True Crime Tuesday November 5th, 2024 - A Zodiac Rabbit Hole - The Kathleen Johns Incident
An example of a Zodiac Rabbit Hole and how complicated singular aspects of the case can be.
To me, the interesting elements surrounding the Zodiac case are the unknowns—not just the big things, like his identity or his motives behind the murders, but the small and innocuous moments in the case that come across as unsettling but remain unverified.
Take the Kathleen Johns incident. This event has been one of the most widely debated aspects of the Zodiac case. There are multiple reasons behind this, with the main one being how Kathleen's responses changed throughout the years. Today, we'll take a look at it and see what can be deciphered from our end.
As always, this newsletter is supported by you, the reader. Your likes, comments, subscriptions, and shares go a long way. If you know someone who’d be interested in this, feel free to forward it to them.
The Kathleen Johns Incident
On March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns, aged 22, was driving with her 10-month-old daughter Jennifer westbound on Highway 132.1 She was intending to visit her sick mother that night. When she got near Interstate 5, she noticed a tan, late-model vehicle attempting to get her attention. A man inside was following her while flashing his high beams. When she pulled over, he approached with a tire iron in hand, stating that he saw one of her rear wheels had started to wobble. He offered to tighten them for her, and after a few minutes of working on the tire, he returned to the window and said she would be good to go.
Johns started her trek to her mother's once more, but a few feet down the road the tire came off. The man circled back, said it was probably worse than his initial diagnosis, and offered to take the woman in his car to the next service station. Without much of a choice, considering how barren that stretch of highway was and worrying about having a baby in tow, Kathleen agreed to allow his assistance.
The next part of the story differs depending on the source. For simplicity, let’s cover the initial recollection.
Kathleen noticed a service station not far from where she stalled. When she asked the man why he didn't stop, he evaded her question by bringing up an unrelated subject. This continued for an hour to an hour and a half. They would continue to drive down the highway, passing several service stations along the way, and whenever Kathleen would tell him she saw one, he would ignore her or change the subject.
Johns started to feel uneasy about the driver of the vehicle. With highways and side roads making up most of the drive, she saw little opportunity to escape. Finally, she noticed the man slowing down for a stop sign near a field. She told him that she felt like she was going to be sick and opened the car door. The man rolled to a stop, and Kathleen grabbed her baby and darted from the car. She ran deep into the field, hiding her child. The man sat in the cab, waiting for her until finally closing the door and driving off. Kathleen returned to the road to flag down the next vehicle before returning to the field and securing her infant.
She caught a ride to the Patterson Police Department, where the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department was alerted to the abduction taking place in their jurisdiction. She was distraught and inconsolable, and when her eyes caught a sketch photo that was on the wall of the precinct, she became even more crazed. That was the man, she stated. The man from the picture was the same person who had driven her around that night and terrorized her and her child.
When the Sargeant who was assisting looked over to see what picture Kathleen was alluding to, they saw that it was the sketch of the infamous Zodiac Killer. The one composed after he had shot cab driver Paul Stein. When police finally made it back to Kathleen John's car to gather evidence, they found it burned out completely, with the tires wiped of any fingerprints or remnants of the kidnapper.
The Aftermath
At first, not much came of the strange drive in March. As I wrote about last week regarding Zodiac, the height of his infamy ebbed and flowed through the years. It wouldn't be until months later when Zodiac claimed in a letter that it was indeed him who had taken Johns on that terror-filled ride that the public even considered its validity. Since then, its cannon in the Zodiac timeline has only been strengthened, especially after the incident's inclusion in Robert Graysmith's bestseller and the Zodiac film from 2007.
On July 24, 1970, Zodiac mailed a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle complaining about the lack of Zodiac buttons he wanted to see around town. Inside that letter, Zodiac claims he took Johns and her daughter that night. That spring and summer was an interesting time for Zodiac correspondence, with letters coming in April, June, and July after no letters from the killer after December of the previous year. That Christmas, Melvin Belli had gotten one where the killer had pleaded for the attorney to help him stop his crime spree. It was also during this time when the police were more concerned about Zodiac setting off a bomb or attacking busloads of school children.
The Johns letter followed ones that included bomb diagrams and a cipher that supposedly hid his name. Each letter appeared to be Zodiac doing his best to push the buttons of the public at large. What I've always remembered about the note is that its subject isn't the abduction. Zodiac writes about his frustration with not seeing Zodiac buttons, and how he plans to punish the city for not following his demands. Johns being terrified is almost an afterthought. He complains about the buttons, quotes the Mikado, and nonchalantly writes about kidnapping Johns and her child before burning her car to the ground.
