My Suspect Mac Part 2 of 2 'Meet The Profilers'

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Fall is here and classes back insession. It's a busy time for students
and faculty, and with a newschool year comes new adventures, new experiences,
and new goals to achieve. Butas much promise and excitement as the
false semester brings, there can alsobe a dark side to it, one
in which the unthinkable can happen.I'm Amy Slashburn and I'm Megan Sachs,
and we're the host of the podcastCampus Killings. As educators and criminologists,

(00:22):
we teach, research right and podcastsabout victims, offenders, and the issues
that surround our criminal justice system.Amy and I have both worked in the
field of criminal justice for twenty years, myself in law enforcement and Amy in
the mental health field. In CampusKillings, will dive into some of the
most shocking and tragic murders to happenon school grounds and will provide our analysis

(00:43):
on the cases we cover. Asboth educators and train criminologists, we'll discuss
what went wrong and what could havebeen done differently to prevent the tragic outcome.
Campus Killings is available everywhere you listento podcasts. Subscribe now so you
don't miss a single episode of Campuskillings. This is the Zodiac speaking.

(01:26):
Hey Doug, thanks for coming onthe show and I can't thank you enough
for being here to talk about whatit is you do and provide some insights
for listeners. My pleasure, Mike, thanks for having me on. I've
been listening to your show for awhile and I know we've met in another
podcast, so it's it's nice beingon. Thank you. So just to

(01:49):
start for listeners out there, canyou introduce yourself and explain to them what
it is that you do in regardsto geo profile. Of course, I
work as a private consultant in geographicprofiling UM. I also do open source
intelligence as well, and for thegeoprofiling, I primarily work on cases involving

(02:12):
serial or violent crime, body recoveryand missing persons. And how long have
you been in the final work.I've been doing this now for or is
it twenty twenty three? Close toten years now? Okay? And I
guess before we get too into intoit, what is geographic profiling exactly?

(02:37):
Can you explain for listeners what itis? Sure? So, geographic profiling
is a it's a subset of forensicbehavioral profiling, which you know includes an
offender profiling victimology. It focuses onwhat I refer to as the STAG elements
STEG, which stands for acial,temporal, environmental and the geographical elements of

(03:05):
of offended behavior victimology and H incrime SAT analysis. UM. It's much
more than than just identifying clusters andand putting them into a heat map or
using an algorithm. It's it's takingin every aspect of the case that you're
looking at UM and UH and incorporatingthat into into your profile. Okay,

(03:32):
As as far as training goes tobecome a geographic profile, what's involved?
Is there any kind of education withqualifications you need to get to to become
a profiler? M. I guessthere's different routes you can take. Uh.
There's no official certification to be ageographic profiler. I guess the most

(03:53):
popular course, Uh, there isa there's a popular course. There is
a course run by uh M Rossmo'sgroup which gives you a unofficial certification.
UM. But there's other routes youcan take as well. So the route
I took is I first went touniversity, did a mass bachelor's and a

(04:16):
master's in intelligence and defense Studies UM, followed by another master's certificate in terrorism
studies. So that kind of gaveme UM some background in UH, in
the in the intelligence world and theresearch world. UM. From there,
I did a university course in geographicprofiling out in British Columbia, which was

(04:39):
taught by a one of UH Canada's, one of the RCMP geographic geographic profilers
in Canada, as well as Itook courses in victimology, UH psychology and
crime scene analysis. Okay, soyou really put a lot of study into
it and training to sort of honeyour craft of what it is you do

(05:02):
exactly. I just picked and choose, chose courses from all over the place
online and in person that would thatwould contribute to my education in that in
that discipline. Okay. And youknow, I know certain things you can't
talk about, certain cases you have, like non disclosure points. But have

(05:25):
you worked any high profile cases forinvestigators? And what is your role typically
when you do that? Yeah?So I've worked quite a few cases now
for law enforcement. UM, Iguess I've worked over a dozen cases now
for law enforcement officially as far ashigh profile cases go. I did consult
on one case out of Atlanta acouple of years back on a serial killer

(05:49):
who had killed three homeless people.Other cases I've worked for law enforce have
include UH serial predators UM either eithermurder or rape UM, as well as
UH single double homicides UH and UHand UM other sexual crimes as well.

(06:17):
I've worked other high profile cases,quite a few high profile cases for families.
I work a lot of cases forfamilies UH and for UM private investigators
who who consult me as well thatare working themselves for the families UM.
And some of those are very havebeen very high profile cases of a lot

(06:38):
of them. Most of them aremissing persons UM women and most end up
being body recovery cases. Uh.I am. I just got brought on
recently to work a high profile caseUM for law enforcement and UH that may
may come to light eventually. We'llsee how we see how that goes.

(07:00):
Okay, Now, how often dopolice rely on or call on someone like
yourself to help id? Uh someonein I assume that they're usually looking for
someone that's doing a series of thingsinstead of you know, it's the one
off thing. Am I correct in? Assuming that uh, that's what that's
what you would think, but butno, it's it's any and all types

(07:24):
of cases. Generally speaking, peoplethink of serial crime when they think of
geographic profiling. UM. Obviously itwas made popular through um, you know,
television with serial killers and serial murderor serial rape um, but it
can be other. It can beused for non violent crime as well.
Like I said, I use ita lot for body finding, body deposition

(07:46):
sites, and missing persons. AndI've used it in just you know,
single cases of a single attack aswell, So it can be used for
a wide range of of cases.UM. When it comes to law enforcement,
I'm usually contacted as a last resortas in the case has gone cold.
So I do a lot of mostI think every case except for the

(08:07):
one serial killer case I did outof Atlanta has been in a cold case.
Uh. And it's you know,when they don't have any other avenues
UM, and they've kind of andthey've done some research and they found me
online or I've contacted them, andthen we've created that relationship. From there,
you're sort of when they're they're desperatefor answers, they're pulling out all

(08:31):
the stops. They turn to youto say, hey, let's try this,
uh, this method exactly. Ittakes a it takes a real cutting
edge law enforcement agency to contact meimmediately on any type of case. Okay,
And what are some of the limitationsof duo profile? And you know

(08:52):
it's um you know, in aperfect world, you'd hit it like an
address specific address out of maths akiller here, But obviously that's not how
it works. But what are someof the maybe expectations of what you can
offer someone? But what are someof the limitations of geographic profiling as well?
Sure, in my experience, geographicprofiling is only limited by the information

(09:18):
it's It's obviously more effective on whenapplied to some cases over others, but
it's not limited any specific types ofcases. What type of information can I
provide? Like you said, Imean, in an ideal world, here's
the address, go get them,But no, that's never the case.
But I'll give you an example ofa profile I recently did. It was

(09:43):
just a case study. I wasn'thad no involvement in the case whatsoever on
an official capacity. And that wasthe the stocked and serial killer just just
recently who I think murdered seven victimsor murder six and the seventh survived.
I can't I can't remember exactly,but the profile that that I that I

(10:07):
did and I posted some of iton Twitter. UM I was able to
identify the former residence of the killerwithin three hundred yards, the residence of
his family member within three hundred yards, and actually I was able to identify
where the individual was arrested within threehundred yards. UM that I just kind

(10:30):
of got lucky on. Obviously,you can give no idea when or where
someone's going to get arrested, butI identified a key location to their um
their roots of travel, which endedup being where they got arrested. So
there's lots of different things that thata geographic profiler can provide if they're brought
in at the right time or ontime. Fascinating. UM, So you

(10:54):
know that it's something that can work, and you know, obviously they're a
little bit of involve too, Butif you can pinpoint like multiple different spots
and then be that accurate, Ithink if you told most agencies that hey,
I can get you within three hundredyards at this guy's house, they'd
be happy with that. So that'spretty cool. Yeah, I'm sorry to

(11:16):
cut in there and like The reasonI do three four hundred yards is you
know, four hundred yards is afive minute walking time. So usually when
I when I think someone's walking,it's three to four hundred yards, And
that's what I said, three hundredUh, if I think they're driving,
it may be bigger. And onthat stocked in serial killer case, I
also identified a buffer zone where therewere no murders, and actually that ended

(11:37):
up being where the where the suspect'smother lived. Fascinating. Fascinating. So
in the last couple of years youdecided to try and profile the zodiac case.
I'm curious what led you to thatin what goals did you have going
into that? What kind of thingswere you looking for expecting to find going
in that's in the past, I'veyou know, I've I've read the books

(12:03):
and uh, not all them,obviously it's quite a few, but I've
read a few of the books,uh, and I've seen the movies,
and you know, I've seen theprograms on TV. UM. I guess
the first time I actually started puttingtogether a profile was partly because for a
case study, UM just research onmy own and and I also did a

(12:24):
podcast for a mutual friend of oursas well on the zodiac. So you
know, what were my expectations goingin. They weren't very I didn't have
very high expectations. And the reasonfor that is of so many people out
there, such as yourself, thatknow so much about the zodiac and more

(12:48):
than I will ever know or findout. So you know, just going
at it alone, I did notexpect to find much. Um it's uh,
you know, preparing for this ourdiscussion here tonight, I actually real
listened to almost every one of yourepisode episodes and there was I mean there
was information there that I didn't know, and um, so I was able

(13:11):
to actually incorporate that into my profileas well. Uh. And like when
I do my profile, it's onlyI only incorporate factual information. I don't
I don't put anything in that ishearsay or that is alleged or it's it's
just all facts. So um,but it's constantly developing, and my profile
got stronger just over the last couplehours as I was in putting some of

(13:33):
the information that you had. Soit's data driven and you know, you're
not going with you know, theories, rumors, You're sticking in impertinent information
absolutely. Uh. My profile isalways data driven, it's always factual.
Now that being said, I cancreate a hypothetical profile if you if yourself

(13:58):
or a law enforcement agency wanted tofood like the Sherry Joe Bates or some
of those other crimes as well,you can create a profile, but it
won't be it won't you know again, it'll just be hypothetical as and if
in the future you find out theseare connected, then here's a profile that

(14:18):
includes it. Interesting And I thinkwhat's good about the Zodiac case especially is
there's so many people that have preconceivedexpectations or theories or suspects, and I
think maybe going in with that stuff, they're you know, trying to skew
things one way or the other.What I think in your case, you're

(14:41):
bringing just nuts and bolts to thecase of Okay, here's what we know,
here's the dresses we know, here'sthe locations we know, and not
really using anything else, and you'regoing from that basically exactly, and you
really have to be able to filterthat out. The number of times I've
sat on phone or zoom zoom conversationswith law enforcement or families and listen to

(15:05):
theory for an hour or two hours, three hours, and then you just
you listen and you you take youkind of keep in the back of your
mind, but you can't use anyof it because just it completely throws off
your profile. UM. It hasto be driven by factual information, just
by the data. And in theend and in your profile of where you

(15:28):
think the zodic likely resulted, youcame to a very specific area of Valeo
as the area you thought he hishome base was. Um, how and
why did you arrive at that specificarea? Well, starting with just Ballejo
in general, UM, you know, I I put down I incorporated the

(15:52):
obviously the four attacks into into myprofile, which brings you to um,
you know, Lake Bury as tothe north, and Vallejo Benisha in the
middle, and uh and San Franciscoto the south. Um. And then
I also incorporated the phone call fromSanta Rosa and um M Mount Diablo as

(16:14):
well. UM. And there's differentreasons for each of those. Um.
The Vallejo is right in the middleof all four of those basically, And
it's not it's not it has nothingto do with like an X Marx spot
kind of thing. But what Isee here is I see his main area
of activity is the Vallejo Benetia area. You know, his first two attacks

(16:36):
for there. It's somewhere that heappears to be comfortable and he's actually hunting.
You know, who knows how manytimes he's gone out driven those roads
or wherever else Couples go to parkin that area back then and hunted.
So he's hunting. Uh, he'scomfortable. He's concealing his identity with Matt
with with darkness, um and andbright lights, so he doesn't want to

(16:59):
be identified. And it's on thosetwo attacks on a Friday evening. So
you know, Vallejo is a it'san anchor point. There's an anchor point
there of some kind. It's probablywork or where he lives. I tend
to lean that he lives in Fallejofor those reasons I just mentioned. And

(17:21):
then once you branch out of Vallejo, you know Lake Bury Essa. You
know it's not a residential area,it's a area of leisure. He's gone
up there on a Saturday and thenuh, and same with San Francisco.
San Francisco, we don't have muchto go on there. You know he's
mailed some letters from there. Iknow you could probably feed me a lot

(17:44):
more information as well, but I'mjust going on like the big points.
He's mailed some letters from from SanFrancisco. He obviously the caps the taxi,
and he he murdered Paul Stein there, but it's not the nexus of
his activity and his his MO wasdifferent in San Francisco than the other three.

