Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery film^[2] directed by David Fincher and based on Robert Graysmith's non-fiction book of the same name. The Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. joint production stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr. and Chloë Sevigny.

Zodiac tells the story of the hunt for a notorious serial killer known as "Zodiac" who killed in and around the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, leaving several victims in his wake and taunting police with letters and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of San Francisco's most infamous unsolved crimes.

Fincher, screenwriter James Vanderbilt, and producer Brad Fischer spent 18 months conducting their own investigation and research into the Zodiac murders. During filming, Fincher employed the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.

Reviews for the film were highly positive; however, it did not perform strongly at the North American box office, grossing only USD $33 million. It performed better in other parts of the world, earning $51 million. This brought its box office total to $84 million, with a budget of $65 million spent on its production.

Plot[link]

The film opens on July 4, 1969, with the Zodiac killer’s second attack, the shooting of Darlene Ferrin (Ciara Hughes) and Mike Mageau (Lee Norris) at a lovers' lane in Vallejo, California. Mageau survives while Ferrin dies from her injuries.

One month later, a letter written by the Zodiac arrives at the San Francisco Chronicle. Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) is a Chronicle crime reporter. Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a political cartoonist there. The newspaper receives encrypted letters that the killer sends, taunting the police. Because of Graysmith's status as a cartoonist, he is not taken seriously by Avery and the editors and is excluded from the initial details about the killings despite his interest in the case. In particular, he is drawn to the encrypted code that is included with the letters and is given access to one. When he is able to crack one of the codes and makes several correct guesses about the killer's actions, Avery begins sharing information with him. While at a bar together drinking Aqua Velvas, which Avery initially makes fun of Graysmith for, they discuss the coded letters.

The Zodiac killer attacks again, stabbing Bryan Hartnell (Patrick Scott Lewis) and Cecelia Shepard (Pell James) at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. Shepard dies as a result of the attack, while Hartnell survives. Soon afterward, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio Heights district. San Francisco police detectives Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) are assigned to the case, liaising with other detectives such as Jack Mulanax (Elias Koteas) in Vallejo and Ken Narlow (Donal Logue) in Napa. The killer, or someone posing as him, continues to toy with authorities by speaking on the phone with celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli (Brian Cox) when he makes an appearance on a television talk show. Avery and Graysmith form an alliance, delving deeper into the case.

In 1971, Toschi, Armstrong and Mulanax question Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), a potential suspect in the case. However, a handwriting expert (Philip Baker Hall) insists that Allen did not write the Zodiac letters. Avery receives a new letter threatening his life. He becomes increasingly paranoid and turns to drugs and alcohol. At one point, he shares information with a rival police force, angering Toschi and Armstrong.

By 1975, Avery leaves the Chronicle. Armstrong quits the homicide division, and Toschi is demoted for supposedly forging a Zodiac letter. Graysmith, meanwhile, continues his own in-depth investigation, interviewing witnesses and police detectives involved in the case. Obsessing over the unsolved case, he begins receiving anonymous phone calls with heavy breathing (on the night of Ferrin's death, Graysmith discovered that someone prank-called the victim's family and did the same thing). Because of his submersion in the case, Graysmith loses his job and his wife Melanie (Chloë Sevigny) leaves him, taking their children with her.

Graysmith persistently contacts Toschi about the Zodiac murders and eventually impresses the veteran detective with his knowledge of the case. While Toschi cannot directly give Graysmith access to the information he discovered over the years, he provides contacts of other police departments in counties where the other murders occurred. The cartoonist acquires more information that points to Allen as the Zodiac, and although circumstantial evidence seems to indicate his guilt, the hard evidence, such as fingerprints and handwriting samples, exonerate him.

In December 1983, a full 14 years after the original slayings, Graysmith tracks Allen down to a Vallejo hardware store, where he is employed as a sales clerk. After Allen asks if he can help Graysmith with anything, they stare at each other for a moment with blank expressions before Graysmith simply replies with a "No", and leaves the hardware store.

Eight years later, in 1991, Mageau (Jimmi Simpson) meets with authorities and identifies Allen from a police mugshot.

Final title cards, however, inform the audience that Allen died in 1992 before he could be questioned further by police, and that DNA tests performed in 2002 did not match samples gathered from the Zodiac letters.

Cast[link]

Jake Gyllenhaal, who portrays Robert Graysmith

Mark Ruffalo, who portrays Inspector Dave Toschi

Robert Downey Jr., who portrays Paul Avery

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith
• Mark Ruffalo as SFPD Inspector David Toschi
• Robert Downey, Jr. as Paul Avery
• Anthony Edwards as SFPD Inspector William Armstrong
• Brian Cox as Melvin Belli
• John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen
• Chloë Sevigny as Melanie Graysmith
• Elias Koteas as Sgt. Jack Mulanax
• Dermot Mulroney as Captain Marty Lee
• Donal Logue as Ken Narlow
• John Getz as Templeton Peck
• John Terry as Charles Thieriot
• Philip Baker Hall as Sherwood Morrill
• Adam Goldberg as Duffy Jennings
• Zach Grenier as Mel Nicolai
• Ciara Hughes as Darlene Ferrin
• Lee Norris as young Michael Mageau
• Jimmi Simpson as Michael Mageau
• Pell James as Cecelia Shepard
• Patrick Scott Lewis as Bryan Hartnell
• James LeGros as Officer George Bawart
• Charles Fleischer as Bob Vaughn
• Clea DuVall as Linda del Buono

Production[link]

Development[link]

David Fincher, director of Zodiac

James Vanderbilt had read Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac in 1986 while in high school. Years later, he became a screenwriter, met Graysmith and became fascinated by the folklore surrounding the Zodiac killer and attempted to translate that into his script.^[3] Vanderbilt had endured bad experiences with the endings of his scripts being changed and wanted more control over his material. He pitched his adaptation of Zodiac to Mike Medavoy and Bradley J. Fischer from Phoenix Pictures, by agreeing to write a spec script if he could have more creative control over it.

Graysmith first met Fischer and Vanderbilt at the premiere of Paul Schrader's film, Auto Focus, which was based on Graysmith's 1991 book about the life and death of actor Bob Crane. A deal was made and they optioned the rights to Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked when they became available after languishing at Disney for nearly a decade.

David Fincher was their first choice to direct based on his work on Seven. Originally, he was going to direct an adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel, The Black Dahlia (later filmed by Brian De Palma), and envisioned a five-hour, $80 million mini-series with movie stars.^[4] When the studio backing it did not agree, the director left the project and moved on to Zodiac. He was given Vanderbilt’s 158-page screenplay in late 2003.

