A serial killer is somebody who could be a best friend, a coworker, and often times a parent. How can somebody go out and kill people? Many serial killers can go out and know who they want to kill. In many instances nobody knows a person is a serial killer, until they start committing murderous crimes. The Zodiac killer is a criminal who is targeting people and it seems to always be with a gun and not another weapon. In spite of being accused of murdering 37 people, people are not quite sure if the Zodiac killer killed them, or if somebody else helped him commit these murders, since his identity is not known. Between the film, and the actual investigation the information was accurate except for some differences.
In the 1960s-1970s there were many murders that had taken place during this time period. This murderer had no name and started sending letters to investigators, and news reporters, and many more people. The guy then soon to tell people his name was the Zodiac killer and people wanted to find out his actual name. He was accused of murdering 37 people, but the police department reported that there had been 5 deaths, and seven total attacks (Montaldo). On December 20th 1968, there had been a couple named Betty, and David they had been currently parked in an area that was isolated and they were just talking at the time and soon they realized that there was a car that was following them, which caused them to freak out (Montaldo). The guy in the black car then drove off and came back and killed these couples in their car at 11:15 on Lake Herman road. The detectives started to look into this unusual massacre that had taken place, and found that the guy was sick and he shot these two people with a gun really close to their face. Betty had been completely dead, although David was not all the way dead when the police had come, David ended up surviving, and Betty went to the hospital and ended up dying (Butterfield). Based on Betty and David’s murder, Researchers had found that these two teens were considered a target. They could never figure out why they could have been a target (Butterfield).
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On July 4th 1969, there was another couple named Darlene, and Michael they had been parked by a golf course and they saw some man walking up behind them at midnight and figured oh, it’s a police officer. Often times police officers have flashlights and many people got blinded by how bright the light is. The Zodiac killer then started thinking about how he can include a flashlight on his gun so he would not have to hold the gun and the flashlight. The Zodiac killer had a 9mm gun and started firing at Darlene, and David as they were crying out for help (Butterfield). Soon after this happened people noticed they were in danger and immediately called for help. Why did the Zodiac killer kill people? The Zodiac killer killed people because he wanted to be famous and wanted everything to go in the newspaper. He wanted all of the attention and wanted to be remembered for everything he did, and wanted people to know about it. The Zodiac killer was known for his codes and he wanted people to crack them, but many people could not crack them until a high school teacher on August 8th cracked the 408-symbol cipher and her husband. According to the letter of the Zodiac killer:
I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE. (Montaldo)
Police investigators, and detectives, and a cartoonist were trying to figure out the Zodiac killers name, and it really upset them when none of the codes included his name. They had to do more and more research every day to figure out who this guy was. There had been a fourth attack on October 11th, and Paul Stine was the victim and was a taxi cab driver and shot him while taking his car keys, and his wallet (Montaldo). The Zodiac killer was always using a gun to shoot his victims, and had taken peoples car keys, and their wallets with every victim he has murdered (Montaldo). When Stine got murdered the Zodiac killer had sent the Chronicles a letter stating that policemen have stopped him and they were questioning him. The Zodiac killer did not like that and threatened them that he will get a bomb ready and let it off on a school bus full of children (Montaldo).
The Zodiac killer does take credit for his victims, but no one knows who he is so in that case he can not be stopped. During these cases there had been several other murders but he murdered so many people it is hard to write about all of them. Detectives and a cartoonist were still investigating and trying to find clues. Some clues they have found include fingerprints, footprints, and the victim had hair and blood on her fingernails (Montaldo). The Zodiac killer kept on sending letters after sending letters and in December there had been a letter carved into a desk and they had the same handwriting as the Zodiac killer stated Sherwood. Based on these killings people then began to give up on who the killer was because the Zodiac killer ended up leaving and he never communicated with any letters after four years (Montaldo). During this horrendous tragedy the Zodiac killer was never solved and the police thought they found out who the killer was, but it came out that the guy they thought it was, he was not the killer.
The Zodiac killer was a unique individual, he created his own symbol used to taunt investigators after his first murder. The Zodiac killers’ symbol was a circle with a plus sign and that is what made him the Zodiac killer. Many people thought the killer was Arthur Leigh Allen but he had a hand-written test and he got released from it because it did not match the Zodiac killers handwriting. The Zodiac killer had based his sign off of a watch which Fossil owns currently to this day.
There was little or no doubt that the Zodiac killer was a narcissist and wanted to show his superiority to the world. He loved getting all of the attention and he had a disorder called paraphiliac disorder which means he had a disorder of sexual, and difficulties in behaviors. On November 17th, 1989, the NYPD’s 17th precinct began receiving letters that they were starting to date and the letters that they have received had a title called The Zodiac. It seemed like one murder had taken place, and then other murders happened hours after the murder. People tried getting as much evidence as possible to figure out who the Zodiac killer was, and where the letters were coming from (ArntField, pg. 99).
Based on the film of the Zodiac killer, the film started out as a car following this couple named Darlene, and David and David noticed that the car was at a food restaurant and followed them to their isolated destination. They thought it was very weird that the car was following them and Darlene did not realize the guy had been following them, but David noticed. The guy in the black car drove away and then he came back and when he came back he walked up with a flashlight blinding Darlene and David and shot them in the head. Darlene was shot multiple times, and David had called 911 and he was sitting by the tire on the ground (Zodiac, Fincher).
