January 10, 2019 • 28 mins
Who is this man in a medieval mask?
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Episode Transcript
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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 iHeartMedia, How Stuff Works,
or its employees.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This guy is a pathological psycho killer. There's no doubt
about it.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Is there any doubt in your mind that there is
there is not any connection between Valleo and and.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This we're shifting out now. I wouldn't say that there
is any connection yet. I wouldn't want to tell you
that there isn't at this time. We have some pretty
good physical evidence that we're working on now, and of
course we're going to get together with the Valeo authorities.
We've been in contact with them since the incident, and
(00:47):
we definitely will pool our resources.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
The shores of Lake Berriessa always felt like a safe place,
and prior to September of nineteen sixty nine, there was
no reason to think otherwise. Located about eighty miles north
of the hard of San Francisco, it was quiet, it
was remote. It was the perfect place to spend a
lazy afternoon swimming, playing in the tall grass, or just
(01:15):
relaxing on a blanket on the water's edge. Unfortunately, all
the qualities that made it an ideal getaway also made
it the perfect place for other darker pursuits.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We're standing on a peninsula at Lake Bury Essa, in
this exact spot Brian Hartnell and the Cecilia Shepherd were
attacked in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
There's no boats, there's no planes. All you hear is
birds in the background. So I can't believe it, But
there's actually a couple shore on the actual island and
they're the only people we see here. I mean, you
(02:05):
can't even make this stuff up. I think we should
go down and talk to him. You came here knowing
what was here?
Speaker 6 (02:18):
What's here?
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Oh it's the same.
Speaker 8 (02:21):
Yeah, it's where the Zodiac killer killed that guy in
that one girl right yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Yeah, didn't one of them get away?
Speaker 8 (02:31):
One of them lived, and then one of them died.
The girl died in the hospital. I think, right, well,
that's kind of crazy. Like whenever we drive here, I'm like, wow,
he drove the same exact way just to get here
and do that. It's crazy to think about.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
It's very peaceful out here, it is.
Speaker 7 (02:48):
It doesn't seem like the place you get killed in.
Speaker 8 (02:51):
Probably ruined the whole lak thing for you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
In a mask, robbed, tied, and stabbed them, leaving them
for dad.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no a
double murder.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I did it a man who wore a medieval style
executioners hood, carried a knife and gun and intended to
use them.
Speaker 9 (03:19):
They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing.
Speaker 10 (03:23):
I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
iHeartRadio, how Stuff works and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster,
the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 11 (03:41):
Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking in answer to
your asking for more details about the good times I've
had in Vallejo. I shall be very happy to supply
even more material. The boy was originally sitting in the
front seat when I began firing. When I fired the
first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the
(04:04):
same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on
the back seat, then the floor and back, thrashing out
very violently with his legs. That's how I shot him
in the knee. I did not leave the scene of
the killing with squealing tires and racing engine as described
in the Vallejo paper. I drove away quite slowly.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So it was late September nineteen sixty nine, and most,
if not all, of the residents of the nearby bay
area were well aware of a killer operating on the outskirts,
and now the killer had a name. In September of
nineteen sixty nine, Napa County was still a place for
relaxation and enjoyment.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
On September twenty seventh, nineteen sixty nine, a college student,
Cecilia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell decided to go to Lake
barry Essa to spend some time together. They had dated
in the years and they were still friends. They wanted
to go out to Lake barry Essa, which is an
absolutely beautiful location north of Napa, California. It's a massive
(05:10):
body of water. It's a man made lake, green hills,
green trees everywhere, lots of foliage, beautiful sunsets there reflected
on the water. It's an amazing place to be. If
you drive around the lake and you look around, you
be amazed by how beautiful that area is, and then
instantly you will think, what kind of person looks at
(05:32):
this as a setting for a brutal crime.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The events in Napa County would be different. The zodiac
was becoming more bold, emerging from the shadows.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Early last Saturday evening, Celia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell, both
in their early twenties, were sitting on this knoll of
land overlooking part of Lake barry Esa. They thought they
were alone, but there was a third man on this
a man who wore a medieval style executioner's hood, carried
a knife and gun and intended to use them.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Brian and Cecilia decided to sit out on the banks
and talk and whatever. And at a certain point Cecilia
noticed a man up in the trees, and she commented
to Brian that there was a man up there, and
Brian thought, oh, it's no big deal. He might just
be doing whatever. But then the man got closer, and
(06:36):
at a certain point he donned a costume, and then
he stepped out and approached the victims. This costume was
dark with four corners on the top made it look
a little bit like a paper bag covered with fabric
over his head, and there was a chest piece that
(06:57):
came down over his chest with a white crossed circle
on it, which is the same symbol that he had
used in his previous letters. He approached the victims at
gunpoint and he said that he was an escaped convict
from a prison, either in Montana or Colorado. We're not
(07:19):
sure what he actually said, but that he needed their
car keys and money to escape to Mexico. Brian and
Cecilia thought they were just being robbed, and although Brian
at one point said that he thought he could have
gotten the gun away from the man, he was worried
that something might happen, that the man might shoot them
(07:39):
or something, so he thought, we'll just cooperate and get
through this and.
