The Zodiac Case

"Decades after serial killer's unsolved spree, Hollywood follows Zodiac's trail to Napa. Thursday, July 28, 2005

By PAT STANLEY
Register Staff Writer

Retired Napa County Sheriff's Capt. Ken Narlow is no longer obliged to track the case of the Zodiac killer, who terrorized the Bay Area with a string of killings in the 1960s and '70s who and taunted law enforcement officers with his calls and letters.

But Narlow said he still receives phone calls and e-mails about the case. "It's followed me around more than I've followed it," he said.

Now, the unsolved case is headed for the big screen. [...]

Executive producer Brad Fischer declined comment on the movie before it is released, but "Variety" and several online publications say it will focus on the investigators, including Narlow, who pursued the elusive killer in the late '60s and early '70s.

Narlow met with Fischer and other executives in January, and last week assisted Warner Brothers researcher Max Daly, who was gathering old photographs and other information to help make the production realistic.

"I do visual research," Daly said. It's his job to make authentic-seeming film props, including badges and clothing.

"It looks like they are going all out to make this as credible as possible," said Narlow.

"Zodiac" the motion picture is reportedly based on "Zodiac Unmasked," one of two books by Robert Graysmith that chronicled the mass murderer's Bay Area killings. Among them was the September 1969 stabbing at Lake Berryessa of Pacific Union College student Cecilia Shepard, 22, who died of her wounds, and her date, 20-year-old Brian Hartnell, who survived. The killer taunted law enforcement by sending cryptic letters boasting of his killings. One said he planned to kill children as they got off a school bus, prompting Napa and other California school districts to put armed guards on many busses. Others were followed by police in marked and unmarked vehicles.

No bus was attacked.

The killing spree began in Riverside on Oct. 30, 1966, when 18-year-old college student Cheri Jo Bates' throat was slashed.

Shepard's stabbing on the western shores of Lake Berryessa, about two-and-a-half miles north of Park Headquarters, was his fourth confirmed killing. His second and third occurred near Vallejo on Dec. 20, 1968 and July 4, 1969. Seventeen-year-old David Faraday and 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen were shot to death in the December attack off Lake Herman Road, outside of Vallejo. Darlene Ferrin, 22, died of a bullet wound near Blue Rock Springs Golf Club, also outside of Vallejo. Her date, 19-year-old Michael Mageau, was also shot, but survived.

The Zodiac's last known murder occurred on Oct. 11, 1970, in San Francisco, when taxi driver Paul Stine was shot in the head.

The last of half a dozen known Zodiac attacks occurred in March 1970 near Modesto. A mother and her daughter were abducted, but managed to escape.

Narlow said he is most often contacted about the case after the release of various books, films and television programs about the killer. Such programs have included "Unsolved Mysteries," "America's Most Wanted," "Cold Cases" and "Primetime 20/20."

"I hope the movie will resurrect some memories," said Narlow. "Maybe somebody has some memories out there they hadn't decided to give to law enforcement, or don't think are important. But every piece of the puzzle has to fit."

Over the years, there's been a plethora of speculation about the Zodiac's identity. One popular theory was that the Zodiac was Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo. Allen died in 1992. Narlow said evidence pointing to Allen, who was never charged, was not strong.

Narlow said he thinks the Zodiac is sill among us.

"After so long, it's hard to tell," Narlow said. "But I have a personal feeling, yeah, he's probably (still) out there. He'd probably be in his mid-to-late 60s."

He said he based his guess on the suspect's age on interviews with Zodiac survivors, including Hartnell, who estimated the Zodiac was 30 to 35 at the time of the killing spree.

Narlow praised the Napa County Sheriff's Department for keeping the Zodiac files open for three decades.

Sheriff Gary Simpson said a Bay Area Zodiac task force has long since been dissolved, but the Sheriff's Department and Napa County Major Crimes Task Force are ready to track down any leads.

