Zodiac of san francisco. The story of the zodiac killer. New assassin attack

He sent provocative letters to the press and police with threats and ridicule, in which he called himself the nickname Zodiac. Investigators in Northern California, after a series of mysterious murders, began their hunt for a serial killer. However, this has not been successful to this day.

We are trying to understand the history of this mysterious person and remember what we already know about him.

The first murder by the Zodiac was the murders of Betty Jensen and David Faraday at Lake Herman on a road near Vallejo, California on December 20, 1968. The students were sitting in a parked car when a car drove up to them, the driver of which forced them to get out. Faraday was killed first, and Jensen tried to escape, but was shot in the back. The killer disappeared.

Victims of the assassin of the zodiac

The first murder of the Zodiac was committed in California 12/20/1968

Six months later, in July 1969, another murder was committed. Darlene Ferrin and Michael Majo were also parked when someone pulled up to their car. The man came out, shone a flashlight and shot them both. Then he got into the car and drove away. Ferrin died, and Majo survived and was able to tell about it.
The very next day, a man who called the police said that he was the killer of "those guys" from the first murder, Betty Jensen and David Faraday.

On August 1, 1969, letters arrived at the editorial offices of various newspapers with different parts of the same encryption. The killer demanded to print it, otherwise he threatened with new murders. A week later, another letter arrived. In it, the killer named his nickname - Zodiac.

Zodiac Letters

On August 8, the school teacher and his wife were able to decipher the message. It did not contain anything about the personality of the Zodiac maniac, but only reported that he was "collecting slaves for the afterlife."

From the letters of the Zodiac: "I collect slaves for the afterlife"

On September 27, 1969, students Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard were having a picnic by Lake Berriessa. A man in a hood and black glasses approached them. He identified himself as an escaped convict and, threatening with a pistol, forced Cecilia to tie Brian up. He later tied Cecilia up, took out a knife and stabbed the couple multiple times. Soon he called the police and himself reported the crime with ridicule. A father and son were fishing nearby on the lake. They heard heartbreaking screams and called the police. Shepard passed away from her injuries, and Hartnell survived.

On October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Stein was killed in his car by a passenger who pulled out the driver's wallet, took the car keys, and wiped all traces of himself with a piece of the driver's shirt. He was seen by three teenagers who made up a description of the killer, but he was never caught.

A message from the killer of the Zodiac is printed on the door of the car

The zodiac sent letters to the editorial office of an American newspaper with threats

On October 14, 1969, an American daily newspaper received another letter, allegedly written by the maniac Zodiac. This time, as proof of his murders, he sent in a letter a piece of cloth cut off from the taxi driver's shirt. The letter contained threats of further killings of children. The zodiac demanded that he be given the opportunity on a famous television show to contact lawyer Melvin Bailey.

Zodiac failure

On the night of March 22, 1970, being seven months pregnant, Kathleen Jones was on her way to visit her mother in Modesto. She also brought her 10-year-old daughter with her. The driver behind her honked and blinked his headlights. Jones stopped, a man approached her and said that her rear wheel was loose and could come off. He offered to help, twisted something, and then left. When Jones' car started to move, the wheel immediately came off. The assistant, who did not have time to go far, returned and politely offered to give them a lift. Kathleen and her daughter got into the car. The driver drove for over an hour and did not stop, and then said that he was going to kill them. At the intersection, Kathleen and her daughter jumped out of the car and hid in a field. The man tried to look for them, but gave up and left. Jones got to the police and confirmed that they were kidnapped by a man who looked like a composite picture drawn from the description of the killer Paul Stein.

Confession

Letters with threats and ridicule from the Zodiac maniac continued to come to the newspapers. On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old student Cherie Bates was stabbed to death.

Cherry Joe Bates murder scene

A month later, on November 29, 1966, printed letters with the title "Confession" were sent to the press and the police. The author was aware of the details of the Bates murder outside the college library, although the details of the crime were not disclosed to the general public.

Investigative work in the case of the Zodiac

Police checked thousands of suspects to find Zodiac

The police have checked over a thousand suspects. According to circumstantial evidence, the role of the main suspect was most suitable for Arthur Allen. But the DNA analysis from the stamps on the envelopes, sent by the maniac Zodiac, and Allen's DNA did not match, there was no strong evidence against him. In 2007, Dennis Kaufman claimed that his stepfather Jack Tarrance was the Zodiac, but the evidence he submitted to the FBI was not convincing. In 2009, Deborah Perez claimed that her father Guy Hendrickson, who died of cancer in 1993, was the Zodiac killer.

