Zodiac killer

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The following important information is missing from this article:
  • further cases of suspected perpetration
  • last letter from 1974 and the following letters of uncertain authorship
  • other suspects
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The zodiac symbol that the Zodiac killer used

Zodiac-Killer is the pen name of a serial killer in the United States who murdered five people in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969 . Two others survived his attacks, seriously injured. His identity has not yet been determined.

For several years the perpetrator sent bizarre letters to local newspapers, some of them encoded with symbols and medieval characters. Some of these encrypted texts have still not been decrypted. He gave himself the name Zodiac , referring to the zodiac symbol.

His victims were mostly young couples whom he ambushed in lonely places. In his letters he boasted of his actions and announced more. While the investigative authorities officially speak of seven victims, the Zodiac killer claimed in one of his letters to have committed 37 murders.

Number of victims and crime pattern

The Zodiac killer series of murders took place in the San Francisco Bay Area , California

The Zodiac killer claimed in one of his letters to the press that he killed 37 people. However, investigators only confirmed seven victims, two of whom survived. The confirmed attacks had the following features in common:

  • The murders took place over the weekend or on a public holiday.
  • With one exception, the victims were schoolchildren or students traveling in pairs.
  • The acts took place at dusk or at night.
  • The murders were committed in or near a car.
  • The perpetrator used a different weapon each time.
  • The crime scenes were usually secluded spots that were often visited by lovers.
  • The motive for the crime did not appear to be greed, nor were the victims sexually abused.
  • The perpetrator bragged about the murders by phone and in letters.
  • The crime scenes were in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • The murders were committed near bodies of water or in places whose name referred to a body of water.

Chronology of the series of murders

Police confirmed perpetrator

Double murder on December 20, 1968 near Benicia

At around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, December 20, 1968, 17-year-old David Arthur Faraday, who was attending Vallejo High School, drove his mother's Rambler to the home of 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen, with whom he went to one first rendezvous was arranged. Jensen, a student at Hogan High School in Vallejo, had told her parents that they were going to a Christmas concert at their school. Faraday and Jensen left at 8:20 p.m., but instead of going to the concert, they first drove to a classmate of Jensen's, with whom they stayed until 9 p.m., and then to a drive-in restaurant . They then left Vallejo and followed Lake Herman Road eastward. Shortly after 10 p.m. they parked about five meters from the roadside at the Benicia waterworks - a place that was often visited by lovers due to its seclusion ( 38 ° 5 ′ 41.6 ″  N , 122 ° 8 ′ 38.2 ″  W ) . At around 11 p.m. Faraday and Jensen were last seen alive by witnesses there. A few minutes later, two men hunting raccoons nearby saw a car leave Lake Herman Road and park next to the Rambler; They couldn't see the person behind the wheel.

The following events could not be reconstructed with certainty due to the lack of witnesses. In his factual novel Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer, Robert Graysmith starts from the following scenario: The driver of the second car got out, shot through the right rear window with a pistol and then fired at the left rear wheel arch. The young couple then tried to escape through the front door on the passenger side. Faraday was seriously injured by a shot in the head while leaving the car and fell on the gravel floor in front of the passenger door. Jensen ran away in a northerly direction, but was hit in the back by five bullets after about nine meters and also fell to the ground. Then the perpetrator drove away in his car. When a local woman drove past the scene around 11:15 p.m. and saw the two victims lying next to the Rambler, she drove on towards Benicia to get help. On the way, she stopped an oncoming police patrol and told the two officers about her discovery. When the police arrived at the scene around 11:30 p.m., Jensen had already succumbed to their injuries. Faraday died shortly after midnight on the way to the hospital. .22 caliber cartridges were seized at the crime scene .

Murder on July 4, 1969 in Vallejo

On Friday, July 4, 1969, the 22-year-old waitress Darlene Ferrin and her 19-year-old companion Mike Mageau, who were driving in Ferrin's car in Vallejo late that evening, were followed by a man in a light-colored car. According to Mageau's later testimony, the pursuer's car was probably a light brown Chevrolet or Ford Falcon , built in 1958 or 1959, with old California license plates. When Ferrin turned into the parking lot at Blue Rock Springs Golf Course ( 38 ° 7 ′ 33.6 ″  N , 122 ° 11 ′ 27.9 ″  W ), her car's engine failed. The other car came to a halt in the darkness to the left of Ferrin and Mageau, its headlights off. Mageau asked Ferrin if she knew the man, whereupon the 22-year-old said, “Oh, don't worry. It's all right. ”Shortly afterwards the stranger sped away in his car, but returned five minutes later and this time parked behind Ferrin's car, so that both her and Mageau were cut off. He turned on the headlights of his car, got out of his car, and walked towards Ferrin and Mageau, alternately illuminating them with a hand lamp. Mageau believed it must be a police officer and told Ferrin to pull out her ID.

The stranger shone the lamp through the rolled down passenger window and then fired several shots at Ferrin and Mageau. Ferrin was hit by eleven bullets and Mageau was seriously injured by several shots. Then the unknown perpetrator drove away. About a quarter of an hour later, Ferrin and Mageau, who were both still alive at the time, were found by three teenagers who called the police at 12:12 a.m. The victims were taken to hospital, where Ferrin succumbed to their injuries at 12:38 a.m. Mageau survived the attack.

At 12:40 am, a call came in to Vallejo Police Headquarters. The caller had a male voice and said in a calm, determined tone: “I want to report a double homicide. If you drive a mile east of the park on Columbus Parkway, you will find two young people in a brown car in the parking lot. They were shot with a 9 millimeter Luger . I also killed the two young people last year. Goodbye. ”The call was traced to a phone booth directly in front of the Vallejo Sheriff's Office and within sight of Darlene Ferrin's home. At 1:30 a.m., the phone rang at Ferrin and her husband's house. A friend visiting the Ferrins picked up the phone and heard heavy, deep breathing on the other end of the line, but the caller said nothing. A few minutes later, Darlene Ferrin's parents-in-law and brother-in-law received similar calls. When Ferrin's relatives received the anonymous calls, the attack had not yet been reported in the media.

Murder on September 27, 1969 on Lake Berryessa

Lake Berryessa, the scene of the third known Zodiac killer attack
The door of Bryan Hartnell's car labeled by the Zodiac Killer, 1969

On Saturday, September 27, 1969, 22-year-old student Cecelia Ann Shepard and her 20-year-old friend Bryan Hartnell, a law student, spent the afternoon on a secluded, deserted stretch of beach on the west bank of Lake Berryessa ( 38 ° 33 ′ 48 , 3 "  N , 122 ° 13 '54.4"  W ). They had parked Hartnell's VW Karmann Ghia about 500 m away on the side of the road. After a while, Shepard noticed a dark-clad man in the distance who seemed to be watching her and was slowly coming closer. When the man was only a few feet away, Shepard saw a semi-automatic pistol in his hand . The stranger said: “I want your money and the car keys. I need the car because I want to go to Mexico. ”The man also claimed he escaped from prison in Deer Lodge , Montana and was driving a stolen car. He killed a guard with nothing left to lose.

After Hartnell handed him the little change he was carrying and the car key, the man ordered the two students to lie face down on the picnic blanket they had brought with them. He asked Shepard to tie Hartnell's hands behind her back with a piece of plastic clothesline, after which the stranger tied Shepard in the same way and tightened Hartnell's ties. Hartnell offered the man legal help, to which he did not respond. When Hartnell asked him whether the gun was loaded at all, the stranger pulled out the magazine and showed him the cartridge it contained. Then the man began to stab Hartnell and then Shepard with a long knife. Then he left the crime scene, leaving the money and the car keys behind. Before he drove off, he wrote on the door of Hartnell's car the date of the first two attacks at Vallejo and the date, time, and nature of the attack at Lake Berryessa. Above it he drew the symbol Zodiac Killer symbol.svg.

