Most Evil

by Steve Hodel

  The California State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Information (CII) held weekly Zodiac update meetings in Sacramento, where representatives of the nine Bay Area counties discussed leads and cross-checked information. Meanwhile, CII personnel searched through thousands of profiles of Californians trying to isolate a manageable sample based on factors that included appearance, age, anger at the police, and certain skills.

  They came up with nothing concrete, only theories: Zodiac’s dead. He’s in jail. He’s institutionalized. He’s overseas. He’s lying in wait to “do his thing.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  If the Blue Meannies are evere going to catch me, they had best get off their fat asses and do something.

  Zodiac

  The letters continued into 1970 and arrived periodically up until 1978. In the end, they totaled twenty-five, written in the same grandiose tone with barbs of increasing sarcasm thrown at the police. In several, Zodiac had the audacity to urge Bay Area residents to wear buttons with his circle-and-cross symbol.

  Was this his idea of a joke? Did he ever seriously consider blowing up a school bus filled with children? It was hard to tell.

  What we do know is that the letters followed the same pattern of threats, boasts, pleas for attention, and misspellings. Some included additional cryptograms that were never decoded.

  The entire set of twenty-five letters can be viewed on my Web site (www.stevehodel.com). But certain features of some of the letters are worth pointing out.

  13.1

  For example, Letter #12, postmarked San Francisco, April 28, 1970, is notable because of its use of double postage—the same practice followed by the Black Dahlia Avenger in Los Angeles and by the killer of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside.

  In Letter #15 (mailed in San Francisco on July 26, 1970), Zodiac revealed a musical facet of his persona, reciting lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Mikado. The song he references, entitled “As Some Day It May Happen,” is sung by the character of Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner. In it, he claims to have a “little list,” which serves as his hit list of “society’s offenders.” These are the types of people Ko-Ko (or Zodiac) finds objectionable enough to be worthy of death. As noted in chapter 1, young musical prodigy George Hodel loved Gilbert and Sullivan and knew their music and lyrics by heart. Also as a radio host and programmer for the Southern California Gas Company’s Music Hour he would have played Gilbert and Sullivan’s popular Mikado on a regular basis.

  In this particular letter, Zodiac—after cataloguing the tortures he’s going to inflict on the thirteen slaves who are waiting for him in paradise—offers his take on “As Some Day It May Happen,” which starts at the top of page three.

  13.2

  13.3

  13.4

  The letter reads:

  This is the Zodiac speaking Being that you will not wear some nicebuttons, how about wearing some nastybuttons. Or any type ofbuttons that you can think up. If you do not wear any type ofbuttons I shall (on top of every thing else) torture all 13 of my slaves that I have wateing for me in Paradice. Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream & twich and squirm. Others shall have pine splinters driven under their nails & then burned. Others shall be placed in cages & fed salt beef untill they are gorged then I shall listen to their pleass for water and I shall laugh at them. Others will hang by their thumbs & burn in the sun then I will rub them down with deep heat to warm

  (page 2)

  them up. Others I shall skin them alive & let them run around screaming . And all billiard players I shall have them play in a dark ened dungen cell with crooked cues & Twisted Shoes. Yes I shall have great fun in flicting the most delicious of pain to my Slaves.

  = 13

  SFPD = 0

  (page 3)

  As some day it may hapen that a victom must be found. I’ve got a little list. I’ve got a little list, of society offenders who might well be underground who would never be missed who would never be missed. There is the pest- ulentual nucences who whrite for autographs , all people who have flabby hands and irritat- ing laughs. All children who are up in dates and implore you with im platt. All people who are shakeing hands shake hands like that. And all third persons who with unspooling take thoes who insist. They’d none of them be missed. They’d none of them be missed. There’s the banjo seranader and the others of his race and the piano orginast I got him on the list. All people who eat pepermint and phomphit

  (page 4)

  in your face . they would never be missed They would never be missed And the Idiout who phraises with in- thusastic tone of centuries but this and every country but his own. Find the lady from the provences who dress like a guy who doesn’t cry and the singurly abnomily the girl who never kissed . I don’t think she would be missed Im shure she wouldn’t be missed. And that nice impriest that is rather rife the judicial hummerest I’ve got him on the list All funny fellows, commic men and clowns of private life. They’d none of them be missed. They’d none of them be missed. And uncompromis e ing kind such as wachamacallit, thingmebob, and like wise, well- nevermind , and tut tut tut tut,

  (page 5)

  who, but the task of filling up the blanks I rather leave up to you. But it really doesn’t matter whom you place upon the list , for none of them be missed, none of them be missed.

  ps. the Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians & inches along the radians

  It’s a slight variation on the Gilbert and Sullivan original:

  As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list of society offenders who might well be underground, and who never would be missed, who never would be missed! There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs, all people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs, all children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat, all persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that, and all third persons who on spoiling tête-à-têtes insists, they’d none of ’em be missed, they’d none of ’em be missed. . . .

