Zodiac Killer - TV Tropes

This is the Zodiac speaking...

Where the United Kingdom had Jack the Ripper, the United States has its own Stock Unsolved Mystery in the Zodiac Killer—a cunning, cold-blooded murderer whose true identity has been the subject of intense speculation in the decades since his killing spree.

The Zodiac is known to have killed at least five people (with two victims surviving) in and around the San Francisco area between December 1968 and October 1969:

• David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen (December 20, 1968)
• Michael Mageau (survived) and Darlene Ferrin (July 4, 1969)
• Bryan Hartnell (survived) and Cecilia Ann Shepard (September 27, 1969)
• Paul Stine (October 11, 1969)

The killer formally identified himself as the Zodiac in a series of letters and cipher puzzles he mailed to regional newspapers, threatening massacres and bombings if they were not printed. Two of the four Zodiac cyphers remain unsolved; a third was not cracked until 2020. This enigmatic correspondence, combined with the fact that the Zodiac was never caught, has spawned a cottage industry of true crime authors and amateur sleuths (not unlike that surrounding the aforementioned Ripper) trying to solve the mystery.

Served as inspiration for the Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry, the Gemini Killer in The Exorcist III, and the Riddler in The Batman (2022). A True Crime book by Robert Greysmith called "Zodiac" and its follow up "Zodiac Unmasked" would form the basis for Zodiac by David Fincher. A 2024 Netflix documentary series This is the Zodiac Speaking puts forward a theory, already put forward by Graysmith, that Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer.

Related tropes:

• Achievement In Ignorance / Unintentionally Unwinnable: The 340 cypher that was cracked in 2020 had been hard to solve partially because of what seems to be a mistake in the substitution cypher. The team working on it used a program to Try Everything until they caught a snippet that included one of Zodiac's signature idiosyncracies; the word "Paradice". Working back from that part, they noticed half the letter was in the same cypher, but one symbol off in the solution key, and the leading theory was that while encrypting the letter, the Zodiac accidentally went one over in the middle of the letter.
• Basement Dweller: There are a few mentions in the Zodiac letters of the killer sitting in and keeping things in his basement, a detail considered significant by at least Robert Graysmith, as basements are relatively uncommon in California.
• Better than Sex: How he saw killing people, calling it "better than getting your rocks off with a girl."
• Card-Carrying Villain: His letters have him openly bragging about his crimes and taunting police, showing how much pleasure he took in being a feared serial killer.
• Criminal Mind Games: His notorious cryptograms, one of which took 50 years to solve.
• The Dreaded: He was one to all of San Francisco and Northern California, keeping the entire city terrified. Even now, he's still feared due to never having been caught.
• Evil Genius: He was a serial killer and his cipher puzzles show considerable intelligence, one having taken decades to crack and two others still being unsolved.
• Faux Affably Evil: His letters all had a mockingly polite tone even as he described his murders with sadistic glee.
• For the Evulz: His letters give this as his motive, claiming he only killed simply because he enjoyed it.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: If the above picture is accurate, he wore glasses and was a sadistic killer.
• Freudian Excuse: John Douglas' profile of the Zodiac speculates that the killer had a troubled relationship with his mother and wasn't successful with women.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: The shoe prints found at the Lake Berryessa were from a pair of rare type of military wing-walker boots, and the cyphers in the Zodiac letters were the type that could be learned in military signals intelligence. This doesn't necessarily narrow the suspect pool down much or help to eliminate suspects, as the killer was suspected of being at least in his late 30's in 1969, when the draft was still in place in the US and a lot of people had been in the service.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: His letters reference this idea, referring to himself as a hunter whose favorite targets happen to be human beings.
• Iconic Outfit: The costume he wore during the Lake Berryessa attack, consisting of black clothes, an executioner's hood (with sunglasses tacked to the eyeholes), and a bib bearing the notorious cross-circle symbol.
• Karma Houdini: Barring a forensic discovery, it's reasonably likely that the killer got away with it and is either at large, dead, or imprisoned for an unrelated crime.
• Menacing Mask: The black hood with clip-on sunglasses used during the Lake Berryessa attack.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: One theory about the Zodiac's inconsistent command of spelling, getting the same words right and wrong sometimes in the same letter, was that he was trying to pass himself off as less educated.
• The Profiler: Famed FBI profiler John Douglas speculated as to the background and motivations of the Zodiac in his book The Cases That Haunt Us.
• Trope Maker: Almost any fictional depiction of a serial killer sending cryptic letters to the police is inspired by The Zodiac, and/or other killers who were inspired by him such as BTK.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: the Zodiac would make various spelling errors in his letters, with "Paradice" being one notable misspelling that is considered strong proof that the 2020 decryption of one of his cyphers is most likely correct.
• Serial Killer: One of the most famous in history. He is known to have killed at least five people but claims to have killed dozens more.
• Suspect Is Hatless: After the Paul Stine murder, a letter containing a bloody piece of Stine's shirt included a claim that the killer had encountered the police as he was walking away from the scene. The police were operating on false information and were on the look out for a black suspect ^note , and apparently even asked the Zodiac if he saw where the suspect went, and he pointed them in the opposite direction.
• Terrorist Without A Cause: In October 1969 and April 1970, the Zodiac threatened to target a school bus, in the latter case specifically with a bomb, which caused havoc in the local school districts, and for days after each threat, police cars tailed every school bus on their routes.
• The Spook: Due to never being caught, everything about the Zodiac remains a total mystery.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: If the picture above is indeed accurate, Zodiac was a perfectly normal looking man who one would likely never suspect of really being a murderer.
• Unreliable Narrator: Most investigators, from law enforcement to private individuals, consider the five murders between Christmas 1968 and October 1969 the only confirmed Zodiac murders ^note  but in later correspondence, Zodiac would update a running kill tally claiming 37 in his last letter, and police were able to conclude that Zodiac took credit for some murders that just were unsolved when he wrote the letters. His threat to attack a school bus and plans for a bomb also were seemingly empty threats.
• The Un-Reveal: The Zodiac claimed his first cipher sent to the newspapers would reveal his identity, which turned out to be a lie. Many also though the 340 puzzle was meant to be the big reveal, but was ultimately just another letter rambling about his world view.
• Wicked Cultured: Some of the Zodiac letters quote The Mikado, including the "little list" letter that quotes a passage from one song directly.

  I've got a little list. I've got a little list, of society offenders who might well be underground who would never be missed who would never be missed.

• Your Soul Is Mine!: He said that, when he died, he'd be reborn in paradise where everybody he killed would be his slaves.

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