la vida reciente: junio 2007

Zodiac Killer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California for ten months in the late 1960s. He coined his name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press until 1974. His letters included four cryptograms or ciphers, three of which have yet to be solved.

The Zodiac murdered five known victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. Others have been inconclusively proposed to be Zodiac victims as well.

The killer's identity remains unknown. The San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive" in April 2004 and reopened it some time before March 2007. The case remains open in other jurisdictions as well.

The victims

Canonical

Although the Zodiac claimed in letters to newspapers that he murdered as many as 37 people, investigators agree on only seven canonical victims, two of whom survived. They are:

David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16: Shot and killed on December 20, 1968 on Lake Herman Road just within the city limits of Benicia.
Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22: Shot on July 4, 1969 at Blue Rock Springs Golf Course parking lot on the outskirts of Vallejo; Darlene was DOA at Kaiser Foundation Hospital, while Michael survived.
Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22: Stabbed on September 27, 1969 on what is today locally referred to as "Zodiac Island" at Lake Berryessa in Napa County; Hartnell survived six stab wounds to the back, but Shepard died of her injuries two days later at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa.^[1]
Paul Lee Stine, 29: Shot and killed on October 11, 1969 in Presidio Heights in San Francisco.

Suspected

Many others have been identified as potential Zodiac victims, although evidence is inconclusive and none are universally accepted as Zodiac victims. The more well-known suspected victims are:

Robert Domingos, 18, and Linda Edwards, 17: Shot and killed on June 4, 1963, at a beach near Lompoc, California. Edwards and Domingos were named as possible Zodiac victims due to the specific similarities between their attack and the Zodiac's attack at Lake Berryessa.
Cheri Jo Bates, 18: Stabbed to death and nearly decapitated on October 30, 1966, at Riverside Community College in Riverside, California. Bates' possible connection to the Zodiac only came to light four years after her murder when San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery received a tip regarding similarities between the Zodiac killings and the circumstances surrounding Bates' death.
Kathleen Johns, 22: Abducted on March 22, 1970, on Highway 132 by I-580, west of Modesto, California. Johns escaped from the car of a man who drove her and her infant daughter around on the backroads between Stockton and Patterson for some three hours. After escaping to the police station in Patterson, she saw the Zodiac's wanted poster and identified him as her kidnapper.
Donna Lass, 25: Last seen September 26, 1970, in South Lake Tahoe, California. A postcard with an ad from Forest Pines condominiums (near Incline Village at Lake Tahoe) pasted on the back was received at the Chronicle on March 22, 1971, and has been interpreted by some as the Zodiac claiming Lass' disappearance as a victim, despite an incorrect count (in his July 26, 1970 letter, the Zodiac was already claiming 13 victims; Lass should have been the fourteenth, not the twelfth, as the Pines card suggests). The postcard has not been conclusively linked to the Zodiac nor has Lass' body been found. There was no official investigation conducted due to jurisdictional disagreements between the South Lake Tahoe Police and the Sheriff's Department, and it is unknown whether a crime was even committed.

Timeline

Lake Herman Road

The Zodiac Killer came to police attention for the apparently random murders of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, just inside the Benicia, California city limits.

The couple were on their first date and had planned to attend a Christmas concert at Hogan High, which was just a few blocks from Jensen's home, but instead decided to visit a friend and stopped at a local restaurant.

At approximately 10:15 pm, Faraday and Jensen parked in a gravel turnout on Lake Herman Road. Shortly after 11 pm, the Zodiac pulled into the turnout and parked beside them. At least one witness drove by moments later and saw both cars, but did not see anyone inside either vehicle. Moments later he heard what seemed to be a gunshot, but was not sure since his radio was on.

The Zodiac shot Faraday once in the head and Jensen five times in the back as she ran away. Their bodies were found minutes later by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. She alerted Captain Daniel Pitta and Officer William T. Warner. Detective Sergeant Les Lundblad of the Solano County Sheriff's Department investigated the crime, but no solid leads developed.

Blue Rock Springs

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were shot around midnight on July 4 - July 5, 1969, at the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course parking lot in Vallejo, four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site. While they sat in Ferrin's car, another car drove into the lot and parked beside them, drove away almost immediately, then returned about 10 minutes later. The Zodiac parked behind them to prevent escape and approached the passenger side door with a flashlight, which he used to blind them. He then shot them with a 9mm Luger handgun.

