February 19, 2019 • 28 mins
What if the story you've heard about the Zodiac is not the real story? It's time to separate fact from fiction.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, How
Stuff Works, or its employees. When Michael Majeau was recovering
in the hospital, there's evidence that he was shown photographs
(00:20):
of several suspects, people who had been identified by police
as potential suspects, but there was no solid evidence against them.
Michael Majau was the sole survivor from the Blue Rock
Springs attack on July four, nine sixty nine. He was
shown photos of potential suspects the morning after the shooting.
As far as we know, according to those police reports,
(00:42):
he never identified any of those individuals at the time.
Alan wasn't in the photo lineup because he wasn't a suspect.
Decades later, in Michael Magee was shown a set of
photographs by retired detective George Bauert from the Leo Police Department.
One of the individuals in that photo lineup was Arthur
(01:04):
Lee Allen. When shown this lineup, according to George Bowart,
Michael Joe pointed to Arthur Lee Allen's photograph and said
that's him that's the man who shot me. And George
Bowart said, are you sure, and he said yes. It
had been more than two decades since the Zodiac attacked Majeaux,
(01:24):
and since that time, Robert Gray Smith's book had popularized
the case against Arthur Lee Allen, which led to Allan's
name and face being widely circulated. It made sense for
Majo to pick Allen in the lineup, but that wasn't
the end of Michael Majoe's statement in It's what happened
next that changed Michael Butterfield's opinion. And then he pointed
(01:48):
to the photograph of another individual in that lineup and
said he had a face like him, and the Valo
Police Department did not consider his identification to be valid.
Arthur Lee Allen at the time in ninety nine did
not match the description provided by Michael Michelle. And that's
sort of when I woke up to that phenomenon that
(02:12):
every time you're hearing about the Zodiac case, it's in
the prism of someone's theory. It's not the facts, and
they're tailoring those facts to suit their theory. It's also
why Michael Butterfield began to doubt Gray Smith's account of events.
There was a period of time where I was really
impressed with that book and thought that was the whole story.
And then over a short period of time, I started
(02:33):
to realize there's a lot more to that story than
that book. Butterfield doesn't think Arthur Lee Allen is the killer.
And so over a period of years I realized that
the story that you hear about the Zodiac case is
not the real story. And as you examine the facts,
that story starts to disintegrate, and behind it is this
(02:56):
other story which is much more interesting. It's the true
story of what happened, but that's not often what you
hear in public. A man in a mask robbed, tied,
and stabbed them, leaving them for dad. Subjects stated, I
want to report a murder, no a double murder. I
(03:19):
did it. A man who wore an evil style executioner's hood,
carried a knife and gun and intended to use them.
They haven't Arrestipe because they can't move it. I'm not
damn Zodiac. Who is the Zodiac? And where is he?
From my Heart Radio, How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV,
(03:41):
this is Monster, the Zodiac Killer. It seemed as if
the odds were stacked against Arthur Lee Allen. His home
had been searched over multiple occasions, over decades of time.
He had been harassed by investigators and reporters nearly his
entire life. But almost all the evidence against Arthur Lee
Allen was Circumstan Danchiel, the timing of the last letters,
(04:02):
the odd items found inside his home, his zodiac watch.
A lot of this was based on one book, Robert
gray Smith's Zodiac, But many people began to notice issues
in that book, including some people whose stories were in it.
There's a lot of rumors around. Everybody said, oh, we
paid cash for that house with drug money. Dean Farren
(04:24):
is the former husband of Darlene Farren, the waitress killed
at Blue Rock Springs. The gray Smith book suggests Darlene
had extra money from selling drugs, which perpetuated the rumor
that Dean and Darlene bought their house with that money.
If they would have done any research, they could have
seen that, Okay, there was a mortgage on it. It's
pretty much public record who owns the house and where
(04:46):
it came from. And that wasn't the only issue Dean
had with the gray Smith book. Then the night of
the shooting itself. He says that the Zodiac called the house, which, okay,
that's probably true somebody did. But he says that from
where he was he could look to the back window
of the house and see who answered the phone. Well,
that's impossible because it's like four blocks away and there's
(05:08):
two big buildings with trees and everything around it, so
you can tell he never came to town, and geographically
it couldn't be done. And there's quite a few quotes
in the book that I've never spoken to the man.
When we spoke with the retired Valeo PD detective at rust,
he was also skeptical of the gray Smith book, the
book that was written about the Zodiac by Robert Graysmith. Yeah,
(05:31):
I never was even contacted by that person. He never
asked me about it or anything, so I I don't know.
He has my name and some comments I made in
his book, but I never spoke with the man, forgot
with him or anything. The book was not the only
source of stories that accused Arthur Lee Allen. There was
also the testimony of Allen's former friend Don Cheney. Cheney's
(05:55):
story heavily implicated Allan, but it's possible he had another motive.
