Zodiac Unmasked (8 page)

Treasure Island. The FBI believed in the military connection.

“UNSUB [unknown subject of an investigation] may have military background,” the FBI file said, “inasmuch as UNSUB used bayonet and two

separate 9mm weapons and one of the surviving victims observed UNSUB to be wearing military-type boots.” Not only were these unusual-looking

chucker-type boots available only through a limited outlet, but police had their size. Zodiac wore a size 10½ Regular shoe, which indicated a tal

man, as did his long stride.

Toschi, recal ing Zodiac’s unusual homemade costume, later told me: “We sent our artist to Napa County [on October 24, 1969]. Surviving victim

Bryan Hartnel described the Zodiac’s hood as black and sleeveless, the white circle and crosshair in the middle of the chest. The hood looked wel

made and wel -sewn [the corners had been stitched and there was neat stitching around the flat top] with clip-on sunglasses over the eye slits.” And

Starr could sew (he had been a sailmaker). But the police in that cramped refinery office scarcely wondered about the suspect’s sewing skil s or

paid much attention to his shoes—they were studying his face. Beyond his strength and the build of a potential Gold Medal swimmer gone to seed

was a highly intel igent mind. Starr’s I.Q. was 136.

“We’re investigating the Zodiac murders in San Francisco and Val ejo,” said Armstrong, “and we have some questions for you.” The detective

pul ed out a chair for the chemist. Toschi noticed barely perceptible droplets beaded on Starr’s wide forehead. “An informant has notified us that

you made certain statements approximately eleven months prior to the first Zodiac murder,” continued Armstrong. “If these are true, then they are of

an incriminating nature.” Armstrong, though referring to Cheney’s recol ected dialogue with the suspect, did not mention his name. “Do you recal

having such a conversation with anyone?”

“I don’t recal such a conversation,” Starr said mildly. Oddly, he failed to ask with whom he had reportedly conversed. He seemed already to

know. “Others are quick to react to what you say and do,” his horoscope had read in that morning’s
Chronicle.
“Choose your words careful y.”

“Have you ever read or heard of Zodiac?”

“I read about the Zodiac when it first appeared in the newspapers,” said Starr. “I didn’t fol ow up on it after those first reports.”

“Why?”

“Because it was too morbid.”

But Starr, later in the interview, made other statements that were in direct conflict with this remark. First, though, he volunteered this: “A Val ejo

police sergeant questioned me after the Zodiac murders at Lake Berryessa.”

Al three investigators were stunned.

“We weren’t aware you had ever been questioned by the police before,” said Armstrong.

“I told him,” said Starr, “that on that particular weekend [Saturday, September 27, 1969] I had gone to Salt Point Ranch near Fort Ross to skin-

dive. [Salt Point Ranch lay in the opposite direction from Lake Berryessa.] I went alone, but I met a serviceman and his wife who were stationed on

Treasure Island. I don’t recal his name, but I have it written down somewhere at home. I got back to Val ejo about 4:00 P.M.”

Armstrong, Toschi, and Mulanax listened intently. Outside, a steam whistle blew and a foreman barked orders. Inside, Starr’s voice droned in the

heat. They could almost hear wheels turning in his head. A palpable tension choked the little office. “I recal speaking to a neighbor shortly after I

drove into my driveway,” Starr went on. “I guess I neglected to tel the Val ejo officer when he questioned me about being seen by this neighbor.”

“And what was the neighbor’s name?” asked Armstrong.

“[Wil iam] White. But he died a week after I was questioned so I never bothered to contact the police.” That was very convenient. Suddenly, Starr

made a bizarre leap in subject matter—one so strange that Toschi caught Armstrong’s attention with a quizzical raising of his eyebrow. Without any

questioning about a knife such as Zodiac had used in the Berryessa stabbings, the suspect made an astonishing statement:

“The two knives I had in my car had blood on them,” he said. “The blood came from a chicken I had kil ed.”

The day Zodiac stabbed two col ege students at Lake Berryessa, Starr was to have been there shooting ground squirrels and had told his sister-

in-law so. His new story was that he had gone scuba diving instead—elsewhere. Starr both skin dived and scuba dived. To explain why Zodiac

chose sites near lakes, a theory had circulated that Zodiac was a diver who hid his weapons and souvenirs in watertight containers underwater.

And that’s why the kil er had a paunch—a weighted diving belt around his waist. To Toschi, that hypothesis now looked considerably less far-

fetched. Starr was not only a boater, but an avid skin diver and spear fisherman.

“Starr thinks we have some information regarding a knife,” thought Armstrong. “He thinks we know more than we do, but knowledge of that bloody

knife is information we don’t possess.” Al the detectives could fathom was that someone had glimpsed the stained knives or knife on his car seat

and Starr knew they had. Did he think that his neighbor, Wil iam White, had observed a bloody blade when he returned home that day and

mentioned it to someone? More than likely, thought Toschi, Starr’s brother, Ron, or sister-in-law, Karen, were the ones who had spied the bloody

blade. Starr was hedging his bets and explaining away in advance any information that the police
may
have received.

“Were you in Southern California in 1966?” asked Armstrong.

Once again, Starr volunteered startling specifics without prompting.

“You mean about the Riverside kil ing?” he said. “Yes, I was in Southern California at the approximate time as the Riverside murder in which

Zodiac is a suspect.”

The information about a Zodiac stabbing in Riverside had been made public only ten months earlier. Phil Sins, a southern resident, had seen

paral els between a local murder and Zodiac’s Northern California activities. The break ran in the
Chronicle.
But hadn’t Starr just stated he had long

before ceased reading articles about Zodiac? The headline story suggested Zodiac had kil ed a Riverside Col ege coed, Cheri Jo Bates, just

before Hal oween Night 1966. The writer of the handprinted Riverside notes had also been fond of writing taunting letters to the press (“BATES

HAD TO DIE THERE WILL BE MORE”) and using too much postage. A squiggled signature on three letters was either a “2” or a “Z.” Most

importantly, Morril had identified Zodiac as the author of the Southern California notes.

“I admit I’m interested in guns,” Starr continued, “but the only handguns I own are .22-caliber. I don’t have and have never owned an automatic

weapon.”

“Have you ever owned a 1965-66 brown Corvair?” asked Armstrong. Zodiac was driving such a vehicle the night of his Fourth of July murder.

“No.” Starr folded his arms. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, his forearms as massive as “Popeye’s.”

Toschi noticed a big watch on Starr’s wrist. “It was a rugged man’s watch,” he told me later. “It’s the kind of watch a man would buy to be seen

—‘Look at what I’ve got on my wrist.’ And I spotted it instantly—the word ‘Zodiac.’ I asked him specifical y to show it to me. ‘That’s a nice watch

you’ve got there,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’ve had it awhile,’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’ I said. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. And you can see the letters Z-o-d-i-a-c. I stil

remember seeing that watch. And he wanted people to see what he had on his arm. He wore it in defiance. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. When we

saw the watch we were amazed—and the brother and sister-in-law afterward mentioned to Armstrong and I that, ‘He even wears a Zodiac watch.’”

“May I see that?” said Armstrong. He gestured toward Starr’s wrist. He had also noticed their suspect was wearing an unusual-looking watch. A

ray of light through the blinds made the crystal face sparkle. Above the watchmaker’s name, in the center of the face, was emblazoned a bold

emblem. It froze the officers in spite of the heat. There, glowing stark white on black, was a circle and crosshairs—
Zodiac’s symbol.

The expensive watch on Starr’s wrist had been manufactured by Zodiac Astrographic Automatic, LeLocle, Switzerland/New York, a company

whose roots stretched back to the nineteenth century. Now Mulanax saw it too. Neatly printed across the bottom, in upper and lower case, was the

word “Zodiac.” The name and symbol were exactly like those used as a signature on Zodiac’s letters.

“Only in Zodiac’s letters had the name ‘Zodiac’ and the kil er’s crossed-circle symbol ever appeared together in the same place,” Toschi thought.

He knew because he had searched everywhere for that crossed circle. To this moment, he had assumed it represented a gun sight. Starr turned

the watch on his wrist as if admiring it. “It was a birthday gift,” he said to Armstrong. “This watch was given to me by my mother two years ago.”

Mulanax counted back in his mind. “Let’s see—exactly two years back from today is August 4, 1969. On August 4, 1969, the kil er had used the

name ‘Zodiac’ for the first time in a three-page letter to the
Examiner.
The paper had buried his note in the late edition at the top of page 4. Only

five days before, Zodiac had introduced his crossed circle symbol to the papers.” Though a later CI&I report stated Starr had gotten the watch in

August 1969, his brother, Ron, contradicted that. He said that Starr “received the watch from his mother as a Christmas gift in December 1968.”

Starr’s thirty-fifth birthday had been December 18, 1968, just two days before Zodiac’s first known Northern California murders.

Starr would own a second Zodiac watch later. The manufacturers of the “World Famous Zodiac Watches” manufactured a Zodiac Clebar Skin-

diver Underwater Chronograph in 1969: “It’s a stop watch! Aviator and skin-diver’s watch. Tested for 20 atmospheres (comparable to 660 feet

underwater).” Starr was, by then, both an aviator and skin diver. Like its brother, a logo in the lower right-hand corner of the watch was a crossed

circle on a dark background above the word “Zodiac.” It was quiet in the office. The Zodiac watch, mention of a bloody knife, Starr’s volunteered

information had dazed them al . What was coming next?

“I’m wil ing to help you in the investigation in any way possible,” the suspect said, licking his lips. He coughed and cleared his throat. Starr

apparently wanted to interpose a high note, one with some humor, reconciliation, and good fel owship al round. “I can’t wait until the time comes

when police officers are not referred to as ‘pigs,’” he said with a sad shake of his head. Some antiwar protesters and students of the period

commonly cal ed police “pigs.” Zodiac used the same epithet. “I enjoy needling the blue pigs,” he had taunted. “Hey blue pig I was in the park.”

“Can you recal anyone whom you might have had a conversation with regarding Zodiac?” interjected Mulanax.

“I might have had a conversation with Ted Kidder and Phil Tucker of the Val ejo Recreation Department when I was working there, but I’m not

positive.” Starr continued answering questions before they were asked. In this way he might defuse any damaging evidence against him in their

minds. What had they heard? He had no way of knowing which of many acquaintances had turned him in as a kil er. He said some very strange

things in private. He liked to talk and he talked loud and his remarks made him the center of attention. Suddenly, Starr paused—he realized who

had sent the police!

“‘The Most Dangerous Game,’” he said.

“What?” said Toschi.

Out of nowhere, Starr had mentioned the title of a short story he had read in the eleventh grade, a tale that, by his own admission, had made a

deep and lasting impression on him. Toschi recal ed Langstaff’s Manhattan Beach report and recognized “The Most Dangerous Game” as the

same story Starr had rhapsodized over a ful year before the murders began. Toschi smiled inwardly—Starr had final y figured out who had ratted

him out.

“It was cal ed ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’” Starr elaborated. “It was the best thing I read in high school.” Zodiac had given “The Most

Dangerous Game” as his motive in a cunning, almost unbreakable three-part cipher. But Salinas schoolteacher Don Harden had cracked it on

August 4, 1969, exactly two years ago today, though Harden’s solution was not made public until August 12. Encrypting mistakes and al , the

bizarre solution read:

“I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE

MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN

BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN

PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI

DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR AFTERLIFE . . .”

Roughly, the short story by Richard Connel dealt with the son of a military officer hunting humans with a rifle and bow and arrow for sport in the

forest. Aptly, Starr, the son of a military man, hunted in the woods with a bow and arrow. Mulanax summarized the story in this manner: “This book

was made into a movie and concerns a man shipwrecked on an island and being hunted by another man ‘like an animal.’” It might be important to

study that brief story in depth for clues, thought Mulanax, learn if it had been a movie or dramatized on television, learn where Zodiac might have

stumbled across it and when.

“Starr mentioned ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ during that questioning,” Toschi told me later, “and his brother afterward confirmed that he felt that