By Chris Bartholomew
For people who lived in northern California in the 1960 and early 1970's it was a frightening time. The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in this area. He coined his name in a series of taunting letters to the press. He wrote four cryptograms (ciphers), three have not yet been solved.
An online site that has been in operation since March 20, 1998, Zodiackiller.com averages more than 2 million monthly hits and now boasts of 1195 registered users. There is no available Zodiac information that is not on this site. Of the registered users, many have been 'on the case' since the beginning, trying to find the elusive killer. Many more of these forum users are there for curiosity. Serial Killers are by nature interesting, and the message board is addictive. I was on a message board in Kansas when Dennis Rader, the BTK killer was caught, and I hope to be at zodiackiller.com when the Zodiac Killer is finally named, be he dead or alive.
There have been many suspects; even now the people at zodiackiller.com are looking at one Richard Joseph Gaikowski, now deceased but a suspect nonetheless. Suspect Arthur Leigh Allen was cleared by evidence but some still consider him guilty as seen in the recent blockbuster Zodiac. Rick Marshall is a favorite, also, Lawrence Kane, Michael O'Hare, Ted Kaczynski, Bruce Davis and the list goes on and on. It is unlikely that he will ever be caught, as the investigation has been closed, not cold but closed since early 2004.
Aside from the one time where he wore some kind of costume, it seems the Zodiac Killer must have fit in pretty well with the crowd around that time to have gotten away with as much as he has gotten away with. The costume in fact, probably hindered people from suspecting anyone that they knew, after all, what kind of weirdo must he have been to dress up the way that he did? The costume was a hood that covered his face and shoulders and had a crosshair symbol in a circle.
Zodiac murdered seven known victims, but there are another four that he is suspected in killing.
Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards were getting ready to graduate high school and decided to go to a remote beach south of Gaviota in Santa Barbara County, California, to be alone together instead of celebrating the traditional 'ditch day' with friends. The killer approached while they were sunbathing. As Edwards was forced to bind Domingos at gunpoint with lengths of narrow rope, both victims attempted to flee and were shot numerous times. The bodies were dragged 30 feet to an empty shack occasionally occupied by transients. Edwards was placed face up on top of Domingos and the top of her bathing suit was cut open with a sharp instrument (probably a knife), exposing her breasts. The killer then attempted to set fire to the shack with wooden matches, to no avail. Robert Domingos, age 18, was shot 11 times. His fiancée, Linda Edwards, age 17, was shot nine times. There were no witnesses. Due to the remote location of the crime scene, the bodies weren't found until the following evening.
In an alley on the campus of Riverside City College, Riverside, California, 18 year old Cheri Jo Bates was beaten and stabbed multiple times with a short-bladed knife. There was no evidence of robbery or sexual molestation. There were no witnesses. She had been studying in the college Library prior to the attack. Her car was found intentionally disabled 100 yards from the alley. A men's Timex watch with a band suggesting a seven-inch wrist was found at the scene, along with a military-style heel print indicating a size 8 to 10 shoe. The origin of the watch was eventually traced to a military post, possibly in England. The shoes could have been sold at nearby March Air Force Base. Investigators established the watch was ripped from the attacker's wrist during the struggle. Although the watch stopped at 12:24, it's believed the crime occurred a few hours earlier and that Bates died very quickly. Zodiac sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times postmarked March 13, 1971, accepting responsibility for the Bates crime.
