Zodiac Unmasked (69 page)

So in his own way he did, as far as I’m concerned, leave that message.”

Conway had indicated to the FBI that he and Bawart would present a ful review of the case to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office for an

opinion regarding possible prosecution for Leigh Al en. “If the D.A. refuses to fil charges against ALLEN,” he wrote, “the Val ejo Police Department

wil close its investigation on the ‘ZODIAC’ case.”

“Once these interviews have been conducted,” the FBI wrote in 1992, “Conway indicated that he and Bawart wil present a ful review of the case

to the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office for an opinion regarding possible prosecution for ALLEN. If the D.A. refuses to fil charges against

ALLEN, Val ejo Police Department wil close its investigation on the ‘ZODIAC’ case. Val ejo has requested no further assistance on this case, and

it is therefore recommended that this case be closed at this time.” The FBI, on noting the death of Arthur Leigh Al en, said in a final report, “The San

Francisco case is closed at this time. . . . Val ejo has requested no further assistance on this case, and it is therefore recommended that this case

be closed at this time. . . .”

But who was that first tipster, the one who alerted Lynch so many times in 1969? “I got that tip
by letter
,” Lynch told me without thinking the last

time I saw him. In the absence of that anonymous tip, Al en wouldn’t have been a suspect until 1971. The Val ejo P.D. suspected that Al en’s own

brother or sister-in-law had turned him into the police as a Zodiac suspect. They did later on. “Lynch told me he was tipped to Al en more than once,

maybe three times, by some woman,” I told Toschi. “She was cal ing up and tipping him. So I’m thinking it’s possibly the sister-in-law.”

“You’re reading my mind,” said Toschi. “I’m thinking it’s Karen too.”

If Al en had not died, the saga of Zodiac would have had a different ending.

On Tuesday, March 24, 1992, upon his return from Germany and shortly before Leigh Al en’s death, George Bawart conducted an important

interview.

“What I’m referring to is where I am final y able to recontact victim Mike Mageau,” he told me, “and I show him a six-photo spread. It included

Harvey Hines’s suspect. I had a picture of Arthur Leigh Al en in there; the rest were not INS, NIS, and CHP officers, they were just fil ers. My wife Jan

was down in L.A. at the time for a company she was working for. I had to meet with Mike Mageau at some point in time, so I dovetailed this when

she was down there for a week. I visited with her while I was there, stayed at the same hotel room, and saved the city some money. Now this is

some twenty years after the Blue Rock Springs thing, so I’m not real hyped up about meeting Michael Mageau and showing him this photo spread.

I’m tel you how much credence I took to it—normal y if I went down to an airport, I’d get ahold of airport security. They’d give me an office and I’d sit

there and talk to the witness and show ’em a photo spread. I thought so little of this, thinking I was going to be there about ten minutes, that I just

located him and found a smal corner of the airport.

“There were people mil ing around and everything, but it was fairly quiet. And that’s why I showed him this lineup.’Cause I just knew that he’d look

at this lineup and say, ‘There’s nobody in there that I recognize. ’ Wel , I pul ed this lineup out and they were driver’s license pictures from 1967 or

’68. Anyway, they were from the era when Zodiac started. They were of Arthur Leigh Al en and of ‘Larry Kane’ and fil ers, al fat-faced people. And

these were the old-style photos. They were black and white. You got them from DMV in those days. These were blown up larger than a regular

license picture. A regular license picture is about maybe an inch and a half square. These were maybe two inches or three inches square. They

were not huge pictures, but they were fairly large pictures.

“I give Mageau the lineup admonishment, ‘Just because I’m showing you pictures, you don’t have to identify anyone as the responsible, he may

not be in here—blah, blah, blah.’ So I hand him them.

“He looks at them for twenty, thirty seconds. Points to Arthur Leigh Al en and says, ‘That’s the man! That’s the man who shot me at Blue Rock

Springs!’

“I was absolutely flabbergasted that he picked out Arthur Leigh Al en. I didn’t expect him to pick out anybody at al !”

Dave Toschi is
now with North Star Security Services as a vice-president and member of the board. Retired detective lieutenant Mike Ciravolo, a

chief investigator on New York’s Zodiac case, now runs a private investigation company in suburban New York City. He left the department when

Zodiac I first vanished, arguing that the Zodiac Task Force should not be abandoned. He helped train Detective Sergeant Joe Herbert who

recognized the hand of Zodiac I in Seda’s handwriting. Bryan Hartnel , married and the father of two sons, is a probate lawyer in Southern

California.

“The Santa Rosa murders were never solved,” Sergeant Steve Brown, Sonoma Sheriff’s Department, told me. “In fact, we’re working them pretty

hard right now. One was never found, but of the six that were found I only have evidence on one of the girls, Kim Wendy Al en. What I’m stil trying to

do is find the rest of the evidence. We’re clearing out the archival evidence that’s out at our Juvenile Hal facility. These old cases are tough

because who knows where the evidence goes. Hopeful y, I’m going to find some more. I especial y want to find the rope used to strangle Kim

Wendy that they submitted to the FBI. They tested this rope in every possible way and there was nothing special about it. It was a nylon regular rope

that you could buy anywhere.”

On the Presidio, where Zodiac was last seen and nurse Donna Lass once worked, ten-story Letterman Hospital and its five-story annex remain

only as desolate hulks. The hol owed-out concrete buildings wil be demolished and replaced by a digital movie production campus, Lucasfilm’s

Industrial Light & Magic. Sandy Panzarel a sold Science Dynamics. With that money he purchased the RKO-Radio Pictures film library which he

later sold to Ted Turner. “It was a tough decision,” Panzarel a told me, “to give up a library which not only included
Citizen Kane
, and other beloved

films, but
The Most Dangerous Game
.” The movie-obsessed Zodiac would have appreciated the irony.

appendices

Return to Search Warrant Served on Arthur Leigh Al en, February 14, 1991. The fol owing personal property was taken from 32 Fresno Street, City

of Val ejo, Solano County, California.

1. Four pipe bombs.

2. One primer Cord.

3. Seven Impact devices Railway Torpedo.

4. Two Safety fuses, green, two rol s ea. 98½’.

5. Two rol s of safety fuses (orange).

6. One cardboard box w/Mrs. E. W. Al en on label.

7. Two
Vallejo Times-Heralds
dated 060382.

8. Two
San Francisco Chronicles
dated 060182.

9. Two glass bottles of black material.

10. Nine Non-electric blasting caps.

11. Two 1"galvanized pipes with one end cap.

12. Five pipe thread compounds.

13. Six pipe vises.

14. One cardboard box with fireworks, safety fuse (green), bottles of potassium nitrate, two bottles of sulfur, miscel aneous fireworks.

15. Brown plastic bag covering Item #6.

16. One can of black powder partial y ful .

17. Euroarms .44-caliber black powder #13357.

18. Ruger .22 revolver #85655 and six live rounds.

19. .22 Revolver #N31025.

20. Ruger .44 Blackhawk #8155788 and five rounds.

21. Colt .32 auto #216374 and seven rounds.

22. Winchester, Super and miscel aneous ammo for .32, .22, .44, and .30-caliber.

23. .22 automatic clip with three rounds.

24. Zodiac Sea Wolf Watch #26894.

25. Miscel aneous papers and news clips “Zodiac.”

26. Marlin .22 rifle with scope #24373783.

27. Inland .30-caliber rifle #5044680.

28. Sears electric typewriter.

29. Royal manual typewriter.

30. Cut letter from DOJ and miscel aneous news clips.

31. Zippo lighter engraved “D. E. Brandon.”

32. Smal flashlight.

33. Hunting knife with sheath and rivets.

34. Four boxes of videotapes, one box audio reel tapes, one cassette recorder.

35. Remington .22 short caliber rifle.

36. Stevens Model 835 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun.

37. Winchester Model 50 20-gauge automatic shotgun.

Arthur Leigh Allen’s Trailers, Cars, and Boats

Universal trailer (off wheels), license, AP 6354, parked at the Sunset Trailer Park, 2963 Santa Rosa Avenue. Slot A-7. Owned since 1970.

Trailer ME8636, special construction. Registered 10/31/79.

Trailer GS8803, special construction camper, 12/31/75.

A Trailer in Bodega Bay.

A Trailer rumored to be parked in a neighbor’s tract of deep woods.

Car #1. DXW 186, 1962 VW Karmann Ghia, registered 7/18/80. An exact duplicate of Bryan Hartnel ’s car at Lake Berryessa 9/69.

Car #2. MLZ 057, 1965 Buick sedan, Gray Skylark, registered 4/20/80.

Car #3. XAM 469 tan station wagon.

Car #4. 1964 dark Ford. On the night of the July Fourth murder, a deputy had seen a blue 1967 Ford Sedan in the Blue Rock Springs parking lot

earlier in the evening.

A two-seat Austin Healey.

A white Buick.

A white 1965 Mercedes, 220SB.

LDH 974, 1958 Ford sedan.

Al en had use of Tucker’s 1965-66 brown Corvair. Whether or not he used it without permission on July 4, 1969 is not known.

Smal blue and white Sailboat: a twenty-two-foot-long sailboat on a trailer, partial y draped by a blue tarp. California license number, NE3725.

Open sailboat ten feet long. CF 9127 FD license. Sticker #HI07782. Fuel Unknown.

The Bawart Report

Val ejo Detective George Bawart’s confidential 1992 thirty-point report was prepared, not as part of the official Zodiac case file, but as an

introductory outline for Val ejo District Attorney Mike Nail to facilitate his decision whether or not to arrest the prime suspect. Cheney had used

Al en’s dismissal from teaching and his subsequent move home as a date to place the conversation in his room. He knew that he moved from the

Bay Area to his new Southern California job on New Year’s Day. That was in fact, January 1, 1969. In later conversations Cheney corrected this. I

have left the inaccurate date, 1968, in Bawart’s report. Leigh’s conversation with Cheney stil predated the creation of the Zodiac persona and his

M.O. by eight months. The report read as fol ows:

Circumstances Which Indicate Arthur Leigh Allen is, in Fact, the Zodiac Killer.

1. In 1966, Riverside, California, Cheri Jo BATES, WF, is stabbed to death. The Riverside Police Department received a typed letter

from the kil er. On this letter, the kil er identified himself as “Enterprise” [actual y, this was to direct the letter to a Riverside newspaper of that

name]. The brand of typewriter used in this letter has been identified as Royal with an elite type. An older Royal typewriter with elite type was

found during the service of the search warrant at ALLEN’s residence on 02/91.

2. In December of 1967, ALLEN was given a Zodiac brand watch as a Christmas present from his mother. The company symbol for their

Zodiac watches is exactly the same symbol as later adapted by the Zodiac Kil er. This watch was taken during the service of a search warrant

in February of 1991.

3. In January 1968, ALLEN had a conversation with Donald CHENEY, a friend of his. ALLEN guised this conversation as though he was

going to write a novel. ALLEN indicated to CHENEY that he would cal himself “Zodiac” and use the Zodiac watch symbol as his symbol. That

he would kil people in lovers’ lanes by using a weapon with a flashlight attached to it for sighting at night. That he would write letters to the

police to confuse them and taunt them and sign them as the Zodiac using the Zodiac watch symbol. ALLEN stated he would get women to stop

on the freeway indicating they had some problems with their tires, and that he would loosen the lug nuts so their tire would later fal off, and he

could take them captive. ALLEN told CHENEY that he would shoot children as they got off school buses.

4. On July 4, 1969, Darlene FERRIN was kil ed, and Michael MAGEAU shot numerous times at Blue Rock Springs, Val ejo. On July 31,

1969, a letter was received by the
Vallejo Times-Herald
describing the kil ing and shooting incident at Blue Rock Springs, signed only with the

symbol of the Zodiac watch. August 7, 1969, a letter was received, wherein, an individual identified himself as Zodiac indicating many facts

about the shooting in Val ejo. He indicated he sighted with a flashlight attached to his gun. The letter was signed with the Zodiac watch

company’s symbol.

5. In early October 1969, Sergeant Lynch of the Val ejo Police Department interviewed ALLEN as to his whereabouts on 092769 (the

date of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department kil ing at Lake Berryessa). ALLEN said that he had planned to go to Berryessa on that date but

had changed his mind and had gone to the ocean instead. This same conversation was confirmed by Captain [Roy] CONWAY and myself

during the service of the search warrant on 02/91.

6. In 1969, a Philip TUCKER of the Greater Val ejo Recreation District indicated that ALLEN, who was a close friend of his, often talked

about the Zodiac case. TUCKER indicated that ALLEN had previously talked about shooting with special sights for shooting in the dark.