A callous killer, seemingly acting at random, was roaming northern California. He was also taunting the police by mailing clues to the press in a weird code of his own devising…
In Benicia, California, a teenage couple sharing their first date parked on Lake Herman Road—a secluded lovers’ lane—were startled by a beam of light. They squinted and saw a man with a flashlight, perhaps a police officer? The pair were nervous—who wouldn’t be? But their fears were innocently rooted in their parents finding out they’d been caught in such an intimate setting. Then the stranger pulled out a gun. Within seconds, 17-year-old David Faraday was fatally shot in the head. 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen desperately tried to flee and staggered only a little way away before collapsing to the ground, killed by five bullets to her back.
As horrific as the scene was to the sheriff’s deputies who began investigating it on December 20, 1968, they were ignorant of its significance, assuming the killer must have been a jealous suitor of Betty Lou’s. It would be seven months before they would learn that this double shooting marked the first murders that would be claimed by an elusive criminal known as the Zodiac Killer.
Main image: Police sketches of suspects; an extract of the Zodiac Killer’s code.
Clockwise from top: Victims Betty Lou Jensen, David Faraday, Darlene Ferrin, Cecilia Shepard, Bryan Hartnell, and Paul Stine; law enforcement officers compare notes on the case.
Most killers avoid direct contact with the police, but the Zodiac Killer was very different—he chose to deliberately taunt them. He started by sending three letters to California newspapers: the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and Vallejo Times-Herald. The writer of these letters claimed responsibility not just for the Benicia shooting, but also another…
Darlene Ferrin was a 22-year-old wife and mother who worked as a waitress in Vallejo, California. On July 5, 1969, she had picked up her friend, 19-year-old Michael Mageau, and parked in a secluded spot at Blue Rock Springs Park. A stranger approached with a flashlight, stuck a semiautomatic pistol through the open driver’s-side window of the car and opened fire. Ferrin was killed, but despite being shot in the jaw, hip, leg and shoulder, Mageau survived—though his physical recovery would take months.
July 31, 1969 / The first letters from the Zodiac Killer are published in the California press.
In his letters, the Zodiac Killer not only claimed credit for the murders, he also revealed specific details that only the shooter and the investigating officers could possibly know, such as Super X being the brand of ammunition used in the Benicia killing, and Western the ammunition in the Vallejo murder. Split among the three letters was a cipher that the writer claimed would identify him. He demanded that the newspapers run the cipher in full; if they did not, he promised to go on a killing spree. Within days, the newspapers had complied. The code was a mishmash of English and Greek letters, as well as symbols from astrology, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Asian mythology, and from Native American rock carvings. Making it even harder to decipher were myriad misspellings and grammatical errors. Nevertheless, within a week, a high school teacher named Donald Harden had cracked the code with his wife. It read:
“I like killing people because it in [sic] more fun than killing wild game in the forrest [sic] because man is the moat dangerue anamal [sic] of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling expeerence [sic] The best part ia thae [sic] when I die I will be reborn in paradice [sic] and all the [sic] I have killed will become my slaves [sic] I will not give you my name because you will trs [sic] to sloi [sic] down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife”
The last line is still a mystery: EBEO RIET EMETH HPITI. If the killer wanted infamy, his cipher delivered in full. Psychiatrists took to TV and newspapers to offer their analyses, which included terms and phrases like “omnipotence” and “delusions of grandeur.” One told the Los Angeles Times that the killer was most likely an isolated individual.
“HE PROBABLY FEELS HIS FELLOW MAN LOOKS DOWN ON HIM FOR SOME REASON.”
The same unnamed psychiatrist said if the letters and cipher had been faked, it was done by a “very, very disturbed person.” If the writings were real, “the man probably will kill again.” And he did.
Saturday, September 27, was warm and sunny—the perfect day for Cecilia Ann Shepard, 22, and Bryan Hartnell, 20, to have a picnic. Lake Berryessa Park, about 20 miles north of Napa, California, offered a picturesque scene for their evening outing as they spread out their blanket and food at a spot near the water.
At about 6:30 p.m., an ominous figure approached. The man was at least 6 feet tall, wore dark gloves and, over his head, a dark blue hood with large slits for his eyes and mouth. A peculiar image was painted on the hood: a crossed circle hand-painted in white. The man waved a pistol at them and announced that he’d escaped from a prison in Montana after killing a guard. He only wanted their money and car keys so he could flee to Mexico. The couple agreed, but the man insisted on tying them up to prevent them from alerting others after he had left. He used a plastic clothesline to bind their hands behind their backs, and then between their legs. Then he calmly said he had to stab them.
