the Zodiac first sent a short letter and then a longer seven-page letter claiming that he had been stopped and spoken to by two police officers a mere three minutes after he had shot the taxi driver Stein. The short letter reads as follows. This is the Zodiac speaking.

I thought you would need a good laugh before you hear bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. P.S. Could you print this news cipher on your front page? I get awfully lonely when I am ignored. So lonely I could do my thing. Des July og sept oct equal seven. End quote.

The next day the longer letter was received, and it reads thusly. This is the Zodiac speaking. Up to the end of October I have killed seven people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone.

When I commit my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, and a few fake accidents, etc. The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them. 1. I look like the description passed out, only when I do my thing. The rest of the time I look entirely different. I shall not tell you what my disguise consists of when I kill. 2.

As of yet, I have left no fingerprints behind me, contrary to what the police say. In my killings, I wear transparent fingertip cards. All it is, is two coats of airplane cement coated on my fingertips. Quite unnoticeable, and very effective. Three.

My killing tools have been bought through the mail order outfits before the ban went into effect. Except one, and it was bought out of state, so as you can see the police don't have much to work on.

If you wonder why I was wiping the cab down, I was leaving fake clues for the police to run all over town with. As one might say, I gave the cops some busy work to do to keep them happy. I enjoy needling the blue pigs. Hey, blue pig, I was in the park. You were using fire trucks to mask the sound of your cruising prowl cars.

The dogs never came within two blocks of me, and they were to the west, and there were only two groups of parking about ten minutes apart when the motor cycles went by about 150 feet away, going from south to northwest. P.S. Two cops pulled a goof about three minutes after I left the cab. I was walking down the hill to the park when this cop pulled up.

One of them called me over and asked if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in the last five to ten minutes, and I said, yes, there was this man who was running by waving a gun, and the cops peeled rubber and went around the corner as I directed them. I disappeared into the park a block and a half away, never to be seen again, must print in paper.

Hey, pig, doesn't it rile you up to have your nose rubbed in your boo-boos? If you cops think I'm going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads. Take one bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and one gallon of stove oil and dump a few bags of gravel on top and then set the shit off.

and will positively ventilate anything that should be in the way of the blast. The death machine is already made. I would have sent you pictures, but you would be nasty enough to trace them back to the developer and then to me, so I shall describe my masterpiece to you. The nice part of it is all the parts can be bought on the open market, with no questions asked. One battery-powered clock.

will run for approximately one year. One photoelectric switch, two copper leaf springs, two 6V car batteries, one flashlight bulb and reflector, one mirror, two 18" cardboard tubes black with shoe polish inside and out, mirror, bus, bombs, one bag each,

6V battery, 6V battery. Bus goes bang, car passes by, okay. The system checks out from one end to the other in my tests. What you do not know is whether the death machine is at the site, or whether it is being stored in my basement for future use.

I think you do not have the manpower to stop this one by continually searching the roadsides looking for this thing. And I want Doom to re-route, reschedule the buses, because the bomb can be adapted to new conditions. Have fun! By the way, it could be rather messy if you try to bluff me.

On the 20th of December 1969,

Belli received a letter from the Zodiac, asking for his legal help. Included with the letter was another piece of the fabric torn from Stein's shirt. Here Zodiac says, and I quote, Dear Melvin, This is the Zodiac speaking. I wish you a happy Christmas. The one thing I ask of you is this. Please help me. I cannot reach out for help because of this thing in me won't let me.

I am finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check. I am afraid I will lose control again and take my ninth and possibly tenth victim. Please help me, I am drowning. At the moment the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in and the trigger mech requires so much work to get adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long...

The letter is, as almost all the others, signed with the Zodiacal symbol. Almost all the letters that we cover in this episode was handwritten and full of grammatical errors.

When I read them to you, dear listener, be aware that I have not edited the wording in any way, so if the letter sounds odd, it's because it is. On the night of the 22nd of March, 1970, Kathleen Johns, 22 years old, was going to visit her mother in Petaluma, California. Johns was seven months pregnant and had her 10-month-old daughter in the car with her.

On the highway 132 near Modesto, Johns noticed the car behind her flashing its lights and sounding its horn. Worried, she pulled off the road, and the car behind her followed suit. The man told Johns that one of the rear tires was wobbling, but that he could tighten it. She gladly allowed the man to help her, and after fiddling about at the back of her car and telling her she was all set,

She drove off, but when Johns pulled back onto the highway, the tire came off completely, and Johns veered to a halt. The man reversed back to her and offered to drive her and her daughter to the nearest service station. Little suspecting that the man had in fact loosened her tire and caused the whole calamity in the first place, Johns once again accepted his offer of help and climbed into his car.

