The Most Dangerous Animal of All (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - The Truth - full transcript
GARY: Lieutenant Hennessey
asked if he could gather
a voluntary sample of my DNA.
That was the last time
I ever heard from Hennessey.
Based on the DNA results,
there is a 99.8 percent
probability
that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.
I hadn't heard
from Hennessey in years,
so I contacted
the San Francisco
Police Department,
and they put me in touch
with the current inspector
who is handling
the Zodiac cold case.
Gianrico Pierucci.
GIANRICO PIERUCCI: When I met
with Gary Stewart,
he wanted to make sure
that his DNA
was actually...
done, it was
actually analyzed.
So I contacted the lab,
and I told him that
the DNA had been analyzed.
GARY: And what Pierucci
was about to tell me
was going to be huge news.
I told him that his father
wasn't going to be excluded.
GARY: Pierucci confirmed it.
And then he said,
"By the way, this is gonna do
wonders for your book."
(theme music playing)
This is a photo
of Earl Van Best,
with a sketch
of the Zodiac,
superimposed
over his face.
ZACH FECHHEIMER:
When I read the book,
I was skeptical at first,
but I kept coming
across names
and writing them down
on a notebook
next to my bedside table.
Then when I'd go and run them
through the system,
seems like Gary did
a lot of pretty accurate
genealogical research
about Earl Van Best.
And Gary's project
was sparked initially
off of a quest
of a son trying
to find his father.
And that sparked
my interest.
(indistinct chatter)
My father's been a PI
in San Francisco
for the past 50 years,
and during that time
he's come into contact
with lots of the people
who've been involved
with the Zodiac case.
He knew Paul Avery,
he knew Toschi.
Here's this FBI report.
DAVID FECHHEIMER: There's
the driver's license number.
You know, you could
probably get a transcript
of this driving record.
When you wanna dig
for a criminal record
in San Francisco,
there is no easy way
to do it,
other than to go down
to the Hall of Justice
and to dig through
handwritten volumes.
So that's what I did.
So what I have
to rely on
are the historical documents
that exist
in the public record
that we could then use
to piece together
a chronology.
Earl Van Best Jr.
bounced around
all over the country.
Yes, so a big challenge here
is trying to figure out
was there overlap
with where Earl was
during the time the
Zodiac crimes were committed.
And if there was, is there
a connection with SFPD
and is there anything there
that would suggest a cover‐up,
as Gary's put out
in his book?
I've never really believed
that the San Francisco
Police Department
was a corrupt organization.
But it wouldn't surprise me
in the least
if through carelessness,
sloppiness,
or foolishness,
they had failed to...
figure out who
the Zodiac was.
REPORTER: San Francisco Police
displayed a blackboard
with excerpts of
the latest Zodiac letter
at a news conference
last night.
Police said,
it's the first since 1974.
For the last nine years,
the Zodiac investigation
has been headed
by homicide inspector
David Toschi.
I have always felt, uh,
a gut feeling that,
that he was not dead
and that he was
out there somewhere
and that he would
communicate.
JENNINGS:
When the letter came in
we did a big story
and Zodiac is back
and he's claiming new victims
and making new threats.
TOSCHI:
It's a boasting‐type letter.
He, he takes a little slam
at me because, uh,
I've been one
of the policemen
that's been working
on the case for, uh,
almost nine years.
JENNINGS:
The letter itself said,
"Tell that city pig Toschi
I'm still here."
Shortly thereafter,
a writer
at The Chronicle
mentioned that
he'd gotten fan mail
from Dave Toschi.
REPORTER: Toschi is under fire
for writing phony fan letters
about himself
to a newspaper feature writer.
I received the bogus fan letters
in the fall of 1976.
I chose to turn the matter
over to police
only when I noticed
certain similarities
between the tone
of the letters
and the tone
of the last Zodiac letter.
JENNINGS:
Dave Toschi had written
this latest
Zodiac letter himself,
to reignite interest
in the case.
REPORTER: Inspector Dave Toschi
is out of it.
He had been
officially reprimanded
by being transferred
from the homicide detail
to the pawn shop detail.
I, I don't know
what his thinking was.
I never asked him
or remember his‐‐
He, he was a broken man.
It was all ego.
CARROLL: Zodiac is
the kind of thing
that people just crawl into
and lose themselves
in terms of the rabbit hole.
CRAIG SILVERMAN:
The Zodiac Killer is a story
that gets people
completely wrapped into it.
And this case has created
obsession for people
that really has
taken over their lives.
And this book is,
I think, also an example
of how the Zodiac Killer
once again
has taken over somebody's life.
But this is about more
than a book,
it's actually about identity.
JUDE: When you're adopted,
you spend your whole life
making up stories
of who you are.
They're never right,
of course.
But you have
to have a story.
You can't just not have
an identity.
So the only thing you can do
is make it up.
LYN OVERTON: One of the reasons
I wanted to read the book
was because
I thought at last
I'm gonna find out
what really happened.
But it starts off
right away with
things that are,
are inaccurate
and fabricated.
I think my hair was on fire,
the first read‐through
of the book.
And there was a lot
of talk about
getting off a school bus.
There were no school buses
We didn't get off
a school bus.
School buses were
for elementary school children.
GARY: I'll tell you,
my first manuscript
says street car.
One day, my mother told me
honey, I was wrong
about the street car.
I got off the school bus.
I didn't,
I didn't create that,
I didn't create that
having known that,
the Zodiac Killer, uh,
taunted the police
threatening to shoot kiddies
as they come bouncing off
a school bus.
My mother corrected me.
SUSAN: Jude told me
specifically
that I used to think
it was a street car,
but now I remember that
it was a school bus.
I have it in my notes.
And memory is subjective.
When I look
at my childhood
I remember things
a certain way,
my older brothers and sisters
remember it a different way.
It's hard to know who's right
and who's wrong.
JUDE: In the book,
they talked about
Van driving up and down
the state of California,
on his way to
or from Mexico
so that he'd be
in the places
where these crimes occurred
But when I knew Van,
he wasn't driving to Mexico,
he was always flying.
And so, for me, that was
right from the beginning
that was preposterous.
After the book was published,
Susan called me
and I said to her,
why did you have
to make the dialogues
so preposterous.
And she said,
well, those were all
right from the police reports.
We took the police reports
and changed the name
to my father or Van.
And I said, if that was
your investigation,
then I rest my case.
SUSAN: Sometimes you do have
to use the techniques
of fiction in true crime.
Use things like foreshadowing
and description.
But every single thing
that we did in that book
was based on...
what we were told
by relatives,
by friends,
police reports,
every single thing
in that book was based on fact.
JUDE: I believe that
many things changed
from Gary's original book
when they bought in
his co‐author.
There is a possibility that
Gary wants to protect Susan
because she did
bring this to the point
where a publisher
like Harper Collins
would be interested in it.
As a publisher,
we embrace the sensational
in a measured way, um...
because it sells books.
