Free Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith Page A

aviator and skin diver. Like its brother, a logo in the lower right-hand corner of the watch was a crossed
    circle on a dark background above the word “Zodiac.” It was quiet in the office. The Zodiac watch, mention of a bloody knife, Starr’s volunteered
    information had dazed them al . What was coming next?
    “I’m wil ing to help you in the investigation in any way possible,” the suspect said, licking his lips. He coughed and cleared his throat. Starr
    apparently wanted to interpose a high note, one with some humor, reconciliation, and good fel owship al round. “I can’t wait until the time comes
    when police officers are not referred to as ‘pigs,’” he said with a sad shake of his head. Some antiwar protesters and students of the period
    commonly cal ed police “pigs.” Zodiac used the same epithet. “I enjoy needling the blue pigs,” he had taunted. “Hey blue pig I was in the park.”
    “Can you recal anyone whom you might have had a conversation with regarding Zodiac?” interjected Mulanax.
    “I might have had a conversation with Ted Kidder and Phil Tucker of the Val ejo Recreation Department when I was working there, but I’m not
    positive.” Starr continued answering questions before they were asked. In this way he might defuse any damaging evidence against him in their
    minds. What had they heard? He had no way of knowing which of many acquaintances had turned him in as a kil er. He said some very strange
    things in private. He liked to talk and he talked loud and his remarks made him the center of attention. Suddenly, Starr paused—he realized who
    had sent the police!
    “‘The Most Dangerous Game,’” he said.
    “What?” said Toschi.
    Out of nowhere, Starr had mentioned the title of a short story he had read in the eleventh grade, a tale that, by his own admission, had made a
    deep and lasting impression on him. Toschi recal ed Langstaff’s Manhattan Beach report and recognized “The Most Dangerous Game” as the
    same story Starr had rhapsodized over a ful year before the murders began. Toschi smiled inwardly—Starr had final y figured out who had ratted
    him out.
    “It was cal ed ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’” Starr elaborated. “It was the best thing I read in high school.” Zodiac had given “The Most
    Dangerous Game” as his motive in a cunning, almost unbreakable three-part cipher. But Salinas schoolteacher Don Harden had cracked it on
    August 4, 1969, exactly two years ago today, though Harden’s solution was not made public until August 12. Encrypting mistakes and al , the
    bizarre solution read:
    “I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE
    MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN
    BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN
    PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI
    DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR AFTERLIFE . . .”

    Roughly, the short story by Richard Connel dealt with the son of a military officer hunting humans with a rifle and bow and arrow for sport in the
    forest. Aptly, Starr, the son of a military man, hunted in the woods with a bow and arrow. Mulanax summarized the story in this manner: “This book
    was made into a movie and concerns a man shipwrecked on an island and being hunted by another man ‘like an animal.’” It might be important to
    study that brief story in depth for clues, thought Mulanax, learn if it had been a movie or dramatized on television, learn where Zodiac might have
    stumbled across it and when.

    “Starr mentioned ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ during that questioning,” Toschi told me later, “and his brother afterward confirmed that he felt that
    man was ‘the most dangerous game, not shooting game.’” The precise words Starr had used, verified by