Surely, many have watched Don Siegel’s film “Dirty Harry”. A man named Scorpio, who committed the murder of a girl, demands a ransom from the city authorities for future murders. The search for the criminal is entrusted to policeman Harry, whose illegal (but very effective) methods of work are turned a blind eye by his superiors.
Few people know that the film is based on a true story. The Zodiac serial killer, the most famous maniac of the 20th century, who killed five people and injured two, was never caught.
Serial killer Zodiac - maniac Zodiac
The real killer was incredibly lucky: thanks to mistakes made by law enforcement officers, he managed to escape punishment.
The story of the Zodiac serial killer began with the first murder he committed in the second half of December 1968. That evening, a 19-year-old guy and a 17-year-old girl, college students, decided to retire to the car. There, not far from the Californian Lake Herman Road, they met their death.
There were no signs of sexual violence on the girl’s body. Their corpses were discovered almost immediately after death, but the killer could not be detained - he fled in his car.
Betty Lou Jensen, the murdered girl, knew Darlene Ferrin, the next victim of the Zodiac. Both attended college located in Valejo, a small California town.
Friends and relatives of Darlene, testifying to the police, unanimously noted that shortly before her death, she was pursued by a man who looked like the Zodiac. Friend Darlene Ferrin recalled that the deceased once said that she saw her stalker kill someone.
On July 5, 1969, twenty-two-year-old Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, despite being a married lady, was in the car of her 19-year-old friend Michael Magow, parked near a nightclub. The young man expressed concern about the man in the next car, but Darlene was completely calm, answering something like: “Nothing special!”
A few moments later she was already dead, and the wounded Michael, who miraculously survived, was able to describe the killer in detail. The young man also told the police that the perpetrator called Darlene “Dee”, as if he belonged to her close circle.
The police arrived too late - when Darlene, taking her last breaths, could no longer pronounce the name of the killer.
Thirty minutes later, an unknown person called the Valejo Police Department and reported two bodies in a brown car near Columbus Boulevard. It later became known that the Zodiac serial killer called from a telephone booth located not far from the police department.
An hour later, the phone rang in the Ferrin house, where the husband of the late Darlene was receiving guests. A man’s voice said: “Why doesn’t she always spend the night with her husband?”
At the end of July of the same year, the editors of three California newspapers received letters of identical content from one person who wished to take responsibility for all the crimes. Some sections of the text in the letter were encrypted, and the signature was an image of a cross in a circle.
The code was solved by a mathematics teacher from a local school, but the meaning of the signature is unknown to this day. According to one version of criminologists, the author of the letter borrowed the emblem from the American company Zodiac. This version is supported by the fact that the killer soon began to call himself the Zodiac.
He first called himself that in the following letter, sent on August 4 to a San Francisco publication.
The next victim of the maniac was again young people - college students Cecilia Shepard, 22, and twenty-year-old Brian Hartnell. The couple had a picnic on the shores of Lake Berryssa (California) on September 27. Late in the evening they saw a man approaching. On the black hood mask covering the stranger’s face, there was a white sign embroidered - a crossed out circle.
Threatening them with a pistol, the serial killer Zodiac tied them up and began to beat them with a knife. The girl died after the tenth blow, and the young man, who received six blows in the back, survived. When leaving, the killer wrote down the dates of previous murders on the victims' car. After some time, an unknown man called the Napa police and reported the crime.
The latest victim of the Zodiac was a 29-year-old taxi driver - lonely Paul Lee Stine. The man was shot in the back of the head by a disgruntled customer on the evening of October 11, 1969, at a busy San Francisco intersection. The Zodiac Maniac didn't know he was being watched. According to one version, a girl sitting near the window called the police while other children and adults were having fun in the same apartment and did not hear the sound of a shot.
At that time, the killer was described as a dark, that is, tanned man, but the police decided that he meant a black man, so in the orientation sent to all patrol posts, the killer was described as a dark-skinned man. Not far from the crime scene, only one person was found walking from the murder scene, but he was white-skinned, so he was not detained. A few days later, he sent another letter and a piece of the bloody shirt of the taxi driver he had killed to the editor of one of the San Francisco newspapers.
According to the descriptions, the Zodiac maniac was of middle age and height, had a thick body and wore glasses. But in his messages he said that he looked different, but before the murders he carefully disguised himself.
Fame came to the Zodiac even after the first murders thanks to newspaper reports about the progress of the investigation and television interviews with surviving victims and their relatives. The Zodiac did not kill anyone else, but the newspapers continued to receive letters with his signature.
In one letter, the Zodiac maniac threatened to plant explosives on a school bus in retaliation against child witnesses, but never carried out his threats.
In the next letter he indicated his real name, encrypted so skillfully that decryptors are still struggling to figure out the solution. In one of his subsequent letters, the serial killer Zodiac demanded that everyone in the city wear his mark... and that he, through murder, recruits slaves who will serve him in the afterlife. Later, he began to take credit for other people's crimes, counting the number of victims.
Newspaper editors received about 20 messages from him, and investigations into his crimes continued until 2000. According to one of the many versions, a whole gang of criminals called themselves the Zodiac, in which someone killed, someone made phone calls, someone wrote letters...
The police were unable to detain anyone, despite having fingerprints of the killer left in the taxi, as well as samples of the maniac’s genes. Neither the fingerprints nor the genes matched the fingerprints or genes of the suspects.
Serial killer Zodiac - maniac Zodiac
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He sent provocative letters to the press and the police with threats and ridicule, in which he called himself by the nickname Zodiac. Investigators in Northern California have begun the hunt for a serial killer after a series of mysterious murders. However, this has not been successful to this day.
We are trying to understand the history of this mysterious person and remember what we already know about him.
The first of the Zodiac's murders was the murder of Betty Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Hermann Road near Vallejo, California on December 20, 1968. The students were sitting in a parked car when a car drove up to them and the driver forced them to get out. Faraday was killed first, and Jensen tried to escape but was shot in the back. The killer escaped.
Victims of the Zodiac Killer
The first Zodiac murder was committed in California on December 20, 1968.
Six months later, in July 1969, another murder was committed. Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were also parked when someone approached their car. The man came out, shined a flashlight and shot them both. Then he got into the car and drove away. Ferrin died, but Mageau survived and was able to talk about it.
The very next day, a man who called the police said he was the killer of “those guys” from the first murder, Betty Jensen and David Faraday.
On August 1, 1969, letters with different parts of the same ciphergram arrived at the editorial offices of different newspapers. The killer demanded that it be published, otherwise he threatened with new murders. A week later another letter arrived. In it, the killer named his nickname - Zodiac.
Letters of the Zodiac
On August 8, the school teacher and his wife were able to decipher the message. It contained nothing about the identity of the Zodiac maniac, only that he was “collecting slaves for the afterlife.”
From the Zodiac Letters: “I am collecting slaves for the afterlife”
On September 27, 1969, students Brian Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were having a picnic at Lake Berryessa. A man in a hood and black glasses approached them. He identified himself as an escaped convict and, at gunpoint, forced Cecilia to tie up Brian. He later tied up Cecilia, took out a knife and stabbed the couple multiple times. Soon he called the police and, mockingly, reported the crime. A father and son were fishing on the lake nearby. They heard heartbreaking screams and called the police. Shepard died from her injuries, but Hartnell survived.
On October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Stine was killed in his car by a passenger who took the driver's wallet, took the car keys, and wiped away all traces of himself with a piece of the driver's shirt. He was seen by three teenagers who drew up a description of the killer, but he was never caught.
A message from the Zodiac killer is painted on the car door
Zodiac sent letters to the editor of an American newspaper with threats
On October 14, 1969, an American daily newspaper received another letter allegedly written by the Zodiac maniac. This time, as proof of his murders, he sent in a letter a piece of fabric cut from a taxi driver's shirt. The letter contained threats of further murders of children. Zodiac demanded that he be given the opportunity on a famous television show to contact lawyer Melvin Bailey.
Zodiac Failure
On the night of March 22, 1970, seven months pregnant, Kathleen Jones was driving to her mother in Modesto. She also took her 10-year-old daughter with her. The driver behind her honked his horn and flashed his headlights. Jones stopped and a man approached her and said her rear tire was loose and might come off. He offered to help, tweaked something, and then left. When Jones' car started moving, the wheel immediately came off. The assistant, who had not gone far, returned and politely offered them a ride. Kathleen and her daughter got into the car. The driver drove for over an hour without stopping, and then said he was going to kill them. At an intersection, Kathleen and her daughter jumped out of the car and hid in a field. The man tried to look for them, but gave up and left. Jones reached the police and confirmed that they had been kidnapped by a man who resembled an identikit based on the description of the killer Paul Stine.
Confession
Letters with threats and ridicule from the Zodiac maniac continued to arrive in the newspapers. On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old student Cheri Bates was stabbed to death.
Cherry Jo Bates murder scene
A month later, on November 29, 1966, printed letters entitled “Confession” were sent to the press and the police. The author was aware of the minutiae of Bates' murder outside the college library, although the details of the crime were not disclosed to the general public.
Investigative work on the Zodiac case
Police tested thousands of suspects to find Zodiac
Police checked more than a thousand suspects. According to circumstantial evidence, the role of the main suspect was best suited to Arthur Allen. But the DNA analysis from the stamps on the envelopes sent by the Zodiac maniac and Allen’s DNA did not match, there was no significant evidence against him. In 2007, Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac, but the evidence he gave to the FBI was not convincing. In 2009, Deborah Perez claimed that the Zodiac killer was her father, Guy Hendrickson, who died of cancer in 1993.
Photo identikit of the alleged criminal
During the 40 years of searching, there were many Zodiac imitators and imitators. His letters about police bungling are reminiscent of the confessions of Jack the Ripper. To this day, Zodiac remains one of the most mysterious maniacs, whose identity has never been established.
