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