Fincher was drawn to this story because he spent much of his childhood in San Anselmo in Marin County during the initial Zodiac murders. "I remember coming home and saying the highway patrol had been following our school buses for a couple weeks now. And my dad, who worked from home, and who was very dry, not one to soft-pedal things, turned slowly in his chair and said: 'Oh yeah. There’s a serial killer who has killed four or five people, who calls himself Zodiac, who’s threatened to take a high-powered rifle and shoot out the tires of a school bus, and then shoot the children as they come off the bus.'"^[5] For Fincher as a young boy, the killer "was the ultimate boogeyman".^[5] The director was also drawn to the unresolved ending of Vanderbilt's screenplay because it felt true to real life, as cases are not always solved.^[6]

Fincher realized that his job was to dispel the mythic stature the case had taken on over the years by clearly defining what was fact and what was fiction.^[7] He told Vanderbilt that he wanted the screenplay re-written but with additional research done from the original police reports. Fincher found that there was a lot of speculation and hearsay and wanted to interview people directly involved in the case in person to see if he believed what they were telling him. Fincher did this because he felt a burden of responsibility in making a film that convicted someone posthumously.^[7]

The director, Fischer and Vanderbilt spent months interviewing witnesses, family members of suspects, retired and current investigators, the only two surviving victims, and the mayors of San Francisco and Vallejo. Fincher said, "Even when we did our own interviews, we would talk to two people. One would confirm some aspects of it and another would deny it. Plus, so much time had passed, memories are affected and the different telling of the stories would change perception. So when there was any doubt we always went with the police reports".^[7] During the course of their research, Fincher and Fischer hired Gerald McMenamin, an internationally known forensic linguistics expert and professor of linguistics at California State University Fresno, to analyze the Zodiac’s letters. Unlike document examiners in the 1970s, he focused on the language of the Zodiac and how he formed his sentences in terms of word structure and spelling.^[5]

Fincher and Fischer approached Sony Pictures Entertainment to finance the film but talks with them fell through because the studio wanted the running time fixed at two hours and fifteen minutes. They then approached other studios, and Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures agreed to share the production costs and were willing to be more flexible about the running time. The film was a tough sell to the studios and the executives were concerned about the heavy amount of dialogue and the lack of action scenes, as well as the inconclusive nature of the story arc.^[8]

When Dave Toschi met Fincher, Fischer and Vanderbilt, the director told him that he was not going to make another Dirty Harry (which had been loosely based on the Zodiac case). Toschi was impressed with their knowledge of the case and afterwards, he realized that he had learned a lot from them.^[7] In addition, the Zodiac’s two surviving victims, Mike Mageau and Bryan Hartnell were consultants on the film.

Alan J. Pakula’s film All the President's Men was the template for Zodiac as Fincher felt that it was also "the story of a reporter determined to get the story at any cost and one who was new to being an investigative reporter. It was all about his obsession to know the truth".^[7] And like in that film, he did not want to spend time telling the back story of any of the characters, focusing, instead, on what they did in regards to the case."^[9]

Vanderbilt was drawn to the notion that Graysmith went from a cartoonist to one of the most significant investigators of the case. He pitched the story as: "What if Garry Trudeau woke up one morning and tried to solve the Son of Sam"?^[7] As he worked on the script, he became friends with Graysmith and consulted him often. The filmmakers were able to get the cooperation of the Vallejo Police Department (one of the key investigators at the time) because they hoped that the movie would inspire someone to come forward with a crucial bit of information that might help solve this decades-old cold case.

Casting[link]

While researching the film, Fincher considered Jake Gyllenhaal to play Robert Graysmith. According to the director, "I really liked him in Donnie Darko and I thought, 'He’s an interesting double-sided coin. He can do that naive thing but he can also do possessed.'"^[10] In preparation for his role Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior.^[7]

Initially, Mark Ruffalo was not interested in the project but Fincher wanted him to play David Toschi. He met with the actor and told him that he was rewriting the screenplay. "I loved what he was saying and loved where he was going with it", the actor remembers.^[11] For research, he read every report on the case and read all the books on the subject. Ruffalo met Toschi and found out that he had "perfect recall of the details and what happened when, where, who was there, what he was wearing. He always knew what he was wearing. I think it is seared into who he is and it was a big deal for him."^[11]

When casting the role of Inspector William Armstrong, Fincher said he thought of Anthony Edwards because "I knew I needed the most decent person I could find, because he would be the balance of the movie. In a weird way, this movie wouldn’t exist without Bill Armstrong. Everything we know about the Zodiac case, we know because of his notes. So in casting the part, I wanted to get someone who is totally reliable."^[9]

Originally, Gary Oldman was to play Melvin Belli but "he went to a lot of trouble, they had appliances, but just physically it wasn't going to work, he just didn't have the girth", Graysmith remembers.^[12] Brian Cox was cast instead.

The finished film has an unusually large cast of characters. In a May 15, 2007, film review, Variety noted, "Performances and casting are impeccable down to the smallest role."

Principal photography[link]

Fincher decided to use the digital Thomson Viper Filmstream camera to shoot the film. Fincher had previously used the Thomson Viper over the past three years on commercials for Nike, Hewlett Packard, Heineken and Lexus which allowed him to get used to and experiment with the equipment. Working with digital cameras allowed him to watch what he had just shot in full resolution, experience less equipment failure than with film, and thereby eliminated things like film negative damage, and reduce costs in post-production. He was able to use inexpensive desktop software like Final Cut Pro to edit Zodiac. Fincher remarked in an interview, "Dailies almost always end up being disappointing, like the veil is pierced and you look at it for the first time and think, 'Oh my god, this is what I really have to work with.' But when you can see what you have as it's gathered, it can be a much less neurotic process."^[13]

Zodiac was the first production to employ the Filmstream camera in its native Filmstream mode, which records an uncompressed video stream, allowing for exceptional quality.

Contrary to popular belief, Zodiac was not shot entirely digitally; traditional high-speed film cameras were used for slow-motion murder sequences.^[14] Michael Mann's Miami Vice, as well as his previous effort, Collateral (a co-production of Paramount and its current sister studio DreamWorks, and which also starred Mark Ruffalo), were also shot with the camera but mixed in other formats.^[15] Once shot on the Viper camera, the files were converted to DVCPro HD 1080i and edited in Final Cut Pro. This was for editorial decisions only. During the later stages of editing the original uncompressed 1080p 4:4:4 RAW digital source footage was assembled automatically to maintain an up-to-date digital "negative" of the movie. Other digital productions like Superman Returns or Apocalypto recorded to the HDCAM tape format.

Fincher had previously worked with director of photography Harris Savides on Seven (he shot the opening credits) and The Game. Savides loved the script but realized, "there was so much exposition, just people talking on the phone or having conversations. It was difficult to imagine how it could be done in a visual way."^[16] Fincher and Savides did not want to repeat the look of Seven. The director's approach to Zodiac was to create a look mundane enough that audiences would accept that what they were watching was the truth. The filmmakers also did not want to glamorize the killer or tell the story through his eyes. "That would have turned the story into a first-person-shooter video game. We didn’t want to make the sort of movie that serial killers would want to own," Fincher said.^[16]

Savides' first experience with the Viper Filmstream camera was shooting a Motorola commercial with Fincher. From there, he used it on Zodiac. Fincher wanted to make sure that the camera was more inclined towards film production so that the studio would be more comfortable about using it on a project with large budget. To familiarize himself with the camera, he "did as many things ‘wrong’ as I possibly could. I went against everything I was supposed to do with the camera."^[16] Savides felt comfortable with the camera after discovering its limitations.

