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In the late 1960’s in Northern California (USA) a series of murderers began to take place by the hand of a mysterious killer who named himself the “Zodiac”. Although he didn’t want to reveal his real identity, he did want to receive a lot of attention from the public, because he decided to send to the press several letters that included cryptograms or ciphers, with hidden messages about the killings and also admitting that he was the one responsible for the crimes, along with some disturbing declarations.

![2000px-Zodiac_Killer_symbol.svg.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXjrSXgUZ1uHMtaCtypuxjZz4y55cQDnQQmeheKgNuWGD/2000px-Zodiac_Killer_symbol.svg.png)

<center>[Zodiac’s symbolic signature](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zodiac_Killer_symbol.svg)</center>

In the letters he sent to the newspapers he claimed to have killed 37 people, but police investigators only agree on 5, and also two of the confirmed victims he attacked were able to survive. Despite the police effort to find his real identity, no one knows who the Zodiac killer really was and the case remains open. 

<center><h3>Previous attacks</h3></center>

Everything started with the murder of David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, two high school students who were shot on December 20th of 1968. They planned to go to a Christmas Concert for their first date, but instead they went to a local restaurant to eat something, and then drove through Lake Herman Road. 

<center>![tumblr_p6mgmzTi7m1wg6t0jo1_400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbEaLxhnoKA7adfPMehHHJaoCwibKphcoowS1DymYHbEB/tumblr_p6mgmzTi7m1wg6t0jo1_400.jpg)</center>

<center>[Betty Lou Jensen and David Arthur Faraday](http://zodiackiller.forumotion.com/t87-pics-of-victims-the-crime-scene)</center>

The couple decided to stop the car at a well-know _lover’s lane_ at about 10:15 p.m. Then, just a few minutes after 11:00 p.m the bodies of David and Betty were found dead by a woman who lived nearby. First, the killer shot Faraday in the head and then Jensen five times in her back.  At that time, the police investigated the crime but they didn’t find any leads.

<center>![ffdd.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNsEJaNGwG5zaeu7yhBLmtbbR3dy1pgEnQv5kXqQurjPy/ffdd.PNG)</center>

<center>[Headline about the murder](https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiackillerfr/lake-herman-comprehensive-newspaper-collection-t6245.html)</center>

Just six and a half months later, on July 5th of 1969, another couple: Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were parked in Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, which was actually not far from the place of the previous killings. 

|<center>https://i.imgur.com/wUWleIJ.jpg <br> [Darlene Ferrin](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14266823/darlene-elizabeth-ferrin)</center> |<center>https://i.imgur.com/9n6UY5T.png?1 <br> [Michael Mageau](http://zodiackiller.forumotion.com/t100-pics-of-ferrin-mageau)</center>|
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Suddenly, a second car appeared and parked behind them; a man exited the vehicle and approached them. He shined a flashlight into Ferrin’s and Mageau’s eyes and then fired his gun at them five times. Shortly after the shootings, at 12:40 a.m, a man called Vallejo Police Department saying he was responsible not only for this attack but also for the one that happened in December.

Despite being shot in the chest, neck and face, Michael Mageau survived and described the murderer as a 26-30 year old white man with short, brown curly hair.

<center><h3>The letters begin</h3></center>

<center>![img5.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbeKVCV7C2jBtbRm2PfiskhJBVadw1rBi4dMeacpPq7y1/img5.jpg)</center>

<center>[Front part of one of the letters](http://slideplayer.com/slide/8576057/#)</center>

Later on August 1st of 1969 the first message was sent to the San Francisco newspapers _The Examiner_ and _Chronicle_, and also to the _Vallejo Times-Herald_. They received the same handwritten letter that started with the following statement:

> Dear Editor: I am the killer of the two teenagers at Lake Herman last Christmas

He also took credit for the shooting in Blue Rock Springs. 

|<center>https://i.imgur.com/vgledh6.jpg <br> [First part of the letter](http://slideplayer.com/slide/8576057/#)</center> |<center>https://i.imgur.com/4PAwvVo.jpg <br> [Second part of the letter](http://slideplayer.com/slide/8576057/#)</center>|
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The letters contained information only the person who killed them could have known. The killer also designed a three-part cipher that supposedly contained his identity, he put one part on each letter and then threatened with further attacks if the editor didn’t publish the letters on the papers front page.

The _Chronicle_ was the first one to publish the letter with their part of the cipher, then eventually all the parts were published and the further attacks he mentioned didn’t happen. But while the police, with help from the FBI, were working to catch the killer another letter arrived on August 7th of 1969, and it was the first time he referred to himself as the “Zodiac”. This one went only to the San Francisco Examiner and had more details about the murder of Faraday and Jensen, and also mocked the police for not cracking his code.

