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."