All language subtitles for The.Most.Dangerous.Animal.Of.All.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10.English

The problem with the people
that run tech companies

is that they become fanatics,

end up thinking
they're messiahs.

The most wanted man
in San Francisco

calls himself
the Zodiac Killer.

The desire to know
who my father was

overcame me.

My sole intent
and my sole purpose

was to find this man.

With Gary, things
began to get tense

simply because he believes it
very strongly.

When I got Susan to
help me write the book,

she went a whole lot deeper
than I ever dreamed of.

This is the Zodiac speaking,

and this cipher
is my identity.

When I looked at it,
I immediately saw

my father's name,
Earl Van Best Jr.

spelled out completely.

I contacted a forensic
handwriting expert.

There's a strong probability

that Earl Van Best Jr. wrote
the Zodiac letters.

That's when I became convinced

that my father was
the Zodiac Killer.

In 2004,

although the case was
considered closed and inactive,

if anybody had
a credible lead,

they should contact this guy
named Lieutenant John Hennessey

in the San Francisco
Police Department.

So I called him and when
he answered the phone,

I said, "Lieutenant Hennessey,
my name is Gary Stewart

"and I have a story.

"My mother was once married

"to Rotea Gilford.

"I have been looking
for my father

"with a little help
from Sergeant Butler,

"and I have come
to the conclusion

that I believe
my father might have been

the Zodiac Killer.

Right after that,
Hennessey went

to Harold Butler's office,

and he asked to see

my father's file.

And Hennessey told me,

"Gary, your father's file
was sitting

on Butler's desk."

But Harold Butler refused
to let Hennessey

see what was in that file.

I said, "I have a question.

Has the Zodiac case
been solved?"

And he just chuckled
and he said...

"I wish it were solved."

Arthur Leigh Allen was
the prime suspect

in the Zodiac case,

but he's denied
to the day he died

being the Zodiac Killer.

And one statement
he made was that,

"You guys have it all wrong.

"I know who
the Zodiac Killer is.

He's a crazy man I met

in Atascadero State Hospital."

So when I went
to the SFPD

without knowing anything

about what my father's
record looked like

I told
Lieutenant John Hennessey

my assumption was that
one of the things listed

on my father's rap sheet

would be that my father
would have been confined

in Atascadero.

So I told
Lieutenant John Hennessey

I bet you
you're gonna find

that my father
was institutionalized

in Atascadero.

And that's
the first thing he saw

on my father's rap sheet.

Lieutenant Hennessey asked
if he could gather

a voluntary sample
of my DNA.

So he swabbed me.

Hennessey told me that
they had a partial profile

of the Zodiac's DNA
from a stamp.

And so that's what
they were gonna compare

my DNA to.

And I know that if this case
was gonna be solved,

it was gonna be solved
because of DNA.

In San Francisco,
two more communications

have been received
from the Zodiac.

Schoolchildren...

make fine targets.

I think I shall wipe out
a school bus some morning.

Just shoot out the front tire

and then pick off the kiddies

as they come
bouncing out.

That was the threat
of the Zodiac Killer.

The psychotic killer
has already murdered five.

We change our route
practically every day,

and the police has been
riding either ahead

or behind and watching.

The Zodiac was a rare killer

that was gonna play
the press

for his own ego.

saying that he couldn't wait

to shoot small children

coming off a bus.

You can imagine the shivers

that sent up the spine
of every mother

in San Francisco.

The school bus was a clear
reference to my mother

because my father
met my mother

when she came bouncing off
of a school bus.

This morning,
the people of San Francisco

heard a man
who claimed to be Zodiac

talking on the air
with attorney Melvin Belli.

If it all boils down
to the question

of your giving yourself up
if you could be assured

that you wouldn't get
capital punishment,

- for myself--
No, I don't
want to give myself up.

I wanna kill those kids.

Whether that's Zodiac or not,
I don't know,

but this man was
a sick man.

So now all we can do is wait.

Wait until the next time

when the Zodiac Killer
calls again.

