Dec. 20, 2003) Today is the 35th anniversary of the Zodiac’s Lake Herman Road murders.
Click here for a special update.
Dec. 18, 2003) Today would have been Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen’s 70th birthday. Here are several exclusive photos of Allen, who died on Aug. 26, 1992.
Dec. 7, 2003) I’ve just added an extremely rare, 10-page top-secret report on the Zodiac crimes. Prepared in 1971, this is the first time the report has been published anywhere; previously it had only been available to detectives working on the case.
Nov. 28, 2003) William Mentzer, who recently convinced the New York Post that he could be the Zodiac (see the Oct. 11, 2003 update below), has apparently admitted he made up his entire story. I guess one just can’t trust convicted murderers these days…
> As mentioned on the recent Cold Case Files episode, the San Francisco Police Dept. (SFPD) is hard at work on the Zodiac case. Homicide inspectors Michael Maloney and Kelly Carroll have been processing leads on potential suspects, coordinating DNA testing and — of course — investigating their many non-Zodiac cases as well. Bottom line: If the Zodiac case is never solved, it certainly won’t be due to lack of effort from SFPD.
Nov. 13, 2003) While recent DNA evidence seems to indicate long-time suspect Arthur Leigh Allen was not the Zodiac killer, one thing is certain; he was quite the cook. If you’re bored with the traditional holiday dishes, step into Allen’s kitchen for some alternative cooking ideas.
Oct. 31, 2003) It was exactly 37 years ago that Cheri Jo Bates was found murdered on the campus of Riverside City College in Riverside, Calif. Click here for a special update.
> Which came first, the Grinch or the Zodiac? He didn’t steal Christmas, but the Zodiac sure ruined Halloween back in 1969.
> On a much lighter note, Count Gore was kind enough to provide Zodiackiller.com with Rock Savage’s Internet movie classic Curse of the Zodiac Killer. (RealPlayer required)
Oct. 20, 2003) For years rumors have circulated that the police have withheld crucial evidence in the Zodiac case. If true, I (and others) had long assumed the evidence would be in the form of a letter from the killer. Thanks to my excellent sources within the Los Angeles Police Dept., here is the alleged top-secret Zodiac letter received by a Los Angeles television station in May 1978. Handwriting experts were apparently unable to rule out the Zodiac as being responsible, although no official statement from law-enforcement officials has ever been issued.
Discussion of the letter can be found at the Zodiackiller.com Message Board and Chat Room.
Oct. 11, 2003) Today is the 34th anniversary of the Zodiac’s last-known crime, the San Francisco murder of cab driver Paul Stine. I’ve updated Stine’s page with several new items.
> The recent Lake Berryessa gathering went even better than expected, as I was finally able to meet message board users Sean O’Brien, Ray Nixon, Mike Cole, Wendy Echols and Scott Norton. Click here for all the details.
> The New York Post recently broke a major story naming convicted murderer William Mentzer as a viable suspect in the Zodiac murders. While in-depth discussion of this development (along with the entire Post story) can be found at the Zodiackiller.com Message Board, my opinion is that Mentzer is as likely to be the Zodiac as O.J. Simpson or Robert Blake.
> I’ve again updated the Z-mail page to include more interesting and entertaining e-mail I’ve received over the past few months. It’s fascinating stuff.
Sept. 1, 2003) At long last, I’ve added several stills from the upcoming Zodiac film, The Zodiac. Click here to check them out.
> Here’s an exclusive photograph of Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen from 1979, complete with his infamous Zodiac watch. As DNA testing begins to play a bigger role in the Zodiac case, Allen is just one of the many suspects concerned citizens are contacting me about.
> For the month of August 2003, Zodiackiller.com received 1,135,885 hits — an all-time record for this site. Actually, the numbers should have been even higher, but my server couldn’t keep track of all the hits in the 24 hours following each showing of A&E’s Cold Case Files episode on the Zodiac.
