Worldwide Murder Mysteries. (Zodiac)

Most people are usually quiet about their crimes, but “Zodiac”, as he dubbed himself, was anything but. From 1968-1969, he terrorized San Francisco with his murder spree, taunting the police with his coded letters to the local paper. He had at least five killings directly connected to him, although he claims to have killed 37 people. His terror began when Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Arthur Faraday, 17, were found lying outside of their bullet-peppered car. Jensen was found dead at the scene with five gunshot wounds to her back, while Faraday died of a bullet to the head en route to the hospital. Half a year later, a couple who parked their car four miles away from that crime scene was also gunned down, one injured and one killed. The survivor, Michael Mageau, was able to give a description of the killer. He described a heavyset white man around 5’8″. It would be the Zodiac Killer himself that would give the police the remaining evidence.

 At 12:48 a.m. that same night, police received a strange call:

“I wish to report a double murder. If you go one mile east in Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot with a nine-millimetre Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.”  

A month later, newspapers received the first letter from the Zodiac Killer. He demanded them publish the letter on the front page or he’d go on a killing rampage. The letter described the murders, all written with mysterious ciphers that seemed to form a code. This was a common theme with the other letters he would send, all signed with a crossed-circle symbol. One such letter was decoded by a high-school teacher and his wife. It read:

 “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 DANGEROUE 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 THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI.”

The Zodiac Killer would go on killing and leaving frustrating evidence for the police– coded letters, anonymous phone calls, the crossed-circle written on victims’ cars, sending over blood-stained shirts, accounts from survivors– but the police never found him.