“I like killing people because it’s so much fun.”
These chilling words were part of a coded message received by The ‘San Francisco Examiner’ newspaper in July of 1969. The sender was the soon-to-be-notorious ‘Zodiac Killer’, a serial murderer who terrorised the residents of northern California, US, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It wasn’t just the grisly murders that marked his reign of terror, but the disturbing public letters filled with cyphers, astrological symbols and clues teasing the public and the police.
In this week’s edition of Most Shocking Crimes, ABP Live details the hunt for the killer, who remains unidentified to date.
The Zodiac is believed to have murdered at least five people, but, according to The Guardian, he pegged his toll at 37.
The killer vanished in the late 1970s after taunting the authorities with around two dozen letters for nearly a decade. This unsolved case is often described as “arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history”, and the mystery still grips public interest.
The killer himself coined his name in the taunting messages he sent to regional newspapers. In these letters, he threatened to go on killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. The letters began with his signature, “This is the Zodiac speaking”, according to a report by Tahoe Daily Tribune. These letters contained astrological-type coded messages and threats written in capital English letters.
The first victims of The Zodiac Killer were reportedly a high-school couple, David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, who were attacked on December 20, 1968. Faraday and Jensen had driven out to Lake Herman Road for their first date and had parked their car just within the limits of Benicia City. According to a report by Hindustan Times, the killer pulled up his vehicle beside the couple’s, and shot Faraday in the head and Jensen five times in the back as she fled.
The next victims, Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin, were targeted while parked near Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo on July 4, 1969, some 6.4 km from the Lake Herman Road murder site. The accused pulled up beside them, before driving off and returning within 10 minutes. The killer is believed to have got out of the car with a flashlight, and shot the couple five times. While returning to his car, he heard Mageau moaning and shot him two more times, the HT report said. Mageau survived the attack, but Ferrin died.
The next attack came on September 27, 1969, and again targeted a couple: Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, who were visiting Lake Berryessa in Napa County to spend their last afternoon together before they headed off to different colleges. Hartnell survived the attack and told the authorities how they were targeted by a man wearing a black hood and sunglasses who approached them with a gun. The man ordered Shepard to tie herself and Hartnell up. He then drew a long bayonet-like knife out and reportedly told the couple, “I’m going to have to stab you people.” He stabbed Hartnell six times, and Shepard 10. He then drew his patented cross-circle symbol on Hartnell’s car, and wrote, “Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by knife.” The killer then called the Napa County Sheriff’s office and reported the crimes, confessing to murder. Shepard died two days later at a hospital.
The killer’s last-known victim was a cab driver named Paul Stine. The Zodiac reportedly boarded Stine’s car on October 11, 1969, in San Francisco and requested to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. When the cab drove past Maple Street, the killer shot Stine in the head, killing him. He then tore a bloodstained piece of his shirt. Three teenagers witnessed the incident and called the police. Patrol officers responded to the call and even reportedly saw the killer, but he escaped.
The Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner each received a letter written by the Zodiac Killer on August 1, 1969, in which he took credit for the Blue Rock Springs and Lake Herman Road murders. Each letter had one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram, in which the Zodiac claimed to have revealed his identity.
The San Francisco Chronicle received another letter on October 14, 1969, along with the bloodied piece of Paul Stine’s shirt to prove that he was the killer.
He again sent a 340-word cryptogram to publications on November 8, 1969. This cryptogram was solved on December 5, 2020, by amateur code-breakers, CNN reported. The message misspelled “paradise”, and sought to discredit the claims of a man who had called into a TV show and identified himself as the Zodiac Killer.
On November 9, 1969, the Zodiac, in a seven-page letter, described how, after Paul Stine’s murder, he was stopped by two policemen who had even spoken to them.
On December 20, 1969, the killer wrote a letter to lawyer Melvin Belli with another part of Paul Stine’s shirt and asked for his help.
Over the years, several suspects have been proposed. The most notable is Arthur Leigh Allen, a convicted child molester who died in 1992. Allen’s connection to the Zodiac Killer was investigated thoroughly, but definitive proof linking him to the murders remains elusive. More recent forensic advancements, including DNA analysis and genealogical research, have led to new theories and potential suspects, yet none have provided conclusive evidence.
In 2020, a group of cold-case investigators claimed to have identified a potential suspect using new forensic methods. However, these claims have yet to be substantiated with concrete evidence, and the case remains unsolved.