What are you doing
to protect the school buses,

particularly in San Francisco?

In San Francisco, we have been,
since the first day

since the reception
of this note,

and up to now and continuing,

we have a number
of plain clothes officers

following buses
in the morning

and in the evening.

This is the Zodiac speaking.

If you cops think I'm going
to take on a bus

the way I stated I was,

you deserve to have holes
in your heads.

The death machine
is already made.

Take one bag
of ammonium nitrate fertilizer

and one gallon of stove oil

and dump a few bags
of gravel on top...

and then set the shit off.

The map coupled
with this code

will tell you where
the bomb is set.

You have until next fall
to dig it up.

ZODIAC,

a symbol that
now stands for terror

in San Francisco.

On the cover, it says,
"I hope you enjoy yourselves

"when I have my blast.

P.S. read the back."

On the back, it says,
"If you don't want me

"to have this blast,
you must do two things.

"Tell everyone
about the bus bomb

with all the details."

I saw the Zodiac as a kind
of prototypical terrorist.

He was holding
the whole populace hostage

and doing so
by blackmailing the press

to publish his letters.

At one point, he began
to insist that

the citizens of San Francisco

should wear Zodiac buttons.

And he was insisting that
the San Francisco Chronicle

promote that idea.

So talk about ego.

In his letters,
the Zodiac was wanting

to be seen as having

this level of intelligence
and sophistication and so on.

He makes reference
to The Mikado

by Gilbert and Sullivan.

He writes one long letter
as kind of a parody

of The Mikado.

* As some day it may happen
that a victim must be found *

* I've got a little list
I've got a little list *

* Of society offenders
who might well be underground *

* Who never would be missed,
who never would be missed *

As I research my father's life,

I discover that
as a young boy

my father learned
The Mikado

when he and his parents
were missionaries in Japan.

They attended plays,

and they would send
playbills back

to the family
in South Carolina.

One of my father's cousins
said that

one of the playbills
that they remember seeing

was from The Mikado.

I also got verification from
his friend William Lohmus

that they listened
to The Mikado

at my father's home.

My father knew the words,

by heart
and would sing the songs.

He was obsessed
with The Mikado.

A few months
after The Mikado letter,

the Zodiac sent
a Halloween card

to Paul Avery
who was a reporter

for the San Francisco Chronicle
covering the Zodiac case.

I put no credence in this.

I think he just wanted to get
himself a little publicity.

I think that the Zodiac

is just making
an idle threat, frankly.

When Paul got
this Halloween card,

it was the first time
the zodiac had ever

actually threatened
a specific person.

So this is
the Halloween card

sent to Paul Avery.

"From your secret pal."

He was clearly indicating
to Paul Avery

that they knew
each other.

They had met before.

Back in 1962,
after Van was arrested,

Paul Avery went
to visit him in prison,

and a story was published

dubbing Judy
and Van's romance

as the "Ice Cream Romance."

In this story,

Paul Avery was not
very complimentary.

He described him
as balding,

bespectacled,
and a pedophile.

My father held a grudge
for all those years,

and Paul Avery would have
had no way of knowing

that this was
Earl Van Best Jr.,

the guy who he humiliated

just seven years before.

Soon after he received
the Halloween card,

Paul Avery received
an anonymous letter

that linked
a four-year-old murder

in Riverside, California
to the Zodiac Killer.

I received a letter
pointing out the similarities

so I contacted
the Riverside Police.

They sent me a letter
that had been received

six months after
the Riverside girl

had been killed.

And so this might be
of interest to you,

it's signed with a Z.

On October 30, 1966,

the Zodiac killed
Cheri Jo Bates

outside of
the Riverside Library.

He stabbed her 47 times.

I don't believe that
he committed that murder.

We know that he killed
five people.

As if to boost
his reputation,

he began to claim
other murders

that he actually
didn't commit.

So the question comes up,
why did he stop

committing more murders?

As time went on,
it almost seemed like

the letters were being written
by a totally different person.

So I suspect that
he suffered from

multiple personality disorder.

