Zodiac Unmasked (68 page)

the emergency hospital.”

“We took Mike up to the Queen of the Val ey Hospital,” concluded Rust, “Lynch and I saw that out front of the hospital they’ve got a little monument

. . . it’s got a zodiac sign on it.”

When she was shot, Darlene had been reaching for her quilt-pattern leather drawstring purse on the rear floorboard. It was as if she was getting

identification out for the police. With the photo envelope inside her purse was a notebook with two names, “VAUGHN” and “LEIGH,” underlined. I

consulted Darlene’s three personal directories and, under
M
, found the fol owing entry crossed out: “MT. Shasta SK. Bowl Inc. (NRT) (VAUGHN)

Area Code 916/ Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl NR 1.” Leigh was not listed. Police dismissed it as the name of Dean Ferrin’s employer, Bil Leigh.

The time of the murder concerned Darlene’s sitters. “What time did they say she was murdered,” Janet Lynn said, “12:05 P.M.? [Darlene was

shot at 12:00 A.M.] Because that was a big discrepancy. At one point we figured that she couldn’t have had time to even get to that parking lot. We

kept tel ing the police that she didn’t leave the house until then . . . ’cause we were watching some program that doesn’t come on until almost

midnight and she hadn’t even left the house yet. And then they are tel ing us she was murdered like five minutes later, when how could she get out to

Blue Rock Springs in five minutes? And we kept tel ing this police officer [Lynch]. That was the biggest thing I never liked about that was the time

discrepancy. It was right before midnight and you just can’t get out there that quick. And we did mention that time thing again to them. I do

remember them asking us to come in. They didn’t even write it down.”

“I was at Berryessa that day [of her murder],” Steven Kee told me. “I was to meet her that night, but when I got home I learned that Dee was kil ed.”

Why had Mike rushed out and left al the lights in his house burning, the television blaring, and front door standing wide open? In the aftermath

investigators asked themselves other questions:

“Why was Mike wearing three pairs of pants and three sweaters? What about the al eged argument in Terry’s restaurant parking lot shortly

before the shooting and then being fol owed by the same man to Blue Rock Springs where argument continued and ended in shooting? Other

Questions: Did Mageau not, in fact, know the man who committed the attacks. Did he witness Darlene arguing with a middle-aged man either

at the crime scene and/or earlier that evening at Terry’s . . . ‘There was an argument between occupants of DV’s car and another individual at

Blue Rock Springs parking lot minutes before her murder.’ DV argued with likely Suspect in presence of SV several hours before her murder.

(SOURCE: SV [Mageau] as related to family friend.)”

At Blue Rock Springs that night, Officer Hoffman admitted he feared the kil er might return again any minute and shoot him too. But at 12:40 A.M.

Zodiac was busy elsewhere. He was cal ing switchboard operator Nancy Slover, VPD, from Joe’s Union Station (which closed at 8:25 P.M.) at

Tuolumne and Springs Road to report what he thought was a double murder. “They were shot with a 9-mil imeter Luger. I also kil ed those kids last

year.” This booth was two thousand feet to the south from Leigh’s house.

At 1:30 A.M., fifty minutes later, four phone cal s were placed through the operator from a booth at Broadway and Nebraska. This booth was three

thousand feet northwest from Al en’s home. One cal was to Dean Ferrin’s parents, Arthur and Mildred. They heard “only deep breathing . . . no one

said anything, we were certain someone was on the line.” The Dean Ferrin household got two phone cal s. The sitter answered and heard only

“breathing or wind blowing.” Next a cal was placed to Dean’s brother, Gordon (who was in Thailand). Zodiac must have known Darlene in order to

place these cal s to her in-laws. News of the shooting and who the victims were had not yet been either on the radio or in the papers.

When I made a map of Al en’s neighborhood I saw how close he was to al the Val ejo victims and how close they were to each other. Zodiac

victim Mike Mageau’s house was four and a half blocks from the home of another victim, Betty Lou Jensen. Since the murders, Criminal

Geographical Targeting has become a valuable police tool. Geographical Profiling is based on the theory of criminals’ spatial behavior. Criminals

strike close to home just as the average person chooses stores where he shops daily. They operate close to areas they are familiar with and have

previously scouted. A murderer has a tendency to hunt prey in identifiable areas and the impulse to disguise his home location. Thus, the sites of

his crimes tend to radiate on al sides of the offender, like a spider in his web.

