Serial killer named Zodiac. Zodiac: the most mysterious serial killer in history Zodiac arthur lee allen

Surely, many have watched the movie Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry". A man named Scorpio, who committed the murder of a girl, demands a ransom from the city authorities for future murders. The search for the criminal is entrusted to policeman Harry, whose illegal (but very effective) methods of work are turned a blind eye by his superiors.

Few people know that the film is based on a true story. The serial killer Zodiac, the most famous maniac of the 20th century, who killed five people and wounded two, was never caught.

Serial killer Zodiac - Maniac Zodiac

The real killer was incredibly lucky: thanks to the mistakes made by law enforcement officers, he managed to escape punishment.

The story of the Zodiac serial killer began with the first murder he committed in the second half of December 1968. That evening, a 19-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, college students, decided to retire in the car. There, not far from the California lake Herman Road, they met their death.

There were no signs of sexual abuse on the girl's body. Their corpses were discovered almost immediately after death, but the killer could not be detained - he fled in his car.

Betty Lou Jensen, the murdered girl, was familiar with Darlene Ferrin, the next victim of the Zodiac. Both studied at a college located in Vallejo, a small California town.

Friends and relatives of Darlene, testifying to the police, unanimously noted that shortly before her death, she was pursued by a man who looked like a Zodiac. Friend Darlene Ferrin recalled: the deceased once mentioned that she saw how her stalker killed someone.

On July 5, 1969, twenty-two-year-old Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, despite being a married lady, was in the car of her 19-year-old friend Michael Magow parked outside a nightclub. The young man expressed concern about the man in the car next to him, but Darlene was completely calm, answering something like: “Nothing special!”.

In a few moments she was already dead, and the wounded Michael, who miraculously survived, was able to describe the killer in detail. The young man also told the police that the perpetrator called Darlene "Dee", as if he belonged to her inner circle.

The cops arrived too late—when Darlene breathed her last, unable to say the killer's name.

30 minutes later, an unidentified person called the Vallejo Police Department and reported two dead bodies in a brown car near Columbus Boulevard. Later it became known that the serial killer Zodiac called from a telephone booth located near the police department.

An hour later, the phone rang at the Ferrins' home, where the late Darlene's husband was receiving guests. A male voice said, "Why doesn't she always sleep with her husband?"

At the end of July of the same year, the editorial offices of three California newspapers received letters of the same content from one person who wished to take responsibility for all the crimes. Some sections of the text in the letter were encrypted, and the image of a cross in a circle served as a signature.

The cipher was solved by a mathematics teacher from a local school, and the meaning of the signature is unknown to this day. According to one of the versions of forensic experts, the author of the letter borrowed the emblem from the American company Zodiac. This version is supported by the fact that the killer soon began to call himself the Zodiac.

He first identified himself as such in the following letter, sent on August 4 to a San Francisco publication.

The next victim of the maniac again turned out to be young people - college students Cecilia Shepard, 22, and twenty-year-old Brian Hartnell. The couple had a picnic on the shores of Lake Berrissa (California) on September 27. Late in the evening they saw a man approaching. The black hooded mask covering the stranger's face was embroidered with a white sign - a crossed out circle.

At gunpoint, the Zodiac serial killer tied them up and stabbed them. The girl died after the tenth blow, and the young man, who received six blows in the back, remained alive. As he left, the killer wrote down the dates of the previous murders on the victims' car. After some time, an unknown man, calling the police of the city of Napa, reported the crime.

The latest victim of the Zodiac was a 29-year-old taxi driver - a lonely Paul Lee Stein. A man was shot in the back of the head by a disgruntled customer on the evening of October 11, 1969, at a busy San Francisco intersection. Maniac Zodiac did not know that he was being watched. According to one version, the girl sitting near the window called the police while other children and adults were having fun in the same apartment and did not hear the sound of a gunshot.

At that time, the killer was described as a dark, that is, tanned man, but the police decided that he meant a black man, so in the orientation sent to all patrol posts, the killer was described as a dark-skinned man. Not far from the crime scene, only one person was found walking from the scene of the murder, but he was white, so he was not detained. A few days later, he sent another letter to the editorial office of one of the San Francisco newspapers and a piece of the bloody shirt of the taxi driver he had killed.

According to the descriptions, the maniac Zodiac was of middle age and height, with a dense body and wore glasses. But in his messages, he reported that he looked different, but carefully disguised himself before the murders.

Fame came to the Zodiac even after the first murders thanks to newspaper reports on the progress of the investigation and television interviews of surviving victims and their families. The zodiac never killed anyone again, but newspapers continued to receive letters bearing his signature.

In one letter, the Zodiac maniac threatened to plant explosives on a school bus in retaliation against child witnesses, but never carried out his threats.

In the next letter, he indicated his real name, encrypted so skillfully that decoders are still struggling to figure it out. In a follow-up letter, the serial killer Zodiac demanded that all the inhabitants of the city wear his mark... and that he recruit slaves through murder to serve him in the afterlife. Later, he began to attribute other people's crimes to himself, counting the number of victims.

