The seemingly random brutal murders of five people in California’s Bay Area in 1968 and 1969 and a series of taunting cryptic notes sent by their killer terrorized Northern California for years.

The self-proclaimed “Zodiac Killer” sent local newspapers a three-part coded message explaining his motive for the killings in 1969 and in a separate letter to the editor suggested his identity was buried within an elaborate cipher message. The decoded message did indeed reveal the killer’s twisted motive, but his identity remains a mystery.

​

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2007/march/zodiac_030207