Speaker 1: Hi, this is Michael Connolly with part two of our
Speaker 1: roundtable discussion. This is Killer in the Code Solving the Black,
Speaker 1: Dahia and Zodiac cases. All right, we're gonna get back
Speaker 1: to the questions. Do you think it's possible that other
Speaker 1: unsolved cold cases in Chicago, Kansas, Atlanta, Arizona, et cetera,
Speaker 1: could have been Margolis as well? And the list of
Speaker 1: those cities are places we have traced Marvin Margolis or
Speaker 1: Merrill or under his other names. Places he didn't stay
Speaker 1: a long time other than Chicago, where he grew up.
Speaker 1: But this was a guy who seemed to always be
Speaker 1: moving until he came back to California. But anyway, obscuring
Speaker 1: the question, I remember early on in a discussion I
Speaker 1: had with you, Mitzie Roberts, that the killing of the
Speaker 1: Black was so brutal, so calculated. He said, it would
Speaker 1: be surprised if this person, if this was like a
Speaker 1: single case, that the killer this was his only murder anyway,
Speaker 1: So I don't know who wants to start with that,
Speaker 1: but it's a very general question.
Speaker 2: Well, just as an investigator, and when you're looking at
Speaker 2: somebody that is killed, what we believe is repeatedly in
Speaker 2: different locations within California as far north as the Bay Area,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. I feel Oceanside is very very likely his
Speaker 2: I feel that the Riverside case of Sherry Joe Bates
Speaker 2: is probably a very likely case based on the letter
Speaker 2: that was received. So it would not surprise me that
Speaker 2: anywhere he's gone. He started killing it roughly twenty one
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty Heaven with Elizabeth Short, so he began
Speaker 2: at a fairly young age, and then in the early
Speaker 2: forties he was the Zodiac case. So anywhere in between
Speaker 2: or even after wouldn't surprise me if he was in
Speaker 2: locations that had murders, not necessarily the same mos, but
Speaker 2: really any because he was evolving during this whole period
Speaker 2: of time. If they couldn't connect other cases to him
Speaker 2: wherever he lived.
Speaker 3: In the serial cases that serial killer cases that I've identified,
Speaker 3: and if.
Speaker 4: You believe that Marvin Margolis.
Speaker 3: Is the suspect here, which I do, and if you
Speaker 3: believe he's the Zodiac, which I do, these type of
Speaker 3: perpetrators don't stop usually, you know, they can't take a
Speaker 3: break for different reasons and things like that. But for
Speaker 3: somebody like him that's mobile and moving around what would
Speaker 3: drive them to stop. If you believe that he is
Speaker 3: a suspect in these cases, then it would be smart
Speaker 3: to trace where he's lived, where he's been, and to
Speaker 3: look into unsolved murders there. I don't know enough about
Speaker 3: the famous unsolved with the key names, the Ellipstick murders
Speaker 3: and the Torso murders.
Speaker 4: I don't know about enough about those to say look
Speaker 4: into those.
Speaker 3: But if you have a killer that goes from place
Speaker 3: to place to place to place, and you're convinced that
Speaker 3: he's killed in one place, it's just smart detective work
Speaker 3: to look into can he have killed, would he have
Speaker 3: killed in another place? And to compare him against some
Speaker 3: of your cold cases, and.
Speaker 2: That Mitchy and I did that on another case that
Speaker 2: was at the end of my career with the guy
Speaker 2: that is the most prolific serial killer in US history,
Speaker 2: Sam Wittle. We traveled the country pretty much for the
Speaker 2: last year my career, connecting him to other murders, and
Speaker 2: I mean all over multiple states, five six, seven, eight
Speaker 2: states we were in And it's just part of the
Speaker 2: process of what you do. And obviously Meryl Margol was
Speaker 2: like killing the first one that we know of Anyway,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Short was a very personal murder, and so I
Speaker 2: can understand how that can happen without necessarily loving murder.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, it was a payback. He was jolted, humiliated,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to the same to her. But once
Speaker 2: you get into the other killings where there's no direct
Speaker 2: personal motive, random people and lover's lanes, a cab driver
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, a cab driver in Oceanside, that shows
Speaker 2: that he enjoyed killing, and so he's not going to
Speaker 2: stop enjoying killing when he's living in Kansas or Chicago
Speaker 2: or Georgia. It's going to go on if you felt
Speaker 2: like the opportunity. The only thing I would say is
Speaker 2: that at some point age factors does factor in.
