In this episode of Crime Time Inc, hosts Tom Wood and Simon McLean take a detailed look at Gary Francis Post as a suspect in the Zodiac killer case, continuing their in-depth series on one of America's most enduring unsolved mysteries. Before diving into the main discussion, the pair share some entertaining memories of police life — the Glasgow dairies and Edinburgh bakeries that served as unofficial gathering spots for officers, the camaraderie with A&E nurses at the Western General Hospital on the night shift, and some memorably brutal lines from staff appraisals. It's a warm, unguarded exchange that captures the culture of policing in Scotland during their era, and a reminder that even in a true crime podcast, the human side of the job matters.
The heart of the episode is a rigorous, experience-driven analysis of Post as a Zodiac suspect and the work of the so-called \"case breakers\" who championed him. Tom and Simon walk through the circumstantial evidence — Post's military background, his time in the San Francisco Bay Area, claimed cipher interpretations spelling out his name, reports of domestic violence, and familiarity with firearms — and systematically weigh each element. Tom, drawing on decades as a senior investigator and his FBI secondment at Quantico, is characteristically measured but skeptical. He notes that firearms familiarity was near-universal among American men of that generation, that access to military PX stores was hardly exclusive, and that the behavioural profile doesn't fit: serial offenders of this type rarely just stop and settle into quiet domestic life. Simon reinforces the point that the evidence supporting Post is almost entirely subjective or speculative, and crucially, that law enforcement investigating the Zodiac case showed no interest in Post — a telling sign given their otherwise fastidious approach to other suspects.
A standout theme of the episode is the concept of elimination in major crime investigation. Tom explains, with the authority of someone who led the World's End murders inquiry and spent years on the Susan Maxwell and Vicky Hamilton cases, that elimination must meet an even higher standard than prosecution — you need to be one hundred per cent certain it is not the suspect. He illustrates this vividly with the Emma Caldwell case, where a suspect initially appeared to have a cast-iron alibi of being in prison, only for investigators to discover he had been released on weekend leave at the time of the murder. The discussion also highlights how DNA evidence, so central to Tom's work on the World's End case — explored fully in his bestselling book *The World's End Murders: The Inside Story* (Ringwood Publishing, 2024) — serves as much to clear the innocent as to convict the guilty. It's a nuanced point that underscores why the Zodiac case, with its degraded and poorly preserved forensic evidence, remains so frustratingly unresolved.
The episode closes on a lighter note, with Tom revealing he saw the Beatles live in Edinburgh in their very early days, and Simon ribbing him about Paul McCartney's stolen left-handed guitar — a nod to Simon's well-known friendship with McCartney dating back to his days as a young officer in Campbeltown. The pair tease future episodes, including a Zodiac series roundup and a possible deep dive into the Emma Caldwell case, giving listeners plenty to look forward to.
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