Remember the two men had a falling out because Alan
allegedly tried to molest one of Cheney's children. Could this
be enough motive to try and frame Allan? So by
nineteen seventy one, when the police were investigating, he didn't
(06:18):
have much to go on or to prove that any
of his accusations were true. They just had to basically
accept what he was saying and then go investigate Allan. Now,
in subsequent years, a lot of people, including myself, who
have gotten access to the police reports, I've interviewed Arthur
Ly Allen's family. UM, I actually interviewed Don Cheney myself
several times, and Don Cheney made statements to me which
(06:41):
were demonstrably false. He embellished elements of his story, he
added elements to his story, he changed elements of his story.
He initially said that this conversation had taken place in
December of nineteen sixty seven, but then he also claimed
that our through Lee, Allen, had been talking about losing
(07:02):
his job, a job that he didn't lose until March
of nineteen eight. So obviously there was something wrong there.
And as soon as Cheney realized that timing didn't match
up with the facts, he changed the date of that conversation.
The date was always crucial because he was claiming this
occurred before the Zodiac murders began. But later on he
(07:22):
started claiming that Arthur Lee Allen took him to the
scene of the murders on Lake Cremin Road, that he
talked about disabling women's cars by removing the lug nuts
on their tires. Of course, an allusion to the Kathleen
John's abduction. That doesn't match up with the Cheney's initial
claim that he hadn't talked to Allen since they're falling
out in nineteen sixty nine. Also, Cheney didn't add the
(07:43):
detail about disabling cars until he spoke with police for
the second time in nine years after Grace Smith's book
came out. And what about the connection Cheney made between
Arthur Lee Allen and Darlene Farren. Remember, Allen had supposedly
told Cheney he had become friendly with Darlene at the
(08:04):
restaurant where she worked, but Cheney didn't remember Darlene when
he spoke to police in nineteen seventy one and nineteen
ninety one. It wasn't until he spoke with gray Smith,
not the police, that he made the connection. This was
shortly before gray Smith's second book was published in two
thousand two. The discrepancy in Don Cheney's timelines is the
(08:26):
same with Arthur Lee Allen's watch. Cheney claimed Allen showed
off his new watch on January one, nineteen sixty nine,
but Allen's brother Ron said that's not true. Ron claimed
their mother gave Allen that watch for Christmas in nineteen
sixty seven, the year before. But Cheney originally didn't tell
this to police. Again, it wasn't until years after the
(08:49):
nineteen six Zodiac book was published that Cheney supposedly remembered
this story. So there's some serious, serious problems with Cheney
and his credibility, and he's the foundation for all of this.
I was forced to conclude that Don Cheney was not truthful,
and that wasn't because I don't like Allen as a suspect,
(09:11):
or because I just didn't want to believe him, because
that's what the facts indicate. That coupled with the accumulated
effect of years of misinformation and propaganda, combined into this
horrible situation for Arthur Lee Allen. Where now most people
were convinced of his guilt, but the information used to
(09:32):
convince them was usually not the truth. I've often thought
about what must have happened when the book Zodiac came
out and had said that Arthur Lee Allen's family believed
that he was the Zodiac and had reported him to police.
That was not true. Arthur Ly Allen's family never suspected
that he was the Zodiac. They never reported him to police.
(09:52):
But can you imagine the problems that created in his
family If you think about something like Occam's Razor, was
the most logical explanation that the explanation with the least
unnecessary parts, Then the most likely explanation is that Arthur
Lee Allen was not the Zodiac, and that the reason
(10:15):
most people think he is the Zodiac is because of
that book and then the film adaptation by David Fincher
in two thousand seven, which also altered some facts to
make Allen look more guilty than the facts would permit. So,
at the end of the day, Arthur Lee Allen is
probably the best known Zodiac suspect. He's probably someone that
(10:37):
many people still believe is guilty, but the facts tell
a very different story. One glaring irregularity in the case
(10:58):
against Arthur Lee Allen was the witness description. Arthur Lee
Allen worked on a hardware store in the Leo and
I had been in that hardware store, and I believe
that contact with him, and he he was about six
ft five light, you know, a big, hefty guy and
probably wade two hundred and fifty pounds or more, big
(11:20):
big man, and I might I dismissed him mainly because
of my interview with Michael Majoe where he described the
suspect as about five eight or five nine standing next
to that very low profile sports type vehicle that he
was in when he was shot. In my mind, if
(11:43):
Arthur Lee Allen, at six ft five two fifty plus
pounds had walked up to that car, Michael Majoel would
have said this guy was huge or something along that line,
that he would described a very large man, tall, whatever
like that. In his interview with me assistantly stuck to
five a five nine, and the only thing fares being
(12:05):
big and overweight would be the paunch from his belling.
In my mind, that start any anything other than might
what you call gut feeling. There's a cop that Michael
Majol would have given an entirely different description. At the
large man has walked up next to the car too,
But if it's been Arthur Lee Allen, I think it
(12:25):
would have been u much different physical description is at
least in height and weight. Alan's height and weight weren't
the only physical descriptions that didn't add up. Brian Hartnell,
the survivor from Lake Berriessa, did say Alan could possibly
be the Zodiac, but Hartnell also admits the zodiac size
could have been dependent on whether or not the jacket
(12:47):
he was wearing was lined or unlined. Hartnell said if
the killer was wearing a lined jacket, he could have
been a thin man. Again, Hartnell's description didn't match the
six ft two hundred and fifty pound man that was Alan.
