Zodiac Unmasked (61 page)

more work on Al en than any of the other jurisdictions who were closer to him.’”

“The one thing Val ejo can’t understand is why John Lynch and Les Lundblad were on this guy so early in the case,” I said. “Why? And this was

long before the informants, Cheney and Panzarel a.”

“We never got that,” said Toschi sadly.

“What brought them to Al en? Two guys in independent police agencies both go right to Al en’s front door. There’s a little tiny piece missing.

Lynch went out and talked to Al en after Blue Rock Springs and Lake Berryessa. And of course they have that knife story—‘I’ve been kil ing two

chickens.... ’”

“Yes. Adkins and Repetto even asked me if we could put Al en in Southern California. My memory was weak at that point, but I know you found

some leads. The brother went and searched the basement of Al en’s house himself, and he found cryptography books. I told this to Adkins on

Tuesday and it blew him away.”

That night I opened more mail from Zodiac buffs. “Look under the stamps and the envelope flaps for saliva and attempt a DNA test on it,” Michael

Hennessy suggested. “Also check the letter that had a bloody cross drawn on it for DNA. Check the skin and hair fragments that victim Cheri Jo

Bates had under her fingernails when found.” DNA, obtained from a variety of biological sources—blood, hair, semen, and saliva—had final y

entered the Zodiac case, as I was about to find out.

Saturday, February 15, 1997

I called Repetto
at 9:00 A.M. and he wanted to meet right away. “I’m going to be getting on the road here and heading toward the city,” he told me.

“I’l cal my partner on the cel phone and I’l cal you back with a time we could meet, say around ten-twenty, ten-thirty this morning.” We set the place

for the Mirabel e Cafe on Ninth Avenue, the site of the former Owl and Monkey Cafe, where I did al my writing.

I sat at my regular table in the front window and watched a light-rail car glide by. I recognized the two inspectors immediately as they crawled from

their car and entered the cafe. Adkins, tal , broad-shouldered, and energetic, had a bruise on his left cheek from a fight he had just had with a

suspect. Vince Repetto, older and more world-weary than his partner, squeezed into a chair. I soon wished they had canceled the meeting.

Something had changed in the last hour.

The previous day Adkins and Repetto had gotten DNA results. Genetic markers on a Zodiac letter (they wouldn’t say which one) had matched

Al en’s DNA! However, a cal to Repetto after our conversation revealed a second run had showed no match. “I heard this bit of news just before I

picked up Rich,” he said.

Zodiac, with his knowledge of chemistry, even in the late sixties and early seventies, would hardly have been so foolish as to lick an envelope or

stamp. While no such thing as DQ-Alpha DNA18 testing existed back then, blood and saliva typing procedures did. In 1976, Dr. Richard Wal er

drew up the testing procedures and serology guidelines for secretor samples for the state crime lab in Santa Rosa. Genetic markers, a series of

complex, energy-releasing molecules and enzymes present within the fluids of each individual’s body, could be lifted from stains. They could be

analyzed by various high-tech serological tests. ABO testing involved long-lasting, stable molecules, and PGM testing dealt with more perishable

enzymes. Secretor samples found in ABO existed in saliva, semen, and blood.

Could the DNA false positive have come from a close relation? Had Al en had his mother lick the envelope for him? If so, under what pretext? Or

had we been wrong al along? Toschi, Mulanax, Lundblad, Adkins, and Repetto and al the rest had believed that Zodiac was Arthur Al en. So did I.

But Al en did not match the handwriting, did not lick the letter they had tested, and had passed a lie-detector test, albeit in a drugged state. What

could be the answer? I thought back to the possibility of two Zodiacs working as partners, an idea that Bawart had considered. Now I had the

unpleasant task of tel ing Toschi about the meeting. He was crestfal en.

“Tuesday,” said Toschi, “they told me they were about a month away from hearing anything positive. I feel sorry for them. They were obviously

positive in what was going on. Now one phone cal that says no, it deflates you. It’s a step backward.”

“I remember Al en lamenting in 1975,” I said, “that he hoped Zodiac would write a letter while he was at Atascadero to prove he wasn’t Zodiac. If

a confederate was writing the letters for him, why wouldn’t he do so? The results of that DNA test is something I didn’t see coming.” I looked at my

phone. From 1986 through 1991 I had gotten a steady stream of breathing and hang-up cal s. They had stopped with Al en’s death. I almost missed

them.

