Excerpt
Excerpt from The Zodiac:

The identity of the Zodiac killer is unknown and probably will always be, but FBI has not stopped looking, and updates are made to the file regularly. In the 1960s and 1970s, the serial killer operated in the North of California. Normally, the media or police dub a serial killer. This arrogant killer, however, made up his own, calling himself Zodiac in a series of letters he sent to the media.

The Zodiac claims, by way of letters, to have killed thirty-seven people. Authorities only know of seven confirmed victims. It all started on December 20th, 1968, when David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were on their first date together, and planned to go to a Christmas concert, but first drove out to Lake Herman Road, which was a “lover’s lane.” About a half hour later, their bodies were discovered, and the Sheriff’s office was notified. Both had been shot dead.

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau went for a drive on July 4th, 1969 and parked just four miles from the first murder site. Another car drove up and immediately drove away. Ten minutes later, the car returned and parked behind them. The killer shot both of them with a 9mm Luger, firing seven shots. Darlene Ferrin, although shot in the chest, neck, and face, survived, and was able to give details to the police. The Vallejo Police received a call from a man the next day reporting himself to be the killer, claiming he killed the couple back in December. The police traced the call to a phone booth, but no evidence was left, and police had no suspect.

The Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner, each received a letter on August 1st, 1969, supposedly from the killer, taking credit for the murders. The catch was that each newspaper only received 1/3rd each of the 408 symbol cryptic letter that the killer claimed would identify him. He demanded the letters be printed on the front pages of their papers or he would kill a dozen people over the weekend. This turned out to be a bluff as the Chief of Police Jack Stiltz said in the Chronicle “We’re not satisfied that he letter was written by the murderer.” The Chronicle, however, did publish their part on page four, but no murder took place over the weekend. The other newspapers also published their pieces, but not on the front page, and not the next day.

The cryptic code was cracked by civilians, Bettye and Donald Harden, of Salinas, California, on August 8th, 1969. What it contained was not the identity of the killer, as the killer had claimed, but a message claiming the killer to be collecting slaves for the afterlife.

Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell were college students at Pacific Union and on September 27th, 1969, they were having a picnic at Lake Berryessa when a man approached them wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. On his chest hung a 3”x3” circular cross-like symbol. He had a gun but never used it. Instead, he tied both of them up and stabbed them. He proceeded to draw a circular cross symbol on Bryan’s car with a pen, and then wrote beneath it, "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27-69-6:30/by knife." The killer then made a call to the Sheriff’s office from a payphone to report the crime. The police got a wet print off the phone, but it did not match any criminal in their system.

Cecelia Shepard went into a coma and passed away two days later. Bryan Hartnell, however, survived, and gave a good recount to the police and media about what happened, and what the perp looked like.

It’s interesting to make a note that Detective Ken Narlow of the Napa County Sheriff’s office was assigned to the investigation at the start, and continued working the case until his retirement in 1987, and even then, investigated on his own until he passed away at eighty years old on December 2nd, 2010. Talk about dedication.

In San Francisco on October 11th, 1969, a cab driver by the name of Paul Stine stopped for a passenger when he was instantly shot in the head with a 9mm gun, Three teenagers witnessed the killer take the cabbie’s money, tear of a piece off the driver’s shirt, and wipe down the cab. They each gave a description of the killer and more composite sketches were drawn up. Over the years following, detectives investigated over 2500 suspects under the tutelage of Detectives Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong. The killings were all happening in Northern California; thus each county would have to investigate the murders in their own backyards.

The Zodiac killer prepared another letter and just three days later on October 14th, the Chronicle received it along with a swatch of the cab driver’s shirttail to prove he was the killer. In addition, the Zodiac Killer threatened to kill school children on a bus and wrote, “just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."

On June 19th, 1970, Police Sgt. Richard Radetich was shot in the head with a .38 caliber handgun while sitting in his patrol car, writing a parking ticket. In another letter to a newspaper, the killer said, “I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38.”