Zodiac

“I am the ZODIAC and I am in control of all things.”

(the Zodiac killer)

Perhaps the most prolific user of the media in all serial killer cases, Zodiac sent not only letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, but also cryptic ciphers and gruesome remnants from his crimes.

Terrorising Northern California in the late 1960‘s, Zodiac was responsible for seven murders and one attempted murder (a victim survived his attack) and attempted to hold the whole area to ransom by threatening more deaths if his wishes were not adhered to.

Robert Graysmith and Paul Avery were two of the reporters who were given the task of dealing with the Zodiac letters. Avery was an experienced senior reporter, whereas Graysmith was the newspapers resident cartoonist, but was given the task due to his skill in decoding cyphers.

Unfortunately, Avery is now deceased, and Graysmith lives a reclusive lifestyle, so any attempts to arrnage an interview with the journalists involved nhave been fruitless.

Graysmith, however, does still participate in rare interviews. The following quotes come from an interview with close-upfilm.com in 2007.

“You realize that that was sort of extraordinary at the time. Everybody was pretty much obsessed by this because we really hadn’t run into anything like this before. We had Son of Sam, Boston Strangler, and then Jack The Ripper. But this was something entirely new back in 1968 that we really hadn’t dealt with before.”

(Graysmith on his obsession with the case)

“They were very jealous in those days because, as one of the guys put it, ‘Anybody that solves this is going to be the ace of aces, the best detective. Each one kept their own facts. No pencils, no paper, and I’m sitting there and I don’t have a great memory. But they give you, like, vehicle license and identification numbers and phone numbers. And, I’d just sit there and try to remember it. After about three hours I’d run across the street and just try to write it all down.

(Graysmith on how today’s technology would have simplified the case)

“It’s a person, it’s a place. The San Francisco Chronicle at the time was like the old ‘30s newspaper; it’s bustling. There’s the clatter of typewriters. We had telephone booths against the wall, all the phones are ringing, copy boys lowering baskets to bring up beer from downstairs out the window. There were horserace bets going on, reporters sleeping in their cars. It’s gone – it’s an insurance company. I mean, it looks like that. Carpeting, there’s not a sound, there’s no scramble and rush, there’s not real competition. I love newspapers. I’ve got all the old metal plates and original art, and I just love that stuff.”

(Graysmith on his memories of the San Francisco Chronicle)

 

Fortunately, there are also many people who still have strong opinions on the killers motivation. Dan Simon, CNN correspondent said on the release of the Hollywood movie;

“What makes the story so interesting is the hunt for the killer and the Zodiac’s headline-grabbing antics: he wrote several letters to newspapers taking credit for his crimes and also included cryptograms or ciphers that he claimed would shed light on his identity. The Zodiac craved attention. He’s certainly getting his wish now.”

(CNN.com)

Tomas Guillen, an expert on serial murder, wrote a thesis regarding the investigative value of communications by serial killers while at Albany University, the following quotes are taken from this thesis.

“The killer’s distinct communiqués served another valuable role: To weed out letters by “kooks” or false confessors. Eventually, the FBI gathered the estimated 20 letters sent by the Zodiac and asked a psycholinguistics expert to develop a psychological profile. While the communiqués helped investigators link the various San Francisco area murders and the profile provided a variety of psychological traits the killer might possess, they failed to help identify the killer.”

“In the end, the communiqués proved mostly frustrating and of little investigative value since the letters publicly taunted police and repeatedly pointed out the inability of police to solve the case. Federal and local investigators were particularly embarrassed when they could not decipher a coded message sent by the killer to the news media.”

It would appear then, that even though this case is almost fifty years old, it still evokes opinion in many people. This is perhaps why the Zodiac killer is usually the first to spring to mind when pondering the question of why serial killers write to the media.

The following series of videos are an insight into the Zodiac letters in which Dr David Van Nuys explores the motivation behind one of the most mysterious people in history.