Original subtitles

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Man: "This is the zodiac speaking."

I am the murderer of the taxi driver

over by Washington and maple street last night.

To prove this, here is a bloodstained piece of his shirt.

I was not happy to see

"that I did not get front-page coverage."

??

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Welcome to "very scary people." I'm Donnie wahlberg.

The zodiac killer is terrorizing northern California,

and all of america is holding their breath

waiting for a break in the case,

but while police desperately try to identify a suspect,

the killer has a new plan,

one that will spread panic and make him infamous.

To him, murder has become a game,

but this game is not over, not even close.

We continue with "I am the zodiac."

??

Reporter: He stalked and killed with knives and guns,

once even dressed as an executioner.

The man called himself the zodiac.

[Gunshots]

Hewitt: The first canonical murders of the zodiac

happened December 20, 1968.

It was on lake Herman road in Solano county, California.

A young couple went on a date.

The killer forced the victims out of the vehicle.

David Faraday was shot in the head once...

[Gunshot]

...and Betty Lou Jensen was shot in the back five times

as she was trying to run away.

[Gunshots]

The boy was an eagle scout.

There's no record of any misbehavior

on either one of them.

If you were at that scene

and saw the waste of life and these young kids...

Turn your stomach.

Six and a half months later, the killer returned

and targeted another young couple.

Butterfield: Darlene ferrin and Michael mageau

drove to blue rock Springs park.

They parked in the parking lot.

Hewitt: Again, a lovers' Lane area,

and had only been there a few minutes,

and a car pulled up behind them.

He opened fire through the window of the passenger side.

[Gunshots]

And at the hospital, Darlene is pronounced dead,

but Michael miraculously survived.

We think that he's... it appears to us

that he is killing just for the thrill.

Just days after the initial communications from the killer,

a letter arrived.

Oranchak: "Dear editor, this is the zodiac speaking."

Normally, a serial killer gets a name from the police

or from the newspapers,

but in his case, he came up with his own name.

It included a cipher that, when solved, read,

"I like killing people."

Hewitt: September 27, 1969,

the zodiac showed up at lake berryessa

where Bryan hartnell and Cecelia Shepard

were lying by the water's edge.

Butterfield: The man plunged a long knife into Bryan's back,

stabbed him approximately six times,

and Cecelia, she was stabbed five times in the front,

five times in the back.

The killer left both of the victims alive.

Paul stine was a cabdriver who was working the evening

of October 11, 1969.

The man who was sitting in the cab pulled out a gun

and shot Paul stine in the head.

Three kids who were observing what had happened

called the police, and they described the killer.

Somehow during that conversation,

the facts got confused,

and when the police broadcast the description of the killer,

they described him as a black man instead of a white man.

Two police officers were responding to the scene,

and they apparently saw this white man

walking down the street.

They dismissed him as a suspect because he was not black.

The dispatcher had misunderstood the children,

and when zodiac is stopped by the police car,

zodiac says, "oh, yeah, I saw a man running with a gun."

"He went that way," and they thank him,

and off they go.

Voigt: Zodiac was right there. They would have caught him.

He was within arm's reach.

Butterfield: Shortly after that,

the description was amended to describe a white man,

and that's when these officers realize

that they had most likely just seen the zodiac.

They would have had the guy.

Jordan: One of the first officers to arrive on the scene

is inspector Dave toschi,

and he's somewhat of a legend in the San Francisco pd.

Graysmith: He's so prismatic,

and toschi is known as the city's super cop.

He's got a trench coat, "trench coat Dave."

Jordan: When inspector toschi and his officers

arrive at the scene, it's still very fresh.

The cab meter is still running, and Paul stine, the cabdriver,

is laid out almost on the bench seat.

He's been shot once in the back of the head.

He's already dead.

There are 9-millimeter bullet casings all around,

and because of the amount of blood at the scene,

they do find a bloody palm print right on the side of the cab.

He took Paul stine's wallet.

Voigt: That's going to look to first responders

like a robbery gone bad.

He also took part of Paul's shirt.

He neatly tore it with his fingers.

The only sketch we have that depicts the actual zodiac killer

comes from the stine murder,

and that sketch was created with the help of the three kids

who had seen the killer and from what we know

was also contributed to by the two police officers

who had seen the zodiac escaping that night.

It shows a man with a thinner face, shorter hair and glasses,

and because that is based on eyewitnesses

who saw the man at the taxi and immediately thereafter,

it becomes the most famous sketch of the zodiac killer.

Butterfield: The descriptions probably fit

thousands of men in the bay area

and millions of men across america in the late 1960s.

If you open any high-school yearbook or anything,

you'll see a lot of people who look just like that

because that was the look at the time.

Perhaps that kind of generic anonymity

is how the zodiac killer can walk amongst us

and we never know that he's a murderer.

We wouldn't notice this guy in the crowd.

Butterfield: It may be that he needed to feel important.

He may have had a lot of anger within him that he tried

to assuage through killing other people.

[Gunshots]

Two days after the murder of Paul stine,

the "San Francisco chronicle"

received a letter from the zodiac.

Carol Fisher, who was "letters to the editor" editor,

is opening the letter.

She shakes it.

Out comes a piece of bloody cloth.

She let's out a shriek.

The individual who sent this piece of shirt in

on the letter to the "chronicle"

was in fact connected with the...

Is the person who killed the cabdriver.

O'Toole: And I think the zodiac took the time and effort,

went to great risk to make sure that that bloody shirt

would be able to connect him to Paul stine's murder.

Voigt: It seemed to be an addiction or something.

The more he did it, the more he needed to do it,

and he kept topping himself each time.

And what he would promise to do next was particularly chilling.

By late October 1969, zodiac had taken credit

for four different attacks

in which five people had been killed and another two injured,

but now he was threatening to up the body count considerably.

The suspect in this matter indicates

that he is going to make a bomb.

The bomb planted in the street or alongside of a roadside,

which would be triggered when a school bus passed by.

This man is a psychopath

with very, very seriously mentally deranged.

He appears to have no conscience at all, no remorse.

This man is a serious problem to us.

Initially the newspapers did not print the zodiac's threat

because they were afraid of what might happen.

We feel at this time because there is an implied threat

on the part of this suspect,

that this is something that we must do.

Lee: Since the reception of this note,

and up to now and continuing,

we have a number of plainclothes officers following buses

in the morning and in the evening.

Bidou: The public was kind of panicked about it.

We had our plainclothes officers

riding our school buses for months.

The police trailed the buses.

They had planes flying above.

The zodiac said later he had planted explosives

along the roadside that he could detonate.

I grew up in Berkeley, California,

and took public buses to and from school.

We would all have to duck below the level of the windows

because the bus had to stop at the train tracks.

The school district thought the buses were most vulnerable

when they were stopped at a railroad crossing.

Along with that letter that included the threat

against the schoolchildren, there's another cipher.

The second cipher sent by zodiac is known as the 340

because it has 340 symbols in it.

We haven't been too successful. We've had them out with experts.

We don't think that, actually, there was a message in there.

You can have these ciphers,

and they really aren't able to be broken.

Over the years, many attempts have been made

to solve this cipher, and to this day,

we don't know what, if any, message is in that cipher.

I think he liked the idea that there were people

everywhere that were trying to decipher his codes

because he's a game player.

In the end, no bombings happen in the bay area,

but instead, something completely unexpected happens.

Butterfield: On October 22, 1969,

someone called the Oakland police department

and claimed to be the zodiac.

He asked that the famous attorney Melvin belli appear

on a local talk show to talk about the zodiac,

so belli was transported to the local television station.

Sam: I have headache. Right.

How long have you had those headaches, Sam?

Been a long time?

Since I killed that kid.

He agreed to be referred to as Sam.

Jordan: Melvin belli, he's like, "if this is zodiac,"

this is my big chance to try to get information

out of him to draw him out," but this caller, Sam,

doesn't really want to answer his questions

and basically just says he can't remember.

It was a chilling call.

Police are looking to turn to somebody

who could identify unequivocally the zodiac killer's voice,

and that person, of course,

would be the surviving victim Bryan hartnell.

Butterfield: And Bryan hartnell agreed

that he was not the zodiac.

Why did you want to talk to Mr. Belli, Sam?

Sam: I don't want to be hurt.

His voice sounded too young and too pathetic to be the zodiac.

Graysmith: As it turned out, it was not the real zodiac.

It was a person from an institution that was calling.

But it did go out there live, and the question is,

could the real zodiac killer have seen the show?

December 20th, in '69, belli gets this letter.

Butterfield: The real zodiac sent a letter to Melvin belli

on the 1-year anniversary of the murders on lake Herman road.

In order to prove that he was the real zodiac,

he included a piece of Paul stine's shirt

with this letter.

We have examined the piece of material

that was included in a letter to Mr. Belli,

which is a piece of the victim's shirt.

We had confirmed that this was in fact

from the suspect known as zodiac.

