Woman claims Zodiac killer was her dad

A SOUTHERN California woman today said her late father was the infamous Zodiac killer who terrorised the San Francisco Bay area four decades ago.

San Francisco homicide investigators said they will check into the information from Deborah Perez, who said her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, killed at least two of the known victims 40 years ago, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...005961,00.html

more 'news' at

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518404,00.html

[rosa who else]

I'm going to wait for the forensics to come back. I have so many thoughts about what she said.

If her adoptive father is dead, how are they going to trace what blood and saliva evidence they've been able to recover?

How could a small child help write the letters? She said she was around 7 at the time. Possibly she wrote the plain English ones, not the ciphers.

As for the sketch of the Zodiac, maybe it does look like her father, but it's also a dead ringer for an old boss of mine. The sketch also looks just like the Trailside Killer -- and I think they already caught him. Did they ever compare the two?

How come she never saw the sketch before now? It's not like it was a local mystery.

If those are Paul Stine's glasses, I hope they weren't drugstore readers and hope the police got his prescription at the time.

[franjava]

If she has cryptic letters, she could easily have gotten the key from this book. I haven't read the book in 20 years or so, but I remember at least parts of some letters published inside.

I have a second book here in front of me - Zodiac Umasked - which also has copies of the letters. They do NOT look like they were written by a 7 yo. (I have not actually finished this book because it's not as interesting as the other I mentioned.)

[purpleiguana]

I'm thinking... if the Zodiac killer (or any kind of killer) were my dad, that's not how I'd want my 15 minutes of fame.

[snopes]

Deborah Perez announced at a news conference in San Francisco that she even rode in the car with the 1960s Bay Area serial killer when he went out to kill. Police are waiting for proof.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,5356822.story

[Ms. K]

I think Deborah Perez is full of crap. Too much just doesn't seem to match up. I think she's a whackaloon.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The front page of zodiackiller.com, one of the more comprehensive sites on the subject, takes a pretty dim view of Ms. Perez:

The story told Wednesday by Deborah Perez at the press conference in San Francisco differs from the original claims she made to me about a year ago via e-mail and voicemail, which I still have.

Why has Perez changed her story? Why did she lie about being related to the ex-husband of a Zodiac victim? Why was her spokesman disbarred from practicing law in California?

[RivkahChaya]

As for the sketch of the Zodiac, maybe it does look like her father, but it's also a dead ringer for an old boss of mine. The sketch also looks just like the Trailside Killer -- and I think they already caught him. Did they ever compare the two?

Did any of the new articles show a picture of her father?

[Ali Infree]

Did any of the new articles show a picture of her father?

I would like to see any photos as well. It seems especially odd that she would keep this to herself all this time. If she tagged along on her step-father's murders, wouldn't she have seen the sketch then? A serial killer like Zodiac liked to see the public disruption they cause. So, the newspapers might have been lying around for her to see.

Without more information from independent sources, I call bogus.

Ali "as the LA media shudders " Infree

[RivkahChaya]

One thing I would be willing to believe is something which actually was a police theory at the time, that the person who wrote the Zodiac letters was taking credit for murders committed by other people--different people-- and her father could have been this person.

But that a killer took a witness with him to his crime scenes? Highly improbable.

It's also remotely possible that she remembers her father trying to decrypt the Zodiac ciphers that were published in the papers, and maybe they visited the murder scenes. From what I understand, lots of people did.

But, yeah, most likely she's just an attention-seeking liar.

[HelloLlama]

I have been following the Zodiac case for years and this is one of the worst theories yet. He took a 7 year old girl along with him for the murders? Please. And she didn't come forward until 40 years later, even though she supposedly has a victim's glasses? Not very likely.

I noticed that she is making a documentary about her father. Clearly she thinks she can make a few bucks off of this. I think that's her motive for coming forward now. I know that zodiackiller.com has a suspect they have been investigating, and one of the articles briefly mentioned a viable suspect being investigated. I don't know if they are the same person, but neither suspect is this lady's father. I think she wants to get her story out before some better suspect comes along and renders her story and the resulting documentary useless.

[TrishDaDish]

If my Da had taken me out for murder sprees when I was 7, I would be extremely effed up today. I mean, even if I just sat in the car waiting for him to return...if the dude told me he was offing people and to just wait in the car, I would be seriously effed up from that.