At 12:40 am on July 5, 1969, a man anonymously called the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack. He also took credit for the murders of Jensen and Faraday six and a half months earlier. The police traced the call to a phone booth at a gas station at Springs and Tuolumne, about three tenths of a mile from Ferrin's home and only a few blocks from the Vallejo Sheriff's Department.^[2]

Ferrin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mageau survived the attack despite being shot in the face, neck and chest.

Ferrin was a waitress at Terry's Waffle House in Vallejo. In a popular book about the case published 17 years after the crime, an unsubstantiated^{[citation needed]} story circulated that the Zodiac was an admirer and regular customer of Ferrin's. The book claimed that she knew he was responsible for the Lake Herman Road (and perhaps other) murders, and that he killed her either to prevent her from reporting him to the police or because she was blackmailing him in exchange for her silence. These allegations are unsupported and can be traced directly to the low-budget 1971 movie, The Zodiac Killer, the 1979 novel The Zodiac Killer by Jerry Weissman, and a May 4, 1981 story by Bill Wallace that appeared in the Chronicle.^[3]^[4] Detectives John Lynch and Ed Rust of the Vallejo Police Department initially investigated the crime. Detective Jack Mulanax took over the case in the 1970s.

The Zodiac letters begin

The crosshair-like symbol used by the Zodiac Killer in signing his letters.

On August 1, 1969, three letters prepared by Zodiac were received at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The nearly identically written letters took credit for the three murders and also included one third of a cryptogram with a total of 360 characters which he claimed contained his identity. Zodiac demanded they be printed on the front page or he would go on a rampage and kill a dozen people that weekend. The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts were eventually published.

On August 4, 1969, another letter was received at the San Francisco Examiner with the salutation, "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking". The letter was in response to Chief Stiltz of Vallejo asking him to provide more details to prove he was really the killer of Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin.

On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California cracked the cryptogram, which did not contain Zodiac's name. The message read (including misspellings):

“

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 DANGEROUS 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 THAT WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND ALL THE I HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR STOP MY COLLECTING OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

”

The meaning of the final eighteen symbols was not determined. In the television program Unsolved Mysteries, it is suggested that the final eighteen symbols are the Zodiac killer signing his letter with the name Theodore J. Kaczynski.

Lake Berryessa

On September 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking on the shores of Lake Berryessa, on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. A man approached them wearing a black executioner's type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a white 3"x3" cross-circle symbol on it. He approached them with a gun Hartnell believed to be a .45. The hooded man claimed to be an escaped convict from Deer Lodge, Montana, where he killed a guard and stole a car, and explained that he needed their car and money to go to Mexico. He had brought precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell, before tying her up. The Zodiac checked and tightened Hartnell's bonds after discovering she bound him loosely. Hartnell initially believed it to be a weird robbery, but Zodiac drew a knife and stabbed them both, then hiked the 500 yards back up to Knoxville Road, drew the cross circle symbol on Hartnell's car door, and wrote beneath it: Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69-6:30 by knife.

At 7:40 p.m., the man called the Napa County Sheriff's office from a pay telephone to report his crime. The phone was found still off the hook minutes later at the Napa Car Wash on Main Street in Napa by KVON radio reporter Pat Stanley,^[5] only a few blocks from the sheriff's office and 27 miles from the crime scene. Detectives were able to lift fresh fingerprints from the telephone but were never able to match them to a suspect.

A man and his son who were fishing in a nearby cove had discovered the victims after hearing their screams for help and summoned help by contacting park rangers. Napa County Sheriff Deputies Dave Collins and Ray Land were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene of the assault.^[6] Both officers were quite some distance from the crime scene when they were dispatched to the scene. Collins was on patrol in the Vichy Springs area about 20 miles away while Land was in St. Helena. Cecelia Shepard was conscious when Collins arrived and gave him a detailed description of the attacker. Hartnell and Shepard were taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa by ambulance. Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport to the hospital and never regained consciousness. She died two days later, but Hartnell survived to recount his tale ^[7] to the press. Napa County Sheriff Detective Ken Narlow ^[8], who was assigned to the case from the outset, worked on solving the crime until his retirement from the department in 1987.