And it seems obvious that the zodiac is compelled

by power or control.

In the belli letter, he uses the word

"control" three times,

and the fact that he attacks suddenly...

[Gunshots]

...and departs quickly shows

that there's an important aspect of control

and power in the attacks that he is doing.

All of northern California

is now waiting for zodiac's next move.

Reporter #2: Just the possibility

that zodiac might have resurfaced

sent shivers throughout vallejo.

O'Toole: People were still very afraid.

So here we have this person

who was able to hold thousands of people like a puppeteer

in these states of fear and anxiety

about what he could do next

and the potential that he had to blow up kids in a school bus

and what he would do

if he didn't get the credit that he deserved.

That's power and control, and I think he loved that.

Considering he hasn't been caught yet,

I definitely feel he's still around.

Remember, we've never seen anything like this.

It made national news.

If it wasn't important before, it was a big story now.

The search goes on in San Francisco

for the man known as the zodiac killer.

But the question on everybody's minds is,

who is the zodiac killer?

A ruthless serial killer who craved publicity,

he stalked northern California more than 30 years ago

and eludes police to this very day.

Jordan: There are a lot of prevailing theories

on who the zodiac is.

Maybe he had a military background,

or he had a background in law enforcement.

His haircut, he apparently had a buzz cut

that was rather military-looking.

His plain, black-rimmed glasses were kind of military.

He apparently was competent with weapons.

Jordan: Or maybe he's obsessed with astrological signs

and there's some great mystical or occult quality

to this that we really just haven't deciphered.

But I think it was a smoke screen,

just more of that to make him more frightening.

There are some theories that the zodiac

was either a master criminal or some sort of drooling maniac,

and I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

For the first time,

he has demonstrated a hostility towards police.

Now we are "blue pigs" and such remarks as that.

His agenda was such that he had to taunt the police,

and he had to do things to make himself newsworthy

and to command the front page.

Zodiac was sending letters that were quite vague.

He talked in his letters about a 13th victim,

but nobody knows whether he's trying to take credit

for murdering 13 people,

or whether he is promising more murders to come.

Butterfield: Paul Avery was a reporter who worked

at the "San Francisco chronicle" at the time

of the zodiac case,

and he was also responsible for many of the stories

in the "chronicle" about the crimes.

In October of 1970,

the zodiac sent Paul Avery a Halloween card,

which appeared to allude to a 14th victim,

and some people believed that the 14th victim

would be Paul Avery.

I think it's an idle threat, but at the same time,

I'm no fool.

I'm going to be very careful.

There was a conference with the police department

and discussion of possible police protection for me.

Graysmith: The zodiac is saying

he's going to come to the "chronicle."

He's going to kill Paul Avery.

In fact Avery made them little buttons

that said "I am not Paul Avery," and everybody wore the buttons.

I think he just wanted to get himself a little publicity.

Hewitt: Zodiac got a lot of front-page coverage

because of these letters and seemed to terrorize the nation.

There almost seems to be a shift in him realizing,

"oh, wait a minute.

This is what I really like to do,

holding the city of San Francisco

and the bay area almost hostage."

The zodiac may have been frightened

by his close encounter with police

on the night of the murder of cabdriver Paul stine.

Hewitt: He did claim in one of his letters

was that he was going to change the way he killed

and that he would not announce his victims

and would make many of them look like accidents.

That was actually a rather clever ploy

on the part of the killer if he wanted to stop killing

but leave the police wondering

whether he was continuing to kill or not.

Voigt: None of the police in any of the jurisdictions

that were investigating the zodiac were anywhere close.

They needed to think outside the box,

but there had never been a box like this.

Jordan: As police try to figure out the identity

of the zodiac killer, they widen the net,

and they start looking at cold cases,

unsolved crimes that may be similar,

and they find one in particular.

Voigt: Linda Edwards and Bobby domingos

were a couple in high school.

It was in 1963, June.

They went to a remote beach.

It was a stretch of ocean that was really kind of isolated

and very difficult to get to.

Just like at lake berryessa, they were bound.

A knife was involved.

Their double murder is still unsolved.

Hewitt: The fact that it occurred by the side of water

and by the ammunition used against the couple suggests

that there were similarities between that attack

and the attack at lake berryessa.

It's a crime that eventually got connected

with the zodiac in theory,

that he could have been responsible.

Whether or not that was the zodiac has never been confirmed.

The zodiac never claimed credit for that attack.

There are some enticing cases to this day

that might very well have been the work of the zodiac.

