{"id":164,"date":"2025-12-16T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/?p=164"},"modified":"2025-11-26T14:27:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:27:29","slug":"the-zodiac-killers-strange-star-trek-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/podcast\/the-zodiac-killers-strange-star-trek-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zodiac Killer\u2019s strange Star Trek connection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In 1968, <em>Star Trek<\/em> tried to save its sinking ratings by casting celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli as a glowing space ghost. A year later, the Zodiac Killer demanded to speak with that same lawyer live on television. This episode traces the bizarre overlap between sci-fi and true crime \u2014 from stunt casting, to the Jack Ruby trial, to the hoax call on <em>The Jim Dunbar Show<\/em> \u2014 and how David Fincher turned it all into one of the best true-crime films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credits:<br>This episode of &#8220;The Prime Detective&#8221; was produced and hosted by Grayson Thagard.<br><br>Music for &#8220;The Prime Detective&#8221; is composed by Ben Wise: <a href=\"https:\/\/benwise.bandcamp.com\/\">https:\/\/benwise.bandcamp.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Website and publishing support thanks to David Moody, Producer: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.letstalkabouttreks.com\/\">Let&#8217;s Talk About Treks<\/a>&#8221; The Podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Artwork for &#8220;The Prime Detective&#8221; is by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/julie-hendrickson-4096332\/\">Julie Hendrickson<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buy me a coffee: <a href=\"https:\/\/buymeacoffee.com\/theprimedetective\">buymeacoffee.com\/theprimedetective<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_20\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-164-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/3955803\/content.blubrry.com\/3955803\/TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/3955803\/content.blubrry.com\/3955803\/TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/3955803\/content.blubrry.com\/3955803\/TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/3955803\/content.blubrry.com\/3955803\/TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/?powerpress_pinw=164-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/3955803\/content.blubrry.com\/3955803\/TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"TPD_Zodiac-8_25_25_10_10_PM.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1968, Star Trek tried to save its sinking ratings by casting celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli as a glowing space ghost. A year later, the Zodiac Killer demanded to speak with that same lawyer live on television. This episode traces the bizarre overlap between sci-fi and true crime \u2014 from stunt casting, to the Jack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[87,12,86,22,32,34,36,3,33,4,35,82,85,83,84],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","tag-david-fincher","tag-documentary","tag-melvin-belli","tag-pop-culture","tag-pop-culture-and-crime","tag-sci-fi-and-true-crime","tag-science-fiction-in-real-life","tag-star-trek","tag-the-prime-detective","tag-true-crime","tag-true-crime-podcast","tag-zodiac","tag-zodiac-killer","tag-zodiak","tag-zodiak-killer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letstalkabouttreks.com\/primedetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}