June 25, 2019 • 38 mins
This is a bonus episode of Disgraceland that is satire and not true crime. Originally released on April 1, 2019 as an April Fools joke, this episode fooled many. However, it was quickly taken off the Internet. The joke worked too well for some. After editing the episode lightly to protect the identity of the victims, here is the episode as it originally appeared in its entirety along with the original episode description below: A special emergency episode of Disgraceland that hopes to contextualize today’s fast developing story about America’s most mysterious serial killer and his relationship to one of the most infamous musicians of all time. Warning; this story is currently breaking. Information is coming in fast and furious. The episode will be updated periodically throughout the day to reflect new info as we get it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The following episode
is satire. It's not true crime. Sorry. It was released
on April first, twenty nineteen as an April Fool's joke,
and the immediate response on social media was pretty overwhelming,
and I freaked out and pulled the episode after it
had only been live for a couple of hours. Many
(00:22):
of you disgraced Sense subscribers did not hear it, and
you emailed me and tweeted at me asking how you
get your ears around it. And for those of you
who did hear the episode and wrote me to curse
me out or were eager to share a laugh at
your own expense as you found yourself pulled over on
the side of the road, on the subway, in a bus,
or in your bed frantically googling for breaking news on
the identity of the Zodiac killer. I'm sorry, not sorry,
(00:45):
edited lightly to protect the identity of the victims. Here
is the episode as it originally appeared, in its entirety,
including the breathless fake intro that went like this, YO, quick,
heads up. I recorded this episode quickly last night, trying
to respond to the breaking news and to contextualize fast
(01:05):
moving story that's just developing, and to tell it in
a Disgraceland way. I want to thank Payne Lindsay and
Donald Albright from Tenderfoot TV for quickly making available their
source material for their monster season on the Zodiac Killer.
And also a special thanks to the Vallejo City Chronicle
for their dogged reporting and for being first to get
(01:27):
this news out. Also, David Fincher, I'd be nowhere fast
on this had I not watched your film Zodiac a
thousand times. Okay, let's get into this special Monday edition
release of Disgraceland. Buckle up, It's going to be a
wild one. A singer I'm going to tell you about
(01:53):
and the crimes he committed were insane. He shot a
random cabby in the back of the head on a
Sand Francisco street corner. He slashed to death backseat lovers
and picnicing couples, and for a brief period in nineteen
sixty nine, his legend gripped the nation. You already know
him by many names, the Lizard King, Mister Mojo, Rising, Jimbo,
(02:15):
but never before by his original alternate identity, the Zodiac Killer.
Until this morning's news started to break. This alternate identity
was the secret. The idea that this worldwide recognizable rock
star could also be one of America's most notorious serial
killers was and still kind of is unfathomable. But we've
seen this kind of double life in our culture before,
(02:37):
as recently as twenty fourteen, when we learned that a
star tight End Aaron Hernandez from history's most successful NFL
franchise in New England, Patriots, was a gangbanging, drug dealing murderer.
And let us not forget Oj Simpson, America's prom king
who ended up slashing his way into infamy. It took
a while, but the unbelievable nature of these stories eventually
(02:59):
set in and the truth was accepted. It's unclear to
me how long it will take for us to accept
the truth of this story, because right now it just
seems ridiculous that the fame Zodiac Killer was one of
the most popular musicians of all time a musician. You
made great music, and that music I played for you
at the top of the show, And that wasn't great music.
That was a preset loop from my melotron called mellow
(03:21):
Fast Waves BK two. I played you that loop because
I can't afford the rights. It's My Party by Leslie Gore,
And why would I play you that specific slice of
weepy jukebox cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
the number one song in America on June fourth, nineteen
sixty three, And that was a day that a pent
(03:42):
up small town teenager in search of his own identity,
with a fire in his eyes and a song in
his heart, struck a deal with the devil that would
change history forever. On this episode, mellow Fast waves a
murderous identity crisis, weep be Cheese, one of the greatest
front men of all time, the Zodiac Killer. I'm Jake
(04:02):
Vernon and this this disgrace laand fuck you. The kid
(04:28):
deadpanned to his father. Even in teenage anger, his voice
was low and broody. His mother did her best to
ignore the latest in a series of daily tensions between
her son and her husband by turning up pat boone
on the transistor radio and busying herself with the dishes.
The kid was home in Alameda, California, after a year
(04:48):
of junior college in Florida, and he dared to bring
up transferring to art school over my dead body, was
his father's predictable response. His dad was a navyman, a
rear admiral, and wanted something professional for his son, James.
If not the military, then law school or an MBA.
He'd even settle for a liberal arts degree if his
(05:10):
son promised to get a master's. Later, to James, his
parent's life was a lie. Raised a military Brat all
the moving in the new schools, James had seen the
military industrial borders of suburbia, and he had no place there.
Without friends and with parents he didn't understand. He was
thoroughly alienated, and so he turned inward and became an artist.
(05:34):
His curiosity was bottomless. He read European philosophers Nietzsche and
William Blake by sixteen sixteen. Have you read Nietzsche and Blake?
I've tried as an adult, and let's just say I'm
a little more comfortable with the musings of the great
American philosophers Daffy Duck and Bill Murray. They're more my speed.
But by the time James was a senior, his English
(05:55):
teacher made a habit of researching his student bibliographies to
make sure James wasn't just inventing type to support his papers.
The joke was on teach. The citations were real medieval
pamphlets about demonology, only available from the Library of Congress.
James was an occasional d student, but only because school
was a drag. He found it to be crushingly bourgeois,
(06:18):
just like his family. There's no future in the arts.
You don't have the talent, the Rear Admiral shouted. Why
couldn't they recognize the brilliance inside him? He stormed up
to his bedroom, slammed the door. Fucked them. They didn't
realize their picket fence was a cage. The grand mysteries,
the dark depths of the universe. James knew that's where
(06:39):
the truth was. His parents would never look beyond the veil,
but he would. He'd already started. James grabbed Alister Crowley's
Magic and Theory and Practice from his bookshelf. He was
that deep now, the satanist Crowley, the occultist Helena Blovatski.
James wanted to get high, but any smell would tip
off the Rear Admiral and lead to a good old
(07:01):
corporal punishment ass kicking, So James had to hang his
head out of the window to smoke the joint. He
just rolled his version of howling at the moon like
his hero bluesman Howl and Wolf. He leaned backwards over
the sill, sparked the jay, and thought about Wolf's great
and terrifying song. Evil. Once high, James duck back inside
and started a new Crowley chapter entitled of the Bloody
(07:24):
Sacrifice Matters Cognate. He read the first ethical lesson in
the Bible is that the only sacrifice pleasing to the
Lord is the sacrifice of blood. For the highest spiritual working,
one must choose that victim which contains the greatest and
purest force. Hanging outside of the window, he took another hit.
(07:45):
The O G. Mendocino weed crossed James's soft palate. The
poetry of dark ritual passed his lips. He had a
moment of clarity, Pins and needles all around his head
like a hand rising from his throat to grab his brain.
His crowned chakra was on fire with the dark spirit energy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He knew who he was and what he had to do.
In that instant, he understood the cheat codes written into
morality by God for those willing to play by the
devil's rules. James wandered over to his record player and
put aland Wolf on the turntable. Wolfe's raspy, demonic voice
and raptured the very stoned young James. But his mom
(08:26):
would never forgive him for what he was about to do.
Neither would his father. It didn't matter. He was nobody's son.
He was no longer their James. He was simply Jim.
It was June third, nineteen sixty three, and Jim Morrison
had broken through to the other side and blown the
doors of his perception wide open. The next day he
(08:48):
took off. Before he split, he lifted the twenty two
pistol from the family gun cabinet. It was a woman's weapon,
a historical piece. The rear admiral would never miss it.
There was a chance he'd missed the rope and the
jackknife from the garage, where the pair of old military
issue wingwalker boots that Jim took, But Jim didn't care.
