Cheyna Roth - Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection: Unidentified Serial Killers, Unsolved Kidnappings, and Mysterious Murders (Including the Zodiac Killer, Natalee Holloways Disappearance, the Golden State Killer

Cold Cases: A True Crime Collection

Unidentified Serial Killers, Unsolved Kidnappings, and Mysterious Murders

Cheyna Roth

Text copyright 2020 Cheyna Roth. Design and concept copyright 2020 Ulysses Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized duplication in whole or in part or dissemination of this edition by any means (including but not limited to photocopying, electronic devices, digital versions, and the internet) will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Published in the United States by:

Ulysses Press

P.O. Box 3440

Berkeley, CA 94703

www.ulyssespress.com

ISBN: 978-1-64604-034-6

ISBN: 978-1-64604-114-5 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931859

Acquisitions editor: Claire Sielaff

Managing editor: Claire Chun

Editor: Scott Calamar

Proofreader: Renee Rutledge

Front cover design: David Hastings

Artwork: Black Dahlia mugshot on cover from the Santa Barbara police, September 23, 1943; texture graphic Here/shutterstock.com

IMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

For Jonathan and Dad, the best men I know.

The press loves to put terror in a box and give it an eye-grabbing label. As a result, most serial killers get their monikers from the media. The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run? The press. The Night Stalker? Reportedly the since-shuttered Los Angeles Herald Examiner. The Hillside Strangler? Enterprising reporters. The Green River Killer? Coined by the press after his first five victims were found in the Green River. I never said any of these were particularly clever.

Where the nickname game gets really interesting is when the murderers give themselves a new name. While Dennis Rader was strangling women and sometimes their families in the Wichita, Kansas, area, he found time to drop notes. The first he left in a public library book that read, The code words for me will be bind them, torture them, kill them, B.T.K. The note found its way to the local newspaper and the media, and Rader in subsequent notes would sign off with B.T.K. Postal employee David Berkowitz caused hundreds of women in New York City to cut their long brown hair and dye it blonde out of fear theyd be his next victim. At the scene of one of his crimes, he left a note calling himself Son of Sam. Apparently a demonically possessed dog owned by a guy named Sam put him up to the whole thing. Score one for cat people everywhere.

The nicknames of these killers are significant.

According to one of the founding fathers of criminal profiling, John Douglas, its part of the overall goal many of these killers strive forto create their own legend. The ones that create their own names go further. Its an effort to completely control their narrative. They dont trust society to get it right. They dont believe the press will adequately convey their genius and majesty. They want a tight grip on the reins of their legacy and narrative.

Control is something the Zodiac could teach a master class in.

This is the Zodiac speaking is the first sentence in a three-page letter to the San Francisco Chronicle sent by the notorious killer. It was the second of many letters he would send. Right from the start, the Zodiac was demanding the press (and everyone else) address him in a certain way. He was demanding their attention and their submission.

The Zodiac was a control freak.

Bettye Harden didnt cook dinner one night in early August of 1969. In many modern households, this would be the furthest thing from a shock. But while 1969 wasnt exactly Leave It to Beaver times, there were still remnants of these sorts of traditions, and an empty table was a sign of trouble. And there was trouble. Trouble that Bettye and her husband were trying to help by solving a puzzle instead of concentrating on dinner.

Portions of a 408-character cipher had been sent to three newspapers about a week earlier. The cipher portions, sent to the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner each included a similar letter. The Chronicles version read:

Every letter ended not with a name, but with a symbol. A circle with a cross running through it like crosshairs, the symbol that has now become synonymous with the name the author would give himself in his next letter: Zodiac.

The stories of the murders the Zodiac alludes to in his letters have been told too many times to count. On podcasts, in books, in documentaries, and likely around campfires and during law enforcement trainings alike. So lets try to think of them in a different way: Lets put the victims first. Lets remember that they were real flesh and blood people who never expected that the nights they died would be their last nights. Lets think of them as people who loved and were loved. Lets keep in mind the absolute terror they must have felt when they died helpless and terrified.

The first murder the Zodiac referenced, though many speculate that hes responsible for others before this one, involved a teenage couple out on a date. A very strange supplemental police report by Solano County Sheriffs Department Detective Sergeant Les Lundblad read, Victims activity at time offense: INTERRUPTED NECKING.

David Faraday was a seventeen-year-old transplant to Vallejo from San Rafael, California. At the time of his death, he was a senior in high school, a member of school government, and on the wrestling team. He was even a damn Eagle Scout, You also have to put together a big project and hold a leadership post for six months. It wasnt like my scout troop where you showed up to one meeting, sold a few boxes of cookies, and still somehow got enough badges to move on to the next level. David likely had to go into the woods and start a fire with wet matches or fight a grizzly bear or something else equally impressive and difficult.

Eagle Scout Davids girlfriend was Betty Lou Jensen, a sixteen-year-old and a junior at Hogan High School. She was an honor student and member of an organization called the Sunshine Girls, a lower order of the Pythian Sisters. Their motto is, Do all the good you can in all the ways you can, to all the people you can.

It makes sense that when these two kids met each other, they clicked. They set out on their first official date together on December 20, 1968.

Betty Lou probably tried on multiple outfits, her bed overtaken with rejected dresses, skirts, and sweaters. She probably tried a couple new shades of lipstick and talked at length to her friends about the cute, smart jock with the full lips and a wide smile who finally asked her out.