Bryan Hartnell, the surviving victim of the Lake Berryessa attack during which the Zodiac wore the black hood, had told police that he thought he had seen greasy brown hair through the eye slits of the mask, which had clip-on sunglasses attached by loops at the eye slits … a smart observation made by Hartnell. Warren kept an extensive insect and herpetology collection of live creatures and would have had plenty of black material on hand to use as cage covers and may have even used a square cover as part of the makings of the hood. Black hoods were readily available to purchase, but Warren, the inventor and telescope maker, would not have purchased a hood … he would have made his own to his specifications that included the square top.
Zodiac approached his victims with gun drawn. After they were bound, he holstered the gun and drew his knife to inflict multiple stab wounds on each victim; his killing tool was a blade like that of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner. The scene in The Mikado opera calls for Ko-Ko to drop the victim to his knees and then draw his snickersnee (executioner’s blade) and behead the victim. Like Ko-Ko, Zodiac brought his victims down to the ground and then drew his knife from its sheath while uttering “swoosh”. Zodiac played a deadly, well-planned, depraved game of execution. He searched and found a remote daylight spot occupied by an unsuspecting young couple. His selection was especially complete with the victim’s vehicle being white—needed to provide the door panel that he would turn into an inscribed cemetery headstone inspired by his long hours spent in the cemetery with his young girls.
The comparison of the Ko-Ko costume pictured on the Bell Telephone Hour Mikado CD production starring Groucho Marx to the Zodiac Lake Berryessa costume was visually astounding. I now needed to listen carefully to the lyrics on that CD.
It has been a standard theory that Zodiac was writing The Mikado lyrics in his two letters from memory, which would explain his mistakes in the lyrics; however, this is not entirely the case. Not all of those misquoted lyrics were mistakes. If Zodiac had been copying the lyrics from an original score, which score was he using? It was not uncommon for the lyrics to be altered slightly in various productions. There were no mistakes in the lyrics Zodiac wrote except for his ranting paraphrasing of torture and capture. With the two Zodiac letters containing the lyrics, I listened to the Groucho Mikado score and discovered Zodiac had written the lyrics that Groucho was singing. In the lyrics contained in the July 26, 1970, letter, the words “the lady novelist” do not appear in the letter but are replaced by “the girl who never kissed,” and the lyrics “‘st-’st-’st-” do not appear in the letter but are replaced by “tut tut tut tut.” Both of these lyric changes that Zodiac wrote are what Groucho clearly sings on the Groucho Bell Telephone Hour CD.
Zodiac certainly created a gory paraphrase from “A More Humane Mikado,” a song that speaks about “letting the punishment fit the crime” and deals with how criminals will be tortured. He really gets crazy here telling us about the means he will use: “tie over ant hills, pine splinters driven under nails, fed salt beef until they are gorged, hang by their thumbs, rub them down with deep heat, skin them alive, billiard players I shall have them play in a darkened dungeon cell with crooked cues & twisted shoes” and finishes with “I shall have great fun inflicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves,” all the while interjecting how he will be enjoying himself during this torture. As The Mikado is usually a two-hour opera, many of the songs were eliminated while others were tweaked, with whole stanzas and choruses left out, and only a few minutes of commercials were added so the production could now be accommodated into the one-hour television time slot.
I also found signs of The Mikado lyrics in two other Zodiac writings. In the November 1966 Confession letter, Zodiac states, “she squirmed and shook.” The common Mikado lyric is “he squirmed and struggled,” but Groucho sings, “he squirmed and shook” … the line Zodiac writes. And the first line of the November 1966 desktop poem, “Sick of living/unwilling to die,” and the first lines, “cut.clean.[sic],” are found in the common Mikado lyrics as “cut cleanly.” Both these phrases are from “The Criminal Cried,” sung by Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, in Act II as he performs a beheading. Zodiac uses the same phrases as he describes his killing of Cheri Jo Bates to us.
