For six years, from 1990 to 1996, New York City police hunted a gunman who signed his letters "Zodiac." The name was borrowed from an unidentified killer in California, and the NYPD still files the case as the New York Zodiac Copycat. The New York writer sent letters to the press claiming that he chose his victims by their astrological signs. The New York Police Department formed a Zodiac Task Force in 1990 and a second one in 1994, when a new letter claimed more attacks.
The case was solved almost by chance. In June 1996 a domestic shooting in East New York, Brooklyn, turned into a standoff with police. The man inside surrendered after hours of negotiation and agreed to write out a statement. The detective who read it, a hostage negotiator who had worked on the Zodiac case for years, saw at the bottom a symbol like the one on the Zodiac letters. The man was Heriberto Seda, known as Eddie, then 31. After a long interrogation he described the Zodiac shootings, according to Officer magazine, and in 1998 juries convicted him at two separate trials.
The first shooting later attributed to the Zodiac took place on March 8, 1990, in East New York, a neighborhood in the 75th Precinct of Brooklyn. The victim was a man of 49. He survived. A used car dealer in the neighborhood told the New York Daily News that summer that he had taken it at first for an ordinary shooting. "I thought it was just a regular shooting," he said.
A second man, a neighbor in the same part of Brooklyn, was shot at about 3 a.m. on March 29 as he walked home. He also survived.
On May 31, 1990, Joseph Proce, 78, was shot in Woodhaven, Queens. Weeks later an elderly man walking his dog nearby told the Daily News that the shooting had happened around the corner and that he no longer took the dog out at night. "I used to take the dog for a walk at 10:30 at night," he said. Joseph Proce died of his wounds. According to the NYPD, his death in the hospital turned the Zodiac investigation into a homicide case. The Daily News described him as the third of the four people the gunman had shot by the start of July 1990.
The fourth was a homeless man shot while he slept in Central Park, Manhattan. He survived. He told police that a man had asked him his astrological sign in the park the day before he was shot, and that the man had told him he had family problems. Police released a sketch based on his account, showing a disheveled man in his thirties.
In June 1990, according to the NYPD, a writer calling himself Zodiac sent a letter to the New York Post claiming to have killed three people in Brooklyn because of their astrological signs, and promising nine more. Once detectives confirmed that the shootings he described had taken place, the department formed a Zodiac Task Force. Its headquarters were at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and tips poured in, some of them from psychics, the NYPD says.
Retired Lieutenant Michael Ciravolo, who worked on the early investigation, and Anne Murray, a retired reporter, have described those months for the NYPD's own podcast, "Break in the Case," whose third season is devoted to what the department calls the New York Zodiac Copycat case. Retired Detective Sergeant Wally Zeins narrates the season.
By the start of July 1990 the Zodiac was front-page news, three months and two shootings after the first attack. The Daily News reported that people across the city had grown wary of telling strangers their birth dates or signs, and that the name had become an uneasy joke. In East New York residents were sure the gunman had walked past them. "It could be the guy next door," a 23-year-old man told the paper. "Everybody's looking behind their back, making sure they're not No. 5."
A 39-year-old father imagined the gunman at home at night, watching the television news and laughing at the police. His nine-year-old son called the gunman a coward who went after men who were "feeble, drunk or sleeping."
Rumors spread of sightings in diners and near a cemetery, and one theory held that the gunman was placing his shootings on the city map in the shape of the constellation Orion, which would put his next attack in the Whitestone and Bayside area of Queens. Thomas Repetto, of the Citizens Crime Commission, told the Daily News that the city could explain away drug shootings but not a random gunman. "The random killer who stalks the streets always strikes a great deal of terror," he said. A gunman who taunted the newspapers drew even more attention, he added: "Everybody wants to know who's he going to strike next and where."
The shootings that summer were not followed by an arrest. In August 1994, according to the NYPD, a new Zodiac letter appeared on the front page of the New York Post. It claimed five more shootings in 1992 and 1993, in the same part of the city as the first three. The department formed a second Zodiac Task Force.
One of the later victims was Patricia Fonti, who was stabbed. When Seda was questioned in 1996, detectives said, he gave details of the shootings and of her killing. The dates, ages and circumstances of the other 1992 and 1993 attacks were not reported.
Joe Herbert, then a detective sergeant, worked on the Zodiac case for years without a breakthrough, he told WABC-TV in 2017.
On June 18, 1996, a 911 call brought police to an apartment building in East New York. According to Officer magazine, a neighbor reported that a 17-year-old girl had been shot by her brother, Eddie Seda, 31, after an argument at home; WABC-TV describes her as his half-sister. She survived.
