Paul Avery
| Paul Avery | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 2, 1934 Honolulu, Hawaii, United States |
| Died | December 10, 2000 (aged 66) Orcas Island, Washington, United States |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Spouse(s) | Margo St. James |
| Children | 3 |
Paul Avery (April 2, 1934 – December 10, 2000) was an American journalist, best known for his reporting on the serial killer known as the Zodiac, and later for his work on the Patricia Hearst kidnapping.
Avery was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Howard Malcom Avery, a U.S. Navy officer and pilot, and Frances Avery. He was raised and educated in Honolulu, Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C.. Avery started his career in journalism in 1955, working at a variety of newspapers in Mississippi, Texas and Alaska before returning to Hawaii and hiring on at the Honolulu Advertiser where he was appointed the paper's Big Island bureau chief. He was 23 years old at the time.
Avery joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 1959. In the 2nd half of the 1960s, Avery took a leave of absence from the Chronicle and moved his family to Vietnam. In Saigon, Avery co-founded Empire News, a freelance photojournalism organization. He expanded Empire News, opening a branch in Hong Kong, before returning to San Francisco, in 1969 after 3 years in Asia. In the mid-1980s, after working for The Sacramento Bee and writing a book about the Hearst kidnapping, he signed up with the then- Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner, where he stayed until his retirement in August 1994.
Avery reported on the Zodiac case, a series of killings—unsolved to this day—that began in December 1968 and ostensibly ended with the death of a San Francisco cab driver in October 1969. At the time, Avery was a police reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
For a long time, it was thought that the Zodiac's activities were limited to the Bay Area, but Avery discovered a 1966 murder in Riverside that he linked to the Zodiac.
The Zodiac soon wrote Avery (misspelled by the Zodiac as "Averly") a Halloween card, warning, "You are doomed." The front of the card read, "From your secret pal: I feel it in my bones/you ache to know my name/and so I'll clue you in..." Then inside: "But why spoil the game?" Just as quickly as the threat was made public, a fellow journalist made up hundreds of campaign-style buttons, worn by nearly everyone on Chronicle staff, including Avery, that said, "I Am Not Paul Avery." It was at this time that Avery began carrying a .38 caliber revolver.
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