by Mark Hewitt
He wrote the following:
Dear Editor
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
haveing 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 end-
ed up on the back seat then
the floor in back thrashing out
very violently with his legs;
that’s how I shot him in the
—
knee. I did not leave the cene
of the killing with squealling
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 the police
that my car was brown was a
negro about 40-45 rather shabbly
dressed. I was at this phone
booth haveing some fun with the
Vallejo cops when he was walking
by. When I hung the phone up
the dam X@ thing began to
ring & that drew his attention
to me & my car.
Last Christmass
In that epasode the police were
wondering as to how I could
shoot & hit my victoms in the
dark. They did not openly state
this, but implied this by saying
it was a well lit night & I could
see the 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 celling you will
see a black or darck spot in
the center of the circle of
light aprox 3 to 6 in. across.
When taped to a gun barrel,
the bullet will strike exactly
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 cover-
age.
[crosshairs symbol]
NO ADDRESS
The More Material letter arrived at the offices of The San Francisco Examiner on August 4, 1969, and was turned over to the VPD that same day. The accuracy and detail of the information in the letter convinced Lynch that the writer was indeed the killer. In an airtel to the FBI in Washington, D.C., the Bureau’s field office in Sacramento noted that it did not have an ongoing investigation in progress, nor did the San Francisco FBI Field Office. On August 6, in cooperation with VPD, Sacramento submitted to the FBI laboratory in the nation’s capital the original More Material letter plus three copies of the 3-Part letters. The VPD had already checked the 3-Part letters for fingerprints, and requested in conjunction with Sacramento the same of the new letter. Further, considering that the cryptograph had not yet been deciphered at this time, the FBI was asked to check the significance of the encryption, and compare the new letter to all other threatening letters in the FBI’s extensive files.
Receiving the pages and envelopes of the four letters on August 8, the FBI numbered 15 separate documents. When the lab reported the results on August 12, the three pages of the More Material letter were granted the first 3 document titles in the case, Qc1, Qc2, and Qc3. The FBI lab searched for indented writing—which sometimes is found on anonymous letters when some other page has been written on while the letter is underneath—but found none. A watermark was identified within the More Material letter, the words “FIFTH AVENUE” pressed into its pages.
On August 29, the Latent Fingerprint Section of the FBI notified the VPD that two latent prints had been lifted from the letter, one from page two and one from page three. Additionally, through the stationery’s unique watermark, they identified the paper used as stock sold at Woolworth stores. None of this information led to any suspect, the paper being available nationwide, and the fingerprints—possibly even deposited prior to the writer obtaining the paper—not matching any on file.
The details embedded within the letter were investigated, particularly the claim that a “negro” had witnessed the telephone call. Whether the writer’s description of the potential eyewitness was based in fact—and future letters would contain falsehoods, and a claim to have left “false clews” to have law enforcement “run all over town”—remains a point of debate. The police set about finding an African American who had witnessed events and may have fit the killer’s description. None was ever found, so the vain search by over-taxed law enforcement agents may have been the point of the possibly empty words.
***
In the early days of August 1969, the world was the killer’s oyster. He had taunted the public with two crime scenes in the Vallejo area—as well as a still-unconnected death far away in Riverside. He appeared proud and eager to boast of his achievements in letters to the police and press. He had claimed credit for the Vallejo attacks, identifying himself with a crosshairs totem and a mysterious, ominous name, the “Zodiac.”
The terror he induced throughout the North Bay was complete; his infamy had spread beyond the Bay Area in news reports as far away as the East Coast. All that anyone knew was that a killer was active: identity, unknown; total number of victims, unclear; motive and future, unfathomable. He was certain to have been relishing the notoriety that he apparently craved.
The citizens of the Bay Area were discussing his attacks; more than a few hobbyists were wrestling with his cipher (which was also being studied by several law enforcement agencies and the Navy); and the fear of him hung over the North Bay like a dark cloud. The people of the region were dancing to a tune the Zodiac had composed.
But any success that he may have been celebrating was about to come crashing down like a house of cards during a West Coast earthquake. Within two weeks of its arrival, the cipher had been solved, the lack of specifics contained within—including the apparent absence of his promised identity—disappointing readers and law enforcement alike. The publicity obtained from the cipher began to wane. Then the cipher’s creator was suddenly and completely overshadowed by the most infamous criminal in American history.
***
On the night of August 8, 1969, a small group of disheveled hippies dressed in black gained entry to a luxurious Topanga Canyon property that was once the home of music producer Terry Melcher, son of the legendary actress Doris Day. With urgency of purpose, three drug-addled miscreants burst into the Southern California house and herded its four occupants into the living room. The residents were bound, threatened, and terrorized. One hippy lingered outside to keep watch.
