Most Evil
Page 9
Little did I know.
My next brush with Zodiac came thirty-three years later when a webmaster named Tom Voigt approached me about making my black dahliaavenger.com Web site more accessible. Intrigued, I went to my computer and called up another site Tom had designed—Zodiackiller. com. The volume of documentation on the famously still-unsolved Zodiac murders was astounding.
Casually, I clicked on a Special Bulletin believed to have been originally prepared by the San Francisco Police Department, which featured a composite drawing of the suspect from verbal descriptions provided by eyewitnesses. I nearly fell out of my chair. The original police source of this composite drawing (one of several) is still in question. To my knowledge, it first appeared publicly on the 1974 paperback cover of Great Crimes of San Francisco. The book was an anthology of San Francisco area true-crime essays written by various authors and edited by Dean W. Dickensheet. The crimes spanned eight decades. The essay on Zodiac was entitled “This is the Zodiac Speaking . . .” and was written by then San Francisco Chronicle reporter Duffy Jennings, who had replaced Paul Avery. In January 2007, a confidential source of mine contacted Duffy Jennings, who verified that the composite originated from law enforcement. Jennings could not recall which agency; however SFPD would be the most likely, as their name is shown on the bulletin.
“Can’t be!”
Was my mind playing tricks on me? I closed my eyes and looked again.
9.1 George Hodel, 1974; Zodiac Composite, 1969
Staring at me from the screen was a very strong likeness of my father circa 1974. Could this be possible? As I began to review the material I discovered that one of the most reliable eyewitnesses to the Zodiac killings, a San Francisco patrolman named Donald Fouke, had provided the following physical description of Zodiac:
Male, White, American, 35 to 45 years, 5 foot 10 to 6 foot 2, 180 to 200 pounds, medium complexion, short brown or light-colored hair possibly graying in rear (may have been lighting that caused this effect). Navy blue jacket, brown pleated pants, baggy in rear (rust brown), possibly wearing low-cut shoes, wearing glasses.
On October 10, 1969 (the day before Fouke provided the above description), George Hodel celebrated his sixty-second birthday. But as all of us who knew him can attest, his physical condition and appearance belied his age. In fact, he could have easily passed for a man, say, in his mid-to-late forties. In 1969 he was strong and in excellent health. His physical description would have been as follows:
Male, White, American, 62 years, 6 feet tall 185 pounds, medium to dark complexion, short black hair with partial graying. Regularly wears black horn-rimmed glasses.
More frequently than not, George Hodel wore pleated slacks, which, while rarely seen on younger men in the late sixties, were the custom for older professionals. His glasses were identical to those worn by Zodiac in at least one of his murders.
I continued to stare at the monitor as my mind raced. Was it possible that the serial killer known and identified as the Black Dahlia Avenger left the United States for twenty years only to return and reinvent himself in San Francisco as Zodiac?
The intellectual part of me said, No! Dad was too old, and he didn’t even live in the country during those years. Drop it and move on. But my gut, my cop’s sixth sense, countered strongly: Serial killers don’t stop until they’re caught, go to prison, or die. Check it out.
Four years and several thousand investigative hours later, I can report that my intuition was correct. The evidence linking my father, Dr. George Hodel, to the Zodiac murders in the San Francisco area in the summer and fall of 1969 is exceptionally strong and compelling. And it adds fascinating layers to our understanding of a brilliant but vicious psychopath—a real-life Hannibal Lecter (including his credentialed degree in psychiatry) who received his utmost pleasure in terrorizing his victims and then taunting the police.
Cheri Jo Bates
Approximately sixty-five miles southeast of Los Angeles lies the city of Riverside, California. Nestled in the barren San Bernardino Valley, this center of California’s citrus industry is the birthplace of Bobby Bonds, prima ballerina Darci Kistler, and radio personality Don Imus. It also claims to own the “World’s Largest Paper Cup,” which rises sixty-eight feet in front of the Dixie Corporation warehouse on Iowa Street.
Back in 1966, Riverside was a quiet agricultural center that rarely received national attention.
9.2
On a warm Sunday night in 1966, the day before Halloween, an eighteen-year-old former Ramona High School cheerleader named Cheri Jo Bates climbed into her lime-green Volkswagen Bug and drove to the Riverside City College Library.