This is the Zodiac speaking I am rather unhappy because you people will not wear some nice (Zodiac symbol) buttons. So now I have a little list, starting with the woeman + her baby that I gave a rather intersting ride for a couple howers one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car where I found them.
At this stage in Zodiac's spree, he only taunted the press and antagonized from afar. It was easy to do and it took little effort. When you look at the actual murders, they are meticulous and planned out. They must have been for him to swoop in, do what he wanted, and leave without anyone seeing. Zodiac is suspected of killing Cheri Jo Bates, the supposed Riverside City College victim. The killer in that murder had disabled her distributor and ignition coil. The similarities with how both men damaged a car with some inside know-how made investigators working the Zodiac case interested in both crimes. However, due to there being no physical evidence and Kathleen already submitting a police report with a description matching a sketch they already had, there wasn't much that could assist with their investigation.
The Johns letter was also sent right before the infamous Mikado/Little List letter2. It often gets overlooked because the Mikado letter lends more to Zodiac as a person rather than a random statement about a previous crime we didn't know about. The thing that sticks out the most about the Kathleen Johns incident is how believable it is for Zodiac to be the one who pulled it off.
In the sphere of what we know about him, and what we know about things he may have done, it’s possible that he has enough knowledge to disable a vehicle. We know he knows the rural sections of Vallejo and the surrounding area due to the location of his first attacks and knowing when people would be alone. He matched the sketch photo from San Francisco. He had enough knowledge of procedural police work to return to the car Kathleen was driving and destroy it enough that nothing could be gathered.
In the wave of letters Zodiac had been sending the Chronicle the previous year, he mentioned that he would no longer tell the media or the police how he was killing his victims. Also, the Zodiac changing his MO to suit his needs had already happened, with the Lake Berryessa attack differing from the ones before it, and then Paul Stein varying greatly from what happened at the lake. It's perfectly reasonable to think that if the killer had already changed one aspect of his attacks numerous times he could easily switch it up to disabling a young woman's vehicle out in the middle of nowhere. Zodiac also drove a tan car, according to Michael Mageau. All of these facts strengthen the narrative of the Zodiac committing the abduction.
Arguments
Zodiac is a liar. Once you realize someone is a liar, your best bet is to not believe anything they say. Someone rarely lies about one specific thing in life. Typically, if they lie about one thing, they are being dishonest about other aspects of their lives. The reason I say that is people don't become good at lying unless they have some practice in it. Lying takes effort, and keeping all the facts regarding the lie can be exhausting. Most people do their best to avoid that kind of stress. But people who are good at lying or who lie a lot build a resistance around that trait, so much that they don't even realize that they are fibbing after some time.
Zodiac can be called out for many lies. He said he would shoot a school bus and take out the children as they exited. He said he was going to set off a bomb and dedicated multiple letters discussing it before ultimately never producing one. He said he would reveal his name in the ciphers, but once they were solved, his identity remained a mystery. He said he would not detail his crimes anymore, and then admitted to being the one who took Johns that night in his car.
When someone is caught in a singular lie, it's understandable if you give them the benefit of the doubt. But after multiple lies, then it's time to assess if this person is trustworthy at all. Zodiac isn't. At this time of the investigation, he was doing his best to rile up Paul Avery and Dave Toschi. He loved the press he received, and the easiest way to get more was to do so from the comfort of his home. Zodiac had gotten more brazen with each passing crime, but I believe he realized that causing panic with his letters was more effective than stalking victims. It took work planning to kill people without getting caught. He was able to accomplish the same goals he had by writing to the Chronicle and having them drum up news stories for him.
The newspapers reported Kathleen Johns' claims of being captured by Zodiac just one day after it occurred. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Zodiac saw it in the paper and decided that it was easy pickings for his goals of terror. If a crazed woman who insisted on him being her abductor did more for his image, why not? Plus, it goes along with his claims of disguising his crimes. I couldn't picture anyone in that position who would scoff at the chance for more infamy.
Zodiac was known to pay close attention to the newspapers at the time, as he was obsessed with how they wrote about him and his deeds. It's fully in the realm of possibility that he saw the reporting in March, waited a few months for added drama, and then wrote the letter claiming it was him.
Kathleen herself has made the story's validity doubtful. There's no question as to if the events happened. It's become clear that Kathleen wasn't dishonest about the abduction. But Kathleen's recounting of the tale has changed so much that most people have a different picture of what transpired that night than what was reported to law enforcement.
