The Most Dangerous Animal of All

by Gary L. Stewart

  Darlene turned the car off, leaving the radio on.

  It was just before midnight when a car, maybe a Corvair, pulled in a few feet from them.

  When Darlene seemed to recognize the driver, Michael asked, “Who is it?”

  “Oh, never mind,” Darlene responded when the car suddenly left.

  A few other cars pulled in, and a group of teenagers got out and set off some fireworks.

  When they left a few minutes later, the car came back.

  Van, holding a flashlight, got out and approached the passenger side of the car, where Michael was sitting. He shined the light into Michael’s eyes.

  Van raised his nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol and began firing.

  Michael was hit first in the neck. Trying to jump into the backseat, he was shot again, in the knee this time. With Michael incapacitated, Van, moving quickly to the driver’s side of the car, turned his attention to Darlene.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Three shots into her arms and her left side.

  Satisfied, Van turned to walk away. But then he heard a scream. It was Michael, voicing his pain.

  Van turned around and walked back. He shot Michael two more times before turning his gun on Darlene and firing twice.

  Michael tried to open the door, but the handle was broken. Reaching out of the window, he opened the door from the outside and fell to the tarred ground. Writhing in pain, he watched as Van sped away toward Vallejo.

  A few minutes later, another car pulled in. Bleeding profusely, Michael yelled for help. Inside the car, Darlene could only moan.

  A young girl came over and told Michael to lie still while her friends called the police.

  Police, lights flashing and sirens blaring, flew to the scene. By the time help arrived, Darlene was struggling for each breath. Before she succumbed to unconsciousness, she tried to speak. The responding officer could only make out what he heard as “I” or “my,” before the young woman passed out. Darlene was pronounced dead when paramedics got her to the hospital.

  Michael required emergency surgery to remove four bullets, but he survived. He would later describe the killer for police: late twenties to early thirties, brown hair, round face, stocky build. He would also indicate that he thought they had been followed to the park.

  Forty minutes after the shootings, Van stopped at a service station on Tuolumne Street and Springs Road, four blocks from the sheriff’s office, and called the Vallejo Police Department from a pay phone.

  When the operator answered, he said in a steady voice, “I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.”

  The operator, Nancy Slover, would later describe his voice as “rather soft but forceful.” She stated, “The only real change in the voice was when he said ‘good-bye.’ ” Then his voice “deepened and became taunting.”

  Van had been wrong about the double murder. Michael was still alive.

  Darlene’s husband, Dean, and her former husband, James, were soon cleared as suspects. Again police had no motive for the attack, although in one police report it was noted that a possible motive was jealousy or revenge. They also noted the proximity and similarity to the murders that had occurred on Lake Herman Road in December of the year before.

  In Darlene’s address book they found the name Vaughn, the organist at the Avenue Theatre, and police deduced that she had some connection to the theater but couldn’t put the pieces together. No one could remember the name of the man who had been at her house, although Darlene’s sister Pam would later state that it was a short name, like Lee.

  Or Stan.

  According to police reports, Darlene’s sister Linda also reported that Darlene had a friend named Lee who brought her gifts from Mexico. One of Van’s aliases, listed in his criminal file with the FBI, was Richard Lee. Another alias, listed in Baton Rouge police reports, was Harry Lee.

  During that horrible night, Darlene’s husband, worried that his wife had not arrived home with the fireworks he had asked her to pick up, waited and waited. Darlene did not show up.

  Dean was left to raise their daughter, Deena, alone.

  29

  As was now his habit, Van read the newspapers religiously, studying each article about his murders in the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. He realized that police had no clue as to his identity. His arrogance increasing with each murder, Van decided to help them out.

  Using the simple techniques he had learned from his father as a child and honed throughout his life, he began to craft a cryptogram. First he wrote his message, deliberately forgoing punctuation and misspelling words:

  I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue animal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is thae when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the [people] I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to sloi down or stop my collectiog of slaves for my afterlife

  He included a series of letters at the end that had no meaning: “ebeorietemethhpiti.”

  He had also included a variation on LaVey’s satanic principle that man “has become the most vicious animal of all.”

  Van then began to encode his message, embedding his name and initials through the cipher.

  When he was satisfied that the code was unsolvable and that he had left enough clues to his identity, he cut the finished cipher into three sections. Then he wrote a letter to include with the cipher:

  Dear Editor

  I am the killer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman and the Girl last 4th of July. To Prove this I shall state some facts which only I + the police know.

  Christmass

  1 Brand name of ammo Super X

  2 10 shots fired

  3 Boy was on back feet to car

  4 Girl was lyeing on right side feet to west

  4th of July

  1 Girl was wearing patterned pants

  2 Boy was also shot in knee

  3 Brand name of ammo was Western

  Here is a cyipher or that is part of one. The other 2 parts of this cipher have been mailed to the S.F. Examiner + the S.F. Chronicle.