Sunday, February 16, 1997

“I spoke with
Inspector Repetto,” I told Bawart.

“I know him,” Bawart said. “Vince runs his own private security outfit. They had him assigned to this thing after Deasy. Deasy was handling it for

the longest time out of the Pawn Detail. Then they turned it over to this Vince. Of course, he had his other cases to work within SFPD.”

“SFPD got DNA results two days ago.” I said. “And it came up it could be Al en. But by the time they got back to me—less than an hour, they had

gotten a second report that said the sample
didn’t
match Zodiac. Can you think of anyone who might have written the letters for Al en?”

“You know, we even compared Cheney’s handwriting,” said Bawart. “And Sandy Panzarel a and Ron Al en, a pretty straitlaced guy.”

“Robert Emmett was teaching school in Germany when the letters stopped. I’m thinking they might want to test his DNA.”

“This is something that Conway had pressed for before he retired,” said Bawart. “As for the samples on Al en, I don’t know where San Francisco

would have gotten them. I have the Val ejo coroner holding that stuff and he’s supposed to notify me if and when they get a request from San

Francisco. I haven’t heard anything. Maybe Al en had his dog licking his stamps. . . .”

“No, it was human DNA,” I said. I mentioned Andrew Todd Walker,19 the third important suspect in the case.

“I don’t dislike Walker,” said Bawart. “I just don’t think there’s enough definitive information on him to make it real y viable. These guys [a Naval

Intel igence officer and two CHP officers] pursue it as a hobby and that’s wonderful. They apparently have gone to the expense of stealing some of

his silverware. They paid for a DNA check, at least they told me they did. They have Walker’s DNA. You know, I’l bet you Walker and I bet you this

guy that Harvey Hines likes—I bet you both of them, just to get everything off their backs, would submit to a DNA test.”

“Wel , sure. I sat down with Morril in the seventies. He studied some of Leigh’s printing I got from Ace Hardware. It’s looks fine—the three-stroke

k,
al the rest. If they’re going to run a genetic test, then they should at least do al of the suspects.”

“I just wish that back in ’71-’72 Toschi and Armstrong would have fol owed up further. I wish they’d searched the home. I talked to Prouty, who was

a handwriting analyst who worked at DOJ that worked under Morril . And Prouty said he was losing it toward the end. I looked at that [desktop

printing] stuff and I couldn’t make it [as Zodiac writing]. He died shortly after his retirement. I’m not sure Repetto or Adkins have ever viewed any of

my reports . . . but nobody’s pounding on their door. Stine’s family isn’t there every day saying what are you doing about the death of my husband,

son, or whatever. And the same thing happens in Val ejo. The Ferrin family’s not pounding on the door. It’s the old adage—the squeaky wheel gets

the oil. I don’t blame Vince at al . He’s probably got a half-dozen cases where people are pounding on his door.”

Al in al it had been a stunning development. Lieutenant Tom Bruton, SFPD homicide investigator, cal ed me. He had inherited the Zodiac case,

an heirloom passed down from generation to generation. Bruton wondered if I could provide some originals of the missing letters.

“Wel , what do you have missing?” I asked.

“The three-part-cipher letter,” he replied. That would have been the first Zodiac letter San Francisco had received.

“I have FBI reproductions of that. Would that do?”

“No. We thought maybe the original had been passed on to you. Kathleen Johns said that she received a
second
Zodiac Hal oween card and

mailed it on to you. Do you have that?”

“No. She means Paul Avery. However, you’re welcome to anything I have. I want to see this thing solved.” We spoke for a while longer, and then I

thought to ask a favor of my own. “I’ve been thinking about that DNA test done on Al en and I have two questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“First, where did they get a sample of Al en’s genetic material? He was buried in 1992.”

“We got it from the Val ejo coroner. They kept a sample of brain fluid or a brain fragment that they’d kept refrigerated.”

“That clears that up.”

“And the second point?”

“
Which
letter did they test?” I had in mind one of the early letters that contained squares of Paul Stine’s shirt. That bloodstained swatch would

authenticate the sender as Zodiac.

“We used the 1978 letter,” he said.

“The forgery?”