(18:08):
The other three he actively went outand hunted. Where in San Francisco
he lured uh, he didn't,He didn't conceal his identity. He lured
the taxi in by basically called thevictim right to him, and it was
a it was a random victim selectionat that point. Obviously he still the

(18:29):
choice to take go through with itor not. But it was just a
different EMO than the other three attacks. I also look I also, like
I said, I put in SantaRosa and Mount Diablo because Mount Diablo is
significantness where he said, you know, the bus was hidden or he gave
the cornets to that. I can'tremember all the exact details on that,
but Mount Diablo is a leisure area, so you have Lake berryessas a leisure

(18:52):
area, Nount Diablos a leisure area. San Francisco is might have some more
significance, but it could just bea leisure area as well in Santa Rosa.
Something's out in Santa Rosa. Mybed's a family member, so you
know, I see him living inthe Vallejo area, and he's been to
Lake Bury, Assa before on leisure. He's been to Mount Diablo on leisure,
and he's doing something in San Francisco, you know. And I can

(19:15):
kind of relate to it because Iused to live in Davis, California,
and we'd go out to the countryto the beaches on the weekends. We'd
go into San Francisco on the weekendssee the old trade yards, uh there,
and to Sacramento. So it's,uh, that's kind of what I
see when I when I plot theinformation into him that so and those are

(19:37):
all good points. And so youarrive at Valeo's in your mind being the
most likely um area that he thathe resided. And now when you get
even closer narrowing it down, howdo you arrive at that specific part of
Vallejo as being likely where he was? And U and I think it's been

(20:00):
a while, but I think youhad some images and maybe I can direct
the listeners in the episode to viewthose, Mum, But how did you
arrive at that area specifically in valetIs where you think he may reside it
sure, So the area I arrivedat is kind of central Invalejo, the

(20:23):
you know, right in the middleof the of the area that I kind
of identified. You have the payphonethat he made the call from after Blue
Rock Springs. You have a sheriff'soffice in there, but there's so many
other key locations in there as well. M Hogan High schools in there,
mister eds is in there. Ithink Farren I believe lived in there as

(20:48):
well. And then you have thehome on Brentwood I think it is.
They've visited a friend there, Bettylew and David visited a friend there.
So you have all these local Asiansin this very small area. And the
payphone is a big one because whenhe went up to Lake Barriessa, the
payphone and NAPA kind of makes sense. It's on its way back, It's

(21:11):
directly on its way back south.He stopped in Nap and made a phone
call. But the the pay phonein Vallejo is out of the way if
you're committing that crime in Blue RockSprings. And then going back to Benetia
because he would go back down andthen go back down Lake Herman Road.
So he detoured into Vallejo for areason. And I think there's a good

(21:37):
chance that he lives, he lived, or lives who knows, somewhere in
that central Vallejo area. Again,it could be an anchor point of another
sort, but I believe there's astrong chance that he may have a residence
there or had a residence there.And so my suspect is a guy named

(21:59):
William Andrew. He lived at sixtwenty three Tuolomney Street, and this is
three hundred and eighty seven feet fromwhere the zodiac made a phone call from
that you mentioned on the corner ofSprings and Tuolomney were does that address here
six twenty three Twalomney Street and thegas station phone call? Where does do

(22:22):
both of those areas fit within yourbulls you know, bulls eye area or
your overall profile target area. It'sit's directly in the center. The address
of your suspect is directly in thecenter of my target area. And I
think, you know, I thinkthere's a good chance that whether whether it's

(22:42):
your suspect or not, I thinkit's a good chance that this individual,
you know, walk to the payphone. They hadn't yet called the police,
so you know, could they haveparked somewhere else one hundred yards away
and walk to the pay phone sothe car didn't get noticed? Sure?
Maybe, But I think a lotof people give way too much credit to

(23:06):
you know, killers such as theZodiac or are the people that just haven't
been caught yet. You know,they don't think of they don't think of
absolutely everything. So I think there'sa good chance that this person walked to
the pay phone from somewhere and youknow, like you said, the address,
you have walking distance, So it'sit's it's it's a it's a reasonable
person of interest for sure. Andso you talked earlier about you know,

(23:30):
looking at NAPA, looking at SanFrancisco, all the different areas where we
know Zodeklos Vleo. And it isit true based on your experience that serial
predators, whether they're serial rapist orserial murders, whatever they are, that
have a lot of crimes sort ofstart out where they're comfortable and then work

(23:52):
their way outwards further out. Isthat a correct statement? Uh? You
know, I listened to your previousepisode on geographic profiling, you and your
co host, and and you knowwhat, I'm happy that you two have
actually brought, you know, incorporatedgeographic profiling into your program, and it,

(24:15):
you know, just gives it moreattention. At the same time,
you know that that that whole episodewas about Kim Rossmo's book. And you
know, I did my education.When I did my course, it was
a forty hour course on geographic profiling, and again the whole course was on
one book, Kim Rossmo's book,and I kind of walked out of there

(24:37):
saying, you know, there's gotto be more, and sure enough there
is. I have a you know, file of hundreds of you know,
different papers now on geographic profiling.We're at in material. But I guess
what I'm getting at is that onebook was written in nineteen ninety nine or
publishing ninety nine, so it waswritten, I don't know, maybe ninety
six, ninety seven, and it'son behavior psychology and friends six. You

(25:00):
know that those those fields are updatedevery single year, and people are still
referring back to a book written overtwenty years ago. So I guess what
I'm getting at is, uh,you know, there are some cases that
show that behavior where an offender startsclose to home and then progresses outward,

(25:21):
but I definitely don't see a patternof that in the cases I've worked.
It's the in my experience, mostserial predators commit their crimes and areas they're
familiar with. UM. You knowthat maybe their home, work, around
a friends or family home, aroundUM, routine traveled, routinely traveled routes,

(25:42):
around places they do extracurricular activities likevolunteer or player sport. But that
whole idea, of the whole allthe concepts of distance, DK and journey
to crime, they're largely outdated withwith that material. So a lot of

(26:03):
that stuff's been updated since UM andthere's just there's a lot there's a lot
more that goes into it now anda lot new a lot of new thinking.
But I wouldn't you know, someadvice I would get is when looking
at crimes, don't assume it's goingto be close to home and then progress
out from there, because I rarelysee that pattern. And so it sounds

(26:27):
like the key you're saying is justfamiliarity with the area that he's striking and
doesn't necessarily have to live there orwork there, but obviously has to be
familiar with it or have some somekind of connection to it exactly, and
I'll get I'll give you a quickexample, Gary Ridgeway, Green River Killer.

(26:48):
You know, he thought he wasclever. He he clustered his bodies
and for the most part, groupsof three in different places all over the
area. And the reason for thatwas in his rationale, so he would
know if police found a body,because it would always be three grouped together.
And he went through all this effortto hide these bodies. But in

(27:11):
the end, every woman went missingalong one road that went from his home
to his work and back. Andthey were all along that one road.
And you know, I don't wantto toot my own horn or something,
but anything, but if I ifI had looked at that case, I
would have for five seconds, Iwould have told you he lives at one
end and works at the other.And then once you factor another data like

(27:34):
where residential is as opposed to commercialwhatever, or the times that the women
would taken, you could quickly identifydoes he live at the which end he
lives at? But yeah, Imean my point there is that that's the
route he traveled every single day,and that's where he took every single woman
from fascinating fascinating. And another onethat comes to mind is the Golden State

(27:57):
Killer, Easter rapist, I sawyour ransack or whatever moniker he had,
depending on where he was striking,he interestingly enough, he had connections to
the areas he worked there or usedto live. For example, the crimes
as the East Air rapists started inRancho Cordova, and then that's where they

(28:22):
were clustered early on, and hestruck their over and over again. It
turned out he lived there when hewas in high school, when he was
school aged, so he did havethe familiarity, but he did not live
there. And he you know,in Visalia he was striking, but he
lived the next time over and andhe maybe he's an exception since he was

(28:45):
in law enforcement, and he sortof you know, he had studied a
lot of the same stuff we're talkingabout in some college courses. Maybe he
took steps to avoid you know,they're saying, don't shit where you eat.
Maybe he said, let me doall this stuff in areas I'm familiar
with, but not right where I'mat, And that worked good. Because
I know a lot of profiling,geo profiling was done on that case,

(29:11):
and I've seen some of the heatedcluster maps that they came up with,
and he was always outside of thoseareas. So I know they invested a
lot of time and effort and indoing what it is you do and coming
up with it, and he sortof defied the odds. And I always
wondered if that was because he,you know, being in law enforcement,

(29:32):
being familiar with some of these techniques, he took steps to avoid that.
Yeah, quite possibly, And youknow, for someone like himself, that
would make sense if he's got abackground and he understands the kind of the
process that law enforcement goes through.You know. Another outlier would be Richard
Ramirez. You know, he justattacked all over the place, but at

(29:55):
the same time, he really didn'thave a home base, did he.
You know. You know another onethat was pretty widespread that that actually just
got solved was the the Bondai Beastor Bondai rapist or whatever moniker he went
by in Australia. Um I haddone a again just as a case study

(30:19):
for myself, a profile of ofhis known attacks and and they were quite
spread out, um in the Sydneyarea. But in the end they were
all clustered around places he had formerlyworked, um so as well as the
beach Charia. So some of these, some of these individuals can hide their

(30:45):
behavior or their their their site selection. UM. And maybe you know,
maybe he was able to do that. Um. Uh D'Angelo was able to
do that, but because of hisbackground, but most of them can't.
Most of them it'll it'll show throughsomewhere. And my last question I wanted

(31:07):
to ask you, but you sortof have hammered home the point that Um,
there's debate whether it Zodiac lived inBalao, worked in San Francisco or
vice versa. He seemed to havea connection of some sort of devout places.
But UM, it sounds like fromeverything you've said that those connections could
be work, could be home,could be going back and forth work and

(31:30):
home. But in that area.So is there any way to sort of
um. And I'm going to goback to the case two where you mentioned
the one you that was recently sawthe person in California was killing homeless people.
UM. You you know you toldme that they found different was three

(31:55):
different spots you mentioned. Um,where he used to live, family members
home, things like that. Ohthat was that was a Stockton one.
Yeah. I know, I didn'tsolve that. I had no involvement in
the case. It was just acase stuck for myself. Yeah, but
you know, but what I meantwas they saw it, and UM,
here are these different bullet points thatyou were able to pinpoint. So I'm

(32:17):
just curious how you, um,you know, comparing that case, let's
say, to the Zodiac kese Um, if you were putting them side by
side, how would you compare thetwo cases and what, um, what
major things would you be looking forin the Zodiac case specifically, I guess,

(32:42):
you know, trying to attempting tocompare the two cases. There were
more attacks in that case. Uh. You know. I was also able
to identify his the residence another formof residence of his, and it was
actually the residence he grew up inin San Francis. Uh. I think
where was it the area where hegrew up in, uh, just because

(33:07):
he had one attack in that areaand that was the house he grew up
in. Um And it was threehundred it was like less than a half
a mile from his house. UM. But in looking at that case,
for example, there were there werelots of points, there was lots of
data, you know, looking atZodiac, you know we have four attack

(33:27):
sites, they're pretty spread out.Um it's it's for me. There's an
anchor point in Vallejo, like Isaid, most likely as residence you know,
Lake Bury, I said, Ithink it is. Obviously he's been
there before and it's probably a leisurespot. Um Or he just knows that
people go there for leisure and he'shunted there before. And San Francisco I'm

