Leigh Allen's Sister-in-Law continued

They felt that Allen was a gtood subject but theylet him go for lack of physical evidence. They thought for sure that he was their man. The psychologist had Allen's sister-in-law Sheila back in and, with Lt. Husted put her under deep hypnosis. When she remembered a paper with strange lines of symbols she had seen in Allen's hand in 1969, Lt. Husted decided to see if she could redraw these figures. In automatic writing, she slowly drew four lines of symbols. Automatic writing is usually sprawling but hers were straight and even, gridlike, just like the Zodiac's. The symbols closely resembled the third line of the Zodiac 340-character cipher. As the hypnotic session progressed and the woman spoke more and more about Allen, she began to tremble and shake; her knuckles turned white. They finally had to stop the session. The psychologist and the sister-in-law weren't the only ones afraid of Allen. His own mother was also afraid of him. Though she lived in the same house, she kept traveling constantly around the U. S. and Europe. The P. O. and sister in law thought it was to get away from him. Pension money from Allen's deceased father was probably the capital used to finance the trip.

Leigh Allen and Women

After Leigh got out of Atascadero in 1978, he underwent a series of psychiatric tests in Santa Rosa with a psychiatrist. He came to a conclusion that Leigh was extremely dangerous and is a sociopath and he is highly intelligent and incapable of functioning with women in a normal way. He was called a sociopath near the end of sessions. When Leigh talked to the psychiatrist he thought he was repressing a very deep hatred.

When Allen was halfway done the psychologist started to hypnotized Allen's sister-in-law. As he got further and further into her mind and asked about Leigh's darker side, the psychologist realized that the reactions were not of the normal type. More and more suspicions about Allen began to show up. The doctor had to know who Leigh was and why so many people were interested in him. The psychologist was becoming more and more afraid of his subject. (to be continued)

The A, B, C Murders by Agatha Christie

Arthur Leigh Allen told Ralph Spinelli that he could perform a service for him. This had to do with contract killing where a contract killing could be put in the middle of a couple of others so as not to be noticed. The idea came from the Agatha Christie book, The A, B, C Murders. I may have mentioned this earlier in this blog site.

The Zodiac killer, in a note on November 9, 1969, said he might change his way of collecting slaves. It was part of a seven page letter and read as follows.

This is the Zodiac speaking. Up to the end of October I have killed seven people. I have grown rather angry with the police with their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way of the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone when I commit my murders. They shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger & a few fake accidents, etc. The police shall never catch me because I have been too clever for them. I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing. The rest of the time I look entirely different. I shall not tell you what my disguise consists of when I kill. As of yet I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what the police say.
                                                                                                        
                                                                                      

The Most Dangerous GameThe Most Dangerous

The Most Dangerous Game was 1 1932 RKO movie based on Richard Connell's 1924 short story about the tale of a mad hunter, Count Zaroff, who uses fake channel lights to lure passing ships onto the rocky reefs just off his island stronghold. the survivors of the sunken ships become human game to be hunted in the count's private jungle. Zaroff, played by Leslie Banks, is a tall, suave Russian with a jagged scar on his forehead. The injury has become a symbol of his madness. " My life has become one glorious hunt," he tells his prisoners. " It would be impossible for me to tell you how many animals I have killed. One night as I was lying in my tent with this --this head of mine, a terrible thought crept like a snake into my brain: hunting animals was beginning to bore me....when I lost my love for hunting, I lost my love of life, of love. Here on my island I hunt the most dangerous game, that of humans." "Only after the kill does man know the true ectasy of love," says Zarloff. :It is the natural instinct. Kill, then love!" says Zarloff. "When you have known that you have known ectasy!" With his pack of dogs, the count, dressed all in black, his costume's folds gathered andcinched at wrists and ankles, a foot long knife in a sheath on his left side, a rifle in his right hand, races through the fog in persuit of a young couple.

As a side note it should be noted the Zodiac's identity may have been concealed in the cipher sent to the S. F. Chronicle. Two others were sent to the S. F. Examiner and the Vallejo Times-Herald respectively. As I tried Arthur Leigh Allen's name it fit all but for the need of one more L. But----as I tried the second name, using letters positioned the correct way, it was a perfect fit! There were just enough letters! Before I went any further, my associate, Ricardo X, was going to research this to see if this person was alive and for further information. More will probably follow.