But there's a third factor that stands out here. Hartnell said,
when the Zodiac turned his head, he saw some of
(13:08):
the man's hair and it was brown. Arthur Lee Allen
was balding. But it wasn't only victims who said that
Allan didn't match the zodiac's description. It's also interesting to
note that Don Falk, the police officer who reportedly saw
the Zodiac at the scene of the last known murder,
said that Arthur Lee Allen didn't match the description of
(13:30):
the man he saw. Don Falk described the Zodiac as
a white male adult in his early forties, five ft eight,
heavy billed, reddish, blonde, crew cut, and wearing glasses. Again,
the description doesn't match Allan's height or weight, and in
all three cases, not one witness mentioned the Zodiac as balding.
Majau wasn't the only person in to be shown a
(13:53):
photographic lineup. Kathleen John's, the woman who claims the Zodiac
attempted to kidnap her, was all so shown photos of
possible suspects, but John's didn't pick Allen, she chose someone else.
The eyewitness accounts of the Zodiac didn't match Arthur Lee Allen,
but there was another major factor that also didn't add
(14:14):
up his handwriting. My name is Susan Morton. I am
retired from the San Francisco Police Crime Laboratory, whereas served
for some years as their forensic document examiner. A forensic
document examiner uses scientific processes to study documents from crime scenes.
(14:36):
Examiners not only compare handwriting, but they can also tell
where the material came from, and if the document has
been altered, I would usually start with the known writing.
My method was to sketch it in my own effort,
and that would make me pay attention to things like size.
Gray shows like if you have a T H combination,
(15:00):
which is a pretty common combination of letters, which one
is taller, and you'll find that a writer is very
consistent about these ratios. I will figure all of those
out and get fixed in my mind not only how
this person forms letters and the ratios and things like that,
(15:22):
but how they vary. People are not machines, and they're
never going to write exactly the same way twice, but
they're going to vary within certain parameters. Susan worked at
a Bay Area laboratory that had done most of the
original work on the Zodiac case. At the time. The
San Francisco Police Department used that lab because they didn't
(15:45):
have a document examiner on staff. The first thing I
would do is see if it was naturally written. When
someone is attempting to copy someone else's signature, they're not
actually right. They're drawing a picture. Drawing and writing are
completely different acts from the writing that is copied. Looks
(16:10):
very different from normal writing. I'm not going to be
able to tell who did create debt, but I can
determine that the person whose signature it supposedly is did
not write it, because nobody forges their own signature like that.
That's a very laborious process. Susan inherited the Zodiac case
(16:31):
from the San Francisco Police Department. She became what she
calls the custodian of the letters. Susan would do handwriting
comparisons every time a new Zodiac suspect was offered up.
The Zodiac letters were handprinted, and they were extremely fluently
done very rapidly. When you're going fast, you don't have
(16:55):
the ability to disguise your handwriting because you're going to
do what your program tells you to do if you're
going fast. And you can tell this by how the
ends of the letters tail off into a little feathered
because them flying finishes. So I knew that the body
(17:17):
of that writing was the way that person wrote. This
wasn't some disguise that had been devised. The writing had
a right right hand slant, and the D was consistently
more slanted than any of the other letters, and that's
(17:39):
very unusual characteristic and that was consistent throughout all of
the Zodiac's writing. I was of the opinion that it
was the natural writing of that person. Natural handwriting is
the way a person writes with their dominant hand. For example,
if someone who was right handed tried to write with
their left hand, that writing wouldn't be considered natural. Some
(18:02):
people theorized Arthur Lee Allen was ambidextrous and he could
have used his less dominant hand to help disguise his writing,
but that wouldn't have worked because even if he used
his other hand, it still would have been his natural handwriting.
Susan doesn't believe Arthur Lee Allen disguised his handwriting based
on her findings, and there were numerous consistent differences with
(18:26):
the writing of Arthur ly Allen. I had copious amounts
of his writing contemporaneous to the Zodiac letters. Remember they
were written back in the sixties and early seventies. But
I had writing of arthurly Allen's from back then, and
it was writing that he did and what we call
(18:47):
a normal course of business. It wasn't something he sat
down and wrote to be used as a handwriting exemplar.
It was application forms and things like that, so he
was unaway or anybody would ever look at that when
he wrote it, and there was just no match whatsoever.
(19:07):
The lab also tried to develop fingerprints from the letters,
but the only usable print developed was a palm print.
It's called a writer's palm, the way a person's hand
rests on a page when they write. So we were
virtually certain that those prints did belong to the writer
of the letters. And also I believe that they did
(19:29):
do a comparison of his palm print to these writer's palms,
and there were several of those of different letters, and
they did not match his palm print. So I don't
think he did not write the Zodiac letters. There was
no indication and much indication that he didn't write it.
