The caller said, "I'd like to report a double murder, one that I'd committed."
1. Cold Cases focuses on the Zodiac Killer and the first part of the case built around Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs.
2. Greg Poulsen hosts with Vanessa Richardson, who says she is handling the psychology and adds a 2006 American Journal of Psychiatry study.
3. The episode asks how the Zodiac moved from two rural killings to a public identity built on letters, phone calls, and ciphers.
4. On December 20th, 1968, Stella Madero drove Lake Herman Road in Benicia and found a Rambler station wagon with Betty Lou Jensen on the ground.
5. Officers Daniel Pitta and William Warner arrived around 11.28 p.m. and found 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen dead and 17-year-old David Faraday still breathing.
6. Betty Lou had been shot five times, and David died in the ambulance with a bullet through his left ear and into the back of his head.
7. The scene included shell casings, two bullet holes in the Rambler, and a cold night measured at 22 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. Greg says Benicia had not seen a murder for five or six years, and investigators could not identify a motive.
9. Vanessa cites the psychiatry paper’s description of impulsive, senseless murder: weak impulse control, blurring fantasy and reality, and shallow emotional reactions.
10. The hosts then move to July 4th, 1969, when Darlene Farrin and 19-year-old Michael Mageau parked near Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo.
11. A man approached with a flashlight and fired a 9mm Luger into the car, then returned and fired again when Michael screamed.
12. Michael survived, and he later described a young white man, around 5'8", about 200 pounds, with curly light brown hair.
13. Karen, Darlene Farrin’s babysitter, told police she had seen a white man in a sedan parked outside Darlene’s house for hours.
14. Police used hypnosis on Karen, but she still could not remember the man’s name.
15. The killer called the Vallejo police station at 12.40 a.m. and told operator Nancy Slover he wanted to report a double murder he had committed.
16. Vanessa and Greg explain that criminology professor Scott Bond classifies the offender as a thrill killer who sought terror and stimulation rather than only the act of killing.
17. On July 31st, 1969, the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Examiner received letters claiming responsibility and demanding publication of a cipher.
18. The episode describes the crosshairs symbol, the cipher’s mixed symbols, and the public challenge from the Vallejo police chief.
19. Listeners who track true-crime timelines, police procedure, and coded messages will get the most from this episode.
20. Listeners who want a quick wrap-up without graphic crime details may want to skip it.
