Chapter 23 Section VII

On August 12, the police tentatively decided to file the case with the "Zodiak II" case four years ago.According to psychologist Dr. Joyce Broser: "This man is trying to terrorize the public because he has absolutely no control over his own destiny. He's lonely. He probably has no family and no one to love him," said criminal psychologist Michael Weener. He likes to make people feel intimidated, he tries to create an atmosphere of terror in the public, to draw attention to him, and all because, in real life, he is a loser, a coward. That's his tragedy." In the blink of an eye, another two years have passed. At noon on Tuesday, June 18, 1996, police received a 911 call.The guy nicknamed "The Vampire" shot and wounded his teenage sister because she was hanging out with some delinquent teens suspected of taking drugs.

The ambulance rushed to the dilapidated apartment building and stopped by the U-shaped road in front of the building.The emergency personnel went straight to the third floor carrying first aid kits, oxygen cylinders, stretchers, etc.Suddenly, a string of bullets roared towards them from upstairs... Soon, heavily armed military police wearing helmets and bulletproof vests blocked the surrounding 9 blocks.Four first responders and police officers were shot and wounded during the standoff.Police negotiators talked with the murderer on the street outside the building for a full three and a half hours. By around 4 pm, the "vampire" finally agreed to surrender.The police lowered a yellow barrel from the roof to disarm him.His murder weapon contained a total of three barrels: 13 homemade pistols, more than a dozen rows of bullets, 7 daggers, and a South American machete.

Later, the police found two bombs that had been installed and one that was being installed in the room of the "vampire"—his full name was Heriberto Eddie Saida—the same bombs that the police had not long ago found in a certain place. The three homemade bombs removed from the parking lot were identical.The room's shelves are filled with books on serial murders, homemade weapons, codes, and popular astronomy. "The Vampire" - Heriberto Eddie Saida has confessed to the crime of shooting his sister.When his handwritten confession was faxed to the headquarters of the New York Police Department, the police officer Joseph Herbert, who had been tracking "Zodiac II" for six years, almost fell to the ground in shock from the familiar handwriting.Further fingerprinting confirmed his feelings.It was now eight-thirty that night, and Josef Herbert immediately telegraphed the new discovery to the police officers who were interrogating Heriberto.By 1:20 a.m. the next day, after six hours of interrogation, Heriberto Eddie Saida finally admitted that he had killed three people and injured six others, and had threatened to make the entire New York City crawl on its knees. "Zodiak II" at his feet. "Vampire" said in his confession that all these shootings had nothing to do with those astronomical terms or phenomena, and he just wanted to create a sense of mystery and increase the atmosphere of terror.

The police later carried out a series of experiments, including ballistics tests and DNA identification, the latter sampled from those "Zodiak II" letters.Heriberto Seda had licked the envelope and stamps with his tongue. On June 24, 1998, Heriberto Eddie Seida was found guilty by a jury at the age of 30.In July of the same year, "Zodiak of New York" was sentenced to 83 years in prison. Since the New York police identified the DNA of "Zodiak II" with saliva pasted on envelopes and postage stamps, the San Francisco Police Department has also been making plans and efforts in this regard.The latest polymerase chain reaction method can amplify trace or even trace DNA samples several times, and its detection limit can be as low as 15 human cells.

After 20 or 30 years, more than half of Zodiak's letters have been lost in the process of being sent to various departments for inspection and identification. In 2002, the DNA Laboratory of the San Francisco Police Department officially decided to carry out this work.After the news came out, through the great assistance of the media, three more letters were recovered. On October 11, 2002, on the 33rd anniversary of the murder of taxi driver Paul Lee Steen, Zodiak's last murder, scientists finally obtained Zodiak's DNA profile, although It is also impossible to arrest the murderer and bring him to justice based on this, at least it can help eliminate many suspects.

The three main suspects mentioned earlier in this article all provided their DNA samples to the police through different channels.The brain tissue of the late Arthur Lee Allen was sampled and preserved during the autopsy.The rich man from the San Francisco Bay Area also showed great cooperation. After all, this is also a rare opportunity to rehabilitate himself.Charles Clifton Collins' son William has donated a sample of his DNA and his father's long-cherished letters.The results came back a week later - all negative! But in any case, the police have taken a big step in the right direction after all.If Zodiak was still alive—presumably in his sixties—he would have been somewhat uncomfortable hearing the news, as the indomitable San Francisco police were closing in on him.