(09:10):
He bought a ticket on the first thing, smoking a
Greyhound headed south. The driver parked at a rest area
overlooking the beach. Ten minutes he hollered next stop, Lompoc.
Jim looked out his window and laughed dryly at his look.
He was senior Skip day for the local high school kids,
and there they were down on the dunes free range
(09:30):
hunting season. Jim thought all the lush beauty of pure
American youth. He honed in on a flirty couple walking
away from the crowd, somewhere private. Jim presumed, He shouldered
his knapsack and slipped off the bus before he lost them.
George Hernandez and Melinda Johnson were straight out of Central
Casting American, his apple Pie high school seniors, already engaged
(09:54):
to be married, good kids, pure at least for a while.
Like all kids, they wanted to do what comes natural,
and that's why it's called what comes natural. They were
engaged now, and it was senior skip day. One thing
was indeed going to lead to another thing, and that
thing made Jim's chest swell with excitement. That thing is
(10:15):
why Jim stocked Georgia Melinda like pray. Georgia Melinda's pent
up urges made them the most alive and Alistair Crowley
had told Jim that if he stole the life from
them through sacrificial rights, he could steal their life energy,
bottle it into his own being, make their souls work
for him from the other side. And with this unnatural power,
(10:36):
Jim knew he could escape his family's cage and one
day achieve greatness. He caught Georgia and Melinda in the act.
Cherry's half popped, he pulled out the dainty twenty two.
Jim had the drop on them. When he emerged from
the dunes. They saw the gun and pissed themselves in fear.
Jim held them a gunpoint more them to shut the
(10:58):
fuck up. He instructed them to get on their feet
go sit on the drift with a few steps to
the right. He then clumsily tied them up with the rope.
It was Jim's first time, just like it would have
been theirs, and because he was nervous, he got sloppy.
Georgia and Melinda slipped their bonds ran for it. Jim
saw his dreams slipping away with every footfall.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Shit.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
He planted his father's old wingwalker boots in the sand.
There were ten and a half, a little tight on
Jim's size eleven feet, but they anchored him to the
ground like they were supposed to, just like the elegant
pistol the boots did with the stolen rope didn't got
the job done. Po po pow went the bullets down,
went George and Melinda. If these kids are re Via Kong,
(11:42):
Dad would be proud, Jim thought. But no ritual blood letting.
He couldn't let the kills be for nothing. He took
a beat, collected himself. There was no time to wallow
in the mire. Jim dragged Georgie and Melinda into a
rotting bead shack on the other side of the nearest dune.
Inside their young love would become a funeral byer. Jim
(12:03):
had to stake a claim to this flame fire magic
transfer the energy of the recently departed to him their killer.
He took the jackknife, the last of his stolen tools,
and carved a spell of his own into the soft wood.
He took the M and the R from his last name, Morrison,
and brought them to the front to spell mister. He
took the M and the J from his first name, Jim,
(12:24):
and added the two o's from Marrison to spell Mojo. Finally,
he took the remaining letters R, I, S I, N
and bunched them together to spell risin and there you
had it, playing as the red on the Devil's dick,
Mister Mojo Rising. In the summer of sixty six, Jim
(13:02):
hid in his bedroom again, but this bedroom was different
from his old diggs back at the Rear Admiral's house.
He was living in a Venice Beach studio apartment. He
blocked out the windows, listened to the blues, and did
so much LSD it could reasonably qualify as a main
source of his bodily fluids. While there, he poured psychedelic
truth into a small notebook, feverishly drafting poem after poem
(13:25):
for what he didn't know, but it kept his mind
off of killing. After the night he disappeared from the
family house to make his first kill, he returned home. Miraculously,
the Rear Admiral gave in and allowed Jim to transfer
into UCLA as a film student. He made exactly one
film while at school, but he did graduate. After graduation,
(13:46):
his brain scrambled by too much acid and too much
Alister Crowley, still a slave to the dark arts, looking
to make his way in the world and to establish
his own identity. While now on his own, he quietly
disowned his family and fully embraced the bohemian lifestyle. He
ran into a college buddy on the beach, a keyboard
player named Ray Manzaic. He shared his poems with him,
(14:08):
and Ray recognized him as nothing short of magical. Soon
Jim found himself and raised little rock and roll combo
alongside two other inspired musicians, Robbie Kreeger on guitar and
John Densmore on drums. They called themselves The Doors. Ray
had met Robbie and John in a meditation retreat, which
Jim thought was lame. Jim wasn't into this self care bullshit.
(14:32):
He wanted sensory overload at all times, and we want
the world, and we want it now. Jim took to
the mic and imagined what Howling Wolf would sound like,
reciting the evil musings of Alistair Crowley. What came out
was dark, mystical, poetic, and powerful. Jim's musical inexperience was
no obstacle. In no time, The Doors became the house
(14:54):
band at the Whiskey at Go Go Nightclub on LA's
Sunset Strip, opening for every headliner betwe He made twenty
third in August twenty first, they released their first single
in November break on Through. Jim had broken through years earlier,
and he'd tried to hide, but that was impossible. Now
that he had a stage, The Door Is notoriety spread
(15:16):
and their popularity exploded. Still, Jim found it impossible to
get from music what he got from murder. That feeling
from killing Bob and Linda, he couldn't shake it. It
was stronger than the feeling he felt on stage or
in the studio. He loved playing music, but the payoff
was different, maybe because he wasn't as confident a performer
as one would think. If he had more faith in
(15:39):
himself as a musician, lives might have been saved. But
the rear Admiral's words rang out in his drug addled
head constantly, you don't have the talent son. It fucked
with Jim, even though he's making a name for himself.
But for how long Jim's goal was in making do
on Aleister Crowley's promise eternal life, not pop stardom, real greatness, transcendence.
(16:02):
The music just wasn't enough. So just weeks before The
Door's first single release, Jim felt the need to kill again.
He drove to Riverside, an LA suburb, his victim would
be Mary Anne Kate's, another poster child for American beauty.
A twentieth century fox. She cut his eye at the
whiskey one night and ever since and is then still anonymous. Downtime,
(16:26):
he followed her, learned her routines. She was uplate at
her college library and Jim Morrison was waiting. Raised keys
played in Jim's mind like the organ at a pagan church.
The demonic voice spoke out in Latin whispered into his ear.
A man, James, do you renounce the Lord of Christendom,
(16:46):
god of colonial pigs, imperiod as dogs and capitalists pomp?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I do, Jim whispered back.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Do you believe this god must be overthrown? I do,
Jim said, as he removed the distributor cap from Mary
Maranne's car, ensuring that her car wouldn't start. He crouched
down out of sight and waited. Somewhere nearby. A baby
cried from an open window. Mary Anne exited the library
and mister Mojo ris and hid quietly behind her car.
(17:14):
Coiled in attack move, Mary Anne stepped into her driver's seat.
Her car would start. She realized something was wrong and
stepped out Jim sprang from behind, tackled her, beat her
perfect body bloody. To Jim and his manic fury, his
memory wires had crossed. This murder brought on the total
recalls the Lompock kill from three years before. His brain
(17:36):
synapses firing off like the familiar sound of those twenty
two shots from years earlier, replaced by the sound of
his fist pounding mary Anne's flesh. All he heard were gunshots, gunshots,
and the voice of the devil whispering in his ear.
James Douglas, Morrison, do you renounce Jesus Sherry? Joe screamed,
but nobody came. And then the chaos. His fists on
(17:58):
her flesh sounded like a flurry of gunshots. I do renounce,
and all his works. His knuckles to her ribs made
a loud crack. I do renounce that, and all his promises.
I do renounce that more punches, more cracks, since she
(18:19):
still hadn't gone limped.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
James Douglas, will you pledge your soul to Satan?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I will it nominated?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Diabli ed feeley ed spirit is Satan. James Douglas going evil,
and may Lucifer.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Be with you hell Satan.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
With those words whispered Hail Satan. Jim's transformation was complete.
His soul had been sold for what. It wasn't entirely clear. Fame, transcendence,
beyond the bourgeois status quo, eternal life, any combination of
those things. Jim didn't know, but he was certain of
one thing. The power that raised aged through him at
(19:00):
the moment was like an electric coil pulled tight from
the tips of his toes to the crown of his skull.
It surged and provided a powerful, manic, high voltage confidence.
It made him feel as though he could do anything.
Jim thought to himself, that was it. This was what
all the poets raved about. That feeling, the one that
the scientists and astrologists could never figure out, but that
(19:23):
the wordsmiths had on lock, That thing that inspired countless artist, painters,
songwriters and directors to keep going back to the well
for to try and to capture, to express that feeling.
This was it love. Jim dropped Marianne to the asphalt
and slid himself down the side of the car and
to exceed on the ground next to his kill. He
(19:45):
was exhausted. He rifled through Marianne's purse for her smokes,
found one, lit it with her letter, took a deep
cleansing drag, tilted his head back against the car and exhaled.
He then pulled the small notepad and pencil he carried
with him everywhere and began writing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
There were no stars, and they were empty, hollow like him,
But unlike his words, the stars were small. Words were bigger.
They could be anything, which is what the scientists and
the astrologists never understood about love. With words, the possibilities
for love were limitless. Science was fixed, limiting compared to poetry.
(20:26):
Science was bullshit. Poetry gave wings to our desires. Astrology
the zodiac science of compatibility. It was all bunk, made
up to sell newspapers to board suburban housewives like his mom.
Could the zodiac science have predicted how Jim now felt
about Maryanne, what she meant to him now now that
she become his kill? Was the goddamn Sunday morning horoscope.
(20:48):
Going to read Arias is a fellow fireside for you,
Jim Morrison, the Sagittarius, He'll find a worthy partner mentally
and physically. The chemistry between you is awesome, and when
you pierce her skull with the sharp end of your knife,
you'll know you've found your soulmate. Jim had no idea
when mary Anne was born, but he knew it didn't
matter for shit. He knew that she was for him,
(21:10):
his girl, and he knew that their chemistry was quote
unquote awesome. He pulled her dead body over closer to
him and placed her bloody skull on his lap. He
felt for her, He really did something deep, a connection.
It was different than the feeling he had for George
and Melinda. That was more bloodlust, craven, clumsy, like it
(21:31):
is when you lose your virginity. With mary Anne, it
was different. The kill had a rhythm to it, like
great sex with an experienced partner. Was it because they'd
hooked up after Jim had formally sealed the deal in
his mind with the devil, before he'd gotten high on
satan stoned immaculate into a deeper understanding of the cosmos
and the power of his poetry, before he fully understood
(21:53):
the futility of God, science and the stars. And what
did the astrologists know that the poets didn't thing? Jim
was in love and Satan had his back. Fuck with
the horoscope said mary Anne was his first love and
no disrespect to Georgia Melinda under the empty stars that night.
Mary Anne was Jim Morrison's first Zodiac kill. We'll be
(22:16):
right back after this word were word like the mister
Mojo Rising carving he'd made after the Georgia Melinda murders
in Lompoc. Mari Anne's death wasn't tied to the killer
who would become known as the Zodiac for years. When
Georgia Melinda's bodies were eventually discovered, the Mister Mojo Rising
(22:37):
carving went unnoticed because it had no significance because at
the time, the Doors weren't yet a band, the song
wasn't yet a hit. It was just a line in
Jim Morrison's head that he would later write into the
lyrics for the song La Woman. So at the time
it just looked like some teenage graffiti, and so the
clue was missed until now. And for Jim Morrison, a
(22:58):
young man who craved recognition, whose goal it was was
to be infamous, whose prime motivation for killing in the
first place was to build an army of souls to
fight for him in perpetuity to achieve his twisted notion
of greatness. The fact that authorities were too stupid to
connect him to those first few kills it really pissed
him off. It wasn't until nineteen seventy that authorities even
(23:22):
began to piece together the murders. San Francisco police believed
the killer racked up five confirmed kills between December nineteen
sixty eight and October nineteen sixty nine, a couple on
Lake Herman Road in Benicia, one in Blue Rock Springs
Park in Vallejo, one more in Napa County, and a
cabby in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. And
(23:44):
they didn't even know about Georgia, Melinda, and Marianne. This
infuriated Jim. He wanted the credit for all those kills
and then some. He later claimed to the public that
he was responsible for a total of thirty seven murders.
Jim couldn't deal with with the slowness of the San
Francisco detectives, so he did what he did best, turned
to words, poetry, a twisted poetry, but poetry. Nonetheless, he
(24:09):
started to write letters to the press to claim responsibility
for the murders, so the poetry needed to be twisted
to conceal his identity. Jim Morrison, the fame whor couldn't
resist the rush of notoriety. These claims came in letters
called cryptograms, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and other
newspapers word games like Mister Mojo Rizen, howbeit it a
(24:30):
hell of a lot more complex. Basic cryptograms are substitution codes.
Each letter replaces another. A's become bees, bees become c's,
and so on. Jim digging on the maryannekill the ironic
astrological poetry he penned while she laid dead on his lap,
Her soul lovingly transferred to his for eternity as an homage.
(24:51):
Signed his letter with a Z for Zodiac, and he
peppered his cryptograms with pages full of Zodiac occult symbols
as a subversive fuck you to the astraelogists from Jim
the poet, Jim hinted at his cryptogram fascination and the
doors tuned soul Kitchen. His psychotic pr made the front
page of the San Francisco Chronicle as well as other
(25:12):
local papers, taunting the nation into an obsession with a maniac.
He sent the first cryptogram in three pieces to three
separate California papers, demanding maybe published, or he would drive
around the state committing random drive by shootings, and it
worked like gangbusters. All three papers printed the cipher. When
finally cracked, it read I like killing people.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest,
because man is the most dangerous animal of all the
best part is that when I die, I will be
reborn in paradise and all that I have killed will
become my slaves.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
When he went out as a Zodiac, Jim would alter
his appearance as best he could witness descriptions vary in
hair color and length, maybe because he had his famous
locks tied back or under a net or a wig.
The zodiac sketches include eyeglasses, but this was to help
preserve his anonymity as his fame rose. More tellingly, testimony
puts the zodiac's height at around five ten, and Jim
(26:14):
was five to eleven Weighed. Estimates for the Zodiac ranged
from one hundred and eighty pounds to two hundred pounds.
Jim was one hundred and eighty and more when he
was drinking heavily, which was more often than not. But
the clue that always tied Jim and the Zodiac together,
the one we can now fully appreciate, was his dad,
the rear Admiral and his wingwalker boots, the Big ten
(26:36):
and a Half's, the ones that left the boot prints
that were found at several of the murder scenes, and
that led investigators to suspect that the Zodiac had a
military background. The Zodiac didn't, but his dad did, and
the boots were the last thing connecting James Morrison aka
Jim Morrison, aka the Zodiac Killer from his old life
to his new one. He was a killer just like
(26:57):
dear old dad. Morrison's father, George, had been the military
commander at the Gulf of Tonken, the shady nineteen sixty
four false flag operation by the US government to justify
escalating the Vietnam War. Yes, Jim Morrison's dad basically started
the Vietnam War. This is a fact. Look it up.
And it was a fact that drove Jim crazy. He
(27:19):
literally sold his soul for his art. But even when
it came to spilling blood, he was stuck in his
father's shadow. His new Zodiac persona could never approach that
body count but he could try. How did he manage
this double life? It was easier than you'd think. When
you're a notoriously unreliable rock star, nobody questions it. When
(27:40):
you disappear for a couple of days between gigs, one
hand washes the other. Let's lay out the timeline. In
December sixty eight, the Doors played a local show at
the Forum in Inglewood. Afterward, Jim was on his own
with no gigs for two weeks. That's opportunity. The band
had started recording their next album, Soft Parade, and the
(28:00):
sessions were not going well. Jim needed a fix, that's motive.
