Zodiac Killer and Unsolved Case

America's most dreaded killer remains elusive even today. It is still not known who this Zodiac Killer was. Though the police suspected it to be Arthur Leigh Allen, there was no concrete evidence to support the claim. Since he has been an enigma to the cops, little is known about his early days and what prompted him to become a serial killer. Till date the case is open and world's top investigators are foxed by the complexity of this case. Allen was the only one who came close to the killer's description. But his DNA doesn't match with any of the samples found at the site of crime. The San Francisco Police Department marked this case closed in April 2004 but has reopened it now.

The Zodiac Killers modus operandi is intriguing, as he wrote letters to media in code language about the killings ,sometimes even before hand . In fact, once he even called up the police and accepted responsibility for killing two youngsters in a parking lot. The call was traced to a telephone booth near the Vallejo Police Department. In 1968, the Zodiac killings came to light with the murder of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968 in California City. He shot them point blank on their head. A neighborhood lady Stella Borges found the bodies and alerted the police. But no leads were found. This was followed by a spate of killings which baffled the cops and made them helpless. No conclusive evidence was found in any of the killings.

In 1969, letters were received by the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The letters consisted of one third of a cryptogram with a total of 408 characters which he claimed contained his identity. He demanded they be printed on the front page or he would go on a rampage and kill a dozen people that weekend. Though the threatened murders did not happen, all three parts were eventually published.

The cryptogram was cracked in August 1969 by Donald and Betty Harden. Though the message was unraveled it didn't contain the killer's identity. According to the excerpts published the letter was as follows: