- Not to be confused with the New York City Zodiac copycat, see Heriberto Seda. For the Japanese Zodiac copycat, see Kobe child murders.
“ This is the Zodiac speaking... „
Biography[]
The Zodiac Killer was a well-known American unidentified serial killer that operated in California during the late 1960s and possibly early 70s.
Lake Herman Road Attack[]
David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen
Lake Herman Road at the time of the incident.
On December 20, 1968, couple David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were planning to go to a Christmas concert in their high school, Hogan High. During their journey, they stopped at their local restaurant until driving off to Lake Herman Road. Faraday decided to park the car he was driving, a Rambler, into a gravel turnout, which was popular known as the ‘lovers’ lane’. At approximately 11:15 p.m, the dead bodies of the couple were found in the area in which they had just parked, which were found by a woman named Stella Borges.
It had appeared that the couple were shot to death after exiting the vehicle by force, according to police details. Apparently, Faraday had been shot with a 0.22 semi-automatic pistol after just emerging from the vehicle and Jensen tried to fled away from the murder until he shot her 5 times in the back. This would explain why her body was found 28 feet away from the car.
This was the first confirmed kills from the Zodiac.
Blue Rock Springs Attack[]
Mike Mageau and Darlene Ferrin
On July 4, 1969, before midnight, Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau parked in an isolated spot in Blue Rock Springs. While the couple were talking, another car, that might have been either a Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Corvair in the colour brown , drives into the parking lot. However, the car immediately drove away, until coming back to the same spot after 10 minutes. Thinking that the man in the car was police, the couple was ready to give the supposed officer identification. The man came towards the car, holding a flashlight into the eyes of Mageau and Ferrin. Immediately, shots are fired at the two inside the car as Mageau suffered 5 gunshot wounds and Ferrin suffered 9. Mageau climbed into the back of the car, screaming in agony. The assailant then returned to fire two more shots each of the victims.
Parking Lot
After this event, the killer would then phone the Vallejo Police Department from a booth, 45 minutes after the attack at 12 a.m., and take responsibility for the crime that happened minutes earlier and the murders from months ago.
Police were able to trace the phone call and locate Mageau and Darlene. Although, Michael survived from the attack, Darlene was pronounced dead in the hospital.
Some people say that Mageau gave a description of the assailant. A white male, late 20s to early 30s, with a large face, a beefy build with weight estimating 224-228 lbs, a paunch, 6’0” to 6’1”[citation needed], wearing a dark coloured polo shirt and having short, dark blonde or light brown curly hair. However, Mageau himself described the killer described the killer differently. Apparently the attacker was way taller, had darker jet-black hair and wore glasses.
A month after the incident, 3 letters from the Zodiac were given to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Vallejo Times Herald and the San Francisco Examiner. All three letters were written by the same person who took credit for the murders during Christmas and the day after Independence Day. The letters also included cryptograms which had to be decoded.
The Zodiac introducing himself[]
6 days after the three letters were published, the San Francisco Examiner were given a letter from the same killer from the Faraday-Jensen and Mageau-Ferrin attacks, now going by the name “Zodiac”. This is the first time that the killer publicly used this pseudonym. In the letter, the Zodiac went into full detail about the past murders to prove people that he actually killed the victims, excluding Mageau.
The day after the Zodiac properly introduced himself to the public, high school teacher, Donald Harden, and his wife, Bettye, were able to decode the 408-symbol cryptogram, which supposedly contained the real identity of the Zodiac Killer. The killer talks about killing dozens of people how the people who kills would become his slaves in the afterlife and how if his name was revealed that it would slow down the process of collecting slaves.
Lake Berryessa Attack[]
Bryan C. Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard
On September 27, 1969, 2 months after the last murder, Cecilia Shepherd and Bryan Hartnell, both Pacific Union College students, were enjoying a picnic in a small island called Lake Berryessa. During the picnic, the friends saw a man wearing an a very strange outfit. He wore a black executioner’s hood connected to a dickey worn on the chest with a white cross-circle on the dickey. The man also sported a pair of dark clip-on glasses covering the eye holes of the mask, a dark blue Derby jacket under the dickey, worn baggy black pleated trouser and military-style boots.
Detailed version
The suspicious man held the two at gunpoint, claiming that he was an escaped convict from Montana or Colorado who had just killed a guard and wanted Hartnell’s car and money to flee to Mexico because the car that he stole was “too hot”. Hartnell obeyed the man and gave him the things that he needed for his journey to Mexico. However, the hooded man had other plans, ordering Shepherd to tie Hartnell’s hands with clothesline and be tied up herself. Discovering the the bonds on Hartnell was loose. the man made sure to tie them properly before drawing a 10 inch long knife with a wooden handle and stabbed the two. Bryan was stabbed six times in the back whilst Cecelia was stabbed 10 times.
