Original subtitles

Oh, Lord.

You know, I've never heard him talk.

This is the first time I ever heard his voice.

I didn't know who shot me.

I didn't know it was a serial killer.

There are serial killers out there,

but nobody thinks it's gonna happen to them.

I never thought it would happen to me.

I figure sooner or later they're gonna get him.

But he took off and disappeared.

He's playing this game,

"Catch me if you can."

[reporter] Somewhere in New York City tonight,

another bizarre criminal may be getting ready to strike again,

but police are out in force to try to stop it.

It's like a cat and mouse game with him.

You want to understand him.

You want to get into their mind

because you wanna figure out

their thinking and what they're gonna do next.

[Zodiac speaking]

I enjoyed the hunt.

You had one mission.

You're trying to get into a man's mind, what he thinks

or why he would want to do something like that.

He's playing his games. We'll play ours.

[Zodiac speaking]

He was winning the battle.

We were dealing with a very twisted mind.

For a detective, this is an adrenaline rush.

You're being challenged by a madman

and trying to figure out what made him tick.

Who knows what's going on

in the mind of a serial killer?

[theme music playing]

Saturday, October 2nd, 1993, I went to Highland Park by myself.

When I was leaving...

I hear this noise.

So I stop and I look to my left.

He was in the bushes and I looked, and he's...

Just like that.

And I just told him "f you" and I kept on walking.

So as I'm walking, I saw this shadow coming running.

I turned around and he was standing there.

He pulled out a zip gun.

And he shot me.

I was shot on the left side of my neck.

I don't know if you can see.

There's a little teeny spot down there.

I was laying on my back, bleeding out the neck.

And the blood was dripping down my arm.

I started crying as I said, "I'm going to die here in this grass."

Um...

[sighs]

Um, just give me a minute. One minute.

[gunshot]

May 31st, 1990, I was a sergeant

in the Queens crimes against senior citizen's squad.

Joe Proce was almost an 80-year-old man.

Bordering on being senile.

He was down on his luck.

He lived in a basement apartment

on the Brooklyn-Queens border.

And somebody followed this guy home

in the middle of the night and he shot him in the back.

Shot him one time and he left a note.

This is the note that was handed to me.

The note says, "This is the Zodiac.

The twelve sign will die

when the belts in the heaven are seen."

It's got a circle in crosshairs,

and it's got a circle with three pie slices in it.

When I first saw this note, I knew very little about astrology.

I didn't know that this was the sign of Scorpio.

And I didn't know this is the sign of Gemini

and the other sign, he meant it to be Taurus.

Alluding to the constellations.

But it did give me a very uneasy feeling.

I had heard of the Zodiac on the West Coast.

This killer on the West Coast

killed a great many people.

Shooting young people

sitting in cars late at night,

and he contacted the press,

taking credit for his violent acts.

I also knew that he was never apprehended.

So, you know, my mind went to,

could this possibly be the same guy?

He's got the circle in the crosshairs,

much like the San Francisco Zodiac, that was his calling card.

But we contacted San Francisco detectives

and after a quick examination of the letters,

they responded by telling us that we were dealing with

a copycat.

Copycats come out of the woodwork because

they want some attention.

I knew the author of this letter

was a very deranged person.

I needed to take him off the street

before he shot somebody else.

I was in my office and I got a call

from Detective Bill Clark from the homicide squad.

And he said, "Sarge, I just got a call from a Post reporter.

She said she got a note from a guy claiming to be the Zodiac."

I said, "Bill, fax it to me ASAP."

When I saw that letter,

you know, it was a holy [bleep] moment.

It really was.

As soon as I saw it, I knew it was the same guy.

"This is the Zodiac. The 12 sign will die

when the belts in the heaven are seen."

So that's basically the same, no more games, pigs.

So he's taunting the NYPD.

That just amped everyone up.

We're gonna get you. We're gonna get you.

But he's claiming he's already shot three people.

