Zodiac Killer: The Untold Story by Dennis Kaufman

0:02 Thank you.

0:42 Riders on the storm Riders on the storm Into this house we're born Into this world we're thrown Like a dog without a bone And packed we're out alone Riders on the storm There's a killer on the road His brain is squirming like a toad Take a long holiday Let your children play If you give this man a ride Sweet family will die Killer on the road.

2:11 The search goes on in San Francisco for the man known as the Zodiac Killer. That was the threat of the Zodiac Killer. The Zodiac Killer seems. To crave publicity. He sent letters and cryptograms to newspaper and the police. Threatening more murders and making Bay Area residents very edgy. Four years ago, the killing stopped and so did Zodiac's letter. Now there's another letter. They're hoping to find a mass murderer known as the Zodiac Killer.

2:57 He is a pathological psycho killer. The ace of cases. The guy who solves this is going to be the greatest detective there ever was. Pits and pieces of information, leads and tips from people who want to help catch. The Zodiac Killer have been pouring into police headquarters here at the Hall of Justice for the last few days. Zodiac Killer. They have an arrested movie because they can't prove a thing. I'm not the damn Zodiac. Hello, police department.

4:23 I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway, the public park, you'll find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good night. Oh my God, he's got a gun. Don't move. I want your money and your car keys. Okay. We're not going to do anything, okay?

5:06 We're going to cooperate. Just tell me what you want us to do. It's okay. It's all gonna be okay. Heading south on Knoxville Road. We've got an abandoned white.

5:54 I'm the one who did it. This is the Zodiac speaking. In the letter, made it very clear that the person that was writing was the murderer.

6:49 And one California man is so convinced his stepfather was the Zodiac, he launched a website to prove it. It builds a detailed but circumstantial case against Jack Terrence, an amateur hunter and electrician who died last year. The point all is left is to tell my story and hopefully bring closer to the victims' families that they have a right to know, they deserve to know, who the killer was. My name is Steven Dewhurst. I'm an associate professor at Northern Arizona University. After investigating Dennis Kaufman's evidence and his case for his stepfather being the Zodiac Killer, at this point I am completely convinced that Jack Terrence was in fact the Zodiac Killer and probably.

7:39 A whole lot more. Join me tonight in my search for the truth Zodiac, the untold story. My name is Dennis Kaufman. Jack is the only father I ever knew. My mother met him in South Lake Tahoe in 1970. I was just a few years old when they met. I remember the first time that I met Jack. I walked into the living room and he had his arm around my mother. And I walked over to him and I said, get your arm off of my mother. Well, he looked at me and he says, we need to have a talk. So he took me in the bedroom and he gave me a whooping. And he said, listen, he says, I don't want to be here any more than you want me here, but I have no choice. Well, I never knew what he meant by that, until now. Here's a photo of Jack from 1971, next to the composite of the Zodiac Killer from 1969. A photo of Jack was taken in 1973.

9:07 The Sonoma composite was done in 1975. Notice the lazy left eye. Here is a photo of Jack in 1967 and this composite of the Zodiac was done in 1969. I took words from the Zodiac letters that he mailed to police and I also took words from the letters that Jack sent me over the years. The top row of words is Zodiac's writing and the row just beneath it is Jack's writing. You can see the similarities. The only difference I noticed in the writing.

10:06 Was the letter A. If you look at the word page you can see that the A's are different. Jack sometimes forgets and writes the letter A like he did on the zodiac letters. The word at and then we have the word age. Both of those A's are written like they are on the zodiac letters. Then you have the word dad. which is Jack's normal style of his A. In Zodiac's writing, we find the odd splitting of words. This is a letter that Zodiac sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in January of 1974. If you look on the second line at the word comedy, you see the CLM, then it's split, and the IDY continues in the third line.

