Zodiac Unmasked (38 page)

Latent prints recovered from the Lake Berryessa victim’s Karmann Ghia were compared with the comparable areas of the latent prints. Again no

identification with Southard was effected. The FBI tested the Napa phone booth’s prints against Zodiac’s first letter to the Val ejo
Times-Herald

because someone’s prints were recovered from that letter. The prints did not match the car, cab, or booth fingerprints. Or Southard’s.

Friday, May 15, 1981

CI&I in Sacramento
became the clearinghouse for al future Zodiac investigations. A decade earlier Paul Avery, in a confidential memo to his

editor, Abe Mel inkoff, had suggested just such a centralization. Toschi at the time had already been concerned about Avery. “I think he wants to

become more than an investigative reporter,” he told me. “I think he eventual y wants to run this investigation.” Toschi was right:

“I met with Attorney General [Evel e J.] Younger for 45 minutes,” Avery wrote confidential y, “outlined the Zodiac case in some detail and

proposed to him that the State DOJ take over and coordinate the investigation of the case by forming a special Zodiac Squad made up of

detectives from the various cities and counties which have actual or highly possible Z murders.” Three days later Avery sent Younger a resume

of the case, writing that “I am eager to begin assisting in the formation of your ‘Zodiac Squad’ and to plan its direction.”

Since a multitude of jurisdictions, counties, and departments were involved, their records had to be gathered and reorganized. Many files were

missing, scattered over the state, hidden in basements and attics or taken away as mementos. Inspector Deasy personal y drove the SFPD’s files

to Sacramento. On May 15, at 7:11 A.M., police and FBI agents arrested David Carpenter as the Trailside Kil er at his San Francisco home. This

wilderness murderer shot and stabbed hikers on Mount Tamalpais above the Golden Gate, at Point Reyes Seashore, and in the Santa Cruz

forests. Interestingly, Carpenter had hinted to accomplices that he was Zodiac—an intriguing possibility. Photos of Carpenter from 1969 with

glasses and crew cut bore a striking resemblance to Zodiac’s wanted poster. Carpenter had been in prison when some Zodiac letters were

mailed. But during the Trailside attacks police had ruled Carpenter out as a suspect because state computers listed him as being in jail. In reality,

he was living in a halfway house and walking the streets of downtown San Francisco.

Another riddle—the inoffensive ex-convict stuttered badly, while the Trailside Kil er did not. However, at his San Diego trial, Carpenter explained,

“When I sing [and he sang], I don’t stutter. When I whisper [and he whispered], I don’t stutter. When I get real y angry! [he roared] I don’t stutter!” The

jury drew back in terror. Carpenter the Trailside Kil er was a different person than Carpenter under control. Perhaps Zodiac was someone else too

when he wrote his letters—an inoffensive person who, from day to day, no one suspected.

“Another suspect, Mike, a six-foot-tal , eyeglass-wearing ex-Navy-man, had moved the day of the Blue Rock Springs murder,” Mulanax told me.

“He owned a 9-mm and a .45-caliber gun and, like Al en, worked at Union Oil. When he got too excited he would put his thumbs against his nose

and scream. Early on, we had been looking for a Taurus and Mike was a Taurus. His neighbor verified he was familiar with Lake Berryessa. But

that went nowhere. He did look good for awhile.”

Thursday, October 8, 1981

Few outside the
FBI guessed the Unabomber existed. At the end of a sixteen-month period of inactivity, the nation’s first domestic terrorist struck.

He placed a bomb inside a large paper-wrapped parcel at Utah’s Bennion Hal , where it was safely defused. On an April morning fifteen years

hence, when Ted Kaczynski was captured in a remote, snowbound Montana cabin, the Unabomber would become an important Zodiac suspect. It

was not hard to see why.

“I was the first one to do that story,” Rita Wil iams, KTVU-TV Channel Two reporter, told me. “I did it like a week after he was arrested. I got the

fingerprint guy out in Walnut Creek to look at Kaczynski. These FBI guys I knew were laughing at me—‘Oh, there’s no way. It can’t be.’ I said, ‘Come

on, he real y fits as Zodiac. That strange family, mathematical mind ... chemical bombs ... ’”

The implication was that Zodiac had vanished because he had become the Unabomber. Here are reasons why that might be true. Both were

pipe-bomb-makers. Both mailed police taunting letters with too much postage, boasted of their intel igence, and promised dire consequences if

their words were not published. The Unabomber wrote the
Times,
threatening to bring down a California jetliner with a bomb, then admitted it was

“a joke.” Zodiac promised to blow up a school bus with an electronic bomb, but rescinded his promise.

