Zodiac Unmasked (48 page)

was we developed profiles on the four victims that we had back then. What did they have in common? Did they go to the same drugstore to get

their prescriptions fil ed? Do they go to the same barbershop? Do they have a library card for the same branch? Any common thread that we could

develop. And do you know what? No. There was just nothing in common with the four of them. Are they al on welfare? No, they weren’t. The only

thing they did have in common is that there was something wrong with al of them. The first guy walked with a terrible limp. He had some sort of birth

defect. The second guy was drunk—he was unconscious—passed out on the sidewalk in front of his house. The third guy was a seventy-eight-year-

old man who used to go wandering around in the middle of the night. He had his days and nights mixed up. He was a little senile. The fourth one

was asleep in Central Park on a park bench.”

“He picked the helpless to shoot,” I said.

“But this guy here in 1994 is hitting women as wel as men. This guy’s stabbing. Which is a lot more indicative of your guy out there than our guy.

That’s what gives me the creeps about this. I think the 1990 guy and the 1994 guy is one and the same. Now it’s starting to lean that way . . . they

cal ed me at seven o’clock in the morning and asked me al these questions on television. I had about fifteen minutes to read about it in three

newspapers and go on the air. At that time my gut feeling tel s me it’s not the same guy I investigated in 1990. But now I’ve had a little time to see

that note and go over it. The handwriting isn’t the same, but when you’re dealing with someone who’s so psychotic—his medication could be

changed. He could have just thrown the pen in his other hand. We have two matching thumbprints on those 1990 letters, and you know the New York

City police department has the FACES System—a computerized fingerprint matchup system. The latent-print examiners used to have to do it by

hand. Now if you’ve ever been arrested, your print is in the system. If you get a latent print off a letter you can match it. There’s one detective

assigned to just that—he has the prints from the Zodiac in 1990 and he continuously puts it into the computer. There were over 3600 reports

prepared on the case. Everything went onto computer. If your name came up early on in the investigation, and now here it is four months later,

another detective is interviewing someone and that name comes up. Boom! It would match and you’d be able to cross-reference and report, ‘Hey,

this guy looks interesting. An independent person told us two months ago about a certain person in the Bronx. Now someone in Brooklyn is

mentioning the same name as a possibility. Some bel s would go off.”

“Exactly what they should have done with Zodiac,” I said, thinking of Lynch and Mulanax’s individual reports on Leigh Al en. Neither knew of the

other’s questioning. We stil didn’t know who had been the original tipster who suspected Al en, the man or woman who directed the police to his

door. Once more I flew to New York, wondering if there was something in the original case that might identify Zodiac I . Retired Detective Sergeant

Mike Race, Kieran Crowley, and I were on the
Rolanda
show. The mix of the cerebral—cops and authors—and the passionate—victims’ mothers

and families—never real y jel s. What can you say after a mother has talked about losing her child? “In his coded message,” Crowley said, “Zodiac

said, ‘I am in control.’ I’d like him to prove it by sending another message, before he hurts anyone else, because I think it’s time for this to move on

to the next phase.” Crowley’s story headlined “MANIAC GOES BY THE BOOK,” appeared in the
Post
August 9. Under a reproduction of the cover

was the caption: “How-to manual, the real-life crime story that may have inspired Zodiac I .” Crowley wrote:

“The Zodiac kil er may be using a 1986 book about the original San Francisco Zodiac kil er as his guide. Robert Graysmith wrote the best-

sel er “Zodiac” about the hooded kil er who terrorized the Bay Area for years beginning in 1968. . . . Four years ago, Graysmith went through a

similar experience when a New York gunman cal ing himself Zodiac began his shooting spree.”

On August 12, 1994, police concluded that the new communication
was
from Zodiac I . He had demonstrated “intimate knowledge” of the

assaults—time, place, ages, and genders of the five victims, location of wounds, and caliber of guns (a .22 in four instances and a .380 in a fifth).