Presidio Heights

On October 11, 1969, a man entered Paul Stine's cab at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets in San Francisco and requested to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. For reasons unknown, Stine drove one block further to Cherry Street; the man shot him once in the head with a 9mm, then took his wallet and car keys and tore off his shirt tail. He was observed by three teenagers across the street at 9:55 pm, who called the police as the crime was in progress. They observed the man wiping the cab down, and then walking away towards the Presidio, one block to the north. The police arrived minutes later, and the teen witnesses explained that the killer was still nearby.

Two blocks from the crime scene, officer Don Fouke, also responding to the call, observed a white man walking along the sidewalk then stepping onto a stairway leading up to the front yard of one of the homes on the north side of the street; the encounter lasted only five to ten seconds. His partner, Eric Zelms, did not see the man. The radio dispatch had alerted them to look for a black and not a white suspect, so they had no reason to talk to the man and drove past him without stopping; the mix up in descriptions remains unexplained to this day. When they reached Cherry, Fouke was informed that they were in fact looking for a white suspect; Fouke realized they must have passed the killer. Fouke concluded that the Zodiac had resumed his original route and escaped into the Presidio, so they entered the base to look for him but the killer had vanished. A search ensued, but nothing was found. The three teen witnesses worked with a police artist to prepare a composite of Stine's killer, and a few days later returned to produce a second composite. The Zodiac was estimated to be 35-45 years of age. Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case. The San Francisco Police Department eventually investigated an estimated 2,500 suspects over a period of years.^[9]

On October 14, 1969, the Chronicle received yet another letter from the Zodiac, this time containing a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt tail as proof he was the killer; it also included a threat about shooting school children. It was only then that the police knew who they were looking for a few nights before in Presidio Heights.

At 2:00 am on October 22, 1969, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called Oakland PD demanding that one of two prominent lawyers, F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli, appear on Jim Dunbar's television talk show in the morning. Bailey was not available, but Belli appeared on the show. Dunbar appealed to the viewers to keep the lines open, and eventually, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called several times and said his name was Sam. Belli agreed to meet with him in Daly City, but the suspect never showed up. Police officers who had heard the Zodiac listened to "Sam"'s voice and agreed that he was not the Zodiac. Subsequent calls the suspect made to Belli were traced to the Napa State Hospital, where it was learned that "Sam" was a mental patient.

On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters. On November 9, 1969, he mailed a seven-page letter in which he claimed that two policemen stopped and actually spoke with him three minutes after he shot Stine. Excerpts from the letter were published in the Chronicle on November 12, including the Zodiac's claim; that same day, Don Fouke wrote a memo explaining what had happened that night. The 340 character cipher has never been decoded.^[10] Many possible "solutions" have been suggested, but cannot be accepted since they do away with codemaking conventions.

On December 20, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a letter to Belli and included yet another swatch of Stine's shirt; the Zodiac claimed he wanted Belli to help him.

Modesto

On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving from San Bernardino to Petaluma to visit her mother. She was seven months pregnant and had her 10-month-old daughter beside her. While heading west on Highway 132 near Modesto, a car behind her began honking and flashing its lights. She pulled off the road and stopped. The man in the car parked behind her, stated her right rear tire was wobbling, and offered to tighten the lugs. After finishing his work, the man drove off, and when Johns pulled forward the wheel came off the car. The man stopped, backed up, and offered to drive her to the nearest gas station for help. She and her daughter climbed into his car. They drove past several service stations but the man did not stop. For some three hours he drove them up and down the backroads around Tracy, and when she asked why he was not stopping, he would change the subject.^[11]

When the driver stopped at an intersection, Johns jumped out with her daughter and hid in a field. He came out to look for her, but when a truck driver spotted the scene Johns' abductor drove off. Johns hitched a ride to the police station in Patterson. As she gave her statement to the sergeant on duty, she noticed the police composite of Paul Stine's killer and recognized him as the man who abducted her and her child. The sergeant had Johns wait in nearby Mil's Restaurant in the dark. Her car was eventually found — torched and gutted.