One of the later letters
has a feeling of,

help, stop me
before I kill again.

We have this picture
of a divided self

that is able
to kind of be aware

that there are
two parts going on.

There is a conflict
going on inside.

But people tend to age
out of that problem.

So my hypothesis is

that his Zodiac personality

was deteriorating.

There was a three-year period

in which we heard
nothing from him.

He may have been in prison.

He may have been
in a mental hospital

or this more
helpful personality

may have been in control
during that period.

During the final years
of the Zodiac,

my father's whereabouts
are unknown,

but I uncovered
his FBI file

and he resurfaced in 1975,

a year after the last known
Zodiac letter was sent.

In that file, I found out
that my father

called up the FBI

to report that he knew
of an assassination attempt

on Gerald Ford's life.

Well, the FBI called
the local SFPD

and says this call is coming
from a pay phone

right there
at 100 Embarcadero.

And so the SFPD show up
and arrest him

on a drunk tank charge.

In the late 1970s,
my father was arrested

two more times
for drunk driving charges

and after that,
he disappeared again.

But I found a friend
of my grandfather

who told me what had happened
to my father.

It was in a letter
from him where he said,

I'm sorry to have
to inform you

that your father...

is deceased.

He died in 1984,

and he's buried
in an unmarked grave

in Mexico City.

I had spent so many years
trying to find my father

and hoping
to find him alive that...

I wanted to go visit
his grave

because I needed
that closure.

I, I had...

I had some things
on my heart

that I needed to say.

Mexico City has more
than one cemetery,

but I got my father's
report of death

of an American citizen
traveling abroad

that listed his date of death

and where he was interred.

as well as his cause
of death.

My father drank
himself to death

all alone
in Mexico City.

He drowned
in his own vomit.

When I first visited
my father's gravesite

in 2006...

I remember the emotions
that I had to deal with.

A lot of it was regret...

and guilt because
I hadn't done enough

soon enough to try
to find him earlier.

I would never have
a chance to meet him

and to let him see

that I turned out okay.

And I wonder,
did he ever think about me?

Before he took his last breath,
did he ever think about me?

Did I ever matter?

So not having those answers
that I really wanted
that closure...

I guess it was just
really sorrowful

that I would never get that.

My father left a proven trail
of destruction,

and I'm not
the only victim.

There were victims
before me,

and there were victims
after me.

It just hard
to imagine such...

such evil.

I think he did you

a great favor

by abandoning you.

Truly you're lucky,
in a way,

that he made the decision
that he made.

I was raised
in a home

where forgiveness was
a daily part of life.

and I've really struggled
being raised

in the Christian home
that I was raised in

that taught
and preached and lived

and depicted forgiveness.

Love and forgiveness.
Love and forgiveness.

You know,
if you don't forgive...

you're not hurting
the person

that you're holding
that grudge against.

You're actually holding
yourself prisoner.

I forgive him.

I forgive him.

I hoped that I'd have
the chance to bring you here.

Because I wanted you
to see that...

...the love of the Stewarts
in God's plan for my life

didn't give you this
as a legacy.

And I wanted you
to see it

knowing that I went there
with my dad

and help my dad make peace
and say goodbye...

because I'm not
coming back.

In 2014,

I hadn't seen Gary
in a while,

and so I proposed that
we got together for lunch.

For two and a half hours,

we had an amazingly
wonderful time.

We talked about everything.

And then we went
our separate ways

and it was shortly
after that

that I found out
about the book.

The book is called The Most
Dangerous Animal Of All:

Searching For My Father...

In May of 2014,

The Most Dangerous Animal
Of All was published.

When you've lived
39 years,

all of a sudden
your past comes back,

and it comes back
in a whirlwind.

Until that book was published,

I didn't know
it was being published.

I found out because
People magazine wanted

to do an interview
with me.

They were doing a story
about the book.

How could it happen that
such an important thing

didn't come up
when we were together.

I couldn't have been
more surprised.

Immediately, I got
a text message from my mother.

"Shocked, beyond belief."

When I finished reading
the book...