In a narrative presentation,
the language in the book,
it's imagined,
but we weren't making
factual claims.
We were sort of
setting a scene
of how this would
have played out
given the evidence we have.
I don't think it was done
to mislead anyone.
It was more...
you, you know,
it was, it was
a sort of
a narrative touch‐up,
I'd say.
SILVERMAN: When I
was reading the book,
there were kinda
two things going on.
One is Gary's pain
in Gary's search,
and that is real
and that is,
uh, I think
without question.
Then there's other element
of claiming to have solved
one of the most legendary
cold cases
really of anywhere
in the world.
And it's a huge selling point
for book publishers.
And that's important
to keep in mind because
the vast majority
of non‐fiction books
are not fact checked.
You would think
that a big publisher
like Harper Collins has
a budget for fact checking,
but they don't.
The book publishing industry,
they don't require it.
They need to sell books
that are as compelling
and maybe sensational
as they could possibly be.
And so all of
the responsibility
for making sure that
the work is true
and accurate and not copied
or other things
is actually put
on the author.
Gary and Susan wanted
to make
the most compelling book
possible.
Of course
there's gonna be times
where maybe you downplay
certain things,
where maybe you speculate
in a certain way.
It's very hard
to kinda look up one day
and say, wait a second
have we,
have we taken
a few steps too far.
And your editor's
not gonna say that
because they wanna sell
the book too.
Everybody is invested
in this guy being
the Zodiac Killer.
ZACH: Many of the claims
that are made in Gary's book
largely come
from human sources
who've all since passed on.
But Gary had made freedom
of information act requests
for Earl Van Best Jr.'s
FBI file
and he was also able to obtain
a CLETS criminal history.
So Gary used addresses
that were contained,
uh, in those documents
to put together
his address history
for Earl Van Best.
So I was able to take that
and cross reference it
with the Polk
City Directories.
After digging through
the records
at the public library,
I felt like we had
a pretty complete
address history
for Earl Van Best.
So in the book,
Gary says that
Earl lived at 797
Bush Street in 1969.
The story goes that
Paul Stine picked up his fare
two blocks from 797 Bush,
but I don't see any evidence
that he lived there in 1969.
He did live there in 1967,
which is two years prior
to the murder of Paul Stine.
Another claim that
Gary makes in his book
is that Earl Van Best did
some time at San Quentin,
but Earl Van Best Jr. was
convicted of a federal crime,
and San Quentin
is a state prison.
So there was no reason
why he would have gone
to San Quentin.
But in my research,
I, I didn't come across
any evidence
to suggest that he ever did
any time in San Quentin.
The only thing I've
come across was that
he did time
at FCI Lompoc.
ZACH: I was able
to assemble
a pretty complete chronology
for Earl Van Best.
And we've laid that out
on this side
and on this side
we put together
the key events
of the Zodiac case.
And what we see
in this timeline is that
we have a pretty complete
chronology for Earl Van Best
starting in 1957
and going through to 1968,
roughly 1968, 1969.
And then there is a gap.
Earl Van Best seems
to have fallen off the radar
between 1969 and 1974.
And most of the Zodiac murders
seem to have taken place
during that gap
in his timeline.
So what I'd like
to figure out
is where was Earl Van Best
during 1969 and 1974?
GARY: My original draft
of The Most Dangerous
Animal Of All was
about my emotional journey.
When it came
to the Zodiac,
it was, this happened,
this happened, this happened.
That's as far as I went
with the whole Zodiac murders.
Susan took that and made
you know, a whole
book section out of it.
She put pieces together
based upon
my father's behavior
and stories from the family
and William
that fit perfectly.
SUSAN: There are parts
of the story
that just sound unbelievable.
There are things
that seem like
they were made to fit
into the story.
But every time
I had a doubt,
Gary could produce
a document
that verified it.
Especially his conversations
with William Lohmus.
Each time I was like,
uh, did that really happen?
Then, I would have
an email that said
here's William saying it
right here.
There were certain things
where I did have to take
a small leap of faith,
but I got to a point where
when Gary told me something
I didn't doubt him because
he always had evidence
to back it up.
GARY: I take my own flak
from the critics,
and I don't blame Susan
for any of it.
It would've never happened
if I hadn't told her
with a hundred percent
certainty
that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.
And she just told the story
in a way that...
I wasn't trained to do.
One of the things
I never considered doing
was a handwriting analysis.
But Susan took that
one step further.
MICHAEL WAKSHULL: Well, I'm
convinced that whoever wrote
the marriage certificate
also wrote the letters.
But when I was presented
with the marriage certificate,
I was told by Susan
that Judy saw
Earl Van Best Jr.
write on
the marriage certificate.
But when I read the book,
I realized that
Judy was in a dressing room
and came out
and the marriage certificate
was completed.
Which meant that
what I was told earlier,
it was not true.
It raises a question to me,
did the minister write
the text on
the marriage certificate?
GARY: All I have is
what my mother told me.
You know,
your father filled this out,
and this is how
we were married.
WAKSHULL: As part of my
due diligence and follow‐on,
I contacted the church
where they got married.
I wanted to find out
do they have examples
of the preacher's writing?
And they did.
I did a comparison...
which caused me to come to
the virtually certain opinion
the minister Edward Flagir
wrote the marriage certificate.
Because we know that
the police sketch
of the eyewitnesses
of the Zodiac
matches Earl Van Best Jr.,
It raises the question...
Did the minister and
Earl Van Best Jr. work together,
one writing the letters,
one doing the killing?
GARY: That's quite a theory.
I thought we had picked
a stable guy.
But I didn't go looking
for a handwriting expert,
that was Susan's idea,
and I didn't get involved
in that whatsoever.
SUSAN: I thoroughly disagree
with Mike Wakshull.
He gave me a report,
and he gave me examples.
And I'm looking at the examples
and I can see...
you know, here's a J
and that's exactly the way
that the J's are
in Van's handwriting.
I'm looking at the examples
he gave me,
and they seem conclusive.
PATRICIA FISHER: I was asked
to take a look at a report...
to see if it met
the ASTM standards
uh, for handwriting
examinations,
starting with one of the most
important standards
which is having
a reliable comparison.
And we scan in the writings
and then
when I am finished,
I can take and see
what the letters don't have
in common with each other.
And what's important here is
only till we get down
to the S‐A‐N and the O‐F
where there are
similar words.
Otherwise, there were no words
that were similar.
An additional step that he took
was to make comparisons
of certain letters.
It's really important
when a document examiner,
especially working
on anonymous writings,
does not simply pick
and choose letters.
For example, he illustrates
capital J.
They are standard ways
that persons make a J.
There is nothing
individualizing
or significant
about this letter.
So what he did is
he selected these
and I guess two
or three other characteristics
that didn't have
really much value.
The biggest problem is
there are so many
absent characters
and words...
the examination was flawed
from the very start.
Michael should have said
I need more writings.
He did not do that.