The first service station was closed, but then the man kept making excuses that the other service stations they passed were the wrong ones. Johns began to fear him and nervously sat in his car whilst he drove around and around the back streets of the rural area for nearly three hours. Eventually, Johns managed to escape when the man stopped at an intersection.

Clutching her baby daughter, she leaped out of the car, ran into a nearby field, and hid. The man turned off his headlights and waited silently in the car for about five minutes. He then turned his lights back on and drove away. Johns managed to stop a passing motorist, who took her and her daughter to the Patterson police station. Here she saw the identikit of the Zodiac,

and confirmed him to be the man who had abducted her. The Patterson police went in search of John's car, and they found it completely burned out and still smoldering. The Zodiac had returned to destroy any evidence of his presence. It transpired that this was the last time anyone saw the Zodiac Killer in person.

But his letter writing continued for quite some time after that. On the 20th of April 1970, the Chronicle newspaper received a letter which included a 13-character piece of code as well, as the plans for a bus bomb. It began, This is a Zodiac speaking. By the way, have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is dot dot followed by a 13-character code.

and was signed off with the crossed circle symbol. In the letter, the Zodiac claimed to have killed 10 people to date. On the 28th of April 1970, the Chronicle received a greeting card from the Zodiac.

It is one of those humorous greeting cards, and the card shows a picture of two dwarves, or hobbits, looking at the reader. One of them is saying, Sorry to hear your ass is a dragon. And the other is riding atop a literal dragon. Next to the dragon, the Zodiac wrote, I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my blast. P.S. is on the back.

The back of the letter contains a demand and a threat. If you don't want me to have this blast, you must do two things. I would like to see some nice zodiac buttons wandering about town. Everyone else has these buttons, like the peace symbol, black power, etc. Well, it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my button. Please, no nasty ones like Melvin's. Thank you." End quote.

A letter to the Chronicle on the 26th of June 1970 contained another code and a roadmap of the Bay Area, with a stylized clock face incorporating the crossed circle zodiac symbol, drawn on the summit of Mount Diablo. The zodiac stated in the letter as follows. This is the Zodiac speak. I have become very upset with the people of the San Fran Bay Area.

They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice Zodiac button. I promised to punish them if they did not comply, by annihilating a full school bus. But now school is out for the summer, so I punished them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38. Zodiac 12. SFPD 0.

The map coupled with this code will tell you where the bomb is set. You will have until next fall to dig it up. At the bottom was a new cipher that has been solved and it reads: "0 is to be set to MAG N369" Which were clues to where the bomb was being stored, but no bomb was ever found.

On the 24th of July 1970, a short note was sent to the Chronicle, referring to the abduction of Johns and the burning of her car, signed with a very large crossed circle. Two days later, a letter arrived about the tortures the Zodiac's slaves would endure in the afterlife. This letter is rather long, and it reads as follows:

This is the Zodiac speaking. Being that you will not wear some nice Zodiac Killer symbol buttons, how about wearing some nasty Zodiac logo buttons? Or any type of Zodiac logo buttons that you can think of. If you do not wear any type of Zodiac logo buttons, I shall, on top of everything else, torture all 13 of my slaves that I have waiting for me in Paradise.

Some I shall tie over anthills, and watch them scream and twist and squirm. Others shall have pine splinters driven under their nails, and then burned. Others shall be placed in cages, fed salt beef until they are gorged, and then I shall listen to their pleas for water, and I shall laugh at them.

Others will hang by their thumbs and burn in the sun. Then I will rub them down with deep heat to warm them up. Others I shall skin them alive and let them run around screaming. And all billed players I shall have them play in a darkened dungeon cell with crooked cues and twisted shoes.

Yes, I shall have great fun inflicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves. SFPD 0, Zodiac Killer 13. As some day it might happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little list, I've got a little list of society offenders who might well be underground, who would never be missed, who would never be missed.

