Where the United Kingdom had Jack the Ripper, the United States has its own Stock Unsolved Mystery in the Zodiac Killer—a cunning, cold-blooded murderer whose true identity has been the subject of intense speculation in the decades since his killing spree.
The Zodiac is known to have killed at least five people (with two victims surviving) in and around the San Francisco area between December 1968 and October 1969:
- David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen (December 20, 1968)
- Michael Mageau (survived) and Darlene Ferrin (July 4, 1969)
- Bryan Hartnell (survived) and Cecilia Ann Shepard (September 27, 1969)
- Paul Stine (October 11, 1969)
The killer formally identified himself as the Zodiac in a series of letters and cipher puzzles he mailed to regional newspapers, threatening massacres and bombings if they were not printed. Two of the four Zodiac cyphers remain unsolved; a third was not cracked until 2020. This enigmatic correspondence, combined with the fact that the Zodiac was never caught, has spawned a cottage industry of true crime authors and amateur sleuths (not unlike that surrounding the aforementioned Ripper) trying to solve the mystery.
Served as inspiration for the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry. A True Crime book by Robert Greysmith called "Zodiac" and its follow up "Zodiac Unmasked" would form the basis for Zodiac by David Fincher.
Related tropes:
- Better than Sex: How he saw killing people, calling it "better than getting your rocks off with a girl."
- Card-Carrying Villain: His letters have him openly bragging about his crimes and taunting police, showing how much pleasure he took in being a feared serial killer.
- Criminal Mind Games: His notorious cryptograms, one of which took 50 years to solve.
- The Dreaded: He was one to all of San Francisco and Northern California, keeping the entire city terrified. Even now, he's still feared due to never having been caught.
- Evil Genius: He was a serial killer and his cipher puzzles show considerable intelligence, one having taken decades to crack and two others still being unsolved.
- Faux Affably Evil: His letters all had a mockingly polite tone even as he described his murders with sadistic glee.
- For the Evulz: His letters give this as his motive, claiming he only killed simply because he enjoyed it.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: If the above picture is accurate, he wore glasses and was a sadistic killer.
- Freudian Excuse: John Douglas' profile of the Zodiac speculates that the killer had a troubled relationship with his mother and wasn't successful with women.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: His letters reference this idea, referring to himself as a hunter whose favorite targets happen to be human beings.
- Iconic Outfit: The costume he wore during the Lake Berryessa attack, consisting of black clothes, an executioner's hood (with sunglasses tacked to the eyeholes), and a bib bearing the notorious cross-circle symbol.
- Karma Houdini: Barring a forensic discovery, it's reasonably likely that the killer got away with it and is either at large, dead, or imprisoned for an unrelated crime.
- The Profiler: Famed FBI profiler John Douglas speculated as to the background and motivations of the Zodiac in his book The Cases That Haunt Us.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: the Zodiac would make various spelling errors in his letters, with "Paradice" being one notable misspelling that is considered strong proof that the 2020 decryption of one of his cyphers is most likely correct.
- Serial Killer: One of the most famous in history. He is known to have killed at least five people but claims to have killed dozens more.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: He said that, when he died, he'd be reborn in paradise where everybody he killed would be his slaves.
