Chapter 19

A Big Piece of the Puzzle

The Zodiac case always had a close connection to Deer Lodge prison from the beginning. Surviving witness Bryan Hartnell stated the killer said: “I’m on the way to Mexico; I escaped from Deer Lodge Prison in Montana. I killed a couple guards getting out of prison and I’m not afraid to kill again.”

There was also a Zodiac connection to the famous Deer Lodge Prison riot of 1959. Prisoners had killed a guard and threatened to kill hostages by rope, knife, gun and fire. That is how the Zodiac claimed to have killed.

Edwards was in Deer Lodge from 1956 until 1959, doing time. He was picked up in Billings on March 8, 1956 for auto theft and robbery. In exchange for copping pleas to robberies around the country, they dropped the auto theft charges. 1959 was the year the famous Deer Lodge Prison riots made the cover of Life Magazine. Edwards was actually working on an escape at the time, but his plans were thwarted when the National Guard stormed the prison April 18^th 1959.

“I decided to escape so I could seek my revenge. I began to tunnel my way out of my cell. I worked my way into the heating pipe system. I can’t recall any sensible demand by the rioters and they knew they hadn’t a chance. They killed the deputy warden.”

In his book, he claimed to have helped carry the bodies of the two main instigators, Lee Smart and Jerry Miles, out of the prison.

“Turning to Miles, Smart shot him in the head and killed him instantly. Then Smart turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. This ended the riot. The toll was enormous. The deputy warden was dead, three guards had been cut. Many inmates had been beaten up. Countless others had been forcibly raped or otherwise molested. During that week the only men allowed out of their cells were the three orderlies. I was one of them. Our job was to carry out the bodies of Smart and Miles. A month before the big riot broke out I had made parole.”*MOAC

Edwards curried favor with the parole board for his help in the riot and he was released in June of 1959 to Portland Oregon.

Edwards had mentioned in a letter to Cameron that he survived the riot with a guy named Frank Dryman. “I read in the paper that Frank Dryman is still there. He is a real nut when he wants to be. I knew every person in that place. That was my job!” (Ed Edwards, 2010)

Cameron had met Frank Dryman in March of 2010, while working for the parole board. Dryman was a killer that had spent time in Deer Lodge Prison back in the 50’s and 60’s. He was paroled by the Montana Board of Pardons in 1968 to Vallejo, California, and disappeared in 1971. He remained as a missing parole violator for 40 years until his capture in Arizona in 2010.

The connections to Frank Dryman, the Deer Lodge Prison riot and the Zodiac killer are undeniable. Dryman was born and raised in Vallejo. He was a cryptologist in the Navy, but discharged due to mental problems in 1949. In 1950, he was hitchhiking north of Great Falls, Montana when he thanked his ride by shooting him 5 times in the back and stealing his car. That landed him on death row in Deer Lodge where they planned on hanging him. The records show him covered in tattoos; some of them linked directly to Egyptian mythology and the Zodiac cryptograms. He also has images of a revolver (gun) a hangman’s noose (rope) and the sun (fire) tattooed on his body. When arrested in 2010 he was portraying himself as a preacher in a wedding chapel, calling himself Frank Valentine.

Photo of Frank Dryman’s Hands, March, 2010, Deer Lodge Prison

Dryman was caught in 2010 after 40 years on the lam. The reason he had run from parole is that Edwards was trying to set him up as the Zodiac killer. Edwards hated Dryman when he was in Deer Lodge because Dryman got all the recognition. Dryman had shot his victim in the back 5 times in 1949 and Edwards as the Zodiac killer shot his first victim, Betty Lou Jenson of Vallejo, in the back 5 times, using a flashlight taped to the barrel. He was steering the evidence towards Dryman who had just been paroled to Vallejo. What Edwards didn’t know was that Dryman was granted parole in November of 1968 but didn’t walk out the door of Deer Lodge Prison until January 8, 1969. The first Zodiac killing was December 20^th, 1968. Cameron traveled to Deer Lodge Prison in 2011 and spoke with Frank Dryman.

Deer Lodge Territorial Prison

Deer Lodge was actually built before Montana had even been admitted into the union. Construction began shortly after the civil war. It was full of sick demented people and had no running water or electricity. Edwards and Dryman were cellmates from 1956-59.

Frank Dryman, Deer Lodge Prison, 2011

Dryman spoke freely about his exploits in Deer Lodge back in the 1950’s. “I had obtained a guard’s gun and I was out searching for this big nigger that had given me trouble. I was going to kill him, but I couldn’t find him. One of those big magazines snapped a picture of the riot and in the background was a big sign hanging out a window with a list of demands. That was me holding the sign,” he proudly announced. “You see, I was a sign painter and a calligrapher and they picked me to do all the lettering.” A huge smile crossed his face as he said it.

Dryman continued, “The riot was national news. The National Guard had to be called in and they used a bazooka to blow a hole in the prison wall. I think every Montana resident within 100 miles was waiting outside to see what happened. They all brought their own gun with them. Reporters flocked from every big city, you couldn’t get a room. Just about every inmate was involved, but only two got tagged with the killing of the guard. Both of them ended up dead in a murder-suicide. I tried to talk them out of it, but they were set on going out with a bang.”