The two seriously injured managed to free each other from their bonds. A fisherman who had seen the two injured students from the lake called the rangers . Both victims were taken to hospital, where Shepard succumbed to her 24 stab wounds on September 29, 1969. Hartnell survived six stab wounds.

About an hour after the attack on Shepard and Hartnell, a male caller called the Napa Police Department and said in a calm voice, “I want to report a murder - no, a double homicide. They are three kilometers north of Park Headquarters. You were traveling in a white VW Karmann Ghia. I'm the one who did it. ”Then the caller put down the receiver without ending the connection. The officer who answered the call estimated the man's age to be in his early twenties, based on the sound of his voice. The call was traced to a phone booth on Main Street in Napa , four and a half blocks from the police station and 27 miles from the crime scene. In the phone booth, the investigators were able to find the trace of a handprint on the receiver.

Murder on October 11, 1969 in Presidio Heights

On Saturday, October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Lee Stine had a passenger get into his taxi in front of the Pinecrest Diner on Geary Street in San Francisco , who named him "Washington Street and Maple" in Presidio Heights. About a quarter of an hour later they reached their destination. The passenger told Stine to go one more block. When the taxi stopped in front of the house at 3898 on Washington Street, the stranger put a pistol to Stine's right cheek from behind and pulled the trigger.

Inspector Dave Toschi, 1976

When guests at a party at the house across the street looked down at the taxi from a window on the first floor at around 9:55 p.m., believed they were watching a fight or robbery, they called the police. For unexplained reasons, when the description of the perpetrator was recorded it was incorrectly noted that the suspect was of African American descent. The perpetrator, who was actually a white man, left the crime scene in the direction of the Presidio . At 10 p.m. on the corner of Jackson and Cherry Street, a police patrol stopped him on his way to the crime scene. Since the detainee did not match the profile of the wanted person, the unsuspecting officers let the perpetrator go.

When the called ambulance arrived at the scene at 10:10 p.m., Stine was already dead. The perpetrator had taken his wallet with him, but left his watch, ring and checkbook behind. A 9-millimeter cartridge case was seized in the taxi. The search for the perpetrator ended unsuccessfully at 2 a.m. The case was assigned to Homicide Inspector Dave Toschi of the San Francisco Police Department and his partner Bill Armstrong.

Suspected perpetration

Murder on October 30, 1966 in Riverside

On the late evening of October 30, 1966, 18-year-old college student Cheri Jo Bates was killed in Riverside, Southern California, after visiting a library. Investigators assumed that the perpetrator had tampered with an ignition distributor cable in her car while Bates was away and then offered her his "help" when she was unable to start the car. The next morning, Bates' body was found in a parking lot about 70 meters from her car with a cut throat and multiple stab and cut wounds. In April 1967, a stranger wrote two letters to the local police, in which he informed the perpetrators, threatened to kill more victims and requested that his lines be published. The anonymous writer had also sent a similar letter to a local newspaper. The handwriting expert Sherwood Morrill came to the conclusion after a comparison of the fonts that it was the handwriting of the Zodiac killer. On March 15, 1971, the Zodiac killer wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Times confirming his involvement in the Bates murder case. Nevertheless, it could not be determined with certainty whether Bates had actually become a victim of the serial killer. The investigators also thought it possible that the Zodiac killer only knew about the unsolved murder from the newspaper and declared it as his own act in order to draw attention again.

Kidnapping on March 22, 1970 near Modesto

State Route 132 (red) , where Kathleen Johns and her daughter were kidnapped west of Modesto.

On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns, seven months pregnant, was driving west with her ten-month-old daughter on lightly traveled State Route 132 when she saw a car in her rear-view mirror that had appeared to be following her since Modesto . Shortly after midnight, the driver of the rear car started honking his horn and dimming his headlights. When Johns didn't respond to the signals, the driver of the car swerved into the oncoming lane, drove next to Johns' car and shouted through his passenger window that her left rear wheel was loose. Johns then drove to the side of the road, where the stranger offered her to tighten the wheel nuts. After the man had worked on the bike for some time, he told Johns that she could go on safely and drove away. Johns continued their journey, but after a few meters the left rear wheel came off. When she stopped, the stranger returned and explained that the problem was probably bigger than expected. He offered to take her to a gas station within sight, whereupon Johns and her daughter got into the car with him.