"Most have been ruled out," Simpson said of the occasional tips that trickle in. "At this point we don't have any active leads." Source: Zodiackiller.com Message Board

Chasing Zodiac

"The killer who called himself "Zodiac" has never been identified. He is infamous in the Bay Area, not just for his murders but for his taunting letters to The Chronicle and other newspapers, ridiculing police and threatening children's lives.

"Dear Editor," he wrote to The Chronicle on July 31, 1969, "This is the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman and the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo."

The Bay Area's most notorious unsolved case has become the subject of many books, TV specials and Web sites. In his final letter to The Chronicle, April 24, 1978 -- whose authenticity some have called into question -- he wrote boastfully:

"This is the Zodiac speaking ... I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me."

Now, 26 years later, David Fincher, who made "Fight Club," has taken up the challenge. Due late next year, the Warner Bros. film "Zodiac" will star Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo as the lead detectives and reporters. The $80 million film was shot on location last month in the Bay Area, and will continue its production for 85 days on Los Angeles sets.

Aiming for historical accuracy, the filmmakers hired witnesses, survivors, detectives and reporters as consultants to the film whenever possible.

"Authenticity is our main goal," said producer Brad Fischer last week on the set. Added scriptwriter James Vanderbilt, "We want to be as thorough as possible." The film crew began researching the case three years ago. Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, the former Chronicle cartoonist whose interest in the case led him to write a 1976 book, "Zodiac," upon which the film is based. With his help, the filmmakers claim they have discovered new, substantial evidence. "What we've learned from our research," Fischer said, "we want to keep for our film." [...]

Zodiac was keeping score. From then on, he would send a murder tally along with each letter to The Chronicle. In 1974, he wrote, "Me - 37, SFPD - 0."

Napa County Detective Ken Narlow, a tough cop, became the county's lead investigator. Now retired, Narlow struggles with diabetes and in January underwent a hip-replacement surgery.

"I still think he's out there," Narlow said last week, sitting outside his Napa home. [...]

Since his final letter in the 1970s, no one seems to have heard from Zodiac. By his own count, he killed at least 37 people.

"When I became mayor in '88," Art Agnos said last week by phone, "it had been years and years since anyone had heard from him. Frankly it was a dead issue."

Before getting elected mayor, Agnos had been shot twice -- by a member of a group of racial extremists pegged Zebra by the police -- and knows full well the trauma a predator can cause.

If Zodiac is alive, he is in his 60s or 70s, according to police sketches based on witness accounts. The investigation is still active in parts of Northern California."
Zodiac Trailer pictures via IHJ. Source: Sfgate.com

Darko Metaphilmed

"Donnie Darko is a coming of age film. Donnie is at a time between childhood/adolescence and adulthood. He is struggling with the concept of applying childhood logic to high school/adulthood indoctrination, that is illustrated through adult attempts to look at the simplistic as complex which paradoxically attempts to simplify the adult world (for example via the love-hate dichotomy) when it is not. Adolescence is long-blamed for difficulties within the individual's inability to adjust rather than the schizophrenic organisation of the adult social collective. Growing up is difficult; being grown up is when we all give in to untruths in order to accept the world view of those who set the rules and over which we have no control." - courtesy by Vanzmotorbike

"Fascinating to see just how literally the average viewer/reviewer experiences the role of time travel in the film. Much more interesting to include a metaphoric reading of its function in the film.

Donnie's schizophrenia is his response to a "mad world" in which all human action takes place in an apparently unstoppable procession. Any teenager with enough confidence and intelligence can see the inevitable results of the actions of the individual characters and the society in which they play out, the overwhelming hypocracy. Time travel is a potential solution that makes enough sense to offer hope of salvation for an increasingly desperate Donnie. Only by travelling ahead of the crap served up to him as reality might Donnie be able to save himself and his world from "the hostile reality" he perceives as beyond his control in the present.