Speaker 5: And I can't say what age, but.
Speaker 2: Age does factor in and does cause people to eventually stop.
Speaker 1: Next question is you say some members of the family
Speaker 1: have cooperated with you and turned over the sketch as
Speaker 1: well as two boxes of property and documents. Is there
Speaker 1: any evidence connecting to the murders found in those belongings,
Speaker 1: such as weapons or trophies.
Speaker 3: Well, of course the sketch, I mean, which Michael and
Speaker 3: I took that sketch that was sent to us and
Speaker 3: had it analyzed by an expert that was not familiar
Speaker 3: with this case or what we've been doing, and verified
Speaker 3: that hidden the hidden word zodiac in the shading or
Speaker 3: at least some of the letters that he did see
Speaker 3: show up.
Speaker 4: And so yes, in that sense that was there.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure about the I think some of the
Speaker 3: handwriting exhibits and a lot of stuff is just corroborating evidence.
Speaker 4: It's not like DNA on knives or anything like that.
Speaker 3: It's eyeglass prescriptions and knowing that the zodiac wore eyeglasses
Speaker 3: and handwriting exemplars that have been compared to the letters
Speaker 3: and have matched things like that.
Speaker 1: Since we were talking about the things that family turned
Speaker 1: over to us, let's stay on that for a minute.
Speaker 1: With the last episode, chapter six, we talked about Marvin
Speaker 1: Margolis's report card from USC and we put it on
Speaker 1: the website, and readers have pointed out that that report
Speaker 1: card shows a different spelling for his net last name.
Speaker 1: It's and middle name. It's the work cards from Marvin
Speaker 1: Henry Margolie's not Marvin Skipton Margolis. And the question is,
Speaker 1: how do you know you don't have the grades for
Speaker 1: someone else. And I'll start us off by just saying
Speaker 1: that report card that we put on the website came
Speaker 1: from Marvin Merrell's property turned over to us by his family.
Speaker 1: So it's a I think it's a clear or you guys,
Speaker 1: if you're the investigators taken from there. To me, it's
Speaker 1: a clear indication that he was engaged in manipulating his identity.
Speaker 2: I have that report card in the boxes that I
Speaker 2: have with me that we're turning back over to the
Speaker 2: family tomorrow, And yeah, what are the chances that there's
Speaker 2: some differences from a person that's gone through his life
Speaker 2: changing name and it's a close name. What's the chance
Speaker 2: is it's going to be did he pick up the
Speaker 2: wrong report card, you know, and just happened to be
Speaker 2: very close to his I doubt it's it's just another
Speaker 2: indication that he's using, for whatever reason, one more alias,
Speaker 2: and it's really a pretty close name obviously.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I just like when you get like that that's
Speaker 3: given from the family like that, there's no there's no
Speaker 3: better source to give us something like that than it
Speaker 3: came from the person who's report card it is. I mean,
Speaker 3: I would trust that even more than the academic institution
Speaker 3: only because they have no way to verify the report
Speaker 3: card they're giving us is the same individual who were investigating.
Speaker 3: But even more than that, I even when you're going
Speaker 3: back through the grand jury investigation, they got his name wrong.
Speaker 3: They're in testimony and spelled it wrong. And is that
Speaker 3: because that's the information they had that he gave them.
Speaker 4: Is the way he spelled it or they just spelled
Speaker 4: it wrong.
Speaker 3: So that's just a common theme throughout this investigation that
Speaker 3: there are different names being used, different spellings, different middle names,
Speaker 3: and it's part of his signature, part of the way
Speaker 3: he plays the game.