Paul Avery's Postcard

In March of 1971 a post card arrived at the Chronicle. It was addressed to Paul Avery and covered with newspaper cutouts of pictures and phrases. The phrases " Sought victim  12," and "peek through the pines," "pass Lake Tahoe areas," "Sierra Club," and around in the snow" had been cut from the newspaper and glued down. Zodiac had decorated the edges with half-moon cuts made by a conductor's punch. Pasted to the back of the card was an artist's rendering of what was later discovered to be an ad for Forest Pines, a condominium village currently under development near Incline Village on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Victim number twelve may have been Donna Lass, twenty five, a pretty nurse with frosted blond hair, who had been missing since 9-6-70, after she left work at the Sahara Hotel in Stateline, Nevada. The casino nurse's car was found near her small apartment, but there was no sign of a struggle and only her purse and the clothes she was wearing were missing. An unidentified male caller had told Donna's landlord of an illness in her family. The call was a lie. By telephone, detectives in San Francisco and Nevada tried to divine the meaning of the enigmatic "around in the snow."And had Donna been killed and buried near the new development? The ad for the condos had run in the S. F. Chronicle two days before.

If you look at the post card just to the right of center you will see a "round" shape like a donut. This could be the a "round" in the snow the killer was talking about.

After Blue Rock

Darlene Ferrin was dead on arrival at 12:38 A. M. At exactly 12:40 the Zodiac placed a call through an operator from a pay phone to the Vallejo Police Department switchboard operator Nancy Slover. "I want to report a double murder, " the Zodiac said. There was no trace of an accent in the voice and it seemed to Slover that the man was reading what he was saying, or had rehearsed it. " If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find kids in a brown car." The Zodiac's voice was even and consistent, soft but forceful. Nancy tried to interrupt him to get more information but he just talked louder, talking over her voice. He continued until he finished his statement. "They were shot with a 9-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. "G o o d- b y e." When he said "g o o d- b y e' " the man's voice was taunting and it deepened. Nancy Slover heard the Zodiac hang up and then all she heard was the dial tone.

After he hung up' the killer must have stood for a minute in the lighted phone booth. Suddenly the phone began to ring. A middle aged black man in shabby clothes who was passing by looked over and saw the stocky Zodiac in the booth. Turning away, the killer opened the door of the phone booth, turning off the light. To stop the phone from ringing he unhooked it and let it hang down. He then walked quickly off into the night.

As a side note, Nancy Slover participated in some of the field trips that were held in the Zodiac case in recent years. She died of cancer some time ago.

On March 3, 1977 the FBI had  requested copies of all the Zodiac letters. Even in 11977 the bureau was still poking  around in the Zodiac case. The top psycholinguistics expert in the country, Dr. Murray S. Miron, working from nineteen of the killer's letters, came to these conclusions about Zodiac in a secret Syracuse Research Institute report: Zodiac " has had some exposure to our training in elementary cryptography" and " is a Caucasian unmarried male in his twenties. He is no more than high school educated, reads little, is isolated, withdrawn, and unrelated in his habits, quiet and unprepossessing in disposition" Miron felt the killer had good eyesight and was " a discretionary illiterate, " someone who prefers " the passiveness of pictures, T V, and the movies" and does not even have a library of " cheap pocket books." Zodiac, in Miron's opinion, "would have spent much time in movie houses specializing in sado-masochistic and occult eroticism" and was " a borderline psychotic... His communications display the characteristic signs of magical thinking, and narcissistic infantilism typical of the schizophrenic. "Zodiac rather well fits the pattern of what might be called pseudoreactive schizophrenia...Such individuals engage in their bizarre behavior as sort of a cover up for their underlying and more hidden psychosis. They can be expected to display wide swings of emotion from intense euphoria to deepest depression. "He lives the secret life of seclusion and presents to the world a mask of containment, pleasantness and ordinariness." Miron thought thee December 1969 letter to Melvin Belli contained hints of the depression that " frequently overtakes him... It is not unlikely thatn in one of those virulent depressions, such individuals could commit suicide." Because of  Zodiac's concern with control, Miron felt he would shun the "disinhibiting effects of alcohol," and would avoid norman sexual contacts with women."