(19:56):
Every investigation of him eventually cleared him, so it was
not the Zodiac m h. When Arthur Lee Allen was
(20:20):
first questioned in October of nineteen sixty nine, he thought
it made him seem important for the first time. Maybe
instead of being viewed as some pathetic child molester, now
he was being viewed as one of the most brilliant
master criminals in history. And it appears that he may
have bragged about that and may have talked about that.
At least Arthur Lee. Allen's family thought that at first
(20:43):
he enjoyed that kind of attention, and then it backfired.
It took a lot of my tapes, they took a
samples of my handwriting, and then it became permanent, and
it became a cloud as shadow that followed him for
the rest of his life. I've never been known through
good luck, and I guess this is pretty much living
(21:05):
proof of it. I couldn't murder anyone, but if you
put yourself in his shoes, most people wouldn't want to
be accused of murder. And if they were going to
be accused of murder, at least do it with the facts.
Don't use fiction to accuse somebody. Two types of liars
(21:25):
in the world fishermen and policeman, and not necessarily in
that order. So it's got to be a really terrible
place to be to know that there's a book out
there that claims you're the Zodiac and people believe it.
And while at first you might be tempted to play
along and say, you know, yeah, well maybe I am
the Zodiac or whatever, then it becomes a ball of
(21:48):
chain that you cannot escape. I'm not the Zodiac killer.
I know that. I know that deep my soul. And
by the time they were searching Allen's home and he's
being interviewed by the police and his name is all
(22:08):
over the place, it was all over. At that point,
he had no choice anymore, and he is now going
to forever be known as the man that was most
likely the Zodiac. I couldn't murder anyone. It's difficult as hell,
and it can be ex it could be terribly depressing.
(22:34):
And if I had deserved any of it, that would
be something different, but I don't today. Ballejo police investigators
said they never charged Allen because they couldn't explain discrepancies
in the Zodiac's handwriting. Then you haven't arrested, maybe because
(23:01):
they can't prove a pain. I'm not damn Zodiac, the
Zodiac killer or victim of years at police harassment. Arthur
Lee Allen took the answer to his grave. Arthur Lee
Allen died from natural causes in August of Valio Police
(23:21):
Department officials found him unresponsive on the floor in his basement.
A polygraph agreement was resting in his printer. The Valeo
police had been pushing for Alan to take another polygraph test,
and it seemed he had decided to give in. At
fifty eight years old, he was still fighting to prove
his innocence. He was one of the most unluckiest people
(23:44):
on the planet because it literally destroyed him. He ended
up dying about a year after the first search of
his home, and of course they might as well have
carved onto his gravestone the man most people thought was
the Zodiac. So what you're left with is a man
who has been accused for almost fifty years on the
(24:06):
basis of statements made by two very questionable witnesses. None
of the evidence implicates them in the crimes. Every single
time they find some evidence, whether it's fingerprints, handwriting, DNA
palm prints, or eyewitness descriptions, it doesn't match Allen, and
his accusers will tell you that's because he's a master
criminal who was brilliant and could fake evidence and get
(24:28):
away with it. One of those people who clung to
the belief it was Arthur Lee Allen was Inspector Dave Toski.
He was first brought onto the case during the cab
driver murder in San Francisco, While Tski hunted for connections
to prove alan was the Zodiac, others began to look elsewhere.
In the late nineteen eighties, I began working for a
(24:53):
company called Orchards Supply Hardware, and later I became a
what's quota regional loss prevention est purity manager for the
hardware stores. I belonged to a couple of different security
associations and one of them, at a luncheon that I
(25:13):
attended at one of the security organizations, they had a
guest speaker who was going to do a presentation on
the Zodiac Killer. And it turned up to be a
man named Harvey Hines Hi n e s who was
actually a police officer, but he had never never worked
in any jurisdiction where any of the claimed Zodiac killings. Yeah,
(25:38):
he gave a presentation and showed that he had identified
a person named Larry Kine that he believed was the Zodiac.
Next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer, and it was
just so creepy again, just so freaked out. This woman
is she just quit her job And Larry King was
(25:59):
just a cree be odd char stories like that because
he was part of the mom he may have turned
somebody in and they put him into protection program. For
the last nine years, the Zodiac investigation has been headed
by homicide Inspector David Tusky. I had rulishel de fating
(26:21):
that he was not dead and that he was out
there somewhere and that he would communicate. There is no
official police clamp on Inspectatoski talking with the media. That
matter is entirely up to him. It went off like
a flash. Oh my goodness, that definitely looks like Zodiac.
So we want to just make some advancements, you know,
(26:42):
and get something major. I think I've come up with
something major. It's an interesting bit of information that nobody
knew about before, and I think where fifty years into it,
it's time to solve the case. Monster The Zodiac Killer
is a fifteen episode podcast produced by I Heart Radio,
(27:02):
How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Albright and I
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers
Meredith Stepman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason Hope is
executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along with
producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Kybrick, and Josh Than
(27:23):
Scott Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick is our host.
Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you
haven't already, make sure to check out the first season
of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta child murders
from the late seventies to the early eighties. Download the
ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments, email
(27:44):
us at Monster at how stuff works dot com, or
you can call us at one eight three three eight
five six six six seven. Thanks for listening.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, How
Stuff Works, or its employees. When Michael Majeau was recovering
in the hospital, there's evidence that he was shown photographs
(00:20):
of several suspects, people who had been identified by police
as potential suspects, but there was no solid evidence against them.
Michael Majau was the sole survivor from the Blue Rock
Springs attack on July four, nine sixty nine. He was
shown photos of potential suspects the morning after the shooting.
As far as we know, according to those police reports,
(00:42):
he never identified any of those individuals at the time.
Alan wasn't in the photo lineup because he wasn't a suspect.
Decades later, in Michael Magee was shown a set of
photographs by retired detective George Bauert from the Leo Police Department.
One of the individuals in that photo lineup was Arthur
(01:04):
Lee Allen. When shown this lineup, according to George Bowart,
Michael Joe pointed to Arthur Lee Allen's photograph and said
that's him that's the man who shot me. And George
Bowart said, are you sure, and he said yes. It
had been more than two decades since the Zodiac attacked Majeaux,
(01:24):
and since that time, Robert Gray Smith's book had popularized
the case against Arthur Lee Allen, which led to Allan's
name and face being widely circulated. It made sense for
Majo to pick Allen in the lineup, but that wasn't
the end of Michael Majoe's statement in It's what happened
next that changed Michael Butterfield's opinion. And then he pointed
(01:48):
to the photograph of another individual in that lineup and
said he had a face like him, and the Valo
Police Department did not consider his identification to be valid.
Arthur Lee Allen at the time in ninety nine did
not match the description provided by Michael Michelle. And that's
sort of when I woke up to that phenomenon that
(02:12):
every time you're hearing about the Zodiac case, it's in
the prism of someone's theory. It's not the facts, and
they're tailoring those facts to suit their theory. It's also
why Michael Butterfield began to doubt Gray Smith's account of events.
There was a period of time where I was really
impressed with that book and thought that was the whole story.
And then over a short period of time, I started
(02:33):
to realize there's a lot more to that story than
that book. Butterfield doesn't think Arthur Lee Allen is the killer.
And so over a period of years I realized that
the story that you hear about the Zodiac case is
not the real story. And as you examine the facts,
that story starts to disintegrate, and behind it is this
(02:56):
other story which is much more interesting. It's the true
story of what happened, but that's not often what you
hear in public. A man in a mask robbed, tied,
and stabbed them, leaving them for dad. Subjects stated, I
want to report a murder, no a double murder. I
(03:19):
did it. A man who wore an evil style executioner's hood,
carried a knife and gun and intended to use them.
They haven't Arrestipe because they can't move it. I'm not
damn Zodiac. Who is the Zodiac? And where is he?
From my Heart Radio, How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV,
(03:41):
this is Monster, the Zodiac Killer. It seemed as if
the odds were stacked against Arthur Lee Allen. His home
had been searched over multiple occasions, over decades of time.
He had been harassed by investigators and reporters nearly his
entire life. But almost all the evidence against Arthur Lee
Allen was Circumstan Danchiel, the timing of the last letters,
(04:02):
the odd items found inside his home, his zodiac watch.
A lot of this was based on one book, Robert
gray Smith's Zodiac, But many people began to notice issues
in that book, including some people whose stories were in it.
There's a lot of rumors around. Everybody said, oh, we
paid cash for that house with drug money. Dean Farren
(04:24):
is the former husband of Darlene Farren, the waitress killed
at Blue Rock Springs. The gray Smith book suggests Darlene
had extra money from selling drugs, which perpetuated the rumor
that Dean and Darlene bought their house with that money.
If they would have done any research, they could have
seen that, Okay, there was a mortgage on it. It's
pretty much public record who owns the house and where
(04:46):
it came from. And that wasn't the only issue Dean
had with the gray Smith book. Then the night of
the shooting itself. He says that the Zodiac called the house, which, okay,
that's probably true somebody did. But he says that from
where he was he could look to the back window
of the house and see who answered the phone. Well,
that's impossible because it's like four blocks away and there's
(05:08):
two big buildings with trees and everything around it, so
you can tell he never came to town, and geographically
it couldn't be done. And there's quite a few quotes
in the book that I've never spoken to the man.
When we spoke with the retired Valeo PD detective at rust,
he was also skeptical of the gray Smith book, the
book that was written about the Zodiac by Robert Graysmith. Yeah,
(05:31):
I never was even contacted by that person. He never
asked me about it or anything, so I I don't know.
He has my name and some comments I made in
his book, but I never spoke with the man, forgot
with him or anything. The book was not the only
source of stories that accused Arthur Lee Allen. There was
also the testimony of Allen's former friend Don Cheney. Cheney's
(05:55):
story heavily implicated Allan, but it's possible he had another motive.
Remember the two men had a falling out because Alan
allegedly tried to molest one of Cheney's children. Could this
be enough motive to try and frame Allan? So by
nineteen seventy one, when the police were investigating, he didn't
(06:18):
have much to go on or to prove that any
of his accusations were true. They just had to basically
accept what he was saying and then go investigate Allan. Now,
in subsequent years, a lot of people, including myself, who
have gotten access to the police reports, I've interviewed Arthur
Ly Allen's family. UM, I actually interviewed Don Cheney myself
several times, and Don Cheney made statements to me which
(06:41):
were demonstrably false. He embellished elements of his story, he
added elements to his story, he changed elements of his story.