One week later, the Lake Herman Road murders happened, with
the killing of Annie Mae Jackson and William Holiday. Then
on July first, nineteen sixty nine, the Doors returned to
California from a stint in Mexico City for too much
needed days off. The excruciating half million dollar eight month
(28:22):
production of Soft Parade was finally wrapped, and Jim had
a break. And he needed it because he was an
insecure wreck. He had no idea if the album was
good or not, and feared, like most sensitive artists, that
the critics would tear him apart. So Jim needed something
soothing again before the upcoming release, and nothing soothed him
more or gave him more satisfaction or sense of purpose
(28:45):
than killing than adding to his soul bank. So after
the recording a soft Parade, he was motivated to kill,
and with time off, he had the opportunity to go
out and quench his bloodthirst, which led to the murder
of Diane Maren only four, nineteen sixty nine in Blue
Rock Springs. After this, the Zodiac placed a phone call
(29:05):
to the cops, another classic element of the serial killer profile,
a desire to get caught. In that recording. When played now,
the cadence of the voice, the thinly veiled hidden speech
pattern sounds a lot like the spoken word poetry of
one Jim Morrison on his album of Poems in American Prayer.
And with that phone call a line was crossed. The Zodiac,
(29:28):
the serial killer inside Jim, was done watching Jim Morrison,
the rock Star inside Jim get the credit. The Zodiac
was more than that, a poet, a soul shepherd, a
killer's killer, and as far as he was concerned, Jim
Morrison the rock Star was a phony, a Charlatan whatever
he was. Jim was lost in a never ending identity
(29:48):
crisis and it was coming to a boiling point and
this body wasn't big enough for the both of them.
At a show in Boston, Jimbo waxed poetic with the crowd. Hey, listen, listen, listen, listen, man, listen, man,
I don't know how many of you people believe in astrology. Yeah,
(30:09):
that's right, that's right, baby. I'm as Sagittarius, the most
philosophical of all the size.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
But anyway, I don't believe in that. I think it's
a bunch of bullshit itself. But I'll tell you this, man,
I'll tell you this. I don't know what's gonna happen, man,
but I want to have my kicks.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Before the whole shithouse grows up in flames.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
All right, all right.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
In the fall of nineteen sixty nine, the Doors were
deciding that a hiatus was needed, ironically for the sake
of Jim's health. During that hiatus, the Zodiac notunched two
more attacks in under a month by far As Flashy
at Tor. For the first, he dressed in a hood
with a zodiac symple on it. Then hogtied and stabbed
a couple on a picnic Nostalgia perhaps for his first
(31:31):
time was Georgia Melinda, and the hood was needed now
because Jim's face was just too damn famous. And for
the second attack, he blew the brains out of a
cabby in prosidio heights, tore off the dead man's shirttails
and nailed them with the chronicle as a six souvenir
fame horror that he was. Both murders preceded the recording
(31:52):
of the Doors album Morrison Hotel by just a few weeks.
Jim knew he needed to fill the soul bank his
soul kitchen before the growing studio sessions were to start,
and inevitably ended with Jim once again landing face down
in the critics den of soul crushing jackals ever since
Marrison Hotel came out. However, it was the Zodiac and
(32:12):
not Jim who became all talk and no action. Sure,
he teased the squares through the cryptograms he'd lay out
on the newspapers with threats of blowing up buses and
attacking children, but he never did. Jim even leaked a
little more Zodiac into his lyrics blood Stains the Roof
and the Palm Trees of Venice, blood and My Love
and the Terrible Summer. But it was clear the magic
(32:34):
was fading and the art was winning. Now is Jim's
chance to free himself with this demon, the Zodiac, once
and for All of Jim's many friends and lovers, the
only one he trusted was Pamela Corson. She had been
the first to suggest he should quit the doors, get away,
focus on his poetry, in other words, get into something real,
(32:55):
some semblance of her real life beyond the madness of
being a rock star serial killer. Jim didn't tell Pam
he was the Zodiac. Of course, he didn't have to.
Even without knowing the truth, it was obvious to Pam,
as it was to everyone else, that Jim needed help.
The two made plans to Lament in France, and it
was the escape from the madness of rock and roll,
(33:16):
and it was the escape from the madness of murder.
But before splitting, Jim reunited with Ray, Robbie and John
to record the album La Woman. They must have known
this was the band's last hurrah, even if they didn't
say it. But when the album was done, Jim flew
to Paris. He'd had it with the stress of it all,
his crisis of identity. Was he a killer or a poet?
(33:40):
The music and the murders, it was all too much,
No more souls to claim. He'd claimed enough. The only
soul left up for grabs his own. The official take
is that Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub on
July third, nineteen seventy one, but there's a lot that
officials in the public never knew. In fact, what Jim
(34:01):
was really doing in that bath was an exorcism. Paris
was a last ditch attempt to save him from his demons.
Literally cafes accordions all the cliches. Since Pam couldn't know
the extent of his depravity even in Paris, he had
to play a cool and wait. He drank less, wrote
more poems, chilled, but all the while the Zodiac was
(34:24):
screaming out from inside, threatening to burst through Jim and
grab the world by its shoulders and violently shake it
into an early grave. It's no coincidence that the final
Zodiac letter received during The Killer's active period reached the
Chronicle mail room around the same time Jim Morrison fled
the United States. It was the Zodiac's last gasp. After months,
(34:46):
the night finally came. Jim saw his chance to exercise
his demons, that escape the madness of living as a
serial killer, to get himself whatever that was James. He
assumed back Pam would be out with friends. Jim could
do one last accult riche undisturbed. He would submerge himself
on the claw foot bathtub like a sensory deprivation tank,
(35:06):
get fully under the surface, chant an entire original Jim
Morrison's spell without drowning. When he did it, it was dangerous,
stuck per forming an exorcism on yourself, but Jim didn't
see it that way. He didn't want to be the Zodiac,
so he decided he wasn't. He had made a deal
with the devil long ago for his fame, but he
had always felt like a fraud because of it. He
(35:29):
wasn't a rock star. He was a poet all those crimes,
and that was someone else, entirely, a split personality. So
he wasn't exercising himself. He was casting out it that thing,
the monster. Jim closed his eyes and slipped underwater. He
sang forcefully enough that the water didn't flood his face,
(35:49):
softly enough that he'd have breath for all the lyrics.
He wished Pam was there with him now, but he
hadn't shared this with her. It would have been too cruel,
and it was too late. An actor out on loan
and the loan King do no more performance, just a
final judgment wake up time. Who the fuck are you?
(36:13):
Jim Morrison? That was for him to know and for
the rest of us to just find out. Now in Paris,
he broke on through to the other side one last
time in a trance. Passed out, submerged, mister Mojo Rising
went under the Lizard King, shed his skin, the bathwater
slip streamed into his nostrils, then his lungs, and just
like that, he was gone. Within hours, Pam found the body,
(36:38):
and no autopsy was ever performed. Some old timers liked
to think he faked it, that he slipped the bonds
of fame and wandered the earth like king. But someone
died in that tub. The question is who was it?
Jim Morrison or was it the Zodiac freeing the real
man and leaving the real Jim Marrison and wander on
(37:00):
after the mysterious events of his death and perhaps his rebirth,
Jim Morrison would have been surprised to learn at how
popular his music and words remained throughout the years, and
he'd likely also be fascinated that some crazy bullshitter with
a podcast would someday accuse him of being the fucking
Zodiac Killer as an April Fool's joke, which, of course
is what Yours Truly just did. So poor went out
(37:23):
for the real Jim Morrison and Happy April Fool's Day.