10:56 There's plenty of room for that word to be written there. In Jack's writing, we find this same odd splitting of words. The word automatically is cut off and the L-Y continues in the next line. Once again, there's plenty of room for that word to be written there. Another odd characteristic about Zodiac's writing is the odd spacing in his words. We find these same odd characteristics in Jack's writing, the odd spacing in his words, insubordination, argumentative, disregards, etc. On March 19, 1971, Zodiac mailed this card to the San Francisco Chronicle. It was mailed from Pleasanton, California. The card is a rendition of an area in Lake Tahoe This is where we were living at the time. Jack had a court date in San Jose, California, the very same day that this postcard was mailed. He would have had to go right through Pleasanton on his way to court that day. We were living in South Lake Tahoe. He would have took Highway 50 down through Sacramento, then on the 680 South, right through Pleasanton. This is where the letter was mailed that day. This is where his court date was in San Jose. After Zodiac mailed this card on March 19, 1971, he went silent for three years.

12:32 Jack was put on probation at the exact same time Zodiac went silent. For three years. In January of 1974, Zodiac broke his three-year silence and sent this letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. On March 17, 1974, Jack was arrested for poaching. On May 8, 1974, Zodiac dropped this. Letter in a mailbox in San Rafael, California. Just two days. Later, on May 10, 1974, Jack was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He was taken right into custody from court.

13:27 This is the first time Jack had done any jail time. Zodiac was never heard from again. Is he capable of doing something like murder? Yes. Based on what I remember growing up, he has told. Enough stories that makes me think that he has committed murder. Hearing what I've heard. Going out and committing cold blooded murders, hard for me to believe. Is it possible? Yeah, probably. And all I remember is him pulling out a pocket knife and he stabbed somebody. And I just remember I'm horrified because I had no mother who wants to see that.

14:07 Do you believe your dad's a Soviet killer? Do I believe my dad's a Soviet killer? I know that the evidence is there. There's a really big possibility Okay. That he is. I know he's capable of it. Okay. I've seen that side of him. Oh, yeah. That was after he told me that him and Denny had killed. That man in that cabin. The day that we got him up there, you got him up to the house, and I asked him straight up, you know, I've heard some bad things about you, Jack. And I said, you've told me some bad things about you. I said, but I want to know, who are you?

14:48 Straight in front of him? Yeah, and he got pissed. He stood up and he goes, why can't you just leave the fucking past alone? God damn you. Leave the past alone. And left. He left the house. He came back with a bottle of whiskey. And anybody who knows me knows I don't drink after anybody but my own children, barely my own wife. And you remember the statement he made on. The way to California was, if you knew who I was, you wouldn't like me. And when I asked him who he was and he came back with that whiskey, he took a big nasty drink of it and handed me the bottle and said, are you still my friend? You can hear the thunder long before the storm But you can't hear the lion when he stalks his prey.

15:48 He's moving like a shadow Creeping up on you And like a siren's call He's gonna have. His way. If you don't have what it takes Don't try to play. You'll lose your stakes Remember this at least It's the nature of the beast It's the nature.

16:32 Of the beast You won't hear a footstep Coming. Up on you Moving like a snake, he's in complete control. This killer knows his business. He is the predator. You are its only target. You're its only goal. What will you say? What will you do? Your wildest nightmare is coming true. There is nothing you can say. No way to change. He won't delay. This guy will have his face. It's the nature. Of the beast.

17:13 It's the nature of the beast. It's the nature of the beast. If you play, you're bound to lose. Don't rule the day. Don't turn the screws. Just listen to the breezes.

18:03 It's the nature of the beast It's the nature of the beast It's the. Nature of the beast. Most of the items I found in Jack's storage shed when I searched it in 2001 were found in this green metal box. In December of 1968, a white Chevy Impala was seen leaving the crime scene at the Lake Herman murders. During that time, Jack owned a white Chevy Impala.

19:04 In September of 1969, Zodiac attacked a young couple on the shores of Lake Berryessa. Witnesses reported seeing an ice blue two-door Chevy Impala that day. Here's a photo of Jack in 1971 standing in front of his ice blue two-door Chevy Impala. This is Jack's hypnosis symbol in his own writings. Zodiac uses the same symbol. Dr. Zodiac not ordinary criminal. He is man of great ego with disease known to science as pseudologia fantastica. Jack was stationed at Treasure Island during the time this movie was playing there. In September of 1969, Zodiac attacked a couple on the shores of Lake Berryessa. At the crime scene, he left behind shoe impressions.