  I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1-69, If you do not do this I will go on a kill rampage Fry night that will last the whole week end. I will cruse around and pick off all stray people or coupples that are alone then move on to kill some more untill I have killed over a dozen people.

  The letter was signed with a symbol—a circle with a cross in the middle:

  Van addressed an envelope to the Vallejo Times-Herald, including a note on the front that said, “Please rush to editor,” and stuffed the letter and cipher inside. He wrote a second letter—similar to the first, with only a few slight changes—to the San Francisco Examiner. He included the second part of the cipher with this letter.

  Van sent the third part of the cipher with a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. In this letter he added, “In this cipher is my identity,” letting police and the public know that if the cipher was decoded, they would have their killer. This cipher would become known as the 408 cipher, because it had 408 letters and symbols.

  He attached double postage to each letter and put them all in the mail on July 31, 1969, the seventh anniversary of his arrest for child stealing.

  All three ciphers were published in the newspapers as Van had instructed.

  In a news article, Jack E. Stiltz, Vallejo’s chief of police, asked the killer for more information.

  It was time for Van to formally introduce the world to the name he had chosen for himself—Zodiac, from the Greek word zoion, meaning “animal,” or, in Van’s mind, “dange
rous animal.”

  Enjoying the attention he was receiving, he sent the San Francisco Examiner a letter postmarked August 4, 1969:

  This is the Zodiac speaking. In answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in Vallejo, I shall be very happy to supply even more material. By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me.

  On the 4th of July:

  I did not open the car door. The window was rolled down all ready. The boy was origionaly sitting in the frunt seat when I began fireing. When I fired the first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the same time, thus spoiling my aim.

  He ended up on the back seat then the floor in back thashing out very violently with his legs; that’s how I shot him in the knee. I did not leave the cene [scene] of the killing with squealing tires + raceing engine as described in the Vallejo paper. I drove away quite slowly so as not to draw attention to my car.

  The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed. I was in this phone booth having some fun with the Vallejo cop when he was walking by. When I hung the phone up the damn X@ thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car.

  Last Christmass

  In that epasode the police were wondering how I could shoot + hit my victims in the dark. They did not openly state this, but implied this by saying it was a well lit night + I could see silowets on the horizon. Bullshit that area is srounded by high hills + trees. What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun.

  If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 in. across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose; there was no need to use the gun sights. I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage.

  On August 8, the three-part cipher was solved by a Salinas high school teacher, Donald Harden, and his wife, Bettye, who had seen it in the newspapers. Their results were verified by the FBI. The couple would later explain that they assumed the word “kill” would be in the message, so they began by looking for letters or symbols repeated twice in a row that could represent “ll.” They also determined that the author of the cipher would be egotistical and would begin the message with “I.” After finding the word “kill” and then the words “killing” and “thrilling,” they were able to break the code.

  Investigators now realized they were looking for a serial killer and diligently searched the ciphers for the name of the person responsible for the murders. They noted the use of the word “shall” instead of “will” and the spelling of “Christmass” and determined their suspect may be British. They also recognized the reference to the Nine Satanic Statements. That didn’t help. Even though the cipher had been decoded, they couldn’t take the next step of deciphering the killer’s name, because they didn’t know what name to look for.

  For my father, the game had intensified. When he learned that his cipher had been decoded, he knew there was a possibility he would be caught soon. He waited for police to arrest him, but no one came.

  And although San Francisco and the surrounding areas were buzzing about the cipher-writing killer, another series of high-profile murders would soon steal Van’s thunder and bring even more terror to the Golden State.

  30

  On July 27, 1969, four days before Van sent his ciphers to newspapers, Bobby Beausoleil, the young musician my father had jammed with at the warehouse in the Haight, murdered Gary Hinman, a music teacher who lived in Topanga Canyon. Beausoleil had long since left Anton LaVey’s flock, and he, along with Susan Atkins and Mary Brunner, had moved to Spahn Ranch, in Los Angeles County, to join the Manson Family, a cult that had come together around 1967 under the leadership of Charles Manson. Still trying to fit in with his elders, Beausoleil set out to impress Manson—first by bringing sexy women into the fold and later by proving his worth through violence.

  Over a two-day period, Beausoleil and the girls held Hinman captive while trying to extort money from the gentle teacher, who had allowed Manson Family members to crash at his house from time to time. When they were unable to fulfill their mission, Manson arrived and slashed Hinman’s face and left ear with a sword. The girls attempted to sew Hinman’s ear with dental floss while Beausoleil tried to persuade him to give them his money. On the twenty-seventh, realizing their efforts were futile, Bobby stabbed Hinman twice in the chest, killing him.