There are many conflicting accounts of the Johns abduction. Most claim he threatened to kill her and her daughter while driving them around, but at least one police report disputes that.^[11] Johns' account to Paul Avery of the Chronicle indicates her abductor left his car and searched for her in the dark with a flashlight; however, in the two reports she made to the police, she stated he did not leave the vehicle.^[12] Some accounts state Johns' vehicle was moved then torched, while others contend it was located where she'd left it.^[12] The various discrepancies among Johns' accounts over the years have led many researchers to question if she was an actual Zodiac victim.^[13]

Further communications

The Zodiac continued to communicate with authorities for the remainder of 1970 via letters and greeting cards to the press. In a letter postmarked April 20, 1970, the Zodiac wrote, "My name is [blank]," followed by a 13-character cipher.^[14] The Zodiac went on to state that he was not responsible for the recent bombing of a police station in San Francisco (referring to the February 18, 1970, death of Sgt. Brian McDonnell at Park Station in Golden Gate Park)^[15] but added "there is more glory to killing a cop than a cid [sic] because a cop can shoot back." The letter included a diagram of a bomb the Zodiac claimed he would use to blow up a school bus. At the bottom of the diagram, he had written: " = 10, SFPD = 0".^[16]

Zodiac sent a greeting card postmarked April 28, 1970, to the Chronicle. Written on the card was, "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my BLAST," followed by the Zodiac's cross circle signature. On the back of the card, the Zodiac threatened to use his bus bomb soon unless the newspaper published the full details he wrote. He also wanted to start seeing people wearing "some nice Zodiac butons" [sic]."^[17]

In a letter postmarked June 26, 1970, the Zodiac stated he was upset he did not see people wearing Zodiac buttons. He wrote, "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38." ^[18] It has been proposed the Zodiac was referring to the murder of Sgt Richard Radetich a week earlier, on June 19. At 5:25 AM, Radetich was writing a parking ticket in his squad car when an assailant shot him in the head with a .38-caliber pistol. Radetich died 15 hours later. SFPD denies the Zodiac murderer was involved in this murder. It remains unsolved.^[15]

Included with the letter was a Phillips 66 map of the San Francisco Bay Area. On the image of Mount Diablo, the Zodiac had drawn a crossed-circle similar to that he had included in previous correspondence. At the top of the crossed circle, he placed a zero, and then a three, six, and a nine, so the annotation resembled a clock face. The accompanying instructions stated that the zero was “to be set to Mag. N."^[19] The letter also included a 32-letter cipher that the killer claimed would, in conjunction with the code, lead to the location of a bomb he had buried and set to go off in the autumn. (The bomb was never located). The killer had signed the note with " = 12, SFPD = 0".

In a letter to the Chronicle postmarked July 24, 1970, the Zodiac took credit for the Kathleen Johns abduction, four months after the incident.^[20]

In his July 26, 1970 letter, the Zodiac paraphrased a song from The Mikado, adding his own lyrics about making a "little list" of the ways he planned to torture his "slaves" in "paradice." The letter was signed with a large, exaggerated cross circle symbol and a new score: " = 13, SFPD = 0".^[21] A final note at the bottom of the letter stated, "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians." ^[22] In 1981, a close examination of the radian hint by Zodiac researcher Gareth Penn led to the discovery that a radian angle, when placed over the map per Zodiac's instructions, pointed to the locations of two Zodiac attacks. ^[23]

Riverside

On October 27, 1970, Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (who had been covering the Zodiac case) received a Halloween card signed with a letter 'Z' and the Zodiac's cross circle symbol. Handwritten on the card was the note "Peek-a-boo, you are doomed." The threat was taken seriously and received a front page story on the Chronicle. Soon after, Avery received an anonymous letter alerting him to the similarities between the Zodiac's activities and the unsolved murder of Cheri Jo Bates, which had occurred four years earlier at the city college in Riverside, California in the Los Angeles area, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco. He reported his findings in the Chronicle on November 16, 1970.

