11 Facts About the Zodiac Killer

Despite the best efforts of law enforcement officers and amateur internet sleuths, there are still many unidentified serial killers. But two anonymous murderers stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of notoriety: Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer. The latter terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late ’60s and early ’70s, making a name for himself by leaving cryptic clues in letters to taunt police. Here are 11 fascinating facts about the Zodiac case.

The Zodiac Killer murdered at least five people.

There are five confirmed murder victims of the Zodiac Killer, plus two people who were attacked but survived. Teenage couple David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were both shot and killed by the unidentified murderer while they were parked on Lake Herman Road near Benicia, California, on December 20, 1968. Then, in the early minutes of July 5, 1969, the Zodiac shot Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin while they were parked at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo; Mageau survived the shooting.

The killer changed his M.O. when he attacked another couple on September 27 that year: Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were both stabbed at Lake Berryessa, but Hartnell survived. The last confirmed victim of the Zodiac was taxi driver Paul Stine, who was shot in his cab on October 11 in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood.

There’s also a huge list of other potential victims whose murders are currently unsolved. For instance, the murders of Ray Davis in 1962 and Cheri Jo Bates in 1966 bear some similarities to the Zodiac killings, but there isn’t enough evidence to definitively tie them to the infamous murderer.

The Zodiac Killer taunted the police with letters containing cryptograms.

Between 1969 and 1974, the Zodiac sent letters—sometimes containing cryptograms—to the press, taunting the police over their failure to catch him. The first letters were sent on July 31, 1969, to the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The writer took credit for the shootings of Faraday and Jensen the previous year and of Mageau and Ferrin earlier that month.

Each of the letters also included one-third of a cryptogram, which, if cracked, would supposedly reveal the killer’s identity. He threatened to go on a killing spree if the papers didn’t print their portion of the coded message and then signed off with a crosshairs symbol. Alongside the Chronicle’s printing of the cipher, Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz voiced his doubts over the letter having been penned by the murderer and asked for a second letter “with more facts to prove it.”

The killer was happy to oblige: In a follow-up letter, he provided details about the murders that the public didn’t know. Over the next few years he continued to send letters, postcards, and even a map that dropped clues and mocked authorities. In one of his last letters he claimed to have murdered 37 people.

The Zodiac Killer named himself.

Many killers get their moniker thanks to the media—the Night Stalker and the Boston Strangler being two famous examples—but the Zodiac Killer came up with his own pseudonym. In the first batch of letters sent to the press, he simply referred to himself as “the murderer” and “the killer,” but in the letter sent at Chief Stiltz’s request, he started with the words that became his catchphrase: “This is the Zodiac speaking.”

Only two of the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers have been solved so far.

On August 8, 1969—just six days after the Zodiac’s cipher was printed—Donald Harden, a teacher, and his wife Bettye cracked the code. Dubbed the 408 cipher (because it has 408 symbols), it didn’t reveal the killer’s identity, but it did reveal his motivation. “I like killing people because it is so much fun,” the error-filled message started, and later stating, “when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves.” It ends with 18 seemingly random letters—“ebeorietemethhpiti”—the meaning of which is still unknown.

It wasn’t until 2020 that another of his ciphers was decoded thanks to the efforts of American cryptographer David Oranchak, Australian mathematician Sam Blake, and Belgian software engineer Jarl Van Eycke. Although the 340 cipher also didn’t reveal the killer’s identity, it did confirm “that wasnt me on the TV show,” in reference to the man who called into A.M. San Francisco falsely claiming to be the Zodiac.

The other two ciphers remain unsolved to this day. The map code is related to the position of a bomb (at least, according to the accompanying letter), while the other cryptogram will apparently reveal the most sought after piece of information: His real name.

There were leads besides the letters—none of which helped police to track the Zodiac Killer.

Detectives were able to collect a palm print from the pay phone the killer used to tell the police that he had committed the Lake Berryessa attack, partial fingerprints from Paul Stine’s cab, as well as prints from the letters and envelopes that he sent to newspapers—but none of them matched with any suspects. One print matched Stine and another matched a police officer or newspaper worker, while the rest could just as easily have come from other people who touched the phone, cab, or letters. However, Detective David Toschi was confident they had the Zodiac’s prints.

Eyewitnesses also gave descriptions of the killer. Mageau said his attacker was a white male who had a beefy build and short, light brown hair. At Lake Berryessa, the Zodiac wore a black hood over his face, clip on glasses, a crosshairs symbol on his chest, and was described by Hartnell as “kind of heavy.” The three teenagers who saw Stine’s murder and called it in reported that the killer was a stocky white man wearing glasses and dark clothes. But the dispatcher mistakenly told police to look for a Black man, allowing the Zodiac to slip past officers Donald Fouke and Eric Zelms. Fouke described the bespectacled man he saw as 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a “medium heavy build” and “light colored hair.”

The famous wanted poster sketch of the Zodiac Killer was created from descriptions from the night of Stine’s murder. The Zodiac claimed that he actually spoke to police just three minutes after shooting Stine. When asked if he had seen anything suspicious, he apparently told the officers that a man waving a gun had run past him.

Only one suspect has ever been publicly named by police.

There have been more than 2500 suspects considered over the years, but only one man has ever officially been named by authorities: Arthur Leigh Allen. Detective Toschi was convinced that Allen—a sex offender who fit the killer’s profile—was the murderer. According to Mark Ruffalo, who played Toschi in David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), the detective told him, “As soon as that guy walked in the door, I knew it was him.” But Toschi never found any hard evidence to prove his hunch.