He initially said that this conversation had taken place in
December of nineteen sixty seven, but then he also claimed
that our through Lee, Allen, had been talking about losing
(07:02):
his job, a job that he didn't lose until March
of nineteen eight. So obviously there was something wrong there.
And as soon as Cheney realized that timing didn't match
up with the facts, he changed the date of that conversation.
The date was always crucial because he was claiming this
occurred before the Zodiac murders began. But later on he
(07:22):
started claiming that Arthur Lee Allen took him to the
scene of the murders on Lake Cremin Road, that he
talked about disabling women's cars by removing the lug nuts
on their tires. Of course, an allusion to the Kathleen
John's abduction. That doesn't match up with the Cheney's initial
claim that he hadn't talked to Allen since they're falling
out in nineteen sixty nine. Also, Cheney didn't add the
(07:43):
detail about disabling cars until he spoke with police for
the second time in nine years after Grace Smith's book
came out. And what about the connection Cheney made between
Arthur Lee Allen and Darlene Farren. Remember, Allen had supposedly
told Cheney he had become friendly with Darlene at the
(08:04):
restaurant where she worked, but Cheney didn't remember Darlene when
he spoke to police in nineteen seventy one and nineteen
ninety one. It wasn't until he spoke with gray Smith,
not the police, that he made the connection. This was
shortly before gray Smith's second book was published in two
thousand two. The discrepancy in Don Cheney's timelines is the
(08:26):
same with Arthur Lee Allen's watch. Cheney claimed Allen showed
off his new watch on January one, nineteen sixty nine,
but Allen's brother Ron said that's not true. Ron claimed
their mother gave Allen that watch for Christmas in nineteen
sixty seven, the year before. But Cheney originally didn't tell
this to police. Again, it wasn't until years after the
(08:49):
nineteen six Zodiac book was published that Cheney supposedly remembered
this story. So there's some serious, serious problems with Cheney
and his credibility, and he's the foundation for all of this.
I was forced to conclude that Don Cheney was not truthful,
and that wasn't because I don't like Allen as a suspect,
(09:11):
or because I just didn't want to believe him, because
that's what the facts indicate. That coupled with the accumulated
effect of years of misinformation and propaganda, combined into this
horrible situation for Arthur Lee Allen. Where now most people
were convinced of his guilt, but the information used to
(09:32):
convince them was usually not the truth. I've often thought
about what must have happened when the book Zodiac came
out and had said that Arthur Lee Allen's family believed
that he was the Zodiac and had reported him to police.
That was not true. Arthur Ly Allen's family never suspected
that he was the Zodiac. They never reported him to police.
(09:52):
But can you imagine the problems that created in his
family If you think about something like Occam's Razor, was
the most logical explanation that the explanation with the least
unnecessary parts, Then the most likely explanation is that Arthur
Lee Allen was not the Zodiac, and that the reason
(10:15):
most people think he is the Zodiac is because of
that book and then the film adaptation by David Fincher
in two thousand seven, which also altered some facts to
make Allen look more guilty than the facts would permit. So,
at the end of the day, Arthur Lee Allen is
probably the best known Zodiac suspect. He's probably someone that
(10:37):
many people still believe is guilty, but the facts tell
a very different story. One glaring irregularity in the case
(10:58):
against Arthur Lee Allen was the witness description. Arthur Lee
Allen worked on a hardware store in the Leo and
I had been in that hardware store, and I believe
that contact with him, and he he was about six
ft five light, you know, a big, hefty guy and
probably wade two hundred and fifty pounds or more, big
(11:20):
big man, and I might I dismissed him mainly because
of my interview with Michael Majoe where he described the
suspect as about five eight or five nine standing next
to that very low profile sports type vehicle that he
was in when he was shot. In my mind, if
(11:43):
Arthur Lee Allen, at six ft five two fifty plus
pounds had walked up to that car, Michael Majoel would
have said this guy was huge or something along that line,
that he would described a very large man, tall, whatever
like that. In his interview with me assistantly stuck to
five a five nine, and the only thing fares being
(12:05):
big and overweight would be the paunch from his belling.
In my mind, that start any anything other than might
what you call gut feeling. There's a cop that Michael
Majol would have given an entirely different description. At the
large man has walked up next to the car too,
But if it's been Arthur Lee Allen, I think it
(12:25):
would have been u much different physical description is at
least in height and weight. Alan's height and weight weren't
the only physical descriptions that didn't add up. Brian Hartnell,
the survivor from Lake Berriessa, did say Alan could possibly
be the Zodiac, but Hartnell also admits the zodiac size
could have been dependent on whether or not the jacket
(12:47):
he was wearing was lined or unlined. Hartnell said if
the killer was wearing a lined jacket, he could have
been a thin man. Again, Hartnell's description didn't match the
six ft two hundred and fifty pound man that was Alan.
