Mount Diablo looms over Suisun Bay, in this view from Benicia. Diablo towers over northern California, but here it is omnipresent. When The Zodiac left the stage of crime, he made “Devil’s Mountain” his personification. In this way, his game forever mocks San Francisco’s Bay Area. But Diablo and one other minor clue may unmask this villain at last.

     The Zodiac was an oddball. I don’t mean this in the sarcastic sense. He genuinely doesn’t fit the mold of serial killers. For a serial killer who made grandstanding an essential part of his crime spree, he made some very avoidable criminal foibles. For instance, he wore the same outfit repeatedly. Let’s take the actual description of The Zodiac. Twice he was observed clearly, that is to say, at least his attire was described clearly. At Lake Berryessa he is a queer amalgam of current casual and formal obsolescence. He is wearing a dark blue cotton Track Jacket (Hartnell describes it clearly enough so that the actual type of jacket can be envisioned), with zipper down the front, dress pleated pants, and then military high lip shoes. Even when denuded of that black ceremonial hood he should have stood out like a “tarantula on angel food”— to use Philip Marlowe’s expression.

     Two weeks later, after the Stine murder, SFPD Officer Don Fouke describes him similarly. He sees a white man shuffling down Jackson and at the corner of Maple. “Dressed in dark blue waist length zipper type jacket (Navy or Royal Blue); Elastic cuffs and waistband, zippered part way up; Brown wool pants, pleated type baggy in rear. (Rust brown). May have been wearing low cut shoes.”

     —Same thing. Essentially he had a different colored pants here but the same type. They were dress wool pants, pleated, indicating obsolete and formal fashion. The jacket is the same, something casual and at odds with the pants. We can assume that the shoes might have been the military “Wing Walkers.”

     Our reaction should not be frustration that he was never identified. Rather we should try and use this to get into his mind. He knew he was going to go stalk and kill at Lake Berryessa. No killer wants witnesses. Yet he dresses in a rather noticeable way— the antithesis of a murderer’s desires.

     For Lake Berryessa this is a conundrum, but at San Francisco it gets more perplexing; for by this time The Zodiac knew Hartnell had survived at Lake Berryessa. He must have suspected he had been described, at least his clothes. Despite this he wears the same strange ensemble in San Francisco. Zodiac must have assumed San Francisco would have no description or details of a Napa murder, which is a rather natural assumption. It’s a big step from the boondocks of Berryessa to San Francisco’s hoypalloy of Presidio Heights. This gives us an advantage. Did he think it unnecessary to take precautions here? Should we therefore ask, was this a disguise or how he actually dressed?

     After this description hits all the newspapers, Zodiac merely brushes it off by saying that this is how he looks only when he is killing. Dangling a carrot? Perhaps. But that’s not the point here. He seems to be telling the truth. If this is how he always dressed, it seems likely someone would be able to easily identify him and turn him in. This, however, is also not my point here. My point is that his “killing outfit” draws attention to him. Of all the times he would wish to blend in, you would think it would be when stalking his victims. Yet he uses a repeat costume that would only aid any eyewitness in identifying him.

     By his implacability to change his outfit between Lake Berryessa’s attack and Stine’s murder two weeks later, we can safely assume that Zodiac altered his appearance very little. Fouke said the jacket was only half zippered up, but he doesn’t notice a shirt. It is safe to assume the shirt was dark and did not stand out. His shirt was described only in the summer night attack of July 4, 1969, in which he apparently did not wear a dark blue jacket but a dark blue short-sleeved shirt. Naturally, The Zodiac stuck to dark colors. Adding the elaborate hood,  we can say that his outfit ranged from bland, obsolete to bizarre theatricality.

     We can mitigate this only slightly by suggesting that the pants were not wool but cotton. This would indicate that they were “Gardener’s Pants.” Old style, pleated, baggy pants were still manufactured for men for casual wear while potting about their gardens. They came in brown, charcoal and olive. They were still manufactured, even as late as the late 1970s (I myself had the olive version as a kid). Nevertheless, this doesn’t change the fact The Zodiac still dressed in a repeat and noticeable way, though if they were gardener’s pants he might have been taken as a landscaper and that way blended in a bit more between killings.

     But to take up with the original train of thought, we are still faced with a conundrum. Zodiac obviously took some care before going out to “do” his “thing”— in other words, the care taken in designing the hood. This makes his foibles seem all the more suspicious, for in contrast to this careful forethought his mistakes are hard to swallow as unintentional.

     Clues. The Zodiac left a lot of unnecessary clues. For instance, at the same Lake Berryessa attack he wore a type of shoe that could easily be traced to a specific maker that identified it as a fairly rare military shoe. Yes, he intended to kill both his victims. He hadn’t planned that one should live on to describe him, but he knew that he would leave footprints. Considering what care he took in other areas, that’s an odd mistake. All the time and effort he must have expended to make that ghastly black hood, but then he wears a rare type of shoe: Wing Walkers size 10.5. Curious. 