As Zodiac roared away from the Blue Rock Springs lot, he would have reached a fork in the road. Narrow Lake Herman Road to his left offered

no place to hide until he reached Benicia. Columbus Parkway (Leigh’s brother lived at the midpoint on Columbus Parkway) to his right led back into

Val ejo, but offered the possibility of police cars coming at him on Springs Road. To avoid being trapped, I believe Zodiac took a smal road, just off

Columbus Parkway, so hidden I had to make an abrupt turn to reach the road. It led me in a dead straight line into the heart of Val ejo. At the end of

twenty-four blocks I arrived at a familiar doorstep—the home of Arthur Leigh Al en.

As far as finding Zodiac’s weapons and hood—the opportunity had long passed. One reason Zodiac used a new weapon each time was that he

was discarding them as he went. Surely, after each of the il -starred searches in different counties, he had destroyed his hidden souvenirs. But as

Detective Baker had reasoned, the things he had taken might stil be in plain sight, having a symbolic significance to Zodiac alone.

The
Napa Sentinel
’s Harry V. Martin long afterward speculated:

“Darlene knew a terrible secret . . . because of that secret she was murdered—not randomly, but deliberately . . . planned and executed by a

person she knew very wel , a person who bought her gifts, a person who visited her place of employment and even her home.”

Carmela Leigh, pregnant and due three days after Darlene’s murder, was so afraid she had a peephole put in her door. “We didn’t know if this

guy was going to get rid of her husband, her friends,” she told me. “We didn’t know if it was one of her goofy friends. It’s too bad they never found

him. We were al afraid for a long time. We didn’t know whether this person knew Dee—that’s what everybody thought because she knew so many

people. Then we thought Dee knew something about a narcotics bust or something, and the person who kil ed her knew she knew and got her

before it al came out. And then we thought maybe she knew she was going to be murdered, and maybe some of the people in the occult, you know,

they’l sacrifice their life or something.

“Then we thought maybe she knew. Maybe she did. Maybe she knew the guy was going to kil Mike and that’s why she wasn’t scared. From what

Mike said in the paper, she wasn’t a bit nervous.”

“There was the hint of drugs at the paint party—drug dealings there,” said Cheney. The sitters disagreed. “There were no signs of drugs in the

house,” they told me. “There’s no indication of drugs in any of the police reports,” said Mulanax. “Some of the people that she associated with were,

I think, involved in drugs, but there’s nothing in any of the reports that I have that would indicate that she herself was a user.” “I’ve had investigators

come out every year,” said Bobbie Ramos, “to see if I’ve thought of anything. They’d ask if she was sel ing drugs. Did she make more tips than

you? Sure she did. I might have made twenty, she might have made thirty-five. They were kind of maybe saying she sold drugs. . . . I’m not saying

she didn’t smoke pot or anything. Smoking and sel ing is different.”

“She might have taken marijuana once in a while,” Bobbie Oxnam told me, ‘but sel ing was strictly taboo to her. The implications that were put

into the paper after she was murdered real y made a lot of us mad. People forget the good about Darlene. She was not a tramp. She was no angel,

but she was not a tramp either.”

Sergeant Lynch and
his partner Rust later interviewed Linda at 400 Brandon Avenue in San Jose. As with many of Darlene’s friends, she had

been difficult to find after the Blue Rock Springs shooting. “And they talked to me for over seven hours,” Linda told me. “Lynch thought there were

drugs involved. He gave me a typed list and he said, ‘Any names that look familiar to you, circle them.’ Of course I circled al the names I’ve

mentioned to you as being at the painting party.”

“Was Lee’s name on there?” I asked her. “Yes, there was another name on the list spel ed different—‘Leigh.’ I circled the ones that Darlene knew.

And when I had circled this particular name they wanted, they go ‘mm-huh,’ as if they had already made up their minds. When I had circled the one,

they said, ‘That’s enough.’” Linda had circled the name of a middle-aged, round-faced local man who resembled Leigh Al en. And it was at this

moment that the police went wrong. Lynch had yet to interview Leigh Al en.