On October 30, 1966, Bates spent the evening at the campus library annex until it closed at 9:00 pm. Neighbors reported they heard a scream around 10:30 pm. Bates was found dead the next morning a short distance from the library between two abandoned houses slated to be demolished for campus renovations. The wires in her Volkswagen's distributor cap had been pulled out. She was brutally beaten and stabbed to death. A man's Timex watch with a torn wristband was found nearby. The watch had stopped at 12:24, but it is believed the attack occurred much earlier. Also discovered were the prints of a military-style shoe.^[24]

The Confession

A month later, on November 29, 1966, nearly identical typewritten letters were mailed to the Riverside police and the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Titled "The Confession", the author claimed responsibility for the Bates murder, providing details of the crime not released to the public, and warned that Bates "is not the first and she will not be the last."

In December, 1966, a poem was discovered carved into the bottom side of a desktop in the Riverside City College library. Titled "Sick of living/unwilling to die", the poem's language and handwriting resembled those of the Zodiac's letters. It was signed with what were assumed to be the initials "rh". Sherwood Morrill, California's top Questioned Documents examiner, expressed his opinion that the poem was written by the Zodiac.

On April 30, 1967 — the six-month anniversary of Bates' murder — Bates' father Joseph, the Press-Enterprise, and the Riverside police all received nearly identical letters. In handwritten scrawl, the Press-Enterprise and police copies read "Bates had to die there will be more," with a small scribble at the bottom that resembled the letter 'Z'. Joseph Bates' copy read "She had to die there will be more" without a 'Z' “signature”.

On March 13, 1971, nearly four months after Paul Avery's first article on Bates, the Zodiac mailed a letter to the Los Angeles Times. In it he credited the police instead of Avery for discovering his "Riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there."^[25]

The connection between Cheri Jo Bates, Riverside, and the Zodiac remains uncertain. The Riverside Police Department maintains that the Bates homicide was not committed by the Zodiac, but did concede some of the Bates letters may have been his work to falsely claim credit.^[26]

Lake Tahoe

On March 22, 1971, a postcard to the Chronicle addressed to "Paul Averly" -- intended for Paul Avery and believed to be from the Zodiac -- appeared to take credit for the disappearance of Donna Lass from South Lake Tahoe, California on September 26, 1970. Made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, it featured a scene from an ad for Forest Pines and the text "Sierra Club," "Sought Victim 12," "peek through the pines," "pass Lake Tahoe areas," and "around in the snow." Zodiac's cross circle symbol was in the place of the usual return address.^[27]

Lass was a nurse at the Sahara Tahoe hotel and casino. She worked until approximately 2:00 am on September 26, treating her last patient at 1:40 am, and was not seen leaving her office. The next morning, her work uniform and shoes were found in a paper bag in her office inexplicably soiled with dirt. Her car was found at her apartment complex, and her apartment was spotless.^[28] Later that day both her employer and her landlord received phone calls from an unknown male who falsely claimed Lass had to leave town due to a family emergency.^[29] The police and sheriffs' office initially treated Lass' disappearance as a missing persons investigation, suspecting she simply left on her own.^[28] Lass was never found. What appeared to be a grave site was discovered near the Claire Tappan Lodge in Norden, California on Sierra Club property, but excavation yielded only a pair of sunglasses.^[30]

Santa Barbara

In a Vallejo Times-Herald story that appeared on November 13, 1972, Santa Barbara Sheriff's Detective Bill Baker (ret.) theorized that the murders of a young couple in Santa Barbara County may have been the work of the Zodiac.

On June 4, 1963 (five and a half years prior to the Zodiac's first known murders on Lake Herman Road), high-school senior Robert Domingos and fiancée Linda Edwards were shot to death on a beach near Lompoc, California, having skipped school that day for "Senior Ditch Day". Police believed that the assailant attempted to bind the victims, but when they freed themselves attempting to flee, he shot them repeatedly in the back and chest with a .22-caliber weapon. He then placed their bodies in a small nearby shack and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn it down.^[31]

Some believe that the murders of Domingos and Edwards are the work of the Zodiac because of similarities between this case and the Zodiac's attack at Lake Berryessa.^[31]

The final letters

After the "Pines" card, the Zodiac remained silent for nearly three years, after which the Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac, postmarked January 29, 1974, praising The Exorcist as "the best saterical [sic] comidy [sic]" that he had ever seen. The letter included a snippet of verse from The Mikado and an unusual symbol at the bottom that has gone unexplained by researchers. Zodiac concluded the letter with a new score, "Me = 37, SFPD = 0".^[32]

The Chronicle received another letter postmarked February 14, 1974, informing the editor that the initials for the Symbionese Liberation Army spelled out an Old Norse word meaning "kill."^[33] The handwriting was not authenticated as the Zodiac's, however.

