The
Zodiac killer and Black Dahlia murderer were the SAME man: Explosive
investigation unmasks single suspect behind two of America's darkest
murders
By Rachel Sharp and Josh Boswell
Daily Mail
Dec 22, 2025
A
Composite sketch and description circulated by San Francisco Police as
they tried - in vain - to catch the Zodiac killer, who terrorized
northern California between 1968 and 1969
Two sadistic crimes that were the stuff of nightmares.
Two reigns of terror over California.
Two of the most notorious cases in history left unsolved for more than half a century.
But now, after all this time, one suspected killer unmasked.
In
a world exclusive, the Daily Mail can reveal that a new investigation
has concluded that the Zodiac killer and the murderer of the Black
Dahlia were the same man.
The FBI
and California police departments are reviewing the explosive theory -
and a trove of damning evidence has been unearthed by independent
investigators and is undergoing forensic analysis.
If the evidence passes scrutiny, it would mean that two of the world’s biggest murder mysteries will finally be solved.
Between
1968 and 1969, the Zodiac killer terrorized northern California,
murdering at least five victims while claiming to have slaughtered
dozens more. The phantom taunted the media and police with letters and
ciphers, daring the public to unravel his identity.
Two decades earlier in 1947, another slaying cast a shadow of fear over the state.
Aspiring
Hollywood actress Elizabeth Short, who became known as the Black
Dahlia, was found dead near a lovers’ lane in Los Angeles. Her body had
been mutilated - severed clean in half at the waist, with a grotesque
smile carved into her cheeks.
Now,
after more than a half-century of mystery, countless law enforcement and
amateur investigations, unsuccessful attempts to harness DNA testing,
and the world’s brightest codebreaking minds left defeated,
investigative consultant Alex Baber believes he has finally solved both
cases.
The phantom taunted the media and police with letters and ciphers, daring the public to unravel his identity
Two
decades earlier in 1947, aspiring Hollywood actress Elizabeth Short,
who became known as the Black Dahlia, was found dead and her body
mutilated in Los Angeles
The Zodiac killer hinted that the Z13 cipher he sent in April 1970 contained his true name. Baber, the co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America, claims he has finally cracked it using AI, newly released Census records and classic cryptography.
His solution revealed the name of a man who was also a prime suspect in Short’s murder.
He has also decrypted the Zodiac’s Z32 cipher, finding a solution that links to the murder of the Black Dahlia.
And
through his years-long investigation - including exhaustive reviews of
law enforcement files, court documents and public records - Baber has
uncovered a trove of circumstantial evidence that he believes proves
that the same man carried out both barbaric crimes.
A
man who had the medical experience to mutilate Short’s body with
chilling precision and had been in a relationship with her in the months
before she died.
A man with ties to
military code-breaking, who returned from the Second World War with a
bayonet matching the weapon used in one of the Zodiac’s attacks.
A man who left behind a deathbed confession that could connect the two cases.
Here, for the first time, the Daily Mail can reveal that man’s identity.
His name is… Marvin Margolis.
Who is Marvin Margolis?
Marvin
Skipton Margolis, who later used the alias Marvin Merrill, was born in
Chicago, Illinois, in 1925, to Russian and Polish parents.
In
1943, he joined the Navy and served with the 1st Marine Division as a
corpsman. Serving in the medical corps, Margolis learned both the
surgical and marksmanship skills seen in the Zodiac and Black Dahlia
crimes.
During the Second World War, he
was stationed overseas for 27 months and took part in the Okinawa
campaign - the last major battle between US and Japanese forces.
Marvin
Skipton Margolis was a prime suspect in the murder of Elizabeth Short.
He is seen in an enhanced image obtained by Alex Baber
Margolis
appeared in local paper The Garfieldian after he returned home from
World War II. The article showed him posing with a Japanese military
rifle
His Veteran Affairs records, obtained by a grand jury inquest, reveal a man with a disturbing temperament.
While in Okinawa, Margolis was buried
alive in a cave and was forced to dig his way out. Afterward, he was
described as ‘resentful’ and ‘apathetic’ with an affinity for
‘aggression.’
When asked by a military
neuropsychiatrist what he would do if another war broke out, Margolis
made the chilling comment: 'The next time there is a war, two of us are
not going - the one who comes after me and myself.’
His
resentment also stemmed from a ‘persistent demand and desire’ to serve
in the surgical unit - a post repeatedly denied to him - and he left the
Navy on 50 percent mental disability grounds.
Along
with battle wounds, Margolis brought home a distinctive Japanese rifle
and bayonet with a wooden sheath, according to a 1945 newspaper article
and his youngest son. That bayonet would later tie him to the Zodiac
killings.
After leaving the military,
he moved to Los Angeles and enrolled as a medical student at the
University of Southern California (USC) in 1946, where his first task
was to dissect a human corpse.
Due to
his medical experience and brief - allegedly volatile - relationship
with Short, Margolis quickly fell on law enforcement’s radar after her
murder. Court records from the 1949-1950 LA grand jury investigation
into Short's murder identified ‘Marvin Margolis’ as one of 22 suspects.