Once, I had believed in that letter. But in 1978 one thing had troubled me. “Excluding Zodiac’s greeting cards, desktop, and car door, his

handprinted communications have al been written on 7½-inch-by-10-inch bond in letter-sized envelopes. The 1978 letter was on 8½-inch-by- 11-

inch bond in a
legal
-sized envelope.” I knew now that not only was the 1978 letter a fake, but the SFPD knew it.

“What are the chances of a second test using one of the older letters?” I asked.

Bruton said nothing.

I cal ed Toschi. He asked incredulously why they didn’t test a letter that contained a swatch of Stine’s shirt. “Since they wanted to know if I had any

original letters,” I said, “I suspect they’ve either misplaced some or they’ve been stolen. The truth is, there’s not enough DNA on the remaining

letters for them to evaluate. They had tested for saliva in 1969-71 and found none. Only the 1978 fake had enough cel s for a test.” The SFPD later

prepared a chart of available Zodiac DNA:

“Zodiac letters and envelopes for 10/13/69, ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW CELLS. 11/8/69 Card: ‘Sorry I haven’t written’

Pen dripping, ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW CELLS. 12/20/69, Contained piece of cloth from Stine’s shirt (per keel),

ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW CELLS. 4/20/70 ‘My name is . . . ’ (Cipher), ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW

CELLS. 4/28/70, Card: (Sorry to hear . . . ) ‘Blast . . . Buttons . . . ’ ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW CELLS. 6/26/70 Handwritten

note & map: ‘I shot a man with a .38 . . . ’ ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—FEW CELLS.”

The lab found some cel s in these communications:

“Handwritten note: 7/24/70 ‘Woman & baby in car . . . ’ ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—CELLS FOUND. 7/26/70 ’I wil torture my

13 slaves waiting in paradice,’ ENVELOPE PROCESSED FOR DNA—CELLS FOUND. 1/29/74 ‘saw the Exorcist,’ ENVELOPE

PROCESSED FOR DNA—CELLS FOUND.”

Among the lost and unprocessed by the lab were these:

The 11/9/69 handwritten note: “This is the Zodiac Speaking,—LOCATION OF ENVELOPE UNK.” Also apparently missing were the original

three letters and ciphers of 7/31/69, the letter of 8/7/69, the 10/27/70 Hal oween Card, the 3/13/71 “Blue Meanies” letter to Times, the 3/22/71

postcard, “Sought Victim 12,” the 5/8/74 note signed “a citizen” and the 7/8/74 “Red Phantom” letter.

The report concluded with the tested letter: “4/24/78 Handwritten note ‘that city pig Toschi . . . ’ DNA SAMPLE OBTAINED/
NOT AUTHENTIC

ZODIAC LETTER
.”

Arthur Leigh Al en had
not
been ruled out as the Zodiac after al . Soon after Zodiac returned from the grave.

36

zodiac III

Sunday, March 16, 1997

After Zodiac II,
no one ever expected Zodiac’s murders to be emulated again. A Zodiac copycat had been horrific—a third Zodiac, inconceivable.

But for a third time the kil er’s undying persona reached out to bring death, this time some three thousand miles away. Kobe, a wel -to-do suburb

270 miles west of Tokyo. Kobe lay complacent in its relative safety, almost as murder-free as the rest of Japan. Hammer attacks against two girls

in the neighborhood on February 10 had rocked the community from its slumber. Today, Ayaka Yamashita, a ten-year-old, was bludgeoned and

kil ed by stab wounds to the head. Less than an hour later, a nine-year-old was stabbed and nearly bled to death.

Saturday, May 24, 1997

On a stormy
morning, rain beaded on a plastic bag left at the green iron front gate of Kobe’s Tomogaoka Junior High. Though a light fog had

formed on the underside of the bag nearest the pavement, a human head was visible inside. A pitiful lock of black hair splayed and fanned out

against the plastic. A schoolboy’s clouded face peered out. Only moments before, neighbors had glimpsed a stout man staggering under the

weight of two black garbage bags as he rushed down a narrow street. “He was about forty years old,” they told police summoned to the junior high.

The victim’s head had been severed at the jawline with a hacksaw and sharp knife. The kil er had gouged his eyes out and stuffed a message in his

mouth. Written in red ink, the words ran with rain. Zodiac’s crossed-circle symbol was starkly legible. The kil er was strong and had used only his

right hand to strangle the boy. A search for the rest of the body began. The corpse, discovered in the wooded area of a fenced-in television