  Atkins and Brunner then wrote the words political piggy on the wall in Hinman’s blood. A paw print was drawn near the words, their effort to frame the Black Panthers for the murder.

  Beausoleil would later claim that he committed the crime because he had a desperate need to be accepted, to be considered a man in the eyes of those he admired.

  Beausoleil was arrested on August 6, two days before Van’s ciphers were decoded. The killing of Gary Hinman did not receive the publicity in San Francisco that Van’s letters did, but what happened in the early-morning hours of August 9 would stun the nation and take the focus away from the Zodiac. The Manson Family was about to commit some of the most notorious and heinous murders in American history.

  Charles Manson had ordered Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Linda Kasabian to kill everyone in a beautiful home located at 10050 Cielo Drive, in the Santa Monica Mountains, which had formerly been rented by Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son. Previously home to Hollywood stars such as Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, and Melcher’s girlfriend, Candice Bergen, it was now the residence of Roman Polanski and his wife, Sharon Tate.

  On the night of August 8, Sharon, eight and a half months pregnant, was at home preparing for the arrival of her new baby. Her friends Jay Sebring, screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski, and Frykowski’s girlfriend, Abigail Folger, were also at the house.

  Steven Parent, an innocent eighteen-year-old, was the first victim. He had been visiting a new friend, William Garretson, who was the caretaker of the property. The unfortunate young man was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he rolled down his window to push the button that would open the electronic gate. Watson, reportedly high on acid and methamphetamine, walked up to Parent’s car and stabbed him once in the hand as Parent tried to defend himself against the knife that had suddenly come out of nowhere. Watson shot him four times before continuing on to the house.

  After entering the home through a window, Watson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel gathered the occupants into the living room. Tate and Sebring were tied together with a rope around their necks, and Frykowski’s hands were bound with a towel. While protesting the treatment of his pregnant friend, Sebring was shot by Watson.

  Frykowski, a martial arts expert, freed himself from his bonds and began fighting his captors—first Atkins, who stabbed him, and then Watson, who pistol-whipped him, stabbed him, and shot him twice as he was trying to escape. The autopsy report would later identify fifty-one stab wounds on his body.

  Folger escaped the house and made it to the pool area before Krenwinkel caught her. She would die there from the twenty-eight stab wounds her attackers inflicted upon her.

  Sharon Tate pleaded for the life of her unborn child, but the deranged killers would not hear her pleas and stabbed her sixteen times before writing messages on the walls of her home in her blood.

  Even the most seasoned detectives were horrified by what they found when they got to the scene of the murders.

  Manson decided to have his family members kill again the following night. Together with Watson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, Kasabian, Leslie Van Houten, and Steve Grogan, Manson headed to 3301 Waverly Drive, in Los Angeles, the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Manson and Watson were the first ones to enter the house. They found Leno sleeping on the couch. Rosemary was in her bedroom. After bringing Rosemary into the living
room, they tied the couple up with leather cords. Manson stole Leno’s wallet, then went back to the car and instructed Krenwinkel and Van Houten to go into the house. After Manson drove off with Grogan, Atkins, and Kasabian, Watson covered the frightened couple’s heads with pillowcases and gagged them with lamp cords. Krenwinkel and Van Houten led Rosemary down the hall and into her bedroom, where Krenwinkel began stabbing her with a knife she had found in the kitchen. In the living room, Watson stabbed Leno in the throat with a bayonet.

  Rosemary fought with Krenwinkel and Van Houten until Watson came into the room and stabbed her with his bayonet, ending her life. She sustained forty-one stab wounds, some of them inflicted postmortem by Van Houten. Watson then returned to Leno, stabbing him repeatedly until he was certain he was dead.

  The word war had been carved into Leno’s stomach, and rise and death to pigs had been finger-painted in blood on the walls. healter [sic] skelter had been written in blood on the refrigerator.

  The LaBiancas would be found by family members nineteen hours after their deaths.

  Because stolen vehicles had been spotted on their property, Charles Manson and twenty-five members of his family were arrested on August 16 at the ranch where they lived together. Police had no idea when they arrested the suspected auto-theft ring that they had in custody some of the killers who were terrorizing Los Angeles.

  Although there were so many similarities between the cases, police did not link the Hinman, Tate, and LaBianca murders for several months. It wasn’t until Atkins told her cell mates that she had participated in the murders that the pieces began to fall into place.

  Manson, Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten were found guilty and sentenced to death, but their sentences would later be commuted to life imprisonment when California outlawed capital punishment. Manson would also be found guilty of two more murders: those of Donald Shea, who lived on Spahn Ranch, and Gary Hinman. Grogan was also found guilty of the Shea murder and was sentenced to death. After his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, he would become the only member of the family involved in its murders to be paroled. Grogan was released from prison in 1985.