Composite image of the alleged offender

For 40 years of searching, there have been many imitators and imitators of the Zodiac. His letters about police misbehavior are reminiscent of the confessions of Jack the Ripper. To this day, the Zodiac remains one of the most mysterious maniacs, whose identity has not been established.

David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen are a couple in love who were shot on their first date. They were in a car parked near the lake. The offender drove up in a car, forced the lovers to get out and shot them. The girl tried to escape, but failed.

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mago were also shot by the Zodiac. The criminal shot them right in the car. Since it was at night, he used a flashlight so as not to miss. Despite the terrible injuries, the guy managed to survive.

Brian Calvin Hartnell and Cecilia Ann Shepard were attacked on the banks of the reservoir. This time, the Zodiac did not act with a firearm, but with a knife. The girl died after numerous wounds, the guy survived.

Paul Lee Stein - This man was shot in the San Francisco area.

There are also a number of victims that may have been the work of the Zodiac. Among them is another pair of young people, a 17-year-old girl and a 27-year-old woman. According to 22-year-old Kathleen Jones, a man kidnapped her and her 10-month-old daughter and tried to take them in a car in an unknown direction. Fortunately, the woman managed to escape with her child. Why are there suspicions that these 5 crimes are the work of the Zodiac? The police saw in them the handwriting of a serial killer.

The cryptogram that we managed to decipher contains a brief explanation of the purpose for which the Zodiac commits crimes. According to him, in this way he prepares for himself the slaves he needs in the afterlife ...

Letters to newspapers arrived until 1974. Then the Zodiac fell silent. In the spring of 2007, while analyzing the archives of The Chronicle, employees of the publication found a Christmas card. The handwriting on it was similar to the handwriting of the Zodiac. It was sent in 1990. The official graphological examination did not confirm the authorship of the Zodiac ...

Composite image of the maniac Zodiac

Who was the cruel and mysterious Zodiac operating in Northern California and San Francisco in the late 1960s and early 70s? The identity of the killer was never identified. In 2004, the San Francisco police closed the investigation but resumed in early 2007. All these years, the police had fingerprints left by the hands of the killer, smeared with the blood of taxi driver Paul Lee Stein, as well as samples of Zodiac genes - they did not match the fingerprints and genes of any of the suspects. In other cities, the case was not closed.

For many decades, the mysterious criminal has attracted the interest of criminologists who put forward versions and publish books. In total, at least 5 books have been written about the Zodiac and at least 3 feature films have been filmed. The nickname "Zodiac", as in the case of "", came out of the letter, but the Zodiac came up with his own pseudonym, and with it he developed his own image, style and logo, if such terms are applicable here. Due to the peculiarities of their behavior, the Zodiac was nicknamed "The Code Killer" and "The Mysterious Assassin".

Your bloody hunt Zodiac maniac began on December 20, 1968, its victims were couples in love. The first to die at the hands of a maniac were 19-year-old David Arthur and his 17-year-old girlfriend Betty Lou Jensen. Their bloody bodies were found by a passing motorist and reported about the terrible find to the officer of the highway patrol. As it became known later, the students retired in their car on an empty highway and after a few minutes the Zodiac overtook them. The young man died in the cabin from one bullet, his girlfriend apparently managed to jump out of the car and tried to escape - the body, hit by five bullets, lay more than 10 meters from the car.

There were no signs of sexual abuse, and after all, Betty was a very beautiful, even seductive girl. Although the corpses were found within a few minutes after the murder, and the driver who found them immediately informed the police about a suspicious car moving with him in the same direction from the crime scene, it was not possible to detain the killer.

The zodiac was quiet for 6 months, which was at least uncharacteristic for murderers of this kind (as a rule, the craving for new violence arises within three weeks, after the murder was committed). Even when a criminal tries to control himself carefully, he usually cannot resist new crimes after a month and a half.

The second murdered girl, by a fateful coincidence, was familiar not only with the first victim - Betty (she studied at the same university with her), but also probably saw the Zodiac himself! Her friends and relatives testified that shortly before the murder, she was persecuted by a man. According to the girl, she became an unwitting witness to the double murder committed by this man.

On the late evening of July 5, 1969, 22-year-old Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin was in the car outside a nightclub with her 19-year-old lover Michael Magow. In a car standing nearby, the girl saw a friend, and even when the man got out of his car and approached the couple, she did not consider it necessary to introduce him to a friend. And soon she was already dead. Her friend survived after three wounds, later he described the attacker in detail, and, among other things, said that the killer called the girl what her friends and acquaintances called - Dee.

