Nancy Slover (left)

Sadly, the world has lost yet another person who was directly involved with the case of the Zodiac killer. Nancy Earp, more commonly known as Nancy Slover to many of us in the Zodiac community, passed away Friday at her home in Benicia, California.

Nancy was one of the few people who was known to have spoken to the Zodiac. At approximately 12:40 a.m. on July 5, 1969, she was working at her job as a dispatcher for the Vallejo Police Department when she answered a call from the killer following the murder of Darlene Ferrin and the attempted murder of Mike Mageau.

For many years, the whereabouts of Nancy were unknown to those who followed the case. Then, in 2006, Tom Voigt – owner and operator of zodiackiller.com – found her, interviewed her and helped create a platform on which she could tell her story. Eventually, Nancy ended up consulting on Fincher’s movie Zodiac (2007). The specific way in which the killer says “Goodbye…” on the recreated phone call in the movie is directly based on input from Nancy.

I had the privilege of hearing Nancy speak in 2007 at one of the get-togethers arranged by Tom. She was also kind enough to answer a question I had – I wondered if she could shed some light on the “ringback” scenario described in the killer’s letter of August 4, 1969. She explained that, because of the specifics of how calls were routed, it was possible that the ringback happened after her involvement with the call, so she couldn’t say for certain one way or the other.

Goodbye Nancy. You were a very nice, approachable and helpful person. Thank you for taking the time to share your story. You will be missed by many…