This note is saying the first sign

is dead on March 8th.

The second sign is dead on March 29th.

The third sign is dead on May 31st.

We know Joseph Proce was shot on May 31st.

I said, holy [bleep]. We had two shootings prior to that.

I was shocked.

He wrote "All shoot in Brooklyn"

because he thought he was in Brooklyn

when he shot Proce.

We asked Brooklyn detectives to check their records.

A few hours later, they said, "We've got two shootings

in the 75 precinct, right at these times and dates."

On March 8th, was a guy by the name of Orozco,

and the second guy was Montenesdro.

Montenesdro was pretty drunk.

He just asked me what my birthday was, and he shot me.

[Michael] Roscoe, he was disabled.

He walked with a limp.

Every day, every night.

I never looked at him.

-You're in pain all the time? -All the time.

[Michael] I picked up the phone

and I called the reporter and I asked her.

I practically begged her.

Please don't put this in the newspaper.

The next morning, this letter

was on the front cover of the Post.

And from that it morphed into television news.

When's your birthday?

The answer to that seemingly harmless question could be a death sentence.

And I was pissed.

What made citizens of the city fearful.

I work at night and I take a different route.

They can come up on anyone at any time.

Back in those days, you know, the famous pickup line

in every singles bar in New York City.

"Hey, what sign are you?"

You know, if somebody asked you your sign,

people were shaking in their boots, dialing 911.

I started talking about my sign, and then it hit me.

You know, why is this man so interested in my sign?

And then I thought about the Zodiac man.

It was like holy [bleep]. We have a serial shooter

on the loose in New York City.

And he's claiming that

he's gonna shoot twelve, altogether.

So we have nine to go.

[reporter] He goes by the name of Zodiac.

He speaks with a gun and has authorities baffled.

It's petrifying. It really, really is petrifying.

I hope they really get him.

I can't understand why people are afraid

because we still have to go to work.

We still have to go to church.

Take our kids to school.

We take a chance.

You're walking down the street,

you don't know who's behind you.

And when you say serial killer,

we all know that they can be anywhere.

He's really challenging the police department.

You know, that he's saying, "Hey, come on and get me."

We want the citizens of New York to know

that we are working around the clock on this.

Detectives from the major case squad

brought a calendar in.

They told me, "Hey, look,

these are all on a Thursday."

And they pointed out to us shootings one and two

were 21 days apart.

And then Proce,

with 63 days, three multiples of 21.

This is the definition of a pattern.

We were having this meeting on a Wednesday

and tonight after midnight, would have been

another 21-day cycle, and we felt very strongly

that this guy was going to be out there

and he was gonna shoot somebody else.

I was given an all star team.

The best detectives to flood that area of the Brooklyn-Queens border.

To take him off the street that night

while he was on the prowl.

And Louis Savarese

was the cream of the crop from Brooklyn North Homicide.

He was a no nonsense guy.

Tattoos from head to toe.

[Louis] I got like, about 300 tattoos on my back.

The cases I was involved with,

cases that happened around the world.

I got John Wayne Gacy on my back.

David Berkowitz, Timothy McVeigh...

It's just something that's part of my life.

But I never had to work the serial killer case.

Putting them in jail is the best thing I could do.

So I'll do my best to do that.

I enjoyed doing it.

There was a pettern, every 21-day cycles.

If he kept up with his pattern, he would be out there

looking for another victim to shoot.

We hit the canvas, we hit the streets.

Then we hunted in Queens for the shooter.

We were very confident that this guy sticks to his pattern.

We're gonna bag him

that night.

We stopped, questioned, and frisked dozens

and dozens of people.

To no avail.

6:30 am, I got a phone call

from the detectives in Manhattan.

That the reason why we didn't have any action in the Brooklyn-Queens area

was because the Zodiac had shot someone

in Central Park and left a note.

The victim's name was Larry Parham,

a homeless man sleeping on a park bench.

The New York Zodiac threw us the ultimate curveball

by getting on the subway and going to Central Park.

We didn't quite know what to make of it.

You know, hearing this for the first time...

it's, um...

I always thought that he sensed our presence

in the Brooklyn-Queens area.

And that's why he went to Central Park.

I think his urge was so strong he couldn't bring himself

to just go home without a trophy that night.

He was amped up.

He wanted to shoot somebody.

He was winning the battle at that point.

He's right. [chuckles]

Central Park was a little bit of an awakening.

He's intelligent. He's seeing the police flooded in the area.

"I don't want to get caught. So let me get the hell out of here."

And that's what he did.

He got over on us, yeah.

You know, it was a good move on his part, but it's a chess game.

He played his pawn well.

This is the sketch that Larry Parham gave us in Central Park.

We called it the Al Roker sketch because it was a Black man,

balding, heavyset.

Is it him at that point there?

That's the only sketch we've got.

It could be, we don't know.

You take it with a grain of salt.

He's probably laughing his ass off.

We have no clue what you look like.

This guy is going to be emboldened by it.

"They have no idea who I am."

[Zodiac speaking]

[Michael] He's shot now, four people.

That means there's eight more victims that are going to be shot.

[reporter] What everyone is speculating again is

when or if, the gunman will strike again.

Detectives say he has been striking in multiples of 21 days.

[Michael] This case was the headline in all the New York tabloids,

on the 6 o' clock news, the 11 o' clock news every night.

So we were under a lot of pressure to make an arrest.

You're trying to figure this guy out

every step of the way.

But in the final analysis, you're looking for a madman.

You can try to outsmart him, but you can't think crazy.

You can guess crazy.

But you can't be crazy.

We were able to get a latent print with two,

but there was no match to the prints we had on file,

and someone leaked the fact,

and it was published in The Post.

I was worried he was gonna read that

we have a print on the letter.

[Louis] The fingerprint is out there on the news and in the papers.

So now what I would do if I was him, I would disappear.

They have my fingerprint. It's time to chill out.

After the Parham shooting, we were going out every 21 days

in the Brooklyn-Queens area.

And we were out there by ourselves

because the Zodiac became dormant, he stopped writing.

He stopped shooting.

He just stopped all activity.

They disbanded the task force at that point.

It was an empty feeling, and we were told the game was over.

Hey, wait a minute. We're not finished here.

We still have work to do.

He has a taste for blood. He was hunting prey.

This guy would kill again if given the opportunity.

[Michael] It was a very difficult decision to leave the NYPD.

But this guy was dormant.

Never knew if he was ever gonna come back.

So I left the department.

And two years later, in 1994,

I see this thing in the Post.

It's on the front page.

"This is the Zodiac."

[reporter] Until now, there's been no sign of the Zodiac

since he terrorized this city in the summer of 1990.

He struck four times back then,

killing one, and then he disappeared.

But now he claims he's back to kill again.

So this is a copy of the letter.

He documents five additional crimes.

Of the five listed, we were able to confirm four

and of those four, two were homicides

and two were nonfatal shootings,

all in Highland Park.

The two homicides were Patricia Fonte,

and Mr. DiAcone, who was shot in the neck.

And then we identified Mr. Weber,

who was shot right across the street

from where Mr. DiAcone was murdered.

And then Diane Ballard was the fourth victim that we were able to confirm.

[Diane] I was the last victim.

The doctor told me that I got four shards

of bullets in the back of my neck.

We're not gonna operate because it could permanently paralyze you.

You go through months, maybe sometimes years

of being scared or being cautious,

things you used to do, you don't do no more,

places you used to go, you don't go no more.

It was just a sad situation.

I guess we're all wondering why.

Why this happened to us.

[producer speaking]

[Zodiac speaking]

[scoffs]

Yep, he sounds proud, like he's glad somebody

asked him what's going on

so he can get a chance to tell 'em.

That makes him feel big.

