Zodiac Unmasked (10 page)

532, White logical y might have paid attention to any knife. Coincidental y, Wil iam White’s birthday, December 20, was also the date of the Lake

Herman Road shootings. White shared a last name with Sergeant Wil iam White, the second ranger to reach the couple Zodiac stabbed at Lake

Berryessa. Al through October 1969, Ranger White had been highly visible in a series of television interviews about Zodiac.

“Yes, I talked to [Al en] at great length
several
times,” Lynch recal ed. “I spoke to him within one or two months of one kil ing.” He now recal ed a

typed three-by-five card addressed specifical y to himself had arrived at the Val ejo P.D. on August 10, 1969. It had gone to the FBI, and he could

not recal if it had been returned or not. “Dear Sgt. Lynch,” it read. “I hope the enclosed key wil prove beneficial to you in connection with the cipher

letter writer. [signed] Concerned Citizen.” At that time only a Val ejo resident would have known Lynch was handling the then-embryonic Zodiac

case. “Concerned” had included a valid key to Zodiac’s three-part cipher. The key bore handprinted letters and symbols beginning “A-G-backwards

S-L.” The FBI reported, “It was a substantial y accurate key for decryption of the three-part-cipher mailed by Zodiac.” A solution to the cipher was

not published in the
Chronicle
until two days later.

In a letter to the
San Francisco Examiner
a week earlier, Zodiac explained he did not leave the scene “with squeal ing tires and raceing engine

as described in the Val ejo papers.” This was another indication Zodiac was a Val ejo resident who read the limited circulation local paper. So was

his instant reply to Val ejo Police Chief Stiltz’s August 1 entreaty for “more details.” It would be a considerable time after the oil refinery questioning

before Lynch’s 110-word report on Al en would be found—sandwiched between FBI Flyers #59 and #4316, and a local tip that went nowhere.

“Another example of a lack of coordination,” Val ejo Police Captain Roy Conway lamented many years later. “Sergeant Lynch, a good personal

friend of mine who was assigned to the case for a long time, died in the last couple of years. He has a police report that says on a particular date

he interviewed Arthur Leigh Al en about his whereabouts on the day of the Berryessa homicide. Which is al wel and good, but he doesn’t have any

recol ection whatsoever what information he had that made him interview Arthur Leigh Al en.

“Arthur Leigh Al en told him at that time—it’s just one little paragraph in the police report—it doesn’t say why he went to see him, what caused him

to see him, what conclusions he reached—nothing. Just that ‘I interviewed him about what he was doing the day of the Lake Berryessa kil ing.’

Coincidental y, Leigh had told Lynch, ‘I was on the way to Lake Berryessa that day to go fishing, but I changed my mind and went to the coast.’”

Detective Bawart also agreed with Conway in hindsight. “There’s a lot of instances that occurred in this case that happened in one area and the

other area didn’t know about it,” he said. “The Val ejo Police Department interviewed Arthur Leigh Al en in 1969 about the stabbings at Lake

Berryessa. The sergeant who did that interview went down and talked to him as he had talked to probably a hundred other people. Asked him

where he was the day of the Berryessa slaying. He said he had not gone to Berryessa but up the coast instead. Now we get back and look at this

years later and we go back to this Lynch, a lieutenant retired then—‘I don’t remember why I was talking to the guy,’ he says. ‘Somebody must have

cal ed his name in.’ He steps back and says, ‘No, I just don’t recal .’ If we knew who cal ed his name in, that person must have had some reason for

suspecting that Arthur Leigh Al en was responsible, had something to do with the case.”

County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Les Lundblad had also questioned Al en. Someone had tipped him too. This interview apparently was

unknown to the VPD because the Val ejo Sheriff’s and Police Departments were separate and independent forces. The third week after the

teenagers out on Lake Herman Road had been murdered by Zodiac, Lundblad went to see Al en. The stocky man had an alibi for that Zodiac

attack too, one considerably similar to that he would give Lynch. “I was out at Fort Point near Big Sur scuba diving,” he said. After each Zodiac

murder, Arthur Leigh Al en had been sought out. He was not such a new suspect after al . Someone out there knew something, and who that person

was was as much a mystery as Zodiac’s true identity.

