by Skye Martin

Created on: May 12, 2011

For nine months, between December 20, 1968, and October 11, 1969, a series of murders took place near San Francisco, California.  These slayings stunned and baffled locals for decades and even today the name of this killer is no closer to being revealed than it was back in 1968.  We do not know this murderer’s identity, but even if we did, he’d still be known as the Zodiac killer.

On December 20, 1968, the first two of five murders took place in a town called Vallejo, just outside of San Francisco.  Two teenagers, David Faraday and Bettilou Jensen, were shot to death and left beside their station wagon.  Then, several months later on July 5, 1969, a man with a “gruff” voice phoned the Vallejo Police Department to report a murder.  The caller told police exactly where to find two murder victims and then chillingly added, “I also killed those two kids last year. Good-bye.”  As the caller described, police found the victims.  Darlene Farrin was dead from gunshot wounds and her boyfriend, Michael Mageau, barely clung to life.

Michael Mageau miraculously survived the attempt on his life and eventually was able to relay his story to police.  He said that the killer was about twenty-five to thirty years old, stocky in build and had a round face and wavy brown hair.

In August 1969, two newspapers in the San Francisco area received letters signed with a menacing cross drawn over a circle – the symbol of the zodiac.  The letter described the slayings with such detail and accuracy that police knew without a doubt that the author was the killer himself.  If these weren’t startling enough, at the bottom of each letter, the author included lines of cipher that, if broken, would reveal his identity.  At least, this is what he claimed.  As it turned out, the cipher did not reveal the killer’s identity, but it did show his twisted motive.  It also revealed the state of a very diseased mind:

“I like to kill people because it is so much fun.  It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest, because Man is the most dangerous animal of all. To kill something vies me the most thrilling experience.  It is even better than [sex].  The best part will be when I die.  I will be reborn in Paradise, and then all I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you will try to slow or stop my collecting of slaves for

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