Another letter received by the Chronicle, postmarked May 8, 1974, featured a complaint that the movie Badlands was "murder-glorification" and asked the paper to cut its advertisements. Signed only "A citizen", the handwriting, tone, and surface irony are all similar to prior Zodiac communications.^[34]

The Chronicle received an anonymous letter postmarked July 8, 1974, complaining about one of its columnists, Marco Spinelli. The letter was signed "the Red Phantom (red with rage)". The Zodiac's authorship of this letter is debated.^[35]

Another four years passed without communication — purported or verified — from the Zodiac. A letter of April 24, 1978, was initially deemed authentic, but was declared by three other experts to be a hoax less than three months later. In recent years, however, the letter has been deemed in some quarters as authentic. Toschi, the SFPD homicide detective who had been on the case since the Stine murder, was thought to have forged the letter, since author Armistead Maupin thought it similar to "fan mail" he received in 1976 that he believed was authored by Toschi. While he admitted writing the fan mail, Toschi denied forging the Zodiac letter and was eventually cleared of any charges. The authenticity of the letter remains in question.

On March 3, 2007, it was reported that an American Greetings Christmas card sent to the Chronicle postmarked 1990 in Eureka had been recently discovered in their photo files by editorial assistant Daniel King.^[36] Inside the envelope with the card was a photocopy of two U.S. Postal keys on a magnet keychain. The handwriting on the envelope resembles Zodiac's print, but was declared inauthentic by forensic document examiner Lloyd Cunningham. Not all Zodiac experts, however, agree with Cunningham's analysis.^[37] There is no return address on the envelope nor is his crossed-circle signature to be found. The card itself is unmarked.^[38] The Chronicle turned over all the material to the Vallejo Police Department for further analysis.

Current status

The last SFPD investigators of the case were Homicide Detail Inspectors Michael N. Maloney and Kelly Carroll. They were the first to submit DNA evidence from Zodiac's letters for analysis, which resulted in a partial genetic profile. DNA testing seems to have conclusively ruled out their lead suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen,^[39] and later Mike Rodelli's suspect, a prominent San Francisco businessman who lived near Paul Stine's murder scene.^[40]

The SFPD marked the case "inactive" in April 2004, citing caseload pressure and resource demands.^[40] They reopened the case some time before March 2007 and returned evidence to Vallejo police for additional DNA testing.^[41] The case remains open in other jurisdictions as well.

Arthur Leigh Allen

Though many people have been suspected of being Zodiac through the years, only one, Arthur Leigh Allen (December 18, 1933 - August 26, 1992) was seriously investigated. In July 1971, a friend of Allen's reported his suspicions about him to the Manhattan Beach Police Department, and the report was forwarded to the SFPD.^[42] When questioned later, Allen claimed without prompting that the bloody knives he had in his car the day of the Lake Berryessa attack had been used to kill chickens; and when asked if he had read The Most Dangerous Game, he replied affirmatively and said it had made an impression on him.^[42] (This interested the police, as the 408-character cipher appears to reference that short story).

Allen was the only suspect in the case whom police had enough evidence against to execute not just one, but three search warrants: on September 14, 1972; February 14, 1991; and August 28, 1992, two days after he died.^[42]^[43] Allen denied his guilt in interviews, but there was much circumstantial evidence against him.^[44]^[45]

Police found no physical evidence to prove that Allen was the Zodiac Killer, and the Vallejo Police Department chose not to press charges against Allen, even though he was a convicted sex offender, and weapons and explosive components were found in his home following the 1991 search.^[44] Ultimately, Allen's handwriting did not match the Zodiac's, his fingerprints did not match those suspected to be Zodiac's, no concrete evidence linking him to the Zodiac killings was ever found, and recent DNA testing on suspected Zodiac letters in 2002 did not provide a match.^[46]^[47] However, neither Vallejo nor SFPD ruled Allen out after the test results.^[48]