(33:51):
not quite sure. You know,when I look at the motive of the
Zodiac, I know there's a lotof debate around his motive. I definitely
see attention seeking, as I thinksome other people do as well, and
some component of thrill, just thechase. You know. But was he

(34:12):
you know, was he in SanFrancisco because there's an anchor point there,
or was he in there because he'sbeen he goes there regularly on leisure.
There's lots of stuff to do inSan Francisco. Or was he there because
he just wanted to commit a murderthere to get front page, to get
the attention. You know, it'sit's tough to say. It's just for

(34:32):
me, there's not enough there's notenough data with San Francisco in that area
to let me that I can confidentlyidentify what is there for him. Fascinating.
So from everything we've talked about,it sounds like geoprofiling is sort of

(34:55):
it's just another tool that investigators canuse to help catch bad guys. But
it's just one tool in the toolshed, and it's like any other tool,
it's not failsafe. There are limitations, and but they can also it
can also be very useful exactly.You know, it's just an investigative tool.
It's it's never going to solve acase. It can, but it

(35:19):
can I mean only you know,evidence, confessions, witnesses can do that
kind of thing. Um, butit's it can definitely. It's it's a
tool that can lead investigators in theright direction, and it can it can
help them with their with every otheraspect of the case, if they have

(35:40):
evidence, if they have witnesses,if they have suspects. I mean,
it can even be used in akind of a reverse scenario if if there's
forty suspects, how many suspects werethere in the zodiac case, you know,
countless depending on countless. Yeah,so let's just say, for a
hype pathetical, in a case there'sten suspects, Well, you could give

(36:04):
me all ten suspects, and Icould give you the most likely based on
a geographic profile and who it wouldbe, so you can use it in
the reverse as well. Fascinating.Well, you've definitely been a wealth of
information and helpful and I think listenerswill get some good good points out of
this. And where can people findyou or learn more about your work or

(36:25):
reach out to you about your servicesif they're interested? Of course I'm I'm
on Twitter. My handle is atthe Geoprofiler, and I do most of
most of my work to stuff Twitter. So I get contacted, I contact
off Twitter and then from there Iexchange my email. But the best way

(36:45):
to contact me is through Twitter.Awesome. Well, Doug, I can't
thank you enough for coming on andhelping us talk about this because I think
it's an interesting point of this caseand in crime fighting in general. Thanks
for the insights. Thanks so muchfor having me. Mike. This is

(37:07):
the Zodiac speaking, Lee, thankyou for coming on Zec Speaking. I
appreciate coming on and talking to me. Yeah, no problems. Always interested
in this case, know it quitewell, so we'll come on as much
as you'll have me on. Well, just a full disclosure. Lee and

(37:30):
I co host Citizen Detective podcast,and Lee has his own solo podcast called
Murder Was the Case? A greatshow? So check that out. I
just wanted to get started, Lee, if you can tell us what you
are exactly, what your total is, what it is exactly that you do.

(37:51):
Okay, So my formal title wouldbe doctor Lee Miller. I have
a PhD in a social sign Thisprogram that was specially geared towards examining the
topic of serial murder, but morebroadly abnormal homicide and sex crimes. So
it was out of Concordia University,and I was able to take psychology courses,

(38:15):
sociology courses, criminology courses and combinethem all to look specifically at that
topic. So I got my doctoratein that in twenty nineteen. What kind
of training is involved in that?What kind of time did you have to
put into getting all that done?Okay? So for the doctoral course that

(38:38):
I tuk that was, let's seestart in twenty thirteen, finished in twenty
nineteen, So yes, you couldsay that was about six years. It's
really five because there is there's somebureaucracy, some red tapes, So I
would say that extra time was justwaiting to be able to defend my dissertation,

(39:00):
so I'd say about five years,but technically six. And when I
was there, I took I tooka class on psychopathy, so you know,
I spent a semester just looking atpsychopathy, reading all about that,
sociopathy to antisocial personality disorder. Ihad a class on sex crimes and paraphilia.

(39:24):
I had a long which was justsort of an overview of criminology theories
as applied to violent crime. Ihad a class on profiling and linkage analysis.
I had I'm just trying to thinkof them all, but that should
give you an idea. There's probablya couple I'm missing. And then I

(39:46):
did my dissertation was from about twentyfourteen to twenty nineteen, and that was
all researching and looking at piers whocommunicate. Now that seems kind of vague,
but what I mean is killers whowrite letters to the police or the

(40:07):
media or make phone calls, whopose bodies to send a message anything like
that. So that was that wasa lot of time devoted to that.
I should Yeah, I should alsosay too, that's one of my one

(40:28):
of my professors, the person whotaught my sex crimes and Paraphilia and criminal
profiling classes is doctor Eric Hickey.And so if you know anything about serial
murder academically, you should know whodoctor Eric Hikey is. He's probably written
the most authoritative buck on the subject. He's considered to be somewhat of an
expert. And I also authored sometextbooks while I was pursuing my PhD too,

(40:54):
So we can get into that ifyou like. Yeah, so that's
I mean, that's a really impressiveresume. It's I think it demonstrates just
how much time and training went intothis. I'm curious, you know,
as a professional, do you getconsulted on cases, work with investigators,
that kind of thing, And ifso, what is your role when you're

(41:15):
called in? Yeah? So,in I believe it was twenty fourteen,
so this would have been a yearinto my PhD. I was approached by
the American Investigative Society of Coal Casesand I think they probably heard about me
through some of my activities on anacademic list. Serve had also written a

(41:36):
couple of non academic books on thetopic by then, and they asked me
if I would be the head oftheir behavioral committee, and so of course
I took that and working with ASOK, the American Investigative Society of Coal cases,
they would send us every few monthsor so, they would send us

(41:57):
like a whole computer file full ofdocuments, photographs, like crime scene photographs,
sometimes audio tapes, whatever was digitizedof a cold case homicide. And
they would be working with sometimes departmentsin Pennsylvania, sometimes in Missouri, California.

(42:20):
I probably did about a dozen ofthese in total, And so it
was my job to luck through those, try and drum up any leads and
to interpret the evidence see if Icould bring anything to the case, and
then write up a report and thensubmit that. But also because I was
head of behavioral, I was takingreports from other people who were part of

(42:43):
ASOCK, and I was saying,Okay, that's legit, that's that's fine,
and then kind of compiling it intoa master behavioral report and submitting that.
And so I did. I didthat for ASOCK until twenty nineteen when
there was a change in the leadershipand I was asked to become the vice
president of ASOK and while remaining behaviorhead of Behavioral. So I became vice

(43:07):
president continue to work as head ofbehavioral. Unfortunately, around that time,
as we know, in twenty twentythere was COVID and that kind of kicked
our legs out from under us.So in all honesty, I didn't get
to do a hell of a lotas vice president of ASOC, and as
of twenty twenty two, I wouldsay the organization isn't really happening anymore.

(43:30):
But I did have a good youknow, five years doing head of behavioral
well. So you know, onething a takeaway I have is that you're
definitely you have quite a resume.It's clear that you put in a lot
of time and effort and to understandthese criminals. And is that your goal

(43:52):
is to understand their thinking so thatyou can stop them in the future or
apprehend them if they're not identify asthe time you're working on it. What
is the goal when you're working ona project like this. Yeah, So
a lot of people who who studythis topic academically it goes towards um.

(44:13):
You know, they want to doresearch on it, or they want to
treat this population clinically. And fromthe beginning I said, no, what
I want to do is I wantto improve the way that we investigate this.
So yes, I wanted to understandtheir mind and their motives, but
always towards investigating and putting them away. So so my education was kind of

(44:37):
rare in that regard. Cool,Well, let's do this. Let's jump
into the Zodia case. And Iknow this is something you know, I've
been interested in a long time.Obviously you've been interested in it as well.
I know you covered it on yourshow. But in April twenty twenty
one, you created something interesting,which was a profile based on done what

(45:00):
I'm going to let you fill inthe blanks and you tell me what your
profile is based on. Yeah,So one of my goals was always to
go to the Zodiac Killer case.If you remember I said, I did
my dissertation which is called I killedTherefore I am the expressive transformative process of
violence. I did the dissertation onoffenders who communicate. The reason I did

(45:22):
that is because when I joined ASOCK, I thought that that was a rare
thing, and I think it stillis. But for some reason. I
had like two or three cases backedback in asock where I had a strange
posing of bodies. And so Isaid, well, I know a lot
about paraphilic murders because I'd also writtena textbook on necrophilia, and I studied

(45:45):
sexual sadism, pedophilia, that kindof thing. So I know all about
these sexual motivations. But there's thisother motivation that seems to have not been
explored at all. And so Isaid, first of all, what do
we call this type of motive?Like why does somebody send letters or communicate

(46:05):
opposed bodies for non sexual reasons?And so, from twenty fourteen to twenty
nineteen, the big part was metrying to answer that question, and I
realized that it was all about identity. That's what we do when we attempt
to communicate, We attempt to it'sabout passing information, but specifically in this
regards, it's about saying I amthis, the victim is that, and

(46:29):
you will regard me as such.So I did a ten offender sample in
my dissertation, but it was alwaysof cases that had been closed. So
Luca Mgnada was one of them,the British serial killer Colin Ireland, Denny
Rolling, James Holmes, the AuroraTheater shooter. And what I wanted to

(46:51):
do was to apply this to casesthat hadn't been solved. And so,
having graduated in twenty nineteen, Ireturned to looking at the Zodiac case along
with some others, and by twentytwenty one, I felt that I had
digested enough of the information to beable to apply my expressive transformative theory to

(47:12):
that, along with other things thatI knew of criminal psychology and criminology.
And so I had the show murderwas the case, and I said,
well, I'll just put it onthere, and so that's what I did.
So I came up with the profile. I came up with a profile.
Let me just go to what Ichose to include and what I chose
not to include here. Yeah,so I chose to include the Lake Herman

(47:39):
Road, Blue Rock Springs, LakeBARRYSSA, and Paul Stein killings, but
I didn't include any others because thosewants, to my understanding, those have
been linked by they've been verified becausethere's evidence that that says, okay,
whoever wrote those letters did the killings. And I proved you all that pretty

(48:00):
carefully, so Sherry, Joe Bates, Ray Davis, anything like that.
I didn't include those killings. Ijust included the canonical m for incidents.
And but I did look at allletters that were linked by Sherwood moral.
I gave a little bit more weightto the letters before or during nineteen seventy.

(48:22):
But if if they were, ifthey're considered canonical Zodiac, I put
those in. So, yeah,go ahead, Really great explanation, And
you know, I think it makessense to include the confirmed zodiac crimes versus
going down a bunch of radicals ontounconfirmed ones. I can't even tell you

(48:45):
how many minutes or hours of mylife I've spent chasing leads in Riverside when
at the end of the day wedon't know for sure that's a zodiac case.
Um, yeah, and or ifthat's like a best practices thing,
that's something that you know when youdo start looking into cases, as I

(49:07):
did with Asok, and when youdo start doing a lot of this research,
it becomes pretty apparent that you wantto be very conservative with what you
include. So I think that's justit's one to one really, because it's
better to not let in information that'sgoing to take you off track. It's
better to have less that is qualitythan have more that is questionable. Sure,

(49:30):
that makes perfect sense, and that'ssomething you know, a good segue.
That's something I sort of started todo when I found my suspect Mac.
You know, I sort of putoverside aside and I said, well,
I know this guy was in Valeo. I know that in my mind
that was as probably as home base. But that's when I started digging,

(49:52):
and that's when I ultimately came tomy suspect. So you put your profile
out on your episode in April twentytwenty one, and it was just before
that that I had discovered my suspect, who is William mac Andrew. And
it wasn't long after that I cameon your show to compare what I know
about my suspect at the time toyour profile. In that episode, we

(50:13):
called him Mason. But in thealmost two years since then, so much
information has come out publicly that Ican call him by his name, William
mac Andrew, or as I callhim Mac. In my opinion, he's
one percent the Zodia killer. Obviously, I don't have his DNA or fingerprint
to compare to say, yes,physical evidence confirms it, but in my

(50:35):
mind he is that and that aside, I'm more so convinced of it than
I was when I was on yourshow. But your profile and my suspect
are two different things, independent ofeach other, and so I wanted to
sort of go back and revisit almosttwo years later, your profile, run

(51:00):
through it, and now that Iknow so much more about the suspect,
I can probably answer things more accurately. So if it's cool with you,
I'd love to have you go throughyour profile once again, and I will,
um, you know, answer pointby point how Matt compares and some

(51:22):
things I still know the answer youdespite all the research and time, there's
things that are just have not youknow, haven't been able to dig up
yet. So I'll answer that honestly. And if there's something that's wildly different
between my suspect and your profile,I'll admit to that too. But I
want to give listeners a real legitimatecomparison, updated with what I know now.

