Dan
Posted on 10/05/2005 6:56:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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."
Now, 26 years later, David Fincher, who made "Fight Club," has taken up the challenge. Due late next year, the Warner Bros. film "Zodiac" will star Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo as the lead detectives and reporters. The $80 million film was shot on location
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
ping
Fincher made 'Seven' so this should be interesting addendum.
Great, let's glorify another murderer.
The 1978 letter was a fake. Don't look for any accuracy in this production--the Zodiac crimes were neither sexy nor particularly horrific, and there were only four of them. Producers tend to take big liberties with the facts in order to spice things up for audiences used to more bloodcurdling fare.
It's not a new phenomenon. How many Westerns were made about Billy the Kid or Jesse James?
I think it's very hard to argue their were only four killings attributable to Zodiac.
There were four confirmed events and five deaths: Betty Lou Jensen, David Faraday, Darlene Ferrin, Cecilia Shepherd and Paul Stine. If you know of any others, let me in on them.
For further, and extensive, information on the case, go to www.zodiackiller.com.
I've been there, and I've read the books.
Dan
I wonder if Hollywood will make a movie about the "Zebra" murders, also in San Francisco during the 70's - Black Muslims were targeting Whites.
Future SF Mayor Art Agnos was one of the victims, as was a guy I played HS football with. (Both survived)
But since it was Black on White crime, Hollywood will ignore it.
Then you should know better.
Correct. In theory, the killer in that movie was "inspired" by the Zodiac, though he wasn't much like him at all. And lead investigator, Dave Tedesci (sp?) was the prototype for Calahan.
My thoughts exactly. And if he's caught, make sure to use his middle initial, as if he a man of distinction and accomplishment. And they wonder why people do things like this.
This is one more voyeuristic Hollywood product I will not waste money or time on.
p.
"can Anything GOOD come out fromHolly-Wierd anymore???"
This case makes chilling reading.
Rodney Dangerfield? I thought you was dead!
I bet you get that a lot. ;)
Such it is with outlaw culture. $80 million could have done so much.
Doodles Weaver played the angry neighbor of one of the suspects.
Yes, thank you. The serial killer referred to as "Scorpio"
in Dirty Harry (1971) was based on the Zodiac.
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