<center>![fgbbgfgbf.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeUYoBpQJM1N25wyMnjY1NbUChArPR9hBMT4ndAEJUsqn/fgbbgfgbf.PNG)</center>

<center>[Cipher in the first letter](http://slideplayer.com/slide/8576057/#)</center>

The very next day, on August 8th, Donald Harden (a high school teacher) and his wife, finally decoded the message in the cipher. It started with the sentence: “I like killing because it’s so much fun”. They also found a misspelled message (which was something very common in the Zodiac’s letters) that said he killed people because he was collecting slaves for his afterlife. You can read the full message in [this](https://i.imgur.com/92vRGBB.png) picture. _Warning: it’s very disturbing_

<center><h3>Further attacks</h3></center>

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<img src="https://i.imgur.com/GL8EhJ9.png" alt="pura vida" width="304" height="304" />

<center>[Drawing of the Zodiac](http://criminalminds.wikia.com/wiki/The_Zodiac_Killer)</center>

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At this point you can say the Zodiac had a thing for couples. On September 27th of 1969, two students: Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were having a picnic at Lake Berryessa in Napa, California, when a white man wearing a black hood with a circle-cross symbol (the one we saw at the beginning), approached them, tied them up and stabbed them several times. He then left a message for the police in the car. 

He drew the circle-cross symbol and the dates of the murders of December and August on the car door. Hartnell survived the attack. 

Later on October 11th of 1969, Paul Stine, who was a cab driver, received a passenger at Mason and Geary Streets in San Francisco. Shortly after he passed the place where he was supposed to take the person, Paul Stine was shot in the head by his passenger. 

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![crime scene.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSqqHTnPfzqY64oM5FfYUP1QmcRdovgVefk9x4aTEzvQZ/crime%20scene.PNG)</center>

<center>[Crime scene of Paul Stine's murder](http://www.thequesterfiles.com/paul_stine_10-11-69_--_the_que.html)</center>

Three teenagers saw the attack and called the police. There was a very strange mix-up when this happened, because the radio dispatcher told the officers to look for a black suspect, and because of this they drove past a man who resembled the usual Zodiac’s description. The strange thing is that the witnesses described the attacker as a white male.

<center>![hggh.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcsxoUPS3yDXzQ5vUAQPpp7FgWEB4aVUUjQZZi2E3vD9p/hggh.PNG)</center>

<center>[Sketch made by a police artist with help from the three witnesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zodiac_Killer.jpg)</center>

On October 14th of 1969, the Zodiac sent to the Chronicle another letter that contained a swatch from Paul Stine’s shirt, along with a threat of killing small children on a school bus. He never fulfilled such threat.

During that decade, many other killings were linked to the Zodiac and many other letters were sent to the press, taking credit for several crimes, but none were actually confirmed. The last letter they received was in 1974 and it included the following message: _“Me = 37, SFPD (San Francisco Police Department) = 0._

<center><h3>The suspects</h3></center>

Although no one was arrested as an official suspect for the Zodiac’s crimes, there is a strong belief that a man called Arthur Leigh Allen was the one behind the mask. Donald Cheney, who was a friend of Allen, reported to the police that Allen was referring to himself as the Zodiac, and later when the authorities searched his trailer they found weapons, bloody knives, dissected animals and homemade bombs. Allen was arrested in 1974 for child molestation, exactly around the time when the letters stopped. But again, he was never confirmed to be the Zodiac and all the evidence against him turned out negative.

<center>![gfgff.PNG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZ2rYuvsVwajfUsFoNw5xy3vYqDLyHhVcy8dpzHcV8SLR/gfgff.PNG)</center>

<center>[Arthur Leigh Allen's driver's license](http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/allen.htm)</center>

There is also another theory. A man called Gary L Stewart wrote a book saying that his father Earl Van Best Jr was the Zodiac killer. Although he resembles the sketch made by the police after Paul Stine was murdered, he doesn’t resemble earlier descriptions.

The real Zodiac remains a mystery, but reality is that people were killed and no one was found guilty for those crimes.

<center><h3>Thank you so much for reading! </h3></center>

<center><h4>I recommend you to watch the 2007 movie "Zodiac", it's an amazing adaptation of this story.</h4></center>


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**References:** [1](https://www.bustle.com/articles/169465-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-zodiac-killer-but-were-too-afraid-to-google), [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer), [3](https://www.biography.com/people/zodiac-killer-236027), [4](http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/allen.htm), [5](http://slideplayer.com/slide/8576057/#)