After checking out some research books, the pretty blond coed packed her bags and headed back to her car. She didn’t know that while she was studying, someone had opened the car’s hood, ripped out the distributor coil and condenser, then disconnected the middle wire of the distributor. As she tried in vain to start the engine, a man appeared and offered her a ride.
According to a confession letter sent to police and media by the person claiming to be the killer, “She was . . . very willing to talk with me. I told her that my car was down the street and that I would give her a lift home.”
That’s when things turned ugly. “When we were away from the library, walking,” the killer wrote, “I said it was (a)bout time. She asked me ‘About time for what’? I said it was about time for her to die.”
Two separate witnesses reported hearing an “awful scream” at around ten thirty, followed by “a muted scream, and then a loud sound like an old car being started up.” It wasn’t until six thirty the following morning that a campus groundskeeper found her body. She’d been choked and beaten about the face, stabbed multiple times in the chest and back, and slashed so violently across the throat that she’d nearly been decapitated.
It appeared from the churned-up ground that Cheri Jo Bates had fought hard. Hair follicles, likely belonging to the suspect, were found under her fingernails. Detectives also found a tuft of human hair clutched in her right hand. Riverside PD Chief of Detectives Captain Irwin Cross would later indicate that this, along with the rest of the physical evidence, was forwarded to the state laboratory in Sacramento and “preliminary analysis tends to show the murderer is a white male.” If still available, this evidence could potentially be a strong source sample for the suspect’s DNA. Shoe or heel prints found at the scene led detectives to believe that the suspect wore a size ten shoe.
Later that morning, Halloween, the following headline appeared in the Riverside Press:
RCC COED, 18, SLAIN ON CAMPUS
Riverside detectives recovered a man’s Timex watch with a seven-inch wristband approximately ten feet from Cheri Jo’s body. The time on its face read 12:23. Detectives speculated that the watch fell from the suspect’s wrist during the struggle.
According to unconfirmed reports, authorities eventually traced the watch to a foreign military PX (post exchange), but the country of origin was never officially released.
It seemed that Cheri Jo Bates’s attacker had escaped unseen. Her purse and identification were found at the scene. And the young woman had not been sexually assaulted.
Judging by the available evidence, detectives speculated that her murder was a crime of passion. They focused their investigation on possible suitors, ex-boyfriends, and men linked to Ms. Bates.
Then, almost one month after the attack, the case took a very bizarre turn. The Riverside Police Department and Riverside Enterprise received identical unsolicited confessions.
9.3 and (inset) 9.4
Experts determined that the letters had been typed using a portable Royal typewriter. The confession purportedly included a byline containing twelve blank characters representing the killer’s name.
Riverside detectives concluded that the “confession” had been sent by Cheri’s killer, because it contained details of the crime that had not been publicly revealed.
A reproduced copy of the letter, includi
ng unusual word usage and misspellings in bold, appears below:
THE CONFESSION
BY—-—-—-—-—-—-