Published 05/17/12 08:10The famous serial killer nicknamed "Zodiac", who committed 37 murders from December 1968 to October 1969, remains one of the most mysterious maniacs in the United States. The never-solved Zodiac case was closed only in 2004, and Hollywood made a film of the same name.
The famous serial killer nicknamed “Zodiac” lives in Solano County (California), he is 91 years old and is being treated for alcoholism, Polit.ru reports with reference to Time. Such facts were presented by former State Highway Patrol officer Lindo Lafferty in his book “How the Zodiac Killer was Hidden” after 40 years of investigations. However, he refused to give the name and surname of the killer, limiting himself to the pseudonym “George Russell Tucker.”
According to the book, the Zodiac killed 37 people because of his wife, who cheated on him with a district judge. He prevented the police from going to intkbbach real sign of the Zodiac. Lafferty describes in the book a chance meeting with the killer in a parking lot in Vallejo. “His smiling face scared the hell out of me,” the ex-cop wrote.
The book mentions various arguments in favor of Lafferty's theory. He indicates that he consulted with six detectives who were investigating the Zodiac case. Lafferty devoted most of his book to mysterious cryptograms that the killer sent to newspaper editors. He claims to have even found the killer's real name there. During the Korean War, the policeman worked as a transcriber.
Let us remember that the Zodiac case was closed in 2004, but it was continued in 2007. Zodiac remains one of the most mysterious maniacs in the United States. Zodiac committed the murders from December 1968 to October 1969. According to Zodiac's own statements, the number of his victims reaches 37, but investigators are only sure of seven cases.
He called himself the Zodiac in a series of caustic letters he sent to the editors of local newspapers. The letters also contained cryptograms in which the killer allegedly encrypted information about himself. Three out of four cryptograms remain undeciphered. This high-profile case formed the basis for the Hollywood film of the same name directed by David Fincher, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal.
One of the undeciphered cryptograms sent by the Zodiac to the newspaper editor.
The only suspect, Arthur Lee Allen, was found not to be involved in the murders after DNA testing. He died in 1992.
There are stories that I want to tell someone else about, I want to shed light on events that took place long enough to use the word “long ago” in relation to them and at the same time happened no later than 30-40 years ago, so that nothing would have time forget yourself. This will be an unusual story, it will concern a serial killer who committed his atrocities in the United States in the 60-70s and went down in the history of criminology around the world under the name “Zodiac”. A maniac who could not be found, whose trace could not even be traced, but at the same time a maniac who conducted regular correspondence with the police and the media of San Francisco, as one of the largest cities in the state of California, which became for him the main field for his criminal experiments. The article is inspired by the 2007 film Zodiac, which became another masterpiece from director David Fincher, who once directed Fight Club.
First appearance of the Zodiac killer
This is the story of the most mysterious and unique killer, which began in 1969 with a series of attacks and murders on young people in a deserted place. The scenario of events was similar to one another, as if it was copied as a carbon copy. A couple of lovers came to a quiet place on a date. Without keeping you waiting long, a suspicious car appeared and parked directly behind the unsuspecting young guys. Silently and calmly, the stranger first approached the driver's door and opened fire on the guy, and then on the girl, emptying the entire clip until the characteristic sound of an empty magazine. With the same calm gait with which he approached his victims, he returned to his car and drove away. The killer's calmness does not cause as much surprise as his subsequent behavior does. After the second similar murder, the difference between which was almost a year, he calls the police and reports a murder committed with his own hands, and then hangs up with a light heart. Both times these calls were traced, they were made in the immediate vicinity of the police station where the call was received. This was the first gesture of a provocative game that would drag on for many years to come.
The crimes described took place in a small town near San Francisco called Vallejo. The local police could not figure out what to do in such a situation. Small towns differ from metropolises and large cities in that big crimes are not committed here, and this cruel act of manic manifestation was an extraordinary event. The commotion continued until it turned into general hysteria. The reason for this was anonymous letters to the publishers of 3 newspapers at once - “Vallejo Times-Herald”, “San Francisco Chronicle”, “San Francisco Examinor”. The messages contained the same text with a requirement to place on the front pages of each newspaper one cryptogram enclosed with the letter, in which the essence of the killer was hidden. And yes, this message was sent to the editor by the killer, in order to confirm which the maniac indicates the characteristic features of his murders, which only the police and, of course, he could know about. Essentially, it was not a demand or a request, it was an ultimatum, the violation of which would lead to the deaths of 12 more people. The police and the media had less than a day to think about it.
Mysterious letters from a maniac
The messages were still posted, but no one could understand the code. A week later, another letter arrives, which begins with the words “This is the Zodiak speaking” (“This is the Zodiac speaking”). For the first time, he felt so omnipotent and impunity that he was not afraid to say his name, or at least the alter ego that calls him to kill. In a new message, he once again confirms his involvement in the murders with new details and leaves another cryptogram. Several intelligence agencies puzzled over the solution to these messages, but in the end it was the simple Garden family, whose head was an ordinary school teacher, whose main hobby was solving puzzles. As a result, the message talked about the pleasure that the Zodiac gets from killing, that for him this is a matter of life. He is going to kill people until he has enough, especially since he believes with all his soul in the righteousness of his actions and is sure that he is collecting slaves for his future afterlife. And he will not stop collecting slaves.