Zodiac's Profile - con't - Possible Risk Addition

The Zodiac is intelligent in a "gifted way", a criminal way. He is probably between the ages of 65 and 75, if he is still alive and he most likely is. He vascillates between a feeling of Godlike omnipotence and a sense that he doesn't exist at all. He is legally impaired in that violence and love/sex are hopelessly tied in a convoluted knot or knots. If he lies in his letters a good psychiatrist should be able to tell in an instant! He'll go on and on and on.

He seems to be driven by a risk addition in that he can take risks, law inforcement, and still survive them where others can't. The greater the risk the greater the proof of his omnipotence--his existence. All additions are progressive. The only thing that will stop him is death. Hurting others or killing others is incidental therefor he is a danger to others and himself.

In the letters that he sent over the years it seems that he almost wants to be caught but this seems to be the pattern of many serial killers from Manson to Bundy.

About Don Cheney

Don Cheney is an engineer who went back to roughly 1962 with Leigh Allen. According to the Director's cut DVD Cheney and two other students were renting an apartment while going to college when Arthur Leigh Allen became acquainted with them. Leigh seemed to show a violent streak in some of his conversations with them and one of them named Sandy didn't like his personality. However as time went by Leigh was fired from a teaching job for child molestation and came to Cheney after he served time in Atascadero for help in writing a resume'. Allen took Cheney for a ride one day on Lake Herman road near a "lovers lane" area and did the same at a similar area at Blue Rock Springs. It was at these areas Allen's dark side came out and he said what he would like to do to a young girl and it wasn't pretty. Cheney went to the police some time after this and reported that Allen wanted to become the Zodiac. Nothing was done. Cheney also went to Allen's trailer. While he was there Allen asked him to lick stamps on thank-you notes he was sending out. This automatically put Cheney's DNA on the envelopes. Cheney didn't like this because Arthur Leigh Allen was becoming the major suspect in the Zodiac case. Detective Bawart of the Vallejo Police Dept. Decided to do a polygraph test on Cheney. I think he took him up to Tacoma, Wash. for a test and he drank too much the night before and could not take the test. He took it the next day and it came back inconclusive. Bawart didn't like this. Back at Allen's trailer Allen introduced Cheney to an older gentlemen next door and suddenly the old man gave Allen a dressing down. He said "I've seen what's going on over there and...". Leigh Allen said "Someday I'm going to kill that old man." Time went on and one day Bawart got a phone call saying Arthur Leigh Allen was dead and that was that. Allen's DNA didn't match the second time it was tried. This was 1992 I believe. D. Lathers

Darlene's House Painting Party

It was Darlene's painting party that finally induced Karen to stop baby-sitting for Darlene. Darlenehad most of her new friends over to the Virginia Street house to help her clean it up, and Karen stayed with Dena. Three young men arrived whowere so strange that they made Karen uncomfortable and so she left the house. Too, she had grown tired of covering up for Darlene's running around with other men, a guilt that had preyed on her mind for the last five months. Darlene's younger brother, Leo Suennen, was at the party, as well as the Mageau twins, Mike and David, close friends of Darlene who outdid themselves trying to do her favors. The other guests were Jay Eisen, Ron Allen, Rick Crabtree, Paul the bartender Steve Baldino, and Howard "Buzz" Gordon, the latter two Vallejo cops. The only other woman there was Darlene's friend Sydne. Darlene called her sister, Linda Del Buono at about noon and asked her to come over. It was Linda who had first pointed out Darlene's increasing nervousness and physical degeneration. Darlene would not admit to any problems. Dean saw no change in his wife. While Linda was on her way over, another guest, a stocky man, arrived at Darlene's new house. Overweight...he was five feet eight inches tall or so. Of course he was sitting down most of the time. Darlene was so nervous, she was so nervous. Darlene told her sister not to talk to him. He was a well dressed guy with glasses. He had dark hair. Darlene probably met him in the Virgin Islands. Darlene mentioned a little about drugs. People went into the bedroom all the time. Some of the guests overheard the well dressed man badgering Darlene about her sources of income. Darlene seemed to be very afraid of this man.......From Graysmith's 1996,2007 Zodiac paperback.
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Lets go back to Silence of the Lambs. In order for this method of capturing the killer to work you have to have a definite suspect. Then you have to shadow this person to see what he sees every day. This can take a considerable amount of time and include a number of people working on this part of the case. Chances are that you will work a long time until you can move in and catch him. Arthur Lee Allen was the favorite suspect of most of the detectives and was watched for a long time. This also usually is a 24 hour type of  watching and is a big operation. This, for example, is for only one person and you can see how the watching can expand for watching three or four or more people. In the meantime other crimes are

