The kidnapped newspaper heiress who robbed banks with hercaptors
TPatty Hearst poses with gun
he letter arrived with a coded message which, when deciphered, said: “I like killing people because it’s so much fun.” The sender, eventually known as the Zodiac Killer, terrorised California in the late-1960s and 1970s with a combination of murders and public letters, brimming with horrific threats, demented demands and featuring ciphers teasing his identity.
Criminologist Prof David Wilson says: “The whodunnit mystery is still there.” The Zodiac Killer claimed to have murdered as many as 37 people but police only confirmed five deaths, and seven attacks in total.
In December 1968, Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Faraday, 17, were on their first date. They parked in a secluded spot in Benicia.
They were found lying on the ground outside the bullet-riddled car.
Betty Lou had five gunshots in her back. David had been shot in the head at close range. Neither survived.
In July 1969, Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Michael Mageau, 19, were parked at a golf course in Vallejo when they were shot at midnight.
Darlene was killed, but Michael somehow survived.
He told police the gunman was white, about 5ft 8in and 13st.
An anonymous man contacted police, saying: “I wish to report a double murder. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.” Police traced the call to a phone booth near Darlene’s home, but the caller was gone.
The first known Zodiac letters were
Cecelia
William Randolf Hearst was America’s most famous media baron. But the kidnapping of his granddaughter, Patty, was just as sensational as anything his newspapers covered.
It was February 4, 1974, when two men and a woman burst into Patty’s flat. A neighbour who heard the commotion ran to help but he and Patty’s fiance Stephen Weed were beaten and tied up by the armed trio.
Patty, 19, was blindfolded and put into the boot of a car. And with that, she vanished.
Three days later, the Symbionese Liberation Army – a small US leftist group – announced in a letter to a Berkeley radio station that it was holding Patty as a “prisoner of war”.
Led by hardened criminal Donald DeFreeze, the SLA said it wanted to destroy the “capitalist state” – and they had an unusual ransom demand.
They insisted that the Hearsts give $70 in foodstuffs to every needy person, from Santa Rosa to Los Angeles, before release talks could begin. Randolph reluctantly gave away $2million of food, but the SLA asked for $6million more.
The Hearst Corporation said it would agree, if Patty was received in August 1969 by three newspapers: the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Vallejo Times Herald.
The sender claimed responsibility for the attacks, and each letter included part of a coded message.
There were also warnings that if the letters were not published on the newspapers’ front pages by the
following Friday, the killer would randomly murder people over the weekend. The letters were signed with a crossed-circle symbol.
Desperate for the killer to contact them again, detectives said they doubted the authenticity of the letters. The plan worked.
Days later another letter arrived at the Examiner. It included information
Kidnap became headline news released unharmed. Weeks passed. Then on April 3, things took an extraordinary twist.
The SLA released another tape of Patty, this time saying she had joined them the fight to free the oppressed and had even taken a new name.
Twelve days later, she was caught on surveillance cameras wielding a
Patty in 1972
DeFreeze and Patty in bank weapon during an SLA bank robbery. The FBI launched one of its biggest ever searches.
The breakthrough came when two SLA members tried to steal an ammunition belt from a shop and their getaway van was discovered, which led authorities to an SLA safe house.
It was surrounded by police and a massive shootout ensued. The building went up in flames and six SLA members died, including DeFreeze.
But Patty and several others escaped and spent 15 months travelling around the US to avoid capture.
Going by the name Tania, she was caught in September 1975 and charged with bank robbery and other crimes.
It was seen as an early case of Stockholm Syndrome, when hostages bond with their captors. Patty said she was brainwashed and was released after less than two years.
President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon in 2001. She said: “I had virtually no free will until I was separated from them for two weeks.” Patty, now 65, went on to marry and have two children.
She became an actress but will always be remembered for her kidnap and time on the run. proving the sender was present during the murders and suggested his identity was hidden in the ciphers.
Four days later, a high school teacher cracked the 408-symbol cipher but it didn’t reveal the killer’s identity. The next month, college students Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, and Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, were attacked while they had a picnic at Lake Berryessa near Napa.
A man in a hooded costume approached them carrying a gun.
Telling the terrified pair he was an escaped convict, he demanded cash and their car.
The couple co-operated fully but the man gave Cecelia pieces of clothes line and told her to use them to tie up Bryan.
The masked man then tied up Cecelia and told them: “I’m going to have to stab you people.” He stabbed Bryan six times and Cecelia 10 times.
Before leaving, he drew a crossedcircle symbol on the car. Barely alive, the students were found by a fisherman. Cecelia died two days later but Bryan survived.
Another phone call to the police followed, with the man reporting a “double murder”.
Months later cabbie Paul Stine, 29, was shot dead in San Francisco.
The killer tore off a piece of Paul’s shirt.
Three days later, the Chronicle received a letter with a piece of the blood-soaked shirt enclosed. Letters and codes kept arriving until 1974.
The killer has never been found, his identity the biggest puzzle of all.
ANONYMOUS MAN IN PHONE CALL TO POLICE
I wish to report two murders. I also killed those kids last year