And that's why
it's really critical
for the document examiner
to have very good judgment
and not sacrifice
the principles
or the standards
just to satisfy
somebody else.
GARY: If Wakshull
has been proven...
to be wrong,
okay.
That's handwriting.
That doesn't change
Earl Van Best's standing
as a suspect
in the Zodiac case.
People in
the virtual world say,
they just didn't have
enough proof, right?
The handwriting didn't match,
the fingerprints didn't match.
But here is that
one last smoking gun.
If you look to the DNA,
there's one guy left.
And that DNA
has been confirmed
with Sergeant Pierucci.
SUSAN: Pierucci said Gary's
father could not be excluded.
That Earl Van Best Jr. is
the only person in history
who cannot be excluded
as being the Zodiac.
That's a pretty damning
piece of evidence.
CARROLL: In the late '90s,
the Zodiac case
was essentially
in an inactive status.
And so I made
a suggestion
to police administration
regarding
establishing
a cold case squad.
One of the reasons
I'd made the proposal
was because of advances
in technology,
specifically the advent
of DNA
and so I'd submitted
the envelopes
and the result of the publicity
that attended the case,
the news media
was interested.
And ABC contacted us
through a producer
named Harry Phillips.
HARRY PHILLIPS: I produced
a documentary
on the Zodiac investigation
in 2001.
DNA technology had
gotten to a point
where they could begin testing
some of the Zodiac evidence
We get an adrenaline rush
knowing that
part of this puzzle
has been revealed to you.
REPORTER: You're looking
at the Zodiac Killer's
genetic identity...
PHILLIPS: The San Francisco
Police Department found
five of a potential nine
genetic markers.
These notes are what
we use to create
a computer‐generated graphic
to show
what the partial DNA profile
of the Zodiac
would've looked like.
And I can tell you
I put instructions
on how to fill in
the numbers,
what color to,
to put in.
and then instructions
to obliterate
the actual numbers
that are there.
But these numbers
don't represent
the actual numbers
from the Zodiac profile.
The actual results
never left the lab
and were never broadcast.
There's no way
that Gary Stewart's DNA
would match the values
that we put
in the DNA profile
that we broadcast
because we did not broadcast
the specific values
of each of those five markers
because that was evidence.
And they didn't want us
to release that.
CARROLL: The DNA profile
that you saw
on television
was not provided
by the San Francisco
Police Department.
That would be reckless.
So... only one of...
the allele values
for one of the STR loci,
based on my father's
genetic profile
matches what this producer,
uh, gave you
as being a blurred value.
That's fair.
That's fair.
And that had...
You know,
we, we, um...
We looked at it thinking
we were gonna,
um, either identify
or eliminate...
uh, the possibility that
any of my father's match
but what we saw
we saw the same thing...
and it, it was blurred
so it doesn't matter.
It's, it's, it,
it's irrelevant
because that's not even
the markers
of the Zodiac Killer.
Okay, so‐‐
But what I'll tell you is
we didn't do anything...
with those values.
We didn't get anybody
to do anything for us.
We didn't get Scales Lab
to do anything for us
based on what
we thought we saw.
So, on the Special, um,
they show a whole
16 marker profile,
and some of them are blank.
But what ABC did is
they highlighted
the five markers
that they extracted, okay,
and then they put values
in there.
I don't care if they put the
wrong values or blurred them,
but what's very clear
is what values,
what, what STR loci
they had.
We told Scales
which five of the 16
that the San Francisco
Police Department, ABC
had looked at‐‐
had, had discovered.
That's all we gave them.
We didn't give them any numbers.
Their statistical basis
for this new analysis
is the fact that Pierucci said
my markers match.
It has nothing to do
with the ABC show
The value of the allele
may have been changed,
may have been blurred,
it doesn't matter.
The values that we got‐‐
Susan and I got excited about,
were never presented
to the Scales Lab.
Pierucci said
he can't eliminate Van.
So Schiro made the assumption
based upon what
Pierucci told me.
The fact that my father
can't be eliminated
as Zodiac suspect means,
means all five
of these match,
so they've got the single value
not a double value
of the, the, the loci.
They've got at least one
of the two for‐‐
that, that are
the Zodiac Killer's.
Because they match
Van, right?
If they don't match Van,
they can be eliminated.
So D8, D3, D5, vWA,
match these values.
If one doesn't match,
then it's out.
I still
don't have anything
that says Susan sent
blurred values.
INTERVIEWER: Susan told us
that you sent
those blurred numbers
to the lab.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe it.
INTERVIEWER:
That's what she told us.
I don't believe that.
I don't, I don't.
I don't believe
she did that.
INTERVIEWER:
We can ask her.
We will ask her because
I can't believe that,
that Susan would have told him,
here's what we think we saw.
Susan's a better researcher
than that.
I didn't say,
I didn't say that.
SUSAN: That makes
absolutely no sense.
Gary sent the email
asking Schiro to compare
the blurred numbers
that we came up with
when we watched
the Primetime Special.
But Pierucci... told Gary
his father
could not be excluded.
If Pierucci told me,
hey, we ran that DNA
and Van's markers
didn't match
I would be like, oh my God,
I have so screwed up.
Until I hear Pierucci
tell me that,
I'm gonna stick
with my story.
INTERVIEWER: So,
in Gary's manuscript
he retypes
the police report,
and it showed that Van
actually went to Atascadero.
When we review
the actual report
from the SFPD,
everything was the same
except that
Atascadero was added.
‐So in the manuscript...
‐What?
he put in Atascadero.
(exclaims)
I can't speak to that.
The CLETS report
that I saw
had Atascadero in it.
Could you give me
a minute?
(exhales heavily)
Motherfucker.
Since I discovered that
some of the things
in the book weren't true,
I was devastated.
My integrity means
a whole lot to me,
and it really sent me
into a tailspin.
I wrote a book
that there were
discrepancies in,
and I felt like
I had not done my job.
And so I began
to search for the truth.
I went back through
newspaper articles,
through police reports,
through all
of the communication
Gary and I had about this.
He was my source
for this book,
and I trusted
what he told me.
One of the things
Gary told me was that
Earl Van Best Jr.
was in Atascadero
and when I read
his original manuscript
one of this sentences
for fraud by wire
the sentences was 90 days
Atascadero State Hospital.
But if you look
at the original CLETS report,
Atascadero isn't there.
Gary told me that
when Hennessey handed him
that report, Hennessey said,
your father was
in Atascadero.
In Gary's original manuscript,
he duplicated
the CLETS report
and added Atascadero.
I wrote a lot about that.
That played
a significant role
in determining that
Earl Van Best Jr.
had the psychosis necessary
to be the Zodiac Killer.
It's really been difficult
for me
trying to figure out
did Gary deliberately
tell me things
that were not true,
or does he really believe?
After the book came out,
the one thing I had
that I knew
that nobody else knew
was that Detective Pierucci
had said
that DNA could not be
excluded
Detective Pierucci has agreed
to meet with me
and talk with me
about what happened
when he met
with Gary Stewart.