We have heard many descriptions of the special tone of Zodiac’s voice. We know Warren used his voice to imitate sounds and would have been subject to listening to his father’s violin practicing and playing, so we can safely surmise that Warren could at least carry a tune and be able to imitate a good voice. He was probably able to sing as a comic baritone himself. Zodiac, as Warren in 1960 at the age of thirty-four and still residing at home, would have watched the Bell Telephone Hour production of The Mikado on television with his mother and father and certainly would have obtained a copy of The Mikado LP starring Groucho Marx. This madman would have entertained himself laughing and singing out loud.
The Mikado opera was a perfect fit for Warren as it acts out cruelty and death presented in a comic format. Warren was always looking to get a good laugh by pulling a prank or scaring someone. He had become desensitized from years of torturing and killing insects and capturing wild desert creatures. As Vicki Hearne aptly stated, “He would be an offense to some because he captured wild animals—he had a collection.” Zodiac tells us in his Confession letter, “I am not sick. I am insane, but that will not stop the game.” As Zodiac, he has transferred his emotions and fixated on collecting humans as his slaves, able to kill his victims as the coldhearted, merciless, psychopathic monster he had become.
Surviving victim’s Karmann Ghia VW door, resembling an inscribed tombstone, was written on with felt marker by Zodiac at the Lake Berryessa killing site.
Zodiac hood killing costume.
[Allan Grant/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images]
Groucho in Ko-Ko costume hat.
Zodiac in full killing costume.
[GAB Archive/Redfern/Getty Images.]
Groucho in full Ko-Ko costume.
CHAPTER NINE
APPARITION OF A KILLER
Physical—Appearance & Traits
Personality—Anger & Urges
Serial Killers—Motives
One of the many frustrating aspects of the Zodiac case is that even with descriptions of the killer from three surviving victims, along with many witnesses to the Paul Stine taxi murder, including two police officers, only a few viable suspects were brought forward, and they were all eventually eliminated. There were also witnesses who saw a suspicious man around the Lake Berryessa murder site. Homicide investigators spent painstaking hours on and off duty checking out all viable tips, including many from people reporting someone who looked exactly like the police composite … none of the tips led to the Zodiac.
The following physical description of the Zodiac was reported by San Francisco police officer Donald Fouke, who encountered the Zodiac approximately three minutes after the killer had left the taxi cab murder scene; however, the subject was not detained as the suspect’s description was incorrectly dispatched as being a “male-negro.”
Race & Sex: White/Male, Welsh ancestry
Age: 35–45 years
Height: 5′10″ later updated by Officer Fouke to Height: 5′11″ to 6′1″
Weight: 180–200 lbs later updated by Officer Fouke to 230–240 lbs
Build: Medium to heavy, barrel chested, had a shuffling lope, walked slightly bent forward
Face: Medium complexion, wearing glasses
Hair: Light colored hair—possibly graying in rear (reddish—may have been lighting that caused this effect), crew cut
This description is also the description of Warren Estes in the 1960s. Surviving victim Mike Mageau stated that Zodiac had a slight potbelly, a feature that is also apparent in Warren during this same time period. Zodiac would most probably have walked away from the scene indeed bent slightly forward as his jacket would have contained at least one nine-millimeter gun and holster, a torn-off piece of Paul Stine’s shirt, glasses, w
allet, and whatever else Zodiac may have had tucked away on his person. This posturing may have concealed some of his height.
Another accidental encounter with a witness occurred as Zodiac had just hung up the receiver in a pay phone booth that he was using to call the Vallejo Police Department to report the July 4 attack he had just committed. In Zodiac’s letter of August 4, 1969, sent to the San Francisco Examiner, he describes a “male negro” who was walking by the phone booth. After he hung up the receiver, the phone began to ring, drawing the man’s attention to him. This witness later told the police that Zodiac’s car was brown. On the night of the Paul Stine taxi driver shooting, when Officer Fouke and his partner drove by Zodiac in their squad car, they were merely feet away from the killer, and the man walking past the phone booth was also merely feet away from the killer—both encounters took place immediately after a violent shooting attack and while the killer was still in a dangerous mood. But, Zodiac did not lash out at these witnesses. In both cases, by keeping a calm demeanor and simply leaving the area, he allowed himself to remain invisible even after exchanging words with the officers.
