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ZODIAC SERIAL KILLER CASE CRACKED? LINKED TO DISMEMBERED ACTRESS? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:06
Speaker 2: Has the Zodiac serial killer case finally been cracked and
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Speaker 2: is it linked to a starlet? A dismembered actress repeat, dismembered,
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Speaker 2: her limbs not attached to her body, severed just above
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Speaker 2: the waist and positioned for a mom and a child
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Speaker 2: out on a walk to find half her body. Are
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Speaker 2: they connected? On Nancy Grace? This is Crime Stories. I
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Speaker 2: want to thank you for being with us.
0:42
Speaker 3: An active serial killer terrorizes northern California, launching a violent
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Speaker 3: rampage and identifying himself through the media as the Zodiac Killer,
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Speaker 3: spreading fear.
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Speaker 4: Across the state.
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Speaker 2: The Zodiac Killer's case very complex, but what we need
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Speaker 2: to know bottom line, he was a mad dog killer
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Speaker 2: that killed seemingly at random. The modus operandi method of
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Speaker 2: operation is very very different between the known Zodiac murders.
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Speaker 2: A slew of dead bodies typically found on lover's lanes
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Speaker 2: where couples were alone together, Very very different from the
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Speaker 2: murder the intricately planned, meticulously carried out murder of a
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Speaker 2: young Hollywood Sterlet listen.
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Speaker 5: It was headlines for thirty days straight.
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Speaker 6: They had one thousand law enforcement officers working on the case.
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Speaker 6: This is Los Angeles's most notorious unsolved murder.
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Speaker 7: It was Elizabeth Short. She was nude, she had been
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Speaker 7: bisected at the waist, bottom half of her body was
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Speaker 7: posed obscenely, her body bore torture marks, and her off
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Speaker 7: was cut ear to ear into a hideous grin.
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Speaker 6: I started looking at the crime itself, and what I discovered,
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Speaker 6: to my surprise, was that the killer was a surgeon,
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Speaker 6: not a meat cutter, not a butcher, a skilled professional surgeon.
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Speaker 2: Well, that's a lot of content, a lot of information
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Speaker 2: to digest. That's for our friends at forty eight hours
2:21
Speaker 2: and et Entertainment tonight. Okay, let's take that one thing
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Speaker 2: at a time. When you're trying a case, you do
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Speaker 2: not want to mix up your evidence in front of
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Speaker 2: that jury. A thousand l law enforcement on the case
2:37
Speaker 2: of Elizabeth Short, they said, nude, bisected at the waist,
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Speaker 2: the bottom half of her body posed obscenely. I guess
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Speaker 2: that means with her legs apart, her body had torture marks,
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Speaker 2: her mouth cut ear to ear in a hideous grin.
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Speaker 5: A lah.
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Speaker 2: The joker in the Batman series is called a Glasgow smile.
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Speaker 2: That is when the victim's face has been cut from
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Speaker 2: the edges of the mouth up toward the ears to
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Speaker 2: make a permanent smile. Who would do that? And then
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Speaker 2: we hear Steve Hodell, a retired LAPD, state that the
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Speaker 2: killer of Elizabeth Short aka Black Dahlia was not a
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Speaker 2: meat cutter, not a butcher, but a skilled professional surgeon.
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Speaker 2: Joining me in all Star panel, what does Elizabeth Short's
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Speaker 2: murder and bisection have to do with the Zodiac killer
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Speaker 2: years later? Are they one in the same? Straight out
3:45
Speaker 2: to Joseph Scott Morgan joining US Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University,
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Speaker 2: author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and host
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Speaker 2: of a hit podcast series Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan.
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Speaker 2: First of all, I seeing a fair many dismemberment bisection.
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Speaker 2: That's a whole another can of worms. Joe Scott Morgan
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Speaker 2: bi section, explain it.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, we're not cutting in the vertical plane. We're cutting
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Speaker 8: in the horizontal plane, which means across the body. If
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Speaker 8: you just think about where your umbul likeas is your
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Speaker 8: navel cut inferior to that area all the way across
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Speaker 8: the body. The interesting thing about the incision, that particular incision,
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Speaker 8: Nancy is that the margins are what are referred to,
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Speaker 8: and this is the reason Hodel is making this comment.
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Speaker 8: The margins are very neat and clean. So this gives
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Speaker 8: you an indication that this wasn't a standard butchery type
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Speaker 8: of event. This is something that would have taken time,
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Speaker 8: It would have taken a certain amount of skill. And
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Speaker 8: also going back to dismemberment Nancy, these cases that we've
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Speaker 8: seen both in practice and covering in the news, it
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Speaker 8: requires privacy, It requires a location that you can go
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Speaker 8: to where no one else is going to see you,
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Speaker 8: and it takes time, so you have to have time
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Speaker 8: with the body alone, and the body has been prepped.
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Speaker 8: Here we have to think about that there were reports
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Speaker 8: where they were talking about that her body had actually
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Speaker 8: been cleaned Nancy washed down those sorts of things, and
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Speaker 8: even in one bit that I read, at some point
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Speaker 8: in time, part of her bowels were actually tucked beneath
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Speaker 8: the body. So this is somebody that not only felt
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Speaker 8: comfortable in a private space with her doing this to her,
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Speaker 8: but also out there at that scene and laying her out,
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Speaker 8: I guess in the early morning hours where you could
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Speaker 8: run the risk of being caught or being seen out
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Speaker 8: there this person had no compunction about this.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know what, Joe Scott Morgan, the way that
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Speaker 2: Elizabeth Short was murdered and bisected is even more intricate.
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Speaker 9: Listen, the crime is extremely personal. Elizabeth's organ's removed and
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Speaker 9: her body drained of blood before she's moved to the
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Speaker 9: lot where she's discovered. The heinous nature of the crime
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Speaker 9: leads to floods of vague tips that leave officers wading
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Speaker 9: through suspects a grand jury. Here's evidence regarding more than
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Speaker 9: twenty possible perps, but never indicts.
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Speaker 2: Before I go to our expert on the connection, the
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Speaker 2: perceived connection between Black Dolly, Elizabeth Schwartz murder and bi
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Speaker 2: section and the Zodiac killer, that would be Alex Baber
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Speaker 2: joining US director at Cold Case Consultants of America, Joe Scott,
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Speaker 2: I'm sure that you must have seen Dexter for Pete's sake,
6:42
Speaker 2: and one of his arch nemesis, I don't want to
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Speaker 2: spoil it for anybody if you're watching reruns, was that
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Speaker 2: the Ice truck Killer was his own bio brother. The
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Speaker 2: Ice Truck Killer was one of the first time the
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Speaker 2: general population had heard about draining a body of its
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Speaker 2: blood before disposing of the body Black Dahlia aka Elizabeth Short,
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Speaker 2: who was bisected. Her body had been drained of blood
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Speaker 2: before moved to the lot where she's discovered. What does
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Speaker 2: that tell you? And how in the hay do you
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Speaker 2: drain a body of blood?
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Speaker 8: Well, if you even if you look at this classic
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Speaker 8: image of from Ed Dean's house where you've got one
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Speaker 8: of his victims has been trussed up and just like
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Speaker 8: you would a deer, and the body that lady's body
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Speaker 8: was actually inverted. So my speculation there's no way to
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Speaker 8: really trans down. Yeah, and so my thought is that
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Speaker 8: the quickest way to do this is to you have
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Speaker 8: to suspend the body. So let's just say that that
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Speaker 8: you do this by section. You would literally have to
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Speaker 8: take the lower torso and suspend it, perhaps by the ankles,
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Speaker 8: so that you can drain the blood in that, whereas
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Speaker 8: with the upper torso you've made this major incision. You
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Speaker 8: can't just count on gravity to gently pull the blood out.
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Speaker 8: You would need to do it as quickly as you
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Speaker 8: possibly could, so perhaps suspend the body by the wrist
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Speaker 8: or And if this is done in a post bortem state,
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Speaker 8: you're not necessarily going to see any contusions on the wrist,
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Speaker 8: and you might see some kind of a braided areas,
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Speaker 8: but I haven't heard of anything like that.
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Speaker 2: So that's Scott, you've gone deaf comb for what I
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Speaker 2: think you just said now I'm just a trial lawyer.
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Speaker 2: Is that because she was likely already dead at the
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Speaker 2: time she was bisected, that you're not going to see
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Speaker 2: bruising Once you're already dead. Your heart's no longer beating
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Speaker 2: and you don't bruise anymore, So any bruises if this
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Speaker 2: was done post mortem, after death, there would be no bruises,
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Speaker 2: he said, braided. That means, uh, maybe an impression was
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Speaker 2: left on the skin. Yes, let me think. Okay, so
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Speaker 2: if I take this teacup and I sit it right here,
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Speaker 2: after a while, there'll be a mark on my skin. Okay,
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Speaker 2: So that could be left post mortem.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, it's potential, but we can tell the difference between
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Speaker 8: post mortem and anti mortem prior to death. But the
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Speaker 8: watchword here, Nancy, in the draining is going to be gravity.
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Speaker 8: So you've got this gravitational pull where you know, blood
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Speaker 8: is like any other fluid, it's going to seek the
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Speaker 8: lowest point of gravity. So the blood would have to
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Speaker 8: be pulled out and hence drink. And this is something
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Speaker 8: that is commonly done in butchery. You see it everywhere,
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Speaker 8: you know, when bodies are actually embalmed, the fluids are
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Speaker 8: pushed through the body with a pump. I don't think
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Speaker 8: that that's what's happened here. There's no indication that there's
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Speaker 8: any kind of injection sites or anything like that.
