Who Was The Zodiac Killer?

The truth is, we do not really know who the Zodiac Killer was because he was never caught. The killer behind the famous pseudonym was active in Northern California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He gained significant notoriety for sending a series of encrypted letters to the local press of San Franciso, as well as phoning the police department to report the crimes he committed.

Since then, the mysteries surrounding the Zodiac Killer have been sparking public interest and have been an inspiration for many books and movies.

The Letters And Cryptographs

Before there were the movies and books about him, the Zodiac Killer gained attention and spread fear by sending cryptic information and threats to the public and authorities. He would contact the newspapers and the police with letters that included information only the killer would know. He attacked seven victims in various locations in Northern California, the last of them being a taxi driver who was killed on October 11, 1969, in San Francisco.

The authorities never officially linked any of these murder cases to the Zodiac Killer, and they are still considered unsolved. Law authorities and various amateur investigators have named several suspects during and after the years of his activity. But, none of them seemed to give any significant clue to unlocking the identity of this famous serial killer. Only one of the four pictograms that he sent has ever been decoded. Among the three pictograms that are left, one of them allegedly holds the information of his real name.

Why Was The Zodiac Killer Never Found?

The time and the location of the murders played an essential role as to why this killer was so elusive to the authorities. The site of all murders was at different places and different municipalities, separating the investigation among four different police departments. Also, there has been a wide range of mistakes conducted by police departments with zodiac cases.

During that time, there was a significant lack of communication between different jurisdictions. They did not like to share their information regarding the case, and to make things even worse, there were no smartphones and no computers. It was significantly harder to share information compared to nowadays, and the forensic techniques were still at their beginning, as well as crime scene investigation (CSI). The low body count also made it harder for the police to notice any significant patterns the killer might have done.

Was The Zodiac Killer More Than One Person?

We do not know for sure, but it is certainly possible, and many investigators thought that Zodiac Killer was more than one person. Some crime researchers suggested that the same person has been responsible for the first two crimes, but not the other ones.

They also claimed that a different person wrote the letters, someone like a police officer or a journalist who had access and information about the crimes of The Zodiac Killer. Nevertheless, many handwriting experts concluded that there was only one killer responsible for all of the crimes. Other scenarios demanded too many coincidences and copycat killers.