Fred took Warren into the forests, fields, mountains, and deserts to do his own collecting and outdoor studies. As a boy, Warren would have been so excited to capture the very butterfly his father was hunting; it was a chance to please his father for a change. Two of the young girls I spoke with both told me how excited Warren, as a man in his forties, would get about finding the smallest discarded gadget. A part of or a piece of any device would set him off into a childish display of “Look what I found!”
Warren drove all over the desert in his beloved Cadillac. The trunk of the vehicle was filled with tools and junk parts from devices only known to Warren … he would get very excited if someone near needed something fixed. From a snap to a bolt, he would produce what was needed from that trunk and make the part or repair right on the spot. The pockets of his baggy clothes always contained pieces of junk. One of his girls likened Warren to Doc in Back to the Future.
The inland Southern California area is made up of desert terrain, mountains, fields, clear open night skies, and creatures. Anyone wandering around in the rough California terrain, especially at night, would have to be armed with something and know certain important survival skills … skills Fred also taught his son. In the desert collecting his creatures, hiking, or working with his astronomy colleagues, Warren was often seen wearing a holster on his hip. He always kept guns in his vehicle, a dangerous habit for someone who was plagued with frequent bursts of road rage. Whenever he felt the urge, he wandered down around the gulches where the flood waters were or out to the desert to do some shooting. He roamed freely and did exactly what he wanted.
In the 1960s, a program soon to move to Riverside was started in San Francisco to replace incandescent street lights with mercury vapor lights that emanated twice the lighting with a bluish appearance. The lights increased visibility and reduced shadows for safer driving and also helped lower crime rates. But they caused havoc for astronomers as they clouded out whole galaxies and faint stars that become lost in the glare. Warren had been caught in the city by the Riverside Police several times putting out street lights because they interfered with his stargazing. We can only imagine how many times he did not get caught. When the Zodiac attacked two young students in their vehicle on July 4, 1969, shooting to death the young girl while the young boy miraculously survived, Zodiac’s anger would have been building for many nights while the skies were filled with blazing fireworks and glaring street lights instead of bright stars. This was Warren—possessive and not to be intruded upon.
Warren, with his special voice, gave many lectures. He always had to be the controlling speaker in any conversation, and he loved to debate. He was always telling everyone what he knew. He was a storyteller … a trait he displayed when as Zodiac he wrote a letter on August 4, 1969, to the San Francisco Examiner describing how he killed the young students on the Fourth of July and on Christmas. After writing about the Fourth of July killing, Zodiac continued on to write about the Christmas killing and started his narrative with, “In that episode,” as if telling us the next episode of a continuing story. And the story did continue with the stabbing murders of two students at Lake Berryessa. In this attack, Zodiac left his Mikado “little list” on the door of the Karmann Ghia belonging to the surviving victim, Bryan Hartnell. Zodiac had successfully killed “girls and boys” and would continue to put his diabolical plan together to kill a large amount of students by blowing up a school bus full of children he hated and then would prepare to strike out at his other hatred—the cops.
On October 11, 1969, when Zodiac murdered taxi driver Paul Stine, the San Francisco homicide investigators initially assigned to the case did not immediately know they were involved with a Zodiac murder. It was not until two days later, on October 13, 1969, when the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper received a Zodiac letter stating that he was the killer of the taxi driver and that he was the murderer of the “people” in the North Bay area. Zodiac had mailed the letter immediately after the killing as he was anxious for everyone to know what he had done. He did not get a chance to phone in the shooting that night as he was spotted by the police leaving the scene of the crime … some of his thrill had been spoiled. But not to be outdone by the police, Zodiac proved he was the killer by inserting a piece of taxi driver Paul Stine’s bloodied shirt. This was the same letter that stated he was going to “wipe out a school bus” and “pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.” The handwriting matched the previous Zodiac letters. In three short paragraphs accompanied by a bloody piece of a victim’s shirt, Zodiac laid down a heavy blanket of terror-filled fog throughout the Bay Area. The killer sent a total of three letters with bloody pieces of the taxi driver’s shirt. There is still a piece of the shirt that has never surfaced.