Minutes after the incident, two fishermen heard the two victims shouting for help, which enabled them to quickly report to park rangers, Dave Collins and Ray Land, who were the first to arrive at the crime scene. Cecilia and Bryan had already removed their bounds and were rushed to the Queen of Valley Hospital. The two were able to give a description of the man; a white male, standing at 5’11” to 6’0” and having dark-brown hair. This description is very similar to the description of a strange man that was at the same location earlier that day. Three women ,who were sunbathing that day, saw the man driving in which appeared to be a Chevrolet 2-door sedan. He remained in the car for about 30 minutes before driving off. The three women said that the man was attractive, 6 ft tall with a muscular build, between 28-40 years old, having small ears, round eyes, thin lips and a medium shaped nose.
Bryan Hartnell survived the encounter whilst Cecelia Shepherd later succumbed to her injuries and sadly died in the hospital.
Presidio Heights Murder[]
Paul Stine, 29 year-old taxi driver, was ready to pick up a male passenger and take him to his destination, which was to Washington and Maple streets in Presidio Heights. When Stine stopped the car at the northeast corner of Washington and Cherry Streets, the passenger pulled out a 9mm semi-automatic weapon and shot Stine right in the head, killing him. The passenger also cut out a large portion of Stine’s bloodstained shirt and exited the vehicle, taking his keys and wallet. However, what the killer didn’t know was that there were three teenagers the saw the incident that were able to give a description of the man. Officers, Don Fouke and Eric Zelms, drove past a white male who walked east on Jackson street and later walked down the stairways which lead to the north side of the street. Found described the male as 35-45 years old, with light-coloured hair in the style of a crew cut, wearing a navy blue Derby and baggy rust-coloured brown pants and low cut shoes and standing up to 5’10”. Although the suspect that the teenagers observed had a similar description, he was slightly younger, being 25-30 years old and being slightly shorter than Fouke’s description. The reason why the killer wasn’t caught was because the officers were told to look for a black male, with the mixup between descriptions being unexplained.
This incident was ruled out as an ordinary robbery, but on 2 days after Paul Stine’s death, the San Francisco Chronicle was sent a letter from the Zodiac containing a piece of Stine’s bloodstained shirt, proving that he was responsible for the murder. The three teenagers and the two officers were able to create two of the infamous composite sketches of the Zodiac Killer.
Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned the solve the case of this murder mystery.
Paul Stine was the last confirmed murder by the Zodiac.
Victims[]
Confirmed victims[]
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Cause of Death |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Faraday | 17 | December 20, 1968 | Shooting |
| Betty Lou Jensen | 16 | December 20, 1968 | Shooting |
| Darlene Ferrin | 22 | July 4, 1969 | Shooting |
| Cecelia Shepard | 22 | September 27, 1969 | Stabbing |
| Paul Stine | 29 | October 11, 1969 | Shooting |
Survivors[]
| Name | Age | Date of Attack | Cause of Injuries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Mageau | 19 | July 4, 1969 | Shooting |
| Bryan Hartnell | 20 | September 27, 1969 | Stabbing |
Suspected victims[]
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Cause of Death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ray Davis | 27 | April 10, 1962 | Shooting |
| Robert Domingos | 18 | June 4, 1963 | Shooting |
| Linda Edwards | 17 | June 4, 1963 | Shooting |
| Johnny Swindle | 20 | February 5, 1964 | Shooting |
| Joyce Swindle | 19 | February 5, 1964 | Shooting |
| Cheri Jo Bates | 18 | Bewteen October 30-31, 1966 | Stabbing |
| Enedine Molina | 35 | June 8, 1967 | Shooting |
| Fermin Rodriguez | 36 | June 8, 1967 | Shooting |
| Richard Radetich | 25 | June 19, 1970 | Shooting |
| Donna Lass | 25 | September 6, 1970 | ? |
Timeline[]
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 30, 1966 | Cheri Jo Bates is murdered near the Riverside City College library. |
| November 29, 1966 | A letter is mailed to the Riverside Police Department that details the Cheri Jo Bates murders and warns the police that they will murder again. |
| December 20, 1968 | David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen are shot to death in Vallejo, California. |
| July 4, 1969 | Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin and Michael Renault Mageau are shot while in the parking lot of the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course. Mageau survives but Ferrin dies on the way to the hospital. |
| July 31, 1969 | San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vallejo Times-Herald each receive a cryptic cipher claiming to be sent by the Vallejo killer. They were told to publish it on the front page of their papers. |
| August 2, 1969 | The murderer first refers to himself as the Zodiac in a letter to the police that is details the crimes more in an effort to prove to the police that he is the murderer. |
