The State of DNA in the Zodiac case

Episode 38 The State of DNA in the Zodiac case

In this episode, Mike Morford discusses the state of DNA in the Zodiac case with DNA analyst and Lab Director of Pure Gold Forensics, Suzanna Ryan. Mike & Suzanna review the evidence in both confirmed and possible Zodiac crimes, and what clues any DNA left behind by the killer(s) may help solve the case(s) once and for all. Suzanna compares the most modern DNA examination techniques to those that were available to investigators even just a decade ago. Can evidene be re-examined for clues that weren't found previously; clues that may one day ID the Zodiac? Suzanna's insights may surprise listeners causing them to re-evaluate what they thought they knew about the confirmed and possible Zodiac crimes.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Have you heard all the stories onthe news lately about cold cases being solved
by forensic genealogy? Are you fascinatedby unsolved mysteries that you wish could be
answered? Are you intrigued by DNAtechnology and it's application to cold murder cases?
Or do you just love a goodstory with a satisfying ending. If
you answered guest to any of thesequestions, then I have the podcast for
you. DNA I D is theonly true crime podcast dedicated exclusively to cold

(00:25):
cases solved by forensic genealogy. Onmy show, you'll get all the behind
the scenes details on how these caseswere brought to closure and how the victims
finally got justice. Listen to dnaI D Season three starting January sixteen,
twenty twenty three, wherever you getyour podcasts. You're listening to Zodiac Speaking,
brought to you by Abject Entertainment.Be sure to check out some of

(00:48):
the other great true crime podcasts fromthis network, including The Murder in My
Family, Missing Persons, dna ID, Beyond Bizarre True Crime, and
See If the Crime. All ofthese podcasts are available for you to binge
on right now. Wherever you listento podcasts. Subscribe where you're listening to
this podcast so you don't miss anepisode. This is a Zodiac Speaking.

(01:37):
Hey everyone, it's Mike Morford here. It's been a while since we put
out an episode of Zodiac Speaking.We had a good response to the last
episode, so I thought I'd flysolo here for another episode, and this
time around, I think we've gotanother great conversation that listeners will be interested
in the state of DNA evidence inthe Zodiac case and can it help to
close this case once and for all. Think about it, how much do

(02:00):
we really know about all the potentialDNA evidence in the Zodiac case, not
to mention other cases that may beconnected to Zodiac. Have you ever listened
to a podcast, watched the TVshow, or read a book that was
all about the Zodiac case DNA andwhat that DNA can maybe do for the
case. I know I haven't becauseI don't think there's been anything solely focused
on DNA in this case. Andwe have lots of potential DNA evidence in

(02:22):
the Zodiac case. All the lettersand envelope Zodiac handled and mailed, shellcasings
from crime scenes and even bindings thathe handled. All of these things potentially
have the power to provide answers inthis case once and for all. But
to really dive into the DNA possibilities, I knew that I needed an expert
who could bring knowledge and insights tothe conversation that would help listeners understand the

(02:43):
facts. So I sat down withSusannah Ryan, lab, director of Pure
Gold Forensics. She's a forensic DNAanalyst with almost twenty five years of experience,
and she's worked on not one,but two cases that might be connected
to Zodiac. I think listeners willreally learn a lot from my discussion with
Susannah. I know I did.So sit back and enjoy this episode,
and hopefully you learn something from thisepisode that you didn't know before like I

(03:07):
did. Thank you so much,Susanna for coming on the show and discussing
Zodiac case with us. It's veryvery interesting in that I don't think there's
been a long, in depth discussionabout this case and what DNA clues there
may may not be, what mightbe able to be done to solve this
case, and I think your insightsare going to be very helpful. Yeah.

(03:30):
Absolutely, thanks thanks for having me. I'm happy to talk about any
of the DNA related evidence with whateverinformation I can provide, I'm happy,
happy to do that. So there'sa I think there's a plethora of potential
DNA evidence in this case. Ohabsolutely. And there's there's a lot of
stuff you know, supposedly has beendone but maybe not done recently, and

(03:53):
a lot of questions. But Ithink you hit the know on the head.
There's probably a lot of potential forDNA. So before we get started,
can you just tell a listener alittle bit about your background, who
you are, what you do.Sure. Yeah, So my name is
Susanna Ryan, and I'm a forensicDNA analyst and lab director at it's called

(04:15):
Pure Gold Forensics, or a privateaccredited forensic DNA laboratory. But I've been
in the field of forensic DNA sinceuh nineteen ninety nine as when I got
my first job, so I've beendoing DNA testing since ninety nine. I'm
also a DNA consultant, so Ireview other other analysts work and consult with

(04:42):
attorneys on you know, what theDNA evidence means or does not mean.
And yeah, I've worked at numberof different public and private labs since ninety
nine and a full disclosure. You'renot a stranger to the Zodiac case or
to Zodiac adjac cases. Can yougive us a little rundown of of what

(05:02):
you've done in connection to some ofthese cases that might be connected to the
Zodiac case. Yeah. So there'stwo cases that are considered possible Zodiac cases.
You know, I mean, certainlythere are their arguments both for and
against. You know, people thinkthat they are related, people think that
they are not related. So onewould be the Sherry Joe Bates case,

(05:26):
so that one I was able todo MVAC collection on a couple of different
items associated with that case. Andthe other case would be the Ray Davis
case, which was from Oceanside,California, and again I did a little
bit of MVAC collection from from thatparticular case. That's awesome, and we're

(05:51):
definitely going to talk about this cases, but I guess to to get started.
Obviously, we're talking about a casethat the confirmed murders or you know,
nineteen sixty eight, nineteen sixty nine, the possible murders go back to
the early sixties. And then wehave letters that were mailed, you know,

(06:12):
some letters that we know came fromZik were mailed in the sixties and
seventies, and you know, someof them that may have come from Zodiac
were mailed even into the nineteen nineties. But either way, we're talking about
thirty years or more in far asyou know age. What are maybe some
of the limitations and expectations when you'relooking at potential DNA evidence set? Is

(06:40):
that old? Right? Yeah?Well, I mean I think the first
thing to consider is just DNA degradationor breakdown over time, you know,
So it's it's definitely going to bedependent upon how the evidence was stored.
So you know, I have workedon cases from the sixties, for example,

(07:00):
where we've gotten beautiful results, noevidence of degradation whatsoever. So if
items are stored properly, which typicallymeans at least in a temperature controlled environment
where it's not being exposed to heat, and better yet, if items are
stored in the cold, frozen orrefrigerated, that's going to be best.