Speaker 12 (07:42):
It'll be over.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
The zodiac said he needed to tie them up, and
he provided some pre cut links of plastic clothesline courtingly,
and he had Cecilia type Brian and then he tied
her up and once they were laying on the ground,
I guess Brian Hartnell said to the man, is that
gun really loaded?
Speaker 12 (08:02):
And the man opened the.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
Gun and showed him yes, there were bullets in there,
and then out of nowhere, the man started stabbing Brian
Hartnell on the back with a foot long knife, and
apparently he stabbed Brian Hartnell at least six times, and
Brian Hartnell decided that it was best to pretend to
(08:24):
be dead, so he just stopped moving, and that apparently
satisfied the killer, which is another indication of what his
motives were. Soon as Brian stopped moving, he moved on
as Cecilia. Now, unfortunately, as Brian described me, Cecilia had
to watch Brian be stabbed, and because of that she
(08:45):
was even more frightened when the man turned on her,
and unlike Brian, she fought back, and because of that
she was stabbed many more times. She was stabbed at
ten times in the front and in the back. Then
the killer appeared to be satiated. He stood up walked away.
He walked up the hill to where Brian Hartnell's white
(09:06):
Carmen Gia was parked. He took out a marker and
he left a message on the car door. It was
a crossed circle symbol. Below that were the dates twelve,
twenty sixty eight and seven four sixty nine, which were
the dates of the murders on Lake Kerman Road in
the shooting at Blue Rock Springs Park, and then it
(09:29):
said sept for the month of September twenty seventh, sixty
nine six point thirty by knife. Brian and Cecilia were
struggling with their wounds. They were bleeding profusely, but they
managed to free themselves and Brian tried to crawl off
(09:51):
to get help. Fishermen came by with his son in
a boat and saw the.
Speaker 12 (09:57):
Victims and went off to get help.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Park ranger and others returned later and waited with the
victims until the ambulance.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Right.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Yeah, when I arrived on the scene that Saturday night
around seven thirteen, when found this young girl in on
the shoreline here, all stabbed in several places, and her
boyfriend male companion had came too from He had been
stabbed and he had taken off for help. And the
other patrolman came in, which is Dennish Land. He found
(10:29):
him some hundred yards from here, passed out, so he
brough him back the scene of the where the girl was.
I've had eleven years patrol on this lake and I've
seen a lot of people cut up by boat accidents
in this but this is one of the worst things
I ever witnessed. For no reason at all, just a
hooded man came up with a pistol drawn on him,
tied him up and then told him, he.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Had to kill him.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Cecilia Shepherd initially survived the attack, but slipped into a
coma on her way to the hospital and died two
days later on Monday, September two, nineteen sixty nine. Brian
Hartnell survived. Brian, in an interview from his hospital bed,
describes how he found the strength to live that night.
Speaker 13 (11:11):
At the beginning, I did think I was going to die,
and so from that moment on one has to.
Speaker 14 (11:16):
Have certain goals that you have to set. The first goal,
of course, was to live. I suppose the second goal
was to get untied. The next one was to get help,
and getting help getting to the hospital. You know, you
have to have a successful set of goals.
Speaker 13 (11:34):
And if you can keep this going and you can
keep your mind active, I don't whether you die or not,
you're at.
Speaker 14 (11:41):
Least psychologically.
Speaker 13 (11:44):
Attune, whether you're in shock or not, if you can
keep arguing with yourself, praying, doing anything to keep your
mind off of yourself, or at least just not lapsing
back and just saying well, it's no use.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Brian will probably be able to leave Queen of the
Valley Hospital fairly soon. But where he's going from here
is being kept secret. In the event that the man
who attacked him and killed Cecilia Shepherd on Lake Barry esa,
we could go Saturday tries again. Brian made it for
two reasons some people might regard as intangibles, but reasons
(12:21):
that for him were enough. A strong faith and an
equally strong will to live. Dave Moncey's eyewitness news at
Queen of the Valley Hospital.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Because he survived, Brian Hartnell was able to help the
investigators by providing detailed descriptions of the zodiac's elaborate costume
in the way he spoke to the couple before the attack.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
In the hospital, Brian was interviewed and described the killer,
described the exchange they had, the conversation they had had,
and he also described the killer's costume in great detail. Unfortunately,
Brian could not see the killer's face, but he could
describe the killer's voice, and he thought that the killer
seemed like a younger person, maybe a student, and that
(13:33):
he appeared to have some kind of a drawl, not
a Southern drawl, but some form of an accent. Cecilia,
when she had seen the man before he put on
the mask, thought that he had dark hair, and then
when he was wearing the costume, there's some evidence that
Brian could see some of the hair through the eye
holes in the costume and thought that the man had
(13:54):
greasy brown hair, which was in some ways compatible with
the previous description given by Michael Michau. But of course
without seeing his face, you couldn't say for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Brian was fortunate to survive. But there's another side to
the story that most people don't consider survivor's guilt.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
In nineteen ninety nine, I spoke with Brian Hartnell and
he told me some things about that day which put
a lot.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
Of things in context.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
He did talk about his desire to take the gun
away from the man, and then wrestling with the fear
that doing so might make matters worse and that he
might endanger Cecilia. And that was a tremendous responsibility, a
burden to be carrying, because as the man, especially in
nineteen sixty nine, you're expected to protect the woman. Put
yourself in Brian's position. You're there with a woman that
(14:46):
you care about and a man walks up with a
gun and says he's just going to rob you, and
part of you wants to fight back. But part of
you is worried that you're going to make things worse
and get somebody hurt. I do know that he did
feel some responsible for what happened to her. He also
talked about the fact that their faith helped them get
(15:07):
through this. After the killer left and they were sitting there,
bleeding and trying to get out of their bindings, they
prayed together and they said that that helped them get
through the ordeal.