But
as Short’s murder made headlines, he fled LA, moving between Chicago,
Atlanta, Arizona and Kansas, and changing his name to Marvin Merrill,
according to social security records.
Newly named Merrill returned to California a couple of years before the first confirmed Zodiac attack, records show.
The Zodiac, Baber believes, took his moniker from the scene where he may have slaughtered Short two decades earlier.
Baber
claims that his weapon of choice for one confirmed Zodiac attack was
also personal: the Japanese military bayonet he brought back from the
war.
In his final years, after a
terminal cancer diagnosis, Merrill drew a macabre sketch, featuring a
woman named Elizabeth and what appears to be a single hidden word
‘ZoDiac.’
Baber believes that this chilling drawing now amounts to a confession.
The
Daily Mail has spent several months reviewing Baber's investigation,
combing through hundreds of documents and records shared by his team.
‘It's irrefutable. It's just mathematically impossible for it not to be him,’ Baber told the Daily Mail.
‘With
all the connections, either he's the unluckiest man in the history of
the world - in the wrong place at the wrong time, every time - or he's
the perpetrator.’
An investigation backed by police and leading experts
While
independent investigators and amateur sleuths claim to have solved the
cases in the past, Baber says his investigation is different because it
has caught the attention of active law enforcement.
Baber
said he met twice with the California police departments responsible
for the Zodiac case and that they are now reviewing his findings.
Following
an initial meeting with the San Francisco Police Department, the Daily
Mail has confirmed he was invited to present his evidence to the
interagency group with jurisdiction over the Zodiac crimes - consisting
of the SFPD, Napa County Sheriff’s Office, Solano County Sheriff’s
Office and the FBI (Vallejo Police were the only agency not in
attendance).
The Daily Mail has learned
that members of Baber’s team also met with LAPD Police Chief Jim
McDonnell back in October, who then directed his robbery-homicide
division to look into the findings related to the Black Dahlia. The
Daily Mail has contacted the LAPD for information about where this
currently stands.
Baber’s findings have also been backed by several experts.
Alex Baber believes he has solved the Z13 cipher using classic cryptography methodologies, newly-released Census data and AI
Ed
Giorgio, the former Chief US Codemaker and Chief US Codebreaker at the
National Security Agency (NSA), told the Daily Mail that he agrees Baber
has solved the Z13 cipher based on both the solution itself and the
breadth of circumstantial evidence he has independently reviewed.
One
of the world’s leading handwriting analysts and forensic document
examiners, who works as a consultant for Baber’s organization, has said
in a sworn statement that a letter sent by the ‘Black Dahlia Avenger’ in
January 1947 matches three handwriting samples taken from the suspect’s
possessions. Baber’s team is submitting a comprehensive set of the
suspect’s writing samples to an independent third-party expert,
unaffiliated with the team, for an additional comparative analysis to
provide further confirmation.
Several
highly-regarded former law enforcement officers have also gone on the
record to say they believe both cases have now been solved once and for
all.
Among them are retired LAPD homicide detectives Mitzi Roberts and Rick Jackson.
‘I have no doubt this is the person,’ Jackson told the author Michael Connelly in Killer in the Code, a new podcast and website chronicling Baber’s investigation.
‘I
have no doubt at all. And that’s a lot to stake your reputation on but I
feel it’s totally overwhelming, circumstantial evidence and now it has
become mixed in with some physical evidence that supports Alex’s suspect
as being the Dahlia and Zodiac killers.’
Roberts,
who previously led the LAPD’s cold case team and reviewed numerous
theories in the Black Dahlia case, said: ‘It’s overwhelming evidence
that connects this man to these murders.
‘It’s hard to think that this person is not the person who was responsible for killing the Black Dahlia,’ she added.
‘I really believe he’s found the guy. He solved the Black Dahlia.’
Now,
in the latest development, Merrill’s youngest son has shared hundreds
of items of physical evidence with the team - items which are now being
forensically analyzed - though he told the Daily Mail he doubts the
theory his father is the killer.
The murder of the Black Dahlia
It
was the morning of January 15, 1947, when a woman walking with her
child through LA’s Leimert Park neighborhood came across a horrifying
sight: a naked body sliced cleanly in two at the waist.
Rather
than crude butchery, the cutting was precise, with care taken not to
damage the vital organs. This was, investigators believed, no work of an
amateur.
Her torso had been arranged
on grass near the sidewalk, arms posed above her head and face turned to
one side. Her lower body was posed off-center beneath, her legs splayed
outward.
