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The full episode, in writing.
The police found the first message on the trunk of Bryan Hartnell’s white Karmann Ghia. Someone had written the dates of two previous murders, along with that afternoon’s date, all in black marker. It was September 27, 1969, and the message ended with a crossed-circle symbol. Detectives instantly recognized the mark. It meant the Zodiac had struck again.
David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were high school students in Vallejo, California. On December 20, 1968, the two drove to Lake Herman Road for their first date. It was cold, and the road was a known spot for couples to park at night. Around 11 p.m., witnesses later recalled seeing a blue car pull up behind Faraday’s station wagon. The killer fired five shots. Faraday died from a bullet wound to the head. Jensen ran, but was shot five times in the back and collapsed 28 feet from the car. The killer left no physical evidence and vanished before police arrived.
Seven months later, on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau parked at Blue Rock Springs, just four miles from the site of the previous murders. Around midnight, another car entered the lot and parked behind theirs. The driver, described as a heavyset white male, approached Ferrin’s car and fired a Luger pistol into the window. Ferrin was shot multiple times and died at the hospital. Mageau survived, despite being shot in the face, neck, and chest. He told police the shooter wore glasses and was in his late twenties to early thirties.
On August 1, 1969, three newspapers—a Vallejo paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner—each received a three-page letter. Typed in neat block capitals, the message claimed responsibility for the attacks. Each letter included a different third of a cryptogram, a 408-symbol cipher. The killer instructed editors to print the ciphers on the front page, threatening to kill again if they did not comply. Police had never before faced a suspect who taunted them through the media.
On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden, a high school teacher and his wife from Salinas, California, cracked the cipher. The message inside read, "I like killing people because it is so much fun." The cipher described the killer’s philosophy and made no mention of his identity. When police published the solution, they withheld the final 18 characters, hoping to identify the author by his reaction.
On September 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, both college students, were relaxing on the shores of Lake Berryessa, 50 miles north of San Francisco. A man approached them, dressed in a black executioner’s hood with a white crossed-circle symbol sewn onto the chest. He claimed to be an escaped convict from Montana and brandished a gun, demanding money and car keys. The assailant tied both victims with pre-cut lengths of plastic clothesline. Then he stabbed Hartnell six times in the back and Shepard ten times in the back and abdomen. After the attack, the killer walked to Hartnell’s car and scrawled the message with the dates and symbol. Shepard died two days later; Hartnell survived.
Two weeks later, on October 11, 1969, Paul Stine, a 29-year-old taxi driver, picked up a fare in San Francisco’s Union Square. The passenger asked to be taken to Presidio Heights. Stine drove to the corner of Washington and Cherry Streets, where the passenger shot him in the head. The killer took Stine’s wallet, keys, and, in a grisly signature, tore away a piece of Stine’s bloodstained shirt. Three teenagers witnessed the attack through their window and called the police. Officers responded within minutes but failed to apprehend the suspect as he walked away into the night.
On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed the San Francisco Chronicle a new cipher, 340 characters long. This cryptogram, known as the "340 cipher," remained unsolved for 51 years. The following day, a card arrived with a piece of Paul Stine’s shirt, proving the killer’s involvement. The Zodiac also threatened to attack a school bus and murder children, escalating the public’s fear.
On December 20, 1969, a letter claimed responsibility for the murder of Kathleen Johns, a young woman who had reported being abducted in March 1970. Johns told police she’d been forced by a man to drive around rural roads for hours before escaping with her infant daughter. She later identified the Zodiac as her abductor after recognizing his composite sketch in a newspaper.
On July 26, 1970, the Zodiac sent another letter, this time including a hand-drawn map and a 32-character cipher. He claimed the map revealed the location of a bomb set to detonate at the end of the school year. Authorities scoured the area and found nothing, and the bomb threat was never substantiated.
On October 27, 1970, a Halloween card arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle addressed to reporter Paul Avery. The card featured macabre cartoons and the message "Peek-a-boo, you are doomed." The Zodiac raised his claimed victim count to 14. Avery, who had been leading media coverage of the case, began carrying a gun for protection.
On March 13, 1971, the Zodiac mailed a letter to the Los Angeles Times, raising his victim claim to 17. He hinted at relocating his activities to Southern California. The letter also referenced the unsolved Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates in 1966, suggesting his involvement, though police never confirmed this connection.
On January 29, 1974, the Zodiac’s last confirmed letter reached the San Francisco Chronicle. It referenced the film "The Exorcist," calling it "the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen." The letter included the tally "Me = 37, SFPD = 0," inflating his claimed victim total to 37. After this, the Zodiac’s correspondence ceased, though hundreds of hoax letters and confessions would follow over the years.
Each crime scene drew investigators from different agencies. The Vallejo Police handled the Faraday-Jensen and Ferrin-Mageau cases. Napa County investigators worked the Hartnell-Shepard attack. San Francisco Police took charge after Paul Stine’s murder. Detectives compared shell casings from the first two shootings, linking them to the same weapon—a .22-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Ballistics experts determined the cartridge casings at Blue Rock Springs matched those found at Lake Herman Road.