     “There are too many cluuuueess in this rrrroom,” said Hercule Poirot with a suspicious eye— Murder on the Orient Express. 

The turnout on Lake Herman Road on December 20, 2012. The spot is at the apex of the plateau overlooking Benicia. The road continues on toward Benicia.

       But out of all his killing fields, there is one place he left no clue, one murder of which he did not boast. This was his first— Lake Herman Road, December 20, 1968. He doesn’t even take credit for this killing until 6 months later on July 4, 1969, after he calls and takes credit for shooting the couple at Blue Rock Springs Park parking lot that very night. Of all the things he has said, it may be this silence that speaks the loudest and betrays its speaker.

     On December 20, 1968, he had succeeded in killing both his victims. I don’t think there can be any doubt he intended to kill his victims here. Nor should there be any doubt that young David Faraday attempted to wrestle him to the ground and seize his gun. This tells me David knew the score.

     But one thing Zodiac did not know: the extent to which traffic that night would tell us that after he left the turnout he went toward Benicia.    

Contrails and space age.

   Benicia is a part of the industrial underbelly of the vast San Francisco Bay area. Here freighters load and unload goods. Trains bring and take supplies. Warehouses stock goods for the limbo in between. The small town of Benicia is sequestered under old trees on the bayside hills, almost out of sight; but the industries, the train yards, the shipping docks, are visible to all. They are the backyard of Benicia, and Old Lake Herman Road is the backdoor.

     It is here that Zodiac transposed into the night. It is here he intended to flee after the killing, with his .22 caliber still smoking. Where could he go here? Old Lake Herman Road ends on East 2nd at the industrial area. The main road here is appropriately called Industrial Way. But industrial sections of towns are graveyards at night. It’s fairly easy to spot a loner here. But if he held some kind of job here, or occupied a level of trust, he could hide his car in some establishment behind the cyclone fences. If not here, then he drove into Benicia on East 2nd Street.

     From the timing provided by travelers, it is probable that Zodiac took Old Lake Herman Road. James Owen was thought to have passed the crime scene at about 11:14 p.m. (He believed it was a bit later.) At about 11:14 p.m. Stella Medeiros must have left her ranch with her mother and daughter. It would only take a few minutes to get to the crime scene. She must have been there at 11:20 p.m. The bodies are visible. No car had passed her going toward Vallejo. She races to Benicia, speeding up to 70 mph. She finds Benicia police before an Enco gas station on East 2nd. The police officers report it was 11:25 p.m. 

     Detective Les Lundblad drove the distance from the murder site to Enco and timed it as about 5 minutes at the speed Medeiros was traveling. Coupled with the Benicia Police officers’ statements that Medeiros flagged them down at 11:25 p.m., we know she had to be at the crime scene at 11:20 p.m.

     When Owen passed around 11:14 p.m., the crime had not yet been committed. From the evidence, the crime would take a couple of minutes at least. Stella Medeiros must have been close, very close on Zodiac’s heels. The question is, which way did she go into Benicia? She drove off near 70 miles per hour. If she went straight along Lake Herman Road to 680, it is inconceivable she would not have overtaken Zodiac. This, too, would indicate that Zodiac took Old Lake Herman Road into Benicia. Video.

     Being a couple of minutes ahead of him, Owen would have been at or within the gates of Humble Oil when Zodiac turned onto East 2nd. The cops didn’t report seeing a car pass them, so they must already have been east of where Old Lake Herman comes into East 2nd. Benicia itself lies to the west along East 2nd.     

   If by the barest chance Zodiac did go straight for Highway 680, and made it undetected, then his objective was south. He would soon cross the Benicia-Martinez Bridge at the Carquinez Strait and then be in Martinez. Before him Mount Diablo would loom even larger as he continued south to . . .

     It may sound as if I’m saying he could have done all of the above. In actuality, whether he did or not one thing ties all roads together: the refinery. That 6 months of silence brings us all back to this area, no matter which way he took.

     I have expressed myself already at The Zodiac Speaks that I favor the idea that Zodiac did not even live around the Bay Area closely. This does not rule out my favorite second guess that Benicia could hold the clue. Either The Zodiac worked here while the refinery was under construction or, if I’m wrong in my previous estimation, he did indeed live here.

     His lack of knowledge about significant Vallejo landmarks indicates that he was not a Vallejoan. His response to some newspaper comments indicates he had a limited knowledge of what went on in San Francisco. For instance, in the case of his published description, he responded:  

     “I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill.”

     That’s an interesting lack of logical progression. Pointless since we now know what he looks like. He admits he’s been described, but then he says he won’t tell us what this consists of. Is he saying he’s bald and adding hair pieces, or is he using a nose prosthetic?  Does it matter when he appears to vary his killing outfit so little? Or is his statement merely inspired by reading one paper and not the others that described his clothing, though without noting its odd incongruities?   

