here is my article I wrote on Robert tarbox: I interviewed him and formed a friendship with him

He spoke to me off an on for about a year. He was funny, self-deprecating, but seemingly truthful. he became a friend . His name was Robert Tarbox, a retired and disbarred lawyer. He spoke to a man in 1972 who confessed to the zodiac killings of the Bay Area in California. As It turns out I had called Robert by looking his number up on a public records website by paying money. I called him after making an outline of what to say. The second time I had called him he picked up and I told him that I had thought he had possibly valuable information regarding the zodiac case. He was forthcoming and told me that it was “a funny thing that had happened.” We began our conversation around April 4th 2014. I asked him to tell me what took place. He told me that A man had come into his office in the evening and showed him a merchant marine identification card. It was also known as a z card. He proceeded to tell Mr. Tarbox that he was responsible for the zodiac crime spree and he was the zodiac killer. He “gave me the facts.” Tarbox recalled. He thought the man was around forty three or so. The one crime that really disturbed the marine was the murder of Paul stine. It apparently “ really brought him to his senses” and the fact that he almost was caught didn’t help things for him, it scared him. Robert told me that he thought the man was about to make a pier jump. This meant that he thought the guy was about to change companies or work for someone else. Robert assumed that he did a lot of thinking at sea about his crimes. Robert said “he was trying to figure out what his future looked like.” Over the next several months he spoke to me, exchanging details and answering questions in which some were repeated. I talked to him about what the man looked like. He described him as a “ joe blow”, not being attractive and not being ugly. He had some gray in his hair, and had some build to him. He was around average height being in the range of 5”9.5 to 5”11. Robert looked at the composite of the killer of paul stine and said “ it didn’t make him think it was the same guy.” Basically he summed up this man as a coward. He was intelligent and he described him as a “brain type.” I needed to get as much as I could from him as he was old and had medical issues. Robert had a GI problem, and as we spoke he would have to run to the bathroom at times. He also had an issue with his eye and was planning to get treatment from a doctor. Over those months our conversations revolved around the zodiac but became tangential. other mysteries like the disappearance of MH 370 became the subject of our talks. At one point he told me that “he didn’t mind mysteries.” This frustrated me because I did mind them, especially this one. We discussed the space he took out in the Vallejo Times Herald back in 2007. He came forward as he had never discussed his encounter with the marine with anyone other than his Chinese law partner. His point of writing in the Vallejo Times Herald was to describe what happened. He had monitored the trials and tribulations of prime suspect Arthur Leigh Allen over the years after his encounter with the seaman. He wanted to write to make it clear that the man who came to see him was not Allen. The man was well dressed in an unbuttoned shirt. He had never seen him again but gave me the impression that he had the name in his head or written somewhere. I told him that he should go to the police. He told me he was bound by client confidentiality. Apparently an abc producer wanted to do a program on Robert and his story. He wanted to get the guy’s name but Robert refused just like he did with me. Robert wanted to introduce me to the reporter. That never happened, as time ran out and Robert died in august of 2015. I had called his residence to talk again. We hadn’t spoken to each other in several months. A man picked up saying “ Tarbox residence.” I knew something wasnt right in the first few seconds. It was not Robert’s outgoing old voice. It was another man who had a west coast way of speaking. Apparently Robert died and this man was in charge of his property. I was at Starbuck’s and immediately went back to my grandparent’s apartment. I decided to look up the article online which inspired me to interview Robert in the first place. Up at the top of the article came the name Lance Williams. Lance wrote an article back in 2009 titled “ Another possible zodiac suspect put forth.” It was published by the San Francisco Gate, a California newspaper. I was a bit nervous as I had never spoken with the man, but was happy to hear his friendly voice pick up. I told Lance about the fact that I had interviewed Robert Tarbox and that he had recently died. He decided to call Robert’s number to find out everything that was going on. He called me back and found out that a man named Duane had taken over Lance’s property. He was the same man who had answered when I called. He did have access to Roberts estate and his office items. According to Lance he did some digging and found nothing. I called Duane later several weeks and introduced myself and asked him to look one last time. He looked through Robert’s office and found a folder with a picture of a man with glasses. This was a picture of a man who was sent to Robert as he was in touch with a lawyer who had a client who thought he knew who the zodiac was. Lance told me he didn’t think Tarbox thought he was the guy he saw that night. Frustrated by the fact that there wasn’t a note or a memoir in which I told Robert to leave, I felt demoralized and ended my calls to Duane. But I did call the lead investigator of the zodiac case in San Francisco Gianrico Pierucci and left a message. I called him not long after again and got him on the phone. I answered his questions and told him what Robert told me. I ended up sending sergeant Pierucci notes by his request through email on my interactions with Tarbox. I looked at the quality of them and they were honestly terrible. But I didn’t want to bother him again. I also spoke with a Napa Sheriff after being directed to call them after trying to talk to Solano County Police Department in Benicia. I told him what I learned and also sent him notes recalled from my memory. I also sent him my thoughts on how law enforcement could make progress on the case.