Wednesday, August 4, 1971

Directly after speaking
with Al en at the refinery, Toschi and Mulanax decided to fol ow up on Ted Kidder and Phil Tucker—the men Al en

mentioned he might have shared conversations with about Zodiac. “I think Al en initial y assumed Kidder and Tucker had tipped the police,”

Mulanax said. “That’s why he volunteered their names so promptly.”

“Yeah,” said Toschi. “I think you’ve pegged it. It just took him a bit longer to realize he should have been thinking of Cheney and Panzarel a.” But a

lead was a lead, so the detectives hustled over to the Greater Val ejo Recreation District, where Kidder and Tucker worked. If Al en had predicted

Zodiac’s coming to Cheney, maybe he had done the same with Kidder or Tucker. Mulanax slid into a spot right in front of 395 Amador Street, and

they went inside looking for Kidder. Tucker might be the General Supervisor for the Recreation District, but Kidder was his boss.

“Do you know Arthur Leigh Al en?” Toschi asked Kidder. Kidder’s name had appeared on teacher’s applications Leigh filed with the Calaveras

Unified School District on December 23, 1965, and June 18, 1966.

“Sure,” he said.

“Has Leigh ever mentioned the Zodiac case?”

“To my knowledge, I never discussed the case with him. He was formal y employed by the Recreation District as a lifeguard and trampoline

instructor.” Cheney confirmed that sometime later. “Al en was going around teaching kids on the trampoline. He liked that. He was very adept on the

trampoline and a remarkable swimmer and diver—a champion on the diving board. He was superb at any athletic activity that did not involve

walking or running—Al en was not good at running. At that time, wel into his thirties, he was stil active, at least with the trampoline, while he was in

Val ey Springs. He would set it up in the front yard and he loved getting a bunch of kids and coaching them.”

Al en left GVRD for the same reason he had left Wogan’s station—his inappropriate actions toward smal children. “I had received numerous

complaints from concerned parents about acts he had made toward their children,” said Kidder. “But no formal complaint was ever lodged to the

police about Al en’s actions, no
formal
complaint anyway. As recently as three weeks ago, Phil Tucker and I had a discussion about Al en being a

suspect in the Zodiac murders. This talk came about primarily because of Al en’s suspected possibility of being a sexual deviate. That and his

physical description. We both considered Al en a loner type.”

Had either Kidder or Tucker been the original informant to Lynch and Lundblad? Tucker had reportedly gone to school with Al en at Cal Poly at

San Luis Obispo. He would know more. Toschi asked for Tucker to be summoned to Kidder’s office so they could ask him the same questions.

Tucker related that he had known Al en about five years. Lieutenant Husted of the VPD later told me more about Tucker. “Tucker and Al en often

talked with each other about death and about murder for sale,” he said. “I have a 1971 application fil ed out by Al en for a job as a Rodeo

[California] service station attendant, Tucker’s name on it. Tucker’s name is on al of them. I found it in the margins of one application. Very reliable

guy, Tucker.”

Tucker confirmed to Toschi that Leigh was equal y proficient with both hands and ambidextrous as an adult. This skil with both hands might

explain why Leigh’s handprinting did not match Zodiac’s. Zodiac, a born leftie, was writing with his right hand. “His handwriting is not real good,”

said Tucker, “and so he prints most things.”

“So, Leigh could write and shoot with both hands?” said Toschi.

“Yes,” Tucker admitted, then added, “For the last two years, Al en has brought up the Zodiac case in conversation. I feel he has an interest in the

case.” He sat back and thought. “I remember on one occasion he had told me that police considered him a suspect.”

“To your knowledge, did Al en have an interest in guns?” Toschi asked Tucker.

“He said he did have. He owned two handguns. One was a revolver, the other some type of automatic. I don’t know the calibers because I don’t

have much of a knowledge of guns myself. I think the guns in his home might be .22-caliber revolvers, and I saw at least one automatic. I recal that

he discussed having a special light attached to a gun barrel so that a person could shoot accurately at night. On more than one occasion he

admitted to shooting with special sights for firing in the dark.”

