True Crime Friday: The Zodiac Killer, America's most infamous unknown serial killer
This is the Zodiac, a deranged man who murdered at least five people in California between 1960 and 1968. The serial killer began sending letters to newspapers throughout the bay area claiming responsibility for the murders. One of his letters stated “I like killing people because it is so much fun” if you have not figured it out yet serial killers are in a sick league of their own.
The Zodiac used cryptograms in his letters for the authorities to solve. The police had a chance to catch the killer, when they arrived at the crime scene of the taxicab driver, they ran into the killer, but dispatch told them to be on the lookout for a black man so that allowed the Zodiac to get away. It was even said by some witnesses that the police had a conversation with the killer but was looking for a black man. When the police interviewed the witnesses, they told authorities that the guy was white and had just left the scene. The police, realizing that the person they had spoken to was Zodiac, but he was long gone by the time they figured this out.
He threatened bombings and killings of school children as they were getting off their school bus. He threatened more killings if the newspapers did not publish his letters. He wanted full credit for the mayhem he was causing. It was not easy to decrypt the cryptograms that were placed in his letters to the newspapers. There were four of them and two were decoded; one was decoded in 1969, and the other one was decoded in 2020. The other two cryptograms are smaller but have been much harder to decode and are still unknown. The Zodiac's last letter was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974, in that letter he claims to have killed at least 37 people. He confessed to the murder of a woman in Riverside County that happen in 1966.
The Zodiac Killer Suspects
- Arthur Leigh Allen
- Earl Van Best Jr.
- Giuseppe Bevilacqua
- Lawrence Kane
- Paul Doerr
- Richard Gaikowski
The Early Childhood of The Zodiac Killer
The suspect was born November 8, 1937. He had two siblings. At a young age the suspect joined the United States Air Force. He married a woman in the 1970s and they had one child together. When the suspect was twenty years old, he was involved in a car accident. It was a major accident and the driver of the vehicle died. The suspect was severely injured. Because of the car accident the suspect was left with significant scars and severe brain injuries. His skull was crushed and bone fractures had to be removed to stop the internal bleeding. Within the sketches of the Zodiac Killer there are scars that are noticeable in the drawings.Less Dead Theory
In this case, the killer chose young people at lover’s lane as his targets. They were generally isolated areas where killers could easily get away with murder. He targeted couples primarily but also killed individuals. There were serious missteps involved in this case by law enforcement. The killer murder people in different counties and jurisdictions. At that time, authorities did not communicate with each other making solving cases more complicated. Law enforcement tends to neglect these cases and so does the media making it easier for serial killers to roam the communities with impunity. Cases involving more prestigious victims rarely take a back seat in the media and law enforcement.The Victims of The Zodiac Killer
- David Faraday
- Betty Lou Jensen
- Darlene Ferrin
- Cecelia Shepard
- Paul Lee Stine
- Unknown Riverside Woman
The Survivors of The Zodiac Killer
- Michael Mageau
- Bryan Hartnell
- Unknown Woman and her baby daughter