Speaker 12 (15:19):
Brian crawled out onto the road.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
He was bleeding so profusely that if the ambulance probably
had not come when it did, there's a good chance
that he might not have survived. And he told me
that the knife came very close to his heart, just
an inch in another direction, and Brian probably would have
died that day and we would have never heard anything
(15:44):
about this story. But he also struggled with the fact
that later on he had to think about the conversation
he had with the Zodiac, where the Zodiac was basically
telling him I'm just going to rob you, and Brian thought, well,
maybe with my legal experience he was a law student,
maybe I could help this man. Maybe I could talk
(16:07):
to him.
Speaker 12 (16:07):
He offered to help him.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
Get some help, and of course the Zodiac wasn't interested
in any of that because it was all a ruse.
He was just trying to get them to cooperate so
he can get them tied up. So he had apparently
created this scenario where he was going to use this
ruse to convince them everything's okay. Cooperate with me and
everything will be fine. And that's one of the most
terrifying aspects of that is that he actually got them
(16:31):
to participate in their own attack by convincing them this
is the best thing for you to do.
Speaker 12 (16:38):
When he knew all along what he was going to.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Do to them.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
This was not something that he just did on a
spur of the moment. Once they were tied up, he
tied them up for that specific purpose so they could
not fight back. You believe somebody when they tell you
I just want to take your money, So you say, okay,
all right, you can tie me up, and once that's done,
you have no choice any it's over. Brian was very
(17:06):
lucky that he survived, but I think, like a lot
of other people, he also still struggles with some guilt
because he was the person who survived. He decided to
play dead and that appears to have made the big
difference in why he's still here today. Cecilia did what
many of us would have done, which is fight for
her life, and apparently she paid the price for that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And as it turns out, Zodiac was selective when choosing
his victims on that day at the lake.
Speaker 7 (17:44):
It was probably easier to escape that area during the
day than it would have been at night. There's if
you've ever been to Lake Barrier, so there's lots of
winding roads, and it was even more so back in
nineteen sixty nine when those roads weren't paved and they
were little dirt trails and things like that. He may
have been familiar with that area and selected that spot specifically,
(18:05):
but there's no guarantee there would be somebody there. So
that might also explain why some witnesses saw a.
Speaker 12 (18:11):
Man walking around the area and just randomly looking at
people and staring at them, because he may have been
considering killing those people as well. There were three young
girls who I believe were sunbathing in an area of
the lake who said a man was staring at them.
If that was the Zodiac, you have to stop to
think about what was going on. Was he looking at
(18:32):
those people because he was trying to make sure they
wouldn't pay any attention if he attacked someone else, or
was he considering attacking those three girls? And what's even
more terrifying is that there was a man and his
young son who said that they saw a similar individual.
Was that guy stalking them and considering attacking a father
(18:52):
and son? And why didn't he Did he become concerned
that someone might see him? Or did he notice that
they had guns because they were apparently there's some people
in the area who were hunting and target shooting and stuff.
So me he may have said, I don't want to
risk somebody who's armed.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
Maybe he decided not to he didn't want to kill
a little boy. I don't know, but it does indicate
that he was entertaining a lot of different.
Speaker 12 (19:20):
Possibilities that day. And that's a drastic departure from what
he had done before.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Was the Zodiac killing strictly for attention. He did seem
proud of his kills, bragging about them in a very
public way, But why such a dramatic turn of events
at Lake Barriessa. The killer had changed his method of
operation from shooting to knife attack. Doctor Eric Hickey, criminal
psychologist at Walden University and consultant for the US Department
(19:49):
of Defense, thinks it was all about progression, going from
the somewhat detached method of killing with a gun to
the more up close and personal method of ending a
lit life with a blade.
Speaker 15 (20:01):
I don't think that he's already had really cared whether
he was caught or not. But I think he liked
the game, and I think when he went from shooting
to stabbing, shooting was just too easy, it was too quick,
but stabbing much more statistic, and I think he took
probably some delight in doing that. And you see some
of these guys and we don't know about some of them.
(20:23):
We don't know exactly what Ted Bundy did to his victims.
We only heard some things because he did it in
the woods. I'm sure he made them suffer a great deal,
but we don't know if it was progression with him
or not.
