This Is the Zodiac Speaking

Lake Herman Road was just a sleepy little road, two-lane road.

It was a shortcut from Vallejo to the Benicia area, the Benicia township.

It was not very well-traveled.

It was not lit at all. Of course, there were no street lights.

The turnout area where the crimes were committed...

...was kind of a little lovers' lane.

People would stop there, you know, and kids knew that.

The Benicia High School kids knew that.

You know, Hogan High, the Vallejo High School kids...

...all knew that that transaction was there.

I mean, back and forth in that road.

But you did not have a whole lot of traffic.

If there was any traffic in the evening, it was teenagers or somebody just coming--

Getting off work late and coming back over to Benicia.

The population was probably around 5000.

It was a sleepy little community, middle class.

Crime rate was very, very low per population...

...almost nil.

Major crime at that time within the city...

...would be a bar fight, a stolen car...

...minor thefts, some family disturbances.

There were not any murders prior to that for at least five or six years.

I was the first officer...

I was on patrol that night and my partner was sick.

He couldn't make it.

And Wayne Waterman was a new kid on the job.

He was working the jail. We all worked the jail first.

And he asked if he could ride with me.

And I said, "Sure, I'd be glad to have him."

And we got a call from the sergeant...

...that a man from Benicia, who fishes at Lake Berryessa...

...wasn't home. And that was around 7:00, 8:00.

He asked us to look down Lake Herman Road...

...and see if his truck was there.

It was a blue truck.

And just as we turned on Lake Herman Road...

...we had a call to go to the Hells Angels' pad on Warren Street.

We were there about 30, 40 minutes.

When we got back in the car...

...we were told we had a double 187 on Lake Herman Road.

During that night, we had served a search warrant at the--

What we called "the cottage" at Lake Herman...

...which was owned by the city of Benicia.

A narcotics search warrant, my partner and I.

And we have-- We confiscated about a pound and a half of marijuana...

...which, you know, in the 1960s, that was a big drug bust.

Today it wouldn't get very high on the Richter scale.

We had left, were heading back to the police department...

...to put the marijuana into evidence.

And as we drove by, we did not observe or see anybody in that area...

...because it's a turn there...

...and your headlights shine right in there as you go by.

As we're pulling into the lot in the police department...

...we heard the Benicia Police Department dispatcher put out a call...

...of possible shooting and victims on Lake Herman Road...

...and described the location.

My partner and I turned around at that time and responded to the call.

When we got there, there was already a marked police unit from Benicia...

...and one of our police sergeants was on scene at that time.

The car was heading east...

...near a place where they had a pumping station...

...or something down below.

Because I remember we used to see the fella check it out every night.

It was a Rambler.

A two-tone Rambler.

We first saw the first victim...

...the male, who was lying outside of the passenger door of the vehicle.

It appeared that he had a gunshot wound above the left ear.

He appeared-- Or was, actually, breathing.

It was a fairly cold night, it was late, on a December night...

...and you could actually see his breath.

I think that that was just because...

...his respiratory system was still intact to some extent...

...and his brain hadn't actually shut down yet, which-- Shut him down.

We never had too many murders.

We solved them all, but that was just a few, but this one...

And there was a gal who lived in the--

A woman, who lived in a house about a mile up...

...going towards Vallejo.

And she saw the Benicia Police Department and she told them about it...

...and they were there first on the scene.

Of course, the sheriff's office was called because it is their jurisdiction...

...and Solona County Sheriff's Office responded...

...and actually handled the investigation.

We stood around to assist their deputies...

...and keep the press and other people away...

...as they worked the crime scene.

We contacted the office...

...told them to have Sergeant Les Lundblad come.

He was in charge. I was a patrolman at that time.

The boy was an Eagle Scout, the girl was on her first date...

...and there's no record of any misbehavior on either one of them.

Why did this happen?

It was a senseless murder, I believe.

He told me, he says, "Follow the ambulance down...

...and see if you can get any information," you know?

That's where I found out about the ring.

I noticed he had it like this.

Holding it-- Holding it like that:

Holding it like somebody was trying to take it from him.

And the nurse, she said he died before he came in the hospital.

Looked to the rear of the vehicle and saw the female victim.

