Zodiac Unmasked (15 page)

military men from the nearby air base. Fourteen days after Bates’s murder, Riverside police, under command to “drop everything and work this

case until solved!” ordered the sixty-two students, two librarians, and one custodian who had been at the library that fatal night to return for a

reconstruction. “Wear the same clothes you did two weeks ago.”

Sunday, November 13, 1966

Detective Dick Yonkers
and Detective Sergeant LeRoy Gren coordinated the library reenactment. The two stage managers lifted the curtain at 5

P.M. just as six motorcycle officers under traffic sergeant Al Fogarty were stationed at Terracina and Riverside, Fairfax and Riverside, in the

al eyway paral el to Magnolia near Terracina, and at the al ey exit onto Fairfax.

Detective Earl Brown and D.A.’s investigator Loren Mitchel , working from a master list, questioned and tape-recorded each student as they

entered. “What vehicle did you notice parked in front of you?” asked Brown. “A ’47-’52 tan-gray Studebaker with oxidized paint,” came one answer.

After the initial interview, each student was given a card with an assigned letter and checked off personal y by Captain Irvin Cross, head of the

detective bureau, as they completed the reenactment. Cross fingerprinted and snipped a lock of hair from each student. “Is there anybody you recal

seeing here that night who isn’t here tonight?” he asked each. “Give me a name and description.” The curtain fel at 9:00 P.M., the time when the

library usual y closed on Sunday nights. Only two people hadn’t returned—a woman and a bearded, heavyset young man, five feet eleven and a half

inches—Al en’s height.

Agent Mel Nicolai later placed Al en in Riverside that dreary Sunday. “He wasn’t working or going to school at the col ege,” he said. “He would

just go down every weekend from Calaveras County because he was involved in a car club down there. He was definitely there that weekend.”

Monday, November 14, 1966

Headline in the
Press-Enterprise
: “City police hunt bearded man after staging scene in murder. A heavy-set man with a beard is being sought.”

Sergeant Gren said police are “very interested” in talking to this man. The implication was that the kil er had worn a beard as a disguise. Did

Zodiac disguise himself with various wigs—pompadour, black hair, crew cut? What sort of man relies on a hairpiece to look different? A man

without hair.

Tuesday, November 22, 1966

A nineteen-year-old University
of California at Riverside coed, walking west on Linden, became aware of a car creeping slowly alongside her.

Looking around, she observed a man offering her a ride. “No, thanks,” she said. “Wel , after al , I’m not Jack the Ripper,” replied the driver. “Don’t

you recal ? I gave you a ride three weeks ago.” Three weeks ago Cheri Jo had been murdered. The girl smiled, vaguely remembering him, opened

the car door, and slid in. The ride went smoothly. He dropped her off at a local pizza parlor. When her boyfriend failed to meet her, she started back

toward the UCR library. The same man rol ed alongside again and picked her up, but instead of taking her home, drove rapidly up a dark road to

Pigeon Pass. “There are a lot of kooks running around,” he said as the car slowed. “You heard about that girl at City Col ege, didn’t you?”

Frightened, the girl leaped from the car. Racing along the road’s edge, she fel . “I’m not going to kil you,” he shouted as she scrambled to her feet.

“If I wanted to kil you, I could just hit you in the head with this piece of wood.” She returned to the car, but instantly his hands closed around her

throat. “Now if I wanted to kil you, I could just snap your neck,” he said. “Shal I kil you now, or are you going to take off your clothes?”

As he grabbed her sweatshirt, she wriggled free and bolted into the woods. The stranger gave up searching for her and roared off with her purse

and books. Sobbing, covered with scratches and burrs, she staggered to the Highgrove area. When police responded, she described the suspect

as “thirty-five, five feet nine inches tal with a chunky, protruding stomach.” Later descriptions of Zodiac mentioned “a slight potbel y” and that his

“stomach hung over his trousers.”