When you were talking
to Gary,
you told him
that Gary's father
could not be excluded
as a suspect
in the Zodiac case.
‐Is that correct?
‐Right. Because
we'd have to do
more investigating
on his father.
I, I can't just take the book
and say this is perfect.
We've got
all the information here.
Uh, but the terminology
"could not be excluded"
is typically reserved
for DNA.
I, I wasn't referring to the DNA
when I excluded, you know,
when I told him that
he couldn't be excluded.
Okay? What I was trying
to tell him was
and, you know, I think he did
misinterpret me telling him,
no, you know,
I can't exclude your father.
I can't exclude your father
as, as the Zodiac,
only because
we don't have
the knowledge that
the Zodiac actually touched
or licked the stamp.
Gary's DNA was checked
by our lab,
and that's all
I can tell you.
Okay. So I, I
wouldn't give him
any DNA information.
Gary also told me that
you told him the information
that you gave him
should do wonders
for the book.
Was that accurate?
Information that I gave him
would do wonders for the book?
I, I just told him
that I liked the book.
‐Ah.
‐I don't know, I‐‐
‐(laughs)
‐Did you tell him that
Earl Van Best Jr. was
your number one suspect now?
No, I did not.
‐You did not say that?
‐No.
And you were
not convinced that...
Gary had solved the case
for the SFPD?
No, I wasn't convinced.
But I did like the book.
Gotcha.
I sure do appreciate
you taking the time
to talk to me.
Detective Pierucci
had no reason
to lie to me.
In my effort to discover
what was true,
I reached out to
a private investigator
in San Francisco
who's been...
researching Gary's claims
in the book.
I sent him
Gary's original manuscript,
other evidence
that I've uncovered
over the past few weeks.
We have an abundance
of great one‐liners
and colorful descriptors
and so on,
but we have
a lack of sources.
I wasn't able to interview
Lieutenant Hennessey back then
because Gary told me
SFPD had shut him down.
So two weeks ago,
I called him.
And he didn't want
to talk about it,
but what he did say to me
‐when I told him who I was...
‐Mm‐hmm.
...he said, I don't want
to talk about that.
I don't want to talk
to anybody about that,
but I will say
I was so disappointed
that he wasn't honest with me
when I dealt with him.
‐Hmm.
‐That's what he had to say.
Gary Stewart was
not honest with him
when he dealt with him.
Which makes me wonder
is how much of what I wrote
about Hennessey,
about the San Francisco
Police Department
in that book,
how much of that was true?
In going through the book,
there are other pieces
of evidence that didn't...
hold up to scrutiny,
um, and one of them
was The Mikado.
What I've been able to tell,
the Japanese Empire
had banned The Mikado,
and it only became,
released publicly after
the end of World War II
in 1945.
But the Van Best family
leaves Japan in 1941.
What Gary told me
was that he sent
playbills back
to his best
family members
and that Van
became obsessed
with The Mikado
because of
seeing it in Japan.
And now you're telling me
it was banned.
Wow.
So, big part of what
I've been working on
is trying to establish
a timeline for Earl Van Best.
There is a blank period
between 1969 and 1974
where he, he, he doesn't
appear to have
much of a footprint
in San Francisco.
So after I did
all my research,
you know, seeing this letter
that you are able
to share with me
that comes from Guinevere,
who is one of
Earl Van Best's daughters
who was born in Austria,
I mean, it really helped
close the gap
on... on this sort
of missing piece
of his US address history.
"They all moved back to Austria
where I was born in 1970.
"A year later,
my father left my mother
and went back
to the States."
We've initiated some requests
for his immigration records
but, unfortunately,
records prior to 1980
don't exist.
Gary told me that
his father took
his family
to Austria and immediately
abandoned them there
and that Guinevere's version
of events was not true
because Edith had motive to...
not make her children feel
like their father just brought
them there and left them.
And instead
of doing my job,
I believed him.
I saw those letters
early on
when I first met Gary.
They were in his
original manuscript.
At that time,
I didn't understand
the significance of that
because I didn't even
really know much more
about the Zodiac than
the average American does.
And by the time I got into
the Zodiac Killer part of it,
Gary explained it away
like he explained...
a lot of what
I asked him away.
If Earl Van Best Jr. was not
in the country in 1970,
he, he couldn't have been
the Zodiac Killer.
Case closed.
PREACHER:
Danger in our day.
There's the danger that
others would deceive us.
False prophets.
There's another danger.
It's not that someone else
would deceive you
but that you would
be deceived
by yourself.
Today is the day
when you can make ready
to be golden.
Let's stand again.
Every head bow...
VAN NUYS:
Human beings that we are,
we're very good
at constructing stories.
There are people out there
who have belief systems
that are absolute delusions,
and they're unshakeable.
They may build their whole life
around this story
to the point that
it becomes an obsession,
and they get
so attached to them
that there's no way
of arguing them out of them.
PREACHER:
Pray in Jesus' name...
CARROLL: I don't know
that I've run across
too many con men.
The greater number of folks
that are devoted to this case
actually do believe.
Some aspect of their ego
has them invested
such that it becomes
self‐identifying.
Their identity is now related
to this case
and once that's fused,
it's essentially impossible
to uncouple that.
VAN NUYS: It may confer on them
a sense of self‐importance
so that even though
it's a ugly story,
it makes them important
nonetheless.
It's feeding something
in them.
However, people are capable
of fooling people...
particularly if there's
hope for monetary gain...
or for fame.
Thank you.
Thank you.
VAN NUYS: But it's pretty hard
to know for sure
whether it's a con
or not.
(indistinct chatter)
JUDE:
I believe to this day
that he believes
he is the son
of the Zodiac.
It goes back
to that adoption idea that
any identity may be better
than no identity.
GARY:
People who love you
can't know...
what it feels like.
This sense of...
inferiority...
not being
good enough.
So...
SUSAN: I think he had
a need to create
the worst possible person
in the world
to be able to explain
to himself
how a father who's supposed
to love his son
could just leave him
like that on a stairwell
to be, you know, found
by whoever or not found.
JUDE: When Gary called me,
he said that
he doesn't not want
the book to be
his legacy.
He wants...
a beautiful family
that doesn't have
these kinds of skeletons
in the closet.
GARY: So...
I wanna show you
where it happened.
So my heart
wants to think
that he put me
in the corner.
So...
when he walked away...
(sniffles)
This entire...
journey to find my father,
and then deal with it...
has taken
an undetermined toll...
on me...
and my family...
but I would sit here
and have to say that
I would have to do it
all over again.
And, and I think
I can continue this journey
for another ten years...
and never...
never...
f...
never feel any better
about me.
(birds chirping)
(rock music playing)
(engine starts)
SUSAN: Today is
Friday the 13th?
So I think tonight I'm just
gonna get drunk as shit
and sit outside
on that nice little lanai
overlooking San Francisco
and burn the fuck
out of that book.
