The Zodiac Killer
Five nights before Christmas, two high school students went out on their first official date together, The Zodiac Killer took credit for murdering 37 people in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960’s without ever being identified or caught. He taunted police and made threats in the local newspapers. At one point, he sent a letter to a newspaper demanding that his letters be printed on the front page of every local newspaper or else he would kill 12 people by that Sunday. Later that same year, the san Francisco Chronicle got another letter from the Zodiac which included part of a victims shirt as proof that he was the murderer and a note claiming that he would soon be killing school children on a bus. The letters had four cryptograms,texts written in code, only one of which has been solved. In 2004, the police marked the case inactive because no definite suspect has been identified. However, it was reopened before 2007 and has been kept as an open file in California Department of Justice.
The killer claimed to have killed 37 people however, investigators have only confirmed 7 definite victims, 2 of which survived. The Zodiac Killer targeted young couples in secluded areas. He used guns and knives as weapons and sometimes was claimed to have worn a costume during the murder. The first killings took place on December 20,1968 in Vallejo, California. Two teens were killed while sitting in their car in a gravel parking area. The next murder occurred the next year on July 4, very close to the area of the last killings. The killer shot two people before walking away, coming back, and shooting them again. One of the victims survived and was able to give a description of the killer. He was described as a young, white male about 200 pounds or larger with light brown curly hair and a large face. A few weeks later, 3 local newspapers received letters, with identical handwriting, from someone claiming to be the killer. These letters contained codes that he claimed could be used to figure out his identity.
A few days later, the San Francisco Examiner received another letter this time the killer referred to himself as the Zodiac for the first time. In the fall of 1969, a couple was stabbed to death by someone wearing an executioner style hood and a Zodiac symbol on his chest. One of the victims survived and gave a description of the killer that matched the description of an earlier murder. On October of 1969, a taxi driver was shot in the head by his passenger. A teen across the street heard the shot and 3 people were able to get good looks of the murderer. Somehow amidst the situation, the police dispatcher gave an incorrect description of the killer identifying him as a black male, which no one has ever identified him as before. Two police officers drove past a man wearing white rimmed glasses a few blocks away from the scene but did not stop to question him because they did not think he fit the exact description. The Zodiac moc...