Speaker 1: What's interesting in the reader listener pointed out was if
Speaker 1: you look at this thing, it appears that he may
Speaker 1: have taken classes in the year of fifty two to
Speaker 1: fifty three if we read this correctly, and that question
Speaker 1: says it was there a chance he came back to
Speaker 1: la because we know we can put him in Chicago.
Speaker 1: He was actually prosecuted for a crime during this period.
Speaker 1: But he's also we've also established that he moves around
Speaker 1: and his family doesn't know where he is a lot.
Speaker 1: What do we take from that little notation? It looks
Speaker 1: like two classes taken between fifty two and fifty four.
Speaker 1: Could he have come back to try to finish his
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical degree.
Speaker 6: Well, we know that his eldest daughter was born in
Speaker 6: Chicago in nineteen fifty two. If I look at my records,
Speaker 6: have to verify that. I think it's nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 6: early February.
Speaker 7: I believe that. Being said, however, we do know that
Speaker 7: there's window there.
Speaker 6: We can't account for him up until the end of
Speaker 6: fifty three where he's arrested for a cong game for
Speaker 6: doing contracts that are blank and filling in additional information.
Speaker 7: That numbers right.
Speaker 1: So that's in Chicago.
Speaker 6: Dad's in Chicago. So we got a buffer there of
Speaker 6: about a year and a half that we can't account for.
Speaker 6: So I'm not saying that he did. What I'm saying, though,
Speaker 6: is there's an open opportunity there unless we find something
Speaker 6: else that we can use to place him somewhere other
Speaker 6: than the USC.
Speaker 1: Okay, we seem to be talking about his family and
Speaker 1: how a few of them have cooperated with us, mostly
Speaker 1: through well, actually all three of you have talked to
Speaker 1: family members. I have talked to family members. Is there
Speaker 1: anyone in the family who is saying they agree with us,
Speaker 1: or they're saying this explains a lot, or there are
Speaker 1: people that are saying, there's no way this was that
Speaker 1: our father was that this killer the serial killer.
Speaker 7: I've experienced both firsthand.
Speaker 6: I've got people like the son that says, all, this
Speaker 6: can't be my father in no way. However, he is
Speaker 6: shifted from one side to the other since I've had
Speaker 6: the opportunity to speak with him. And then we have
Speaker 6: other members that we've I've spoken to directly three that
Speaker 6: have stated that they've found this very likely or possible
Speaker 6: that he is who we believe he is.
Speaker 3: The family members that I've spoke to, I've only spoken
Speaker 3: to two. There's more of a curiosity and a and
Speaker 3: a willingness to cooperate, cooperate because they believe that it's
Speaker 3: an in case and that any surviving family members deserve answers,
Speaker 3: whether that be that Marvin is the guy or is not.
Speaker 3: And they also want to participate because we've told them that.
Speaker 4: This could give you answers either way. We're not, you know,
Speaker 4: we don't.
Speaker 3: We're definitely not trying to fabricate a case on anybody.
Speaker 3: The evidence is going to point where they evidence points
Speaker 3: and it could point to this is the wrong guy,
Speaker 3: and then that is something that they'd want to know too.
Speaker 4: And so I haven't really gotten an opinion one way
Speaker 4: or the other.
Speaker 3: We've gotten some information about Margolis's background, about his temper,
Speaker 3: about the way he treated the family. That the fact
Speaker 3: that they're willing to give items to us that could
Speaker 3: be of evidence of evidentiary value at least says to
Speaker 3: me that they're open to the possibility that this that
Speaker 3: he that he could be capable of doing something like this.
Speaker 3: Because I know if somebody came to me and said,
Speaker 3: you think your father's a murderer and we want you
Speaker 3: to give us any information that you may have, I'd
Speaker 3: be like, there's no way, you know, I don't have anything.