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Speaker 2: Scott Baber and others believe that Elizabeth Short's body was
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Speaker 2: bisected and likely drained at a motel, the Zodiac Motel,
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Speaker 2: possibly in the bathroom in the bathtub. I don't see that.
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Speaker 1: I'm not saying.
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Speaker 2: Zodiac is not the killer of Elizabeth Short yet, but
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Speaker 2: I'm saying I don't think that could go down in
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Speaker 2: a moteil bathtub because you have to suspend the body
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Speaker 2: to drain it of blood. That's where I'm going with this.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, it would depend upon how prepared the person
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Speaker 8: was to do this, that they could bring something with them,
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Speaker 8: just like they would bring tools. All right, So if
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Speaker 8: this is something that they've planned out in their mind,
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Speaker 8: you know, and here's something curious about the bathtub, and
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Speaker 8: you could not go back and do this now. But
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Speaker 8: you know, in modern cases like this. I know of
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Speaker 8: at least three off the top of my head that
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Speaker 8: I've covered where you go into all of these, all
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Speaker 8: of these to the plumbing and you pull out the
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Speaker 8: drain traps and you can find blood, you can find
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Speaker 8: other tissue. People think that everything gets washed away, and
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Speaker 8: that's not necessarily the case. That's something that would have had
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Speaker 8: to have been done back then.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, I believe that was done in this case.
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Speaker 2: Joe Scott, and you're absolutely correct.
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: To doctor Angela Arnold joining us renownced psychiatrist and Angela
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Speaker 2: Arnold m d. Angela, I'm asking you for a forensic reason.
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Speaker 2: I find it hard to believe in Baber disagrees with
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Speaker 2: me that the same man that murdered Elizabeth Short so
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Speaker 2: meticulously bisected her like a surgeon him is his mo
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Speaker 2: modus operati method of operation In that case, it is
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Speaker 2: entirely than he wasn't seen. He's never spotted, even though
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Speaker 2: he put the remains in a neighborhood area for pedestrians
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Speaker 2: to find.
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Speaker 1: Never seen.
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Speaker 2: So how does that jive with the mo of the
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Speaker 2: Zodiac killer, who basically hunts down whoever he can find
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Speaker 2: on lover's Lane and shoots him dead. He's actually spotted
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Speaker 2: for Pete's sake, an eyewitness sees him. Is very haphazard
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Speaker 2: compared to the murder of Elizabeth Short. How could that
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Speaker 2: be the same person, because I believe Elizabeth Short's killer
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Speaker 2: had to go through this process, this almost religious moment
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Speaker 2: where he kills the woman. He bisects her, he drains
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Speaker 2: her blood, he wipes her body down and cleans it,
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Speaker 2: He poses her in a certain way, he gives her
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Speaker 2: a Glasgow smile. Is that the same guy that sneaks
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Speaker 2: up on lovers on Lover's Lane shoots them dead.
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Speaker 10: I do agree with you, Nancy, I since when we
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Speaker 10: look at serial killers, we try to see commonalities in
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Speaker 10: what they do, and these two things are so completely different,
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Speaker 10: between the ritual and the haphazardous, between the way the
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Speaker 10: way the Dahlia, the Black Dahlia was touched and manipulated
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Speaker 10: and the others were not. They were stabbed and shot,
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Speaker 10: but that was completely different than they she was killed.
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Speaker 2: Joining us from the Cold Case Research Institute, Forensic expert
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Speaker 2: and oh, they have a brand new books Swans Don't
13:39
Speaker 2: Swim in a sewer or Solving the Cold case of
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Speaker 2: the Flint River killer's daughter, Cheryl Uh, also the star
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Speaker 2: of a highly popular podcast, Zone seven. Cheryl. The mo
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Speaker 2: os are entirely opposite. However, think of Ted Bundy. He
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Speaker 2: changed his mos, boy did he?
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Speaker 11: I think what's key for me here? Ormos can change,
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Speaker 11: but the signatures won't. The underlining intent will not change.
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Speaker 11: So what that killer needed and wanted with these murders,
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Speaker 11: that's what I would be looking at. To me, that's
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Speaker 11: critical is the.
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Speaker 2: Signature, not the mo What signature?
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Speaker 11: Well, for example, with you know Zodiac, his signature, he's
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Speaker 11: going to shoot from a distance, He's going to stalk first,
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Speaker 11: He's going to let them know he's there, almost frighten them.
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Speaker 11: He wanted that to happen. He wanted that interaction. Here,
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Speaker 11: the other killer took great time. He tortured, he's sexually assaulted.
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Speaker 11: Those are two different signatures, baselines.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I agree with you, even though I know moos
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Speaker 2: can vary. One killer can change an how However, it's
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Speaker 2: not typical. Usually the killer keeps the same m joining me. Now,
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Speaker 2: a renowned trial lawyer from this jurisdiction, you know him, well,
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Speaker 2: it's Nima Ramani. Nima Ramani. Former federal prosecutor turned trial
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Speaker 2: attorney President West Coast Trial Attorneys author Harvard to hashtag Nima,
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Speaker 2: thank you for being with us. What do you make
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Speaker 2: the tenuous kick? Well, some would say tenuous, others say
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Speaker 2: it's clear, clear it's the same person.
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Speaker 12: What do you make of it, Nina, Well, if you're
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Speaker 12: looking at the evidence and if it's going to come in,
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Speaker 12: whether it's a four or four analysis prior about acts
15:45
Speaker 12: or eleven oh one, which is evidence callde here in California,
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Speaker 12: and no judge is going to let this in. It's
15:50
Speaker 12: far too speculative. It's far too tenuous. You got to
15:54
Speaker 12: present cases based on facts and evidence and not just speculations.
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Speaker 12: So you know, it's great to talk out of people
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Speaker 12: love serial killers, but this type of connection will never
16:03
Speaker 12: make it into any courtroom in this country.
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Speaker 2: When you analyze evidence, Nima Romani, you and I both
16:11
Speaker 2: brought in similar transactions in front of a jury. For instance,
16:15
Speaker 2: say the Zodiac killing is your case in chief killings
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Speaker 2: or multiple victims, you would try to bring in the
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Speaker 2: Elizabeth Short murder as a similar transaction. What's similar other
16:29
Speaker 2: than you've got a dead body, not a whole lot.
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Speaker 12: And this evidence is very powerful. We see it typically
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Speaker 12: in sexual assault cases, right Weinstein Cosby, I mean really
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Speaker 12: really tip the scales in those cases.
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Speaker 4: So judges are very.
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Speaker 12: Sensitive to this type of evidence because you can really
16:45
Speaker 12: dirty up a defendant. It's great for the prosecution, but
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Speaker 12: if you don't have a clear connection and m O
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Speaker 12: a pattern something, and you're relying on what we have here,
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Speaker 12: which frankly is not enough, it's not gonna make it
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Speaker 12: in Nancy, you and I both know that.
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Speaker 2: Isn't it true, Nama Romani that a jury is told
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Speaker 2: during the jury instructions that they can consider if they
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Speaker 2: choose to evidence that occurred before, during, and after the murder.
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Speaker 2: Isn't that true?
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Speaker 4: Absolutely they can.
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Speaker 2: But the judge okay, well, listen to this. According to
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Speaker 2: Alex Baber, therein lies the rub what happened after the murders,
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Speaker 2: that is the link between the two. Listen.
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Speaker 13: James Richardson, the Los Angeles Examiner editor, receives a phone
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Speaker 13: call from a man claiming to have killed Short, who
17:42
Speaker 13: promises to send Richardson souvenirs. Three days later, the Examiner
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Speaker 13: receives a Manila envelope containing Short's birth certificate, business cards,
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Speaker 13: and an address book with the message here is Dahlia's belongings.
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Speaker 13: Letter to follow. The paper then receives a handwritten note
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Speaker 13: quote turning in. Wednesday, January twenty ninth, ten, am had
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Speaker 13: my fun at police Black Dahlia Avenger. Police wait at
18:08
Speaker 13: the location, the writer specifies, but no one appears to
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Speaker 13: turn themselves in.
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Speaker 2: And now joining us the man of the hour, Alex Baber.
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Speaker 2: Alex Baber is the director of the Cold Case Consultants
18:22
Speaker 2: of America, and he is the investigative consultant who says
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Speaker 2: he has used AI in his own code breaking skills
18:31
Speaker 2: to crack the Zodiac killer's letter. He also says Zodiac
18:36
Speaker 2: is also the Black Dahlia Avenger, the killer. Alex Baber,
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Speaker 2: thank you for being with us tonight, Alex. Before I
18:47
Speaker 2: get into the evidence in the Black Dahlia Elizabeth short case,
18:54
Speaker 2: tell me about what happened after the murders. Both killers
19:00
Speaker 2: began taunting the police and the media.
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Speaker 4: That's correct, Nancy, Thanks for having me. What we discovered
19:06
Speaker 4: was that in both incidents, the perpetrator mailed in multiple
19:10
Speaker 4: letters to multiple newspapers to announce his crime that he
19:15
Speaker 4: committed and to take credit for it.
19:17
Speaker 9: Sign Francisco.
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Speaker 14: I was a killer and it's Matt.
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Speaker 2: He had this black hood on, little slits in the eyes.
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Speaker 15: He goes around killing the by rope, by gun, by knife,
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Speaker 15: and he says, I'm going to call myself Zodiac.