It
was the morning of January 15, 1947, when a woman walking with her
child through LA’s Leimert Park neighborhood came across a horrifying
sight: a naked body sliced cleanly in two at the waist. Law enforcement
are seen on the crime scene
Police
officers on the scene where Short's body was found, in the grass next
to the sidewalk. Investigators concluded that the victim had met her
horrific end elsewhere and her body washed before being dumped in the
street for all to see
The
sadistic killer had carved a chunk of flesh from her left thigh, removed
a large square of skin from her right breast, and cut away a flap of
skin beside her left nipple, according to the autopsy report and
photographs. There were several more cuts and slashes to her chest and a
four-inch gash from her naval to lower abdomen, where a criss-cross
pattern had been chiseled into her skin.
A grotesque grin had been carved into her youthful face, extending two to three inches upward from each corner of her mouth.
Despite the extreme disfigurement, there was no blood at the scene.
Investigators
concluded that the victim had met her horrific end elsewhere and her
body washed before being dumped in the open for public discovery.
She was soon identified as 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who had moved from Massachusetts to Hollywood in search of stardom.
The
press dubbed her the Black Dahlia - a nickname given by friends because
of her affinity for sheer black clothing and her raven hair.
Long
before the Zodiac’s cat-and-mouse game years later, the murderer of the
Black Dahlia began corresponding with the local media.
It started with a phone call to Jimmy Richardson, editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, on January 23, 1947.
The
caller said he wanted to ‘congratulate’ Richardson on the newspaper’s
coverage of the murder but noted that ‘you seem to have run out of
material’. He promised to mail some of Short’s belongings.
Elizabeth
Short, 22, is pictured outside John Marshall High School in Los
Angeles. She had moved from Massachusetts to Hollywood in search of
stardom
The following day, a package was intercepted by postal authorities.
Words
cut from newspapers and magazines and pasted on the envelope read:
‘Here is Black Dahlia’s Belongings, Letter To Follow.’ Inside were
photographs, Short’s birth certificate, an address book and other
personal papers neatly clipped together.
Days
later, the Examiner received another letter, this one handwritten in
capital letters with black ink on a one-cent US government postcard.
The
sender claimed that he had ‘had my fun at police’ and promised to
surrender on January 29. It was signed: ‘Black Dahlia Avenger.’
January 29 came and went. No one appeared.
More letters followed, including a crude drawing of a dagger dripping with blood.
As
the correspondence continued, investigators began scrutinizing Short’s
acquaintances - and Margolis quickly came under suspicion.
A jealous ex-Marine lover
Due
to the precision with which Short’s body had been dissected, detectives
believed that the killer had surgical training and focused on students
at nearby medical schools, an FBI memo shows.
Before
joining the military, Margolis had taken a pre-medical course in
Illinois. After the war, he enrolled at USC’s medical school.
As
the grand jury records later said: ‘It should be noted further that
this suspect, Marvin Margolis, is the only pre-medical student who ever
lived as a boyfriend with Beth Short.’
Long
before the Zodiac’s cat-and-mouse game years later, the killer of the
Black Dahlia began corresponding with the media. He sent a package
containing these belongings days after her murder
Days
later, another letter arrived in which the sender claimed that he had
‘had my fun at police’ and promised to surrender on January 29. It was
signed: ‘Black Dahlia Avenger.’
Based on investigative records, Baber believes Short and Margolis met in Chicago in the summer of 1946 and began dating.
That
October - three months before her murder - Short moved into an
apartment in LA with Margolis, her friend Margorie Graham and Margolis’s
friend Bill Robinson, the grand jury records show.
Margolis’s
close friendship with Robinson would potentially pave the way for the
Zodiac’s codemaking game two decades later. During the war, Robinson had
served in the Army’s Signal Intelligence Service - the military’s
specialist codebreaking division - which used the classical
cryptographic techniques later seen in the Zodiac ciphers.
Short’s relationship with the resentful veteran Margolis soon unraveled.
After
living together for just 12 days, she fled the apartment. Witness
accounts suggest that the sudden rupture stemmed from her attending a
CBS broadcast with another man.
The terrified 22-year-old travelled to San Diego, seemingly to escape Margolis.
On the night of January 7, 1947, two mystery men and a woman appeared at the friend’s home where she was staying.
The next day, Short returned to LA, where Margolis was now living with Robinson and Short's former roommate Lynn Martin.
In
the weeks and months leading up to her death, Short confided in friends
and acquaintances that she feared for her life at the hands of a
jealous ex-boyfriend.
Those fears seemed to peak on January 14, 1947.
A high school yearbook photo of Marvin Margolis, who was in a doomed relationship with Short before her death
That
day, Officer Myrl McBride later recalled a troubling encounter with a
woman she identified as Short at a downtown Los Angeles bus station.
The
woman approached McBride hysterically sobbing, saying that she had
bumped into her 'insanely jealous' ex-Marine boyfriend, who had
threatened to kill her if she went out with another man.
Among
Short’s known boyfriends and the 22 suspects named in the grand jury
records, Margolis was the only one with ties to the Marine Corps, Baber
has learned.
McBride escorted the woman
to retrieve her purse from a nearby bar where she had seen the former
boyfriend. They then parted ways, with the woman believed to be Short
planning to meet someone arriving by bus from San Diego that evening.
