Monday Scaries: The Mystery of The Zodiac Killer

It was a frigid Friday night in late December 1968 when the Zodiac killer murdered his first victims in the beautiful Bay Area of California.

Zodiac Killer’s First-known Murder

Two teenagers on their first date, David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, were both shot around 11:15 p.m. Police, however, could not find any foot or tire prints or witnesses. As a result, a suspect was never identified.

Zodiac Killer’s Second-known Murder

For seven months, the killer was dormant–until Jul. 5, 1969.

On Jul. 5, 1969, another young couple, Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageu, went on a date. After leaving the house together, they believed they were being followed by a car. They parked in an empty parking lot. The man in the car behind them also parked nearby, but after left quickly.

Five minutes later, the man in the car returned and approached the couple. They assumed he was a police officer, so they rolled down their window. They were then shot. Again, no clues were found.

Mageau survived the shooting, though, and he described the killer as a large white man wearing dark clothes but no glasses. It was someone who was about 5-foot-8. Unfortunately, this was not enough information to develop a suspect.

A few moments later, a call was made to the police. The transcript is not verbatim, but dispatcher Nancy Slover recalled the some of the following. “I want to report a double murder. If you will go one mile […] to the public park you will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9 mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye,” the caller said.

Even with this new piece of information, no progress was made in the investigation.

A Look Into The First Zodiac Killer Letters

Then, on Jul. 31, three letters were sent to three different Bay Area publications. The author of the letters proved himself to be the murderer of Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. He listed facts only he and the police would know. These facts included the brand of ammunition used and the number of shots fired.

The letters also included parts of a cipher. He demanded the ciphers be posted in the newspaper and threatened to kill more people if they did not comply.

Sure enough, the papers posted the cipher they each received. The cipher pictured was unsolved until August 1969 when a couple in the Bay Area was able to decode it.

The ciphers mostly seem to be vulgar messages gloating over the attention he got from killing. In the last cipher, however, he mentioned he kills people in order to collect slaves for the afterlife. This, alongside the use of astrological symbols, led investigators to consider the suspect’s relation to occult belief.

In August, another letter was sent to the San Francisco Examiner. It read “Dear Editor. This is the Zodiac speaking.” This was the first instance of the Zodiac nickname being used.

He disclosed more information about killings which were not public. This was definitive proof. The same person who claims to be the Zodiac was also the murderer.

The Strange Killings Continued

On Sep. 27, the Zodiac struck again. Similar to previous attacks, it was a young couple on a date at night. Again, there were no witnesses in the area.

This time, the killer was described as being dressed in an executioner-style hood with the Zodiac logo on it.

He approached Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnel who were on a picnic, He claimed to be an escaped convict who needed their car and money. He then tied them up and stabbed both.

Strangely, the Zodiac walked away after and toward the victims’ car. He wrote a message on the car briefly stating the details of the attack.

The Zodiac liked to make sure he is linked to the murders. He craved the attention garnered from the public and the police. At the time, he had the citizens of the Bay Area on a constant edge.

He called the police in order to report the murders. “A murder–no, a double murder,” he said.

The Zodiac Killer Got Sloppy

Luckily, nevertheless, the victims were discovered alive by a man and his son who were fishing nearby. Hartnell survived and described the encounter. Unfortunately, however, Shepard passed away a couple days later.

Their attack was different in multiple different ways. This was bizarre, considering his previous modus operandi–”method of operation.” In the first two attacks he used guns, killed in the middle of the night and made sure there was nobody around. This time, he did it in the daylight and in branded attire.

This indicated a new sense of confidence and arrogance in killing–despite becoming sloppy and leaving surviving victims. Perhaps he used killing and violence as a means to an end–gaining massive attention and terrorizing an entire metropolitan area.

The Zodiac’s method, though, only became more bizarre with his next and last confirmed victim.

Paul Stine, a local cab driver, was hailed for the last time on Oct. 11. The Zodiac killer entered the taxi and rode to his destination. After the cab stopped, he shot Stine in the head, killing him.

Three teenagers across the street witnessed this crime and immediately called the police. They described the man as wearing a dark or black jacket.

The Zodiac Killer Slipped Away

Patrolling cops saw a white man walking nearby, appearing to be large and dark-haired. This man matched who the teenagers actually saw at the crime scene. He also matched previous descriptions of the killer. Due to miscommunication from the dispatcher who misheard the details as the perpetrator being a black man, the killer passed the cops without them even knowing.

Some of Stine’s possessions were missing. This was extremely different from the Zodiac’s previous crimes, so it was ruled as a robbery–until Oct. 13.

The Zodiac mailed a letter, containing a section of Stine’s bloody shirt, to the San Francisco Chronicle claiming credit for the killing. In the letter, the Zodiac threatened to murder children on a school bus. This caused immense fear in the community.

Over the following five years, the Zodiac continued to send letters taunting and bragging about supposed murders he committed. He threatened the police, the press and others. During those five years of letters, however, there were no murders linked to the Zodiac after Paul Stine.

There was a three-year pause after a letter in 1971. The last letters were published in 1974. They were much less intense than his earlier letters.

In the final letter he boasted of the statistics of his murders.

Solving The Mystery of The Zodiac Killer

Over 2500 suspects were investigated by the San Francisco Police Department. The prime suspect to be the killer noted by many detectives was a man named Arthur Leigh Allen.

There was circumstantial evidence against Allen.

Allen owned the same type of ammunitions used to kill the Zodiac’s first victims. He wore a size 10.5 shoe. He had a watch with the same logo as the one used in the letters.

Two survivors, Mageu and Hartnell, also matched Allen’s appearance and voice to the Zodiac’s.

Allen’s friend noted Allen mentioned killing couples at random, taunting the police with letters, calling himself the Zodiac and using the Zodiac watch logo in letters. He planned to write a novel. The friend also noted Allen was fascinated by the idea of killing humans.

No authentic Zodiac letter was ever received again after Allen’s arrest in 1974.

Much of this evidence was oddly coincidental, though. Allen’s DNA did not match the DNA evidence found on the envelopes of the letters sent. His handwriting did not match the one in the letters. More so, his palm print did not match the one in Paul Stine’s taxicab.

In the end, the Zodiac killer was never identified. There is a possibility the killer was not even one of the thousands of suspects.

The Zodiac killer, presumably dead due to old age after 50 years of the case being cold, remains to this day one of the most infamous unsolved mysteries.