Zodiac Profile & Silence of the Lambs

I suspect there were a bunch of people put away for life who were potential Zodiac-type killers. But now that you can't keep people longer than ninety days people like that are getting out. Until 1969 people could be committed for life to a mental hospital on pretty flimsy grounds. There was this drastic change where it became difficult to committ someone. You had to have concrete evidence of either suicidal acts or an act of violence toward others.


The following statements are probably the most important in this Zodiac blog site. This is for my Zodiac fans and Ricardo and John L. In the 1991 movie "Silence of the Lambs" there is a statement given by Hannible Lecter on how to catch a serial killer. He quotes the Roman Senator Marcus Aurelius from 2000 years ago. Anthony Hopkins tells Jodie Foster "simplicity . Of each particular thing ask what is it in itself? What is its nature ? What Does the Zodiac do? What needs does he serve by killing? He covets. That is his nature. How do we begin to covet? We begin to covet by what we see every day." Hopkins did not use the word Zodiac but the same dynamics apply in the Zodiac case in the present day . These statements are also for Dr. G in Vallejo, Ca. If we know where the Zodiac lives and where he goes every day is should prove invaluable in catching him if he's still alive. Even if he isn't it should help bringing closure to the case. It is extremely important to use these ideas.

Zodiac'sPsychological Profile

From R Graysmith's Zodiac 2007 paperback. Profile of a sexual sadist. It's usually a man , less than 35, clever, physically strong, and quite intelligent. He has or has had a passive, mean, or distant father and a dominant mother who gives affection and rejection at odd times. The sexual sadist seeks revenge toward his mother, fantasizes her death, but is perversely in love with her. In most cases he has a few social or sexual affiliations and has never had normal sexual intercourse. Murder is the only successful relationship he can have with a woman. His victims are a substitute for his true aim, his mother, who is often the last victim.He has a past history of animal torture in his young life. He kills his pets as substitutes for humans. It's unknown why sexual and aggressive impulses intermingle early in childhood in these sadistic types and eventually find expression in vicious sexual assaults and sadistic murders. He kills to achieve sexual pleasure. Murder produces a powerful sexual arousal and pleasure and is a replacement for normal sex. Masturbation may exist while reliving these crimes. The sexual sadist often taunts the police in letters, uses deliberate misspellings, and may use handwriting that is different than his normal writing. The pleasure of bating the police may actually become the motive for the slayings and though he takes great pains to appear normal and avoid capture, he often throws suspicion on himself. The sexual sadist has a strong self-mutilation drive. As a child he may play at his own execution and eventually become suicidal. He will become fascinated with the tools of policework and with policemen, and may actually pretend to be one. He is a weapon collector and instruments of torture and has skill in their use. The sadist seeks the dehumanization of his victims into objects that cannot reject him and that he has power over. He is incurable, feels no remorse for the pain he inflicts on others and will more than likely repeat his crimes. He chooses victims with specific characteristics such as students or hitchhikers. He can describe his assaults in great detail. If caught for one murder he takes delight in confessing to many others in an effort to dismay the police. The sexual sadist may be smart enough not to have a history of identifiable mental illness. How come so many around now? These people were perceived by parents as weird because they did things like cutting up animals and putting the parts in the freezer. (to be continued)