Final hours and the inspiration for the Zodiac
What
exactly unfolded in the few hours between this last purported sighting
of Short and the discovery of her mutilated body the following morning
is known only to her killer.
But that
night, witnesses waiting at a bus stop in North Long Beach reported
hearing screams coming from a passing black sedan, according to
contemporaneous media reports.
Inside, they saw a man and woman in the front seat, and a second woman being pinned down by a fourth person in the back.
That same night, a man driving a black sedan approached at least three motels around San Pedro asking for a room with a bathtub.
Employees
at the Harbor Moon Motel, Normandie Motel and Hillcrest Motel all
recalled a nervous, jittery man - who matched Margolis’s physical
description - insisting that he needed a tub for his wife, police said.
Curiously, the man parked his car far from the motel entrances. No one saw his wife.
When no suitable room was available, the man moved on.
Because
there was no blood where Short’s body was found, investigators
theorized that she had been dissected and washed in a bathtub.
Detectives scoured the area for a so-called ‘torture room’ - but it was
never found.
Roughly ten miles north of the three motels was a place called the Zodiac Motel.
The motel formerly known as the Zodiac Motel where Baber believes Elizabeth Short was mutilated by her killer
An
advert for the opening of the Zodiac Motel in June 1946. Baber believes
this was the inspiration for the Zodiac killer's name two decades later
The
Zodiac Motel opened in June 1946 in Lynwood, an advertisement from the
time shows. A 1951 auction listing for the same 22-lot property
describes ‘modern facilities’ including ‘Bath.’
While
the inspiration for the Zodiac killer’s moniker has long been
attributed to a watch brand, Baber’s investigation suggests it may
instead have referred to where Short took her last breath.
Supporting
that theory was the discovery of a canvas iceman’s bag marked with a
letter ‘Z’ and containing red stains found a four-minute drive from
where her body was left. In the 1940s, ice delivery workers commonly
marked bags with the initials of the motels they served, raising the
possibility that the bag came from the Zodiac Motel.
The Zodiac Motel would have also aligned with one possible route between the bus stop, the other motels and the dump site.
Were
witnesses at the bus stop unknowingly watching as Short was driven in
terror toward her death - in a bathtub in a room at the Zodiac Motel?
Was the Black Dahlia the Zodiac’s first victim?
And
were the Zodiac murders the continuation of a violent man’s obsession
with his own girlfriend who he had murdered and mutilated two decades
earlier?
Following Short’s murder,
Margolis, Robinson and Martin all lied to investigators about their
connections to the victim, according to grand jury records. Social
Security documents show that Margolis also began using the name Merrill.
During the grand jury investigation, police tried to track him down in Chicago for further questioning.
A
photo in a newspaper shows police officers looking at a canvas iceman’s
bag marked with a letter ‘Z’ found close to where Short's body was
found. Baber believes this supports his theory about the Zodiac Motel
LA
Deputy District Attorney Arthur Veitch warned that Margolis must not be
alerted that he was still under scrutiny: ‘If we do that, we might
inadvertently, [enable] the culprit to escape punishment forever.’
Ultimately, investigators were unable to find him.
The case went cold. No one was ever charged with the murder of Elizabeth Short.
The Zodiac killer’s campaign of terror
Twenty years went by and Los Angeles - and the rest of California - moved on.
Merrill
married his first wife and the couple had two children. For reasons
that remain unclear, he abandoned his ambition of becoming a surgeon.
Instead, while living in Chicago, he worked as a used car salesman.
When
his first marriage ended, he remarried, had two more children and
became stepfather to a daughter from his wife’s previous relationship.
If Merrill feared that law enforcement was catching up with him, he didn’t show it.
On the contrary, he appeared to crave media attention.
After
moving to Kansas in 1960, he reinvented himself as an artist and was
the subject of a newspaper article in which he claimed to have studied
under Salvador Dali and embellished his military record.
When
he returned to California with his family in 1962 and entered real
estate, he boasted in local papers of plans to build an 11-story hotel
in Oceanside.
After
moving to Kansas in 1960, Marvin Merrill reinvented himself as an
artist and was the subject of a newspaper article in which he claimed to
have studied under Salvador Dali and embellished his military record
In September 1964, Merrill also sent a cryptic letter to the editor of The San Diego Union under his new alias.
It
read: ‘If we look at the past, as the liberal members of our society
suggest, perhaps we should look at this situation: Violent
demonstrations were, in the past, considered crimes, it seems that, now
violent crimes are considered “demonstrations.”’
Soon afterward, California faced a new bogeyman: the Zodiac killer.
In
December 1968, quiet lovers’ lanes and remote beauty spots in the Bay
Area became a serial killer’s hunting ground under the cover of darkness
- places where moments of romance and stolen kisses quickly turned to
moments of horror and stolen lives.
By the end of 1969, five victims were dead and two injured across four apparently random attacks in the Bay Area.
