Copycat Crimes: The Zodiac Killer • Part 1

[Music] letters written in a secret code created by the zodiac killer were received by three bay area newspapers on july 31st 1969 he also included a letter that began by saying dear editor this is the murderer of the two teenagers last christmas at lake herman plus the girl on the 4th of july near the golf course in vallejo december 20th 1968 benicia california lake hermann road lover's lane the backdrop of many classic horror stories which feature a young couple usually engaging in acts of romance only to be interrupted by an attacker on this day however this was no movie and the couple david faraday and betty lou jensen were not playing roles and the attacker was not an actor this was the beginning of a baffling spree one that would capture the imagination and terrify the nation for many years to come reportedly the assailant approached faraday and jensen at gunpoint as they sat in their vehicle and ordered them to get out of the car the couple complied and bullets rang david faraday and betty lou jensen's lifeless bodies were left exactly where they fell with two bodies and no trace of a suspect the police were left without a single lead until july 4th 1969 vallejo california blue rock springs park while sitting in their vehicle darlene ferran and michael mageau noticed a car pulling up beside them the vehicle idled for a moment and then it left roughly 10 minutes later the same vehicle returned only this time the driver armed with a nine millimeter pistol got out of his car aimed and fired shots at darlene and michael as they sat helplessly in the seats of their car unfortunately darlene did not survive the attack but michael who was gravely wounded did at about 12 40 am the vallejo police department would receive the first lead in a case that would baffle and mystify authorities for many years to come a call came through to the department and on the other end was a man claiming to be responsible for an attack that same night he also went on to confess i also killed those kids last year referring to the earlier attack on david faraday and betty lou jensen at the lover's lane in benicia just months ago in december of 1968 july 31st 1969 to august 1 1969. weeks after the attack of darlene farron and michael mujo three bay area newspapers the vallejo times herald san francisco chronicle and san francisco examiner each received a letter on the same day from a mysterious sender in his terrifying public debut where he seemingly gloats about the murders the killer began by saying dear editor this is the murderer of the two teenagers last christmas at lake herman plus the girl on the 4th of july near the golf course in vallejo included with that note was a cipher which was broken up into pieces and distributed amongst the three newspapers only by combining the parts would the 408 symbol cipher be solvable through which the sender claimed his identity would be revealed he threatened to strike again if the papers did not publish his letters on their front pages as requested the newspapers ran their portions of the mysterious sender's message to the public the following day on saturday august 2nd 1969 a copy of the publication reached local high school teacher donald hardin who by the end of that weekend decoded the cipher with his wife betty but unlike the sunder's claim the encryption did not reveal his identity rather a couple of chilling lines with misspelled words putting forth his menacing agenda the decoded message read i like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all the phrase man is the most dangerous animal of all directly references the title of richard connell's short story the most dangerous game published in 1924 the plot is about a man who hunts for humans just a few days later on august 4th 1969 the san francisco examiner received another letter from the killer which was response to authority seeking proof from the sender that they were indeed the one who committed the crimes the sender officially announced himself as the zodiac opening his letters with the phrase this is the zodiac speaking and signed his letters with a crosshair symbol which would become his trademark september 27th 1969 napa california lake berryessa brian hartnell and cecilia shepard had their day interrupted when a man with a gun appeared from behind a tree wearing what seemed to be a black executioner style hood with a crosshair symbol on his chest before they knew it the man approached them stating that he was an escaped convict after tying the couple up he stabbed each of them multiple times after leaving them both for dead he returned to the parking lot drew his signature symbol on hartnell's car door with the black marker followed by the dates time and locations of the previous murders the inscription read vallejo 12 20 68 7 4 69 after which was another date which included the time and method of attack september 27 69 6 30 by knife then at 7 40 pm the zodiac used a pay phone to call the napa county sheriff's office and reported his own crime in which he gave specific details along with the statement i am the one who did it brian hartnell survived the attack unfortunately for cecelia shepard she died from her wounds while hospitalized soon after the attack on hartnell and shepard the zodiac would claim yet another victim only this time he took a different approach october 11 1969 san francisco california presidio heights paul stein a taxi driver on his shift was cruising presidio heights a generally quiet san francisco neighborhood where he stopped to pick up a man hailing a cab just before 10 pm the man entered the vehicle and in that instance unbeknownst to stein his final moments were closing in unknowingly transporting a mass murderer stein wouldn't get far before the zodiac armed with a nine millimeter gun