(07:27):
So that's always something to factor inwhen you have, you know, a
cold case, you have evidence froma case that's many decades old, is
you have to be concerned about degradation. And then the other concern that comes
into play with those types of casesare those that the handling was different,
right. You know, we didn'tknow about HAYE testing in the years that

(07:51):
some of these cases are coming from, so we don't know how they're handled.
We don't know if a person waswearing gloves or not. Have the
items gone through other forensic testing whereyou know, like a firearms examiner,

(08:11):
they weren't really wearing gloves until probablylike, you know, the late two
thousands, so we are like twothousand, let's see two thousand. I
remember working at FDLA Florida Department LawEnforcement in two thousand and two to two
thousand and five, and it wasaround that time frame that we had to
start telling our firearms examiners, pleasewear gloves, Please change your gloves,

(08:33):
you know. So it's you can'texpect someone from seventies, eighties, nineties
to be wearing gloves when they're examiningevidence that they're not thinking about, oh,
we can get touch DNA from theseitems. So that's the other major
concern is contamination. And obviously theydidn't know about DNA at the time that

(08:54):
these crimes happened. And there's picturesof the Zeria case of the investigators holding
a piece of the victim's shirt upwith their their bare hands. So there's
obviously a potential for that. Soin this case, over the years,
there has been some work with DNA, it's it's been uh, you know,

(09:24):
not fully detailed of what it is, to what extent has been done.
It's sort of an under wraps.But if something was tested in this
case, let's say touch DNA,and I happen to know, like one
of the cases we're going to touchon here, Uh, there was touch
DNA done. I'm guessing it wasa seven, eight, nine, ten
years ago. Even is there somethingthere that could have been missed at that

(09:50):
time that could be available now becauseI you know, listeners, I think
need to understand that every few years, DNA assessing and science jumps and leaps
and bounds. Can you talk alittle bit about that? Sure, Yeah,
I think it is possible that evenif something was tested seven or eight
years ago, there is a potentialfor increased results or better results, more

(10:16):
results today kind of twofold. Oneis the instrumentation we're using is more sensitive
and they so to detect the DNAand also the chemicals that are used to
amplify or copy the DNA are againmore sensitive. You know, we can

(10:43):
get results with much less DNA evenfrom seven or eight years ago. And
the manufacturers of these chemicals or reagents, they have better formulations to kind of
overcome some of the things that wouldhave affected the results. We call them
inhibitors. So it's something that cankind of slow down the amplification or copying

(11:07):
process. So the newer, thenewer kits are more sensitive and can overcome
some of those inhibitors. And andthen of course if you're talking about let's
say a larger item or you know, just in terms of collection, you
know, we think about in thepast it was mostly just swabbing or cutting

(11:30):
out a sample, and of coursenow you know we can we can m
BAC. We can use the MBACon items like if you had a clothing
clothing item that you think that theperpetrator touched, we can instead of just
saying, okay, I'm going toswab this area because this seems likely that
the person touched here. If wedon't know, you know, we don't

(11:50):
really have a very good guess asto where an item was contacted, then
we can use an MBAC and collectfrom a much larger area than a swab
would allow us to do. Soyou know, we've got the increased sensitivity
sensitivity in just the processing and thenbetter collection methods. So that's why it

(12:16):
might be possible today to get resultsfrom something that even a few years ago
we weren't getting results from. Andalong those lines and advancements in the science
and what can be done will can'tbe done. There's been rootless hairs.
Can you even produce DNA profiles andcludes there? Can you talk a little

(12:37):
bit about that. Yes, soin the past we could get results from
rootless hairs, but that was withmitochondrial DNA testing, and so mitochondrial DNA
testing has its limitations in the factthat all maternal relatives are going to have
the same mitochondrial profile. So evenif you've a result you wouldn't be and

(13:01):
a person was included, you can'tsay, oh, it's definitely them.
You could say it might be thisperson, it might be anyone on their
maternal line, or it could bea coincidental match. Someone that's distantly related
or just by coincidence has the samemitochondrial profile. So that was you know,

(13:22):
the limitations in the past. Nowtoday mitochondrial DNA is still being used
and it could be really good forexample, for exclusionary purposes, right because
if if the profile doesn't match yourperson of interest, then that's one hundred
percent like, Okay, this isnot a hair. You know, he
could not have contributed this hair.But today what we have is there are

(13:48):
well, there's only one lab Iknow of that is using this technique,
Astraya Forensics, which is Professor EdGreen's lab out of Santa Cruz, California.
He is doing testing SNIP testing,so that stands SNIP is short nucleotide
polymorphisms and that's the exact type oftesting that is used in like twenty three

(14:13):
and me or ancestry dot com.Like if you get your DNA tested,
you spin into a tube and sendit off to one of those companies.
They're doing SNIP testing. And that'salso the type of profile that can be
uploaded to jet match, which isthe publicly available database that you know,
police are now able to search andthat's how the Golden State killer was identified

(14:39):
through his relatives that were in jetMatch. So with this rootless hair testing,
that's what they're able to do.They're able to get this profile that
can be used for genealogical searching purposes. And this just seems like such a
huge game changer that that can bedone now because you know, obviously,

(15:03):
if you're talking something that's rich andlike semen or something along those lines,
where you have like a rape thatoccurred, you know, that's one thing.
But to get just a hair thatcould have fallen off somebody's head and
at the crime scene and you pickthat up that that could lead to the
identity of the person is just prettyamazing. Is that something that's going to

(15:26):
be more mainline going forward? Youmentioned only one place does that now?
But is that something you see reallytaking off? Well potentially yes. But
you also we also have to beaware that hairs. People are constantly losing
hairs, right, So just becauseyou find a hair at a crime scene
does not mean that person had anythingto do with the crime or was ever

(15:48):
even there, right, So youdo there are some caveats to the hair
test sing in that you have tobe pretty confident that that hair is associated
with the crime. Now, ifyou find hair's classed in a victim's hand,
okay, probably associated with the crime. Right, If you just have

(16:10):
like some kind of vacuum sweepings orsomething like that of the room where the
victim was found. Who knows ifit's associated with the crime. So I
do you know, I do thinkit is useful. I think it would
be great if there were more labsthat were doing it, because obviously this
lab is going to be pretty overwhelmedpretty soon, if you know, once

(16:33):
people start realizing and understanding the capabilitiesI have. There have been several cases
that I've worked on that hairs havebeen sent to this laboratory, you know,
I mean they're they're they're getting greatresults. Not every hair is going
to yield a results. They doneed, you know, a certain length

(16:56):
of hair. And sometimes even thoughthey're looking already at very degraded DNA because
that's what's in the shaft of thehair is just there is DNA. We
always thought, oh, there isno DNA in the shaft of the hair,
it turns out there is, butit's very very broken down and degraded
to the point that they that's whythey have to do the snip testing.