Kaczynski had been a professor at UC Berkeley from 1967 to 1969, when Zodiac became active. Ted resigned June 30, 1969, and Zodiac first

wrote the
Chronicle
a month later. The Unabomber exploded his first confirmed bomb on May 26, 1978, and a month afterward Zodiac al egedly

wrote his last letter. Kaczynski wrote the
San Francisco Examiner
a month later. The two wore military gear—the Unabomber military fatigues,

Zodiac a Naval costume. Both used disguises, a hooded sweatshirt, a hood. Inexplicably, there were times when the Unabomber and Zodiac

simply stopped writing and kil ing. Both were asexual beings with dominant mothers and absent fathers. Both understood the complexities of code.

Code is nothing more than mathematics and Kaczynski was a bril iant mathematician. At Berryessa the surviving victim reported that Zodiac

claimed to be an escaped convict from either Colorado or Deer Lodge, Montana. Deer Lodge lay sixty miles from where Kaczynski eventual y built

his isolated cabin in Lincoln, Montana.

However, equal y compel ing reasons convinced me that Kaczynski was
not
Zodiac. In 1978, the Unabomber, in his guise as the “Junkyard

Bomber,” was using match heads and rubber bands to create his bombs. Nine years earlier Zodiac had mailed the
Chronicle
electronic and

chemical bomb diagrams far more sophisticated than the Unabomber’s a decade later. Would Zodiac regress and lose the ability to create

advanced bombs? More than likely, by 1978, he would be building better bombs. The Unabomber remained unknown for so long because he didn’t

write the press. The publicity-hungry Zodiac always used his murders to gain publicity immediately afterward. The Unabomber wrote the
Examiner,

disguising himself as “FC.” Zodiac, with few exceptions, took pains to identify himself as Zodiac, and verified his identity by providing confidential

facts or pieces of bloody evidence.

The Unabomber targeted groups—computer experts and salesmen, behavioral modificationists, geneticists, engineers, and scholars. But his

bombs were delivered in such a way that anyone could have opened them. In 1987, he left a bomb in a Salt Lake City parking lot for anyone to find.

Zodiac’s targets were always specific with rigid requirements. He stalked his victims—young lovers, students by lakes on special days—with a

different weapon each time. Kaczynski was obsessed with wood and wood-related names, while Zodiac was obsessed with water and water-

related names. Kaczynski loved nature—he apologized to a rabbit for shooting it. Zodiac loved to hunt animals and progressed to people as wild

game. In 1967 Kaczynski was in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan getting a second doctorate when three Riverside letters were written by

Zodiac and postmarked in Riverside. In 1971, Kaczynski moved to Lincoln, Montana, and was living there when Zodiac letters at that time carried

Bay Area postmarks. Zodiac’s excessive postage was engendered by a rush for publicity, while the Unabomber’s stamps served two uses. The

value and subject of the stamps were a numerical code indicating the type of bomb inside and a symbolic statement. The second use was to direct

the flow of the parcel. Overposting made certain the package would not be returned to the fictional sender; too little postage insured that the bomb

would revert to the return address—the actual target, a scientist on the Unabomber’s hit list.

The physical appearance of Zodiac and inner workings of his mind present the biggest differences between him and the Unabomber. Zodiac,

“lumbering” and “bearlike,” differed considerably from Kaczynski’s lanky and gaunt frame—143 pounds, five feet nine inches tal . Zodiac, physical y

powerful, had a paunch, stood close to six feet, and weighed around 240 pounds. Though Kaczynski kept a journal in code (speedily solved by the

FBI), it compared in no way with the intricate, unbreakable ciphers of Zodiac nor with his handwriting.

The Unabomber’s own words offer the biggest difference. His manifesto’s tone is flat, unimaginative. Where are Zodiac’s clever turns of phrase

and imagery frightening enough to galvanize a city? The professor in Kaczynski lectures us, while Zodiac’s colorful expressions and memorable

use of popular culture are intended to frighten, bul y, and mystify—not instruct. His letters possess an ironic, biting quality that overflows with

melancholy, even despair. They chil anyone who reads them. When Zodiac was angry, we felt it.

