People know about the story of the Zodiac Killer, but no one knows who exactly they are.
The Zodiac Killer is an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. The Zodiac attacked three couples and a cab driver. The Zodiac mailed a series of letters to various Bay Area newspapers to take credit for the murders, even demanded that publications publish them. But even after all of these years, no one has been able to determine their identity.
His last confirmed murder took place on this day, in 1969.
The Zodiac killer broke his silence November 11, 1969 to boast in letters and cryptograms that he has now murdered multiple people in the Bay Area.Bettmann / Getty Images
The murder of Paul Stine
On the night of October 11, 1969, the Zodiac hailed a cab that was driven by a doctoral student named Paul Stine. When the taxi arrived at the intersection of Washington and Maple Street, the killer asked to be driven another block. At Washington and Cherry around 9:55 p.m., the Zodiac shot Stine in the head with a handgun and took his wallet and car keys.
Three teenagers witnessed the crime and immediately called police. The Zodiac’s face was visible by the streetlight, and they described him “as a husky White man in a dark or black jacket”, but, the dispatcher mistakenly told the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) that the suspect was Black. While the teens called 911, they watched the Zodiac wipe down the vehicle and go through Stine’s clothes. He left behind two partial fingerprints from his right hand.
Two minutes after the SFPD arrived, they noticed a White man in dark clothes walking towards the Presidio army base. They questioned the man, asking if he had seen anything suspicious, but he replied that he had seen someone waving a gun and heading east, which led the police to hurry away.
The Zodiac later claimed in letters that he was the witness that spoke to the two police officers. By the time police arrived at the scene, Stine was already dead. SFPD canvassed the area, including the Presidio.
Three days later, the Zodiac mailed a bloody piece of Stine’s shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle, and enclosed a letter bragging about the murder. He also mentioned plans to shoot a school bus and kill children as they exited.
The teenagers that witnessed the murder helped a police artist make a composite sketch of the man they saw at Stine’s cab. They drew a man with short hair and wearing eyeglasses.
A man holding one of the Zodiac’s letters.Chicago Tribune / Getty Images
Who could the Zodiac possibly be?
Eleven days after the murder of Stine, a man claiming to be the killer called the Oakland Police Department and demanded to speak to one of their lawyers on KGO-TV in San Francisco. Melvin Belli, a lawyer with multiple celebrity clients, agreed to appear, and during the live broadcast, a man calling himself “Sam” phoned the show’s producers. “Sam” told Belli he would not reveal his identity for fear of being executed, but requested to meet him in front of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop in Daly City that morning. Followed by police and camera crews, Belli waited 45 minutes, but “Sam” never showed up. It was soon discovered that “Sam” was actually Eric Weill, a patient at a psychiatric hospital.
Throughout the 1970s, the Zodiac kept sending out cards and letters to the media. The last letter was sent to San Francisco Chronicle in 1974, and he claimed that he had murdered 37 people.
Despite several theories about the Zodiac’s true identity, the only suspect police named was Arthur Leigh Allen, a former elementary school teacher and convicted sex offender who died in 1992. The Zodiac’s murders, cryptograms and letters to newspapers and media have made them one of the most famous unsolved cases in American history. The Zodiac has become a fixture of popular culture, and the search for his identity continues to be pursued by amateur detectives all over the world.
His other confirmed victims include teenagers David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, who were 17 and 16, respectively, when they were attacked and shot by the Zodiac after coming home from hanging out with friends; Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22, who was shot in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo and was with Michael Renault Mageau, who survived the attack; and he stabbed Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard while they were picnicking at Lake Berryessa.
In 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case of the Zodiac Killer as “inactive”, but re-opened the case in 2006. The California Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the city of Vallejo, and the Napa and Solano county sheriffs maintain the case status as “open”.
The most recent development took place earlier this year in April, when researcher Alex Baber used an AI program to analyze the Zodiac Killer’s short 13-character “Z13” cipher, claiming the encryption key “Elizabeth” points to the name Marvin Merrill (an alias for Marvin Margolis). The theory attempts to tie Margolis — a former USC pre-med student and WWII Navy medical corps veteran who knew Elizabeth Short (a Hollywood hopeful known as the “Black Dahlia” to press) who was murdered in 1947 and the Zodiac murders.
Related: Kidnapper Richard Evonitz killed himself in 2002, days after a 15-year-old escaped his apartment and identified him; Investigation Discovery’s documentary on the case arrives Oct. 7
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