The Zodiac in pop culture

Movies

The Zodiac Killer, directed by Tom Hanson and starring Hal Reed and Bob Jones, was released on April 6, 1971.
Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, was filmed in San Francisco and released on December 23, 1971. In the movie, which is very loosely based on the Zodiac case, the killer (played by Andrew Robinson), who calls himself "Scorpio", at one point kidnaps a school bus full of children and threatens to kill them all.
The "Gemini Killer" in the movie The Exorcist III, released on August 17, 1990, was also loosely based on the Zodiac killer.
Edward James Olmos starred in The Limbic Region, an HBO movie first shown on June 30, 1996; it 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 on March 30, 2005.
The Zodiac, directed by Alex Bulkley, is about a nonfictional detective in Vallejo obsessed with investigating the real Zodiac. It opened on March 17, 2006 on 10 screens nationwide, 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, a Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures joint production 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 on March 2, 2007. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith, Robert Downey Jr. as Avery, Mark Ruffalo as Toschi, Brian Cox as Belli, and John Carroll Lynch as Allen.
In one shot of the theatrical trailer for the up-coming Julie Taymor film, "Across the Universe", one of The Zodiac Killer's codes is shown as a poster hanging on a wall.

Television

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 serial killer in the "The Mikado," a 1998 episode from the TV series Millennium, is based directly on the Zodiac.
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.

Novels

There have been a handful of novels either about the Zodiac Killer or based on him:

The first was The Zodiac Killer: Still At Large in 1977 by Cliff Smith Jr.
Jerry Weissman wrote The Zodiac Killer in 1979.
The 1983 novel Legion(which was filmed as Exorcist 3, see above), by William Peter Blatty, features a killer based on the Zodiac.
1986 book, Zodiac, by Robert Graysmith is an in-depth look at the Zodiac killer, and was used as the basis for the 2007 film Zodiac, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
Criminal profiler Michael Kelleher wrote Suspect Zero, a 2003 novel about the Santa Rosa coed murders, believed by some to be the work of the Zodiac.
David Baldacci's 2004 novel Hour Game features a villain who bases his murders on the Zodiac killer's M.O., but claims that he isn't a copycat.

Graphic novels

The Zodiac has appeared in graphic novels, comic stories, and a trading card set:

Steven Friel wrote and illustrated "The Zodiac" in Killer Komix, a UK publication, in 1992.
Jack Herman and Karen Herman wrote and Ed Quinby illustrated "The Zodiac," based on Graysmith's Zodiac; it appeared in Psycho Killers M.I.A. Special, Volume 1, # 2, in 1992.
"The Zodiac Killer" was card # 83 in the 1992 trading card series, True Crime Series Two: Serial Killers & Mass Murderers.
Crisis, an illustrated screenplay, is a 2002 story by Matthew Stuart Busch about the Zodiac terrorizing present-day Detroit.

[edit] Music

Popular music groups have paid tribute to the Zodiac murders in both name and song:

Zodiac Killers released the CD Scorpio Rising in 1992.
The Zodiac Killers, a San Francisco punk band, released The Most Thrilling Experience in 1999.
Hip hop artist The Zodiac (real name Brent Whiting) released two CDs featuring songs about the Zodiac Killer in 2006.