Speaker 7 (20:37):
It's one thing to just walk up and stab people,
but if you think about somebody like Ted Bundy, he
could have just as easily walked up and hit a
woman over the head with a crowbar and threw her
in the trunk and driven off but there was some
part of him that needed to lure them and fool
them into a false sense of security so that then
(20:58):
he could turn around and spring it on them as
a surprise. He needed to surprise women, and he needed
this fooling them aspect for him to feel powerful. Well,
there may have been with the Zodiac some element where
he wasn't satisfied anymore just shooting people.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Was he moving from sudden, blind attacks to a much
more controlled, ritualistic, or even sexual form of killing. The
killer's carefully crafted costume, complete with a handstitched Zodiac symbol,
may hold a clue. The bizarre costume he designed and
then war for the Lake Barriesa attack still puzzles authorities
and captivates the imagination of anyone who sees the police sketch.
(21:41):
Even now, fifty years later, the Zodiac's strange costume raises questions.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
At Lake barry Essa. He shows up with a bizarre
costume with his chosen symbol on the chest, a bizarre
story about how he had escaped from a prison and
he needed their money and car keys to escape to Mexico,
none of which appears to have been true. We know
that this story wasn't concocted just to put them at ease,
(22:23):
because he could have said anything to put them at ease.
And then you have to deal with the costume itself.
Ken Narlow, who investigated the case for the Knappe County
Sheriff's Office, said to me once, why is he wearing
a mask? What's the point? If you're going to kill
these people, why are you covering your face? There's no
evidence he did that in the previous crimes. And then
(22:44):
at the same time, if he wants to cover his face,
why isn't he just wearing a ski mask or something.
Why this elaborate costume? And even more importantly, if he
was going to kill the victims, and as far as
we know, if help hadn't arrived when it did, it's
very possible those victims could have died. And if they
had died, none of us would ever know that the
Zodiac had worn that costume. So that costume was not
(23:08):
about getting attention. It was not about seeing it in
the media or seeing those famous sketches of that costume. Now,
he didn't appear to care whether we knew about that
or not. That was for him, and it was for
the victims, and the only reason we know about it
is because Brian Hartnell survived to tell us what happened.
(23:29):
But if he had died, as far as we know,
they had just been stabbed. So this whole thing about
the costume and the story, that's all some private thing
that serves some inner need for the zodiac that we
don't really understand. But what I think it does tell
you is that he had a very rich imagination of
rich fantasy life, and he needed to feel a certain
(23:51):
sense of power when he committed these crimes, more so
than what would be provided if he just walked up
and shot you. It's obvious by that time, whether it
was because of the media coverage or his own need
to be more than what he seemed to be, he
had created this image and then that image had to
(24:15):
be sustained with something. It couldn't just be writing letters.
And I think in some way, as much as he
didn't make any effort to make sure we knew about
his costume, that wasn't the point. It was about him
knowing about that costume, knowing that he has morphed transformed
into this new kind of thing, and then inflicting it
(24:36):
on someone because I think ultimately, as much as that
costume was meant to feed his ego or his fantasies,
it was also about the terror it would create in
those who saw him coming Wearing that costume.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The Zodiac had taken on the image of what he
felt would instill the most fear in his victims. But
the question remains, did he create and wear this elaborate,
ritualistic costume for the benefit of himself or for his
unfortunate victims. If there was no one left living after
the Lake Buriessa attack, no one would have ever known
(25:13):
of his bizarre ritual and he certainly didn't expect any survivors.
We know this because of a phone call made to
the Napa County Sheriff's Department from a payphone outside of
a car wash twenty seven miles away from the crime scene.
That proves just that.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
I want to report a murder, no, a double murder.
They are two miles north of park headquarters. They were
in a white Volkswagen Karmen Gia.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
I'm the one that did it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Whatever his motive, the Zodiac was clearly done operating in
the shadows. He was now ready to take his crimes
to a larger venue, somewhere he could really grab the
attention of the police and the public. Just two weeks
after the Lake Berriesa attack in early October of nineteen
sixty nine, The Zodiac would bring his own brand of
(26:31):
terror into the heart of San Francisco.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
He is a kid. He used kid, and he was
playing downstairs and he just you know, looked outside the
window and saw yo cab and saw someone slats over
in the car. Come the finals a culprit of the Zodiac.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
San Francisco is directly linked to the Zodiac Killer. There's
no escaping it now. What he wanted in July of
nineteen sixty nine was for as many people to see
this as possible, to get as much attention as possible,
and to cement his image as a real threat.
Speaker 10 (27:17):
I've covered a lot of killers with a lot higher
body counts and a lot more sick, twisted ways of
killing people.
Speaker 7 (27:24):
This guy was theatrical.
Speaker 10 (27:27):
The Chronicle received a letter and only the Chronicle from
the Zodiac. As the woman opened it in the editorial department,
a piece of bloody shirt fell out with the letter.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
by iHeartRadio How Stuff Works in Tenderfoot TV. Donald Alright
and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
alongside producers Meredith Steedman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason
Hope is executive producer on behalf of House Stuff Works,
(28:10):
along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Keebrick, and
Josh Thain. 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.
(28:33):
Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments,
email us at monster at houstuffworks dot com, or you
can call us at one eight three, three, two eight
five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 10 (28:47):
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 iHeartMedia, How Stuff Works,
or its employees.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This guy is a pathological psycho killer. There's no doubt
about it.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Is there any doubt in your mind that there is
there is not any connection between Valleo and and.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
This we're shifting out now. I wouldn't say that there
is any connection yet. I wouldn't want to tell you
that there isn't at this time. We have some pretty
good physical evidence that we're working on now, and of
course we're going to get together with the Valeo authorities.