Instead of stopping at the gas station, however, the man drove past it. When Johns approached him about it, the stranger informed her that he would kill her and her baby. During the next two to three hour drive, the man repeated the threat several times. When the car came to a halt due to the traffic, Johns jumped out of the car with her daughter in his arms and ran into a field, where she hid in tall grass until the stranger gave up his search for her and drove away. The driver of a passing semi-trailer took Johns to the Patterson Police Station , where she gave her testimony on record. When she saw a phantom picture of the Zodiac killer hanging on the wall, she thought she recognized her kidnapper in the drawing. Johns' car was later found where she left it - someone cannibalized it and set it on fire.

Interaction with the press

The first four letters from August 1969

On Friday morning, August 1, 1969, the editorial offices of the San Francisco Chronicle , the Vallejo Times-Herald, and the San Francisco Examiner each received a letter with almost identical wording, in which the sender identified the perpetrators of the murders on Lake Herman Road as well in Blue Rock Springs claimed for himself and reported details of the crime. The letters were written in blue felt-tip pen, began with the salutation “Dear Mr. Editor-in-Chief” and were only signed with the symbol Zodiac Killer symbol.svg. The letter to the Examiner was franked two, the Chronicle three, and the Times-Herald four stamps. All three letters were postmarked from San Francisco. On the envelopes was written "Rush to Editor" ("Forward to the editor-in-chief").

Each of the three letters was accompanied by a third of a ciphertext , which consisted of 408 symbols. Each third of the ciphertext consisted of eight lines with 17 symbols each. The symbols used were 55 different characters, including triangles, squares, circles, crosses, Greek characters, weather symbols, letters of the Latin alphabet , Navy and Morse symbols, and astrological symbols. Robert Graysmith, who was working as a cartoonist for the Chronicle when the letter was received, came to the conclusion after research that the secret script writer had taken eight characters from David Kahn's The Codebreakers (1967); other symbols had apparently been borrowed from the so-called "Zodiac alphabet" from the 13th century, which was described in more detail by John Laffin in Codes and Ciphers (1964). Both books were believed to have been stolen or disappeared in several libraries that Graysmith visited in San Francisco and Oakland .

The sender of the letter claimed that his identity was encoded in the ciphertext . He demanded that the newspapers print their respective parts of the ciphertext on their front pages by Friday afternoon, otherwise he would commit more murders over the weekend. The Times-Herald and the Chronicle brought out their parts of the ciphertext with their Saturday edition, whereby the persons in charge of the Chronicle decided to print the text on page 4 rather than on the front page. The Examiner initially decided against publishing his third, but eventually printed all three parts of the ciphertext in his Sunday edition. The newspapers also published excerpts from the letter, but for reasons of tactical investigation did not publish it in full. Although the newspapers did not exactly follow the anonymous sender's instructions, the threatened murders did not occur that weekend.

The encrypted message was deciphered within a few days by the teacher Donald Gene Harden and his wife Bettye June Harden. The two had assumed that each symbol stood for a letter of the Latin alphabet and - based on the most common letter combinations in English - looked for corresponding symbol matches and patterns in the ciphertext. The deciphered message, published on August 12, 1969, read:

“I LIKE KILLIN PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THE I HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI ”

- The Zodiac Killer in its first message.

The spelling is incorrect in some places, although it is uncertain whether this was intentional or an accident of the killer. The meaning of the last 18 letters could not be clarified. Some readers suspected that it was an anagram and sent various suggestions to the newspapers about names that could be hidden behind the letter puzzle. However, a review of the proposed names did not reveal the murderer. The passage "the most dangerous animal" (incorrectly spelled "the most dangeroue anamal" in the letter) reminded Graysmith of the original English title The Most Dangerous Game from the 1932 film Graf Zaroff - Genie des Evil , a film adaptation of the short story The Cruelest Game . In the film, the character of the bored Count Zaroff goes on a manhunt. Graysmith suspects the film served as a source of inspiration for the Zodiac killer.

