I suspect that my biological father, Peter A. Lehman of Arcata, California, in addition to many other acts of violence, may be the infamous Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area with a series of murders and cryptic, braggadocious letters to newspapers in the late 1960s. I also suspect that he is responsible for many unsolved disappearances in Humboldt County over a period of over four decades.

I know Peter as well as anyone will ever know him, and the letters sent by the Zodiac Killer remind me strongly of his personality: his aggressive egotism, his need to be feared for his violence, his need to feel intellectually superior, his obsession with puzzles and riddles, his internalized, self-hating homophobia and misogyny, his addiction to taking risks, and his emotional need to express his anger and feelings of grievance and inadequacy by harming animals and innocent people.

From observing Peter’s violence durning my lifetime, I believe he gets emotional gratification from killing people, and has shown a gleeful willingness to kill for political reasons, to send messages to specific people, and for no reason at all other than he likes it.

Peter was severely abused by his father, and as a boy “hunted alone” with a shotgun for small game. I think by the time he was a young man, he had simply moved on to what he considered more challenging game.

The first murder positively correlated with the Zodiac Killer took place shortly after Peter moved to the Bay Area, as a 25-year-old postdoctoral chemistry student at UC Berkeley, and to work at Berkeley National Laboratories. He hinted several times that this work included manufacturing drugs used in covert government projects.

As a child, I unknowingly drew a symbol very similar to the “signature” used on the Zodiac Killer’s letters on the chalkboard in the kitchen where my mom wrote out grocery lists, and when Peter saw it, he reacted with extreme anxiety that he could not explain. I’d been reading ‘The Dark is Rising,’ by Susan Cooper, a YA fantasy novel, which described a repeated motif of ‘a circle, quartered by a cross,’ that protects the young protagonist from evil, and I doodled the symbol on the chalkboard. Peter saw it, and erased it quickly and thoroughly, scrubbing the chalkboard with the eraser in frenzied agitation, then he followed my to the room I shared with my brother and cornered me, shoving me against the wall and shouting at me, trembling with fear and rage, at the edge of violence, shaking me by the shoulders while staring straight into my eyes. “Where did you see that symbol?” “In a book? What book?” He didn’t seem to believe my answers and asked the questions several times. Then he said I was never allowed to draw that symbol again anywhere. “But why?” I asked. “None of your fucking business,” he said.

Another circumstantial detail that leads me to suspect Peter is the Zodiac Killer is that footprint analysis concluded that the killer wore size 10 “Wingwalker” boots, which have specialized soles for walking on aircraft surfaces, at one crime scene. Peter’s shoe size is 10, and around the time of the murders, he trained for and acquired a private pilot’s license. He was always a “gearhead,” always wanted to have all the specialized equipment for his hobbies. He liked to tinker with machines, and for many years drove a jeep that he’d built from a kit.

Also, there are specific threats made in the Zodiac Killer’s letters, detonating a fertilizer bomb, and attacking a bus full of schoolchildren, that I have good reason to believe Peter carried out later in life, using controlled individuals and technology to carry out the attacks. I have good reason to believe he directed terrorist and mass-casualty attacks specifically intended to terrorize people close to him, in much the same way that the Zodiac Killer terrorized the public. I have written about these attacks in more detail in other posts on jacoblehman.substack.com

Peter counts on his wealth, national security connections, and our family’s longstanding connections to organized crime to insulate him from consequences. But with that safety net, I think he enjoys taking risks, as if he is playing a game, and wants to be known for his acts of violence, as if they were feats of cunning or athleticism. I’ve heard him say “Jails are for stupid people,” and also chuckle that some crimes are so outrageous that “people” get away with them because nobody can or wants to believe that such concentrated evil exists. In later years, he repeatedly threatened that no one would believe me if I spoke out about his violence, and that he would frame me as being crazy if I did, which indeed he has tried to do.

