antique, RobertUnmasked 11 страница

“The plans for Zodiac’s bomb came from [the schematic of a] UP 15 teleprinter,” an expert told me. “I also noticed that in his schematic, he properly draws ‘jumpers’ over two intersecting lines. I think these are the best clues for finding the Zodiac and that there is more thanfifty percent probability that he was an amateur radio operator (also known as ‘hams’). First, operators who used RTTY (Radio Teletype) usedsurplus machines.... Secondly, the simple fact that he uses ‘jumpers’ on his schematic diagram tel s me he has more than just a passingof electronics, which hams must master... other possible alternatives are Navy and Coast Guard personnel such as electronic techsradiomen.”relationship between heavy Leigh Al en and his slender father was complex. The strongest Navy influence came from the father. EthanAl en, a wel -known, highly decorated Naval commander and pilot, was born April 6, 1903, in Meade, Kansas, the son of George M. Al enCora Woodard, both of Kansas. Leigh’s father, a twenty-five-year Val ejo resident, put in twenty-four years of service in Hawaii and on Treasurein San Francisco Bay. In his retirement, Ethan became a draftsman for the City of Val ejo. When he married Bernice Hanson of California,had two sons, Arthur Leigh and Ronald Gene. Ethan passed on a love of hunting, flying, and sailing to both, but his elder son, Leigh, took itto heart.was no coincidence that Leigh hunted, had a pilot’s license, and sailed. But after his plane crash, Ethan, no longer the vibrant and confidenthe had once been, could not curb’s Leigh’s outbursts and abuse of Bernice. The death of his stern father set Al en free, but the earlier jetup had given him license to pursue his desires. In this home, dominated by a strong-wil ed woman, the father, Ethan, became a shadow in thebefore his death. Ethan died of carcinoma of the prostate with metastases on March 17, 1971.4, 1971, two months before Al en’s father died, an anonymous letter came to the paper:

“If you are game print the fol owing letter. An open letter to The Zodiac. You need no explosives for your big blast, just go to the neareststation and tel the truth about the man who has made a kil er out of you, your father who has been getting away with famous Americansince 1947 and is now an expert at giving kil ing lessons. Once you asked ‘What wil they do to me?’ You wil be placed in a mentalwhich is better than a session with a double edge sword or a shot in the back because after the conviction of the scapegoats for your’s murders with your help, he wil have to take care of you since you have been placing a dent into his good reputation by duplicating his.” The typed letter went on to talk about an older brother. “Think about the big noses you could rub so many big boo-boos, it is fantastic.

... You could also clear up a little mystery. If two people with only their hands tied do not run out to seek help, is it not because they are alreadythe process of being kil ed by two men....”and son kil ing alongside one another? An odd theory and an even odder fantasy.certainly had happened in Zodiac’s life during the month of March 1971. After a six-month gap, Zodiac had penned two letters—13 to the Times and another on March 22 to the Chronicle. The first used the phrase “don’t bury me...” and the second depicted a manwith a shovel.lingered in the Oakland Naval Hospital for seventeen days. As Al en’s dad was dying, he was hospitalized in the 94566 postal district, theZIP code from which Zodiac mailed his letter to the L.A. Times. The two threatening March letters might have been Zodiac’s panicky stab atimmortality. I recal ed how old-fashioned Zodiac’s clothes had been—pleated pants pointed to an older man, or someone wearing anman’s clothing. The Zodiac costume was real y only Navy dress, his appearance only that of a sailor: close-cut hair, shined shoes, bel -, dark navy-blue jacket. Had Al en, out of hatred or love, dressed in his father’s clothes to do his kil ing as Zodiac? But Ethan, unlike his son,been a slender man and Leigh, because of his size, could never have worn his father’s Naval costume.Lynch and Lundblad had interviewed Al en from the first, Lynch more than once. Each time Al en pointed to his scuba gear or smiledwatery smile. His alibi was that he had gone diving alone or with people whose names he did not know at “Fort Point” or “Bodega Bay.” On theof Val ejo the quarries and creeks, ponds and lakes ran stil, cold, and deep, holding who knows what secrets and mementos. Thepolice sought might even lie beneath the frigid clear waters of Lake Berryessa.speculated that Zodiac had financial resources because he “purchased any number of guns, attended theater, saw numerous films,multiple newspapers, overposted his letters, and had the luxury of free time in the summer and many cars and residences.” Others speculatedZodiac was either rich or received money from relatives or a trust fund. Leigh Al en’s family had some money; police had known that from the.