I said he thinks I've lied
about everything.

I was... floored.

More than 40 years later,

the mystery has
never been solved.

Gary Stewart,
author of the new memoir,

The Most Dangerous Animal
Of All,

says the serial killer
is his father.

It was unbelievable

that we were even able
to get a book publisher

like Harper Collins
to publish this book

because there has been
so many books published.

Everything that has been
written about the Zodiac

and here we come
with a brand new theory.

You think that the identity
of the Zodiac Killer

will always remain
a mystery?

Everything you know is wrong.

Joining me now is
Gary L. Stewart.

Editors look at hundreds

of proposals a year.

Most of these proposals
don't see the light of day

because they're
not believable.

But with Gary's story,
our question was,

does he deserve
to present his story

and share what he believes
based on this evidence?

And the answer to that is
one hundred percent yes.

The book comes out,
gets a great press release

in New York Magazine.

This story was getting
a lot of exposure.

There was enough attention

for the book to become
a New York Times bestseller.

The response was
by and large very supportive.

Um... all of the book reviews,
all of the interviews...

saying, wow, this is
the best suspect

we've ever had
in 50 years.

If this is true,
does it make you wonder

about who you are,
what kind of person you are.

I try
to disassociate myself

from the serial killer side
of my father.

People from around the globe
were saying, I feel for the guy

finding out his dad
was this evil person,

but we're glad he did.

The families
of the victims

now have closure.

When my story came out,

I shared details

that were based
on intimate conversations

between me
and my mother.

From that viewpoint,

I betrayed her trust.

A lot of...

the speculation in the book
was preposterous.

I was so offended

by the way Gary came
to the conclusion

that my husband, Rotea,

must have interviewed Van

and that the San Francisco
Police Department

were trying to cover up
for Rotea.

To this day,

I have not had
that thought

that it would--
could be credible.

Here you have the first
African-American officer

promoted to inspector

of the San Francisco
Police Department.

And then have this come out,

that Rotea Gilford may have
actually interviewed

the guy who was
the Zodiac suspect

and didn't arrest him.

That's a disgrace
in itself.

I was very shocked
to learn that

Gary was trying
to make something

of the fact that

Rotea was a police officer
at the same time

that the Zodiac murders
were occurring.

Because he became

a... a homicide inspector
in 1971,

but that was a year after...

the Paul Stine murder
happened in San Francisco,

and it was not worked
by Rotea.

Rotea's Legacy was damaged

by what Gary wrote
about him.

And this book is not just

about her family but about
his family as well.

And they're, they've all been
deeply hurt by this.

My mother didn't
want this to be out there.

I remember one day
getting an email

from my publicist
at Harper Collins...

saying, Gary,
I'm so sorry, but...

it looks like your mother
has threatened to sue.

Harper Collins
if we didn't pull

the book from the shelves.

What I said
to the publisher was

at what point do you change

true crime to fiction?

And Gary took that as a threat
and he was furious.

The one figure
that could support

his premise
on his father's...

background was his mother,

and it was unattainable,

and that brought forth
this anger.

In one of these incidences,
Jude received an email

saying why Jude
should believe it

and... be damned...

damn you if you don't.

When things aren't right

with Gary and his mother,

things aren't right
in Gary's world.

I think it's the whole
abandonment issue,

will come back
to haunt him,

and he responds
in a destructive manner

toward her.

I don't think
I knew about the anger

until he proposed
the idea

of being the son
of the Zodiac.

I guess in a moment
of hurt or anger,

I may have fired off
an email or a text

but when your mother is going
to leave you hanging,

leave you vulnerable,

and, and publicly

humiliate you
or embarrass you,

I don't want that
out of a mother.

Gary and I have not seen
each other

since the book
was published,

and, um, I told Gary that

I am sorry that
I ever started all of this.

I felt like she'd
abandoned me all over again.

I don't need her.

You know, I lived
40 years without her.

And Kristy would always be
my voice of reason saying,

you need her.

And you love her,
and she loves you.

Somebody in this,

in this relationship has
to be the adult.