Is that what you're going
to put on film?
(rock music continues)
asked if he could gather
a voluntary sample of my DNA.
That was the last time
I ever heard from Hennessey.
Based on the DNA results,
there is a 99.8 percent
probability
that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.
I hadn't heard
from Hennessey in years,
so I contacted
the San Francisco
Police Department,
and they put me in touch
with the current inspector
who is handling
the Zodiac cold case.
Gianrico Pierucci.
GIANRICO PIERUCCI: When I met
with Gary Stewart,
he wanted to make sure
that his DNA
was actually...
done, it was
actually analyzed.
So I contacted the lab,
and I told him that
the DNA had been analyzed.
GARY: And what Pierucci
was about to tell me
was going to be huge news.
I told him that his father
wasn't going to be excluded.
GARY: Pierucci confirmed it.
And then he said,
"By the way, this is gonna do
wonders for your book."
(theme music playing)
This is a photo
of Earl Van Best,
with a sketch
of the Zodiac,
superimposed
over his face.
ZACH FECHHEIMER:
When I read the book,
I was skeptical at first,
but I kept coming
across names
and writing them down
on a notebook
next to my bedside table.
Then when I'd go and run them
through the system,
seems like Gary did
a lot of pretty accurate
genealogical research
about Earl Van Best.
And Gary's project
was sparked initially
off of a quest
of a son trying
to find his father.
And that sparked
my interest.
(indistinct chatter)
My father's been a PI
in San Francisco
for the past 50 years,
and during that time
he's come into contact
with lots of the people
who've been involved
with the Zodiac case.
He knew Paul Avery,
he knew Toschi.
Here's this FBI report.
DAVID FECHHEIMER: There's
the driver's license number.
You know, you could
probably get a transcript
of this driving record.
When you wanna dig
for a criminal record
in San Francisco,
there is no easy way
to do it,
other than to go down
to the Hall of Justice
and to dig through
handwritten volumes.
So that's what I did.
So what I have
to rely on
are the historical documents
that exist
in the public record
that we could then use
to piece together
a chronology.
Earl Van Best Jr.
bounced around
all over the country.
Yes, so a big challenge here
is trying to figure out
was there overlap
with where Earl was
during the time the
Zodiac crimes were committed.
And if there was, is there
a connection with SFPD
and is there anything there
that would suggest a cover‐up,
as Gary's put out
in his book?
I've never really believed
that the San Francisco
Police Department
was a corrupt organization.
But it wouldn't surprise me
in the least
if through carelessness,
sloppiness,
or foolishness,
they had failed to...
figure out who
the Zodiac was.
REPORTER: San Francisco Police
displayed a blackboard
with excerpts of
the latest Zodiac letter
at a news conference
last night.
Police said,
it's the first since 1974.
For the last nine years,
the Zodiac investigation
has been headed
by homicide inspector
David Toschi.
I have always felt, uh,
a gut feeling that,
that he was not dead
and that he was
out there somewhere
and that he would
communicate.
JENNINGS:
When the letter came in
we did a big story
and Zodiac is back
and he's claiming new victims
and making new threats.
TOSCHI:
It's a boasting‐type letter.
He, he takes a little slam
at me because, uh,
I've been one
of the policemen
that's been working
on the case for, uh,
almost nine years.
JENNINGS:
The letter itself said,
"Tell that city pig Toschi
I'm still here."
Shortly thereafter,
a writer
at The Chronicle
mentioned that
he'd gotten fan mail
from Dave Toschi.
REPORTER: Toschi is under fire
for writing phony fan letters
about himself
to a newspaper feature writer.
I received the bogus fan letters
in the fall of 1976.
I chose to turn the matter
over to police
only when I noticed
certain similarities
between the tone
of the letters
and the tone
of the last Zodiac letter.
JENNINGS:
Dave Toschi had written
this latest
Zodiac letter himself,
to reignite interest
in the case.
REPORTER: Inspector Dave Toschi
is out of it.
He had been
officially reprimanded
by being transferred
from the homicide detail
to the pawn shop detail.
I, I don't know
what his thinking was.
I never asked him
or remember his‐‐
He, he was a broken man.
It was all ego.
CARROLL: Zodiac is
the kind of thing
that people just crawl into
and lose themselves
in terms of the rabbit hole.
CRAIG SILVERMAN:
The Zodiac Killer is a story
that gets people
completely wrapped into it.
And this case has created
obsession for people
that really has
taken over their lives.
And this book is,
I think, also an example
of how the Zodiac Killer
once again
has taken over somebody's life.
But this is about more
than a book,
it's actually about identity.
JUDE: When you're adopted,
you spend your whole life
making up stories
of who you are.
They're never right,
of course.
But you have
to have a story.
You can't just not have
an identity.
So the only thing you can do
is make it up.
LYN OVERTON: One of the reasons
I wanted to read the book
was because
I thought at last
I'm gonna find out
what really happened.
But it starts off
right away with
things that are,
are inaccurate
and fabricated.
I think my hair was on fire,
the first read‐through
of the book.
And there was a lot
of talk about
getting off a school bus.
There were no school buses
We didn't get off
a school bus.
School buses were
for elementary school children.
GARY: I'll tell you,
my first manuscript
says street car.
One day, my mother told me
honey, I was wrong
about the street car.
I got off the school bus.
I didn't,
I didn't create that,
I didn't create that
having known that,
the Zodiac Killer, uh,
taunted the police
threatening to shoot kiddies
as they come bouncing off
a school bus.
My mother corrected me.
SUSAN: Jude told me
specifically
that I used to think
it was a street car,
but now I remember that
it was a school bus.
I have it in my notes.
And memory is subjective.
When I look
at my childhood
I remember things
a certain way,
my older brothers and sisters
remember it a different way.
It's hard to know who's right
and who's wrong.
JUDE: In the book,
they talked about
Van driving up and down
the state of California,
on his way to
or from Mexico
so that he'd be
in the places
where these crimes occurred
But when I knew Van,
he wasn't driving to Mexico,
he was always flying.
And so, for me, that was
right from the beginning
that was preposterous.
After the book was published,
Susan called me
and I said to her,
why did you have
to make the dialogues
so preposterous.
And she said,
well, those were all
right from the police reports.
We took the police reports
and changed the name
to my father or Van.
And I said, if that was
your investigation,
then I rest my case.
SUSAN: Sometimes you do have
to use the techniques
of fiction in true crime.
Use things like foreshadowing
and description.
But every single thing
that we did in that book
was based on...
what we were told
by relatives,
by friends,
police reports,
every single thing
in that book was based on fact.
JUDE: I believe that
many things changed
from Gary's original book
when they bought in
his co‐author.
There is a possibility that
Gary wants to protect Susan
because she did
bring this to the point
where a publisher
like Harper Collins
would be interested in it.
As a publisher,
we embrace the sensational
in a measured way, um...
because it sells books.
In a narrative presentation,
the language in the book,
it's imagined,
but we weren't making
factual claims.