Five law enforcement agencies were now involved, and Zodiac had killed what appeared to be a new type of victim. He had already demonstrated that he was an extremely dangerous killer and had now become totally unpredictable.
Zodiac wanted to shoot boys and girls, stab boys and girls, blow up children, torture his slaves, kill lone people and couples in the night, and now he wanted to kill a cop.
On April 20, 1970, in a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle that included the “My name is_____” cipher, Zodiac informs us that he is not the killer who “wiped out that blue meannie [sic] with a bomb at the cop station.” He was referring to the bombing of the Golden Gate Park Branch of the San Francisco Police Department that killed one officer and wounded several others on February 16, 1970. The bomb was filled with industrial-size staples for shrapnel. Zodiac inserted his “new bomb” diagram in this same letter to assure us that his bomb was very different from the shrapnel bomb.
With Zodiac making statements such as, “If you cops think I’m going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads,” and “There is more glory in killing a cop than a cid [sic] because a cop can shoot back,” and “I will cruise around killing lone people in the night,” Zodiac had made Paul Stine that lone person in the night. I can only believe that the Paul Stine taxi driver killing was not only a rehearsal for a “cop killing” but also a setup to get proof for when he did kill a cop. By taking the time to tear off a piece of Paul Stine’s shirt, Zodiac could again include a piece of that shirt and some crime scene details in a letter to the police and newspapers as proof that he was the person who killed the cop. In the June 26, 1970, letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, Zodiac wrote, “I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a.38.” On June 19, 1970, one week before this letter was received, San Francisco police officer Richard Radetich was shot with a.38 while sitting in his patrol car. But Zodiac states he “shot a man,” not “a cop.” If he had killed the officer, he would have raged on about the killing with details … he could not have held back from harassing the cops, and he would have included a piece of Paul Stine’s bloody shirt in the letter.
In the April 20, 1970, letter where Zodiac talks about a cop being able to shoot back, he also states, “I am mildly cerous [sic] as to how much money you have on my head now?” It is obvious that Zodiac did not want to blow up a cop, but he did want to kill a cop—alone in his squad by shooting him in the head with a.38. Using Zodiac’s template, the killing would occur on a Fry [sic] night around ten o’clock, on a holiday weekend, and if the cop shot back, Zodiac will have his thrill further enhanced by creating a Wild West shoot-out. And it was time for Zodiac to use his.38 caliber, as he had already used a.22 caliber, a nine-millimeter, and a knife. The killing would take place in or around a park. In both of Zodiac’s telephone calls to the police the night of the murders, he used the term “park” as a landmark to direct the police to the killing site:
July 4, 1969, 12:40 a.m. call to the Vallejo Police Department
“I want to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find kids in a brown car. They have been shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.”
>
September 27, 1969, 7:40 p.m. call to the Napa Police Department
“I want to report a murder—no, a double murder. They are two miles north of Park Headquarters. They were in a white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. I’m the one who did it.”
Although Zodiac had used a knife to stab his victims at Lake Berryessa, surviving victim Brian Hartnell states that Zodiac showed the couple what is thought to be a.45 caliber weapon that he had drawn as he approached them … had there been any interference from the couple themselves or from a bystander coming upon the scene, Zodiac, dangerous and in the mood, surely would have used that weapon.
Zodiac was ready to strike out at a cop even if it meant a shoot-out. As Warren, he hated authority and hated the cops. And as Zodiac, he had been face to face with the police officers chasing him and had almost been caught. The time Zodiac spent in the taxi cab had almost got him caught, but he would not have to do that again when he made his encounter with a cop. He would do the deed and leave the area immediately … but he never did the deed. During the Paul Stine killing, Zodiac was clearly seen by witnesses across the street and again by Officer Fouke, who looked right at him.