In 1991, Mageau identified Allen from a photo line-up as the man who shot him, but not all eyewitnesses were in agreement. Officer Fouke, for instance, said that Allen “outweighed the person that I saw that night by about 100 pounds.” Allen’s handwriting and DNA also weren’t a match, with Lloyd Cunningham, the handwriting expert on the case, saying that “none of his writing even came close to the Zodiac. Nor did DNA extracted from the envelopes.”

Most suspects were ruled out right away, but new names are constantly being put forward …

A few high profile criminals were considered—and quickly cast aside—by police when searching for the Zodiac, including the Manson Family, the cult headed by Charles Manson, whose August 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate, her houseguests, and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca made front-page news when the Zodiac was also actively killing. Domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber, who  was arrested in 1996, was later suggested as a suspect on the basis of having lived in the Bay Area when the Zodiac was active and for similarly sending letters about his crimes to papers.

Other suspects who are still hotly debated by Zodiologists include journalist Richard Gaikowski and Lawrence Kane. According to Nancy Slover—the dispatcher who spoke to the killer on the phone after the Blue Rock Springs attack—Gaikowski’s voice was similar to the one she heard. Kane was first identified as a suspect by Kathleen Johns, who in 1970 was briefly kidnapped by a man on Highway 132 near Patterson. She later identified her kidnapper as the Zodiac from the sketch and then as Lawrence from a photo line-up. (While the Zodiac did take credit for the kidnapping in a letter, he failed to provide details to confirm it.) Some believe Kane’s handwriting is comparable to the Zodiac’s. Amateur sleuths also suspect he might be connected to the disappearance of Donna Lass, who is thought to be a possible Zodiac victim “because of a postcard depicting a Sierra scene sent to authorities and a Christmas card sent to her sister after her disappearance,” according to the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

Authorities are still receiving tips and names to this day. For instance, in 2021, the Case Breakers—an independent group of sleuths with backgrounds in law, academia, the military, and the police who attempt to crack cold cases—put forward their case for Gary Francis Poste. They point to Poste’s forehead scars matching the wanted poster sketch, as well as anagrams of his name popping up in the Zodiac’s letters. Police remain unconvinced.

… Including politician Ted Cruz.

In 2016, a meme took off about Texas Senator Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer. Cruz wasn’t born until 1970—after the murders were committed—so it’s impossible for him to have been the Zodiac, but the meme gained traction because, as reported by NPR, some people “think he’s creepy. And they want to point that out, as clearly as they can.”

A restaurateur directed a movie as part of a bizarre plot to catch the Zodiac Killer.

Much like the rest of America, restaurateur Tom Hanson was fascinated by the Zodiac case, but unlike most people, he hatched his own plan to catch the killer. Hanson directed a film about the killings—simply titled The Zodiac Killer—for just $13,000 and booked a week-long premiere for it in April 1971 at the RKO Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco. “I thought he’d go see a movie about himself,” Hanson told Mental Floss in 2016.

The plan was that patrons would fill out an entry card to win a motorcycle and their handwriting would be compared to the Zodiac’s there and then. Hanson had six of his friends stationed throughout the cinema, but it was Hanson himself who believes he had an encounter with the killer. While using the urinal, a man came in and commented on the gore in the movie, saying it wasn’t realistic. Hanson turned to face the man and says that he “saw the same face that was on the wanted poster. Same eyes, nose, mouth, hair, everything.”

But Hanson didn’t have the legal power to hold the man—the police didn’t even know his sting operation was happening—and he simply walked out of the cinema.

The Zodiac Killer inspired a copycat killer.

In 1990, New York City police started being taunted by a killer who selected victims based on their zodiac signs and sent cryptic notes under the name “the Zodiac.” They initially considered whether the Zodiac Killer had left the West Coast and started murdering on the East Coast, but that was quickly disproven—the handwriting on the new notes didn’t match the original Zodiac killer’s letters.

Three people were killed and more were injured, but unlike the original Zodiac Killer, the New York copycat was caught and sentenced to life in prison. In 1996, Heriberto Seda was arrested after shooting his sister and holding her boyfriend hostage; the hostage negotiator, Detective Joseph Herbert, had previously worked on the copycat killer’s case and recognized the handwriting of Seda’s confession.

The Zodiac Killer has inspired movies, songs, and video games.

In addition to being the subject of numerous true crime documentaries and books, the Zodiac Killer has also inspired films, songs, and videos games. Along with Zodiac (2007)—which was based on the case—the killer also inspired fictional onscreen killers, including Scorpio from Dirty Harry (1971), the Gemini Killer from The Exorcist III (1990), and the Riddler from The Batman (2022). Netflix’s documentary, This Is the Zodiac Speaking, hits the streaming service October 23; you can watch the trailer above.

The Grateful Dead were the first to release Zodiac-inspired music, with “Dire Wolf” in 1969 featuring the refrain “Don’t murder me, I beg of you, don’t murder me,” in reference to the killings. Machine Head later released “Blood of the Zodiac” (1997), while the cover art for The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) by Guns N’ Roses features a message written using the Zodiac’s cipher (a fan deciphered it as “fuck em all”).

Sections of multiple video games have also been based on the killings (including Watch Dogs 2 and Cause of Death) but 2020’s This is the Zodiac Speaking is entirely based on the case. Gamers play as journalist Robert Hartnell—a reference to Zodiac survivor Bryan Hartnell—as he tries to track down the killer.

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