We were sort of
setting a scene
of how this would
have played out
given the evidence we have.
I don't think it was done
to mislead anyone.
It was more...
you, you know,
it was, it was
a sort of
a narrative touch‐up,
I'd say.
SILVERMAN: When I
was reading the book,
there were kinda
two things going on.
One is Gary's pain
in Gary's search,
and that is real
and that is,
uh, I think
without question.
Then there's other element
of claiming to have solved
one of the most legendary
cold cases
really of anywhere
in the world.
And it's a huge selling point
for book publishers.
And that's important
to keep in mind because
the vast majority
of non‐fiction books
are not fact checked.
You would think
that a big publisher
like Harper Collins has
a budget for fact checking,
but they don't.
The book publishing industry,
they don't require it.
They need to sell books
that are as compelling
and maybe sensational
as they could possibly be.
And so all of
the responsibility
for making sure that
the work is true
and accurate and not copied
or other things
is actually put
on the author.
Gary and Susan wanted
to make
the most compelling book
possible.
Of course
there's gonna be times
where maybe you downplay
certain things,
where maybe you speculate
in a certain way.
It's very hard
to kinda look up one day
and say, wait a second
have we,
have we taken
a few steps too far.
And your editor's
not gonna say that
because they wanna sell
the book too.
Everybody is invested
in this guy being
the Zodiac Killer.
ZACH: Many of the claims
that are made in Gary's book
largely come
from human sources
who've all since passed on.
But Gary had made freedom
of information act requests
for Earl Van Best Jr.'s
FBI file
and he was also able to obtain
a CLETS criminal history.
So Gary used addresses
that were contained,
uh, in those documents
to put together
his address history
for Earl Van Best.
So I was able to take that
and cross reference it
with the Polk
City Directories.
After digging through
the records
at the public library,
I felt like we had
a pretty complete
address history
for Earl Van Best.
So in the book,
Gary says that
Earl lived at 797
Bush Street in 1969.
The story goes that
Paul Stine picked up his fare
two blocks from 797 Bush,
but I don't see any evidence
that he lived there in 1969.
He did live there in 1967,
which is two years prior
to the murder of Paul Stine.
Another claim that
Gary makes in his book
is that Earl Van Best did
some time at San Quentin,
but Earl Van Best Jr. was
convicted of a federal crime,
and San Quentin
is a state prison.
So there was no reason
why he would have gone
to San Quentin.
But in my research,
I, I didn't come across
any evidence
to suggest that he ever did
any time in San Quentin.
The only thing I've
come across was that
he did time
at FCI Lompoc.
ZACH: I was able
to assemble
a pretty complete chronology
for Earl Van Best.
And we've laid that out
on this side
and on this side
we put together
the key events
of the Zodiac case.
And what we see
in this timeline is that
we have a pretty complete
chronology for Earl Van Best
starting in 1957
and going through to 1968,
roughly 1968, 1969.
And then there is a gap.
Earl Van Best seems
to have fallen off the radar
between 1969 and 1974.
And most of the Zodiac murders
seem to have taken place
during that gap
in his timeline.
So what I'd like
to figure out
is where was Earl Van Best
during 1969 and 1974?
GARY: My original draft
of The Most Dangerous
Animal Of All was
about my emotional journey.
When it came
to the Zodiac,
it was, this happened,
this happened, this happened.
That's as far as I went
with the whole Zodiac murders.
Susan took that and made
you know, a whole
book section out of it.
She put pieces together
based upon
my father's behavior
and stories from the family
and William
that fit perfectly.
SUSAN: There are parts
of the story
that just sound unbelievable.
There are things
that seem like
they were made to fit
into the story.
But every time
I had a doubt,
Gary could produce
a document
that verified it.
Especially his conversations
with William Lohmus.
Each time I was like,
uh, did that really happen?
Then, I would have
an email that said
here's William saying it
right here.
There were certain things
where I did have to take
a small leap of faith,
but I got to a point where
when Gary told me something
I didn't doubt him because
he always had evidence
to back it up.
GARY: I take my own flak
from the critics,
and I don't blame Susan
for any of it.
It would've never happened
if I hadn't told her
with a hundred percent
certainty
that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.
And she just told the story
in a way that...
I wasn't trained to do.
One of the things
I never considered doing
was a handwriting analysis.
But Susan took that
one step further.
MICHAEL WAKSHULL: Well, I'm
convinced that whoever wrote
the marriage certificate
also wrote the letters.
But when I was presented
with the marriage certificate,
I was told by Susan
that Judy saw
Earl Van Best Jr.
write on
the marriage certificate.
But when I read the book,
I realized that
Judy was in a dressing room
and came out
and the marriage certificate
was completed.
Which meant that
what I was told earlier,
it was not true.
It raises a question to me,
did the minister write
the text on
the marriage certificate?
GARY: All I have is
what my mother told me.
You know,
your father filled this out,
and this is how
we were married.
WAKSHULL: As part of my
due diligence and follow‐on,
I contacted the church
where they got married.
I wanted to find out
do they have examples
of the preacher's writing?
And they did.
I did a comparison...
which caused me to come to
the virtually certain opinion
the minister Edward Flagir
wrote the marriage certificate.
Because we know that
the police sketch
of the eyewitnesses
of the Zodiac
matches Earl Van Best Jr.,
It raises the question...
Did the minister and
Earl Van Best Jr. work together,
one writing the letters,
one doing the killing?
GARY: That's quite a theory.
I thought we had picked
a stable guy.
But I didn't go looking
for a handwriting expert,
that was Susan's idea,
and I didn't get involved
in that whatsoever.
SUSAN: I thoroughly disagree
with Mike Wakshull.
He gave me a report,
and he gave me examples.
And I'm looking at the examples
and I can see...
you know, here's a J
and that's exactly the way
that the J's are
in Van's handwriting.
I'm looking at the examples
he gave me,
and they seem conclusive.
PATRICIA FISHER: I was asked
to take a look at a report...
to see if it met
the ASTM standards
uh, for handwriting
examinations,
starting with one of the most
important standards
which is having
a reliable comparison.
And we scan in the writings
and then
when I am finished,
I can take and see
what the letters don't have
in common with each other.
And what's important here is
only till we get down
to the S‐A‐N and the O‐F
where there are
similar words.
Otherwise, there were no words
that were similar.
An additional step that he took
was to make comparisons
of certain letters.
It's really important
when a document examiner,
especially working
on anonymous writings,
does not simply pick
and choose letters.
For example, he illustrates
capital J.
They are standard ways
that persons make a J.
There is nothing
individualizing
or significant
about this letter.
So what he did is
he selected these
and I guess two
or three other characteristics
that didn't have
really much value.
The biggest problem is
there are so many
absent characters
and words...
the examination was flawed
from the very start.
Michael should have said
I need more writings.
He did not do that.
And that's why
it's really critical
for the document examiner
to have very good judgment
and not sacrifice
the principles
or the standards
just to satisfy
somebody else.