Newspaper editorial offices received about 20 messages from him, and investigations into his crimes continued until 2000. According to one of the many versions, a whole gang of criminals called themselves the Zodiac, in which someone killed, someone called on the phone, someone wrote letters ...

The police failed to detain anyone, despite the killer's fingerprints left in the taxi, as well as the maniac's gene samples. Neither prints nor genes matched those of the suspects.

Serial killer Zodiac - Maniac Zodiac

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David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen are a couple who get shot on their first date. They were in a car parked near the lake. The criminal drove up in a car, forced the lovers out and shot them. The girl tried to run away, but failed.

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magjot were also shot by the Zodiac. Their offender shot right in the car. Since it was at night, he used a flashlight so as not to miss. Despite the terrible injuries, the guy managed to survive.

Brian Calvin Hartnell and Cecilia Ann Shepard were attacked at the water's edge. This time, the Zodiac acted not with a firearm, but with a knife. The girl died after numerous wounds, the guy survived.

Paul Lee Stein - This man was shot to death in San Francisco.

There are a number of other victims that may have been the work of the Zodiac. Among them is another pair of young people, a 17-year-old girl and a 27-year-old woman. According to 22-year-old Kathleen Jones, a man abducted her and her 10-month-old daughter and tried to take her out in a car in an unknown direction. Fortunately, the woman managed to escape with the child. Why are there suspicions that these 5 crimes are the work of the Zodiac? The police saw in them the handwriting of a serial killer.

The cryptogram, which was able to decipher, contains a brief explanation of the purpose for which the Zodiac commits crimes. According to him, in this way he prepares for himself the slaves he needs in the afterlife...

Letters to newspapers came until 1974. Then the Zodiac fell silent. In the spring of 2007, when analyzing the archives of The Chronicle, the publication's employees found a Christmas card. The handwriting on it was similar to that of the Zodiac. It was posted in 1990. The official handwriting examination did not confirm the authorship of the Zodiac...

Photofit of a maniac Zodiac

Who was the brutal and mysterious Zodiac active in Northern California and San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 70s? The identity of the killer has never been established. In 2004, the San Francisco police dropped their investigation, but reopened it in early 2007. All these years, the police had fingerprints left by the killer's hands, smeared with the blood of taxi driver Paul Lee Stine, as well as samples of the Zodiac genes - they did not match the fingerprints and genes of any of the suspects. In other cities, the case was not closed.

For many decades, the mysterious criminal has been of interest to criminologists who put forward versions and publish books. In total, at least 5 books have been written about the Zodiac and at least 3 feature films have been shot. The nickname "Zodiac", as in the case of "", came out of the letter, but the Zodiac came up with his pseudonym personally, and with him developed his image, style and logo, if such terms are applicable here. Due to the peculiarities of the behavior of the Zodiac, they were nicknamed the "Code Killer" and the "Mysterious Killer".

Your bloody hunt Zodiac Maniac began on December 20, 1968, its victims were couples in love. The first to die at the hands of a maniac were 19-year-old David Arthur and his 17-year-old girlfriend Betty Lou Jensen. Their bloodied bodies were discovered by a passing motorist and reported the gruesome find to a highway patrol officer. As it became known later, the students secluded themselves in their car on an empty freeway and within a few minutes they were overtaken by the Zodiac. The young man died in the cabin from one bullet, his girlfriend, apparently, managed to jump out of the car and tried to escape - the body, hit by five bullets, lay more than 10 meters from the car.

There were no signs of sexual violence, and yet Betty was a very beautiful, even seductive girl. Although the bodies were found within minutes of the murder, and the driver who found them immediately informed the police about a suspicious car moving in the same direction as him from the crime scene, the killer could not be apprehended.

The zodiac was silent for 6 months, which was at least uncharacteristic for this kind of killers (as a rule, the craving for new violence arises already three weeks after the murder). Even when the offender tries to carefully control himself, he usually cannot resist new crimes after a month and a half.

The second killed girl, by a fatal coincidence, was familiar not only with the first victim - Betty (she studied at the same university with her), but also probably saw the Zodiac himself! Her friends and relatives testified that, shortly before the murder, she was harassed by a man. According to the girl, she became an unwitting witness to the double murder committed by this man.

Late on the evening of July 5, 1969, 22-year-old Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin was in the cabin of a car parked outside a nightclub with her 19-year-old lover, Michael Magow. In a nearby car, the girl saw a friend, and even when the man got out of his car and approached the couple, she did not consider it necessary to introduce him to a friend. And soon she was dead. Her friend survived after three wounds, he later described the attacker in detail, and, among other things, said that the killer called the girl the way her acquaintances and friends called - Dee.

The police arrived in time for the car when Darlene was still alive, however, a severe near-death condition did not allow her to name the killer. Half an hour later, a call was made to the police department from a machine located directly outside the building. A gruff male voice confessed to the murder of the couple last December and suggested where the police could find the bodies of two more youths he had killed.

In addition, the man called the husband of the murdered Darlene and asked the only question: "Why doesn't Darlene sometimes spend the night with her husband?" As for Michael Magow, he has completely regained his health. During the treatment, he was guarded by the police, later his documents were changed for him and his family, at the expense of the state government, Magow moved with his mother and two brothers to a new place of residence. For decades, information about this was kept secret, the police considered Michael as one of their best witnesses, who was supposed to identify the criminal in case of detention.

On July 31, 1969, 3 newspapers received letters from an unknown person claiming responsibility for the murders. Each letter consisted of two parts - textual and cryptographic. The letters were partially encrypted, but this cipher was solved by a local mathematics teacher. There was no signature, but there was an emblem - a quartered circle, an optical sight. The killer named himself the Zodiac for the first time in the next letter, received on August 4th.

The appearance of letters should be recognized as a fact extremely important for understanding the motivation of the criminal's actions - obviously, the author of the anonymous letters craved communication, games, intrigues; at the same time, he was devoured by a sense of his own unappreciated by society. Since then, almost all of the killer's letters began with the phrase "This is the Zodiac speaking" and ended with his emblem.

The emblem, embroidered in white on a black mask, was well remembered by college students: 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard and 20-year-old Brian Hartnell. Threatening with a gun, the offender tied them up and stabbed the girl 10 times (she died two days later) and 6 stabs in the back of the young man, he miraculously survived. On the car, the killer wrote the dates of his previous crimes, and after half an hour he reported the deed to the police by phone.

The latest Zodiac kill was not typical. The victim was a lonely 29-year-old taxi driver Paul Lee Stein. On the evening of October 11, 1969, at a well-lit intersection of streets in San Francisco, the killer dealt with him with a shot in the back of the head, then, knocking the driver on his side, the killer cut off with scissors a fairly large flap covered with blood from the shirt of the deceased. The taxi salon was also covered in blood, it was clear that the criminal could not help getting dirty.

After that, the Zodiac tried to get rid of the fingerprints with a rag, however, without removing all traces. Also, he left his gloves in the back seat. The children, who saw what was happening from the window of the house, called the police, but the criminal again managed to escape. He was described as being of average height and age, with a heavy build, wearing glasses, and being "dark". Subsequently, it turned out that by the word "dark", the children meant a strong tan, but the police were looking for a black man. It was because of this accident that the Zodiac managed to remain unrecognized for the second time, and a couple of days later an envelope arrived at the editorial office of one of the newspapers in San Francisco, in which there was a piece of a bloody shirt of a taxi driver and another letter from the Zodiac.

The Zodiac did not commit more proven crimes, but continued to send letters. Long after his last assassination, the Zodiac kept in touch with the police and the press. He was vain and deceitful, therefore he willingly appropriated the crimes of others, in addition, he was counting his own victims. In 1969, he attributed 8 murders to himself, in 1970 - 13, in 1971 - 17, and in 1974 - as many as 37. He proved his real murders with many details known only to him and the police, but he could not report anything worthwhile about those attributed to himself .

In total, about 20 letters and postcards were received from the Zodiac by the editors of various Californian newspapers. In 1971, he calmed down for three years and sent the last letter only in 1974. In one of the messages, he promised to blow up a school bus in retaliation for the children who saw him at the time of the last murder. Fortunately, the plan did not come true. In another letter, he enciphered his real name, although the decoders could not come to an unambiguous solution to the cipher. He also wrote that with the help of murders he was gathering slaves for his afterlife, he described how he would subject them to torment.

And it was vanity that made him, in one of his messages dated April 28, 1970, demand that his sign - a quartered circle - decorate the city: “I would like to see well-executed Zodiac emblems on the streets of the city. So that everyone has these emblems of black power. The morbid thirst for self-affirmation of the criminal received its unequivocal and complete expression in this letter.
The Zodiac had a clearly formulated goal, about which he himself wrote more than once - to bring chaos and fear in society, to show his superiority. His difference from the average serial killer is that the Zodiac needed publicity, he wanted his letters to be printed on the front pages of newspapers, to be talked about, filmed on television.

As a rule, serial killers do not have contact with the police or the media, because fame or influence on the minds of many people are not the goals of the "classic" maniac. Most likely, there were completely different motives behind the desires of the Zodiac to provoke a panic in society and make people talk about themselves.

And he achieved fame, imitators appeared, one of whom committed crimes in New York, and the second in Tokyo. Both of them were arrested and had nothing to do with the California murders.
After the message in 1974, the mysterious Zodiac suddenly disappeared. In 2004, the police closed the case, but in 2007, in connection with the clarification of new circumstances, the case was resumed: California resident Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Terrence committed the crimes.

After Terrence's death, a black hood was found in his belongings, reminiscent of the one in which the Zodiac operated, a knife with traces of blood, as well as film footage with violent scenes. In addition, Terrence's handwriting resembled the handwriting in the notes of a brutal killer. The FBI announced a planned DNA examination. Previously, such examinations were carried out in relation to several suspects, but the fingerprint map of the Zodiac, whose identity has been established, is now stored in the FBI archive under the code: "Affiliation not established A-10042". The exact number of victims of the killer has not been established either.

P.S. Versions
To this day, there are many versions about who the mysterious Zodiac was? Some versions are very interesting and worth mentioning. According to one of them, the Zodiac is an organized gang in which different people killed, made phone calls, etc. Strictly speaking, this version has only one advantage - compensation for the shortcomings of the version about a lone killer, on the trail of which they could not get out. According to another version, the Zodiac did not stop its activities, but “reclassified” as a “murderer from Santa Rosa”, who killed 14 girls in 1972-1975 and also remained at large. Most of all from the police and the public went to a resident of Vallejo named Arthur Lee Allen.

For some, he was the "perfect suspect", to the point that public confusion was expressed as to why Allen had not yet been arrested. However, the main suspect in the Zodiac case also died at large on August 26, 1992 at the age of 58. He suffered from diabetes and heart problems. On the second day after his death, a massive search was carried out in the house, which did not bring anything sensible. And ten years later, in October 2002, the police were ripe for DNA testing. The result was negative.

There were versions about several local perverts whom they tried to attract to the Zodiac case. So one of the members of the Charles Manson Family, Bruce MacGregor Davis, was considered quite seriously as a suspect. The police investigation not only did not find any weighty evidence against him, but also established the non-involvement of the rest of the hippie scumbags in the Zodiac case.

Much more exotic - even shocking - is the hypothesis that Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, the American mathematician and social critic who mailed bombs, was the Zodiac. If not for the denunciation of his brother, it would be impossible to calculate Kachinsky. This version is so grandiose that if the Zodiac and the Unabomber are the same person, then, according to some forensic scientists, he should be considered the Greatest Serial Killer. Still: reach the highest level in the art of secret assassination twice! Fortunately, unfortunately, but the police and the FBI quite confidently waved their hand at the identity of the Zodiac and the Unabomber. In the best case, investigators say, Kaczynski was inspired by the mail pranks of the Zodiac to conduct his ideological struggle.

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Motorway Valleggio-Benicia about 35 km. from the city of San Francisco passes near Herman Lake.

In the late 60s of the 20th century, this territory was relatively sparsely populated. The neighborhood of this highway, called Herman Road (in honor of the lake), has long been chosen by picnickers and couples in cars looking for free solitude. At 23.10 on December 20, 1968, on the paved area in front of the building of the pumping station, located next to the mentioned lake, a car of the Rambler model stopped in which there were two young people: David Arthur Faraday, 19 years old, and Betty Lou Jensen, 17 years old.

Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday. They were long considered the first victims of a mysterious serial killer who dubbed himself the Zodiac, but later doubts arose about this.
Young people met at the beginning of the seventh hour in the evening - David drove home to Betty. They told their parents that they would go to a Christmas concert, but instead the couple first went to their mutual friend, where they stayed for about 40 minutes, and then went to the lake in order to be alone for an hour or two. Both boy and girl were still in college and were not self-sufficient; this caused them to periodically indulge in such tricks.
What happened after the car stopped now no one can say for sure. But five minutes later - at 23.15 - a motorist passing by found the bloody bodies of young people next to the car in which they arrived. The man who made this grim discovery sped ahead along the motorway towards the town of Benicia, expecting to meet a police patrol, and on an empty highway at this late hour, he saw a lone car moving in the same direction far ahead. No other cars were seen at that moment on this section of the freeway - this was also confirmed by the officer of the highway patrol, who was moving just in the opposite direction - in the direction of Herman Road. Apparently, on this very car, seen by the policeman and the witness, the killer left the crime scene. As early as 11:23 p.m., the duty officer of the Solano County Sheriff's Office registered a Highway Patrol report of the discovery of two human bodies in a parking lot near the pumping station.
The investigation into the double homicide was led by Sergeant Leslie Landblet. The report of the inspection of the scene of the incident recorded the following essential details of the crime committed:
a) The first shots were fired by the killer while the young people were in the back seat of the car. The perpetrator fired through the rear window and hit neither Faraday nor Jensen;
b) With the third shot, the criminal hit David Faraday in the back of the head. The inflicted wound turned out to be very severe: the young man's head literally split open. David apparently died on the spot within a minute. Traces of blood in the cabin indicated that the injury occurred precisely at the time when Faraday was in the back seat. But his body was found lying on the asphalt near the car, with his feet to the rear wheels at an angle of about 45 degrees and head first. The offender, apparently approaching the back door, flung it open and dragged Faraday's body out of the passenger compartment. Convinced that the young man was dead, the killer left him on the spot and focused on the second victim;
c) Betty Lou Jensen managed to jump out of the salon through the opposite back door and rushed to run from the parking lot. Her body was at a distance of 12 meters from the rear bumper of the car. 5 bullets hit the girl's back, which lay quite heaped - in the region of 5-6 ribs. The latter suggested that the offender had excellent command of firearms. However, after the examination of the clothes of the victims for the presence of microparticles, the latter conclusion was revised. It turned out that 4 out of 5 bullets that hit Betty Jensen were fired almost point-blank, from a distance of less than 3 meters. The offender, apparently, having wounded the girl with the first shot, approached her and shot her in cold blood at point-blank range - hence the accuracy of his hits;
d) As a murder weapon, the offender used a 22-caliber (5.56 mm) gun. In total, the criminal fired 8 shots: 5 bullets were found in Jensen's body, 1 - in Faraday's body, 2 - in the cabin (they did not hit anyone). Of the bullets found, two were deformed to such an extent that it was not possible to determine which weapon they were fired from.
By interviewing witnesses and comparing the testimonies received, Sergeant Landblet came to the conclusion that the killer left the scene of the crime in a light-colored Chevrolet model car and drove towards the city of Benicia. Most likely, the same car was seen in the parking area in front of the water pumping station as early as 21:00 on December 20. This car stood in place until 22.00, some of the motorists passing by claimed that it was a Chevrolet Impala model.
Les Landblet turned to the locals for help and called for the interaction of private detective agencies. On a pro bono basis, six Solano County agencies sent their employees to assist the sheriff's office. The colleges where the dead young people studied began raising money for a bonus fund from which it was supposed to pay for any valuable information that helps the investigation.
Through intensive police investigations, they were able to find very important witnesses. At about 10 pm, a car with a couple of young people drove into the same parking area (the names of these people, in order to ensure their safety, were never announced by the police). At first, they did not pay attention to the Chevrolet standing right there with the lights out, but when the car began to move in their direction, the young people decided to leave this place. They drove out of the parking lot, but a strange car followed them. After a short chase, the young people broke away from the pursuit, thanks to the fact that they turned off all the lights and began to circle around. In the end, they stopped on the eastern side of Herman Lake and never returned to the parking area. It is possible that caution saved the lives of young people.
If this story was accurate in every way, then it could mean that the reason for the attack was by no means an accidental conflict. The criminal was clearly preparing his attack and was waiting for an opportunity. He was ready to ambush anyone he saw as a suitable target. The apparent lack of motivation for the attack indirectly indicated that this was the case of a serial killer. It is known that persons suffering from various kinds of sexual dysfunctions react extremely painfully to couples of young people who, in their understanding, behave in a deliberately provocative manner. Therefore, attacks in which this specific category of people is the victim are not uncommon. The history of forensic science knows a lot of serial killers, whose aggressiveness turned out to be directed at a couple of young people in love (for example, "Night Killer from Texarkana", "Son of Sam", etc.). So in that sense, the attack near the pumping station on Lake Herman Road did not seem inexplicable. And if so, then the police should have recognized that another sexual serial killer appeared in the San Francisco area. This, in fact, the success of the investigation and were exhausted. Until the next July - 1969 - the criminal did not make itself felt. He sank into oblivion and one would think that he either moved to another state, or went to prison, or finally died. Police experience shows that a break of six months is not typical for serial killers. A steady craving for a new attack usually begins to form in them as early as three weeks after the murder. Even when the offender tries to carefully control himself, he usually cannot resist new crimes after a month and a half. Therefore, the break of six and a half months, which the killer of David Faraday and Betty Jensen endured, should be recognized as an uncharacteristic phenomenon and important for understanding the actions of this person.
But on Saturday, July 5, 1969, the killer went on his bloody hunt again. Around 10:00 pm, he attacked a couple of young men who were sitting in a car parked in front of the Blue Rock Springs Golf Club in the town of Valleggio.
Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22, drove around 11:20 pm in her car to pick up Michael Renault Magow, 19 (Figure 2) and invited him to ride. Elizabeth was married, but this did not stop her from disposing of her personal time at her own discretion. Initially, the young people expected to meet around 6 pm to go to the cinema together in San Francisco, but then the meeting was postponed to a later time.