The
killer - who called himself ‘the Zodiac’ and adopted a distinctive
crosshair symbol - sent 21 confirmed letters and four ciphers to local
newspapers, goading police and threatening more unhinged violence.
The
correspondence - which continued into the mid-1970s - was riddled with
phonetic misspellings, including ‘frunt’ for ‘front’, ‘victoms’ for
‘victims’ and ‘paradice’ for ‘paradise’.
The
Zodiac’s first confirmed attack occurred on the night of December 20,
1968, when a young couple’s first date became their last.
David
Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, were found murdered along
a lovers’ lane on Lake Herman Road just outside Vallejo. Faraday was
killed execution-style with a single shot to the back of the head with a
.22-caliber semi-automatic sidearm, while Jensen was hit five times as
she ran for her life.
Seven months
later, on July 4, 1969, the killer struck again two miles away, shooting
Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Michael Mageau, 19, as they sat in Ferrin's car
in Blue Rock Springs Park, Vallejo.
David
Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, were found murdered along
a lovers’ lane on Lake Herman Road just outside Vallejo on December 20,
1968
Faraday
was killed execution-style with a single shot to the back of the head
with a .22-caliber semi-automatic sidearm, while Jensen was hit five
times as she ran for her life
The Zodiac killer targeted Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Michael Mageau, 19, in Blue Rock Springs Park, Vallejo, on July 4, 1969
Ferrin
died after being shot nine times. Mageau was hit four times and
survived, later telling police that the attacker simply walked up to the
car and opened fire without uttering a word.
Later
that month, the Zodiac began his game with the media - sending letters
to three local newspapers in which he claimed responsibility for both
attacks and included his first cipher.
On August 2, 1969, the Z408 cipher was published, shocking the public and setting off a race to crack the killer’s code.
Within days, a couple had succeeded.
‘I like killing people because it is so much fun ... man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill,’ it read in part.
The
warped text closely echoes The Most Dangerous Game, a short story -
later adapted into a film - about a killer hunting humans for sport. An
adaptation was screening at The Marcal Theater in LA the week of the
Black Dahlia murder and Short herself is believed to have seen it days
before she died, according to grand jury records. The theater was owned
by her acquaintance Mark Hansen.
Days after the cipher appeared, the Zodiac myth was born.
In
a letter to the Examiner on August 4, the killer declared his chilling
moniker for the first time, writing: ‘This is the Zodiac speaking.’
In
August 1969, the Zodiac began his game with the media - sending letters
to three local newspapers in which he claimed responsibility for both
attacks and included his first cipher, the Z408
On
August 2, 1969, the Z408 cipher was published. Within days, a couple
had succeeded in cracking it. ‘I like killing people because it is so
much fun ... man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill,’ it read
in part
The
warped text closely echoes The Most Dangerous Game, a short story -
later adapted into a film - about a killer hunting humans for sport. An
adaptation was screening at The Marcal Theater in LA the week of the
Black Dahlia murder, this advert shows
The
next confirmed kill came on September 27, when a man wearing a black
cloth hood emblazoned with the Zodiac’s crosshair symbol attacked Bryan
Hartnell, 20, and Cecilia Shepard, 22, in Lake Berryessa.
After
holding the couple at gunpoint in the remote beauty spot, the assailant
stabbed them repeatedly with a bayonet-type weapon. Shepard later died
from her injuries. Hartnell survived.
The
bayonet, described in police filings as a nine to 11-inch
military-style blade, marked a departure from the Zodiac’s usual murder
weapon of choice.
It was also a weapon familiar to Merrill.
According
to Baber’s analysis of a 1945 photograph and accounts from Merrill’s
son, he had returned home from the war with a Japanese Nagoya rifle
mounted with a Type 30 bayonet.
Such
bayonets feature long blades, wooden handles and distinctive markings
denoting the manufacturer and serial type - symbols that resemble those
that the Zodiac adopted in his ciphers. That weapon is now believed to
be in the possession of Merrill’s family, possibly holding crucial DNA
evidence.
Days after the Lake Berryessa
attack - on October 11 - 29-year-old cab driver Paul Stine was shot
dead in his taxi in the upscale Presidio Heights neighborhood of San
Francisco.
Initially, his death was
treated as an unrelated robbery until the Zodiac sent a piece of his
blood-stained shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Stine was the Zodiac’s last confirmed victim.
The next confirmed kill came on September 27, 1969, in the remote beauty spot of Lake Berryessa
Bryan Hartnell, 20, survived but Cecilia Shepard, 22, died from her injuries after being stabbed multiple times
The killer was wearing a black cloth hood emblazoned with the Zodiac’s crosshair symbol
Although
police officially do not attribute any other murders to the Zodiac, his
final letter boasted of 37 victims and several other crimes are thought
to bear the serial killer’s hallmarks.
One such case strongly indicates a link to Merrill.
On the night of April 10, 1962, 29-year-old cab driver Ray Davis was murdered after picking up a fare to Oceanside.