Michael Mageau, the only surviving victim from the July 4 shooting, described his attacker as a stocky white male with brown hair, glasses, and a round face. Cecelia Shepard, mortally wounded at Lake Berryessa, confirmed that her assailant had a calm, deliberate manner and wore an unusual hooded costume. Bryan Hartnell’s account matched hers. He told police the killer had planned the attack, bringing pre-cut clothesline and a knife, and had left the symbol and message on his car.
The Zodiac’s letters provided several key clues: the unique crossed-circle symbol, handwriting samples, and the ciphers. Handwriting analysts compared the letters to suspects’ samples, but found no definitive match. The codes themselves generated massive public interest; the first cipher was solved in a week, but the others stumped experts for decades. The 340-character cipher, sent in 1969, remained unbroken until 2020, when cryptographers revealed it contained a taunt and again refused to reveal the Zodiac’s true name.
After Paul Stine’s murder, police discovered a bloody fingerprint on the taxi’s dashboard. They collected the torn piece of shirt as forensic evidence. The Zodiac later mailed additional swatches of the shirt to prove the authenticity of his letters. Witnesses described the killer as a heavyset man, about 5’8” tall, possibly in his 30s or 40s, and observed him wiping down the taxi interior before leaving.
Authorities interviewed hundreds of suspects over the years. The most prominent was Arthur Leigh Allen, a former elementary school teacher who lived near Vallejo. Allen was known to have owned a Zodiac-brand watch, which featured the same crossed-circle symbol used by the killer. He had been fired for inappropriate behavior with children and was later convicted of child molestation. Police searched his home in 1972 and 1991, seizing typewriters, weapons, and a knife, but found no physical evidence connecting him to the crimes. Allen denied involvement until his death.
The FBI became involved as the Zodiac’s threat expanded beyond local jurisdictions. The agency’s criminal profiling division noted the killer’s focus on taunting authorities and the media. Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary suggested that the Zodiac’s repeated attacks on young couples reflected resentment toward relationships, possibly rooted in jealousy or social isolation.
Forensic science in the late 1960s and early 1970s lacked the tools available today. DNA analysis was not yet possible. Fingerprint databases were manual and limited in scope, and ballistics testing required physical comparison of bullets and casings under microscopes. Police compared thousands of writing samples sent in by the public and conducted door-to-door interviews near each crime scene. Despite these efforts, no viable suspect emerged.
The Zodiac’s communications became an obsession for amateur sleuths, cryptographers, and journalists. Two of his four major ciphers remain unsolved. The killer’s identity, motive, and true body count are still unknown. The Zodiac himself claimed 37 victims, but police have only confirmed five murders and two attempted murders.
The case introduced new forms of public terror. The Zodiac’s threats against schoolchildren led to police escorts for school buses in San Francisco. His letters were front-page news, and his ciphers sparked a nationwide puzzle craze. Law enforcement faced intense scrutiny from a fearful and fascinated public.
The Zodiac’s use of coded messages was unprecedented in American criminal history. He mailed a 408-symbol cipher in August 1969, solved by Donald and Bettye Harden, and a 340-symbol cipher in November 1969, finally cracked in 2020 by a group including David Oranchak, Sam Blake, and Jarl Van Eycke. The Zodiac’s codes referenced his joy in killing and challenged authorities to catch him.
After the murder of Paul Stine, police found the killer’s route led directly into the Presidio—a sprawling military base and residential area. A police search of the area failed to find the suspect, who likely slipped through the perimeter before officers could close off streets.
The Zodiac’s last confirmed letter arrived in January 1974, after which he disappeared from public view. Despite renewed interest over the decades, the case remains officially open, with the FBI and San Francisco Police Department continuing to review evidence. Hundreds of self-proclaimed experts and authors have offered theories about the killer’s identity, but none have yielded conclusive proof.
Arthur Leigh Allen died in 1992. He was never charged. DNA evidence recovered from envelope seals in the Zodiac letters has not matched Allen or any other suspect to date. The Zodiac’s surviving victims, Michael Mageau and Bryan Hartnell, both provided detailed descriptions, but the leads failed to result in an arrest.
The Zodiac’s crimes forced law enforcement agencies to cooperate across city and county lines. The case saw the first widespread use of mass media as a platform for criminal taunting. Newspaper editors, including those at the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, became intermediaries between the killer and the public. The killer’s manipulation of media coverage inspired future criminals to seek notoriety through public threats and coded messages.
The Zodiac’s crossed-circle symbol appeared on letters, cars, and clothing. It became one of the most recognizable emblems in crime history. The black executioner’s hood worn at Lake Berryessa was never recovered, and no suspect was ever seen wearing similar attire in the area again.
The Zodiac Killer exploited gaps in forensic science, differences between police jurisdictions, and the public’s appetite for sensation. He demonstrated how a single individual could instill fear across an entire region through planned attacks and public manipulation. The Zodiac case remains unsolved, and to this day, the San Francisco Police Department’s cold case unit receives tips and letters about potential suspects.
The 340-character cipher mailed in 1969 was finally solved in December 2020, revealing the message: “I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me. … I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner.” The killer never revealed his true name in any communication.