“Then I helped the police prepare a composite of the man at the party,” Linda told me, “a middle-aged man with a peculiar stare, a cold stare. I

sat there with the police and the artist did the drawing from my directions. I kept asking for them to show me photos, but they never did. When the

drawing was done, Lynch asked, ‘Do you think she’s ready?’ I say, ‘Ready for what?’ And they open up this black real thin binder. It had cel ophane

on it and it was another composite drawing. The only thing I had different from it was the chin. It just blew me away.”

This was a sketch prepared from Mageau’s description from his hospital bed. He had seen Zodiac’s profile clearly when he shot him, and was

able to speak in two days after the shooting. Officer Baldino said it was “probably the same individual” who had been frequenting Terry’s, a man he

had picked out of “a social situation.”

“Steve Baldino picked out a guy he saw at the restaurant,” Linda told me. “Steve was pretty shook up over al this. He knew the family and he

used to come by. I sat in the cop car one time and he let me feel his club, touch a gun. He was a real y good cop and when Dee died he kind of

went overboard. I think he might have made a mistake.” The man Baldino eyebal ed at an A.A. meeting admitted to visiting Terry’s, but he was not

the man at the painting party. Lynch had the right picture, but the wrong name. Zodiac must have felt invulnerable after this. He had grown

increasingly bolder.

“But you know,” Linda continued, “I think Zodiac wears makeup, and has got to be from Val ejo’cause he knows how to get away. The strange

thing is everyone left Val ejo [Mike and his brother, Steven Kee, Robbie Lee, Linda herself, Christina, Darlene’s younger sister]. I would think if the

guy was from San Francisco they’d stay. They’d be a lot safer in Val ejo. But they al left the city and got effectively lost.”

Linda’s composite did some good. It was accurate enough for Cheney to later recognize it as his friend, Arthur Leigh Al en.

“Of course I’ve never doubted that Zodiac was Leigh,” Cheney told me. “And I’ve always been astonished that they never tripped him up. I couldn’t

believe it. I kept waiting for something to turn up, to read that Zodiac was arrested. Nothing happened. I believe that the Lake Herman Road and

Lake Berryessa were just window dressing, but he kil ed Darlene Ferrin on purpose.

“When I final y read your book,
Zodiac
, and I had purposely not done so until now in order not to affect my recal , I got an idea. Darlene was

certainly not a lovers’ lane random kil ing. I think Darlene was kil ed on purpose. I suspect she was the target and he threw the others in for

confusion. There was the business about Darlene saw him kil somebody, or he just may have wanted to close her mouth. Darlene may have been

blackmailing him.”

George Bawart, at the Zodiac conference, stated he believed Al en to be Zodiac. Captain Roy Conway said in a published interview: “I believe

as I always have, that the Zodiac kil er was Arthur Leigh Al en.” I asked Toschi the same question. “There is no doubt in my mind,” he concluded,

“that Arthur Leigh Al en was, in fact, the Zodiac.” I had written the same in 1977 (when we had an army of suspects) because Al en had offered to

help catch himself.

I recal ed the Zodiac Conference and a question Rita Wil iams had asked: “If Arthur Leigh Al en was the Zodiac, why didn’t he leave some

message behind to let everyone know he was the Zodiac? If he was Al en, can you tel me why you think he didn’t?” I remembered that when police

showed Al en bomb plans on lined yel ow paper with a menu for making bombs, he said, “I’ve never seen that piece of paper before. . . . I’ve never

seen these documents before.” And yet it was in his own handwriting.

“Did he leave some message behind to let everyone know he was the Zodiac?” repeated Conway thoughtful y. “Al en does leave a message by

things that are in his basement and at the same time denying everything. From my point of view, he did leave that message. One of [Zodiac’s]

letters talked about finding bombs in his basement. Wel , in fact, there were bombs in the basement of that house when we did the search warrant

—there were pipe bombs. He talked about a particular way of making the pipe bombs, and we found handwriting evidence of him having written

that formula that he denied even making. Ultimately, the only handwriting match we have is to him in his writings of Zodiac’s bomb-making formula.