text: On the 50th anniversary of the sensational Zodiac killing spree, a cold case detective from the San Francisco PD pulled out the dusty boxes of official records. They hadn’t been touched in years; and the killer himself was presumed dead or incapacitated by advanced age. There were as many suspects as there were theories but the last time anyone had worked the case was in the early 1990’s. Since then, DNA genotyping has exploded and forensic science had advanced in leaps and bounds. Amazingly, the original envelopes and morbid correspondence sent from the killer to various media outlets were still there, turning yellow in the evidence boxes. With millions of people participating in ancestry tracing programs, there is a huge DNA database of family links. Of course those are conducted through ‘private’ organizations but hundreds of cold cases are solved each year with their cooperation and discreet assistance. Detective Tim Rand got into law enforcement with the goal of helping people. He also enjoyed challenges and solving mysteries. The Zodiac case was one of the most infamous, unsolved crimes in the world. He figured he would take a crack at it himself. With modern science, he hoped to see if it could be used to do what thousands of hours of old-fashioned detective work, could not. Of course countless people had been in contact with the evidence over the years. From postal sorters, mail carriers, mailroom staff at the newspapers, the secretaries for the editors, and more than a dozen lab techs and detectives, the chances of having uncontaminated DNA was unlikely. Honestly, it was pretty slim but it was worth a try. If it failed, he’d just chunk the papers back in their boxes and put them on the shelf for the next eager sleuth to crack the case. The lab attendant rolled his eyes in frustrated annoyance when the detective explained what tests he wanted performed. The technician knew all-too-well how many random sets of unrelated DNA would be found on that pile of evidence. Tim had a clever solution to the issue. “Cross reference all samples found on all the letters. The Zodiac send his cyphers and correspondence to several different media outlets and individuals. He enjoyed taunting the editors of different newspapers and the detectives assigned to the case when it was an active investigation. The only DNA thread they should all have in common, is him.” As incredible as it might’ve seemed, there was only one set of common DNA for all samples! It was just like he had predicted. Detective Rand had stumbled onto the first major break in the case in nearly 30 years. The forensic team were honestly impressed with the heightened potential for linking the evidence to the unknown killer. They recorded the DNA sequence and approached their contacts within the ancestry database for an official ‘rush job’. Even with amazing lucky breaks, they were still highly guarded with their enthusiasm for a match to be made. It therefore came as a great shock when a direct match was made in only a couple days. Greater still was the impact of learning the identity of the DNA match for all 14 known pieces of authenticated Zodiac evidence. No one was ready for the truth and the push back by the authorities was considerable. The profile was a 99% match to the chief of police of San Francisco at the time of the crimes! At first the laboratory dismissed the shocking revelation as accidental evidence contamination. That explanation would’ve made sense but it was eventually disproven. The chief had stated formally in his memoirs that he always left the investigative work to his detective team. He even went so far as to declare that he never meddled in any of their open cases. If so, there wouldn’t be any logical reason for his DNA to be on every single piece of Zodiac evidence. Internal affairs stepped in when they caught wind of the mounting evidence. The ‘boys in blue’ were known to protect their own, especially the higher up officials who retired, or had passed away. There was an unspoken protocol that their law enforcement legacies were cemented in stone and beyond reproach. Damning evidence like the former chief’s DNA being directly linked to the Zodiac was hard to ignore and even harder to suppress. Detective Rand just wanted the truth to come out but a revelation like that would surely cause backlash and heads to roll. The chief himself had died a dozen years earlier but many of his contemporaries were still around. A few younger officers who worked under him were still on the force. They were going to chafe at the accusations against their former boss. By all accounts, he was a well liked and respected senior officer. It was going to be a tough sell to convince the public, even though it was the truth. Tim had to find corroborating evidence to tie him to the disturbing series of crimes. Without that, he’d be dismissed as a reckless rookie with penchant for throwing veteran officers under the bus. That’s what they would say. That he did it just to make a ‘name’ for himself. The biggest question of all was ‘why’? Why would an officer that swore to ‘protect and serve’, lead a secret life as a serial killer? It made no sense. The man spent almost 40 years in law enforcement. At times Tim wanted to chalk it up to a crazy coincidence but some of the evidence they tested hadn’t even been available to the San Francisco PD during the active investigation phase. A few of the letters from the Zodiac were sent to neighboring police departments and had only been released to him the previous week for the testing. His highly unusual suspect had never legally been in contact with them, yet his DNA was on all. As is often the case with big city government organizations, they had yet to completely digitize their old records. Detective Rand filtered through mountains of dusty records for the chief’s sign-in sheets for the time periods in question. While they couldn’t prove or disprove his guilt, it would shed light on whether he was officially ‘on duty’ during the known crimes. Secretly, Tim hoped the Chief was signed in during some of them to disprove the allegations but in every single instance, he was officially out-of-the-office. He hoped he was wrong but It looked very bad. The fact that the Chief fit the general appearance of eyewitness accounts of the Zodiac was another troubling element