Speaker 3: I don't have anything because there's no way that this
Speaker 3: my father could have been this, or or if my
Speaker 3: father had stuff and I always had a suspicion in
Speaker 3: my mind that he could be capable, then I would
Speaker 3: give that.
Speaker 4: So the fact that they gave.
Speaker 3: Us items to be verified leads me to believe that
Speaker 3: it's a possibility in their mind.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that it wouldn't be shocking. Yeah, if if
Speaker 2: it the evidence revealed that this is true, it would
Speaker 2: not be shocking based on his behavior.
Speaker 1: So that leads to one of the questions that we've
Speaker 1: gotten several of out of the proximity question, how are
Speaker 1: we putting him in proximity to the Zodiac killings? What
Speaker 1: is the let's see where? What is the evidence that
Speaker 1: he lived or had a place in the Bay area
Speaker 1: during the Zodiac murder spree? Is the exact question.
Speaker 2: We do know there was documentation, Alex found it, and
Speaker 2: I've driven by the house that he had showed he
Speaker 2: lived at in the late sixties, early seventies and then
Speaker 2: again in the late seventies and early eighties, same location.
Speaker 2: We know he worked at Intel. Back then, they didn't
Speaker 2: have this let's work from home kind of situation and
Speaker 2: telecommuting and all this kind of stuff. You showed up
Speaker 2: in the office unless you were a travel kind of person.
Speaker 2: And the other thing, it's fifty five years later. You're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to put somebody in a
Speaker 2: specific place unless there's something very unique that happened, like
Speaker 2: an arrest or something like that. On a day by day,
Speaker 2: week by week, even a month by month basis, we don't.
Speaker 2: We do know he has connections to the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: And then the other one again, Mike, you just found
Speaker 2: his son went to school up there. Now did he
Speaker 2: live with his son at that point or did he
Speaker 2: visit his son? Maybe, but we know that he had
Speaker 2: a reason to be up in the area during that
Speaker 2: period of time. And another thing is there wouldn't be
Speaker 2: concern about the lack of middle put.
Speaker 5: Him in the area.
Speaker 2: If this was a DNA hit or a fingerprint match,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't matter where he lived anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: You're going to say, Okay, you're gonna do You're going
Speaker 2: to check the DNA and sometimes believe it or not.
Speaker 2: But from a detective standpoint and from a prosecutor standpoint,
Speaker 2: and from a legal standpoint, circumstantial evidence, depending on how
Speaker 2: substantial it is, can be just as identifying as DNA
Speaker 2: or a fingerprint. And people might look at that and
Speaker 2: shake their head and they don't understand it. But this
Speaker 2: world has gotten so dependent on court using DNA and science.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you revert back to circumstantial evidence. It's very legal.
Speaker 2: There's convictions based on nothing but circumstantial evidence all the time.
Speaker 2: And so the fact that we couldn't put him in
Speaker 2: the Bay Area on a regular basis. Isn't that concerning
Speaker 2: to me? The other evidence that we have is overwhelming,
Speaker 2: and I keep saying overwhelming. It's overwhelming. And I was
Speaker 2: at an event the other day, unfortunately it was a
Speaker 2: celebration of life, and there were many das there that
Speaker 2: had been listening to this podcast that are blown away
Speaker 2: by how.
Speaker 5: Convincing the evidence is.
Speaker 2: And I know Mitzi and I and my work partner
Speaker 2: Dave Trismont, we wouldn't have entertained moving into this unless
Speaker 2: we totally believed it. We're not going to get involved
Speaker 2: in something that was a hair brain scheme, and we've cooperated.
