The Zodiac Killer

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The Zodiac Killer

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were a time of great change in America. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution were just some of the issues on the evening news in American households. For citizens of the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the rest of California, the late 60’s early 70’represented terror, fear and death. “The bizarre and theatrical and still unresolved serial murders by real-life ghoul who called himself Zodiac, who claimed in letters to have killed 37 people (though police have focused on five homicides and two attempted murders in the greater Bay Area in 1968 and 1969” (Booth,2) have intrigued people for nearly four decades. How has Zodiac remained so elusive? What started out as a random homicide in October 1966 turned into one of the greatest cold cases in history.

Zodiac began his legacy on the calm, cool night of December 20th, 1968, when a seventeen year-old named David Faraday was getting ready to take sixteen year-old Betty Lou Jensen on her first date. David arrived at Betty’s house, picked her up, and promptly proceeded to Lake Herman Road, a well known “lovers lane” of the local teenagers. Soon after arrival a car, possibly a blue Valiant, pulled up next to David’s 1961 brown four-door station wagon, and a man got out. “Framed only in a silhouette, the man appeared to be stocky in build and slightly heavy with an eerie sense about him” (Wark, 5). The man requested the teens get out of the car, but they refused. Upon hearing David and Betty’s refusal, the man pulled out a gun, and fired a round into the right rear window, shattering it. He then moved to the front and fired another into the left tire. Stricken with panic, the youths rushed o...

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... from Newspaper Source database.

Graysmith, R. (2002). Zodiac Unmasked. New York: Berkley Publishing.

Taylor, M. (n.d.). UNDYING LEGEND OF A KILLER/MYSTERY: He taunted police, terrified children, kept the Bay Area on edge—then went silent. San Francisco Chronicle(CA), Retrieved April 5, 2009 from Newspaper Source database.

The Associated Press. (2009, April 30). Ca. Woman Deborah Perez Says Zodiac Killer Was Her Father, Police to Investigate Claim. New York Daily News. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/30/2009-04-3 30_woman_claims_father.

Wark, Jack. (2009) The Zodiac Killer. Retrieved April 9, 2009 from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/zodiac/river_1.html.

Zodiac Killer. (2009). Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved April 9, 2009, from http://www.zodiackiller.com/FAQ.html.

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