(51:45):
So yeah, if you're ready,let's let's run through it. Yeah
sounds good, So hold on,let's go to the top here. Okay,
go ahead, So should I namethe items? Is that how well,
Yeah, you go down through youritems as you're presenting them, and
then I will you reply to eachone with what I know or don't know

(52:07):
about Mac in regards to each point. Okay, so I'll just say this
I allowed in Riverside to the extentof if we end up with two suspects
that say match the profile on asmany points equally, but one of them
has a Riverside connection, like theycan prove to have been in Riverside and
laid October of nineteen sixty six,you sort of will give more priority to

(52:30):
that person because a profile isn't reallylike you know, you're you're playing the
sims and then you reach down likethe hand of God and pluck someone out
of all of those those little peoplewalking around and go, aha, I
found them. It's about saying we'regoing to have almost in almost every investigation
I've ever been a part of,there's always plenty of suspects. You never

(52:51):
run out of suspects, So you'veonly got so much time and resources.
So what you're trying to do isfigure out who to best allocate that time
and resource too. So it's reallybetter known as suspect prioritization, and I
want to also say that it's byno means a science. There are people
that aspire to make it that way, and I don't think it's actually possible
because, to keep it short,there's just too many variables. We're looking

(53:15):
at person's habits, there's psychology andso on, and it's not something that
you could ever capture and control enoughof the variables and doing a lab.
So it's always it's always really tome, it's more of an art.
I don't think it should be usedin the court of law. What you
want to do is you want touse it to direct people to someone where

(53:35):
they can then pick up more reliable, better evidence to use in the court
of law. So I just wantit to be clear about that. It's
a very good point. It's ait's a tool in the toolshit, but
it's not the you know, youstill need a good investigation, you still
need physical evidence, that kind ofstuff to to actually get conclusive answers exactly.

(53:57):
So then with that thought, heis going to be white, a
heterosexual, and male, I thinkthat certainly white male shouldn't be too controversial,
shouldn't have to explain those heterosexual Imean, I suppose he could be
bisexual too, but he'll be knownpublicly as heterosexual. I thought of I

(54:21):
thought, it's more likely to bea non Mediterranean so if when we say
white European ancestry, but probably notlike Spain, Italy, Greece. And
that's really just to do with that'sto do with there's this kind of Protestant
Northern European world which has its conventions, and then there's a more Catholic Southern

(54:45):
European world. And the way thatZodiac spoke and his interests and his culture,
to me, I'm thinking, no, he's more of that Protestant Northern
European world. Also, there's moreaccounts of him to my my memory being
kind of more fair haired and fairskinned. If I recall, there is
only like one eyewitness report where hehad dark hair, and I believe that

(55:08):
was under the under the hood atLake Berryessa. M I right on that.
Yeah, So there were different descriptions. Obviously the lighting conditions were different.
Niche scenario, but the one clearup closed daylight encounter was at under
the hood at Lake by Brian Hartnellsaid that his hair stuck out through the

(55:31):
eyehole of the mask. That hewas wearing and it appeared to be dark
brown. Yeah. Um, soeven then that that doesn't make me change
it. I mean, it's darkbrown, still plenty of Northern European ancestry
people that have that. But alsois probably gonna be sweating, the hair
is gonna be wet, and whoknows, it could have been done as

(55:52):
part of the disguise too. SoI'm gonna stick with that. But you
know, it's not like I'm saying, if there's a good suspect with an
Italian last name, throw him out. I'm just saying this is this is
one point in a very um thoroughprofile um to look for. I think,
go ahead. I was just gonnasay on the on these first couple
of points you made too, hewas obviously white. He was married to

(56:15):
a woman. I don't know ifany you know, Mac I'm talking specifically
about him. I don't know ofany you know, homosexual tendencies or anything
like that. But he was married. Now, he did get married late.
I know, we'll talk a littlebit more about maybe dating patterns and
stuff, but he was married toa woman for for many years, right,

(56:37):
and so he was between twenty sixand thirty six years of age on
December twenty, nineteen sixty eight.That's what I've got for him. I
thought he would be an older offenderas far as serial killers go, and
you and I talked about this.I think Mac was younger. Mac was
twenty three, Yeah, okay,yeah, and and and that sort of

(56:59):
spins to another question. So inquestions of serial killers, specifically zodiac As
killers, Son of Sam killers,those kinds of guess what age range are
they typically when they start these grands? Twenty to thirty five? So Mac
would be in the age range ofwhen most of these offenders start that kind

(57:22):
of activity. Yeah, exactly.And if I wanted to be safe,
I would just say twenty to thirtyfive and almost every profile. But my
goal is to be more useful thanthat. So I thought, well,
is he going to be older oryounger within that period? And I think,
well, he seems to me likehe's going to be a bit older.
He seems a bit more sophisticated,he doesn't seem like particularly impulsive,

(57:46):
he seems somewhat resourceful. So Iput at twenty six to thirty six.
Where this becomes a bit of anissue, obviously, is people had more
responsibilities and matured earlier in the nineteensixties. So yeah, let me ask
you this. Let me and thisis just sort of side question you made

(58:07):
me think about. So you mentionedhis maturity or whatever that vibe you get
from him seeming a little bit older. Now, Max's parents were much older
than the parents and most of hisfriends with that kind of upbringing cause him
to be a little bit more mature, or as far as our profiling standpoint,

(58:28):
it could be a possible reason.But I don't want to. I
don't want to get into nudging thingsbecause that's what so many other profilers do,
by the way, you know,probably people that your listeners, people
that your listeners admire. I justwant to say a lot of them don't
really, they don't have good practiceswhen it comes to this. It'll be
wrong. And you can see themtrying to well, you know, but

(58:50):
he's more mature internally, he's psychologicallymore mature or whatever, and that's it
doesn't matter. It's not good.You're trying to help people to find him,
you're not trying to make yourself notwrong, right, So absolutely,
yeah, So I'll just say there, we'll just say that's a no fit
but white hetersexual male of non MediterraneanEuropean ancestry that fits age doesn't. So,

(59:14):
okay, I said he would befrom a lower middle class family.
Let's just talk about middle classes beinglet's say lower middle class and upper middle
class. I think that he's goingto be in the lower end of that.
And I don't think his family wouldbe native to California. So Max's
family is not native to California andthey were lower and middle class. Okay,

(59:37):
okay. I thought he would certainlyhave graduated high school and possibly have
some college, although I didn't imaginehim having like advanced university education. He
did graduate high school, and hedid attend college. In fact, he
wrapped he went to college in chicosHe went to college actually in Solano County,

(01:00:00):
then went to Chico State, andthen went to college in um was
it North Dakota, South Dakota.I can't remember at the top of my
head. But he got back inmid nineteen sixty eight from being out of
state going to college. So hewent to he went to a few colleges.

(01:00:22):
Yeah, did he finish at anyof these colleges? I? Yeah,
I assume he got different degrees.I know he was a sociology Uh
that was his primary study. Mokay, interesting, yeah, okay,
so he would he would fit thatit probably has um if he got multiple

(01:00:43):
degrees, it's probably a little bitmore education than I expected him to have.
But okay, I thought his IQwould be above average, so like
one twenty, like in the age, sorry, in the range of someone
like Ted Bundy. But I thoughtthat despite that, he would be an
underachiever. Well, um, soI'll let the listeners decide. I mean

(01:01:07):
Mac obviously, you know I justmentioned he went to multiple colleges, so
he had to be somewhat smart.I don't know what his IQ was obviously,
but um, he you know,on his website he you know,
this is in the early age ofthe internet. He was quite advanced working

(01:01:27):
on his website and doing different thingson there, um, doing stuff with
Mac stuff like that. So Iknow he had to be um average or
above average intelligence wise, But asfar as what his IQ was, I
don't know that. Um. Ilike that. I think that that's about

(01:01:47):
right. That's that's above average,but it's not in the genius range or
anything. So I think that's amatch. Okay, Um, but is
he an underachiever though? You know, despite that intelligence, did he not
really accomplished much? Well? Youknow, he was he worked for the
state, which you know of theself. He he got a job with

(01:02:10):
the prison system in spring of nineteenseventy one, and which is the time
the last Zodiac letter was mailed,and he worked there for thirty years and
retired in two thousand and one.And he retired as a corrections sergeant.

(01:02:31):
So I don't know. I don'tknow in a prison system what you know,
obviously, the rank of a militaryyou know, sergeant is probably somewhere
in the middle, and then youget into sergeant first class and then officers
and stuff like that. So Idon't know where that ranks on the scale
of how far you can go inthe prison system. But I also don't

(01:02:52):
know could he have put all thattraining with the courses he took towards a
career that would have been more lucrative. I don't know that answer, but
he that's what he was. Hewas a prison correction surgeant for thirty years.
Okay, yeah, Um. Thereason I thought that this person would
not live up to their full potentialis because they have an aberrant psychology.

(01:03:15):
I thought that their pcl PCLR scorethat's a Psychopathy Checklist score, would be
approximately twenty. Let me just saytoo, this is something I forgot to
mention. I went and I trainedto do the Psychopathic Checklist Revised Score under
doctor Robert Hare, who was theman who who innovated the test. And
I also did sessions in Tennessee withdoctor Mary Ellen O'Toole, who is the

(01:03:40):
FBI profiler and looking at how todetect psychopathy from from a crime scene along
with paraphylic violence. So I knowquite a lot about psychopathy, and so
I've scored a serial killers for theirpc LR score before, and in the

(01:04:00):
USA and Canada the cutoff score fora psychopath is thirty. It's twenty five
in Europe. Don't ask me why. I think they just have different standards.
But so, I don't think Zodiacarises to being a full psychopath.
But he's psychopathic. He's on hisway. It is probably better accounted for
though, by something that maps ontopsychopathy but is somewhat different, which is

(01:04:26):
a narcissism. So I thought hewould be what is called an introverted narcissist.
And so a narcissist is somebody whothinks very highly of themselves. But
the typical narcissist is very outspoken aboutthat, is very grandiose. One might
even say extroverted. They're kind ofa braggart, whereas the introverted narcissist is

(01:04:46):
more kind of smug and quietly judgmental. They have like a sort of sense
of smug superior superiority, but they'rethey're not loud about it. And I
can tell you just by looking atZodiac's letters that this is definitely a narcissistic
personality. I think even people justwith a working idea of what narcissism is

(01:05:11):
can see that because narcissists too,they have this inflated view of themselves.
But it's often because they secretly theythey're very insecure. In fact, they
really don't like who they are,and so they overcompensate. They kind of
have to two sides of their personalitiesat different polls, and they're always trying

(01:05:34):
to bury the part of them thatthey are insecure about and don't like under
this um, this front of superiority. And so I thought that's Zodiac definitely.
But as I said, introverted,he I just don't think that he's
social enough or really confident enough classicallyto be a typical narcissist. So you

(01:06:00):
understand what I say when I whenI say an introverted narcissis narcissist. I'm
trying to think of like a characterthat UM would exemplify that somebody that's maybe
has those tendencies but just isn't asvocal about it. Isn't but they're thinking
it inside. Basically, Yeah,exactly, We've all met people like this.
I'm just trying to think if there'sa shared person that that we've met,

(01:06:21):
like a character on TV or something. People will come back to that.
But Um and Jess and the guywho's always smirking, you know,
gotcha? And and just a pauseyour profile for one second and sort of
take a little sidetrack. Um,someone with those uh, you know,
narcissistic traits and stuff, what wouldyou see in them as a child in

