Oct 15, 2008 9:54 pm US/Pacific
Zodiac Suspect Investigation Heads Out Of State
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
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Dennis Kaufman found a blade in his father's belongings that matches the description of the weapon used to kill Cheri Jo Bates.
CBS
The FBI's investigation to unmask the Zodiac Killer has expanded into another state and authorities are now working to determine a connection to a murder victim that was never linked to the infamous Bay Area serial killer.
Dennis Kaufman, an El Dorado County resident, got federal investigators' attention when he found evidence that could link his stepfather, Jack Tarrance, to the Zodiac murders.
Relatives knew he could be violent, but could Tarrance be the Zodiac Killer?
"He said, 'I've been drunk and in fights, I've stabbed so many people I lost count,'" a relative said.
Relatives of Jack Tarrance -- who live in the small town of Seguine, Texas and did not want to be identified -- confirmed by phone that FBI agents recently collected a DNA sample from Jack Tarrance's elderly uncle.
"I signed the paperwork and gave them permission to swab my husband's mouth," a relative said.
Tarrance's death and cremation complicates the FBI's efforts to link him to a series of murders, including the brutal 1966 attack of a college student in Riverside, California. Cheri Joe Bates, 18, was found stabbed to death and nearly decapitated by a small three-and-a-half inch blade.
The killer left behind DNA evidence that has never been linked to a suspect.
One month after Bates' murder, a typewritten and unsigned letter, titled "The Confession," was sent to a newspaper detailing the murder.
"I plunged the knife into her and it broke," it said.
But there is an important note: Bates is not officially listed as a Zodiac victim. The Zodiac did not become known to the public until two years later, when the killer began sending letters taking credit for Bay Area murders.
Almost five years after Bates' death, the Zodiac claimed responsibility, writing, "I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my Riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones. There are a hell of a lot more down there."
"He was smart, but he was evil," said Dennis Kaufman.
Kaufman built the circumstantial case against his stepfather that sparked the FBI's interest, and says there is even more evidence. In 2001, in a storage shed filled with his stepfather's belongings, Dennis says he found a knife covered in stains -- a three-and-a-half inch blade with a broken tip.
"The dimensions of the blade, according to the stabbing of Cheri Jo bates, match the knife," he said.
That knife was in evidence in the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department from 2002 to 2007, but the department could not tell us if any tests were ever run on it.
The FBI has not said when they will release the results of any test results.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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