Some details matched; not al . One victim had been stabbed, not shot. Patricia Fonte was knifed over a hundred times. “We’re puzzled,” said

Borrel i, “but we’re fairly sure it’s not a hoax.” Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers said of Zodiac’s return: “This is somebody who is total y powerless

and who is finding power through publicity. His fantasy is to master the world because he can’t control his own life. He wants to be in control. That is

his fantasy. He probably does not have a family or anyone who loves him.” A Bel evue Hospital forensic psychiatrist, Michael Welner, said, “There is

this sense of being a hunter. He is trying to create intrigue with codes. He wants to be glamorous because he’s a loser . . . there is an element of

sadism about him. I think he’s very interested in getting attention . . . it’s very cowardly.”

Two years would pass. On Tuesday, June 18, 1996, a few minutes past noon, “The Vampire,” distraught his teenage sister was running with a

bad crowd, shotgunned her. A 911 cal —“a female shot in the leg, Pitkin Avenue”—summoned New York paramedics. Moments later, an

ambulance squealed to a stop at the U-shaped front of 2730 Pitkin. Medics piled out, leaving the engine racing. They started for the third-floor

apartment. “The shooter is stil up there,” cautioned a neighbor—a shot whizzed over their heads. “We kissed the concrete just as we heard that first

shot,” said paramedic Chris DeLuca. Lead ripped jagged holes into the ambulance; other shots ricocheted off the sidewalk. Chunks of brick flew.

“Get down! Down flat!” More bul ets, punctuated by bril iant muzzle flashes, hammered from the upper window. At P.S. 159 across the street,

students cried and ducked for cover. Cops, guns drawn, converged on Pitkin Avenue and cordoned off a nine-block area. For the next three and

one-half hours, their bul ets, with machine gun-like rapidity, answered “The Vampire’s.” Bul ets cut from above in a murderous arc, chipping

masonry and pinning down four officers. Cops in helmets and flak jackets wheeled a metal shield toward the building as the Emergency Service

Unit vehicle, armored with bul et-proof gear, moved in to rescue the four men.

Sergeant Joseph Herbert, a fifteen-year police veteran, soft-spoken and neat, negotiated with the shooter from the street below. “I think I wil

surrender,” the shooter shouted, weary of prolonged battle. From the roof police lowered a yel ow flower bucket to the apartment. “Turn over any

weapons,” they ordered. He fil ed the bucket three times—thirteen homemade guns, Saturday night specials, dozens of rounds of ammo, seven

hunting and military-type knives, and a machete. The siege ended shortly after 4:00 P.M. and “The Vampire,” Heriberto “Eddie” Seda, was

arrested. Inside Seda’s room were two ful y constructed pipe bombs and a third under construction. An unexploded bomb matched three recently

left in a Brooklyn parking lot. His library was what they had been told to look for.15 Serial kil ers often read about others to avoid the same pitfal s

that got them caught.

Seda admitted to shooting his half sister in a written confession. At the bottom of the page he drew an inverted cross crowned by three sevens. “It

just jumped out of the page,” Herbert said. “I nearly fel off my chair. It was the handwriting! The
t
’s the
s
’s the
m
’s, the way he underlined certain letters. That, coupled with the symbol of the inverted cross, made me realize this was Zodiac. I immediately recognized it. . . . I had studied it for two

years.” The symbols linked Seda with drawings made six years earlier by Zodiac I , who had left a thumbprint on the lower right corner of his first

letter. Herbert summoned Detective Ronald Alongis, from the NYPD latent-print unit, and asked him to bring a set of prints to headquarters for

comparison. Alongis had memorized the ridges and swirls Zodiac left on two notes.

About 8:30 P.M., he scanned the prints through a magnifying glass. His eyes got bright, then excited. At 1:20 A.M., after six hours of

interrogation, Seda signed a confession to al nine Zodiac attacks, claiming to have been overcome by “urges” to strike randomly. Only by chance

had Zodiac I appeared to know some of his victim’s astrological signs. “I just wanted to increase the fear in the city,” he said.