Although the first letter contained details of the crime that had not been disclosed by the investigators, the Vallejo police chief was not convinced of the authenticity of the letter and publicly asked the sender to write another letter in which he should prove his perpetrator. The murderer then sent a three-page letter on August 7, 1969, which began with the words "Dear Mr. Editor-in-Chief This is Zodiac speaking," and in which further details of the crime that were not previously known to the public were described. It was the first time that the stranger referred to himself as a "Zodiac".

The fifth through eighth letters (October – December 1969)

Among the readers' mail that the San Francisco Chronicle received on October 14, 1969 , was another letter from the Zodiac killer. According to the postmark, the letter had been posted in San Francisco the day before. The envelope was labeled in blue felt-tip pen, again addressed to the editor-in-chief, and the symbol was in the space provided for the return address Zodiac Killer symbol.svg. Inside the envelope was a letter and a blood-stained piece of gray and white cloth. In the letter, the Zodiac killer stated that he murdered taxi driver Paul Stine and that the police almost caught him. He also threatened to "wipe out an entire school bus". The scrap of cloth actually turned out to be a shirt of the murdered taxi driver. The writing of the letter also matched the writing in the first four letters.

The public was informed of the threat on October 17, 1969, causing popular panic in the San Francisco Bay Area. School bus drivers were given guidelines in the event of an attack, and in Napa County an additional driver was assigned to each school bus. In addition, the school buses were monitored by heavily armed police officers and the school bus routes were monitored by air from the air. After an anonymous caller posed as a Zodiac killer to the Palo Alto Times and claimed to have left San Francisco because it was "too hot" for him, armed personnel were assigned to school buses in Palo Alto . However, the Zodiac killer never carried out his threat.

On November 10, 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle received two more letters from the Zodiac killer, postmarked in San Francisco. One of the letters was posted on November 8, 1969 and contained a greeting card with the front of the Zodiac killer indicating that he had committed two more murders in August 1969. Investigators ruled out his involvement in the only unsolved murder that occurred in the Bay Area that month, in which two schoolgirls were stabbed to death. Inside the card was another twenty-line, 340-character ciphertext Zodiac Killer symbol.svgsigned with the symbol . The ciphertext could not be deciphered by either the NSA or the CIA , the computer program of a linguist at the University of Massachusetts, or amateur code breakers. In the seventh letter dated November 9, 1969, the Zodiac killer mentioned again that he had already killed seven people. The letter also contained criticism of the police, a vague bomb threat, instructions on how to build a bomb and a drawing of one.

On December 27, 1969, the lawyer and film actor Melvin Belli received a letter from the Zodiac killer, postmarked December 20, 1969 and again with a piece of Stine's shirt. In the letter, the murderer indicated that he had killed an eighth time after his last letter dated November 9, 1969. He asked for Belli's help and explained that he could not contain himself much longer and would have to look for more victims. Belli posted on the San Francisco Chronicle that he was ready to help. The Zodiac Killer, however, never came back to the offer of help.

The ninth to 13th letters (April – July 1970)

The Zodiac killer sent his ninth letter to the “Editor-in-Chief, San Fran. Chronicle , San Francisco, Calif. ”Where he arrived on April 21, 1970. The letter was franked with two six-cent stamps and posted on April 20, 1970. The sender had written on an unusually formatted sheet of paper with a blue felt-tip pen:

"This is the Zodiac speaking.
By the way, have you cracked
the last ciphertext that I sent you?
My name is …"

This was followed by 13 characters that have not yet been deciphered. The serial killer also wrote that he was not responsible for the bomb attack on the Golden Gate Park police station on February 16, 1970, in which one policeman was killed and eight others injured. He also claimed to have killed ten victims in the meantime, and wrote: "It would be a lot more [...] but unfortunately we had a small flood here from the heavy rain." He threatened again with a bomb attack on a school bus. Under the drawing of a bomb, the letter ended with “score” Zodiac Killer symbol.svg= 10, SFPD [San Francisco Police Department] = 0. The reference to the flooding prompted Toschi and Armstrong to search for suspects in recently flooded residential areas. The search ended unsuccessfully.

