Unmasking the Zodiac: Paul Stine's Murder

At 10:55 p.m. on October 11, 1969, a yellow taxicab sat idling at the corner of Washington and Cherry Streets in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights. Inside, Paul Stine, a 29-year-old cab driver, lay slumped over the steering wheel, a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. Blood pooled on the vinyl seats, streaked across the door frame, and dripped down onto the San Francisco pavement. From the sidewalk, three teenagers peered through their living room window. They watched as a stocky man in glasses calmly wiped down the cab’s interior, tore a piece of Stine’s shirt, and walked away into the dark.

Paul Stine had moved to San Francisco to study music at San Francisco State College, making ends meet by driving a cab at night. He’d grown up in Modesto, California, the eldest son in his family, known among friends for his dry wit and his precise, almost mathematical approach to playing the organ. In 1969, Stine shared a small apartment with his brother, often working the late shift to help with rent and send money home. The city’s summer of love was over. Violent crime in San Francisco had risen sharply compared to just five years before. Cab drivers increasingly worried about robberies, assaults, and fare jumps, especially in the city’s northern neighborhoods.

The man who would enter Stine’s cab that night had a different agenda. On October 11, just before 10 p.m., Paul Stine picked up a fare at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets. The passenger, described as a white male, approximately 35 to 45 years old, stocky, with short brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses, requested a ride to the wealthy Presidio Heights neighborhood. Stine wrote the destination in his fare log: 3898 Washington Street. The cab traveled west, climbing the leafy blocks toward the Presidio.

At 10:55 p.m., dispatch received a report from local residents: a shot fired, a cab stopped at the intersection of Washington and Cherry. The first radioed police report mistakenly described the suspect as a black male, based on initial, confused witness statements. At least three teenage witnesses, looking out their window from the house at 3898 Washington, saw a man in glasses, with a heavy build and dark clothing, leaning into the cab. They watched him wipe down the steering wheel, reach over the body, and remove a rectangular object. The man exited the cab’s passenger door, clutching part of Stine’s blood-soaked shirt and what appeared to be a wallet or keys. He walked north, up Cherry Street, toward the edge of the Presidio Park.

Within minutes, patrol officers responded. Donald Fouke and Eric Zelms, driving east on Jackson Street, encountered a stocky white man, about 5’10”, walking west on Jackson, less than a block from the murder scene. Because of the incorrect suspect description, they did not stop him. The man disappeared behind the low stone walls of the park. The officers only realized their mistake after talking to witnesses and reviewing the description again at the crime scene.

Investigators arrived at 3898 Washington Street to find Paul Stine dead in the driver’s seat, shot at close range with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. His wallet and car keys were missing, and a piece of his shirt had been torn away. Blood covered the front seats and spattered the dashboard, indicating a struggle or movement after the shooting. The cab’s meter was still running. No shell casings were found in the car or at the scene. The killer had wiped down surfaces, but bloody fingerprints remained on the partition between the front and back seats.

The murder of Paul Stine marked a sharp departure from the crimes that had terrorized Northern California over the previous year. The Zodiac Killer had first struck on December 20, 1968, when David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were shot and killed on a remote stretch of Lake Herman Road in Benicia, California. Both were high school students, parked in a lover’s lane spot known for its privacy. Shell casings from a .22-caliber weapon were recovered at the scene. Police found Betty Lou Jensen dead outside the car, her body riddled with bullets, while David Faraday died on arrival at the hospital from a single gunshot wound to the head.

On July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau, both in their early twenties, sat in a parked car at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, just after midnight. A car pulled up beside them, then drove away, only to return minutes later. The driver approached their window and opened fire with a 9mm Luger pistol, killing Ferrin and seriously wounding Mageau. Mageau later told police the shooter wore a navy blue jacket and heavy-rimmed glasses. He described the man as short, stocky, and in his thirties. This was the first time a Zodiac victim survived to provide a description.

On August 1, 1969, three separate letters arrived at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. Each letter contained a third of a cipher—the now-famous 408-symbol cryptogram—and a threat: “If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill rampage Fri. night.” The letters began with the words, “Dear Editor: I am the killer of the 2 teenagers last Christmas,” and described details only the police and killer could have known. The cryptogram was soon solved by Donald and Bettye Harden, a high school teacher and his wife. The decoded message read, in part: “I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all.” But the killer’s identity was not revealed.

On September 27, 1969, the killer again attacked a couple: Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, relaxing by the shore of Lake Berryessa in Napa County. A man approached, wearing a black executioner’s hood with a white cross-circle symbol sewn into the chest. He tied up the couple, then stabbed them repeatedly with a long knife. Hartnell survived by playing dead; Shepard died two days later in the hospital. The killer wrote a message on the couple’s car door: “Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69-6:30 by knife.” Police recovered boot prints and a hand-drawn diagram, but the hooded figure melted into the landscape.

By the time Paul Stine was killed, police across multiple counties were already struggling to coordinate evidence and suspect lists. The Zodiac Killer’s methods changed at every crime, shifting weapons and locations, and even changing his approach to his victims. Former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary later noted, “The killer constantly changed his method of operating and openly admitted that murder was sport for him.”