But there's a third factor that stands out here. Hartnell said,
when the Zodiac turned his head, he saw some of
(13:08):
the man's hair and it was brown. Arthur Lee Allen
was balding. But it wasn't only victims who said that
Allan didn't match the zodiac's description. It's also interesting to
note that Don Falk, the police officer who reportedly saw
the Zodiac at the scene of the last known murder,
said that Arthur Lee Allen didn't match the description of
(13:30):
the man he saw. Don Falk described the Zodiac as
a white male adult in his early forties, five ft eight,
heavy billed, reddish, blonde, crew cut, and wearing glasses. Again,
the description doesn't match Allan's height or weight, and in
all three cases, not one witness mentioned the Zodiac as balding.
Majau wasn't the only person in to be shown a
(13:53):
photographic lineup. Kathleen John's, the woman who claims the Zodiac
attempted to kidnap her, was all so shown photos of
possible suspects, but John's didn't pick Allen, she chose someone else.
The eyewitness accounts of the Zodiac didn't match Arthur Lee Allen,
but there was another major factor that also didn't add
(14:14):
up his handwriting. My name is Susan Morton. I am
retired from the San Francisco Police Crime Laboratory, whereas served
for some years as their forensic document examiner. A forensic
document examiner uses scientific processes to study documents from crime scenes.
(14:36):
Examiners not only compare handwriting, but they can also tell
where the material came from, and if the document has
been altered, I would usually start with the known writing.
My method was to sketch it in my own effort,
and that would make me pay attention to things like size.
Gray shows like if you have a T H combination,
(15:00):
which is a pretty common combination of letters, which one
is taller, and you'll find that a writer is very
consistent about these ratios. I will figure all of those
out and get fixed in my mind not only how
this person forms letters and the ratios and things like that,
(15:22):
but how they vary. People are not machines, and they're
never going to write exactly the same way twice, but
they're going to vary within certain parameters. Susan worked at
a Bay Area laboratory that had done most of the
original work on the Zodiac case. At the time. The
San Francisco Police Department used that lab because they didn't
(15:45):
have a document examiner on staff. The first thing I
would do is see if it was naturally written. When
someone is attempting to copy someone else's signature, they're not
actually right. They're drawing a picture. Drawing and writing are
completely different acts from the writing that is copied. Looks
(16:10):
very different from normal writing. I'm not going to be
able to tell who did create debt, but I can
determine that the person whose signature it supposedly is did
not write it, because nobody forges their own signature like that.
That's a very laborious process. Susan inherited the Zodiac case
(16:31):
from the San Francisco Police Department. She became what she
calls the custodian of the letters. Susan would do handwriting
comparisons every time a new Zodiac suspect was offered up.
The Zodiac letters were handprinted, and they were extremely fluently
done very rapidly. When you're going fast, you don't have
(16:55):
the ability to disguise your handwriting because you're going to
do what your program tells you to do if you're
going fast. And you can tell this by how the
ends of the letters tail off into a little feathered
because them flying finishes. So I knew that the body
(17:17):
of that writing was the way that person wrote. This
wasn't some disguise that had been devised. The writing had
a right right hand slant, and the D was consistently
more slanted than any of the other letters, and that's
(17:39):
very unusual characteristic and that was consistent throughout all of
the Zodiac's writing. I was of the opinion that it
was the natural writing of that person. Natural handwriting is
the way a person writes with their dominant hand. For example,
if someone who was right handed tried to write with
their left hand, that writing wouldn't be considered natural. Some
(18:02):
people theorized Arthur Lee Allen was ambidextrous and he could
have used his less dominant hand to help disguise his writing,
but that wouldn't have worked because even if he used
his other hand, it still would have been his natural handwriting.
Susan doesn't believe Arthur Lee Allen disguised his handwriting based
on her findings, and there were numerous consistent differences with
(18:26):
the writing of Arthur ly Allen. I had copious amounts
of his writing contemporaneous to the Zodiac letters. Remember they
were written back in the sixties and early seventies. But
I had writing of arthurly Allen's from back then, and
it was writing that he did and what we call
(18:47):
a normal course of business. It wasn't something he sat
down and wrote to be used as a handwriting exemplar.
It was application forms and things like that, so he
was unaway or anybody would ever look at that when
he wrote it, and there was just no match whatsoever.
(19:07):
The lab also tried to develop fingerprints from the letters,
but the only usable print developed was a palm print.
It's called a writer's palm, the way a person's hand
rests on a page when they write. So we were
virtually certain that those prints did belong to the writer
of the letters. And also I believe that they did
(19:29):
do a comparison of his palm print to these writer's palms,
and there were several of those of different letters, and
they did not match his palm print. So I don't
think he did not write the Zodiac letters. There was
no indication and much indication that he didn't write it.
(19:56):
Every investigation of him eventually cleared him, so it was
not the Zodiac m h. When Arthur Lee Allen was
(20:20):
first questioned in October of nineteen sixty nine, he thought
it made him seem important for the first time. Maybe
instead of being viewed as some pathetic child molester, now
he was being viewed as one of the most brilliant
master criminals in history. And it appears that he may
have bragged about that and may have talked about that.