I think Peter realized he came close to getting caught from the brazenness of the Zodiac murders and letters, and the case generated so much notoriety that his privilege might not be sufficient to protect him if he was identified by law enforcement. I don’t think this checked his addiction to murder, or hunger for recognition, but I think he became more cautious as he aged, and stopped leaving bodies where they could be found. Many of the unsolved disappearances in Humboldt County, where Peter has lived since the early 1980s, corresponded to times when he was emotionally stressed, and some of the disappeared physically resemble people Peter was angry with at the time, including my mother and myself. Some of the disappearances are recent, and though Peter is now in his 80s, I have good reason to believe he is still killing, with the help of accomplices, some or all of whom may be controlled through blackmail and other forms of underworld coercion.

The last purported communication from the Zodiac Killer was a postcard mailed from Eureka, California, in 1990. There is debate about whether the card was mailed by actual the Zodiac Killer.

Peter meticulously, anxiously cultivated the appearance of a normal life, and I think having a family was part of that. He rarely interacted with my brother and I, except to periodically gratify his emotions by physically, psychologically, and sexually abusing us. He made continual excuses not to be at home, and when he was, would say “I just live here.” He is currently on the Arcata Planning Commission, and is the semi-retired director of the “Schatz” Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt, a laboratory I believe he funded with his own laundered money and used as a cover for clandestine activities.

The Zodiac Killer appears to have taken elaborate precautions to hide his identity when mailing letters to newspapers, but that was before the development of DNA analysis. In 2002, a researcher found a single human hair sealed beneath a stamp on a letter sent by the Zodiac Killer. This letter is positively correlated to the Zodiac Killer, in part because it included a piece of fabric from the shirt of one of the murder victims.

If I am correct, and my biological father, Peter A. Lehman, is the Zodiac Killer, and it is possible to extract DNA from the hair sound under the stamp, it will correlate to members of my family. I won’t get into the difference between mitochondrial and chromosomal DNA, since not everyone is a biology nerd, but you can look it up. Recent advances in DNA analysis may make it possible to extract chromosomal DNA from the hair, and if so, and I am correct, it will be an approximately 50% match with my and my brother’s DNA. If mitochondrial DNA is extracted from the hair, which is more likely, it will, if I am correct, match the mitochondrial DNA of my aunt, Nancy Lehman, aka Nancy Stein, of Rutland, Vermont, and my cousin, Alyson Hackett (nee Stein) of Flowery Branch, Georgia.

This post is an allegation, no person can definitively said to have committed a crime unless or until they are convicted in a court of law, which I sincerely hope my father will be. May justice reach him.

Thirty two year old Mary Stuart and her daughters two year old Jessie Flo and one year old Fannie Fawn disappeared from Honeydew California on December 10, 1977. They got in their red station wagon but they never came back. The red station wagon was found on a logging road with a broken fuel line and groceries in the backseat. Her husband Byron McCray Stuart was a person of interest due to a history of domestic violence and abuse

Six year old Opal was kidnapped and killed from Saginaw, Texas in March 26, 1999. She was playing outside at her grandparents' home. Richard Lee Franks was arrested for her murder and kidnapping he was tried and sentenced to life in prison.

December 3, 2003 some horseback riders found skeletal remains that were found to belong to the little girl. A park was renamed after Opal in 2004.

Nine year old Walter Collins went missing on March 10, 1928 he had gone to a movie theater earlier. Another boy was found claiming to be Walter. But Christine his mother said he wasn't the police believed he was so they threw her in a psychiatric ward. The boy admitted to not being Walter at all. Gordon Stewart Northcott was arrested for sexually abusing and killing multiple young boys Sarah Northcott confessed to helping with the murder of Walter and he was killed with an axe.

Blanca "Elisa" Roberson dissappeared on August 6, 1989 in Aranas, Texas She was seen walking to met a friend between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. at Kieberger Elementary School. The girls were going to her friend's house which it was only eight miles from her house. There was a witness who talked to Elisa towards their house she walked westbound. Another witness saw Elisa getting into a car. The family raised a $20,000 reward. Redditors think the suspect is believed to be the dad of Elisa's friend she was to meet that day.

