The Zodiac Killer

The Zodiac Killer operated in the SF Bay Area in the late 1960s. The killer coined the name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press, including four cryptograms, three of which have yet to be solved. He is believed to have murdered at least five victims. In April 2004, the SFPD officially closed the case, even though the killer's identity remained unknown and there is no statute of limitations on murder.

MURDERS:

The Zodiac Killer came to police attention for the apparently random murders of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday; it was their first date together. At least one witness drove by moments later and saw both cars; with a .22 handgun, the Zodiac shot out the rear passenger window, shot through the roof of the car, then forced Jensen and Faraday out on the passenger side. He shot Faraday once in the head and Jensen five times in the back as she was running away.

Six months later Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were shot at the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course parking lot. The killer drove up behind them, cutting off any escape, and using a flashlight to blind them, shot them with a 9mm weapon while they sat in their car. Zodiac anonymously called Vallejo PD and reported the crime, also taking credit for the murders of Jensen and Faraday.

LETTERS:

On August 1, 1969, three letters prepared by Zodiac were received at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The nearly identically written letters took credit for the three murders and also included one third of a cryptogram with a total of 408 characters in which, he claimed, was his identity; Zodiac demanded they be printed on the front page or he would go on a rampage and kill a dozen people that weekend. The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts were eventually published.

MORE MURDERS:

On September 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking on the shores of Lake Berryessa. Zodiac, wearing a black executioner's type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eyeholes and a biblike device on his chest that had a white cross-circle symbol on it, approached them with a gun; Hartnell thought it was a .45. He claimed to be an escaped convict from Deer Lodge, Montana, where he had killed a guard and stolen a car; he told his victims he needed their car and money to go to Mexico. Zodiac drew a knife and stabbed them both, then hiked the 500 yards back up to Knoxville Road, drew his cross circle symbol.

Just two weeks later on October 11, 1969, the Zodiac took a cab driven by Paul Stine. For reasons unknown, Stine drove one block further to Cherry Street; the Zodiac shot him once in the head with a 9mm, then took his wallet and car keys and tore off his shirt tail. He was observed by three teenagers across the street, who called the police as the crime was in progress. They observed the Zodiac wiping the cab down, either eliminating fingerprints or sopping up blood with the shirt tail, and then he simply walked.

The police arrived minutes later and the teen witnesses lost sight of him as they tried to explain that the killer was still nearby. The radio dispatch alerted them to look for a black and not a white suspect, so they had no reason to talk to the Zodiac and drove past him without stopping; the mixup in descriptions remains unexplained to this day.

The Johns escape

On March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving to visit her mother when she picked up a tail. He followed her on Highway 132 and began honking and flashing his lights, then pulled up beside her to yell through his window that her tire was wobbling. The man pulled up behind her and offered to tighten the lugs; instead, he loosened them. He drove off, and as Johns pulled away from the shoulder, the wheel came off. The man backed up and offered to take her to the gas station, and that's when he realized she was seven months pregnant and had a ten month old daughter. They drove off, but passed the ARCO; but the man refused to stop anywhere. He eventually made his way back into the countryside and began threatening to kill her. As he stopped to turn around, Johns jumped out with her daughter and hid in a nearby vineyard. The man came out to look for her, but a passing truck stopped and scared the man off. Johns eventually got a ride to Patterson and, as she was telling the sergeant of her terror ride, she happened to see on the wall a composite of the Zodiac. She told him he was the man who abducted her and her daughter.

AFTERWARD:

The Zodiac continued to mail letters and cards to the Chronicle at irregular intervals; one of the last was a card on March 22, 1971, that seemed to take credit for the disappearance of Donna Lass from South Lake Tahoe on September 6, 1970. The Zodiac remained silent until January 29, 1974, when he mailed another letter to the Chronicle praising The Exorcist as "the best saterical comidy [sic]" that he had ever seen. Three other letters that may have been written by him were also received that year, and then he vanished completely.

The case is officially unsolved, and even though there is no statute of limitations on murder, it is not being actively investigated; SFPD has even gone as far as to close the case (although it is still open in the other jurisdictions).

MOVIES:

The Zodiac Killer 1971
Zodiac Killer 2005
The Zodiac 2006
Zodiac 2007