Zodiac Unmasked (58 page)

(as Leigh spel ed it in his last wil ), and related literature to his tenant. Leigh concluded on a sad note and more lies.

“As for my Brother, Ronald Al en . . . I was very deeply hurt by the total lack of support by his whole family during my recent conflict with the

law. I stil love my brother very much, which made the hurt al the deeper. I was hurt (but not surprised at al ) when my sister-in-law took pains to

phone me several times to tel me they were so broke that I couldn’t expect any financial help from them at al . Then they went right out and

bought 3 Hondas, including a brand new Accord. Some poverty case! Stil , if there is anything he wants for himself after al the above is sorted

through, he is welcome to it. He’l be getting the house anyway, which should be worth a couple bucks.”

Leigh had four more cars, including a Corvair. He wanted his dentist to get his Rol s, but Ron got that. The cops studied a letter to the Val ejo

police on the computer. “In the letter,” Bawart told me, “were references to letters he was gonna write about how he was gonna sue us for this, that,

and the other.”

“The return to the warrant says you found a knife and a knife scabbard with rivets,” I said to Bawart.

“I don’t remember the scabbard at al ,” he said. “I think we just took it because it had a knife. It wasn’t anything real y earth-shattering. As for the

Royal typewriter we found, that pertained to the Riverside murder and I had discounted Zodiac for that.” So had Conway. Riverside detectives were

able to I.D. the typewriter used by the kil er as a portable Royal typewriter, Elite type, Canterbury-shaded, such as found in Al en’s basement. Morril

had ruled that Zodiac wrote the handwritten Riverside letters mailed, but if he typed the confession letters too, then Al en’s typewriter might stil offer

a clue. I doubted it. The typewritten letters had been distant carbon copies.

“I got about four or five phone cal s when Al en died,” said Toschi glumly. “San Francisco was kind of curious why Val ejo didn’t just close the

case. They told an inspector that the Val ejo district attorney chose not to close the case because Al en was terminal y il and was expected to die

within two weeks. They had already scheduled a conference to discuss that decision in the next month after his death, so they went ahead and had

it.”

Saturday, August 29, 1992

The day before,
a Val ejo police property report on Al en had been filed in the municipal court clerk’s office. Now that the press realized who had

died, they ran with the story. Erin Hal issy reported in the
San Francisco Chronicle
:

“Man Once Suspected in Zodiac Case Dies—A man once suspected of being the Zodiac kil er, who taunted police and terrorized Northern

California with threats of murder, died Wednesday in Val ejo of a heart attack at the age of 58.

“In 1971, attention focused on Arthur Leigh Al en when relatives and friends told police that he was acting erratical y and that they feared he

might be the sadistic slayer who kil ed at least six people and perhaps as many as 37 between 1966 and 1974. In his book “Zodiac,” former

Chronicle editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith described Al en under a fictitious name as the “the gut-feeling choice of most detectives” for

the Zodiac kil er. . . . Al en had reportedly told some people that he was the Zodiac kil er.”

Thursday, September 3, 1992

“In the mid-1970s
Al en was convicted of child-molesting charges and sentenced to prison,” Conway said publicly. “Last year, we searched

Al en’s home in Val ejo as a part of a fol ow-up investigation into the unsolved case. We found some writings, some pipe bombs, some il egal

weapons. None of it was sufficient to make an arrest for him being the Zodiac. . . . It is stil an ongoing criminal investigation. His death has not

changed that. I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation. I don’t have any reason to believe that Al en’s death was a suicide and there has been no

preliminary evidence that foul play was involved.”

In San Francisco, Dave MacHalhatton, KPIX-TV anchor, bannered the suspect’s death on the evening news. He and his wife, Bonnie, had

conducted the first hour-long show on Zodiac with me back in 1986. “Al en died this week,” he said, “leaving behind the unanswered question, ‘Was

he real y the Zodiac?’” Tomas Roman reported that “the only thing the police are certain of is that their case remains unsolved. His death has little

effect on the ongoing investigation into the man known as the Zodiac, the man who taunted police by claiming to have kil ed as many as thirty-seven

people. . . . But even after an extensive search, police stil did not charge Al en . . . with any crime linking him with the Zodiac kil ings.”

