Case Analysis of a Serial Killer

Case Analysis of a Serial Killer

Introduction

In this paper, we will present the case analysis on The Zodiac, the serial killer. Inspired many movies and books, the Zodiac, also known as the Zodiac Killer is a serial killer who is unidentified and is attributed with certain five murders, and four of the murders suspected on him in northern California between 1968 and 1969. However, beyond these facts, he was suspected of a series of murders (between 37 and 200 according to the authors) committed between 1966 and 1978. The total number of victims remains uncertain.

He is believed to have killed at least five victims in the cities of Benicia and Vallejo, at Lake Berryessa near Napa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. He himself claimed to have killed 37 people in his different letters to the press and police. He has been the most famous and notorious serial killer of all time who is unidentified. Nobody knows even his name.

Discussion

Known victims of the Zodiac were mostly young couples who were in their car, whom he stopped in the dark in a secluded area (mostly in parking). In a case, the killer came very quickly and immediately fired from outside the car. In another case, he bound a couple to discuss over something before attacking them with a knife. The girl died; however, his friend survived and told the scene to the police. The Zodiac murder is also attributed of the murder of a taxi driver in the city and abduction of a woman who managed to escape by jumping in the car to walk her captor with her baby in her arms. In all these cases, the witnesses, survivors and anonymous letters from Zodiac suggest that these crimes suspect of one and the same person (Charles, 2004).

Zodiac, he called himself in a series of scathing letters sent to the local newspapers. The letters also contained a cryptogram in which the alleged killer scrambled information about himself. Three of the four cryptograms remain undeciphered. Zodiac committed his murders in the period from December 1968 to October 1969. According to the statements of the zodiac, the number of victims was 37, but investigators believed him only in seven cases. He has been attacked four men and three women aged between16 to 29 years. Five were killed, however, two of them survived. The investigation has called a lot of suspects, but conclusive evidence linking any of them to murder has been submitted. In 2004, San Francisco police stopped investigating the case, but it resumed in early 2007.

The nickname, Zodiac, came from many letters of the killer to the press, including four cryptograms, three of which have so far not been elucidated. The first was decrypted on 8th August 1969, by Professor Donald Harden and his wife Bettye Harden. The letters are signed by a symbol resembling a Celtic cross or pattern under a sniper rifle. The symbol was also engraved with the tip ...