20:08 Police were able to determine that they came from a rare military shoe called a wing walker. They were designed for walking on the wings of airplanes. Jack would have had access to these military shoes when he was a technical supply sergeant for the United States Air Force. On June 3rd, 2003, I was at my cell phone store, and Jack was there too, and he found one of my guns that I had hidden in the back. Well, I saw him with a gun so I grabbed my pistol from underneath the counter and luckily my little brother was in between us because one of us probably would have shot each other. Well, just after this incident, a customer walked in named Tracy. She had been in my store prior to that and I knew she was married to a sheriff. And she walked into my store and she could tell something was wrong and I was trying to play it off so it wasn't obvious that something had just happened. And about that time, Jack came from the back and handed me something like a pencil. I don't remember what it was, but he handed me something.

21:09 And Tracy was like in shock, like, and she said, who is that man? I said, Tracy, you really want to know? And she said, yes, I do. So I told her. And she left. And there was three Sacramento sheriffs at my store within 20 minutes that she had sent down there. And they interviewed Jack. And, um, This is her story. I noticed there was a man standing at the door, the back door, and he was. Just staring at me and I looked up and I said, hi, how are you? And he just looked at me. He had no expression on his face whatsoever. It was very eerie to say the least. So Dennis was saying, Tracy, could you please go get Ralph?

21:57 Ralph is your ex-fiancee. He's a deputy chair. And I said, yes, I will, but what's going on here? And it was very weird. It was very scary. So as we were talking, he started telling me a few things, and I was like, what the hell are you telling me? This is that person? And he was like, Tracy... Yes, he is. That's my stepdad. Please, would you go get Ralph for me? Please. And I went to the parking lot, got in my car, and I called a news channel. I can't remember if it was 13, 3, or 10, but it is on file. Yes, and I had. Said something to the fact of, you know, I'm here at this place, and this guy in the store, and I told him what just happened, what I just told you, and he said, my God, are you kidding me? are you close to a sheriff's station i said well yeah i drove to the service center i walked in and the.

22:57 Lieutenant was in there and i asked him please go to the back with. Me they all met me and followed me to the back they knew me as yeah with ralph and everything exactly and they sat down with me and i was petrified they knew it i told them the story they got on their phones and They were questioning me about this and that, and one of them, or Greg, was upset and saying, you know, this isn't cool to that effect, that. If this guy is making this up, this is not okay. To tell the public that this person is the Zodiac Killer and making this upset. Of course. And I remember telling him, you know what, I don't know so much about the Zodiac Killer, but I can tell you one. Thing, this man that was standing there looking at me made my skin crawl.

23:41 It was unbelievable. In February of 1999. My mother just had her leg amputated from just below the knee down due to diabetes. Well after she had her leg amputated I noticed a red spot and it looked like it might be getting infected so I didn't want to take any chances. So I talked her into going to the hospital and having it checked out. When we arrived at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento the doctor agreed that she needed to stay for a few days to watch it, make sure there was no infection, make sure the infection went away. Well, while she was in the hospital, she was there for about three days, and the doctor said she was okay to go home. So we said we'd be there the next morning to pick her up, to take her home.

24:32 And the next morning, she was found on the floor in a coma. Nobody knows what happened. While my mother was on life support, I went to the hospital to visit her, and to my surprise, I was wanted for terrorist threats that I did not make. I was barely able to make it out of the hospital without getting caught. So I sent my girlfriend Joy back down there to see what was going on. Come to find out, Jack, my stepdad, had called the hospital and said he was me, and he threatened to kill the security guards. I was wanted for terrorist threats, and my mother passed away before I was able to clear that up. Okay.

25:12 When I was in Washington and we were visiting Charles and Jack called me into his room and said, Mary, he says, I want to ask you something. I want to know if you really think that I killed Nora. And I said, well, Jack, all you have to do is search your conscience. And if you have a clear conscience, then you don't have to worry about anything. The plan for Zodiac's bomb came from the schematic of a UP-15 teleprinter. These machines are used by ham radio operators. Jack was a ham radio operator.