The
next day, his body was found in an alley in the affluent beachfront
area, his car abandoned 15 blocks away. Davis had been shot in the back
and head with a .22-caliber semi-automatic firearm loaded with long
rifle rounds - the same type of weapon and ammunition used in the
Zodiac’s first confirmed attack at Lake Herman Road.
The
parallels with the murder of Stine - both cab drivers shot
execution-style after taking fares to wealthy neighborhoods - fueled
speculation that Davis was an early Zodiac victim.
After
Davis’s killing, police also received a call from a man claiming
responsibility and threatening to target a bus driver - eerily mirroring
the Zodiac’s later threat against a school bus.
Throughout
the Zodiac’s spree, Merrill’s son told the Daily Mail the family was
living in Vista, Southern California – and he said they were in Kansas
in 1962 when Davis was murdered.
But
public records list Merrill in Oceanside just one month before Davis’s
murder, at an ‘Elm Street’ address. Baber pointed out that there is an
‘Elm Street’ less than two blocks from where the cab was abandoned.
Days
after the Lake Berryessa attack - on October 11 - 29-year-old cab
driver Paul Stine was shot dead in his taxi in the upscale Presidio
Heights neighborhood of San Francisco
Initially,
his death was treated as an unrelated robbery until the Zodiac sent a
piece of his blood-stained shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle. Stine
was the Zodiac’s last confirmed victim
Baber
asserted that Merrill was linked to addresses in San Jose, northern
California, and that he worked there for computer company Intel in 1969,
placing him in the Bay Area at the time of the Zodiac murders.
The Daily Mail's investigation found the addresses and Intel job were from a later period.
And
Merrill's son, who was around seven years old at the time of the Zodiac
murders, told the Daily Mail that his father was 'broke' and never
traveled far from their southern California home.
The son said this is one of the biggest unanswered questions in Baber's theory.
But
Merrill is also believed to have had access to other properties across
the Bay Area - as well as multiple vehicles - through his construction,
real estate and car repair businesses, allowing him potential proximity
to the Zodiac killings.
The Zodiac’s cryptic communications and menacing letters did not end with Stine’s murder.
Then, in March 1971, the letters abruptly stopped.
A three-year silence
The Zodiac fell silent for three years.
At the time, police were closing in on Merrill - but for entirely different reasons.
In April 1971, he became embroiled in a fraud investigation involving his Oceanside car repair business.
That
December, he was charged with grand theft, petty theft and false
advertising. He pleaded guilty to the latter two crimes and was
sentenced to 30 days in jail with three years’ probation, according to
media reports.
Merrill’s probation ended early, around January 1974, Baber said he learned from Merrill’s son.
It was then that the Zodiac resurfaced, sending what would be his final confirmed letter on January 31, 1974.
As with the Black Dahlia case, police never caught the Zodiac killer.
Only
one suspect has ever been publicly named by law enforcement - Arthur
Leigh Allen, a former teacher and Navy veteran later convicted of child
sexual abuse.
The
Z340 cipher was finally solved by a team of international codebreakers
in 2020 - more than half a century after the Zodiac sent it
In a letter sent in December 1969, the killer drew a crude sketch of a knife, labelling it: ‘The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac’
Baber has also decrypted the Zodiac’s Z32 cipher, finding a solution that links to the murder of the Black Dahlia
In
2002, Allen was excluded as the source of a partial DNA sample
recovered from a stamp on one of the envelopes sent by the Zodiac. The
sample was, however, too small to build a full genetic profile and the
findings remain inconclusive. Allen died in 1992.
Merrill, meanwhile, moved to Atlanta after the Zodiac killings and set up an insurance firm.
In
1978, his wife filed for divorce following a violent incident inside
the family home. Merrill’s youngest son told Baber’s team his father had
threatened to kill his stepsister, prompting his mother to desperately
try to defend her with a knife. Police were called and Merrill was
arrested. The son confirmed this incident to the Daily Mail.
Cracking the Zodiac’s unsolved ciphers
During
his campaign of terror, the Zodiac sent four ciphers: the Z408 in July
1969; the Z340 in November 1969; the Z13 in April 1970; and the final,
Z32, in June 1970.
While the Z408 was
solved almost immediately, it took another 51 years for the Z340 to be
cracked by a team of international codebreakers in December 2020.
Its
message included the chilling boast: ‘I hope you are having lots of fun
in trying to catch me. I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it
will send me to paradice [sic] all the sooner because now I have enough
slaves to work for me.’
The Z13 and Z32, by contrast, have never been conclusively solved.
The Z13 is widely believed to conceal the Zodiac’s real name, with its 13-character code preceded by the teaser: ‘My name is -’
Using
Al technology, Social Security Administration (SSA) birth records,
newly released Census records from 1950 and mirroring the methodologies
used to crack the Z340 cipher, Baber claims he has now decrypted Z13.
The
recent solving of the Z340 cipher had provided him with greater insight
into the Zodiac’s encryption methods, giving a clue as to which classic
decryption methodologies should be used for Z13.