On April 29, 1970, the Chronicle received the tenth Zodiac letter, which was postmarked on April 28, 1970. It contained a greeting card on which Zodiac threatened again to bomb a school bus if the press didn't cover all the details of the bomb design he had sent with the ninth letter. Police then held a press conference that same day to inform the public about the bomb, but the newspapers refrained from printing further details and questioned the seriousness of the bomb threat to avoid panic among the population.

The Zodiac killer had also requested that the citizens of San Francisco wear buttons with the Zodiac Killer symbol.svgsymbol. In his eleventh letter, dated June 26, 1970, which the Chronicle received on June 29, 1970 , the serial killer, angry that no one had complied, alleged that as a punishment he shot a man in a parked car. As the new “score” he Zodiac Killer symbol.svgstated = 12, SFPD = 0. The letter was also accompanied by a two-line cipher and a road map that marked a location on Mount Diablo . Zodiac claimed that the map and cipher led to a bomb and that it would be until the fall to find it. The cipher was never deciphered and the alleged bomb was never found.

On July 27, 1970, the Chronicle received two Zodiac letters . In his twelfth letter, posted on July 24, 1970, the killer claimed that he was the one who kidnapped Kathleen Johns and her baby and set her car on fire. With only a small local newspaper in Modesto reporting the case, Graysmith believes that this claim was likely to be true and suggests that the Zodiac killer did not confess until four months later, fearing that Johns would recognize him . The 13th letter, dated July 26, 1970, was the longest letter the Zodiac killer ever wrote to the Chronicle . In it he quoted from the libretto of the operetta Der Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan , modifying the lyrics of the character of the court hangman slightly and in the manner typical for him. The letter also contained the note that the ciphertext of the eleventh letter was about radians and measures of length. He also announced that the “score” meanwhile Zodiac Killer symbol.svg= 13, SFPD = 0.

Card to Paul Avery dated October 28, 1970

On October 28, 1970, the Zodiac killer sent a Halloween greeting card to Paul Avery, who was an investigative journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and who had authored several articles on the series of murders. On the card, Zodiac wrote, among other things, “PEEK-A-BOO - YOU'RE DOOMED” (“Look - you are doomed”) and four types of killing. The incident attracted worldwide attention when the Chronicle made it the cover story on Halloween. Avery was interviewed by numerous coworkers, and he was unfazed by the Zodiac killer's death threat and said that every word should not be taken seriously. From then on, however, he carried a revolver with him, and most of the Chronicle's staff , including Avery himself, wore badges that read "I Am Not Paul Avery".

The last authenticated letter is from 1974.

Perpetrator description

outer appearance

Mike Mageau, who survived the attack of July 4, 1969, described the Zodiac killer as a stocky, beefy, corpulent man with a broad face and a slight belly, with the estimated weight varying between 75 and 90 kilograms in different interrogations. The stranger was about 1.73 m tall and about 26 to 30 years old. He said he wore trousers with creases, a blue shirt, a sweater or a navy windbreaker and no glasses. The hair of the offender described Mageau as short, wavy and light brown, the hair sometimes as a military crew cut, sometimes as combed back Tolle .

Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard described the man who attacked them on September 27, 1969 at Lake Berryessa as 1.78 to 1.88 m tall and 100 to 110 kg. He was stout but not fat and had a belly base. (However, Hartnell did not rule out that the perpetrator could have simply worn a very baggy jacket.) The stranger wore a black square hood with slits for eyes and mouth. The hood reached almost to the waist, had decorative stitching on the edges, and a white cross in a circle was sewn onto the chest. The man Hartnell estimated to be in his mid-thirties wore sunglasses over the slits. Dark brown hair could be seen through the slits in the hood. The man wore rubber overshoes over his loafers. Based on the shoe prints at the scene, the investigators came to the conclusion that the Zodiac-Killer was wearing size 10 Wing Walker combat boots .