  In The Mikado, we learn that Ko-Ko was once condemned to death for flirting, but reprieved at the last moment and raised to the exalted rank of Lord High Executioner. According to Gilbert and Sullivan’s own lyrics:

  And so we straight let out on a bail, a convict from the county jail, whose head was next, on some pretext, condemned to be mown off, and made him Headsman, for we said, who’s next to be decapitated, cannot cut off another’s head until he’s cut his own off.

  Because of some perceived wrong in his own life, it seems that Zodiac came to identify himself with the character of Ko-Ko, who acts in the play as a combined judge, jury, and executioner.

  Bay Area detectives, alert to any possible clue to the killer’s identity, started examining programs and interviewing people involved in local productions of The Mikado. Their efforts led them into yet another dead end.

  Four years later, in January 1974, the Chronicle received another mailing from Zodiac, referencing a different Mikado song, also sung by Ko-Ko Lord High Executioner.

  13.5

  13.6

  The letter reads:

  I saw & think “The Exorcist” was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen.

  Signed , yours truley :

  He plunged him self into the billowy wave and an echo arose from the sucides grave titwillo tit willo tit willo

  Ps. if I do not see this note in your pape- , I will do something nasty, which you know I’m capable of doing

  Me - 37

  S F P D- 0

  After calling the horror movie The Exorcist the best satirical comedy he’s ever seen, Zodiac quoted directly from the song “Willow, Tit-Willow,” which is a threat by Ko-Ko to his lover that he might die of a broken heart and “plunge himself into the billowy wave” if she rejects his overture of love. In a line of dialogue that follows, Ko-Ko states that he “finds beauty in bloodthirstiness.”

  Apparently, Zodiac wanted authorities to believe that he was con
templating entering “suicide’s grave.” Was he leaving a clue, either consciously or subconsciously, to his other crimes?

  In 2000, during the early stages of my Dahlia investigation, I came across the following article printed in the Los Angeles Times. According to the article, someone claiming to be the Black Dahlia Avenger staged a possible suicide on the two-month anniversary of Elizabeth Short’s murder. The man left his clothes and a penciled handwritten suicide note at the water’s edge on Venice Beach to create the impression that he’d plunged to his death.

  13.7

  From the March 15, 1947, Los Angeles Times article:

  A man’s clothing and a note scrawled in pencil on a bit of foolscap found by the ocean’s edge at the foot of Breeze Ave., Venice, yesterday revived the lagging investigation of the mutilation murder of Elizabeth Short, 22, the “Black Dahlia.”

  If the note is authentic, it indicated that the person who brutally slew Miss Short and left her body in a Norton Ave. lot last Jan. 15 had committed suicide, driven to walk into the sea by the shadow of his crime.

  The pile of clothing was first seen by a beach caretaker, who reported the discovery to John Dillon, lifeguard captain. Dillon immediately notified Capt. L. E. Christenson of West Los Angeles Police Station.

  “Too much of a coward.”

  The note, tucked inside one of the shoes, read:

  To whom in may concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me. I couldn’t help myself for that, or this. Sorry, Mary.

  It was not signed.

  Nothing else—not even a laundry or cleaning mark—was found in the clothes that might give any hint of the identity of their owner. “Mary” also remained a mystery.

  During the early stages of my Dahlia investigation, I had originally disregarded the note as a probable hoax, assuming it had been written by a prankster or emotionally disturbed individual temporarily caught up in the sensationalism of the Dahlia story. But now I think it’s worthy of a closer consideration.

  Why? Because it appears to be an interesting part of the Avenger/ Zodiac’s MO. In several other instances he suggested he would either turn himself in or commit suicide, sometimes on the anniversary of a particular murder.

  In the 1944 Los Angeles Georgette Bauerdorf note, the Avenger had claimed he would “appear in person at the Hollywood Canteen, on or about October 11, the one-year anniversary of her murder.” I believe this confirms the Avenger’s interest in anniversary dates, and it may be no coincidence that this date is a day after George Hodel’s birthday of October 10. October 11 was also the day Paul Stine was killed by Zodiac.

  In 1946, the Degnan suspect wrote, “If you don’t ketch me soon, I will cummit suicide. . . . You may find me at the Club Tavern at . . . Please hurry now.”14

  Twenty years later in Riverside, California, “Z” sent a “confession letter” for the Cheri Jo Bates murder on the one-month anniversary of her death. Five months later, on the murder’s six-month anniversary, he dispatched a second note that said “Bates had to die.”

  Thus, it seems that Zodiac’s Mikado reference hinting at suicide out of “blighted affection,” along with his mailing of notes on the anniversary dates of his kills, follows a pattern that echoes through Chicago, L.A., and Riverside.

