The Mysterious Matter Of Finding A Murderer

I started reading the book to the left THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL OF ALL: SEARCHING FOR MY FATHER...AND FINDING THE ZODIAC KILLER. Now, the fact that this man, Gary Stewart, thinks his father was the Zodiac Killer, the infamous murderer of anywhere from 5 to 37 people in California in the sixties & seventies, is nothing new. In fact, he's not the only guy to write a book claiming to have irrefutable proof that his father is the Zodiac Killer. Steve Hodel, in his book MOST EVIL: AVENGER, ZODIAC AND THE FURTHER SERIAL MURDERS OF DR. GEORGE HILL HODEL claims that his father is not only the Zodiac Killer, but also the Black Dahlia Avenger, the murderer of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles in 1947 as well as the Lipstick Killer, who was responsible for three deaths in 1946 in Chicago,* among others. Jeff Mudgett, a descendant of Herman Webster Mudgett, wrote a biography of Herman Mudgett, better known as H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer, who possibly killed upwards of 200 people in the early 1890's in Chicago, in which he claims that Holmes was also Jack The Ripper, the infamous unidentified murderer of prostitutes in London in 1888**. This phenomenon is nothing new, and whenever a tabloid murder makes news, it brings the crazies out of the woodwork. There's a scene in the David Fincher film of Robert Graysmith's book ZODIAC where the police are inundated with calls where people are willing to confess to any and every unsolved crime in history. A woman named Deborah Perez also claimed that her father was Zodiac but a former claim on her part that she was the illegitimate daughter of JFK made her Zodiac claim null & void. A quick Wikipedia search will show a whole host of individuals who believe that they have the one and only answer to the question of Zodiac's identity. Authorities are always reluctant to set up hotlines for the public to call in and report tips because there are so many bogus and ridiculous claims that get called in when they're really hoping for something useful. Sometimes, those people actually get books published detailing those theories.

Gary Stewart was abandoned by his biological father as a baby and lived his entire life not knowing his biological parents. As an adult, his birth mother got in touch with his adoptive parents and told them she'd like to meet him. His mother caught him up on all the family history and in his quest to learn more about his father, he begins to realize that the man may have been a murderer. He also discusses how the San Francisco Chronicle writer Paul Avery^ seemed to have a vendetta against him, which would explain why Zodiac eventually sent threatening letters & cards to Avery. Stewart describes a man who was handsome and charming, capable of seducing women and adept at hiding his shady past and problems with women that may have caused him to seek out young happy couples to kill as Zodiac. He bears a passing resemblance to a vague description of Zodiac that one of his only survivors was able to relay to the police. A description that would probably fit a thousand men in any given city at any given time.

  

Hodel provided a photo of his father that bears resemblance to yet another Zodiac wanted poster.

Still other descriptions of Zodiac supplied by survivors are of a slightly larger man, a description that fits Arthur Leigh Allen, while still keeping with the theme of a man in dark framed glasses and a crew cut.

I'm still making my way through the book but was compelled to stop and put some thoughts down here. What I'm wondering is if doing this research and bending your findings to fit into a narrative that you want, or need to come out of it is cathartic. I didn't have a troubled childhood and I have no issues with my father or his character so I guess I wouldn't know what it's like to have to piece together my family's potentially nefarious history 40 years after the fact. Steve Hodel was an LAPD detective so tracking down murderers and criminals and piecing together facts, evidence and supposition to solve crimes is in his blood. It's not so far fetched that he would look at his father for crimes that were so close to him, both physically as a California resident and as a detective. I think when someone goes to write a story about something, they find facts to prop-up their theory and conveniently dismiss others so as to not muddy the waters. A quick look at the index of Stewart's book makes no mention of Arthur Leigh Allen, who, in my opinion,^^ is the Zodiac Killer. I believe Graysmith, in his two books, puts forth the most compelling argument for any individual to be Zodiac. Since the crimes were so famous and captured the public's imagination so intensely, coupled with the fact that they were never solved makes them particularly ripe for the picking for people to write about and espouse theories upon. I'm by no means an expert but I am fascinated with the crimes and particularly more-so as a Bay Area resident now. There have been dozens of books and films that have attempted to solve the crime and perhaps link it to other notorious crimes of the era like Hodel has done. It's big business because it's such a recognizable name, even if most of the work is reheated junk. I haven't read them all and I don't need to but I'll probably keep checking up on them every once in a while, even though I believe nobody will ever officially be named the Zodiac Killer. Arthur Leigh Allen died many years ago but has been the most closely linked suspect, thanks to the advancement of crime scene technology, to the crimes^^^. So if Stewart believes his father was Zodiac, it stands to reason that he would not acknowledge Allen as a reasonable suspect, or anyone else for that matter. I think Graysmith, because other than being in the building that some of the Zodiac letters arrived at, he has no connection to the crimes and is therefore in the best position to make a thorough and compelling investigation into the case. He didn't have the public pressure that the police department had and he doesn't have the personal connection that Stewart and Hodel believe they have to the case and can therefore objectively look at all the facts and come up with a reasonable narrative. Graysmith was a cartoonist but made a nice career for himself as a true crime writer and perhaps used some of what he learned from working with Avery and the SFPD detective Dave Toschi in the early days of the killings to become a legitimate writer and detective in his own right.

The crimes themselves hold much more interest for me than belittling these people for whom Zodiac is much closer to than myself. I admire their detective spirit and determination to take a stab (no pun intended) at finding out who Zodiac is. But it doesn't mean they're right, it just means that they were able to get a book deal.

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*William George Heirens was convicted of the Lipstick Killer murders and spent 65 years in prison. While everyone and his brother has their own theories, both the Zodiac killings and the Elizabeth Short murder have yet to be officially solved.
**He wasn't.
^Paul Avery was a troubled writer who was played by Robert Downey, Jr. in the Fincher film.
^^And the opinion of Graysmith and perhaps Fincher and James Vanderbilt, the writers of the 2007 film.
^^^There are many more reasons to believe that Allen is Zodiac, mostly involving the series of letters purportedly written by Zodiac. DNA, handwriting analysis, and study of the content and language in the letters points to Allen more than anyone else. The timeline of the crimes match up very well with Allen's life and behavior, including the fact that he lived very close to one of the victims and the span of time that Zodiac letters ceased to show up coincided exactly with the time Allen spent in prison. Circumstantial, sure, but hard to ignore.