Zodiac Killer case

Between December 1968 and October 1969, an unidentified assailant who came to be known as "Zodiac" carried out a series of attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Investigators agree on seven confirmed victims of assault, five of whom died. David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were shot and killed on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road in Benicia. Michael Renault Mageau and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin were shot in the early hours of July 5, 1969, in a park in Vallejo; Mageau survived, but Ferrin died. Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard were stabbed on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County; Hartnell survived, but Shepard died two days later. Taxicab driver Paul Lee Stine was shot and killed on October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

The perpetrator adopted the "Zodiac" name in a series of letters sent to regional newspapers, threatening further violence if the letters were not published, and claiming his victims were being collected as slaves for an afterlife. Some letters contained ciphers; of four produced, two remain unsolved, while two others were solved in 1969 and 2020 respectively. In his final confirmed letter, sent in 1974, the writer claimed responsibility for thirty-seven killings, a figure investigators have not corroborated. He also suggested a connection to the unsolved 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, though this link has never been proven.

No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with the murders. The only suspect ever publicly named by police was Arthur Leigh Allen, a former elementary school teacher and convicted child molester who died in 1992. Allen was the subject of extensive investigation, but his fingerprints and handwriting could not be definitively matched to the Zodiac, and a partial DNA profile obtained in the early 2000s did not match him.

Over the following decades, numerous additional private researchers, journalists, and independent groups have proposed other suspects, including Earl Van Best Jr., Gary Francis Poste, Giuseppe Bevilacqua, Lawrence Kane, Paul Doerr, Richard Gaikowski, Richard Marshall, and Ross Sullivan, among others. None of these theories has resulted in an arrest or official confirmation by law enforcement, and several have been publicly disputed or discredited by investigators, researchers, or forensic examiners. Other publicly known individuals, including Charles Manson's associates, Ted Bundy, David Carpenter ("the Trailside Killer"), and Ted Kaczynski, were investigated and ruled out based on alibi, fingerprint, or handwriting evidence.

As of the most recent reporting, the case remains open, with the FBI stating there is "no new information to report." The killer's identity remains unknown.