Toschi rubbed the back of his neck. Another portion of Cheney’s story had been corroborated. It was even hotter.

“Another time, about eighteen months ago,” continued Tucker, “my wife and I visited Leigh in his home. He made a remark that he had something

he would like to show us. ‘I only show this particular thing to very certain people,’ he said. Or something to that effect. He then took a paper from a

gray metal box he had gotten from his bedroom. This paper was handprinted and contained several pages of legal terminology and several pages

of letters which had symbols or codes or cryptograms on them. He said they pertained to a person who had been committed to Atascadero for

molesting a child. This paper rambled on and on in language of a legal nature, that sort of terminology, this and that. It was about this person having

been betrayed by his attorney. I noticed in this script there were various symbols used by Zodiac in his coded messages.”

Toschi nodded. He didn’t find it unusual that Tucker could recognize the symbols as Zodiac-like. The kil er’s three-part cipher had been widely

reprinted. On June 29, 1970, the approximate time of Tucker’s visit, the
Chronicle
had published a new Zodiac two-line cipher. “I only expressed

polite interest in the paper,” said Tucker, “but my wife showed genuine interest. She found the symbols or codes or cryptograms unusual. She

asked him if she might borrow the paper to study it, but he refused to al ow her to take the paper. He did promise to have a copy made to give her.”

“And did he?” asked Toschi.

“No, he never did.”

“Do you know if Al en has ever owned a 1965-’66 brown Corvair?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he replied.

“I see,” said Toschi.

“But I did,” said Tucker.

“You did?” said Toschi, wheeling. “You owned a 1965 brown Corvair?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever loan this car to Al en?”

“No, I haven’t. At the time I had two cars, the Corvair and the Pontiac. I let him use my Pontiac on occasion. I was living in Berkeley at that time. In

the summer of 1969 I left the Corvair parked at the Richfield Service Station at Nebraska and Broadway [in Val ejo] for about two weeks. I was

trying to sel it. I left the keys at the station and at this particular time Al en was employed as an attendant at that station.”

“Exactly when in the summer did you leave your car?”

“I can’t recal the exact time, but it was mid-summer of 1969.”

Tucker recol ected that three weeks prior, Karen, Leigh Al en’s sister-in-law, had visited and wanted him to speak to Al en on her behalf. “The

family had gotten another complaint about his recent involvement with a child,” Tucker said. “I went to Al en’s home and spoke to him about

resuming psychiatric treatment. However, I was unsuccessful and so I washed my hands of him. I told him, ‘I don’t want you to come around my

home in the future. Our association is at an end.’”

Toschi studied his Timex, anxious to compare notes with Armstrong. He visualized his partner equal y anxious to get on his motorbike and take

to the suburban dirt trails, the warm sun in his face. The rugged trail would rattle the cobwebs from his head. On weekends, as a diversion from

stress, Armstrong focused on salvaging his perpetual y wilting backyard garden. As for Mulanax, he was as fired up as he had been days ago. Now

he was interested in contacting Mrs. Tucker as soon as possible. He wanted to see what she recal ed about the printing inside the gray box. He

rang her from Kidder’s office, and learned she was working the graveyard shift at an Oakland hospital. That meeting would have to be postponed.

Instead, Mulanax decided to speak with Al en’s sister-in-law, Karen Al en, a twenty-six-year-old former schoolteacher. Mulanax phoned Karen at her

job and arranged to have her come into the Val ejo P.D. She arrived promptly at 2:00 P.M. and took a seat.

“Let me tel you why I asked you in,” Mulanax said. On the surface, Karen seemed surprised that her brother-in-law was suspected of being the

long-sought Zodiac kil er, but offered to give whatever help she could. Mulanax wondered if she could be the original tipster. He confirmed that

Karen knew of Al en’s preoccupation with children. She stated another thing positively—her brother-in-law hated women. “He has never had a

serious relationship with a female of his own age,” she said. Sandy Panzarel a had voiced similar remarks. “Leigh just pretended to be interested in

women,” he said. “Eventual y he gave up even that slender pretext.” Various women Leigh had dated afterward voiced the same opinion—their

relationship with him had only been platonic. In most cases sexual psychopaths have few social or sexual affiliations, and might never have