Zodiac Unmasked (44 page)

was always extremely protective, especial y when she began to hear from Leigh Al en again while he was in Atascadero. She used to get

mysterious phone [hangup] cal s so she got an unlisted number.

“While I was home over last Thanksgiving, my mother brought out your book with al kinds of papers in it. She pul ed out an auto accident report

that Leigh had recently gotten into. He hit some woman in her car . . . [in Mendocino] the accident was his fault and he had a suspended license.

[He was not fined, but his State Farm premium was substantial y increased.] As I said, I drove by his house in Val ejo the day after Thanksgiving. It

was daytime, but the house was dark inside. Only in one brief moment did I think I saw a figure move by the window, but it could have been my eyes

playing tricks on me.

“There were a couple of times my parents would see Leigh Al en walking long distances down roads in the Bay Area. They would offer him a ride,

but he would always refuse. There was one point in time, either when my mother had just gotten married or when she had visited him alone, that he

said, ‘I’l never forgive you for what you did.’ My mother told me, ‘I was too afraid to ask him what.’ She let it drop and never pursued what it was.

She had never threatened to turn him in or anything like that. I believe he’s homosexual, so I don’t know if it’s because she married my father. I don’t

think so. That’s always puzzled my mother. However, I think Leigh always cared for her a great deal.”

“It’s an ‘outdoor chess match’ between an intel igent sociopath and the police,” I told her. “I always hoped that someone would be reading my

book, bel s would go off, and we’d get that name. I was at a dinner party with some professors Sunday and I said, ‘Someday somebody is going to

cal with that name—out of 2500 suspects, the name that I’m waiting for wil come. And here’s that cal .”

“I’ve waited ever since your book first came out. I tried to get ahold of you once, but you’d quit the
Chronicle
. The Val ejo Police Department told

me they bought fifty copies of your book to use as their case file. They gave al the policemen a copy to bone up on the case. You found a lot of

information for them.”

“I found it al over the state. I was at the
Chronicle
one day when they were remodeling. They lifted this box up. It was just about to go down one of

the chutes out the window. It was ful of Zodiac stuff. I’ve had that kind of luck al the way through. As for Leigh, I think as long as he is being watched

by the police you should just keep your distance.”

“But when I go by his house, I don’t see anybody watching him.”

“The important thing is that he thinks he’s being watched.”

“When the kids at Blue Rock Springs were shot,” she asked, “did Al en use diving as an excuse, an alibi?”

“Yes. Al en was the first or second suspect they came up with—a major player right from the very beginning. Lynch took Al en’s alibi at face value:

‘Where were you at the time of the murder?’ asks Lynch. ‘I was scuba diving,’ says Al en. ‘Can you prove it?’ asks Lynch. And Al en goes over to the

back of his station wagon and points to the tanks. And Lynch says, ‘Fine.’ Thereafter, every time Al en’s name came up, Lynch would say, ‘I cleared

him.’ Leigh’s a formidable guy. He’s no dummy.”

“Al en’s very intel igent. And an excel ent marksman.”

“How do you know that?”

“My mother knew him al through the Navy. My mother’s father worked at Mare Island and she used to go to Al en’s house al the time. His mother

was very domineering, very formal. But my mother always liked it there, because she grew up in a very poor family and she loved going to his house

because everything was so nice. And she used to like Leigh Al en. I don’t know what happened. My mother wil tel me if I ask questions innocently.

I’l try and find out more. This case has fascinated me forever. I guess some of it is curiosity, but I would like to see if he’s the one and can be

brought to justice. He’s never admitted to my mother that he was the Zodiac kil er, but kind of closely hinted. God, I wish she had kept the letters he

wrote her. But she burned them. She got so scared one day, she said, ‘I threw them in the fireplace. . . . ’ And where is Zodiac now? Don’t serial

kil ers usual y want notoriety? That’s what puzzles me.

“I don’t think of him as dangerous now—heavy and losing his sight. And I recal Leigh was so good with children,” she said.

