An Interview with Andrew Nock, Director of ‘Myth of the Zodiac Killer’

MYTH OF THE ZODIAC KILLER -- "The Hoax Theory" Episode 101 -- Pictured: Andrew Nock -- (Photo by: PEACOCK)

Andrew Nock is accomplished documentarian, that as lent his researching, writing, directing, and producing talents to multiple shows over the years. His most recent project, Myth of the Zodiac Killer, is streaming now on Peacock and we here at NTG were fortune enough to sit down with Andrew to discuss his new documentary.
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John Betancourt: Let’s talk about the genesis of this documentary and what compelled you to tell this tale?

Andrew Nock: Yeah, I've always been fascinated by kind of weird macabre things growing up in England, and there was a serial killer that was active when I was a kid called the Yorkshire Ripper. And that kind of started things, that interest in the, you know, just the horrifying reality of killers. And when I moved to America, the Zodiac was still, you know, the most mysterious unsolved American set of murders. It's still an open case, as you know, to this day, and that was just something, you know, if I was going to try and do a documentary about a true crime, it seemed like, you know, let's do the most infamous, the one that's the most debated. And as I started looking into theories, I was kind of really struck by this massive community of Zodiac theorists and armchair detectives, and there’s 1000s, and 1000s of them of different websites, or forums, and they all disagree with each other. That's the strange thing, in this case, they all disagree with each other, they all have a single suspect that they believe, is the Zodiac and they won't be convinced by anyone else and anyone else's theories.

And it was just fascinating. Because it's unusual for this case that there's 1000s and 1000s of pages out there that you can go through, if know how to find them. Because it is still an open case, that's quite unusual. So, people study this. And then there was this one guy with really dodgy taste in shirts, who had this different theory, this professor from the Midwest, and not only did he have a very different theory, everyone disagreed with that theory. But when I kind of delve into his theory that these were not related crimes, it really was kind of eye opening. And I really wanted to kind of follow up to see if this theory had any truth to it. So that's why I wanted to kind of do a “boots on the ground” investigation, putting his theory into practice, I just thought it was the most controversial theory, but it actually had some sense to it.

John Betancourt: Why do you think the Zodiac Killer still captivates after all this time?

Andrew Nock: I think because people have created this idea of a super villain, right? He's a guy that's evaded every type of law enforcement, multiple agencies, the FBI, he's fooled everyone with these ciphers. He's terrorized people with letters, he had this costume that was almost like a super villain’s costume, you know, with a black hood and the symbol. And because it just was unsolved, and it's so… it's such a strange story. Because, you know, people try to kind of make this kind of progressive narrative of this one killer progressing and these different kinds of crimes. But if you look at the crimes, they are quite unrelated, in a lot of senses, you know, there's different weapons. There's different modus operandi, different victim profiles, different eyewitness statements, different locations. You know, he takes a trophy at one crime, but none of the others, you know, it's so complex, I think it's, it's, I call it like a hair ball, it's not really a rabbit hole. You know, and that's why people are so obsessed with it, because you can spend years studying it and going in different directions.

John Betancourt: What kind of challenges went into creating a documentary this grand and sweeping in nature?

Andrew Nock: Well, it took over a year. And I think, you know, the first thing was to go to the actual crime scenes, that was the biggest thing for me and then to try and talk to local law enforcement. You know, because it's still an open case, we weren't able to get a lot of assistance from San Francisco, PD, Napa County Sheriff's, Vallejo PD, it's an open case, they can't really discuss it, technically, they can't discuss it. So, you're left with the files that have been leaked, and 1000s upon 1000s and 1000s of those files. And Professor Horan's one of the few people that actually read them all, you know, I have now as well, and I think that's the biggest challenge was figuring out you know, what to focus on because it goes in so many different directions and following Thomas' theory was, was really the thing to do, you know, go to each crime scene, kind of in order to put his put his theories into practice, I think was that wasn't the biggest challenge. But it was the smartest thing to do just to see if there's any validity to this wild theory that he had. And I think trying to talk to people who've never been on camera before, or even discussed the case before, who were closely involved was the biggest challenge.

