The Zodiac Killer: Dear Editor Pt. 2

It is a clear Saturday afternoon at Lake Berryessa in September 1969. Two college students are picnicking on a small spit of land when a man steps out of the tree line. He is wearing a homemade black executioner's hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eyeholes and a white crossed-circle symbol drawn on the chest. He says he is an escaped convict who needs their car. He has them tie each other up. Then he pulls a twelve-inch knife. Afterward, he walks to their car, writes the dates of his crimes on the door in felt-tip, drives to a payphone, and calmly calls the police to report what he has done. He is never identified. This is only his third attack.

This week on Mugshot Mysteries, Kathryn and Gabriel begin their four-part series on the most famous unsolved case in American history: the Zodiac Killer. Part 1, "The Crosshairs," builds the world this killer operated in and walks every confirmed attack.

We start with the backdrop, because you cannot understand the Zodiac without 1968 and 1969. A country breaking open: Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the chaos of the Chicago convention, Nixon's law-and-order presidency, and a Bay Area that was simultaneously the capital of the counterculture and a pressure cooker of radical politics. Into a year that held both the moon landing and the Manson murders, both Woodstock and Altamont, a killer arrived who understood something distinctly modern: that the spectacle was the point.

Then we walk the four confirmed attacks in order. Lake Herman Road in December 1968, where seventeen-year-old David Faraday and sixteen-year-old Betty Lou Jensen were killed on their first date. Blue Rock Springs on the Fourth of July 1969, where Darlene Ferrin was murdered and Michael Mageau survived, after which the killer phoned police and claimed both crimes himself. Lake Berryessa and the hooded attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. And Presidio Heights in October 1969, the murder of cab driver Paul Stine, where two officers may have stood face to face with the Zodiac and let him walk because a dispatcher's error sent them looking for the wrong man.

We close on the moment everything changes. Less than a month after Blue Rock Springs, three newspapers receive a third of a coded message each, and soon after, six words that name him: "This is the Zodiac speaking." A killer who chose his own name, designed his own symbol, and turned his crimes into a production. What he does with that audience is Part 2.

This is Part 1 of our four-part Zodiac series. New episodes drop every Mugshot Monday. Search Mugshot Mysteries wherever you listen.

SOURCES:

Case records and reporting from the Solano County Sheriff's Office, the Vallejo Police Department, the Napa County Sheriff's Office, and the San Francisco Police Department concerning the Lake Herman Road (December 20, 1968), Blue Rock Springs (July 4, 1969), Lake Berryessa (September 27, 1969), and Presidio Heights (October 11, 1969) attacks; the surviving accounts of Michael Mageau and Bryan Hartnell; contemporaneous reporting on victims David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Darlene Ferrin, Cecelia Shepard, and Paul Stine; the eyewitness account and dispatch error involving SFPD officers Donald Fouke and Eric Zelms; the July 31, 1969 three-newspaper mailing of the 408-character cipher and the August 1969 letter containing the phrase "This is the Zodiac speaking," held by the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Vallejo Times-Herald; the authenticated Zodiac letters and crossed-circle symbol; Graysmith, R., Zodiac, 1986; Fincher, D., Zodiac, 2007; and standard historical sources on 1968 and 1969 in the United States, including the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the 1969 Apollo 11 landing, the Manson Family murders, the Woodstock festival, and the Altamont Free Concert.

DISCLAIMER:

Content warning: This episode describes multiple homicides, including the killings of teenagers, knife and firearm violence, and graphic crime detail, and references other violent events of the era. Please take care while listening, and consider stepping away if any of this is difficult. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.

The Mugshot Mysteries podcast is independently produced and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any individual, agency, author, publisher, or production referenced in this episode, including any law enforcement agency, the FBI, the named newspapers, or any film named.

The Zodiac case is officially unsolved, and no person has ever been charged or convicted. Our account is reconstructed from publicly available sources, including law enforcement records, survivor accounts, the authenticated letters, contemporaneous journalism, and published histories. Details, including timelines, weapon identifications, and victim-count claims, vary across sources and across witness recollections recorded over many years, and we have tried to flag uncertainty where it exists. The killer's own claimed victim totals are widely regarded as inflated and are not established fact.

The broader historical and cultural events described, including the political assassinations, protests, and other crimes of 1968 and 1969, are provided as context for the era and are not asserted to be connected to the Zodiac. References to any person, living or deceased, including victims, survivors, officers, and others named, are made in the context of documented history and public records and are not intended to defame, harass, or cause harm. The commentary and interpretations offered by the hosts are their own opinions and do not constitute statements of established fact or legal conclusions. Any third-party names and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners and are referenced under fair use for purposes of commentary, criticism, and reporting. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.