(01:06:42):
their in their early years? Whatoftentimes? Oftentimes I've found that they are
a lot of them are are onlychildren, or they're maybe the youngest child
in the family, and they getspecial attention from their parents, so they're
they're kind of isolated as they're growingup and they're told to think that they're

(01:07:03):
special, and then when they actuallyhave to leave their families and the older
they get and they come into contactwith the real world, it's a bit
of a shock to their system.So I don't know if I don't know
if that's your suspect or not.Well, Mac was definitely an only child.
Oh he was yeah, interesting,Yeah, but there's that. But

(01:07:27):
it's easier to see if he's anarcissist. Like you have any accounts of
his behavior as to whether people likedhim or not, the way that he
spoke with people, and well,not so much from his younger years,
but from his older years and hiscollege roommates. That's who I reached that

(01:07:47):
did supply me with a lot ofinformation was that he was likable but shy.
Where they were all dating and headgirlfriends, he was not, and
he was um, sort of aloaner um. But they did like him.
One friend who said, I reallyliked them, but he was a

(01:08:12):
little odd. And when I saidthat, he couldn't really explain to me,
you know, I asked him tofollow up on what he meant by
that. He just said he didn'treally he wasn't exactly like the rest of
us, um, but he was. He was friendly enough that that he
said I did like him and Ididn't have any problems with him. Yeah,
and that's um, that's the introvertedpart, right, So the introverted

(01:08:34):
narcissist has the advantage of um,of of being able to be more quiet
um with So I don't think we'veseen I don't think we can confirm that
he's a narcissist, but certainly thatsort of keep to himself part of it,
which would be the introverted part ofwhat I said that seems to have
been confirmed. You said he wasnot like the rest of them, a

(01:08:55):
bit strange. I also thought thathe would have skill so TYPEE. And
so what I mean by that isthat something like like schizophrenia, it's not
just hallucinations or delusions. There's oftensort of like a flatness to them.

(01:09:15):
It's a range of things. Sometimesthey're just a bit weird. And so
I thought that at worst Zodiac mighthave something like mild schizophrenia, but I
didn't think it would really arise tothat. I thought it might be something
more like schizotypal personality disorder or evenlike it just kind of blunting of the
affect and being a little peculiar.So perhaps based on what you just said,

(01:09:40):
overall, what I'm getting is aportrait of this This is someone who
might fit the psychology. Certainly,we're not ruling him out, but we
probably need a lot more information.And really, this is the sort of
thing you'd really want to examine himin a clinical setting and talk to him
to be actually able to prove this. It's it's hard to do in retrospect.

(01:10:00):
Yeah, so what do you havenext up on your list? Okay?
Yeah, I mean we could godeeper into the psychology part if you
like, but I don't think wehave that information, so we can always
just come back to it. Ithought that his psychosocial development would have become

(01:10:26):
stunted at some point, and thiswould probably become most pronounced around the ages
of twelve and fourteen. That hewould kind of not fit in socially because
he didn't have really any social skillsand and kind of like what was said
there, he was found to bea little bit weird. So I thought
he would withdraw into a world offantasy media and technology in order in order

(01:10:50):
to minimize his interactions, that hisfantasies would have violent themes and omnipotent themes,
and those could manifest in drawings andwritings that he did. And that's
this, uh, this pensiont toretreat and create violent writings or drawings that

(01:11:10):
might have continued into his adulthood,or writings and drawings with themes of omnipotence.
So once again, that's probably aside of himself that he hid from
the world. Do you have anythinglike that that came out really, anything
before his college years is a mysteryat this point. Um. You know,

(01:11:33):
I know just from his yearbook photoshe was involved enough outloing enough to
be in the band in high school. His family was heavily involved in the
Freemason movement, right, Um,so I know he had things he As
a matter of fact, he wasin some Freemason things as someone who was

(01:11:57):
under eighteen as well, so hedid have some things he participated. I
don't think he was completely isolated towhere he just stayed in a room by
himself. But I don't know anythingas far as his writings, his drawings,
his tendencies that way, and theonly the only violent thing I wouldn't
really call it violent because this couldjust be dumb shenanigans by a young kid.

(01:12:23):
Was that he did shoot out somelights. I believe it was with
a baby gun when he was younger, right right. I don't think that
that really tells us much because alot of us do some kind of dumb
antisocial stuff when we're kids. Butyeah, so we don't want to make
too much of that. Getting towhat I thought Zodiac would do for a

(01:12:45):
living, I kind of have thesein two separate places, and you have
revealed that he became a prison guard. What I've said is I thought that
Zodiac would want a job that gavehim solitude and independence and to be able
to avoid socializing beyond you know,you have to socialize the kind of perfunctory

(01:13:10):
level, but it wouldn't be ajob where there was too much socializing.
So things that came along for thatI thought of like a tradesman or I'm
going to add this because I madethe mistake. Really I should have expanded.
I thought this came under trades,but like um an artesian, you
know somebody that's that creates things,but it's not a trade, so it
could be somebody who makes um I'mblanking here, um artwork or something like

(01:13:38):
that. It's it's beyond just thatthough, because yeah, we'll look that
up. Hold on, let meget you the definition of that UM A

(01:14:00):
worker in a skilled trade, especiallyone that involves making things by hands.
So I think I think maybe oneof the differences a they're kind of the
same, but I just wanted tobe a bit more clear. Whereas a
tradesman can be someone who who justfixes things, this is someone who also
can make things, and that cango more into the artistic as well rather

(01:14:24):
than just functional things. So itcould be somebody that makes carvings or something
to which is something that we wouldn'ttypically think of tradesman would do, although
he could be a tradesman too,some thinking he's someone that works with his
hands kind of in a solitary capacity, whether that's a tradesman or artesian.
But what stood out to me asyou mentioned that he was a prison guard

(01:14:47):
and what I had with Zodiac,I'm just zooming down my list here is
U. Yeah, I said Ithink that Zodiac because based on my research
I did in my dissertation, Ifound a lot of these guys that communicated

(01:15:10):
were interested in what I call heroculture. So these are the typical really
masculine hero type jobs like police,military, firefighting, and also like survivalism.
But then you've got to look atthe things around that. So something
like being a prison guard, itdoesn't arise to the level of being a

(01:15:33):
cop, but it's it's in thatorbit, and I would certainly count it.
So if that's what he did fora living, then I considered that
he hit the profile for that.It wasn't like a bull's eye, but
it's still it's still hit the dartboard. Yeah, while we're on that,

(01:15:53):
did he did he have any militaryexperience? No? Okay, I thought
it was possible that Zodiac had that. I was trying to account for a
few things. What stands out tome is Zodiac's pretty experienced with a firearm.
He's a good shot, and sothat's a big part of it.

(01:16:15):
Did he have to have like firearmstraining to do the prison guard stuff?
Training firearms in the prison system?He t he taught guards how to shoot
rifles, shotguns, and pistols.Okay, so I guess the question would
be did he have that training beforehe became the prison guard? Because the
yeah, the zodiac killings happened beforethat that I don't know. I don't

(01:16:41):
know when he started that, tobe honest with you, Yeah, well
anyways, that that works for me, um, because he's he's identifying,
he's that guy who wears the uniform, who's keeping order in justice. Like
I said, it's not right inthe bull's eye, but it's good enough.
And he and he you know onething you mentioned he some solitude.
He did tell a friend that heenjoyed sitting in the tower reading books.

(01:17:05):
So I don't know if that's thekind of solitude you mean, but he
did mention his friend he enjoyed that. Well, that's interesting. What we'll
get to that. I'll just workdown the list so I don't get lost
here. During his series of knownmurders, he was a bachelor, and
he was never able to establish arelationship with a woman. You know,

(01:17:27):
while those murders were happening. Couldhave been impotent and violently resented young women
in couples. I don't know ifhe was impotent, obviously I do know
it, and I said, yeah, yeah, he did not have children.
He did not start dating as faras we know, until he met

(01:17:48):
his wife in nineteen seventy one,and he was engaged and married all within
the span of I think six monthsif I remember correctly, too. Didn't
he meet his wife through the Mason'sYeah, I think his wife actually said
because I've made contact since we didthis, since she's been open about some

(01:18:11):
stuff, and she said that theyI think she said they were introduced by
her parents, their parents knew eachother, something like that. She had
just moved to Valeo from another state, and so they had met through the
freemasonry and got quickly engaged and married. Yeah. So what I take from

(01:18:32):
that is and let me let melet me just backtrack, because I think
I just said something correctly. Sure, she moved and they married in nineteen
seventy four. Nineteen seventy one iswhen he took his job with the state.
Nineteen seventy four is when he metand married his wife. Okay,
So seventy four he's getting into hiswhat late twenties then, yeah, and

(01:18:58):
seventy four he would have been intwenty nine. Okay, So what I
get the impression of as a youngman who's not meeting women and the institution
of the Mason's kind of intervenes andsays, let's find a wife for this
guy. It doesn't mean that theyweren't really in love or she didn't really
like him or something. But that'swhat I get out of that. If

(01:19:18):
there's no other women in his lifeuntil that. Yeah, as far as
we can tell, i've you know, found no one that mentioned he dated.
As a matter of fact, someof his college budd he's said they
were dating, engaged, getting married, and you know, they felt One
of them mentioned specifically felt bad forMac because they while they were going on

(01:19:42):
getting married and having all these relationships, he was sort of alone, and
he said he felt bad that hesort of left them left him alone while
he went on with his life.And interestingly enough, Mac was participated in
several weddings, you know, sohe was friendly enough and I guess thought
of enough by some of his collegeroommates that he was in you know,

(01:20:05):
I want to say it was threeor four different wedding parties that he was
invited to be part of. Forwhat that's worth, when were they One
of them, just off the topof my head, was in August sixty
nine, right before the Zodix Augustnineteen sixty nine Letter Days before that.

(01:20:28):
You know what I'm thinking there,right, that those could serve as like
triggers. Yeah, I don't knowthe dates off the top of my head.
I just remember the August nineteen sixtynine one that he participated in.
Okay, yeah, I'm from Like, while we're seeing of that, I
think it seems like a fit.Okay, maybe we could use a little

(01:20:49):
bit more reinfo, but it's nevergonna be ideal. Like, the point
is, we're looking at him,and we're looking at him next to people
like Ross Sullivan and Arthur Lee Allenand all of them, right, and
we're saying, well, which guyfits the most? And to me,
it seems like he's fitting quite wellin that way. Right, So I

(01:21:10):
thought that the Zodiac would have startedoff And this is not really something that
we can match to Mac or not, but just that give people an understanding.
I think that the Lake Herman roadattack was motivated by feelings of anger
and frustration and wanting to get revengeon these young couples that were sexually active

(01:21:31):
or seemed to be sexually active,and Zodiac didn't have that in his life.
So it was an angry lashing outat something that he wanted or something
he wanted to be and couldn't get. So I think that's what happened at
Lake Herman Road, and that's whythere was no letter or anything after Lake
Herman Road. But then I thinkby Blue Rocks Springs, he still had
that same motive, but he alsowas creating this other self. If you

(01:21:56):
go back to the idea of himbeing a narcissist, I said that there
is the there's the the way thathe feels about himself where he's self hating
and he feels very insecure, andthen there's like the grander version of the
self, and that the grander versionof the self sort of is there to
compensate and to overshadow that other self. If you can imagine his personality being

(01:22:18):
that he genuinely he generally feels likethis overlooked loser, maybe a nerd or
something like that, and then hestarts to create zodiac as like this um
this strong, omnipotent fantasy self,like like a caricature of competence and relevance

(01:22:41):
and power. I think that's whatzodiac started to do in uh with Blue
Rock Springs, and that's why theletters happen. And I think it continues
to Lake Barry Essa. I thinkby the time he gets to Paul Stein
that the revenge motive against couples thathas more become secondary or tertiary motive,
and that the primary motive by thatpoint is building the Zodiac self, which

(01:23:06):
he does through UM, through hiscommunications. I think that when he starts
to do that, he really umthat's helping him with with deal with those
issues. Does that make sense?Yeah? Absolutely, And it's so it
sounds like the primary motive for startingthe crimes was this, uh, this,