| September 27, 1969 | Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard are stabbed in Twin Oak Ridge. Hartnell survives but Shepard dies from 10 stab wounds. |
| October 11, 1969 | Paul Stine, a San Francisco cab driver, is shot in the head at the intersection of Washington and Cherry Street. The killer cut part of his shirt off as he escaped. |
| November, 1969 | The Zodiac mails another letter to the police detailing some kind of bomb. The Zodiac calls it his "Death Machine" and says that he is going to blow up a school bus. |
| 1970 - 1974 | The Zodiac sent numerous letters to the police department with taunts and threats. Some of them included clues as to his past murders and one of them connected him to the Bates murder in 1966. The letters include a kill count at the bottom and it gradually rises throughout the years but none of the murders were connected to the Zodiac. |
| 1974–Present | Letters pop up every once in a while but they don't seem to be conclusive as to being from the Zodiac. |
Potential suspects[]
| This page or section uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors). |
| This page or section uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors). |
Arthur Leigh Allen
- Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac advanced Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992, as a potential suspect based on circumstantial evidence. Allen had been interviewed by police from the early days of the Zodiac investigations and was the subject of several search warrants over a 20-year period.
Ross Sullivan
- Ross Sullivan became a person of interest through the possible link between the Zodiac Killer and the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside. Sullivan was a library assistant at Riverside City College and was suspected by coworkers who said that he went missing for several days after the murder. Sullivan resembled sketches of the Zodiac and wore military-style boots with footprints like those found at the Lake Berryessa crime scene. Sullivan was hospitalized multiple times for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Lawrence Kane
- Lawrence Kaye, later Lawrence Kane: Kathleen Johns, who claimed to have been abducted by the Zodiac Killer, picked out Lawrence Kane in a photo lineup. Patrol officer Don Fouke, who possibly observed the Zodiac Killer following the murder of Paul Stine, said that Kane closely resembled the man he and Eric Zelms encountered. Kane worked at the same Nevada hotel as possible Zodiac victim Donna Lass. Kane was diagnosed with impulse-control disorder after suffering brain injuries in a 1962 accident. He was arrested for voyeurism and prowling. Fayçal Ziraoui, a French-Moroccan business consultant, claimed in 2021 that he solved the Z13 cipher and the solution to the puzzle reads "My name is Kayr", which he said is a likely typo for Kaye. Others disputed that Ziraoui could have solved the cypher. Kane died in 2010.
Rick Marshall
- Police informants accused Richard Marshall of being the Zodiac Killer, claiming that he privately hinted at being a murderer. Marshall lived in Riverside in 1966 and San Francisco in 1969, close to the scenes of the Bates and Stine murders. He was a silent film enthusiast and projectionist, screening Segundo de Chomón's The Red Phantom (1907), a name used by the author of a possible 1974 Zodiac letter. Detective Ken Narlow said that "Marshall makes good reading but [is] not a very good suspect in my estimation."
Ted Kaczynski
- Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was investigated for possible connections to the Zodiac Killer in 1996. Kaczynski worked in northern California at the time of the Zodiac murders and, like the Zodiac, had an interest in cryptography and threatened the press into publishing his communications. Kaczynski was ruled out by both the FBI and SFPD based on fingerprint and handwriting comparison, and by his absence from California on certain dates of known Zodiac activity.
- The Manson Family: following the capture of Charles Manson and his murderous cult, a 1970 report by the California Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation stated that all male members of the Manson Family had been investigated and eliminated as Zodiac suspects.
- In 2007, Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac. Kaufman turned several items over to the FBI, including a hood similar to the one worn by the Zodiac. According to news sources, DNA analysis conducted by the FBI on the items was deemed inconclusive in 2010.
- In 2009, former lawyer Robert Tarbox, who was disbarred in August 1975 by the California Supreme Court for failure to pay some clients, said that in the early 1970s a merchant mariner walked into his office and confessed to him that he was the Zodiac Killer. The seemingly lucid seaman, whose name Tarbox would not reveal based on confidentiality, described his crimes briefly but persuasively enough to convince Tarbox. The man said he was trying to stop himself from his "opportunistic" murder spree but never returned to see Tarbox again. Tarbox took out a full-page ad in the Vallejo Times-Herald that he claimed would clear the name of Arthur Leigh Allen as a killer, his only reason for revealing the story 30 years after the fact. Robert Graysmith, the author of several books on Zodiac, said Tarbox's story was "entirely plausible".