put a bullet in the back of his head paul stein became the zodiac's officially recognized fifth victim at the time of the murder three teens noticed the commotion from a house across the street thinking they had just witnessed a robbery they immediately called the police the police however missed an enormous opportunity to have potentially captured the zodiac that night as the san francisco gate reports for reasons unknown the police dispatcher told police in the area that the suspect was a black male the police arrived even stopping to talk with a white man whose appearance matched later descriptions of the zodiac who had been walking near the scene of the crime and after a brief exchange the man carried on as police continued to focus their attention on a black suspect because of this apparent mix-up which is highly questionable and controversial the zodiac killer disappeared into the night having once again gotten away with murder the teens worked with the authorities to put together a composite of the man they had witnessed that night describing the zodiac's appearance with a sketch artist who rendered their description to the only known image of his likeness currently in existence to this day based on this sketch most people believe that the man police encountered and ignored that knight may have actually been the zodiac killer three days after the murder investigators received a letter from the zodiac that opened with his infamous phrase this is the zodiac speaking i am the murderer of the taxi driver to prove this here is a blood-stained piece of his shirt the san francisco police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly october 22 1969 oakland california oakland police department a call came in from a man claiming to be the zodiac who specifically asked to speak to melvin bellai a well-known attorney in san francisco at the time via a televised call on a tv talk show to be recorded on air bellai complied with the so-called zodiac request taking his call on air during a televised show during which he agreed to meet the man who claimed to be the zodiac in person they were scheduled to meet in front of a shop in dale city but the alleged zodiac was a no-show however by this point the police believed the caller was not actually the zodiac anyhow after the copycat stunt a letter arrived from the zodiac confirming that the man bellai had been corresponding with was indeed an imposter also in his letter the zodiac took responsibility for two more murders which remain unproven he also included a new cryptogram consisting of 340 characters this particular cipher was much harder to crack and stunted authorities the public and cryptologists alike and would remain unpuzzled for many years to come additionally the zodiac would continue to send letters sporadically to newspapers and authorities over the coming years in all of these letters the zodiac claimed to have killed more victims but none of these alleged murders were ever able to be confirmed or officially connected december 20th 1969 exactly one year after the zodiac's first attack melvin bellai would encounter another man claiming to be the zodiac only this time he was for real bellai received a letter from the zodiac which included another piece of bloodstained cloth the letter began with his signature introduction and read this is the zodiac speaking i wish you a happy christmas the one thing i've asked of you is this please help me i cannot reach out for help because of this thing in me won't let me i'm finding it extremely difficult to hold it in check i'm afraid i will lose control again and take my knife and possibly tent the victim please help me i am drowning at the moment the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in and the trigger map requires much work to get adjusted just right but if i hold back too long from no 9 i will lose all control of myself and set the bomb up please help me i cannot remain in control for much longer authorities were able to confirm that the piece of cloth included in the zodiac's letter was indeed steins which authenticated the letter on december 29th 1969 a response from bellai to the zodiac was published on the front page of the chronicle in it he wrote you have asked me for help and i promise you i will do everything in my power to provide you with whatever help you may need or may want please write to me in care of the chronicle and tell me how i may help if you want to talk to me in person i will meet with you anywhere at any time you designate if you want to meet with me alone i will come alone if you want me to bring a priest or a psychiatrist or a reporter to talk with i will do so i will follow your instructions to the letter but the zodiac did not respond however several months later a botched kidnapping would be tied to the zodiac and there were more killings that seemed to follow his mo [Music] january 25th 1970 san francisco california presidio heights the first of these encounters involved yet another san francisco cab driver who like paul stein was also shot and killed in the presidio heights neighborhood prompting the yellow cab to offer a 1 000 reward for any information that could help authorities find and arrest the zodiac killer the police however concluded that this murder was not actually perpetrated by the zodiac march 22 1970 modesto california around 11 30 pm 22 year old kathleen johns who was seven months pregnant along with her year-old daughter were driving in their car when another vehicle pulled up behind her and began flashing its lights john's pulled over thinking perhaps the other car needed help but instead a man leaned out the window to tell her that the car's back tire was loose and offered to drive her to a nearby garage seeing that her tire was in fact loose held in place by just a single lug johns