We've been in contact with them since the incident, and
(00:47):
we definitely will pool our resources.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
The shores of Lake Berriessa always felt like a safe place,
and prior to September of nineteen sixty nine, there was
no reason to think otherwise. Located about eighty miles north
of the hard of San Francisco, it was quiet, it
was remote. It was the perfect place to spend a
lazy afternoon swimming, playing in the tall grass, or just
(01:15):
relaxing on a blanket on the water's edge. Unfortunately, all
the qualities that made it an ideal getaway also made
it the perfect place for other darker pursuits.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We're standing on a peninsula at Lake Bury Essa, in
this exact spot Brian Hartnell and the Cecilia Shepherd were
attacked in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
There's no boats, there's no planes. All you hear is
birds in the background. So I can't believe it, But
there's actually a couple shore on the actual island and
they're the only people we see here. I mean, you
(02:05):
can't even make this stuff up. I think we should
go down and talk to him. You came here knowing
what was here?
Speaker 6 (02:18):
What's here?
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Oh it's the same.
Speaker 8 (02:21):
Yeah, it's where the Zodiac killer killed that guy in
that one girl right yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:27):
Yeah, didn't one of them get away?
Speaker 8 (02:31):
One of them lived, and then one of them died.
The girl died in the hospital. I think, right, well,
that's kind of crazy. Like whenever we drive here, I'm like, wow,
he drove the same exact way just to get here
and do that. It's crazy to think about.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
It's very peaceful out here, it is.
Speaker 7 (02:48):
It doesn't seem like the place you get killed in.
Speaker 8 (02:51):
Probably ruined the whole lak thing for you.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
In a mask, robbed, tied, and stabbed them, leaving them
for dad.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no a
double murder.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I did it a man who wore a medieval style
executioners hood, carried a knife and gun and intended to
use them.
Speaker 9 (03:19):
They haven't arrested me because they can't prove a thing.
Speaker 10 (03:23):
I'm not the damn Zodiac.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Who is the Zodiac and where is he from?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
iHeartRadio, how Stuff works and Tenderfoot TV. This is Monster,
the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 11 (03:41):
Dear editor, this is the Zodiac speaking in answer to
your asking for more details about the good times I've
had in Vallejo. I shall be very happy to supply
even more material. The boy was originally sitting in the
front seat when I began firing. When I fired the
first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the
(04:04):
same time, thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on
the back seat, then the floor and back, thrashing out
very violently with his legs. That's how I shot him
in the knee. I did not leave the scene of
the killing with squealing tires and racing engine as described
in the Vallejo paper. I drove away quite slowly.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So it was late September nineteen sixty nine, and most,
if not all, of the residents of the nearby bay
area were well aware of a killer operating on the outskirts,
and now the killer had a name. In September of
nineteen sixty nine, Napa County was still a place for
relaxation and enjoyment.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
On September twenty seventh, nineteen sixty nine, a college student,
Cecilia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell decided to go to Lake
barry Essa to spend some time together. They had dated
in the years and they were still friends. They wanted
to go out to Lake barry Essa, which is an
absolutely beautiful location north of Napa, California. It's a massive
(05:10):
body of water. It's a man made lake, green hills,
green trees everywhere, lots of foliage, beautiful sunsets there reflected
on the water. It's an amazing place to be. If
you drive around the lake and you look around, you
be amazed by how beautiful that area is, and then
instantly you will think, what kind of person looks at
(05:32):
this as a setting for a brutal crime.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The events in Napa County would be different. The zodiac
was becoming more bold, emerging from the shadows.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Early last Saturday evening, Celia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell, both
in their early twenties, were sitting on this knoll of
land overlooking part of Lake barry Esa. They thought they
were alone, but there was a third man on this
a man who wore a medieval style executioner's hood, carried
a knife and gun and intended to use them.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
Brian and Cecilia decided to sit out on the banks
and talk and whatever. And at a certain point Cecilia
noticed a man up in the trees, and she commented
to Brian that there was a man up there, and
Brian thought, oh, it's no big deal. He might just
be doing whatever. But then the man got closer, and
(06:36):
at a certain point he donned a costume, and then
he stepped out and approached the victims. This costume was
dark with four corners on the top made it look
a little bit like a paper bag covered with fabric
over his head, and there was a chest piece that
(06:57):
came down over his chest with a white crossed circle
on it, which is the same symbol that he had
used in his previous letters. He approached the victims at
gunpoint and he said that he was an escaped convict
from a prison, either in Montana or Colorado. We're not
(07:19):
sure what he actually said, but that he needed their
car keys and money to escape to Mexico. Brian and
Cecilia thought they were just being robbed, and although Brian
at one point said that he thought he could have
gotten the gun away from the man, he was worried
that something might happen, that the man might shoot them
(07:39):
or something, so he thought, we'll just cooperate and get
through this and.
Speaker 12 (07:42):
It'll be over.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
The zodiac said he needed to tie them up, and
he provided some pre cut links of plastic clothesline courtingly,
and he had Cecilia type Brian and then he tied
her up and once they were laying on the ground,
I guess Brian Hartnell said to the man, is that
gun really loaded?
