THE CASE OF THE ZODIAC KILLER: Arthur Leigh Allen misinformation

The most recent piece of Arthur Leigh Allen misinformation is the nonsensical claim that Allen originally faced police scrutiny because the Zodiac killer had been proven to drive a Volkswagen Beetle.

The claim — posted at Reddit — is nonsense.

As the silly story goes, following the Zodiac killer’s September 1969 attack in its jurisdiction, the Napa County Sheriff’s Department allegedly measured the tire impressions left by the Zodiac killer’s vehicle while it was parked along a road above Lake Berryessa, and those tire impressions were determined to have been made by a tiny VW Beetle. Therefore, Napa investigators were on the lookout for such a vehicle, to the point that Napa detectives phoned the Vallejo Police Department — already investigating earlier crimes of the Zodiac killer — and said “The Zodiac killer was a huge guy driving a VW Beetle!” The Vallejo police then allegedly contacted a local man who owned a service station — a fella named Bob Luce — and asked Luce if he knew of any huge guys who drove a VW Beetle. And that’s how Bob Luce was allegedly responsible for getting police attention to Arthur Leigh Allen.

For a moment, let’s ignore the fact that nobody ever described the Zodiac killer as being “huge.” At Lake Berryessa, Cecelia Shepard saw the Zodiac clearly and did not describe a huge man. Meanwhile, her lake companion, Bryan Hartnell, made it clear he was a horrible judge of height. And while it appeared the Zodiac had a pronounced stomach, Hartnell stressed that it might have simply been the effect of a puffy jacket. And when the local investigators performed what was called “a compaction test” on the depth of the footprints left by the Zodiac killer, those same detectives admitted such a test was not scientific.

So, you might ask, why would Napa investigators tell the Vallejo investigators that the Zodiac killer was a huge guy? Easy answer: They didn’t.

And what about this nonsense of the Zodiac killer driving a VW Beetle? It’s simply more bunk.

While the Napa investigators did measure the tire impressions left by the Zodiac killer, they never concluded the impressions were made by a small car. In fact, quickly thereafter the focus was on finding a man who was driving a Chevy sedan, which were large cars. The Chevy sedan being sought was driven by a man who had alarmed a few female sunbathers in the area. Napa investigators went all-out trying to locate that Chevy sedan, a rather strange thing to do if they were aware the Zodiac was actually proven to be driving a VW Beetle.

This entire story was concocted by a reddit user called u/241waffledeal. The reason? Hilariously, u/241waffledeal used a modern technique to interpret the tire impressions left by the Zodiac killer. If that’s not silly enough, u/241waffledeal then concluded the modern technique had been used by the Napa County Sheriff’s Department back in September 1969, even though the modern technique hadn’t been invented yet. Oh, and since u/241waffledeal believes Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac killer — and since Allen was what some might describe as huge (at least his weight), therefore the Zodiac killer was also huge.

Opinion confirmation, passed along as proven fact to the poorly informed and/or gullible. It’s what I call Richard Grinell 101.

Was Bob Luce the original tipster who gave the Vallejo police Allen’s name back in October 1969, as being the possible Zodiac killer? Maybe. I have a much better candidate whom I’ll introduce in detail in my forthcoming book. However, what I know for sure is the story of the Zodiac killer having been proven to drive a VW Beetle is nonsense perpetuated by a Reddit user called u/241waffledeal.