References

^ Cecelia Ann Shepard and Bryan Calvin Hartnell information at Zodiackiller.com. ZodiacKiller.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-28.
^ Vallejo. AOL. Retrieved on 2007-04-27.
^ Ferrin-Mageau Related Information. The Zodiac/Manson Collection. Retrieved on 2007-04-27.
^ Zodiac killer theories. Cannonfire (2007-04-20). Retrieved on 2007-04-27.
^ Zodiac on the line .... The Napa Valley Register. Retrieved on 2007-02-18.
^ Dorgan. [Online exclusive: In the wake, of the Zodiac. The Napa Valley Register. Retrieved on 2007-05-10.
^ L. Pierce Carson. Zodiac victim: 'I refused to die'; Napa Valley Register 2007-02-18.
^ Marsha Dorgan. Tracking the mark of the Zodiac for decades; Napa Valley Register 2007-02-18.
^ Drake, Rossiter. Author believes he knows Zodiac Killer's identity; San Francisco Examiner; 2007-03-01; accessed 2007-03-07.
^ Chris McCarthy. Alphabet of the 340 Character Zodiac Cypher.
^ ^a ^b Police report
^ ^a ^b This Is The Zodiac Speaking/Highway 132
^ Johns profile
^ "My Name Is" letter; accessed 2007-03-08
^ ^a ^b Zamorra, Jim Herron. 1967-71 -- a bloody period for S.F. police. San Francisco Chronicle; 2007-01-27; accessed 2007-03-07
^ "My Name Is" letter
^ Dragon card letter
^ Button letter
^ Zodiac map letter
^ Zodiac Johns letter
^ Zodiac Mikado letter
^ Zodiac Mikado letter, cont.
^ Rowlett, Curt, Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy, Chapter 9, The Z Files: Labyrinth13 Examines the Zodiac Murders, The Rhyme of the Radian, pp. 64-68. (Lulu Press, 2006). ISBN 1-4116-6083-8.
^ Cheri Jo Bates information
^ L.A. Times 1971 Zodiac letter
^ Zimmerman, Janet. New movie 'Zodiac' includes Redlands resident's attack Riverside Press-Enterprise, March 1, 2007. Accessed March 13, 2007.
^ Zodiac postcard
^ ^a ^b Message board containing email from former Lake Tahoe police oficer
^ Lass information
^ Lass profile
^ ^a ^b Santa Barbara murders
^ Zodiac Exorcist letter
^ SLA Letter
^ Citizen Letter
^ Red Phantom letter
^ Williams, Lance. Zodiac's written clues fascinate document expert. San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2007. Accessed March 15, 2007.
^ Freedman, Rich. Zodiac: Did killer send card in 1990?; The Vallejo Times Herald, March 3, 2007. Accessed March 16, 2007.
^ Christmas card envelope; Christmas card front; Christmas card interior; Photocopy of Christmas card keys and pencil. Accessed March 15, 2007.
^ Weiss, Mike; DNA seems to clear only Zodiac suspect; San Francisco Chronicle; 2002-10-12; accessed 2007-02-28
^ ^a ^b Goodyear, Charles; Files shut on Zodiac's deadly trail; San Francisco Chronicle; 2004-04-07; accessed 2007-02-28
^ Goldman-Hall, Jason; Police still keep Zodiac Killer's case open; San Francisco Examiner; 2007-03-01; accessed 2007-03-04
^ ^a ^b ^c Wark, Jake, The Case Against Arthur Leigh Allen; 2001, accessed on 2007-03-01
^ Voight, Tom, The Arthur Leigh Allen File; 2003; accessed on 2007-03-01
^ ^a ^b Zodiac case overview by Clint Vander Klok; accessed on 2007-03-01
^ Suspect profile of Arthur Leigh Allen; accessed on 2007-03-01
^ Matthias Gaffni, Vallejo police send three letters for DNA testing; Times-Herald; 2007-02-22; accessed 2007-03-01
^ CNN Interview With Kelly Carroll; Aired 2002-10-27; accessed 2007-03-01
^ Matthias Gafni, Ex-coach, teammate recall Zodiac suspect; Times-Herald; 2007-02-23; accessed 2007-03-01

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Zodiac Killer letters

Two New Theories Regarding the Zodiac Case
The Z Files
Zodiac Killer Ciphers 2.0 - Statistical analysis of the Zodiac's ciphers as well as tools to attempt to solve them. (Requires JavaScript.)
Zodiac Cipher Tools - Software to aid in solving the Zodiac's 8 November 1969 cipher.
"Zodiac Killer Roundtable" - Coast To Coast AM, 19 March 2007
"Zodiak Killer, an unsolved case"
"Decades Later, Zodiac Murders Still Draw Sleuths" - National Public Radio, 1 March 2007
Hunting the Zodiac - 2007 documentary about the subculture of amateur detectives who are obsessed with solving the Zodiac case.
"Zodiac: The Conclusion" - An argument that the Zodiac Killer was a hoax

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer"

jueves, junio 28, 2007

martes, junio 26, 2007

lunes, junio 25, 2007

viernes, junio 22, 2007

sábado, junio 16, 2007

miércoles, junio 13, 2007

domingo, junio 10, 2007

sábado, junio 09, 2007