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Speaker 2: American law enforcement hasn't ever seen anything like this.
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Speaker 10: It turned into a public obsession, the TV shows, the books,
19:39
Speaker 10: the movie.
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Speaker 15: I want you to print this cipher on your front page.
19:43
Speaker 2: Zodiac was different. He got away with it. This from Netflix.
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Speaker 2: This is the Zodiac speaking.
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Speaker 3: The Zodiac Killer taunts law enforcement, sending cryptic letters in
19:57
Speaker 3: coded messages to newspapers police to stop him while threatening
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Speaker 3: more violence.
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Speaker 2: Has a Zodiac serial killer case been cracked? And is
20:10
Speaker 2: the black Dahlia Avenger who murdered a young starlet and
20:14
Speaker 2: bisected her body? One and the same? Is it the
20:20
Speaker 2: Zodiac Killer? Joining me in All Star Pall straight out
20:24
Speaker 2: to your special guest Rachel Sharp, joining us investigative crime
20:28
Speaker 2: reporter for Dailymail dot com who got a worldwide exclusive
20:33
Speaker 2: on this case. Rachel Sharp, what do you make of it?
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Speaker 5: Well?
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Speaker 16: To me, the evidence is, you know, the case alex
20:42
Speaker 16: is presented is very compelling. There's a lot of links
20:46
Speaker 16: between the two crimes connecting the suspect, Malvin melchol List
20:53
Speaker 16: to both cases.
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Speaker 2: Rachel Sharp, you say there are a lot of links
20:57
Speaker 2: between the two. I find the sciph the taunting in
21:02
Speaker 2: both cases to be a link. What other link do
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Speaker 2: you think is probative proves that they're one and the same.
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Speaker 16: So a lot of a lot of the links between
21:13
Speaker 16: the two. It's a lot of circumstantial, circumstantial evidence that
21:19
Speaker 16: you know, through Alex's investigation he has unearthed, obviously, the
21:22
Speaker 16: big one being the solving of the Z thirteen cipher. Now,
21:29
Speaker 16: many people have tried to solve that before. Alex has
21:32
Speaker 16: found a solution, and the solution actually points to the
21:36
Speaker 16: name of one of the prime suspects in the Black
21:39
Speaker 16: Dahlia murder. What makes that quite compelling is that that
21:44
Speaker 16: evidence was presented to the chief US codemaker and codebreaker
21:49
Speaker 16: for the NSA Giorgio, and he is verified Gant. So
21:54
Speaker 16: you know you have one of the top cipher experts
21:56
Speaker 16: saying that they believe that that solution is correct.
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Speaker 2: Rachel Sharp, Is there any forensic evidence or any proof
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Speaker 2: at all that Black Dahlias killer e lizbuth Schwartz killer
22:10
Speaker 2: actually killed her at the Zodiac Motel.
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Speaker 16: So at the time police believed that she was murdered
22:18
Speaker 16: elsewhere because, as mentioned previously, she was found without blood.
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Speaker 16: There was no blood at the crime scene, so they
22:28
Speaker 16: believed that she was killed elsewhere, and the police was
22:32
Speaker 16: searching for was that she was killed in a bathtub,
22:37
Speaker 16: and that was how they know they didn't find this
22:40
Speaker 16: grizzly crime scene anywhere else.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm not hearing anything that says she was
22:45
Speaker 2: killed at Zodiac Motel. Do you have any evidence suggesting
22:48
Speaker 2: she was killed at Zodiac Motel anything? I mean, you're
22:51
Speaker 2: saying a bathtub. I don't know that. What bathtub? Where?
22:55
Speaker 2: Is anything?
22:57
Speaker 1: I know?
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Speaker 2: Alex baber that there was an eyewitness at the time
23:01
Speaker 2: that stated he saw a mail at Zodiac Motel that
23:05
Speaker 2: generally fit the description of your perp, but there was
23:10
Speaker 2: never a positive ID, no blood. Is there something else
23:13
Speaker 2: linking him Margolis to Zodiac Motel?
23:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, Actually the account wasn't at the motel itself. What
23:20
Speaker 4: it was is there's three independent eyewitness accounts, three managers
23:24
Speaker 4: of three other motels that evening on the fourteenth, where
23:28
Speaker 4: this individual fitting Margolis's description and his vehicle parks of
23:31
Speaker 4: block away, goes in asks for a room with a
23:34
Speaker 4: tub and specific they say they don't have one. If
23:37
Speaker 4: you mark the hotels and you follow the line, then
23:40
Speaker 4: you have a credible witness at the end, which is
23:42
Speaker 4: a D ANDV investigator. Her name's Ireen Donaldson. She says
23:45
Speaker 4: she sees them coming northeast on San Antonio, turning north
23:50
Speaker 4: on Orange and at that point she witnesses Elizabeth Short
23:53
Speaker 4: in the back of the vehicle being pinioned by a
23:56
Speaker 4: male figure with two other individuals in their front seat,
23:58
Speaker 4: one being a male driving and the pastor site being
24:01
Speaker 4: a female. If you draw a line from that to
24:03
Speaker 4: the location her bodies was discovered.
24:04
Speaker 17: The only motel in between the Zodiac Motel, which was
24:07
Speaker 17: just opened in June of nineteen forty six, six months prior,
24:11
Speaker 17: and it had specifically a tub, which was not common
24:14
Speaker 17: according to records in the area at that time.
24:17
Speaker 4: Most of them had showers.
24:20
Speaker 2: Okay, so you have someone generally fitting Margola's description with
24:25
Speaker 2: a woman in the front seat, and the only motel
24:30
Speaker 2: that had a tub in the area was Zodiac. But
24:32
Speaker 2: I don't have anybody placing him or her as Zodiac.
24:35
Speaker 2: I don't have a receipt nothing like that, but you
24:39
Speaker 2: are triangulating the location and determining that was the only
24:42
Speaker 2: motel with a tub at the time.
24:45
Speaker 4: Well, we also discovered the fact they found out a
24:47
Speaker 4: canvas ice bag just north of where her body was dropped.
24:50
Speaker 4: That canvas ice bag is marked with a wing letter,
24:52
Speaker 4: which is a red letter Z. Doing our research, we
24:55
Speaker 4: discovered that at that time, the ice trucks that came
24:58
Speaker 4: along usually labeled the canvas ice back to the first
25:01
Speaker 4: initial of the hotel or motel they were dropping off
25:03
Speaker 4: the ice at. And this was again discovered just north
25:06
Speaker 4: of where her body was and there's documentation on this
25:09
Speaker 4: in the reports.
25:12
Speaker 2: The leap from Elizabeth Short, Black Dahlia Avenger Killer to Zodiac. Okay,
25:20
Speaker 2: I've told you what happened in Black Dahlia, in her murder,
25:25
Speaker 2: her bisection, in her posing meticulously murdered at her body,
25:31
Speaker 2: very very carefully prepared for a display. Let's analyze what
25:37
Speaker 2: happened with Zodiac.
25:39
Speaker 3: December twentieth, high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David
25:42
Speaker 3: Faraday drive to the outskirts of Vallejo and Park on
25:45
Speaker 3: a secluded lover's lane. Passing drivers noticed the couple around
25:49
Speaker 3: ten thirty and eleven PM. Minutes later, another driver parks
25:52
Speaker 3: ten feet behind and fires shots at the car. The
25:55
Speaker 3: teens scramble to exit and David is shot in the head.
25:58
Speaker 3: Betty Lou is shot in the back five times as
26:01
Speaker 3: she flees. The couple is found ten minutes later, neither surviving.
26:05
Speaker 3: The killer leaves no evidence.
26:08
Speaker 2: But that's not the end. The Zodiac chiller goes on listen.
26:13
Speaker 9: Six months later, Darlene Farren and Michael McGough are parked
26:16
Speaker 9: at Blue Rock Springs Park when what they think is
26:19
Speaker 9: the cop car pulls up. Michael rolls down the window
26:22
Speaker 9: and is shot in the arm. The bullet hits Darlene
26:25
Speaker 9: in the neck. The attacker shoots the couple twice more
26:28
Speaker 9: each and disappears. Three months after that, Cecilia Shepherd and
26:32
Speaker 9: Brian Hartnell are attacked on the beach of Lake Berry,
26:34
Speaker 9: YESA bound and stabbed. Hartnell survives, describing a man in
26:38
Speaker 9: a black hood with a Scope symbol on his clothing.
26:42
Speaker 9: The attacker wrote the same symbol on their car door
26:44
Speaker 9: with the message twelve twenty sixty eight seven four sixty
26:49
Speaker 9: nine September twenty seven sixty nine, six point thirty by knife.
26:54
Speaker 11: Wow.
26:54
Speaker 2: Okay, Alex Baber, that's very convincing to me that the
27:00
Speaker 2: person attacked all of the couples. Did you notice where
27:06
Speaker 2: the dates of those murders were written on the side
27:09
Speaker 2: of those last victim's car, that the Black Dahlie Elizabeth
27:15
Speaker 2: Short is not mentioned.
27:17
Speaker 4: It's not part of the zodiac Moniker at that point.
27:20
Speaker 4: What it is is Elizabeth Short's murder or homicide was personal.