25:56 The bomb diagram on the left is Zodiac's diagram and the bomb diagram on the right is one that I found in Jack's storage when I searched it in 2001. Because when you faint, you wake up home. I've spent some time to be alone. I hope to see the place once more.

26:48 We have three different composites from three different counties. We have the San Francisco composite that was done in 1969. Then we have the Sonoma County composite that was done in 1975. Napa County had their own composite, and it looked nothing like the others. Who was this mysterious man in this composite? This is Jack's oldest biological son, Denny. I remember reading the letter that he had sent his dad from Vietnam. The letter ended with, Dad, you would love it over here. It's hunting season all year long.

27:30 By March of 2001, I was fed up with the answers I was getting from different law enforcement agencies regarding Jack's involvement in the Zodiac case. So I decided I should call him just to see what he had to say. But before I called him, I had to find a way to make him feel comfortable about talking to me about his past. So what I did was, I told him I discovered who he was, and I wanted to write a book, but it wouldn't be published until he was dead. And he agreed to give me the information. You know what I mean? I wouldn't want to... Well, after it's written as fiction, and after I'm gone, which some days I don't think.

28:18 It'll be long. Some days I feel like it'll be a long time. Yeah, 20 years from now, huh? Yeah, right. Right. I understand. I don't want to play anything out there that's going to bring a prosecution before you're gone. You know, that's not my intention. You know? I just, you know, I just kick myself in the ass for not, you know, Just listen to you closer because I never, my ears thought that, you know. Most of the. Things I could deny and they. Have no proof. Right, it must be like circumstantial. Yeah. Right. Right. I'm not too worried about it.

29:04 It's what the people I know would think. Right, right. I see what you're saying. Yes, it was a known fact that. It was. Me. People come up to me all the time and say, Dennis, why don't you move on from this Zodiac case? Well, the answer to that is simple. Touch, touching the flames, desires, feelings. Touch, touch in the flame's. Desires Feeling the pain's denial And your fingers in the ground Look, look in the candlelight In the flame of life In my spell is the.

30:06 Light On March 13, 1971, the Zodiac mailed this letter to the Los Angeles Times. It was mailed from Pleasanton, California.

30:47 It says, this is the Zodiac speaking. Like I have always said, I am crack-proof. If the Blue Meanies are ever going to catch me, they had better get off their fat asses and do something, because the longer they fiddle and fart around, the more slaves I will collect for my afterlife. I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity but they are only finding the easy ones. There are a hell of a lot more down there. The reason that I am writing to the Times is this. They don't put me on their back pages like they did some of the others. San Francisco PD Zero, Zodiac 17 Plus. One month after the murder of Sherry Jo Bates, her killer sent this confession letter to the Daily Enterprise. The letter begins with, she was young and beautiful, but now she is battered and dead. She is not the first and she will not be the last. The killer claimed that he plunged the knife into her and it broke. Police also described the knife as being about three and a half inches long by a half inch wide with a broken and bent tip. Well, this is a knife that I found in Jack's storage shed when I searched it in 2001.

32:29 Just six months after the murder of Sherry Jo Bates, her killer sent three different letters One of the letters went to the Riverside Police Department. It said Bates had to die, there. Will be more. Another letter went to Sherry Jo Bates' father, Joseph Bates. It said she had to die. There will be more also. And the third letter that was mailed in April of 1967 went to the Press Enterprise in Riverside. Communications to local Bay Area newspapers began. Just like in Riverside, He sent three different letters. It seems as though Zodiac is fascinated with time. Zodiac sent a map of Northern California to Bay Area newspapers. And over Mount Diablo he put his infamous symbol. but if you notice in his symbol, you see a 3, 6, and 9 just as if it was a watch face. This is the watch that was found at the Sherry Jo Bates crime scene in 1966 in Riverside, California. The murder took place at about 10.30 p.m., but this watch was stopped at 12.23. If we use Mount Diablo as the center point for the clock hands, the murder of Sherry Jo Bates would be at 12.23.