The police arrived in time to the car while Darlene was still alive, however, a severe dying condition did not allow her to name the killer. Half an hour later, a call was made to the police department from an automatic machine located directly outside the building. A harsh male voice confessed to killing the couple last December and said where the police could find the bodies of two more young men he had killed.

In addition, the man called the husband of the murdered Darlene and asked the only question: "Why doesn't Darlene sometimes sleep with her husband?" As for Michael Magow - he completely recovered his health. During the treatment, he was guarded by the police, later documents were changed for him and his family, at the expense of the Magow state government with his mother and two brothers moved to a new place of residence. For decades, information about this was kept secret, the police considered Michael as one of their best witnesses, who had to identify the criminal in case of arrest.

On July 31, 1969, 3 newspapers received letters from an unknown person who claimed responsibility for the murders. Each letter consisted of two parts - text and cryptographic. The letters were partially encrypted, but this code was solved by a local math teacher. There was no signature, but there was an emblem - a calculated circle, an optical sight. The killer identified himself as Zodiac for the first time in the following letter received on 4 August.

The appearance of letters should be recognized as a fact extremely important for understanding the motivation of the criminal's actions - obviously, the author of anonymous letters craved communication, play, intrigue; at the same time, he was consumed by a feeling of his own invalidity by society. Since then, almost all of the killer's letters began with the phrase "This is the Zodiac Speaks" and ended with his emblem.

The emblem, embroidered in white on a black mask, was well remembered by college students: 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard and 20-year-old Brian Hartnell. Threatening with a pistol, the criminal tied them up and stabbed the girl 10 times with a knife (she died two days later) and 6 stabs in the back of the young man, he miraculously survived. On the car, the killer wrote the dates of his previous crimes, and after half an hour on the phone he reported the deed to the police.

Zodiac's latest murder was not typical. The victim was a lonely 29-year-old taxi driver Paul Lee Stein. On the evening of October 11, 1969, at a well-lit intersection of streets in San Francisco, the killer dealt with him with a shot in the back of the head, then, knocking the driver to one side, the killer cut off a large enough flap with blood-stained shirt of the deceased with scissors. The taxi salon was also covered with blood, it was clear that the culprit could not help getting dirty.

After that, the Zodiac tried to get rid of the fingerprints with a rag, however, without removing all traces. He also left his gloves in the back seat. The children, who saw what was happening from the window of the house, called the police, but the offender again managed to escape. He was described as being of medium height and age, with a heavy build, wearing glasses and being "dark." Subsequently, it turned out that by the word "dark", the children meant a strong tan, but the police were looking for a black man. It was because of this accident that the Zodiac managed to remain unrecognized for the second time, and a couple of days later an envelope came to the editorial office of one of the San Francisco newspapers, which contained a piece of a bloody taxi driver's shirt and another letter from the Zodiac.

The Zodiac did not commit more proven crimes, but continued to send letters. Long after his last prescribed murder, the Zodiac kept in touch with the police and the press. He was vain and deceitful, so he eagerly appropriated other people's crimes, in addition, he was engaged in counting his own victims. In 1969, he counted 8 murders for himself, in 1970 - 13, in 1971 - 17, and in 1974 - as many as 37. He proved his real murders with many details, known only to him and the police, but he could not tell anything worthwhile about the ones attributed to himself. ...

In total, about 20 letters and postcards were received from the Zodiac by the editors of various California newspapers. In 1971, he quieted down for three years and sent the last letter only in 1974. In one of his messages, he promised to blow up a school bus in revenge for the children who saw him at the time of the last murder. Fortunately, the plan did not come true. In another letter, he encrypted his real name, although the decoders were never able to come to an unambiguous solution to the cipher. He also wrote that with the help of murders he collects slaves for his afterlife, described how he would subject them to torture.

And it was vanity that made him, in one of his messages dated April 28, 1970, demand that his sign - a calculated circle - adorn the city: “I would like to see well-executed emblems of the Zodiac on the streets of the city. So that everyone has these emblems of black power. " The criminals' painful thirst for self-assertion received in this letter its unequivocal and complete expression.
The Zodiac had a clearly formulated goal, which he himself wrote about more than once - to bring chaos and fear in society, to show his superiority. Unlike the average serial killer, the Zodiac needed publicity, he wanted his letters to be published on the front pages of newspapers, to be talked about, filmed on television.

As a rule, serial killers do not contact the police or the media, because fame or influence on the minds of many people are not the targets of the "classic" serial killer. Most likely, completely different motives were behind the desires of the Zodiac to provoke panic in society and make people talk about themselves.