Richard Gaikowski
- In 2009, an episode of the History Channel television series MysteryQuest looked at newspaper editor Richard Gaikowski. During the time of the murders, Gaikowski worked for Good Times, a San Francisco counterculture newspaper. His appearance resembled the composite sketch, and Nancy Slover, the Vallejo police dispatcher who was contacted by the Zodiac shortly after the Blue Rock Springs Attack, identified a recording of Gaikowski's voice as being the same as the Zodiac's. While in the army, Gaikowski was trained, as a medic, to tear a piece of clothing from injured soldiers in case there wasn’t any equipment available. The Zodiac used the same method of tearing a piece of someone’s clothing during the Presidio Heights incident.
- Retired police detective Steve Hodel argues in his book The Black Dahlia Avenger that his father, George Hodel, was the Black Dahlia killer, whose victims include Elizabeth Short. The book led to the release of previously suppressed files and wire recordings by the Los Angeles district attorney's office of his father, which showed that the elder Hodel had indeed been a prime suspect in Short's murder. District Attorney Steve Kaye subsequently wrote a letter which is published in the revised edition stating that if George Hodel were still alive he would be prosecuted for the crimes. In a follow-up book, Hodel argued a circumstantial case that his father was also the Zodiac Killer based upon a police sketch, the similarity of the style of the Zodiac letters to the Black Dahlia Avenger letters and questioned document examination.
- On February 19, 2011, America's Most Wanted featured a story about the Zodiac Killer. In 2010, a picture surfaced of known Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin and an unknown man who closely resembles the composite sketch, formed based on eyewitnesses' descriptions, of the Zodiac Killer. Police believe the photo was taken in San Francisco in the middle of 1966 or 1967.
- Convicted serial killer Edward Edwards, who committed five murders between 1977 and 1996, was linked to the Zodiac murders and several other unsolved cases by former cold case detective John A. Cameron. Cameron's theories were met with "almost universal disdain, especially from law enforcement".
- Former California Highway Patrol officer Lyndon Lafferty said the Zodiac Killer was a 91-year-old Solano County, California, man he referred to by the pseudonym George Russell Tucker. Using a group of retired law enforcement officers called the Mandamus Seven, Lafferty discovered Tucker and outlined an alleged cover-up for why he was not pursued. Tucker died in February 2012 and was not named because he was not considered a suspect by police.
- In February 2014, it was reported that Louis Joseph Myers had confessed to a friend in 2001 that he was the Zodiac Killer after learning that he was dying from cirrhosis of the liver. He requested that his friend, Randy Kenney, go to the police upon his death. Myers died in 2002, but Kenney allegedly had difficulties getting officers to cooperate and take the claims seriously. There are several potential connections between Myers and the Zodiac case; Myers attended the same high schools as victims David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, and allegedly worked in the same restaurant as victim Darlene Ferrin. During the 1971–1973 period, when no Zodiac letters were received, Myers was stationed overseas with the military. Kenney says that Myers confessed he targeted couples because he had had a bad breakup with a girlfriend. While officers associated with the case are skeptical, they believe the story is credible enough to investigate if Kenney could produce credible evidence.
- Robert Ivan Nichols, also known as Joseph Newton Chandler III, was a formerly unidentified identity thief who committed suicide in Eastlake, Ohio, in July 2002. After his death, investigators were unable to locate his family and discovered that he had stolen the identity of an eight-year-old boy who was killed in a car crash in Texas in 1945. The lengths to which Nichols went to hide his identity led to speculation that he was a violent fugitive. The U.S. Marshals Service announced his identification at a press conference in Cleveland on June 21, 2018. Some Internet sleuths suggested that he might have been the Zodiac Killer, as he resembled police sketches of the Zodiac and had lived in California, where the Zodiac operated.
Earl Van Best Jr.
- In 2014, Gary Stewart published a book, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, in which he claimed his search for his biological father, Earl Van Best Jr., led him to conclude Van Best was the Zodiac Killer. In 2020, the book was adapted for FX Network as a documentary series.