That makes him feel...

that he's somebody.

He's a coward and he knows it.

[Zodiac speaking]

That's exactly what we figured.

You know, it's amazing listening to him talk about it now.

He needed the attention. That was his motivation.

I think the fact that he had continued

shooting people and killing people,

and not communicating with the media bothered him a lot.

He's not getting any attention for it.

So I think that had to eat him up on the inside.

[Zodiac speaking]

In Highland Park, all of his attacks except one, were run up from behind,

one shot to the back and flee.

Patricia Fonte, it was a lot different.

She was stabbed 100 times.

A total different modus operandi.

It's much more personal, much more brutal.

I'm telling myself why.

We kind of knew sex wasn't his motivation

because there's no indication of rape or anything like that.

We didn't really know what his motivation was.

[Zodiac speaking]

That's crap. I mean, he stabbed her 100 times.

I don't know why he's not taking credit for it,

but he did it, and there's no doubt in my mind.

So that told you a little bit more about him.

It shows you that he has the capacity to to be more violent.

[Louis] He's more vicious than what we really thought.

If he did that, is he gonna be more violent?

What's the next one gonna be like?

[Zodiac speaking]

He's right.

He's right. [chuckles]

I'm not gonna dispute that.

He's right.

He got over. I'd be the first to say he got over.

He got over twice.

He screwed the city, screwed me,

screwed the tax payers,

screwed the politicians, screwed everybody.

I didn't think he was stopping.

He's still playing his game.

He was on a mission to hurt people,

but he was gonna do it until either he gets caught,

or he kills all the people he wants to kill.

You have to have the frame of mind that,

you know, he's still out there.

He's still active and he's coming back.

It might be six months, it might be six years.

He's coming back.

[Joseph] When they disbanded the task force,

they had just started up recruiting for a new hostage negotiation course,

and I always wanted to be a negotiator.

So I signed up for that and I was selected.

On June 18th, 1996, it was a Tuesday.

Just before noon, I received a phone call.

I was in my office, at my desk.

[siren wailing]

An individual had already shot his sister

once in the rear end.

He was holding the sister's boyfriend hostage in the back bedroom.

-[siren wailing] -[helicopter hovering]

[officer on PA] Everybody off, please.

[siren wailing]

When I first arrived at the hostage situation,

I was informed that an individual

by the name of Heriberto "Eddie" Seda

had fired multiple shots at various uniformed officers who responded to the scene.

[Heriberto speaking]

[gunshots]

[Joseph] And I start talking at him.

"Eddie, my name is Joe.

Listen, enough blood has been shed.

Your sister's gonna be okay.

Let's end this now." And so forth and so on.

I think he really regretted shooting her,

and he was concerned about how serious she was injured.

He says, "Okay, I'm gonna surrender."

[Heriberto speaking]

And then all of a sudden, he mentions bombs.

"What should I do with my bombs?"

[Heriberto speaking]

He said that he was going to blow up

a movie theater in New York City.

Can you imagine the the damage that this guy would do?

They get on the phone with the bomb squad.

And bomb squad says, "All right.

Just get everybody out of the apartment."

They opened the door, he's standing there, and they handcuffed him.

They handed him to me.

So with that, I escort him out of the building into a waiting radio car.

And we drove him into the 7-5 station house.

I had no idea that he was the Zodiac killer.

I was talking to him on the way into the station house.

And then when I get in there,

he wrote out a two-page statement,

and on the bottom of the second page,

he draws an upside down cross.

[Heriberto speaking]

When Eddie put the symbol of the cross

and the three sevens. I feel that he was

trying to say that, you know, it's me, but you don't know it's me.

And he tried to get over on us again.

To say, you know, you're not going to catch me.

And I'm reading the confession

and right away I recognize the handwriting.

I guess that just shows I'm standing here.

This is the Zodiac killer.

But I can't prove it.

I had to formulate a game plan

on how to prove that he's the Zodiac killer.