The Zodiac then started sending letters to investigators, and police investigators with a code for them to solve. Many people did not understand what was going on or how to solve this mystery. A high school teacher and her husband had solved this code and told the police what the letters had said. There was a cartoonist that tried solving the Zodiac mystery for a long time, and he was determined to solve this mystery and never had given up. Many people that he worked with made fun of him because he was a boy scout, but he was proud to be a boy scout and a great researcher. The Zodiac killer wanted to kill children on a bus when they came bouncing out of the bus one by one. The killer was taped and he told them he did not want people knowing his disguise and how he kills. He said I have not left any finger prints behind, and he wears transparent fingertips which is two coats of airplane cement coated on his fingertips stated the Zodiac killer. The Zodiac killer stated that people should have holes in their heads. During the film this mystery had been out on newspapers, and televisions, and everybody knew about this serial killer. While investigators were trying to solve this terrible mystery, people started going to the police station to say they were the Zodiac killer and many people wanted to be arrested for these murders. They knew these people were not the Zodiac killers because people had been saying false evidence that did not go along with the evidence the Zodiac killer had been doing (Zodiac).
During the film they had found some evidence they thought was for certain and they had to call in Arthur Leigh in for some questions. They asked Arthur Leigh some questions, and a question they asked him was what was he knife in your car with blood all over it? Arthur replied that he killed a chicken and ate it for dinner. They asked if he was ambidextrous and he replied that his teachers tried making him write with both hands but he could never do that. Leigh had stated that he wanted to kill school children, and he paused for a second and then said it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to say. Leigh had been fired for touching his students and he never responded to that question. A police investigator saw that he had a Zodiac watch on his wrist and asked Arthur if he could see his watch and said his mother gave the watch to him for Christmas (Zodiac).
The cartoonist Robert Graysmith then began to try to solve the mystery and his wife had to take her kids because she did not feel safe at her house. The Zodiac killer started calling the cartoonist and he hung up every time and continued to research the mystery. The Zodiac killer had been calling his house once a week and the wife did not like that. He thought the killer was Rick Marshal and his hand writing was the closest to the Zodiacs handwriting. He then found a girl named Linda and visited her in the jail and asked her some questions like what is the painting party? Linda replied with a story about how Dalene had lots of boys around and used to bring her presents from Tijuana and Darlene told Linda he had killed somebody before. The guy showed up at the party in a suit and sat alone all night long. Darlene had been very scared of this man so she told Linda to stay away from him. Linda said he had a short nickname and his name was Leigh. He had files on files and Roberts wife gave him some information and told him to finish the case. Robert had never finished the case, although he did make a book about it hoping somebody would figure out the case (Zodiac).
Seven- and one-half years later this guy was at the airport and some victims wanted to meet with this guy that wanted to solve this mystery. He had some photos laid out and asked the guy to point to who the guy was that he saw. The guy pointed to somebody with a round face and said that on a scale from one to ten the guy he pointed to was an eight and he rated the guy an eight out of ten of how sure he was (Zodiac).
The film of the Zodiac, and what actually happened is accurate there are a few differences but they were pretty close to the same. During the film of Zodiac some differences include a black car did not follow Darlene and David and he just came to the isolated spot and shot them. The cartoonist Robert was not mentioned in the actual mystery. Those two differences were the only two things that were different than what actually happened. All of the quotes from the article was mentioned in the film as well they did not hold anything back and wanted to make it accurate (Zodiac).
There had been a third Zodiac and he ended up killing a young girl that was 9 years old and she had been stabbed to death. The killer was strong and he could just strangle somebody. The Zodiac said he loved killing people because he enjoyed doing it and he said he liked killing people more than hunting wild animals. In Japan they were shaken because they did not want anything to do with the Zodiac killer, and that when he said school children make nice targets they felt really scared and did not want him to come and hurt their kids. There had been a police officer raided a boy’s home and found evidence such as horror videos, and a knife, and a book about the San Francisco killings and he also had sacred experiments so he can start practicing his killings (Graysmith, pg. 384-387).
The two themes of history are serial killers, and the Civil rights because serial killers are a huge part of life and it still happens to this day. Choosing the civil rights is another theme because during the Zodiac movie the right to justice is used in the film and they are trying to figure out who the Zodiac killer was. The upbringing would be that the police had left much evidence that the mystery should have been solved, but they gave up and quit trying to solve who the killer was. If they did not leave back so much evidence they would have found the killer. This helps me what is happening in the movie because they were finding tons of evidence to figure out who the killer was, and the film ends in how they never found the killer. The film does not show who the Zodiac killer and no one ever figures out who the killer was. The director made these changes because they wanted people to do some research to figure out who can solve the mystery. They never figured out who the killer was and they probably will never figure it out. They feel like they need to make it anonymous.
Many people have wondered who the Zodiac killer was, but the mystery has never been solved. Many people that you think may not be a serial killer ends up being somebody you are close to like a friend, a family member, or even somebody you may have encountered with at any time during anybody’s lifetime. Some serial killers are developed through a tragedy in their early lives that cause them to kill or hurt other people. Many people will often wonder what happens with the Zodiac killer and wonder if he is still on the loose.