Zodiac Killer case timeline: 1968 attacks to unsolved verdict

On December 20, 1968, two teenagers were shot and killed on a secluded road near Vallejo, California, known as Lake Herman Road. The victims were David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. The attack was the first in a series that would become known as the Zodiac Killer case.

Over the next year, three more attacks followed, each in a different location and with a different weapon. On July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau were shot in a parked car at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. Ferrin died; Mageau survived. On September 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were attacked with a knife at Lake Berryessa. Shepard died; Hartnell survived. On October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Stine was shot and killed in San Francisco's Presidio Heights.

Police linked the attacks through ballistics, witness descriptions, and the killer's own communications. The Zodiac sent over twenty letters to Bay Area newspapers, some containing cryptograms. The first cipher, sent in August 1969, was solved by a schoolteacher and his wife, revealing a message in which the writer claimed to be collecting slaves for the afterlife. A second cipher was not solved until 2020 by a team of private codebreakers.