Zodiac Killer

An unknown killer named Zodiac appeared in the late 1960`s and early 1970`s , he operated in Northern California and murdered victims in Benicia,Vallejo, San Francisco and Lake Berryessa between Dec 1968 and Oct 1969 . Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 19 were targeted. He originated the name" Zodiac" in an August 7, 1969 in a letter he sent to a local press , which was one in a series of taunting letters, including and four cryptograms. One of the four cryptograms sent has been definitively solved. Investigators has some suspected but in the absence of evidence no one could confront the court. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marced the case "inactive" , yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007, it also remains open in the city of Vallejo, Napa county and Solano county. The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969. 
His first crime is supposed  to happen on December 20, 1968, the murdered of David Faraday, 17 and Betty Jensen ,16  on the Lake Herman Road.The next murdered happened on July 4,1969 in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, where Michael Mageau 19, and Darlene Ferrin 22, got shot. Mageau survived the attack , but Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. Bryan Hartnell 20, and Cecelia Shepard 22 , stabbed on September 27, 1969 at lake Berryessa in Napa County; Hartnell survived eight stab wounds to the back, but Shepard died as a result of her injuries on September 29, 1969. 

Another victim of Zodiac  was Paul Stine, 29 he got shot and killed on October 11, 1969 in the Presidio Heights in San Francisco.As we can see the ages of his victims was between 17 and 28 , and in most cases he attacked young couples,by analyzing his murders the police department should require a suspect who has passed a trauma during this age of his life. He wrote letters to different magazines and asking them to publish his letters on the firs page, or he would kill again.  - This act of him shows his sick desire to be famous, a person who needed  to be in the center of attention, a person who missed attention of the other, a person without family, abandoned by his people. Other murdered cases that are suspected to been made by Zodiac  because of specific similarities between their attack and the Zodiac attack :

• Cheri Jo Bates ,18 stabbed to death on October 30, 1966 at Riverside City College.  

• Robert Domingos,18 and Linda Edwards,17 , both shot and killed on June 4, 1963 on a beach near Graviota.

• Donna Lass, 25 disappeared on September 6, 1970 , it has been interpreted as Zodiac victim, but no evidences has been uncovered to connect Lass`s disappearance with the Zodiac Killer definitively. 

And Kathleen Johns, 22 ; allegedly abducted on March 22, 1970 ,escaped from the car of a man who drove her and her infant daughter around the area between Stockton and Patterson.

Letters from the Zodiac

August 1, 1969 , three letters prepared by the killer were received at Vallejo Times Herald, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The San Francisco Examiner . The nearly identical letter took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. Each letter included also one-third of a 408 symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The killer demanded they to be printed on each paper`s front page or he would cruse around all weekend killing alone people in the night than move on to kill again , until end up with a dozen people over weekend. The Chronicle published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the next day`s edition.An article printed alongside the code quoted Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz as saying that they were not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer, and requested to the writer to send a second letter with more facts and details to prove his identity. The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts were eventually published. On August 7, 1969 another letter was received at The San Francisco Examiner with the salutation: 

                                       " Dear Editor this is the Zodiac speaking " 

This was the first time that the killer had used this name for identification. The letter was a response to Chief Stiltz`s request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday, Jensen, and Ferrin. In it the Zodiac included details about the murders which had not yet been released to the public, as well as message to the police that when they cracked his code"they will have me".  

"I LIKE KILLING 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 EXPERIENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL T5HE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI 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 "

This is the original cryptogram from Zodiac ,  Donald and Bettye Harden cracked the 408 symbol of it on August 8, 1969 . Its a misspelled message, no names appears in the decoded text. 

The serial killer claimed to have killed as many as 37 people and has never been caught. 

Bryan Hartnell , one of only two survivors of the killer, was just a college kid more than 40 years ago at Pacific Union College, just north of San Francisco, when he and a then-girlfriend, Cecilia Shephard, were attacked while picnicking. Their attacker was a man in an eerie costume; he wore a black hood and black shirt with a white symbol on the front that looked like cross-hairs on a gun sight.That image would later become the Zodiac`s trademark symbol. On Tuesday, Hartnell expressed reservations about the latest claim in the unsolved case.

" I somewhat follow the news, but there has been no time in the last 40+ years when someone was not the pot" 

Hartnell was stabbed eight times, and Shephard, between 10 and 22 times. She died a day later at the hospital, but was able to give a description of the attacker before she died.

  Gary L. Stewart , a vice president in a cleaning company in Baton Rouge, is recounting his long search for his biological father and has concluded that man- Earl Van Best Jr. who`s now dead-was the Zodiac Killer. Steward was born in New Orleans and abandoned as a newborn in a stairwell of Baton Rouge apartment building, and he was later adopted and had an idyllic childhood. About 10 years ago, when he was 39, Stewart`s birth mother, Judy, contacted him for the first time . He then began his search for his biological father, with whom his mother hadn`t been in contact since Stewart was abandoned. Stewart, kept a journal during the search, which became the basis for the book, his book"The most dangerous animal of all: Searching for my father.. and finding the Zodiac Killer", was co-written with journalist Susan Mustafa. 

Both Stewart and Mustafa construct a chilling psychological profile of Stewart`s father, as a boy with disturbing fixation, as a frustrated intellectual with pretensions to high culture, and as an inappropriate suitor and then jilted lover unable to process his rage. Harper Collins publicist named Tina Andreadis told New York Magazine that "Stewart`s father had a criminal record in San Francisco and there was a strong resemblance between his father`s mug shot and the police sketch".  If you look at a Gary`s photo next to the sketch of the Zodiac Killer , next to his father`s mug shot, you can see that there is very clearly more than just a passing resemblance.
But as Capt. of Napa , Stewe Blower said , many people claimed to be child of the Zodiac Killer : " We have talked to many people over the years. We`ve gotten reports over the years from people who don`t pan out. This case is still open , and we still do accept tips or leads that may have bearing on the case". 
Maybe Stewart, and his father resembled so much with Zodiac Killer , but if his father was the really Zodiac Killer , they should have found evidence in his apartment, Zodiac had his symbol, cryptograms , he was a person that wanted to be famous and a person like that left always some evidences behind, so maybe this was just a way for Stewart to be famous and to ensure the success of his book. 

The Zodiac Killer craved attention and wrote several letters to newspapers taking credit for his crimes. He also included cryptograms or ciphers that he claimed would shed light on his identity. But he was never caught.