When officers arrived, Seda fired at them from a window. No officer was hurt. The NYPD describes what followed as a shootout and a hostage situation, and it was the first hostage job for Detective Sergeant Joseph Herbert, a negotiator. After several hours of talks, Officer magazine reports, Seda agreed to surrender on condition that he could place his weapons in a bucket lowered from the roof. Police recovered thirteen zip guns he had made, in 9mm and .22 calibers, and a search of his home turned up more weapons, among them pipe bombs and knives. He was arrested in the 75th Precinct for attempted murder.
Seda agreed to write a statement admitting that he had shot his half-sister. Herbert, who had spent years on the Zodiac investigation, read it and recognized the handwriting. "At the bottom of the letters, he makes a strange symbol," Herbert told WABC-TV in 2017, recalling the Zodiac correspondence. The same kind of symbol was on Seda's statement. "I think it was fate," Herbert said.
He described what he felt once he made the connection. It was a calm feeling, he said, because he knew he had his man.
Investigators then tied the symbols and the homemade pistols, the same kind of weapon used in the Zodiac shootings, to the earlier attacks, Officer magazine reports. In the NYPD's words, an East New York man arrested for attempted murder was linked by the evidence to far more serious crimes.
After a long interrogation, according to Officer magazine, Seda laid out his plan to become "the next Zodiac Killer" and gave details of the shootings and of the stabbing of Patricia Fonti. The reports do not quote his statements to detectives.
Seda was arraigned in Queens for three murders and one attempted murder, according to the NYPD. A Queens prosecutor then prepared to answer a psychiatric defense, the department says. The names of the prosecutors, the judge and the defense lawyers, the length of the trial and the evidence presented are not given in published reports.
In 1998 juries returned guilty verdicts against him at two separate trials, Officer magazine reports: one for three murders and the other for six attempted murders. His total sentence was 232 years, which the magazine describes as effectively a life term. No breakdown of the counts, the victims named in each or the sentence for each count was reported, and no decision on an appeal was reported either.
The detective who saw the symbol stayed with the NYPD for more than 36 years. Joe Herbert joined the department in 1981 and early in his career arrested Gregory Pought, later identified as the "Flatbush Rapist," through a fingerprint match. After the September 11 attacks he was one of the first 25 lieutenants assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which he later led. He retired as a deputy chief in counterterrorism in October 2017, at 60, because of health problems, WABC-TV reported. In its report on his retirement, the station listed the Zodiac arrest among the biggest cases of his career.
The Zodiac's own claims were never a reliable count. The first letter, in June 1990, claimed three killings in Brooklyn, according to the NYPD, while the Daily News at the start of July 1990 counted four people shot, one of whom had died, in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. The August 1994 letter claimed five more shootings. How many of the claimed attacks were his, and how many were proven in court, remains unclear.
The relationship of the 1996 victim is given differently: Officer magazine calls her his sister, while WABC-TV calls her his half-sister.
The counts at trial are also reported differently. The NYPD gives the Queens arraignment as three murders and one attempted murder; Officer magazine gives the two 1998 verdicts as three murders and six attempted murders. Both may be right if the second trial covered the 1996 shooting and the shots fired at police, though no court record confirming it has been reported.
The case was the subject of a 1997 book, Sleep My Little Dead: The True Story of the Zodiac Killer, by Kieran Crowley. The NYPD devoted the third season of its podcast "Break in the Case" to the investigation, from the first letters in 1990 to the trial.
In June 2024 Officer magazine gave his sentence as 232 years and described it as effectively a life term.
March 8, 1990: A man is shot and wounded in East New York, Brooklyn; the first shooting later linked to the Zodiac.
March 29, 1990: A second man is shot and wounded in the same part of Brooklyn, at about 3 a.m.
May 31, 1990: Joseph Proce, 78, is shot in Woodhaven, Queens; he later dies of his wounds.
June 1990: A letter signed Zodiac reaches the New York Post claiming three killings; the NYPD forms a Zodiac Task Force at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Before July 1990: A homeless man is shot while sleeping in Central Park and survives; police release a sketch.
1992 and 1993: Further shootings later claimed by the Zodiac, and the killing of Patricia Fonti.
August 1994: A new Zodiac letter on the front page of the New York Post claims five more shootings; a second task force is formed.
June 18, 1996: Seda shoots his teenage half-sister, fires at police, and surrenders after hours of negotiation; thirteen zip guns are recovered. His written statement links him to the Zodiac letters.
1998: Juries convict him at two trials, of three murders and of six attempted murders; total sentence 232 years.
October 2017: Joe Herbert, the negotiator who made the connection, retires from the NYPD.
June 2024: Officer magazine describes his sentence as effectively a life term.