devil, March 6, 1973eight months had dragged by since Toschi and Armstrong ransacked his trailer, Al en knew he was stil under scrutiny. He owned ascanner and listened in on Val ejo police staking out his basement from a block away. But for large stretches of time he was unobserved.Zodiac case was simply too immense, the pool of suspects too enormous, and manpower stretched too far for unbroken surveil ance to be. And there were hundreds of other suspects. One of Zodiac’s chief hunters, Dave Toschi, was often sidetracked by il ness or suddenlyfrom his pursuit by other tasks.

“We were not only working on Zodiac when it came our week to go on cal,” Toschi told me, “but catching other cases. That particular week wefour. The night before we had a fireman stabbed to death out in the Haight. I was so exhausted because we had to go into the office onand I had nothing to eat but animal crackers and cold coffee. Then I dropped into bed about 8:30 P.M. An hour later the phone rang. I wasable to get out of bed—punchy—a headache, but I had to get up. We had another one.”Joe Alioto also handpicked Toschi as a special investigator for the San Francisco Criminal Grand Jury on March 6, 1973, the first suchsince a 1936 scandal. Alioto wanted Toschi to probe two riots and two fires at the San Bruno main county jail. Chief Don Scott andof Inspectors Charlie Barca cal ed Toschi in. “The mayor wants you to take statements at the county jail.” “This real y stinks,” said Toschi. “I’t want to get involved, Chief.” “You’ve been ordered. You’re on loan, Toschi, as of tomorrow morning. And keep quiet about your findings.”

