Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer[n 2] is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s.[n 1] The Zodiac murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969, operating in rural, urban and suburban settings. He targeted three young couples and a lone male cab driver. The case has been described as "arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history", and has become both a fixture of popular culture and a focus for efforts by amateur detectives.
For the New York City Zodiac copycat, see Heriberto Seda.
Zodiac Killer
Unidentified
Uncertain
1968
5 confirmed dead, 2 injured, possibly 20–28 total dead (claimed to have killed 37)
1968–1969[n 1]
United States
California, possibly also Nevada
Unapprehended
The Zodiac's known attacks took place in Benicia, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, and the city of San Francisco proper. Five of his known wounded victims died, and two survived. He coined his name in a series of taunting messages that he mailed to regional newspapers, in which he threatened killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. Some of the letters included cryptograms, or ciphers, in which the killer claimed that he was collecting his victims as slaves for the afterlife. Of the four ciphers he produced, two remain unsolved, and one was cracked only in 2020. The last confirmed Zodiac letter was in 1974, when he claimed to have killed 37 victims.
While many theories regarding the identity of the killer have been suggested, the only suspect authorities ever publicly named was Arthur Leigh Allen,[1] a former elementary school teacher and convicted sex offender who died in 1992.
The unusual nature of the case led to international interest that has been sustained throughout the years. The San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive" in 2004, but re-opened it at some point prior to 2007. The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa and Solano counties.[2] The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.[3]
Letters of suspicious authorship
Of further communications sent by the public to members of the news media, some contained similar characteristics of previous Zodiac writings. In 1973, the Albany Times Union in New York received a letter postmarked for August 1. The Zodiac symbol was placed in lieu of a return address. In it, the writer proclaimed they were not "dead or in the hospital", and that they were going to kill again on August 10th. They said that the name and location of their next victim was available in a three-line cryptic code in the letter. FBI cryptanalysts deciphered the code to mean "[REDACTED] Albany Medical Center. This is only the beginning." Investigators could not find the murder that supposedly took place on August 10th, and handwriting experts could not determine if the letter was sent by the Zodiac.[4]
The Chronicle received a letter postmarked February 14, 1974, informing the editor that the initials for the Symbionese Liberation Army, a radical group which had recently kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, spelled out an Old Norse word meaning "kill".[4][139] However, the handwriting was not authenticated as the Zodiac's.[140]
A letter to the Chronicle, postmarked May 8, 1974, featured a complaint that the movie Badlands (1973) was "murder-glorification" and asked the paper to cut its advertisements. Signed only "A citizen", the handwriting, tone, and surface irony were all similar to earlier Zodiac communications.[141] The Chronicle subsequently received an anonymous letter postmarked July 8, 1974, complaining of their publishing the writings of the antifeminist columnist Marco Spinelli. The letter was signed "the Red Phantom (red with rage)". The Zodiac's authorship of this letter is debated.[141]
In 1976, several letters were sent to a San Francisco newspaper praising David Toschi's investigative work. These letters were eventually discovered to be written by Toschi himself. He was removed from the Zodiac case in 1978, and he later said he regretted writing the letters. Also in 1978, a letter was sent to Chronicle columnist Armistead Maupin that claimed to be from the Zodiac himself. It was alleged the Toschi wrote the letter, which he and the SFPD denied; The SFPD had compared the handwriting of the letter with Toschi's handwriting.[142][143]
On March 3, 2007, an American Greetings Christmas card sent to the Chronicle, postmarked 1990 in Eureka, was re-discovered in the paper's photo files by editorial assistant Daniel King. This letter was handed over to the Vallejo police.[144] Inside the envelope, with the card, was a photocopy of two United States Post Office keys on a magnet keychain. The handwriting on the envelope resembles Zodiac's print but was declared inauthentic by forensic document examiner Lloyd Cunningham; however, not all Zodiac experts agree with Cunningham's analysis.[145]
21st-century developments
In April 2004, the SFPD marked the case "inactive", citing caseload pressure and resource demands, effectively closing the case.[146][147] However, they re-opened their case sometime before March 2007.[148][149] The case is open in Napa County[150] and in the city of Riverside.[151]
In May 2018, the Vallejo Police Department announced their intention to attempt to collect the Zodiac's DNA from the back of stamps he used during his correspondence. The analysis, by a private laboratory, was expected to check the DNA against GEDmatch.[152][153] It was hoped the Zodiac would be caught in a similar fashion to serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo. In May 2018, a Vallejo police detective said that results were expected in several weeks. As of December 2019, no results had been reported.[154][155][156]
