Zodiac Unmasked (51 page)

Department of Justice signed by Jim Silver saying that Leigh was not the Zodiac kil er.

Bawart and Conway knew Al en had forged this letter. “Jim Silver told me how Al en was working in the print shop at Atascadero, that was one of

his jobs,” said Bawart. “What a devious mind. We found a letter that indicated it was from Investigator Silver at the DOJ. It said Al en had passed

the poly exam and should not be considered as a suspect in the Zodiac case. Al en maintained that the letter was authentic. Subsequently, he

admitted that he had printed this letter while working in the print shop at Atascadero. We also found the master for this letter. The forged letter was

taken in our search of Al en’s home and not returned.”

They dug up one Sears electric and one portable
Royal manual typewriter
. In 1966, Zodiac had mailed the weakest of many carbon copies,

making a match to a specific machine doubtful. Riverside police knew the make, however—a Royal portable. The letter Morril believed Zodiac

typed in Riverside had been done on just such a typewriter. However, since Conway did not believe Zodiac had been involved in the Bates murder,

it held no particular interest for him. They rooted out a smal flashlight—Zodiac had said that he taped a penlight to the barrel of his gun to give him

an electronic gun sight. They ferreted out a hunting knife with a handmade sheath and rivets—at Lake Berryessa Zodiac had worn a hunting knife in

a sheaf studded with rivets.

Friday, February 15, 1991

On the second
day of the search, police spaded up the yard, rooted through an old garden, and searched the garage at the rear. There they found

a Hobie Cat catamaran and its trailer, a Therome gas gril , a stainless-steel rotisserie, power tools, spray equipment, Porta-Power (which Leigh

cal ed the jaws of life). Al en remained cool and col ected. If the cat was not out of the bag before, it certainly was now. Neighbors could hardly

overlook the massive police presence and the reason they were there. The press could not be far behind. Detectives searched every book on

Leigh’s shelves along the cel ar wal , shaking the pages to see what fluttered out. They were mostly boating and aviation publications and books.

The detectives rummaged through his personal belongings, records, and journals, looking for a secret diary or photographs.

“An explanation for why someone like Zodiac could be at the murder site for only a short time and yet have details,” Dr. Lunde told me, “one way

is that a person takes photographs and studies them at their leisure when they get home. In that way they would be able to give detailed

descriptions of clothing and yet get away from the murder scene fast.” At one time a suspect in the Zodiac case who worked for the police had

pilfered photos of some of the bodies. Kemper, at his trial, prided himself on his meticulous detail, remembering names, ages, description of

clothing, bodies, and locations, almost as if he had a fixation to recal specifics. Like Vacher the Ripper, once they apprehended him for one kil ing,

he confessed to al the others in an effort to dismay the police, taking loving care in his detailed descriptions.

Bawart got a building inspector, who looked around and was satisfied there was nothing hidden. Sometime after 1969 when Cheney visited,

Al en had built a kitchenette in the basement that could have concealed items. If he built that, he could have just as easily built compartments. Al en

was known to hide things in that house. Unknown to the police, when Ron and Leigh were younger, they used to make their own home brew and

hide it under the house. Cheney explained that there was an area under the main living area where you could bend down and walk in there and it

provided hiding places.

In the end police found no evidence in the yard, garage, or basement tying Leigh Al en to Zodiac. They went over to 1545 Broadway and

searched the boat on its trailer. Again, they discovered nothing. “I found al the formulas,” Bawart said of the basement search, “exactly the same as

the formulas Zodiac said he was going to mix up . . . fertilizer bombs—formulas for ammonia nitrate and stove-oil bombs—and al that. I expected

to find more, quite frankly, but I didn’t. There real y wasn’t a smoking gun.” Conway took the most interesting items into his custody, among them

“mail-order catalog pages regarding bombs, booby traps, and guns.” Zodiac’s November 9, 1969, letter had indicated that his kil ing tools were

bought through mail order. Natural y, Al en wasn’t wearing his Zodiac watch as he waved good-bye because Conway had taken it with him. That

Swiss watch, manufactured by a company dating back to 1882, was a key to the case. Others thought so too.