Fincher and Savides used the photographs of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore's work from the early Seventies, and actual photos from the Zodiac police files.^[16] The two men worked hard to capture the look and feel of the period as Fincher admitted, "I suppose there could have been more VW bugs but I think what we show is a pretty good representation of the time. It is not technically perfect. There are some flaws but some are intended."^[7] The San Francisco Chronicle was built in the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los Angeles. A building on nearby Spring Street subbed for the Hall of Justice and the San Francisco Police Department. Production began on September 12, 2005. The filmmakers shot for five weeks in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of the time in Los Angeles, bringing the film in under budget, wrapping in February 2006. The film took 115 days to shoot.^[7]

Some of the cast was not happy with Fincher’s exacting ways and perfectionism. Some scenes required upwards of 70 takes. Gyllenhaal was frustrated by the director’s methods and commented in an interview, "You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there is a stopping point. There’s a point at which you go, ‘That’s what we have to work with.’ But we would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where’s the risk?"^[5] Downey said, "I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote him, that I was going to give him what he wanted. I think I’m a perfect person to work for him, because I understand gulags".^[5] Fincher responded, "If an actor is going to let the role come to them, they can’t resent the fact that I’m willing to wait as long as that takes. You know, the first day of production in San Francisco we shot 56 takes of Mark and Jake – and it’s the 56th take that’s in the movie".^[8] Ruffalo also backed up his director’s methods when he said, "The way I see it is, you enter into someone else’s world as an actor. You can put your expectations aside and have an experience that’s new and pushes and changes you, or hold onto what you think it should be and have a stubborn, immovable journey that’s filled with disappointment and anger."^[5]

Visual effects[link]

Digital Domain handled the bulk of the movie's 200+ effects shots, including pools of blood and bloody fingerprints found at crime scenes. For the murder of Cecelia Shepard that took place at Lake Berryessa, blood seepage and clothing stains were added in post-production. Fincher did not want to shoot the blood with practical effects because wiping everything down after every take would take too long so the murder sequences were done with CG blood.^[17]

CG was also used to recreate the San Francisco neighborhood at Washington and Cherry Streets where cab driver Paul Stine was killed. The area had changed significantly over the years and residents didn't want the murder to be re-created in their neighborhood, so Fincher shot the six-minute sequence on a bluescreen stage. Production designer Donald Burt gave the visual effects team detailed drawings of the intersection as it was in 1969. Photographs of every possible angle of the area were shot with a high-resolution digital camera, allowing the effects crew to build computer-based geometric models of homes that were then textured with period facades. 3-D vintage police motorcycles, squad cars, a firetruck and street lights were added to the final shot.^[17]

The film's establishing shots of the Bay Area were created by Matte World Digital. The "helicopter shots" of the fireworks-laden sky over Vallejo, the San Francisco waterfront, and the cab driving through San Francisco were CG, as was the shot looking down from the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.^[18]

A time-lapse sequence showing the building of the Transamerica Pyramid was a hybrid of 2D and 3D matte painting. The shot was initially created using reference photos of the Pyramid taken from the rooftop of Francis Ford Coppola's Sentinel Building. MWD's visual effects supervisor, Craig Barron, then researched the Pyramid's original construction techniques for accuracy in the animated sequence.^[18]

The art for the Zodiac poster was also provided by Matte World Digital at Fincher's request. Barron and his crew shot digital photos of the city skyline at night and composited them with a stock photo taken from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Layers of fog were added for the final image.^[19]

Soundtrack[link]

Originally, Fincher envisioned the film’s soundtrack to be composed of 40 cues of vintage music spanning the nearly three decades of the Zodiac story. With music supervisor George Drakoulias, the director searched for the right pop songs that reflected the era, including Three Dog Night’s cover of "Easy to Be Hard" because "it’s so ingrained in my psyche as being what the summer of ’69 sounded like in northern California".^[10] Initially, Fincher did not envision an original score for the film, but rather a tapestry of sound design, vintage songs of the period, sound bites and clips of KFRC (an AM radio giant) and "Mathews Top of the Hill Daly City" (home of a prominent hi-fi dealership of the time).^[20] The director told the studio that he did not need a composer and would buy various songs instead. They agreed, but as the film developed, sound designer and longtime Fincher collaborator Ren Klyce felt there were places in some scenes that could have used music.^[20] So, he inserted music from one of his favorite soundtracks, David Shire’s score for The Conversation and All the President's Men. Fincher was eager to work with Shire as All the President’s Men was one of his favorite films and one of the primary cinematic influences on Zodiac. He reminded Klyce of the deal that he had made with the studio.

Klyce got in touch with sound and film editor Walter Murch who worked on The Conversation and he got Klyce in touch with Shire. Fincher sent the composer a copy of the script and flew him in for a meeting and a screening in L.A. At first, Fincher only wanted 15–20 minutes of score and for it to be all based on solo piano. As Shire worked on it and incorporated textures of a Charles Ives piece called, "The Unanswered Question" and Conversation-based cues, he found that he had 37 minutes of original music. The orchestra Shire assembled consisted of musicians from the San Francisco Opera and S.F. ballet. Shire said, "There are 12 signs of the Zodiac and there is a way of using atonal and tonal music. So we used 12 tones, never repeating any of them but manipulating them".^[7] He used specific instruments to represent the characters: the trumpet for Toschi, the solo piano for Graysmith and the dissonant strings for the Zodiac killer.^[7]

Release[link]

An early version of Zodiac ran three hours and eight minutes. It was supposed to be released in time for Academy Award consideration but Paramount felt that the film ran too long and asked Fincher to make changes. Contractually, he had final cut and once he reached a length he felt was right, the director refused to make any further cuts.^[9] To trim down the film to two hours and forty minutes, he had to cut a two-minute blackout montage of "hit songs signaling the passage of time from Joni Mitchell to Donna Summer." It was replaced with a title card that reads, "Four years later."^[5] Another cut scene that test screening audiences did not like involved "three guys talking into a speakerphone" to get a search warrant as Toschi and Armstrong talk to SFPD Capt. Marty Lee (Dermot Mulroney) about their case against suspect Arthur Leigh Allen.^[21] Fincher said that this scene would probably be put back on the DVD.^[22]

To promote Zodiac, Paramount posted on light-poles in major cities original sketches of the actual Zodiac killer with the words, "In theaters March 2nd," at the bottom.^[23] The film was screened in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival^[24] on May 17, 2007 with Fincher and Gyllenhaal participating in a press conference afterwards.^[25] The director's cut of Zodiac was given a rare screening at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City on November 19, 2007 with Fincher being interviewed by film critic Kent Jones afterwards.^[26]

Home media[link]

The DVD for Zodiac was released on July 24, 2007^[27] and is available widescreen or fullscreen, presented in anamorphic widescreen, and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. There are no extra materials included.^[28]

According to David Prior, producer of the subsequent two-disc special edition, the initial bare bones edition "was only reluctantly agreed to by Fincher because I needed more time on the bonus material. The studio was locked into their release date, so Fincher allowed that version to be released first. It had nothing to do with Fincher 'double dipping his own movie before it even makes it to stores' and everything to do with buying more time for the special edition".^[29] He stated that the theatrical cut would only be available on the single-disc edition. Prior elaborated further: "Nobody wants fans feeling like they're being taken advantage of, and I know that double-dipping creates that impression. That's why it was so important to me that consumers be told there was another version coming. In this case it really was a rock-and-a-hard place situation, and delaying the second release was done strictly for the benefit of the final product... But this is a very ambitious project, easily the most far-reaching I've ever worked on, and owing largely to studio snafus that I can't really elaborate on, I didn't have enough time to do it properly. Thus Fincher bought me the extra time by agreeing to a staggered release, which I'm very grateful for".^[30] In its first week, rentals for the DVD earned $6.7 million.^[31]