27:25
Speaker 4: Everybody agrees upon that. He stopped her for three months,
27:28
Speaker 4: he found her at the last minute, furse, he left town,
27:30
Speaker 4: the isolatesor the he mutilates her, the bisexer, and the
27:35
Speaker 4: indenty stages her body. The zodiac taking place from twenty
27:39
Speaker 4: three years later has no personal connection at this point,
27:42
Speaker 4: he's older. There are connections between the location. We know
27:45
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Short arrived at Valeo in nineteen forty two and
27:48
Speaker 4: December twentieth, the same date as the initial attack. We
27:51
Speaker 4: also know that her father stage is drowning on October eleventh,
27:54
Speaker 4: nineteen thirty, the act same date that Paul Stein was murdered.
27:58
Speaker 4: There's all these other links that are that are in
28:00
Speaker 4: their circumstantial right, But what we do have is physical
28:03
Speaker 4: webnence supporting our circumstantial evidence and us knowing that Elizabeth
28:08
Speaker 4: had a personal connection to Valleo. There's over four hundred
28:12
Speaker 4: and fifty cities and towns in California and you have
28:15
Speaker 4: these two in Valleo is not a very very well
28:19
Speaker 4: known city outside of the zdiec attacks. Right, It's kind
28:23
Speaker 4: of a mom and pop town, or it used to
28:25
Speaker 4: be at that time. With that being said, if it
28:27
Speaker 4: wasn't personal for him to commit the shrines in Valao,
28:30
Speaker 4: why not to Sco thirty minutes you know, to the
28:33
Speaker 4: west and take all of his attacks in San Francisco.
28:37
Speaker 4: So as far as an mo goes, he changes MO
28:39
Speaker 4: within his own MO. He start out shooting couples with firearm,
28:44
Speaker 4: and then you change to killing or attacking couples with
28:47
Speaker 4: a bladed weapon, and then you isolate an adult male
28:49
Speaker 4: in a cab in an upscale neighborhood. So the whole
28:52
Speaker 4: REMO thing is it's not going to stand with most
28:55
Speaker 4: people out there. From the fact is is that other
28:57
Speaker 4: people like D'Angelo his MO evolved the Gold State killer
29:01
Speaker 4: you mentioned Bundy, I can give you a list of
29:03
Speaker 4: infamous cases that are very similar. So the signature has
29:07
Speaker 4: even changed but what happens is when somebody evolves, they
29:09
Speaker 4: get older, their signature does change.
29:12
Speaker 3: The killer keeps his identity hidden, targeting young victims in
29:15
Speaker 3: isolated locations, while the public lives in fear, never knowing
29:20
Speaker 3: when or where he may strike next.
29:23
Speaker 2: Interesting that choice of words that the killer keeps his
29:26
Speaker 2: identity hidden because he was actually spotted by some of
29:30
Speaker 2: the victims wearing a black hoodie unibomber style with a
29:35
Speaker 2: cross in a circle that many people state is a
29:39
Speaker 2: scope like a gun scope. He was spotted. The real
29:47
Speaker 2: similarity is the taunting of the media.
29:52
Speaker 13: The Balleo Times San Francisco Chronicle in San Francisco Examiner
29:56
Speaker 13: received letters taking credit for the killings of David Faraday
29:59
Speaker 13: that Lou Jensen and Darlene Farrin. Each copy contains a
30:03
Speaker 13: third of a four hundred and eight symbol cryptogram, which
30:07
Speaker 13: the writer demands be printed on their front page. These Later,
30:10
Speaker 13: a second letter arrives the first line, Dear Editor, this
30:14
Speaker 13: is the Zodiac speaking. It describes the killings in detail
30:18
Speaker 13: and earns the self proclaimed murderer the title Zodiac Killer.
30:22
Speaker 13: Later letters include more Cipher's information on the murders, including
30:26
Speaker 13: swatches of Palsteine shirt and taunts that police have no
30:30
Speaker 13: leads on the Zodiac's identity.
30:32
Speaker 2: That's absolutely the killer. He has swatches of one of
30:36
Speaker 2: the victim's bloody shirt and included it in his letters
30:40
Speaker 2: to the media. Just as Elizabeth Schwartz, the Black Dolly
30:45
Speaker 2: is killer taunted, so is Zodiac. But that by far
30:51
Speaker 2: Joe Scott Morgan would not be the first killer to
30:54
Speaker 2: taunt media or police. You've got son of Sam Berkowitz, BTK,
31:00
Speaker 2: Dennis Rader. He can stop himself from taunting. Unibamber Takezinski
31:06
Speaker 2: and his massive manifesto. His brother recognized terms and phrases
31:13
Speaker 2: he would use and turned him in. Gary Ridgeway typed
31:18
Speaker 2: a letter. And of course Zodiac remains unknown. So many
31:26
Speaker 2: killers have taunted. But what do you see is a
31:30
Speaker 2: connection between the taunting by Zodiac and the taunting by
31:35
Speaker 2: Black Dahlia's killer if.
31:37
Speaker 8: Any Yeah, I don't know that I necessarily see connectivity here.
31:43
Speaker 8: I do find it very very interesting that the geographical
31:49
Speaker 8: connection when you begin to think about Vallejo, and also
31:54
Speaker 8: if you go back and you look at at Elizabeth
31:58
Speaker 8: Schwartz remains not only were they bisected and certainly abused, postmortemly,
32:07
Speaker 8: but you know she was she was there. She also
32:09
Speaker 8: had stab wounds as well, Nancy. If you go back
32:12
Speaker 8: to the couple at the lake, they had multiple stab wounds.
32:16
Speaker 5: You know.
32:16
Speaker 8: When this character comes out of nowhere and is dressed
32:19
Speaker 8: in this weirdo costume. Some people described it as almost
32:23
Speaker 8: looking medieval, and those stab wounds were there, So I
32:28
Speaker 8: don't it. The problem is, I think it's hard to
32:33
Speaker 8: have connectivity from a scientific standpoint. I'm talking about as
32:37
Speaker 8: a forensic scientist here. You know, what are you going
32:40
Speaker 8: to do to go back a few years ago we
32:42
Speaker 8: had this Gary I think Gary Stewart guy came out
32:45
Speaker 8: and said that, you know, his dad was the Syria
32:48
Speaker 8: it was the Zodiac Killer. I remember being on a
32:51
Speaker 8: program at some point in time relative to that claimed
32:54
Speaker 8: that there was genetic connectivity in that case. And I've
32:58
Speaker 8: heard other people make this claim before. So for me scientifically,
33:03
Speaker 8: I'm going to have to have something. I'm going to
33:05
Speaker 8: need to see something that is scientifically connective. Here the
33:09
Speaker 8: tissue here. You know, we can talk about cuts all
33:12
Speaker 8: day long.
33:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, You're right, I hear you. Not only
33:15
Speaker 2: is there the taunting that is similar, not exactly the same,
33:20
Speaker 2: but there is more. I want you to hear this.
33:23
Speaker 3: We have identified the individual who committed these crimes.
33:27
Speaker 4: He is probably the smartest criminal to ever live. He
33:30
Speaker 4: had a medical background. He was a usc medical student,
33:33
Speaker 4: and he was also a former marine.
33:35
Speaker 9: Alex Baber, the co founder of Cold Case Consultants of America,
33:39
Speaker 9: claims AI helped him definitively solve the Z thirteen cipher.
33:44
Speaker 9: Baber says the program narrowed down seventy one million possible
33:48
Speaker 9: names to fourteen based on age, gender, and possible experience
33:52
Speaker 9: with World War two code making methods due to the
33:55
Speaker 9: methods used in the Z four eighty and Z three
33:58
Speaker 9: forty ciphers, and eliminated thirteen of those names with old
34:02
Speaker 9: fashioned detective work, leaving Marvin Merrill as the solution to
34:07
Speaker 9: the cryptogram. Ed Georgio, former NSA chief code breaker and maker,
34:12
Speaker 9: reviews Baber's work and says the methods are sound to
34:17
Speaker 9: the man.
34:18
Speaker 2: Of the hour, Alex Baber, who claims that Zodiac and
34:23
Speaker 2: the Black Dahlia Avenger is one in the same. You
34:28
Speaker 2: by cracking that cipher, along with help from AI and more,
34:32
Speaker 2: you cracked it. You're saying that it absolutely proves that
34:36
Speaker 2: Marvin Merrill is Zodiac. What did Marvin Merrill have to
34:43
Speaker 2: do with Elizabeth Short?
34:46
Speaker 4: Okay, so, to start out, we know that Marvin Margo
34:49
Speaker 4: List was the last name boyfriend Elizabeth Short according to
34:52
Speaker 4: the files, and lived together for twelve days in October.
34:55
Speaker 4: We know she left October twenty second under threat from him.
34:59
Speaker 4: She's on the street, picked up by a guy named
35:01
Speaker 4: Glenn Kerns, who gives her a ride. They make an agreement.
35:03
Speaker 4: Glynn returns to apartment seven twenty six and Margolis lived
35:07
Speaker 4: in and gathers her belongings for her, and she does
35:11
Speaker 4: not go. He does it for her. That tells you
35:13
Speaker 4: how scared she is. He then goes on her. She
35:16
Speaker 4: goes on a run from him for three months. She
35:18
Speaker 4: gets on a bus even heads to San Diego, where
35:20
Speaker 4: she has no friends, no family, no money, no food.
