The Z Files: Case Overview of the Zodiac Murders

"I think he'll prove to be a genius who got so far out he went over the edge."

Quandary, indeed.

In a case that is chock full of weird and maddeningly variable clues, nothing is really as it appears to be and the true motives of the Zodiac killer may forever remain the subject of endless debate and theorizing.

Evidence provided by amateur and professional researchers alike suggest that the mysterious Zodiac may have been the most perversely brilliant and consciously abstract serial murderer the world has ever known. Most certainly, he was/is a man possessed with a highly specialized and demented vision of what the world is really like.

Zodiac's unique reign of terror began in the late 60s in California's San Francisco Bay area. His exact body count is still disputed to this day as police officials and other investigators are unable to agree on the exact number of his victims. Verification of the number of actual murders and especially who was the first Zodiac victim is among the many areas of the case still being vigorously debated. There is corroboration among investigators that Zodiac murdered at least five people, but disagreement remains as to whether the 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, California may have actually been his first. (Additionally, many researchers believe that the 1963 murders of teenagers Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards on a beach near Lompoc, California may possibly have been a Zodiac crime).

To make the matter even more confusing, no one is sure if in fact Zodiac ever stopped killing. No hard data exists as to who may have been his last (or perhaps latest) victim. In his correspondence, the killer himself frequently included what appeared to be a running report of his total body count and that figure went as high as 37. But in a case where nothing can be taken for granted, it is possible that this "scorecard" might have been just another example of an attempt to confuse and confound the police on the part of the killer. (A letter received by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1978, allegedly from Zodiac, has some investigators theorizing that he may have continued his murder series much longer than initially presumed).

The killer's affinity for taunting the police is well documented. And in what can only be described as a remarkable maneuver to further confound the authorities, Zodiac claimed in one of his last verified letters that he planned to disguise his murders so that they would appear as ordinary deaths, burdening the police with the complex task of trying to figure out just exactly who he had actually killed.

On the surface, Zodiac's modus operandi seemed to indicate a killer who preferred to attack couples who were parked in their cars in isolated lover's lanes. But strangely, his last verified murder was of a lone male cab driver named Paul Stine whom he killed in a populated area in downtown San Francisco.

Debate is also still open as far as Zodiac's motives for the murders are concerned. According to one researcher, many of the Zodiac murders took place on important dates in relation to the astrological signs of the Zodiac; according to another, the postmarks on four of Zodiac's letters mailed in 1974, in the order of their mailing, form a giant "Z" when the points are connected and superimposed over a map of the Bay Area. "Times 17" author Gareth Penn has theorized that cabdriver Stine may have been chosen because Zodiac needed a victim whom he could place in a certain area at a certain time; all in order to complete the premeditated construction of a huge, connect-the-dots-to-the-murder-sites, geometric shape over the San Francisco Bay Area terrain based on a precise angular measurement that the killer himself supplied. (Zodiac as a creepy combination of maniacal mathematician and the most dangerous avant-garde visual artist who ever lived).

Officially the case remains unsolved as the killer has never been caught or positively identified. By all indications, Zodiac was/is a highly intelligent and unusually enigmatic killer. He sent dozens of letters, some containing thoroughly complex, coded messages and diagrams to area newspapers and the police. In these letters, "signed" with a distinctive crossed-circle symbol that was to become Zodiac's trademark, he detailed his crimes and taunted the police by threatening to commit future crimes. Zodiac also claimed that within his coded "ciphers" he had identified himself to the authorities.

The solutions to his codes evaded some of the best minds in the cryptography business, including federal law enforcement agencies and military encryption specialists. Included among the many cryptic letters that Zodiac sent to the press was a highly intricate and complex character cipher containing over 300 coded symbols. This cipher was eventually cracked by an amateur husband and wife team who saw it in the Sunday newspaper. Their solution was later verified by experts from the Office of Naval Intelligence. (Three of the four ciphers sent by Zodiac have never been decoded).

The fact that Zodiac actively communicated with and sought recognition from the public and the authorities who were trying so hard to catch him has to be one of the most brazen of all acts for a serial killer. That fact alone seems to indicate an intelligent, well organized killer who was supremely confident of his own ability to avoid detection.

It has been suggested that one of Zodiac's letters may have been purposely designed by the killer in order to make the police think that he was merely a conventional sexual predator when in fact his true motive was amazingly complex. (I am also inclined towards disagreement with the "sexual sadist" moniker regarding Zodiac as his crimes seemed to possess an almost asexual quality to them. In my opinion, he seemed to more closely resemble the profile of a modern terrorist than a person who was merely sexually motivated).

The presence of a rich and active fantasy life and preplanning is a central part of the theme in the FBI's method of profiling serial killers. Gareth Penn's theory about Zodiac's motivations depicts a killer whose master plan was of such high complexity and immense proportions that he may have anticipated many of his murders years in advance. If true, this would serve as another indication that Zodiac possessed a high level of intelligence and/or was obsessed with planning in a way that few of us can comprehend.

During the height of the Zodiac's crime wave, most of these observations were either lost on or invisible to law enforcement officials accustomed to investigating murders of a more garden variety. Later researchers are blessed with the luxury and benefit of hindsight. As one researcher puts it, ". . .there was no reason to suspect that the killer might have been driven by pathological motives far beyond those enumerated in his first letter."

Gareth Penn, after having uncovered what may have been Zodiac's motives for the murders, spoke of the killer in a sort of horrified awe:

"He was far from being a demented moron. If anything, he was a genius. He was coldly calculating and incredibly evil. I knew that everything he had done or written, as mad as it might appear, had to have a discoverable sense."

On the main page of his website, Zodiac researcher Jake Wark quotes sociology Professor Jack Levin in what has to be the quintessential summation regarding the Zodiac debate. Levin states that:

"The Zodiac case is of particular interest because it may have been the most cerebral murder case of all time. The case is full of unknowns. What appears to have been unprovoked catharsis may actually indicate a premeditated, cold-blooded act of instrumental aggression. Or does it? What passes for craziness may really have been a well-planned scheme to accomplish what the killer wanted. Or was it?"

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