Not having a wife or children, Warren was free to jump in his vehicle and just drive off to wander the California highways totally free to do whatever he wanted—even murder at random—without having to explain his time or whereabouts to anyone. Zodiac refers to his driving around many times in his letters but denies leaving the scene of the Fourth of July murder site with “squealing tires and racing engine” as reported by a witness who also heard the gunshots. In another letter, writing about leaving the scene of the Paul Stine murder, Zodiac states he was “walking down the hill to the park,” where he actually was when two officers stopped to ask him if he saw anyone suspicious in the area. Warren was afflicted with erratic driving and armed road rage that was witnessed by the girls he was driving around with, but as Zodiac he needed to tell us he was fearless and in complete control of himself.
We also have voice witnesses who heard the Zodiac speak when he sadistically called local police agencies immediately after the murders to report the crimes himself. And he may have been the caller to San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli’s house, speaking to Belli’s maid on several occasions identifying himself as the Zodiac. Zodiac also wrote a letter to Belli on December 20, 1969, asking for help … an insincere plea that was surely an attempt to scare Belli by letting him and the police know he could get to a high-profile person like Belli anytime he wanted to; he knew his phone number and address.
Although all the physical descriptions of Zodiac vary slightly, the description of Zodiac’s voice is always the same … spoke in a monotone, “not too high and not too low,” no emotion, no accent, and no use of contractions. Warren’s vocal quality, like that of Zodiac’s, was different than others—like Humphrey Bogart or James Earl Jones, when they speak, you listen and you believe, they own their unique commanding voices. Even Vickie Hearne tells us that Warren spoke with a cajoling voice, “not too high and not too low.” A person who handles the dangerous creatures that Warren kept—snakes, dessert rats, lizards, tarantulas, and scorpions—would have to know how to maintain a calm body language and an equally calm voice. Both qualities were described by the Lake Berryessa surviving victim Bryan Hartnell, who spoke with the hooded Zodiac. Zodiac told Hartnell that he was an escaped con, but Hartnell had a difficult time recalling where Zodiac said he had escaped from. He did remember that it was a two-name location, and after some coaxing thought it may have been Deer Lodge, Montana, but later thought it might have been Colorado. Warren had been to Estes Park, Colorado, on vacations with his parents and would also go there himself. He wanted to take one of his young girls there and show her how beautiful it was. Warren’s mother, Florence, retired to Colorado after the death of Warren and his father, remaining in Colorado near her sister until her own death. Although Warren’s last name was Estes, he would have had no qualms stating he was an escaped con from Estes Park, Colorado, as he was about to kill the victims and they would not be able to repeat what he had said … invoking his surname was just another sarcastic ruse. Could this be the reason Zodiac never wrote about the Lake Berryessa killings? Did the killer realize he had made a mistake by allowing a victim to survive who might repeat the location Estes Park until someone picked up on the name Estes?
Warren further played with his unique voice by using helium. With his knowledge of chemistry, he was able to make his own helium, which he used to fill balloons he bought from military surplus stores. He would attach bottles with messages inside and release them from the hill tops, all the while squawking in a high-pitched voice from taking a hit of the helium himself. This was a great time to practice his baby talk, the same talk he used as he danced around his mother. In Zodiac’s November 9, 1969, letter, he allows this baby talk to creep into his writings when he states, “Hey pig doesn’t it rile you up to have your noze rubed [sic] in your booboos?” And the “peek-a-boo” in the Paul Avery Halloween card along with the illustrated word BOO, written in wavy letters as a childish attempt to scare … all written by a killer in his forties.
