Zodiac KillerFrom TinWiki.org
The Zodiac Killer was active between December 1968 and October 1969. The killer claimed the lives of five people plus two others whom survived, although some people think he may have killed as many as 37 people. To taunt the authorities he sent four ciphers to three prominent newspapers in San Francisco; only one of his ciphers has been solved and the others have yet to be decoded. The Zodiac Killer was an active murderer. He killed in four locations: Benicia, Lake Berryessa, San Francisco and Vallejo. His known victims include four men and three women. There are other crime scenes thought to belong to the Zodiac Killer but there is no evidence as of yet to confirm this. Since authorities were without any leads or clues the case was marked as inactive in April 2004; the case has since been reopened, perhaps because of the release of the movie Zodiac.
[edit] Time Line of Murders and Letters[edit] Arthur and Betty: Lake Herman Road
It is thought that Arthur and Betty were out together on their first date. They had some food and then went up to Lake Herman Road at around 10:15pm. At approximately 11pm another vehicle pulled up behind them, a gentleman got out of the car with a gun and ordered them to exit the Rambler vehicle. The tale goes, Faraday opened his door and was half way out when the Zodiac shot him directly in the head; at this point Jensen made an attempt to run away at which point she was gunned down by the Zodiac; postmortem evidence shows us that she had been shot 5 times in her back. Stella Borges found their bodies minutes after this had happened and informed the police, although nothing happened because there were no leads to follow.
[edit] Darlene and Michael: Blue Rock Springs
Shortly after this a man rang up the sheriff's department and claimed he was responsible for this horrible crime; they traced the call to a pay phone only a couple of blocks away from the station but no one was there when they arrived.
[edit] He Spoke: Ciphers and Letters Began
On August 1st 1969 the Vallejo Times Herald, San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner each received a letter from the Zodiac Killer. He sent 3 ciphers in total to them, then demanded that all of the ciphers be published in all three of the papers on the first page or he would go on a all-weekend kill spree. Only one of the papers decided to publish his cipher and even they only put it on the fourth page. There was no murder spree afterward for this direct contradiction to his request/order. A police chief said they needed more proof, so Zodiac wrote another letter with proof and then his ciphers were all published. It was not until August the 7th 1969 that the killer called himself the Zodiac. The titles of the letter that was sent said, "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." On August the 8th, 1969 Donald and Bettye Harden cracked a cipher that he had sent. A picture of the cracked cipher is available on-line. [edit] Bryan and Cecelia: Lake Berryessa
It was September 27 1969 when the next killing happened. Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. After a little while they noticed a man approaching them wearing a black hoodie with a white 3"x3" cross-circle symbol on it. He walked up to them and drew his gun and then made a claim that they did not expect to hear: he told them that he had escaped from a nearby prison. He had brought precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell before tying her up himself. The Zodiac checked and tightened Hartnell's bonds after discovering she had bound him loosely. He then proceeded to stab them both numerous times and then went back to their car where he wrote with a black marker pen the white symbol and then wrote beneath it "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27-69-6:30/by knife". They were found later by a father and son fishing nearby; Cecelia Shepard was conscious when Collins arrived and gave him a detailed description of the attacker. Hartnell and Shepard were taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa by ambulance. Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport to the hospital and never regained consciousness. She died two days later, but Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press. [edit] Paul Stine: Presidio Heights
Paul was killed on the 11th of October 1969. A white male entered Mr. Stine's cab near a intersection of Mason and Geary streets located in San Francisco, the male asked to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. Nobody knows why but for some reason he asked to be driven a block further to Cherry Street, where Paul was shot in the neck and robbed of his wallet, car keys and some fabric of his shirt. The whole time this was done it was being observed by three teenagers peering out of a window across the street. The children then called the Police at around 9:55pm. For some unknown reason the police started to look for a black male, although the witnesses are on record saying white. A police car on its way to the crime scene passed a suspicious looking white male walking quickly away from the scene a few blocks down; it is now believed that the white male they passed was the Zodiac Killer. [edit] He Speaks Again: More Letters and CiphersThe Zodiac sent another round of letters on the 14th of October 1969; in this round was a letter, cipher and a piece of Paul's shirt as proof that he was the killer. This was also when authorities realized their error from days before about the race of the suspect. October the 22nd was a terrible mishap in the case: a man claiming to be Zodiac demanded two lawyers to appear on TV but only one showed up, Belli. Someone claiming to be the Zodiac called several times and said his name was Sam. He wanted to meet and so Belli went to place they decided, unfortunately they later found out via a trace that Sam was a patient in a mental hospital. On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters; this code has never been decoded although many people have proposed ways to do so. On December 20, 1969, exactly one year after the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, Zodiac asked Belli to help him. [edit] 340 Cipher
[edit] Donna Lass: Lake Tahoe
