We have spent nearly fifty years studying the Zodiac Killer, delving into the mind of a murderer and attempting to unlock the driving force behind his reign of terror to uncover the reason behind the madness - and we are by no way short of ideas. As many observers have pointed out, our killer may have had a military connection, had theatrical links either professionally or personally, including an oriental link, born out by three references to the Mikado and the symbols portrayed on the Exorcist Letter, as well as an affinity towards movies and a penchant for the cryptic. However, on the flip side he portrayed an illiterate, egotist with a flair for a lack of subtlety, displayed in unstinting fashion in his 408 Cipher, in which he states candidly "to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl". The thing is, he may have been telling the truth, if the San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery was to be believed.

On October 18th 1969 he ran a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle describing the Zodiac Killer as a 'latent homosexual'. Under the banner Zodiac-Portrait of the Killer  he stated "The killer of five who calls himself 'Zodiac' is a clumsy criminal, a liar and possibly a latent homosexual". How close this description is to reality is open to question, but it has some legs and is worth investigating. The Zodiac Killer addressed Paul Avery personally when he sent the Halloween Card on October 27th 1970 approximately one year after this article was written - and bearing in mind the killer's ability to reduce everything to base level and the aforementioned characteristics he displayed in his missives, this is how we shall approach this card.        

Two notable features of this card were the two skeletons, one of which had a pumpkin placed over the genital area. It was after all four days before Halloween, so the pumpkin and skeletons were not unusual - but why would the Zodiac Killer choose a pumpkin, of all the things he could have chosen, and in particular, place it in such a fashion. The Zodiac Killer also underlined the 'lav' in the misspelled reporter's name Paul Averly. These two features of the card, along with the phrase 'peek-a-boo', implied a suggestion of something hidden.
 
Some Zodiac researchers have explored the possibility the Zodiac was of English origin, on account of his word usage, such as 'shall', infrequently used in American English, but by the same token a word frequently used by thespians. Peek-a-boo  
is known as Peep-bo in British culture and is the act of concealing ones face behind the hands or other object, before suddenly appearing back into view and uttering the words peek-a-boo or peep-bo. It can be seen in Wikipedia that many variations involve trees, similar to the depiction on the Halloween Card, where 'Hiding behind that tree' is added. See here. Whether or not it is a significant phrase by the Zodiac Killer is open to question, but Peep-Bo is a character that features during Act I of The Mikado.

The eyes peering from the tree, peek-a-boo and the hidden gender, may just have been the start of a form of 'toilet humor' backlash or closet acceptance that the Paul Avery reference to Zodiac possibly being a 'latent homosexual' had been officially noted. After all 'lav' is a colloquialism used in English speech for lavatory or 'water closet'. A 'closet homosexual' is used for people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity, and ties in nicely with the English phrase 'skeleton in the closet', coined in the 19th century, a colloquial phrase and idiom used to describe an undisclosed fact about someone which, if revealed, would have a negative impact on perceptions of the person.

​Falling back to the theatrical connection and The Mikado, 'Skeleton in the Closet' was a 1965 Japanese 'Pink Film', also called 'Secrets Behind the Wall'. A 'Pink Film' deals with Japanese theatrical films of nudity, almost exclusively shot on 35mm film - but in order to circumvent censorship restrictions, Japanese directors carefully positioned props over the actors private parts, although one doubts a pumpkin found its way on to set very often. Incidentally pumpkin seeds have long been used in parts of Asia for boosting sexual performance and prostate health.

The Zodiac Killer is indelibly linked to San Francisco. Most of his mailings were to the Chronicle, along with his final confirmed murder, a marked deviation from his previous attacks on lone couples across the bay. Paul Stine was believed to have picked up his final passenger from the theater district near the intersection of Mason and Geary Street, while some believe it may have been around the area of Nob Hill or the Tenderloin District.

San Francisco in the 1960s had overseen a marked change - the Castro District being one - having transformed from a working class area to a prominent symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movements. After World War II many military personnel courted the area, unwilling to return to a life incompatible with homosexuality and other forms of behavior, and areas like the Tenderloin and Castro Street became the home to many gay bars and sex clubs. As early as 1963 Castro Street opened its first gay bar, the 'Missouri Mule'. One such person was gay activist and entertainer Jose Sarria, who himself had served in World War II, but continued to fight against police harassment against not only gay people, but gay establishments as a whole, having performed in the 'Black Cat Bar' at 710 Montgomery Street, a north-south thoroughfare. 