Zodiac gave his motives for kil ing as “col ecting souls for the afterlife” and the thril of hunting people. The Unabomber’s apparent lack of motive

made the search for him difficult. Zodiac obviously hated women. Kaczynski, to the end, dreamed of a wife and children, and envied and detested

the brother who turned him in for possessing that domestic bliss. Kaczynski’s true hatred was reserved for those in the academic world who had

surpassed him. Zodiac was master of al weapons, the Unabomber only of bombs, which he had trouble making lethal. Zodiac had an intimate

knowledge of Val ejo. Kaczynski did not. Like a poisoner, Kaczynski imagined the death agonies of his victim from as great a distance as possible.

“By gun, by knife, by rope,” Zodiac got as close to his victims as he could.

18

arthur leigh allen

Friday, May 22, 1981

“I was terminated
from Spectro Chrome Graphics in Benicia (with
no
warnings or conferences) quite by surprise,” Leigh said of his May 22 firing.

He suspected he could put his finger on the reason. “I believe my problem started three weeks prior when I destroyed a rol -down door with a forklift.

The estimate was $2300.”

Tuesday, June 30, 1981

“I am intelligent,
hardworking, honest, dependable, and punctual,” Leigh wrote, applying for other work. “I am looking for a job where I can learn

and advance myself in the long term and hope you wil consider these points in evaluating my application.” He was asked, “Have you ever been

convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor?” “Yes,” he answered, “I committed one count of PC 288 and was sent to a state hospital for two years. I

am now stil taking therapy as was required by the courts.” His application, received July 1, 1981, was printed neatly—al the
g
’s were straight and

al the
d
’s cursive. There was even a three-stroke
k
.

Wednesday, July 8, 1981

Allen snared a
new job on his old stamping grounds—a Benicia industrial park at the end of Lake Herman Road. Leigh’s friends told me he often

parked at a promontory where Lake Herman Road intersects Highway 21, northeast of the Benicia-Martinez Bridge. He popped open a Coors,

drank, and scanned Roe Island, Ryer Island, and a hundred sealed battleships dismal y riding their anchors in Suisun Bay below. The gray

entombed fleet, mothbal ed remnants of World War I , probably made him think of his father and his own failed submarine career. He stil hated

working, but the new position gave him ample time to drink, visit his trailers, and make subtle digs at the police. He continued to wear a Zodiac

skin-diving watch and a Zodiac ring. He continued to mention Zodiac to his friends, leaving a trail of hints scattered behind.

He started his car and swung onto the rutted road. At home, a letter had slid down the mail slot into his basement. After a long delay, he was

going to receive his bachelor of science degree from Sonoma State. Authorities stil had not searched that dank and dreary basement where

bombs and a “death machine” might be stored.

Though diabetic, Arthur Leigh Al en began drinking beer from a quart jar. He rode his green motorcycle, laid out remodeling plans for his home,

and bought more books on electronic gear, maps, and the occult. He studied birdhouses, and continued building a plane. Dr. Rykoff reported

regularly on Leigh’s progress and rehabilitation. Apprehensive of his patient, the doctor played taped excerpts of their sessions for a Santa Rosa

cop. He was shaken too. Eventual y, Rykoff fled to a wilderness hospital. Everyone who came in touch with Zodiac was hurt in some way. George

Bawart told me the bizarre story.

“The doctor had come to believe that Zodiac was his patient,” said Bawart, “and made hours of tapes which he wanted to publish. He had tapes

that Al en had made claiming to be Zodiac. Al en had talked to his doctor about putting bamboo stakes in pits around his house. The sharpened

ends, covered in manure, would both wound and infect, even kil . I went up and interviewed Rykoff at some sanitarium. He was in a wild area and

kept looking frantical y in each corner. ‘Look out for the snakes,’ he cried, dancing about. ‘The snakes—everywhere.’ I laughed, then jumped. I

looked, and there real y was a rattlesnake. The biggest rattlesnake I’d ever seen—right by my boot—rattlesnakes al over the joint. God, for a