“Please stab me first. I’m chicken. I couldn’t stand to see her stabbed,” Bryan pleaded. The masked man replied, “I’ll do just that.” Once Bryan passed out from a dozen knife wounds to his back, the attacker sliced Cecilia Ann as though he were frenzied—first in the back, and then flipping her over to stab her in her breasts, stomach, and groin. The wounds to her front created an outline like the one painted onto his hood: the crosshairs of a gun sight. He then left a message. Scrawled onto the door of Bryan’s car were words, dates and a time, each related to his attacks on David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, and Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau:
Vallejo
12-20-68
7-4-69
Sept 27-69–6:30
by knife
The killer wanted credit for his work. An hour after the attack, he used a payphone outside of a car wash in Napa to call the police and report his own crime: “I want to report a murder—no, a double murder. They are 2 miles (3.2 km) north of park headquarters. They were in a white Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia. And I’m the one that did it.”
Two weeks later, the same man killed a cab driver named Paul Stine in San Francisco. Police likely wouldn’t have suspected that the serial killer slaughtering young couples was also behind the slaying of the lone 29-year-old man, but the Zodiac Killer himself ensured that they knew exactly who the culprit was. He had torn a piece of bloodied shirt from Stine’s lifeless body and, two days after the slaying, mailed it to the San Francisco Chronicle.
By now, the killer had left behind a scattering of clues. At Lake Berryessa, police found a size-11 footprint with an unusual sole pattern. They identified the brand as having been sold at Sears. The investigators pulled fingerprints from the payphone in Napa and Stine’s taxi cab. Unfortunately, their biggest break was also their biggest blunder. Three people witnessed Stine’s murder and called police, providing a description of the killer: white male, 25 to 30 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 meters), with a stocky build. His hair was styled in a crew cut, and he wore heavy-rimmed glasses. Somehow, this information was miscommunicated and officers were told to be on the lookout for a black man. So when two cops spotted a white man walking away from the scene, they didn’t bother to stop him.
The Zodiac Killer kept taunting in his letters, boasting that the police would never catch him because he was too smart for them. He also threatened schoolchildren, promising to shoot out the tire of a school bus and “pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.”2 This terrifying threat prompted officers throughout the area to guard school buses, while volunteer teachers and parents rode inside the vehicles.
At the height of the Zodiac panic, a man identifying himself as the killer called into a television show hosted by Jim Dunbar of KGO-TV in the San Francisco Bay area. The caller insisted that he speak on air with famed attorney Melvin Belli. Over the course of two hours and more than a dozen phone calls, the caller said he was sick and suffered from headaches—and that killing alleviated the pain. Belli tried to coax him into surrendering to police. The caller at times seemed receptive, but then blurted, “I don’t want to give myself up. I want to kill those kids.” The entire exchange was televised.
Stine is the last of the seven confirmed Zodiac victims (five fatalities and two injuries), but others are suspected. Paul Avery, a veteran crime reporter at the Chronicle, wrote in 19703 that the same killer may have been at work in 1966, too. Avery reported that notes similar to the ones from the Zodiac were sent to the Riverside Press-Enterprise and to police after the 1966 slaying of 18-year-old Cheri Jo Bates. Cheri had been lured from her stalled car into a deserted parking lot, where she was stabbed to death. The notes sent afterward said: “Bates had to die there will be more.” Avery reported that two of the notes were signed with a “Z.”
Paul Avery also connected the Zodiac to the kidnapping of a 23-year-old mother. Kathleen Johns was driving with her 1-year-old daughter from San Bernardino to the San Francisco area when another car flashed its lights at her, prompting her to pull over. A man approached and warned her that one of her car wheels was wobbling and fixed it for her. Kathleen started driving again—only to have that same tire completely come off the car. The man who had “helped” her stopped again and offered to take her to a gas station. Kathleen agreed, but got a sinking feeling when the man passed by one gas station after another. When she questioned him, he told her he planned to kill her. Kathleen managed to bolt from the car with her daughter and hide in a ditch. When she finally reached a police station to report the indicident, she spotted a Wanted poster featuring a picture of the Zodiac and screamed: “Oh, my god! That’s him!”