The idea of a hidden body was extensively used in the Gothic novels of the Victorian period. Edgar Allen Poe was best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, and one such example was this extract from 'The Black Cat' in 1845. "Gentlemen, I delight to have allayed your suspicions", and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. The wall fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators". It has been suggested that the phrase 'skeleton in the closet' derives from the era of the notorious body snatchers, prior to 1832, when the UK's Anatomy Act allowed the more extensive use of corpses for medical research. The theory goes that, in a scenario similar to that of the concealment of Catholic priests in priest holes in domestic houses in Elizabethan England, doctors would conceal in cupboards the illegally held skeletons they used for teaching. Although there's no evidence at all to corroborate that theory. Concealed skeletons are occasionally found walled-up in houses, but they are usually those of unwanted infants. See here. 

In the early years of San Francisco it was against the law for men to dress up in women's clothing, but an exception was made for one night only on Halloween, a pagan celebration that would become the adopted day for gay celebrations. Sarria encouraged patrons to be as open and honest as possible, exhorting the clientele, "There's nothing wrong with being gay–the crime is getting caught," and "United we stand, divided they catch us one by one."  At closing time, he would lead patrons in singing "God Save Us Nelly Queens" to the tune of "God Save the Queen". Sometimes he would take the crowd outside to sing the final verse to the men across the street in jail, who had been arrested in raids earlier in the night. Raids on gay bars were routine, with everyone inside the raided bar taken into custody and charged with such crimes as being "inmates in a disorderly house". Although the charges were routinely dropped, the arrested patrons' names, addresses and workplaces were printed in the newspapers. When charges were not dropped, the arrested men usually quietly pleaded guilty. Sarria encouraged men to plead not guilty and demand a jury trial. Following Sarria's advice, more and more gay men began demanding jury trials, so many that court dockets were overloaded and judges began expecting that prosecutors have actual evidence against the accused before going to trial. One favored harassment technique, employed especially on Halloween after midnight, was to arrest drag queens under an old city ordinance that made it illegal for a man to dress in women's clothing with an "intent to deceive". In consultation with attorney Melvin Belli, Sarria countered this tactic by distributing labels to his fellow drag queens (hand-made, in the shape of a black cat's head)  that read "I am a boy". If confronted, the queen would simply display the tag to prove that there was no intent to deceive. Sarria's actions helped bring an end to Halloween police raids  Excerpt from Wikipedia.

The Zodiac Killer certainly seemed to have many things in common with San Francisco. Is it possible he was a 'latent homosexual' as described by Paul Avery, who harbored a resentment against police and officialdom, strikingly evident in his correspondence to the San Francisco Chronicle, not to mention his linkage to Melvin Belli through the 'Call to Chat Show' spectacle and the Dragon Card mailed on April 28th 1970 calling for people to wear his nice Zodiac buttons - possibly on their lapels, similar to the hand-made labels of protest above. And finally the Melvin Belli Letter mailed on the anniversary of Lake Herman Road, just before Christmas.  

Halloween in the Tenderloin grew in the early 1960s with the growing LGBT community and welcomed tourists – who many of the prostitutes and hustlers relied upon for income. By the late 1960s, a major celebration area during Halloween was along Grant Avenue in North Beach, on which there were many gay bars in the late 1960s between Broadway and Union. Excerpt from Wikipedia.

​Melvin Belli was a flamboyant showman and prominent attorney summoned to appear on the Jim Dunbar Chat Show supposedly by the Zodiac Killer, along with Francis Lee Bailey, well known for his involvement in the Patty Hearst SLA trial - something again the Zodiac seemed at pains to point out. Melvin Belli was famous for his use of 'Elmer' the skeleton, which he often used in his medical malpractice suits. After winning a court case, Belli would raise a Jolly Roger flag over his Montgomery Street office building in the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco (which Belli claimed had been a Gold Rush-era brothel) and fire a cannon, mounted on his office roof, to announce the victory and the impending party. See Wikipedia

The Dragon Card mentioned above contained these lines "If you dont want me to have this blast you must do two things. Tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details. I would like to see some nice Zodiac buttons wandering about town. Everyone else has these buttons like, black power, melvin eats bluber, etc. Well it would cheer me up considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my buton. Please no nasty ones like melvin's. Thank you". The card used was a Jolly Roger greetings card.- and we know that a Jolly Roger is a traditional English name used to refer to the flag depicting part of a skeleton and displayed on pirate ships. The links are there, but are they interconnected? Was the Halloween Card a form of base subtle humor, along with the Dragon Card that implied the Zodiac Killer did indeed harbor a deep felt resentment, against not only Paul Avery and the San Francisco Chronicle, but also the police in general - not only for the reasons we have become accustomed to, but for reasons far more personal to our killer, leaving us to wonder if the 'skeletons in the closet' may have been rattled loose just slightly and the 'mask' of the Zodiac Killer may one day fall to reveal his true identity.   