(17:19):
So it can be very useful,and I do see it being used in
cold cases for sure. Again,I just think that we have to make
sure that we're we're testing hairs thatare definitely associated with the crime. Yeah,
and it's at least maybe a goodstarting point. If you find a

(17:40):
hair, you know, perhaps thatis the right person, you know.
And maybe if it's something, forexample, that comes in the form of
a letter that do reacts out andit's inside the envelope, maybe that's a
little bit more interesting than just findinga hair, you know, attached to
a victible body. And so alongthose lines, you know, Arthur Lee

(18:00):
Allen, the biggest Zodiac suspect,well known one, was ruled out because
a hair found underneath a stamp onthe outside of an envelope did not match
him. He was rolled out withthat. But then again, you know,
the hair is on the outside ofthe envelope understamp. Maybe it belonged
to the mailman, maybe it belongedto anybody along the mail system. But

(18:21):
it was interesting that that hair andI'm going back years now that that hair
ruled him out. I'm wondering ifthat hair is still in evidence someplace,
if it could potentially be tested toget a profile, and then well then
yeah, so if it still existed, yes, but based upon the photo

(18:45):
that I've seen that you sent meof that hair. I would guess that
the entire sample probably had to beused for mitochondrial DNA because it usually with
mitochondrial DNA they want about two centimetersworth of hair, and that appeared to
be you know, based upon thesize of the hair in relation to the

(19:07):
size of the stamp. My guessis they probably had to use the entire
sample. Now, it could bewrong. Maybe they said, okay,
we're only going a youth half andlet's see what we can get with half.
And so if that's the case,then yes, genealogy could be attempted,
although they also like to have alittle bit more to work with than
you know, about two centimeters isusually what they're asking for as well.

(19:32):
The other possibility would be if,potentially, if there was DNA extract remaining.
I'm not sure if the lab coulddo any work. Like let's say
the FBI or whomever did the mitochondrialtesting did have to use the entire hair.
They may have a portion of liquidwhich would contain you know, the

(19:56):
DNA extract. It would be possible. I don't know, because I don't
know Austria. Australia's protocols, butperhaps they could work with whatever remained in
terms of the liquid extract, Sothat would be another possibility to consider.
It's interesting and you bring up agood thing that you know, a lot

(20:17):
of people probably don't think about backyou know, whether it's ten, fifteen,
twenty years ago, whenever they werereally getting started with DNA, it
took a lot more sample up whenthey did testing versus now. Can you
explain and relatively easy to understand terms, how you can do more with less

(20:38):
in two thousand and twenty three thanyou could say you could do, say
back in the early nineteen nineties.Oh yeah, that's like that's like night
and day. I mean, youknow, we're talking about the differences between
you know, ten years ago orsomething like that. But ten years ago
we were still doing the same basictype of testing. We're doing short tandem

(20:59):
repeat testing, which is short sectionsof DNA found along the DNA molecule that
consists of a specific pattern. Thepattern will repeat over and over again,
so we're not looking at the entireDNA molecule. We're just looking at these
little sections of DNA and then makingmany copies of those little sections of DNA.
So Prior to str testing, therewas a type of testing called RFLP,

(21:26):
which stands for restriction fragment length polymorphism. And with that type of testing,
you had to have a lot ofDNA and it had to be non
degraded. It could not be brokendown at all because the restriction RFLP testing

(21:49):
you use something called a restriction enzyme. And you can think of this as
like little molecular scissors that would goin at certain areas and cut the DNA.
Say okay, I'm going to cuthere, and then I'm going to
go away along the DNA molecule,maybe hundreds and hundreds of bass pairs and
cut again, and that's one ofmy fragments. But they're really really long

(22:11):
fragments. So if you had DNAthat was already broken down, those molecular
scissors would be going along trying tocut and they couldn't find the right place
because it's already broken down. It'salready degraded and broken apart. And so
they had to use you know,blood blood stains or seamen stains, saliva
stains, like like a blood stainsthe size of a quarter to get a

(22:34):
profile we can get I can geta. I mean, I could have
a blood stain so small I can'teven see it with the naked eye I
can get today, we can getresults with like five or ten cells worth
of DNA, So you know,a blood stain would that size we're talking
about I don't know. I don'teven know how hundreds of thousands of cells

(22:56):
worth of DNA. So that's thedifference is that we're using much smaller amounts
and it can be degraded. Aslong as the portion of DNA that we're
trying to copy has not broken down, then we can still get results.
And sometimes you can have a profileor you can have a sample that is

(23:18):
partially degraded. So some of thebigger pieces of DNA that we try to
test might be broken down and youmight not get a result there, but
you can still probably get results atthese smaller, smaller locations. And that's
another thing that's an advance today isthat the kits, the chemicals that we're

(23:41):
using today have incorporated what we callmini STRs, so they're like these whole
bunch of little, teeny tiny sectionsof DNA that are the least likely to
break down and degrade. So againwe might be able to get results with
the seven ten twelve mini str Lowsieand you don't get results with the other

(24:03):
twelve, but still that's a that'sa good portion of a profile to do
comparisons with. So there was aDNA I don't know if you'd call it
a flow chart or just notes thatwere released in the from the SFPD about

(24:26):
suspected zodiac correspondences and what if anythingwas found in the way of DNA sells.
And you've had a chance to lookthat over. When you read that,
what do you see there that's youknow, potentially good or not so
good? M okay, So itlooks like, you know, at least

(24:48):
the information that I'm looking at,basically, it seems like there there's no
DNA testing uh listed on this correspondence. It's kind of like what I would
call the preliminary analysis. And itappears that this lab is doing something that

(25:10):
we probably really wouldn't even bother withtoday, which is it looks like they've
taken a sample from the various differentzodiac correspondence material and extracted it. So
probably either a cutting or a swabbingfrom the you know, the envelope flaps

(25:33):
stamps things like that, maybe evenjust the actual item itself, like you
could swab if somebody just submitted acard or a handwritten letter, I could
swab that. And I mean Ihave taken not in the zodiac case,
but swabbed letters, even typed letters, and if a person's hand is brushing

(25:57):
on that page while writing the letter, I've gotten profiles from that. So
it's unclear to me what exactly hasbeen swabbed or sampled from these items.
I'm guessing probably the envelope flaps andunderneath the stamps. But what has been
done, according to this document issample collected, placed in probably placed in

(26:22):
a small tube. Liquid added,whether that's water or some sort of extraction
buffer to try to get any ofthe cellular material into solution. And then
a portion of that solution has beenadded to a microscope slide. And whoever
did this, this analyst looked ata portion under the microscope and determined whether

(26:47):
cells were present. So again that'ssomething that we probably would not I mean,
I would not do that today becausein my opinion, that would be
sort of wasting sample, right becauseonce it's on that microscope slide, you're
really not going to use that inthe DNA analysis process. And we know
that DNA is so we used tothink, like with touch DNA contact DNA,

(27:15):
that the DNA was just in thecells the nucleus of the cells,
right, So if you didn't seea cell, you're not going to get
a result. But that's not thecase. We know now that you can
get DNA from fingerprints, from handprints, even if cellular material like what we

(27:38):
call a nucleated epithelial cell, sobasically a skin cell with a nucleus present,
even if you don't see those,you can still get a DNA profile
because there's something called cell free DNAand it is basically free floating DNA that
is brought to the surface and comesout through your cores, you know,

(28:00):
brought to the surface through sweats orother mechanisms, and it is just presence
on the surface of your skin.So in this case, he's looked at
these items for cells and he's notingor he or she is noting cells found
or you know, few cells.In my opinion, if you're actually seeing