A seaman, Kevin Moore, wrote me from Saudi Arabia: “A few months back, I saw an advertisement for Zodiac watches in a local store. This in

my mind is too much of a coincidence, especial y the fact that their logo is exactly like Zodiac’s! I had never heard of the watch until I saw this ad,

and that in itself is a clue because I don’t think it is that common of a watch.” A man fol owing Sandy Betts, a cocktail waitress at the Coronado Inn,

where Darlene Ferrin liked to dance, had worn such an unusual watch. “Zodiac,” she told me, “got his name from the club near Sacramento cal ed

Zodiac and
then
found the watch. Have you seen the case the Zodiac watch comes in? The sign is the [crossed circle] and it’s in a red satin case. I

found it in a window of some used store in Concord, California, about 1975.”

But the police search had not been completely unfruitful. Detectives had learned more about their suspect. They deduced from a clipping that if

Al en was ever put on trial as Zodiac, he intended to use an insanity defense. After they left, Leigh wrote to friends that he expected to be arrested

any day and returned to Atascadero. Police intended to use Leigh’s anxiety about Atascadero to their advantage. Now Conway and Bawart knew

Arthur Leigh Al en dreaded prison more than the police.

Thursday, February 28, 1991

Police prepared with
the FBI for a second interview with Al en. The FBI had done an analysis of the Valentine’s Day search and questioning. In

their next discourse with Leigh one of the detectives would be assigned to push certain buttons. The hammer was to be “Al en’s possession of

bombs.” Mike Nail, District Attorney of Solano County, filed a motion to be certain that information contained within the search affidavit and return

be sealed. He and Deputy District Attorney Harry S. Kinnicut wrote that:

“The people hereby move pursuant to Evidence Code sections 1040-1041 and People V Sanchez (1972) 24 Cal. App. 3rd 664, 678 to seal

portions of the affidavit for the search warrant herein. These portions contain official information and disclosure is against the public interest.

Evidence Code Sections 1040-1041 provide that the District Attorney may assert a privilege to refuse to disclose the identity of informers and

official information in the interest of justice.”

Judge Dacey ordered that portions of the affidavit be blacked out and sealed until further notice, though state law cal ed for disclosure to the

public of any search warrant within ten days after they are issued. However, they had not reckoned on the doggedness of the press. The name of

the primary Zodiac suspect was no longer a closely guarded secret. The neighbors’ jaws were moving. Soon, Al en’s name and face would appear

in the papers and on television.

Wednesday, April 17, 1991

An FBI memo
noted that Val ejo had resurrected the Zodiac homicide investigation: “Advised that they are currently conducting a background on a

possible suspect ARTHUR LEIGH ALLEN. Val ejo Police have requested assistance in preparing an interview strategy for ALLEN.” An FBI special

agent had already met with Conway and Bawart on February 28 and March 20, 1991, “in order to discuss specifics of their investigation, and

obtain relevant documents.”

Tuesday, May 21, 1991

Allen had friends
in the south, had known them during the time he was incarcerated at Atascadero near their home. Now he wrote them. “His

latest letter,” one of them told me later, “states that the police have a new witness and that his place was searched again. He was expecting the

police to pick him up anytime. This was only a month or so ago.”

Al en gave his first newspaper interview to the
Times-Herald
’s Jackie Ginley.

“On Valentine’s Day,” the fifty-eight-year-old suspect said, “Val ejo police knocked on my door with a search warrant in hand. These guys tore the

whole damn place apart. I phoned them asking when I was going to get my stuff back, and they phoned two weeks later and said there’s some new

damning evidence. They said they decided to search my house twenty years after the Santa Rosa search of my trailer.

“It’s al because they got a false tip from a man who is facing thirty years in prison on an armed robbery charge. He phoned down from Tahoe and

said we had a conversation in 1969, and I’d told him that I’d go down to San Francisco and shoot a cabbie. He’s a punk and a hood. I’ve never

talked to him in my life.”

“It should be mentioned,” said Bawart, “that Ralph Spinel i owned a restaurant in the Lake Tahoe area in the early 1980s. It is apparent that Al en

must have kept track of Spinel i as we
never
told him Spinel i had any connection with Lake Tahoe.” A probable Zodiac victim had vanished from

Lake Tahoe in 1970.