There appears little progress in the hunt for the Zodiac Killer and an ever diminishing timeframe in which we have, if we are ever to bring the perpetrator to task for the five confirmed murders he committed at the back end of the 1960s, if of course, he is alive at all. One way of focusing our attention is narrowing the field of view, using the fact that we as human beings have many things in common, namely we follow patterns. So, if the Zodiac Killer had a permanent residence, he may have likely shopped locally, had leisure or recreational pursuits within a reasonable traveling distance, used familiar and convenient travel routes, and like most of us, would never expend more energy to fulfill a task than was ultimately necessary - but with one proviso in his case - being the art of concealment.

In previous articles we have explored the 'science' of geographic profiling to help narrow down a possible search field based on the locality of the four Zodiac crime scenes, using buffer zones and the least effort principle to facilitate this. Most (but not all serial killers) do not hunt on their own doorstep, because they leave a distinct distance from their home to the scene of the crime which is individual to each person, but often serial killers begin their murders close to home before venturing outwards. This pattern of human behavior has been used in many cases down the years and was employed with great accuracy in the case of the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway. Of course, the following is not without assumptions, but if we take it that our killer, for example, had a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 profession, then using his time constraints and the least effort principle, it would not be unusual for any murders committed on these days to be relatively close to home. Conversely, any murders on a Saturday are not subject to these same constraints (as it is a rest day), thereby allowing greater flexibility to the murderer. So it's not surprising that on a Saturday the Zodiac Killer would likely increase his buffer zone to commit his third and fourth attacks, which is exactly what he did. However, this would be making the assumption the killer lived somewhere in the Vallejo or Benicia regions, relatively, but not too close to the first two crime scenes. There is good reason to believe this based on everything he did, including his letter writing and likely exit routes after the Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs Park and Lake Berryessa attacks.

The following will triangulate on a map the exact locations of his four attacks, encompassing his two phone calls and confirmed Zodiac letters, all of which fall within an approximate one-half of a circle, drawn around his furthest two crimes, in what's known as the Canter and Larkin circle theory of environmental range. In other words, the greatest distance our killer seemed prepared to go.

The map on the right includes all four murder sites, the 1231 Main Street and Springs and Tuolumne payphones, along with three deviant mailing locations the Zodiac Killer used, namely the Los Angeles Letter of March 13th 1971 mailed from Pleasanton, shown on the map and situated 42 miles from Vallejo. Secondly, the Citizen Card mailed in Alameda County on May 8th 1974, 30 miles from Vallejo. And thirdly, the Red Phantom Letter mailed in San Rafael on July 8th 1974 and situated 28 miles from Vallejo. 

What is noticeable, is that all these locations drop within a 180-degree segment of the circle, the center of which literally sits over the first two crime scenes. If we remove the Pleasanton mailing, the focus narrows to literally a third of a circle, giving us a very narrow field of view of the Zodiac's entire known activity.

The 'hot zone' on this map sits over the Vallejo and American Canyon region, indicating the Zodiac Killer likely lived in this region and had a environmental range inside of 50 miles. If the Zodiac Killer lived in Vallejo and worked in San Francisco, then mailing his letters away from his home residence makes logical sense. The San Rafael, Alamada County and Oakland areas are on a near direct traveling route, either side of the Bay Area, to and from San Francisco - if indeed the Zodiac Killer lived in Vallejo.  

The killer made two phone calls, possibly having familiarity with the location of the Springs and Tuolumne intersection payphone, as it was an area he likely passed after his first two attacks, heading towards Columbus Parkway on both occasions and along Springs Road to the heart of Vallejo. In the second instance, a line drawn from Lake Berryessa to 1231 Main Street continues directly on to our center of focus, downtown Vallejo or the American Canyon region. These areas appeared to be the Zodiac Killer's comfort zone, but the primary focus always tends to a narrow region within 7 miles traveling distance from the first murders at Lake Herman Road on December 20th 1968 - a remote, little used, two-lane stretch of road he appeared to know only too well.   