(28:22):
cells under a microscope, you've gota really good chance of getting a profile,
because I know you can get aprofile even if you don't see cells
under the microscope, that's very veryinteresting. So basically, in Layman's terms,
the view seeing cells means that thezodiac most likely, assuming these are

(28:45):
his cells, he shed DNA onthese samples that were looked at. In
other words, someone did, right, So there's a cellular material, So
I don't know whose it is,but that tells me that it's likely that,
especially in this case, that it'sprobably from there's a good chance it's

(29:06):
from saliva. Right, So ifyou're seeing cells, because there's lots of
epithelial cells in your saliva, andso that's always one thing we have to
think about when we're talking about underyou know, stamps or envelope flaps.
Did someone use you know, waterfor sponge and water for example, to
wet the envelopes or did they lickthe envelope flap? And so since there

(29:30):
are cells they're being observed, thatindicates likely more likely than not that there
was actually saliva present. So today, if those if those samples, those
items still existed, I think thatyou would have a good chance of getting
DNA DNA results, assuming they werestored properly. How to see all of

(29:55):
these that seem to have cells found. It just seems like there's a much
It seems like a higher chance.It's not like they say, I'll say
no cells found or something. Alot of cells seem to have been found.
So assume they're they're from the zodiacand they are saved properly. It

(30:15):
seems like, as you mentioned,a profile could be generated from me.
So what might be taking so long? Just again, without having any insight
into what they're doing, why arewe not getting an answer to this case?
I mean, that's hard for meto answer because I don't know.
It's possible these items have been tested, but they were tested too long ago

(30:40):
where they didn't have a very goodchance of getting a result. You know,
So if these were tested in twothousand, two thousand and ten,
I don't know if you would havegotten a profile. You may have maybe
a partial profile, maybe not enoughto do any code of searching for example,

(31:00):
or something like that. It couldbe that, you know, it's
just a cold cases get kicked tothe back. And now I know this
is a super high profile cold case. But you know, when you're working
in a lab that is a governmentrun lab, and I have worked in
government run labs, the cold casesstay cold because the new cases, the

(31:26):
hot cases are coming in that haveto be worked right away. This person
is on the street, we needto find out who it is, you
know, so those are getting priority. And so I don't know, I
don't know if any testing has beendone and the sample has been consumed,
used up and there's nothing left totest. I don't know. That really

(31:49):
helps understand this. And I wantedto run one thing by you two So
back in two thousand, it wastwenty and twenty one, it was reported
from a source Tom Voyd, whoruns the Zodiac killer dot com website,
He had an insight source that saida DNA profile was developed and we don't

(32:13):
know where it was developed from.I'm assuming himself one of these envelopes or
letters or stamps. And the wayhe explained it and he didn't you know,
I don't know how much information hewas given or how it was explained
to him, but the way heexplained it to the world the rest of
us is the profile that was generatedwas from someone who could not possibly have

(32:37):
been Zodiac. So when you justhear something generic like that's what comes to
your mind. Does that mean theperson was maybe hispanic? Does that mean
the person was too young? Doesthat mean the person was female? So
they get this profile, but itcan't be the zodiac. What do you
think that could possibly mean? Yeah, well it could it could be too

(33:01):
young. That would be a possibilityif they got a profile and determined who
it was, And that's happened inother cases where you know, they've they
have this matching profile to some horrificcrime and then they look in the person
was three years old at the time, So okay, there's some either contamination
in the lab or contamination when youknow, handling the evidence or something like

(33:27):
that. So that's a possibility.I don't think if you're talking about race,
if they used traditional DNA testing,that's we can't make that determination.
So when I look at a DNAprofile, I can tell you whether there's
male or female DNA present, butthat's it. I can't tell you anything
about their ethnicity, you know,anything like that. Now, if there

(33:52):
was a DNA profile, if therewas DNA developed and it was sent to
like Parabond Nano Labs, who doesboth genealogy as well as like identity type
testing, then yes, that wouldbe a way they could if they could

(34:15):
say Okay, this person is mostlikely Hispanic or African American or you know
whatever. So that would be apossibility, I suppose if they did that
type of testing, I can't imagine. But even if that's the case,
I can't imagine someone being ruled outsolely on race. I understand that there's

(34:37):
some eyewitness testimony and things like that, but I can't imagine someone just saying,
oh, no, this person's morelikely to be Hispanic. I'm just
not going to pursue this lead.That doesn't make sense to me. So
another possibility would be the profile endedup matching an investigator or you know,

(34:59):
someone is so created with the casewhere they're like, oh, this is
contaminated, and so we have this, you know, database of people who
handled the evidence or process the evidencecollected, you know, some database that
they can compare to and say,Okay, we got a profile, but
unfortunately it's the letter carriers, DNAor you know whatever, I don't know

(35:22):
who all they've they've tested as alike an elimination database. So that would
be a possibility. Otherwise, I'mnot sure how they can come to the
conclusion that it's definitely not the Zodiac. Yeah, and it is secondhand information
that somebody else got that they triedto explain to the rest of the world

(35:44):
here and maybe something's being lost infor translation. But that's basically the excuse
we got. So it will beinteresting to see if they can go back
and find something else. So Iwant to I want to run through the
confirmed crimes that I want to zipthrough them pretty quickly because in the interest
of your time, So I'm gonnajust go through the cases one by one
of the confirmed cases, just tellyou basically what evidence there there is,

(36:07):
and you just give me a quickopinion on what should be looked at.
So you have the first victims,Faraday and Gentsen, killed in December nineteen
sixty eight. The evidence from thatcase is really shellcasings and bullets that were
recovered. What might reveal DNA inthat situation? Yeah, So are you

(36:30):
talking about bullets that have passed throughthe bodies or that you missed the bodies?
Okay, so bullets that have passedthrough the bodies, I don't think
you know, those are really goingto be useful because there's going to be
so much DNA from the victims themselvesthat you're not even if there was a
little bit of DNA from the perpetrator, it's going to be overwhelmed by the

(36:52):
blood and tissue and whatever from fromthe victims. So I don't think that's
useful. But the shell casings certaincould be Now. Of course, I'm
sure that these were handled without glovesright in nineteen sixty eight. I'm sure
that they are probably handled by multipleindividuals, so that that's going to complicate

(37:14):
matters. It may be possible ifyou had, you know, again kind
of like an elimination database of Okay, we know that this person collected them
and then they were handled by thefirearms examiner, so you know, you
have this kind of list of DNAprofiles from the people that you know handled

(37:34):
the items. They could still betested. You know, we're having a
lot more success with fired casings.There was like an original paper that came
out, I don't know, inthe nineties or something or latent, maybe
it's two thousands, and it waslike this small scale study someone did and
said, oh, no, you'renever going to get DNA from fire casings.
The temperatures too high. We justdidn't get any results, and everyone

