grizzlym
Premium Platinum
Overview:
Status: Unsolved
Active: late 1960s - early 70s
Tally: 5, but claimed to have killed 37
Intro:
jack the Ripper aside, this is probably the serial killer/crime that many would consider the holy grail, the crime they'd love to solve/see solved. Because this serial killer had every bit of depravity and weirdness down pat: coded letters to the press, weird home-made killing outfits, savagery and rat cunning all bundled up, and a seemingly superhuman ability to cover their tracks.
Like Jack the Ripper: new suspects are regularly trotted out, new evidence and theories are tendered, and there's a whole industry of people who research the crimes and try to nut it out. But time is killing the trail, if it hasn't already killed the Zodiac, and the likelihood it will ever be solved is getting slimmer and slimmer.
And like Jack, who was seized on by the press of his day, so was the Zodiac. He became a celebrity of sorts - while the scaring the **** out of people - and entered popular culture, even being co-opted into a Clint Eastwood film.
Here is the intro from wikipedia:
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity is still unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.[1]
Numerous suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive", yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.[2][3][dead link] The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.[4] The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.[5]
Link
Links:
Clips/Image libraries:
Extensive image library