Kathleen's recounting has been altered numerous times. This telling has replaced the initial police report. Johns has since stated that the man who picked her up made threatening comments throughout the ride. She said he said things about throwing Kathleen's baby out the window as well as asking Johns if she was aware that she was going to die that night. When she asked him if he always helped out people in need, he told her that when he was done with them they didn't require more help. She also stated when she jumped from the car once he stopped, he got out and began screaming at her, only leaving when a semi-truck pulled up along the stretch of highway. This version of the story is so widespread that it was included in the David Fincher film.
However, the police report omitted all of these elements of the crime. There are two assumptions that can be gathered from this: either Johns didn't report these facts to the case, which is somewhat logical considering her mental state at the time of her rescue, or they simply didn't happen, and Johns got so caught up in the notoriety of being involved in the Zodiac case that she started to embellish.
When law enforcement deals with eyewitness accounts, the facts must stay consistent through not just an entire investigation, but if and when the crime eventually makes its way to court. If a witness changes their story, it causes issues with the case. The reason behind that is simple, only consistency with the account of the events leads people to believe that the truth is being told. Once facts start to be altered, it raises too many questions. Considering this event will never impact a trial, it may not sound important to keep the facts straight, but this is a moment in time that has been tied to Zodiac as something that took place within his crime spree. The importance of keeping the story straight makes it just as important as other crimes that were committed.
The tale changing after the first report was documented could mean several things, but Occam's razor tells us we should look at the most logical explanation. It could be that Kathleen got swept up in the madness surrounding the Zodiac case, and after getting some attention, she decided to run with it and add some flair. Things like this happen all the time, and it's understandable for a woman who went through a traumatic ordeal to add elements to what happened for her to be able to process it.
Think of it this way: you are a young woman traveling alone with your infant child. You are kidnapped by a crafty individual who gets you to enter his car. You escape with your life, and once you are taken into a police station, a man who looks exactly like your abductor is now staring you in the face from a police sketch for a crazed serial killer who shot a man not even a year prior. What would your mental capacity be after going through that?
Humans twist logic in their heads to suit their beliefs, not the facts we are presented. Johns went through hell that night, and for her to come face to face with a person of interest who was the spitting image of the man who had just taken her would cause anyone to start coming up with different memories about what could have happened to them.
Above is a video capture from Tom Voigt's ZodiacKiller.com which shows an excerpt from a 1998 episode of America's Most Wanted, one of the highest-rated true crime television magazine shows. Obviously, with it being filmed for 90s television and the production standards of the time, it looks dated and campy upon further examination. But the other thing that sticks out is how Kathleen, now known as Kathleen Smith, sounds convinced that her new story is actually what happened, rather than what she told police officers decades prior. Alongside the general public never finding out if this man was the Zodiac, we are now unaware of what exactly happened that fateful night in 1970 due to the shifting narrative about the evening in question. Was it what was reported to LEOs, or what Kathleen stated years later?
The other aspect of the crime is the description of her assailant. Johns described Zodiac as being around 160 pounds. Michael Mageau3 describes him as beefy, estimating around 200 pounds. It could be that Johns saw a man who looked similar to Zodiac. Horn-rimmed glasses and crew cuts weren't exactly rare in the 1960s and early 70s. It's possible that Zodiac lost weight before the abduction, but it's also plausible that it was someone else entirely.
Conclusion
Was Kathleen Johns a victim of the Zodiac?
Who knows.
I don't think one can definitely say yes or no about this subject. Sure, it sounds akin to something Zodiac would do. The problem is there's nothing definitive, much like most of Zodiac's actions, that ties the killer to the drive. We can hypothesize all we want, but it doesn't bring us closer to the answer.
The other element of the question is, does it matter? Though Kathleen and her daughter went through a tragic and scary event, if she did encounter the Zodiac, she escaped better than most. The main issue is her information would be nothing more than verifying that the police sketch was accurate. That does nothing without having someone to pin the crimes on.
The point is people have circled the drain on this moment for years, and we don't even know if the Zodiac Killer was involved. Much consternation and drama has surrounded the abduction, but it has done little to move any investigation into the murderer's crimes. Only one person knows if Zodiac was driving that tan vehicle that night, and that's the Zodiac himself.
It's best to be wary when researching these cases, lest you fall into one of these rabbit holes and find yourself unable to get out. Or worse yet, find yourself convinced about something that has no logical backing to it.
This week's recommendations are four websites where I gathered information about this abduction.
Feel free to visit them and take a gander at all the evidence and information they documented over the years. Just don't get too deep in that rabbit hole!
Stay safe out there.
Descriptions of Zodiac varied from each crime. You can find all documented eyewitness descriptions of him here: