December 20, 1968 - Around 10:15 pm 17 year
old David Faraday and 16 year old Betty Lou Jensen parked at a gravel turnout--a well
known popular lover’s lane on Lake Herman Road, in the small Northern California town
of Benicia. Sadly, the teenage sweethearts never made
it home after their date. They were found shot to death shortly after
11 pm. Thus began the reign of terror by the Zodiac
Killer. From December 1968 through October 1969, a
serial killer who came to be known as the"Zodiac Killer" from the cryptic letters he sent to
the press plagued the California Bay Area. Despite his brazen crimes and his clues to
the authorities, the Zodiac Killer was never caught. A number of suspects have been named by law
enforcement and amateur investigators over the years, but there has been no definitive
proof as to whom the Zodiac Killer was. There are a lot of reasons why the Zodiac
Killer was never found, but first a quick run down of the depraved acts of that made
him so notorious. Nearly seven months after the murders in Benicia,
the Zodiac Killer struck again. On July 4, 1969, another young man and woman,
Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin were shot in Vallejo, California around midnight, as
they sat in a car parked at a golf course. The killer actually called the police from
a pay phone at about 12:40 am and reported the double murder, also mentioning that he
‘had killed the kids last year’ in reference to the Benicia slayings. Maegeau survived the attack, but wasn’t
able to provide a description to the police. On July 31, 1969 the Zodiac Killer sent letters
to three local newspapers: The San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner and
the Vallejo Times-Herald. Each of the letters contained a confession
of the two murders and one third of a cipher. When assembled and cracked, the cipher discussed
how much the Zodiac Killer liked killing. On September 27, 1969 came the third attack. One evening two college students, Bryan Hartnell
and Cecelia Shepard were relaxing by the shore of Lake Berryessa about 25 miles (40 km) from
Napa, California when they were approached by a man wearing a homemade executioner’s
mask. He claimed to be an escaped prison convict
who was trying to get to Mexico. He needed the students’ money and car. He tied them up and then without warning pulled
out a knife and stabbed them. Then he used a marker to vandalize Bryan’s
car, memorializing his killing before making his escape. Again the killer called the police from a
payphone to alert them about the attack. Meanwhile, good Samaritans had found the victims
and they were rushed to the hospital. Miraculously Hartnell survived his stabbing. A fourth attack happened on October 11, 1969. In the Presidio Heights area of San Francisco
the Zodiac Killer shot a cab driver, Paul Stine, and then cut off and stole a part of
the cabbie’s bloody shirt. From then on, the killer sent taunting letters
to the press and police, referring to himself as the Zodiac and discussing the mystical
and intellectual bases of his motivation for the killings. He also provided unknown details of his crimes,
made threats and offered puzzles and coded clues to future murder plots. Twice he even included pieces of Stine’s
bloody shirt with his letters as proof. The fourth attack was the final one. For the next five years, the Zodiac Killer
continued to send letters to the media and authorities, until 1974, though he may have
sent correspondence until 1978--no one can be sure if all the messages received really
came from the killer. Over time the authorities have interviewed
nearly 2,500 people regarding the crimes. Due to the killer’s communication with newspapers
which somewhat sensationally printed his letters, the public was highly interested in the Zodiac
Killer. Even today, tips still pour in and people
have confessed to being the Zodiac killer and made accusations to authorities that various
family members or colleagues were the Zodiac Killer. Internet groups pour over every detail of
the crimes in an attempt to crack the killer’s identity. So far, only 1 of the 4 pictograms sent by
the killer has ever been decoded, one of the 3 unsolved puzzles allegedly provides the
name of the Zodiac Killer. Here are some reasons as to why the Zodiac
Killer was never found: Number 1: The locations the murders took place
in. The Zodiac Killer murdered his victims during
the course of about a year, over a wide ranging area. The first two murders took place 7 months
apart in Benicia and Vallejo, California. Though the two murder scenes were less than
5 miles (8 km) apart, they were in different municipalities and were therefore investigated
by different police departments. As was the third attack near Nappa and the
fourth attack in San Francisco. Four separate jurisdictions with different
processes separately worked the cases during a time when each police department was an
