Netflix’s latest documentary, This is the Zodiac Killer, revisits the notorious unsolved Zodiac case, presenting Arthur Leigh Allen as the primary suspect. However, nine different individuals have been implicated in these chilling murders.
During the late 1960s, a series of five brutal murders occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area, prompting newspapers to receive strange coded letters from the perpetrator. In these communications, he threatened further violence, including killing sprees and bombings, unless his letters were published in their entirety.
The Zodiac claimed these murders were merely the beginning. In his last letter sent in 1974, he asserted he had killed 37 people in total. Despite extensive investigations, the identity of the Zodiac Killer remains a mystery.
Fast forward nearly sixty years, and we have This is the Zodiac Speaking, a new true crime documentary on Netflix that prominently features Arthur Leigh Allen’s story, though it’s important to remember that eight other suspects have been connected to the murders.
Arthur Leigh Allen
Arthur Leigh Allen is the main suspect in the Zodiac investigation and was the only individual police officially named as a person of interest.
To provide some context: Allen served in the US Navy for eight years before his honorable discharge in 1959. Almost a decade later, he was dismissed from his role as an elementary school teacher due to allegations of sexual misconduct involving students.
He came under suspicion after witnesses indicated he had been in the Lake Berrysea area around the time when Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Cecelia Ann Shepard were killed. Allen claimed he was scuba diving during that period.
Two years later, Donald Cheney, a friend of Allen’s, revealed that he had spoken about wanting to kill people, even mentioning the word “Zodiac”. This led to a subsequent police interview, during which Allen suggested law enforcement should not be referred to as “pigs”— a term the Zodiac used in his letters. In 1972, authorities obtained a search warrant for his residence, where they discovered a Zodiac-branded watch matching the killer’s logo.
Arthur Leigh Allen with the Seawater kids.
Additional circumstantial evidence pointed to Allen: his handwriting showed similar grammatical errors to that of the Zodiac, and his shoe size matched the killer’s (size 10). In 1992, Michael Mageau, a survivor of the Zodiac’s attacks, identified Allen in a photograph as the assailant, though an officer present claimed Allen’s face was too “round”to match the suspect’s description.
Despite the compelling evidence, law enforcement was unable to build a robust case against Allen, who passed away in 1992 at the age of 52 due to arteriosclerotic heart disease.
In the recently released docu-series, a family acquainted with Allen contends that he confessed to them and brought their children to various Zodiac murder sites. The series also highlights the temporary halt of the murders during Allen’s custody for an unrelated crime.
Mark Ruffalo played Dave Toschi, a key investigator, in David Fincher’s 2007 film. Toschi shared, “The moment I saw him, I was convinced it was him,” while Ruffalo added, “He believed he had solved the case, but there was never any substantial evidence to confirm it, pushing him to exhaust every possible lead.”
Earl Van Best Jr.
The book The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching for My Father… and Finding the Zodiac Killer, authored by Gary Stewart and Susan Mustafa in 2014, suggests that Earl Van Best Jr. could be behind the Zodiac murders.
However, after FX picked up Stewart’s theory for a documentary series in 2020, experts began to question the connections drawn between Best’s handwriting and that of the Zodiac. Although Stewart expressed frustration with the counterarguments, he continues to defend his theory.
“No matter how much evidence we presented against him, his response was, ‘Even if we’ve misidentified fingerprints and handwriting, that doesn’t invalidate my theory. I speculate this has become integral to his identity, making it hard for him to let go of,’” remarked Kief Davidson, the director of the documentary.
“I doubt we will ever definitively identify the Zodiac Killer. While I find it unlikely that Earl Van Best Jr. was the Zodiac, I can’t entirely rule out the prospect of his involvement,” Davidson added.
Gary Francis Post
In 2021, a group known as the Case Breakers identified Gary Francis Poste as a potential Zodiac suspect, claiming he murdered Cheri Jo Bates.
They asserted that Poste appeared to match an earlier Zodiac sketch, notably featuring similar forehead scars, and that anagrams purportedly pointed to his name.
Bates was an 18-year-old student murdered in October 1966, a crime widely believed to be linked to the Zodiac, though, just like the challenges faced in implicating Allen, this connection has never been established, and her case remains officially unsolved.