The Zodiac was an uncaught and unidentified serial killer who murdered five confirmed people from 1968 to 1969 in Northern California. He stalked and killed victims opportunistically at two Lovers lanes, a grassy knoll by a Lake, and in San Francisco. He would write to the Vallejo times herald and then the San Francisco Chronicle threatening more killings. He created four ciphers and demanded them published. His last authenticated letter was written and received in 1974.
He first struck in Vallejo California on December 20th of 1968. Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday were parked on the outskirts of Vallejo. They were sitting in their car on Lake Herman Road when they were both shot. A year later another murder took place in which only one person was killed but both people were shot. These people were Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. They were attacked on July 4th of 1969, out on Blue Rock Springs. A man called the Vallejo Police department around midnight and claimed credit for the attack and also took credit for the shooting of Jensen and Faraday a year earlier. Nancy Slover was the police dispatcher who heard the mans voice. He sounded like he was in his mid thirties according to Slover. On July 31st of 1969 A letter mailed to the Vallejo times herald was opened. A writer took credit for the two shootings dating back to 1968. Two months later another couple was targeted. A beautiful picnic at Lake Berryessa became a terrifying crime scene around 6:15 pm on September 27th 1969. Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Sheppard were two college friends relaxing and having a picnic on a grassy knoll overlooking the water. It was past six oclock on September 27th of 1969. Cecelia noticed a man watching them. He then stepped behind a tree, donned a hood, and held the couple at gunpoint. He then stabbed both Hartnell and Sheppard, killing one and leaving only one just wounded. when prompted with questions by Deputy Collins, Cecelia was able to give a description of the man. She was able to speak although she wouldn’t survive much longer as she died the next day. She said the man was white, overweight, had sunglasses on, and had brown hair which came down and hung across his forehead. Then he stepped behind the tree and she had lost sight on him. During the time period behind the tree he had donned a hooded mask and costume which came down to his stomach with the cross hair circle sign that the zodiac would sign his letters with. The whole event lasted around fifteen minutes allowing surviving victim Bryan Hartnell to describe the mans voice as having a cadence to it and possibly a drawl. He also saw through the eye holes of the mask that the man had brown hair, combed like his own, and appearingly greasy.
Even though the individual who carried out these crimes thought he had killed all of these people, two survived and were able to give physical descriptions. Michael Mageau, the young man who was shot out at Blue Rock Springs was injured but able to recall what had happened. He was able to describe what the killer looked like as he had gotten a profile view of the assailant. When asked by police he described the man as 5”8, heavyset, really beefy build. He said he was 195 to 200 pounds possibly larger. He had short light brown curly hair. It was almost blonde. He also wore a short sleeved blue tea shirt.

I became exposed to what the zodiac killer was about, when my friend and I were flipping through channels on tv in the spring of 2007. I was in 7th grade and was excited for the summer. The movie on was called “Zodiac” and it came out in 2005 starring Robin Tunney and Justin Chambers. It was scary as hell to watch and I actually covered my eyes at scenes with overwhelming suspense. I rememeber a few days later in school my friend and I discussed the movie, I had done research since we watched some of the movie and we both talked about the suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. Over the next two years this case would consume me as it was unsolved and it bothered the life out of me that there were innocent men and women who were killed and injured. In 2009 at fourteen years old I would search the internet quite a bit for any news on the zodiac case. I saw the relatively new 2007 movie on the case titled “ zodiac” directed by David Fincher at my dads house. It was fascinating and haunting and more detailed than the previous film. One day I was searching for any news on the zodiac case. I came upon an article by Lance Williams. It described a former lawyer’s encounter with a man who confessed to being the killer. I read the whole article and knew deep down that at some point I would have to talk to this guy. It seemed to be the most plausible and unfabricated lead I had read about ever regarding the zodiac. A year earlier a man who I was familiar with through the internet came forward that he had found a hood with a cross circle. As soon as I saw the article I knew this wasn’t a compelling lead but actually a fabricated plea to make a suspect fit evidence that was very likely fake. Dennis Kaufman had insisted for years since 2001 that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the zodiac. I had personally ruled out Jack as the guy considering his age at the time. He was 45 years old and had a strong southern accent. At best the zodiac was described as having a slight drawl and a particular cadence to his voice. Nothing about a southern accent. In 2012 an article came out by a reporter named bethanny monk in the Benicia herald. A man named Bruce Quandt from Benicia was interviewed about the case . He grew up knowing David Faraday, one of the first zodiac victims. Faraday was a boy scout and so was Quandt. He spoke of rumors that he heard back then. “There were all sorts of rumors flying around,” Quandt said. “There were kids who said that the murderer lived in town on I Street, and that he was in the merchant marine.” When I read this I got chills. It completely backed up the story from 2009 in which Robert Tarbox received a confession from a merchant seaman. I didn’t want to make too much of it as it could just be a rumor. Also the man who saw Tarbox may have just been showing an identity of someone else. Lance reminded me of this possibility in a conversation we had recently in December. But its an interesting coincidence that there were rumors in Benicia or Vallejo that the zodiac killer was a man who lived on I street and was in the merchant marines and in 1972 a merchant marine came and confessed to Robert Tarbox that he was the zodiac to a lawyer in San Francisco. This is a situation in which someone has caused terror and devastation to numerous people and those people deserve justice for their loved ones. It is important to bring their killer to justice and if that isn’t possible at least identify the person responsible. There is a piece of this tragic story that is missing, the ending. This ending needs to be written.