Aug. 23, 2003) Although DNA recovered from a confirmed Zodiac letter was not a match to suspect Arthur Leigh Allen, at least one law-enforcement agency is still investigating the deceased schoolteacher. Due to Allen’s alleged habit of having others lick his stamps and envelopes (he claimed the taste of glue made him sick), the San Francisco Police Dept. recently obtained a voluntary DNA sample from Allen’s former friend, Don Cheney. The results were negative. Kudos to SFPD for doing such a thorough job. Check out the Zodiackiller.com Message Board for discussion of these interesting developments.
July 4, 2003) After a great deal of research and many discussions with several retired detectives, I’ve added the victims of a 1963 double homicide on the southern California coast to my list of possible Zodiac victims. Click here to learn why Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards just might have been the first victims of the Zodiac killer.
> The 2003 Zodiackiller.com Task-Force Meeting recently concluded after a five-day stay in the San Francisco Bay Area and featured the first-ever meeting between retired homicide detectives Ken Narlow (Napa County Sheriff’s Dept.) and William Baker (Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept.). Needless to say, the entire event was a huge success and lots of fun. Click here for pictures and details.
May 13, 2003) Beginning June 1, a major motion picture titled The Zodiac will begin filming in Vallejo, Calif. The film will be a fact-based narrative on the Zodiac case. I will post details as soon as they are available.
> Another Zodiac film, Ulli Lommel’s Zodiac Killer (featuring this site!), will debut at the Cannes Film Festival in just a couple of weeks. Here’s a look at some artwork from the movie. (For more on Zodiac Killer, see the March 20, 2003 update below.)
March 20, 2003) Today is the fifth anniversary of Zodiackiller.com and I’d like to thank these persons for their invaluable contributions to the content of this site (in alphabetical order): William Baker, Brian Banducci, Michael Bates, Sandy Betts, Don Cheney, Howard Davis, Dean Ferrin, Pam Huckaby, Rob Huffman, Ken Narlow, Carolyn Shepard, Howard Stern and John Walsh. (There are others I would like to thank, but they prefer to remain anonymous.)
> The public sure can’t seem to get enough of the Zodiac mystery. There are at least five Zodiac movies scheduled for production this year, including Ulli Lommel’s nearly completed work. Check out this exclusive sneak preview of Ulli’s Zodiac Killer.
> Check out this San Francisco band called The Zodiac Killers.
> After five years, it’s amazing how many details of the Zodiac case are still left to document. For example, many experts consider Cheri Jo Bates to be the Zodiac’s first victim and have been digging for clues ever since she was killed in 1966. However, only after more than 36 years is there finally a clear, detailed photo of the crime scene to cull information from. While graphic, I’ve published the photo because I believe it will be helpful to those experts in crime-scene analysis who visit this site:
New Cheri Jo Bates Crime-Scene Photo
One of the most fascinating elements to the Bates case is the morbid poem found scratched into a desk top at the college where she was killed. Was it the work of her killer, or just a hoax? While reproductions of the poem were published soon after the crime, here’s the first photo available showing the actual scale of the handwriting:
Desk-Top Poem Scale
Jan. 15, 2003) I’ve received another letter from the individual claiming to be the Zodiac killer. Click here for details, including images of the letter and envelope. (See the Nov. 22, 2002 update below for details on the first letter.)
> Changes are in the works for this website as we enter 2003. Please read my mission statement.
> I’ve added 75 pages from the Vallejo Police Department’s official report on Zodiac’s July 4, 1969 attack of Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau.
> Recently added are the following items from my collection of Zodiac documents. This is the first time any have been published:
*12-page interview with surviving victim Bryan Hartnell
*35-page case overview prepared by the California Department Of Justice
*19 pages of victim Darlene Ferrin’s address book
*15-page report on suspect Lawrence Kane
*All 35 pages of the Lake Berryessa police report
*14-page report on suspect Arthur Leigh Allen
*Seven-page report on suspect “Andy Walker”
*San Francisco Police Department report on the murder of Paul Stine
*Informant report on suspect Rick Marshall
