The mysterious Zodiac Killer is a self-proclaimed murderer who remains unidentified to date. He has been linked to at least seven victims in San Francisco between 1968 and end of 1969. However, in his letters to the local press and the police, he claims to have committed thirty-seven killings. Out of the seven victims, only two did survive. His communication stopped in1974 after a spree of taunting the police for almost six years. In spite of rigorous search, the police never arrested anyone, and thus the case is open to date. Consequently, these mysterious murders remain a heated topic leading to numerous movies and books trying to explain it. This paper offers a critical analysis of the zodiac killer, in trying to elucidate how a serial killer is different from a homicide suspect, the background of the Zodiac case, how he chose his victims, the forensic input, his getaway methods and retrospection considerations.
Differences between a Serial Killer and Homicide Suspect
Serial killers do not take prestige publicly of committing murders but take the back row and watch as the police solve the cases. Usually, they tend to keep away from the limelight until the police solve the case (Guillen, 2002). Conversely, the Zodiac Killer does the opposite. He took upon himself to inform the police that he committed the murders. Also, through his letters, he informed the San Francisco of his hideous acts and threatened to commit more murder. Moreover, the zodiac killer is different from normal homicide suspects in that each of his crimes lacks motive. Each serial killer committing murder always has a motive behind their acts (Morton, Tillman & Gaines, 2014) . On the contrary, the Zodiac killings had no clear motivation even though he took credit for the murders he committed. Another unique feature is that he varies his weapon of murder as well as the victims’ profile. For a serial killer, the murder weapon remains unique as well as the crime pattern (Morton, Tillman & Gaines, 2014) . In the Zodiac case, the weapon of murder varied from using a gun to a knife. Also, his victims were young couples, sometimes teenagers and even a cab driver. Lastly, unlike most homicide suspects who don’t necessarily give out their names and signature, the killer identifies himself as the Zodiac and leaves a circle with a cross in his letters and the car of the victims as a signature.
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Background of the Zodiac Case
The Zodiac case date back to the 1960’s and 1970’s where a serial killer murdered at least five documented victims. The serial killer gave himself the name Zodiac Killer and remains at large to date. On 20 th December 1968, his debut as a serial killer started with the murder of Betty Lou Jansen and David Faraday (Harper, 2018). The pair was attacked in their car by a lone gunman on the Lake Herman Road. The police ruled it as a random homicide since no witnesses were there. He went silent for a while till July 1969 when he resurfaced in Vallejo and assaulted Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. Darlene succumbed to the gunshot injuries while Mageau survived (Harper, 2018). On 27 th September the same year, he attacked Cecilia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell on the shores of Lake Berryessa. The attack left Cecilia dead while Hartnell was badly injured. Approximately two weeks later, on 11 th October 1969, cab driver Paul Lee Stine was killed by the Zodiac killer in San Francisco. He committed his last murder in 1974 before going silent to date. Police stopped investigating the Zodiac Killer case in 2004.
Criteria for Choosing Victims
Although the Zodiac Killer did not outline a specific criterion in choosing his victims, his killings followed a particular pattern. Firstly, in his earlier crimes, it is clear that he mainly assaulted couples of ages seventeen to twenty-two who were in a romantic relationship. For example, in December 1968, he assaulted 16-year-old Betty Lou Jansen and 17-year-old David Faraday. In July 1969 his victims were 22-year-old Darlene Ferrin and 19-year-old Michael Mageau. In September 1969, Zodiac’s victims were a young couple of Cecilia Shepard (22 years) and Bryan Hartnell (20 years) (Butterfield, 2017). Secondly, all the victims all were killed after dusk or at night. Additionally, the Zodiac killer ambushed the victims who happened to be alone and did not know being stalked. Also, the Zodiac Killer seemingly preferred victims in open streets or car parks accessible by major highways (Butterfield, 2017).
Forensic Input into the Zodiac Case
After the committing his second murder, the Zodiac Killer claimed responsibility for the murder via a letter to three newspaper outlets in San Francisco. The police departments in Napa and San Francisco intensified their search for possible leads that would lead to the apprehending of the killer. The police investigators mainly focused on the survivor’s description of the assailant and use of the letters the suspect emailed them. With the murders piling, the police asked for assistance from FBI to help narrow the scope of the search. Specifically, behavior analysts helped come up with a behavioral profile although it did not help identify the Zodiac Killer. Eventually, the police ran out of leads, and the FBI sought out the expertise of a psycholinguistic to develop a psychological profile ("The Zodiac Killer", 2018) .
The Zodiac: Avoiding Capture and Hindsight Considerations
The Zodiac Killer case received immense media attention since the killer’s letter was published in front pages of the major newspapers. The media frenzy created an environment full of conflicting information. Though the information was a lot in social media, genuine evidence was very scarce thus creating it difficult for San Francisco police in zeroing in on the enormous number of suspects. Additionally, the Zodiac Killer cleverly chose isolated areas with no witnesses in order to execute his crimes. Moreover, he cunningly distracted the police from identifying his anonymity by taunting them with letters that they had to decipher. Also, it was hard for forensic to conclusively identify him via fingerprint and DNA analysis since such technology was in its initial stages of development. On the contrary, after terrorizing the people of Northern California and being at large for approximately fifty years, the police need to revisit the fingerprint and saliva DNA used to enclose the letters and analyze and check using current technology against public DNA databases so that either the identity of the killer or his relatives can be traced. Already the technology has been used successively to apprehend the seventy-two years old Golden State serial killer, Joseph James DeAngelo ("How Forensic Science Cracked the Golden State Killer Case", 2018) .
Conclusion
Overall, the Zodiac killer case presented fear and terror among the people of Northern California. Although he had no specific criterion, he followed a unique that targeted individual between the age of sixteen and twenty-nine years who were in love. The FBI forensic experts assisted in creating both behavioral and psychological profile that reduced the scope of the search of the Zodiac Killer. Additionally, due to the scarce evidence and overwhelming false information in the media about the Zodiac Killer, he was able to dodge police arrests by sending them on a goose search. Moreover, he ensured that the police never identified his true identity by use of ciphers in his letters. Though he was able to dodge the police for five decades, the police can still identify him by use of the fingerprints collected from the car door of Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. Lastly, saliva DNA used to enclose the letters can be used to point out his true identity by checking the DNA against the public databases.
References
Butterfield, M. (2017). The Zodiac Killer: A Timeline. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/the-zodiac-killer-a-timeline
Guillen, T. (2002). Serial killer communiqués: Helpful or hurtful. Journal of Criminal Justice
and Popular Culture , 9 (2), 55-68.
Harper, J. (2018). The Zodiac Killer | Historic Mysteries. Retrieved from https://www.historicmysteries.com/the-zodiac-killer/
How Forensic Science Cracked the Golden State Killer Case. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.criminaljusticeprograms.com/articles/how-forensic-science-cracked-the-golden-state-killer-case/
Morton, R. J., Tillman, J. M., & Gaines, S. J. (2014). Serial murder: Pathways for investigations . Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice.
The Zodiac Killer. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/march/zodiac_030207