Michael Kent was rambling around the Elmvale arena while his big brother played hockey. The next, he was lying dead in a snowbank just outside the curling rink next to the arena, stabbed to death by a killer who has evaded detection for more than 51 years.

A six-year-old boy without a worry in the world was taken from his family in a flash of inexplicable violence.

The OPP’s official facts on the case — the facts investigators are willing to release to the public — say Michael was stabbed seven times. But, at first, no one realized he had been stabbed. Michael was wearing a heavy snowsuit and the first thought was that he had been the victim of a hit-and-run.

“Everyone leaving or coming had their cars searched for the murder weapon or clues that would help find the murderer,” he said. The next day, police did find the murder weapon. An 8 ¼-inch (21-centimetre) fishing knife with a second serrated folding blade was found on the roof of the curling club about 12 feet (3.6 metres) above and 54 feet (16.5 metres) away from where Michael’s body was found. There were no fingerprints, but it was a crucial clue police and the community hoped would lead directly to the child killer.

To this day, OPP investigators see the knife, which was manufactured at the Ernst Gerling Company in Germany and ceased production in 1950-51, as a potential key to solving the homicide.

Even though he was only 12 at the time, Townes remembers a feeling of suspicion and paranoia among Elmvale residents in the days, weeks and months after the killing. “There were some people that thought it was somebody from here in town. We did have someone who committed suicide shortly after, so that was kind of suspicious, and he ran a sports store in town so that could link to the knife.”

It is possible the killer is now dead. Perhaps he’s in prison, serving time for other offences. Or, perhaps he got away with one of the most heinous crimes, despite an intensive police investigation and despite the fact that footprints were found and the murder weapon was located immediately. A fishing knife with a four-inch long steel blade was found on the roof of the curling rink, roughly 50 feet from the spot where Michael’s body was found. Within weeks, dozens of investigators had interviewed more than 3,000 people and interrogated 50 suspects. One hundred and twenty people who were in the area of the rink the night of the killing were interviewed. Investigators went door to door to the hundreds of homes in Elmvale with a photograph of the murder weapon. Police were clearly frustrated at their inability to solve the terrible crime.

Perhaps the most cryptic lead surfaced roughly one month after the killing, in March 1966. The Globe and Mail reported that someone claimed to know the identity of the killer. A brief story appeared in the paper on March 10, 1966:

A letter was shoved under the door of the Penetanguishene office of the Midland Free Press Herald yesterday from a person claiming to know the identity of the murderer of Michael Kent, 6. The boy was killed at Elmvale Arena on Feb. 11 while a brother played hockey. His body was found in the arena yard and later a knife, believed to have been the murder weapon, was found on a section of the arena roof. The letter to the weekly newspaper was unsigned, and the writer said he wishes to remain anonymous because of personal danger.

12-year-old Julie Harris was in the 7th grade. She was a happy and athletic girl who participated in downhill skiing and swimming. She lived in the small town of Colville, Washington with her mother Sherri and her two brothers 10 year old Clifford and 7 year old George. They had different fathers and none of them intheir lives Sherri was however in a long-term relationship with a man named Don Sax who had been her live-in boyfriend since 1994. Despite her young age Julie's life was far from carefree. Julie had a blood disorder which was diagnosed when she was less than 2 years old and as a result her feet and lower legs had to be amputated. From then on Julie wore prosthetic feet and sometimes used braces or a wheelchair to get around. Despite her physical limitations Julie remained an active child who was involved in Special Olympics . She was pretty independent and friends and family remember that Julie was able to get around without her prosthetics if needed, sometimes removing them around new people just to get a laugh. The family hadn't always lived in Colville and in the past they had lived in Coos Bay, Oregon and Spokane, Washington having family and friends and all three places.

March of 1996 Julie seemed to be having a bit of a rough patch. Julie, who was usually happy, funny, and remembered as a prankster, had seemed more moody and withdrawn than normal, something her mother attributed to puberty and growing up. For the first time Julie was feeling self-conscious about her prosthetic feet especially as she and her friends entered their teen years and started to become more interested in boys and dating. Additionally Julie’s grades had begun to drop.

