Woman claims Zodiac killer was her father

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30 (UPI) -- A California woman says she helped the man known to the public as the Zodiac killer -- but whom she knew as Dad -- during his spree in the late 1960s.

Deborah Perez said Wednesday the man who committed at least five murders in the San Francisco area was her adoptive and deceased father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Perez said she was present during at least one killing, helped her father write some of the notes that taunted the police and the public and helped embroider his costume, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

"I was a child and just thought I was helping my dad," Perez, a 47-year-old real-estate agent in Southern California, told reporters. "I didn't know."

Perez described Hendrickson as a carpenter, a father of six, who was violent by nature, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reported.

San Francisco police said they were unaware of Perez's existence until Wednesday, when her attorney, Kevin McLean, called to announce the claims.

"We'll listen," police spokesman Sgt. Lynn Tomioka said. "Just like everybody else."

Claims about the Zodiac's identity pop up regularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, still preoccupied by the case, the Chronicle said.

The last confirmed Zodiac murder was in 1969, the Chronicle said.

Hendrickson, who lived in Orange County, died in 1993 of cancer.