34:05 When I asked Jack specifically if he was the Zodiac Killer, listen to what he had to say. I remember when. We were younger, he would take us camping. And when we got to our camping spot, he would take his AM radio, his map, and his compass. What he would do is take his AM radio, and he'd find an AM station, and he'd point the radio in that direction, and wherever the radio cut off at, he knew there was a station in that direction. He would take two stations and do that with, and he would take and draw a line and somehow pinpoint our location on the map. I never understood why he did this, until now.

34:48 Kodiak ended one of his letters with, P.S. The Mount Diablo code concerns radians and inches along the radians. This killer was after something completely different. Zodiac also sent a map of the Bay Area. And over the top of Mount Diablo, he put his infamous symbol. Zodiac mentioned the word radians in his letter. But what exactly is a radian? A radian is an angle of 57.3 degrees. But what did this have to do with Zodiac?

35:33 Mount Diablo. In 1980, a man by the name of Garth Penn made a pretty significant discovery. Garth Penn connected the murder site of Paul Stein in San Francisco to the top of Mount Diablo. Then he took the two known murder sites just outside Vallejo and connected them to Mount Diablo. He discovered that it made an angle of 57.3 degrees, a perfect radian. I took Penn's theory and went a step further. I connected the crime scene at Lake Berryessa to the top of Mount Diablo, and I realized that it made an odd angle of 16.2 degrees. I did not realize the significance yet at this point. I would later discover that six radians plus 16.2 degrees make a complete circle. Mount Diablo is the center point for longitude and latitude. This here is the top of Mount Diablo.

36:39 Center point for longitude and latitude. Here's the center point.

37:28 I can reason Something I. Just can't see Something dark and. Twisted know which way to go but.

38:13 If you want to climb the. Mountain sail the storm of. Tea and if you want to walk through the. Valley of the shadow of death baby take a ride. We're in.

39:07 Has come to show if you wanna climb the. Mountain sail the storm over the sea if you wanna. Walk the.

40:18 Probably the most famous of San Francisco homicide cases in terms of unsolved cases is the Zodiac case. And literally every day we receive some type of notification, a message in the mail or a phone call. Now we even get email messages regarding this case. And so it was decided that the case would be reactivated. and assigned to an active homicide team. There's a subset of the population that is obsessed with the case. To some, it's like a religion.

41:04 After Joy and I went to the FBI and they listened to our story, turned Jack in we both went back to our storage shed we just kinda was very sad because at that point I thought I was going to be putting Jack in prison and my younger brother Jack was his real dad and he just lost his mother now he's going to be taking his dad away from him too then the reality hit of what was really going on I think at that point after about a year of dealing with the Zodiac thing My girlfriend, Joy, couldn't take anymore, so she moved up to Washington State with her aunt and kind of got her own life going.

41:44 I stayed behind because I had to work on a case. I felt obligated. After about six months, I decided I had enough of the cases myself as well, and I went to Washington to pick up Joy to bring her back. Before I... could bring her back. I had to have something to bring her back to. So I talked to my uncle and he was going to help us start up a new cell phone store and help us get our feet again. And he did. And in February of 2002, we got our business going, our cell phone store, had our own place for once, and everything was like it was before. I was actually happy again. I had left the Zodiac thing alone and we were making it. We were making money. Everything was good. But that was about to suddenly change. Our business had been successful our first month.

42:39 We were doing really good. We got our own place and everything was good. And out of the blue, Jack shows up at our front door from Texas. And I told him, Jack, you can't stay here. And he talked me into letting him stay one night. And the following day, he was to go to his brother's house. It was just down the road, his brother Don. And my biggest mistake was letting him stay that one night. After we all went to bed, we heard banging on the walls and Jack was banging on the walls and the neighbors were banging back and we were afraid we were going to lose our place that we had just gotten. So I couldn't take anymore. I called the cops on Jack and told them that I wanted this man out of my house. Well, the cops took Jack outside and talked to him and it wasn't but two or three minutes before he had him convinced that he had dementia. So one of the cops came over to me and says, your dad suffers from dementia. And there's nothing we can do.