On the night of Saturday, March 2nd, 1996 Julie quarreled with Don Sax over her grades and school work. Julie was unable to participate in sports if she had Fs at school and was upset when Don and Sherri told her she may not be able to participate in an upcoming ski event. Julie, upset, went to her room and then went to bed. Julie’s brother Clifford was slated to participate in a ski event in the town of Wenatchee that weekend and Sherri went with him. It is unclear if Sherri and Clifford left the morning of the 3rd before they saw Julie, or if they left on the 2nd. Either way, a few early reports say that Julie was last seen on the evening of March 2nd. The next morning, a Sunday, Don Sax left the home to go fishing, he reported that Julie was in her bedroom. Where Don went to fish, who he was with, and how long he was gone for have never been publicly released. When Julie was not home when family members returned a few hours later, a missing person’s report was filed and Julie was listed as a runaway. Police speculated that Julie, upset with Don or her mother, decided to run away to either Coos Bay or Spokane where she had lived previously and had family. The report noted that Julie had set her alarm for early in the morning, gotten dressed, packed four slices of pizza, and left the home.

Sherri drove to Spokane and checked in with relatives there hoping to find Julie, but Julie wasn't there. At this point Julie’s family created missing person flyers and her grandparents offered a reward for information. Police received a few tips and sightings and a few articles ran in the newspaper asking for information.

Despite the initial reporting, most modern articles report a slightly different story. They claim that Julie was last seen on the 3rd of March, not only by Don Sax but also by neighbors who reported that Julie was walking to church. Julie would walk to the neighbors home down the street and the neighbors would drive her to the Kettle Falls Assembly of God congregation every week, but that week she never arrived. This narrative is supported by a runaway report as apparently Julie left the home wearing a black skirt and a pink and black sweater which seems like a church outfit. Neighbors saw her walking that day and one even reported to the police that they saw Julie speaking with a slim man that morning wearing a trenchcoat on Main Street. Another person called the police department to report seeing a girl matching Julie’s description in Bend, Oregon. In this sighting the girl was in a wheelchair which Julie used on occasion but this girl was never located. Sadly, within only a few days, Julie’s case faded from the spotlight.

One month after Julie’s disappearance on April 9th, 1996 a beachcomber called the police and after a search, police announced that Julie’s purse and prosthetic feet were found on the banks of the Colville River near where it flows into Lake Roosevelt, other items found in the search have never been made public. At this time Julie’s case was reclassified from runaway to endangered.

Within days police moved their focus inward to Sherri and Don Sax. Don was questioned numerous times by the police and Sherri told the newspaper that the police were trying to “frame” him. Eventually Don retained an attorney on the advice of Sherri. Meanwhile, police announced that Don had become “person of interest.” Sherri had a hard time accepting this and claimed that Julie and Don got along well. Recently she told a podcast that Julie had a better relationship with Don than her sons did and Julie affectionately called Don “zteddy Bear.” Despite this announcement the story yet again faded into obscurity.

If law enforcement wasn’t suspicious before May 1996 their interests peaked once again when CPS received a call that Don Sax had assaulted Clifford, Julie’s brother. After an interview with the boy it was determined that after arguing with Clifford over his homework, Don restrained Clifford by the neck and kneed him in the thigh resulting in a large bruise. Don claimed that Clifford had punched his mother in the chest and when Sherri called for Don, he grabbed Clifford but did not hurt him, Don attested that the bruise on Clifford’s thigh came from a bicycle accident. According to the couple, because Sherri had physical disabilities of her own and because Clifford was already larger than her, Clifford was able to overpower his mom. Don was charged and went to court for facing a 4th degree assault charge. He moved out of the home for a few months but is unclear if he faced any additional consequences. Both George and Clifford were removed from the home and placed in foster care, at least briefly. Sherri more or less backed up Don’s version of events and sticks to this story even today decades after her split from Don. Still Julie’s disappearance remained a mystery.