I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
(37:47):
by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Credits for this episode can be found on the show
notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. If you're listening as
a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for some recording
the show. We really appreciate it, And if not, you
can become a member right now by going to disgraceslampod
dot com slash Membership members can listen to every episode
(38:10):
of disgracelam ad free, plus you'll get one brand new
exclusive episode every month weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections,
and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgraylampod dot
com slash membership for details, Rate and review the show,
and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at
(38:30):
disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Rock a rolla
Speaker 4 (38:39):
He then Man
Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The following episode
is satire. It's not true crime. Sorry. It was released
on April first, twenty nineteen as an April Fool's joke,
and the immediate response on social media was pretty overwhelming,
and I freaked out and pulled the episode after it
had only been live for a couple of hours. Many
(00:22):
of you disgraced Sense subscribers did not hear it, and
you emailed me and tweeted at me asking how you
get your ears around it. And for those of you
who did hear the episode and wrote me to curse
me out or were eager to share a laugh at
your own expense as you found yourself pulled over on
the side of the road, on the subway, in a bus,
or in your bed frantically googling for breaking news on
the identity of the Zodiac killer. I'm sorry, not sorry,
(00:45):
edited lightly to protect the identity of the victims. Here
is the episode as it originally appeared, in its entirety,
including the breathless fake intro that went like this, YO, quick,
heads up. I recorded this episode quickly last night, trying
to respond to the breaking news and to contextualize fast
(01:05):
moving story that's just developing, and to tell it in
a Disgraceland way. I want to thank Payne Lindsay and
Donald Albright from Tenderfoot TV for quickly making available their
source material for their monster season on the Zodiac Killer.
And also a special thanks to the Vallejo City Chronicle
for their dogged reporting and for being first to get
(01:27):
this news out. Also, David Fincher, I'd be nowhere fast
on this had I not watched your film Zodiac a
thousand times. Okay, let's get into this special Monday edition
release of Disgraceland. Buckle up, It's going to be a
wild one. A singer I'm going to tell you about
(01:53):
and the crimes he committed were insane. He shot a
random cabby in the back of the head on a
Sand Francisco street corner. He slashed to death backseat lovers
and picnicing couples, and for a brief period in nineteen
sixty nine, his legend gripped the nation. You already know
him by many names, the Lizard King, Mister Mojo, Rising, Jimbo,
(02:15):
but never before by his original alternate identity, the Zodiac Killer.
Until this morning's news started to break. This alternate identity
was the secret. The idea that this worldwide recognizable rock
star could also be one of America's most notorious serial
killers was and still kind of is unfathomable. But we've
seen this kind of double life in our culture before,
(02:37):
as recently as twenty fourteen, when we learned that a
star tight End Aaron Hernandez from history's most successful NFL
franchise in New England, Patriots, was a gangbanging, drug dealing murderer.
And let us not forget Oj Simpson, America's prom king
who ended up slashing his way into infamy. It took
a while, but the unbelievable nature of these stories eventually
(02:59):
set in and the truth was accepted. It's unclear to
me how long it will take for us to accept
the truth of this story, because right now it just
seems ridiculous that the fame Zodiac Killer was one of
the most popular musicians of all time a musician. You
made great music, and that music I played for you
at the top of the show, And that wasn't great music.
That was a preset loop from my melotron called mellow
(03:21):
Fast Waves BK two. I played you that loop because
I can't afford the rights. It's My Party by Leslie Gore,
And why would I play you that specific slice of
weepy jukebox cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
the number one song in America on June fourth, nineteen
sixty three, And that was a day that a pent
(03:42):
up small town teenager in search of his own identity,
with a fire in his eyes and a song in
his heart, struck a deal with the devil that would
change history forever. On this episode, mellow Fast waves a
murderous identity crisis, weep be Cheese, one of the greatest
front men of all time, the Zodiac Killer. I'm Jake
(04:02):
Vernon and this this disgrace laand fuck you. The kid
(04:28):
deadpanned to his father. Even in teenage anger, his voice
was low and broody. His mother did her best to
ignore the latest in a series of daily tensions between
her son and her husband by turning up pat boone
on the transistor radio and busying herself with the dishes.
The kid was home in Alameda, California, after a year
(04:48):
of junior college in Florida, and he dared to bring
up transferring to art school over my dead body, was
his father's predictable response. His dad was a navyman, a
rear admiral, and wanted something professional for his son, James.
If not the military, then law school or an MBA.
He'd even settle for a liberal arts degree if his
(05:10):
son promised to get a master's. Later, to James, his
parent's life was a lie. Raised a military Brat all
the moving in the new schools, James had seen the
military industrial borders of suburbia, and he had no place there.
Without friends and with parents he didn't understand. He was
thoroughly alienated, and so he turned inward and became an artist.
(05:34):
His curiosity was bottomless. He read European philosophers Nietzsche and
William Blake by sixteen sixteen. Have you read Nietzsche and Blake?
I've tried as an adult, and let's just say I'm
a little more comfortable with the musings of the great
American philosophers Daffy Duck and Bill Murray. They're more my speed.
But by the time James was a senior, his English
(05:55):
teacher made a habit of researching his student bibliographies to
make sure James wasn't just inventing type to support his papers.
The joke was on teach. The citations were real medieval
pamphlets about demonology, only available from the Library of Congress.
James was an occasional d student, but only because school
was a drag. He found it to be crushingly bourgeois,
(06:18):
just like his family. There's no future in the arts.
You don't have the talent, the Rear Admiral shouted. Why
couldn't they recognize the brilliance inside him? He stormed up
to his bedroom, slammed the door. Fucked them. They didn't
realize their picket fence was a cage. The grand mysteries,
the dark depths of the universe. James knew that's where
(06:39):
the truth was. His parents would never look beyond the veil,
but he would. He'd already started. James grabbed Alister Crowley's
Magic and Theory and Practice from his bookshelf. He was
that deep now, the satanist Crowley, the occultist Helena Blovatski.
James wanted to get high, but any smell would tip
off the Rear Admiral and lead to a good old
(07:01):
corporal punishment ass kicking, So James had to hang his
head out of the window to smoke the joint. He
just rolled his version of howling at the moon like
his hero bluesman Howl and Wolf. He leaned backwards over
the sill, sparked the jay, and thought about Wolf's great
and terrifying song. Evil. Once high, James duck back inside
and started a new Crowley chapter entitled of the Bloody
(07:24):
Sacrifice Matters Cognate. He read the first ethical lesson in
the Bible is that the only sacrifice pleasing to the
Lord is the sacrifice of blood. For the highest spiritual working,
one must choose that victim which contains the greatest and
purest force. Hanging outside of the window, he took another hit.
(07:45):
The O G. Mendocino weed crossed James's soft palate. The
poetry of dark ritual passed his lips. He had a
moment of clarity, Pins and needles all around his head
like a hand rising from his throat to grab his brain.
His crowned chakra was on fire with the dark spirit energy.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He knew who he was and what he had to do.
In that instant, he understood the cheat codes written into
morality by God for those willing to play by the
devil's rules. James wandered over to his record player and
put aland Wolf on the turntable. Wolfe's raspy, demonic voice
and raptured the very stoned young James. But his mom
(08:26):
would never forgive him for what he was about to do.
Neither would his father. It didn't matter. He was nobody's son.
He was no longer their James. He was simply Jim.
It was June third, nineteen sixty three, and Jim Morrison
had broken through to the other side and blown the
doors of his perception wide open. The next day he
(08:48):
took off. Before he split, he lifted the twenty two
pistol from the family gun cabinet. It was a woman's weapon,
a historical piece. The rear admiral would never miss it.
There was a chance he'd missed the rope and the
jackknife from the garage, where the pair of old military
issue wingwalker boots that Jim took, But Jim didn't care.
(09:10):
He bought a ticket on the first thing, smoking a
Greyhound headed south. The driver parked at a rest area
overlooking the beach. Ten minutes he hollered next stop, Lompoc.
Jim looked out his window and laughed dryly at his look.