“What do you want?” the bewildered captives repeatedly asked.
One of them tried to run. Another slipped out of a poorly-conceived towel restraint and fled in the other direction. The captors began to use the gun and knives they had brought to the scene as two of the captives headed toward the safety of the lush green yard.
Within minutes, all four residents were brutally murdered in a frenzy of stabbing, slashing, and gunshots. The int
ruders quickly made their way down Cellio Drive and escaped into the night. But these were not the first deaths for which the troop was responsible.
The hippies had already executed a teenager in a car who had moments before stopped in to visit an acquaintance at the guest house. Total dead: five. Before leaving, one of the killers—a young female—gathered some fresh victim blood on a cloth and wrote the word “WAR” on the outside of the front door.
The next morning, the newspapers screamed the horrific event in huge headlines. Leading the story was the senseless and violent murder of Sharon Tate, an actress with a fast-rising star and the wife of famed movie director Roman Polanski. Also dead were coffee heiress, Abagail Folger; hair stylist to the stars, Jay Sebring; and friend of Polanski’s, Voytok Frykowski. The dead teenager was identified as Steven Parent who had at the time of his murder had just attempted to sell a clock radio. Tate was eight months pregnant with Polanski’s child.
But the savages weren’t done.
That night, just after 1:00 a.m., the same four, with three additional conspirators, targeted the suburban home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in the “City of Angels” neighborhood of Los Feliz to continue their mission of mayhem. After the couple was tied up, they were stabbed and slashed to death with knives and a barbeque fork. Someone carved the word “WAR” into Leno’s chest. Again gathering victim’s blood, the killers wrote “Healter Skelter,” on the refrigerator door, “Death to Pigs,” on a wall, and “Rise” on another wall. Charles Manson, quasi-crime boss and leader of what would become the world’s most notorious cult, had struck in Southern California. These seven disgusting deaths in two frenetic and gruesome nights were not the family’s first murder victims.
And they would not be their last.
The news of the attacks sent Los Angeles into an uproar. Among the rich and famous, those who could afford it left town or upgraded their security measures until questions were answered and the deaths resolved. Some traveled to Europe, others to homes in other parts of California or other states. Those who did not flee bought weapons. Gun sales shot up; ammunition flew off the shelves.
The reality of not knowing what was happening served to intensify the threat. Headlines from coast to coast captivated citizens who had already survived the most amazing news stories of the 1960s. The Manson murders stunned a nation already familiar with the violence of war in Vietnam, protests on campus, riots across the nation, and the political assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. People around the globe, those who had just weeks earlier had celebrated Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon, now had to come to terms with an unseemly side of America.
Everyone soon heard of the massacres.
By December 1, most of the Manson conspirators were in prison on unrelated charges. Investigation into the two attacks had finally concluded that both events had been perpetrated by the same group. When one of the members began to openly brag about details of the crimes to fellow inmates, authorities were soon notified. Through a great deal of hard work and a little bit of luck, the crimes were solved. A press conference was hastily arranged to relieve the emotional pressure of uncertainty on the area’s residents and law enforcement officials. The Manson Family was formally introduced to a fearful and appalled American public.
Over the ensuing two years, the planet was entertained by leaks emerging from the ongoing investigation, by the drama of a trial—the then longest in California history—and by the colorful words and actions of “The Family,” headed by the charming and charismatic Charles Manson. The comments, anecdotes, and film footage became a nightly news mainstay for not only the Los Angeles area but the nation as well. The press and public couldn’t get enough of the flamboyant and outspoken counter-culture cult leader, cum crime boss, whose guru-like pseudo-wisdom and bizarre antics would be reported on almost daily.
The Zodiac serial killer had been overshadowed by a much more horrific trail of carnage, carried out by a more successful attention-seeking assailant, and perpetrated in a more celebrated and public city. The key advantage enjoyed by the Manson Family in garnering attention appeared to be the celebrity attached to their crimes: not only the rich and beautiful people they killed—including the ascending actress Sharon Tate—but also the rock and roll group, the Beatles, whose songs were quoted on LaBianca’s refrigerator door and walls, and Hollywood, the famed city of international attention that lay in close proximity to the crime scenes and the trial.
If the Zodiac serial killer was to compete for attention, press coverage, and newspaper headlines, he’d have to take on the notorious Manson Family with its epic violence and keen eye for publicity. He could best them with several possible strategies. He could copy them, improving on some of their ideas, or develop tactics they had not employed. He could prove himself smarter and more creative than the ragged band of hippies to the south.
