DNA Tests May Reveal the Zodiac Murderer

The envelopes are weathered by time, the sinister block lettering now slightly faded. But after decades in a police evidence room, they may at last deliver something the sender never intended: conclusive evidence to finally identify the Zodiac killer.

Under the bright-light scrutiny of a police crime lab, authorities are subjecting a handful of the letters to the latest DNA testing in an attempt to decipher one of the most notorious unsolved murder rampages of the 20th century.

Using saliva samples from envelopes and stamps the killer once used to mail letters bragging about his crimes, Kelly Carroll and Michael Maloney hope to close a case that has frustrated scores of detectives.

The two veterans are the latest investigators to pick up the ice-cold Zodiac trail. But they’re not alone. They’re joining a media circus that has focused on the Zodiac killings for decades.

The case of the sexual sadist who tortured and murdered five Northern Californians in the late 1960s--most of them teenage couples on lovers’ lanes and at picnics--continues to intrigue armchair sleuths across the Bay Area and beyond.

Zodiac has inspired a barrage of books, magazine articles, Web sites and computer message boards--a growing subculture obsessed with unraveling the string of murders to finally pin an identity on the killer who once donned a black executioner’s mask.

The mystery haunts many San Franciscans like a house riddle. London had Jack the Ripper, Boston its strangler. Chicago had John Wayne Gacy, Los Angeles the Manson family.

But unlike police in most cities that have fallen prey to horrific crime sprees, authorities in the Bay Area have not been able to close the case.

No one has ever been charged. In fact, most authorities believe the killer has long been dead. Still, the murders remain embedded in this region’s psyche, achieving nearly cult status.

“Thirty-three years later and we still get calls,” Maloney says. “Not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t contact us with the identity of the Zodiac--their father-in-law, their ex-husband, their neighbor.”

They’re not the only ones with leads.

FBI officials once theorized that the infamous Unabomber might have been Zodiac and sent Theodore Kaczynski’s fingerprints to police in the hopes of making a match.

Zodiac was an unapologetic killer who taunted police and manipulated the media through boastful letters that kept score of his killings, which he said reached 37 or more--letters now sent to the DNA lab.

During Zodiac’s crime spree, the 44-year-old Carroll was a New Jersey student and partner Maloney, 53, was in Vietnam. Now the two get their shot at the case, facing a baffling mix of aging clues and a watchful public that refuses to forget.

In the spotlight of continued media coverage--including a new book and a movie adaptation of the 1986 bestseller “Zodiac” now in development--police are taking a fresh look at the evidence.

Focusing on the shooting death of cabdriver Paul Stine, the lone San Francisco victim, they’re trying to establish a DNA fingerprint from the envelopes of letters Zodiac sent to local newspapers.

If the killer stamped or sealed the envelopes by licking, the residue should yield DNA that the detectives could compare with saliva samples taken from a lead suspect--Arthur Leigh Allen, a former Vallejo schoolteacher who died in 1992.

Before singling out anyone, “We want the guys in the white coats to do their voodoo,” Carroll said of the crime lab workers.

Experts say the public fixation on Zodiac stems from the killer’s status in the annals of American homicide. Along with two 1966 cases involving Chicago nurse-slayer Richard Speck and Texas tower sniper Charles Whitman, Zodiac raised the specter of anonymous mass murder--a precedent for modern serial killers.

Since then, Zodiac has inspired both a copycat killer in New York and Clint Eastwood’s first Dirty Harry movie, which featured a psychotic murderer named Scorpio.

“Everyone remembers the Zodiac,” says Mike Rustigan, a San Francisco State University criminology professor. “He was the embryonic precursor of what was to come, from Son of Sam and Ted Bundy to the Night Stalker.

“Until Zodiac, most victims knew their killers. But he made people ask, ‘Why would someone systematically kill strangers, people he didn’t even know?’ That was the question that kept people awake at night. It still does.”

Detectives who once pursued Zodiac said the case eventually consumed their lives. “I ended up with a bleeding ulcer,” said retired San Francisco homicide investigator Dave Toschi, who worked the case for nine years. “And my original partner left homicide. He told me one day, ‘Toschi, I’ve stood over my last body.’ ”

Toschi, now a private investigator, is still recognized by people as the cop who once chased Zodiac. New York police sought his advice when they pursued Son of Sam in the 1980s.

“Looking back, I feel mostly frustration,” he said of the Zodiac murders. “That case took so much out of me.”

For years, observers have criticized the way police have pursued the case. They say detectives lost many Zodiac letters and have long failed in several attempts to obtain a DNA fingerprint from the Zodiac envelopes.

Citing recent improvements in DNA technology, the detectives say new saliva tests could make the difference, although the definitive answer may still be months away.

“The way we see it,” Maloney says, “the time has come to try it again.”

Robert Graysmith, author of the book “Zodiac,” isn’t buying that argument: “Zodiac was not stupid enough to lick an envelope.”

JoAnn West disagrees.

West is a Vallejo police lieutenant and spokeswoman for the Zodiac task force. Encompassing agencies from San Francisco, Napa and Solano counties, the group was created in 1999 at the request of producers from the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

“When Zodiac licked his stamps, we didn’t have DNA profiling,” she said. “Not even a criminal genius can predict the future.”

Graysmith, who will soon publish a new Zodiac book, criticizes police for not sharing evidence: “They were all in competition.”

West acknowledges the problem. “We know police didn’t work well together back in the 1960s,” she said. “But it’s different now.”

Rustigan, who teaches a police seminar on homicide, says he is often approached by officers curious about the case. “Every cop, every detective, from Eureka to San Diego, wants to know why they can’t solve the Zodiac,” he said.

Investigators Have Pored Over the Facts

Carroll knows he is under pressure: “People devoted to this case need a lightning rod. So, of course, the cops screwed up.”

Since inheriting the case in August, Carroll and Maloney have sought to separate fact from Zodiac fiction. They’ve read the true-detective rehashes and watched the TV crime shows. They’ve also read dozens of yellowing police files, getting to know the Zodiac case one confirmed detail at a time.

“When you come to the department, this is the legend you hear about,” Maloney said. “They talk about it in the academy. Veteran officers explain the details to their partners. But to see the real facts has been an eye-opener.”

Zodiac’s first confirmed killing came in December 1968 when he shot two Vallejo teenagers on their first date. He killed two others before what police say was his final strike--the execution-style shooting of cabbie Stine in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights area in late 1969.

Meanwhile, Zodiac sent at least 21 letters to local newspapers. Rife with grammatical errors, most began, “This is the Zodiac speaking” and bore the killer’s trademark circle and cross hairs symbol.

Some were written in hard-to-crack cryptography and contained swatches of bloody clothing to verify the Zodiac’s murder claims.

“We live in an ‘X-Files’ era with grand conspiracies to explain everything,” Carroll says. “But this guy created that idea long before ‘The X-Files’ was ever dreamed up.”

Carroll and Maloney acknowledge that Zodiac is probably dead.

Still, they press for a solution. While juggling 20 other cases, they work Zodiac leads a half-day a week. They have contacted a then-teenage witness to the cabbie slaying who is now 48 years old. And they’ve set up an e-mail address where the public can send tips: Zodiacpolice@mindspring.com.

Carroll knows that to close the case would be a triumph: “If the murders are ever solved, I wouldn’t mind being a footnote.”