Tuesday, November 29, 1966

Bates’s killer (or
someone pretending to be her murderer) mailed two unstamped letters from a rural mailbox to the police and
Riverside Press-

Enterprise.
The typed confession letters, repeating what he and Cheri Jo had spoken to each other in the dark, were blurry fourth- and seventh-

generation carbon copies. The original was never mailed, making a match to a specific typewriter difficult. The writer had used a portable Royal

typewriter, Elite-type, Canterbury shaded.1 Leigh’s mother had given him just such a portable. The length of the paper was unknown since the

author had torn off the bottom and top of a strip of Teletype paper. Oddly, he had folded back both bottom corners. The writer claimed to have

phoned the
Press-Enterprise,
but probably did not. Some of the language was Zodiac-like. “I AM NOT SICK. I AM INSANE. BUT THAT WILL NOT

STOP THE GAME.” Zodiac wrote: “why spoil our game!”

Wednesday, November 30, 1966

Allen received his
first critique at Val ey Springs School. “It might be better to refrain from drinking soda pop in the classroom,” his evaluator

suggested, “and voice loudness needs to be refined.” Leigh’s personal characteristics were judged “satisfactory,” as were his classroom control

and management. “Very excel ent in use of Audio-Visual materials . . . needs to react with pupils so they can distinguish between friendliness and

familiarity.”

Friday, March 10, 1967

The Valley Springs
administrator delivered his second appraisal. “Leigh accepts criticism and suggestions easily, is open-minded and

adaptable to new ideas,” it read. “I would suggest he take more care in his dress.”

But Leigh would sometimes, when the black mood was upon him, lower his head to his desk in the classroom and murmur the word “Titwil ow”

over and over. This and his unwelcome advances against the eleven-andtwelve-year-old girls in his classes caused great fear. He would have the

more developed girls bounce for him on his trampoline, then make unwelcome remarks. Two of the girls caught him spying on them at their

grandmother’s house across the freeway from Al en’s home.

It was morning, March or early April 1968, and classes at Val ey Springs had already started, when the mother of one of Al en’s pupils stalked

into the principal’s office. “Yesterday,” she said, “Mr. Al en had his hands al over my daughter right at his desk.” The principal, already suspicious,

believed her immediately. He cal ed and got a substitute teacher. When the substitute arrived, he cal ed Al en out of his class and fired him on the

spot. Al en started crying and sobbing. “Yes,” Leigh said, “I did it. I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” As far as the principal

was concerned, this was a “great big act.” Within days, Ron and Karen Al en drove to the school to apologize for Leigh’s behavior. They had been

amazed he had gotten a job there in the first place.

The official reason for Leigh’s termination was given as “improper conduct” and an “exaggeration of his teaching credentials.” Leigh filed his

resignation and moved on, continuing to work with children.

Sunday, April 30, 1967

Six months later,
in response to an article in the Sunday morning
Press-Enterprise,
Zodiac cruel y wrote the victim’s father, the
Enterprise,
and the police. His three handprinted letters, on lined, three-holed school paper of poor quality, measured eight inches wide. Standard writing paper

was eight and one-half inches wide. His letters, like Zodiac’s letters, carried double postage, and like Leigh Al en’s personal letters to children,

were in pencil.

Friday, August 25, 1967

“In the summer
of 1967 Leigh and I went on a deer hunt north of the Bay Area,” Cheney told me. “I used to be an avid hunter, but I don’t hunt

anymore. That was when I was growing up and that was what we did then. I didn’t go hunting with him often because I real y didn’t think he was a

superior hunting partner. I went a couple of times with him on a major deer hunt where we went and spent two or three days. A few other times we

just went out for the day to hunt smal game. He was al right to fish with, if you didn’t have to hike. He wasn’t that good on his feet. His feet hurt him.

He had flat feet and was overweight; sometimes he had gout. As for weapons, I had a Winchester Model 88, .308 NATO cartridge, but I don’t

remember what gun Leigh had. I didn’t have another large rifle to loan him at that time, and so he dug something up on his own. He got it from

somewhere.