35:22
Speaker 4: Is discovered in a twenty fiur theater called the Aztec
35:25
Speaker 4: by the French daughter who takes her in for thirty
35:28
Speaker 4: days with her mom via. She tells them, I'm fearful
35:30
Speaker 4: of my ex marine boyfriend who's searching for me. That's
35:33
Speaker 4: why I'm down here hiding. And then he finds her
35:36
Speaker 4: because he makes She makes a phone call and asks
35:37
Speaker 4: for twenty dollars from Mark Hanson, so he shows up
35:39
Speaker 4: at the door beating on it that night. The next
35:41
Speaker 4: day she has read mainly take her back to la
35:44
Speaker 4: So he's stalking her for three months leading up to
35:47
Speaker 4: her murder, and there was no missing week. We identified reports,
35:50
Speaker 4: including one from officer Mary McBride, who reported her approaching
35:53
Speaker 4: her in the state of hysteria. On the evening of
35:55
Speaker 4: the fourteenth. She identified Elizabeth Shwort's body after she looked
35:59
Speaker 4: at the pictures confirmed them. She comes back two hours
36:01
Speaker 4: later she says, I'm not so sure about the identification.
36:04
Speaker 4: You know, why is that? Does someone tell her to
36:06
Speaker 4: change her perspective. You can't have a police officer the
36:08
Speaker 4: last individual to see a woman who's just mutilated and murdered, right,
36:12
Speaker 4: So that being said, she goes and she identifies the
36:15
Speaker 4: body at the coroner's office. That tells you right there
36:18
Speaker 4: that we have the right individual. It is Alsbee Short.
36:20
Speaker 4: So there is no missing week.
36:21
Speaker 2: So you're telling me, Alex Paper that by cracking the cipher,
36:27
Speaker 2: you identify Marvin Merrill.
36:30
Speaker 4: By cracking the cipher, we never used it as a
36:32
Speaker 4: piece of evidence, Nancy, It was an investigative tool. He
36:35
Speaker 4: was just one of hundreds of thousands of potential names
36:39
Speaker 4: or solutions. Right. What we did do is do the
36:41
Speaker 4: end of the investigation eliminate all the individuals that were
36:44
Speaker 4: real world living beings opposed to just let her frequency,
36:49
Speaker 4: name gathering or groupings. So we were able to eliminate
36:52
Speaker 4: ninety four percent of the seventy four million at that point, right,
36:55
Speaker 4: a little over seventy one million. And once we get
36:57
Speaker 4: that name, we're able to say, Okay, does this guy
36:59
Speaker 4: have a back round, is he the right race, does
37:02
Speaker 4: he have the height, does he have the features? Does
37:04
Speaker 4: he have the background? You know, we identify a vehicle
37:07
Speaker 4: that was witnessed at Lake Buriessa an hour and a
37:10
Speaker 4: half before the murders were committed on Hart Mail and
37:12
Speaker 4: Cecilia Shepherd. That vehicle, once he's arrested in seventy one,
37:16
Speaker 4: is put for sale in a classified ad, the exact
37:18
Speaker 4: same vehicle that was used to Lake Buriessa. Is that
37:22
Speaker 4: a coincidence? And he lists under his wife's name to
37:25
Speaker 4: sell the vehicle.
37:27
Speaker 2: That's a lot of evidence, Alex. After you crack the cipher,
37:32
Speaker 2: you then do all the investigation work you just described
37:36
Speaker 2: in more and you come up with in the real world,
37:41
Speaker 2: applying the knowledge from the cipher to the facts, the description,
37:46
Speaker 2: the car, the circumstances, and you come up with one
37:50
Speaker 2: individual where it fits, and it's Marvin Merrill. Then you
37:55
Speaker 2: learn years before Marvin Merrill, who you now believe is
38:00
Speaker 2: DAC dated lived with for I think about twelve days
38:05
Speaker 2: and stoked Elizabeth Short just before her murder. Is that correct?
38:12
Speaker 4: That is correct? I believe that MURVN. Merrill was always
38:14
Speaker 4: a good suspect Onlizabeth Short's homicide, probably one of my
38:17
Speaker 4: top five when I got the original DA files, But
38:20
Speaker 4: connecting him directly to Zodiac did not happen, and so
38:23
Speaker 4: I uploaded his information as Marvin Merrill got the Security
38:26
Speaker 4: Administration reports and realized that he filed the name Margolis
38:30
Speaker 4: and Mirro under the same Exacts security number. At that
38:33
Speaker 4: point I knew it was the same individual.
38:35
Speaker 2: So do you name it Romani? Is it starting to
38:38
Speaker 2: get real?
38:39
Speaker 4: Potentially?
38:40
Speaker 12: Yes, Look, if you're talking about the cipher, Nancy, that's
38:42
Speaker 12: an admission to me, that's not any type of link.
38:45
Speaker 4: And obviously I'm no code breaker.
38:47
Speaker 12: I gotta defer to the experts on that. So what
38:50
Speaker 12: I'm hear in her three types of evidence, right, the
38:52
Speaker 12: fact that maybe the Black Dahlia killer stayed at the
38:56
Speaker 12: Zodiac hoteler that's where the murder happened.
38:58
Speaker 4: I don't think that's enough. Then you have the taunting
39:01
Speaker 4: and he went through it. Nancy.
39:02
Speaker 12: There's a lot of different killers over the years that
39:05
Speaker 12: have contacted the media, even conted the media. I mean
39:07
Speaker 12: throwing Bob Durst as one that I've been here in
39:10
Speaker 12: LA right, so the famous Beverly letter to LAPD.
39:17
Speaker 18: So you know.
39:19
Speaker 12: Now you have the third piece of evidence that I've heard,
39:21
Speaker 12: and again I'm not an expert. Maybe I got to
39:23
Speaker 12: talk to Joseph and others. Is that bayonet from decades
39:26
Speaker 12: before World War Two, which may have been one of
39:29
Speaker 12: the murder weapons. Again, unless I have something we know
39:33
Speaker 12: as lawyers, Nancy, it's not what you think.
39:35
Speaker 4: It's not even what you know. It's what you can prove.
39:38
Speaker 12: But I don't think this evidence would get a guilty
39:41
Speaker 12: verdict beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe in the Black Dahlia case,
39:47
Speaker 12: but certainly not in the Zodiac killer case.
39:49
Speaker 15: In o Kanawa, Margolis was underbombing for twenty nine days,
39:53
Speaker 15: then ordered to set up a hospital. He worked long
39:55
Speaker 15: hours with little sleep, under frequent air raids, saw many
39:59
Speaker 15: buddies in mangled shape. His setup was in a small cave.
40:02
Speaker 15: A rain caused the sides to cave in. He was
40:05
Speaker 15: buried all but his head, which was held tight like
40:07
Speaker 15: a vice. The next morning he dug out. He became amnesic, emotional,
40:12
Speaker 15: with depression and instability.
40:14
Speaker 4: By today's standards, he would be you would be flagged
40:17
Speaker 4: at the local VA, meaning that doctors would say, okay,
40:20
Speaker 4: this soldier here has just come back from active duty
40:23
Speaker 4: overseas in combat that he needs to be watched, he
40:27
Speaker 4: needs to have further psychological evaluations.
40:31
Speaker 2: We are talking about the potential Zodiac killer being Merrill
40:37
Speaker 2: a k a. Margolus, and there's more.
40:41
Speaker 15: The psychiatric diagnosis is as follows. The subject is calm, quiet,
40:45
Speaker 15: and a resentful individual who shows ample evidence of open
40:48
Speaker 15: aggression at present. This man shows a lack of interest, aims,
40:52
Speaker 15: and ability to concentrate. Margolis is sullen. His personality is
40:57
Speaker 15: not pleasing, apathetic, and inclined to sarcasm. He said that
41:01
Speaker 15: the next time there is a war, two of us
41:03
Speaker 15: are not going. The one who comes after me and myself.
41:06
Speaker 4: He stated that he if there was another war, somebody
41:08
Speaker 4: came for him, that two people weren't going, it would
41:11
Speaker 4: be him, an individual king. So he's basically threatened the
41:14
Speaker 4: life of whoever shows up at his door for a draft.
41:18
Speaker 2: That from Killer in the Code podcast back to Alex Baber,
41:23
Speaker 2: who is making a connection between Elizabeth Schwartz murder and
41:27
Speaker 2: bisection to the Zodiac Killer Zodiac still is unsolved. How
41:35
Speaker 2: do you believe that Margolis what he endured in the
41:40
Speaker 2: World War could have affected him?
41:45
Speaker 4: Well, PDSD they call a shell shock. At that time, Nancy,
41:48
Speaker 4: it was quite common for veterans who were returning from
41:51
Speaker 4: World War Two, and identifying the fact that he was
41:55
Speaker 4: discharged under fifty percent mental disability at that time evaluation
42:00
Speaker 4: which part of it was just read? He was definitely
42:02
Speaker 4: a loose cannon. He was explosive, and the grand jury
42:05
Speaker 4: files indicate that as well. Whenever they're doing the detective
42:10
Speaker 4: testimony under oath, they make that clear as well.
42:14
Speaker 2: There is also talk of the bayonet that he Margolis
42:18
Speaker 2: brought home, the Japanese bayonet. How does that factor an listen.
42:23
Speaker 3: Baber also discovers an article on Marvin Margolis his heroism
42:26
Speaker 3: in World War Two. Margolis is quoted in the article
42:29
Speaker 3: as bringing home a Japanese rifle and bayonet he took
42:32
Speaker 3: off a soldier he claimed to have killed. Baber says
42:35
Speaker 3: this specific mention of the bayonet ties Margolis to the
42:38
Speaker 3: Zodiac killings, as the weapon matches that used in the
42:41
Speaker 3: attack on Cecilia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell, and symbols commonly
42:45
Speaker 3: etched into the knives make several appearances in the Zodiac ciphers.