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magow.
After a little circle around the neighborhood, Darlene's car finally stopped on the green in front of the golf club and stood there with the lights off in the cabin and the radio working. Ferrin and Magow remained seated in the front seats.
After some time, three more cars parked on the same site. They were attended by members of one large company who entered the territory of the club. Further events, reconstructed from the stories of Michael Magow himself, looked like this: a few minutes later, after the company that had arrived in three cars left, a car drove into the parking lot with the lights off. She stopped three meters behind Elizabeth Ferrin's car, the person behind the wheel did not get out. The fact that he sat in the dark and did not leave the car seemed suspicious to Michael Magow. He asked his companion if she knew the driver of this car? Ferryn waved it off, "Oh, nothing special!" ("Oh, never mind!"). The young man subsequently admitted that he did not understand the context of what was said, but the fact that Elizabeth was not at all alarmed reassured him. Michael continued to talk to his companion, his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, and so he got a good look at the car with the lights out; he thought it was a brown 1959 Falcon. After standing for a few minutes, the car abruptly moved off and left the parking lot.
A few minutes later, the same brown car with its lights out returned to the parking lot. He stopped 4 meters behind and to the right of Darlene Ferrin's car. What happened next happened very quickly. The driver of the brown Falcon got out of the car with a flashlight in his hands and directed his beam at the young people, blinding them. The unidentified person approached Ferrin's car from the passenger side with large steps; Magow thought it was the policeman who was going to check their papers. But instead, the stranger opened fire with a pistol through the open window of the passenger side door. The first bullet hit Michael Magow at the base of the neck; the resulting blow threw the young man back between the seats, so hard that his legs reflexively shot up to the ceiling of the cabin. Therefore, the second bullet hit his right knee. Magow, slumped back, had the opportunity to observe through the glass of the back door the profile of the killer, who at that time fired five bullets at Elizabeth Ferrin. The woman groaned and rolled over on her right side. The killer coolly leaned over to the front door of the car and grabbed Darlene by the shoulder with his left hand, sitting her upright so that she leaned her head against the steering wheel. To do this, the killer actually had to crawl through the door window up to the waist. Considering that the young people were killed, the unknown criminal got out and slowly walked to his car. At this time, Magow screamed in rage. The killer phlegmatically returned back and fired two more rounds: a bullet into each of the victims. Then he again returned to his car, got into it and abruptly started off. Magow, who remained conscious even after three wounds, kicked the horn on the steering wheel with his left foot and pulled himself up to open the door. Having fallen out of the car, he could observe from under the bottom how the criminal's car, rapidly picking up speed, left the parking lot.

The parking lot in front of the Blue Rock Springs Golf Club is the site of Zodiac's second crime. Contemporary photography. The numbers indicate: 1) The far corner of the parking lot on the east side - the place where Darlene Ferrin's car was parked; 2) Traffic light at the exit from the parking lot; 3) Club building.

It is possible that, having heard the klaxon, the killer would have dared to return once more to finish off Magow for sure, but at the traffic light at the exit from the parking lot, he saw three teenagers who were returning to their cars. It is obvious that the offender did not dare to take risks, wasting time on finishing off Magou, but hurried to leave the crime scene as soon as possible.
The teenagers who ran up to Michael Magow, who was lying face down, rendered him all possible assistance. They were the first to alert the police about the crime committed near Blue Rock Springs. Vallegio Police Department duty officer Nancy Slover received a telephone message at 10:10 a.m. on July 5, 1969.
The next person to arrive at the crime scene was 22-year-old George Bryant, the club's caretaker's son. He heard the shots in the parking lot while in his bedroom and immediately rushed to check what was going on there? The house where he lived was 200 meters from the parking lot and it took the young man about a minute and a half to run. Since the police did not show up, he rushed to the club and called the police department a second time.
Desk officer Nancy Slover relayed information about the shooting in the parking lot outside the club to Sergeant John Lynch, but he did not find it necessary to go there. The sergeant could be understood: July 4 is the national holiday of the United States, Independence Day - during which many have fun with fireworks and firecrackers. Therefore, he did not consider the information about the shooting in the parking lot that night worthy of attention.
Only 10 minutes later, when George Bryant called the police, the sergeant realized that this was a real crime. Together with his partner Ed Rust, he went to the golf club, and at the same time ordered to call ambulances there. This delay in time can be called fatal without exaggeration!
When the police arrived at the scene of the crime, Michael Magow was conscious and able to speak coherently. His first words to Sergeant Lynch were: "White man ... Driving a car ... He got out, approached, lit a lantern, started shooting." Lynch tried to question Magow in more detail, and at that moment did not pay attention to Darlene Ferrin, who was struggling to say something. This can be called the second fatal mistake. When the sergeant finally turned his attention to the woman, she was already falling into an unconscious state, her speech became incoherent and only the words "I" and "mine" could be made out. Meanwhile, it was Darlene who could provide extremely valuable information that could shed light on the events of that July night.

Lying on the ground near the car, Michael Mago was waiting for the arrival of the police and was bleeding. He was lucky he survived and it was a real miracle, taking into account his blood loss and the risk of injury in the neck.

About half past midnight on July 5, one ambulance and five police cars arrived at the golf club. Thanks to the high professionalism of the doctors, Magow was quickly operated on and survived. The woman died in the ambulance. Her death was officially pronounced at 0.38 on July 5, 1969. An autopsy stated two penetrating gunshot wounds to the left hand of Darlene Ferrin, two to the right hand, as well as a blind wound to the left ventricle of the heart. It turns out that a woman with a bullet in her heart lived for more than half an hour from the moment she was wounded!
At 0:40 a.m., the phone rang at the Valleggio Police Department. The stranger calmly said the following: “I want to report a double homicide. If you walk a mile east from Columbus Boulevard to a public park, you will find guys in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm Luger. I also killed those guys last year. Goodbye." According to the instructions prescribing a certain algorithm of actions in case of receiving a message about a crime, duty officer Nancy Slover tried several times to interrupt the speaker with counter questions, but the anonymous person did not allow the conversation to drag on. He only began the next sentence with pressure in his voice, then paused, as if calming down and without emotion, he continued his speech. This manner of speaking, without deviating from the planned option, led Nancy to the idea that the unknown person was reading the text from a piece of paper. After finishing his brief monologue, the caller hung up. The duty officer, without lowering her handset, immediately turned on a special caller ID, which began to send call signals to the number from which the incoming call was made. The telephone on which the anonymous speaker spoke immediately began to ring continuously. This option was specifically designed to unmask the telephone used by the offender to send the message. The ringing phone was very quickly discovered by police patrols - literally three minutes after the anonymous call. It turned out that the caller used a telephone booth at the intersection of Springs Road and Tuolumn Street, literally thirty meters from the police headquarters.
Darlene Ferrin's husband, Dean, arrived home from the Caesar restaurant where he worked at around 0:45. Several friends were waiting for him there, as well as a housekeeper, with whom the Ferryns were going to celebrate Independence Day. Since his wife was not at home, Dean decided to bring her and went in his car in search of Darlene. Meanwhile, at 1300 Virginia Street, casual fun continued: friends gathered to launch fireworks from the lawn when the spouses appeared.