“And I did,” Toschi told me. “I worked alone to investigate the recent uprising at the county jail. The department was in terrible, terrible shape.”’s assistance was invaluable. James Rodman, Grand Jury foreman, wrote Chief Scott that the SFPD was “indeed fortunate to have personsInspector Toschi’s calibre as a member of its staff. It would have been impossible to carry out our assigned duties were it not for his assistance.”Al en put his experience as a Union Oil chemist to use. His new job with Union Richfield in the East Bay al owed him time to settle downin front of his trailer. He was a likable man when he chose to be (his staunch and unshakeable Fresno Street defenders, the children whohe was a cowboy star, his drinking buddies, al were proof of that). These days, though, he carried a grim set to his mouth. He stil had notthe ransacking of his trailer or the oil refinery visit that got him fired. He stood in an arid patch of gravel, drinking a Coors, leaning backthe stil -hot metal of his trailer, and watching autos rushing by on Santa Rosa Avenue. Droning like insects, the cars spun away, turning thetoward remote Franz Val ey Road. Crickets chirped. A warm westerly shrouded the court. He faced west, rocking on his heels, and peeredtwo pink flamingos listing drunkenly in the gravel. Between their metal legs echoed the tumultuous roar of traffic on 101, which ran paral el toRosa Avenue.shuffled inside, where he had unlimited time to brood and to hate the SFPD. When he wasn’t working, diving, or hunting, he sought. Each year he attended the Scottish Games with his mother. But he missed the family dinners. “My mother longed for a happy family life,”a friend of Leigh’s. “I think she enjoyed going to Leigh Al en’s house because it appeared to be such a ‘nice family.’ Everyone had nice table, and I think Leigh’s mother decorated the house very wel —that type of thing. It only goes to show you you can’t go by what’s on the.” Leigh continued to attend Sonoma State Col ege, majoring in biological sciences and working toward a master’s in mammalogy /biology.had minored in chemistry, and had already earned a degree in botany and elementary education on the G.I. Bil in 1971. Learning came easy to. Life did not., July 31, 1973around that bend from Al en’s trailer and down the country road, 2.2 miles north of Porter Creek on Franz Val ejo Road and down a familiarslope, bodies continued to be found. Caroline Davis was discovered in the exact spot as Sterling and Weber. It could not be determined ifhad been sexual y molested. Zodiac had threatened to experiment with different ways to kil people, and it appeared he or someone elsedoing just that.body exhibited signs of tetanus, such as rigid muscles, indicating strychnine poisoning. Death from strychnine is similar to that from lock-jaw,more rapid—about fifteen minutes. Because of the irritating action of the poison on the spinal cord, muscular twitchings lead to generalizedthat become so intense the spine arches. The body’s entire weight is borne on the heels and back. Final y, the skin darkens to gray-and respiration ceases. Sergeant Brown wasn’t so sure Davis had been poisoned. “It’s kinda like when we get lab results on our autopsies ofguy who has a lethal dose of amphetamines in him,” he said much later. “If the guy is a chronic crank user a lethal dose to him and me are goingbe total y different. As for strychnine poisoning, the state lab told me there’s a hal ucinogenic mushroom that creates strychnine or a derivative ofwhen it’s in your body. Basical y, it’s like when a junkie uses heroin it becomes morphine in his body. It doesn’t necessarily mean this girlpoisoned; it means that she had probably taken these mushrooms. It doesn’t mean that poison kil ed her, but it might have been a contributing. She also had a good ligature mark on her neck.”, October 24, 1973’s symbols were always open to diverse interpretations. His crosshair symbol, used in targeting nuclear bombs, led police to quiz aweapons expert stationed at Travis AFB. His other signs represented weather symbols to a pilot, silver hal marks to a jeweler, andelse entirely to a postman at the North Station Post Office in White Plains. “I spotted a Zodiac cryptogram in the New York News,” heto me. “After showing the three lines to several other postal employees, they al agreed that the symbols in the cryptogram were the samefive symbols used in the Civil Service Post Office examination.” Zodiac’s symbol could also represent the astrological Southern Crossin an el ipse.formulas and symbols danced through Zodiac’s letters. That the bombs he diagrammed were chemical bombs had not been lost on. Leigh Al en was an East Bay chemist. The previous April, the entire region had been jolted when a chemical plant there exploded. PhysicistDalton’s icons for types of elements and their atomic weights resembled Zodiac code symbols—hydrogen: a circle with a dot at its center and: a crossed circle—the kil er’s personal signet. The aroma of sulfur and brimstone persistently clung to Zodiac. One could almost hear theof cloven hooves.the stroke of midnight the Devil made his appearance in the Zodiac case. A San Francisco man, attending a nude rock dance of the VenusChurch on Third Avenue, arrived dressed as Satan. As he approached a group of four nude men, one was leading a discussion about. “Zodiac must be some sort of devil or fiend,” interjected the costumed devil. The man discoursing about “Mr. Zodiac” wheeled suddenly anda finger at him. “YOU ARE THE ZODIAC!” he shouted. The red devil smiled, blushed beneath the red dye staining his face, and replied, “ISatan incarnate.” He moved on. However, the man fol owed and drew Satan aside. “I am the Zodiac, you fool,” he hissed, “and I made a point ofthe police and newspapers. I have kil ed many more than have ever been identified as Zodiac kil ings.”

“Is this because Zodiac has already kil ed twelve of the astrological Zodiac signs?” said Satan uneasily.

“I have kil ed more than thirty-seven,” said the burly but good-looking stranger. He now seemed, the devil recal ed, “cool, calm, col ected... an, normal, 100 percent Al -American Guy, sound as he could be.” “Most of my victims are unknown,” he continued, “and never even linked to. It’s just a game like Monopoly, chess or checkers or bridge. I enjoy kil ing people as a game between myself and the police. Kil ing to meno more than flicking ashes.” The man rushed away with a pale, thin-lipped woman. The reveler never saw either again. Oddly enough, aletter from Zodiac on January 30, 1974 (the last time he gave a specific figure) claimed almost the same number of victims—thirty-seven.

