Killings in San Francisco : Book Expected to Reopen Mystery of Zodiac Letters

In 1969 and during the 1970s someone sent to newspapers in San Francisco letters containing information about four murders in the Vallejo, Calif., area and the slaying of a taxi driver in the city. In some of these letters the writer identified himself as “Zodiac.”

These letters touched off a wave of hysteria and fright, which at one time resulted in deputies riding shotgun on hundreds of school buses throughout Northern California because the letter writer threatened to attack children.

No additional evidence beyond the contents of the letters ever was developed to link the five slayings to a single killer or to link the letter writer (or writers) to any of 32 additional murders that were claimed in some letters written later.

Letters Still Come

But the Zodiac letters, with their suggestion of demoniac human sacrifice, became an enduring local legend. Even today, Lt. George Kowalski of the San Francisco police homicide bureau says, “About once a month I get a letter or phone call from somebody who is absolutely positive they know who it is.”

And now a book has been published that could increase the calls and might even spur a “Zodiac” to write to the newspapers again.

Robert Graysmith, author of “Zodiac,” believes it probable that a single killer was responsible for 49 unsolved murders (a dozen more than “Zodiac” himself ever claimed). He also believes that the person who committed all these killings is the same person who wrote all of the Zodiac letters to the newspapers.

Claims to Know Identity

Furthermore, Graysmith makes a lengthy argument that he knows who the mystery killer is. He identifies this person as “Bob Hall Starr,” which he says is not the man’s real name.

“Based on the evidence I have seen, Starr is the best suspect found so far,” says the author.

The person whom Graysmith calls Starr is a mental case who apparently has sometimes claimed to be Zodiac. He has been thoroughly checked out by police and written off as a nut.

A good account of all the facts in the Zodiac affair would have been a valuable contribution to local history. It was an episode that occupied considerable attention for a few years.

But Graysmith, a newspaper cartoonist, took on the role of amateur sleuth rather than historian. Much of his book is about his personal search for Zodiac. He neglects those parts of the historical record that don’t fit into his scenario. He believes a highly intelligent but diabolical sadist carried out a long series of killings and is still at large.

Graysmith, describing Zodiac’s “method of operation,” says the killer used “different weapons each time” and that automobiles were “usually involved.” He says that the killer did his thing “on weekends, near water.”

The fact that different weapons were used for every “Zodiac” murder doesn’t really strengthen the theory that they were all done by the same person. The fact that the slayings were a few yards or a couple of miles from the bay or a stream or reservoir isn’t really pertinent unless you explain why this would mean something to the killer.

In 1978 San Francisco’s flamboyant Inspector Dave Toschi was taken off the Zodiac case when his superiors discovered that he had written anonymous fan letters praising himself to Armistead Maupin, then writing articles for the San Francisco Chronicle.

High police officials did not accuse Toschi of writing any of the Zodiac letters, but they did have the letters checked again by handwriting experts. All the records on Zodiac were shipped off to the Department of Justice in Sacramento. Toschi said his career was ruined.

Nothing much has been said about the case since then.

Last week when asked if anything was going on concerning Zodiac, a spokeswoman at the attorney general’s office in Sacramento said, “Nothing that I can discuss.” Asked if anything was going on that she could not discuss, she said the case was still open and she was not at liberty to talk about an “ongoing investigation.”

Maupin, whose disclosure that Inspector Toschi was writing his own fan mail blew Zodiac out of the news, says the unfortunate thing about this new book is that it could revive the hysteria.

“I think the public has already been terrified far too much by this bogeyman story,” Maupin said.