After the Stine murder, the Zodiac’s communication with the press and police escalated sharply. On October 13, 1969, just two days after the killing, the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac. It included a torn section of Paul Stine’s blood-stained shirt as proof. The letter taunted police: “I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington St + Maple St last night… School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.” The threat sent waves of panic through San Francisco. School buses were trailed by police cars for weeks, and parents kept children home in droves.

On November 8, the Zodiac sent another cryptogram—a 340-character puzzle—to the San Francisco Chronicle. The cipher, known as the “Z340,” stumped cryptologists for more than 50 years. It was finally solved in December 2020 by a team of private citizens: David Oranchak, Jarl Van Eycke, and Sam Blake. The solution read: “I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me… I am not afraid of the gas chamber…” The killer continued to deride authorities, offering no clues about his name or whereabouts.

Two days later, the San Francisco Chronicle received yet another letter. This one included a schematic of a bomb, a diagram of a school bus, and detailed instructions for constructing a timed explosive. The killer ended the note with his now-infamous cross-circle signature. This ongoing contact became his trademark, making the Zodiac case as much a battle of wits with the media as a criminal investigation.

Investigators from the San Francisco Police Department, the Vallejo Police Department, and the Napa County Sheriff’s Office tried to coordinate their efforts. At the San Francisco crime scene, officers collected several bloody latent fingerprints from the cab’s front door and partition. These prints were compared to dozens of suspects, but no match was found. The surviving witnesses from the Presidio Heights killing—three teenagers—worked with police artists to create a composite sketch. The initial confusion over the suspect’s race delayed the distribution of the correct sketch by several hours. By the time the correct description was released, the killer was long gone.

Over the following months, authorities received dozens of tips and several false confessions. Investigators canvassed the Presidio Heights neighborhood, interviewing residents and collecting physical evidence. They analyzed shoe prints, examined tire tracks, and compared ballistic evidence from Stine’s murder to earlier attacks. The bullet that killed Stine matched 9mm shell casings recovered from the Blue Rock Springs Park attack on July 4, 1969. This forensic link established with near certainty that the cab driver’s killing was the work of the Zodiac.

The Zodiac’s taunts continued. On December 20, 1969, exactly one year after the first murders, the killer claimed responsibility for the abduction and attempted murder of Kathleen Johns on March 22, 1970. Johns reported being lured into a stranger’s car near Modesto, then escaping after being driven around for hours. Police could not conclusively tie this incident to the Zodiac, but the killer insisted it was his work.

The Zodiac’s letters often included demands for publication, threatening more violence if his ciphers were not printed. On July 26, 1970, the killer sent a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle containing a hand-drawn map of the San Francisco Bay Area and a new 32-letter cipher. The map included a cross-circle symbol near Mount Diablo. The letter demanded: “0 is to be set to Mag. N.” No clear solution emerged.

On October 27, 1970, a Halloween card arrived at the office of Chronicle reporter Paul Avery. The card depicted a skeleton and contained the message “Peek-a-boo, you are doomed,” along with the Zodiac’s cross-circle signature. This personal taunt implied Avery was being watched.

The investigation’s scope ballooned. By 2009, the San Francisco Police Department had investigated approximately 2,500 suspects. Evidence was sent to the FBI’s labs in Washington, D.C., and thousands of tips were cataloged. Detectives pored over handwriting samples and attempted to match the Zodiac’s blocky, slanted printing from his dozens of letters. No match was ever confirmed. The killer’s DNA, taken from saliva on stamps and envelopes, proved insufficient for a clear identification. The Zodiac remained a shadow—always close, but never caught.

On March 13, 1971, the Zodiac sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times, claiming responsibility for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside on October 30, 1966. The Riverside Police Department investigated this connection. While the details bore some similarities—a young woman attacked near her car, taunting letters sent to police—no definitive link was ever established.

The last known correspondence from the Zodiac arrived on January 29, 1974. The letter was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. It praised the film “The Exorcist” and closed with the cryptic message: “Me = 37, SFPD = 0.” The killer claimed responsibility for 37 murders, far more than the five confirmed by law enforcement. No further authenticated letters arrived after this date.

The Zodiac’s impact on the Bay Area was immediate and profound. The killer’s ability to escape capture, change his methods, and manipulate the media revealed both the strengths and weaknesses of police work in the 1960s and 1970s. Law enforcement faced challenges coordinating investigations across city and county lines. The Zodiac’s knowledge of forensics, evidenced by his careful wiping of fingerprints and removal of physical evidence, limited the effectiveness of traditional investigative methods.

The case remains a touchstone for American criminal history. The Zodiac’s two most famous ciphers—the 408-symbol and the 340-character cryptograms—were solved not by police, but by private citizens and codebreakers. In December 2020, the solution to the Z340 cipher was announced by a team of three amateur cryptologists after more than 50 years of effort. The decoded message mocked law enforcement’s inability to catch the killer and offered no further clues.

Despite thousands of leads, interviews, and new forensic techniques, the Zodiac’s identity remains unknown. The composite sketch, based on the Presidio Heights witnesses, is still circulated among amateur sleuths and professional investigators. The fingerprint evidence from Paul Stine’s cab remains unclaimed. The killer’s last taunting sign-off—“Me = 37, SFPD = 0”—still echoes in accounts of unsolved American crimes.