GARY: If Wakshull
has been proven...
to be wrong,
okay.
That's handwriting.
That doesn't change
Earl Van Best's standing
as a suspect
in the Zodiac case.
People in
the virtual world say,
they just didn't have
enough proof, right?
The handwriting didn't match,
the fingerprints didn't match.
But here is that
one last smoking gun.
If you look to the DNA,
there's one guy left.
And that DNA
has been confirmed
with Sergeant Pierucci.
SUSAN: Pierucci said Gary's
father could not be excluded.
That Earl Van Best Jr. is
the only person in history
who cannot be excluded
as being the Zodiac.
That's a pretty damning
piece of evidence.
CARROLL: In the late '90s,
the Zodiac case
was essentially
in an inactive status.
And so I made
a suggestion
to police administration
regarding
establishing
a cold case squad.
One of the reasons
I'd made the proposal
was because of advances
in technology,
specifically the advent
of DNA
and so I'd submitted
the envelopes
and the result of the publicity
that attended the case,
the news media
was interested.
And ABC contacted us
through a producer
named Harry Phillips.
HARRY PHILLIPS: I produced
a documentary
on the Zodiac investigation
in 2001.
DNA technology had
gotten to a point
where they could begin testing
some of the Zodiac evidence
We get an adrenaline rush
knowing that
part of this puzzle
has been revealed to you.
REPORTER: You're looking
at the Zodiac Killer's
genetic identity...
PHILLIPS: The San Francisco
Police Department found
five of a potential nine
genetic markers.
These notes are what
we use to create
a computer‐generated graphic
to show
what the partial DNA profile
of the Zodiac
would've looked like.
And I can tell you
I put instructions
on how to fill in
the numbers,
what color to,
to put in.
and then instructions
to obliterate
the actual numbers
that are there.
But these numbers
don't represent
the actual numbers
from the Zodiac profile.
The actual results
never left the lab
and were never broadcast.
There's no way
that Gary Stewart's DNA
would match the values
that we put
in the DNA profile
that we broadcast
because we did not broadcast
the specific values
of each of those five markers
because that was evidence.
And they didn't want us
to release that.
CARROLL: The DNA profile
that you saw
on television
was not provided
by the San Francisco
Police Department.
That would be reckless.
So... only one of...
the allele values
for one of the STR loci,
based on my father's
genetic profile
matches what this producer,
uh, gave you
as being a blurred value.
That's fair.
That's fair.
And that had...
You know,
we, we, um...
We looked at it thinking
we were gonna,
um, either identify
or eliminate...
uh, the possibility that
any of my father's match
but what we saw
we saw the same thing...
and it, it was blurred
so it doesn't matter.
It's, it's, it,
it's irrelevant
because that's not even
the markers
of the Zodiac Killer.
Okay, so‐‐
But what I'll tell you is
we didn't do anything...
with those values.
We didn't get anybody
to do anything for us.
We didn't get Scales Lab
to do anything for us
based on what
we thought we saw.
So, on the Special, um,
they show a whole
16 marker profile,
and some of them are blank.
But what ABC did is
they highlighted
the five markers
that they extracted, okay,
and then they put values
in there.
I don't care if they put the
wrong values or blurred them,
but what's very clear
is what values,
what, what STR loci
they had.
We told Scales
which five of the 16
that the San Francisco
Police Department, ABC
had looked at‐‐
had, had discovered.
That's all we gave them.
We didn't give them any numbers.
Their statistical basis
for this new analysis
is the fact that Pierucci said
my markers match.
It has nothing to do
with the ABC show
The value of the allele
may have been changed,
may have been blurred,
it doesn't matter.
The values that we got‐‐
Susan and I got excited about,
were never presented
to the Scales Lab.
Pierucci said
he can't eliminate Van.
So Schiro made the assumption
based upon what
Pierucci told me.
The fact that my father
can't be eliminated
as Zodiac suspect means,
means all five
of these match,
so they've got the single value
not a double value
of the, the, the loci.
They've got at least one
of the two for‐‐
that, that are
the Zodiac Killer's.
Because they match
Van, right?
If they don't match Van,
they can be eliminated.
So D8, D3, D5, vWA,
match these values.
If one doesn't match,
then it's out.
I still
don't have anything
that says Susan sent
blurred values.
INTERVIEWER: Susan told us
that you sent
those blurred numbers
to the lab.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe it.
INTERVIEWER:
That's what she told us.
I don't believe that.
I don't, I don't.
I don't believe
she did that.
INTERVIEWER:
We can ask her.
We will ask her because
I can't believe that,
that Susan would have told him,
here's what we think we saw.
Susan's a better researcher
than that.
I didn't say,
I didn't say that.
SUSAN: That makes
absolutely no sense.
Gary sent the email
asking Schiro to compare
the blurred numbers
that we came up with
when we watched
the Primetime Special.
But Pierucci... told Gary
his father
could not be excluded.
If Pierucci told me,
hey, we ran that DNA
and Van's markers
didn't match
I would be like, oh my God,
I have so screwed up.
Until I hear Pierucci
tell me that,
I'm gonna stick
with my story.
INTERVIEWER: So,
in Gary's manuscript
he retypes
the police report,
and it showed that Van
actually went to Atascadero.
When we review
the actual report
from the SFPD,
everything was the same
except that
Atascadero was added.
‐So in the manuscript...
‐What?
he put in Atascadero.
(exclaims)
I can't speak to that.
The CLETS report
that I saw
had Atascadero in it.
Could you give me
a minute?
(exhales heavily)
Motherfucker.
Since I discovered that
some of the things
in the book weren't true,
I was devastated.
My integrity means
a whole lot to me,
and it really sent me
into a tailspin.
I wrote a book
that there were
discrepancies in,
and I felt like
I had not done my job.
And so I began
to search for the truth.
I went back through
newspaper articles,
through police reports,
through all
of the communication
Gary and I had about this.
He was my source
for this book,
and I trusted
what he told me.
One of the things
Gary told me was that
Earl Van Best Jr.
was in Atascadero
and when I read
his original manuscript
one of this sentences
for fraud by wire
the sentences was 90 days
Atascadero State Hospital.
But if you look
at the original CLETS report,
Atascadero isn't there.
Gary told me that
when Hennessey handed him
that report, Hennessey said,
your father was
in Atascadero.
In Gary's original manuscript,
he duplicated
the CLETS report
and added Atascadero.
I wrote a lot about that.
That played
a significant role
in determining that
Earl Van Best Jr.
had the psychosis necessary
to be the Zodiac Killer.
It's really been difficult
for me
trying to figure out
did Gary deliberately
tell me things
that were not true,
or does he really believe?
After the book came out,
the one thing I had
that I knew
that nobody else knew
was that Detective Pierucci
had said
that DNA could not be
excluded
Detective Pierucci has agreed
to meet with me
and talk with me
about what happened
when he met
with Gary Stewart.