Approximately 29 to 30 feet...

...facedown and had been shot multiple times.

She was shot full of holes, I forget how many.

We got several shells from her, where she was shot in the back.

The female victim had bled out...

...and it was obvious without even taking a pulse, which I did do...

...she was expired at the scene.

I mean, she just completely-- There was a lot of blood...

...and she completely just bled out, it appeared.

Where the female victim was laying, there was expended casings from a .22.

And there was also casings, I believe, on the right side of the vehicle.

There was one round that was fired through the right rear window...

...and we tried to figure out...

...was that a warning shot to get the victims out of the car?

But I don't think that that was ever decided.

Although that round did not--

To the best of my recollection did not hit the male victim...

...that it went into the headliner of the vehicle.

Possibly they were ordered out of the car by the responsible.

And the boy was shot right at the side of the car...

...and the girl apparently tried to run...

...and she was shot and found 28 feet further on.

There was one bullet hole that penetrated one of the windows of the car.

Was this a stray bullet...

...or was this one of the bullets that hit the victim and went on through?

This could be a stray bullet or a warning bullet of some sort.

We can't connect it with the bodies, but it's the same type of shell.

So I came back to the scene. Les was there.

We went over everything...

...and that was it for that day.

We worked until about 4:00 in the morning...

...checking every place and that, and all the bullets we could find and that.

Then the next morning I got a call and told them--

They told me I was gonna be an investigator on it.

It wasn't handled as you would handle it today.

I don't think there was the experience there to actually handle it that way.

And you gotta realize the first concern was the male victim:

"Is he still alive? Let's get him-- Let's save a life here."

Then, of course, they marked the bodies and I'm sure they parked the patrol cars...

...and they walked around and looked and picked up the empty casings...

...and so on and so forth.

But under today's circumstances...

...because of the technology we have today that we didn't have then...

...they would have worked that crime scene for 24 hours.

I mean, they would have taken earth samples...

...they would have looked for fiber...

...you would have looked for folic hairs, any hair.

I mean, it would have been a lot more in-depth...

...just because they have the technology that-- Today that we--

They did not have in those days.

You know, in that half-hour, we accounted for--

There were people around that area...

...except for six minutes.

And during that six minutes, that's when it all happened.

We felt that we were probably only minutes from the actual crime scene...

...when it happened.

And again, to the best of my recollection...

...we did not pass any other vehicles or traffic.

And I'm pretty sure of that...

...because that was one of the things that we told the sheriff's office.

We did not see any other vehicles coming our way.

Now, we take a bit of a shortcut, so what could have happened is...

...that depending where a vehicle turned on to Lake Herman Road...

...if it came from behind us, from Vallejo, we would not have seen them.

Our feeling at that time is that the person came-- Or persons.

Came from the Vallejo area and did not come from the Benicia area.

Once the Blue Rock Springs, the Vallejo case, had occurred...

...I think that it really set in to the residents of Benicia, at least--

And Vallejo also.

-that we've got some kind of a crazed--

And that's the term they were using at that time.

Crazed killer out there.

People couldn't figure out what is he or she doing.

What is this all about? What's the motive?

And, you know, most homicides in my experience...

...you know, if you can find the motive, you're gonna find the responsible.

And I think-- You know, I've been out of law enforcement for a few years...

...but I think that the FBI statistics are still somewhere in the high 80s...

...that most victims know their assailant.

But when you have a random killing or killings without a motive...

...without any method of operation--

And the method of operation were different between the two, theoretically.

Except it was a couple.

It really starts to set in and really panic and then you start thinking of, you know--

And, again, what they were talking about is a crazed killer, a madman...

...or mad person, that was out there, just taking human life.

Why wasn't the Zodiac caught?

Beats the heck out of me.

I don't know. We could never nail down anybody on it.

I'm not sure that if we had, you know, like I said, the science we have today...

...that he'd be able to beat that.

I really think if it-- If we had--

And, again, it's like putting the cart before the horse...

...but if we could take what we have today and go back then...

...I think that he, you know, would have been arrested, period.

But, again, everything's academic at this point.

But, again, everything's academic at this point.

Back at that time, Blue Rock Springs, that was a more or less rural area.