The Hayward Times for October 15, 1969. The Zodiac seemed to have a limited knowledge of newspaper reporting. He followed the Chronicle and yet still seemed ignorant of some reports. The very idea he was an “astrological assassin” merely stems from his name. In substance there is nothing in his crime spree that indicates astrological inspiration. Was his name chosen to be a ruse as well?

   Is this a disguise? I must believe the clothes are— otherwise he is fairly easily outed.  But what sense does it make to repeatedly disguise oneself in the same manner? It would only make him more easily identifiable before, during and after his attacks. 

     There is, it seems, no method in The Zodiac’s madness, no logic to his motives. . . .and this may be why he succeeded.

     Since there is no trusting him when he speaks, there must be surety in trusting him when he is silent. At Lake Herman Road he was silent. He drove south, either into Benicia’s industrial area of the town or beyond the bridge to Martinez.  Perhaps he was silent after the murders here because he had to be silent. Perhaps he couldn’t brag here. 

     If he was a construction worker at the refinery, boasting of a murder so close by— thereby revealing it was motiveless thrill killing— would only cause Benicia Police to query the workers. This would indeed be too close for comfort for him. In 1969 when it was finished he could move along. Yet he retains a general knowledge of the back roads of this area. He comes back, perhaps from quite a distance, and strikes again at Blue Rock Springs. Now, 6 months later, he also takes credit for his first strike. There can be no linking him to the construction crew on the refinery anymore. They have moved on, as he did.

     Since the refinery was completed in 1969, who would be the last type of skilled workers working on the construction?

     Herein is found a disturbing connection with the Domingos/Edwards murder of 1963. Gaviota refinery is just north of the crime scene. In fact, Vista Del Mar School, used as a landmark by some newspapers, lies in the shadows of the sprawling complex. 

     This complex has undergone expansion, refit and, of course, upgrading. It has been owned by Texaco and then later by Gaviota Terminal Company. It is quite old and goes back in its core design to 1898 when it first started as an asphalt exportation place. It now lies abandoned (since 2005).

The old Gaviota Terminal Company in Santa Barbara county in relation to the first headland.

 Could Zodiac have been working here on one of the refits or upgrades in 1963?

     The Domingos/Edwards murder and the Faraday/Jensen murders are almost carbon copies. In both cases an automatic .22 caliber was used. The difference is that Bobby Domingos was shot many more times than Zodiac was known to shoot the male in his Bay Area strikes. He was shot 11 times whereas Faraday was only dispatched to the head with one shot. This could reflect a lesson learned, albeit an evil lesson learned, from his tussle with Domingos in 1963. Domingos is said to have had facial bruises and a swollen lip. The number

of bullets in him may reflect an angered assailant vengefully firing away.  Six months after the Faraday/Jensen murders on Lake Herman Road, The Zodiac graduated upward to a Luger 9 millimeter and never used a .22 again.

   One other thing remains consistent: an oil refinery and terminal was nearby, and the perpetrator at both scenes had a certain familiarity with back roads, hunting and fishing areas. The Bay Area’s center of oil refineries and terminals is Martinez/Richmond. In other words, Diablo stands center to the vast East Bay production of oil.

     Let’s be like Zodiac and be a little contradictory in our reasoning. Let’s now assume that he did not always leave false clues. What if Wing Walkers was not a misleading clue? What if he wore these regularly? What type of construction or maintenance work at a refinery would require or be facilitated by the wearing of special shoes for walking on aluminum? Remember, Wing

Walkers were called by such a name because men used them to walk on aircraft wings. Logically, they would also help a construction worker who has to walk on aluminum piping at refineries or other curved surfaces during construction.        

     Has The Zodiac made his mistake?

     Along with the first murder scene being on Lake Herman Road, the backyard of the refinery, The Zodiac consistently made the East Bay Area the center of his developing game. Mount Diablo became the focal point. His “Mount Diablo Code” would supposedly solve much. It is the center of the East Bay Area. It is at the center of all the Bay Area’s production of oil. Did The Zodiac live and work here, in the East Bay? Or did he live even further away and just work here? One thing is becoming clear. His pattern without pattern does have a center. His silence at Lake Herman Road is another string that ties off at the oil refineries. Mount Diablo towering about like a volcano on a tropic isle is another. A general knowledge of the back roads is yet another. Perhaps even his shoes. Fleeing toward Benicia is one of the biggest— either into Benicia or south.

     The Zodiac dangled carrot after carrot. He intentionally lied poorly. He baited. He mused. He boasted. But I think we can believe his silence and even follow his footsteps. No one dangles a carrot if there is something at the end of the string they don’t want you to find. It’s time to follow The Zodiac’s silence and not his speech.