Speaker 12 (08:02):
And the man opened the.
Speaker 7 (08:03):
Gun and showed him yes, there were bullets in there,
and then out of nowhere, the man started stabbing Brian
Hartnell on the back with a foot long knife, and
apparently he stabbed Brian Hartnell at least six times, and
Brian Hartnell decided that it was best to pretend to
(08:24):
be dead, so he just stopped moving, and that apparently
satisfied the killer, which is another indication of what his
motives were. Soon as Brian stopped moving, he moved on
as Cecilia. Now, unfortunately, as Brian described me, Cecilia had
to watch Brian be stabbed, and because of that she
(08:45):
was even more frightened when the man turned on her,
and unlike Brian, she fought back, and because of that
she was stabbed many more times. She was stabbed at
ten times in the front and in the back. Then
the killer appeared to be satiated. He stood up walked away.
He walked up the hill to where Brian Hartnell's white
(09:06):
Carmen Gia was parked. He took out a marker and
he left a message on the car door. It was
a crossed circle symbol. Below that were the dates twelve,
twenty sixty eight and seven four sixty nine, which were
the dates of the murders on Lake Kerman Road in
the shooting at Blue Rock Springs Park, and then it
(09:29):
said sept for the month of September twenty seventh, sixty
nine six point thirty by knife. Brian and Cecilia were
struggling with their wounds. They were bleeding profusely, but they
managed to free themselves and Brian tried to crawl off
(09:51):
to get help. Fishermen came by with his son in
a boat and saw the.
Speaker 12 (09:57):
Victims and went off to get help.
Speaker 7 (10:00):
Park ranger and others returned later and waited with the
victims until the ambulance.
Speaker 6 (10:05):
Right.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Yeah, when I arrived on the scene that Saturday night
around seven thirteen, when found this young girl in on
the shoreline here, all stabbed in several places, and her
boyfriend male companion had came too from He had been
stabbed and he had taken off for help. And the
other patrolman came in, which is Dennish Land. He found
(10:29):
him some hundred yards from here, passed out, so he
brough him back the scene of the where the girl was.
I've had eleven years patrol on this lake and I've
seen a lot of people cut up by boat accidents
in this but this is one of the worst things
I ever witnessed. For no reason at all, just a
hooded man came up with a pistol drawn on him,
tied him up and then told him, he.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
Had to kill him.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Cecilia Shepherd initially survived the attack, but slipped into a
coma on her way to the hospital and died two
days later on Monday, September two, nineteen sixty nine. Brian
Hartnell survived. Brian, in an interview from his hospital bed,
describes how he found the strength to live that night.
Speaker 13 (11:11):
At the beginning, I did think I was going to die,
and so from that moment on one has to.
Speaker 14 (11:16):
Have certain goals that you have to set. The first goal,
of course, was to live. I suppose the second goal
was to get untied. The next one was to get help,
and getting help getting to the hospital. You know, you
have to have a successful set of goals.
Speaker 13 (11:34):
And if you can keep this going and you can
keep your mind active, I don't whether you die or not,
you're at.
Speaker 14 (11:41):
Least psychologically.
Speaker 13 (11:44):
Attune, whether you're in shock or not, if you can
keep arguing with yourself, praying, doing anything to keep your
mind off of yourself, or at least just not lapsing
back and just saying well, it's no use.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Brian will probably be able to leave Queen of the
Valley Hospital fairly soon. But where he's going from here
is being kept secret. In the event that the man
who attacked him and killed Cecilia Shepherd on Lake Barry esa,
we could go Saturday tries again. Brian made it for
two reasons some people might regard as intangibles, but reasons
(12:21):
that for him were enough. A strong faith and an
equally strong will to live. Dave Moncey's eyewitness news at
Queen of the Valley Hospital.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Because he survived, Brian Hartnell was able to help the
investigators by providing detailed descriptions of the zodiac's elaborate costume
in the way he spoke to the couple before the attack.
Speaker 7 (13:10):
In the hospital, Brian was interviewed and described the killer,
described the exchange they had, the conversation they had had,
and he also described the killer's costume in great detail. Unfortunately,
Brian could not see the killer's face, but he could
describe the killer's voice, and he thought that the killer
seemed like a younger person, maybe a student, and that
(13:33):
he appeared to have some kind of a drawl, not
a Southern drawl, but some form of an accent. Cecilia,
when she had seen the man before he put on
the mask, thought that he had dark hair, and then
when he was wearing the costume, there's some evidence that
Brian could see some of the hair through the eye
holes in the costume and thought that the man had
(13:54):
greasy brown hair, which was in some ways compatible with
the previous description given by Michael Michau. But of course
without seeing his face, you couldn't say for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Brian was fortunate to survive. But there's another side to
the story that most people don't consider survivor's guilt.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
In nineteen ninety nine, I spoke with Brian Hartnell and
he told me some things about that day which put
a lot.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
Of things in context.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
He did talk about his desire to take the gun
away from the man, and then wrestling with the fear
that doing so might make matters worse and that he
might endanger Cecilia. And that was a tremendous responsibility, a
burden to be carrying, because as the man, especially in
nineteen sixty nine, you're expected to protect the woman. Put
yourself in Brian's position. You're there with a woman that
(14:46):
you care about and a man walks up with a
gun and says he's just going to rob you, and
part of you wants to fight back. But part of
you is worried that you're going to make things worse
and get somebody hurt. I do know that he did
feel some responsible for what happened to her. He also
talked about the fact that their faith helped them get
(15:07):
through this. After the killer left and they were sitting there,
bleeding and trying to get out of their bindings, they
prayed together and they said that that helped them get
through the ordeal.
