Was this man the Zodiac Killer?

The Most Dangerous Animal of All

AN explosive new book by a US executive alleges his father is the Zodiac Killer — one of the most notorious and so-far uncaught serial killers in American history.






The 51-year-old author, who was adopted as a baby, said he began what would be a 10-year search for his real father after his biological mother, Judith Gilford, contacted him in 2002.


Gilford told Stewart a terrible story: She was just 14 when she ran away with a 27-year-old rare book dealer named Earl Van Best Jr, giving birth to his child in New Orleans in 1963. While running from the law — they were fugitives because Gilford was underage — Best dumped their child in an abandoned building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.


Best was eventually arrested on charges of raping a minor and committing fraud, spending several years in a maximum-security facility for the criminally insane and San Quentin jail.

The revelations in his book — which is co-written by crime writer Susan Mustafa — include:

? Best was paroled in July 1965 and the first Zodiac murder occurred in December 1968.

?Gilford cut off all ties with Best after his arrest. Stewart claims that his father’s victims all resembled his birth mother and believes that the motive behind the killings was “revenge.”

?Earl Van Best Junior is written backwards in two of the cryptograms sent by the Zodiac Killer. The book claims that the chances of his father’s name being in two ciphers is “astronomical”.



?Best bore a strong resemblance to sketches of the Zodiac Killer

?Stewart matched fingerprints taken from his father’s arrest and those from the crime scene and found both featured identical diagonal scars.

?A handwriting expert matched the writing from the letters with his father’s signature from his wedding certificate.

Stewart claims the book contains enough evidence to warrant a reinvestigation by the San Francisco Police Department, which has yet to comment on the book. Best died in 1984.