“The Zodiac” a name that had terrorized the people of California in the late 1960s.
Zodiac was a serial killer who is at least responsible for the death of 5 innocent people in southern California in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The killer terrorized the southern and northern California bay area for a very long period for killing rampage, and his infamous letter to the Newspapers and the Police Department’s taunting them for not catching him.
Zodiac was the most notorious and unidentified killer of the 20th century. The Zodiac killing has reportedly started in 1966, a riverside murder of an 18-year-old college student, which was later bought into light by the San Fransico Chronicles Crime Reporter Paul Avery.
On December 20, 1968, the Zodiac killer shot two high school students David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, who had been parked on the side of the road in the outskirts of Vallejo, California. Police had no idea why and who had killed the kid until 1969.
In 1969, just over six months on July 5, 1969, another couple was shot to death near the Blue Rock Springs Park. Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Mike Mageau, 19, were sitting in their parked car just like the 1968 kids. Who had no idea that they would be shot to death in minutes.
A man approaches the car with a flashlight on and shines it into the car. Then, without further ado, he starts firing shots at the couple in the car. After firing a set of shots, the killer goes back to his car but returns once again, shooting, mainly targeting Darlene Ferrin. Approximately ten shots were fired in the scene.
Shortly following the shootings, a man called the Vallejo police from a nearby payphone claiming to be the murderer of double murder; he also takes credit for David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen’s killing in December. And hangs up the phone with a taunting Goodbye.
Ferrin was killed, but Mageau had survived the wounds. Mageau was the only survivor who had seen the Zodiac unmasked. He gave the description of the shooter to the police. But unfortunately, Mageau went into hiding after he was discharged from the hospital.
Soon after Mageau and Ferrin’s attack, the killer starts writing letters to the San Francisco Chronicles, The SF Examiner, and others, taking credits for the murders by stating the facts that only he and the police knew and also demanding the letters to be published otherwise he would go on a killing rampage.
He also sent ciphers along with his letters challenging to crack them, claiming his identity was hiding in them. The first cipher was cracked by a high-school teacher and his wife, which had a message that said, “I like killing people because it is so much fun,” it read. “It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all.”
Although he did not reveal his identity, stating, “The police would slow down his collection of slaves for his afterlife.” If he revealed himself.
On September 27, 1969, the killing shifted from Vallejo to Napa, California. Bryan Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Shepard, 22, were picnicking near Lake Berryessa in Napa. When Cecelia Shepard noticed a man coming towards them, she followed his moments only for him to emerge in an executioner’s mask with a circle-cross symbol on his chest with a gun in his hand pointed towards them.
At first, he had asked them their wallets and keys, stating that he had escaped from prison and needed a ride to Mexico, but once he got the things he had asked for, he tied them up and stabbed them multiple times, leaving a message for the police written on a car door about the criminal activities he once again called the police to inform about the “double murder.”
Shepard died of her injuries in the hospital, while Hartnell survived.
The letter kept coming to the San Francisco Chronicles, The SF Examiner, and a local Vallejo paper. Beginning with his infamous line, “This is the Zodiac speaking.” He would give details about the crime and would demand the publishing of a letter; if not, he would go on a “killing rampage.”
Police started suspecting that the Zodiac was killing only couples, but this guess was broken when the Zodiac set his foot in the big city, San Fransico.
On October 11, 1969, cab driver Paul Stine was shot in the head by a passenger. Some teenagers in the opposite building had witnessed the attack and alerted police, giving a description similar to the one they already had for the Zodiac Killer.
Unfortunately, the police dispatcher had a mix-up, and the SFPD was told to look for a black suspect instead of a white caucasian man.
Two officers had actually encountered a man who matched all the description except his color just a block away, heading to the park. “They had enquired the Zodiac about the Zodiac”, due to the wrong dispatch, he had easily slipped away from the police’s silly mistake that night.
Later the Zodiac mentioned the mistake in a letter along with a piece of the cab driver’s (Paul Stine) bloody cloth as proof of his crime, suggesting that the officers had in fact been in contact with the killer, only to let him slip away.
In 1970, Zodiac ones again began his hunt. On March 22, 1970, Zodiac allegedly abducted pregnant Kathleen Johns and her infant baby on Highway 132 near I-580, west of Modesto. Zodiac flashed Kathleen repeatedly until she stopped the car and said her “rear tire was loose” and offered to help. Kathleen hesitantly accepted his help, Zodiac did the opposite, and her tire came loose just a few minutes later when she started driving.