And he achieved fame, imitators appeared, one of whom committed crimes in New York, and the other in Tokyo. Both were arrested, and had nothing to do with the California murders.
After a message in 1974, the mysterious Zodiac suddenly disappeared. In 2004, the police closed the case, but in 2007, in connection with the clarification of new circumstances, the case was reopened: a resident of California, Dennis Kaufman, claimed that his stepfather Jack Terrence committed the crimes.

After Terrence's death, a black hood was found in his belongings, reminiscent of the one in which the Zodiac operated, a knife with traces of blood, as well as film footage with violent scenes. In addition, Terrence's handwriting resembled the handwriting in the notes of a brutal killer. The FBI announced a planned DNA test. Previously, similar examinations were carried out in relation to several suspects, however, a fingerprint card of the Zodiac, whose identity has been established, is now stored in the FBI archives under the code: "A-10042 has not been identified." The exact number of the murderer's victims has not been established either.

P.S .: Versions
To this day, there are many versions about who the mysterious Zodiac was? Some versions are quite interesting and worth mentioning. According to one of them, the Zodiac is an organized gang in which different people killed, called on the phone, etc. As a matter of fact, this version has only one advantage - compensation for the shortcomings of the version of a lone killer, on whose trail they could not get out. According to another version, the Zodiac did not stop its activities, but "retrained" as a "murderer from Santa Rosa" who killed 14 girls in 1972-1975 and also remained at large. A resident of Vallejo named Arthur Lee Allen got the most from the police and the public.

For some, he was the “perfect suspect,” to the point that publicly expressed bewilderment as to why Allen hadn’t been arrested yet. However, the main suspect in the Zodiac case died at large on August 26, 1992 at the age of 58. He suffered from diabetes and heart problems. On the second day after his death, a massive search was carried out in the house, which brought nothing sensible. And ten years later, in October 2002, the police were ripe for a DNA examination. The result was negative.

There were versions about several local perverts who were trying to get involved in the Zodiac case. So one of the members of the Charles Manson Family, Bruce McGregor Davis, was considered quite seriously as a suspect. The police investigation not only did not find any weighty evidence against him, but also established that the rest of the hippie thugs were not involved in the Zodiac case.

Much more exotic - even shocking - is the hypothesis that the Zodiac was Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, an American mathematician and social critic who sent bombs in the mail. If it had not been for the denunciation of his brother, it would have been impossible to figure out Kaczynski. This version is so grand that if the Zodiac and the Unabomber are one and the same person, then, according to some criminologists, he should be considered the Greatest Serial Killer. Still: twice to reach the highest level in the art of secret murder! Fortunately, or unfortunately, the police and the FBI quite confidently gave up on the identity of the Zodiac and the Unabomber. In the best case, investigators assure, Kachinsky was inspired by the postal mischief of the Zodiac to conduct his ideological struggle.

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The Valleggio-Benicia motorway is about 35 km away. from the city of San Francisco runs near Lake Herman.

In the late 60s of the 20th century, this area was relatively sparsely populated. Known as Herman Road (after the lake), the area around this highway has long been a favorite of picnic-lovers and couples in cars looking for free privacy. At 23.10 on December 20, 1968, on the asphalt site in front of the pumping station next to the said lake, a rambler car stopped in which two young people were: David Arthur Faraday, 19, and Betty Lou Jensen, 17.

Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday. They have long been considered the first victims of a mysterious serial killer who christened himself the Zodiac, but later doubts arose.
The young people met at the beginning of the seventh o'clock in the evening - David stopped by Betty's house. They told their parents that they would go to a Christmas concert, but instead, the couple first went to their mutual friend, where they stayed for about 40 minutes, and then went to the lake in order to be in solitude for an hour or two. Both the boy and the girl were still in college and were not self-sufficient; this forced them to periodically indulge in such tricks.
Nobody can tell exactly what happened after the car stopped. But five minutes later - at 11.15 pm - the bloody bodies of young people were found by a motorist passing by next to the car in which they arrived. The man who made this gloomy find rushed forward along the highway towards the town of Benicia, expecting to meet a police patrol and on the empty highway at this late hour saw a lone car moving in the same direction far ahead. No other cars were seen on this section of the motorway at that moment - this was confirmed by the road patrol officer, who was moving just in the opposite direction - in the direction of Herman Road. Apparently, in this very car, seen by a police officer and a witness, the killer left the scene of the crime. As early as 23.23, the Solano County Sheriff's Duty Officer registered a Highway Patrol report on the discovery of two human bodies in a parking lot near the pumping station.
Sergeant Leslie Landblet led the investigation into the double murder. The protocol of the inspection of the scene recorded the following essential details of the crime committed:
a) The first shots were fired by the killer while the young people were in the back seat of the car. The perpetrator shot through the rear window and did not hit either Faraday or Jensen;
b) With the third shot, the criminal hit David Faraday in the back of the head. The wound was very serious: the young man's head literally split open. David apparently died on the spot within a minute. Traces of blood in the cabin indicated that the injury occurred precisely while Faraday was in the back seat. But his body was found lying on the asphalt near the car, feet to the rear wheels at an angle of 45 degrees and head first. The offender, apparently approaching the back door, opened it and dragged Faraday's body out of the cabin. After making sure that the young man was dead, the killer left him on the spot and focused on the second victim;
c) Betty Lou Jensen managed to jump out of the passenger compartment through the opposite rear door and ran out of the parking lot. Her body was at a distance of 12 meters from the rear bumper of the car. The girl's back was hit by 5 bullets, which lay quite heap - in the region of 5-6 ribs. The latter suggested that the perpetrator was excellent with firearms. However, after an examination of the victims' clothing for the presence of microparticles, the latter conclusion was revised. It turned out that 4 out of 5 bullets that hit Betty Jensen were fired almost at point-blank range, from a distance of less than 3 meters. The perpetrator, apparently wounding the girl with the first shot, approached her and cold-bloodedly shot her at point-blank range - hence the accuracy of his hits;
d) The offender used a 22 gauge (5.56 mm) gun as a murder weapon. In total, the criminal fired 8 shots: 5 bullets were found in Jensen's body, 1 in Faraday's body, 2 in the cabin (they did not hit anyone). Of the bullets found, two were deformed to such an extent that it was not possible to determine from which weapon they were fired.
By interviewing witnesses and collating the evidence obtained, Sergeant Landblet concluded that the killer had left the crime scene in a light-colored Chevrolet model car and drove towards the city of Benicia. Most likely, the same car was seen in the parking lot in front of the water pumping station at 21.00 on December 20. This car stood in place until 22.00, some of the motorists passing by claimed that it was a Chevrolet Impala model.
Les Landblet turned to local residents for help and called for cooperation between private detective agencies. At no cost, six Solano County agencies have dispatched staff to assist the sheriff's office. In the colleges where the deceased young people studied, they began collecting money for a bonus fund from which it was supposed to pay for any valuable information that would help the investigation.
Thanks to intensive search activities, the police managed to find very important witnesses. At about 10 pm, a car with a couple of young people drove into the same parking lot (the names of these people, in the interests of ensuring their safety, were never made public by the police). At first, they did not pay attention to the Chevrolet with the lights extinguished standing there, but when the car began to move in their direction, the young people decided to leave this place. They drove out of the parking lot, but a strange car followed them. After a short chase, the young people broke away from the pursuit, thanks to the fact that they extinguished all the lights and began to circle around the area. In the end, they stopped on the eastern side of Lake German and never returned to the parking lot. It is possible that caution saved the lives of the young people.
If this story was accurate in everything, it could mean that the attack was not caused by an accidental conflict. The culprit was clearly preparing his attack and was waiting for an opportunity. He was prepared to ambush anyone he deemed a suitable target. The apparent lack of motivation for the attack indirectly indicated that this was the case of a serial killer. It is known that persons suffering from various kinds of sexual dysfunctions react extremely painfully to couples of young people who, in their understanding, behave in a deliberately provocative manner. Therefore, attacks in the course of which this particular category of people are victims are not uncommon. The history of forensic science knows many serial killers, whose aggressiveness turned out to be directed at couples of young people in love (for example, "The Night Killer of Texarkana", "Son of Sam", etc.). So in this sense, the attack near the pumping station on Lake Herman Road did not seem inexplicable. If so, then the police should have admitted that another serial killer had appeared in the vicinity of San Francisco. This, in fact, exhausted the success of the investigation. Until July of the next - 1969 - the criminal did not make itself felt. He sunk into oblivion and one would think that he either moved to another state, or ended up in prison, or finally died. Police experience shows that a half-year break is not typical for serial killers. A persistent urge to commit a new attack usually begins to form in them as early as three weeks after the murder was committed. Even when a criminal tries to control himself carefully, he usually cannot resist new crimes after a month and a half. Therefore, a break of six and a half months, which the killer of David Faraday and Betty Jensen endured, should be recognized as an uncharacteristic phenomenon and important for understanding the actions of this person.
But on Saturday, July 5, 1969, the killer went out on his bloody hunt again. At about 24.00 he attacked a couple of young men sitting in a car parked in front of the Blue Rock Springs golf club in Valleggio.
Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22 years old, at about 11.20 pm pulled up in her car for Michael Renault Magow, 19 years old (Fig. 2) and invited him to go for a drive. Elizabeth was married, but this did not prevent her from having her personal time at her discretion. Initially, the young people were supposed to meet at about 18.00 in order to go to the cinema together in San Francisco, but then the meeting was postponed to a later time.