He was senior Skip day for the local high school kids,
and there they were down on the dunes free range
(09:30):
hunting season. Jim thought all the lush beauty of pure
American youth. He honed in on a flirty couple walking
away from the crowd, somewhere private. Jim presumed, He shouldered
his knapsack and slipped off the bus before he lost them.
George Hernandez and Melinda Johnson were straight out of Central
Casting American, his apple Pie high school seniors, already engaged
(09:54):
to be married, good kids, pure at least for a while.
Like all kids, they wanted to do what comes natural,
and that's why it's called what comes natural. They were
engaged now, and it was senior skip day. One thing
was indeed going to lead to another thing, and that
thing made Jim's chest swell with excitement. That thing is
(10:15):
why Jim stocked Georgia Melinda like pray. Georgia Melinda's pent
up urges made them the most alive and Alistair Crowley
had told Jim that if he stole the life from
them through sacrificial rights, he could steal their life energy,
bottle it into his own being, make their souls work
for him from the other side. And with this unnatural power,
(10:36):
Jim knew he could escape his family's cage and one
day achieve greatness. He caught Georgia and Melinda in the act.
Cherry's half popped, he pulled out the dainty twenty two.
Jim had the drop on them. When he emerged from
the dunes. They saw the gun and pissed themselves in fear.
Jim held them a gunpoint more them to shut the
(10:58):
fuck up. He instructed them to get on their feet
go sit on the drift with a few steps to
the right. He then clumsily tied them up with the rope.
It was Jim's first time, just like it would have
been theirs, and because he was nervous, he got sloppy.
Georgia and Melinda slipped their bonds ran for it. Jim
saw his dreams slipping away with every footfall.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Shit.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
He planted his father's old wingwalker boots in the sand.
There were ten and a half, a little tight on
Jim's size eleven feet, but they anchored him to the
ground like they were supposed to, just like the elegant
pistol the boots did with the stolen rope didn't got
the job done. Po po pow went the bullets down,
went George and Melinda. If these kids are re Via Kong,
(11:42):
Dad would be proud, Jim thought. But no ritual blood letting.
He couldn't let the kills be for nothing. He took
a beat, collected himself. There was no time to wallow
in the mire. Jim dragged Georgie and Melinda into a
rotting bead shack on the other side of the nearest dune.
Inside their young love would become a funeral byer. Jim
(12:03):
had to stake a claim to this flame fire magic
transfer the energy of the recently departed to him their killer.
He took the jackknife, the last of his stolen tools,
and carved a spell of his own into the soft wood.
He took the M and the R from his last name, Morrison,
and brought them to the front to spell mister. He
took the M and the J from his first name, Jim,
(12:24):
and added the two o's from Marrison to spell Mojo. Finally,
he took the remaining letters R, I, S I, N
and bunched them together to spell risin and there you
had it, playing as the red on the Devil's dick,
Mister Mojo Rising. In the summer of sixty six, Jim
(13:02):
hid in his bedroom again, but this bedroom was different
from his old diggs back at the Rear Admiral's house.
He was living in a Venice Beach studio apartment. He
blocked out the windows, listened to the blues, and did
so much LSD it could reasonably qualify as a main
source of his bodily fluids. While there, he poured psychedelic
truth into a small notebook, feverishly drafting poem after poem
(13:25):
for what he didn't know, but it kept his mind
off of killing. After the night he disappeared from the
family house to make his first kill, he returned home. Miraculously,
the Rear Admiral gave in and allowed Jim to transfer
into UCLA as a film student. He made exactly one
film while at school, but he did graduate. After graduation,
(13:46):
his brain scrambled by too much acid and too much
Alister Crowley, still a slave to the dark arts, looking
to make his way in the world and to establish
his own identity. While now on his own, he quietly
disowned his family and fully embraced the bohemian lifestyle. He
ran into a college buddy on the beach, a keyboard
player named Ray Manzaic. He shared his poems with him,
(14:08):
and Ray recognized him as nothing short of magical. Soon
Jim found himself and raised little rock and roll combo
alongside two other inspired musicians, Robbie Kreeger on guitar and
John Densmore on drums. They called themselves The Doors. Ray
had met Robbie and John in a meditation retreat, which
Jim thought was lame. Jim wasn't into this self care bullshit.
(14:32):
He wanted sensory overload at all times, and we want
the world, and we want it now. Jim took to
the mic and imagined what Howling Wolf would sound like,
reciting the evil musings of Alistair Crowley. What came out
was dark, mystical, poetic, and powerful. Jim's musical inexperience was
no obstacle. In no time, The Doors became the house
(14:54):
band at the Whiskey at Go Go Nightclub on LA's
Sunset Strip, opening for every headliner betwe He made twenty
third in August twenty first, they released their first single
in November break on Through. Jim had broken through years earlier,
and he'd tried to hide, but that was impossible. Now
that he had a stage, The Door Is notoriety spread
(15:16):
and their popularity exploded. Still, Jim found it impossible to
get from music what he got from murder. That feeling
from killing Bob and Linda, he couldn't shake it. It
was stronger than the feeling he felt on stage or
in the studio. He loved playing music, but the payoff
was different, maybe because he wasn't as confident a performer
as one would think. If he had more faith in
(15:39):
himself as a musician, lives might have been saved. But
the rear Admiral's words rang out in his drug addled
head constantly, you don't have the talent son. It fucked
with Jim, even though he's making a name for himself.
But for how long Jim's goal was in making do
on Aleister Crowley's promise eternal life, not pop stardom, real greatness, transcendence.
(16:02):
The music just wasn't enough. So just weeks before The
Door's first single release, Jim felt the need to kill again.
He drove to Riverside, an LA suburb, his victim would
be Mary Anne Kate's, another poster child for American beauty.
A twentieth century fox. She cut his eye at the
whiskey one night and ever since and is then still anonymous. Downtime,
(16:26):
he followed her, learned her routines. She was uplate at
her college library and Jim Morrison was waiting. Raised keys
played in Jim's mind like the organ at a pagan church.
The demonic voice spoke out in Latin whispered into his ear.
A man, James, do you renounce the Lord of Christendom,
(16:46):
god of colonial pigs, imperiod as dogs and capitalists pomp?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I do, Jim whispered back.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Do you believe this god must be overthrown? I do,
Jim said, as he removed the distributor cap from Mary
Maranne's car, ensuring that her car wouldn't start. He crouched
down out of sight and waited. Somewhere nearby. A baby
cried from an open window. Mary Anne exited the library
and mister Mojo ris and hid quietly behind her car.
(17:14):
Coiled in attack move, Mary Anne stepped into her driver's seat.
Her car would start. She realized something was wrong and
stepped out Jim sprang from behind, tackled her, beat her
perfect body bloody. To Jim and his manic fury, his
memory wires had crossed. This murder brought on the total
recalls the Lompock kill from three years before. His brain
(17:36):
synapses firing off like the familiar sound of those twenty
two shots from years earlier, replaced by the sound of
his fist pounding mary Anne's flesh. All he heard were gunshots, gunshots,
and the voice of the devil whispering in his ear.
James Douglas, Morrison, do you renounce Jesus Sherry? Joe screamed,
but nobody came. And then the chaos. His fists on
(17:58):
her flesh sounded like a flurry of gunshots. I do renounce,
and all his works. His knuckles to her ribs made
a loud crack. I do renounce that, and all his promises.
I do renounce that more punches, more cracks, since she
(18:19):
still hadn't gone limped.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
James Douglas, will you pledge your soul to Satan?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I will it nominated?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Diabli ed feeley ed spirit is Satan. James Douglas going evil,
and may Lucifer.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Be with you hell Satan.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
With those words whispered Hail Satan. Jim's transformation was complete.
His soul had been sold for what. It wasn't entirely clear. Fame, transcendence,
beyond the bourgeois status quo, eternal life, any combination of
those things. Jim didn't know, but he was certain of
one thing. The power that raised aged through him at
(19:00):
the moment was like an electric coil pulled tight from
the tips of his toes to the crown of his skull.