New killer attack
A certain silence, during which the police frantically tried to trace the killer, was broken by another attack on the couple on the shores of Lake Berryessa. This time, the victims were able to describe their executioner, since at first the girl remained alive after 24 stabs, and the young man eventually survived due to the fact that he received only 8 stab wounds in a chaotic manner, which allowed him to avoid damage to vital organs. The lovers described the picture of their meeting with the Zodiac as follows: they sat on the shore and talked, then a silhouette in black clothes appeared in the distance, quickly approaching them, trying to be unnoticed, which in the end he did not really succeed. True, the young people had no idea what threat was moving in their direction, so they were absolutely indifferent to the appearance of the unknown on the horizon. The maniac was armed with a pistol and a knife. Approaching the victims, he forced the girl to tie up his companion, and then tied her up himself. Then he began to randomly stab the tied-up victims with a knife. On the car of his victims, Zodiac left an inscription in felt-tip pen: “Vallejo 12-20-68 7-4-69 Sept 27-69 6:30 by knife.” Dates of his previous attacks and murders + the event of that day, committed with a knife. The girl who survived the first hours claimed that in front of them there was a man in a black mask and sunglasses. He was wearing black clothing, on which was printed a light image of a “sight”, “belt of the zodiac signs”, “Celtic cross” - it has many names and interpretations.
Sign of the Zodiac
It was with this sign that the famous killer ended each of his messages. This is his trademark, brand. There are many versions of where the desire to use this particular drawing came from in the maniac’s head. One of the versions is a commitment to the Zodiac brand watches, popular in those years in the USA. At the same time, some experts were inclined to follow the killer’s astrological fetish, which was expressed not only in the name, but also in the strict dependence of the approximately close proximity of the dates of his murders to the days of the equinoxes. But each of the versions collapsed and failed due to the unpredictability of each subsequent action of the extraordinary and elusive maniac.
By the way, it’s still worth noting that the guy who survived 8 stabs was not the only one who survived the Zodiac’s attack. The second official case of a Zodiac attack was marked by the rescue of Michael Mageau, who survived at least 5 direct hits at almost point-blank range from firearms. One got the impression that the killer does not strive to kill 100%, for him this is a game with human lives at stake.
Taxi Driver Murder
The next murder was not long in coming, and it stood out from the general pattern, from the general style. The Zodiac changed his style, broke stereotypes, there was no clouding of mind in his actions. His frightening, ingenious prudence revealed him as a very capable and intelligent criminal. This time, the Zodiac's victim was an ordinary taxi driver, Paul Stein, who was shot in the back of the head from the passenger seat. The killer took the keys, money and tore off a piece of his shirt. The moment of the attack was seen by small children from a neighboring house. This time, Zodiac didn’t have to call about the murder; the guys turned him in, in front of whose eyes he wiped away the traces of his stay in the car and tore a piece of material from his shirt. Leaving the crime scene, the maniac came across a patrol car, but they did not detain him, but only asked about the person who was identified. He would fit her 100%, if not for one BUT. The orientation listed a black man. For some reason the children decided that he was black, apparently the night time made itself felt.
Three days later, the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle receives a letter, accompanied by a bloody piece of shirt, as well as a new message from the Zodiac, confirming the murder of the taxi driver and promising to shoot up a school bus next time. This news created such panic in the city that parents besieged police stations with a request to immediately find the killer, as they were afraid to send their children to school. A little later, Zodiac calls one of the police stations and demands a conversation during television with one of the famous lawyers. The role of negotiator was entrusted to lawyer Melvin Beline. The conversation was very strange, the criminal even called himself by name - Sam, and at the end he abruptly hung up. The police traced the place where the call came from - it was a psychiatric hospital. The call was made by a patient of hers named Sam. At the same time, it was stated that the voices of the caller to the police station and to the television broadcast were excellent. Two different people called.
Escape from the hands of the Zodiac
On March 22, 1970, a remarkable event occurred. The Zodiac victim managed not only to survive, but also to escape from his tormentor. Kathleen Jones and her 10-month-old daughter were on their way from San Bernardino to visit her mother. On the road, a strange car started honking at her. She stopped and waited for the driver of the vehicle that had disturbed her to explain himself. He approached the driver’s seat and said that one of the woman’s wheels was loose, but he was ready to help fix it. As soon as he completed the work, he immediately left. The girl, not suspecting anything, decided to continue her journey, but as soon as she drove off, her wheel fell off. In the blink of an eye, her new acquaintance, who was fixing a tire, drove up and offered to take her to the nearest gas station or repair shop. After driving the girl around for a long time, he missed several gas stations, to which the girl asked the logical question why they didn’t stop there. The driver did not answer, continuing to drive in an unknown direction. Then he stopped and said that he would first kill her and then throw the child out the window. What the Zodiac didn't expect was the woman's reaction and her maternal instinct. Kathleen rushed out of the car straight into the thicket of the forest and hid there with her baby. The taken aback maniac did not even pursue the young mother, but still took out his anger on her car, burning it right on the roadway.