Pouring over all the descriptions of Zodiac’s hair, it is clear he definitely had an ongoing hair problem. His hair has been described as blond crew cut with reddish or gray tinge, short brown hair, sweaty dark brown and may have been a wig, short light brown and worn in a military crew cut, curly wavy dark brown hair, short straight dark hair and parted, and we even had the psychic Joseph DeLouise say he felt the killer had “silky, darkish brown hair that he normally wore in a pompadour, but as a disguise combed forward.” As conflicting as these hair descriptions seem, Warren actually wore his hair in all these styles. At one particular outing, Warren can be seen with his hair combed up in a pompadour, and then later that same day his hair is combed forward onto his forehead. The Zodiac’s dripping pen card, reading, “I just washed my pen and can’t do a thing with it,” is the most bizarre message play on words as in the 1960s a famous hair shampoo used the slogan, “I just washed my hair and can’t do a thing with it.” Warren was aware of his hair problem and would have been just as attracted to this particular greeting card as he was to the dragon greeting card. In the mid-1970s, one of his girls said she frequently had to tell Warren to wash his hair … he dressed really shabby and his hair was always greasy. His excuse for often dying his hair was that he wanted to remain young looking, but the true reason was to make himself look different than the Zodiac wanted poster. In his final year of life, his over-the-ear brown and often streaky greasy hair with dry frazzled ends was worn combed down all around his head starting from the center top like a bad wig. On his wedding day, his hair is dyed brown and styled into a pageboy haircut complete with bangs.
Two pictures of Warren taken on the same day at the same time but with a full face forward and then with a face slightly turned to the side, the first pose grinning and the second pose grimacing, reflect the look of a chameleon. He looks like two different people at the same time. It is these two poses that look like the two wanted poster composites; the grin pose is the face on the Napa County wanted poster and appears round, while the grimace pose is the face on the San Francisco Police wanted poster and appears narrower. An uncanny comparison appears—from grin to grimace … from Warren to Zodiac. However, Warren at age fifty and in the final years of his life appears as an emaciated sickly version of his earlier fit self while still maintaining his “disguise”—over-the-ear dyed brown hair. The dripping pen card received on November 8, 1970, after the Paul Stein killing stating, “I just washed my pen and can’t do a thing with it,” and Zodiac’s letter of November 9, 1969, stating, “I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle [sic] different,” are Zodiac’s diary entries telling us that he is growing out and dying his hair.
In 1969, the Fourth of July holiday fell on a Friday night. The killer spent that holiday night prowling around San Francisco and the Bay Area hunting his next victims. It had been
six months since his last strike. Alone, and in a dangerous mood, he spent a lonely, angry holiday fulfilling his urge to kill again, and by the end of that July month in 1969, the man who would come to be known as the “Zodiac killer” would begin his litany of menacing letters to the police and newspapers.
As the young hippies came into San Francisco, Warren would have been drawn to the area by these “girls and boys” with hair ever as strange as his own. He lived in Riverside, California, four blocks from the Cheri Jo Bates murder scene and probably came very close to getting spotted that night, when he would have been very bloody, disheveled, and excited. He could not safely murder again so close to home—people were watching. But when his out-of-control urge to “kill a cop” erupted, he boldly carried out the Paul Stine trial cop killing run at ten o’clock in the evening under a street light in a residential neighborhood, firing a nine-millimeter gun into the quiet San Francisco night.
Warren had plenty of time to wander the highways and streets. His committed time was spent teaching limited hours and participating in his astronomy club activities. But when the students he taught and the club members he associated with went on to their private business, Warren had no private business to go on to—that left him free to spend time driving around with his girls on his wild adventures, walking the streets of San Francisco or Los Angeles taking in movies, doing drugs, or spending time at the “cabin” working on his hobbies and experiments.
Zodiac Cracked Page 10