When you were talking
to Gary,
you told him
that Gary's father
could not be excluded
as a suspect
in the Zodiac case.
‐Is that correct?
‐Right. Because
we'd have to do
more investigating
on his father.
I, I can't just take the book
and say this is perfect.
We've got
all the information here.
Uh, but the terminology
"could not be excluded"
is typically reserved
for DNA.
I, I wasn't referring to the DNA
when I excluded, you know,
when I told him that
he couldn't be excluded.
Okay? What I was trying
to tell him was
and, you know, I think he did
misinterpret me telling him,
no, you know,
I can't exclude your father.
I can't exclude your father
as, as the Zodiac,
only because
we don't have
the knowledge that
the Zodiac actually touched
or licked the stamp.
Gary's DNA was checked
by our lab,
and that's all
I can tell you.
Okay. So I, I
wouldn't give him
any DNA information.
Gary also told me that
you told him the information
that you gave him
should do wonders
for the book.
Was that accurate?
Information that I gave him
would do wonders for the book?
I, I just told him
that I liked the book.
‐Ah.
‐I don't know, I‐‐
‐(laughs)
‐Did you tell him that
Earl Van Best Jr. was
your number one suspect now?
No, I did not.
‐You did not say that?
‐No.
And you were
not convinced that...
Gary had solved the case
for the SFPD?
No, I wasn't convinced.
But I did like the book.
Gotcha.
I sure do appreciate
you taking the time
to talk to me.
Detective Pierucci
had no reason
to lie to me.
In my effort to discover
what was true,
I reached out to
a private investigator
in San Francisco
who's been...
researching Gary's claims
in the book.
I sent him
Gary's original manuscript,
other evidence
that I've uncovered
over the past few weeks.
We have an abundance
of great one‐liners
and colorful descriptors
and so on,
but we have
a lack of sources.
I wasn't able to interview
Lieutenant Hennessey back then
because Gary told me
SFPD had shut him down.
So two weeks ago,
I called him.
And he didn't want
to talk about it,
but what he did say to me
‐when I told him who I was...
‐Mm‐hmm.
...he said, I don't want
to talk about that.
I don't want to talk
to anybody about that,
but I will say
I was so disappointed
that he wasn't honest with me
when I dealt with him.
‐Hmm.
‐That's what he had to say.
Gary Stewart was
not honest with him
when he dealt with him.
Which makes me wonder
is how much of what I wrote
about Hennessey,
about the San Francisco
Police Department
in that book,
how much of that was true?
In going through the book,
there are other pieces
of evidence that didn't...
hold up to scrutiny,
um, and one of them
was The Mikado.
What I've been able to tell,
the Japanese Empire
had banned The Mikado,
and it only became,
released publicly after
the end of World War II
in 1945.
But the Van Best family
leaves Japan in 1941.
What Gary told me
was that he sent
playbills back
to his best
family members
and that Van
became obsessed
with The Mikado
because of
seeing it in Japan.
And now you're telling me
it was banned.
Wow.
So, big part of what
I've been working on
is trying to establish
a timeline for Earl Van Best.
There is a blank period
between 1969 and 1974
where he, he, he doesn't
appear to have
much of a footprint
in San Francisco.
So after I did
all my research,
you know, seeing this letter
that you are able
to share with me
that comes from Guinevere,
who is one of
Earl Van Best's daughters
who was born in Austria,
I mean, it really helped
close the gap
on... on this sort
of missing piece
of his US address history.
"They all moved back to Austria
where I was born in 1970.
"A year later,
my father left my mother
and went back
to the States."
We've initiated some requests
for his immigration records
but, unfortunately,
records prior to 1980
don't exist.
Gary told me that
his father took
his family
to Austria and immediately
abandoned them there
and that Guinevere's version
of events was not true
because Edith had motive to...
not make her children feel
like their father just brought
them there and left them.
And instead
of doing my job,
I believed him.
I saw those letters
early on
when I first met Gary.
They were in his
original manuscript.
At that time,
I didn't understand
the significance of that
because I didn't even
really know much more
about the Zodiac than
the average American does.
And by the time I got into
the Zodiac Killer part of it,
Gary explained it away
like he explained...
a lot of what
I asked him away.
If Earl Van Best Jr. was not
in the country in 1970,
he, he couldn't have been
the Zodiac Killer.
Case closed.
PREACHER:
Danger in our day.
There's the danger that
others would deceive us.
False prophets.
There's another danger.
It's not that someone else
would deceive you
but that you would
be deceived
by yourself.
Today is the day
when you can make ready
to be golden.
Let's stand again.
Every head bow...
VAN NUYS:
Human beings that we are,
we're very good
at constructing stories.
There are people out there
who have belief systems
that are absolute delusions,
and they're unshakeable.
They may build their whole life
around this story
to the point that
it becomes an obsession,
and they get
so attached to them
that there's no way
of arguing them out of them.
PREACHER:
Pray in Jesus' name...
CARROLL: I don't know
that I've run across
too many con men.
The greater number of folks
that are devoted to this case
actually do believe.
Some aspect of their ego
has them invested
such that it becomes
self‐identifying.
Their identity is now related
to this case
and once that's fused,
it's essentially impossible
to uncouple that.
VAN NUYS: It may confer on them
a sense of self‐importance
so that even though
it's a ugly story,
it makes them important
nonetheless.
It's feeding something
in them.
However, people are capable
of fooling people...
particularly if there's
hope for monetary gain...
or for fame.
Thank you.
Thank you.
VAN NUYS: But it's pretty hard
to know for sure
whether it's a con
or not.
(indistinct chatter)
JUDE:
I believe to this day
that he believes
he is the son
of the Zodiac.
It goes back
to that adoption idea that
any identity may be better
than no identity.
GARY:
People who love you
can't know...
what it feels like.
This sense of...
inferiority...
not being
good enough.
So...
SUSAN: I think he had
a need to create
the worst possible person
in the world
to be able to explain
to himself
how a father who's supposed
to love his son
could just leave him
like that on a stairwell
to be, you know, found
by whoever or not found.
JUDE: When Gary called me,
he said that
he doesn't not want
the book to be
his legacy.
He wants...
a beautiful family
that doesn't have
these kinds of skeletons
in the closet.
GARY: So...
I wanna show you
where it happened.
So my heart
wants to think
that he put me
in the corner.
So...
when he walked away...
(sniffles)
This entire...
journey to find my father,
and then deal with it...
has taken
an undetermined toll...
on me...
and my family...
but I would sit here
and have to say that
I would have to do it
all over again.
And, and I think
I can continue this journey
for another ten years...
and never...
never...
f...
never feel any better
about me.
(birds chirping)
(rock music playing)
(engine starts)
SUSAN: Today is
Friday the 13th?
So I think tonight I'm just
gonna get drunk as shit
and sit outside
on that nice little lanai
overlooking San Francisco
and burn the fuck
out of that book.
Is that what you're going
to put on film?
(rock music continues)