(01:23:28):
He's coveted these people that he sawin intimate situations something he couldn't be
part of, and he sort oflashed out of what would it be fair
to say he was an in cellsomething that wasn't. Yeah, yeah,
like a proto in cell. Soin the same way that someone like Elliott
Roger went and wanted to go intothe sorority to kill all the hot girls

(01:23:51):
that he couldn't have, the Zodiacwanted to kill um, these these couples
because he wanted to be the manand he wanted the female. And this
is something like Son of Sam Right, David Berkowitz, this was his real
motive. It was. It wasn'tthat he was inspired by a barking dog.
That was all bs. It's um, it's it is what it seems

(01:24:14):
it's it's it's the frustrations of aperson who has felt that they've been left
out of the social order. Andwe could go back even the cases like
the texture can of fantom Uh youknow, similar crimes. Maybe that's a
similar situation. Yeah, I wouldn'twant to say that one because we don't
have a resolution to that. Thereason I went to Berkowitz is because we

(01:24:35):
do, right. Yeah, Berkowitzwas this loner who was singing an apartment
and he wasn't able to pick upgirls, and he wasn't able to have
friends or anything, and he justbecame more and more resentful about that and
then started killing to vent his frustrations. I think it's a it's actually very
easy thing to understand and and topause your profile again. And it sort

(01:24:59):
of pairs Zodiac to David Burkewitz.To me, they're very very similar.
You know who I you know,picture them being just like you picture them
being who they Obviously we know whoBerkowitz turned out to be. Um.
I picture Zodiac being the West Coastversion of Berkowitz. Um, when you
look at their crimes free Zodiacs versusSon of Sam's, what parallels or differences

(01:25:25):
do you see in the In theKillers there they are very similar. Like
you said, I mean both useda knife at some point. Berkowitz started
off with a knife and then itwasn't like in the movies. I think
that was his own quote, sohe switched to the gum, which was
more reliable. Zodiac tried knife,but it was genuinely generally using firearms.

(01:25:47):
I know Berkowitz set fires. Hewas an arsonist. I wouldn't be surprised
to see that in Zodiac's background Zodiacwas interested in uh in bombs. I
think they're actually very similar. Ithink perhaps Zodiac was more intelligent, and
I think that he roamed more widelythan Berkowitz did. And then you've got

(01:26:09):
the whole communicating with the press thingthat they have in common as well.
Right, Berkowitz was one of theten offenders in my sample for I Killed,
Therefore I Am, which is mydissertation which I would really encourage anyone
who's interested in Zodiac or offenders likethis to read. As far as I
know, it's the only one ofits kind. So he was the second
offender that I looked at in thatand so the model for Zodiac. He

(01:26:33):
was one of the cases that Istudied to get to this fascinating and he
has like he makes up this wholeimaginary world of demons and such. Right
he's writing on a wall like misterWilliams lives in here and I'm killing for
the dog. And I don't thinkthat it's him being mentally ill. I

(01:26:55):
think it's a guy with a fantasylife and a big imagination and he's in
a way trying to find a wayto process what he's doing beyond just I'm
killing because I'm a I'm a virgin, an outcast. He knows that deep
down, but he's creating like thisfictional world that he can run it through.
And I think Zodiac was doing thesame sort of thing, you know,

(01:27:18):
with slaves in Paradise and and andall that. The word I came
up with four because I don't knowwhat else to call it is. I
called it a meta delusion. It'sit's not quite like a delusion because secretly
they know that they're just making itup. But it has many of the
features of a delusion. Interesting.Yeah, that was something that five of

(01:27:43):
the of the killers and my sampleso fifty percent had as well. So
yeah, let's get back to theprofile. Yeah, these murders, they
were not paraphilic murders. I know. John Douglas said that he thought that
Zodiac was a sexual sadist. Isee absolutely no evidence for that at all.

(01:28:03):
And that's that to me. I'mwith you there, you know,
I compare. There's people that stillonline say, oh, I think Joseph
de Angelo, the Golden State killer, was also the Zodiac. They are
two completely different killers with two completelydifferent motivations. I mean, I think,

(01:28:25):
and maybe you can clarify, Josephde Angelo was a classic sexual sadist.
But I don't I agree with you. I don't see that at all
on Zodiac. Yeah, yeah,I think DeAngelo was probably sexually statistic.
He was, if not, hewas at least turned on by rape,
so biastophilia. The point is hewas motivated by paraphilic sexual interests, and

(01:28:49):
I don't think that that was whatmotivated the Zodiac. When we talk about
Zodiac killing there, I mean,there is a sexual reason for it,
but it's not so he can havean orgasm. It's so that he can
vent his frustrations about being sexually excluded. Those aren't the same thing. And
Zodiac, for example, was aquick, get and get out type of

(01:29:13):
killer. Joseph D'Angelo took hours withhis victims, torturing them, watching the
pain. And then you know,there's some key differences too, is he
would stock his victims and years latercall them up just to terrify them again
over the phone. So to methere, I think they're two way different
killers in my mind. So anybodythat that says that they're one and the

(01:29:36):
same Zodiac and Joseph D'Angelo, Icall hogwash. Yeah. The key distinction
there is Zodiac is an act focusedkiller, so the act of killing is
what motivates him, whereas de'angelo isa process focused killer. It's it's the
process of rape and torture and terrorizingthat doesn't and kills them probably just so

(01:30:00):
he's not identified for doing that stuff, yeah, Or or they didn't conform
to what he wanted to do.Yeah, something like that. So yeah,
I doubt killing them was. Itmight have become about killing them as
because they do change as the seriesgo. The same way Zodiac. I
think it became more about the persona. But yeah, I think that it

(01:30:20):
was. It could have it couldhave become killing, but it wasn't.
For most of the Golden State Killerseries, it wasn't about killing. Good
points. So, Okay, Italked about military. Uh. The reason
being that I thought military was theshooting, was his interest in bombs,

(01:30:44):
was the fact that the there's somany military bases around that town, the
interest in codes. There's a lotof things that say, this is a
guy who could have been military.Now, it doesn't mean that he was
career military. He could have hecould have been drafted something like that.
He could have worked as like atechnician briefly. But you said that there

(01:31:05):
was no military in his past,so that one doesn't fit. Now you
mentioned code. He did have aninteresting code, but he didn't get it
through training in the military. Thatmuch is for sure. Okay. Do
you know if he applied to anyof those like police or military and was
rejected, or if he wore militaryapparel, collected weapons, owned a police

(01:31:27):
scanner. I don't know any ofthat though. Okay, appearance, I
thought this is a person who's moreconservative, and so I thought to be
clean shaven with a crew cut orotherwise short hair. Yep, that's that
was mac. Okay. One ofthe ways that he tries to I think

(01:31:48):
this is a person who's insecure abouthis masculinity. So one of the ways
that he tries to exhibit his masculinityis through outdoorsmanships, so hunting, fishing,
camping, orienteering, anything like that. Yeah, he was definitely definitely
fished. There's some indication that hehunted, but I don't know that for

(01:32:10):
sure, but he definitely fished.His wife again, who he did not
meet till in nineteen seventy four,um after well after the Barryssa murders,
said that they did go to LakeBarrysa to fish. But again, interesting,
but so did a million other people. So yeah, sure, yeah,
And that's why you have a lotof points in the profile, right,

(01:32:31):
I have a lot of them.And Okay, so I should say
too, it's not just about themasculinity like Zodiac is. To me.
He shows that he's liked spending timeoutdoors. He go, he knows areas
where people go to, like loversLanes, but also like Lake Barryessa.
Um, the Boots, the wingWalker, boots and such. There's I

(01:32:55):
don't have it all here. Alot of times it's that you spot a
lot of things that all that individuallydon't mean anything, but when you put
them together, they point towards acertain direction. And so that's where I
got the outdoorsman thing, you know, the knife, the knife he used
to and so I know there's somemilitary clues sometimes that people say, well,
this could point to a military Nowhis father was in the military.

(01:33:21):
I don't know what ears, butso he could have had access to the
base to buy, you know,clues whatever things that you might buy on
the base. Okay, so thisyou've touched upon here. I said that
I thought, as part of hisretreatism and his fantasy, that the Zodiac
would escape into literature, newspapers,perhaps survivalist publications or comics, detective magazines,

(01:33:45):
films, television, maybe even theatricalproductions. From what you've said about
mac already, that's certainly him,right. Yeah. So I know one
of his college roommates they did readthose dime store detective magazines that kind of
stuff, comic books, things likethat. He said, they all read

(01:34:06):
them. So you know, weknow he had that and much later in
his life. Yeah, we don'tknow a lot about him his habits during
the Zodiac crimes, but much laterin life he reviewed mysteries and movies that

(01:34:26):
kind of stuff on his website AlfredHitchcock, different things like that. Yeah,
okay, so I thought his interestwould include esoterica. And so this
is because the Zodiac makes a lotof references to kind of esoteric pieces of
art, and but also there's likeMasonic and another symbols in his codes,

(01:34:53):
and he seems to be somebody thathasn't interested in a lot of very niche
things. So I he said thathe would be interested in esoterica like magic,
secret societies, polytheistic religions, theoccult mythology, espionage, conspiracy theories,
cryptography, astrology. It's not allof those things, but probably some

(01:35:13):
of them. Now, mac definitelyhad an interest in cryptology. He owned
multiple books on deciphering codes and stuff. And then, as we mentioned,
he was a member of the Freemasons, and after he met his wife,
excelled in the Freemasons. And youknow, I don't know what the different

(01:35:33):
positions are, but he sort ofwas at the top of the food chain
in his local lodges there. Itseems like he became a lot more socially
apt after he met his wife.Yes, from everything I could tell,
that is the case, right,Okay, that's that's fascinating stuff. I

(01:35:57):
thought he'd be raised in a nominalor practice in Christian family, but um
would consider it to be trivial,trivial or amusing, and might even vocalize
patronizing views about Christianity. It isnot like this militant atheist or anything.
But it's not really for him.This is during the killings to write,
it seems that Mac changes midlight,you know, and when he meets his

(01:36:18):
wife. So um, let's let'slook at him while he is um,
before he's married. Yea, Sonone of that. Well, I know
they did belong to a church,and I don't remember what the nomination it

(01:36:39):
was, um, So I can'tcomment too much about that. I don't
and I don't know how active hewas in it, but okay, or
what his views were on the Okay, So that that wants a bit of
a wash. Um. I thoughtthat his relationship with his father or stepfather
or the male father figure in hislife would be either poor or non existent.