“I am not the Zodiac,” Al en had told KPIX. “I have never kil ed anyone. They have me questioning myself. . . . The only way I could clear myself is

for the real Zodiac to confess—if he’s stil alive. . . . Al I can do is suppose on that. The only way I can get peace for myself is when I am final y dead

and gone.”

Al Toschi could say was, “Mr. Al en was a very, very good suspect. We looked into Mr. Al en very closely.” The FBI, on noting the death, said in a

report, “The San Francisco case is closed at this time.”

“This retired cop who was working on the case told me he’s out of work now,” Pete Noyes told me. “They found a lot of computer discs in Al en’s

house. They went in there and picked up a lot of stuff. The psychologist, Thomas Rykoff, apparently has some deal going with a guy down here to

write a book. I don’t know if that’s ethical or not. Rykoff interviewed him at Atascadero.”

Bob Woolridge, a good friend at
Time-Life,
cal ed for an update on Zodiac. “Inspector Toschi cal ed me at home for a chat,” he said. “I’ve been

tracking down al this stuff that’s been going on in Val ejo. McCochran at the
Vallejo Times-Herald
has told me that the police apparently found a

videotape after their second search warrant of Mr. Al en’s house. I don’t know what any of this means and I don’t think Val ejo police are talking. I’m

going to try and speak to Captain Conway at Val ejo a little later this afternoon. I hope he’l give me a hint at least. But if I hear anything I’l certainly

let you know.”

As soon as police could, they played the videotape. Al it showed was Al en mooning the police, cursing them, and complaining about the case.

Authorities hinted more was on the tape, but “nothing incriminating.” Though Leigh had specified close friend Harold Huffman to be executor of his

estate, the task fel to Ron Al en who “sort of took over.” Karen “took first dibs on al his stuff, not Ron,” a friend claimed. “Huffman only met her after

Leigh’s death, but quickly took a disliking to her. I’ve read how Ron cooperated with the police, helped gather some information. I got the feeling

that Ron knew his brother was involved in this type of activity. They have people in the media who have tracked them down. Ron’s a hard guy to

reach. Usual y, his wife won’t let him near the phone. I thought, since the guy died suddenly, maybe he left something behind. Maybe he did. I

thought, a good chance they found something in that house.”

Leigh Al en was not embalmed. Though he was cremated, samples of his brain fluid were ordered preserved. It might al ow future DNA testing.

Leigh’s ashes were to be scattered off the coast near San Rafael. The
Vallejo Times-Herald
headline a week after Al en’s death said:

“SUSPECT’S DEATH WON’T HALT ZODIAC INVESTIGATION.” Death would not stop an investigation into the truth. We owed it to the victims to

assemble the missing pieces. I could not stop. None of us could.

Friday, October 2, 1992

Darlene’s sister, Pam,
claimed that she had confronted Al en before he died and, after his death, was in his home. In his bathroom she claimed

she had observed “a weird sexual device held with suction cups to the side of the tub.”

“Of course, I’m not actively working on the case anymore,” said Bawart. “I used to get al those letters, and since Arthur Leigh Al en died, nothing

happens on it anymore. Someday down the road we ought to put our heads together. I’ve got every file that Fred Shirisago had. And al our files and

al the original stuff on Zodiac. I’ve got it up in my attic along with a bunch of stuff of Al en’s. It might be interesting to go over it someday down the

road if you ever write a sequel. What was real y interesting is if you read this report—from then-Sergeant Lynch, in the center of another report on a

regular piece of paper—I don’t think there are more than a hundred words in it. He talks about 1969 just after the Berryessa kil ings going and

interviewing Arthur Leigh Al en as to his whereabouts at the time of the kil ing. Arthur Leigh Al en makes the statement about . . .”

“About the chickens? Two chickens . . .” I said.

“Yeah! And he was going to Berryessa on the day the kil ings took place, but he changed his mind and went to Salt Point. This was in 1969,

before Toschi and Armstrong had even looked at him. I hadn’t read that until I got reinvolved in it in early 1992. So I go back and Lynch is stil alive.

