Zodiac Killer was an American serial killer in and around San Francisco, California, in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. A serial killer is someone who murders two or more victims in separate events. A few surviving eyewitnesses described a man, sometimes wearing a hood, who would shoot and kill couples on dates in secluded spots. The crimes remain unsolved. The Zodiac Killer taunted police by mailing letters and coded ciphers to area newspapers. The mystery of the killer’s identity and the information hidden in the coded ciphers has captivated crime scholars and enthusiasts for decades.
The first confirmed murders by the Zodiac Killer occurred on Dec. 20, 1968, outside of Benicia. David Faraday and Betty Lou Jenson were killed on a secluded road around 11:00 P.M. Around midnight on July 5, 1969, a man murdered Darlene Ferrin and injured Michael Mageau in a similar spot outside nearby Vallejo.
On Sept. 27, 1969, the Zodiac Killer attacked Cecelia Shepard and her boyfriend Brian Hartnell at Lake Berryessa. Shepard died two days later, but Hartnell survived and described the attacker’s disguise: a black hood, sunglasses, and a black smock. The smock was decorated with a symbol—a white circle, divided into quarters by two intersecting lines. The killer’s last known victim was the cab driver Paul Stine. He was killed on Oct. 11, 1969, in San Francisco.
Beginning in August 1969, the killer mailed letters and coded ciphers to local newspapers and media personalities. In an early letter, the killer gave himself the name Zodiac. “This is the Zodiac speaking,” the letter began. Most letters were signed with the same symbol seen on the smock worn by the killer. The letters gave details of the murders that only the killer would know. One letter received after Stine’s murder included a scrap of fabric from Stine’s shirt.
The Zodiac Killer continued to send letters through 1974, long after his last confirmed murder. He taunted the police and threatened to commit more murders. In one letter, he claimed he had killed 37 people. However, this tally has not been confirmed. Some of the letters included portions written in code. The first encoded passage was solved quickly by a teacher and his wife who were amateur puzzle enthusiasts. Other passages took decades to solve, and some remain unsolved.
Several people have been named as suspects, but nobody has ever officially been charged with the crimes. Some DNA was collected from stamps and envelopes sent by the killer, but it did not match any samples in genetic databases. Amateur sleuths have tried to connect a number of cases to the Zodiac Killer, but only the three attacks on couples and the murder of Stine have been officially tied to him.
Despite a relatively short period of activity, the Zodiac Killer has continued to captivate the public imagination and popular culture. In 1971, two films were released based on the murders. The Zodiac Killer presented a straightforward dramatization of events. Dirty Harry, starring the American actor Clint Eastwood, tells the story of a San Francisco detective on the trail of the Zodiac-inspired Scorpio Killer. The author and former political cartoonist Robert Graysmith wrote the book Zodiac (1986) about the murders. The book was later adapted into the motion picture Zodiac (2007).