Recently I contacted Gary Stewart, author of the HarperCollins book 'The Most Dangerous Animal of All', in which he names his biological father Earl Van Best Jr as the infamous Zodiac Killer. I had seen the interviews on television and heard the radio broadcasts, but wanted to learn more about not just Earl Van Best Jr, but more about Gary Stewart himself and his experiences since the release of the book. He kindly offered me an interview/contact in response and I am grateful for the time he spent giving me detailed answers to 10 questions I put to him. I wanted to ask slightly different questions to the norm, including some I know have been speculated upon within the Zodiac community forums and he was forthright in answering all of them. Below are the 10 questions I asked and the replies I got.

Q1. What are your thoughts on the response your claims have had in the Zodiac community, such as the forums, if you read them. Have you felt the response has been positive, negative or mixed.
Gary Stewart: 
The response to the release of my story has been very mixed, from one extreme of positivity, to the opposite extreme of negativity, as you might imagine. On the negative side, I knew well going in that there is a community that would rush to destroy my findings, discredit me as a human being, and make me ‘go away’, so that they could get back to their favorite ‘very own personal’ Person Of Interest. I can write this response with a smile on my face as I now know, after going through that experience, that I am a better person because of it. I’ve experienced extortion, coercion and received death threats. Those are the real length’s some people will (and did) go to to defend their POI and discredit my findings. On the other side, I’ve had retired officers from the San Francisco Police Department take the initiative to reach out to me and tell me face-to-face that they are so happy that I’ve finally solved the Zodiac case, and moreover, unveiled the ‘big blue wall’ of conspiracy surrounding the department’s apparent unwillingness to bring this case to closure. I’ve had cold-case inspectors from Nevada reach out to me and ask me to help with a case in which the Zodiac killer was suspected in the 1970’s, by sharing my DNA with them to include or exclude DNA found at their crime scenes. I did so and for certain, my father was not responsible for those crimes. Because my book is a story of love (the Stewart’s love and acceptance of adopted children in their home), and hope…hope that an unwanted, unloved, discarded infant can have a beautiful life, even beginning life in the hands of evil, can be an inspiration to many abused, abandoned, foster and at-risk children around the world, I’ve been speaking around the United States since my book was released, to churches, libraries, youth-groups, city council meetings and before legislatures and lawmakers, spreading my message of hope. So, I do feel that I was born in this role to share my story, and that is what I plan to continue to do.

Q2. Are you still as convinced today of Earl Van Best's guilt as you were when you set out.
Gary Stewart: 
I’m so happy you asked this question. What I’d like people to understand is that a traditional publication, such as mine with HarperCollins Publishers, requires that the story come to an ‘end’ at some point, simply for the matter that they have to send the manuscript to the book printer. In my case, and has been the story of my life for the past 13 years, information pours in daily! I can completely write another book, the sequel to The Most Dangerous Animal of All, based on the information I’ve researched and gathered since the book was released last May. But ultimately, we were limited in physical space (number of published pages) by HarperCollins. I had more information when we sent the manuscript to the printer that I was allowed to publish, so it is truly the story that ‘won’t end’…yet. Because of the continual discovery on new information and recent developments, I am completely certain, now more than ever, that my father, Earl Van Best, Jr., was in fact, the only Zodiac killer.