He has since died. I go ask him, ‘John, you don’t say in the report
why
you’re going talking to Arthur Leigh Al en. What prompted you to pick out this

guy? You don’t say—and he couldn’t remember. Somebody—somehow, his name came up in 1969 just after the Berryessa kil ing.

“Usual y—I’d write a report and say, ‘Pursuant to John Doe tel ing me that Arthur Leigh Al en fit the description and claimed he was going to

Berryessa on that day, I went by to talk to him.’ Then at least I’d have John Doe to go back to and talk to later on. I’d ask him, ‘Why did you accuse

this guy?’ Of course your book came out much before I went and talked to Lynch. When I talked to him, he had quit drinking. But he wasn’t in the

best of health. He just couldn’t remember.

“John Lynch was a prince of a guy. He was a very honest, straightforward guy, but he had a hel of a booze problem. When John would get off duty

—it was spooky—he lived in an old house in an old section of town. It wasn’t real y a Victorian. It was sort of a Tudor. If you had to go by and talk to

him about something, he never would answer the phone. You go by and you knock and he’d come to the door and there were no lights on and it was

musty. He would always talk to you on the front porch. He’d be drunk from the time he got off duty to the time eight hours before he was to come on

duty.

“My guess was this: Al en told a family member or friend he was going to Berryessa. Later that unknown person read of the murders. Al en must

have said something or been acting erratical y enough for them to tip the police. My money is on a family member.” Would we ever discover who

that early tipster had been?

“From our last two conversations, I’m truly amazed at your background information on Zodiac,” said Toschi. “Some of the information you have on

Arthur Leigh Al en in the Riverside area real y got my attention, and I wish that the Riverside P.D. had given me the fact that Al en was actual y

known around their town. It would have given me a stronger case to discuss with our D.A. and the other detectives working on the Zodiac case.”

Sunday, May 15, 1994

“There is one
specific detective [Harvey Hines] who has since retired from a very smal police department,” Conway explained, “who is absolutely

convinced that he solved the Zodiac case and it happens to be a guy who has a lengthy criminal history and he’s living in Tahoe. Again there is no

fingerprint match, no handwriting matches, there’s nothing more than a whole bunch of coincidences.”

The
Chronicle
ran a two-part story about Hines’s suspect in its
This World
section. The article upset Toschi. “It was cheap journalism,” he told

me. “I wouldn’t even cal it journalism. I remember talking to Hines in the seventies, and he was very strange then. He had tunnel vision. He wouldn’t

even listen to other suspects and keep an open mind. Hines has had twenty years to find out where his guy was on the dates of the murders. It

should be easy to prove one way or the other. Paul Avery cal ed me, and he too was upset.”

“Conway is equal y certain that the Zodiac is someone else,” reported the
Chronicle
. “I’l tel you what I told Harvey [Hines],” said Captain Conway

of the Val ejo Police Department. “He’s wasting his life barking up the wrong tree. [His suspect] is not the Zodiac. I can’t tel you how much time I’ve

given Harvey over the years, but he has nothing of any evidentiary value. I believe as I always have that the Zodiac was Arthur Leigh Al en. If I could

show Harvey what evidence we have on Al en today, he would get off this kick immediately. Unfortunately, I can’t do that for legal reasons.” Added

Conway about suspect Al en, who died in 1992, “If Al en were alive today, we would file charges against him as the Zodiac. Unfortunately, we ran

out of time making a case against him and he died.”

35

the conference

Monday, April 26, 1993

“The subject today
is the Zodiac kil er,” Judge George T. Choppelas said solemnly. A gray-haired, whip-smart Municipal Court magistrate, he

looked like Fred Astaire, and kept as trim with regular workouts on his rowing machine. The perplexing case fascinated the judge, and he had

cal ed a special discussion on Zodiac to rethink the case and satisfy his own curiosity. The meeting convened at a San Francisco State auditorium

at 1:30 P.M. in front of a large audience. Choppelas, acting as moderator, introduced Rita Wil iams, KTVU-TV newsperson. “She interviewed the