He
also realized that the killer had to be listed in the 1950 Census. At
the time of the attacks, the Zodiac was believed to be between 35 and 45
years old - based on the San Francisco Police Department's profile and
eyewitness accounts from the last confirmed attack.
The
Z13 is widely believed to conceal the Zodiac’s real name, with its
13-character code preceded by the teaser: ‘My name is -’ Baber believes
he has finally decrypted it to reveal the name Marvin Merrill
And,
so, Baber obtained the newly released Census records as well as SSA
birth records for male names and surnames, and cross-referenced them.
He then used AI technology to narrow down the possible solutions, arriving at a single potential suspect: Marvin Merrill.
Baber
also claims to have discovered a solution to the last remaining cipher,
Z32, and is now awaiting independent verification that it does, as he
believes, provide a direct link between Zodiac and the Black Dahlia
murder.
Evidence from beyond the grave
Marvin
Merrill, Marvin Margolis, the Zodiac killer, the Black Dahlia Avenger.
Whichever name he allegedly went by at different times of his life, he
died in California in 1993 - seemingly taking his secrets with him.
But a cache of physical evidence could now bring those secrets into the open.
Merrill’s
youngest son has handed over boxes containing more than 200 items that
once belonged to his father – though he remains skeptical that he is in
fact the son of a serial killer.
Among the most damning pieces of evidence is one of the final sketches Merrill produced.
A
year before his death - a death he knew loomed as he battled terminal
cancer - he drew an image in black ink depicting a nude woman’s body
from the waist up, set against a darkly shaded background.
Distinctive
markings on her body and a possible dissection of her nipple closely
resemble the injuries inflicted on Short. If the sketch does depict
Short, Merrill revealed details only the killer could have known. It
wasn’t until 1994 - after Merrill died - that author John Gilmore
revealed previously unreleased information about the full extent of her
brutal wounds.
Beneath the figure
appears the name ‘ELIZABETH’, written in distinctive capital letters
that look eerily similar to the handwriting in the Zodiac’s letters.
Among
the most damning pieces of evidence is one of the final sketches
Merrill produced, depicting a naked woman named 'ELIZABETH'
Using
image-enhancement software, Baber searched for further clues. The
software revealed what appears to be the word ‘ZoDiac’ hidden beneath
the ink
The sketch is signed, ‘Marty Merrill ‘92’, matching his signature on checks and other documents provided by his son.
Using
image-enhancement software, Baber searched for further clues. The
software revealed what appears to be the word ‘ZoDiac’ hidden beneath
the ink. The Daily Mail also replicated the finding.
To
Baber, the sketch is Merrill’s deathbed confession - a single piece of
physical evidence in which the killer links both the Zodiac and Black
Dahlia crimes.
Merrill’s son has handed
the drawing over to Baber’s team and they claim to have shared it with a
forensic image analyst for independent review.
When
the Daily Mail asked the son about the sketch, he suggested it could
depict another woman, saying that his father had a girlfriend named
Elizabeth around the time it was drawn.
The
son said he did not know the girlfriend’s last name and revealed that
he and his father ‘weren’t close’ back then, having fallen out of
contact in the 1980s.
Other sketches of
naked women in odd poses, including one in which a woman appears to be
strung up and has a pronounced line across her midsection, have also
been found, Baber revealed.
Another
drawing depicting a voice-modulation device appears to mirror some of
the Zodiac’s technical, schematic diagrams of bombs as well as his use
of phonetic misspellings. In all, 92 words in the Zodiac’s 21 confirmed
letters and three of the 17 words in Merrill’s voice modulator sketch
are phonetically misspelled.
Another
of Marvin Merrill's drawings depicts a voice-modulation device which
Baber believes mirrors some of the Zodiac’s technical, schematic
diagrams of bombs
A Japanese Nagoya Type 30 bayonet like the type Marvin Margolis brought home from World War II according to his son
These bayonets feature symbols that mirror some of the Zodiac's symbols in his complex ciphers
There
are also business cards, checks under various aliases, Merrill’s
military discharge letter, and poetry he wrote - some of it centered on
obsession and love.
Numerous
handwriting examples have been collected and are now being sent to an
independent expert for comparison to both the Zodiac and Black Dahlia
killer’s letters.
Baber told the Daily
Mail that once the forensic analysis is conducted on the sketch and
handwriting analysis completed on the documents, police will have no choice but to take up the investigation - and close both cases once and for all.
‘They’re not beating down doors to solve these two cases. But once it’s in their face, they can’t deny it,’ he said.
‘We
need all the jurisdictions involved in the Zodiac and the Black Dahlia
to first acknowledge Marvin Merrill as a suspect based on the
information that we've uncovered, and then to identify him as the
perpetrator based on the physical evidence.’
Baber also believes more evidence remains to be discovered.
Merrill’s son told him that his father left him his journals and the Japanese military bayonet when he died.
'I don't believe dad did it'
Merrill’s
son told the Daily Mail that he remembered playing with his dad’s
bayonet when he was in elementary school but claimed he thought it was
from Korea, not Japan.