If the Zodiac chose to emulate the Manson Family, he could leave a message on an inanimate structure; he could adopt cool, hippy “hip” lingo in future communications; he could make reference to the Beatles; he could attack a major population center; and he could even strike in Southern California—or strike within Southern California again. As details played out, the Zodiac would attempt all of these. He may have been directly influenced to do so by the total and widespread attention granted to Charles Manson and his insane antics within the Manson Family.
***
As August, 1969 drew to a close, no one knew who had butchered actress Sharon Tate, killed her unborn child, and murdered the others gathered in her home. And no one knew the purpose of the apparent senseless brutality. In this time of uncertainty and unanswered questions, the serial killer to the north would fight to regain his momentum, to express his dominance over the Bay Area and beyond, and attempt to reestablish his short-lived status as America’s preeminent boogeyman.
5 | LAKE BERRYESSA
“Sept 27-69-6:30
by knife”
The Zodiac struck next on Saturday, September 27 in Napa County on the shore of Lake Berryessa, along Twin Oaks Ridge, on a mound jutting out into the water that is sometimes today referred to as “Zodiac Island.”
Victims Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard had no plans to go to Lake Berryessa that afternoon. In fact, they had no intentions of being together until they noticed each other during lunch. They were among the 300 or so young people crammed into the student dining hall of Pacific Union College (PUC) in the small community of Anguin. Bryan was enrolled at PUC; Cecelia had been a student there the previous school year, and was returning for a brief visit. The couple had dated in the past, but had since firmly decided to remain friends and not lovers.
Like Mageau and Ferrin twelve weeks earlier, Hartnell and Shepard initially planned to explore San Francisco, a round trip that would have taken them at least two hours. Also like the couple shot at the Blue Rock Springs Park, they altered their schedule so that they ended up at a remote, rural spot for the purpose of spending some time alone. The Lake Berryessa event was, in many respects, a repeat performance of the drama at Blue Rock Springs. Hartnell and Shepard confronted the brutality of the same ruthless killer who would again murder a beautiful, young woman and leave a youthful male friend fighting for his life.
Born July 1, 1949, in Walla Walla, Washington, 20-year-old Bryan Calvin Hartnell was tall and slender with an enthusiastic smile and an earnestness that was admired by all who knew him. He hailed from Troutdale, Oregon, the western gateway to the Historic Columbia River Highway, the Mount Hood Scenic Byway, and the Columbia River Gorge. He felt at home in the rugged terrain of Northern California where he could explore new landscape and enjoy panoramic views reminiscent of home. Majoring in sociology, in 1969 he was a second-year PUC student. He would later attend the McGeorge School of Law and relocate to Southern California to set up his practice. He was well liked and had a large circle of friends at the college, including those in the same year with the same major and many from other grad
uating classes studying a variety of other subjects. Intelligent and studious, he was eager to please and very willing to help others. The morality taught at PUC, a Seventh Day Adventist college, played a prominent role in his life.
Bryan and Cecelia traveled first to the tiny town of St. Helena, a 20-minute trek down the winding highway south of Anguin. They stopped at a rummage sale where Bryan collected an old television for his dormitory room. After paying for the TV and loading it into the passenger seat of his 1956 Karmann Ghia, he realized that there was now no place for Cecelia to sit in his cramped, two-seat vehicle. Cecelia agreed to wait as he delivered the TV to his room at Newton Hall.
Upon Bryan’s return at 2:00 p.m., the couple took note of the time. It was now too late to make the long trip into the city. Bryan had pressing responsibilities back at college that evening so the couple decided instead to drive up to Lake Berryessa, the man-made reservoir north of Napa.
Named for the first European settlers in the Berryessa Valley, José Jesús and Sexto “Sisto” Berrelleza, and later Anglicized to Berryessa, Lake Berryessa was created by the Monticello Dam whose construction began in 1953 and was completed in 1958. The reservoir was not completely filled until 1963, at which time it became the largest lake in Napa County. Unfortunately, the lake’s creation claimed some of the finest agricultural soil in the nation—as well as the town of Monticello, which had to be abandoned to all but scuba enthusiasts.
Today, the lake encompasses 20,000 acres—measuring 15.5 miles from north to south, with a width of 3 miles—and supplies fresh water and hydroelectricity to the northern San Francisco Bay Area. The surrounding region has become a popular recreational area, supporting such activities as fishing, pleasure boating, swimming, picnicking, bird watching, hiking, and bicycling. To the southeast, near the Monticello Dam, there is a large hole used to release water during heavy rains. In 1997, a woman died after being sucked into the 72-foot, open bell-mouth spillway.