“Don’t be fooled. I covered the ‘Trailside Murder Case’ in San Diego. David Carpenter was such a confidence man—he looked like somebody’s

grandfather—he stuttered—wore thick glasses—it al owed him to manipulate his victims, to play on their sympathies. That’s the way a lot of them

work.”

“I drive by his house,” she concluded. “It’s very enticing. I just want to watch him. Next time we speak, I’l tel you how he and my mother met and

more about his letters.”

23

arthur leigh allen

Tuesday, October 31, 1989

“A friend of
mine runs a DNA lab,” said a close friend of Cheri Jo Bates. “He says that technology is a year or so away from being able to match a

hair sample that has been stored away for over twenty years. I do not know how, and if, the hair that was found was stored, but this could be the key

to solve her murder.” Bud Goding, another reader, echoed her sentiment. “Your report on the Riverside murder stated that traces of skin and tissue

were removed from beneath the victim’s fingernails,” he told me. “Since that case is stil open, that evidence should stil be available. If it has not

been preserved in formalin, it should be enough to perform DNA replication analysis (PCR) and provide a DNA profile of the Riverside kil er.”

However, in order to provide a DNA profile, the fol icle of the hair, the root, must be present.

A decade later, the Riverside suspect returned briefly from out of the country. Police got a DNA sample as he touched down at the airport. “The

hair is a long shot,” said a spokesman, “because we’re not sure whether that was the suspect’s hair or not.” In December 2000, an astounding

thirty-five years after Bates’s murder, they got results of a DNA analysis from the Department of Justice DNA Lab in Berkeley. The hair was not their

suspect’s.

Had Zodiac committed the Bates murder? As at Lake Berryessa and Gaviota Beach, the overkil had been horrendous. But there were

perceptible sexual undertones—Bates’s clothes had been disarranged. If Zodiac was not the kil er and had simply taken responsibility in a

“confession” letter, how had he known facts “only the kil er could know”? “The big thing in Riverside back in 1966,” a source explained, “was drag

racing. I used to go drag racing every week and since a lot of cops took part, I found out a lot of details about Bates’s murder. Leigh Al en was

down that weekend for some sort of auto club. Maybe he was there with his little car and heard some of these same details that I did. Who knows?”

Monday, March 5, 1990

Leigh Allen, doing
some writing of his own, sent a letter to the young son of a friend. He dated it military-style “5/mar/1990.” He said:

“Dear___: Yer mean ol’ dad has been keeping me informed of your progress. congratulations on al the neat things you’ve accomplished.

And I have another accomplishment for you—a gift horse, so to speak. Namely I am giving you a foam Fiberglass ultra-light. I am been

squeezed into a smal er area, due to having to rent out the upper part of my house, and simply must have the space. So, if you can come up

with a U-haul or such, you may haul away a ($2,500 invested) aeroplane for free. I wil include a slug of associated paraphernalia.

“I have mentioned this to yer dad and he said he’d pass along the infor. He seemed to approve but sometimes he forgets, hence this letter.

So if you can inform me as to your interest, I would appreciate it. I’l have to move on it very soon. I have al the paper on the plane, and there is

a folding wing option. I also have some ideas on finishing it. You can’t live with a project al the time I have without getting a few ideas. Hope to

hear from you soon.

“Leigh Al en.”

Tuesday, March 6, 1990

Karen and I
final y spoke again. She was very fearful. First she laid out a little family history—her grandparents had come to Val ejo during the

Depression and endured “some tough times.” Her grandfather worked as a ship welder on Mare Island, while her grandmother drove a school bus. I

recal ed Zodiac’s vendetta against school buses. Bobbie, Karen’s mother, was a diver whose picture often appeared in the Val ejo sports section

between 1952 and 1957. Sometimes Al en’s picture ran alongside hers. “My mother met Al en when she was about twelve or thirteen,” said Karen,

“when she had first begun diving. He served as a lifeguard at The Plunge, a Val ejo community swimming center, in 1951-52. I think he was a

platform diver and a wrestler. She dove with Leigh and trained daily. She almost made the Olympics in Helsinki, almost a runner-up, but she dove

out of order and lost the chance. He dove as wel . He had that lumbering walk, very clumsy walk when walking down the diving board. My mother

always talked about that. When he was a diver, he looked terrible until he left the board and dove. Then he was very graceful in the air. But when

walking he was terribly lumbering because of a funny hip. I’l try and get a picture of Leigh from his diving days in Val ejo.