Throughout the 70th year, the Zodiac sent his messages to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, where he constantly mocked the helplessness of the police, leaving a postscript at the end of each message, the last of which, dated that year, looked like this: “Zodiac trademark = 13, SFPD (San Francisco Police)=0." He mocked society, kept score in his game of collecting the souls of slaves for his afterlife, and no one knew how to find him and stop him. He was a ghost.
Paul Avery
One of the Chronicle employees, Paul Avery, who wrote all the articles about the Zodiac for his editorial office, conducted a parallel investigation using his sources and channels, which the police could not connect to. As a result of his research, he came across a similar pattern of murder that occurred in 1966, then a young girl was killed near a library, and after some time 3 letters were sent to parents, the police and the local media, in which the killer claims that the girl should have died. The killer said that she was not the last and not the first victim. There was only a signature missing. Many believe that these are the first steps in the criminal field of the Zodiac, but there are quite a large number of skeptics of this version. True, this did not stop the Zodiac from taking the 1966 murder upon himself in one of his letters and at the same time sending a threatening letter to Paul Avery.
On March 22, 1971, the game continued. In a letter to the editor, Zodiac indicates the place where the police can find a trace of the nurse who disappeared a year ago. The letter consisted of clippings from various newspapers, magazines and advertising brochures with a map on which a specific location was marked with the maniac's brand name. At this very spot, the police found the sunglasses of the missing girl, but the search reached a dead end.
Silence of the Zodiac
Suddenly there was a pause for the police. Zodiac disappeared or hid for 3 long years, although he had already hinted that he would soon start killing without publicity, and the game had just begun. Three years later, the editor of Chronicle receives a letter from a maniac in which he hinted that he was depressed by the behavior of the police and the stupidity of all those who could not find him. This disappointed him greatly, and he saw no point in continuing to play openly. The letter was accompanied by the signature “Me=37, SFPD=0”. This figure made the hairs on many people’s heads stand up. If this was a true figure, then an elusive maniac was on the loose, who takes pleasure in killing whomever he wants. And nothing can stop him.
This was the last letter officially confirmed by specialists as the proven authorship of the Zodiac. The editor regularly received suspicious letters from anonymous people, but the handwriting revealed the authors to be imitators. But there were also examples very similar to the handwriting of the Zodiac. Particularly memorable is the letter in which he was waiting for a film to be made about him; he was wondering who would play the main villain.
Main suspects
During the entire investigation, about 2,500 people were suspected. The person most suspicious was Arthur Lee Allen. His involvement in the case was supported by strange behavior, weapons at home, wardrobe items similar to the Zodiac, testimony from his acquaintances, as if he was talking about murders and hunting not for animals, but for people, and most importantly, Michael Mageau, a former longtime time under witness protection program. It wasn't until 1991 that Mageau was able to see the faces of potential suspects, which included a photograph of Arthur Lee Allen. The victim recognized him as his executioner. But there was no direct evidence against Allen. The fingerprints did not match, the voice and handwriting did not match, even the DNA analysis did not give any results.
Robert Graysmith
It was Arthur Lee Allen who was suspected by Chronicle newspaper cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who was so fascinated by the Zodiac story that he sacrificed his work, his family and, in fact, his life for it. For almost 15 long years, Robert conducted his independent investigation, the fruit of which was a bestseller dedicated to the most mysterious maniac of our time. In his book, Graysmith gave his interpretations of translations of Zodiac cryptograms and brought his investigation to the personality of Arthur Lee Allen, considering him the same maniac who terrified California in the late 60s and early 70s. One day, the author of the book even met with Allen at his workplace, and this meeting was enough to confirm his opinion. But again there was no direct evidence.
The story of the Zodiac changed the fate of Arthur Graysmith forever, he quit his day job, although he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for it, and became the author of a true crime story. His books are incredibly popular, but they will never reach the level of Zodiac. His theory is subject to incredible criticism, his conclusions raise many questions, but he is one of the few who conducted such a thorough investigation and came to any conclusion.
How the Zodiac Killer was hidden
Just a few years ago, another high-profile book was published, dedicated to another independent investigation of former police officer Lindo Lafferty, called “How the Zodiac Killer was hidden.” In it, he provides convincing evidence of the guilt of one person (name has been changed), who was actually hidden from punishment. The author cannot express all the details of the case, because, as it turned out, the killer is still alive and well. He is currently 93 years old and lives in California. All these years, he most likely continued his murders, although he finally stopped communicating with the police and newspaper publishers, since the disappointments of previous years discouraged him from such a dangerous activity for himself. Lafferty accuses a man who went off the rails after his wife went to see a local judge, who, in order to make amends, covered up the legendary killer. I wonder how comfortable all the Californians who live near 93-year-old grandfathers who fit the description now feel.