Zodiac detectives were surprised. “We thought that he lived alone because if he lived with someone, we figured they would have eventual y given

him up.” Bal istics and saliva tests further linked Seda to the Zodiac shootings. He had licked an envelope flap and “Love” postage stamps. Seda

had stopped shooting people after 1994 because he “lost the urge.” On Wednesday, June 24, 1998, a jury deliberated less than a day before

convicting the thirty-year-old high school dropout of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. A month later, the New York Zodiac

was sentenced to eighty-three years in prison. “You’re going to die in jail,” said Judge Robert J. Hanophy. “The Zodiac never lied to us,” Ciravolo

concluded. “That’s the saddest thing.” Back in fog-shrouded San Francisco no one suspected a third copycat was yet to come. Zodiac I I’s murders

would be terrifying.

The hunt for
the original Zodiac went on. Besides Bel i the attorney, he had mentioned two other people in his letters. One in code, “Robert

Emmett the Hippie,” the other Count Marco Spinel i. Was Zodiac’s letter a hidden message to someone named “Spinel i” and could we find a

“Spinel i” who had a connection to Leigh Al en?

27

the big tip

Friday, December 14, 1990

Ralph Spinelli, lying
in a cel on his fiftieth birthday, sweated into the thin mattress. Jim Overstreet, San Jose P.D., had arrested him as a suspect

in at least nine armed robberies of restaurants. Spinel i knew he could be prosecuted as a career criminal. He had been arrested in Oregon in

1972 for a series of armed robberies of restaurants and served two years of a ten-year sentence in a prison there. Facing a thirty-year sentence, he

suggested to Overstreet that he had something to trade. In jail, cigarettes, sex, and secrets were three prized commodities. “The best kind of

informant is a two-time loser forty-five to fifty who knows if he goes up one more time he’s gong to die in the can,” said a detective. “When he turns

to us, he has nowhere else to go—he becomes as zealous as a cop.” The cops had a “twist,” a hammer, on Spinel i and he was “working his beef.”

“I know the real name of Zodiac,” Spinel i said final y. It was his ace.

Spinel i began to talk in hushed tones and rapid cadence. But for al he said, it was just enough to get Overstreet on the hook. Overstreet realized

Spinel i might be inventing a story—a very good chance of that. However, he could not ignore what might be a valid tip. Zodiac was the biggest

case there was. He left a message for retired Detective Bawart and Bawart rang him right back. “Spinel i is currently incarcerated in the Santa

Clara County jail,” advised Overstreet. “He won’t divulge what information he has regarding Zodiac unless some kind of deal is made regarding the

present charges against him.” Bawart sighed. He had heard such claims about Zodiac before. “I’l get back to you,” he replied, and cal ed Conway.

“There was this guy Spinel i living in San Jose,” Bawart told me later, “pul ed a bunch of stickups and they caught him and he said, ‘Get ahold of

Val ejo P.D. I’l tel you al about a case they’re real interested in.’ They cal ed us, and Conway and I went down and interviewed him on his birthday.”

Val ejo Police Captain Roy Conway already knew Spinel i. His name had been prominent in the Val ejo area during the forties, fifties, and sixties.

Connections with organized crime were suspected.

Conway, a Val ejo police officer since 1965, had worked with Mulanax, since retired. He was presently commander of the Investigation Division,

but the night Ferrin was murdered and Mageau terribly wounded, he had been a sergeant and he and Richard Hoffman had been the first

policemen at the scene. Conway personal y verified the authenticity of descriptions Zodiac mailed to the press back in 1969. He believed Zodiac

had committed those shootings. An anonymous phone cal to the Val ejo P.D. had been made from a phone booth near Arthur Leigh Al en’s home

and near where Tucker kept his car.

Conway and Bawart drove to the Santa Clara lockup, checked their guns, and went in to see Spinel i. He was being held on $500,000 bail while

awaiting trial on the charges. The prisoner was anxious. Spinel i knew how much trouble he was in. Though he could go in for what amounted to life,

Spinel i stil refused to budge. He would not name the individual he knew as Zodiac without being offered a deal. “I want al charges against me

dropped,” he insisted.

“Out of the question,” said Bawart.

“We refuse to make any sort of deal like that,” said Conway.

“And just how do you know this person is Zodiac?” asked Bawart.

“He threatened me several days before the kil ing of Paul Stine, the San Francisco cabdriver. He wanted to show me how tough he was. He told

me he was going to San Francisco and kil a cabbie for me,” said Spinel i. “The next day or so a cabdriver was kil ed in San Francisco and the