This house at 1300 Virginia Street in Valleggio was bought by the Ferrin family for $9,500 just two months before the tragedy, in May 1969.

But at 1:30 the phone rang at Ferrin's house. One of those present at the party, a certain Bill Lee picked up the phone. No one answered him, but Lee could clearly hear the heavy breathing on the other end of the line. After several questions from Lee, the caller finally spoke, "Why doesn't she stay home with her husband from time to time?" ("Why does "t she stay home with her husband once in a while?" - this question sounded verbatim in English.) Having said this, the caller hung up.
Such was the outline of the events of the dramatic night of July 4-5, 1969. The investigation was led by Vallegio Police Department officer Richard Hoffman.
What did the detectives have at their disposal?
The first official interrogation of Michael Magow began at 8:25 a.m. on July 5, that is, immediately after the young man recovered from the operation. The testimony of the young man was very important.
First of all, Magow was able to give a fairly detailed description of the shooter. According to him, he was a man about 1.73-1.75 m tall, of a dense build, heavy, but without excess fat, his weight could be about 80 kg or more. As a feature of the attacker's appearance, Michael Magow noted a round, wide face. The victim believed that the killer used a pistol with a silencer to disguise himself. This statement, however, was later refuted - all the other witnesses claimed that the sounds of the shots were of the usual loudness. George Bryant, for example, heard them 200 meters from the parking lot! Such a discrepancy in testimony should not be regarded as something unusual, since Magow experienced severe stress during the attack, and this could affect his perception of what was happening. In addition, he was in front of the muzzle of the weapon, and the assessment of the loudness of the shot is directly related to how the barrel is located: it is well known that for a person standing on the side, the shot seems louder than for someone who is in front.
In addition, Michael Magow was able to provide very important details. So, he confidently stated that the criminal's car was moving behind Darlene's car from the very moment she drove away from his - Magow - house. The young man couldn't tell how long Ferrin had been followed, but by the time he got into her Chevrolet Corvair, the woman was already being followed, and she knew it. It was in order to break away from annoying surveillance that she drove into the parking lot.
Magow stated that he had no doubt that Ferryn knew her killer, and he, accordingly, knew her. After the first series of shots, when the perpetrator leaned over Ferryn, who was lying on her side, to seat her straight, he - the perpetrator - called the woman affectionately diminutive "Dee". This short form of "Darlene" was used by her friends.
Magow's testimony, in the part where he described the circumstances of the attack, was confirmed by pathologists who examined the body of the deceased woman. Fragments of Michael Megow's blood and skin, torn out by the bullet that hit him, were found on her face on the right side. This detail fully confirmed all those features of the attack that Magow spoke about and served as additional proof of the accuracy of his story.
9 shell casings and 7 bullets fired from a 9mm pistol were found at the crime scene. Since the offender, according to Magow's testimony, did not reload the weapon, the pistol from which he fired could not have been an 8-round "Luger" (namely, the offender reported the "Luger" in his phone call). Most likely, he took advantage of the 9-round "Beretta". In his own phone call, the offender deliberately gave the police incorrect information, hoping to confuse the investigation with this rather primitive trick.
Michael Mago's claim that Darlene Ferryn knew the man behind the wheel of the brown Falcon seemed to the detectives not without merit. Without such an assumption, it was very difficult to explain the calmness of the woman at the appearance of a strange car without lights. In addition, when the police began interviewing the friends of the deceased, it quickly became clear that already a few months before her death, Darlene began to be subjected to systematic persecution of an unknown person. The woman complained about receiving offensive correspondence, as well as various unwanted phone calls. But most importantly, the deceased was afraid of someone.
So, Bobby Ramos, one of Darlene's friends, a waiter at the Terry restaurant, where, by the way, she herself worked, told the police about a curious conversation that took place on December 21, 1968 (i.e., the day after the murder of Jensen and Faraday on Lake German). Darlene told Ramos that day that she was very scared, that she knew the dead well and would never again appear on Lake Herman.
And on February 26, 1969, one of Darlene's friends was surprised to notice a car from which the house where Dean and Darlene lived at that moment was being monitored. Then they lived in the house of Sweeney (maiden name Darlene Ferrin), located at 560 Wallace Street. The man sitting in the car lit up, so that his face could be seen. The stranger had a round, broad, puffy face, curly light brown hair, and seemed to be middle-aged, that is, he looked clearly older than Dean and Darlene. When Dean Ferrin returned from work, he was told about the strange car and went outside to talk to the driver. He immediately started the engine and drove off.

