On October 23, 2024, the Netflix series “This is the Zodiac Speaking” looked into the close family friend of the Seawater family, Arthur Leigh Allen, who was the main suspect in the investigation of the Zodiac Killer.

The first murder

On December 20, 1968, Betty Lou Jensen and David Arthur Faraday went on their first date, earlier that day Faraday borrowed his mom’s car and drove to Jensen’s house at 8 p.m., they left her house at 8:30 and drove to a friend’s of Jensen’s house. Sometime after 9 p.m. they left the friend’s house and drove to the outskirts of Vallejo, on the Lover’s Lane on Lake Herman Road. They were seen between 10:15 and 10:30 inside Faraday’s car by a passing motorist, they were later spotted again at 11:10 p.m. already dead by another passing motorist.

Police say they think the couple was attacked between 11:05 and 11:10 and that the attacker parked about 10 feet away from Faraday’s car, got out of the vehicle, and pointed a gun at the driver’s window while he fired several shots inside, none hitting the teenagers. The teenagers tried to escape by the passenger door. Jensen was able to get out, but as Faraday was leaving, the Zodiac shot him in the head. The attacker started running after Jensen and fired six shots at her but only five bullets hit her back. The police theorized the whole attack in two to three minutes.

When police arrived, Faraday was still breathing and alive, but Jensen was found dead 20 feet from the car. Faraday died shortly after on the way to the hospital. The police could not find another reason for the killings other than him being a “madman” as police described him. Police did an investigation for a couple of months but everything kept leading to a dead end. After the attack, police did not have any sign of the attacker for 7 months. 

The second murder

Between July 4 and July 5, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were shot, Ferrin was fatally shot and Mageau was the only one to survive. Ferrin was 22 and a waitress at Terry’s Restaurant where she met Mageau who at the time was 19. They became friends and went on a date on July 4, despite Ferrin’s marriage with Dean Ferrin. At 11:30 p.m., Ferrin received a call in her house, probably from Mageau. She left and arrived at his house around 11:50 p.m.

Afterward, the facts in the case become “clouded with conflicting statements and speculation.”Some information comes from Zodiac researcher Robert Graysmith. He became well-known for his investigation while working as a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle during the time of the murders. After Ferrin and Mageau left the house, they felt someone was following them in a light-colored car. Darlene drove toward Lake Herman Road and parked in the empty lot of Blue Rock Springs Park just before midnight. She parked 70 feet from the entrance, and another car parked about 80 feet away. The other driver, known as the Zodiac, turned off his headlights and stayed still. Mageau asked about the driver, and Ferrin told him not to worry. Then, the Zodiac quickly left the lot.

Five minutes later the Zodiac came back to the parking lot. He parked next to Ferrin’s car and approached, shining a flashlight inside. The couple, thinking he was a police officer, rolled down the window, the man stayed quiet but fired several shots inside the vehicle. One bullet struck Mageau in the arm, while another hit Ferrin in the neck, rendering her motionless. Mageau tried to exit the car, but the passenger door handle was missing or broken. The Zodiac then returned to his car and fired four more shots—two at each person—before quickly driving away at approximately 12:10 a.m., leaving no traceable clues.

Three teenagers found an injured couple in a parking lot and called for help. Police arrived at 12:20 PM. Mageau survived, but Ferrin died at 12:40 PM. Mageau described the attacker as a heavyset white man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing 195-200 pounds, with short light brown hair. These details were insufficient for a suspect. Soon after, the Vallejo Police received a call from a nearby payphone, the voice on the other line said “I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.”

The first letters

The Zodiac’s letters, sent from 1969 to 1974, often began with “This is the Zodiac speaking” and were signed with a gunsight symbol. He sent four ciphers; two were solved, one in 1969 and another in 2020. Most letters were postmarked from San Francisco, except for the one on March 13, 1971, which came from Pleasanton. His use of astrological symbols led police to explore occult works and consult psychics.

On August 1, 1969, three letters purposely sent by the killer were received at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner, the three letters were reportedly almost the same, in the letters, he said the motive of the killings was to “collect them as his personal slaves in the afterlife.”

Each letter included one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram known as “Z408,” which the Zodiac claimed contained his identity. He demanded that they be printed on the front page of each newspaper, or he claimed to go on a killing spree until he killed at least a dozen people over the weekend.

The Chronicle published the third cryptogram the next day, with Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz stating they doubted the letter was from the murderer and requested a second letter to confirm the writer’s identity.

On August 4, the Examiner got a letter saying, “Dear Editor, This is the Zodiac speaking.” It contained undisclosed murder details and claimed that once the police cracked his code, “they will have me.”

On the same month, the cipher was solved and it said

“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 all the I 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 ebeorietemethhpiti”

The third murder

On September 27, students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa when a man, later known as the Zodiac, got closer to them. He was described as a white male, about 5’11” and over 170 pounds, he wore a black hood with sunglasses and had a bib-like device with a symbol on it. He had a gun and claimed to be an escaped convict from a jail in either Colorado or Montana and stated he needed their car and money to travel to Mexico.

The Zodiac had precut ropes of plastic and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell before he did the same with her. The Zodiac checked and tightened Hartnell’s bonds after discovering that Shepard had bound them loosely. Hartnell initially believed this event to be a bizarre robbery, but the Zodiac drew a knife and stabbed them both multiple times. Hartnell suffered six wounds and Shepard, ten. The Zodiac then hiked 500 yards (460 m) up to Knoxville Road, drew the  symbol on Hartnell’s car door with a black felt-tip pen, and wrote beneath it:

Vallejo

12-20-68

7-4-69

Sept 27–69–6:30

by knife

The fourth murder

on October 11, the Zodiac entered the taxi driven by Paul Stine in downtown San Francisco, requesting to be driven to Washington and Maple Streets in Presidio Heights. When they arrived, the passenger asked to be driven one block down to Washington and Cherry Streets, and Stine did so. At about 9:55 p.m., the Zodiac shot Stine in the head with a handgun, likely killing him immediately. The Zodiac then took Stine’s wallet and car keys. This was the last officially confirmed murder by the Zodiac.