SHE WAS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL. BUT NOW SHE IS BATTERED AND DEAD. SHE IS NOT THE FIRST AND SHE WILL NOT BE THE LAST. I LAY AWAKE NIGHTS THINKING ABOUT MY NEXT VICTIM. MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE BEAUTIFUL BLOND THAT BABYSITS NEAR THE LITTLE STORE AND WALKS DOWN THE DARK ALLEY EACH EVENING ABOUT SEVEN. OR MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE SHAPELY BLUE EYED BROWNETT THAT SAID NO WHEN I ASKED HER FOR A DATE IN HIGH SCHOOL. BUT MAYBE IT WILL NOT BE EITHER. BUT I SHALL CUT OFF HER FEMALE PARTS AND DEPOSIT THEM FOR THE WHOLE CITY TO SEE. SO DON’T MAKI IT TO EASY FOR ME. KEEP YOUR SISTERS, DAUGHTERS, AND WIVES OFF THE STREETS AND ALLEYS. MISS BATES WAS STUPID. SHE WENT TO THE SLAUGHTER LIKE A LAMB. SHE DID NOT PUT UP A STRUGGLE. BUT I DID. IT WAS A BALL. I FIRST PULLED THE MIDDLI WIRE FROM THE DISTRIBUTOR. THEN I WAITED FOR HER IN THE LIBRARY AND FOLLOWED HER OUT AFTER ABOUT TWO MINUTS. THE BATTERY MUST HAVE BEEN ABOUT DEAD BY THEN I THEN OFFERED TO HELP. SHE WAS THEN VERY WILLING TO TALK WITH ME. I TOLD HER THAT MY CAR WAS DOWN THE STREET AND THAT I WOULD GIVE HER A LIFT HOME. WHEN WE WERE AWAY FROM THE LIBRARY WALKING. I SAID IT WAS BOUT TIME. SHE ASKED ME, “ABOUT TIME FOR WHAT”. I SAID IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HER TO DIE. I GRABBED HER AROUND THE NECK WITH MY HAND OVER HER MOUTH AND MY OTHER HAND WITH A SMALL KNIFE AT HER THROAT. SHE WENT VERY WILLINGLY. HER BREAST FELT VERY WARM AND FIRM UNDER MY HANDS. BUT ONLY ONE THING WAS ON MY MIND. MAKING HER PAY FOR THE BRUSH OFFS THAT SHE HAD GIVEN ME DURING THE YEARS PRIOR. SHE DIED HARD. SHE SQUIRMED AND SHOOK AS I CHOAKED HER. AND HER LIPS TWICHED. SHE LET OUT A SCREAM OXCE AND I KICKED HER HEAD TO SHUT HER UP. I PLUNGED THE KNIFE INTO HER AND IT BROKE. I THEN FINISHED THE JOB BY CUTTING HER THROAT. I AM NOT SICK. I AM INSANE. BUT THAT WILL NOT STOP THE GAME. THIS LETTER SHOULD BE PUBLISHED FOR ALL TO READ IT. IT JUST MIGHT SAVE THAT GIRL IN THE ALLEY. BUT THAT’S UP TO YOU. IT WILL BE ON YOUR CONSCIENCE. NOT MINE. YES, I DID MAXE THAT CALL TO YOU ALSO. IT WAS JUST A WARNING. BEWARE . . . I AM STALKING YOUR GIRLS NOW.
CC. CHIEF OF POLICE
ENTERPRISE
9.5
A month later, a Riverside City College employee discovered a poem written on a desk that had been previously located inside the school library.
9.6
Police speculated that it could have been written by Cheri Jo Bates’s killer, who said in his “confession” that he stalked her to the library, where he waited for her to finish studying. The poem was written in ballpoint pen and several of the words were overwritten so that they appear bold.
The poem read:
Sick of living/unwilling to die
cut.
clean.
if red/
clean.
blood spurting,
dripping,
spilling;
all over her new
dress.
oh well
it was red
anyway.
life draining into an
uncertain death.
she won’t
die.
this time
someone ll find her.
just wait till
next time.
rh
Then, on the six-month anniversary of the crime, April 30, 1967, three separate and nearly identically worded notes were mailed to the Riverside Press, Riverside police, and Cheri Bates’s father, whose address had been made public in the original coverage of the story. All three were mailed with double the amount of necessary postage—two four-cent stamps.
9.7
The large block printing written in pencil on lined paper, read:
BATES HAD TO DIE
THERE WILL BE MORE
Z
Riverside PD investigators racked their brains over the identity of “Z” as they continued to pursue the case with vigor. But no further communications from the killer arrived. And they were unable to develop significant new leads.
In the late sixties Riverside PD likely had only two or three full-time detectives assigned to Homicide. As time passed and the demand to solve new crimes increased, detectives assigned to the Bates investigation were forced to push it to a back burner. Back in those days, Riverside PD didn’t have a “Cold Case Unit” that could take over.