that couldn’t be dismissed. Research into the Chief’s past also revealed he was a Korean War veteran. As a Navy signal man, he would have been well acquainted with code symbols and cryptology similar to the cyphers the Zodiac sent. All of those things added up to compelling circumstantial evidence but it wouldn’t be an open and shut case without the DNA association. That made things difficult to deny. Tim spoke to a number of old timers from the department about their memories of the investigation but he was careful to avoid implicating their former Chief. Most just offered a general commentary about the shocking crimes but one of them mentioned the Chief personally. It proved to be a very revealing interview. Interesting, the retired lieutenant thought the Chief’s reaction to one of the gruesome crimes was ‘odd’. He said he had an odd grin on his face when informed about the taxi driver’s murder the night before. The lieutenant assumed the Chief was simply amused by an earlier event, but felt it was strange that he continued to smile, long after informed about the murder. At no point did the pleasant gentleman suspect the former police chief of any wrongdoing. He just shared the strange anecdote from 50 years earlier because it stuck him as a strange reaction. Only detective Rand would’ve been able to use that offhand testimony, in an official capacity. Tim thanked him for his time and made plans to interview the most important person yet in his undercover investigation. The Chief’s widow resided in the suburbs and was reportedly still ‘sharp’. Tim put a great deal of thought and planning into his ‘game plan’. He wanted to ask important questions without clueing her in to the delicate and very personal subject of his investigation. It was going to be a balancing act. He called in advance to make an appointment to speak with her. He explained he’d inherited several cold cases and merely wanted to ask her recollections on them. It was all presented as a casual chat. She invited him to come by at noon. Tim felt she was probably very eager to have company in her advanced age. He arrived a couple minutes early and rang the doorbell. She opened the door and invited him in. Seated on the sofa across from her, she surprised him when her demeanor immediately changed. “Young man, why don’t you come clean for your reason to visit me? I’ve been the wife of a lawman too long to fall for ‘the casual chat’ ruse. My husband practically invented that interrogation technique.” Tim started to feign ignorance or protest but stopped himself. She saw through the facade. It was clear to both of them that he had some uncomfortable, indiscreet questions to ask, and she wanted him to just cut to the chase. Her ‘no nonsense’ attitude was both admirable and intimidating. He had spent so much time working on a strategy that he was unprepared to dive right in. “You came to ask me something about my husband. Something so disturbing that you are avoiding the subject entirely. I can see it in your eyes. Are you sure you want to know the answer? Once you discover the backbone to ask, I’m going to tell you. The question is, what will the truth do? Will it bring you fame? Will it solve a series of nearly forgotten crimes where even the victim’s families are probably long dead? Will it besmirch and tarnish my dead husband’s memory and celebrated police career? Yes. The answers to all those things, is yes.” Detective Rand was at a loss for words. The Chief’s widow had all but confirmed what he already knew. Up until that moment he had hoped for an unlikely but plausible explanation for the damning evidence against the man. Instead, she sewed up the case in a tight little package for him. The information came so freely that he was unprepared to handle it. “Down in the cellar there is a large cardboard box marked ‘decorations’. It contains a black hood, a pistol, several pieces of stained material, a number of library books on code writing and cryptology, and a personal diary. If the handwriting and substance of that journal were analyzed by experts, they would find that it is consistent with the letters you have in your possession from the Zodiac killer. They would also agree that it perfectly matches the handwriting of my late husband.” Tim sat there speechless. He stared into her eyes while trying to absorb the incredible revelation she had just disclosed to him. For the briefest of moments he worried she had unveiled the dark truth because she didn’t intend to let him leave, alive. “I didn’t always know. I suspected. I really did, but like most people I was in a deep form of denial about it. He went through strange mood swings. He was obsessed with the case in a way that surpassed any officer’s level of professional commitment. His behavior was highly bizarre and erratic at times, but then again he was obviously affected by the war. It changed him. I couldn’t bring myself to consciously suspect he was ‘The Zodiac’, but deep down I suppose I always knew. When I found his secret box down there, I was devastated because I could no longer deny it anymore. I couldn’t begin to answer why he did any of it but his journal probably spells it out pretty well. I couldn’t bear to read beyond the first couple pages. I just put it back in the box and pretended it wasn’t there. It was his dark little secret and I wanted no part of it. We never spoke about it. I was secretly terrified of the man I slept beside until the day he died.” Detective Rand stood up. He had a lot to process. She looked up at him with a steely glint. “Young man, what do you plan to do with this information? I’m a feeble old woman with terminal cancer. I can’t take a media circus or the public shaming of the news media. At best, the doctor’s say I only have a few months left. I am grateful to unburden myself about this to you. I guess you are my official confessor. Will you sit on this ugly secret about my husband until I pass? What’s a couple more months? Revealing the truth now won’t bring back any of those poor souls. I’d just like to go to my grave without being dragged through the mud.” Tim nodded. The confirmed identity of the Zodiac killer was now his burden the bear. He could keep the lab technicians and internal affairs quiet until it was the right time to reveal the truth. In the meantime he had plenty of other cases to work.