The two-disc director's cut DVD and HD DVD were released on January 8, 2008, with its UK release on Blu-ray and DVD announced for September 29, 2008. Disc 1 features, in addition to a longer cut of the film, an audio commentary by Fincher and a second by Gyllenhaal, Downey, Fischer, Vanderbilt, and Ellroy. Disc 2 includes a trailer, a "Zodiac Deciphered" documentary, a "Visual Effects of Zodiac" featurette, previsualization split-screen comparisons for the Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco murder sequences, a "This is the Zodiac Speaking" featurette, and a "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" featurette. Other extras apparently originally intended for the set, including TV spots and featurettes on "Digital Workflow", "Linguistic Analysis", "Jeopardy Surface: Geographic Profiling" (Dr. Kim Rossmo's geographic profile of the Zodiac), and "The Psychology of Aggression: Behavioral Profiling" (Special Agent Sharon Pagaling-Hagan's behavioral profile of the Zodiac) were omitted. However, the latter three featurettes were made available on the film's website.^[32] This new version runs five minutes longer than the theatrical cut.^[33] For Oscar contention, Paramount distributed the Director's Cut DVD to the Producers Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, instead of the official release version. This was the first time that the studio had done this.^[33]

Reception[link]

Box office[link]

Opening in 2,362 theaters on March 2, 2007, the film grossed USD $13.3 million in its opening weekend, placing second and posting a decent per-theater average of $5,671.^[34] The film was easily outgrossed by fellow opener Wild Hogs and saw a decline of over 50% in its second weekend, losing out to the record-breaking 300.^[35] It grossed $33 million in North America and $51 million in the rest of the world, bringing its current total to $84 million, above its estimated $75 million production budget.^[36] In an interview with Sight & Sound magazine, Fincher addressed the film's disaster at the North American box office: "Even with the box office being what it is, I still think there's an audience out there for this movie. Everyone has a different idea about marketing, but my philosophy is that if you market a movie to 16-year-old boys and don't deliver Saw or Seven, they're going to be the most vociferous ones coming out of the screening saying 'This movie sucks.' And you're saying goodbye to the audience who would get it because they're going to look at the ads and say, 'I don't want to see some slasher movie.'"^[13]

Reviews[link]

Overall, reviews of the film were highly positive. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman awarded the film an "A" grade, hailing the film as a "procedural thriller for the information age" that "spins your head in a new way, luring you into a vortex and then deeper still."^[37] Nathan Lee in his review for the Village Voice wrote, "Yet it's his very lack of pretense, coupled with a determination to get the facts down with maximum economy and objectivity, that gives Zodiac its hard, bright integrity. As a crime saga, newspaper drama, and period piece, it works just fine. As an allegory of life in the information age, it blew my mind."^[38] Todd McCarthy's review in Variety praised the film's "almost unerringly accurate evocation of the workaday San Francisco of 35–40 years ago. Forget the distorted emphasis on hippies and flower-power that many such films indulge in; this is the city as it was experienced by most people who lived and worked there."^[39] David Ansen, in his review for Newsweek magazine, wrote, "Zodiac is meticulously crafted – Harris Savides's state-of-the-art digital cinematography has a richness indistinguishable from film – and it runs almost two hours and 40 minutes. Still, the movie holds you in its grip from start to finish. Fincher boldly (and some may think perversely) withholds the emotional and forensic payoff we're conditioned to expect from a big studio movie."^[40]

Some critics, however, were displeased with the film's long running time and lack of action scenes. "The film gets mired in the inevitable red tape of police investigations," wrote Bob Longino of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who also felt that the film "stumbles to a rather unfulfilling conclusion" and "seems to last as long as the Oscars."^[41] Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer felt that "Mr. Fincher’s flair for casting is the major asset of his curiously attenuated return to the serial-killer genre. I keep saying 'curiously' with regard to Mr. Fincher, because I can’t really figure out what he is up to in Zodiac – with its two-hour-and-37-minute running time for what struck me as a shaggy-dog narrative."^[42] Christy Lemire wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that "Jake Gyllenhaal is both the central figure and the weakest link... But he's never fleshed out sufficiently to make you believe that he'd sacrifice his safety and that of his family to find the truth. We are told repeatedly that the former Eagle Scout is just a genuinely good guy, but that's not enough."^[43]

In the United Kingdom, Time Out magazine wrote, "Zodiac isn’t a puzzle film in quite that way; instead its subject is the compulsion to solve puzzles, and its coup is the creeping recognition, quite contrary to the flow of crime cinema, of how fruitless that compulsion can be."^[44] Peter Bradshaw in his review for The Guardian commended the film for its "sheer cinematic virility," and gave it four stars out of five.^[45] In his review for Empire magazine, Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars and wrote, "You’ll need patience with the film’s approach, which follows its main characters by poring over details, and be prepared to put up with a couple of rote family arguments and weary cop conversations, but this gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can’t be confirmed."^[46] Graham Fuller in Sight and Sound magazine wrote, "the tone is pleasingly flat and mundane, evoking the demoralising grind of police work in a pre-feminist, pre-technological era. As such, Zodiac is considerably more adult than both Seven, which salivates over the macabre cat-and-mouse game it plays with the audience, and the macho brinkmanship of Fight Club."^[47] Not all British critics liked the film. David Thompson in The Guardian felt that in relation to the rest of Fincher's career, Zodiac was "the worst yet, a terrible disappointment in which an ingenious and deserving all-American serial killer nearly gets lost in the meandering treatment of cops and journalists obsessed with the case."^[48]

In France, Le Monde newspaper praised Fincher for having "obtained a maturity that impresses by his mastery of form," while Libération described the film as "a thriller of elegance magnificently photographed by the great Harry Savides."^[49] However, Le Figaro wrote, "No audacity, no invention, nothing but a plot which intrigues without captivating, disturbs without terrifying, interests without exciting."^[49]

Zodiac currently has a rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes^[50] (81% for their "Cream of the Crop" designation) dubbing it "Certified Fresh", and a 78 metascore at Metacritic.^[51]

Top ten lists[link]

Only two 2007 movies (No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood) appeared on more critics' top ten lists than Zodiac.^[52] Some of the notable top-ten list appearances are:^[53]

Awards[link]

James Vanderbilt was nominated for Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America, Chicago Film Critics Association, and the Satellite Awards.^[55]

See also[link]

Film portal

• 2007 in film
• List of films based on crime books

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Film & Video: VFX for Zodiac
• Premiere magazine article
• San Francisco Chronicle set visit
• Cineaste review
• Building Suspense Along the Trail of an Invisible Man - an analysis of a scene from the film

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Zodiac

• Official website (US)
• Official website (UK)
• Zodiac at the Internet Movie Database
• Zodiac at AllRovi
• Zodiac at Box Office Mojo
• Zodiac at Metacritic
• Zodiac at Rotten Tomatoes

v t e Zodiac Killer Investigators Paul Avery · Robert Graysmith · Dave Toschi Films The Zodiac Killer · The Zodiac · Zodiac · Curse of the Zodiac See also Zodiac (Graysmith book) · Zodiac Killer in popular culture · Cause of Death · Dirty Harry

Zodiac Killer
A sketch of the Zodiac Killer based on witness testimonies
Background information
Birth name	Unknown
Also known as	Zodiac
Born	Unknown
Died	Unknown
Cause of death	Unknown
Conviction	N/A
Sentence	N/A
Killings
Number of victims	5 confirmed dead, 2 injured (claimed to have killed 37)
Country	United States
State(s)	California, possibly also Nevada
Date apprehended	N/A

The symbol used by the Zodiac Killer to sign his correspondence

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.^[1]

Numerous suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive," yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.^{[2][3][dead link]} The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.^[4] The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.^[5]

Victims[link]

Confirmed victims[link]

Although the Zodiac claimed 37 murders in letters to the newspapers, investigators agree on only seven confirmed victims, two of whom survived.^{[citation needed]} They are:

• David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16: shot and killed on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, within the city limits of Benicia.
• Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22: shot on July 4, 1969, in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. While Mageau survived the attack, Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at Kaiser Foundation Hospital.
• Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22: stabbed on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. Hartnell survived eight stab wounds to the back, but Shepard died as a result of her injuries on September 29, 1969.
• Paul Lee Stine, 29: shot and killed on October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.