The concept of a serial killer was not widely known or considered in those days. There had never been any indication that the Bates murder was anything other than the isolated brutal slaying of a beautiful young coed. Because of the time gap, Riverside detectives had no knowledge or reason to connect the Bates attack to the then unsolved Black Dahlia Avenger murders that had occurred in nearby Los Angeles some twenty years earlier. Had they known, they would have found a remarkable similarity in both MO and signatures:
• Taunting notes sent to the police, local newspapers, and relatives of the victims (Bauerdorf, Short, Kern)
• Confessions sent relating specifics of the crime (Bauerdorf, Short, Kern)
• The use of what seem to be deliberate misspellings (Short, Kern)
• Watches left at the crime scene (Short)
• Victim stabbed repeatedly and slashed across the neck (Kern)
Nor could they have been aware of a potentially important link to the murder and dismemberment of Lucila Lalu in Manila. The Bates killer in his multiple mailings made two separate promises. First, on the one-month anniversary of the Bates murder in Z’s typed confession he wrote:
I SHALL CUT OFF HER FEMALE PARTS AND DEPOSIT THEM FOR THE WHOLE CITY TO SEE . . .
His second promise came on the six-month anniversary, April 30, 1967, in a taunting sadistic letter to the victims’ parents and police. He raged:
THERE WILL BE MORE
Just three weeks after this promise, in faraway Manila, more came—in the form of that city’s most brutal murder ever. Why the most brutal? Because, as horrible as Lucila’s dissection and decapitation was, what made it top Manila’s crime charts was its absolute savagery. The fact that the killer had deposited the victim’s body parts for the whole city to see.
But none of this was known back then. Riverside homicide detectives continued to work their investigation, but after a few years with no new clues, the case went cold. Riverside detectives remained convinced that Cheri Jo Bates’s murder was a standalone.
But that changed dramatically in 1970 when criminologists and crime reporters started to see the Cheri Jo Bates murder as part of a much larger story, a story that until then had been isolated farther north, in the Bay Area of California. As the November 16, 1970, headline in the Los Angeles Times stated emphatically:
9.7
Chapter Ten
All I have killed will become my slaves.
Zodiac
On a cold Friday night in December 1968, a seventeen-year-old high school wrestler and Eagle Scout named David Faraday borrowed his mother’s 1961 two-tone Rambler station wagon to take sixteen-year-old Betty Jensen to a Christmas concert at Hogan High School in Vallejo, California—thirty miles northeast of San Francisco. Red-haired Betty wore her favorite lavender dress. It was their first date.
10.1 Betty Jensen, age sixteen; David Faraday, age seventeen
The teenagers never made it to the concert. Instead, they decided to stop at a local restaurant before driving out to an isolated “lovers lane” ten miles east of Vallejo, just off Lake Herman Road.
Shortly after eleven p.m. an unidentified suspect approached the young couple while they were seated inside the Rambler, pointed his handgun at David and Betty, and blew out the rear window. The terrified couple scrambled out the front passenger door.
David was immediately shot in the head and crumpled to the ground. Betty Lou attempted to run, but was stopped by five bullets in her back. She collapsed ten feet from the rear of the Rambler.
EMS personnel pronounced her dead at the scene thirty minutes later. David fought for his life for another twenty minutes before being pronounced DOA at the emergency room.
A “Double 187” (double homicide) call went out to the Solano Count
y sheriffs. The sleepy, middle-class community of five thousand hadn’t seen a murder in five years.
After studying the crime scene, the Solano County sheriff’s detectives concluded that the suspect had fired a total of ten shots from a .22 caliber semiautomatic handgun. They found no indication of any type of sexual assault and concluded that the cold-blooded killer had finished his work in two minutes.
The question remained: Why?
An extensive investigation that included in-depth interviews with the victims’ families and their friends yielded no leads, no physical description of the suspect, and no motive for the crime.
The murders seemed to be the work of a “crazed killer” working alone.
Six months later, he struck again.
10.2 Darlene Ferrin, age twenty-two; Michael Mageau, age nineteen
The next crime took place just three miles east. At approximately five minutes to midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin, age twenty-two, and Michael Mageau, age nineteen, were seated in Darlene’s light brown 1963 Corvair, in a secluded parking lot, adjacent to Blue Rock Springs Park.
As the two youngsters talked, a car pulled up behind them and parked. A male exited and approached the front passenger’s side of the Corvair and shined a flashlight into Michael Mageau’s face. Assuming it was a police officer, Michael reached for his identification.