- Since 2018, a journalistic inquiry on a connection between the Zodiac and Monster of Florence cases is being published on the website of Italian magazine Tempi, also appearing in newspapers Libero and Il Giornale (which following the publication of Amicone's first article in Libero in 2021 retreated). The suspect is a former superintendent of the Florence American Cemetery in Italy, Joseph "Joe" Bevilacqua, also known as Giuseppe, who was born on December 20, 1935, in Totowa, New Jersey, and had a 20-years career in the Army when he left it to move to Florence in 1974. Francesco Amicone, the author of inquiry, wrote an account of a Bevilacqua's partial admission, in which he would have confessed to Amicone to being responsible of the murders attributed to the Zodiac killer and the Monster of Florence in an unregistered conversation occurred on September 11, 2017. After the release of the first part of the inquiry in May 2018, Bevilacqua denied his admission; even though he threatened him with a lawsuit, Amicone did not stop to accuse him. In 2021, Amicone reported that Bevilacqua would have been an undercover CID agent assigned to an investigation in San Francisco concerning SMA William O. Wooldridge and other Army sergeants at the time of Zodiac's homicides in 1969 and 1970. While Army criminal investigator in Italy in the early 1970s, Bevilacqua would have had access to a case file of a double murder that occurred near Florence in 1968 where bullets and shell casings had been improperly stored. Bevilacqua replaced the pieces of evidence with spent cartridges shot by the gun he would use in the Monster of Florence's homicides in order to link his future crimes to those murders for which he had an alibi. Italian authorities collected Bevilacqua's DNA in late 2020.
- On October 6, 2021, The Case Breakers, an independent team of 40 former law enforcement investigators, military intelligence officers and journalists, claimed to have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, but this information was not confirmed by the Vallejo Police Department. The Case Breakers have requested that police test the Zodiac Killer's DNA evidence to confirm it matches the DNA of Gary Francis Poste. The police, however, said that the case is not solved and that the killer was not identified yet. "The Zodiac Killer case remains open. We have no new information to share at the moment", an FBI spokesman told CNN.
Paul Doerr
- Paul Doerr
Primary sources[]
FBI Files:
- FBI Case File (1 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 89 pages.
- FBI Case File (2 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 109 pages.
- FBI Case File (3 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 258 pages.
- FBI Case File (4 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 208 pages.
- FBI Case File (5 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 373 pages.
Bibliography[]
Literature[]
- Graysmith, Robert. Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Hunt for the Nation's Most Elusive Serial Killer,. ISBN 978-0425212189
Articles[]
- The Zodiac Killer. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (March 2, 2007).
- "Zodiac Killer". Biography (October 14, 2017).
- Ryan Ocenada, Kevin Fagan (October 22, 2023). Zodiac Killer: Why sleuths are still obsessed with S.F.’s most notorious serial killer. San Francisco Chronicle.
Documentaries[]
Television[]
- This Is the Zodiac Speaking (2008) on IMDb
- The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer (2017) on IMDb
- The Most Dangerous Animal of All (2020) on IMDb
- The Truth About Jim (2024) on IMDb
- This Is the Zodiac Speaking (2024) on IMDb
YouTube Documentaries[]
- The Zodiac Killer: America’s Most Elusive Killer, Biographics on YouTube
Podcasts[]
- The Zodiac Killer - Part 1. Serial Killers with Greg Polcyn & Vanessa Richardson.
- The Zodiac Killer - Part 2. Serial Killers with Greg Polcyn & Vanessa Richardson.
- Monster: The Zodiac Killer.
In popular culture[]
Film adaptations[]
- The Zodiac Killer (1971) on IMDb
- The Limbic Region (1996) on IMDb
- The Zodiac (2005) on IMDb
- Ulli Lommel's Zodiac Killer (2005) on IMDb (Trailer on YouTube)
- Zodiac (2007) on IMDb (Trailer on YouTube)
- Curse of the Zodiac (2007) on IMDb
Related Articles[]
See also[]
Links[]
- Zodiac Killer at Wikipedia
- Zodiac Killer on IMDb
- Criminal Psychologist Explains Twisted Mind Of The Zodiac Killer, BuzzFeed Unsolved Network on YouTube
- ZodiacKiller.com.
- Zodiac Ciphers.
- ZodiacKillerFacts.com.
- Zodiac Killer Wiki.
- "Zodiac Murder Map" – Google Map plotting definite and possible Zodiac attacks (with details).
- Detailed account of the Zodiac case
- Austin Harvey (August 2, 2024). The Zodiac Killer’s Infamous Z340 Cipher Has Been Solved More Than 50 Years After His Chilling Murders Took Place. AllThatsInteresting.com.