Suspected victims[link]

The following murder victims are suspected to be victims of Zodiac, though none has been confirmed:

• Robert Domingos, 18, and Linda Edwards, 17: shot and killed on June 4, 1963, on a beach near Lompoc. Edwards and Domingos were identified as possible Zodiac victims because of specific similarities between their attack and the Zodiac's attack at Lake Berryessa six years later.^{[citation needed]}
• Cheri Jo Bates, 18: stabbed to death and nearly decapitated on October 30, 1966, at Riverside City College in Riverside. Bates' possible connection to the Zodiac only appeared four years after her murder when San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery received a tip regarding similarities between the Zodiac killings and the circumstances surrounding Bates' death.^[6]
• Donna Lass, 25: last seen September 6, 1970, in Stateline, Nevada. A postcard with an advertisement from Forest Pines condominiums (near Incline Village at Lake Tahoe) pasted on the back was received at the Chronicle on March 22, 1971, and has been interpreted as the Zodiac claiming Lass' disappearance as a victim. No evidence has been uncovered to definitively connect Donna Lass' disappearance with the Zodiac Killer.^[7]

There is also a suspected third escapee from the Zodiac Killer:

• Kathleen Johns, 22: allegedly abducted on March 22, 1970, on Highway 132 near I-580, in an area west of Modesto. Johns escaped from the car of a man who drove her and her infant daughter around the area between Stockton and Patterson for approximately 1½ hours.^[8]

Timeline[link]

Lake Herman Road attack[link]

The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, just inside Benicia city limits.

The couple were on their first date and planned to attend a Christmas concert at Hogan High School about three blocks from Jensen's home. The couple instead visited a friend before stopping at a local restaurant and then driving out on Lake Herman Road. At about 10:15 p.m., Faraday parked his mother's Rambler in a gravel turnout, which was a well-known lovers' lane.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m., their bodies were found by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. The Solano County Sheriff's Department investigated the crime but no leads developed.^[9]

Utilizing available forensic data, Robert Graysmith postulated that another car pulled into the turnout, just prior to 11:00 pm and parked beside the couple. The killer apparently exited the second car and walked toward the Rambler, possibly ordering the couple out of the Rambler. Jensen appeared to have exited the car first, yet when Faraday was halfway out, the killer apparently shot Faraday in the head. Fleeing from the killer, Jensen was gunned down twenty-eight feet from the car with five shots through her back. The killer then drove off.^[10]

Blue Rock Springs attack[link]

Just before midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau drove into the Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, four miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site, and parked. While the couple sat in Ferrin's car, a second car drove into the lot and parked alongside them but almost immediately drove away. Returning about 10 minutes later, this second car parked behind them. The driver of the second car then exited the vehicle, approaching the passenger side door of Ferrin's car, carrying a flashlight and a 9 mm Luger. The killer directed the flashlight into Mageau's and Ferrin's eyes before shooting at them, firing five times. Both victims were hit, several bullets passing through Mageau and into Ferrin. The killer walked away from the car but upon hearing Mageau's moaning, returned and shot each victim twice more before driving off.^[11]

On July 5, 1969, at 12:40 a.m., a man phoned the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack. The caller also took credit for the murders of Jensen and Faraday six-and-a-half months earlier. The police traced the call to a phone booth at a gas station at Springs Road and Tuolumne, about three-tenths of a mile from Ferrin's home and only a few blocks from the Vallejo Police Department.^[12]

Ferrin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mageau survived the attack despite being shot in the face, neck and chest.^[13]

Letters from the Zodiac[link]

The solution to Zodiac's 408-symbol cipher. The meaning, if any, of the final eighteen letters has not been determined.^[14]

On August 1, 1969, three letters prepared by the killer were received at the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The San Francisco Examiner. The nearly identical letters took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. Each letter also included one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The killer demanded they be printed on each paper's front page or he would "cruse [sic] around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend."^[15] The Chronicle published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the next day's edition. An article printed alongside the code said by Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz saying "We're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer" and requested the writer send a second letter with more facts to prove his identity.^[16] The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts were eventually published.

On August 7, 1969, another letter was received at The San Francisco Examiner with the salutation "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." This was the first time the killer had used this name for identification. The letter was a response to Chief Stiltz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. In it, the Zodiac included details about the murders which had not yet been released to the public, as well as a message to the police that when they cracked his code "they will have me."^[17]

On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California, cracked the 408-symbol cryptogram. It contained a misspelled message in which the killer claimed to be collecting slaves for the afterlife. No name appears in the decoded text, and the killer said that he would not give away his identity because it would slow down or stop his slave collection.^[14]

Lake Berryessa attack[link]

On September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. A man approached them wearing a black executioner's-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a white 3"x3" cross-circle symbol on it. He approached them with a gun which Hartnell believed to be a .45. The hooded man claimed to be an escaped convict from Deer Lodge, Montana; where he killed a guard and stole a car, explaining that he needed their car and money to go to Mexico. He had brought precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell, before he tied her up. The killer checked, and tightened Hartnell's bonds after discovering Shepard had bound Hartnell's hands loosely. Hartnell initially believed it to be a weird robbery, but the man drew a knife and stabbed them both repeatedly. The killer then hiked 500 yards back up to Knoxville Road, drew the cross-circle symbol on Hartnell's car door with a black felt-tip pen, and wrote beneath it: "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by knife."^[18][19]

At 7:40 p.m., the killer called the Napa County Sheriff's office from a pay telephone to report this latest crime. The phone was found, still off the hook, minutes later at the Napa Car Wash on Main Street in Napa by KVON radio reporter Pat Stanley, only a few blocks from the sheriff's office, yet 27 miles from the crime scene. Detectives were able to lift a still-wet palm print from the telephone but were never able to match it to any suspect.^[20]

After hearing their screams for help, a man and his son who were fishing in a nearby cove discovered the victims and summoned help by contacting park rangers. Napa County Sheriff's deputies Dave Collins and Ray Land were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the crime scene.^[21] Cecelia Shepard was conscious when Collins arrived, providing him with a detailed description of the attacker. Hartnell and Shepard were taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa by ambulance. Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport to the hospital and never regained consciousness. She died two days later, but Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press.^[22][23] Napa County Sheriff Detective Ken Narlow, who was assigned to the case from the outset, worked on solving the crime until his retirement from the department in 1987.^[24]

Presidio Heights attack[link]

Two weeks later on October 11, 1969, a passenger entered the cab driven by Paul Stine at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets in San Francisco requesting to be taken to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. For reasons unknown, Stine drove one block past Maple to Cherry Street; the passenger then shot Stine once in the head with a 9mm, took Stine's wallet, car keys and tore away a section of Stine's bloodstained shirt tail. This passenger was observed by three teenagers across the street at 9:55 p.m., who called the police while the crime was in progress. They observed a man wiping the cab down before walking away towards the Presidio, one block to the north.^[25]

Two blocks from the crime scene, Officer Don Fouke, responding to the call, observed a white man walking along the sidewalk stepping onto a stairway leading up to the front yard of one of the homes on the north side of the street; the encounter lasted only five to ten seconds.^[26] The radio dispatcher had alerted to be on the lookout for a black suspect, so they drove past him without stopping; the mix-up in descriptions remains unexplained to this day. A search ensued, but no possible suspects were found. The three teen witnesses worked with a police artist to prepare a composite sketch of Stine's killer; then, a few days later, this police artist returned, working with the witnesses to prepare a second composite sketch of the killer.

Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case.

The San Francisco Police Department investigated an estimated 2,500 suspects over a period of years.^[27]

Stine letter and bus threat[link]

On October 14, 1969, the Chronicle received another letter from the Zodiac, this time containing a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt tail as proof he was the killer; it also included a threat about killing schoolchildren on a school bus. To do this, Zodiac wrote, "just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out."

Call to talk show[link]

At 2:00 p.m. on October 20, 1969, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called Oakland PD demanding that one of two prominent lawyers, F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli, appear on Jim Dunbar's television talk show in the morning. Bailey was not available, but Belli did appear on the show. Dunbar appealed to the viewers to keep the lines open, and eventually, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called several times and said his name was "Sam". Belli agreed to meet with him in Daly City, but the suspect never showed up.

340 character cryptogram[link]

On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters. The 340-character cipher has never been decoded.^[28] Numerous possible solutions have been suggested, but none can be claimed as definitive.

Second Stine letter[link]

On November 9, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a seven-page letter claiming that two policemen stopped and actually spoke with him three minutes after he shot Stine. Excerpts from the letter were published in the Chronicle on November 12 including the Zodiac's claim;^[29][30] that same day, Don Fouke wrote a memo explaining what had happened that night.

Melvin Belli letter[link]

On December 20, 1969, exactly one year after the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, the Zodiac mailed a letter to Belli, including another swatch of Stine's shirt; the Zodiac claimed he wanted Belli to help him.^{[citation needed]}

Modesto attack[link]

On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving from San Bernardino to Petaluma to visit her mother. She was seven months pregnant and had her 10-month-old daughter beside her.^[31] While heading west on Highway 132 near Modesto, a car behind her began honking its horn and flashing its headlights. She pulled off the road and stopped. The man in the car parked behind her, approached her car, stated that he observed that her right rear wheel was wobbling, and offered to tighten the lug nuts. After finishing his work, the man drove off; yet when Johns pulled forward to re-enter the highway the wheel almost immediately came off of the car. The man returned, offering to drive her to the nearest gas station for help. She and her daughter climbed into his car. During the ride the car passed several service stations but the man did not stop. For about 90 minutes he drove back and forth around the backroads near Tracy. When Johns asked why he was not stopping, he would change the subject. When the driver finally stopped at an intersection, Johns jumped out with her daughter and hid in a field. The driver searched for her using his flashlight telling her that he would not hurt her, before eventually giving up unable to find her he got back into the car and drove off. Johns hitched a ride to the police station in Patterson.^[8]

When Johns gave her statement to the sergeant on duty, she noticed the police composite sketch of Paul Stine's killer and recognized him as the man who abducted her and her child.^[32] Fearing he might come back and kill them all, the sergeant had Johns wait, in the dark, at the nearby Mil's Restaurant. When her car was found, it had been gutted and torched.^[32]

Most accounts claim he threatened to kill her and her daughter while driving them around,^[33] but at least one police report disputes that.^[8] Johns' account to Paul Avery of the Chronicle indicates her abductor left his car and searched for her in the dark with a flashlight;^[34] however, in one report she made to the police, she stated he did not leave the vehicle.^[8]

Further Zodiac communications[link]

Zodiac continued to communicate with authorities for the remainder of 1970 via letters and greeting cards to the press. In a letter postmarked April 20, 1970, the Zodiac wrote, "My name is _____," followed by a 13-character cipher.^[35] The Zodiac went on to state that he was not responsible for the recent bombing of a police station in San Francisco (referring to the February 18, 1970, death of Sgt. Brian McDonnell two days after the bombing at Park Station in Golden Gate Park)^[36] but added "there is more glory to killing a cop than a cid [sic] because a cop can shoot back." The letter included a diagram of a bomb the Zodiac claimed he would use to blow up a school bus. At the bottom of the diagram, he wrote: " = 10, SFPD = 0."^[35]

Zodiac sent a greeting card postmarked April 28, 1970, to the Chronicle. Written on the card was, "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my BLAST," followed by the Zodiac's cross circle signature. On the back of the card, the Zodiac threatened to use the bus bomb soon unless the newspaper published the full details he wrote. He also wanted to start seeing people wearing "some nice Zodiac butons [sic]."^[37]

In a letter postmarked June 26, 1970, the Zodiac stated he was upset that he did not see people wearing Zodiac buttons. He wrote, "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38."^[38] The Zodiac was possibly referring to the murder of Sgt. Richard Radetich, a week earlier, on June 19. At 5:25 am, Radetich was writing a parking ticket in his squad car when an assailant shot him in the head with a .38-caliber pistol. Radetich died 15 hours later. SFPD denies the Zodiac was involved in this murder; it remains unsolved.^[36]

Included with the letter was a Phillips 66 roadmap of the San Francisco Bay Area. On the image of Mount Diablo, the Zodiac had drawn a crossed-circle similar to the ones he had included in previous correspondence. At the top of the crossed circle, he placed a zero, and then a three, six, and a nine. The accompanying instructions stated that the zero was "to be set to Mag. N."^[39] The letter also included a 32-letter cipher that the killer claimed would, in conjunction with the code, lead to the location of a bomb he had buried and set to go off in the fall. The cipher was never decoded, and the alleged bomb was never located. The killer signed the note with " = 12, SFPD = 0."

In a letter to the Chronicle postmarked July 24, 1970, the Zodiac took credit for Kathleen Johns' abduction, four months after the incident.^[40]

In a July 26, 1970 letter, the Zodiac paraphrased a song from The Mikado, adding his own lyrics about making a "little list" of the ways he planned to torture his "slaves" in "paradice." The letter was signed with a large, exaggerated cross circle symbol and a new score: " = 13, SFPD = 0."^[41] A final note at the bottom of the letter stated, "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians."^[42] In 1981, a close examination of the radian hint by Zodiac researcher Gareth Penn led to the discovery that a radian angle, when placed over the map per Zodiac's instructions, pointed to the locations of two Zodiac attacks.^[43]

On October 7, 1970, the Chronicle received a three-by-five inch card signed by the Zodiac with the drawn with blood. The card's message was formed by pasting words and letters from an edition of the Chronicle, and thirteen holes were punched across the card. Inspectors Armstrong and Toschi agreed it was "highly probable" the card came from the Zodiac.^[44]

Zodiac letter to Paul Avery[link]

On October 27, 1970, Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (who had been covering the Zodiac case) received a Halloween card signed with a letter 'Z' and the Zodiac's cross circle symbol. Handwritten on the card was the note "Peek-a-boo, you are doomed." The threat was taken seriously and received a front-page story on the Chronicle.^[6] Soon after receiving this letter, Avery received an anonymous letter alerting him to the similarities between the Zodiac's activities and the unsolved murder of Cheri Jo Bates, which had occurred four years earlier at the city college in Riverside in the Greater Los Angeles Area, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco.^[45] He reported his findings in the Chronicle on November 16, 1970.