Speaker 2: We give media interviews, and I should say there was
Speaker 2: one particular writer who said that I went to Michael
Speaker 2: Conley with a far fetched theory. This guy must not
Speaker 2: know anything about crime if he considered this a far
Speaker 2: fetched theory, because prosecutors and people in investigated positions, Mitzi,
Speaker 2: me and Dave tresmontin say it's overwhelming evidence. So the
Speaker 2: far fetched stuff, I don't know if he just had
Speaker 2: a bone to pick with this, or wanted to be
Speaker 2: personally abrasive and throw a lot of landmines toward us,
Speaker 2: or what, But the fact that he said it's a
Speaker 2: far fetched game is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That's what's so irritating about that is that people expect
Speaker 3: us as investigators to throw away the entire theory or
Speaker 3: the entire game case against Margolis because we can't prove
Speaker 3: he was in San Jose. He can't be the Zodiac
Speaker 3: because we can't prove he lived in San Jose. So
Speaker 3: everything else that we have proven, the cryptology and you know,
Speaker 3: all the other things that we have, we're just supposed
Speaker 3: to put that aside because one or two things we
Speaker 3: don't have definitive answers, or we can't prove that he
Speaker 3: was positive, you know, that his alibi, that he didn't
Speaker 3: have an alibi, So we're just supposed to throw away
Speaker 3: all the other evidence. And that is just not what
Speaker 3: detectives do.
Speaker 4: So it's quite irritating on some levels when that happens.
Speaker 2: And even completed cases and myths will tell me the
Speaker 2: same thing or tell you the same thing. You're never
Speaker 2: going to get an answer to every question you want.
Speaker 2: Even when there's admissions or confessions or convictions, there are
Speaker 2: always unknown things because in a confession, oftentimes suspects will
Speaker 2: admit things because they know it's overwhelming evidence. But they
Speaker 2: always will mitigate some aspects or leave out parts, or
Speaker 2: not remember certain parts because to admit certain things make
Speaker 2: it tough because it's very very bad behavior. They mitigate
Speaker 2: it to be seen in the best light possible that
Speaker 2: they think they can get away with. And so there
Speaker 2: are going to be things in we're not going to
Speaker 2: have answers to. But overall it's a very very strong case.
Speaker 7: Let me add one more piece, guys. So if we
Speaker 7: fast forward.
Speaker 6: From sixty nine to seventy to seventy eight, when the
Speaker 6: son who said he never resided in San Jose, and
Speaker 6: we know I knew Michael's independent researcher discovered that the
Speaker 6: Sun was in high school in San Jose actually at
Speaker 6: that time, so at the time that they moved there,
Speaker 6: and this is documented.
Speaker 7: For anybody to see online if you know how to research.
Speaker 6: At the exact moment that Martin Margos can be placed
Speaker 6: in San Jose in nineteen seventy eight. Zodiac reappears and
Speaker 6: emails in April Letter April twenty fourth, ninety seventy eight.
Speaker 1: So somebody mentioned hair brained and so this next question
Speaker 1: was first directed to me but handed off to Mitzi
Speaker 1: after I make but it says, Connelly, you once endorsed
Speaker 1: the theory that George Hodell was the Black Dalia Avenger.
Speaker 1: What made you change your mind? And why should we
Speaker 1: believe you? Now? What that listener is referencing is that
Speaker 1: I blurbed, which is I endorsed a book called Black
Speaker 1: Dalua Avenger that fingered George Hodell as the killer of
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short and he is on the top suspect's list.
Speaker 1: By the way, the book was written by Hodell's son,
Speaker 1: Steve Hodell, who was formerly an LAPD homicide investigator, which
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons I felt compelled to read
Speaker 1: it and then endorse it. And I read that book
Speaker 1: knowing very little about the case, and I found it convincing.
Speaker 1: And you know, what's the harm in saying I agree?
Speaker 1: I think I even said case closed or something like that.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what I said in endorsing that book,
Speaker 1: but I did live to regret this, and I've made
Speaker 1: my maya copa in the very first episode I think
Speaker 1: of this podcast. And because the newly formed cold Cation
Speaker 1: it investigated the claims in that book and their report
Speaker 1: was that that is a flawed investigation, and that it's
Speaker 1: a good theory, but there's no evidence that Hodell was
Speaker 1: the killer. And I think Rick and Mitzi you may
Speaker 1: have had part in that investigation or aware of it,
Speaker 1: or have reports. So if one of you wants to
Speaker 1: bail me out here, please do. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's very easy and is exactly what's different
Speaker 3: in what we're doing here is that Hoodell's theory is
Speaker 3: a great theory, and it's supported by some of the
Speaker 3: facts in the case. In that George Hodell there was
Speaker 3: wiretaps into him.