On March 22, 1971, a postcard was sent to the Chronicle addressed to "Paul Averly" – intended for Paul Avery and believed to be from the Zodiac, in which appeared to be the Zodiac taking credit for the murder of nurse Donna Lass, who was killed on the 26th of December, 1970. Made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, it featured a scene from an ad for Forest Pines condominiums and the text "Sierra Club," "Sought Victim 12," "peek through the pines," "pass Lake Tahoe areas," and "around in the snow." It is known to be the work of the Zodiac because of the Zodiac cross it bore and the position in which the Zodiac always placed this cross. Donna worked at a hotel and casino; on the night of her murder she worked until approximately 2 a.m; it is known that she saw her last patient at 1:40.a.m. She was not seen leaving the building, in the morning they found her uniform and shoes in a paper bag in her office, for some unknown reason it had been soiled with dirt. Later that day both her employer and her landlord received phone calls from an unknown male who falsely claimed Lass had to leave town due to a family emergency. Donna's disappearance was treated such as one, no one suspected she had been murdered so she was put on the missing persons list; her body is yet to be found. [edit] Suspects[edit] Jack BeemanSome time in the 1990's a lawyer named Bill Beeman from Vallejo reported that his deceased brother, a Mr. Jack Beeman, had been the Zodiac killer. Jack had died at the age of 66, although he would have been 51 when the Zodiac killings had happened; the reported age of the Zodiac from a survivor of an attack aged the Zodiac at around 25 -35 and he does not look anything like the Zodiac E-Fit. But the Zodiac did say in a letter that he looks nothing like he normally does when he goes out 'Hunting'. Jack suffered from emphysema and could be heard wheezing before you saw him, so it is unlikely he would have made the 500 yard hike that had to be done after the Lake Berryessa island killing. Hartnell, who survived the attack, says he thought the attacker was athletically fit and sounded young, both contradict what we know about Jack. [edit] Joseph ChandlerAn age-regression sketch based on Chandler's driver's license photograph was done by the Eastlake police. The age-regression sketch bears an uncanny resemblance to the composite sketch of the Zodiac; and there was a murder spree around the time he moved to the area which are still unsolved, he later committed suicide. [edit] Robert HunterRobert Hunter came under suspicion, but was nothing more than a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was said he owned a house on the corner where the cab driver was shot and that he had a house over-looking Zodiac Island. He did own these properties but at much later time, approximately 20 years after the killings. [edit] Larry KaneLarry suffered from mental issues, his problem was that he had no self restraint in self-gratification. Many people reported that Donna Lass had declined Larry's sexual advances more than once; and since he did not take this well it is thought that he may have killed her. Another fact is that his name fits perfectly into the 'My Name Is ___' cipher. [edit] Rick MarshallHe worked as a theater projectionist at the time the "Red Phantom" letter was mailed on July 8, 1974, and loved old movies, including El Spectre Rojo. He had a supply of odd-sized paper that was similar to that which the Zodiac used for his letters. He was ambidextrous, as the Zodiac was believed to be, and even owned a Portable Royal typewriter, similar to the one used to prepare the "Confession" letter, mailed to Riverside PD and the newspaper on November 29, 1966. Marshall worked at KTIM in San Rafael in the early 1970's, and it is believed by some that the strange "signature" at the bottom of the Zodiac's "Exorcist" letter resembles the call letters of that radio station. So there is good evidence that it is him, but it is once again all circumstantial. [edit] Peter O.Not much is known of this suspect other than he bears a striking resemblance to the SFPD composite, was in Navy intelligence, studied cryptography, and was an expert marksman. The investigator who first looked into Peter O. as a possible suspect in the 1990's has maintained a low profile in recent years and no other information has been forthcoming. [edit] Mike O'HareA Harvard University graduate, Mike O'Hare became a suspect in 1981 when Gareth Penn, based on several shaky assumptions, claimed to have found O'Hare's name in a reference book on sculptors in the Napa, California County library. (Penn did not name the book, and subsequent searches in the same library by Zodiac investigators have failed to turn up any volume on sculptors or artists that mention him.) Penn believed the Zodiac named himself many times in his letters via complex word and number games based on simple binary mathematics to Morse code conversions and redivisions. It was only due to his background that he was thought to be the Zodiac now nobody thinks that it was/is him. [edit] Andrew WalkerRobert Graysmith used this pseudonym for the suspect in Zodiac. Walker served nearly four years in the Army Air Force and received seven months of code training, spent considerable time at the restaurant where Darlene Ferrin worked, and may have even known her family. He was unemployed during the time of known Zodiac activity and had a drinking problem. Walker was believed to have sent threatening letters to a young woman in Vacaville, California as well as making harassing phone calls. [edit] Main Suspect: Arthur Leigh Allen
Arthur Leigh Allen has been considered the main suspect by many people who research this case and most famously by Robert Graysmith in his books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support this theory. His boot print of a size 10.5 matches another print perfectly at a scene of one of the murders, then the gloves match him perfectly. The zodiac symbol is only ever seen in one place along with the word, that is on a watch from a company called Zodiac – Allen was seen with that watch in an interview. He also had numerous copies of the August 1967 fact and amazing science fiction magazine which was found open at the 15,000 word story named "The man from Zodiac". Another fact is that he lived across the street from a victim, she also is known to have turned him down on numerous occasions. A murder took place close to their homes. He had many bloody knives in his car which he said he used for hunting; he also was found with the book The Most Dangerous Game of All, which depicts humans being hunted for sport; the quote is also mentioned in a Zodiac cipher. It was said that he could not be the killer because his writing did not match the notes, yet it is known that he is ambidextrous and they only tested one hand; he could have used the other to write. He said he wanted to kill children, he was also fired from a school for child molestation and went to prison for 4 years on this charge. There were no letters during these four years, then when he was released the Zodiac letters began again. This occurred from approximately 1974 -1978. He was known to torture animals, chipmunks, when he was younger which is often cited as a sign of a future serial killer. A hard piece of evidence is that he was seen with ciphers years before the papers got any. A letter was sent to Paul Avery at the San Francisco Chronicle which was a mourning card about someone's death, it also read "Fiddle and fart," which was a navy quote in the area Arthur lived in. Just before this card was sent Arthur's father, an ex-navy officer, had died. [edit] References
[edit] Videos About The Zodiac Killer.
[edit] ATS Discussion Threads
[edit] External Links
|
 |
Personal tools
- This page was last modified 10:16, 30 September 2008.
- This page has been accessed 1,670 times.
- Content is available under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5.
- About TinWiki.org
- Disclaimers