Zodiac returned to her and told her he would drop her at the nearest gas station, but he had passed every gas station driving her around for an hour or two, and he suddenly declares that he would throw her baby out of the window before he would kill her.
Terrified, the pregnant Johns took a leap and jumped out of the car along with her baby when the car slowed down near a stop sign. She ran into the dark vineyards hiding from him after searching for Johns Zodiac eventually left when he saw vehicles coming. However, Zodiac returned to the place of abduction and burnt her car because he did not get to finish his target.
He once sent a letter to the SF Chronicles asking people to wear some nice Zodiac buttons when none did; he got frustrated and wrote again, telling now he had a list of people in which he included the Kathleen Johns incident.
Zodiac sent three more ciphers along with his numerous letters kept taunting the police department’s incapability, mentioning cops as “blue pigs,” but the letters abruptly stooped in 1974, with him marking Me=37, SFPD= 0, but the investigation did not halt.
Zodiac had previously taken credit for the murders he had not committed though many murders are linked to him, only five have been confirmed so far. However, many copycats rose in his period; he inspired murders. One similar to him grew in the New York Zodiac and Japan.
The New York copycat Zodiac was caught, unlike the real Zodiac.
So, after seeing all his vile hunting and chiding letters, you might wonder if the Zodiac Killer was caught? No, the Zodiac was never caught. It’s been almost five decades, yet the killer was never found. There were more than 5000 suspects during the investigations who were eliminated and were narrowed down to a quiet few. So many suspects were interrogated, but none arrested, and the Zodiac Killer was never caught.
One of the main suspects for the Zodiac Killer was Arthur Leigh Allen. Leigh Allen was interrogated when his friend Don Cheney called the police and told how Allen had told him he would become a professional killer and he would call himself Zodiac. Cheney gave away a lot of information and claimed Leigh Allen was the Zodiac.
The police investigated Leigh at his work. He said he does not remember any such conversations, but the police did not stop there; they collected enough information and served a warrant to check Leigh Allen’s trailer home. Unfortunately, the forensics and nothing of the Zodiac cased matched Allen, so they had to let him go.
Again in 1978, Robert Graysmith, who was working on the Zodiac book, claimed that Allen was the Zodiac based on inconclusive information by then Dave Toschi was let out of Homicide. Graysmith believed that Allen was the Zodiac. He wrote two books, Zodiac, which inspired 2007, Zodiac movie, and another Zodiac Unmasked, which clearly said it was Arthur Leigh Allen.
However, the case went cold, but again Leigh Allen’s name comes to light in 1991.
When a new officer of the Vallejo police department shows the Zodiac’s second murder victim Michele Magaeu a set of Zodiac suspects, Magaeu points out Allen’s picture and states he was the man that shot him on July 4, 1969. A case starts brewing again on Allen, but in 1992 Allen dies of a heart attack, and the case stills.
He wasn’t the only one; Kathleen Johns, the lady who the Zodiac reportedly abducted, pointed out Larry Kane’s picture, stating that was the man, but she kept changing her answers, and the results were inconclusive.
A man named Gary Stewart came forward in 2014 claiming his father was the Zodiac; he also published a book called The Most Dangerous Animal of All in which he claims that his father, Earl Van Best Jr. who bears a strong resemblance to the man in the police sketch was the Zodiac Killer.
Apart from the facial resemblance, there was no evidence for Earl to be the killer; hence the theory was dismissed.
A lot of people came forward telling their father, friend, and neighbor was the Zodiac killer; even people started claiming Ted Cruz, American Senator was the Zodiac killer, which was absurd because Cruz was just a baby when the killing began. This way, the killer was never found. Even today, the police department gets many calls and tips claiming they know who the Zodiac is.
Last year, the case had an update; some private citizens decoded the infamous Z= 340 cipher. Finally, after almost 51 years, the second cipher sent to the SF Chronicles cracked the cipher read.
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN 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 PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH.
Now two more ciphers, one which the Zodiac claimed to reveal his identity, are yet to be cracked; the three people working on the ciphers want to crack them to give justice to the victim’s family.
The Zodiac case remains an ongoing investigation to date in San Francisco, Vallejo law enforcement, and others.
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