He sent provocative letters to the press and the police with threats and ridicule, in which he called himself the nickname Zodiac. Investigators in Northern California after a series of mysterious murders began hunting for a serial killer. However, this has not been successful to this day.

We are trying to understand the history of this mysterious person and remember what we already know about him.

The first of the murders that the Zodiac committed was that of Betty Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman on a road near Vallejo, California on December 20, 1968. The students were sitting in a parked car when a car drove up to them, the driver of which forced them to get out. Faraday was killed first, while Jensen tried to escape but was shot in the back. The killer fled.

Victims of the Zodiac Killer

The first Zodiac murder was committed in California on 12/20/1968

Six months later, in July 1969, another murder was committed. Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magjot were also parked when someone drove up to their car. The man came out, shone his flashlight, and shot them both. Then he got into the car and drove away. Ferrin died, but Magjot survived and was able to tell about it.
The very next day, a man who called the police claimed he was the killer of "those guys" from the first murder, Betty Jensen and David Faraday.

On August 1, 1969, the editorial offices of various newspapers received letters with different parts of the same ciphertext. The killer demanded to print it, otherwise he threatened with new murders. A week later, another letter arrived. In it, the killer called his nickname - Zodiac.

Zodiac Letters

On August 8, the school teacher and his wife were able to decipher the message. It contained nothing about the Zodiac Maniac's identity, and only stated that he was "gathering slaves for the afterlife".

From the letters of the Zodiac: "I collect slaves for the afterlife"

On September 27, 1969, students Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepherd were having a picnic by Berryessa Lake. A man in a hood and black glasses approached them. He called himself a runaway convict and, at gunpoint, forced Cecilia to tie up Brian. He later tied up Cecilia, pulled out a knife, and stabbed the couple multiple times. Soon he called the police and himself mockingly reported the crime. Nearby, a father and son were fishing on the lake. They heard heartbreaking screams and called the police. Shepard succumbed to her injuries, but Hartnell survived.

On October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Stein was killed in his car by a passenger who pulled out the driver's wallet, took the car keys, and wiped all traces of himself with a piece of the driver's shirt. He was seen by three teenagers who compiled a description of the killer, but he was never caught.

A message from the Zodiac killer is on the car door

Zodiac sent threatening letters to the editor of an American newspaper

On October 14, 1969, an American daily newspaper received another letter, allegedly written by the Zodiac maniac. This time, as proof of his murders, he sent in a letter a piece of fabric cut off from the taxi driver's shirt. The letter contained threats of more murders of children. The Zodiac demanded that he be given an opportunity on a famous TV show to contact lawyer Melvin Bailey.

Failure of the Zodiac

On the night of March 22, 1970, seven months pregnant, Kathleen Jones was on her way to her mother in Modesto. She also brought her 10-year-old daughter with her. The driver behind her honked and flashed his headlights. Jones stopped, a man approached her and said that her rear wheel was loose and could come off. He offered to help, tweaked something, and then left. When Jones' car started moving, the wheel immediately came off. The assistant, who had not gone far, returned and politely offered to give them a ride. Kathleen and her daughter got into the car. The driver drove for more than an hour and did not stop, and then said that he was going to kill them. At the crossroads, Kathleen and her daughter jumped out of the car and hid in the field. The man tried to look for them, but gave up and left. Jones got to the police and confirmed that they were kidnapped by a man who looked like an identikit drawn from the description of the killer Paul Stein.

Confession

Letters with threats and ridicule from the Zodiac maniac continued to come to the newspapers. On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old student Cherie Bates was stabbed to death.

Murder scene Cherry Jo Bates

A month later, on November 29, 1966, printed letters with the title "Confession" were sent to the press and the police. The author was aware of the minutiae of the Bates murder near the college library, although the details of the crime were not released to the general public.

Investigative work on the Zodiac case

To find the Zodiac, the police checked thousands of suspects

The police checked more than a thousand suspects. According to circumstantial evidence, the role of the main suspect was most suitable for Arthur Allen. But the DNA analysis from the stamps on the envelopes sent by the Zodiac maniac and Allen's DNA did not match, there was no weighty evidence against him. In 2007, Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac, but the evidence he turned over to the FBI was not convincing either. In 2009, Deborah Perez claimed that the Zodiac Killer was her father, Guy Hendrickson, who died of cancer in 1993.

Photograph of the alleged perpetrator

For 40 years of searching, there have been many imitators and imitators of the Zodiac. His letters of police mismanagement are reminiscent of the confessions of Jack the Ripper. To this day, the Zodiac remains one of the most mysterious maniacs, whose identity has not been established.