Speaker 4: He you know, he was a doctor.
Speaker 3: There's things that make you look at him as a
Speaker 3: suspect and buy into him as a suspect.
Speaker 4: That it's a good theory in the case.
Speaker 3: But there were a lot of good theories, and so
Speaker 3: I can see how somebody on the outsides can can
Speaker 3: read that book and buy into it. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: still many many people that believe. You know, I get
Speaker 3: that question a lot.
Speaker 4: Oh that's all. Isn't it wasn't it? That wasn't it
Speaker 4: that detective's father, wasn't it that doctor? But as Michael.
Speaker 3: Mentioned, because the theory did look so good, that's what
Speaker 3: investigators do we then go in and fact check it
Speaker 3: for evidentiary value. And a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 3: Steve Odell wrote in that first book just was not accurate.
Speaker 3: It was not true. It was actually disproven. So that
Speaker 3: is hindsight. That is information that Michael didn't have and
Speaker 3: that the listeners and the readers didn't have at the
Speaker 3: time that we were able to disprove. And I think
Speaker 3: that flip side is why when it came to this
Speaker 3: investigation we were so I was so skeptical because I
Speaker 3: think I even mentioned to Michael, I don't want to
Speaker 3: be the person that gets stuck in something like that
Speaker 3: that has to turn around five years from now and say, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got that wrong.
Speaker 4: And so is why we are doing that. We are
Speaker 4: being upfront.
Speaker 3: With the listeners and with the people with the when
Speaker 3: we're interviewed on these stories. Is if we have a
Speaker 3: case where the evidence doesn't fit or we're unsure of
Speaker 3: the evidence, we have double checked it.
Speaker 4: We have triple checked.
Speaker 3: It by independent experts and came up with the same
Speaker 3: information that Alex has, which makes it makes it more
Speaker 3: viable as evidence in the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in my perspective on the Hodel that was ordered
Speaker 2: by an assistant Chief of police that the cold case
Speaker 2: unit looked through Hodell's claims in his book and make
Speaker 2: a determination if it is it legitimate, is it not legitimate,
Speaker 2: or in between somewhere. My part of that was to
Speaker 2: look at an array of other women in the LA
Speaker 2: area during the late forties and early fifties that Steve
Speaker 2: claimed Steve Hodell claimed.
Speaker 5: His father also murdered.
Speaker 2: And as I went through those cases in the archives,
Speaker 2: and I learned that many of them were already solved
Speaker 2: or had been solved. Steve probably didn't have access to
Speaker 2: a lot of those because they were internal investig natives
Speaker 2: as investigations, but several of them, there were a couple
Speaker 2: where there were convictions of other people, some confessions on
Speaker 2: some of them compelling confessions, and there was a plea
Speaker 2: in some of them. So just the fact that he's
Speaker 2: naming cases that we know weren't his father's hurts the
Speaker 2: carrelibility of the overall investigation. And I worked with Steve Hodell.
Speaker 2: I was a young homicide detective in Hollywood in the
Speaker 2: early eighties and Steve.
Speaker 5: Hodell was there.
Speaker 2: He was a good detective, And that's the interesting aspect
Speaker 2: of that Steve knows what evidence is, and it would
Speaker 2: be hard. I can guarantee you it would be hard
Speaker 2: for him to discount Alex Baber's investigation because he knows evidence.
Speaker 2: Whether he'd be willing to admit that, probably not, because
Speaker 2: he's so invested with his many books and his reputation
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth, that it would be
Speaker 2: hard for him to in my thinking, to say, yes,
Speaker 2: this is a good investigation. But inwardly I think he
Speaker 2: probably knows it's a very a very strong case. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as he knows evidence.