Graysmith: Paul Avery, our crime reporter,

did something really important.

He found the connection to a southern California murder.

Hewitt: On the night of October 30, 1966, cheri Jo bates

went to the riverside community college library

to check out some books.

Her body was found in a vacant lot nearby the next morning,

and she had been stabbed.

The murder was accompanied by letters,

multiple copies of letters sent in different directions,

one sent to the press, one sent to the police.

It's very rare for a serial killer to correspond.

It's exceedingly rare for a serial killer to make multiple

copies of a letter and send it in different directions.

Voigt: Three letters written and posted on the same day

to three different recipients,

that's exactly what zodiac did on July 31, 1969.

It was about 3 1/2 years later.

Multiple stamps, more stamps than you need to put on,

but most people don't do that, but zodiac did,

and so did the person in riverside.

Butterfield: In march of 1971,

the zodiac sent a letter to the "Los Angeles times"

in which he took credit for the murder of cheri Jo bates.

It's not unusual for other serial killers

to take credit for cases

so that they look bigger, badder, meaner,

the worst serial killer.

In that letter he said...

...which was an apparent reference to the bates murder,

and then he said,

"but there are a hell of a lot more of them down there,"

which was an indication of more victims

in southern California that had not been identified.

Jordan: In the cheri Jo bates case in 1966,

a lot of attention had been paid to a man named Ross Sullivan.

Sullivan is a stocky man with glasses,

and he works at the library where bates was last seen alive.

He had apparently had some mental-health issues.

He was largely antisocial,

and so some people considered him to be the logical suspect.

In at least three letters, the zodiac referenced

or quoted "the mikado."

"Mikado" is a light opera written by Gilbert and Sullivan

and first performed in the 1890s in London.

Voigt: Some people think that that means the zodiac

had some kind of a connection with opera

or maybe his last name was Sullivan.

Butterfield: Ross Sullivan was investigated

also a zodiac suspect in the 1970s,

and his fingerprints did not match

the fingerprint found on the cab in San Francisco.

The police are going through suspects that seem to fit,

but the evidence isn't there, and then zodiac appears

to change his m.0. Again,

a shift that could lead police to his identity.

She goes to the police, and she looks at the poster.

She said, "that's him.

That's the man who picked me up."

??

Welcome back to "very scary people."

By 1970, the zodiac killer had eluded police

for at least 2 years, and the cases had gone cold.

Police had no shortage of suspects,

but no one was a perfect fit,

and zodiac himself seemed to have stopped killing.

Could he be done with his terror spree,

or has he just entered a new phase?

??

Hewitt: Kathleen Johns was traveling

from San Bernardino, California, to petaluma, California.

She was approximately 8 months pregnant

and had her 10-month-old daughter with her in the car.

Jordan: She experiences some car trouble,

and somebody, seemingly a good samaritan,

pulls up behind her and offers her a ride.

She gets into his car with her infant daughter.

Once she's in the car, he starts to terrify her.

He makes statements that really frighten her

and make her believe that she's going to be killed.

Kathleen Johns grabbed her daughter,

opened the door and dove out of the car

when the car came to a stop at a stop sign

and escaped the car that way.

She goes to the police, and she looks at the poster.

She said, "that's him.

That's the man who picked me up,"

so that's how they made the zodiac connection.

The zodiac, about 5 months later,

claimed credit for the attack.

The zodiac, in his letter,

"I gave a rather interesting ride to a woman and her baby."

Kathleen Johns later identifies in a composite setup

a man named Lawrence Kane

as the man who possibly abducted her and terrified her.

Kane does have a history

of being a peeping Tom in the early '60s.

A former police officer believed that Larry Kane was connected

to the disappearance of a nurse in lake Tahoe.

Hewitt: Donna lass was a nurse who disappeared in stateline,

Nevada, in 1970.

It has been linked to the zodiac

because a couple of letters were received

that seemed to indicate a connection to her

and a connection to the zodiac.

By 1970, police have confirmed five murders

and two attempted murders.

In addition, there are another three murders,

a missing persons case and a kidnapping case

that the police speculate could be the work of the zodiac.

??

By 1971, he was sending postcards

which alluded to other victims

and then sending letters to the "Los Angeles times"

taking credit for other crimes, too.

But provided no details that the police did not know.

The cases we know are for sure the zodiac killer,

he was very detailed.

He told the media and the police things

that only the killer could have known,

and in the bates case and in the Johns case,

that doesn't happen.

So based on facts known to public,

he could claim credit

and stay on the front page of the newspaper.