(37:59):
seemed to take that as like theGod's honest truth, and never you know,
didn't do much else with it,just this this assumption that oh,
you'll never get DNA from that.And then finally someone did a more you
know, in depth study and foundit actually DNA can survive. And so

(38:19):
through the years we've we've found thatagain with the sensitivity of testing with different
techniques. You know, in ourlab we use as soaking and swabbing methods.
Instead of just taking a swab andwetting it and swatting a casing and
going forward with that swab, weactually take the whole casing, put it
in liquid extraction liquid and heat itgently and you know, agitation to try

(38:44):
to loosen. What we're trying todo is loosen any of the cells that
might have gotten caught up in thelike the head stamp of the case setting,
for example, in the grooves there, and then we swab the casing
and then combine that swab with thesoaking liquid. So we by doing that
process, we've increased the successfulness orthe ability to successfully recover DNA to almost

(39:10):
fifty per So that's like, youknow, one out of two casings typically
give us at least a partial profile. So with this case, and with
any case with casings if you had, you know, you could test them.
If you get a profile, youjust would need to compare that to
anyone who is known to have handledthe item. And even if it's a

(39:34):
mixture. So maybe the firearms examiner'sDNA is on the casing, but maybe
there's someone else's DNA there as well. That is, you know, can
be kind of separated out and pulledout and said, okay, now this
is our unknown person's DNA. Sothat would be a possibility with any of
the any of the cases where youhave fired casings and the case the next

(40:00):
case is Fairn and Mijoe from Julysixty nine. You've got the same thing
casings and bullets which you just touchedon. We have letters and envelopes in
that case too, which you talkedabout previously. It's really in September nineteen
sixty nine with the case of HeartnewnShepherd that there's a little bit of different

(40:21):
evidence. You have both closed linebindings, the plastic clothesline type stuff that
we're used as bindings by the killer. He had them pre cut and brought
them to the scene with him.He made the victim one of the victims,
tie up the other victim with them, and then you also have he

(40:45):
wrote on a card or so outof the bindings and the card door writing
what might we find? And letme before you say that, before you
get started, let me let youknow that the the bindings were tested and
this was what I mentioned was tested. I'm guessing close to ten years ago.

(41:07):
Now, okay, okay, Well, I would pretty much guarantee that
an MVAC was not used on theclothesline if it was ten years ago,
So it was probably just a swabbingor maybe even a cutting. Probably a
swabbing, and you know, Imean a swab there's a limit to what
like the swab is not one hundredpercent effective at picking up DNA, and

(41:30):
then it's not when you extract it. The extraction is not one hundred percent
efficient, So every step you're kindof losing some of that cellular material that
may be present. I have hadsuccess with m vacking items that have already
been swabbed, so it's it wouldbe possible to m vak the bindings and

(41:55):
see if we could pick up additionalDNA, you know, so I think
that would be worth worth attempting atleast now the car door writing. Did
they? Did they? Is thecar door still in evidence or you don't?
It is interesting was there. Didthe witnesses say that the perpetrators wearing

(42:24):
gloves? I believe they said hewas wearing gloves, But I don't know
if he was wearing gloves when hewrote on the car door, right right,
Okay, So if he was notwearing gloves when he wrote on the
car door, then I think there'sa really good chance you could pick up
DNA. Even if he was wearinggloves. It's a lower chance, but

(42:46):
it depends on what type of glovesand what all he touched. So even
if you're wearing gloves, you mightnot be leaving fingerprints, but you still
have the potential to leave DNA behind, because you know, if these are
gloves that he wore regularly and justgrabbed them and put them on, if
he is touching his own face orhair, or you know, during the

(43:08):
commission of this crime, if he'stouching his own body, he's again picking
up DNA from himself onto the surfaceof the gloves and then has the potential
to transfer those So I think eitherway, whether he was wearing gloves or
not, that would definitely be anitem worth collecting, trying to collect the

(43:30):
DNA from, and that that kindof goes into you know, I touched
on it briefly, the letters andenvelopes. I think in the past everyone
just thought of, oh, let'suh, let's swab or collect DNA from
under the flap or under the envelopewhere someone has licked the item. But
again, those letters, you know, it's going to depend on how many

(43:52):
people handled or touched them, ofcourse, but if you take a swab
or one or two swabs and blobthe entire surface of that letter, you're
probably going to be picking up DNAjust from someone writing it, someone's hand
coming into contact with it, someonefolding it. You swab along the creases
where someone has put pressure and youknow, pressed down and folded a letter,

(44:15):
good chance of getting DNA. Fascinating. You mentioned, you know,
wearing gloves, you would think thatwould block DNA from coming up, But
then you mentioned it they're touching theirface, wiping sweat off their head,
that kind of stuff. There's stillpotentially even with the gloves on too,
have left the DNA, which isreally fascinating. So then we have the
next crime. Oh and real quickbefore we move on, you mentioned MBAC.

(44:37):
You and I know what MBAC is, but for listeners out there that
don't know, can you do likea thirty second or sixty second quick abbreviated
version of what that is? Exactly? Sure thing? Yeah, it's it's
basically a wet vacuum that's made forforensic purposes. So you know, it's

(44:58):
sprays down a sterile liquid onto theonto the item you're testing, whether it's
you know, a shirt or aknife or whatever. The liquid is sprayed
down onto the surface of this item, and as it hits the item,
it basically is loosening any of thecellular material that might be present. And
at the same time, it's alsovacuuming up that liquid. So it sprayed

(45:22):
down loosen the cells, and thenit is that liquids collected into a collection
bottle. So now you have thisbottle of liquid that hopefully contains you know,
any cellular material, and then wepass that liquid through a filter,
a really fine filter where it's sofine that the cells can't pass through.

(45:46):
The liquid passes through, but anyof the cells stay on top of the
filter. And then that's what wecut that filter out and test it just
like any other sample. Fascinating sothat the final confirmed victim is Paul Stein
in October sixty nine, and I'mthinking this potentially is the case with the

(46:06):
most possible physical evidence that he wrotein the cab of Stein. The case
was of bullets were left. Wetalked about that already. A couple of
things that were found there are interesting. First off, a pair of gloves
were found in the car that mayor may not have belonged to the killer.
That's still sort of being debated.A second clue was a fingerprint believed

(46:30):
to be from the killer was foundin blood on the cab door. And
the third evidence is that evident afterthe murderer a couple of days later,
he mailed a shirt piece from thevictim that he tore off. So three
big pieces of evidence here, potentially. I'm curious what you think about those
three pieces of evidence in the Steincase. Okay, Well, the gloves

(46:53):
definitely would be a source of DNA, you know, just collecting from inside
gloves, certainly you could tell ata minimum if those belong to Stein or
not. I assume they would havea reference sample from him. So if
you're able to swab on the interiorof the gloves, you can either include
or exclude Stein. If he isexcluded, then it doesn't necessarily mean that