Darlene Ferrin and Michael Magow.
After circling a little around the neighborhood, Darlene's car finally stopped at the site in front of the golf club and remained there with the lights extinguished in the cabin and a working radio. Ferryn and Magow remained in the front seats.
After some time, three more cars were parked on the same site. They were attended by members of one large company, who entered the territory of the club. Further events, reconstructed according to the stories of Michael Magow himself, looked as follows: a few minutes later, after the company drove up in three cars, a car drove into the parking lot with the lights off. She stopped three meters behind Elizabeth Ferrin's car, the man driving her did not get out. The fact that he sat in the dark and did not leave the car struck Michael Magow as suspicious. He asked his companion if she knew the driver of this car? Ferryn waved away, "Oh, nothing special!" ("O, never mind!"). The young man later admitted that he did not understand the context of what was said, but the fact that Elizabeth was not in the least alarmed reassured him. Michael continued to talk to his companion, not taking his eyes off the rearview mirror, and therefore got a good look at the car with the lights off; he believed it was a brown 1959 model "falcon". After standing for a few minutes, the car abruptly set off and left the parking lot.
A few minutes later, the same brown car with the lights off returned to the parking lot. He stopped 4 meters behind and to the right of Darlene Ferrin's car. The rest happened very quickly. The driver of the brown Falcon got out of the car with the flashlight on in his hands and directed his beam at the young people, blinding them. The unidentified man approached Ferrin's car with large steps from the passenger side; Magow thought it was the cop who was going to check their papers. But instead, the stranger opened fire with a pistol through the open window of the passenger-side door. The first bullet hit Michael Magow in the base of the neck; the blow received threw the young man back between the seats, so much so that his legs reflexively shot up to the ceiling of the cabin. Therefore, the second bullet hit his right knee. Magow, who fell back, had the opportunity to observe through the glass of the back door the profile of the killer, who at that time fired five bullets at Elizabeth Ferrin. The woman wheezed and fell onto her right side. The killer coldly leaned over to the front door of the car and, grabbing Darlene by the shoulder with his left hand, sat her upright so that she leaned her head against the steering wheel. To do this, the killer had to practically crawl through the window of the door up to his waist. Considering that the young people had been killed, the unknown criminal got out and walked slowly to his car. Meanwhile, Magow screamed in rage. The killer phlegmatically returned back and fired two more cartridges: a bullet into each of the victims. Then he returned to his car again, got into it and abruptly pulled away. Magow, who even after three wounds remained conscious, kicked the horn on the steering wheel with his left foot and pulled himself up to open the door. Having fallen out of the car, he could watch from under the bottom as the criminal's car, rapidly gaining speed, left the parking lot.

The parking lot in front of the Blue Rock Springs Golf Club is the scene of the Zodiac's second crime. Contemporary photography. The numbers indicate: 1) The far corner of the parking lot on the east side - the place where Darlene Ferrin's car was parked; 2) Traffic light at the exit from the parking lot; 3) Club building.

It is possible that, having heard the horn, the killer would have dared to return once more to finish off Magow for sure, but near the traffic lights at the exit from the parking lot, he saw three teenagers who were returning to their cars. It is obvious that the criminal did not dare to risk wasting time on finishing off Magow, but hastened to leave the crime scene as soon as possible.
The teenagers who ran up to the prone Michael Magow gave him all possible help. They were the first to alert the police about the crime near Blue Rock Springs. Nancy Slover, duty officer of the Valleggio Police Department, received the telephone message at 0.10 on July 5, 1969.
The next person to find themselves at the scene was 22-year-old George Bryant, the son of the club's caretaker. He heard gunshots in the parking lot while in his bedroom and immediately rushed to check what was happening there? The house in which he lived was 200 meters from the parking lot and it took the young man about a minute and a half to run. Since the police did not show up, he rushed to the club and called the police department a second time.
Duty Officer Nancy Slover relayed information about the shooting in the parking lot outside the club to Sergeant John Lynch, but he did not consider it necessary to go there. The sergeant could be understood: July 4 is a national holiday in the United States, Independence Day - during which many have fun by launching fireworks and firecrackers. Therefore, he did not consider the information about the shooting in the parking lot that night worthy of attention.
Only 10 minutes later, when George Bryant called the police, the sergeant realized that this was a real crime. Together with his partner Ed Rust, he went to the golf club, and at the same time ordered to call ambulances there. This delay in time can be called fatal without exaggeration!
When the police arrived at the scene of the crime, Michael Magow was conscious and able to speak coherently. His first words, addressed to Sergeant Lynch, were: "White man ... Driving a car ... He went out, approached, illuminated with a lantern, began to shoot." Lynch tried to question Magow in more detail and did not pay attention to Darlene Ferrin, who was trying to say something. This can be called the second fatal error. When, finally, the sergeant drew attention to the woman, she was already falling into an unconscious state, her speech became incoherent and only the words "I" and "mine" could be made out. Meanwhile, it was Darlene who could provide extremely valuable information that could shed light on the events of that July night.