“This crap has haunted me for the last twenty-two years,” raged Al en. “The police asked me to take a lie-detector test despite the fact that I

passed one in the 1970s. I took a ten-hour lie-detector test and I passed the goddamn thing. So they tel me, ‘Wel , you’re a sociopath, and you can

cheat on lie-detector tests.’ The Zodiac kil er is thought to be a sociopath, someone who has no conscience and takes sexual delight in kil ing

people, especial y women. I’m considering getting in touch with Melvin Bel i, the San Francisco attorney. I’ve been thinking about it, but then again,

this has always blown over when they don’t find anything.”

Of al the attorneys in the world, Al en mentioned the one that Zodiac had phoned, written, and offered to surrender to—Melvin Bel i. Bel i and

Zodiac went way back. On October 23, 1969, Bel i checked with his answering service. His maid had left a message with them that Zodiac had

cal ed the previous night while the attorney had been at the International Film Festival. Bel i had gotten in too late to hear of the two cal s Zodiac

made directly to his housekeeper. The gist was that Zodiac wanted to meet with Bel i at his home. “Bel i knows where he can meet if it’s

prearranged,” the cal er said. While Bel i had been away in Africa, he had gotten three cal s, two of them long distance. He waited al day in vain for

the opportunity to set up a secret meeting. Worst of al , Bel i feared Zodiac might be someone who knew him. An invisible man, obsessed with the

high-profile and flamboyant attorney, had in a moment of crisis given him a clue of the first order to his true identity. To learn of that we have to step

back in time, to October 22, 1969, and turbulent, terrifying days.

29

belli

Wednesday, October 22, 1969

“Being a celebrity,”
said Bel i, “brought me more than my share of crazy cases (that didn’t pay me a dime). Take, for example, the long-distance

TV romance between me and the notorious Zodiac kil er (who may stil be at large or, more likely, on ice in a prison where his psychopathology lies

mainly dormant).”

At 2:00 A.M., eleven days after Zodiac shot cabdriver Paul Stine, a man phoned the Oakland P.D. “This is the Zodiac speaking....” he said,

demanding that either Bel i or F. Lee Bailey appear on Jim Dunbar’s KGO-TV talk show,
A.M
. He had tried to cal the show a few weeks earlier,

when both lawyers had appeared that morning, but couldn’t get through. It was tel ing that both men were criminal defense attorneys. “I’l contact

them,” the cop said. The San Francisco police rang producer Bil Heral and he cal ed Bel i and Dunbar immediately, arranging to start the show a

half hour earlier than usual. A KGO news bul etin was drafted: “Al eged ‘Zodiac Kil er’ pleads for help in telephone cal s to ‘A.M.’ Program with Jim

Dunbar.” At home we al watched, waiting for Zodiac to cal , waiting to hear the sound of his voice.

“When I emerged from my penthouse on Telegraph Hil ,” Bel i recal ed, “I found the place surrounded by cops, even the garage was ful of cops.

They escorted me down to KGO. There, I also found police everywhere, even in the high, dark aeries of the TV studio, where I could see the glint of

rifles at the ready.” Bel i carried on thirteen conversations that morning. One did not go over the air, a hesitant, drifting voice on the line at 7:10 that

was abruptly disconnected. That first cal er was frozen out by another, cal ing himself Zodiac, who kept the line tied up over the next two hours. Bel i,

though, requested a less ominous sounding name than Zodiac. “Sam,” offered the cal er. After exchanging a few words, the boyish sounding Sam,

complaining of blackouts and headaches, hung up, then cal ed back. Bel i thought this one of “those rare cases where one man is acutely aware of

two persons living inside his skin, one of them an outlaw who can’t help kil ing.” Sam said he wanted to talk to Bel i because he didn’t want to be

hurt. “My head aches,” he cried. “I’m so sick. I’m having one of my headaches.” Then he gave a little scream and said, “I’m going to kil them. I’m

going to kil al those kids!” He hung up and cal ed back, suggesting they meet at 10:30 A.M. at the top of the Fairmont Hotel. Sam threatened to