Unsettling Reality

1. The Zodiac Killer was a serial murderer who killed in Northern California from the late 1960’s to the mid-1970’s.

2. Victims were murdered in the San Francisco, Benicia, Vallejo, and Lake Berryessa areas.

3. His first victims were high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday when the two were on their first date on December 20, 1968. They had intended on attending a local Christmas concert but instead drove up to a local lover’s lane. Police estimated that they arrived there at 10:15pm, and a neighborhood woman found their bodies at 11:00pm.

4. Crime expert Robert Graysmith theorized that evidence at the scene suggests that a second car, just before 11:00pm, pulled into the lover’s lane next to the couple. The theory posits that the driver of this second car ordered the couple out, with Jensen leaving first, but it was Faraday who was shot first while exiting the vehicle. Jensen tried to run off but was shot 28 feet away from the car.

5. The next attack was on July 4, 1969. A couple – Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau — drove to Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. The two were sitting in their car when a second car pulled up next to them. The car drove off, but returned roughly ten minutes later and parked behind the couple.

6. The Zodiac Killer then exited his car with a flashlight and a firearm. He approached the car and flashed his flashlight in Ferrin and Mageau’s face before opening fire.

7. The Zodiac Killer returned to the car after opening fire after he heard Mageau moan.

8. A day later, a man called the Vallejo police department to claim responsibility for the Ferrin/Mageau murder and the Faraday/Jensen murders. Police traced the call to a phone booth in proximity to Ferrin’s home.

9. Miraculously, Mageau survived the attack. He described the attacker as 5’8″, and in his mid-20s or early 30s.

10. On August 1, 1969, three letters were sent to newspapers from someone who claimed to be the killer in both attacks. He threatened to kill more people if his letter wasn’t published on the front page. Each of the three letters also included 1/3rd of a 408-symbol cryptogram. The killer claimed that the solution of the puzzle would reveal his identity. He signed the letter with a later trademark cross through a circle.

11. On August 7, 1969, another letter was sent out, which was the first in which the killer signs as “The Zodiac.” In this letter, the killer revealed information about the two sets of murders that had not been made public by the police, hence confirming the sender as the actual murderer.

12. On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden solved the Zodiac Killer’s crytogram, though it did not exactly reveal his identity:

“I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is thae when I die I will be reborn in paradice and thei have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to sloi down or atop my collectiog of slaves for my afterlife ebeorietemethhpiti.”

13. The Zodiac Killer struck again on September 27, 1969. University students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were enjoying a picnic lunch at a small island on Lake Berryessa. A man wearing a black executioner’s hood approached the two with a gun. He claimed to have escaped from prison and told the couple that he needed their car.

14. He ordered Shepard to tie up Hartnell with a clothesline that he brought with him. He discovered that Shepard tied the line loosely, and tightened it before tying Shepard up as well.

15. Hartnell thought the whole thing was just a robbery until the Zodiac Killer started stabbing them both with a knife.

16. While stabbing them, the Zodiac Killer began laughing erratically.

17. After stabbing them both roughly two dozen times, the Zodiac Killer hiked up the road and called the police from a payphone to report his latest crime.

18. Shepard and Hartnell screamed for help and were found by a man and his son who had been fishing in the area. Shepard was still alive when police arrived and she provided details after the attacker but died two days later. Hartnell survived the attack.

19. Two weeks later, the Zodiac Killer attacked again. It was October 11th, 1969, and the killer jumped into a taxi being driven by Paul Stine. The Killer tore off a piece of Stine’s shirt and stole his wallet and keys.

20. Teenagers actually saw the attack and called the police. An officer saw a white man matching the Zodiac Killer’s description walking down a sidewalk near the scene of the crime, but disregarded him because he wasn’t black.

21. Three days later, the Zodiac Killer sent another message to the press with the piece of Stine’s shirt that he had taken. He suggested that he might shoot up a school bus full of children, and demanded that local attornies F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli appear on a local TV program.

22. Melvin Belli did appear on the show, and a man purporting to be the killer called into the show. They agreed to meet at a specific location, but the Zodiac Killer never showed up.

23. The Zodiac Killer sent two more letters to the press on November 8th and 9th. The first included another cryptogram which has never been deciphered and a taunting claim that he spoke to two different police officers after killing Stine.

24. Kathleen Johns became the next victim when she was en route to Petaluma. She was pregnant and had her 10-month-old with her. A car pulled up behind her and began laying on the horn and flashing his brights. Johns pulled over to the side of the road, and the Zodiac Killer approached her car. He claimed that one of her car wheels was wobbly, and offered to tighten it.

25. After the Killer finished “tightening” the wheel, Johns attempted to drive off, but the whole wheel immediately blew off. The Killer then offered to drive her to a nearby gas station.

26. After 90 minutes, the Zodiac Killer still had not stopped at any gas station, and Johns began to get nervous. When Johns tried to mention stopping to the Killer, he would change the subject of conversation. Finally, the Zodiac Killer stopped at a traffic light and Johns jumped out with her son and hid in a field. The Zodiac Killer searched the field with his flashlight, calling out that he wouldn’t hurt her, but eventually gave up.

27. Johns then hitched a ride to a police station where she gave her statement, and immediately noticed a sketch of the Zodiac Killer and immediately identified him as her captor.

28. When Johns’ car was found, it had been gutted and torched. She told police that he had threatened to kill her and her daughter when driving them around.

29. The Zodiac Killer continued sending communications to the police in the press. In one, he taunts the police, claiming he has 10 points and they have none.

30. He told the police that he wanted to see them wearing his symbol, the circle with a cross through it. After noticing nobody was, he allegedly shot a police officer. Authorities dispute that this was the work of the Zodiac Killer.

31. A local journalist, Paul Avery, received a letter from the Killer stating that “you’re doomed.” He also received a tip linking the Zodiac Killer to a murder down in Riverside, south of his usual zone of operation.

32. The Killer allegedly struck again in killing 18-year-old Cheri Jo Bates, who had been studying late at a campus library. Her body was found between two buildings set to be demolished, with a discarded Timex watch nearby.

33. The Zodiac Killer took credit for this murder, allegedly writing, “She had to die there will be more.” He also applauded people for discovering his Riverside murder, though claimed that was “only the easy one.”

34. Authorities are divided onto whether the Killer actually murdered Bates, however, or if he was merely trying to take credit.

35. On March 22, 1971, The Zodiac Killer sent a letter claiming to be behind the disappearance of Donna Lass. Lass had vanished after finishing a late shift at the hospital where she worked. An unknown male called her place of employment and landlord, claiming she left town for a family emergency. Lass has never been found.

36. The Zodiac Killer then remained silent for three years.

37. On January 29, 1974, the Killer wrote a letter praising The Exorcist as a comedy and updating his score: Me = 37, SFPD = 0.

38. Other letters have been sent in later years that bear some resemblance to the Zodiac Killer’s, but none have been authenticated.

39. The case is still open in Napa County and the city of Riverside.

40. The killer has never been found and is probably still out there to this day.

41. After solving the decades-old case of the Golden State Killer, many are optimistic that new DNA techniques may finally be able to bring justice to one of the most befuddling, and disturbing, serial killers of all time.