(01:37:05):
That would be fair to say itwas accurate with Mac. Really really,
his friend said that, and I'llhave to I'm paraphrasing here with the
friend told me, and this isall written down someplace on one of the
forms. But the friend told methat, you know, he's sort of

(01:37:26):
the parents didn't show him affection withhugs and kisses and that stuff, didn't
have a close relationship, but theywould give him things to sort of you
know, I love you. Here'sthis big wedding, we're gonna pay for
your wedding, that kind of thing, but that there was some kind of

(01:37:47):
coldness between him and his dad,and the friend was of the opinion it
was because they were much older thanhim, like, you know, you
know, I forget how old hisdad was. I think his dad was
forty five or something when Mac wasborn, where most of the parents had

(01:38:09):
their kids when they were like twentyfive. So he, you know,
the friend was of the opinion thatthere was just such a difference in everything
between Mac and his parents that therewas some distance there because of the age
difference. Yeah, okay, Sothe reason I said that, actually that's

(01:38:29):
just pure inductive reasoning. When Idid my dissertation, I found that of
the ten offenders I looked at,many of them had poor relationships with their
fathers. So I was like,okay, well, these expressive, transformed
of offenders overwhelmingly seemed to have badrelationships with their father I think Zodiac would
too, So that is I didn'texpect that, to be honest with you,

(01:38:53):
from Mac, but that's interesting.Yeah, I think that's something I
actually found out after I was onyour show. So, Okay, um,
does he have a criminal record?No, not that I know.
Okay, you did say he shotout some lights with a baby gun.
He is something minor like that whenhe was kid, So I said,

(01:39:16):
Zodiac, interestingly, is one ofthose perpetrators that I think doesn't necessarily have
to have a criminal record because he'snot a psychopath, and he's not driven
by an addiction or compulsion, andjust because like Berkowitz, I don't think
even had a criminal record either.He's just a type of serial killer that

(01:39:38):
I don't think necessarily would have acriminal record. But I said, if
he did have one, it wouldbe for fire setting, vandalism, stalking,
assault, drunk driving things in theorbit of those, So shooting out
the lights with a baby gun.That is vandalism once I said, like
I said, we don't want tomake too much of it, but I
did put vandalism down. Yeah,and again I don't know anything besides that

(01:40:00):
in his back. Again, there'sso much little that's known about his youth
and growing up. But obviously toget the job in the prison system,
I assume you know, they didsome background checking. If he had a
serious felony or something on his recordbefore, he wouldn't have gotten the job.
Okay. And the reason I havefire setting and vandalism out there the

(01:40:23):
most is because they're ways of lashingout at the wider world. And that's
to me, obviously what Zodiac isdoing. We've already discussed that, So
that's a big part of the reasonthat I put those two in there.
I thought there would be an identifiablestress or happening in Zodiac's life, such

(01:40:43):
as losing a job or being rejectedby a woman, around the time that
the killings start. So I guesslate Herman Road December was that twentieth,
nineteen sixty eight. Yep. Idon't know of anything that happened in his
life around that time. I doknow that he got home from college out
of state in the summer before that. But I'm a sixty Yeah, I

(01:41:10):
don't know enough about what was goingon with him personally. Part of the
problem is because his good friends thatI learned a lot of this information from
when they graduated from Chico State,they sort of lost track of him other
than the occasional hey sonso is gettingmarried, Let's show up and be at

(01:41:31):
the wedding. But they didn't reallyknow what was going on with him Durham
at time, So I really don'thave a good picture of what was going
on with him. And then whenthey lose touch with him in nineteen sixty
eight, the next person that comeshim that really gives us a good paper
trail is him taking the state jobin seventy one, which we know that's

(01:41:51):
documented, and then his wife innineteen seventy four meeting him engaged, getting
married kind of stuff. So thecrucial time that we don't know about Mac
is from nineteen sixty late sixty eightto nineteen seventy one, which coincidentally is
when all the zodiac stuff is goingon. Yeah, well that could be

(01:42:13):
very telling in itself, right.He could lose all of his friends and
just finds himself sort of isolated andadrift in the world. And I don't
know if I'm going to put thatas the stressor, but I wouldn't be
surprised if there's one in with that. So I'm not saying that that that
that counts, but it's it's youknow, it works in a way.
So I in talking stressors. I'dlike to talk about stressors for a second,

(01:42:35):
because I know, you know,I talked to a lot of investigators
during the Golden State Killer case.They were looking for stressors, weddings,
divorces, kids, birth and asit turns out, when he killed his
last victim, the Golden State Killer, I should say second last victim in
nineteen eighty one, it coincided withthe birth of his first daughter. When

(01:42:58):
he killed his second, his lastvictim, five years later, nineteen eighty
six, it coincided with the birthof his second daughter. So he stopped
killing for the birth of his firstdaughter and killed again during the birth of
his second daughter, which is Ithought was fascinating. Nothing in between.
So I get the stressers, andI think that's a very important thing.

(01:43:19):
And I see some stressers and maybeyou can tell me that these are the
same kind of stressers. But hetakes his job in the spring of nineteen
seventy one. That's when the Zodiacletters stop. The next time Zodiac writes
is in nineteen seventy four. That'sthe time that he meets his wife future

(01:43:39):
wife. That's when the letters beginagain, and then as the engagement goes,
the wedding goes. They're married bythe end of the year, and
Zodiac never writes a confirmed letter againafter that. So his job, taking
him that state job, and hismeeting and getting married to his wife both
coincide perfectly with the stops and artin the Zodiac layers. Yeah, I

(01:44:02):
like it. I you know,I'm not going to say it's him.
But things are lining up here,aren't they. They're not going. The
only thing that hasn't really hasn't reallyfit has been the age. But the
items where the items where we can'tgive him a check mark. They're not

(01:44:23):
exs. We just don't really havethe information. We don't know enough about
them. Sure, yeah, sowe've got to be careful, you know.
We don't want to we don't wantto say that's tantamount to being a
yes, But it's not a noeither, so um, yeah, I
thought that during the killings, theZodiac would most likely work at a nine

(01:44:45):
to five job in San Francisco andreside in southwestern Solano County, most likely
Vallejo or Benicia or southern Napa Countyin or around American Canyon. Or he
could have had a relative he stayedwithin Solano or Napa County, do you
well? We do know that weknow that Max's family had the house in

(01:45:08):
Valejo right. Ma's family lived threehundred and eighty seven feet from Razodiac made
his phone call at the phone boothafter the Blue Rock Springs case, and
they were based there. They livedthere for years before and after the Zodiak
crimes. A little bit his wifefilled in. She said that he worked,

(01:45:30):
and she wasn't quite sure this Again, she didn't meet him playing so
before, so I don't know howmuch of the shoe remembers, but he
She thought he worked in Contra CostaCounty during the sixty eight to sixty nine
time frame, as either at ahardware store or as an insurance salesman.

(01:45:51):
So I take it during that timehe was sort of maybe working different jobs.
She couldn't fill in much more thanthat, but that's what she thought
he was doing at that time.And then, interestingly enough, there's a
listing for mac Andrew in nineteen seventyone in San Francisco. As a matter

(01:46:16):
of fact, it's less than amile from Richard Raditich was shot that zodiac
referenced in his letter. You know, so we do have confirmed Vallejo connection
and a San Francisco connection in nineteenseventy one as well. Yeah, but

(01:46:39):
it wasn't before that, right,because the whole you know, why the
nine to five job in San francisbecause the letters went out in the weekdays,
right, Oh? Absolutely? AndI think that spot on that's somebody
that's you know, he's mailing letterson weekdays from San Francisco and killing on
Vallejo on the weekend. In myopinion, that tells me that somebody that's

(01:47:00):
living in Vallejo or at least goingback and forth there, but staying the
week or working the week in SanFrancisco. Um. And I love Contra
Costa County because I didn't know,believe it or not, and San Francisco
is in Contra Costa County, isit okay? I think so? I
think so I think I let mesee here in Contra Costa County is a
county located in the US state ofCalifornia, in the East Bay of the

(01:47:23):
San Francisco Bay Area. So that'sgood enough, isn't it. I mean
it's it's it's close enough. Sure, absolutely, And and there was you
know, I should point out,um, there was some activity possibly of
Zodiac in Contra Costa County in thattime. Nineteen sixty nine, someone claiming

(01:47:44):
to be the Zodiac poisoned a guynamed Daniel Williams in his Contra County home.
They snuck in and least his drinkwith arsenic and uh fortunately he tasted
it and spit it out. Buthe had been getting threatening correspondences from someone

(01:48:04):
claiming to be the Zodiac, andhe you know, called the police and
they checked it and sure enough,his drink was laced with arsenic. So
that part was interesting in that someoneclaiming to be the Zodiac was active during
those years when his wife thinks hewas working there in Contra Costa County,
and someone claiming to be the Zodiacmay have tried to kill this guy.

(01:48:30):
Well, you know, when wefirst spoke, I thought he was a
lot. You know, I knewhe had a suspect and he was a
lot better than what I expected himto be. But now I like him
even more. So let me justbe clear. I'm not saying that Mac
was the Zodiac, but as faras suspects go, okay, I think
the weakest thing is that we can'tprove that he has a violent criminal background,

(01:48:53):
right, but who among the Zodiacsuspects can we prove had that?
Did Arthur Lee Allen? I meanhe was a child molester, so that's
sort of yeah, that counts.I guess, um, Ross Sullivan he
didn't have one, did he?H? So? Um? Yeah,
I mean from my during one ofhis schizophrenic episodes, he got naked and

(01:49:19):
pinned a guy in a phone boothin uh, Santa Cruz, which you
know, so that's a reason Ialways stepped throught them thinking that Ross was
Zodiac because you never tie him toVallejo. He was a Santa Cruz based
guy before he left, you know, after he left the riverside, And

(01:49:39):
that's that's not a hop and askip from Valai. That's a pretty good
distance, okay. So and that'swhat I'm getting at. So that's The
weakest point of of Mac is thathe doesn't seem to have a criminal history
really or a violent history, buthe looks just like the composite. He
fits many of the aspects of theprofile that we talked about, and the

(01:50:01):
more you learn about him, themore he does fit. He has he
has a base in Contra Costa Countyand in Vallejo. He has the shooting
experience, he has the Masonic connectionwith the symbols. So I'm not saying
that he's the Zodiac. I'm justsaying that out of all of the zodiac

(01:50:23):
suspects of which I'm aware, ifI were to put all of my time
in resources into looking at one,this would be the one that I would
look at. Maybe I don't know, maybe second to Arthur Lee out but
it's it's interesting. It's a goodconclusion. Obviously, you know some other

(01:50:45):
things, and to me, physicalevidence is what it's going to solve this
case from the print in DNA,but the tools of having a profile are
interesting. And then you know,again, I go back to someone that's
three underne seven feet away from thephone booth used by Zodiac. He fits
the overall description of Zodiac five fteight two hundred pounds Montana can set.

(01:51:11):
He had a Montana connection, Hehad a family member that was dying in
Dear Lodge, Montana when Zodiac mentionedDear Lodge at Lake Barrissa. And he's
got an interest in ciphers, andthen you know, it just so happens
that he has handwriting in the limitedamount we've seen that looks a lot like
Zodiac. So no girlfriend, nogirlfriend until like all through the Zodiac crimes,

(01:51:33):
right, Yeah, that all linesup, that all ligns up.
But unfortunately it takes physical evidence,and I'm not to that point where I
could say, hey, physical evidencelinks into these crimes. Right, it
does, But I think the utilityof the profile with a sort of cool
case in research investigating that you're doingis Haley, am I just wasting my

(01:51:58):
time and money? And I thinkthe profile shows No, you're not wasting
your time and money. So evenif he doesn't end up being the Zodiac,
at this point, there's no reasonto stop because there's there's more reasons
to keep going, many more reasonsto keep going. Wow. Well,
I can't thank you enough for comingon your your insights and your outlook on

(01:52:19):
the Zodiac. Case overall, andI'm MEC as a suspect. You know,
I appreciate putting in the time tocome on and talk about all that
and enlighten the audiences to you know, what goes into profiling these people and
studying them, and you know,I think that will help us all understand
the Zodiac case a little bit better. Yeah, no problem. It really
is my pleasure and honor because Idon't know man. You know, professionally,

(01:52:45):
I'm not saying it's him, butjust on a sort of personal level,
I find this all very exciting.And I have looked at a lot
of other Zodiac suspects and there havebeen other suspects where I've been like,
yeah, that's that's cool, orI can see why your thought that.
But the more that we learn aboutthis guy, it's like there are times
where I've I've sat down for likehalf an hour and thought, do I

(01:53:08):
know someone that's going to solve theZodiac case? Because I don't like just
the things that you've uncovered here there. I find them very encouraging. Can
I ask you what has been thereactions of other people in the I hate
using the word community, but um, let's call them zodiologists or something.
What have been the reactions of otherzodiologists. Are they excited about this or

(01:53:29):
is it like, is everyone tryingto poopoo you because they have a suspect
that they like. Um, it'sa mixed bag. And there's a lot
more people that seem to be antitrolling muh, or not anti trolling,
but pro trolling of him as asuspect the you know, I'll give you

(01:53:50):
an example the discussion forum on zodiaculardot com, which is the biggest zodiacite
about the case least I checked headwell, I can tell you right now.
I'll look at it live and tellyou what it is. But it
had the most post of any postever in history on that site, so
it was really getting a lot ofdiscussion, a lot of views, and

(01:54:15):
I think maybe some of that youknow, spotlight being on him brought out
a lot of naysayers. But currently, as of this second, there are
twenty seven thousand, six hundred andseventy eight post about Mac on this website,