Based on the adventures of the Zodiac, many books have been written and a decent number of films have been shot. The first logical desire after familiarizing yourself with the case of an undetected maniac is to read the books by Robert Graysmith “Zodiac” and Lindo Lafferty “How the Zodiac Killer was Hidden.” What we will do ourselves, and also offer you to do. How many of you still have the desire to get to the bottom of the truth?
On the night of July 4-5, 1969, a telephone rang at the police station in the American city of Vallejo. A man's voice said that he had just killed two people. The unknown person then claimed that the deaths of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, who were found dead on a country highway last year, were also his doing.
From that moment on, a series of brutal murders began, committed by a maniac who introduced himself as Zodiac. He claimed to have 37 murders to his name. Extensive materials have been collected on the serial killer case. There are even fingerprints and a voice recording, but his true identity has not yet been established.
The killer's handwriting
The United States police are adept at investigating these types of crimes, but several cases recorded in California between December 1968 and October 1969, as well as the 1966 murder of Cherie Jo Bates, remained unsolved. All cases have a common thread:
- All the crimes were committed on the street, in secluded places where loving couples traditionally meet.
- The killer's victims are young people.
- The Zodiac maniac attacks at dusk or at night.
- Prefers weekends and holidays.
- Robbery or sexual motives are excluded.
- Weapons used - bladed weapons, firearms, etc.
- All victims were in their cars or near their cars.
- The places where the Zodiac maniac operated are somehow connected with water.
- The criminal is interested in publicity, so he reports his crimes in letters and by telephone.
The police who investigated these cases believe that the killer himself either died at the hands of another potential victim who turned out to be more dexterous than him, or died from drugs, or hid in prison under a completely different article than murder, because such a crime carries the death penalty in the United States . There are other versions.
First official victims
The murder of Jensen and Faraday was the first in the Zodiac case. For him it became, as they say, a test of his pen. All subsequent crimes of the maniac, one way or another, echo the first. This was noticed by both the police and newspapermen, who later also became participants in the terrible scenario written by the Zodiac.
Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday had just started dating. They had known each other for a long time through a mutual friend, Sharon. The girls studied in the same class and were friends, and David regularly drove them home from school. The young man liked his pretty companion Sharon for her cheerful character and friendly manner of communication. David was not overly shy, but, knowing the strict morals that reigned in Betty’s family, he was afraid that she would reject him.
The fact is that Betty's older sister, Melony, got married very early due to an unplanned pregnancy. The marriage was unsuccessful and soon broke up. So that the youngest daughter would not repeat the sad fate of her sister, the parents focused their efforts on keeping their daughter in the bosom of the family for as long as possible. But there is no point in resisting the call of nature, and sixteen-year-old Betty fell in love. A high school student from Valleio captured her heart. Betty and David lived in neighboring cities. The local community regularly organized competitions, concerts and competitions, where students from nearby educational institutions were invited, and they were located in Valleio (David studied here), Hogan (Betty studied here) and Benicia. excellent, everyone has a car, or even several - all this helps to quickly solve the problem with distances.
David, the beauty and pride of the school, an example for the younger ones, an athlete, the soul of the party, the secret dream of all the young ladies of Vallejo, Hogan and Benicia, gave his heart to Safemorka. Safemores in the United States are called sophomores or eleventh grade students in high school. At the time of the novel, David was already a junior, that is, a twelfth-grader, a senior student. His plans extended beyond living in a town of 20,000 people. The young man planned to go to university, get a higher education, get a good job, get married and help his mother raise two younger brothers and a sister.
The tragedy that happened to the loving couple shook the entire area. An advertisement was placed in the local newspaper to raise funds to conduct an investigation and capture the criminal. The intersection of two roads, once a favorite place for secret romantic dates, began to be avoided by young couples, considering it cursed.
On the eve of the misfortune, David and Betty decided that it was time to move from simple meetings in a cafe to a more serious relationship. Sharon advised them to retire to Blue Rock Springs Park or go to St. Catherine's Hill, but the lovers chose Lake Herman, or rather, the bend of the intersection of two roads - to the pumping station and the Like Herman Road, popularly called "lovers' corner." Betty told her parents that she was going to a singing evening dedicated to the approaching Christmas. It was nine o'clock when their Rambler, borrowed from David's mother, took the couple on a romantic date. First there was dinner in a small restaurant, and an hour later the young people were already hugging, lying on the reclined seats of the car.
Chronology of the crime and investigation
The first witness driving along this road saw two empty cars and then heard what sounded like a gunshot. Zodiac parked his car very close to the Rambler to block the side doors. When cars appeared on the road, he ducked, so people thought that there was no one on it.
The next witnesses, seventy-year-old Stella Borges and her daughter nicknamed Baby Stella, drove past the scene of the tragedy at the very moment when the Zodiac maniac had just fled the crime scene. The women saw the corpses and broken car windows and rushed at maximum speed to get away from the terrible sight. In a panic, they honked their lights and horns, hoping to attract attention. Finally, they saw a policeman and told him everything.
