After 51 years, a team of mathematicians has finally cracked a cipher sent by the infamous serial killer who called himself the Zodiac. The identity of the Zodiac killer is still unknown.
The serial killer claimed to have killed 37 people in total, but investigators have only confirmed seven victims, two of whom survived the attempt. He mainly targeted young couples, but he had also murdered a taxi driver once.
The Zodiac killer operated in Northern California, USA, from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Its five confirmed murders occurred between December 1968 and October 1969.
Confirmed murders
Lake Herman Road murders: The first victims of the Zodiac Killer were a high school couple, Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968. The two were on their first date and had driven up Lake Herman Road, just inside the city limits of Benicia, where they had parked the car. The killer had reportedly parked his car next to the couple’s, before shooting Faraday in the head and Jensen five times in the back as she fled.
Blue Rock Springs murder: On July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau stopped at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, 4 miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site. A car had pulled up next to theirs, only to drive off and come back in 10 minutes. The driver got out of the car with a flashlight and a gun before flashing his light at the couple and shooting them five times. As he returned to his car, he heard Mageau groan and shot him two more times.
Lake Berryessa murder: This was the first incident in which one of the victims had survived. Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard had gone to Lake Beryessa in Napa County on September 27, 1969. A man had approached them with a pistol, with a black hood over his head and sunglasses. Sun. The man claimed to be a fugitive inmate and demanded a car to escape to Mexico. He ordered Shepard to tie Hartnell before tying her up himself. Upon discovering that Hartnell was loose, he stabbed the couple, Hartnell six times, and Shepard 10, before drawing his patented cross-shaped symbol on Hartnell’s car and writing underneath it: “Vallejo / 12-20-68 / 7-4-69 / Sept. 27-69-6: 30 / with knife. “He then called the Napa County Sheriff’s Office from a pay phone, reported the crimes, and confessed before escaping the scene. Shepard he died two days after being taken to the hospital while Hartnell survived.
Presidio Heights murder: On October 11, 1969, the killer got into a taxi driven by Paul Stine in San Farncisco and requested to go to Washington and Maple streets in Presidio Heights. When Stine passed through Maple Street, he was shot in the head. The killer took his wallet and keys and tore part of his bloodstained shirt. Three teenagers witnessed the incident as it unfolded and called the police. Patrol officers answered the call and even saw him, but he escaped.
Zodiac Killer Cards
Three letters written by the Zodiac Killer were received on August 1, 1969 in the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The killer had taken credit for the Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs murders and each letter contained one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram in which the killer claimed to have revealed his identity.
On October 14, 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle received another letter from the killer along with part of Paul Stine’s shirt as proof that he was the killer.
On November 8, 1969, the killer sent a 340-word crypto that was recently solved after 51 years on December 5, 2020.
On November 9, 1969, the killer sent a seven-page letter describing how he was detained by two policemen and had even spoken to them after committing the murder of Paul Stine.
On December 20, 1969, a year after the Lake Herman Road murders, the Zodiac sent a letter to attorney Melvin Belli with another part of Paul Stine’s shirt, saying he wanted help.
The resolved letter
A team of code breakers, David Oranchak, Sam Blake, and Jarl Van Eycke, cracked the 340-word cryptogram on December 5 that the killer had sent to the San Francisco Chronicle on November 8, 1969. The letter read: “I hope that you’re having a lot of fun trying to catch me That wasn’t me on the TV show, which brings up a point about me. I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise sooner. Because now I have enough slaves to work for me, where everyone else has nothing when they get to paradise, so they are afraid of death. I am not afraid because I know that my new life will be easy in a paradisiacal death. “
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