Riverside attack[link]

On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old Cheri Jo Bates spent the evening at the campus library annex until it closed at 9:00 p.m. Neighbors reported hearing a scream around 10:30 p.m. Bates was found dead the next morning, a short distance from the library, between two abandoned houses slated to be demolished for campus renovations. The wires in her Volkswagen's distributor cap had been pulled out. She was brutally beaten and stabbed to death. A man's Timex watch with a torn wristband was found nearby.^[46] The watch had stopped at 12:24,^[47] but police believe the attack occurred much earlier.^[46]

A month later, on November 29, 1966, nearly identical typewritten letters were mailed to the Riverside police and the Riverside Press-Enterprise, titled "The Confession." The author claimed responsibility for the Bates murder, providing details of the crime that were not released to the public. The author warned that Bates "is not the first and she will not be the last."^[48]

In December 1966, a poem was discovered carved into the bottom side of a desktop in the Riverside City College library. Titled "Sick of living/unwilling to die," the poem's language and handwriting resembled those of the Zodiac's letters. It was signed with what were assumed to be the initials, "rh." Sherwood Morrill, California's top "Questioned Documents" examiner, expressed his opinion that the poem was written by the Zodiac.^[49]

On April 30, 1967, exactly six months after the Bates murder, Bates' father Joseph, the Press-Enterprise, and the Riverside police all received nearly identical letters. In handwritten scrawl, the Press-Enterprise and police copies read, "Bates had to die there will be more," with a small scribble at the bottom that resembled the letter 'Z.' Joseph Bates' copy read, "She had to die there will be more" without a "Z" signature.^{[citation needed]}

On March 13, 1971, nearly four months after Paul Avery's first article on Bates, the Zodiac mailed a letter to the Los Angeles Times. In the letter he credited the police, instead of Avery, for discovering his "Riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there."^[50]

The connection between Cheri Jo Bates, Riverside and the Zodiac remains uncertain. Paul Avery and the Riverside Police Department maintain that the Bates homicide was not committed by the Zodiac, but did concede some of the Bates letters may have been his work to falsely claim credit.^[51]

Lake Tahoe disappearance[link]

On March 22, 1971, a postcard to the Chronicle, addressed to "Paul Averly," and believed to be from the Zodiac, appeared to take credit for the disappearance of Donna Lass on September 6, 1970.^[7] Made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, it featured a scene from an advertisement for Forest Pines condominiums and the text "Sierra Club," "Sought Victim 12," "peek through the pines," "pass Lake Tahoe areas," and "around in the snow." Zodiac's cross circle symbol was in the place of the usual return address.^{[citation needed]}

Lass was a nurse at the Sierra Tahoe hotel and casino. She worked until about 2:00 a.m. on September 6, 1970, treating her last patient at 1:40 am Later that same day, both Lass's employer and her landlord received phone calls from an unknown male falsely claiming Lass had left town due to a family emergency.^[52] Lass was never found. What appeared to be a grave site was discovered near the Claire Tappan Lodge in Norden, California, on Sierra Club property, but an excavation yielded only a pair of sunglasses.^{[citation needed]}

No evidence has been uncovered to definitively connect Donna Lass' disappearance with the Zodiac Killer.

Santa Barbara attack[link]

In a Vallejo Times-Herald story appearing on November 13, 1972, Santa Barbara Sheriff's Detective Bill Baker (ret.) postulated that the murders of a young couple in northern Santa Barbara County might have been the work of the Zodiac Killer. On June 4, 1963, high school senior Robert Domingos and fiancée Linda Edwards were shot dead on a beach near Lompoc, having skipped school that day for "Senior Ditch Day." Police believed that the assailant attempted to bind the victims, but when they freed themselves and attempted to flee, the killer shot them repeatedly in the back and chest with a .22-caliber weapon. The killer then placed their bodies in a small shack and tried, unsuccessfully, to burn it down.^{[citation needed]}

Final Zodiac letter[link]

After the "Pines" card, the Zodiac remained silent for nearly three years. The Chronicle then received a letter from the Zodiac, postmarked January 29, 1974, praising The Exorcist as "the best saterical comidy [sic]" that he had ever seen. The letter included a snippet of verse from The Mikado and an unusual symbol at the bottom that has remained unexplained by researchers. Zodiac concluded the letter with a new score, "Me = 37, SFPD = 0".^[53]

Later letters of suspicious authorship[link]

Of further communications sent by the public to members of the news media, some contained similar characteristics of previous Zodiac writings. The Chronicle received a letter postmarked February 14, 1974, informing the editor that the initials for the Symbionese Liberation Army spelled out an Old Norse word meaning "kill".^[54] However, the handwriting was not authenticated as the Zodiac's.

A letter to the Chronicle, postmarked May 8, 1974, featured a complaint that the movie Badlands was "murder-glorification" and asked the paper to cut its advertisements. Signed only "A citizen", the handwriting, tone, and surface irony were all similar to earlier Zodiac communications.^{[citation needed]}

The Chronicle subsequently received an anonymous letter postmarked July 8, 1974, complaining about one of its columnists, Marco Spinelli. The letter was signed "the Red Phantom (red with rage)". The Zodiac's authorship of this letter is debated.

A letter, dated April 24, 1978, was initially deemed authentic, but was declared a hoax less than three months later by three experts. Dave Toschi, the SFPD homicide detective who had worked the case since the Stine murder, was thought to have forged the letter, because author Armistead Maupin believed the letter to be similar to "fan mail" he received in 1976 which he believed was authored by Toschi. While he admitted to writing the fan mail, Toschi denied forging the Zodiac letter and was eventually cleared of any charges. The authenticity of this letter remains unverified.

On March 3, 2007, an American Greetings Christmas card sent to the Chronicle, postmarked 1990 in Eureka had recently been discovered in their photo files by editorial assistant Daniel King.^[55] Inside the envelope, with the card, was a photocopy of two U.S. Postal keys on a magnet keychain. The handwriting on the envelope resembles Zodiac's print, but was declared inauthentic by forensic document examiner Lloyd Cunningham. Not all Zodiac experts, however, agree with Cunningham's analysis.^{[56][dead link]} There is no return address on the envelope nor is his crossed-circle signature to be found. The card itself is unmarked. The Chronicle turned over all the material to the Vallejo Police Department for further analysis.