The prime suspect in the case is believed by some detectives and others to be the zodiac killer. His name is Arthur Leigh Allen. If you watched the David Fincher movie “ Zodiac” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and know close to nothing about the case, you might have left the theatre back in 2007 convinced it was him. Basically the movie is from the perspective of a cartoonist Robert Graysmith. He has been convinced that Allen has been guilty since he first became a suspect, and has written two books on his theory. One is called “Zodiac” and the other is “ Zodiac Unmasked.” Allen apparently made some statements to his friend that said he intended to attach a flashlight to a barrel of a gun and kill couples. He would call himself the zodiac and taunt police sending them letters. Despite this claim by his friend Don Cheney, Arthur Leigh Allen has denied murdering anyone ever since he first was interviewed. Since I began researching this case back in 2007, I have had extreme doubts of his guilt. In fact, I strongly think that he was the wrong man. Not only does his handwriting not match, but his dna doesn’t match the partial profile created by back in 2002 by a forensics team . Officer Don Foukes of SFPD saw a man walking away from the Paul Stine Crime scene and he matched the description given by witnesses who saw a man get out of the cab and wipe down the side of it. Foukes describes Arthur Leigh Allen as far to heavy, and his face was to round. There is a documentary called “ this is the zodiac speaking” .Donald Foukes is interviewed and explans why he doesn’t think Allen was the man he saw. I looked at microfilm copies of the very articles on the zodiac from 1969 at the New York public library back in 2014. On October 11th 1969 a kid saw out of her window what seemed to be a struggle in a cab that was parked across the street on Washington and Cherry streets In San Francisco. A man got out of a cab and proceeded to wipe down the side of it. The kid and others in the house called the police. This was the zodiac killer. According to the article I saw on the microfilm, the suspect seen by the kids in the Paul Stine shooting was a white man age 40, about 5”8-5”9 170 pounds wearing glasses with a crew cut. Officer Foukes saw a man of similar physical description up close and under the bright lights of his police car. The man he saw was described by him as 5”10, 180-210 pounds age 35-40 years old with a crew cut wearing glasses. Arthur Leigh Allen had thinning hair, was well over 200 pounds and was a quarter inch under six foot in height. Even though the glasses may have been a disguise by the killer, Allen was never known to wear glasses or own a pair. At Lake Berryessa Cecelia Shepard described the man who attacked her and Bryan Hartnell as having brown hair which hung down across his forehead. Even combing his hair forward, Allen would not have fit the description as his hair wasn’t long enough. Unless the zodiac at Lake Berryessa was wearing a wig, it couldn’t have been Arthur Leigh Allen. Nancy Slover who spoke with the zodiac on july 4th of 1969, heard allen’s voice years later. She immediately ruled out his voice as the man she spoke with. None of the other main suspects seem likely. if someone wrote the letters and commited the crimes and they were connected to Arthur Leigh Allen, its likely that person would have told someone. I read this in a book at the library. That if someone was allen’s accomplice, one of them would likely talk. No one has ever came forward . In a documentary on the case, titled “ case reopened” with Lawerence Block, the host entertains the thought that maybe the person who wrote the zodiac letters didn’t do the killings. He postulates that he either witnessed someone commit the crimes or heard about them. He also theorized that the person calling himself zodiac may have had someone act on his behalf which would explain why none of the suspects were picked up by the police. This line of thinking is interesting and thought provoking. But after researching the case I find it much more likely that the person who killed these people and wrote these letters were one and the same. It is possible that the zodiac took credit for more crimes than he committed. At one point he writes that he has killed thirty seven. Why would the perpetrator at Lake Berryessa write with a black felt tip marker on Bryan Hartnell’s car, the dates of the two Vallejo murders and the attack that day, and sign with the cross symbol if he was not responsible. Unless he wanted to make people think he was the same guy but really wasn’t I think it is safe to say that the man who wrote the zodiac letters, was the same man who killed both couples in Vallejo and attacked the couple at Berryessa.

