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It began quickly, a few minutes after 10 p.m. On Dec. 20, 1968, David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, pulled to the side of a road in Vallejo. An hour later, a man approached. He shot through their windows. They scrambled to get out. The guy shot Faraday point-blank in the head. Jensen, running away, was hit six times in the back. The next year, on the Fourth of July, two teenagers, also in Vallejo, drove to an isolated area. The same man approached them and shot them repeatedly.
Thirty minutes later, he called the police. "I want to report a double murder," he said. "I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye."
The killer who called himself "Zodiac" has never been identified. He is infamous in the Bay Area, not just for his murders but for his taunting letters to The Chronicle and other newspapers, ridiculing police and threatening children's lives.
"Dear Editor," he wrote to The Chronicle on July 31, 1969, "This is the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman and the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo." The Bay Area's most notorious unsolved case has become the subject of many books, TV specials and Web sites. In his final letter to The Chronicle, April 24, 1978 -- whose authenticity some have called into question -- he wrote boastfully:
"This is the Zodiac speaking ... I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me."
On Sept. 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Shepard, 22, went picnicking at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. The lake was quiet, still, inviting. Dressed in a hooded costume, Zodiac walked out from behind some trees. According to the survivor, Hartnell, Zodiac spoke with them briefly and then tossed them some rope.
Holding a gun and a knife, he ordered them to tie each other up. After tightening their knots, he stabbed Hartnell five times in the back. Turning to Shepard, he repeated the act, stabbing her five times in the back as she begged for her life. She flipped over. He stabbed her five more times. Then, he walked away.
Losing blood, Hartnell untied Shepard's hands with his teeth. Somehow she managed to untie his hands, too. Hartnell was able to stand and wave down a fisherman, Ronald Fong, who sent for help. After never speaking publicly about the incident for 36 years, Fong, 75, had a conversation with The Chronicle.
"I heard this screaming," said Fong, who has relocated to Washington state but was back in San Francisco last week visiting his family. "I used binoculars to see what was going on. He wanted me to go help him. But I had my 9-year-old son. ... I was close to the boathouse, so I went and told the park rangers."
Hours after the attack, Fong saw a bizarre handwritten note on Hartnell's car door.
In felt-tip pen, Zodiac had written:
"Vallejo
12-20-68
7-4-69
Sept 27-69-6:30
by knife"
Zodiac was keeping score. From then on, he would send a murder tally along with each letter to The Chronicle. In 1974, he wrote, "Me - 37, SFPD - 0."
Napa County Detective Ken Narlow, a tough cop, became the county's lead investigator.
Hartnell had gone into seclusion after the stabbing, and later became a lawyer in Southern California. Shepard, 22, died in the hospital three days after the stabbings.
On Oct. 11, 1969, Zodiac hailed a cab. Stine, 29, pulled over to greet him. From downtown San Francisco, they drove to Washington and Maple streets in Presidio Heights. Zodiac placed the tip of a gun against Stine's head and pulled the trigger. Stine's skull shattered. A few teenagers watched from their window as Zodiac walked away.
The next day, Zodiac wrote a letter to The Chronicle: "This is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over on Washington + Maple St last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt."
"School children," he added, "make nice targets, I think I might wipe out a school bus some morning."
With each new lead, Chronicle reporter Paul Avery wrote an article. Zodiac seemed to like the attention, until 1970, when he wrote Avery a letter, warning, "You are doomed."
In response to the threat, two Chronicle editors made up hundreds of lapel buttons that said, "I Am Not Paul Avery." Many on the paper's staff, including Avery, wore the buttons.
At first, many Chronicle reporters treated the threat "as a humorous thing," said former reporter Duffy Jennings, who wrote about the case in the '70s. Eventually, he said, the entire newsroom felt vulnerable.
"Paul was generally paranoid," said Margo St. James, Avery's widow. She said Avery began to
change his route each day. He carried a gun. He felt insecure living on a houseboat in Sausalito.
Avery began chain smoking, drinking heavily, taking cocaine and gambling, she said.
Thirty minutes later, he called the police. "I want to report a double murder," he said. "I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye."
The killer who called himself "Zodiac" has never been identified. He is infamous in the Bay Area, not just for his murders but for his taunting letters to The Chronicle and other newspapers, ridiculing police and threatening children's lives.
"Dear Editor," he wrote to The Chronicle on July 31, 1969, "This is the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman and the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo." The Bay Area's most notorious unsolved case has become the subject of many books, TV specials and Web sites. In his final letter to The Chronicle, April 24, 1978 -- whose authenticity some have called into question -- he wrote boastfully:
"This is the Zodiac speaking ... I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me."
On Sept. 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Shepard, 22, went picnicking at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. The lake was quiet, still, inviting. Dressed in a hooded costume, Zodiac walked out from behind some trees. According to the survivor, Hartnell, Zodiac spoke with them briefly and then tossed them some rope.
Holding a gun and a knife, he ordered them to tie each other up. After tightening their knots, he stabbed Hartnell five times in the back. Turning to Shepard, he repeated the act, stabbing her five times in the back as she begged for her life. She flipped over. He stabbed her five more times. Then, he walked away.
Losing blood, Hartnell untied Shepard's hands with his teeth. Somehow she managed to untie his hands, too. Hartnell was able to stand and wave down a fisherman, Ronald Fong, who sent for help. After never speaking publicly about the incident for 36 years, Fong, 75, had a conversation with The Chronicle.
"I heard this screaming," said Fong, who has relocated to Washington state but was back in San Francisco last week visiting his family. "I used binoculars to see what was going on. He wanted me to go help him. But I had my 9-year-old son. ... I was close to the boathouse, so I went and told the park rangers."
Hours after the attack, Fong saw a bizarre handwritten note on Hartnell's car door.
In felt-tip pen, Zodiac had written:
"Vallejo
12-20-68
7-4-69
Sept 27-69-6:30
by knife"
Zodiac was keeping score. From then on, he would send a murder tally along with each letter to The Chronicle. In 1974, he wrote, "Me - 37, SFPD - 0."
Napa County Detective Ken Narlow, a tough cop, became the county's lead investigator.
Hartnell had gone into seclusion after the stabbing, and later became a lawyer in Southern California. Shepard, 22, died in the hospital three days after the stabbings.
On Oct. 11, 1969, Zodiac hailed a cab. Stine, 29, pulled over to greet him. From downtown San Francisco, they drove to Washington and Maple streets in Presidio Heights. Zodiac placed the tip of a gun against Stine's head and pulled the trigger. Stine's skull shattered. A few teenagers watched from their window as Zodiac walked away.
The next day, Zodiac wrote a letter to The Chronicle: "This is the Zodiac speaking. I am the murderer of the taxi driver over on Washington + Maple St last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt."
"School children," he added, "make nice targets, I think I might wipe out a school bus some morning."
With each new lead, Chronicle reporter Paul Avery wrote an article. Zodiac seemed to like the attention, until 1970, when he wrote Avery a letter, warning, "You are doomed."
In response to the threat, two Chronicle editors made up hundreds of lapel buttons that said, "I Am Not Paul Avery." Many on the paper's staff, including Avery, wore the buttons.
At first, many Chronicle reporters treated the threat "as a humorous thing," said former reporter Duffy Jennings, who wrote about the case in the '70s. Eventually, he said, the entire newsroom felt vulnerable.
"Paul was generally paranoid," said Margo St. James, Avery's widow. She said Avery began to
change his route each day. He carried a gun. He felt insecure living on a houseboat in Sausalito.
Avery began chain smoking, drinking heavily, taking cocaine and gambling, she said.