(47:17):
those are from the Zodiac and notfrom another passenger, But at least you
have an answer as to whether Steinwas included or excluded, whether they were
his gloves or not. And thenyou know, you would also be able
to tell if there's male or femaleDNA. So if it's female DNA,
okay, maybe a passenger left them, but that's probably also something you can

(47:37):
tell just by looking at the styleor size of the gloves. So yeah,
I mean, I definitely think thatthose would be a good source of
DNA. You may get a mixtureof DNA, but we have better methods
at like separating out the DNA thanwe used to some different software programs that

(48:01):
can help us do that. Andthen you mentioned the fingerprint and blood.
That one's going to be So ifit's if it's a fingerprint in blood from
the perpetrator, well yeah, absolutely, that's a fantastic item of evidence,

(48:21):
but it's probably more likely that it'sthe victim's blood, and so there it's
going to be really difficult to getperpetrator DNA because again you have now you
have this like really rich source ofDNA from the victim if that's his blood,
and only a small amount of DNAthat would be expected to be transferred

(48:45):
from from the zodiac, so youmight not see that second contributor. Now
this was a female victim, thenyou could do y STR testing, ignore
all of the mail DNA and justlook for the mail DNA. But since
you have a male victim, that'sthat's not going to be possible in that
case. And and just to clarifyto the listeners because I think this is

(49:08):
important, fingerprints themselves can sometimes dDNA correct. Oh yeah, yes,
right, And that's that's that's importanttoo, because there are latent and partial
prints throughout this case. There's pompprints from letters, so there are several
prints that may be zodiacs in thiscase. Right, So one of the

(49:32):
things you know, obviously you wantthose prints to be preserved and to be
able to be searched or compared.But that can be done through you know,
digital photography, and then you canYou're not always going to get a
profile. It's going to depend uponhow much cellular material is transferred. But
you know, prints are usually collectedusing tape, so you know, you

(49:59):
put down your black powder and thenyou're using this lifting tape to pull the
print up off of the surface andthen it's basically retained on you know,
kind of like an index card typeof thing. So whatever DNA was present
is preserved there, you know,is caught in between the tape and the

(50:21):
card. So now we can youknow, pull that apart and swab or
collect from the surface and try topick up any of those skin cells.
So, yes, that that issomething that can and have you know,
I've done that in other cases basicallywhere that's the only thing that's left is
just a few latent prints or they'renot usable prints, but they have still

(50:44):
retained them. There might be enoughDNA to get a profile from that.
The third piece of evidence was theripped and torn shirt. He actually climbed
into the from the seat with thevictim ripped and tore at his shirt,
cut it with a knife whatever youcan handle the shirt. Then he later
mailed at least two pieces of thatshirt to the police into an attorney.

(51:06):
So what potential DNA might there bein the pieces of shirt that were mailed
and on the shirt that was lefton the victim, the remaining shirt that
was on him. So that's yeah, so it's going to depend on if
there was blood present or not onthat particular location. So again, if
you have victims blood, that's gonnatend to mask or cover the smaller amounts

(51:31):
of DNA left behind from someone justtouching the item. But if there are
areas that we're not bloody, andif the shirt, especially if the shirt
was ripped versus cuts, I mean, even if it was cut, someone's
probably gonna hold one portion, youknow, hold a portion of the shirt

(51:52):
while they're cutting that piece off.But especially if it was ripped, you
have to use pressure, and youknow, there's more pressure and friction involved,
and those are things that tend toincrease the amount of DNA left behind.
So what you'd want to do istry to find an area along that
ripped edge that did not appear tobe bloody. That's going to give you

(52:14):
your best chance of you know,getting the perpetrators DNA. And again and
at least one of those portions ofthe shirt, we know we're handled by
other individuals and investigators, So that'ssomething to be aware of just when you're

(52:34):
trying to interpret the DNA results.And one last thing about the cab.
So you know, this is somethingthat I had a debate with somebody online.
They suggested, why not impact theentire cab and just sift through every
bit of DNA you get. Ithink I know the answer to that,
but I'm curious. Can you givean explanation of why that would be,

(52:55):
you know, a monumental task?Probably do. Yeah, it's because even
if this weren't a public vehicle oryou know, something that a lot of
people were sitting in m backing,it's going to pick up any of the
DNA that's present. So you havea cab where you have multiple, multiple

(53:16):
people at multiple times a day inand out of this vehicle, and they
all have the potential of leaving theirDNA behind. So I think that what
she would end up with is amixture of DNA that is so complex with
so many individuals that there's literally nothingyou can do with. So I don't
think that that would be a goodmethod. If you if they knew where,

(53:44):
like which seats the zodiac was sittingin, you could maybe try to
focus just on that particular area.I mean like I have m backed a
our seat cover in the past andpicked up some DNA consistent with someone who's

(54:06):
riding in the riding in the vehicle. So I guess my point is if
you were like able to pinpoint specificmore specific areas I do, I could
just think that would be pretty tough, because I do think that you'd get
so much of a mixture you couldn'tdo too much with. I wanted to

(54:27):
touch on some of these possible cases, especially the ones you worked on.
So going back to April nineteen sixtytwo Oceanside Ray Davis, obviously you have
some of the evidence we talked aboutcase and with bullets, letters and envelopes
that kind of stuff. What wasyour role in in the Davis case and
what were your opinions that you cameto or conclusions that you came to in

(54:51):
that case. So I did someendback collection on some items I don't I
did not do the DNA testing Iwanted to, but I tried really hard
to get the evidence sent to ourlab. But there was a grant like

(55:14):
kind of a case by case grantthat was being used to fund this testing,
and they funded the MBAC collection butnot the DNA testing. So the
investigators are using the their local laboratory, which would be the San Diego Sheriff's
office, And the last I heardfrom the investigator is that they're still just

(55:37):
waiting for results. They haven't beentested yet, and that's probably been a
couple of years. So this isone of those cold case things right where
it goes, and you know SanDiego has there's a big city, a
large area. They have a lotof cases that they have to work that
are coming in currently, and sothey have not been able to work those
back. I don't really want toget into the specific items, so I'm

(55:58):
not sure what all I can release, but we have some hope that these
items may have been contacted by theperpetrator, whether that Zodiac or someone else.
We think, you know that theperson who did this would have had

(56:19):
to Yeah, the person who didthis would have had to come into contact
with Ray with the items that weretested, So we're hoping to pick up
that person's DNA. Interesting and thenanother case you worked on with Sherry Joe
Bates October nineteen sixty six were overside. Now this one was another one that
seemed like there was a good amountof potential evidence. There. There were

(56:40):
cigarette butts that were collected at thescene that may or may not have been
from the killer. There was achunk of like flesh, like a clot
of you know, skin under inSherry's hand. In that case, you
actually did some work on her pants, if firm more correctly, what was

(57:04):
your role in Cherry's case and whatdid you find? What conclusions did you
come to so well, two thingswith this case. One is yeah,
I did, I'm back. Collectionon the pants also took a couple of
cuttings from blood stains that seemed alittle different in terms of they looked like

(57:30):
possible drips, like if the perpetratorcut himself and was bleeding, you know,
like standing upright, and then thatdripped down and made a nice perfect
circle instead of like a smear orsomething like that. And then there's also
a watch, a men's watch thatwe that I had already been tested,

(57:53):
but took it apart. I'm backthe band. I did not do the
DNA testing that was done by adifferent laboratory. They were able to get
some results, but it was fromthe watch. I don't think they got
much of anything from the watch.The pants the mixture low level mixture.

