The Shabby Truth: Zodiac Killer's August 4th Witness

July 10, 2025

Note:

This article explores how the Zodiac Killer may have used racial language not as a factual description, but as a psychological weapon aimed at surviving victim Michael Mageau. The intention is not to dehumanize or disrespect Mageau in any way, but to critically examine how the killer manipulated identity, language, and social hierarchies to maintain power and control.

On August 4, 1969, the San Francisco Examiner received a letter from someone self-identifying as the Zodiac. It was the second in a series of letters from this killer that would span nearly a decade. Nearly a month had passed since the murder of Darlene Ferrin and the wounding of Michael Mageau when the Zodiac chose to write this letter. Initially, he catered to police by offering details that only the killer and police would know, thereby proving his authenticity.

About a quarter of the way down the second page, he included the following statement:

“The man who told the police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45, rather shabbily dressed.”

There is little doubt that the specifics of this statement would have startled law enforcement at the time. What “negro” man was he referring to?

It’s the same question that many researchers - some 56 years later - are still asking. No police report, newspaper article, or witness statement has ever corroborated the existence of a black male witness at the phone booth, which was located roughly four miles from the Blue Rock Springs crime scene. This raises significant questions: Was this a real event? Did this person ever exist?

What we can confirm through police reports and media coverage is that Michael Mageau - the surviving victim of the July 5, 1969, Blue Rock Springs attack - did tell police that the Zodiac's car was brown and even speculated on its possible make. It stands to reason, then, that the Zodiac was referencing information already provided by Mageau. Yet instead of naming him or even acknowledging him in the same way he depersonalized him previously, the Zodiac attributed the car description to a seemingly invented third party: a "negro," "shabbily dressed," and "about 40–45 years old." Why?

An article I wrote in 2024, titled Victim vs. High Profile, may help explain this choice. That article explores the psychological underpinnings of the Zodiac’s interactions with his victims and contrasts how he referred to them with how he addressed public figures. Regarding the victims, I argued that the Zodiac consistently avoided naming them as a form of symbolic erasure and contempt. He used generic terms - “the girl,” “the boy,” “the waitress,” “the taxi driver” - stripping his victims of individuality and humanity.

These individuals were not chosen at random. They represented roles or social positions that the Zodiac either feared becoming, felt trapped within, or resented having failed to surpass. His violence, then, becomes an act of retribution against reflections of his own perceived inadequacies. Through this lens, the Zodiac’s crimes unfold as a psychological narrative of insecurity, hatred, and self-contempt - with each victim representing an aspect of himself that he sought to destroy.

The Zodiac’s pattern of depersonalization functioned to reduce victims to symbolic placeholders, erasing their agency and silencing their significance. But Mageau, by surviving, speaking, and participating in the investigation, resisted that erasure. His survival may have posed a profound psychological threat to the Zodiac - not merely because he could provide information to police, but because he disrupted the killer’s need for complete narrative control.

This may explain why the Zodiac, in his August 1969 letter, referred to a “negro male” as the one who described his car to police - a person no one has ever verified. It is plausible to interpret this as a form of displacement: a symbolic act in which the Zodiac, unwilling to acknowledge Mageau directly, created a racially charged substitute in his place. Rather than refer to Mageau, the Zodiac offered a fabricated figure cloaked in mockery, exaggerated age, and racial insult.

The deeper offense for the Zodiac may not have been simply that Mageau survived, but that he spoke. By giving the police, a description of the killer’s car, Mageau momentarily seized narrative power from the Zodiac - a transgression that, in the killer’s worldview, may have demanded retribution.

The Zodiac had a consistent pattern of using language not just to relay facts but to manipulate perception and assert dominance. Referring to Mageau as a “negro” male - despite Mageau being white - should not be seen as a mistake, but rather as a calculated insult. In the racially charged climate of 1960s America, this label would carry substantial social weight. By assigning Mageau a marginalized racial identity, exaggerating his age by more than 20 years, and calling him “shabbily dressed,” the Zodiac may have been attempting to degrade him - stripping him of status, credibility, and dignity.

Mageau, in the Zodiac's view, had committed the ultimate transgression: he lived. Worse still, he gave law enforcement clues. In response, the Zodiac retaliated with the only weapon remaining - language. Through this false and degrading characterization, he sought to regain control over someone who had slipped from his psychological grip.

This rhetorical act - replacing Mageau with an invented, socially devalued figure - mirrors the Zodiac’s broader behavioral patterns. Just as he refused to name his other victims, here he mocked, distorted, and insulted the one who escaped. This wasn’t a factual report; it was a form of punishment - a statement of anger veiled in narrative.

Viewed this way, the description of the “negro male” is not a case of mistaken identity but a symbolic strike. The Zodiac’s compulsive need for dominance over his victims - and over the story of his crimes - could not abide Mageau’s survival. By fabricating a false witness, the Zodiac obscured reality, insulted his target, and reasserted control, all under the guise of a simple observation.

While this article focuses on the psychological motive behind the Zodiac’s potential false description of a witness - suggesting it was an indirect attack on survivor Michael Mageau - it inevitably raises the question: Was this also an act of racism?

To call a white man a “negro”, particularly in a context meant to degrade or dismiss him, reflects more than just a manipulative tactic. It draws on a social hierarchy in which black identity was stigmatized and devalued in the public consciousness. Whether or not the Zodiac believed in racial superiority, he clearly understood that labeling someone as black - when they were not - was perceived as an insult, and he used it precisely for that effect.

This suggests a form of instrumental racism - not necessarily rooted in belief, but in willingness to exploit racial categories for personal gain, mockery, or psychological domination. In this sense, the Zodiac doesn’t have to be ideologically racist to reveal racism in his worldview. His language shows a readiness to invoke racial inferiority as a tool of humiliation.

So, while it may not be possible to definitively classify the Zodiac as a racist in a traditional sense, his use of racial language reveals a contemptuous and exploitative view of race. It’s a reminder that racism often operates not just through belief systems, but through casual, calculated, and symbolic acts of dehumanization.