42:50
Speaker 2: I agree with Romani on this, the speculation that the
42:54
Speaker 2: bayonet from Japan and the war somehow connects to Zodiac,
43:02
Speaker 2: I find that very tenuous. This is evidence that I
43:05
Speaker 2: find to be probative, and I believe Evan Cheryl McCollum
43:09
Speaker 2: and Ema Romani are going to agree. Listen.
43:13
Speaker 9: Baber discovers a striking fact Margolis was a prime suspect
43:17
Speaker 9: in Elizabeth Short's murder two decades before the Zodiac killings.
43:22
Speaker 9: Elizabeth and Margolis dated several months before her death, and
43:25
Speaker 9: Elizabeth even lived with Margolis very briefly in an apartment
43:29
Speaker 9: Margoli shared with a wartime friend, Bill Robinson, who served
43:32
Speaker 9: as a cryptographer and Signal Corps officer in the war
43:36
Speaker 9: when question about their relationship with Short. Both Margolis and
43:39
Speaker 9: Robinson were deemed untruthful by authorities, but officers had no
43:44
Speaker 9: direct evidence tying Margolis to the murder.
43:47
Speaker 5: What brought Margolis to the attention of the investigator was
43:50
Speaker 5: that he and Elizabeth Short had shared an apartment in
43:53
Speaker 5: Hollywood for twelve days in October, just three months before
43:58
Speaker 5: a murderer.
44:00
Speaker 2: Keryl McCollum, I'm not ready to make that connection yet,
44:03
Speaker 2: Like Ramani, I wouldn't quite put it in front of
44:05
Speaker 2: a jury as a similar But the fact that Margolis
44:09
Speaker 2: Merril lived with Elizabeth Short, even for twelve days, they dated,
44:15
Speaker 2: and he stalked her just before her murders, that's probative.
44:20
Speaker 2: So if he is the Zodiac killer, that suggests to
44:24
Speaker 2: me he could have been the Black Dahlia Avenger.
44:28
Speaker 11: He clearly would be somebody I would want to look
44:31
Speaker 11: at for Elizabeth's murder. But that's a personal connection. Again,
44:36
Speaker 11: that's almost revengeful. That's how her murder looks to me.
44:40
Speaker 11: I'm going to torture you, I'm going to punish you.
44:42
Speaker 11: I'm going to hit you in the head. I'm going
44:44
Speaker 11: to cut your tattoo off. I'm going to tie you up,
44:46
Speaker 11: I'm going to cut you in half. I'm going to
44:48
Speaker 11: grain your blood. That is not what I'm seeing in Zodiac.
44:52
Speaker 11: It's almost like you have a lust killer in one
44:54
Speaker 11: event and a mission oriented killer in the other. They
44:58
Speaker 11: still seem to people to meet.
45:02
Speaker 2: What about a name of Ramani.
45:04
Speaker 12: Again, I think that there's evidence, certainly circumstantial evidence, that
45:08
Speaker 12: Margolis or Merrill is Schwortz killer. I mean, we know
45:11
Speaker 12: that today's stalker domestic violence is tomorrow's murderer. Look, if
45:15
Speaker 12: anything happens to me, Nancy, my wife, should be the
45:17
Speaker 12: number one suspect. So I understand that I don't understand,
45:22
Speaker 12: and I can't prove the connection to Zodiac. That's the problem.
45:27
Speaker 12: All we have is the motel, this bayonet. Now again,
45:31
Speaker 12: if the code is an admission a confession, sure that's something.
45:38
Speaker 12: But other than that, we don't have enough to prove
45:41
Speaker 12: that these are the same two individuals that killed folks
45:45
Speaker 12: in Vallejo and who killed Elizabeth.
45:47
Speaker 2: Short Well, there's more.
45:50
Speaker 3: Listen, Baber convinces Meryl's son to meet in person. Baber
45:54
Speaker 3: comes clean about his theory Meryl is Zodiac and asks
45:57
Speaker 3: the son if he recognizes the handwriting in the zodiac let.
46:00
Speaker 3: Baber also mentions his theory Meryll's first victim was Elizabeth Short,
46:04
Speaker 3: and the son perks up at the name Elizabeth. Showing
46:07
Speaker 3: Baber his father's last sketch, a nude woman's torso under
46:12
Speaker 3: the name Elizabeth, Baber discovers the word zodiac written underneath
46:19
Speaker 3: dark shading in the sketch.
46:21
Speaker 18: Looking at the sketch of a nude woman, you know
46:23
Speaker 18: from the waves, stop that appears to have puncture wounds
46:26
Speaker 18: to the torso area with smear blood and it has
46:29
Speaker 18: Elizabeth in bold writing, the biggest, the biggest writing on
46:33
Speaker 18: the entire sketches, says Elizabeth.
46:35
Speaker 4: It was a smoking gun. We knew that this sketch
46:38
Speaker 4: was a piece of evidence. It was physical evidence for
46:40
Speaker 4: the first time since the package was mailed to the
46:44
Speaker 4: local newspapers in la on January twenty fourth, nineteen forty seven.
46:49
Speaker 2: Alex Baber joining us tonight, Alex, tell me what happened
46:52
Speaker 2: when you meet with Merrill's son.
46:57
Speaker 4: Oh, he was very open to me and my associate.
47:00
Speaker 4: We started to present our findings on his father. The letters.
47:04
Speaker 4: In particular, he recognized the handwriting. Immediately became slightly emotional, reached.
47:09
Speaker 4: Out of all the people I've interviewed, it's the first
47:11
Speaker 4: time ones ever initiated physical contact with me, reaching across
47:14
Speaker 4: the table and grabbing my hands, saying this is going
47:17
Speaker 4: to be okay, We're going to be all right. That
47:20
Speaker 4: was a red flag to me. As I'm moving through
47:23
Speaker 4: and I mentioned the black value connection we had uncovered
47:26
Speaker 4: through the DA files. He said, was their name Elizabeth?
47:29
Speaker 4: I said yeah, so he said, give me a moment.
47:31
Speaker 4: So he starts flipping through his phone, finds his photograph
47:33
Speaker 4: and instantly when I opened it up, he hand me
47:35
Speaker 4: in his phone. I zoom in on it and the
47:37
Speaker 4: first thing I see are puncture wounds to the torso
47:40
Speaker 4: they're not rick aged, they're not there. For contrast, there
47:43
Speaker 4: are literal puncture wounds to the center for torsa that
47:45
Speaker 4: match up with the autopsy of photographs, and it appears
47:48
Speaker 4: to be smeared blood over them. You know, we have
47:50
Speaker 4: what looks like the top of the breast tissue removed
47:53
Speaker 4: from the exposed breasts. We have the clear indication, which
47:58
Speaker 4: we're getting analy and Fritzic Experts is going to give
48:01
Speaker 4: us opinion on it, but we know it has the
48:03
Speaker 4: word Zodiac hidden underneath the shading. Why would this guy
48:07
Speaker 4: who's just got diagnosed with States four cancer, he has
48:11
Speaker 4: less than a year to live, he creates a sketch
48:13
Speaker 4: with the big name Elizabeth of a nude woman. There's
48:15
Speaker 4: no navel indicated in the sketch. It could be below that,
48:18
Speaker 4: but if you look at the torso length, it stands
48:20
Speaker 4: out to me that she's lying or sitting in something
48:23
Speaker 4: because there's dark shading in between her torsta and her
48:26
Speaker 4: arms and just outside of both of her arms, as
48:28
Speaker 4: if she's laying in a tub. Her hair appears wet,
48:31
Speaker 4: her eyes look like her dimmed out and zoom in
48:34
Speaker 4: on them. And then we have these pieces of guilty
48:37
Speaker 4: evidence that are within the sketch that's not public domain.
48:41
Speaker 4: That's not something that somebody would know unless either perpetrator
48:45
Speaker 4: or be there represent when her body was discovered.
48:47
Speaker 2: Straight out to Sydney Sumner joining US Crime Stories investigative
48:50
Speaker 2: reporter Sydney. There are many many theories out there about
48:54
Speaker 2: who is really Zodiac right.
48:58
Speaker 14: Absolutely, there have been a number of people who have
49:01
Speaker 14: come forward claiming they believe their father, their grandfather was
49:05
Speaker 14: the Zodiac killer, and the same goes for Elizabeth Short.
49:09
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, here is one theory that
49:12
Speaker 2: George Hodell is the killer.
49:15
Speaker 19: I believe I know who killed the Black Dohlia. His
49:17
Speaker 19: name was George Hodell. But here's the kicker. I also
49:20
Speaker 19: think he was the Zodiac killer. After George's death, his
49:24
Speaker 19: son Steve found pictures that resembled the black Dahlia Elizabeth Short.
49:29
Speaker 19: And since he found that picture, he's been able to
49:32
Speaker 19: catalog enough evidence to make a book. And here's just
49:35
Speaker 19: a few parts of that evidence. There were six prime
49:37
Speaker 19: suspects at the time of Elizabeth Schwartz murder. Turns out
49:40
Speaker 19: George Hodell was one of them. They even bubged his
49:42
Speaker 19: home for a little bit. And I'm going to read
49:44
Speaker 19: you one of the transcripts supposing I did kill the
49:47
Speaker 19: Black Dahlia. They can't prove it. They can't talk to
49:50
Speaker 19: my secretary anymore because she's dead.