“We continued to get tips on Satan worshippers and astrology freaks throughout the investigation,” Toschi said. Zodiac’s arcane symbols drewtheories, even threats against those involved in the occult. Satanist Anton Szandor La Vey, master of the Church of Satan, publisher of TheHoof and The Satanic Bible, received a death threat from someone who thought he might be Zodiac. Because of the astrology angle,symbols, and satanic black robes (the “Code Kil er’s” grisly executioner’s costume had obvious ties to the Black Mass), La Vey himselfonce been a suspect. Immediately, he sent the letter over to Avery at the Chronicle.

“Dear Satan... Now women lay in the streets in your Devil control. But of course al things come to ends... forces are working against you.fight against you has been going on for many generations with little success. This real y bothers me, Satan, to no end! You can choose yourof weapons, but I prefer knives.... I wish more than anything to have your blood on my sword.”

“He prefers knives,” thought the journalist. He rang fel ow reporter Dave Peterson for his opinion on the threat. “And knives are used in rituals,”told Avery, “which brings me to black magician Aleister Crowley’s ceremonial hooded robe. Crowley’s robe, used in arcane rituals, waswith the Rose and Cross of the Secret Order of the Golden Dawn—a crossed circle.” If Zodiac was part of a satanic cult sacrificingin accordance with the phases of the moon and religious holidays, that might explain everything. How else could Zodiac drive so manycars, kil over a sizable geographical area, come in so many shapes and sizes, and write letters in different handwriting styles? The handSatan had to figure somewhere in the mystery.

“Satanism—possibly,” said Zodiac buff David Rice. “Satanism is a more fruitful area.” Zodiac used inverted words, the number thirteen, Sartor, and Black Mass phrases. He employed astrology and numerology and drew evil eyes and bloody crosses. His triangles (representing theTrinity) were turned upside down. I had heard tales of the Blue Rock Springs victim’s interest in the occult—“a candle and skul in her Sanapartment,” said her sister, “witchcraft in the Virgin Islands where she had gone skin diving on her honeymoon,” and “a Val ejo satanic.”on October 24, Dr. Gilbert Hol oway, an ESP expert, was interviewed by Jack Carney on KSFO Radio. “I have a possible leaning that theer’s name is something like Cul en, Col in, or Cal en,” Hol oway said. He spel ed the names out. “I see a detective with an Italian name—like Banducci or Sanducci, tackling the Zodiac. But he has poison on his body like Herman Goering and does not expect to be taken.... Zodiac has some acquaintance with the First Church of Satan in San Francisco. He is under largely Satanic influence.”caught the interest of the California Department of Justice too. Their 1971 report from Napa read:

“Because of Zodiac’s letter talking about the afterlife and ‘slaves in paradice,’ the Department of Justice focused on people in groups whothese weird beliefs and they were able to eliminate everybody including al male members of the Manson family.”

“[Zodiac] has an evil deity with him who advises him,” an acknowledged mystic explained. “I saw it when I was in that card shop on Market.” To give weight to his comments, the seer included copies of his psychic resume and a letter from the Premonitions Registry in New York.Hurkos, consulting psychic on the Boston Strangler and Sharon Tate murders, received threats from Zodiac while he was in Palm Springs.offered his services to the SFPD to help catch Zodiac (in exchange for a plane ticket to San Francisco), but they turned him down.

“Did Leigh ever discuss an afterlife?” I asked Cheney much later. “What were his feelings?”