The Zodiac wrote a confession letter about the Bates murder:
"SHE WAS YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL BUT NOW SHE IS BATTERED AND DEAD. SHE IS NOT THE FIRST AND SHE WILL NOT BE THE LAST. I LAY AWAKE NIGHTS THINKING ABOUT MY NEXT VICTIM. MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE BEAUTIFUL BLOND THAT BABYSITS NEAR THE LITTLE STORE AND WALKS DOWN THE DARK ALLEY EACH EVENING ABOUT SEVEN. OR MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE SHAPELY BLUE EYED BROWNETT THAT SAID NO WHEN I ASKED HER FOR A DATE IN HIGH SCHOOL. BUT MAYBE IT WILL NOT BE EITHER. BUT I SHALL CUT OFF HER FEMALE PARTS AND DEPOSIT THEM FOR THE WHOLE CITY TO SEE, SO DON'T MAKE IT TO EASY FOR ME. KEEP YOUR SISTERS, DAUGHTERS, AND WIVES OFF THE STREETS AND ALLEYS. MISS BATES WAS STUPID. SHE WENT TO THE SLAUGHTER LIKE A LAMB. SHE DID NOT PUT UP A STRUGGLE. BUT I DID. IT WAS A BALL... "
David Arthur Faraday at age 17 and Betty Lou Jensen at age 16 were parked in a gravel parking area along remote Lake Herman Road on the eastern outskirts of Vallejo, California. The victims were approached while sitting in Faraday's station wagon. Shots were fired into the vehicle in an apparent effort to force them out. Jensen exited the front passenger door first, followed by Faraday. Faraday was shot as he emerged from the car; Jensen was then shot as she fled on foot. It was the first date Jensen had ever been allowed on. David Faraday was shot once in the head at point-blank range and died within minutes. Betty Lou Jensen was shot five times in the back and killed instantly. The weapon was a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The ammunition was Winchester Western Super X copper-coated long rifle. There was no indication of robbery or sexual molestation. While there were no witnesses, several vehicles were seen in the area just prior to local resident Stella Borges discovering the crime scene.
Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin and Mike Renault Mageau were parked in the parking lot of secluded Blue Rock Springs Park on the eastern outskirts of Vallejo, California. Ferrin was married and Mageau was single, which is possibly why they parked to talk in such an isolated area. As they sat there, a car pulled into the lot just a few feet away. A man with a flashlight exited the vehicle and approached them. There were no other cars in the parking lot. Without warning, the man began firing. After five shots, the man walked slowly back to his car. Mageau screamed in pain, the man returned and fired two more shots into each victim. It was at this point that Mageau got a look at him. The man was white, 5'8" to 5'9", late 20s to early 30s, stocky build, round face and brown hair. No conversation between the victims and the man occurred. Approximately 45 minutes later, the Vallejo Police Department received a call from a man claiming responsibility for the attack.
On July 31, 1969, letters were sent to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle. The letters claimed to be from the killer of Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. Details were included that only the killer could have known. And each letter contained one-third of a cipher that, if solved, supposedly contained the killer's identity. While the killer hadn't yet given himself the name "Zodiac," this marked the beginning of a letter-writing spree that would go on for more than five years.
Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard were reacquainted old friends. They decided after some garage sailing to drive out to a remote part of the shoreline of Lake Berryessa near Napa, California. While sitting on a blanket probably talking about old times and futures, Shepard noticed a man approaching them wearing an unusual costume and holding a gun. After several minutes of conversation, the man tied the couple with plastic clothesline (sound familiar, Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards) and began stabbing them. Hartnell was attacked first, then Shepard. Cecelia Shepard, age 22, was stabbed 10 times, five in the front and five in the back. Bryan Hartnell, age 20, was stabbed six times in the back. After the assault, the man walked casually away from the scene. The knife had a wooden handle and a blade approximately 10 to 12 inches long. There was no indication of robbery or sexual molestation. There were no witnesses. Just over an hour after the attack, the Napa Police Department received a call from a man claiming responsibility for the stabbing. The call was quickly traced to a phone booth in downtown Napa and fingerprints were later recovered. They found that the attacker had written a message on the victim's car door. Cecelia Shepard died September 29, 1969, Bryan Hartnell recovered.
Cab driver Paul Stine, age 29, was shot once in the head at point-blank range. The weapon was a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, not the same 9mm used in the Ferrin murder. There were three witnesses from a house on the southeast corner of the intersection. Lengths of his bloody shirt were taken from the scene, of which some were mailed to various places as proof that the Zodiac Killer killed Stine. Though this was not the original destination for the cab, it was found on the northeast corner of Washington and Cherry Streets in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Stine's wallet was taken by the killer.
