The Haunting of the Gemini

by Jackie Barrett

  The killer embraced the Zodiac name and all the terror that came with it. Just after the Central Park shooting, he sent another letter to the Post, claiming that he was the same Zodiac who’d killed at least six people in the San Francisco area in the late 1960s. Investigators and psychologists doubted this claim from the start—the West Coast Zodiac seemed to have been a weapons expert who enjoyed torturing his victims, while the New York Zodiac kept his distance while killing, and signs pointed to his using homemade guns, since the bullets found at the crime scenes did not have characteristics typical of ones fired by properly manufactured guns. And a homemade gun would likely fire only one round, which would explain why the killer hadn’t finished off his wounded victims right then and there. But the association did nothing but increase his mystique and the public’s hysteria.

  Psychologists guessed that the Zodiac was a poorly educated loner who probably lived alone near the Brooklyn-Queens neighborhoods where the first three shootings took place, and that he desperately wanted attention. So the police were pretty worried when the Thursday three weeks after Larry Parham’s shooting rolled around, worried enough to gather a task force of fifty detectives, the largest group assembled since the Son of Sam manhunt in the mid-1970s.

  That Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the task force spread throughout the city, searching for the Zodiac. They understandably concentrated in the sections of Woodhaven, Queens, and East New York, Brooklyn, where the first three attacks had occurred. And they weren’t the only ones out patrolling. Groups of citizen vigilantes roamed the streets in that area, looking for suspects. And, proving that all kinds live in New York, still other residents actually held tailgating parties and outdoor get-togethers to boast of being unafraid.

  The police questioned more than thirty-six men throughout that night, but none turned out to be the Zodiac. The most famous person in New York stayed away, still safely unknown.

  * * *

  No attacks came that Thursday, or the next month, or even the next year. In fact, the Zodiac Killer waited two years before killing again. For the first time, he used a knife; and for the first time, he attacked on a day other than a Thursday. Patricia Fonti was a thirty-nine-year-old mentally ill homeless woman who frequented Highland Park in Queens. She was stabbed more than one hundred times just after midnight on Monday, August 10, 1992. The amount of time that had passed, and the changes to the killer’s modus operandi, meant that her death wasn’t immediately connected to the Zodiac Killer. In fact, like Joanne and I had found, it wasn’t even reported by most newspapers. Patricia was a Leo.

  Almost a year after that, on June 4, 1993, a man named James Weber was shot and injured near Highland Park. It was a Friday, and he was a forty-year-old Libra.

  Seven weeks later, the Zodiac Killer came back to near Vermont and Cypress Avenues where James had been attacked and fatally shot forty-year-old John Diacone, a Virgo.

  Only five more signs to go.

  The killer stayed in Highland Park for his next attack. Diane Ballard was on a park bench near Jamaica Avenue when he shot and wounded her in October 1993. She was left partially paralyzed. And she was a Taurus, the only known duplicate sign among the Zodiac’s victims.

  The police didn’t dwell on her astrological sign, however, because they had no idea these four latest attacks were connected to one another at all. And they definitely had no clue that they had been committed by the same Zodiac Killer they’d hunted so frantically in 1990. This time, he left no letters behind, nothing to draw attention to himself.

  That is, until he decided to send another letter to the New York Post, in August 1994.

  “Hi, I’m back,” it read. In it, he claimed credit for the four attacks in 1992 and 1993, as well as another one, in June 1994, that detectives could find no evidence of having actually happened. Detectives could not confirm to their satisfaction that the writer of the letter was in fact the same person who had started the reign of fear in 1990, but they knew the author at least had knowledge of the crimes that an ordinary person would not have. They were quite eager to track him down, and they hoped that a partial fingerprint left on that New York Post letter would help. But, having made his spectacular splash in the largest media market in the country, the Zodiac again fell silent, patiently waiting until it was time to strike again.

  The police still had no idea who the Zodiac Killer was. No one did—until 1996. Then the case broke wide open. And my research got more and more interesting.

  * * *

  On June 18, 1996, Heriberto “Eddie” Seda was mad at his half sister. He did not like the people she was hanging out with. So he shot her. Hit in the lower back, she ran out of the family’s small apartment in a drug-dealer-infested building in East New York, and someone called the police. Eddie Seda fired at the first responders from his window, which sent officers swarming all over the neighborhood, sealing off several city blocks. Residents took cover as the gunfight continued. The scale of it was unusual, but in one of the worst sections of the city at that time, gunfire was not. As one neighbor told The New York Times, “People know what to do around here when they hear shots.”

  The police negotiators eventually convinced Eddie to surrender and give up his weapons. He ended up handing over thirteen homemade zip guns, putting them into a bucket officers lowered down to his window from the roof. They were treating him as one dangerous son of a bitch, and with good reason. Once Eddie was under arrest, police found two finished pipe bombs inside his apartment, along with enough materials to make at least nine more.

  Initially, the police were just relieved to have the twenty-eight-year-old in custody. But soon, they were delighted. Because Eddie couldn’t help himself. At the end of a written statement about that day’s standoff, he signed his name and put a strange little symbol. One of the detectives interviewing Eddie showed it to a colleague, who took one look and knew that the man who had written it was the Zodiac Killer.