“Victims to be slaves in the afterlife,” replied Cheney tersely., December 13, 1973broad-shouldered man continued to stalk the marshes, quarries, and lagoons along Lake Herman Road. Winds from the west stirred fields ofgrass. As evening fel, he stood motionless—indistinguishable from surrounding rocks. The same setting sun that colored the boulders goldhis impassive face. Meanwhile, in San Francisco the wait was maddening. Thirty-four months had passed since Zodiac’s last letter.? Zodiac was al we talked about, al we thought about.on Bryant Street, Toschi fished out a Zodiac letter received that morning. “I assume the writer wants me to think he is Zodiac,” he said with a. “He uses an Oakland address as a return, but the Oakland police building has a zip code of 94607. However, the writer has the SanHal of Justice code correct, 94103. The word ‘HOMICIDE’ on the envelope is written by a clerk in our mail room.” He held it to the lightsquinted. “Notice the obvious crossed t’s and the dots over the i’s. Notice the paper size is 8½ by 11, and a legal-size envelope, different from the odd size of the Zodiac letters. This size envelope and size of paper is consistent with the stationery given inmates in the county jail or in prison.is different from the Zodiac letters and has a different watermark. Another hoax! As far as phony Zodiac writers, the number would be more like,, Bil? Fifty so far?”about Zodiac led to imitation: first hoax letters, then attempted murder, and final y homicide. For ten days in May 1973, a Richmondhad been bombarded by menacing cal s from a sobbing man identifying himself as Zodiac. “I’m going to kil the lady in the blue house,” hethe teacher. “I went to a Martinez school in search of victims, but left because the police were there.” Afterward, the teacher discovered hisdoor had been pried open by a prowler. Shaken, he went to the refrigerator. Absentmindedly, he took a swig from an open bottle of cola. Aic taste fil ed his mouth and he quickly spat the drink out. Someone had added a lethal dose of arsenic.Zodiac copycat nearly severed noted lamp designer Robert Salem’s head with a long, thin-bladed knife. Homicide Inspectors Gusand John Fotinos, cal ed to his posh workshop behind the San Franciscan Hotel, discovered his mutilated body on a bloody mat. In the’s own blood, the kil er printed on his body and the wal, “Satan Saves—ZODIAC.” Salem’s murder was solved in a horrible way. South of Big, a Highway Patrolman pul ed over two young Wyoming men driving the car of a young social worker found floating in the Yel owstone River. His, head, and limbs had been severed as if in ritual sacrifice. “I have a problem,” one of the men told the officer. “I am a cannibal.” Both werewel -gnawed human finger bones in their pockets.Zodiac, Paul Avery typed on a manual typewriter, had intimate knowledge of the Chronicle and police techniques, and wore Wing Walker. Like Leigh Al en, Avery had been born in the thirties in Honolulu and raised in a military family as the son of a career Naval officer. He hadown theories about Zodiac. “He might be some sort of merchant seaman,” Avery told me, “because for long intervals we don’t hear from him.some reason Zodiac’s grown cautious. Whether or not ‘Zode’s’ in prison or has simply stopped kil ing, I stil have to contend with this—” Heup a particularly vicious copycat letter:

“Paul Avery: I kil ed Erakat [Zuheir Erakat, a victim of the Zebra kil ers, a case Toschi had been assigned]. The Blind Lady is next, then you. Grand Finale wil be suicide, with TV coverage, from the Golden Gate Bridge. Soon My mission in life is done. Aloha.” Two Zodiacserved as a signature to the letter.

“Scoop. Paul Avery and the Fuzzy S.F. Pigs: a.45 automatic and a plastic bag with a draw-string over his head got his cooperation, but heyel ow and whined. That deal was extra and commissioned by someone now dead. My California activities are unaffected—just on ice—you are stil there, so say your prayers—the Zodiac cannot be trifled with. Zodiac Claims 17... Paul Avery—Hah!”thirty-nine-year-old former war correspondent found himself buried beneath tips. “This is the half-brother of the Zodiac speaking,” one fretted.

“I’m concerned that Zodiac might be using my High Standard.22-caliber semiautomatic pistol.” But of them al, Wil y’s3 story was especial y tragic.y’s family, convinced their son was Zodiac, sent stacks of handwriting exemplars, along with their own handwriting expert’s opinion, to Avery:

“After lengthy study and consideration of specimens of handwriting done by ‘Zodiac’ and comparison with letters written by him, it is mythat al of these handwritings were done by the same person.”

“They don’t seem to be nuts,” Chronicle reporter George Murphy advised Avery, “just a pleasant couple who believe they are acting as good. My first reaction is to go to Oakland and ask their suspect, who’s now out on bail, if he’s the Zodiac. I’l be around for further interrogationafternoon, but it doesn’t seem like Zodiac.” Wil y had been jailed soon after Zodiac’s letter to Bel i, but Avery scanned a few passages anyway.