In 2016 I had spoken with a sheriff with the Napa Sheriffs department. I told him about my interviewing Robert Tarbox. He asked me some questions, and knew I researched the case as I had studied it and grown dedicated to helping. I told him if the man who saw Robert Tarbox was not the killer I would totally accept that, because it has either got to be true or not that the merchant marine was responsible. He told me to send some notes just as the sergeant From San Francisco told me to do. I wrote down what I had learned from Robert and what he told me from my memory as I had lost my notepad. But I also told him what I thought could be done to help with solving the case. What I do think can be done to help identify the person is this.I think that all of the surviving victims should be talked to again and people in Vallejo and Benicia should be spoken to, especially those who were alive and well during the time of the killings back in 1968 and 1969. I interviewed a man who was with his girlfriend the night of the first zodiac killing, and they were chased by a man who behaved in a menacing way toward them. His name is Bill Crowe. Crowe and his girlfriend were parked on Lake Herman road. He was fixing his girlfriend’s sports car. They saw the headlights of another car driving from the direction of Benicia. The car passed them stopped and then immediately backed up. when Bill saw the reverser lights on the other driver’s car come on he knew that he needed to get out of there so they took off. The car chased them and eventually they lost him. I strongly think his girlfriend should be interviewed and asked if she can recall anything about that night and whether she got a look at the driver as there is a good chance that he may have been the zodiac. There were some woman sunbathing near lake Berryessa the day of the Sheppard – Hartnell stabbing. After the stabbing They came forward to police that there was a suspicious man who was watching them. when he saw that they had noticed him looking at them, he would look away. This man had dark hair and was parted, no glasses and was fairly nice looking. He was driving an ice blue colored chevy, possibly a 1967 make. They should be interviewed again and shown a photo of Arthur Leigh Allen. Another witness was a boy who was with his dad that day. I interviewed him and he told me of his encounter with a suspicious man. David Rayfield was with his dad at Lake Berryessa around the time of the murder on September 27th 1969 . Rayfield saw a stocky man walking along the hillside. The man looked at him and saw he had a rifle with him. He turned and walked the other way. Thinking this was important and he very well may have seen the zodiac, I did an interview with him on December 21st 2016. I had read online and in the first Robert Graysmith book Zodiac, a Dentist and his son were at the lake and the son had seen a stocky white man canvassing the area. Graysmith put in his second book that David described the man as having thin balding hair. In the book “ Zodiac Unmasked.” David is quoted as saying “ He was so young to be bald.” When I spoke to David he told me the early description he gave took prevalence. Back then, he described the man as stocky, 5”10 and was able to describe the color of his clothes. He never said the man was bald or had thinning hair. When I asked him if the man was balding he told me he didn’t remember him as being bald. I fact checked this and he told me he remembers him wearing a hat. He did not get a close look at his face. William Crowe also didn’t get a good look at the other drivers face. He described the man in a quote I read online, as having short hair and glasses. When I spoke with him and asked him if he ever saw a picture of Arthur Leigh Allen he told me he didn’t get a good enough look at the driver to be able to identify Allen or eliminate him as the man who chased him and his girlfriend. At least Cecelia Shephard’s account of what the zodiac looked like without the hood on, points in the direction of Allen’s innocence. So does Officer Foukes’s description.
Whether the man who confessed to the lawyer Robert Tarbox was telling the truth and was responsible, there is an answer out there. Someone will eventually find Paul Stine’s bloody shirt, and other physical evidence like the hood with the cross symbol. Also if there are weapons found that are definitively linked and proved to be the exact ones used by the killer, this case could be solved. Among them would be a 22 caliber semi automatic pistol, a 9mm luger, a knife with sheath and rivets, maybe zodiac newspaper articles or possibly letters that he didn’t send. Whether there is someone out there who knew someone who commited these crimes but doesn’t want to come forward, there is plenty of reason to do so. This is because there are families that have suffered without a shred of justice and deserve to know who took the lives of their loved ones. If anyone knows of any information that could help in solving these murders, please contact the San Francisco police department, Napa Sheriffs department, or Vallejo police department. There is an answer out there. its just a matter of keeping the story alive, and jogging memories that have long been preoccupied with other events and details of daily life. Let’s not let this tragedy follow the fate of jack the ripper.