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Authors: Robert Graysmith
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Mulanax had done, Toschi took in the suspect’s physical presence—Starr had blue-brown eyes and short light brown hair that was graying in
the back. Hadn’t Officer Fouke mentioned something about Zodiac having “light-colored hair possibly graying in the rear,” recol ected Toschi, “and
the curve of Zodiac’s skul had shone through his sparse hair the night he shot the cabdriver.” The late sixties were a period of protest when people
rebel ed against the shorter hair of the the fifties and wore their hair long. In 1969, Zodiac had worn his short—like a military man. However, during a
previous attack at Lake Berryessa, Zodiac presumably sported a healthy head of straight brown hair beneath his hood.
“I remember a kind of greasy forehead . . .” the surviving Berryessa victim told me later. He thought the perpetrator had dark brown hair—a lock
had shown through dark glasses covering narrow eyelets. Beneath those glasses, the wounded boy conjectured, were a second pair of glasses.
The kil er, in complete costume—a black executioner’s hood with a white circle and cross on the chest—had appeared almost magical y in the
twilight on September 27, 1969. Zodiac had traveled north to Napa County and targeted the student and his young girlfriend, stabbing them with a
foot-long, inch-wide bayonet with a taped wooden handle. He had decorated the haft, carried at his belt in a handmade scabbard, with brass rivets.
“I don’t know how tal Zodiac was, maybe five foot eight or six feet, somewhere in there. I’m a pretty poor judge of height because of my height,”
said the lanky student.
Starr’s wide brow had breadth enough for a second apple-cheeked face; his neck was thick; high-set ears flew out like horns. His broad-
shouldered, six-foot-tal bulk was intimidating. “Everybody that I ever saw that met Starr underestimated his height,” Cheney later explained. “He had
that fearsome look in his eyes. Thick thighs and a big butt and a bel y and strong shoulders and chest.” Yes, Starr was a heavy man, but then so
was Zodiac. The surviving Berryessa victim estimated Zodiac’s weight at between 225 and 250 pounds. “I described this guy as being real y fat,”
he said. “I don’t know, he could have been moderately heavy and wearing a thickly lined windbreaker.” But there was another way to tel .
Detective Sergeant Ken Narlow of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department had done a compaction test on Zodiac’s unique footprints. He had a
deputy sheriff weighing 210 pounds walk alongside them. “He didn’t sink down as deeply as Zodiac had,” Narlow told me, “In order to put that print
so deeply into the sand we figured the Zodiac weighed at least 220 pounds. Clear prints at the heel had indicated that Zodiac was not running when
he left.” Morril , the handwriting examiner, as conservative with the compaction test as with handprinting, told me, “It depends on how the sand was
at the time too. If the guy was taking big loping steps or mincing along. They were guessing at the size from the indentation he made. Suppose the
sand the day before was different. Suppose there had been water in it.”
But the ground had been dry and he had been striding leisurely. The prints were firm and especial y clear at the heel. Napa cops arrived almost
immediately because Zodiac had boldly phoned them from a booth within four and one-half blocks of their headquarters. “He was bound to have
some blood on him,” Narlow told me. “To come in from Berryessa and hit that particular telephone he had to pass, I figure, some twenty to twenty-
one telephones. He came in close enough to hear any possible sirens rushing out of the city of Napa. He could cal in from the lake, but he would be
trapping himself up there. It’s a twenty-five-minute drive down. The booth was twenty-seven miles from the crime scene. If we had found out he was
cal ing from the lake we could have sealed the area
the back. Hadn’t Officer Fouke mentioned something about Zodiac having “light-colored hair possibly graying in the rear,” recol ected Toschi, “and
the curve of Zodiac’s skul had shone through his sparse hair the night he shot the cabdriver.” The late sixties were a period of protest when people
rebel ed against the shorter hair of the the fifties and wore their hair long. In 1969, Zodiac had worn his short—like a military man. However, during a
previous attack at Lake Berryessa, Zodiac presumably sported a healthy head of straight brown hair beneath his hood.
“I remember a kind of greasy forehead . . .” the surviving Berryessa victim told me later. He thought the perpetrator had dark brown hair—a lock
had shown through dark glasses covering narrow eyelets. Beneath those glasses, the wounded boy conjectured, were a second pair of glasses.
The kil er, in complete costume—a black executioner’s hood with a white circle and cross on the chest—had appeared almost magical y in the
twilight on September 27, 1969. Zodiac had traveled north to Napa County and targeted the student and his young girlfriend, stabbing them with a
foot-long, inch-wide bayonet with a taped wooden handle. He had decorated the haft, carried at his belt in a handmade scabbard, with brass rivets.
“I don’t know how tal Zodiac was, maybe five foot eight or six feet, somewhere in there. I’m a pretty poor judge of height because of my height,”
said the lanky student.
Starr’s wide brow had breadth enough for a second apple-cheeked face; his neck was thick; high-set ears flew out like horns. His broad-
shouldered, six-foot-tal bulk was intimidating. “Everybody that I ever saw that met Starr underestimated his height,” Cheney later explained. “He had
that fearsome look in his eyes. Thick thighs and a big butt and a bel y and strong shoulders and chest.” Yes, Starr was a heavy man, but then so
was Zodiac. The surviving Berryessa victim estimated Zodiac’s weight at between 225 and 250 pounds. “I described this guy as being real y fat,”
he said. “I don’t know, he could have been moderately heavy and wearing a thickly lined windbreaker.” But there was another way to tel .
Detective Sergeant Ken Narlow of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department had done a compaction test on Zodiac’s unique footprints. He had a
deputy sheriff weighing 210 pounds walk alongside them. “He didn’t sink down as deeply as Zodiac had,” Narlow told me, “In order to put that print
so deeply into the sand we figured the Zodiac weighed at least 220 pounds. Clear prints at the heel had indicated that Zodiac was not running when
he left.” Morril , the handwriting examiner, as conservative with the compaction test as with handprinting, told me, “It depends on how the sand was
at the time too. If the guy was taking big loping steps or mincing along. They were guessing at the size from the indentation he made. Suppose the
sand the day before was different. Suppose there had been water in it.”
But the ground had been dry and he had been striding leisurely. The prints were firm and especial y clear at the heel. Napa cops arrived almost
immediately because Zodiac had boldly phoned them from a booth within four and one-half blocks of their headquarters. “He was bound to have
some blood on him,” Narlow told me. “To come in from Berryessa and hit that particular telephone he had to pass, I figure, some twenty to twenty-
one telephones. He came in close enough to hear any possible sirens rushing out of the city of Napa. He could cal in from the lake, but he would be
trapping himself up there. It’s a twenty-five-minute drive down. The booth was twenty-seven miles from the crime scene. If we had found out he was
cal ing from the lake we could have sealed the area
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