Infamous movie killer
IT ALMOST seems fitting that near the 50th anniversary to the filming of Dirty Harry in California, one of the greatest true crime mysteries has come to an end.
In fact there were only a few years between the supposed end of the Zodiac Killer murder spree in the later 1960s and Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood asking: “Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?” at the climax of the film.
Dirty Harry’s rival, Scorpio, was heavily based on the then-unsolved Zodiac Killer case, after the murderer left police stumped over who carried out the five killings in Northern California.
It was only this week, that amateur sleuths made headlines in the US by deciphering the codes left by the infamous killer to finger Gary Francis Poste, a former Air Force pilot for the crimes.
During his reign of terror, Poste, who died in 2018, sent complex ciphers to both police and newspapers, which the recipients were supposed to try and decode.
The first cipher was delivered to the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle and two other local newspapers on August 1, 1969.
“When I die I will be reborn in paradice (sic),” the note read, “...and all the I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to slo (sic) down or atop my collectiog ( sic) of slaves for my afterlife.”
Just eight months earlier, on December 20, 1968, a young couple had been shot and killed while sitting in a car in a secluded layby spot, popular with young lovers looking for privacy.
Over the next 10 months, the killer shot Michael Renault Mageau (19) and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin (22) a young couple who were sitting in a car park.
He killed taxi driver Paul Stine in San Francisco and trussed up and repeatedly stabbed Bryan Calvin Hartnell (20) and Cecelia Ann Shepard (22) another pair of lovers on a romantic stroll by a lake in Napa County.
Shepard later died of her injuries.
Threats
In another encrypted letter, the Zodiac Killer threatened to execute a school bus full of children — a scene that was partially enacted in the Dirty Harry movie by Scorpio.
Posting a rectangular section of the murdered taxi driver’s blood- soaked shirt to the Chronicle, in order to prove that he really was the serial killer, he acquired his nickname due to the cross and circle logo he used as his signature — the same design used by the iconic Zodiac brand of wrist watches.
The killing spree appeared to stop suddenly in 1969 and the next few years saw police enquiries lead precisely nowhere, despite encrypted letters continuing to arrive at the offices of the Chronicle until 1974.
And while Clint Eastwood’s protagonist eventually tracked down and killed the Scorpio, such a neat ending was not destined to follow the real life hunt.
In a case that would go on to span decades, the first of the Zodiac killer’s ciphers was solved while the murderer was active at the tail end of the 1960s.
But it wasn’t solved by the police or the FBI.
After a public appeal to amateur sleuths and puzzle-solvers among the general population, a school teacher called Donald Harden and his wife Betty cracked a letter. Yet the text was