(58:22):
I don't think we even had areference sample or they had a reference sample
from Sherry herself to figure out whatis what portion of the DNA is being
contributed by her. And one ofthe reasons we didn't have a reference sample
is that the prior lab, theRiverside lab, had tried to get use
one of the blood stains. There'sthere was a lot of staining on the

(58:43):
pants and they tried to use oneof those stains as a reference sample for
Sherry. So they're assuming, Okay, she's the one doing doing most of
the bleeding, so let's get herDNA from one of these blood stains.
They were not able to get aprofile from the blood stain, So that
tells you how degraded these samples were. So my understanding is they were not

(59:06):
stored in the heat controlled environment,and so the DNA is virtually all degraded
from from these from her case there, I will say that to Riverside credit.
They are still working on this case. You know, there's still looking

(59:28):
into the evidence. We we havesome of the evidence of our lab right
now, so you know, Imean, it's it's something that is still
it's not something that they've forgotten aboutor given up on. So I think
that, you know, going tokeep trying. I just don't think that
the evidence was stored in the bestAnd I'm not saying this is you know

(59:50):
two sayingthing negative about Riverside. It'sjust this is in the nineteen sixty six
like where you know how many casesexactly, and you run out of storage
room, you got to move itto an offsite storage facility. And if
that offsite storage facility isn't temperature controlledor you know, then you're you're exposing
the evidence to heat and humidity andthings like that. It just it's gonna

(01:00:17):
break down over time. Yeah,And there were two other pieces in one
you mentioned. One I actually forgotabout was the watch that was found at
the scene that presumably could have comefrom the killer. Did you examine the
watch at all? I did,yes, Yeah, and find anything interesting
there. I mean it had alreadybeen through. You could tell, like

(01:00:37):
because of markings on the watch thatmultiple laboratories had looked at this watch before.
Our thought was perhaps DNA from theperpetrator has kind of sunk through the
band because my recollection was a leatherband and would be more like protect did

(01:01:00):
or less contaminated from sort of theinterior of the band. So I split
the band open. I sliced itopen with a scalpel and tried to collect
from the inside of the band.I think I did the outside of the
band as well, but again thatwas sent to a different laboratory for testing.

(01:01:21):
This was back in sixteen seventeen,the lab that I work at.
I was I was not working atthe at Paarabo Forensics at the time,
or we would have done it ourselves. But again, this is an item
that you have a couple of thingsgoing on. Number one, it's old.
Number two, it probably hasn't beenstored properly. And number three,
it's leather, which is a knowninhibitor of the DNA analysis process or the

(01:01:46):
copying process. So it was atough sample to work with, and I
don't think the lab was able toget either. Either they got a few
DNA types here and there, orthey got nothing at all I can't remember
right now, but nothing that wascomparable, which is a shame because you

(01:02:07):
think a watch would potentially be anice collecting thing for for DNA. And
one other case I want to askyou about and this was one that Before
we move on, I just wantto ask you about the the clotted hair
in Sherry's hand. Did you examinethat at all? I did not know.
I don't. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I'm not aware

(01:02:29):
of that sample. Will just putit that way. I'm not working and
to be honest, I'm not workingon the additional evidence from the that a
colleague of mine is doing the anyof additional testing. I don't recollect that
sample doesn't mean it doesn't exist.I just don't. I don't recall it
right now. Sure, and potentiallythough a clotted hair with a you know,

(01:02:51):
skin at the base of it couldpotentially be a good clue to work
with though from a DNA standpoint,absolutely, and you can be sure that,
you know, I mean, ifthere are hairs hairs remaining, then
we would definitely, you know,we would take a look at them to
see if there's any root material present. Because if there is a root and
the root is in the proper stageof growth, that's meaning there's living you

(01:03:15):
know, there's cellular material present,then it's always best to try to do
regular str you know, the normalDNA testing, because then you can do
a direct comparison to any of yoursuspects. If there isn't, we would
just certainly recommend asteria. So youknow, we're going to do whatever is

(01:03:35):
best for the evidence, so atleast rest assured that the team, if
you know, if this exists andwe have it, the items will be
properly processed or sent to a laboratorythat you know, if we can't do
it ourselves, we're going to sendit to a lab that's going to be
able to get the best have thehighest chances of getting the best results.

(01:03:57):
And then the last case I wantto ask you about is one you didn't
work on, which is Robert Domingosand Lynda Edwards. They were killed in
Santa Barbara County in June nineteen sixtythree. They were shot. So we've
talked about casings, bullets being youknow, found, pre cuts of length,
pre cut lengths of rope were found, sort of like in the other
case we mentioned, but a coupleof different things that were different. Here

(01:04:21):
is the victim, the female victimsbathing suit was cut with a knife,
so possibly the killer handled her herbathing suit. There were wooden matches used
to start a fire, and thenalso their bodies were dragged to a shack,
so there's a few clues there.What might be found in regards to

(01:04:42):
those things. Mm okay, yeah, the lengths of rope, so that's
interesting because yeah, they had thatthat was previous the clothesline in the other
case, So yeah, the ropemight yet I would want to end back
that and might have a better chanceof getting results than the plastic clothesline,

(01:05:04):
just because DNA is going to adherea little bit better be retained a little
bit better on like a fiber orcloth type of rope versus plastic. So
I think yeah, that you couldyou could focus on the areas that had

(01:05:25):
been cut and either swab or Iwould prefer obviously I'm backing those cuts areas,
and then bathing suit. I meanif it was cut with a knife,
I mean I there would be apossibility the perpetrator's hand would come into
contact with the bathing suit, sothat there might be a possibility that probably

(01:05:47):
wouldn't be my primary area to atest wooden matches. Sure you might be
able to get something from that,but there's a smaller item, so you
know, you have to can thinkabout the surface area you know, or
how how much contact would it bepossible? Sure, it'd be possible,

(01:06:08):
and then the body is being carriedto the checks. So that's interesting.
So that's definitely something that any ofthe clothing items. Now it sounds like
if they're on the beach, maybeDomingos, I don't know if he had
a shirt on or not, butif he did, then focus on like
the underarm area or if they hadpants on. If some, then that's

(01:06:31):
going to depend on whether were theydragged by their feet or were they dragged
under their arms. So you know, if you can if a determination can
be made based upon drag marks inthe in the sand or something like that,
then you you have an idea ofwhat areas to focus on, right,
so you can say, Okay,i'm gonna I'm gonna m back under
the arms or I'm gonna m backyou know, if they had socks or

