15.11.06

F I R S TP R E V424NEXTLAST

Zodiac's Escape, Presidio Heights
During the 1960s and 70s the Bay Area was terrorized by a serial killer who called himself Zodiac. He usually killed young couples in secluded areas and then sent letters to the newspapers taunting the police. On October 11, 1969, neighbors called the police when they spotted a man struggling with a cab driver at this corner of Washington Street. Police arrived and questioned a man they found walking down the street. After a few questions they let the man go and he turned north, walking into the Presidio. The police then continued on and discovered a blood-smeared taxi with the driver, Paul Stine, dead from a 9mm gunshot inside. Three days later Zodiac mailed a piece of the cab driver's shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle boasting of his deed and of fooling the SFPD.

The SFPD attribute a total of eight attacks to Zodiac but he claimed 37. The murders usually taking place on a Saturday or Sunday near a body of water, during a full or new moon. At one point 50 SFPD police and investigators were assigned the case which became the first in history to submit DNA for criminal analysis. One-time Bay Area resident Ted Kaczynski (later the Unabomber) was, for a time, a suspect but was later cleared by the FBI and SFPD. In the note shown above Zodiac makes reference to lead SFPD Detective Dave Toschi and newspaper columnist Herb Caen. In 1978 the attacks and Zodiac mail suddenly stopped. While plenty of theories and suspects have been floated over the years no arrests were ever made.
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