Q3. How do you respond to claims the handwriting on the marriage license was not Earl Van Best's.
Gary Stewart: 
I’m happy you asked this question. Firstly, if it’s not clear in my book, I’d like to clarify a couple of things about the handwriting evidence. As I was attempting to disprove my discovery that my father could have been the Zodiac killer, I never once thought to go back through my files and search for handwriting. I remember specifically when the head of homicide, Lt. John Hennessey first questioned me, one of the first things he asked for was if I had any handwriting from my father. I automatically replied ‘No’, because I had forgotten that I had copies of my father’s handwriting. My mother gave me a copy of their marriage application or certificate, and their marriage license, but I had filed that away in that huge box I had collected everything about my journey since I’d met my mother back in 2002, and I had actually forgotten about it. Also, when I took a look at the 408 cipher for the first time and my father’s name visually ‘popped off the page’, I knew I didn’t need look any further. I then realized that the meaningless 13 symbols in the ‘My Name Is_______’ cipher, was exactly what the Zodiac killer claimed it was…no cryptic message, no super-hero decoder ring necessary…it was simply my father’s name. The overwhelming preponderance of evidence that my father was the Zodiac killer was substantial enough to convince me as well as Lt. Hennessey that I was right. When I decided to publish my story, I still didn’t know I had any handwriting from my father, and it wasn’t until the very end of the publishing journey that my co-author asked me if I had any handwriting of my father. That is when I went back to that box of evidence and began searching through every piece of paper I had, and stumbled upon 5 exemplars, one being the now ‘infamous’ marriage certificate between my mother and my father. I knew by looking at every one of those exemplars that my father’s handwriting looked exactly like the handwriting in the Zodiac letters, but I am not trained in that field. My co-author took information to Michael Wakshull, who came to his conclusion…based on each of those exemplars he was given, not the marriage certificate alone, but the entirety. The most important thing about the Zodiac case is it will never be solved based upon handwriting. Period. So many people have come forward and claimed that their suspect’s handwriting matched the Zodiac, and the funny thing is that none of the exemplars from any of the suspects look anything alike. It’s also humorous to me that specific people who have made the claim that their suspect was the Zodiac killer (knowingly that their suspect’s handwriting does not match the Zodiac letters) and that their suspect ‘can’t be ruled out on handwriting alone’, choose to dismiss my father over handwriting? If the Rev. Fliger in fact filled out the marriage certificate for my father and my mother, his handwriting looks very much like some of the Zodiac writing. However, there are other exemplars from my father that were compared to specifically excluding the marriage certificate that Mike Wakshull independently validated that he is completely remaining ‘virtually certain’ that my father authored the Zodiac letters. The brutal online Zodiac killer community will not accept any suspect, even if that suspect’s DNA matches the Zodiac killer DNA, and the suspect personally confesses to being the Zodiac and the authorities close the case…simply because it is not their own personal person of interest. I am not the only one standing behind that statement. Kevin Fagan, San Francisco Chronicle Journalist on the Zodiac beat said so himself. So, for those guys to ‘dismiss’ my father over one handwriting exemplar, and ‘turn their back’ on the other evidence (like the only suspect who’s name perfectly appears in at least 3 ciphers (that Zodiac insisted ‘in this cipher is my identity’ over and over), no extra letters added, substituted, removed, replaced or spelled differently (like GYKE for GAIK…an abbreviation GAIK was never known to use…which would be like me attempting to force my father’s name if I had found BUST instead of BEST) is beyond immature and deceptive. I don’t need to list all of the evidence, but a fingerprint is a significant forensic evidence, and I doubt that any of the other suspects in the Zodiac case, today or in the past, had a scar on their right index finger that matches the scar from the Paul Stine crime scene. Finally, if all of the virtual sleuth’s in the online Zodiac killer community were forced to accept my father, or anyone else for that matter, as the proven Zodiac killer, they would be devastated because they would have nothing to do. The ‘game’ would be over. Thank you for allowing me to answer with what should have been cleared up nearly a year ago, but I have so far refused to ‘post’ or ‘chat’ in those online message boards.

Q4. Other than Earl Van Best, do you consider any other suspects in the case of worthy consideration, either before you suspected Earl Van Best or alongside him now.
Gary Stewart: 
When I first began reading Graysmith’s books and researching the Zodiac case, I was hopeful that it was Arthur Leigh Allen. The more I learned, the more I realized Allen was never a good suspect, particularly for any murder. Like so many of the most popular suspects, Marshall, Gaikowski…they didn’t have any motive for murder. None whatsoever. Allen was just a pedophile. Period. Gaikowski was not a murderer. He had no known motive. None. So, everything about this case rings true with my father as the only Zodiac. Motive, means, opportunity. You have to have those three to commit murder and Gaik and Leigh did not.
 
Q5. How do you respond to claims that Earl Van Best was simply too small to have been the Zodiac Killer based on the eyewitness descriptions in the case.