Zodia's Positioningof Victims

The following is from Robert Graysmith's 2007 paperback. "I shall no longer announce to anyone when I committ my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings, etc." This was written by the Zodiac. All of Zodiac's victims were young students killed in or around their cars, near bodies of water, and on weekends when the moon was new or full. Sexual molestation was not a motive. The killer used a different weapon each time. In some of the attacks the killer carried a large flashlight. My thoughts kept going to the right side of the car, the passenger side. The only window down at Lake Herman Road was on the right where Betty Lou was sitting. Mageau's window at Blue Rock Springs was down, and Steine's fly window was open on the passenger side. At Lake Herman Road the killer fired a shot in the rear window and fired another bullet in the left rear wheel housing to force the couple to leap from the passenger side. Zodiac was positioning the bodies in a ritual way. Usually lying on their back with their heads pointing away from the cars. Faraday's head pointed toward the east and Paul Stine's toward the north.In the dark how did Zodiac know that Betty Lou was on her right side feet to the west and at Blue Rock Springs that Darlene was wearing paterned slacks? Also that he had shot Mageau in the knee while he was thrashing around. He must have followed the victims earlier in the evening. It's likely because he shot his victims almost immediately after they stopped to park. He must have known the area very well or possibly was a Vallejo resident. Also someone who had access to the coroner's and different police reports.It was almost as if he was positioning them according to points on the zodiac or as if they were hands on the clock documenting what time they were killed. (D. Lathers idea).

I think the Zodiac was actually trying to tell us something by the positioning of the bodies. If we stand back and look at this idea and the bodies we may come upon a message left by the Zodiac.--------D. Lathers

The Victims at Blue Rock Springs and Lake Berryessa

The following is a exerpt from Graysmith's book copyright 1996, 2007. There was a confidential report from Mike Mageau in the hospital slightly different than one given before. Sue Ayers, a legal secretary said she had talked to Mike in the hospital after being shot and said that Darlene and another man had an argument while he was in Darlene's car at Terry,s  restaurant the night of the shooting and when they drove away the other man followed them to Blue Rock Springs where they continued to argue. Mike said they were shot by that man and that they were followed from the time that they left Mike's house. Darlene's sister Pam was told by Mike at the hospital that the guy came rightup and shot them. Mike also said that he called Darlene "Dee". She was known to her best friends as "Dee". It should be known that Mike had a tendency to change his story about the shooting more than once. When they went through Darlene,s papers after her death they found several letters from Mike Mageau who liked to pretend to be different people. These were signed with three different names. This was commonplace for Mike to do.

At Lake Berryessa when the Zodiac was sneaking up on Brian Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard he went behind a tree and pulled on a dickey which covered his face and upper body before he got too close to the victims to be. My question is if he was going to kill these two why did he want to cover his face? ----They wouldn't be alive to identify him! I have a feeling that the Zodiac killer had been following them for a long time before he killed them.

Arthur Leigh Allen & Ralph Spinelli

Leigh Allen was the major Zodiac suspect for a long long time. Ralph Spinelli was a restaurant and saloon owner in Northern California, also with one in Alaska. Ralph, with his salesman type command of the english language, was very likeable---I enjoyed listening to him speak. The saloon in Fairfield California was as he said a "gold mine". These two men had a slight altercation back in 1958 but Ralph had forgotten all about it. One night the door man told Ralph a man wanted to speak to him outside but didn't say why. Ralph went outside and Leigh reintroduced himself. Ralph didn't remember but Leigh reminded him of the 1958 incident. Incidentally the name of the saloon was the "Crazy Horse Saloon". Leigh said he could provide a service for Ralph and his friends up to and in-cluding killing someone. Ralph said "you must be absolutely crazy". Later Paul Stine was killed in San Francisco and Leigh went back to Spinelli and said "there, I told you so". Ralph said " I believe you now and now you had better get away from me". They never talked again. This story came from Graysmith's book "Zodiac". D Lathers

Visiting

It would be interesting to visit mk-zodiac.com

Darlene Ferrin's Time Schedule

There seems to be a discrepancy in time between the time she left her new home and the time she was killed. The police said she had to be home at eleven but the babysitters said she didn't  leave the house until almost midnight. That allows only five minutes to pick up Mike, visit Mr. Ed's, also someplace called Pauls and drive all the way out to Blue Rock Springs. Even if she were chased all the way out there it is impossible to do it in that little amount of time -- to say nothing of being shot and killed at the Springs. There are so many men mentioned in Graysmith's book as to whom the chaser is it's impossible to single out any one person. She had just too many male friends.