Free Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith

Col ege coed, Cheri Jo Bates, just
    before Hal oween Night 1966. The writer of the handprinted Riverside notes had also been fond of writing taunting letters to the press (“BATES
    HAD TO DIE THERE WILL BE MORE”) and using too much postage. A squiggled signature on three letters was either a “2” or a “Z.” Most
    importantly, Morril had identified Zodiac as the author of the Southern California notes.
    “I admit I’m interested in guns,” Starr continued, “but the only handguns I own are .22-caliber. I don’t have and have never owned an automatic
    weapon.”
    “Have you ever owned a 1965-66 brown Corvair?” asked Armstrong. Zodiac was driving such a vehicle the night of his Fourth of July murder.
    “No.” Starr folded his arms. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, his forearms as massive as “Popeye’s.”

    Toschi noticed a big watch on Starr’s wrist. “It was a rugged man’s watch,” he told me later. “It’s the kind of watch a man would buy to be seen
    —‘Look at what I’ve got on my wrist.’ And I spotted it instantly—the word ‘Zodiac.’ I asked him specifical y to show it to me. ‘That’s a nice watch
    you’ve got there,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’ve had it awhile,’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’ I said. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. And you can see the letters Z-o-d-i-a-c. I stil
    remember seeing that watch. And he wanted people to see what he had on his arm. He wore it in defiance. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. When we
    saw the watch we were amazed—and the brother and sister-in-law afterward mentioned to Armstrong and I that, ‘He even wears a Zodiac watch.’”
    “May I see that?” said Armstrong. He gestured toward Starr’s wrist. He had also noticed their suspect was wearing an unusual-looking watch. A
    ray of light through the blinds made the crystal face sparkle. Above the watchmaker’s name, in the center of the face, was emblazoned a bold
    emblem. It froze the officers in spite of the heat. There, glowing stark white on black, was a circle and crosshairs— Zodiac’s symbol.
    The expensive watch on Starr’s wrist had been manufactured by Zodiac Astrographic Automatic, LeLocle, Switzerland/New York, a company
    whose roots stretched back to the nineteenth century. Now Mulanax saw it too. Neatly printed across the bottom, in upper and lower case, was the
    word “Zodiac.” The name and symbol were exactly like those used as a signature on Zodiac’s letters.
    “Only in Zodiac’s letters had the name ‘Zodiac’ and the kil er’s crossed-circle symbol ever appeared together in the same place,” Toschi thought.
    He knew because he had searched everywhere for that crossed circle. To this moment, he had assumed it represented a gun sight. Starr turned
    the watch on his wrist as if admiring it. “It was a birthday gift,” he said to Armstrong. “This watch was given to me by my mother two years ago.”
    Mulanax counted back in his mind. “Let’s see—exactly two years back from today is August 4, 1969. On August 4, 1969, the kil er had used the
    name ‘Zodiac’ for the first time in a three-page letter to the Examiner. The paper had buried his note in the late edition at the top of page 4. Only
    five days before, Zodiac had introduced his crossed circle symbol to the papers.” Though a later CI&I report stated Starr had gotten the watch in
    August 1969, his brother, Ron, contradicted that. He said that Starr “received the watch from his mother as a Christmas gift in December 1968.”
    Starr’s thirty-fifth birthday had been December 18, 1968, just two days before Zodiac’s first known Northern California murders.
    Starr would own a second Zodiac watch later. The manufacturers of the “World Famous Zodiac Watches” manufactured a Zodiac Clebar Skin-
    diver Underwater Chronograph in 1969: “It’s a stop watch! Aviator and skin-diver’s watch. Tested for 20 atmospheres (comparable to 660 feet
    underwater).” Starr was, by then, both an