  Before we leave Zodiac’s letter dated January 29, 1974 (#21), I want to turn your attention to the notation at the bottom: “Me - 37; SFPD - 0.” This would appear to be a tally of thirty-seven murders committed to this point. If so, it might not be an exaggeration. By my count, if we link all of the murders to my father, George Hodel’s total killings could well approximate Zodiac’s boastful claim of thirty-seven.

  Zodiac’s letter of January 1974 isn’t the first or last time he mentioned popular movies, either. In letter number eighteen (postmarked February 13, 1971) he references the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine . Letter number twenty-four (postmarked July 8, 1978) offered his personal critique of the Terrence Malick movie Badlands, a fictionalized version of the murder spree conducted by teenagers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in Nebraska and Wyoming during 1958.

  Missive sixteen (a postcard sent on October 5, 1970) is of interest because of its use of cut-and-paste letters, a practice employed by the Black Dahlia Avenger in his letters to the press following the Elizabeth Short murder in L.A.

  13.8

  On October 12, 1970, the Los Angeles Times headlined an article NEW ZODIAC BOAST: CLAIMS 13 VICTIMS IN TWO NOTES. An excerpt from that article described the postcard as having “. . . a Christian cross carefully drawn in blood and then cut out along its outline and pasted to the card. Police said the blood appears to be human.” Figure 13.9 shows an enlargement of the section containing the “Christian cross.” This is reminiscent of the September 21, 1945, Los Angeles Times article that referenced a typed note sent in by the killer of Georgette Bauerdorf. The sheriff’s crime lab upon analyzing the note determined that the suspect had smeared iodine on the note to simulate blood. If in fact Zodiac’s 1970 note is human blood, it could be another potential source of DNA and or blood type.

  13.9

  The postcard reads:

  Mon. Oct. 5, 1970

  DEAR EDITOR:

  You’ll hate me, but I’ve got to tell you. THE PACE ISN’T ANY SLOWER! IN FACT IT’S JUST ONE BIG THIRTEENTH 13 ‘Some of Them fought It Was Horrible’ (cross) (inverted)

  P.S. THERE ARE REPORTS city police pig cops are closeing in on me, Fk I’m crackproof. What is the price tag now ?

  ZODIAC

  It appears that Zodiac might have been trying to leave a hint about his L.A. murders that investigators seemed to have missed. On March 16, 1971, a copy boy sorting through the mail at the Los Angeles Times came across a white envelope with the urgent message: “Please rush to editor.” It had been mailed from Pleasanton in Alameda County, some four hundred miles north. The letter inside was classic Zodiac.

  13.10

  This letter to the Los Angeles Times reads:

  This is the Zodiac speaking Like I have allways said I am crack proof. If the Blue Meannies are evere going to catch me , they had best get off their fat asses & do something. Because the longer they fiddle & fa-t around , the more slaves I will collect for my after life. I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there. The reason that Im writing to the Times is this, they don’t bury me on the back pages like some of the others.

  SFPD - 0- 17+

  Not only does he refer to police discovering his “riverside” activity—namely the murder of Cheri Jo Bates—he also states, “they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there.”

  Investigators never made the connection between Zodiac and the Black Dahlia Avenger, despite the fact that detectives, criminologists, psychiatrists, Zodiac fanatics, cryptologists, and amateur sleuths have spent thousands of hours poring over the twenty-five letters, searching for clues to Zodiac’s identity.

  Nor have they ever found anything in the letters that they believe links them to a specific individual. After carefully analyzing all twenty-five missives, most experts agree that they reveal the following attributes of the killer who called himself Zodiac:

  • He displays an enormously warped sense of superiority over other human beings and a mad desire to “show it off.”

  • He has a strong Jekyll-Hyde complex that causes him to kill his “slaves” with insane ferocity one moment and blend into society by acting normal the next.

  • He hates cops and all constituted authority and enjoys taunting them for their “stupidity.” He sometimes referred to them in the slang of the time as “blue pigs.”

  • His clumsy use of vernacular of the late ’60s and early ’70s, combined with his use of slang expressions that had been out of use for a quarter of a century, may in
dicate an older man in his fifties or sixties.

  • He’s well educated and well read, and demonstrates familiarity with The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Greek alphabet, and early Native American and Asian hieroglyphics.

  • He’s interested in culture, can quote lyrics by Gilbert and Sullivan, and has an interest in current movies.

  • He claims to have killed many more than the five victims the police have attributed to him, and chides authorities to look further.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’m gonna keep you guessin.

  Zodiac, 1990

  There’s no doubt that the handwriting and content of the notes provide significant clues to the identity of the man who called himself Zodiac. With that in mind, I again contacted questioned document examiner Hannah McFarland in the spring of 2008 and asked her to compare them to several dozen samples of my father’s handwriting.