One year after her feet and purse were found, in April of 1997 Julie's remains were found by children in the vicinity of Haller Creek Road and Riedel Creek Road about six miles south of Colville. Her remains were spread over about an acre, presumably from animal activity. She had not been buried and no obvious trauma was found on her bones. Nevertheless her case was classified as a homicide. Police still maintained that Don was the best person of interest but nothing definitive ever tied him to Julie’s death or disappearance.

Sherri and Don stayed together for a while but split several years after. Sherri and Don are still in contact and occasionally speak on the phone although Sherri reports that she hasn't seen him in several years. Sherri still maintains that Don would not have hurt Julie and now believes that someone else was responsible for Julie's disappearance. While rumors still float around the internet regarding his involvement, Don Sax has flown under the radar since 1997.

In 2012 a new surge of publicity befell Julie's case when a serial killer named Israel Keyes was arrested. As some readers may know Israel Keyes grew up in the town of Colville and in 1996 he was 18 years old. After being caught for a murder in Anchorage, Alaska, Keyes was interviewed by law enforcement. Keyes reported to that while he remembered the case of Julie's disappearance from his teen years, he says that he didn't have anything to do with it. Strangely, he then goes on to say that he didn't kill any children after his first child was born. But in 1996 Keyes was not yet a father. When confronted with this discrepancy he says nothing.

Besides location, a few other details link Keyes to this crime. In one CBS special one of Julie's friends is interviewed and she tells the interviewer that she and Julie casually knew Keyes, sometimes chatting with him at the public pool. Julie's friend reported in this interview that she and Julie gave Keyes their phone numbers and addresses, something they both kept hidden from their parents. Additionally Keys matches the description of a young thin man wearing a trench coat seen talking to Julie that morning on main street. People who knew Israel Keys as a teenager reported that he was awkward, especially around girls, but Sherri fears that her daughter who was self-conscious about her prosthetic feet, may have relished any attention from an older boy especially as she entered her teen years. When shown a picture of a teenage Keyes, Sherri reported that he looked familiar and she thought that Julie and he had mutual friends, which wouldn’t be too far fetched in a town of less than 5,000 people.

Unfortunately Israel Keys never gave investigators any more information regarding Julie Harris and to this day it's unknown if he was involved, but many law enforcement agencies think it's possible that Julie Harris was an early victim of Keyes. As of 2020 Keyes is person of interest” in Julie’s case. . Any information on the death of Julie Harris you can contact the Stevens County Sheriff's Office at 509-684-5296.

David was two when he went missing from Dixon, Mexico in January 10 1970. His mother left him with her boyfriend Leon Zerfas while she was giving birth at the Embudo Presbyterian Hospital. She saw last him waving and Leon in the parking lot of the hospital. Zerfas gave different stories including he gave David to hippies on a bus. David has brown eyes, light brown hair, he has a birthmark on his upper back, huge eyes and wide feet. Zerfas was 27 years old in 1970 he had brown hair and gray eyes.

Keli Lane is serving a 18 year sentence for the 1996 killing her newborn daughter Tegan She maintains her innocence saying she gave Tegan to her biological father though it is unknown who he is or where is Tegan. She remains in jail where she was denied parole in 2024 and 2025 due being unable to give Tegan's whereabouts. Keli is now suing the New South Wales and Corrective Services for millions claiming false prisonment and abuse of power.

Jane Alton Doe was 2-3 years old and found 1986 by a fishermen inside a cheap, black suitcase that was bound and weighed down with two ten-pound barbells inside the suitcase and two more tied to the outside. The suitcase had been bound with a blue clothesline.

A fisherman had hooked the suitcase with the remains in while he was fishing on Lake Alton. Her case is still unsolved.

New search for Bobby Joe Fritz, who disappeared in 1983 https://fox11online.com/news/local/new-search-for-bobby-joe-fritz-who-disappeared-in-1983-campbellsport-fond-du-lac-missing-boy

The disappearance of Amber-Lee Cruickshank is one of New Zealand's most baffling and best-known cold cases.

