by Hodel, Steve
“1,2,3,4,5,6,7” (7 reversed)
A.G.C.G.T.H!”
Helter Skelter—Bugliosi/Manson
Based on “Zodiac’s” reference to the Manson Family in the text of his letter, it becomes obvious that the source of the enigmatic message on the outside of the envelope is also a direct reference to Charles Manson.
Further, it is my belief that the person who wrote this letter had also read and was familiar with author Vincent Bugliosi’s, HELTER SKELTER: The True Story of the Manson Murders, published four-years earlier. [1974]
Why?
Read this excerpt from Bugliosi’s bestseller, page 294:
On May 25, I was going through LAPD’s tubs on the LaBianca case when I noticed standing against the wall, a wooden door. On it was a multicolored mural, the lines from a nursery thyme, “1, 2,3,4,5,6,7—All Good Children Go to Heaven”; and, in large letters, the words “HELTER SKELTER IS COMING DOWN FAST.” Stunned, I asked Gutierrez, “Where in the hell did you get that?”
“Spahn Ranch.”
“When?”
He checked the yellow property envelope affixed to the door, “November 25, 1969.” “You mean for five months, while I’ve been desperately trying to link the killers with Helter Skelter, you’ve had this door, with those very words on it, the same bloody words that were found at the LaBianca residence?
Guiterrez admitted they had. The door, it turned out, had been found on a cabinet in Juan Flynn’s trailer. It had been considered so unimportant that to date no one had even bothered to book it into evidence.
Guiterrez did so the next day.
Photo of the Spahn Ranch door booked in evidence at LAPD Property
Writing on door reads, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7—All Good Children (go to heaven)
I believe the enigmatic reference on the 1978 envelope is classic Zodiac. He preferred to write it backwards and in code—another of his cat-and-mouse games. A new taunt from the “master criminal.” Let the cops try and connect these dots.
I know for a fact that my father had read and was familiar with Bugliosi’s bestseller, Helter Skelter, because during that time period, he expressed an interest in the investigation, and, on one of his regular visits with me in LA, told me he had read it and asked me directly, “What did you think about the book?” My response back then was, “Sorry, Dad, I haven’t read it.”
John Walsh—Anderson Cooper—More Zodiac Letters and DNA?
CNN Anderson Cooper 360 “Notorious Crimes”—July 22, 2011
2011 John Walsh and Anderson Cooper discussing Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases
On his July 23, 2011 CNN show, Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper aired an updated segment devoted to various “Notorious Crimes.”
In September 2006, Anderson had interviewed me on the Black Dahlia Murder, and, on that show, I eliminated the one photo in my father’s album as NOT BEING ELIZABETH SHORT, and discussed the posing of the body and various signature connections of my father’s crime to SURREALISM.
In the 2011 segment, Anderson updated my investigation and introduced the viewers to one of my most important new discoveries—the linking of physical evidence from my father’s Sowden/Franklin house to evidence found near the body at the Thirty-Ninth and Norton vacant lot.
He presented the photographs and original receipts I had discovered at the UCLA Special Collections Department, linking the cement bags from the house to identical bags that LAPD determined were used to transport Elizabeth Short’s body to the vacant lot. [All previously detailed in Chapter 5 of this book, “Scene of the Crime.”]
In his update, he also mentioned the important fact that Dr. Hodel had fled the country BEFORE detectives were able to arrest and interview him regarding the tape recorded admissions and confessions he made to killing Elizabeth Short and his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, as well as personally admitting to “performing abortions at his VD clinic and to making payoffs to the police.”
In the interview, John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, expressed a strong conviction and belief that, “in my heart and in my gut from doing this for so many years, I believe it was the doctor.” [George Hodel]
Here is the excerpted exchange between Walsh and Cooper regarding the Black Dahlia Murder:
AC: The Black Dahlia case. This is a case that has been fascinating Hollywood and the country for decades.
JW: Bestselling book, movie all that spin. But I do believe who killed the Black Dahlia, the main suspect they had. The doctor who is now deceased. I believe he got away with that case. They never charged him. He was a stalker. He was the main suspect. [Dr. George Hill Hodel] They never had enough to indict him. She was dismembered by someone who had great knowledge of anatomy and skills in surgery. He was the logical suspect, but back in those days, they didn’t have the tools that we have now.
AC: They obviously sensationalized the case not because she was beautiful, but because of the gruesome way that she was killed.
JW: The way that he displayed her. He displayed her as a trophy, like lots of serial killers and horrible narcissistic murderers do. He displayed her in the field for the whole world to see his work.