  The colleague had worked on the huge task force in 1990 and immediately called another detective who he knew had copies of the Zodiac letters. They compared the handwriting. Same s’s, same crossed t’s. Same guy. They went back to Eddie, who was still cooling his heels in a police station interview room. He denied it. He debated guilt and absolution with the cops for a while. Then the detectives showed him photos of his victims. Then Eddie read the Bible for a bit. And then, finally, he dictated a confession. He told them he’d had to kill his victims because they were evil.

  And so Heriberto Seda was arrested in connection with eight attacks over four years. He was a recluse, a religiously devout man who railed against the drug dealers that infested his neighborhood. Growing up, his mother supported him and his half sister with welfare and small odd jobs, but she didn’t maintain much control over his behavior. He still lived with both of them in that small apartment on Pitkin Avenue, where he’d stocked his tiny bedroom with the pipe bombs, along with things like a bow and arrow, plastic models of military equipment, gun magazines, and ammunition he ordered through the mail. Neighbors said he seemed to sleep all day and went out only at night. He wore black and pulled his hair back in a thin ponytail. As far as neighbors could tell, he’d never held a job and had never had any contact with his father.

  His fingerprints matched the 1994 letter to the New York Post, as well as the print on the letter left at the scene of Larry Parham’s shooting, in Central Park. Armed with that evidence and Eddie’s confession, prosecutors prepared for trial.

  * * *

  As Joanne and I continued digging through the Internet for information on Eddie, we came across some appalling information. Eddie had been arrested before, and he could have been stopped sooner. The fingerprints left on the 1990 Parham letter and the 1994 newspaper letter had been recorded in the state law-enforcement database, ready to be compared with those of anybody arrested anywhere in New York. Unless the person was released too quickly after his arrest. Like Eddie had been.


  In March 1994, five months after he’d shot and paralyzed Diane Ballard, Eddie had been arrested for carrying a gun. The cops sent it to the crime lab to see if it worked—standard procedure—and they took Eddie’s prints. Back then, such things weren’t transmitted immediately by computer. They’d faxed a copy of his prints to the state database, but faxed prints weren’t clear enough to compare with partial fingerprints or palm prints on file. So an original set had to be sent, which usually happened within eight days of the arrest. But not with Eddie.

  It turned out that his handmade gun didn’t work, and the cops couldn’t charge him with weapons possession. So Eddie was released, and because no charges had been filed, his original prints were destroyed before they could be sent to the state, where they could very well have triggered a match with the Parham letter. The Zodiac Killer walked out of jail with no one but him having any idea how close he’d come to being unmasked.

  * * *

  Eddie’s first trial started in 1998, two years after his arrest. It took six weeks and involved the crimes he had committed in Queens—the murders of Joseph Proce, Patricia Fonti, and John Diacone, and the attempted murder of James Weber. Eddie sat in court and clutched a Bible most of the time. The prosecution introduced 150 pieces of evidence and called more than forty witnesses. The defense called none, instead trying to persuade jurors that their client’s confession to police—which was dictated, not personally handwritten—had been coerced. They did not pursue an insanity defense, partially because they could not find any psychological expert who would testify that Eddie was insane.

  The jury deliberated less than five hours before finding Eddie guilty of all three murders and the attempted murder. He was sentenced to serve at least eighty-three years and four months before becoming eligible for parole. Eddie had no reaction as the verdict was read.

  One year later, he was also convicted by a Brooklyn jury of trying to kill Mario Orozco, Jermaine Montenesdro, Diane Ballard, and his own half sister, as well as for trying to shoot four police officers on the day that he was captured. For those eight convictions, Eddie was sentenced to an additional 152 years and six months in prison.

  During Eddie’s sentencing on the murder convictions, the prosecutor told the judge that Eddie deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison because he had purposefully created a frenzy with his letters, and because he’d intentionally targeted “lost, vulnerable souls.”

  Eddie became a resident of the New York State penal system in 1998. I did some quick math. That meant he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until 2232, when he would be 265 years old. Good, I thought. He’ll never be a threat again.

  Or so I thought.

  FIVE

  I thought I had solved the mystery of who Patricia Fonti was, so I gratefully went back to my regular work. I still didn’t know exactly what this Patricia lady wanted from me, but she quieted down a little, and I was able to get back to business. And what a business it is.

  The problems that people come to see me about are as varied as the people themselves. Grieving parents and children, cops, lawyers, psychologists, petty criminals, streetwalkers, and murderers, just to name a few. And I’ve heard it all—personality disorders, eating disorders, sexual confusion, panic and anxiety, depression, threats of suicide, possession, reincarnation, hauntings, exorcisms.

  I do my best to provide solace and relief, and sometimes I help them find their own solutions. Once clients come to see me, they become part of what I call our Universal Circle. Joanne and I keep track of their progress—the two of us meet afterward to discuss their needs and the resolution we are aiming for; then we check in with them to see how they’re doing.