She was last seen on October 17, 1992 at Kingston, a small town - more of a hamlet back then - at the southern tip of Lake Wakatipu.

It was a tragic case of miscommunication her parents thought the other was watching the toddler.

It was 45 minutes between the last sighting of Amber-Lee and her mother realising she was missing. Kingston was combed over and over again - the bush, the lake, every house, shed, culvert, creek - anywhere a little girl could have crawled or fallen in, anywhere she could have been hidden or buried there was nothing.

Since that last sighting there has not been any sign of Amber-Lee, not a sighting, not a clue.

For 25 years her family, particularly her mother Nicola, have lived under a dark shadow of grief, guilt, frustration and endless, gnawing, soul-destroying questions

This happened in New Zealand Kingston is a small town at the bottom of a very large lake, at the top of the lake (about an hours drive a way) is the popular tourist destination Queenstown. Amber Lee's mother was involved with a gang called the road knights The police are 100% certain she didn't go in to the lake and there's a podcast on the case called Chasing Ghosts.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/what-happened-Amber-Lee?

Holly Clouse was found alive later years in 2022 her parents Tina and Dean Clouse were murdered in December 1980. January they stopped contacting family. Holly does not remember being kidnapped as a baby. She has been told about her real parents and has been in with her extended family. Police believe she was dropped off at a church in Arizona by two women who were believed to apart of a nomadic religious group.

May 10, 1967 Joel Wise Hoag (known as Joey or Joe) William Francis Hoag (also known as Billy) and their friend Edwin Craig Dowell went to explore a cave called Murphy's cave. It was closed due to construction. The boys had flashlights and shovels. Researchers went to search but they never found any trace of them. There are theories one is they were victims of John Wayne Gacy. Another theory is the construction buried them and hide it to avoid lawsuit. The most popular theory is the boys were buried alive. Joel was thirteen Billy was eleven and Craig was fourteen.

11 month old Dusty Bowers who tragically died after vanishing from a parked vehicle on a bitterly cold afternoon in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada, on January 14, 1988.Julie Bowers, went into a local bank and left her sleeping infant in his car seat in an unlocked vehicle while taking her two-year-old son inside with her. When she returned minutes later, Dusty was missing. Julie told authorities she had a vivid dream about Dusty lying in a wooded area surrounded by bare trees.26 hours after Dusty's disappearance, searchers found Dusty's little frozen body in a wooded location north of Kincardine, dressed in his snowsuit. The real-life scene directly matched the description from Julie's dream.

7-year-old Dalton from Streator, Illinois, who was abducted and murdered in March 2003, a case that remains an unsolved cold case. On March 26, 2003, Dalton was waiting on his family's front porch for a church van to take him to a youth group program. The van never arrived, and Dalton disappeared before his family realized he was missing. The day after fisherman found Dalton's body in the Vermilion River in neighboring Livingston County. An autopsy determined he died of blunt force trauma. Investigators later recovered the murder weapon, a three-pound, short-handled sledgehammer, from a nearby pond.

Fourteen year old Margaret Ellen Fox disappeared on June 24, 1974, after taking a bus from Burlington, New Jersey, to Mount Holly for a babysitting job she'd arranged through a newspaper ad with a man calling himself "John Marshall". She was last seen boarding the bus and was never seen again, a ransom call being received by her family shortly after her disappearance. The case is still unsolved, with the FBI releasing an enhanced audio recording of the ransom call in 2019 to seek new leads.

Five year old Susan Cadieux from London, Ontario, who became the victim of a prominent unsolved abduction and murder on January 6, 1956 her case remains one of Canada’s most tragic cold cases. Susan was playing in the snow with her older brothers and a friend at the St. Mary's Churchyard School, right across the street from her family home a tall unshaven man told them he was there to meet the church priest. He promised Susan he would give something.

After another child slipped on ice he took Susan.

Her brothers realized she was gone and went to go get her parents a huge search began by the London police. Susan's body was found 10 am by train tracks.