“I am sorry for al the people that I have kil ed and maimed,” wrote Wil y. “But understand something if you can, every person that I ever kil edy deserved it.... I never wanted to become what I was, it was an accident when I kil ed that first man in San Francisco, and from then onhad to do what they wanted. Do you know what it’s like to look someone in the face and then pul a trigger. You never get used to it. And I’mcrazy, just always scared.”realized “Wil ie” thought he was a mob hit man. With a shudder, he forwarded Wil y’s letters to Sherwood Morril, who said, “They’re not’s handwriting.” The reporter was burning out. Lines etched his face; against the bright blue shirts and red neckerchiefs he often wore, hisstood sal ow., December 22, 1973and Armstrong worked to exhaustion, grabbed a bite at Original Joe’s, then rushed back to their office to begin the daily cycle al over. The Zodiac case was like the tide—hopes lifted, only to be dashed against the rocks. And yet beneath the surface they felt—another unsolvable mystery, a hint of deeper crimes as they waded through sluggish water. To the north in Santa Rosa,their jurisdiction, bad things continued to happen. At the winter solstice, a day that held significance to Zodiac, Theresa Diane Walsh wason 101 from the area of Malibu Beach to her home in Garbervil e. A sliver handmade cross swung from her neck, a fire-opal ring and aband ring flashed on her fingers. Ten dol ars of colored beads she used for making bracelets rattled in her backpack. Somewhere along the, she too disappeared. Her strangled body, hog-tied with one-quarter-inch nylon rope, was discovered next to Kim Al en’s in a creek six days. Zodiac had tied his victims at Lake Berryessa with clothesline, but Walsh, like Kim Al en, may have been sexual y assaulted and this wasZodiac, whose pleasure was pain., January 28, 1974month long the world’s oceans had been uncommonly wild, whipping the West Coast with fury. Hurricanes, high tides, and thunder-stormsbeat the shores. A major coincidence of cosmic cycles had occurred. Earth, moon, and sun had aligned in a nearly straight line—acal ed syzygy. During the new and ful phases of the moon, positive ions charged the atmosphere and freaky, motiveless murdersas far away as Miami.hunched over a light table, the glow highlighting his intent face. In the past, his desire for notoriety had compel ed him to boast. Now acommanding power, a celestial power, drove him to break his three-year silence. Because of the timing of his kil ings, experts had longZodiac was “moon mad”—sensitive to the gravitational influences, enhanced luminosity, and electromagnetic field changes of ful and newphases, changes that affect the human nervous system and increase the brain’s nervous activity.

“If one considers the human organism as a microcosm,” psychiatrist Arnold L. Lieber wrote, “comprising essential y the same elements as, andsimilar proportion to, those of the earth’s surface—approximately eighty percent water and twenty percent organic and inorganic minerals—onespeculate that the gravitational forces of the moon might exert a similar influence upon the water mass of the human being.” Studies onmagnetic resonance demonstrated that biological tissues respond to the interaction between moon and Earth. These biological tides mightsufficient to trigger emotional, psychological, and physiological outbursts in certain predisposed individuals.