49:53
Speaker 2: Okay too, Alex Baber, what about Hodell as the black Dahlia? Chill?
50:00
Speaker 2: Does it work for you?
50:03
Speaker 4: We already discrewed him, as did lap Back. In early
50:06
Speaker 4: two thousands, they investigated Steve Whodell's findings and Mitchie Roberts
50:11
Speaker 4: could probably tell you more about this, but they actually
50:13
Speaker 4: did bump his claims. There's no connection. There was never
50:16
Speaker 4: any incident, relationship or known relationship between Elizabeth Short and
50:20
Speaker 4: doctor George Hillhodell at all, as far as the recording
50:24
Speaker 4: of the house goes. If you're going to be intimate
50:26
Speaker 4: with somebody, as his son claims in nine or thirteen books,
50:30
Speaker 4: what would make sense to me is when he's talking
50:32
Speaker 4: about it in the privacy of his residence, he's going
50:34
Speaker 4: to refer to my name, whether it be Elizabeth Bettie's
50:37
Speaker 4: gonna refer to as the black Dahia in the privacy
50:40
Speaker 4: of his residence. It makes no.
50:42
Speaker 2: Sense, Alex. That jumped out at me as well. Why
50:45
Speaker 2: would he refer to her as the black Dahlia? Okay,
50:50
Speaker 2: I agree with you on that. You know, Cheryl McCollum,
50:54
Speaker 2: the fact that Hodell was considered a suspect at the
50:57
Speaker 2: time is good police work. You run down every potential
51:01
Speaker 2: suspect so you're ready when you finally accuse someone publicly,
51:08
Speaker 2: because everybody you researched or investigated can then become a
51:12
Speaker 2: defense for the defense. Hey, didn't you think it was Hodel?
51:15
Speaker 2: It's the police duty to run down every single potential suspect, right.
51:21
Speaker 11: It is absolutely their duty. Means you they even looked
51:24
Speaker 11: at Bugsy Siegels for Elizabeth murder. I mean, they had
51:28
Speaker 11: everybody on their list. A lot of these folks take
51:32
Speaker 11: for them, whether they should have or not, but they did. Again,
51:36
Speaker 11: what we're looking at here is zero physical evidence. It
51:40
Speaker 11: would be great if we could pull a fingerprint off
51:42
Speaker 11: one of the letters, if we could get DNA off
51:45
Speaker 11: an envelope that he lit for a stamp. We don't
51:48
Speaker 11: have that here. What we have is a great theory,
51:52
Speaker 11: but we had it with Arthur Lee Allen. I mean
51:54
Speaker 11: we've had it with other people that looked good for
51:58
Speaker 11: some of these murders.
51:59
Speaker 2: The fact that Margolis was actually dating Elizabeth Short and
52:06
Speaker 2: it is now potentially the Zodiac I find that connection
52:11
Speaker 2: right there very very probative. But there are other theories. Listen,
52:17
Speaker 2: my grandpa is the Zodiac Killer. Let's talk about it.
52:21
Speaker 20: My grandpa was a Valeo police officer, Yes, the same
52:23
Speaker 20: area where the Zodiac Killers killings took place. Darlene Farren
52:28
Speaker 20: and her boyfriend Mike were driving around Valeo one night,
52:31
Speaker 20: the night that my grandfather happened to be on duty,
52:34
Speaker 20: driving an unmarked police car and wearing playing clothes. Mike,
52:38
Speaker 20: who ended up surviving the shooting, said that they were
52:40
Speaker 20: being followed around by this car all night in Valeo
52:43
Speaker 20: before they pulled into Blue Rock Springs. They said when
52:45
Speaker 20: they parked, the car pulled in, a man hopped out
52:48
Speaker 20: of the car and Darlene, the girl who passed away, said,
52:50
Speaker 20: oh my god, that's Richard. He's gonna kill us both.
52:54
Speaker 4: She had a painting party.
52:55
Speaker 20: At her house a few weeks before her murder, and
52:57
Speaker 20: it was said that my grandfather, Richard Hoffmann stowed up uninvited,
53:01
Speaker 20: and she told her circle of friends as she is
53:03
Speaker 20: scared to death the film.
53:04
Speaker 2: That's from at j foury three to zero on TikTok
53:08
Speaker 2: And there's even speculation that Ted Cruz is the killer.
53:13
Speaker 21: Could Ted Cruz actually be the Zodiac Killer? So On
53:17
Speaker 21: March fourteenth, twenty thirteen, multiple users tweeted hashtag seapack alert
53:22
Speaker 21: Ted Cruz is speaking. His speech is titled this is
53:25
Speaker 21: the Zodiac Speaking. Ted Cruise himself referenced the meme by
53:28
Speaker 21: tweeting out an infamous picture of a coded letter written
53:31
Speaker 21: by the Zodiac Killer He did something similar on October
53:34
Speaker 21: thirty first, twenty eighteen, when he tweeted another Zodiac cipher
53:38
Speaker 21: and included the caption happy Halloween. For most, this just
53:41
Speaker 21: proved that Cruz was in on the joke, but it
53:43
Speaker 21: may have added some legitimacy for others. Some people also
53:46
Speaker 21: feel that there is somewhat of a resemblance between Cruse
53:49
Speaker 21: and the police sketches of the Zodiac killer.
53:52
Speaker 2: Okay, that's from at Buzzfeet Unsolved on TikTok and on
53:56
Speaker 2: and on and on. I could play you conspiracy theories
54:00
Speaker 2: from now till the end of time about who is Zodiac?
54:04
Speaker 2: To you, Rachel Sharp, what do you find to be
54:07
Speaker 2: the most compelling theory?
54:11
Speaker 16: Yeah, I mean, as you point out, there's so many
54:14
Speaker 16: there's been so many occasions where people have claimed to
54:17
Speaker 16: have solved the Zodiac and the Black Dahlia cases. What
54:23
Speaker 16: I do think differentiates the case here is in the
54:27
Speaker 16: Black Dahlia case, you have someone who was in a
54:30
Speaker 16: relationship with Elizabeth Short. He was also had that surgical experience.
54:37
Speaker 16: He was in the medical Corps while he served overseas
54:41
Speaker 16: in World War Two, and he was also training at
54:44
Speaker 16: the time at the USC Medical school, so we had
54:47
Speaker 16: both of those characteristics. He also was named as a suspect,
54:52
Speaker 16: and that was by the LA authorities at the time,
54:56
Speaker 16: and that was you know, one of the reasons they
54:59
Speaker 16: gave for that was that he was the only boyfriend
55:02
Speaker 16: that lived with Elizabeth Short, had that medical training and
55:07
Speaker 16: was also the only one who had marine experience. Obviously,
55:11
Speaker 16: we know that a police officer encountered the woman she
55:15
Speaker 16: believed was Short the night before, who said that she
55:18
Speaker 16: was afraid of a marine. So the evidence there is
55:21
Speaker 16: quite compelling. And then couple that with the Zodiac and
55:26
Speaker 16: the solving of the solution to the Z thirteen cipher,
55:30
Speaker 16: which as we say, has been verified by one of
55:33
Speaker 16: the top code breakers in the world. Then you know,
55:36
Speaker 16: you put the cases together and it is certainly a
55:38
Speaker 16: very compelling argument. You have the spayinet, you have the motel,
55:46
Speaker 16: you have the cipher. You have also a gap in
55:50
Speaker 16: the Zodiac's correspondence. So there was a three year gap
55:53
Speaker 16: in the Zodiac correspondence from nineteen seventy one to nineteen
55:57
Speaker 16: seventy four. And what's curious is that that timing actually
56:01
Speaker 16: corresponded with a three year probation period where Marvin Morgolis
56:06
Speaker 16: had been convicted of fraud and was under probation for
56:10
Speaker 16: that time. So while it does need further investigation, there
56:14
Speaker 16: is a lot of compelling evidence there, and I think
56:17
Speaker 16: what sets us apart is that it's attracted experts. You know,
56:22
Speaker 16: this isn't sort of theories. This has got the top
56:27
Speaker 16: code breaker who has said the solution is correct to
56:31
Speaker 16: the Z thirteen cipher. You have some former LAPD homicide
56:36
Speaker 16: detectives who have actually gone on the record and you know,
56:38
Speaker 16: said they believe this is solved. And we also know
56:42
Speaker 16: that police are activitally reviewings as well. So while there
56:46
Speaker 16: has been a lot of theories, a lot of speculation,
56:50
Speaker 16: a lot of people claiming to have solved these cases,
56:53
Speaker 16: we at least know that police are taking this seriously.
56:57
Speaker 2: Sidney Sumner, what about it?
56:58
Speaker 22: I have to agree it's all very compelling when you
57:02
Speaker 22: look at all of this circumstantial evidence put together, and
57:06
Speaker 22: what Baber's theory really focuses on is that sketch that
57:10
Speaker 22: is a physical piece of evidence, and while it could
57:13
Speaker 22: mean many things.
57:15
Speaker 23: It just seems like an incredible coincidence that on his deathbed,
57:22
Speaker 23: Marvin Merrill, Marvin Margolis draws the sketch of Elizabeth matching
57:28
Speaker 23: that upper torso that bisected body, and the word Zodiac
57:33
Speaker 23: is just conveniently tucked in there. It really makes you
57:37
Speaker 23: want to believe that this could be the solution.
57:46
Speaker 1: Crime Stores with Nancy Grace.