There's a website called
ZodiacKiller.com.

A huge number of people
speculate about the case

and go over
and over the clues.

This case seemed to attract

those who felt

that they were the only ones
that could solve this,

and it becomes
a parlor game.

Okay, we're standing
at the corner

of Washington and Cherry Street
in San Francisco,

and it is at this
very intersection

where the Zodiac shot
Paul Stine in his cab.

It's competition
among amateur sleuths

or "Zodiologists."

After Gary Stewart's book
was published,

he became the subject
of a lot of criticism online.

Many people did not accept
his suspect.

And he was all over
the media and talk shows,

and I think a lot of people
in the Zodiac

online community resented that.

But there are also people
who had legitimate complaints.

You can read Gary's book
over and over again,

and you won't find anything
remotely resembling evidence

to implicate his father
in the Zodiac crimes.

The forums online
just really started

nailing us a new ass...

saying that we had no evidence,
it was all circumstantial.

Ask any prosecutor
about circumstantial.

You know the only

non-circumstantial evidence
there is

is eyewitness testimony.

Everything else, including DNA,
is circumstantial.

They believe fervently

in their particular theory
of the crime.

If you subscribe
to their belief,

you are welcomed
with open arms.

But if you for
one moment disagree

with their theory of the crime
or find fault with it,

you're subject
to all the furies

of someone who is outside
their church.

I warned Gary,
don't interact with them,

don't communicate with them.

But he is very sensitive.

Someone attacked
my credibility,

so I joined the forum.

I should have never
gotten involved.

I should have
left it alone.

The fact that they
had never heard

of Earl Van Best Jr.
ever before

I think was kinda
humiliating for them.

I know the motivation
of that community

They all have done years
and years of research

as to why their guy
might be the Zodiac Killer.

There are people
trying to push

Richard Gaikowski,

Arthur Leigh Allen,

and Ted Kaczynski,

but none
of the other suspects

can be included
because of handwriting

and fingerprints

and... no name
in the cipher.

Gary's claims
about the Zodiac ciphers

are one of the more
troublesome aspects
of his case.

I build cryptology
software for the FBI

and as we got
into the details

of the evidence that
supposedly links his father

to the killer,

the evidence wasn't
standing up to scrutiny.

Here we have
the second cipher,

the 340 Cipher.

I've highlighted where he
found his father's name.

What he did was he went
column by column,

starting all the way
on the right.

He found this symbol.

It's not quite an "E,"

but he's using it
as a letter E.

Similarly, this second column
from the right

is kind of shaped
like the letter A,

so his takes it to stand
for the letter A.

And here you can see
what the symbols

look like all together.

Earl Van Best Junior.

Seems compelling because
the entire name seems to fit.

But there's a problem
with this approach.

What he's doing
is taking some liberties,

for instance
interpreting the circle

to be the letter E.

By taking these liberties,

it increases the chances
of finding a name.

There's 20 symbols
in each column,

and the symbols can be
interpreted in different ways.

Earl Van Best Junior
is only one

out of
a hundred thousand names

that can be found
using this method.

If there are thousands
of other names

that can also be found
this way

how do you know for sure
that the name you found

was put there on purpose

by the person
who made the cipher.

I am not a cipher expert,

but I don't believe

thousands of names
can be found

using all 17 columns.

The Zodiac community
then tried to discredit

my fingerprint evidence.

Okay, what about
the other suspects?

Do any of them have a scar
on their right index finger?

Shoot that one down.

I'm an expert in fingerprints,

and I work
on private cases

and get involved
in forensic matters.

The subject that the white line
is being compared against

has a scar
on his right index finger,

but the original blood print
from the Zodiac

is either
the left index finger

or it's the right
ring finger.

The only way if it could be
the right index is

if the images were reversed.

But there is no reason that
you would reverse those images.

So if being compared
to the wrong finger

and the scar,
it's insignificant,

considering that
most people

actually have scars
on their fingers

and the right index finger
being the most common finger.

One thing that we have
to also recognize is

in order to be able
to compare fingerprints,

you have to have
high resolution images.

