Killer Zodiac
The Killer Zodiac, or rather, the Zodiac Killer is one of the USA’s biggest and most researched unsolved mysteries of the past 100 years.
What makes this mystery so intriguing?
The Zodiac Killer was an intriguing mystery because he sent cryptic letters which included coded messages to newspapers. Most serial killers do not want exposure to their crimes, however, the Zodiac Killer wanted as much attention as possible for his crimes and sent letters to newspapers and even called authorities after two of his crimes.
Some of the confirmed Zodiac Crimes include the following:
Two teens killed on December 20, 1968 at Lake Herman Road
Two teens attacked, one killed and one injured at Blue Rock Springs
Two college students attacked at Lake Berryessa in Sept of 1969 with a knife.
One taxi driver killed in October of 1969 in San Francisco.
Although there have been more attacks attributed and/or suspected of being the Zodiac Killer those attacks are the core crimes that is mostly without dispute attributed to the Zodiac Killer.
As for the letters and ciphers what stands out in this case is the ciphers and coded messages he mailed to the media such as what is known as the Z408, Z340, Z13, and Z32.
The Z408 was mailed in three parts to three different newspapers in which he wrote about collecting slaves for the afterlife, paradice (sic), and other bizarre rants.
See below for the translated Z408, which was broken/decrypted shortly after it was sent.
See below for the Z340 decrypted in 2020:
Below is the name Cipher which was never decoded:
Now, the above ciphers the Z13 and the Z32 have never been decoded. I am hopefull that they will one day though, either someone gets lucky or artificial general intelligence will be able to think of a creative way to narrow down the list.
Speaking of list there is a suspect list, however, this has proven to go down many dead ends.
If you want to see a great intro to the case there is youtube video titled “The Man With the Target on His Chest”
Below is my own insertion of my book making the case for Joseph Paul Franklin as the Zodiac Killer.