It surged and provided a powerful, manic, high voltage confidence.
It made him feel as though he could do anything.
Jim thought to himself, that was it. This was what
all the poets raved about. That feeling, the one that
the scientists and astrologists could never figure out, but that
(19:23):
the wordsmiths had on lock, That thing that inspired countless artist, painters,
songwriters and directors to keep going back to the well
for to try and to capture, to express that feeling.
This was it love. Jim dropped Marianne to the asphalt
and slid himself down the side of the car and
to exceed on the ground next to his kill. He
(19:45):
was exhausted. He rifled through Marianne's purse for her smokes,
found one, lit it with her letter, took a deep
cleansing drag, tilted his head back against the car and exhaled.
He then pulled the small notepad and pencil he carried
with him everywhere and began writing.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
There were no stars, and they were empty, hollow like him,
But unlike his words, the stars were small. Words were bigger.
They could be anything, which is what the scientists and
the astrologists never understood about love. With words, the possibilities
for love were limitless. Science was fixed, limiting compared to poetry.
(20:26):
Science was bullshit. Poetry gave wings to our desires. Astrology
the zodiac science of compatibility. It was all bunk, made
up to sell newspapers to board suburban housewives like his mom.
Could the zodiac science have predicted how Jim now felt
about Maryanne, what she meant to him now now that
she become his kill? Was the goddamn Sunday morning horoscope.
(20:48):
Going to read Arias is a fellow fireside for you,
Jim Morrison, the Sagittarius, He'll find a worthy partner mentally
and physically. The chemistry between you is awesome, and when
you pierce her skull with the sharp end of your knife,
you'll know you've found your soulmate. Jim had no idea
when mary Anne was born, but he knew it didn't
matter for shit. He knew that she was for him,
(21:10):
his girl, and he knew that their chemistry was quote
unquote awesome. He pulled her dead body over closer to
him and placed her bloody skull on his lap. He
felt for her, He really did something deep, a connection.
It was different than the feeling he had for George
and Melinda. That was more bloodlust, craven, clumsy, like it
(21:31):
is when you lose your virginity. With mary Anne, it
was different. The kill had a rhythm to it, like
great sex with an experienced partner. Was it because they'd
hooked up after Jim had formally sealed the deal in
his mind with the devil, before he'd gotten high on
satan stoned immaculate into a deeper understanding of the cosmos
and the power of his poetry, before he fully understood
(21:53):
the futility of God, science and the stars. And what
did the astrologists know that the poets didn't thing? Jim
was in love and Satan had his back. Fuck with
the horoscope said mary Anne was his first love and
no disrespect to Georgia Melinda under the empty stars that night.
Mary Anne was Jim Morrison's first Zodiac kill. We'll be
(22:16):
right back after this word were word like the mister
Mojo Rising carving he'd made after the Georgia Melinda murders
in Lompoc. Mari Anne's death wasn't tied to the killer
who would become known as the Zodiac for years. When
Georgia Melinda's bodies were eventually discovered, the Mister Mojo Rising
(22:37):
carving went unnoticed because it had no significance because at
the time, the Doors weren't yet a band, the song
wasn't yet a hit. It was just a line in
Jim Morrison's head that he would later write into the
lyrics for the song La Woman. So at the time
it just looked like some teenage graffiti, and so the
clue was missed until now. And for Jim Morrison, a
(22:58):
young man who craved recognition, whose goal it was was
to be infamous, whose prime motivation for killing in the
first place was to build an army of souls to
fight for him in perpetuity to achieve his twisted notion
of greatness. The fact that authorities were too stupid to
connect him to those first few kills it really pissed
him off. It wasn't until nineteen seventy that authorities even
(23:22):
began to piece together the murders. San Francisco police believed
the killer racked up five confirmed kills between December nineteen
sixty eight and October nineteen sixty nine, a couple on
Lake Herman Road in Benicia, one in Blue Rock Springs
Park in Vallejo, one more in Napa County, and a
cabby in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. And
(23:44):
they didn't even know about Georgia, Melinda, and Marianne. This
infuriated Jim. He wanted the credit for all those kills
and then some. He later claimed to the public that
he was responsible for a total of thirty seven murders.
Jim couldn't deal with with the slowness of the San
Francisco detectives, so he did what he did best, turned
to words, poetry, a twisted poetry, but poetry. Nonetheless, he
(24:09):
started to write letters to the press to claim responsibility
for the murders, so the poetry needed to be twisted
to conceal his identity. Jim Morrison, the fame whor couldn't
resist the rush of notoriety. These claims came in letters
called cryptograms, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and other
newspapers word games like Mister Mojo Rizen, howbeit it a
(24:30):
hell of a lot more complex. Basic cryptograms are substitution codes.
Each letter replaces another. A's become bees, bees become c's,
and so on. Jim digging on the maryannekill the ironic
astrological poetry he penned while she laid dead on his lap,
Her soul lovingly transferred to his for eternity as an homage.
(24:51):
Signed his letter with a Z for Zodiac, and he
peppered his cryptograms with pages full of Zodiac occult symbols
as a subversive fuck you to the astraelogists from Jim
the poet, Jim hinted at his cryptogram fascination and the
doors tuned soul Kitchen. His psychotic pr made the front
page of the San Francisco Chronicle as well as other
(25:12):
local papers, taunting the nation into an obsession with a maniac.
He sent the first cryptogram in three pieces to three
separate California papers, demanding maybe published, or he would drive
around the state committing random drive by shootings, and it
worked like gangbusters. All three papers printed the cipher. When
finally cracked, it read I like killing people.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest,
because man is the most dangerous animal of all the
best part is that when I die, I will be
reborn in paradise and all that I have killed will
become my slaves.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
When he went out as a Zodiac, Jim would alter
his appearance as best he could witness descriptions vary in
hair color and length, maybe because he had his famous
locks tied back or under a net or a wig.
The zodiac sketches include eyeglasses, but this was to help
preserve his anonymity as his fame rose. More tellingly, testimony
puts the zodiac's height at around five ten, and Jim
(26:14):
was five to eleven Weighed. Estimates for the Zodiac ranged
from one hundred and eighty pounds to two hundred pounds.
Jim was one hundred and eighty and more when he
was drinking heavily, which was more often than not. But
the clue that always tied Jim and the Zodiac together,
the one we can now fully appreciate, was his dad,
the rear Admiral and his wingwalker boots, the Big ten
(26:36):
and a Half's, the ones that left the boot prints
that were found at several of the murder scenes, and
that led investigators to suspect that the Zodiac had a
military background. The Zodiac didn't, but his dad did, and
the boots were the last thing connecting James Morrison aka
Jim Morrison, aka the Zodiac Killer from his old life
to his new one. He was a killer just like
(26:57):
dear old dad. Morrison's father, George, had been the military
commander at the Gulf of Tonken, the shady nineteen sixty
four false flag operation by the US government to justify
escalating the Vietnam War. Yes, Jim Morrison's dad basically started
the Vietnam War. This is a fact. Look it up.
And it was a fact that drove Jim crazy. He
(27:19):
literally sold his soul for his art. But even when
it came to spilling blood, he was stuck in his
father's shadow. His new Zodiac persona could never approach that
body count but he could try. How did he manage
this double life? It was easier than you'd think. When
you're a notoriously unreliable rock star, nobody questions it. When
(27:40):
you disappear for a couple of days between gigs, one
hand washes the other. Let's lay out the timeline. In
December sixty eight, the Doors played a local show at
the Forum in Inglewood. Afterward, Jim was on his own
with no gigs for two weeks. That's opportunity. The band
had started recording their next album, Soft Parade, and the
(28:00):
sessions were not going well. Jim needed a fix, that's motive.