  Some clients take more work than others. But they oftentimes turn out to be a lot of fun, too. I had one client, a successful businessman in his thirties, who could spin copper into gold but couldn’t find love if it fell in his lap. He was so shy around women that the fear of speaking to one triggered bouts of irritable bowel syndrome. The thought of having a conversation with a woman he was romantically interested in would send him running for the nearest toilet, God love him. But he knew that his life was incomplete without a partner. So he came to me.

  He walked into my office looking all fancy in his three-piece suit. I made him take off his shoes before we started. It teaches two things—first, never wear socks with holes, and second, that we are on even ground, with neither one of us better than the other.

  His whole demeanor screamed wealth and superiority, so the first thing I did was inject a dose of reality. “Rule one, hot stuff,” I said. “Ladies can make their own money, roll it out, and feed a family, too.” We talked about him needing to loosen up, lose the suit and tie, and stop worrying about what others think of him.

  Eventually, he admitted that he had his eye on a cute dark-haired lady in his office. I worked with him endlessly to get up the courage to ask her for a date. He thought of every scenario that could go wrong. “Right there, you are squashing your own dream,” I told him. I definitely had my work cut out for me. It took two weeks of rehearsing conversations and working on his walk (to project a calm confidence), but he finally had the nerve and the skills to ask her out. She said yes. Then he went back to worrying again.

  So I did my thing and made him a voodoo doll. I make my dolls from an old Louisiana-style recipe in which I stuff them with Spanish moss, herbs, roots, and some cotton to hold hand-blended oils in just the right places. I put in a piece of the owner-to-be’s hair and attach a picture of the desired person to the outside. Then the doll sits on my altar for several days until the awakening happens. The doll, to a certain extent, comes to life. It becomes a part of the owner, a companion and helper. It becomes the owner’s wants and needs, his best friend.

  My businessman friend came for his a few days before his date. He took the tiny treasure in his hands, and as he sat down on the couch, he told me that a wave went through him and he felt light-headed. I just smiled. And then I went through the rules—he needed to visualize what he wanted in the relationship. And he could never use the doll for wrongdoing.

  He agreed, of course, and I stepped back to have a look at him. He had the vibe. He was confident. I had a very positive vision of him in a particular Manhattan restaurant for dinner. But good grief, those clothes! We had to get him some new ones. And I knew just the guy to help us.

  Gino had been my client for years. And he also happened to sell the hottest threads around out of his parents’ basement in an outer borough of the city. He’s a good ole Italian boy who looks like an extra in a 1970s Mob movie, living at home with his mama, and still looking for the right woman. I love going to visit—she feeds me like it was my last supper.

  My client couldn’t understand why we had to go all the way out there just to get a suit. He didn’t want to meet anybody’s family. Too nervous. I just shoved him in the car. He would be dressed to the nines in the finest sharkskin suit—that was one reason I was taking him. The other reason was because I thought it would be good for Mr. Big City Businessman to see how the other half lived.

  We stopped at a bakery first, to load up on Italian cookies and bread. Being half Sicilian, I know what to do. You take food as a sign of respect. And boy, did I respect Gino’s parents. The second we pulled into the driveway, they threw open the front door and greeted us with open arms. We had a huge, genuine Italian meal. His mama asked me as she served if I had a nice girl for her son. I just smiled.

  After dinner, Gino and I took my client to the basement. We felt our way down the stairs and then Gino hit the lights. He has the whole place tricked out. A long oak bar with leather sides lines one wall. The middle of the room is a tiled dance floor with a big disco ball hanging over it. And on the other wall is the clothes shop, with a blue velvet curtain and full-length mirrors.

  Gino put some music on, and I took a seat at the bar, coaxing my client to loosen up. Have some fun! Try stuff
on! After a few hours of every color shirt and slacks, we decided on smoked silver sharkskin pants that fit like a glove and a sky-blue shirt, open at the neck. Which meant my client needed a lot less chest hair. So Gino and I broke out the wax strips . . . in hindsight, maybe not the best idea. My poor client howled in pain, and we didn’t have enough to do it properly. But we ended with enough done to make the look work.

  We put him in front of the mirror, and his eyes glowed. Then Gino put more music on. “Let’s see what you got!” he said. We sat back and watched him dance around the floor. “Work it!” I yelled. But, oh dear. The boy had no moves at all. We decided it would be best if he kept the date to dinner and no dancing.

  I told my client that no matter what he did, he had to keep his doll in his possession at all times. As he was putting it into his pocket, Gino saw it and started looking like a starved kid in a candy store.

  “Oooh, you got a doll!” he said. “Let me see. Can I hold it?”

  I yelled at him. No way—only the owner holds it! Gino got his pout on, turned the music off, and stomped out. My client headed to the car in silence, but I could hear what he was thinking, loud and clear—What the hell did I get myself into? He quickly got into the car, leaving me outside with a sulking Gino. I made peace and thanked him for making my client shine. Then I thought, Why doesn’t he help me finish it? Come to dinner with me tomorrow, I said to Gino. I had to go to monitor my client’s date. If Gino came, then he could see the results of our hard work, too.