In my heart and in my gut from doing this so many years I believe it was that doctor. [Emphasis mine]
After discussing the Black Dahlia case, the program then reviewed the ZODIAC murder. Here is an excerpt from that discussion where John Walsh described personally receiving multiple letters and death threats from a man identifying himself as “Scorpion,” but who had identical handwriting and codes and ciphers to “Zodiac.”
…
AC: The Zodiac killer’s probably the most famous cold case in the US. Why do you think there is so much fascination with it?
JW: Because he terrorized and held San Francisco captive for so long. They locked down that city when he said, “If you keep looking for me, I have a sniper’s rifle, I will kill the kids getting off of the buses.” He claimed to have killed multiple victims. They believe he killed seven people. It actually paralyzed a city. A United States city. One low-life coward paralyzed that city. People were fascinated. He always sent this cryptic code around, and everybody analyzed it. When I first profiled the Zodiac killer, I got a letter sent exactly like his code. Sent to me in exactly the same kind of envelope that he sent others. I had to give it to the FBI. It was signed in blood. In human blood. He said, “I will kill you. You will be the ultimate victory. I got away with it. I’ve committed mayhem since I murdered those other people. You will be my ultimate prize. I still have the ability to kill people. It’s fascinating. We don’t know if it was the Zodiac killer? Nobody knows. It fascinates people when somebody gets away with murder and they brag about it.
AC: The Zodiac killer had seven confirmed victims. Five of them died. But he’s suspected possibly to have dozens more.
Several years prior to this interview, John Walsh had published the actual letters on his America’s Most Wanted website, informing the public that the letters and ciphers containing the death threats were sent to him in 1990. The suspect signed his letters “Scorpion.” [That is the same year that George Hodel relocated from Asia back to San Francisco.]
Both the hand printing and ciphers are similar to those of the original “Zodiac” and John Walsh in his Anderson Cooper interview informed us “that the envelopes were the same kind he [Zodiac] sent others.”
“Scorpion Letters” mailed to John Walsh in 1990
Clearly, based on Walsh’s information, these letters should be examined and processed for potential DNA.
John Walsh has been a dedicated fighter for victim’s rights for twenty-three years and his success as the host of America’s Most Wanted has resulted in more than 1,200 “solves.” He has been a major force in helping law enforcement take so many vicious criminals “off the streets.” His crime fighting efforts have also resulted in an incalculable number of CRIMES BEING PREVENTED.
He has my highest respect and personal congratulations for an OUTSTANDING JOB IN STANDING UP FOR VICTIM�
��S RIGHTS AND HIS LONG YEARS OF ASSISTANCE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT.
ZODIAC-San Francisco Paul Stine Murder—Shirt and Gloves
In my opinion, the best potential for hard physical evidence in the unsolved ZODIAC murders can be found in the physical evidence booked in connection with the San Francisco, Paul Stine cabbie shooting.
The suspect’s bloodstained gloves and the section of shirt torn from the victim’s body by his killer and mailed to SFPD both REMAIN UNTESTED. Both items are highly likely to yield a full Zodiac profile—IF TESTED.
The gloves, men’s size 7, apparently containing the victim’s blood splatters, were inadvertently left behind and very likely fell out of Zodiac’s pocket prior to the shooting. The 1969 police and DOJ reports confirm that law enforcement believes that they were owned and worn by Zodiac.
In addition, there remain some fifteen to twenty notes mailed by Zodiac that could be retested using today’s much more sophisticated techniques.
I find it incredible that NO CONFIRMED ZODIAC DNA has yet been obtained. There is NO ZODIAC DNA entered into any state or national CODIS data banks.
The last report I am aware of from law enforcement sources dates back to 2002 and that sample reportedly is highly suspect and contains only a partial DNA profile which is insufficient to include or exclude anyone. That sample only contains three (3) out of the thirteen (13) loci found in a full DNA profile.
California DOJ Meet and the Zodiac DNA Evidence
In November 2009, two months after the publication of my book, Most Evil, I met with two agents from the California Department of Justice.
The agents, I’ll call them, X and Y, flew down from the DOJ San Francisco Regional Office to Los Angeles for a morning meet in which I presented them with a PowerPoint summary of my overall investigation.
I focused on the ZODIAC connections and what I believed were the best potential sources for obtaining Zodiac DNA with special emphasis on the size 7 gloves left by Zodiac inside the murder victim’s [Paul Stine] taxi.