entity unto itself which leads us to the next reason why the Zodiac Killer wasn’t caught: Number 2: Mishandled police work. A variety of police mistakes were made with
the Zodiac cases. During the Zodiac Killer's final attack, witnesses
called police to alert them of a cab driver being shot by a middle aged white male. On the first report over the police radio,
the operator described the shooter as a black male. Because of the mistaken description, two officers
ignored a white man who crossed their paths as they were arriving to the crime scene. In one of his letters, the Zodiac Killer sent
a swatch of the cabbie’s bloodstained shirt and taunted the police for their mistake in
not apprehending him when they had the chance. An ongoing mistake that all the jurisdictions
were guilty of was lack of information sharing. During the 1960s there was very little inter-agency
cooperation. Different jurisdictions were possessive of
their cases, red tape and egos got in the way. Even when the police wanted to share case
files, it was harder to share back then. Which once again brings us to the next reason
why the Zodiac Killer wasn’t caught: Number 3: The time period. During the Zodiac Killer’s spree there was
no ease of sharing information via technology--there were no fax machines, no computers, no cellular
phones, no AFIS-- Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Also the police may have had too much information
and trouble parsing it. Once the Zodiac Killer’s correspondence
was published, the police were inundated with a wide variety of tips from the public. Beyond all the technology and software which
helps police gather data and analyze cases, modern forensics was still in its infancy. Crime scene investigation -CSI- was minimal
and the evidence collected wasn’t well preserved. Since then pieces of evidence been endlessly
handled by the police. The Zodiac case was so popular and had developed
such as mystique that evidence was sought out by curious authorities not directly working
the case. Over the years, evidence has been rifled through,
taken home by retiring cops who wanted to continue to work the case and even stolen
as souvenirs. Of course DNA testing wasn’t yet possible
at the time of the crimes. Since then, authorities have attempted to
perform DNA tests on some items known to have been handled by the Zodiac Killer such as
the stamps from letters he sent. Unfortunately since the evidence was poorly
collected and has since degraded, investigators haven’t yet been able to build a complete
DNA profile from collected materials. However, testing is continuing. Also hampering the investigations was the
fact that serial killers were poorly understood during the late 1960s. The FBI was just beginning to study the behavior
of serial killers and to profile them. Most police departments simply were not experienced
with these types of crime and had no set process for working serial murders with unconnected
victims that seemingly had little or no motive. Number 4: It’s been hard to identify the
Zodiac Killer because he had a fairly low victim count. In one of his letters to the media, the Zodiac
Killer claimed to have murdered 37 victims. Officials can only confirm seven victims,
four men and three women with two of the men surviving their attempted murders. In dispute are another 4 murders that were
possibly committed by the Zodiac Killer and 1 more survivor. The low body count made it hard for police
to establish patterns when it came to the killer. By comparison, other well known serial killers
such as Ted Bundy or the Green River Killer murdered upwards of 30 people. During the reign of the Zodiac Killer, the
Manson Family began their own spree, killing 8 people. The main reason why the Zodiac Killer has
become so notorious is his cryptic, threatening and taunting letters, many of which were printed
in the local newspapers. Considering the similiarity of the crimes,
the police might have eventually linked the first two attacks together: the murder of
the couples in Benicia and Valleho. But the MO for the stabbings of the third
attack and the fourth, the shooting of a cabbie, don’t fit. Until the Zodiac Killer taunted the police
about the crime, SFPD was investigating the cabbie’s murder as a robbery gone wrong. Without the Zodiac Killer announcing his murders,
linking them and threatening future crimes, the murders have just been sad blimps in police
records. Number 5: Entertwined with the low body count
making it hard to notice patterns and identify the Zodiac Killer, is the killer’s MO or
modus operandi. Serial killers tend to use same method to
murder each time, refining their technique based on previous crimes. Also they tend to pick the same type of victims. The Zodiac Killer both stabbed and shot his