Lying on the ground near the car, Michael Magow waited for the police to arrive and was bleeding to death. He was lucky to survive and it was a real miracle, considering his blood loss and the danger of a neck wound.

At about half past midnight on July 5, one ambulance and five police cars arrived at the golf club. Thanks to the high professionalism of the doctors, Magow was quickly operated on and survived. The woman died in an ambulance. Her death was officially stated at 0.38 on July 5, 1969. Autopsy stated two through gunshot wounds to Darlene Ferrin's left arm, two to her right arm, as well as a blind wound to the left ventricle of the heart. It turns out that the woman with a bullet in her heart lived for more than half an hour from the moment she was wounded!
At 0.40 a phone call rang at the Valleggio Police Department. The unknown person calmly said the following: "I want to report a double murder. If you walk a mile east from Columbus Boulevard to the public park, you will find guys in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm Luger. I also killed those guys. last year. Goodbye. " According to the instructions, prescribing a certain algorithm of actions in case of receiving a report of a crime, the duty officer Nancy Slover tried several times to interrupt the speaker with counter questions, but the anonymous author did not allow the conversation to be prolonged. He only began the next sentence with pressure in his voice, then paused, as if calming down and continuing his speech without emotion. This manner of speaking, without deviating from the planned option, made Nancy think that an unknown person was reading the text from a piece of paper. After finishing his short monologue, the caller hung up. The duty officer, without hanging up her receiver, immediately turned on a special Caller ID, which began to send call signals to the number from which the incoming call was made. The phone on which the anonymous person spoke immediately began to ring continuously. This option was specially designed in order to unmask the telephone set used by the criminal to transmit the message. The ringing phone was very quickly discovered by police patrols - literally three minutes after the anonymous call. It turned out that the caller had used a telephone booth at the intersection of Springs Road and Twolumn Street, literally thirty meters from the police station.
Darlene Ferrin's husband, Dean, arrived home from the Caesar restaurant where he worked at around 0.45. Several friends were waiting for him there, as well as the housekeeper, with whom the Ferrins were going to celebrate Independence Day. Since his wife was not at home, Dean decided to bring her and went in his car to find Darlene. At 1300 Virginia Street, in the meantime, the casual fun continued: friends gathered to launch fireworks from the lawn when the spouses appeared.

The Ferrin family bought this house at 1300 Virginia Street in Valleggio for $ 9,500 just two months before the tragedy - in May 1969.