Speaker 12 (15:19):
Brian crawled out onto the road.
Speaker 7 (15:24):
He was bleeding so profusely that if the ambulance probably
had not come when it did, there's a good chance
that he might not have survived. And he told me
that the knife came very close to his heart, just
an inch in another direction, and Brian probably would have
died that day and we would have never heard anything
(15:44):
about this story. But he also struggled with the fact
that later on he had to think about the conversation
he had with the Zodiac, where the Zodiac was basically
telling him I'm just going to rob you, and Brian thought, well,
maybe with my legal experience he was a law student,
maybe I could help this man. Maybe I could talk
(16:07):
to him.
Speaker 12 (16:07):
He offered to help him.
Speaker 7 (16:08):
Get some help, and of course the Zodiac wasn't interested
in any of that because it was all a ruse.
He was just trying to get them to cooperate so
he can get them tied up. So he had apparently
created this scenario where he was going to use this
ruse to convince them everything's okay. Cooperate with me and
everything will be fine. And that's one of the most
terrifying aspects of that is that he actually got them
(16:31):
to participate in their own attack by convincing them this
is the best thing for you to do.
Speaker 12 (16:38):
When he knew all along what he was going to.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Do to them.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
This was not something that he just did on a
spur of the moment. Once they were tied up, he
tied them up for that specific purpose so they could
not fight back. You believe somebody when they tell you
I just want to take your money, So you say, okay,
all right, you can tie me up, and once that's done,
you have no choice any it's over. Brian was very
(17:06):
lucky that he survived, but I think, like a lot
of other people, he also still struggles with some guilt
because he was the person who survived. He decided to
play dead and that appears to have made the big
difference in why he's still here today. Cecilia did what
many of us would have done, which is fight for
her life, and apparently she paid the price for that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And as it turns out, Zodiac was selective when choosing
his victims on that day at the lake.
Speaker 7 (17:44):
It was probably easier to escape that area during the
day than it would have been at night. There's if
you've ever been to Lake Barrier, so there's lots of
winding roads, and it was even more so back in
nineteen sixty nine when those roads weren't paved and they
were little dirt trails and things like that. He may
have been familiar with that area and selected that spot specifically,
(18:05):
but there's no guarantee there would be somebody there. So
that might also explain why some witnesses saw a.
Speaker 12 (18:11):
Man walking around the area and just randomly looking at
people and staring at them, because he may have been
considering killing those people as well. There were three young
girls who I believe were sunbathing in an area of
the lake who said a man was staring at them.
If that was the Zodiac, you have to stop to
think about what was going on. Was he looking at
(18:32):
those people because he was trying to make sure they
wouldn't pay any attention if he attacked someone else, or
was he considering attacking those three girls? And what's even
more terrifying is that there was a man and his
young son who said that they saw a similar individual.
Was that guy stalking them and considering attacking a father
(18:52):
and son? And why didn't he Did he become concerned
that someone might see him? Or did he notice that
they had guns because they were apparently there's some people
in the area who were hunting and target shooting and stuff.
So me he may have said, I don't want to
risk somebody who's armed.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
Maybe he decided not to he didn't want to kill
a little boy. I don't know, but it does indicate
that he was entertaining a lot of different.
Speaker 12 (19:20):
Possibilities that day. And that's a drastic departure from what
he had done before.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Was the Zodiac killing strictly for attention. He did seem
proud of his kills, bragging about them in a very
public way, But why such a dramatic turn of events
at Lake Barriessa. The killer had changed his method of
operation from shooting to knife attack. Doctor Eric Hickey, criminal
psychologist at Walden University and consultant for the US Department
(19:49):
of Defense, thinks it was all about progression, going from
the somewhat detached method of killing with a gun to
the more up close and personal method of ending a
lit life with a blade.
Speaker 15 (20:01):
I don't think that he's already had really cared whether
he was caught or not. But I think he liked
the game, and I think when he went from shooting
to stabbing, shooting was just too easy, it was too quick,
but stabbing much more statistic, and I think he took
probably some delight in doing that. And you see some
of these guys and we don't know about some of them.
(20:23):
We don't know exactly what Ted Bundy did to his victims.
We only heard some things because he did it in
the woods. I'm sure he made them suffer a great deal,
but we don't know if it was progression with him
or not.