The two patrolmen who approached the Zodiac killer on October 11, 1969, shortly after the murder of Paul Stine near the crime scene, described him as a 35- to 45-year-old man with glasses. He had short brown hair with a reddish shimmer, was 1.80 m tall, weighed at least 90 kg and wore a navy blue or black jacket with a zipper.

Kathleen Johns described the man who abducted her on March 22, 1970 and who was believed to be the Zodiac killer as weighing 70 to 75 kg, clean-shaven and very neatly dressed. He had worn a white shirt, a black or dark blue windbreaker, black or blue woolen trousers, shiny, polished navy boots and black horn-rimmed glasses fastened with an elastic band. On the man's face, her acne scars on the chin, a pronounced jaw, expressionless eyes and a "not particularly small nose" stood out. His hair was brown and he had a brush haircut. Overall, the stranger made a serious, not weak and military impression.

Psychological profile

The psychologist Murray Miron, after analyzing the letters from the Zodiac killer, came to the conclusion that the author was a man between the ages of 20 and 30. The Zodiac killer is a white, unmarried man with a calm and uninspiring personality who lives very withdrawn and isolated. He had basic training in cryptography, but no more than a high school degree, and read little. Instead, he often goes to the cinema and watches television, favoring films with sadomasochistic or occult- erotic content. He suffers from depression and a psychosis of the schizophrenic type . Narcissism , infantility, and magical thinking would be reflected in his communication . Behind the facade of an orderly, normal life, the unknown perpetrator hides strong emotional fluctuations. For fear of losing control, he avoids the consumption of alcohol and normal sexual contact with women. The changed, moralizing tone of voice in his letters from 1974 could indicate a possible suicidality or the decreasing dominance of his sociopathic personality traits with increasing age .

Suspect

The main suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen, who was interrogated by police in 1971. Although there were some indications of a connection with the murders, there was no evidence even after three search warrants (1972, 1991 and 1992, shortly after Allen's death). In a DNA comparison carried out in 2002, Allen's DNA did not match the saliva under a stamp on a letter sent by "Zodiac", although this stamp did not necessarily have to have been affixed by "Zodiac". Allen died in 1992 at the age of 58.

Free riders and copycat offenders

At 2:00 a.m. on October 22, 1969, a man called the Oakland Police Department claiming he was a Zodiac. He announced that he would call the morning program of the ABC- owned channel KGO-TV if the lawyer Melvin Belli appeared there. In response to a police request, Belli and the broadcaster agreed to perform. That same day, Belli went live with presenter Jim Dunbar from 6:30 a.m. and waited for the Zodiac killer to call. From 7:10 a.m. onwards, a man who called himself “Sam” called the show 35 times within a good two hours, with the longest call lasting nine minutes. During the conversation, "Sam" complained of a severe headache that would improve if he murdered. However, none of what he said proved that he really was the Zodiac killer. One of the calls was eventually diverted to a private line so that viewers could not overhear it. In this phone call, Belli arranged a meeting with "Sam", to which he - unlike the police and the press - did not appear. Bryan Hartnell and two police officers who had heard the voice of the Zodiac killer unanimously agreed that “Sam” wasn't the real Zodiac killer. His voice was not deep enough and sounded too young. Belli later received additional calls from "Sam", one of which could be traced back to a mentally disturbed patient in a closed psychiatric ward in Napa. The Oakland policeman who had answered the call that night was convinced he had spoken to the real Zodiac killer rather than "Sam."

In 1990, a copycat offender began a series of murders in New York City with a similar approach to Zodiac . The serial killer was identified as Heriberto Seda and sentenced to life in prison.