Suspects[link]

A number of suspects have been named.^[57]

Robert Graysmith's book Zodiac advanced Arthur Leigh Allen as a suspect based on circumstantial evidence. The brand of typewriter used to type a letter sent to the Riverside Police Department from Cheri Jo Bates's killer was identified as a Royal with an elite type, the same brand of typewriter which was found during a search of Allen's residence in February 1991. He owned and wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. Allen lived in Vallejo and worked minutes away from where one of the first victims (Darlene Ferrin) lived and where one of the killings took place.^[58]

In 2002, SFPD developed a partial DNA profile from the saliva on stamps and envelopes of Zodiac's letters. SFPD compared this partial DNA to the DNA of Arthur Leigh Allen.^[59][60] A DNA comparison was also made with Don Cheney's DNA, who was Allen's former close friend and the first person to suggest Allen may be the Zodiac Killer. Since neither test result indicated a match, Allen and Cheney were excluded as the contributors of the DNA, though it cannot be stated definitively that it is DNA from the Zodiac on the envelopes.^[61]

Current status of investigations[link]

In April 2004, the SFPD marked the case "inactive," citing caseload pressure and resource demands.^[62] However, they re-opened their case sometime before March 2007.^[3]

In 2007, a man named Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac.^[63] Kaufman turned several items over to the FBI including a hood similar to the one worn by the Zodiac. According to news sources, DNA analysis conducted by the FBI on the items were deemed inconclusive in 2010.^[64] Kaufman's claims have later been widely discredited. He claimed to have incriminating rolls of film taken by his stepfather. The photos allegedly showed victims of the crimes. Kaufman later published some of these photos on his own web page. The photos were very small, had low resolution, and were so blurry that nothing could be positively identified. An associate of Kaufman's, Nanette Barto, who received her Forensic Document Examining certificate from an unaccredited school, claimed to have matched Jack Tarrance's handwriting to that of the Zodiac Killer. However, in 2010, the FBI's Head Document Examiner at Quantico deemed the handwriting "Inconclusive".

In 2009, Deborah Perez claimed that her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, was the Zodiac.^[65] However, Perez also allegedly previously claimed that she was the illegitimate daughter of John F. Kennedy, so her claim that her father was the Zodiac has been viewed as unlikely.^[66]

In 2009, a lawyer named Robert Tarbox (who, in 1975, had his law license suspended in California for failure to pay some clients) said that in 1972 a merchant marine walked into his office and confessed to him that he was the Zodiac Killer. The seemingly lucid seaman (whose name Tarbox would not reveal due to confidentiality) described his crimes briefly but persuasively enough to convince Tarbox. The man claimed he was trying to stop himself from his "opportunistic" murder spree but never returned to see Tarbox again. Tarbox took out a full-page ad in the Vallejo Times-Herald in which he cleared the name of Arthur Leigh Allen as a killer, his only reason for revealing the story 30 years after the fact. Robert Graysmith, the author of several books on Zodiac, said Tarbox's story was "entirely plausible." Retired police handwriting expert Lloyd Cunningham, who worked the Zodiac case for decades, added "they gave me banana boxes full of Allen's writing, and none of his writing even came close to the Zodiac. Nor did DNA extracted from the envelopes (on the Zodiac letters) come close to Arthur Leigh Allen."^[67]

In 2009, an episode of the History Channel television series MysteryQuest looked at newspaper editor Richard Gaikowski (1936–2004). During the time of the murders, Gaikowski worked for Good Times, a San Francisco counterculture newspaper. His appearance resembles the composite sketch and Nancy Slover, the Vallejo police dispatcher who was contacted by the Zodiac shortly after the Blue Rock Springs Attack, has identified a recording of Gaikowski's voice as being the same as the Zodiac's.^[68] Additional circumstantial evidence exists but cannot definitively connect Gaikowski to the murders.

The Vallejo Police Department website maintains a link for providing Zodiac crime tips.^[69] The case is also open in Napa County and also in the city of Riverside.

Retired police detective Steve Hodel argues a case in his book The Black Dahlia Avenger^[70] that his father, George Hill Hodel, was the Black Dahlia suspect whose victims include Elizabeth Short. The book caused the release of previously suppressed files and wire recordings by the Los Angeles district attorney's office of his father which showed that he was a prime suspect in Short's murder. The L.A. District Attorney subsequently wrote a letter which is published in the revised edition stating that if he were still alive he would be prosecuted for the crimes.^{[citation needed]} In a follow up book, Hodel argued a circumstantial case that his father was also the Zodiac Killer based upon a police sketch, the similarity of the style of the Zodiac letters to the Black Dahlia Avenger letters and questioned document examination.^[71]

On February 19, 2011, America's Most Wanted featured a story about the Zodiac Killer. A picture has recently surfaced of known Zodiac victim Darlene Ferrin and a man who closely resembles the composite sketch, formed based on eyewitness' descriptions, of the Zodiac Killer. Police believe the photo was taken in San Francisco in the summer of 1966 or 1967. Police hope someone can identify the man in the photo.^[72] It has been suspected that the man in the photo is Darlene Ferrin's ex-husband, James Phillips. This has not been confirmed.

A former California Highway Patrol officer, Lyndon Lafferty in a 2012 book The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up, AKA The Silenced Badge argues that the Zodiac killer is a 91-year-old Solano County, California man whom he calls "George Russell Tucker." Using a group of retired law enforcement officers called the Mandamus Seven, Lafferty discovered "Tucker" and a cover-up for why he was not pursued.^[73] The man died in February 2012 and is not considered a suspect by law enforcement agencies.^[74]

Popular culture[link]

The Zodiac Killer's crimes, letters and cryptograms to police and newspapers inspired many movies, novels, television productions and other serial killers.

References[link]

Primary sources[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Zodiac Killer letters

FBI Files:

• FBI Case File (1 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 89 pages.
• FBI Case File (2 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 109 pages.
• FBI Case File (3 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 258 pages.
• FBI Case File (4 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 208 pages.
• FBI Case File (5 of 5) on the Zodiac Killer. 373 pages.

Further reading[link]

• Charles F. Adams (October 1, 2004), Murder by the Bay: historic homicide in and about the city of San Francisco, Quill Driver Books, ISBN 978-1-884995-46-0, http://books.google.com/books?id=Lfw1vdIQ51oC&pg=PP1 
• Kieran Crowley (April 1, 2011), Sleep My Little Dead: The True Story of the Zodiac Killer, Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-4299-0329-5, http://books.google.com/books?id=hI-RlFX37M8C&pg=PP1 
• Brenda Haugen (August 1, 2010), The Zodiac Killer: Terror and Mystery, Capstone Press, ISBN 978-0-7565-4357-0, http://books.google.com/books?id=p2bS3thnD5YC&pg=PP1 
• Robert Graysmith (January 2, 2007), Zodiac, Berkley Books, ISBN 978-0-425-21218-9 
• Robert Graysmith (January 1, 2007), Zodiac unmasked: the identity of America's most elusive serial killer revealed, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-425-21273-8, http://books.google.com/books?id=8Wm6fvRvEqIC&pg=PP1 
• Michael D. Kelleher; David Van Nuys (2002), "This is the Zodiac speaking": into the mind of a serial killer, Praeger, ISBN 978-0-275-97338-4 
• Gareth Penn (1987), Times 17: the amazing story of the Zodiac murders in California and Massachusetts, 1966–1981, Foxglove Press 
• William T. Rasmussen (August 2006), Corroborating Evidence II, Sunstone Press, ISBN 978-0-86534-536-2, http://books.google.com/books?id=G8v-moyT8w0C&pg=PP1 

External links[link]

	San Francisco Bay Area portal
	Criminal justice portal

• "Zodiac Murder Map" – Google Map plotting definite and possible Zodiac attacks (with details).

v t e Zodiac Killer Investigators Paul Avery · Robert Graysmith · Dave Toschi Films The Zodiac Killer · The Zodiac · Zodiac · Curse of the Zodiac See also Zodiac (Graysmith book) · Zodiac Killer in popular culture · Cause of Death · Dirty Harry

Persondata
Name	Zodiac Killer
Alternative names
Short description	American serial killer
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death