Hello everyone, and welcome to the final week of Unsolved. We’re going to finish out the list of each state’s most interesting cold case with one of the most famous unidentified serial killers of all time: The Zodiac Killer.

From the later 1960s through the early 1970s, a killer was operating in Northern California and ended up murdering anywhere from 5 to 37 people and leaving notes for investigators in the process. These notes were well-known for their ciphers that many experts and hobbyists have attempted to solve.

There were four confirmed attacks by the Zodiac, resulting in five deaths, but they claimed to have actually been responsible for 37 deaths in their letters. Three of the attacks were on couples, the first of which being David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen who were both shot to death. Faraday was shot in his car by the killer, who is suspected to have parked alongside the couple before attacking, and Jensen was shot five times as she ran from the attacker. In the second attack, both individuals were again shot in their car, but Michael Mageau survived. Interestingly enough, someone later called the police and claimed responsibility for the attack as well as the first one, but police were only able to track the call as far as a gas station a few blocks away from the police station. The survivor was also able to tell the investigators that the man was a white male, 26 to 30 years old, about 5’8″, and 200 pounds.

Following this case, the first letters from the killer were discovered. Three very similar letters were sent to news publications in the area and included a confession to the two shootings and a cryptogram that the letter said would contain their identity. He threatened to kill 12 people over the weekend if these letters were not printed on the front page of each publication, but even though the San Francisco Chronicle printed it elsewhere, the murders did not occur. However, the Zodiac did reply to claims that the letters were fake by sending another correspondence to the San Francisco Examiner providing details about the killings that were not released to the public.

In 1969, the cryptogram was apparently solved and said that the killer was “collecting slaves for his afterlife” and that he did not actually include his identity in the message because it would have stopped him from continuing his mission.

After the third murder, this time carried out by stabbing, he once again reported it himself and even wrote the exact time and date in the couples’ car. Again, he was not able to be tracked using the phone call because it as made at a car wash in Napa, and the only lead was a partial palm print on the phone that was not matched to any known suspects. This attack also left one victim alive, so he was able to provide a statement for the police. The final known victim was a taxi driver who was shot in the head while driving the killer through the area, and there were once again witnesses to the crime. Unfortunately, two patrol officers later realized that they may have driven past the killer without realizing because they were mistakenly told to look for a black man.

Despite the known killings ceasing after this, the Zodiac continued to communicate with the police through letters until 1974. There have also been several copy cats and counterfeit letters circulating around since the killings first started, and there is a lot more nuance to this case specifically about the correspondence and symbols left at the crime scenes than I can fully describe here. The case is even so famous that it is still currently active in Napa County and Riverside, but no new leads have been uncovered in years and the truth may never be known