Gary Stewart: 
I am so glad you asked this question. The original San Francisco Composite sketch and wanted poster says nothing about weight. The altered poster adds ‘heavy build’. I have been to San Francisco about 50 times in the past 13 years. One thing I know about San Francisco is that it’s cold most of the year. I always wear a jacket when there. In my jacket, I look to be somewhere around 210 pounds. The Wanted Poster says ‘Jacket’. Everyone looks heavier in a jacket. But that alone is not justification enough. When my father was ‘on the run’ with my mother, they didn’t spend much time worrying about healthy meals. In fact, as a rare-book dealer, my father wasn’t a wealthy man in the early 1960’s. They hitchhiked across the country because they didn’t have a car and had no money. My father’s booking sheet puts his weight at 156 pounds. This was in February 1962. My father spent 22 months of a 4 year sentence in San Quentin, where he ate at least 3 full meals each day. My father wasn’t an exercise aficionado. He was obsessed with literature and likely spent every waking hour in San Quentin reading books. High calories, no exercise for 22 months would have most definitely put many pounds on him. Our family, the Best family, have genetic weight issues. Most all of his relatives, were overweight. I need look no further for validation of this than to the national news making headlines in the US currently. James Eagan Holmes, the mass murderer who murdered 12 people in an Aurora Colorado movie theater in 2012. When he was arrested in 2012, he was very skinny, even at 6’3”, likely less than 175 pounds. He has been seen now for the first time in public at his trial last week, and due to his time in prison, he has gained what appears to be 45 pounds. He is quite plump now. It only makes sense. See attached photos of James Eagan Holmes.

Q6. How successful has the book been received and how do you counter the arguments it was written to make money or generate publicity.
Gary Stewart: 
The Most Dangerous Animal of All has been extremely well received. On June 1, it became a New York Times Bestseller, which the numbers were actually tallied the week after its release, so that is quite pleasing. To date, I have sold the foreign rights to Germany (publication date 6-2016), Brazil, Czech Republic (published fall 2014), UK (published summer 2014), Turkey, Japan and Italy. Outside of online Zodiac websites and message board forums, the majority of response and feedback has been beautifully encouraging and positive. The majority of people who take the time to comment and review actually ‘get’ the entire story, that it is a story of hope for an unwanted, unloved, discarded infant. That it’s a love story about the two parents who adopted me and the sacrifices they made to make room for me in their home. Almost all of the negative reviews have come from people that are part of the online Zodiac community who have their own POI and will carry that with them to their grave, even if as I stated above, when the SFPD solve the case with DNA…those people still won’t want to believe it. As far as those people saying I wrote my story to make money…that it was a ‘money grab’…all I can say is that they are completely ignorant to the truth’s about book publishing. Very few authors get rich from writing books. Many popular successful talented writers do make millions, but they work hard at it every day! They sell millions of copies! I do not write books for a living. I do not have a following like James Patterson or Ann Rule! And I have not, will not, ever…sell a million copies! I will tell you in complete truth…I have spent more personal cash on my story, than I have received from publishing my book. Absolute truth…my tax man can and will vouch for me. So, those people who claim ‘he did it for money’ have no idea and speak out of ignorance. I wouldn’t do this for any money in the world. I did what I did because I had to…for my own identity, and for closure and healing, and it cost me a fortune. I have a very good career. I make very good money doing what I do for a living as a business entrepreneur and owner. It cost me a lot of that hard earned money to share my story.

Q7. How long had you followed the Zodiac case prior to the book publication.
Gary Stewart:
I knew nothing about the Zodiac case in 2002. So everything I learned was between 2004 when I first suspected my father was the Zodiac killer, and continues to this day. I never set out to write a Zodiac book. I set out to document my incredible, and almost unbelievable discoveries I made on the journey to find my father and my own identity. 