There was now a wanted poster circulating everywhere that looked just like him as it was created by eyewitnesses and a trained police officer. In Zodiac’s November 9, 1969, letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, he states, “I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing. The rest of the time I look entirely different. I shall not tell you what my descise [sic] consists of when I kill.” He is clearly making excuses here for his appearance and has gone from one extreme to another. At Lake Berryessa he wore a hood, in San Francisco he wore no disguise, and in Vallejo and Solano County he was covered by the dark of night. Just as he ran wild through the deserts and on the highways, Warren’s Zodiac was running wild through their killing fields.
Early childhood trauma stays with a person into and through their entire adult life. Warren’s conditioning by his mother and the demanding disciplines of his father allowed Warren’s twisted childhood fantasies and adult anger to erupt into the Zodiac. He found that killing “lone people” up close in cold blood was easy for him.
Zodiac was bold, smart, and crazy and was now aware that his killing behavior at the taxi crime scene created a heightened risk factor that involved getting killed himself, and this new consideration along with a timely phone call from a friend that redirected his interest from killing to making movies would allow him to put his “collecting” skills to use and just walk away from what had evolved into much more than a deadly killing spree fantasy. However, his newfound distraction would not immediately halt his harassment of the police and citizens of the San Francisco Bay Area. Zodiac would send out fourteen more harassing, threatening letters between March 1971 and January 1974, creating a lull of two years and ten months until the final correspondence was received. No letters were sent in the last four years of Zodiac’s life.
Warren’s continued drug use was straining his health, and he was now consumed with making made-for-TV movies. But this dangerous serial killer was not to be underestimated; if his killing mood had resurfaced, Zodiac, even with his newfound fear of being captured and caged himself, was still most capable of striking out at any provocation. And it was becoming obvious that he did not just hate children, he hated everyone. He often talked to his young girls about how he wanted to just disappear … even imaging at times that he could not be seen. In the Paul Stein letter of November 9, 1969, Zodiac mentions how he “disappeared into the park a block & a half [sic] away never to be seen again.”
One of the young girls told me about a picture she had taken of Warren in her house at Christmas time. He worked his way behind her Christmas tree and spread the branches apart and told her to take a picture of him … she did … her husband tore it up and threw it away. Zodiac had sent a postcard on March 22, 1971, to the newspapers with the message, “Peek through the pines.” Warren was an observer. He was a telescope and binocular maker. He would have peeked through the pines many times.
Alvord School, Riverside.
Location of Warren’s science lab.
CHAPTER FIVE
CIPHERS—SYMBOLS—CLUES
Cipher—Three Part
Cipher—My Name Is _____ & Bomb Location
Cipher—340 Unsolved
Symbol—Halloween Card
Symbol—Exorcist Letter
Clue—Apollo Stamp & Silouettes
Zodiac sent his first letter to the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper on November 29, 1966. He titled the letter “The Confession.” The contents described his vicious attack on Cheri Jo Bates. He tells us, “I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game.” Four years later, on October 27, 1970, Zodiac sent a Halloween card to Paul Avery, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, who, like so many others, was obsessed with catching the Zodiac. Avery had written scathing criticism in his columns about the killer that sparked Zodiac to respond personally to Avery. The killer wrote on the cover of the card that he would clue us in on his name, but instead, inside the card, he stated, “But, then, why spoil the game!” And, further, he wrote a message around a peering eye inside the card, “Peek-a-Boo, you are doomed” … a threat that completely unnerved Avery, who started carrying a gun, and his coworkers, who started wearing buttons that stated, “I am not Avery.” Avery wore a button too—an office prank turned serious.
