The Zodiac Killer was the pseudonym for a serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s. It is a name the killer gave himself. He was not the only serial killer who would target San Franciscans in this era, but what set him apart was his correspondence with the media. His first letter, dated August 1, 1969, was sent to the San Francisco Examiner^[1], the San Francisco Chronicle^[2] and the Vallejo Times-Herald. It contained details about the killing of a young couple in Benicia that only the killer could have known. As the Zodiac began taking credit for additional murders, he claimed he was collecting victims as slaves for the afterlife. He sent four ciphers, only two of which have been decoded (one in 1969 and the other in 2020). He ultimately claimed to have killed 37 people, though only five can be definitively linked to him. Four murders occurred above Marin County and in October 1969 a San Francisco cab driver who had picked up a passenger at Mason and Geary was murdered in front of 3898 Washington in Presidio Heights. Three teenagers who witnessed the murder from the house across the street were able to identify the killer as a white 5’8” male with a crew cut in his late twenties. A few days after the murder the Chronicle received a letter containing a torn section of the victim’s bloody shirt. Local authorities worked with the FBI and culled through thousands of potential suspects, but no one was ever arrested. 

On November 9th, 1969 the Chronicle received a seven page letter that would later be labeled the Death Machine letter. It started out: “This is the Zodiac speaking. Up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me….I shall no longer announce to anyone when I comitt [sic] my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, & a few fake accidents, etc…” He threatened to kill children on a school bus. In April 1970 he famously wrote “My name is”, followed by a 13-character cipher that has yet to be decoded.

The Zodiac continued to communicate with local media until 1974, though no additional murders were linked to him. But his taunts, and the fact that he remained free, continued to instill fear in the City.  His last communication, sent to the Chronicle on January 29, 1974, stated that the movie The Exorcist was “the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen”. He would slowly wane from the headlines, but interest in his identity remains keen to this day. Over a dozen books have been written on the topic. There is a movie and even a website: www.zodiackiller.com. 

In April 2004 the San Francisco Police Department marked the case inactive but reopened it three years later. Many amateur detectives have attempted to identify the Zodiac. In October 2021, the Case Breakers, a team of over 40 former law enforcement investigators, military intelligence officers and journalists believe they identified him, though the San Francisco Police think their findings rely too heavily on circumstantial evidence. The case remains unsolved.

^[1]San Francisco Examiner: story coming June 6th

^[2] San Francisco Chronicle: see story coming January 16th