Both Agent Y [a retired SFPD detective] and Agent X, his supervisor, seemed impressed with my findings. Agent X said she would “be back in contact with me after they had a chance to review the various written materials I had provided them.”
Six months later, in May 2010, I contacted Agent Y by e-mail and inquired if he had been able to test the gloves? He responded that the SFPD homicide commander “had given him permission to have them tested, and he was in the process of attempting to locate the evidence.”
I recontacted Agent Y in August 2010, and he indicated that he was hoping to meet with the SFPD detective and “track down the gloves and get the process going.”
My last communication with Agent Y occurred in November 2010. In that exchange, he said he was “still trying to make contact with his contact at SFPD and continue the search for the gloves,” assuring me that “at some point, this will all come together.” [As a side note, Agent Y advised me that their DOJ handwriting expert “had examined and compared George Hodel’s handwriting to known Zodiac documents and was unable to include or exclude him as the author of the Zodiac letters.” Their Questioned Document Expert requested through Agent Y that I provide them with some additional samples of George Hodel’s “lowercase handwriting.” Unfortunately, I have no additional samples in my possession as my father rarely wrote in lowercase. I am currently attempting to locate additional writing samples. Despite the “inconclusive” finding, the fact that the DOJ expert could not eliminate, or rule-out George Hodel as the writer of the Zodiac notes and letters—is, by itself–significant.]
It has now been two-years since my original meet with the two DOJ agents. It is unknown if the gloves have been found or tested, or still remain missing? In criminal investigations, “No news is bad news.” We can only hope that in Agent Y’s optimistic words, “this will all come together.”
Have the SFPD Stine Gloves been located and tested for DNA or is the evidence still missing?
[Left] SFPD Paul Stine Evidence—Suspect’s bloodstained gloves and victim’s shirt
[Right] George Hodel, putting on his size-7 gloves on a visit to me on Orcas Island in Washington State in 1995.
Bottom Line:
I believe that the potential for obtaining the suspect’s DNA on many of the 1940s unsolved Los Angeles Lone Woman Murders does exist.
I believe that analysis of those samples will, like they did in the GRIM SLEEPER MURDERS—prove linkage.
Once DNA is obtained, cold case detectives can enter the samples into state and federal CODIS data-banks and very possibly identify a suspect and clear many of the cases.
At the very least, detectives should make the attempt to obtain DNA from the Los Angeles area Zodiac letters booked in evidence at LAPD and Riverside to see if they can be linked to a killer already entered in CODIS.
With the recent advancement of “Touch DNA,” I am extremely confident that the forty-year-old unsolved Zodiac serial murders CAN BE SOLVED.
All that it requires is just one dedicated cold case investigator in any of the many jurisdictions to take the initiative and make a first step forward!
That detective may now be assigned to any of the following departments or agencies: Riverside PD, LASD Homicide, LAPD Homicide CCU, Long Beach PD, San Francisco PD, Napa, or Solano Sheriff’s or Vallejo PD.
The solution is there, just a simple phone call away. As an old-time homicide detective who has been there and done that, I strongly urge that detective to pick-up the telephone and make the call to his or her crime-lab.
I’ll close with a quote from SFPD Zodiac inspector, Mike Maloney, who was one of the last detectives actively assigned to work Zodiac. He died in 2005, believing that DNA would one day solve the case.
In an open letter to the public, written shortly before his death, he said:
I believe Mike’s assessment was absolutely correct!
REST IN PEACE MIKE!
Epilogue
With this updating of the investigative findings as presented here in Black Dahlia Avenger II, I am going to “close the homicide book” on my father’s serial crimes in and around the Southern California area in the1940s.
As I indicated in my “Touch DNA” chapter, the ball is now in law enforcement’s court.
Only time will tell if a detective from one of the multi-jurisdictions will decide to take a look and see if their cold-case evidence still exists, and then test it. If they do, I believe that the chances are exceptionally strong that they can obtain a positive match to my father’s existent DNA.
As for myself, I will, after taking a short “break” of a month or two, not “move on,” but rather-MOVE BACK.
It is my full intention to continue my investigation and present the additional evidence much of which I have been compiling as part of my “ongoing investigation” over the past decade.
I anticipate Book IV—George Hill Hodel—The Early Years will complete my criminal investigations into the life and crimes of my father, and hopefully will provide some new light and additional closure to yet unsuspecting family members whose relatives were slain long long ago.
Respectfully,
Steve Hodel
Los Angeles, California
December 2011
Addendum A
Addendum B
DA TRANSCRIPTS-DOROTHY HODEL INTERVIEW 3/22/1950
Addendum C
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