The signal was passed to Sergeant Beede and his partner Stephen Arment. They were closest to the "lovers' corner" than others. After 15 minutes, the police were already examining the crime scene. David hung half out of the car. The school ring was clutched in his hand. The young man was still breathing, but died on the way to the hospital. He was killed with one shot to the skull. The only bullet hole was behind the left ear. Betty died before the police arrived. She was lying at a distance. The girl tried to run away from the criminal, but five shots in the back stopped her a few steps from the car. Several shots broke the windows of their car and made holes in the roof.
The version of an attack for the purpose of robbery was dropped almost immediately. Most likely, the Zodiac maniac fired the first shot in order to attract attention to himself. Then he demanded to give him valuables. Apparently he was trying things on and deciding what to do with the guys. When they started making excuses and thrusting the ring at him, he fired the first shot. Betty jumped out of the car, and he finished her off on the street.
Detectives Les Lundblad and Russell Butterbach were assigned to handle the case. They did not solve the murder, but collected a lot of material that allowed their colleagues to subsequently identify the handwriting of the criminal. In addition, the following year, on July 31, in a letter to the Times Herald, the serial killer Zodiac confirmed his guilt, describing how he dealt with his lovers and indicating the brand of ammunition in his pistol. These were rifle cartridges - a remarkable detail, and no one except the police knew about it. This was not written about in the newspapers.
Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magew (Majo)
The attack on Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magew is the second crime the Zodiac has committed. The killer has not yet taken a sonorous pseudonym, but has already begun to take steps to become famous and demonstrate his fearlessness and uniqueness.
The incident occurred on July 4, 1969, when the entire city was celebrating Independence Day. Over the roar of fireworks, no one heard the pistol shots that rang out in Blue Rock Springs Park. At 00:10, Zodiac called the police station and reported the murder, and also added that he also committed last year’s crime in the “lovers’ corner.”
This time the victims were 22-year-old Darlene and her young lover Michael Magew. They were sitting in Darlene's husband's father's Chevrolet when the Zodiac pulled up. The killer jumped to conclusions - the guy was only wounded. The bullets hit him in the face, neck and chest. The woman died 20 minutes after the phone call to
Darlene was married for the second time to Dean Ferrin. In 1968, the couple had a daughter, and two months before the sad event, the family bought a new house. From the photo, Darlene looks very much like Betty Lou Jensen. Most likely, the similarity is just a coincidence. There is nothing to suggest that the maniac preyed on women of the same type of appearance. Michael Magew doesn't look like any of the victims. He arrived on his date with Darlene wearing three trousers, a T-shirt, a thick shirt and three sweaters. The man explained this to the police by saying that he was very worried about his thinness and in this way tried to give himself volume.
Darlene's adultery caused a lot of noise in Vallejo. Subsequently, the sister of the deceased, Pamela, in order to justify her relative, confused the investigation by suggesting that Darlene’s husband was involved in the attack on the lovers. In order to exclude a motive for revenge on the part of the deceived spouse, the police checked Dean Ferrin's alibi. The person who was unfairly accused was acquitted.
First letters
It is obvious that the serial killer Zodiac thirsted for fame, because his crimes did not follow the traditional motives - profit, sex or revenge. The desire to become the main topic of conversation among residents of an entire city, to read about himself in the media, forced him to begin correspondence with journalists. At the end of July, three local newspapers, the Valeo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Examine and the San Francisco Chronicle, received letters from the Zodiac, which were parts of one text, cryptograms and explanations regarding the above crimes. He promised that the cryptograms contained information about his identity and demanded that the letters be published on the front pages, otherwise he threatened to kill 12 more people over the coming weekend. It was not possible to establish what codes the Zodiac (the killer) wrote after the first revealed texts. It is likely that in some cases this was simple gobbledygook, intended to lead the investigation astray or to show that he was so smart that his codes were beyond anyone’s ability.
Contact has been established with the police and journalists
On August 1, the San Francisco Chronicle published a statement from Jack Stills on its back page. The chief of the Vallejo City Police Department expressed doubts about it and asked the author of the cryptogram to provide additional information about himself. Two other newspapers also published letters and codes.
The response to the publication was a new letter to the editor of the San Francisco Exam. The criminal clearly enjoyed the hype he had caused and the fact that the police were following his lead. It was in this letter that he signed the name Zodiac. The pseudonym, in its essence, is very strange, and has nothing to do with crimes. He also said that deciphering the cryptogram would reveal information about his personal data.
All of Northern California became involved in solving the encrypted messages. The Garden couple from Salinas were the first to decipher the killer's texts. They contained a lot of grammatical errors. They said that he was collecting slaves who would serve him in the afterlife - the criminal was clearly mocking. He did not provide any information about himself, explaining this by his reluctance to help the investigation.