Another suspected—but unconfirmed—Zodiac case centers on 25-year-old Donna Lass, who disappeared from South Lake Tahoe in September 1970. Six months later, Avery received a postcard he believed was from the Zodiac. The message consisted of cut and pasted newspaper clippings and seemed to say that Lass’s body could be found “around in the snow.” The note was signed with the cross-and-circle symbol of the Zodiac’s past letters. Some thought it could have been a copycat, especially because it came on the heels of another confirmed—and well-publicized—Zodiac communique sent to Avery at the Chronicle. Newspapers across the country ran stories about Avery receiving a ghoulish Halloween card in late October 1970. Written neatly in white ink was the message: “Peek-a-boo—you are doomed.” It was signed, “From your secret pal.” The card was adorned with images of skeletons, as well as a handwritten reference to “paradice slaves” (sic), and the phrases “by fire, by gun and by rope.” Police considered it a threat on Avery’s life, but the eccentric reporter declined protection. “I’m really not scared. I’ve needled him in some of my stories and maybe that’s why he wrote to me,” he told a reporter, adding: “I do think I’ll be a little careful for a while.”
Late January, 1974 / The final confirmed Zodiac letter arrives at the San Francisco Chronicle’s office.
In the last of his 18 confirmed letters, the killer praised the classic 1974 horror movie The Exorcist as the best satirical comedy he’d ever seen, and claimed his body count had reached 37. After this revelation, the Zodiac Killer seemingly disappeared.
The abrupt end to the Zodiac’s killing spree only fueled his mystique. Theories about the killer’s true identity are never-ending. Many have stepped forward, claiming to have solved the mystery.
Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist working at the Chronicle when the Zodiac Killer announced himself, became obsessed with the case. Graysmith wrote two bestselling books4 that posited that the killer was Arthur Leigh Allen. Allen—who died in 1992—had been less-than-honorably discharged from the US Navy in 1958 and fired from a teaching job for molesting a student in 1968. Allen wore a Zodiac-brand watch—the logo of which was similar to the crosshairs signature the killer favored. In 1974—the same year that the final Zodiac letter was sent—Allen was arrested for molesting a 12-year-old boy. He pleaded guilty to the charge and served a two-year prison sentence. In 1991, he was also identified in a photo lineup by Michael Mageau, one of the Zodiac Killer’s survivors.
In 2007, when a film adaptation of Graysmith’s book hit theaters and renewed interest in the cold case, detective George Bawart said that he was 95 percent sure Allen was the killer. “What really bothers me about this case is that we were ready to charge Arthur Leigh Allen … but he died before we could do that.”5
In 2014, a man named Gary Stewart wrote a book, The Most Dangerous Animal of All,6 claiming his biological father was the elusive Zodiac Killer. Stewart had been abandoned in a stairwell as a newborn, and as an adult, he learned that his father was Earl Van Best Jr., a book salesman who Stewart said had disturbing fixations and rage issues. Stewart pointed to his father’s appearance—a dead ringer for the police sketch circulated in 1969—and said that he found his father’s initials—EV, Best, and Jr—in a Zodiac cipher sent to the San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco police commented that they were investigating the claim.
Several other men—all now dead—also have been tied to the case. One was Louis Myers, whose friend said that before his death in 2002, he had confessed to being the Zodiac Killer, supposedly targeting couples after breaking up with his girlfriend. Myers had connections with several of the victims, attending the same high schools as David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, and allegedly working in the same restaurant as Darlene Ferrin. Furthermore, no Zodiac letters were received for a period between 1971 and 1973—the same time that Myers was stationed overseas with the military.
A suspect named Ross Sullivan had been hospitalized for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia several times. He also wore boots whose soles were similar to the footprints found at Lake Berryessa.
Another suspect with a connection to the Lake Berryessa stabbings was Donald Lee Bujok. He was a felon who was released from a Montana prison in 1968 after serving 11 years for killing a sheriff’s deputy. Cecilia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell’s attacker told them that he had just escaped a Colorado prison.
Police are still hoping to finally solve the aging case with modern technology. In 2018, Vallejo detectives sent two envelopes containing Zodiac letters to a lab in the hope that saliva from the envelope flap and stamps might contain the killer’s DNA. Detective Terry Poyser said if the lab could create a genetic profile based on that DNA, investigators might be able to track down the killer through genealogy websites. “It really comes down to DNA,” Poyser said. “Without it, you have nothing.”7
LAKE BERRYESSA CRIME SCENE
Zodiac Killer parks car
Killer dons hood
Shepard and Hartnell attacked
Killer writes on Hartnell’s car
Hartnell collapses after trying to crawl for help