Bizarro.
This is some incredible news if it is indeed true:
San Francisco police were looking into a woman’s claim Wednesday that her late father was the infamous Zodiac killer who terrorized the Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s.
Homicide investigators were checking information provided by 47-year-old Deborah Perez, who said that as a young girl she helped her father write and mail some of the letters that earned him the sensational nickname, SFPD Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said.
Perez of Corona, in Southern California, told reporters that she was seven years old and tagged along with her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, when he killed two of the known victims nearly 40 years ago — Darlene Ferrin in Vallejo and Paul Stine in San Francisco.
Hendrickson, a carpenter and father of six kids, died in 1983 from cancer, and Perez said she could not keep her father’s secrets any longer.
Technicolor Dreams 
April 30, 2009 at 4:59 pm
saw this yesterday and was immediately skeptical. I’m ~fascinated by this story, have done some reading, and saw the movie (didn’t like). I’m certain enough evidence exists to either validate or debunk her claims.
interesting side note. My neighbor worked in SF in the late 60’s, and reported finding a body under an underpass one morning. Safe to say, he was rather thoroughly questioned.
April 30, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Well, I am watching this case closely like other and finally, I am not sure about this one, not that she isn’t telling the truth, but come on, I have never heard of anyone that murdered with their children with them, I have never heard of that, maybe children were around when people were killed at one time or another, but a murderer taking his children with him. That one is way out there for me…..
April 30, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I’m just not sure she’s never ever heard of the Zodiac Killer being from the bay…but i figger if somebody is sick enough to wear a mask and kill, why not with his daughter in tow?
May 1, 2009 at 6:05 am
i always thought it highly probable that there was more than one killer at large to whom all the zodiac killings were attributed, which would explain some of the confusion over differing eye-witness descriptions, different MO’s and conflicting evidence (such as the taxi shooting) that hampered the investigation – tho i do think a single killer committed several of the murders
May 1, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I always figured the killer died an early death or moved on…There must be some validity to the woman’s claim because otherwise you’re putting yourself in a bad spotlight.
June 7, 2009 at 4:09 am
TOTAL BUNK, LIES AND MORE LIES, SHE IS ALSO THE ILLEGIT DAUGHTER OF JFK THE PRESIDENT?!!!
THE SAN FRANCISCO F B I CALLED ME AND SAID THEY DO NOT PUT ANY MERIT TO DEBRA’S STORIES!! SHE LIES SHE LIES. DAD HAD CANCER ALL OVER HIS BODY ORGANS AND WATER BUILT UP ON HIS BRAIN, THUS NO DEATH BED CONFESSIONS AS SHE ALSO CLAIMS, SHE IS FULL FULL FULL OF IT!!
THANKS FOR READING THE TRUTH, J HENDRICKSON HIS REAL DAUGHTER WHO LOVED HIM, AND DAD’S WHOLE FAMILY IN AMERICA, WE KNOW WHAT DAD WAS LIKE–ALL THE TIME. JH
June 7, 2009 at 4:26 am
Thank you for clearing that up.
June 16, 2009 at 3:53 pm
1. JANICE HENDRICKSON GAY HER LEGAL LAST NAME SHE HAS NOT DISCLOSED:
EXAMPLES OF DENIAL WHEN FACED WITH THE TRUTH:
YOU CANNOT FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME. LEST YE BE JUDGED:
EXECUTION JOURNAL – Add Gas Chamber to the List of Marriage’s Stresses
By AMY WALLACE, TIMES STAFF WRITER
April 19, 1992
SAN QUENTIN — In spite of it all, Janice Gay wanted a traditional wedding.
Determined to spruce up the drab prison cell that would serve as her chapel, she ordered flowers and a small, heart-shaped cake. She bought a long, lacy wedding dress–light blue, to match her groom’s state-issue uniform.
And then, on a Thursday in June, 1989, she went to San Quentin prison and married the man who, against all odds, had won her heart: Death Row inmate Kenneth Gay, one of two men convicted of the 1983 murder of a Los Angeles police officer.
“We fell in love behind glass,” Janice said, recalling when they first met, she and the man she calls “Kenny” sat on opposite sides of a dirty, plate-glass window, trading hellos on a prison telephone. Today, three years since they wed, Janice says their love has endured.
“I’d have to look a long way to find a man who has the depth my husband does,” she said. “We’ve broadened together.” But stress takes its toll on any marriage. And for the women–and there are several–who have met, fallen for and married condemned men, these are very stressful times.
As the state prepared to carry out its first execution in 25 years, Janice Gay, founder and chairwoman of a support group called Wives, Families & Friends, is hearing from these women every day. She does not care what their husbands were convicted of. Usually, she does not even ask.
Instead, she talks to them about their anxiety–and about her own.
“I’m ending up this advocate for a lot of loose ends,” she said. As the governor and the courts refused to spare Robert Alton Harris’ life, she said she had “a feeling of sliding right off a cliff.”
Janice Gay, a nurse’s aide and artist who is in her 40s, is a crusader. She believes that her husband, now 34, is innocent–that he did not fire five bullets into Paul Verna, a 35-year-old Medal of Valor officer.
She also believes that if somehow more people could get to know the men on Death Row, like she has, the gas chamber would never take another life.
Many people think she is wacko. Her grown children from a previous marriage are embarrassed by her public statements, she says. Recently, one daughter told her she was not welcome to visit a new grandchild.