The person most experienced in the subject of murder is the homicide investigator—not the murderer. In the case of the Zodiac killings, his method of kill and run was very effective. The experienced homicide investigators working the cases would not have uncovered anywhere near the information about the killer as the killer himself gave to us in his letters. Zodiac’s outdoor crime scenes provided only minimal clues for even today’s forensic evidence technicians. Warren did not smoke, so there was not even an errant cigarette butt to recover. He did, however, eat sunflower seeds constantly … a habit he no doubt picked up while feeding his collection—some for you, some for me. If any sunflower seeds or husks were found at the murder sites, they would be a great circumstantial clue. Kathleen Johns remembered that the man she believed to be the Zodiac that kidnapped her and her baby, at one point while driving them around stated, “You should’t smoke. It’s bad for your health.” She also remembered seeing gum wrappers strewn about the interior of the suspect’s car.
Eyewitnesses to the Paul Stein killing provided an accurate composite of the killer, but the killer looked ordinary enough to still be elusive. Warren made sure he kept his hair longer now, dying it brown and combing it forward over his forehead. He could no longer go around with short graying hair … only trims. He was safe for now and would no longer kill, but he had to keep playing “the game” with the frustrated “cops.” He just could not let it go. However, I believe Zodiac wanted his ciphers to be solved, except of course for the “My name is _______” cipher. He was sure that because there were so many possible solutions to this cipher that it would never be viably solved … but he was wrong. Throughout his letters, he continuously reminded the police that he was crack proof and let them know that he was playing a game. Unless the Zodiac knew something the police did not, “the game” would not be any fun for him. Zodiac was offering clues to keep the game going. And if I was going to “crack” him, then I had to play the game too.
The police hoped that a solved cipher would give them a lead as to the identity of the killer. But that did not happen. On July 31, 1969, the first of four ciphers was sent out by the killer to three different newspapers. The San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Vallejo Times-Herald each received a third of the whole cipher. This cipher was a substitution cipher that included the word kill many times, yielding the double ll clue allowing some really educated guesses to be made as to what Zodiac was saying. A very clever California couple decided they were going to tackle the cipher and solve it … and they did. This was a great piece of so
lving as it encouraged others, including myself, to pursue solutions to the other ciphers. It now seemed reasonable to spend time and effort trying to solve the remaining ciphers when they were received as they too were probably legitimate works.
The “My name is _______” cipher sent to the San Francisco Chronicle on April 20, 1970, was easy to solve once I knew Zodiac’s true identity. I inserted the letters of his name with the “eight ball” symbol being the three E‘s in his name. I immediately decided that as I would have two characters too many in the code to fit the name Warren Estes, the obvious unneeded characters were the crossed circle earth symbol and the (inverted) vernal equinox symbol. A benefit of this code’s solution yielded the discovery that Zodiac did not assign a value to the crossed circle earth symbol or the vernal equinox symbol in another cipher either as I was later able to apply this information to the solution of the bomb location code cipher sent in Zodiac’s June 26, 1970, letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. The three-part cipher and the 340 symbol cipher did not contain the vernal equinox symbol.
As no one has been able to solve the enigma of the Zodiac, I continued my method of investigation of not letting previous opinions of others guide my inquiries. I was always searching for another position to investigate in an effort to not duplicate what had already been met with negative results. In the case of the “My name is________” cipher, for instance, so many people felt that the eight balls were Taurus signs as most were just stuck on the astrology mood of the day. In the Zodiac Mikado letter of July 26, 1970, to the San Francisco Chronicle, Zodiac paraphrases the original lyrics, “and all billiard players I shall have them play in a darkened dungeon cell with crooked cues & twisted shoes.” Knowing Zodiac had mentioned billiards, it is not a far leap to suggest he deliberately made the symbols eight balls, not Taurus signs, so we would be silently clued to the letter E. Warren was an astronomer, not an astrologer. As we know, there are many names that can be drawn out from the “My name is _______” cipher, with or without the benefit of the eight balls, but what is important here is that one of those names is Warren Estes.
Zodiac Cracked: The Manifestation of a Killer Page 6