Speaker 3: I just want to add on that. I tend to
Speaker 3: agree with you on that, Rick, because years ago I
Speaker 3: was sort of ordered to do an interview and it
Speaker 3: was related to Steve Hodell's claims.
Speaker 4: I believe it was a radio interview.
Speaker 3: It may have been KNX or something, and I gave
Speaker 3: a statement on the case, and that something to the
Speaker 3: fact that Steve had a good theory. Well, when our
Speaker 3: theory came out, And that's the difference I think with
Speaker 3: us is we're willing to look at other theories when
Speaker 3: our case came out.
Speaker 4: Now it's no longer theory. I believe it is factual.
Speaker 3: Steve went back and and brought up that old interview
Speaker 3: and said, well, you know, what is it, Mitsi's here
Speaker 3: during you know, twenty twelve or twenty fourteen, whatever.
Speaker 4: It was, she said that she believed my theory.
Speaker 3: Well, that was really misleading because he gave part of
Speaker 3: that interview.
Speaker 4: He gave the part where I said it was a
Speaker 4: good theory. What I actually said was that it was
Speaker 4: a very good theory and it could actually be factual.
Speaker 3: The problem with the theory is there's no evidence to
Speaker 3: back it up, and so it couldn't be proven. And
Speaker 3: that was the problem I was having at the time,
Speaker 3: was there were several very good theories, but they weren't
Speaker 3: They couldn't be proven by the evidence, and so then
Speaker 3: it's just what theory do you choose, if any.
Speaker 4: And so the fact that he is.
Speaker 3: Now bringing that up and trying to use my portions
Speaker 3: of my statement to bolster his case should tell you
Speaker 3: a lot about his motives and not really wanting to
Speaker 3: objectively look at these cases and solve a.
Speaker 4: Crime, but push forward his narrative.
Speaker 6: Still, We've actually had my findings verified independently by experts
Speaker 6: in their fields across the board that have done this
Speaker 6: at no cost, with no skin in the game, with
Speaker 6: the exception of our most recent handwriting analysis, which we
Speaker 6: went above and beyond because we already had one, but
Speaker 6: we wanted another independent party, so we did endorse paying
Speaker 6: them for their opinion just to have a second opinion,
Speaker 6: But that was not influenced by monetary gain by any means.
Speaker 6: It's a very respected and sought after expert in this field.
Speaker 6: But every other piece that I have presented to youth
Speaker 6: detectives as well as Michael, and as far as law
Speaker 6: enforcement goes, I have not had one single representative of
Speaker 6: any jurisdiction tell me that my suspect is not viable
Speaker 6: or that the evidence I have presented is bogus or
Speaker 6: they can eliminate it.
Speaker 7: Not one, not a single detective.
Speaker 6: And that includes all the North majurisdictions I met with,
Speaker 6: including the FBI as well as though I haven't spoke
Speaker 6: with LAPD personally, they know of me and they know
Speaker 6: they've been interacting with both Rick and MISSI obviously, but
Speaker 6: not one individual has said.
Speaker 7: That this doesn't this isn't fit, it doesn't align.
Speaker 1: That kind of brings us to the last question, and
Speaker 1: it's very related, and it was did you realize that
Speaker 1: you would be stepping into a hornet's nest of criticism
Speaker 1: when you came out with a suspect in both cases
Speaker 1: that was not one of the more established suspects that
Speaker 1: amateur experts on the cases favor. Let me start this
Speaker 1: off because a lot of this amount of invective has
Speaker 1: been aimed at me, So I'm going to say yes
Speaker 1: and no. We were well away that there were many
Speaker 1: so called experts out there, most of them self anointed,
Speaker 1: and that they would have invested their time and belief
Speaker 1: in other suspects and theories. But the facts are facts
Speaker 1: and we cannot avoid them. We also add two professional
Speaker 1: homicide investigators, including one who had the Black Value case
Speaker 1: for many years. But it is a very interesting cultural
Speaker 1: phenomenon where you have so many people invested in unwilling
Speaker 1: to hear or consider anything else, which is completely and
Speaker 1: MITCHI I want to hear you talk about this part.