57:52
Speaker 2: Back to Alex Baber joining US, director of cole Case
57:56
Speaker 2: Consultants of America. You've devoted less man hours to solving this.
58:03
Speaker 2: So if you firmly believe that Meryll is Zodiac, not
58:11
Speaker 2: just because of the cipher, but because of other evidents.
58:16
Speaker 2: The connection of Meryl aka mar Golis to Elizabeth Short
58:21
Speaker 2: is clear. They lived together, she was afraid of him
58:25
Speaker 2: just shortly before her death, and the murder was so
58:28
Speaker 2: intensely personal. Again, how do you why are you convinced
58:35
Speaker 2: that Merrill is Zodiac? Because I think I've got him
58:39
Speaker 2: on Short. But what about Zodiac?
58:41
Speaker 4: Good question, Nancy. So here's what we got. We discovered
58:44
Speaker 4: that this individual was living having two residents under two
58:48
Speaker 4: names which were aliases. One was Marvin Merrill in the
58:51
Speaker 4: Oshuside Carlsbad location and then in the North Bay in
58:55
Speaker 4: the Santa's Hey. He's using Skip maryl Right at the
58:58
Speaker 4: same time and his family. We spoke to couldn't account
59:01
Speaker 4: for his whereabouts. One assumed that he was in the
59:05
Speaker 4: Vista Ocean Side area. The other ones are like, we
59:07
Speaker 4: could we don't know where our dad was, right, And
59:10
Speaker 4: then we find out that his background that we can
59:12
Speaker 4: connect directly to the area in the north while also
59:16
Speaker 4: having these overlaps between the events that took place in
59:20
Speaker 4: the crimes and his traveling or where he was at
59:23
Speaker 4: at the time. We can go all the way back
59:25
Speaker 4: to nineteen sixty two. So when he arrives in the
59:27
Speaker 4: Ocean Side in February sixty two, a month and a
59:31
Speaker 4: half later, a cab driver named Ray Davis's murder and
59:34
Speaker 4: this was not from me, but if you searched the internet,
59:36
Speaker 4: you'll see that there is other people who have linked
59:39
Speaker 4: him as being a possible Zodia accesspact back to sixty two.
59:43
Speaker 4: As a cab driver, it mimics the Paul Stein attack
59:46
Speaker 4: almost identical. It's called a law enforcement mocking them. There's
59:50
Speaker 4: the murders committed, and then they make fun of law
59:53
Speaker 4: enforcement not catching him, and then he threatens to take
59:56
Speaker 4: out a bus. It's almost a mirror image of what
59:58
Speaker 4: happened with Paul Stein. So Margolis moves into Oceanside. A
1:00:02
Speaker 4: month and a half later, this murder takes place right
1:00:05
Speaker 4: and then the same thing happens somewhat seven years later.
1:00:10
Speaker 4: And is that a coincidence? Every place that this guy goes,
1:00:14
Speaker 4: every place that he lives, there's either a Zodiac crime committed,
1:00:18
Speaker 4: there's a suspected Zodiac crime committed, or there's a Zodiac
1:00:21
Speaker 4: letter medal across the nation literally even in Atlanta. We'll
1:00:26
Speaker 4: discuss that later in our podcast. But every time this
1:00:29
Speaker 4: guy's goes somewhere, there's a connection. Either he's the most
1:00:32
Speaker 4: unluckiest guy on the planet or he's the perpetrator.
1:00:37
Speaker 2: When you say everywhere Margolis aka Merrill goes, there is
1:00:41
Speaker 2: a Zodiac type killing.
1:00:44
Speaker 4: Where we have the ones in the ocean Side area,
1:00:48
Speaker 4: we have the ones in the Bay area. We have
1:00:51
Speaker 4: the letters that connect not just from those two locations
1:00:54
Speaker 4: or communications, but we also have those that are connected
1:00:57
Speaker 4: into Atlanta in the early eighties. I mean there's everywhere
1:01:00
Speaker 4: literally and where this guy goes and there's a Zodiac
1:01:02
Speaker 4: letter mail or cry he's there, he has connections to you.
1:01:07
Speaker 2: Know what, that's very very primitive. It proves something to
1:01:11
Speaker 2: me what was holding me up was the difference in
1:01:15
Speaker 2: the mos and the time lapse between Elizabeth schwartz murder
1:01:20
Speaker 2: and the commencement of the Zodiac killings. But if you
1:01:24
Speaker 2: can kneel him Merrill and Zodiac, I don't think it's
1:01:30
Speaker 2: a leap for short because of their relationship. It's very obvious.
1:01:35
Speaker 2: As Nima Ramani said earlier, you look to who is
1:01:38
Speaker 2: dating or living with the person at that time, and
1:01:42
Speaker 2: it was Merrill. What do you make of all these
1:01:44
Speaker 2: other theories? I played just a few of them.
1:01:49
Speaker 4: Well, there's multiple theories out there. Everybody's accused their brother
1:01:52
Speaker 4: or sister, or father, or the augthor mail man, but
1:01:55
Speaker 4: none of them have substantiated evidence or physical evidence as
1:01:59
Speaker 4: we do the sketch, and you know, we have these
1:02:01
Speaker 4: other things. There's over one hundred and thirty two pieces
1:02:03
Speaker 4: of circumstantial evidence plus physical evidence that we've gathered. That's overwhelming.
1:02:07
Speaker 4: We spoke to one of the active das in Los
1:02:10
Speaker 4: Angeles who said he's convicted people on lesser evidence.
1:02:14
Speaker 2: Alex, let me ask you, you spent so much time
1:02:17
Speaker 2: on this cipher. What in the cipher convinces you it's
1:02:22
Speaker 2: a Zodiac cipher? What in the cipher convinces you Zodiac
1:02:27
Speaker 2: is Merril.
1:02:28
Speaker 4: Well the fact that the same methodology that was identified
1:02:31
Speaker 4: in the Simber twenty twenty and by Dave Oarren checking
1:02:34
Speaker 4: his team, which is a double layer transposition as well
1:02:37
Speaker 4: as a substitution. What I did is I took that
1:02:39
Speaker 4: similar ihypothesis and applied it on a scale down level.
1:02:42
Speaker 4: So I created a grid as this other ciphers are
1:02:45
Speaker 4: created at two by seven, adding what's called a null
1:02:48
Speaker 4: at that point identified the permittation used in a ANDI,
1:02:51
Speaker 4: giving me five thousand and forty possible names based on
1:02:53
Speaker 4: that methodology, eliminate all the other suspects that were within
1:02:57
Speaker 4: that permittation sequence. And then we submitted it to Ed
1:03:01
Speaker 4: Giorgio who had his findings peer reviewed, and they discovered
1:03:04
Speaker 4: that the keyword to that cipher is the name Elizabeth,
1:03:08
Speaker 4: meaning when you apply the keyword in the creation of
1:03:10
Speaker 4: the permutation, her name is the keyword to solving that cipher.
1:03:15
Speaker 4: That's beyond coincidence.
1:03:16
Speaker 2: Nancy, Wow. So you would say that based on what
1:03:21
Speaker 2: you learned in the cipher, the use of Elizabeth as
1:03:25
Speaker 2: the keyword identifies Meryll.
1:03:30
Speaker 4: It's just another piece an there's you log on the
1:03:33
Speaker 4: fire Nancy, we have so many pieces connecting this guy,
1:03:36
Speaker 4: and what's the odds that his name? Now, let me
1:03:39
Speaker 4: look at this little bit of perspective for the viewers.
1:03:41
Speaker 4: So you have to find a suspect in another crime
1:03:44
Speaker 4: if you're trying to stage this, that would be Marvin Margolist,
1:03:47
Speaker 4: and you have to hope he has an alias that
1:03:49
Speaker 4: matches the letter frequency or character account within the Z thirteen,
1:03:52
Speaker 4: which is Marvin Merrill. Then you have to have the
1:03:55
Speaker 4: luck that it's a double methodology like the Z three
1:03:57
Speaker 4: forty was that was discovered December twenty twenty. And then
1:04:01
Speaker 4: you have to apply the permutation key, which happens to
1:04:03
Speaker 4: be Elizabeth. There's better odds of buying a lottery ticket,
1:04:07
Speaker 4: hit and hitting the power ball than there is at
1:04:11
Speaker 4: all of these being coincidences.
1:04:13
Speaker 2: So, Alex, are you telling me that the permutation keyword
1:04:18
Speaker 2: to cracking the cipher is Elizabeth and by using that
1:04:22
Speaker 2: permutation keyword, the name Meyrill came out of the cipher?
1:04:29
Speaker 4: Your correct, Nancy?
1:04:32
Speaker 2: Wow? Okay, you know what in my world? Two is
1:04:37
Speaker 2: a coincidence. Three is a pattern. You have developed so
1:04:42
Speaker 2: much evidence to point to Meryl being Zodiac and Merrill
1:04:49
Speaker 2: having stalked Elizabeth Short? Will we ever know the truth.
1:04:56
Speaker 2: If you know or think you know anything about this case,
1:05:00
Speaker 2: please go to tips dot FBI gov. There are still
1:05:04
Speaker 2: family members who want justice. Tonight we remember an American hero,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: Officer Andy Chan of Philly, p d killed in the
1:05:16
Speaker 2: line of duty, leaving behind a wife turned widow and
1:05:19
Speaker 2: three children without a father. American hero Officer Andy Chan.
1:05:26
Speaker 2: Nancy Gray signing off goodbye friend.