These images do not have
a sufficient resolution.

I'm not sure really
what could be said

about these fingerprints
other than that they are

generally fingerprints.

There are people
who only want

that one piece of information
that will embarrass me.

He was wrong all along,
and it's, you know,

probably still one of
our other guys.

But we have
more evidence now

than we had
when we released the book.

Tonight, we return to one
of the most enduring

and chilling mysteries
of the last 25 years.

The unsolved case
of the serial killer

who called himself Zodiac.

I saw a documentary
done by ABC Primetime Live

that aired in 2002, 2003.

ABC partnered with
the San Francisco
Police Department,

the San Francisco Crime Lab

to try to extract
genetic material

from some
of the Zodiac letters.

Dr. Holt has already detected

the possible presence
of Zodiac's DNA.

in the seal
of the envelope

that contained
the greeting card.

But what we know
from Zodiac's postings

is that he often over-posted

and the mouth is actually
a very, very rich area

for DNA, donation,

as they say
in the crime lab.

And so I submitted
these envelopes to our lab

to determine if there was
any DNA evident.

I found a partial
DNA fingerprint

from a male individual...

Our lab was able to develop

a DNA profile
from the envelopes

and that there were
sufficient points of reference

that might be able
to help, solve the case.

You're looking
at the Zodiac Killer's

genetic identity...

That effort generated
a partial genetic profile

of the Zodiac Killer.

They were able to extract

five of the sixteen
genetic markers,

including the gender marker.

Every person has two sets
of genetic markers.

One is from their mother,

and one is from their father.

And I had already had
my mother and my DNA tested

to extract what my father's
genetic profile would look like.

And that old
Primetime documentary

actually showed
a blurred image

of those five genetic markers.

But it was a very poor job
of blurring,

so if you're really careful

and stop it
at the right moment,

you can actually see
what those values are.

From that, I extracted
the five markers

that the San Francisco
Police Department have

on file
for the Zodiac Killer.

Gary did this first,

and he wrote down
what he thought they were.

And then he called me up
and he said,

"Susan, I want you to come over
and watch this."

The genetic profile
from the Zodiac Killer

are these five markers.

Then he said, "Susan,
I want you to write down

what you think it is."

And we came up,
independent of each other,

exactly the same thing.

VWA as a 17 and an 18.

So I contacted George Schiro

with Scales Biological Lab
in Mississippi

and asked him to run
a paternity index.

That would tell us
the odds of the Zodiac

being Gary's father.

Susan asked us
to see if we could take

the paternal markers
of Gary Stewart

and compare those
to five markers

that were present
on that TV show

as being from the Zodiac.

D8 is the,
the rare allele.

One of the markers
that we looked at

that Mr. Stewart has...

8S1179, marker 11,

...that is found
in about six percent

of the Caucasian population,

therefore making it
fairly rare.

And we found
that the DNA profile

that was found on the stamps

could not be excluded

as a potential
biological father

of Gary Stewart.

If the numbers Mr. Stewart
provided are correct,

there's a 97
to 99.8 percent probability

that these markers
originated from the Zodiac.

This would be
a very significant find

in the investigation.

The Zodiac may be
Mr. Stewart's father.

And we analyze it
and it matched.

But, I mean,
just this is news.

99.8 percent certain

that my father
was the Zodiac Killer.

Do I just knock, or what?
What do you think?

I feel like
they're not ever gonna...

Why are you wearing
your sunglasses inside?

Bro, you know I gotta drip, bro.
We're goin' to the studio
right now.

Snack Time. I didn't--

Okay. You're welcome.

I feel like that did nothing
for my career.

* Hi, I'm Dave *

- Mom.
- Yes?

- Okay. I want
a big party this year.
- Serious?

- I want a quinceañera.
- Quinceañera?

We can't do that.
We're too white for that.
We're not allowed.

Do me a favor?
Never look me in the eye again.

Okay? 'Cause your stare
is way too intense.

It's starting to make
my hair fall out.

Check!

Check.