(01:54:38):
so you know, it's been somethingthat's garnered a lot of attention.
So that's where it's at, andI think it's brought out a lot of
negative attention. Some people obviously havetheir own suspect and there you know,
I think some of its pushed backagainst that they have a pre conceived notion

(01:55:00):
of how old someone was, howold zodiac was, that kind of thing.
But um, there's been a fewreally good people that just honestly want
to know the truth and some peoplethat have helped me find stuff, um
and dig up stuff, So youknow, those are the people. And

(01:55:21):
focusing on the people that want tosee the case solved, no matter who
it is. And if we can, if somebody can give me something to
rule Mac out, like an airtightalibi that says, hey, he was
off at a at a concert andhe was off at Woodstock or whatever you
know, in on a certain dateduring one of the murders, then obviously

(01:55:42):
that would rule him out. Butas of now, there's nothing that's been
able to rule him out. Everythingthat I've dug up only leads me to
be interested in him more. Sothat's sort of where it's where it's at
with you know, the people takingin Matt conversation. Yeah, I thought
that the more that you researched intohim, the weaker that your case would

(01:56:04):
get. So I'm surprised that it'sgot stronger. That's that's what I hoped
when I first found him, youknow, I said, oh, this
is interesting, and he looks generallylike the zodiac sketch. And then again
sort of other you know, thousandother people in the area. I said,
you know, I'll sort of puthim on the back burner. And
I knew he had disinteresting codes.And his wife found this codebook and I

(01:56:28):
was like, oh, that's reallyinteresting. After he died, she had
asked him to you know, youknow, multiple copies of this codebook,
and she asked him to get ridof it. But he didn't get rid
of it. He kept it.So obviously that was big. And then
I got my hands on his handwritingand I said, okay, I'm hoping
his handwriting just looks nothing like zodiacsand I'll just move him way down the

(01:56:48):
list. And of course his writinglooked a lot like zodiac. So and
he lived around the corner from theseven feet. So the naysaying people,
why are you saying nay, Idon't understand, Like I'm not saying that
he's the zodiac. More says he'scertain. I'm not certain. I just

(01:57:08):
know all the things we talked about, like, isn't this exciting that he
matches so many things? What isto say know about? Yeah, And
again I'm open to being proven wrongif there's somebody that comes forward with something
tangible. But you know, thebiggest complaints, and these are the two
biggest things out of everything. There'sa picture of Mac from his nineteen sixty

(01:57:30):
three high school graduation and Mac hadpretty prominent ears, and in this picture
they really stick out, and peoplewere like, if somebody saw other than
that, he looks generally like theZodiac sketch. And people say, if
I saw those ears, I'd knowthat, and I'd mentioned that in the
sketch, and that would be oneof the first things they told place blah

(01:57:51):
blah blah. But then I seethe picture of him that I got from
nineteen sixty eight, just before LakeHerman Road murder started, and those ears
are not prominently stuck out. Thehairstyle he has pretty much covers them.
His ears look normal, So thephotographer that's closer when the crimes occurred,
and by the way, the crimesoccurred at night or when he was wearing

(01:58:15):
a costume exactly, and the infamoussketch of Zodiac was done at a distance
of witnesses that saw him at nightfrom fifty feet away, so that being
perfectly spot on, um you know, goes out the window. And that's
the second argument is that, um, well, Zodick was described by the

(01:58:38):
kids who saw him at the windowin San Francisco as being thirty five to
forty five, and your guy wasonly twenty five. Um well, again,
it's at night, it's from fiftyfeet away. Mike Mijou, who
was up close to Zodiac, describedZodiac as being twenty six to thirty.
Brian Hartnell, excuse me, andOfficer Slate who took Zodiac's call off there,

(01:59:01):
like Baressa, they didn't see Zodiac'sface, but they described his voice
as sounding like he was in histwenties. So that does line up with
me. So I think on theage thing, it's hard to say specifically
how old Zodiac actually was, butsomeone being in their twenties, you know,
I think it's still definitely a possibilitythat Zodiac could have been in his

(01:59:24):
twenties. Yeah, it's really exciting. So when I last spoke to you
about this, you said that thecat had got out of the bag someone
had told the widow, and youand I kind of had a moment like,
oh shit, you know now we'renot never gonna learn anything. But
it sounds like you've actually spoken toher. Has she changed her tune,
has she been more cooperative? Shehas answered some questions. And again I'm

(01:59:51):
gonna say this again, I've saidit time and again. I'm not accusing
his wife of having any knowledge ofthese crimes, participating in them, covering
them up, not accusing her ofany of that. She's been pretty forthright
and answered questions when she didn't haveto, when she could have just said,
you know, you're not get outof here. But in all fairness,

(02:00:14):
what she knows about her husband duringthose Zodiac crimes, she knows secondhand.
She knows because it's what people havetold her or what Mac told her.
So that's the simple truth. Soanything she fills in prior to nineteen
seventy four is secondhand information. Soand you know, I wish she could

(02:00:35):
have supplied more in the way ofphotos and audio of him and more writing.
But for reasons, and I forgether explanation, she posted this someplace
on Zodiac killer dot com for somereason, I don't remember exactly what it
was. All her photos and handwritingand all that stuff from him was lost,

(02:01:00):
so she's very limited on what shecan supply. Again, it's not
her obligation to supplyining. I thinkshe doesn't have to supply anything at all.
But what she's been able to offerhasn't been a whole lot. Definitely
nothing that conclusively rules him out.So then how do you prove it?
Sim I think that the ANSWER's DNA, But then isn't there some doubt as

(02:01:21):
to whether they really have DNA ornot to work with? Well, the
whole the whole conversation is, youknow, the thinking is that Zodiac licked
the sealed envelopes that he sent andhis DNA might be under there. Then
they could do a genealogy, Butdepends on the condition how they restored is

(02:01:45):
it usable. There's some speculation thatlast year I think it was that they
did some work with the DNA underthose envelopes and it led to a person
that couldn't possibly be Zodiac. Idon't know what that means, you know,
whether that means that it was awoman that like them, or it
was someone that was ten years oldduring I don't know what that means,

(02:02:09):
and they've kept that under wraps,but something led them to believe that the
work they had done led to DNAthat was from someone that could not be
Zodiac. And then also, interestinglyenough, as far as the Riverside case,
some of the question letters in Riversidethey were able to do genealogy with,

(02:02:31):
and they did track to a personwho admitted to writing some of those
letters and he said he wrote themwhen he was a teenager and it was
a stupid prank and he readit itbut he owned up to it. So
some of the you know, theyou know, the confession letter was mailed
thirty days after Sherry Joe Bates waskilled. That one is still unknown who

(02:02:55):
the author is, but according tothe police, the author of the three
notes on the six month anniversary,those were the work of a prankster.
So, you know, that Riversidething is looking a little bit less and
less solid that it could be Zodiac, And especially when you consider that Zodiac

(02:03:16):
some of the Sherry Joe Bates murderwas featured in heavily, in its entirety,
in one of these detective magazines thatZodiac may have read, and it
described words, phrases misspellings that werelater used by Zodiac, which is one
reason a lot of people think ithad to be him, because how could

(02:03:40):
Zodiac use these same words and phrases. Well, we know that if he
read that article, he had accessto all that information. So I'm definitely
not as high on Riverside as Iused to be. And you know,
MAC has zero connection to Southern Californiaor Riverside, but you know, based
on the fact there is a hoaxer, they're based on the fact a lot

(02:04:01):
of that stuff from the Bates caseappeared in a magazine that Zodiac could have
read. The Riverside connection looks lessand less strong to me. Yeah,
which is fine because I remember whenwe last spoke about this, I said,
okay, well we've got the Vallejoconnection, so now if we can
just get the San Francisco connection.And you don't have that, really you've

(02:04:24):
got him in nineteen seventy one,but you do have Contra Costa County,
and if you're in Contra Costa County, you're gonna probably be going into San
Francisco. Yeah, yeah, andit's it's definitely it's not far away.
Once you're there, So it willdefinitely be interesting to see what, if
anything, can be brought to light. At this point, my hope my

(02:04:47):
ultimate goal, and the police dohave this max information, they do have
enough to go on and they've confirmedthat they will uh look at it all
um and they would follow up withme. Now I don't know how fast
they plan to do this. UM. I also think they're of the mind

(02:05:12):
that if they can solve this withDNA and genealogy, that that's the best
way to do it because they canjust sort of, um, wherever it
leads, it leads and whoever thatsuspect is it is, rather than investigate
suspects one at a time. UM. I think that's probably what they're thinking.
So if if genealogy can pinpoint whoZodiac was, then they don't have

(02:05:34):
to chase down a dozen different suspects. They can just see where the dago.
So I'm hoping that is what's goingto ultimately happen. Okay, So
I just looked again San Francisco.Um, there's a county of San Francisco,
So San Francisco must be in SanFrancisco, San Francisco County YEP.
Okay, but contra Costa said it'sit said it's East Bay, like East

(02:06:00):
Francisco or something. So I'm tryingnot to fudge it. But it's still
pretty. It's still good for me, So good for me. Yeah,
Well, time will tell where thisgoes. But I'm a little bit skeptical
that after this much time, thismuch effort. You know, I've basically
spent two years chasing everything I can. I've gone as far as to putting
ads out for leads for information foranyone to come forward that has photos or

(02:06:26):
videos of Mac. And the onlyhelp that I've got along the way was
his college roommates that unfortunately can't giveus information from the crucial nineteen sixty nine
to nineteen seventy four timeline. ButI'm hoping that something comes along somehow someday
that can give us more information.Where did he live with his wife while

(02:06:50):
he was the prison guard? Vacaville? Where the well, so let me
rephrase that. So he lived withhis parents up until when he got married,
so I think that was nineteen seventyone to nineteen seventy three. And

(02:07:12):
then when they got married, thenewspaper announcement mentioned they would live in Vacaville,
which which you know on its own, is interesting because it just so
happened and could be total coincidence.I don't know, but he wound up
moving to a home in Vacaville thatwas three hundred feet away from someone who

(02:07:34):
had gotten a letter in Valeo yearsearlier from someone claiming to be Zodiac.
So he wound up living in Vacavillethree hundred feet from these people. Did
he work at the Vacaville prison.I believe he did, but we're having

(02:07:56):
problems nailing down his assigned locations.I do know where he was at later
in his career. I don't knowthe stops he made at different prisons early
in his career, but I believehe was at Vacaville. I know he
had a family connection in Vacaville thatgot him sort of the job in the

(02:08:16):
prison system because Kemper was in Vacaville. So can you imagine if Kemper was
being guarded by the Zodiac? Howcrazy would that be? And Charles Manson
was there too, wasn't he hewas? He wasn't Vacaville? Wow?
Right there? That is the bookin the movie. That's that's a major

(02:08:37):
selling point insane. Yeah, itwould turn out to be. But you
know, I want the case solvedno matter who it is. But if
it's Mac, then you know,I'm happy to see that too. Just
to be clear one more time,I did not say that Mac is the
Zodiac. I just said that heseems to fit the profile better than any
other any of the other suspects.I don't know. I'd have to run

(02:08:58):
arthroughly and again. But yeah,it's promising, very promising. Well again,
thank you so much for a timelybeen a wealth of information. Yeah,
I'm glad I could be useful.Man. Thanks for joining us for
this episode of Zodiac Speaking. Pleasemake sure you're subscribed to the show wherever
you're listening now so you don't missa single episode. If you want to

(02:09:20):
follow or interact with us on socialmedia, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find Zodiac Speaking on Twitterwith a handle at podcast Zodiac,
where you can search Facebook for ZodiacSpeaking podcast and don't forget. You can
get plenty of Zodiac details twenty fourseven by visiting my site at Zodiac sipas

(02:09:41):
dot com or by going to micsite at Zodiac Killer dot net. If
you'd like to help more people findZodiac Speaking, please take a moment to
rate the show and leave a reviewof it on your favorite podcast player or
app on behalf of Rich, thisis Mike Morford and i'd like to say
thanks again for listening and we'll seeyou on the next episode of Zodiac Speaking.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}My Suspect Mac Part 2 of 2 'Meet The Profilers'

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

All Episodes

My Suspect Mac Part 2 of 2 'Meet The Profilers'

Stuff You Should Know