At least Arthur Lee. Allen's family thought that at first
(20:43):
he enjoyed that kind of attention, and then it backfired.
It took a lot of my tapes, they took a
samples of my handwriting, and then it became permanent, and
it became a cloud as shadow that followed him for
the rest of his life. I've never been known through
good luck, and I guess this is pretty much living
(21:05):
proof of it. I couldn't murder anyone, but if you
put yourself in his shoes, most people wouldn't want to
be accused of murder. And if they were going to
be accused of murder, at least do it with the facts.
Don't use fiction to accuse somebody. Two types of liars
(21:25):
in the world fishermen and policeman, and not necessarily in
that order. So it's got to be a really terrible
place to be to know that there's a book out
there that claims you're the Zodiac and people believe it.
And while at first you might be tempted to play
along and say, you know, yeah, well maybe I am
the Zodiac or whatever, then it becomes a ball of
(21:48):
chain that you cannot escape. I'm not the Zodiac killer.
I know that. I know that deep my soul. And
by the time they were searching Allen's home and he's
being interviewed by the police and his name is all
(22:08):
over the place, it was all over. At that point,
he had no choice anymore, and he is now going
to forever be known as the man that was most
likely the Zodiac. I couldn't murder anyone. It's difficult as hell,
and it can be ex it could be terribly depressing.
(22:34):
And if I had deserved any of it, that would
be something different, but I don't today. Ballejo police investigators
said they never charged Allen because they couldn't explain discrepancies
in the Zodiac's handwriting. Then you haven't arrested, maybe because
(23:01):
they can't prove a pain. I'm not damn Zodiac, the
Zodiac killer or victim of years at police harassment. Arthur
Lee Allen took the answer to his grave. Arthur Lee
Allen died from natural causes in August of Valio Police
(23:21):
Department officials found him unresponsive on the floor in his basement.
A polygraph agreement was resting in his printer. The Valeo
police had been pushing for Alan to take another polygraph test,
and it seemed he had decided to give in. At
fifty eight years old, he was still fighting to prove
his innocence. He was one of the most unluckiest people
(23:44):
on the planet because it literally destroyed him. He ended
up dying about a year after the first search of
his home, and of course they might as well have
carved onto his gravestone the man most people thought was
the Zodiac. So what you're left with is a man
who has been accused for almost fifty years on the
(24:06):
basis of statements made by two very questionable witnesses. None
of the evidence implicates them in the crimes. Every single
time they find some evidence, whether it's fingerprints, handwriting, DNA
palm prints, or eyewitness descriptions, it doesn't match Allen, and
his accusers will tell you that's because he's a master
criminal who was brilliant and could fake evidence and get
(24:28):
away with it. One of those people who clung to
the belief it was Arthur Lee Allen was Inspector Dave Toski.
He was first brought onto the case during the cab
driver murder in San Francisco, While Tski hunted for connections
to prove alan was the Zodiac, others began to look elsewhere.
In the late nineteen eighties, I began working for a
(24:53):
company called Orchards Supply Hardware, and later I became a
what's quota regional loss prevention est purity manager for the
hardware stores. I belonged to a couple of different security
associations and one of them, at a luncheon that I
(25:13):
attended at one of the security organizations, they had a
guest speaker who was going to do a presentation on
the Zodiac Killer. And it turned up to be a
man named Harvey Hines Hi n e s who was
actually a police officer, but he had never never worked
in any jurisdiction where any of the claimed Zodiac killings. Yeah,
(25:38):
he gave a presentation and showed that he had identified
a person named Larry Kine that he believed was the Zodiac.
Next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer, and it was
just so creepy again, just so freaked out. This woman
is she just quit her job And Larry King was
(25:59):
just a cree be odd char stories like that because
he was part of the mom he may have turned
somebody in and they put him into protection program. For
the last nine years, the Zodiac investigation has been headed
by homicide Inspector David Tusky. I had rulishel de fating
(26:21):
that he was not dead and that he was out
there somewhere and that he would communicate. There is no
official police clamp on Inspectatoski talking with the media. That
matter is entirely up to him. It went off like
a flash. Oh my goodness, that definitely looks like Zodiac.
So we want to just make some advancements, you know,
(26:42):
and get something major. I think I've come up with
something major. It's an interesting bit of information that nobody
knew about before, and I think where fifty years into it,
it's time to solve the case. Monster The Zodiac Killer
is a fifteen episode podcast produced by I Heart Radio,
(27:02):
How Stuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. Donald Albright and I
are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producers
Meredith Stepman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason Hope is
executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along with
producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Kybrick, and Josh Than
(27:23):
Scott Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick is our host.
Original music is by Makeup and Vanity Set. If you
haven't already, make sure to check out the first season
of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta child murders
from the late seventies to the early eighties. Download the
ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments, email
(27:44):
us at Monster at how stuff works dot com, or
you can call us at one eight three three eight
five six six six seven. Thanks for listening.
Monster: The Zodiac Killer News
Host
Payne Lindsey
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.