There is the pestilential nuisances Who write for autographs All people who have flabby hands And irritating laughs All children who are up in date And implore you with implat All people who are shaking hands Shake hands like that And all third persons who With unspoiling take those who insist They'd none of them be missed They'd none of them be missed

There's a banjo serenader and the others of his race and the piano organist. I got him on the list. All people who eat peppermint and pomfet in your face. They would never be missed. They would never be missed. And the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone of centuries and this and every country but his own. And the lady from the provinces who dress like a guy who doesn't cry.

and the singular abnormity the girl who never kissed i don't think she would be missed i'm sure she wouldn't be missed and that nice imprease that is rather rife the judicial humrest ive got him on the list all funny fellows comic men and clowns of private life

"'Let none of them be missed. "'Let none of them be missed. "'An uncompromising such as, whatchamacallit, thing-me-bob, "'and likewise, well, never mind, and tut-tut-tut-tut, and wash his name, "'and you know who, but the task of filling up the blanks, I rather leave up to you. "'But it really doesn't matter whom you place upon the list, "'for none of them be missed. "'None of them be missed.'

P.S. The Mount Diablo code concerns radians and inches along the radians. End quote. On the 5th of October, 1970, the Chronicle received a postcard with a collage of pictures, through which had been punched 13 holes representing the 13 lives the Zodiac claimed to have taken.

In this communication, he warned police that he had not slowed down his pace of killing, and bragged that they would never catch him. This is one of very few letters that was not handwritten, but was partly machine-written and partly made by newspaper clippings. On the 27th of October, 1970, a Halloween greeting card addressed to Paul Avery arrived at Chronicles.

in which the Zodiac apologized for not sending another cipher. It was signed with a crossed circle and a large Z. But in addition, there was an ominous symbol made of 13 I's, and the words, Paradise, Slaves, By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope, Peek-a-boo, You are doomed, Fourteen, Boo, signed Z.

Around this time, Kathleen Johns, the woman that was briefly abducted by the Zodiac, received a similar card from the Zodiac. Taken as a direct threat, the card sent to Avery made front-page news in the Chronicle.

On the 31st of October 1970, as a direct result of this, an anonymous letter was sent to the Chronicle, urging police to investigate a murder in Riverside a few years before, which had many similarities to the other Zodiac killings. Four months after Avery wrote his article on the Riverside Bates murder,

Another Zodiac letter was sent to the Los Angeles Times on the 13th of March, 1971. In it, he credited the police for making the link with the baits killing, but reminded them that they are only finding the easy ones. There are a hell of a lot more down there.

On the 22nd of March, 1971, Avery received another Zodiac letter, this time taking credit for the disappearance of Donna Lass, 25, a nurse from Lake Tahoe, California. She had been missing since the 26th of September, 1970, when she left work around 2 a.m.,

The following morning, her uniform and shoes, covered in dirt, were found in a paper bag in her office. Her apartment was clean and tidy, and her car was found parked outside. Her body has never been found. The letter was made of a collage of lettering and adverts and seemed to give clues to the crime scene.

However, when police investigated, they discovered that what appeared to be a grave had only in it a pair of sunglasses. The Vallejo Times-Herald ran a story the 13th of November, 1972, that said the murders of a young couple nearly a decade earlier had been the work of the Zodiac.

On the 4th of June 1963, high school seniors Robert Domingos, 18, and Linda Edwards, 17, were shot and killed on a beach near Lompoc, California. It seemed to investigators that the couple had initially been bound, but had managed to free themselves and the killer had shot them in the back and chest as they were trying to flee.

He had then placed their bodies in a nearby shack and set it alight, although it did not burn down. Following the letter to Avery in March of 1971, the Zodiac kept silent for almost three years. But, as with many narcissistic serial killers, they cannot bear not getting the attention they demand.

So, on the 29th of January, 1974, the Chronicle received a letter that said, I saw and think The Exorcist was the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen. Signed, Yours truly. He plunged himself into the billowy wave, and an echo arose from the suicide's grave. Tit-willow, tit-willow, tit-willow.

P.S. If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing. Zodiac signed off, me equal 37, SFPD equal 0, indicating that his murder count had reached 37 and the San Francisco police had still not caught him.

A further three letters were sent to the Chronicle on the 14th of February 1974, the 8th of May 1974, and the 8th of July 1974, although one can never be 100% certain that the Zodiac was indeed the author. A further four years passed until a letter arrived on the 24th of April 1978,

which was first thought to be from the Zodiac, but three months later, experts declared it as a hoax. The tale of the Zodiac is far from over. He made possible contact at later dates that I will explore with you, dear listener, during the next episodes of the Zodiac series.

I will also interview fascinating people intimately connected to the Zodiac Killer case. And we will, of course, delve into the massive amount of material relating to possible suspects. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned.

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