Speaker 7 (20:37):
It's one thing to just walk up and stab people,
but if you think about somebody like Ted Bundy, he
could have just as easily walked up and hit a
woman over the head with a crowbar and threw her
in the trunk and driven off but there was some
part of him that needed to lure them and fool
them into a false sense of security so that then
(20:58):
he could turn around and spring it on them as
a surprise. He needed to surprise women, and he needed
this fooling them aspect for him to feel powerful. Well,
there may have been with the Zodiac some element where
he wasn't satisfied anymore just shooting people.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Was he moving from sudden, blind attacks to a much
more controlled, ritualistic, or even sexual form of killing. The
killer's carefully crafted costume, complete with a handstitched Zodiac symbol,
may hold a clue. The bizarre costume he designed and
then war for the Lake Barriesa attack still puzzles authorities
and captivates the imagination of anyone who sees the police sketch.
(21:41):
Even now, fifty years later, the Zodiac's strange costume raises questions.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
At Lake barry Essa. He shows up with a bizarre
costume with his chosen symbol on the chest, a bizarre
story about how he had escaped from a prison and
he needed their money and car keys to escape to Mexico,
none of which appears to have been true. We know
that this story wasn't concocted just to put them at ease,
(22:23):
because he could have said anything to put them at ease.
And then you have to deal with the costume itself.
Ken Narlow, who investigated the case for the Knappe County
Sheriff's Office, said to me once, why is he wearing
a mask? What's the point? If you're going to kill
these people, why are you covering your face? There's no
evidence he did that in the previous crimes. And then
(22:44):
at the same time, if he wants to cover his face,
why isn't he just wearing a ski mask or something.
Why this elaborate costume? And even more importantly, if he
was going to kill the victims, and as far as
we know, if help hadn't arrived when it did, it's
very possible those victims could have died. And if they
had died, none of us would ever know that the
Zodiac had worn that costume. So that costume was not
(23:08):
about getting attention. It was not about seeing it in
the media or seeing those famous sketches of that costume. Now,
he didn't appear to care whether we knew about that
or not. That was for him, and it was for
the victims, and the only reason we know about it
is because Brian Hartnell survived to tell us what happened.
(23:29):
But if he had died, as far as we know,
they had just been stabbed. So this whole thing about
the costume and the story, that's all some private thing
that serves some inner need for the zodiac that we
don't really understand. But what I think it does tell
you is that he had a very rich imagination of
rich fantasy life, and he needed to feel a certain
(23:51):
sense of power when he committed these crimes, more so
than what would be provided if he just walked up
and shot you. It's obvious by that time, whether it
was because of the media coverage or his own need
to be more than what he seemed to be, he
had created this image and then that image had to
(24:15):
be sustained with something. It couldn't just be writing letters.
And I think in some way, as much as he
didn't make any effort to make sure we knew about
his costume, that wasn't the point. It was about him
knowing about that costume, knowing that he has morphed transformed
into this new kind of thing, and then inflicting it
(24:36):
on someone because I think ultimately, as much as that
costume was meant to feed his ego or his fantasies,
it was also about the terror it would create in
those who saw him coming Wearing that costume.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
The Zodiac had taken on the image of what he
felt would instill the most fear in his victims. But
the question remains, did he create and wear this elaborate,
ritualistic costume for the benefit of himself or for his
unfortunate victims. If there was no one left living after
the Lake Buriessa attack, no one would have ever known
(25:13):
of his bizarre ritual and he certainly didn't expect any survivors.
We know this because of a phone call made to
the Napa County Sheriff's Department from a payphone outside of
a car wash twenty seven miles away from the crime scene.
That proves just that.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
I want to report a murder, no, a double murder.
They are two miles north of park headquarters. They were
in a white Volkswagen Karmen Gia.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
I'm the one that did it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Whatever his motive, the Zodiac was clearly done operating in
the shadows. He was now ready to take his crimes
to a larger venue, somewhere he could really grab the
attention of the police and the public. Just two weeks
after the Lake Berriesa attack in early October of nineteen
sixty nine, The Zodiac would bring his own brand of
(26:31):
terror into the heart of San Francisco.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Next time on Monster the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
He is a kid. He used kid, and he was
playing downstairs and he just you know, looked outside the
window and saw yo cab and saw someone slats over
in the car. Come the finals a culprit of the Zodiac.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
San Francisco is directly linked to the Zodiac Killer. There's
no escaping it now. What he wanted in July of
nineteen sixty nine was for as many people to see
this as possible, to get as much attention as possible,
and to cement his image as a real threat.
Speaker 10 (27:17):
I've covered a lot of killers with a lot higher
body counts and a lot more sick, twisted ways of
killing people.
Speaker 7 (27:24):
This guy was theatrical.
Speaker 10 (27:27):
The Chronicle received a letter and only the Chronicle from
the Zodiac. As the woman opened it in the editorial department,
a piece of bloody shirt fell out with the letter.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Monster the Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced
by iHeartRadio How Stuff Works in Tenderfoot TV. Donald Alright
and I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
alongside producers Meredith Steedman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason
Hope is executive producer on behalf of House Stuff Works,
(28:10):
along with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Keebrick, and
Josh Thain. 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.
(28:33):
Download the ten episode season right now. Have questions or comments,
email us at monster at houstuffworks dot com, or you
can call us at one eight three, three, two eight
five six six sixty seven.
Speaker 10 (28:47):
Thanks for listening.
Monster: The Zodiac Killer News
Hosts And Creators
Payne Lindsey
Matt Frederick
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