The Most Dangerous Animal of All

The Most Dangerous Animal of All
Susan D. Mustafa

Gary L. Stewart

An explosive and historic book of true crime and an emotionally powerful and revelatory memoir of a man whose ten-year search for his biological father leads to a chilling discovery: His father is one of the most notorious-and still at large-serial killers.Soon after his birthmother contacted him for the first time at the age of thirty-nine, adoptee Gary L. Stewart decided to search for his biological father. It was a quest that would lead him to a horrifying truth and force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself and his world.Written with award-winning author and journalist Susan D. Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All tells the story of Stewart’s decade-long hunt for his father following a complex trail of startling twists and connections. Combing through government records and news reports and through conversations with his father’s relatives and friends, Stewart turns up a host of clues, including forensic evidence, identifying his father as one of the most infamous and still-wanted serial killers in history.Mustafa and Stewart construct a chilling psychological profile of Stewart’s father, raise disturbing questions about law enforcement-what they know and what they’ve suppressed-and present overwhelming evidence that should force relevant authorities to review the status of the case. Throughout, Stewart’s pressing need to know the truth about his parents and himself drives the narrative to its climactic discovery.

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For the man who adopted

the abandoned baby on the stairwell

and raised him as his own

Cover (#ub813aec1-3f30-5af5-b332-779b401b6bab)

Title Page (#ulink_e4cb81ca-a531-5d9a-8065-2fa3c0c1e038)

Dedication (#ulink_f49db33d-1d93-54d2-b083-79a753e180a4)

Author’s Note (#ulink_966e59d3-ab12-5544-946d-0d7e00d98af4)

Epigraph (#ulink_a3536670-7e30-5886-b1ca-84312a474366)

Prologue (#ulink_0baa43ae-1b63-5611-8dc5-6d3d1e951e46)

Part One: The Ice Cream Romance

Part Two: Signs of the Zodiac

Part Three: The Truth Deciphered

Memorium (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Timeline (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography and Resources (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Searchable Terms (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Authors (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

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The Zodiac case has been shrouded in mystery for almost fifty years. When I began my journey to find my biological father, I never envisioned that my search would lead me to a series of brutal murders that terrorized the residents of California in the 1960s and ’70s. The very idea that my father committed these acts is repulsive to me, and I try hard to disassociate myself from the horrific crimes he perpetrated upon innocent young people. After I met my biological mother, I simply wanted to find the man responsible for giving me life. I wanted to know him, love him, and even forgive him for what he had done to me. I had been raised in an adoptive home and taught that love and forgiveness are tenets by which to live one’s life.

I had been gathering information about my father for two years before I got the first suspicion that he could somehow be connected to the Zodiac killings. At the time, I did not want to believe what my instincts were telling me, so I set out to uncover the truth, to prove to myself that my father could not possibly have been a serial killer. As years went by and more and more telling evidence unfolded, there came a day when I could no longer deny that my worst fears were true. That realization prompted me to write this memoir. I felt it was my responsibility to share the truths that I had learned in a way that would leave no doubt as to the identity of this killer and the reasons why he had committed these murders.

This memoir is based upon my research over a twelve-year period, which I recorded in a journal as I went through the process of discovering the facts of my father’s life. Through conversations with my father’s best friend, family members and my biological mother, police records, newspaper articles, old Best family letters, marriage and divorce records, and other government records, I was able to create a timeline of my father’s early life, which makes up Part One of this book. The narration of that period is presented in a novelistic manner of storytelling because this was the most coherent way to tell his story. I have taken some small liberties when re-creating dialogue in this section of the book, but even those conversations are based upon the memories of my father’s family and friends and the facts of his life that were related to me. Likewise, dialogue in Parts Two and Three is based upon twelve years of investigation and the facts that investigation revealed. I should note that all of the conversations that took place between me and others, including my biological mother, my father’s best friend, and detectives at the San Francisco Police Department, are related verbatim.

The details concerning my father’s life span five decades and are complex. It seemed best to simply start at the beginning, in order to give the reader a real sense of how and why my father grew into a serial killer.

– GARY L. STEWART

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February 1963

The sound of the baby’s hungry cries pierced the darkness. His father angrily flung his covers aside and climbed out of bed, hurrying to the footlocker that doubled as the infant’s crib. Furiously, he slammed the lid shut.

Inside, the cries soon turned to gasps as the baby struggled for air.

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May 2002

Thirty-nine years. That’s how long I had waited to hear the words. Thirty-nine years spent wondering about my name, my parents’ names.

Finally, I knew.

My mother’s name was Judith.

I could see that something was bothering my adoptive parents, Loyd and Leona Stewart, the day I found out the truth. I observed them surreptitiously as I stirred the crawfish, sausage, corn, and potatoes one last time before dumping out the huge pot onto the newspapers lining the table in my sister Cindy’s backyard. Loyd wasn’t laughing and cracking jokes in his Cajun French accent like he usually did, and Leona’s pretty face was drawn tight, as though she had something serious on her mind.

It was hot, the Louisiana humidity already sucking any coolness from the spring air, but a light breeze made the heat bearable as we sat around the table pinching meat from the tails and sucking spicy seasonings from the heads of the tasty mudbugs. After I finished my pile, I began hosing out the boiling pot. I watched as Loyd and Leona nodded to each other and then began walking toward me.

Uh-oh. I could tell by the way they were so deliberate in their approach that something was very wrong. I wondered who had died.

“Hey, Geg,” Dad said.

Loyd never called me Geg. That was a shortened version of my name used only by my grandparents. His use of that nickname, coupled with the fact that he looked like he was going to cry, made me even more nervous.

I flipped the towel in my hand over my shoulder and said, “What’s the matter, you two?”

“There’s no easy way to say what we have to say, so I’m just going to say it,” Loyd said. “A couple of weeks ago, a lady in San Francisco called us and said she was your mother.”

My mother? What?

Leona slipped her arm around my waist. “When we first received the package and picture she sent, I didn’t want to believe she could be your mother, but your dad said how much you looked like the lady in the picture. I denied it with every ounce of my being. I even refused to look at the picture again for a day or two.”