(01:06:55):
shoes or pants or anything that someonewould have come into contact with, then
those are great areas to m backand try to pick up that perpetrator's DNA.
So that's that's it for run throughon the victims that I want to
as we wrap up, I wantto just ask you So if Susannah Ryan
is given full carte blanche, youget access to every bit of evidence in

(01:07:18):
every case we discussed here today,and you resources funds are not an option.
You can do whatever you want.What are you doing to try and
solve this case? Goodness? Yeah, I mean obviously I would need access
to figure out like what was testedand what wasn't. It seems like there's

(01:07:41):
an awful lot of letters and communicationin this case that I'm not sure we're
fully tested or you know, we'reagain talking about maybe the stamps and flaps
were, but what about the restof the letter? So I think any
of those letters could be sampled orresampled. I think any of the hairs,

(01:08:05):
if they still exist, let's let'sdo send those for snip testing.
There seems to be a lot ofcasings again to work with. So I
do think that there's a lot ofevidence in this case, just because there's
so many different cases. Now you'regonna have to be aware of contamination and

(01:08:27):
things like that. But if youstart testing a lot of these items of
evidence and you start seeing the sameperson's profile on multiple pieces of evidence,
especially if they're from different jurisdictions,So you know that the same investigators didn't
come into contact with these same items. Then it starts to paint a picture
of you know, who, whois the real what DNA is the real

(01:08:49):
the real zodiacs of DNA? Right, So, you know, it's such
an old case. It's it's notit's not going to be easy. It's
not going to be a case thatis a slam dunk. But I do
think that there's definitely items of evidencethat probably have not been looked at or
haven't been looked at in a longtime, and deserve a second chance to

(01:09:11):
you know, kind of look atthese items and do the testing and try
to put this together. Because mygoodness, there's so many, so many
families and people involved in how manyinvestigative hours have been spent on this case
that it would make sense at thispoint to get the funding or take the
funding and just test everything that thatthat's left and go forward with it.

(01:09:35):
Today. And we have such advancementstoday that I think that either through traditional
testing or really through genetic genealogy,you have a good chance of a better
chance of finding zodiac Yeah, andwe see cases being solved every every week.
It seems like there's a new story. The cases are getting older and

(01:09:56):
older, thirty forty years old insome cases. And and so one thing,
obviously, I gave you the scenarioif if if you were handed all
this evidence and they said go solvethese cases and funds weren't a problem,
you know, spend as much asit takes. Obviously that hasn't happened.

(01:10:17):
But you know, one thing peopletalk about is is this not happening or
not happening faster? Because it's fundsare an issue. I know people like
yourself are sometimes willing to help withdonating time or discounting cost anything to make
it easier for these agencies. Canyou just talk a little bit about that

(01:10:42):
and what someone like yourself can doto help these agencies out that might be
in a not the best financial situationor whatever. Sure, yeah, I
mean we're always willing to discount cases, especially when you have multiple items of
evidence. So that's something that youknow, we're definitely willing at our laboratory
to do to say, Okay,if you're going to send me ten twenty

(01:11:05):
items, and yeah, I candefinitely give you a discount on each of
those items. I think also thatyou know, with with crowd sourcing,
you know, crowdfunding type of stuff, or there are some you know,
I mentioned the Ray Davis case thatwas true a grant. There's an agency
or organization called Season of Justice thatthey're the ones that provided the funding for

(01:11:30):
some of that initial testing. SoI think that there are ways out there
to obtain the funding to do thetesting. It just there has to be
someone you know, in charge orthat has access to the evidence that's willing
to to release that evidence, toget it together and say okay, this

(01:11:51):
is what this is what we wantdone and look for funding there. You
know, again creative ways to findfunding. There's some agencies that will fund
cases through like money and things seesthrough drug cases. They use those funds
for outside DNA testing. There arefederal grants available, so there are ways

(01:12:14):
to get it done. You justhave to have the person that is in
charge of making those decisions that wantsto move forward with it. Well that's
that's promising, So it shouldn't bea hurdle as far as funding and people
like your stuff that can do thiswork. So SFPD, if you're listening,
call Susannah up. She's got awebsite. You know, there's there's

(01:12:43):
no real excuse not to do this, And you know, I think it's
just frustrating that we're not seen morebecause there are so many communications, there
are multiple victims and multiple jurisdictions thatit's just it's just a case that a
lot of us hope to see solvedand it just seems like it's going agonizingly

(01:13:03):
slow. So to close after,I'm going to ask you to put on
the spot. You've got a lotof money to bet on this case being
solved. They're not solved. Theyare you saying, are you betting it's
going to be solved? There?It's not going to be solved. Don't
give me bad I'm gonna say.I'm going to say I am betting that

(01:13:26):
with all the evidence in this case, all those letters and communications, all
the victims, you know, differentevidence collected from the different crime scenes.
I think, you know, it'sa little bit of a needle in a
haystack, but I think it canbe solved. So, you know,
I do think that you have withwith the advancements we have today in DNA

(01:13:47):
testing, and I think we canget a profile and at least get something.
I think there is going to bea genealogy case. Frankly, I
don't you know. We get aprofile today, I don't think it's going
to match somebody in codis. Ithink it's we get a profile, we
can include or exclude suspects from it. But if everyone's excluded, Frankly,

(01:14:10):
I think that it's going to bea forensic genealogy case where we get enough
DNA from one of those stamps orenvelopes or something, and then that's submitted
and searched in the databases that Ithink that's the way it's going to be
solved. That's where I'm putting mymoney. And just so one more time,
where can people find you? Ifthere's anybody out there that needs your

(01:14:32):
services, how do they go aboutgetting a hold of you? You can
reach me through my consulting company,which is Ryan Forensic DNA Consulting, and
I have a website there, RyanForensic Dna dot com. Or if you
want DNA testing done, then youcan reach out to myself or my colleagues

(01:14:54):
at Pure Gold Forensics, and wehave a website there, Cheergo Forensics dot
com and all of our contact informationis on there, so you can email
or call and be happy to helpyou out well. Thank you so much,
Susannah. This was a wealth ofinformation. I appreciate thinking of the

(01:15:15):
time to come on and discuss thecase. Sure thing, Yeah, no
problem. Thanks for joining us forthis episode of Zodiac Speaking. Please make
sure you're subscribed to the show whereveryou're listening now so you don't miss a
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we'd love to hear from you.You can find Zodiac Speaking on Twitter

(01:15:36):
with a handle at podcast Zodiac,or you can search Facebook for Zodiac Speaking
podcast and don't forget. You canget plenty of Zodiac details twenty four seven
by visiting my site at zodiac sipersdot com or by going to mic site
at Zodiac Killer dot net. Ifyou'd like to help more people find Zodiac

(01:15:59):
Speaking, please take a moment torate the show and leave a review of
it on your favorite podcast player orapp. On behalf of Rich. This
is Mike Morford and i'd like tosay thanks again for listening and we'll see
you on the next episode of ZodiacSpeaking.