43:37 We can't remove him from your house. And I said, well, he's not welcome here. Then the police officer proceeded to tell me that not only can we not remove him from your house, if you kick him out, we're going to charge you with a felony for abandonment of an elderly person. At this point, I had enough. I went up to my room and I grabbed my pistol. I couldn't take any more. He was not going to ruin my life again at this point. And Joy wound up running out the front door, and that was the last time I'd seen her. And now I'm stuck living with a man that murdered my mother, and all of a sudden my life did a 180-degree turn.

44:19 Arthur Lee Allen did not donate the biological material that was recovered from the stamp or the... Zodiac correspondents that yielded this result. When you write, you rest the heel of your palm, a very characteristic part of it, on the paper. And people in those days weren't really aware that you could leave a palm print and that it could be identified. They knew about fingerprints, but the public really wasn't that aware of palm prints. They were able to obtain palm prints from Arthur Lee Allen. It was compared to the one that had been developed earlier, and they don't match. That is not Arthur Allen's palm print.

45:03 I worked with several law enforcement agencies on this case, trying to bring Jack Tarnes to justice. I had fairly good cooperation with just about everyone that I worked with, except for the San Francisco Police Department. I've never quite dealt with people like them, but. It's not a good thing when you're dealing with a murderer to be more worried about getting the credit for something. You need to get this man off the streets. That should be number one priority, not who gets the credit. For doing. It. I'm aware of all the particulars.

45:44 They've actually debriefed you, kind of. Yeah, they have. Okay. Well, you know what? All that I have from them is that you have compelling evidence. Okay. I believe you. And the reason I'm just curious why you're calling me now versus, you know, did Hopkins tell you to call me? No, they didn't. I don't have no idea if I'm calling you. I just understand there might be some conflicts going on about, you know, who does what or whatever. We'll see what's going on. All right.

46:24 I actually need to pick up. My stuff. You're Lisa? No. Yeah, Lisa. Lisa's not here today. What is it? Under Jack what? Just for that? It's pretty important stuff to me to get away with your call. Well, I've been down here a couple times.

47:05 I was actually condemned anyway. You know where she might have put it? Come on, where'd you get strong? Pass the bill. Pass, man. You know where she might. Have put it? Wherever the Zodiac stuff is. You know, it kind of annoyed me. You know, as I told them initially, our laboratory was committed to a 30-day turnaround. Right. So we would. Have been so much further ahead than where we are now. Absolutely. But, you know, everyone, because it's. Such a high-profile deal, everyone wants to be the one.

47:46 You know, to say, I was the one who solved this. Right. This was my case and none of them. Right. And you know what the other side is also saying that everybody worked together to solve it. Everybody, you know. That's right. What's wrong with that? And, you know, you run into this every now and then with these petty cops. I'm sure you do. The real person is you. Right. There wasn't anything that Kelly Keller did that identified this guy as the Zodiac. It was because you had done your homework and you brought it in here. Right. This is the property that Jack owned in 1974.

48:30 My partner Robert Manor and I decided to revisit this place and just have a look around and just see if We noticed anything. And when we got there, the owner was very cooperative. We explained to her what was going on. And at that point, we decided to run cadaver dogs across the property to see if they picked up any scent. In January of 2008, we ran the cadaver dogs across the property, and they did pick up scent. We marked the locations where they picked up the scent at, and a couple weeks later, we came out and we dug in those areas, and we found what appeared to be These human remains have been turned over to the FBI for evaluation. Sometime around 1990, Jack asked me about this old piece of equipment that I had. He made the comment to me that if I ever get rid of it that he wanted it. Well at the time I didn't give it much thought. Several years later in 2005 he asked me about the same piece of equipment and once again I didn't give it much thought at the time. A few years later in 2008 I was going through my things And I ran across this thing that he'd been asking about, this PA head. Well, I was surprised that I still had it because we'd been through a couple wrecks, and it was just amazing that I had it still. I decided to open it, but I had no idea what I was about to see.

50:54 So so.

52:05 Thank you. Thank you very much.