The Zodiac Killer committed many killings in the late 1960s. He escaped.
The Zodiac Killer committed at least five killings in Northern California in 1968 and 1969. From 1969 until 1974, he mocked the police and made threats in letters to local publications. The case remains open despite many investigations. Numerous novels and movies have explored the murders, including David Fincher’s 2007 film Zodiac.
Zodiac Killer Symbols, Letters, Cipher
The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vallejo Times-Herald received similar handwritten letters on August 1, 1969. The messages began, “Dear Editor: I killed 2 adolescents at Lake Herman last Christmas,” and provided facts only the killer knew. The killer threatened more attacks if the letters weren’t on the top page.
Each letter ended with the Zodiac Killer’s insignia, a circle with a cross. Each letter had a piece of a three-part cipher containing his identity, he said.
While Bay Area police and the FBI searched for the killer, the Examiner received another letter. Beginning “Dear Editor: This is the Zodiac speaking,” it chronicled the murders and ridiculed investigators for not cracking his code or catching him.
Donald Harden and his wife Bettye solved the cipher days later. “Killing is fun,” it said. Man is the most deadly animal, hence killing him is more fun.
Three days after Paul Stine’s murder by Zodiac, the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter claiming responsibility. It was written in the same irregular print as the Zodiac’s prior letters and included a bloody shirt scrap. The killer said he would next shoot a school bus tire and “pick off the kids as they come crashing out.”
The Zodiac Killer continued tormenting Bay Area newspapers with ciphers, murder claims, and mockery of police attempts to arrest him.
Letters stopped in 1974, but the probe continues.
Attacks, Victims
Four distinct Zodiac Killer incidents have been confirmed. David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, were shot near their car on Lake Herman Road on the outskirts of Vallejo, California, on December 20, 1968. Police couldn’t determine a motive or suspect.
Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Mike Mageau, 19, were sitting in a parked car in a lonely Vallejo spot when a man with a flashlight approached them. The figure shot Ferrin and gravely injured Mageau.
Within an hour of the attack, a man called Vallejo police and claimed responsibility for it and the 1968 murders of Faraday and Jensen.
Police couldn’t find the Zodiac Killer despite fingerprints, Mageau’s description, the decrypted cipher, and tips and leads.
On September 27, 1969, he approached Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell on Lake Berryessa in Napa County. He tied them up, stabbed them, scrawled a message for police on their car door, and fled. He called the police to take responsibility. Shepard and Hartnell were critically injured but alive when emergency responders arrived; however, Shepard died soon after.
On October 11, 1969, the Zodiac killed cab driver Paul Stine, 29, in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights. As the murder didn’t follow the Zodiac’s pattern, it was initially ruled a robbery until the San Francisco Chronicle got a letter alleging it.
At least five more deaths have been tentatively linked to the Zodiac Killer, including the 1963 shooting of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards near Santa Barbara and the 1966 stabbing of college student Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside.
Zodiac sketch
Witness descriptions helped investigators build a composite sketch of Paul Stine’s 1969 killer. Despite accumulating evidence and multiple suspects, Zodiac remained at large.
Theories and suspects of Zodiac
The Zodiac case has spawned many ideas about the killer’s identity. These include accusations that he was Unabomber Ted Kaczynski or convicted killer Charles Manson or that he moved to Scotland and committed more murders before finding peace and giving up his wicked ways.
Allen Arthur
Former San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist and true-crime novelist Robert Graysmith identified Arthur Leigh Allen as the most likely culprit. Allen died in 1992 and was never linked to the murders.
Van Best Jr.
Gary Stewart’s 2014 book The Most Dangerous Animal of All claims his father, Earl Van Best Jr., was the Zodiac Killer.
Myers
In 2014, another individual revealed that Louie Myers admitted to being the killer before his 2002 death. Myers’ past matched up with Zodiac happenings, but there was no definitive proof.
Reports
Amateur codebreakers cracked the Zodiac Killer’s cipher in 2020. Message decoded:
“I hope you are having fun trying to catch me that wasn’t me on the TV show, which brings up a point about me I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradise, so they are afraid of death I am not afraid because I know my new life will be an easy one in paradise death.”
40 retired law enforcement investigators named the Case Breakers claimed to have found the Zodiac Killer in 2021. FBI says the case is still open.