Speaker 1: It's really anesthetical to what real detectives do. They have
Speaker 1: a saying in LAPD homicide, it goes where it goes,
Speaker 1: but the people out there are really unwilling to do that.
Speaker 1: Not everybody, but there's a lot of people potshotting us
Speaker 1: and exaggerating things and getting a lot of stuff wrong.
Speaker 1: People who blindly say we're wrong. But I'm not even
Speaker 1: going to listen to what they have to say. You
Speaker 1: know what we have to say. So it's kind of ridiculous,
Speaker 1: But really, how can you say you're an expert in
Speaker 1: anything if you do not know everything about it, including
Speaker 1: the consideration of opposite opinions and facts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I absolutely knew that I was going to face
Speaker 3: this because I had the case for fifteen years, and
Speaker 3: I've been on the other side, and I've been a
Speaker 3: nasayer and I have been amongst the naysayers.
Speaker 4: But the thing is.
Speaker 3: Is that in detective work, if you do the right
Speaker 3: thing for the right reasons, like you said, it leads
Speaker 3: where it leads.
Speaker 4: So I didn't really care what they said because.
Speaker 3: I believe in backs backed by the evidence, and I
Speaker 3: think we have that in this case, and so it
Speaker 3: goes where it goes.
Speaker 4: And every time.
Speaker 3: We've been weary about some of the facts in this case,
Speaker 3: we've checked it and sometimes triple checked it, and been very.
Speaker 4: Transparent on things that have gone our.
Speaker 3: Way and things that perhaps didn't go our way, but
Speaker 3: backed it up with reasonable explanations of why that occurred,
Speaker 3: which is different from the naysayers that I'm seeing and
Speaker 3: that I'm with you Michael in that it's it's extremely
Speaker 3: irritating and disconcerting that these so called Internet type investigators
Speaker 3: have come up with their own theories and lack the
Speaker 3: ability to step aside for a minute from their theory
Speaker 3: and even look into evidence.
Speaker 4: Or facts that may hold something that may be true.
Speaker 3: And that's something we've always done, is I've always looked
Speaker 3: at other.
Speaker 4: Theories, looked into other theories given my input.
Speaker 3: I know Larry Harnish has had a theory that I
Speaker 3: thought when I looked into it, there were a lot
Speaker 3: of facets of his theory that I thought that were
Speaker 3: very compelling, but again could not be backed by any
Speaker 3: concrete evidence.
Speaker 4: But that's exactly the reason.
Speaker 3: Why I decided and in retirement, met with Alex is
Speaker 3: because this is a fascinating case. I'm an investigator by heart,
Speaker 3: you can't take it away from me, and who wouldn't
Speaker 3: want to hear something that.
Speaker 4: At the least will be an interesting story.
Speaker 3: So the fact that I was willing to even listen
Speaker 3: to Alex is what is so irritating about those naysayers
Speaker 3: is they won't even and some of them have publicly
Speaker 3: said I won't listen to the podcast.
Speaker 4: I won't because of this or because of that.
Speaker 3: Well, that is not You're not an investigator. You don't
Speaker 3: want to find the answers. You want to further your.
Speaker 4: Theory in the case.
Speaker 3: And that's the difference between me and you, and so
Speaker 3: let the naysayers come. I don't care because I believe
Speaker 3: in in facts backed by evidence, and until I come
Speaker 3: up with something in this case that says differently, I
Speaker 3: think we're on the right path and.
Speaker 4: I'm dedicated to continue forward.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Killer in the Code Solving the
Speaker 1: Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases. We'll be back with chapter
Speaker 1: nine soon. This episode was produced by me Michael Connelly
Speaker 1: and edited by Terall Lee Langford. Be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: to the podcast so you'll be alerted when new episodes
Speaker 1: are available. Thank you for listening.