One week later, the Lake Herman Road murders happened, with
the killing of Annie Mae Jackson and William Holiday. Then
on July first, nineteen sixty nine, the Doors returned to
California from a stint in Mexico City for too much
needed days off. The excruciating half million dollar eight month
(28:22):
production of Soft Parade was finally wrapped, and Jim had
a break. And he needed it because he was an
insecure wreck. He had no idea if the album was
good or not, and feared, like most sensitive artists, that
the critics would tear him apart. So Jim needed something
soothing again before the upcoming release, and nothing soothed him
more or gave him more satisfaction or sense of purpose
(28:45):
than killing than adding to his soul bank. So after
the recording a soft Parade, he was motivated to kill,
and with time off, he had the opportunity to go
out and quench his bloodthirst, which led to the murder
of Diane Maren only four, nineteen sixty nine in Blue
Rock Springs. After this, the Zodiac placed a phone call
(29:05):
to the cops, another classic element of the serial killer profile,
a desire to get caught. In that recording. When played now,
the cadence of the voice, the thinly veiled hidden speech
pattern sounds a lot like the spoken word poetry of
one Jim Morrison on his album of Poems in American Prayer.
And with that phone call a line was crossed. The Zodiac,
(29:28):
the serial killer inside Jim, was done watching Jim Morrison,
the rock Star inside Jim get the credit. The Zodiac
was more than that, a poet, a soul shepherd, a
killer's killer, and as far as he was concerned, Jim
Morrison the rock Star was a phony, a Charlatan whatever
he was. Jim was lost in a never ending identity
(29:48):
crisis and it was coming to a boiling point and
this body wasn't big enough for the both of them.
At a show in Boston, Jimbo waxed poetic with the crowd. Hey, listen, listen, listen, listen, man, listen, man,
I don't know how many of you people believe in astrology. Yeah,
(30:09):
that's right, that's right, baby. I'm as Sagittarius, the most
philosophical of all the size.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
But anyway, I don't believe in that. I think it's
a bunch of bullshit itself. But I'll tell you this, man,
I'll tell you this. I don't know what's gonna happen, man,
but I want to have my kicks.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Before the whole shithouse grows up in flames.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
All right, all right.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
In the fall of nineteen sixty nine, the Doors were
deciding that a hiatus was needed, ironically for the sake
of Jim's health. During that hiatus, the Zodiac notunched two
more attacks in under a month by far As Flashy
at Tor. For the first, he dressed in a hood
with a zodiac symple on it. Then hogtied and stabbed
a couple on a picnic Nostalgia perhaps for his first
(31:31):
time was Georgia Melinda, and the hood was needed now
because Jim's face was just too damn famous. And for
the second attack, he blew the brains out of a
cabby in prosidio heights, tore off the dead man's shirttails
and nailed them with the chronicle as a six souvenir
fame horror that he was. Both murders preceded the recording
(31:52):
of the Doors album Morrison Hotel by just a few weeks.
Jim knew he needed to fill the soul bank his
soul kitchen before the growing studio sessions were to start,
and inevitably ended with Jim once again landing face down
in the critics den of soul crushing jackals ever since
Marrison Hotel came out. However, it was the Zodiac and
(32:12):
not Jim who became all talk and no action. Sure,
he teased the squares through the cryptograms he'd lay out
on the newspapers with threats of blowing up buses and
attacking children, but he never did. Jim even leaked a
little more Zodiac into his lyrics blood Stains the Roof
and the Palm Trees of Venice, blood and My Love
and the Terrible Summer. But it was clear the magic
(32:34):
was fading and the art was winning. Now is Jim's
chance to free himself with this demon, the Zodiac, once
and for All of Jim's many friends and lovers, the
only one he trusted was Pamela Corson. She had been
the first to suggest he should quit the doors, get away,
focus on his poetry, in other words, get into something real,
(32:55):
some semblance of her real life beyond the madness of
being a rock star serial killer. Jim didn't tell Pam
he was the Zodiac. Of course, he didn't have to.
Even without knowing the truth, it was obvious to Pam,
as it was to everyone else, that Jim needed help.
The two made plans to Lament in France, and it
was the escape from the madness of rock and roll,
(33:16):
and it was the escape from the madness of murder.
But before splitting, Jim reunited with Ray, Robbie and John
to record the album La Woman. They must have known
this was the band's last hurrah, even if they didn't
say it. But when the album was done, Jim flew
to Paris. He'd had it with the stress of it all,
his crisis of identity. Was he a killer or a poet?
(33:40):
The music and the murders, it was all too much,
No more souls to claim. He'd claimed enough. The only
soul left up for grabs his own. The official take
is that Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub on
July third, nineteen seventy one, but there's a lot that
officials in the public never knew. In fact, what Jim
(34:01):
was really doing in that bath was an exorcism. Paris
was a last ditch attempt to save him from his demons.
Literally cafes accordions all the cliches. Since Pam couldn't know
the extent of his depravity even in Paris, he had
to play a cool and wait. He drank less, wrote
more poems, chilled, but all the while the Zodiac was
(34:24):
screaming out from inside, threatening to burst through Jim and
grab the world by its shoulders and violently shake it
into an early grave. It's no coincidence that the final
Zodiac letter received during The Killer's active period reached the
Chronicle mail room around the same time Jim Morrison fled
the United States. It was the Zodiac's last gasp. After months,
(34:46):
the night finally came. Jim saw his chance to exercise
his demons, that escape the madness of living as a
serial killer, to get himself whatever that was James. He
assumed back Pam would be out with friends. Jim could
do one last accult riche undisturbed. He would submerge himself
on the claw foot bathtub like a sensory deprivation tank,
(35:06):
get fully under the surface, chant an entire original Jim
Morrison's spell without drowning. When he did it, it was dangerous,
stuck per forming an exorcism on yourself, but Jim didn't
see it that way. He didn't want to be the Zodiac,
so he decided he wasn't. He had made a deal
with the devil long ago for his fame, but he
had always felt like a fraud because of it. He
(35:29):
wasn't a rock star. He was a poet all those crimes,
and that was someone else, entirely, a split personality. So
he wasn't exercising himself. He was casting out it that thing,
the monster. Jim closed his eyes and slipped underwater. He
sang forcefully enough that the water didn't flood his face,
(35:49):
softly enough that he'd have breath for all the lyrics.
He wished Pam was there with him now, but he
hadn't shared this with her. It would have been too cruel,
and it was too late. An actor out on loan
and the loan King do no more performance, just a
final judgment wake up time. Who the fuck are you?
(36:13):
Jim Morrison? That was for him to know and for
the rest of us to just find out. Now in Paris,
he broke on through to the other side one last
time in a trance. Passed out, submerged, mister Mojo Rising
went under the Lizard King, shed his skin, the bathwater
slip streamed into his nostrils, then his lungs, and just
like that, he was gone. Within hours, Pam found the body,
(36:38):
and no autopsy was ever performed. Some old timers liked
to think he faked it, that he slipped the bonds
of fame and wandered the earth like king. But someone
died in that tub. The question is who was it?
Jim Morrison or was it the Zodiac freeing the real
man and leaving the real Jim Marrison and wander on
(37:00):
after the mysterious events of his death and perhaps his rebirth,
Jim Morrison would have been surprised to learn at how
popular his music and words remained throughout the years, and
he'd likely also be fascinated that some crazy bullshitter with
a podcast would someday accuse him of being the fucking
Zodiac Killer as an April Fool's joke, which, of course
is what Yours Truly just did. So poor went out
(37:23):
for the real Jim Morrison and Happy April Fool's Day.
I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
(37:47):
by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Credits for this episode can be found on the show
notes page at disgracelandpod dot com. If you're listening as
a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for some recording
the show. We really appreciate it, And if not, you
can become a member right now by going to disgraceslampod
dot com slash Membership members can listen to every episode
(38:10):
of disgracelam ad free, plus you'll get one brand new
exclusive episode every month weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections,
and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgraylampod dot
com slash membership for details, Rate and review the show,
and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at
(38:30):
disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Rock a rolla
Speaker 4 (38:39):
He then Man
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