“She started dating him when she was about twelve. He was always a good friend. He never attempted to kiss her—a kiss-on-the-forehead kind

of thing, and never made any sexual advances. I do know that while ‘dating’ him, it was more of a very deep friendship. [Al en admitted that he had

never had a successful relationship with a woman.] Bobbie married Mark, a gymnast for the University of California at Berkeley, in 1957 and her

diving trailed off. They met while they were both practicing on a trampoline. Mark studied criminology and wanted to be a policeman, but was just a

quarter inch too short. Toward the time she met my father and married him, Leigh Al en was rejected by the Navy, a deep blow to him.

“
Leigh Allen definitely always wore the Wing Walker shoes
. He did wear pleated pants al the time. He was very clean cut. He used to use a bow

and arrow for hunting, and was also an excel ent marksman in the Navy, one of the best in his group. My mother said he did know code. He not only

sewed wel , but was a sail maker. He was definitely ambidextrous as I’ve watched him make fishing flies. He was a good typist too.

“Another time we visited him, he took us sailing on his Hobie Cat in Half Moon Bay. Both times I noticed how overweight he was. I knew he was a

diabetic, yet he drank beer heavily out of large bottles. Both times [we visited], my mother was very tense. I was born in 1959 and when we visited

Leigh, I think I was around nine or ten. If so, this was during the time he may have been al egedly murdering people.

“My mother visited him alone. It was the first time she did feel some fear for her life because he asked her, ‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ She

answered, ‘Yes. My husband, knows I’m here.’ She told him my father knew, which he did. And then nothing happened. But after that she never went

back. And I don’t know why she went to see him in the first place. I just wish I knew why she had such concern about Leigh at the time. Something

was going on and she felt she had to see him.” She cal ed my father the moment she left his house so that he knew she had gotten out safely and

was on her way home.

“As I understand his incarceration at Atascadero, it was for molesting the son of a female friend of his. The boy was maybe anywhere from eight

to thirteen years old. He told my mother the woman was just jealous of his relationship with her son. I believe he was dating the woman. He said that

was why she had turned him in—jealousy. I think he spent about three years in Atascadero.

“While in Atascadero, I think that’s when my mother first became aware he may be the Zodiac. He wrote to her that they suspected him of the

crimes. At one point, I think my mother cal ed him there and spoke to him. She asked him directly if he was the the murderer. I believe he was

somewhat jovial about it, but never admitted to the crimes. He [Al en] often wrote to my mother and used the signals used by the Navy [semaphore]

flags at the bottom of the letters. The notes he wrote her were done in blue-ink-type pens—felt-tip pens. She threw away most of the early letters. I

wish she had kept them. She burned the rest after her knowledge of Al en being sent to Atascadero. My mother also told me after reading your

book, that it fit that his brother and sister-in-law did try to turn him in. There was a bloody knife in his car and that’s what real y got them concerned—

that’s what I was told. Some of Leigh’s friends were also aware of what was going on.

“I wil continue giving you any information I can get. I want to try and get definite dates or general times of certain situations and find out more

details of his relationship with family members and my mother. I wish I could get my mother to come forward to the police, but it’s doubtful. But

maybe she remembers more about the letters he wrote to her. Something that points to him as the responsible party. He told my mother he always

picked up hitchhikers especial y while attending Santa Rosa J. C. and Sonoma State University. This always bothered her. He picked them up on

the highways. I remember the two girls disappearing from the skating rink and the other murders. Those bodies discovered on Franz Val ey Road

and in Calistoga weren’t far from my parents’ home.