victims and preyed on couples and a single person. In his letters, the killer threatened to blow
up various locations and even included instructions for making a bomb, showing that he was well
acquainted with how explosives worked. Usually the method of killing is very personal
to the serial killer and while they alter it as needed, they rarely switch to an altogether
different method of murder. Once again, the police wouldn’t have connected
the murder of the cabbie with the Zodiac Killer if he hadn’t made a taunting confession
in one of his letters. The Zodiac Killer seems to defy the typical
classifications the FBI has created for killers, in fact he would be categorized as a ‘mixed
killer.’ He displayed traits of both serial and spree
killers, as well as both organized and disorganized offenders. Which brings us to the next reason why the
Zodiac killer was never identified: Number 6: The Zodiac Killer many have been
more than one person. There have been many different theories as
to the identity of the Zodiac killer over the years. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was even bandied
about as a suspect for a while. The police only publicly named a single suspect--Arthur
Leigh Allen a Vallejo, California schoolteacher who was institutionalized in 1975 for child
molestation. Allen died in 1992 and in 2002 was exonerated
when a relative of his provided a DNA sample to test against possible Zodiac Killer DNA
found on a stamp. There is definitely a camp of investigators
that believe that the Zodiac Killer is multiple people. They point to the unusual mixed serial killer
traits, the changing MO and the intricate pictograms as proof that more than a single
person was involved. Number 7: The Zodiac Killer has managed to
evade capture because he was simply lucky. The Zodiac Killer committed his murders publically,
and yet hardly anyone saw anything. When he shot the cabbie, he actually briefly
lingered at the scene and was seen by some local teens. In the poor light of a dim fall evening, they
weren’t able to get a good look at him. Likewise, it was pure luck that the police
operator misidentified his description Also while walking away from the scene of that
shooting, the Zodiac Killer just happened to turn in a direction away from the officers
arriving at the scene; if he had gone the other way, he would have met them head on. During the stabbing at Lake Berryessa, the
killer had a prolonged interaction with his victims, first he tied them up, then stabbed
them and then finally wrote on their car. The length of time spent at the crime scene
increased the possibility of a third party showing up, but no one did. It’s not known whether the Zodiac Killer
purposely spread his crimes across multiple jurisdictions, but even he couldn’t have
foreseen how different agencies would fail to close ranks and communicate poorly. Number 8: The final reason why the Zodiac
Killer was never caught was because he abruptly stopped killing. A hallmark of serial killers is their compulsion
to murder--rarely do serial offenders voluntarily cease killing sprees. Usually serial killers stop because they are
caught and institutionalized in a prison or asylum. It’s possible the Zodiac Killer might have
stopped because he died. Some think he moved away from the Bay Area
and continued to kill in another location. Or he may have continued to kill in the Bay
Area but for reasons unknown kept silent about his crimes; in the early 1970s a few unsolved
murders happened in Santa Rosa, CA which some point to the Zodiac Killer for. Others believe that the Zodiac Killer quit
because they were caught and jailed, just for a different crime. Some think that the Zodiac Killer completed
his mission and that’s why he stopped murdering. His real objective wasn’t murder, but to
make society pay attention to hm. He succeeded at that perhaps even beyond his
wildest dreams. Some 40 years later, the Zodiac Killer has
become a American legend--our Jack the Ripper. Countless internet groups are devoted to him. The police ended up diverting a significant
amount of the resources arrayed against him to chase obscure leads in an attempt to solve
his puzzles. He inspired and spawned at least two other
serial killers that we know of, perhaps more. He’s inspired several movies, fiction and
documentaries, books and even songs. Even now the case has been reopened, the police
convinced that in their files is a clue that just has to be found to crack the case wide
open and reveal the identity of one of America’s most infamous serial killers. What do you think was the biggest issue in
preventing the capture of the Zodiac Killer? Let us know in the comments! Also, be sure to check out our other video
You Won't Believe Who Jack The Ripper Is - New 2019 DNA Test Reveals His Identity! Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
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