[Joseph] This is the second page. It was a two page confession.

I distinctively remember when I read this

that my blood pressure went down about 30 or 40 points.

I kind of relaxed in my inside,

and the reason for that was I knew that it was him,

but I also know that I had a lot of work to do.

You got the fingerprint evidence.

But there's a risk you can still lose the case.

I had to prove in court and to my superiors that he was a Zodiac.

I called Lewis Savarese, and we devised a plan

that we would put up crime scene photos on the wall

to let him know that we know he's the Zodiac.

We brought him into the room,

and we were watching his reactions.

His demeanor was very, very calm.

No aggravation at all.

We start the interview.

And, you know, "You're Zodiac."

"No, I'm not. I don't know what you're talking about.

I go to church on Sunday," and whatnot.

I read the Bible."

I believed during the course of investigation

that notoriety was one of his motivations.

I said, "Eddie, you're in the big leagues now.

Everybody knows who John Wayne Gacy is."

Everybody knows who Jeffrey Dahmer is."

I said, "Everybody's gonna know who Heriberto "Eddie" Seda is.

He's the Zodiac.

After a while, he starts turning his head

and he's looking at the pictures that we posted behind him.

And you could tell he was kind of like admiring his handiwork.

[Louis] He was looking at the pictures.

And I noticed this vein in his neck started popping.

I said to myself, this is him.

He did it.

Eventually, he said, "Okay, I did it."

And then we went down the list of all the victims

that he had taken credit for in his letters.

[Louis] Everything he said was right on the money

and everything was right in order, how he did it.

At that point there, you could see it on his face.

He was relieved.

Believe it or not, he was, after the confession...

Phew! Like, it's over.

I said, "Louis, we got him."

But when you're trying to identify his motivation,

he never said what his motivation was,

and it was a total mystery.

You want to know what's driving him, you want to understand him.

But he never explained that to us, you know.

[Heriberto speaking]

It's very interesting, you know,

to listen to this now, 32 years later.

I don't know how,

in his sick and twisted mind,

he equates that into, you know,

making up for not being accepted into the United States Army.

But that just goes to show you

he's a very, very sick individual.

And that's who we were dealing with.

[Heriberto speaking]

Yeah, I agree with that statement.

And you know what? If he would probably just

kept killing without the letters,

he could probably have killed 30 people.

But for some reason, he wanted to broadcast it.

He's right, you know. [chuckles]

He's right. If I wasn't there to recognize the handwriting,

there's a very real possibility he'd still be out there today.

[Heriberto speaking]

I do not accept this apology

because let me ask you something, Seda.

If they let you out today, what would you do?

The same thing.

You know it, and I know it.

I will always have the bullets in the back of my neck,

but I still carry on.

I can't sit around the rest of my life crying

because I got shot by a serial killer.

Life goes on.

[Joseph] It was a good day for New York City.

And then the next day I went to work,

and I caught two fresh homicides.

So, you know, I didn't have too much time to enjoy it.

We just went back to work.

I got the Zodiac tattoos because of the case.

This tattoo was on the letter that he had signed and sent out to the Post.

And then on this arm here, I put the Zodiac with the two dates

from 1990 to 1996.

In a way, I did feel bad for him.

Knowing that he's going to do life in prison

and over why? To prove a point,

to scare people? Was it worth it?

But he had to be put away. He couldn't be on the streets.

Of course, you couldn't take a chance.

You won't do it again.

You have certain cases that affect you forever.

That stays with you forever.

This is one of them.

I always thought of him as...

a psycho.

Underachiever.

He was a lonely guy

who wanted to be recognized for something.

If he wasn't gonna be recognized for something admirable,

he might as well be recognized for something infamous.

♪♪

I have an uncle that's a serial killer.

I know I'm innocent. I didn't do it.

My partner and I look at each other and we go "Oh [bleep]".

We blew it.

He never stops playing the game.

Here I am - catch me if you can.