“Just a couple blocks away from his house, nestled at the bottom of Fresno Street, was a pancake house. After the hunting trip, we were going

someplace for an outing when we saw a girl there, a waitress. Leigh indicated that he was interested in her and asked what did I think of her. He

thought he might make some headway with her. In al the time I had known him this was the only female he had ever mentioned, the only time I’d

seen him show interest in a particular woman. He liked women, but they just didn’t like him. The waitress was young, pretty, with brown hair. I don’t

remember her name and it was the only time Leigh mentioned her, the only time he mentioned a specific woman. That stuck in my mind.”

Monday, September 4, 1967

Allen began teaching
at Camp La Honda YMCA at La Honda Gulch, never missing a day of work until Monday, February 5, 1968, when he

skipped three days in a row. “Personal business,” he scrawled on his absentee slip, then thought better of it and altered it to read “school business”

instead.

Friday, June 7, 1968

Allen left La
Honda and for the next year toiled sporadical y at Harry Wogan’s as a mechanic, at the Franklin School as a janitor, and at a host of

other jobs in menial positions. He stil found room for good times. “Ron and Leigh went to Mexico,” Cheney told me. “I heard this story secondhand

from Ron. ‘Nasty Norm’ might have been along. They cal ed him ‘Nasty Norm,’ a school nickname, because he had dark curly hair, a French look,

kind of a low forehead, dark hair on his arms, sort of ape-looking guy. He was perfectly civilized, but he had that appearance. He and Leigh were

skin-diving buddies, and I did a little skin diving with them when we visited Norm at Morro Bay on one trip and in Monterey, on another. At that time

Leigh had a catamaran, a Catalina Cat, and he had a smal awkward boat. In Mexico, Ron, Leigh, and possibly Norm caught some lobsters and

talked a Mexican couple they met on the beach into cooking a big feast for them on the shore.” By October 6, 1969, Leigh was laboring part-time

as a custodian at Elmer Cave School. It was there that Sergeant Lynch, dispatched by some stil -unknown informant, questioned him as a suspect

in the Zodiac murders.

Monday, October 20, 1969

Riverside Police Chief
L. T. Kinkead and Detective Sergeant H. L. Homsher contacted Napa Sheriff Earl Randol and Captain Donald A.

Townsend: “This letter is in reference to our telephone conversation of 10/17/69 regarding the similar M.O. of your ‘Zodiac’ suspect and the suspect

of our homicide File No. 352-481:

“One month after the homicide, letters were received at the Press and our department written by the suspect of our homicide. The suspect

used a black felt pen to address the envelopes and had used upper case print. The confession letter was typed. There are numerous errors in

spel ing, punctuation, etc., as you wil notice. The person who wrote the confession letter is aware of facts about the homicide that only the kil er

would know. There is no doubt that the person who wrote the confession letter is our homicide suspect. There are numerous similarities in your

homicide and our Inv. 352-481. I thought you should be aware that we are working a similar-type investigation.”

When the murderer disabled Bates’s car, he might have left prints. Unidentified latent prints were lifted off the vehicle and sent to the FBI, which

marked the file #32-27195, Latent Case #73096. The SFPD rushed copies of their latents from the cab to the FBI for comparison. However, the

partial prints did not match anyone in the case, and there had been innumerable suspects.

Fear on the RCC campus had escalated. More open space had been cleared and bright lights instal ed. Joseph Bates secured a loan on his

house to finance a reward for the capture of his daughter’s kil er.

Tuesday, October 21, 1969

San Francisco newsmen
stil struggled to make sense of the case. “In al three cases,” a
Chronicle
interoffice Zodiac memo to reporter Mike

Grieg read,

“When there was a boy and a girl—Zodiac tried to kil both, got the girl al three times, but got the guy only the first time. There were 197 days

between the first pair of kil ings and the second attempt; 84 days between the second and third tries; and 14 days between the last tries—

they’re getting closer. Zodiac seems to strike exclusively on Fri. and Sat. nites—which makes it questionable how he’s going to get a school

bus. Any pattern I have tried to draw is broken at least once. Horoscopes (at least those in the Chron) offer no clue. Capricorn is vaguely

applicable except for the first murder. . . . I have been unable to find any statistical or numerological pattern here in about 2-3 hours work. . . .