Three teenagers at a home across the street, about 50 feet away, witnessed the incident and viewed the Zodiac’s face only when he was lit by a streetlight. They called the Police while the crime was in progress, saying the man in question was a “husky” white man wearing a “dark or black jacket.” The dispatcher mistakenly told to police that the suspect was a black man. The witnesses also said that the killer wiped the cab down and seemingly “rifled through the man’s clothing.” As he leaned on the inside of the cab and cleaned it up, he left partial prints from two of his right-hand fingers.

Two blocks from the crime scene, the patrol officers responded to the radio dispatch and arrived at Washington and Cherry two minutes after the phone call was placed. They saw a white male in dark clothes walking north, away from the crime scene and towards the Presidio Army Base. This man may have been the Zodiac. When the officers’ car pulled up near the man and asked him if he had seen anything weird. He responded that he had seen a man waving a gun earlier, and went east down Washington. They drove quickly away, believing that a black man was the culprit. A few minutes later, when more police officers arrived at the scene, Stine was declared dead and a search began in the area, including the Presidio. The Zodiac had likely escaped by that point, getting into a parked car and driving across the Golden Gate Bridge.

November 1969 letter and card

On November 8, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram. This cipher, later named the “Z340,” remained unsolved for over 51 years. On December 5, 2020, it was deciphered by an international team of citizens, including American software engineer David Oranchak, Australian mathematician Sam Blake, and Belgian programmer Jarl Van Eycke. They used a program made by Van Eycke called AZdecrypt, which ran 650,000 possible solutions for the cipher until it came up with the best possible encryption key. In the decrypted message, the Zodiac denied being the “Sam” who spoke on A.M. San Francisco, explaining that he was not afraid of the gas chamber “because it will send me to paradice all the sooner.” The team submitted what they discovered to the FBI, which later confirmed the discovery and it was said that the decoded message gave no further clues to the identity of Zodiac.

On November 9, the Zodiac sent a seven-page letter stating that two policemen stopped and spoke with him three minutes after he had shot Stine. The letter also included that he would blow up a school bus, and claimed that the police would never catch him, because “I have been to clever for them.” Excerpts from the letter were published in the Chronicle on November 12, which included the Zodiac’s letter. That same day, Fouke wrote a memo explaining what had happened on the night of Stine’s murder. On December 20, exactly one year after the Lake Herman Road murders, the Zodiac mailed a letter to Belli that included another swatch of Stine’s shirt; the Zodiac said that he wanted Belli to help him.

Arthur Leigh Allen and the Seawater family

Arthur Leigh Allen, a Vallejo resident, became a key person of interest in the Zodiac investigation after a friend claimed he had shared disturbing fantasies about killing people and leaving cryptic clues. Allen, who was a former schoolteacher and military veteran with a history of mental health issues, had been dismissed from his job for inappropriate conduct. In 1971, police searched his home and found items of interest, including a typewriter, cryptic writings, and a 9mm Luger similar to the Zodiac’s weapon. Investigators were further intrigued by his fascination with astrology and his possession of a Zodiac brand watch, which bore the symbol used by the killer.

Allen also had a connection to the Seawater family, who lived near Lake Berryessa, where Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were attacked. His friendship with the family may have given him familiarity with the area, raising further suspicion. Despite his proximity to the crimes and unusual behaviors, police lacked definitive evidence to charge him. Allen died in 1992, never formally linked to the Zodiac murders, leaving unanswered questions that keep him among the strangest figures associated with the case.

Why was the Zodiac never caught?

The Zodiac killer was never caught because police had limited tools to track him down in the late 1960s. Forensic technology was still basic—there was no way to use DNA evidence, and the partial fingerprints and fibers found at crime scenes weren’t enough to identify him. The Zodiac also picked remote areas for his attacks, with random victims and different methods each time, which made it hard for him to predict or trace.

He taunted police and reporters with letters but never gave enough away. His notes included symbols, ciphers, and astrological signs, all meant to confuse investigators and keep them guessing. There were also mistakes along the way, like when a police dispatcher gave the wrong description of the suspect after Paul Stine’s murder, causing officers to ignore someone who might have been the Zodiac. Despite close looks at suspects like Arthur Leigh Allen, every lead turned cold, and the Zodiac’s identity remained a mystery.

The last letters

 In the last letters, before he disappeared, the Zodiac taunted police and the public, showing that he still enjoyed the game. On March 13, 1971, he sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times claiming responsibility for additional crimes and stating that he would move his “hunt” to southern California. In this letter, he mocked police for not catching him and suggested he would keep adding to his “collection” of victims.

On March 22, 1971, the Zodiac mailed another letter, this time to the San Francisco Chronicle, after a break of several months. The letter mentioned the disappearance of a young woman named Donna Lass, a nurse who had vanished from South Lake Tahoe in 1970. Although he hinted at being involved, there was never concrete proof tying him to her case, and her body was never found.

The final confirmed letter from the Zodiac came on January 29, 1974, and was different from his previous ones. Instead of boasting about murders, this letter was a sarcastic note praising The Exorcist, which he called “the best satirical comedy have ever seen.” He signed off with a large, drawn-out version of his signature symbol, leaving a chilling message that seemed to say he was still out there, watching. After this, no confirmed letters came again, and the Zodiac seemed to vanish, leaving his identity and motives a mystery.