Q8. Whether the Zodiac Killer was Earl Van Best or not, do you believe ultimately a resolution will be found in this case, possibly through DNA analysis.
Gary Stewart: 
I am very confident that the case will be solved and closed, once and for all, by DNA, and a dedicated cold-case Inspector now in charge of the Zodiac case. The initial reaction to the publication of The Most Dangerous Animal of All by the San Francisco Police Department was something like ‘if Mr. Stewart has any information, then he needs to come forward’. That statement was made by a public relations officer who had not read my book. I merely chuckled when I heard of his statement. It is very clear in my book that ‘I did come forward…some ten years earlier…and one of their very own, the head of homicide collected a voluntary sample of my DNA because he saw enough evidence there to consider my father a suspect’. So I waited. I gave the SFPD five months to reach out to me. As it turns out, Inspectors do actually surf the Internet for information, particularly in the Zodiac case since so much information previously leaked to the public, can prove to be helpful, as it was in my research. Unfortunately in my situation, within weeks of my book release, one website in particular ripped my case to shreds over one of the handwriting exemplars, completely discrediting every single piece of the other compelling evidence that I provided, including my father’s name in the ciphers and that fingerprint. I can’t begin to tell you how important or significant the message I am trying to communicate here. When an online ‘amateur sleuth community’ can have an impact that negatively effects, or hinders the progress toward solution and closure of an active homicide case, that is serious…and deplorable. When the ‘all knowing guru’ of that community makes a statement regarding any new suspect, specifically, me introducing my father as a suspect…a statement along the lines of ‘No need to worry about Earl Van ‘Worst’, Jr…no one is going to take this guy seriously’…the glass is raised, and everyone drinks the Kool-Aid in unison with their guru. When that sort of careless, self-motivated statement interferes with possible solution and closure of an active homicide case, I will say it again…it’s deplorable. When the SFPD did not reach out to me, I eventually ‘came forward’. This time, 10 years since I first walked into Lt. John Hennessey’s office for the very first time, I came with a professional former prosecutor. Once the appointment with the cold case Inspector was made and the date of our meeting soon approaching, the Inspector chose to read my book. When I walked into a small, isolated ‘interrogation’ room with the former assistant DA of San Francisco by my side, the first words out of the Inspector’s mouth were, ‘Great book. I really enjoyed your book. It was well written. But I cannot close this case based on a book. By the way, what do you say about the ‘amateur detectives’ out there on a certain website ripping your theory about your father over handwriting?’ He told me that, contrary to popular belief, that all of the Zodiac investigation has been handicapped for years due to information that has leaked out and made public on the Internet. He indicated that they have very little remaining information about the case that is not already public knowledge, information that, in any ‘typical’ case, could be used to solve the case if someone came forward with information that only the perpetrator, or a victim, or law enforcement knew. That’s how many cases are solved. The cops don’t tell everything to the public, so when they do have a ‘tipster’ who says something that is only known by the authorities, they can often speed to solving the case. It took me a moment to realize what I had just heard. Had I not come forward and had the assistant DA make an official appointment with the Inspector, my father would have been completely dismissed by the new regime in the SFPD over careless, false statements made on a website, over jealousy, anger, or narcissistic motivations to disallow any new suspect into the discussion. Once I regained my composure, I told the Inspector basically what I state in answer to question number 3 above. The Inspector then said, ‘As I said, I’m not going to close this case based on a book. What do you have for me?’ I handed the Inspector a 33 page evidence document I had put together for him, much of which was information not included in my book, simply for space and ‘book-length’ considerations by my publisher. The Inspector asked for my permission to record the audio of our meeting, which I agreed to. He told me he would give me thirty minutes. We went over my evidence line-by-line and the meeting lasted an hour and a half. When I left the Inspector, we made an appointment to meet again in December. It was September 3rd, 2014. The Inspector made several commitments to me as a result of that meeting. On December 3rd, I returned to the Hall of Justice and met the Inspector again. He had telephoned me soon after our September meeting and given me a brief update on his investigation, and that he wanted to call and remind me that he ‘is taking me, and my evidence against my father very seriously’. At our meeting in December, he gave me more information, and because of exactly what I said before, I will not disclose anything that will interfere with the solution and closure of this case. But what I can say is that I knew everything he told me before the words came out of his mouth. I have information that only the SFPD has knowledge of and I am very pleased with what the Inspector is doing now. I am in communication with and will continue to cooperate with the Inspector and see this through to the end. Yes, science is going to close this case. It is just going to take some time.

Q9. Have you ever considered joining a Zodiac forum to enter into debate or do you have reservations concerning this.
Gary Stewart: 
When I first saw that Wanted Poster and assumed my father might be the Zodiac killer, I got online and began researching everything available about the case, trying to place my father outside of the area of the crimes, trying to find anything that could exonerate him as a suspect. I actually reached out to a couple of those website owners early on. I had several conversations with Ed Neil, almost meeting up with him in Calistoga on one of my trips to the Bay Area. For the 10 years of my research, I combed the available websites, hoping someone would solve the case and I could get on with my life knowing that my father was not the Zodiac killer. Over the years, those sleuth’s changed pet suspects so often, it was very hard to keep track of ‘who liked whom’ as a POI. Reading the content of those posts and discussions on those message boards, I determined not to register and get in the middle of all of that. It was never my intention to ‘become famous by solving the Zodiac case’, and I certainly wasn’t going to solve the Zodiac case on someone’s message board. I often wonder why some of these people who think they’ve ‘solved the case’, why they don’t do what I did. Why don’t they gather all of the ‘voluminous’ amount of alleged evidence they have on their favorite POI and go to the authorities? There are people out there who claim that the Zodiac killer is still alive, stalking them and leaving ‘Berryessa hoods’ in their vehicles to taunt them! Really? Did the Zodiac killer ever just stalk people and not attack? The Zodiac killer was an arrogant narcissistic murderer, who until now, got away with it. I knew that if I jumped into those maddening conversations on message boards, that I would be making a huge mistake, and no one, no one in law enforcement would ever take me seriously! It’s quite an amusing story, soon after my book was released and this certain website tried to remove me as quickly as possible as someone who might have presented the best suspect in 45 years, my son got so frustrated with the abuse being hurled at his dad by these people who had no clue as to what evidence I had (even before they had a chance to read the book!), that he joined up! I think his ‘Username’ was EARLVANBESTIV or something like that. At 22 years of age, he decided to jump in and help defend his dad, and he did it very politely. Some of the people on the board was happy he joined and he posted and replied a couple of times, quite cordially. Within a few hours, he realized there would be no objective conversation with that group of people so he backed out. A month or so later, I decided that I might join up for myself. I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I’ve worked far too long and way too hard to now cheapen everything I’ve done by getting on that site and arguing anything. I don’t have to prove anything to that group. I will still check those message boards from time-to-time, and at one time, there were many people I didn’t know that actually put up a pretty good fight defending my position, that my father could have possibly been the Zodiac killer. They too soon tired of being belittled by the guru. I now check the news on the Zodiac sites and smile at some of the discussions there, simply for amusement, not for information. They will not solve and close the Zodiac case. Only the authorities will do that. I choose to stay my course and work with the authorities to see this case to closure.

Q10. Have the television appearances, radio shows and publicity impacted you as a person. Has it been a positive or negative experience.
Gary Stewart: 
Before my book was released, PEOPLE Magazine came to Baton Rouge to meet this guy who said he’s solved the Zodiac case. In fact, Johnny Dodd , co-author to John Douglas, former FBI Profiler who wrote Into the Mind of the BTK, chose to take on my story for PEOPLE. I spent nearly 13 hours with Johnny that day. He gave me an autographed copy of his book, and I gave him the story he came to publish. We will do something else together, I’m quite certain. The article in PEOPLE came out in the June 2nd 2014 edition with Drew Barrymore on the cover. The day my book came out, I was interviewed by all of the local network affiliates. The link below is the most extensive interview of that day filmed by the local CBS affiliate WAFB in the courtyard of the apartment building where my father abandoned me 51 years earlier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SEzyMjrcZg
The next day, my publicist at HarperCollins whisked my wife and I away to New York City and I appeared live on Out Front with Erin Burnett on CNN, Smerconish on CNN, and with Les Trent on Inside Edition. I have since appeared on TV, radio, magazine/print, podcast on over one hundred occasions. My life has not been the same. Today, I still do speaking engagements and public appearances, book signings and book club meetings. But most of my time these past months have been spent working with the producers and the screenplay writer working on my movie. I’ve sold my ‘Life Rights’ for film, and my life story will be featured as a 2-part, 4-hour miniseries. If you saw Fincher’s 2007 film, one thing we all agree, in addition to it being a great work…is that it was a little long. My story is so much longer than just covering the Zodiac murders, it would be impossible to wrap it in 90 minutes. We will have 2 nights and four hours to tell the entire story to the world. It will be a major production, but I’m not able to say which venue just yet because now that they ‘own my life rights’, they own exclusivity to advertise their product, so I have to keep that confidential until they give me the approval to share. Although my world has forever changed, I can proudly say that I am still the same ‘Gary Loyd Stewart’ who stumbled upon this American Tragedy 13 years ago, and I’ll forever be a better man because of it. I love my family more than ever. My wife has been the biggest support, even though the most difficult of situations, unspeakable situations. My son has grown from the 10-year old boy who first said ‘Dad, he looks like a serial killer’ when he saw my father’s mugshot for the first time, to a fine young man making his own way in life, and making me very proud in the process. Most importantly for me is that people are now ‘getting’ the entirety of my story, and I’m getting the opportunity to share my life story with millions. The story of hope for an unwanted infant. The love story of the Stewarts, and the story of redemption and forgiveness. I still eat at the same restaurants and still go to the same places I used to go…only this time…everybody knows my name.

Thanks to Gary Stewart - 'The Most Dangerous Animal of All'