The slide of the school towards vacuous box-ticking activities, the pathetic offering(s) of jim Cunningham (so perfectly close to pure cliche that we get that 'of course' sensation on discovering the depth of his corruption), the danger facing Gretchen, the isolation of Susita (sp?) [Cherita], all appear to us, as to Donnie, as inexorable. Donnie finds himself squarely in the fallen world. Unable to return to the innocence of his younger sister nor advance to the adjustment of his elder, he becomes tragically and painfully aware of the fate awaiting us all. He 'invents' Frank to ease the acute despair and isolation such awareness engenders.

Time travel is an extension of Frank in the sense that it actualizes an escape for Donnie, an escape whose reality is reinforced by the existence of both Roberta Sparrow and her book. This also moves Donnie closer to the 'real' world and the notion of success in it. And yet, however possible it may be in the theoretical world of science, whether it can save Donnie is doubtful. Look what it's done for Roberta.

In the primary reality of the film Donnie is as helpless as Oedipus in avoiding his fate. As a teenager, heroic anti-hero of higher intelligence and great compassion that Donnie is, he pushes the bounds of reality all the way and, thanks to the power of (cinematic) story telling, manages to tear the sky open just wide enough for us to stare up helplessly at our own addiction to clean, linear explanations. There are stranger mysteries than an unaccounted for jet engine, something Donnie would agree with as he goes off to sleep."
Posted by: david zoh on Sep 28, 05 Source: Metaphilm.com

With Maggie, Peter, baby, dog...

The day before yesterday, on Sunday 26th November the newly parents Maggie and Peter together Jakey walking Atticus went out for a walk in L.A. Pictures courtesy by IHJ and Popsugar.

Even in the most bohemian chic Hollywood clans there are often confusing direction signs!

Donnie Darko by Metaphilm

"Like most people who watch DD, I tried to work out what was going on rationally, and always there was something that didn't fit. I gave up in the end and assumed that the writer wanted to just mess with people's minds. But now, the explanation which satisfies me the most is that the whole thing is just a dream. Okay, bear with me...

Donnie is mentally ill, lets say some form of depression. He decides to take his own life; an overdose before he goes to bed. As he lays there, he justifies his actions by coming up with the story that we watch.

I've almost been in that position myself. Everyone is saying "things will get better", and "something might happen tomorrow which could change your life entirely", and "if you kill yourself, it will harm your family".

So, he imagines a scenario in which even if he met the girl of his dreams, she and his family would still be better of without him... well, they would be alive. He justifies taking his own life to save others.

The only bit that we see for real is towards the end when he is in bed, laughing quietly to himself. From this perspective, it's a very empty, sad film. But the saddest thing is that somewhere, right now, someone is seeing their own version of it, just as they breathe their last breath."

Posted by: :-) mark on Aug 16, 05 Source: Metaphilm.com

New Award for Maggie

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The US movie "Sherrybaby," starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and directed by Laurie Collyier, won the Bronze Horse for best film at the Stockholm International Film Festival, organizers said.

Gyllenhaal also took home the award for best actress for her role in the film as Sherry, a young woman released from jail after serving a three-year sentence for a crime she committed as a 19-year-old heroin addict and who struggles to reestablish a relationship with her young daughter.

"A pure and heartbreaking work about survival and dignity. It takes you on a desperate quest for love, through a landscape of struggle, guilt and broken dreams which at times is hard to watch yet impossible to forget," the jury said in its motivation.

The best actor award went to Ryan Gosling for his role as a junior high school teacher who is caught by one of his students in a compromising situation in the movie "Half Nelson", while best directorial debut went to Daniel Sanchez Arevalo of Spain for "Darkbluealmostblack."

The award for best screenplay was won by Beatrix Christian for the Australian movie "Jindabyne," while the best cinematography nod went to Anthony Dod Mantle of Britain for "The Last King of Scotland."

US family road comedy "Little Miss Sunshine" by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris took home the festival's Audience Award.

Earlier on Saturday, Swedish director Lasse Hallstroem, known for his movies "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "The Cider House Rules," "Chocolat" and "Casanova," was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Source: News.Yahoo.com

More Lakers pictures

Pic 1: Bored, 2: Pensive, 3: Comfortable, 4: Pissed off.