21 June 2008 Megan Lynn Touma was, members of the US Army , in their motel room in town Fayetteville ( North Carolina found dead). The zodiac symbol had been drawn in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. The local newspaper Fayetteville Observer received a letter in the last week of June in which the alleged perpetrator confesses to the murder of Megan Lynn Touma. He also stated that he had committed murders in other states and announced more. When Touma was murdered, he used the signature of his role model, the zodiac symbol, for the first time. Edgar Patino Lopez is confessed as the perpetrator.

Popular culture

The Zodiac Killer has become the subject of popular culture and has inspired several books, television series and films, among other things.

Movies

  • The plot of the 1971 crime film Dirty Harry is based in part on the series of murders of the Zodiac killer.
  • The Limbic Region (1996) presents a fictional plot and a new hypothesis concerning the murderer in a psychological duel between a detective and his suspect. The film is based on the unsolved Zodiac case as well as subsequent crimes that may have been committed by the Zodiac.
  • In 2005, Alexander Bulkley filmed his interpretation of the material under the title The Zodiac , which was marketed with little success in Germany as The Zodiac Killer .
  • Another film called Zodiac Killer was made in 2005 by the director, writer and leading actor Ulli Lommel . Another, titled Curse of the Zodiac , appeared shortly thereafter.
  • The director David Fincher shot the film Zodiac - Die Spur des Killers (original title: Zodiac ), which started on May 31, 2007 in German cinemas. It is based on the factual novels Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith .

TV Shows

  • In an episode of the television series Nash Bridges , a copycat continues the murder series of the Zodiac killer.
  • In the second season of the mystery series Millennium , a serial killer named Avatar , who was modeled on the Zodiac killer, appeared.
  • The crime series Criminal Minds makes reference to the Zodiac killer in several episodes.
  • In the series MacGyver (2016), a Zodiac copycat appears in episode 15 of the first season.
  • The Zodiac killer appears in American Horror Story , Season 5 "Hotel" in episode 4 "Devil's Night"; in season 7 "Cult" a group of women poses as the "real" Zodiac killers.

Video game

  • In the video game Watch Dogs 2 , released in November 2016, there are special side missions in which you follow in the footsteps of Zodiac.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Zodiac Killer  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 163 f.
  2. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 27-35.
  3. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 35-37.
  4. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 38-43.
  5. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 69-71, 94.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 71.
  7. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 71-82.
  8. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 82.
  9. ↑ Quoted from Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 82.
  10. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 82 f.
  11. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 84 f.
  12. ↑ Quoted from Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 140.
  13. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 141.
  14. ↑ a b Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 142 ff.
  15. ↑ a b Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 153 f.
  16. ↑ Quoted from Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 153.
  17. ↑ a b c Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 165 ff.
  18. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 320 ff.
  19. ↑ a b Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 274 ff.
  20. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 105, 110 f. 115 f., 123.
  21. ↑ a b c d Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 107 ff.
  22. ↑ German translation: “I like to kill people because it's so much fun. Much more fun than killing animals in the forest, because hunting people is much more dangerous than hunting any wilderness. It's the most exciting thing I've ever been to. Much better than banging a girl and best of all, when I die, I'll be reborn in paradise and the ones I killed are my slaves. I will not tell you my name because then you will try to prevent me from collecting more slaves for the afterlife. EBEORIETEMETHHPITI. “Quoted from Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 118 f.
  23. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 128 f.
  24. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 112, 120 ff.
  25. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 196 ff.
  26. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 203 ff.
  27. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 249 ff.
  28. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 255 ff.
  29. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 269 ff.
  30. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 288 ff.
  31. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 294 ff.
  32. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 295, 299 ff.
  33. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 302 ff.
  34. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 312 ff.
  35. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 73, 94, 602.
  36. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 603.
  37. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , pp. 604 f.
  38. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 605.
  39. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 380 f.
  40. ↑ Daily Mail ( online )
  41. ↑ Robert Graysmith: Zodiac - On the trail of a serial killer. 2007, ISBN 978-3-641-02892-3 , p. 240 ff.
  42. ↑ Nicolas Freund: On the Trail of the Secret: The Zodiac Killer. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. April 15, 2016, accessed May 5, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Zodiac killer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serial killer in the usa
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century