Dryman spoke of stories of prison life, conditions, and painted a firsthand picture of how horrible Deer Lodge was during the late 50’s. He wanted to make sure Cameron understood what the Zodiac and Edwards was all about. “It’s all about history, John, history, world history, and ancient history.” He concluded the four-hour interview with a few details about his life of 40 years on the lam, never reporting back to his parole officer. “I had no intention of straightening out after my parole in 1969.”

Edwards became very jealous of Frank Dryman while sitting in Deer Lodge. Dryman is a well-known killer and Edwards is a well-known escape artist. They both gained enormous amount of recognition while they were in Deer Lodge in the 50’s. Dryman was all over the papers about his pending execution by hanging; Edwards all over the papers as the most dangerous criminal and escape artist ever caught in Montana. They both end up in competition in Deer Lodge in 1956 and lived through the 1959 riot. They are not friends. They are enemies. Edwards is actually the best killer ever by this point, but nobody knows it and he can’t tell them. He’s doing 10 years for armed robbery, not murder. He can’t stand the respect Dryman is getting, so he targets him when he gets parole in 1968. They both get parole the same year but Dryman doesn’t walk out the doors until January, 1969.

Dryman was parading around Deer Lodge acting as the high priest. He wore a black Catholic Cossack with the Zodiac cross and circle on the front. That’s why Edwards wore the black hooded getup with the cross and circle at Lake Berryessa. It was a cross between the Catholic Cossack and the Executioners hood.

The Zodiac case had a religious connotation to it from the beginning and most experts agreed he would be an ex-Catholic if discovered. Edwards and Dryman had both been abused by the Catholics. They both mocked the Catholic Church. Dryman traipsed around in that Cossack at Deer Lodge Prison as a satanic priest. Dryman was a Satanist and Edwards could relate. They both studied Egyptian history and science fiction. This was not about finding Jesus. They both were members of a secret society that worships and acts out Satan.

Dryman and Edwards were very sick inmates who competed with each other in Deer Lodge for the respect of the other inmates in a miserable environment back in 1959. They were both mentally ill, ex-Catholics who took religion to the dark side at a very young age. Dryman was walking around waiting to be hung, wearing his Catholic robe, pretending to be the high priest. Edwards was planning his next escape, killing and setup as the judge, jury and executioner.

Edwards’ book detailed his hatred for the Catholics and the reasons he sought revenge, mocking them.

“Failing to say, ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ ‘No, Ma’am,’ or ‘Yes, Sister,’ ‘No, Sister,’ invoked punishment. I learned right away that if you were unfortunate enough to be a bed-wetter, you were in serious trouble. Every morning I was forced to stand under a cold shower, holding my linen for approximately an hour, but to no avail. When they saw that this didn’t work, they took me downstairs in the cottage and I was beaten on the backside some 15 or 20 times.

“Sister Agnes Marie then made me walk over to a little tree, stand against it, and put my arms around it to hug the tree. She instructed the children to form a line: and each, in turn, would kick me on the backside. She placed the first kick on my rear herself. She was going to break me of my bed-wetting, she warned, or kill me in the process. I hated Sister Agnes Marie with all my heart, and I hated everyone else in that gruesome place.’ (Ed Edwards, age 7.*)

Edwards took his beatings from the orphanage and acted them out on his victims his entire life. His book was a puzzle and contained stories and parables of his own miserable life. He profiled himself in the book but made the reader think it was someone else like Frank Dryman.

“This demented individual showed an overwhelming interest in science fiction and Egyptian literature. He believed that anyone he killed would be his slave in his next life. Unfortunately this inmate idolized me, for the simple reason that I had earned the respect of the population—something deep down he wanted desperately to do.” (Metamorphosis of a Criminal)

Edwards had more respect around the inmates then Dryman. Everyone considered Frank a nut. Dryman was a murderer, paroled to Vallejo in 1968. He shot his victim five times in the back in 1950 just like the Zodiac did in 1968. The tattoos on his arms look like Zodiac cryptos and Edwards points the cops in his direction. Dryman would have been the first person the cops looked at and they did. And he ran away from parole in 1971 for 40 years after Edwards went to the Ohio press and pointed the finger directly at him in a newspaper interview.

As the Zodiac killer Edwards wrote the ‘citizen card’ mailed to the S.F. Chronicle May 8, 1974. It quotes a blurb from a movie, “In 1959, most people were killing time.” Edwards wanted people to look back to 1959 and find the guy that was doing time. It’s ME!

He shared a similar blurb to Cameron and Neal in 2011.

Ed Edwards Letter, November 2011

Poetry, parables, games and puzzles. That was Edwards’ M.O. throughout his life. Everything he wrote had a double meaning. Everything was for recognition. The Zodiac killer has been killing for 50 years and nobody has followed his life. The investigation of Ed Edwards would never end.