“Ironical y, on dark, moonless nights,” Toschi told me, “al my years in Sex Crimes, Aggravated Assault, and Homicide, my home phone wasquiet—even when on cal. When it was a clear, bright moonlit night, nights of ful and new moons, violent crime increased. Inevitably thehome phone would ring—Operations Center reporting marital fights, shootings, stabbings—al night long. Contrary to popular belief, darknights would be a normal tranquil night for a policeman.” At Stanford, Dr. Lunde suggested another possibility for the timing of Zodiac’s. “Were Zodiac’s nighttime murders always at a time when there was fairly good moonlight?” he asked me. “Always a ful or new moon,” I. “So he would be able to see at night,” said Lunde. Coincidental y, a Sacramento Bee Sunday article on Morril had appeared prominentlyday before, January 27. So the new letter might in part have been an ego thing, a competition with Morril for publicity.bent to his labor. A film had been terrifying San Francisco, much as he used to, receiving as much publicity as he once had. Lines of thril -stretched around the block, sixty thousand since Christmas, waiting to enter the Northpoint Theater and see The Exorcist. Once inside,a two-hour wait, a few immediately exited and were sick on the sidewalk. Zodiac had seen them himself—“Disgusting!” his letter commentedthis phenomenon and the sickness of the public at large. He had revved his car and rushed away. The postmark, 940, wouldn’t be much help topolice. It only indicated the letter had been mailed from an adjacent county south of San Francisco and picked up before noon on Tuesday., January 30, 1974over a month the two-man Zodiac Squad had not seen any real action. Zodiac had mailed his last letter just under three years ago. Theof tip letters dwindled, fal ing from fifty a week to ten to practical y none. Toschi, working il and out of sorts, had taken to glaring at thefive-foot-tal steel-gray filing cabinet crammed with Zodiac artifacts. “One drawer is marked ‘Concerned Citizens,’” he said. “The secondis for suspects only.” (Ultimately there would be eight drawers.) “Do I think we’l ever catch the guy? Of course I do. I have to feel that way, or’d have given up long ago. To me it’s a major chal enge, a major case. Bil and I are the Zodiac Squad of the country.”they had been busy tracking down the infamous Zebra kil ers who slaughtered fifteen and wounded eight random victims over a 179-day. Though al of the victims were white and al of their assailants black, that was not why the religiously motivated cult murders came to beas the “Zebra” kil ings. “The special unit we put together worked mostly at night,” Toschi explained, “because that’s when the kil ings were. They used a radio channel that was seldom used to keep it available for anyone who cal ed in who might have seen some suspects.put it on ‘Channel Z,’ which was never used at al. It was ‘Z’ for ‘Zebra’ and the press picked up on it and our kil ers became the Zebra kil ers.”of this fanatical cult had to pass an initiation that consisted of shooting or hacking to death men, women, and children in order to reachrank of “Death Angel.” Two nights ago, between 8:00 and 10:00 P.M., another Zebra murder had set off a round-the-clock manhunt. Dog-tiredaching, Toschi had stayed in bed this one morning. He glanced at the clock, studied the sky outside. Everything was out of kilter. As a fuel-device, Daylight Savings Time had arrived three months early this year. Toschi, unaware the kil er’s unexplained silence was about to be, buried his face in the pil ow. Over at the Chronicle Carol Fisher slit open a letter, froze, and read the fol owing:

“I saw and think ‘The Exorcist’ was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen. Signed, yours truley: He plunged him self into the bil owyand an echo arose from the suicides grave titwil o titwil o titwil o PS. if I do not see this note in your paper. I wil do something nasty, whichknow I’m capable of doing”wasn’t the first time Zodiac had quoted Gilbert and Sul ivan. Carol recognized the “titwil o” lines from the second act of The Mikado, y the aria of Ko-Ko, the fainthearted Lord High Executioner. Three and a half years ago the kil er had also paraphrased Mikado lyrics (“alist he had of al those who would never be missed”). He had quoted them at great length from memory. Divergencies from the original text,Acts I and I, proved that. “And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist” had been changed to “and the singurly abnormily the girl who never.” Various alternatives to lady novelist—lady dramatist, lady motorist, lady bicyclist, etc., were usual y suggested by the actor portraying Ko-. I believed that Zodiac’s little list was a rol cal of real people he knew and whom he fancied had wronged him—“banjo seranader,” “piano” and “al children... up in dates [students].” Police had always believed Zodiac had essayed the role of Ko-Ko professional y. I suggestedcol ege production.night Zodiac hailed cabdriver Paul Lee Stine, the Lamplighters had been rehearsing The Mikado nearby on a stage smal er than a Pacificliving room at Presentation Theatre, 2350 Turk Street. During their entire run, from October 18 to November 7, 1969, no Zodiac letter was. Scrawls at the bottom of the new letter even resembled the rounded ersatz Japanese cal igraphy on Ko-Ko’s paper fan. On January 30,

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