If the bayonet
was the weapon used by the Zodiac, Baber believes that its wooden handle
could contain DNA from the killer or the victims - and place Merrill at
the scene of the crime.
Baber told the
Daily Mail that Merrill’s youngest son admitted he now believes his
father was the Zodiac killer and the murderer of the Black Dahlia, based
on the evidence presented to him.
Marvin Merrill / Margolis handwriting samples, shared with Alex Baber for forensic analysis
Baber's team is seeking independent analysis of several handwriting samples from Merrill's son
However,
when contacted by the Daily Mail, the son - who wished to remain
anonymous - denied this and called the theory and findings ‘a
speculative cesspool’ and ‘fiction’: ‘I don't believe that dad did it.’
The
son insisted: ‘[The Black Dahlia murder] was 20 years before I was
born. I would love for the families to have peace in the Zodiac
killings. But there’s just no way it was my dad,’ he said in a phone
conversation Tuesday.
‘There's no way - just no way my dad killed kids.’
The
son - who would have been around six and seven years old at the time of
the Zodiac attacks - said he never saw anything in his father that
would support him being the Zodiac killer or the murderer of the Black
Dahlia.
The son claimed he did not even
know about his father’s relationship with Short or that he was a
suspect in her murder prior to being contacted by Baber around two years
ago.
When asked for his reaction to
that revelation, the son insisted he has not seen any evidence to
convince him he could be the perpetrator.
‘He's
the only dad I have. I didn't have any other dads that were or weren't
accused of anything. No epistemological reality to draw from, no memory.
There's nothing there. I was a little kid, and we never spoke of any of
this stuff,’ he said.
Merrill’s son
also offered an explanation for his father’s decision to change his last
name from Margolis to Merrill, saying that his dad told him it was
because of the antisemitism he faced in his business with a Jewish last
name.
‘With antisemitism in the 1950s
he was selling insurance in Atlanta, and no one would buy from the Jew,’
the son said. ‘He said that outright.’
Marvin
Merrill in an undated family photo. Merrill's youngest son told the
Daily Mail he does not believe his father is the perpetrator of the
Black Dahlia and Zodiac crimes
Enhanced image of Marvin Margolis/Merrill compared to the composite sketch of the Zodiac killer shared by SFPD
The
son also claimed his father did not speak to him about his time in LA
in the late-1940s or his military service, and that he does not know of
any links his father had to cryptography like that used by the Zodiac.
He
also denied that his father had the financial means to rent multiple
properties around California during the time the Zodiac was active,
insisting that the family was ‘broke’ – though he appeared to be unaware
of his father’s military benefits from his mental health discharge.
However he brushed off the possibility of his father’s involvement in the two cases.
‘I'm not forming any conclusions. I'm going to let the evidence speak for itself,’ he said.
‘Until I see the police say, oh my gosh, this is right, and then I'll have a reality to work with.’
The
son added that, even if law enforcement confirm Baber’s findings to be
correct, he will still be skeptical of his father’s guilt of the crimes.
Yet, despite his denials, the son confirmed to the Daily Mail he had shared some items with Baber’s team.
Before it’s too late…
For Baber, solving both cases and bringing closure to victims after so many years is deeply personal.
His
own family was rocked by tragedy, and he has long been troubled by the
thousands of unsolved murders that leave families without answers.
That led him to found his independent consulting group dedicated to revisiting complex cold cases.
‘My
moral compass tells me the bad guy can't get away,’ Baber said. ‘There
has to be a way to track him down and identify him. Even in a perfect
crime, there are the means with today's technological advances. I want
to ultimately make it where they have no place to run or hide.
Baber spoke to one of Elizabeth Short's relatives just before she died. More than 70 years had passed since her murder
Short's
family gathered at her funeral in Oakland in January 1947. Family
members of victims are still searching for the truth about both cases
‘It’s
about the victims and victims’ families - about what’s best for them
and giving them the answers they have never received.’
Yet, given the passage of time in the Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases, few victims are left to see justice unfold.
Baber managed to speak to one of Elizabeth Short’s last surviving family members before she died.
More than 70 years had passed since the murder.
‘She
had given up on ever getting answers,’ Baber recalled. ‘She was
grieving so deeply she had come to terms with the fact she would never
know what happened to her. That’s hard to swallow… to go almost eight
decades and not know who did it or why. That's overwhelming.’
Baber made her a promise. ‘I told her that we'd see this to the end, and I’d do my best to get justice.’
She died before learning who was responsible for her loved one’s monstrous death.
But, for others, it’s not too late.
After
surviving the Zodiac’s Lake Berryessa attack, Bryan Hartnell went on to
become a lawyer, marry and have two children. Now 76 and still living
in California, he is the last known living victim of the Zodiac’s
confirmed attacks.
Family members of other victims are also still searching for the truth on behalf of those who cannot.
As Baber put it: ‘We need to give people answers before they pass.’