But her romance with Kenneth Gay, she says, is the most mature relationship she has ever had. Devotion, loyalty and trust–are not those the qualities most women want in a marriage? Well, she says, she has them.
Officer’s Killer Again Gets Death
By CAITLIN LIU, TIMES STAFF WRITER
December 05, 2000
LAPD Officer Paul Verna’s widow looked across the courtroom at her husband’s killer, who had just been sentenced to death for the second time in 15 years.”I don’t accept your apology–I never will,” said a tearful Sandy Jackson on Monday. “You viciously took Paul’s life and a part of us.”
Closure for her family will only come when Kenneth Gay is put to death, Jackson said, in a San Fernando courtroom packed with Verna’s family and Los Angeles police officers, including Verna’s now-grown son, Bryce.
Gay, soon to be the 172nd person from Los Angeles County to be on death row out of the 565 in the state, continued to insist that another man had killed Verna. He blamed his plight on a corrupt defense attorney who represented him during his first trial in 1985.
“I’ve never murdered anyone,” said Gay, speaking out for the first time since his penalty-phase retrial in San Fernando Superior Court. He offered an apology for causing the family pain by insisting on his innocence.
Gay was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 Lake View Terrace slaying that he and his new defense lawyers argued he did not commit. In 1998, the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty on the grounds of incompetent counsel, but left intact the guilty verdict. After a retrial, a San Fernando jury in October unanimously recommended death, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt agreed Monday.
Gay acknowledged that he has committed “a number of horrible crimes” in the past, but maintained that another man, Raynard Cummings, was the person who shot and killed Verna. According to prosecutors, Cummings fired the first shot at Verna before passing the gun to Gay, who fired the remaining five bullets. Cummings was also convicted of first-degree murder in 1985 and is currently on death row Wiatt said overwhelming evidence against Gay fully supported the death sentence. “You murdered in cold blood Officer Paul Verna,” Wiatt said.
During the retrial, witnesses testified about Gay’s violent past, including robbery victims who recounted how the ex-con had beaten them, and an ex-girlfriend who testified that he firebombed her family’s house. Several prosecution witnesses, including Cummings’ former wife, Pamela, also testified they saw Gay shoot Verna.
1. Death Sentence Overturned For Man Convicted In Officer’s Slaying
For the 2nd time, the California Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the
death sentence of 1 of 2 men convicted of the June 1983 murder of Los
Angeles police Officer Paul Verna in Lake View Terrace. The state’s
highest court unanimously found that San Fernando Superior Court Judge L.
Jeffrey Wiatt erred by barring Kenneth Earl Gay from offering “significant
mitigating evidence” during the penalty phase of his retrial in 2000.
The Supreme Court sent the case back for a 3rd trial to determine if Gay
should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of
parole.
“We’ll review the ruling and be discussing the matter to determine how to
proceed,” said Sandi Gibbons of the District Attorney’s Office.
Gay’s appellate attorney could not be reached for immediate comment.
Writing on behalf of the Supreme Court in a 45-page ruling, Associate
Justice Marvin R. Baxter said “there is a reasonable possibility” that
jurors would have recommended a life prison term without parole — instead
of death — had they been allowed to hear mitigating evidence, including
four statements in which co-defendant Raynard Cummings claimed to be the
sole shooter.
“Because Raynard Cummings’s admissions that he was the only shooter and
the corroborating testimony of the eyewitnesses proffered by defendant
related to the circumstances of the crime, we find that the trial court
abused its discretion in excluding this evidence as irrelevant at the
penalty retrial,” Baxter wrote.
Gay’s 1st death sentence in 1985 for Verna’s June 2, 1983, slaying was
overturned in 1998 by the California Supreme Court, which agreed that he
had not received “constitutionally adequate representation” during his 1st
trial and ordered a retrial in the penalty phase of his case.
When he was sentenced a 2nd time to death in December 2000, Gay maintained
he”never murdered anyone.”
“What this decision really was was an insult” to the Verna family, Gay
said then, while turning to look at the LAPD motorcycle officer’s widow
and two sons. “It has been 17 years and you folks still haven’t heard the
truth about what happened to your loved one …”
Gay lashed out at the judge for refusing to let the defense present
evidence he said could have cleared him, calling it “a travesty that this
court would rule that the evidence of my innocence is irrelevant.”
The convicted murderer maintained that he would admit it if he were
responsible for Verna’s killing. He said he owed the slain officer’s
family an apology for not having the courage to stand up to Cummings, who
is also on death row for the officer’s shooting death.
Gay urged the officer’s family to push the District Attorney’s Office to
go forward with a new trial for him, with the proviso that he agree to
waive all but the mandatory appeal if he is convicted.
“I believe in my innocence strongly enough to risk my life,” Gay said in
the December 2000 hearing. He told the court he had spent all but 20 years
of his life in prison and could spend another 18 to 20 waiting for the
appeals process to run its course.
Prosecutors contend that Cummings fired first at Verna, then passed the
gun to Gay.
Verna had stopped the car in which the 2 were riding in the San Fernando
Valley, and prosecutors alleged that they killed the officer to avoid
arrest for a series of robberies in the weeks preceding the traffic stop.
Wiatt — who committed suicide in February 2005 in a Santa Clarita park in
the midst of a phone conversation with law enforcement officials over
allegations of child abuse — said when he sentenced Gay that he didn’t
think there was any question that Gay fired the final 5 shots at Verna.
(source: KNBC News)