Kathleen Johns claims that the Zodiac Killer got her attention while driving her car, telling her that one of her wheels were loose and he offered to fix the problem. Instead of fixing it though, he apparently loosened the lug nuts and drove off. He came back when the wheel fell off and offered her a ride to a station. Apparently he told her that he was going to kill her, she escaped when he came to a stop in the street.
The Zodiac Killer, directed by Tom Hanson was released in 1972.
Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, was filmed in San Francisco and released in 1971 is very loosely based on the Zodiac case, the killer calls himself "Scorpio", at certain points he sends intimidating letters, with the handwriting based on the real life killer's and kidnaps a school bus full of children and threatens to kill them all.
The "Gemini Killer" in the movie The Exorcist lll, in 1990, was also loosely based on the Zodiac killer.
The Limbic Region, an HBO movie first shown in 1996 is based on Robert Graysmith's 1986 book, Zodiac.
In 2000, a short film entitled Disguised Killer was produced in Vallejo; set in the present, it is based on the Lake Herman Road murders and has a Filipino cast.
Zodiac Killer, a digitally recorded movie by Ulli Lommel, is about a cat-and-mouse game between the real Zodiac and a young copycat in 2002 Los Angeles. It was first shown at the Fearless Tales Genre Fest in San Francisco in 2005.
The Zodiac, directed by Alex Bulkley, is about a fictional detective in Vallejo obsessed with investigating the real Zodiac. In the United States, it opened on March 17, 2006 on 10 screens, one of which was in Vallejo, less than a mile and a half from Blue Rock Springs where Darlene Ferrin was murdered.
The most recent film about the Zodiac case is Zodiac, directed by David Fincher. The film is based on the two non-fiction books by Robert Graysmith: Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer. Filming locations included San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it opened in theaters nationwide in 2007.
In one shot of the theatrical trailer for the Julie Taymor film, "Across the Universe", one of The Zodiac Killer's codes is shown as a poster hanging on a wall.
Hunting The Zodiac, a documentary by John Mikulenka, debuted at the 4 Star Theater in San Francisco on March 3, 2007. The film explores the obsession that drives amateur detectives, more than 30 years after the murders, to search for the identity of the killer.
In the second season of the San Francisco cop show Nash Bridges in 1996, Don Johnson's police inspector is on the hunt for a killer copying the Zodiac murders. "The Zodiac" episode ends with the real Zodiac making a taunting phone call to Bridges.
The killer known as Avatar in the Millennium episode entitled "The Mikado" is based on the Zodiac Killer. In fact, writer Michael R. Perry had intended the villain to be the Zodiac Killer, but executives at the FOX network did not allow a real killer to be incorporated, so the name was changed. Despite this, several aspects of Avatar run parallel to that of the Zodiac, from the black executioner's-type hood to the taunting of the police with cryptic letters, as well as the killer's anonymity.
The Zodiac Killer was given a full feature episode on America's Most Wanted on February 25, 2007, which included full accounts of all canonical killings.
A segment was aired on the now-syndicated show Unsolved Mysteries, exploring a possible link between Zodiac and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Episode 51 of Cold Case Files, hosted by Bill Kurtis, examines the crimes of the Zodiac Killer.
Editor's note: this was written in April 2008 and is reproduced as written, with the film and television list abridged where the source document runs out. Three things in it have changed. The article says three of the four ciphers are unsolved, and that was true when it was written; the 340-character cipher, which had held for fifty-one years, was solved in December 2020 by a team of three amateurs working across three countries, and the FBI confirmed it. Two short ciphers remain unsolved, and the solved text names nobody. The article also says the investigation has been closed since early 2004. San Francisco police reopened the case in 2007, and the FBI has said since that the case remains open. Claims to have identified him have come and gone in the years since, including a widely covered one in 2021, and none has been accepted by the agencies holding the file. On the count, this archive records five confirmed dead and thirty-seven claimed by the killer himself in his letters. The seven in this article counts the two people who survived being attacked, Mike Mageau and Bryan Hartnell, and the four suspected cases include Cheri Jo Bates and the Domingos and Edwards killings, neither of which has ever been established as his. Arthur Leigh Allen is described here as cleared by evidence; the DNA comparison that is usually meant was inconclusive rather than exculpatory, and he was never charged.