John Betancourt What did this journey teach you that you didn’t speak to in the documentary?

Andrew Nock: Well, I mentioned the Yorkshire Ripper before. So, when I was a kid growing up in the north of England, there was a serial killer who was infamous at the time, and he killed 13 women, and he sent letters to the press, and he sent an audio recording. And finally, when they captured Peter Sutcliffe, who was the Yorkshire Ripper, he was not the one that wrote the letters. He was not the one that did the audio recording. And what really stood out to me was, you know, the police in Yorkshire at the time were completely distracted by these letters and this audio recording, they were following voice clues to try and catch someone, when someone else, a copycat, had inserted themselves into the case, it's quite rare for people to do that. That's not unheard of, and… maybe that's what happened with the Zodiac. You know, maybe there was one for but maybe had nothing to do with the writers, maybe someone else had inserted themselves. And that was the biggest takeaway that, you know, Thomas always said, different killers, different authors.

But for me, it was like, you know, maybe the police got into their minds that they had to have someone that had to be in all, all the locations, was also responsible for all the letters, responsible for the ciphers, and finding one suspect that would match all those things, was as we know, impossible. And when I talk to friends of the victims and family members of the victims, and I told them this theory that you know, these are separate, unrelated crimes, and a certain person that wrote a letter possibly was a hoaxster, someone who, you know, just wanted to insert themselves into the case. That was kind of shocking to them, because as they told me, once the police tell you that the Zodiac that that's what you believe, and they believed that for 50 years. That was my biggest takeaway, and that's why I think I was able to get people on camera has never been on camera before. Because we had this new idea. And that was really intriguing to them.

John Betancourt: What you hope audiences take away from this journey?

Andrew Nock: I think they take away the idea, that's a good question… I think I just want them to be more open minded towards the case. You know, the people in the Zodiac community are convinced there’s one, supervillain criminal mastermind. But the facts really point towards something else: that these could be unrelated crimes. That the letter writers were multiple letter writers. And it's an era where it was, it was crazy, you know, the late 60s, you got the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders happening in the front of the papers. You’ve got, you know, the Zodiac. You’ve got Heidi Hurst, I mean, it was just a really wild, crazy time. And it all kind of accumulated at the end there, the whole hippie dream ended and, you know, you got what's called the “Season of the Witch,” you know, turning from summer love into the “Season of the Witch” and the hard drudgery took over. You know, I think there's a lot of, you know, it really feeds into the time and place of American history that, you know, and the paranoia that was around, just in general, you know, between, you know, the older generation and the younger generation. I just think it's, you know, maybe this this Zodiac person, or maybe this Zodiac character, was kind of like, created as a part of the times that were people were living in, and to the reexamine the case and look at it as separate crimes would be very important.

John Betancourt: What you ultimately hope this does for the Zodiac case?

Andrew Nock: I hope we get justice for the families and the friends of the victims because I think since the detectives have been looking for this one person the whole time, maybe that's the reason they've had no justice over these years, and that they re-examine these cases as separate individual cases, and some of these cases have potential suspects, but because those suspects weren't at the other crime scenes, they were just discounted completely. I think they need to re-examine those individual crimes and not link them to the other crimes that are supposedly part of this Zodiac character. Maybe they’ll get solved.

John Betancourt: One can hope. Since this is a legend that has been around for as long as I can remember.

Andrew Nock: They only need to solve one of those crimes, and the whole Zodiac theory is blown apart.

John Betancourt: The myth really is a big deal, as though there’s a need to have this boogeyman out there.

Andrew Nock: Yeah, I mean, you know, we seem to kind of like that idea that there's a Jack the Ripper, there's a Zodiac… there’s this one boogeyman out there. I think that's something that you know, strangely appeals to us.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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