Brian Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard
The next crime occurred on September 27, 1969. College students Cecilia Shepherd and Brian Hartnell were on the shore of Lake Berryesa when a man wearing a hood covering the top and bottom of his head emerged from the bushes. There are sunglasses on the eyes, and on the chest there is something like an apron with a pattern in the form of a circle crossed out by a cross. took a gun out of his pocket and handed Cecilia a rope, ordering her to tie Brian up. Otherwise, he promised to kill both of them. The young man took this as a joke, but the alien showed a full magazine of cartridges. Cecilia tied up her companion, and the stranger tied her up. Next, he took out a long knife and struck several blows, first to Brian and then to her. Before leaving, the killer, nicknamed the Zodiac, took a black felt-tip pen and drew a circle with a cross on the unfortunates’ car and wrote the dates of the three previous crimes.
Having finished this, he called the police department and reported what had happened. A few minutes later, the duty squad identified the location of the telephone booth. When the police arrived, the pipe was still wet. Fingerprints were taken from her, but later they were never useful, because they were not in the file cabinet.
The wounded were taken to the hospital. Brian survived, but Cecilia fell into a coma and died a few days later.
Paul Stein
The murder of Paul Stein, a taxi driver, occurred in San Francisco. The crime is fraught with even more mysteries than the previous ones. If the taxi driver had reported to the control room that he had picked up a passenger and named the route, then everything would have been simpler, but this was a so-called false part-time job. Zodiac killed Stein in the same way as David Faraday, with a shot to the head behind the ear. Witnesses, three teenagers, saw him put the driver's head on his lap and do something with a knife. As it turned out, he cut off a piece of the man’s blood-soaked shirt, and the boys thought it was a black man cutting off the taxi driver’s head. They mistook the Zodiac for a black man because of the dark mask pulled over his face. The police arrived quickly and even confronted a white man, who was asked if he had seen a black man with a gun. He, and it was the Zodiac himself, pointed them in the wrong direction. Later he called the police and laughed at the stupidity of the law enforcement officers.
Three days later, on October 14, 1969, another letter arrived in the Chronicle newspaper. Zodiac wrote that he was planning to kill schoolchildren. To do this, he will shoot out the wheel of a school bus, and then begin to kill children getting out of it. So that there was no doubt about his identity, he described Stein's death in detail and enclosed a fragment of the man's shirt in the envelope.
A week later, Zodiac called the Oakland Police Department and said he wanted to appear on Jim Dunbar's television talk show. Well-known lawyers should be present in the studio. Through them he will conduct a telephone conversation. Melville Bellay agreed to come. Someone calling the show called the Zodiac and told him his real name was Sam. The call was coming from a mental hospital, and Sam was an ordinary patient who had nothing to do with the serial killer.
Then in November, the Chronicle received two more Zodiac letters. One of them contained another cryptogram, but it has not yet been deciphered, and on December 20, the criminal sent lawyer Bellay a Christmas card and a second piece of Paul Stine's shirt.
Kathleen Jones
Kathleen Jones was 20 years old at the time of the crime. She was driving her own car to visit her mother in Petulama. The woman was 7 months pregnant. Her 10-month-old daughter was traveling with her. On a highway in the Modesto area, she was overtaken by a car that was beeping and asking her to stop. Kathleen obeyed. The driver of the honking car said that its right rear wheel was wobbly, offered his help and corrected the problem. As soon as the woman drove onto the highway, the wheel fell off. The man soon drove up again and offered to take her to the nearest gas station, where she would receive more effective assistance. They drove past several gas stations, but the man did not stop. Then, according to Jones, he stopped at the intersection and said that he would kill her along with the child. The woman jumped out of the car and rushed into the thickets of tall grass. The criminal looked for Kathleen, but did not find him and left.
At the police station, where she soon went, there was a photo identikit of Paul Stein's attacker. She recognized him as her travel companion. The woman’s testimony is questionable, as she was constantly confused and changed information about the circumstances of the incident.
Cherie Jo Bates
The Zodiac claimed the murder of Cherie Jo Bates, but police doubt the veracity of this claim. The criminal's manner was too different from the Zodiac's handwriting.
The first doubt about the involvement in the death of the girl of the same person who committed the above murders is the date of the crime.
An eighteen-year-old girl died in October 1966. She lingered in her college library and walked through a deserted area of abandoned houses at dusk. Cherry was first beaten and then stabbed to death with a short dagger. The wounds were inflicted precisely on the carotid artery and larynx, and Shepard and Hartnell's Zodiac hit randomly and never hit the throat. Most likely, the maniac took responsibility for a crime he had not committed in order to confuse the police.
The letters he sent to the girl's father, to the Riverside Press Enterprise newspaper and to the Riverside Police Department force this crime to be attributed to the Zodiac. The handwriting matches the Zodiac's, but one part of his messages was typed and the other was handwritten. The only confusing thing is that the letters were sent six months after the girl’s death. It's not like the Zodiac - he didn't like to wait and always contacted the police immediately after the murder.
The story of the Zodiac killer is full of secrets. Some journalists suggested that completely different personalities were operating under the name of the famous maniac. All the blame lies with the newspapermen and the insufficiently professional police officers who gave out too much information to the general public.