took the man up on his offer while in transit the man began making a series of uncomfortable advances and ended up driving around with kathleen and her daughter for over two hours an opportunity to escape presented itself when they pulled up to a stop sign it was then that kathleen jumped out of the car with her daughter breaking free from their kidnapper kathleen found her way to the police station to report the crime and upon entering she noticed a sign with the sketch of the zodiac killer and broke out in hysteria claiming that the man in the sketch was the man who had picked her up months after the incident and after the zodiac claimed to have murdered at least 10 more people all of which were unconfirmed he sent another letter this time claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of kathleen johns and her daughter in which she stated this is the zodiac speaking i am rather unhappy because you people will not wear some nice zodiac buttons so now i have a little list starting with that woman and her baby that i gave a rather interesting ride for a couple hours one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car where i found them before going silent for months the zodiac reportedly sent the chronicle a postcard on october 12 1970 with 13 hole punches which he explained symbolized his death toll later that same month on the 27th a halloween card was sent directly to paul avery a crime reporter from the chronicles from the zodiac in the card he tells avery you're doomed after months of silence the zodiac reached out again this time to the la times in his letter he claimed to be responsible for 17 deaths and also took credit for a death predating his infamous spree that of 18 year old sherry joe bates a riverside city college student who had been murdered in 1966 a case that the chronicle had only recently speculated could have been the zodiac's work reportedly six months after bate's murder the riverside police department had been mailed a handwritten note the zodiac's mo even though it predates his first official letter that read aids had to die there will be more despite this authorities continued to officially dismiss the link between bates and the zodiac killer january 31st 1974 a few years would pass before the zodiac would break his long period of silence with another letter to the chronicle in which he claims that within the three years it elapsed he'd slain 37 victims like others he'd previously claimed those were also unconfirmed one of the remaining mysteries in the zodiac killer's case is the reason as to why his crime stopped it seemed that shortly after his spree began crimes of the zodiac claimed after the five confirmed earliest victims were cases police could no longer confirm or actually attribute to the zodiac as he'd claimed furthermore his letter stopped coming in at all the only suspect ever officially named in the zodiac case was a child molester named arthur lee allen of vallejo california allen died in 1992 and was never officially indicted with any of the zodiac's crimes a decade after allen's death using what little dna evidence they have in relation to the zodiac killer's case san francisco homicide inspectors ran another forensic test in an attempt to officially clear allen as a suspect but the test results returned and remain inconclusive according to the atlantic as of 2014 as many as 1 200 people have claimed to know the true identity of the zodiac killer all of which remain unproven surprisingly a number of people have come forward with theories who believed their fathers stepfathers or other relatives are the zodiac killer one particular claim was made by a man named gary stewart who was adopted as a baby and only after coming into contact with his birth mother at the age of 39 began to believe that the man who impregnated her could have been the zodiac killer his birth mother jude chandler had only been 13 years old and living in san francisco when a 28 year old named earl van best spotted her getting off her school bus their relationship was a national scandal covered in newspapers across the country resulting in jail time a cross-country road trip in an attempt to outrun the law and chandler pregnant at the age of 15. authorities have since confirmed that best was a cryptogram enthusiast and one of the killings took place just two blocks from his apartment in addition he spent some time in the hospital related to his mental health experts who analyzed best fingerprints and handwriting compared to those of the zodiac said that they were similar enough to warrant a very likely comparison best died in 1984 and is buried in an unmarked grave in mexico detectives even once considered that the unabomber may be linked to the zodiac killer but were unsuccessful in connecting the two cases along with his enigmatic puzzle possibly holding the key to cracking the entire case wide open the identity of the zodiac killer is still considered one of the greatest unsolved mysteries with the infamous zodiac case remaining unsolved and capturing imaginations of the public for over half a century it would spark the mind of one man in particular birthing a copycat and spawning a new spree of murders in another major metropolitan area on the opposite coast this killer will become known as the new york zodiac [Music] you

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Keywords: Copycat Crimes: The Zodiac Killer, SffZ, buzzfeed, buzzfeed unsolved network, buzzfeedunsolvednetwork, cold case, copycat crimes, creepy, investigation, mini doc, mini series, mystery, theories, true crime, unsolved, what is a copycat crime, what is the zodiac kiler, who is the zodiac killer, zodiac cypher, zodiac killer, zodiac killer buzzfeed, zodiac killer mini doc

Id: FjTPVN4uI6U

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021