But at 1:30 at Ferrin's house the phone rang. One of those present at the party, a certain Bill Lee, picked up the telephone. No one answered him, but Lee could clearly hear the heavy breathing on the opposite end of the line. After several questions from Lee, the caller finally spoke up, "Why doesn't she stay at home with her husband from time to time?" ("Why does" t she stay home with her husband once in a while? "- this is how the question sounded literally in English.) After saying that, the caller hung up.
This was the outline of the events of the dramatic night of July 4-5, 1969. The investigation was led by an officer of the Valleggio Police Department, Richard Hoffman.
What did the detectives have at their disposal?
The first official interrogation of Michael Magow began at 8.25 on July 5, that is, immediately after the young man regained consciousness after the operation. The young man's testimony was very important.
First of all, Magow was able to give a fairly detailed description of the shooter. According to him, he was a man with a height of about 1.73-1.75 m, a dense build, heavy, but without excess fat, his weight could be about 80 kg. Or more. As a feature of the attacker's appearance, Michael Magow noted a round, wide face. The victim believed that the killer used a pistol with a silencer to disguise himself. This statement, however, was later refuted - all other witnesses claimed that the sounds of the shots had the usual volume. George Bright, for example, heard them 200 meters from the parking lot! Such a discrepancy in the testimony should not be regarded as unusual, since Magow experienced severe stress during the attack, and this could affect his perception of what was happening. In addition, he was in front of the muzzle of the weapon, and the assessment of the volume of the shot is directly related to how the barrel is located: it is well known that for a person standing on the side, the shot seems louder than for the one in front.
In addition, Michael Magow was able to provide some very important details. So, he confidently stated that the criminal's car had been moving behind Darlene's car from the very moment she drove away from his - Magow's - house. The young man could not say how long Ferryn was being followed, but by the time he got into the salon of her Chevrolet Corvair, the woman was already being followed and she knew it. It was in order to break away from annoying observation that she drove into the parking lot.
Magow stated that he had no doubts that Ferryn knew her killer, and that, accordingly, he knew her. After the first series of shots, when the criminal bent over Ferryn, who had fallen on her side, to sit her down directly, he - the criminal - called the woman affectionately diminutive "Dee". This short for "Darlene" was used by her friends.
The testimony of Magow, in the part where he described the circumstances of the attack, was confirmed by the pathologists who examined the body of the deceased woman. Fragments of Michael Megow's blood and skin, torn out by a bullet that hit him, were found on her face on the right side. This detail fully confirmed all the features of the attack that Magow had talked about and served as additional proof of the accuracy of his story.
9 casings and 7 bullets fired from a 9mm pistol were found at the scene of the crime. Since the perpetrator, according to Magow's testimony, did not reload the weapon, the pistol from which he fired, it could not possibly be an 8-round "Luger" (namely, the "Luger" was reported by the criminal in his phone call). Most likely, he used a 9-round Beretta. In his own phone call, the criminal deliberately gave the police incorrect information, hoping to confuse the investigation with this rather primitive trick.
Michael Magow's assertion that Darlene Ferrin knew the man behind the wheel of the brown Falcon struck the detectives as not without reason. Without such an assumption, it was very difficult to explain the calmness of a woman when a strange car with no lights appeared. In addition, when the police began questioning the friends of the deceased, it quickly became clear that already several months before her death, Darlene had been systematically pursued by an unknown person. The woman complained about receiving offensive correspondence, as well as all sorts of unwanted phone calls. But most importantly, the deceased was afraid of someone.
So, Bobby Ramos, one of Darlene's friends, a waiter from the Terry restaurant, where, by the way, she worked, told the police about an interesting conversation that took place on December 21, 1968 (that is, the day after the murder of Jensen and Faraday at Lake Herman). Darlene told Ramos that day that she was very scared that she knew the victims well and would never appear on Lake Herman again.
And on February 26, 1969, one of Darlene's friends was surprised to see a car from which they were monitoring the house where Dean and Darlene were living at that moment. Then they lived in the house of Sweeney (maiden name Darlene Ferrin), located at Wallace Street, 560. The man in the car lit a cigarette, which made it possible to see his face. The stranger had a round, wide, puffy face, curly light brown hair, seemed middle-aged, that is, he looked clearly older than Dean and Darlene. When Dean Ferrin returned from work, he was told about the strange car and went outside to talk to the chauffeur. He immediately started the engine and drove away.

Investigators in Northern California, after a series of mysterious murders, began their hunt for a serial killer. He sent provocative letters with threats and ridicule to the press and the police, in which he called himself the nickname Zodiac.

The road to Lake Herman

The first murder by the Zodiac was the murders of Betty Jensen and David Faraday at Lake Herman on a road near Vallejo, California on December 20, 1968.

The students were sitting in a parked car when a car drove up to them, the driver of which forced them to get out. Faraday was killed first, and Jensen tried to escape, but was shot in the back. The killer disappeared.

Victims of the assassin of the zodiac

Blue Rock Springs Park

The very next day, a man who called the police said that he was the killer of "those guys" from the first murder, Betty Jensen and David Faraday.

Letters sent by the killer Zodiac

Murder on the lake

Armed assault in a taxi

Paul Stein murder scene. There is a message from the killer of the Zodiac on the door of the car.

Taxi driver's shirt after murder

Zodiac failure

Confession

Letters with threats and ridicule from the Zodiac maniac continued to come to the newspapers. On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old student Cherie Bates was stabbed to death.

Cherry Joe Bates murder scene

Disappearance at the Tahoe Hotel

In 1971, a letter comes to the newspaper in which the author introduces himself as the Zodiac and claims that in 1970 he committed the murder of Donna Lass.