The Case Breakers alleged that both the San Francisco Police Department and FBI had considered Poste a suspect as early as 2016, even interviewing him in 2016 while he was imprisoned on domestic violence charges. TV news anchor Dale Julin claimed Poste confessed to being the Zodiac during an interview, though this claim lacks verification.
“The Zodiac killer investigation is still ongoing. Currently, we have no new information to share,” stated the San Francisco FBI office.
Joseph Bevilacqua
Joseph “Giuseppe” Bevilacqua has been proposed as a potential Zodiac suspect by Francesco Amicone, an Italian journalist investigating the case extensively.
Amicone claimed that Bevilacqua confessed not only to being the Zodiac but also to being the Monster of Florence, a serial killer responsible for 16 deaths in Italy from 1968 to 1985. However, Amicone did not record their conversation.
Details from Amicone’s investigative work are available in a summary, but key points include the Italian authorities dismissing their inquiry into Bevilacqua in 2021, followed by Bevilacqua’s passing in the subsequent year. Earlier this year, Amicone confirmed he had submitted Bevilacqua’s DNA profile to the FBI.
Lawrence Kane
Lawrence Kane was identified as a potential suspect by Kathleen Johns, a Zodiac survivor, and the sister of Darlene Ferrin, the killer’s third confirmed victim.
Kane also had ties to the Sahara Casino, where Donna Less, a suspected Zodiac victim, worked. Less mysteriously disappeared in September 1970, and her skull was not found until 2023, though the cause of death remains unclear.
In 2021, a cipher allegedly revealed by the Zodiac contained the term “Kayr”, which some theorized might refer to Kane, alongside the location of a school in South Lake Tahoe. This claim has faced skepticism.
Diagnosed with impulse control disorder in 1962 after a brain injury, Kane passed away in 2010.
Paul Doerr
Paul Doerr was suggested as a suspect in the 2022 book How to Find Zodiac by Jarrett Kobek.
Kobek pointed out that Doerr’s physical description fit witness accounts of the killer, and that his handwriting bore resemblances to the Zodiac’s letters. This evidence was compelling enough to prompt Doerr’s daughter to retract her plans to sue Kobek over the accusations.
Importantly, Doerr was associated with the Minutemen, a far-right group known for sending intimidating letters to those they considered communists, using symbols reminiscent of the Zodiac’s. He was also familiar with ANFO bomb-making techniques and hinted in a 1974 letter that he had been involved in murders, while expressing an interest in cryptography.
Doerr passed away in August 2007 at the age of 80. One researcher even referred to him as “the strongest Zodiac suspect to date.”
Richard Gaikowski
Richard Gaikowski is regarded as a major suspect by Tom Voigt, a renowned Zodiac expert.
At the time of the murders, Gaikowski was working as a reporter in the Bay Area, often in close proximity to the crime scenes, and he was later committed to Napa State Mental Hospital in 1971. He died in 2004.
Voigt and others argue that Gaikowski resembled the Zodiac’s sketches, and a sister of one of his victims identified him at their funeral. Although Gaikowski claimed he was abroad during the Lake Herman Road killings — despite losing his passport — authorities were reportedly hesitant to test DNA samples.
A co-worker of Gaikowski’s firmly believed he was the Zodiac, although they were often dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist lacking credibility” and referred to as a “Zodiac kook.”
Richard Marshall
Richard Marshall resided in San Francisco during the late 1960s, in the vicinity of Paul Lee Stine’s murder.
Neighbors described him as “peculiar,”noting that he often spoke about seeking “something far more thrilling than sex,”and he had an admiration for The Red Phantom, a film referenced by the Zodiac in one of his letters dated 1974.
Marshall denied being the Zodiac in a 1989 interview but acknowledged the reasons behind suspicions against him. He passed away in a nursing home in 2008.
Ross Sullivan
Following Bates’ murder, Ross Sullivan emerged as a person of interest. He worked at the Riverside City College Library and vanished for several days after her death. His physical appearance and clothing reportedly resembled the Zodiac sketch.
In 1967, he relocated to northern California and eventually was hospitalized due to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Sullivan was never formally investigated by the police and died from a heart attack in September 1977 at the age of 36.
Additionally, you can explore a variety of new true crime documentaries available this month as well as a selection of the best serial killer documentaries currently airing.
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