Has the Zodiac Killer Finally Been Unmasked?
As I write this the FBI is analyzing new evidence in the long unsolved Zodiac murder case. The Zodiac, second only to Jack the Ripper in terms of serial killer speculation, could finally be solved after four decades.
I was eight years-old when the murders began in December of 1968, and although I lived hundreds of miles down the coast from where they took place, The Zodiac still managed to creep into my nightmares. Even after the final murder in October of 1969, the killer continued to hide in my bedroom closet for at least two more years.
Back then my vivid imagination took an even greater toll on David, my little brother. He could often be heard calling out, “Mom! Billy’s being the Zodiac again!” To which my mom would yell back at me, “Billy, stop murdering your brother…”
Of course I wasn’t really hurting him, but applying—as sibling rivals often do—what the U.S. Government would later call, “Enhanced Interrogation.”
Good times.
Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer is credited with five known murders. He also attempted to gain publicity—just like the Ripper—by taunting police in cryptic, hand written letters sent to local newspapers.
Although as many as 2,500 suspects were interviewed by police, no evidence exists linking any of them to the murders or the letters. Even the most compelling suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen, who was all but convicted by a mountain of circumstantial evidence as documented in Robert Graysmith’s books [Zodiac
But all that may be about to change; last week, a northern California man claims not only to know the killer’s identity, but has presented the FBI with evidence to prove it.
“The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance,” said Dennis Kaufman. “He’s my stepfather.”
Kaufman, who had suspected his stepfather for many years and spent the last eight trying to verify his theory, says he’s found the ultimate piece of physical evidence hidden in an old P.A. amplifier while going through the dead man’s things (Tarrance died in 2006). He found a hand-crafted black hood with the Zodiac symbol sewn into it identical to the one the killer was described as wearing during the September 1969 slaying of Cecelia Ann Shepard and the attempted slaying of Bryan Calvin Hartnell.
Along with the hood, Kaufman also found a knife stained with what looked like dried blood and a tin box containing rolls of undeveloped film—one in which he did have processed revealed such gruesome scenes that a local news station covering the story refused to air them. All of this is currently in the hands of the FBI and the results of their testing could come any day.
Hopefully, we will have definitive proof that Jack Tarrance was, in deed, the Zodiac Killer. Just knowing that The Zodiac is no longer out there will allow me to finally sleep without a Mickey Mouse nightlight.
Hey, I’ve got to go; I think I just saw something move in my closet.
