289
San Francisco police circulated this
composite of the “Zodiac” killer based
on the accounts of three witnesses
interviewed shortly after the murder of
Paul Stine in October 1969.See also: The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping 178–85 ■ The Black Dahlia Murder 218–23 ■ Ted Bundy 276–83SERIAL KILLERS
homicide committed in Vallejo in
December 1968, which had an
identical modus operandi.
After some hesitation, the papers
printed their portions of the cipher.
A second letter arrived at the Herald
on 4 August, in which the author
referred to himself as “the Zodiac”.Fatal finale
By 8 August 1969, a couple living in
Salinas decoded the 408 symbol
cryptogram, in which the author
said that he hunted people. The
Zodiac described killing as a
thrilling experience and claimed
that after his death, the victims
would be his slaves in the afterlife.
On the afternoon of 27 August,
Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard
were relaxing at Lake Berryessa in
Napa when they were approached
by a gunman in a strange black
mask and costume. He bound
them with rope and stabbed them
repeatedly. Hartnell survived to
recount the details but Shepard
died. Before leaving, the killer drew
the Zodiac symbol on their car door.The final murder definitively linked
to the Zodiac occurred in San
Francisco on 11 October 1969. That
night, cabbie Paul Stine was shot in
the head by a passenger with a
pistol. The killer ripped away a
bloodstained section of Stine’s shirt,
stole his wallet and keys, and wiped
the car down. He was spotted by
three witnesses, but their differing
accounts of his appearance and
colour ensured that he was never
arrested. Although police recovered
a bloody fingerprint and black gloves
from the taxi, the killer remained
unidentified. The killer sent a letter
to the Chronicle two days later with
a bloody piece of Stine’s shirt. The
letters continued until 1978, but the
Zodiac killer was never caught.Prime suspect
Of all the names to surface in the
hunt for the killer, that of Arthur
Leigh Allen has been the most
mentioned. When questioned in
1969, Allen admitted that his mother
had recently given him a Zodiac
brand watch, featuring a crossed
circle symbol. A friend of Allen’s
claimed that after he received the
watch, Allen mentioned a desire to
murder random couples and taunt
police with letters signed with the
Zodiac symbol. Allen lived within
minutes of the 1968–69 murders and
owned the same ammunition that
was used in the 1968 attack.
In 2002, 10 years after his death,
Allen’s DNA was compared to a
saliva sample taken from a Zodiac
envelope. They did not match, so he
was excluded by police. However, it
later emerged that Allen asked
others to lick envelopes for him,
because he claimed that the taste
made him feel nauseous. ■Was given a Zodiac
brand wristwatch by his
mother, which featured the
cross-in-the-circle symbolTold friends he would
like to murder random
couples and taunt police
with coded lettersLived only a few
minutes from the
scenes of the crimesOwned the same brand
of ammunition as those
used by the ZodiacThe case against Arthur Leigh Allen
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