Butterfield: So it appeared that at that point,

it became a publicity campaign rather than a reign of terror.

The zodiac killer sends a total of 19 communications or contacts

with the media over the next 5 years.

Armstrong: We are learning more about the man psychologically.

Man #2: What exactly are you learning psychologically?

The content of these letters tell you quite a lot.

Such as?

Well, I wouldn't want to disclose to our suspect

what we think of him and where we're looking.

Jordan: On July 8, 1974,

the zodiac killer sends his last letter to the media,

and he is never heard from again.

Some people have theorized that the zodiac killer

reemerges later as a totally different kind of serial killer.

Reporter #3: Justice department investigators believe they have

enough evidence against Theodore kaczynski,

so much so, they've begun to think about

where to hold a trial.

Butterfield: One of the popular suspects was the unabomber,

Ted kaczynski.

The unabomber, like the zodiac, also sent letters to the media.

Reporter #4: The bomber had said he would kill again

unless "the post" or "the New York times"

printed his paper,

all 35,000 words, by this Sunday.

The bulk of the zodiac's activity happened

during the 2 years following Ted kaczynski's time

as a professor at uc Berkeley.

Kaczynski's final day of work at uc Berkeley

was June the 30th, 1969.

Four days later, the 4th of July, 1969,

the attack occurred at blue rock Springs park.

The zodiac was involved in designing bombs

and designing passive bombs,

exactly as the unabomber would do many years later.

The zodiac used the phrase repeatedly

"collecting slaves for the afterlife."

Well, "slaves" is a repeated term

used in the unabomber's manifesto.

It's an interesting theory, but he's also tall and lanky,

and I went to his trial, and I did not like him.

I think kaczynski was just getting even with the world.

I don't think he could possibly be zodiac.

Butterfield: There's no credible evidence that Ted kaczynski

was the zodiac, and no one in law enforcement

appears to think that he's a viable suspect.

Jordan: Our fascination with the zodiac killer has spawned

so many theories about who the killer actually is,

and some of them are outlandish,

and some of them are just intriguing.

But every once in a while,

there's a theory that captures everyone's attention.

In 1991, Michael mageau, that lovers' Lane passenger

who actually survived being shot was shown a picture.

And he said, "that's the guy."

Just point-blank, are you a murderer?

Just point-blank, are you a murderer?

A man named Don Cheney,

a civil engineer from northern California,

goes to the police with a story about a friend

of his named Arthur Leigh Allen.

Butterfield: Arthur Leigh Allen was a former schoolteacher

who lived in vallejo, California.

This individual Don Cheney had known Arthur Leigh Allen,

and according to Cheney, in December of 1967,

he mentioned his desire to write letters and use the name zodiac

and that he wanted to shoot people.

He says Allen always said he was going to kill

these couples at random,

that he knew how to attach a flashlight to a firearm,

which the zodiac killer had done.

And Allen owned firearms exactly like the zodiac killer used.

He had been in the military.

He was dishonorably discharged from the Navy,

and he actually worked very close

to where one of the victims of the second shooting,

Darlene ferrin, lived.

He makes a statement in front of Cheney.

He says, "I want to shoot the little kiddies

as they come bouncing off the bus."

He's wearing a zodiac wristwatch, for god's sake.

Lake berryessa is where Arthur Leigh Allen would go

and hunt for squirrels and scuba dive and sail and catch fish.

It's a great fishing lake, but I have a photograph.

It's him in 1958, and he's at that spot.

You can see the beach down below.

He's at lake berryessa.

There's even an explanation for why zodiac quit killing.

The theories were he died, he's sick, or he's in prison.

It turns out Arthur Leigh Allen was in prison.

He was in atascadero for molesting children.

And the case against Allen kept getting stronger.

In 1991, Michael mageau, that lovers' Lane passenger

who actually survived being shot,

was shown a picture of Arthur Leigh Allen,

and he said, "that's the guy."

They obtained a search warrant and searched Allen's trailer.

It's difficult as hell and it can be ext...

It can be terribly depressing,

and if I deserved any of it,

that would be something different, but I don't.

San Francisco police determined that Allen's fingerprints

did not match the suspected zodiac fingerprint

found on the cab.

Experts had determined that his handwriting

did not match the zodiac's handwriting.

By the 1970s, the police were out of suspects.

??

O'Toole: There's a reason that he was able to get away

from law-enforcement nets

that were out there at this time.

In the 1960s and the early 1970s,

law-enforcement agencies

weren't even on the same radio wavelengths.

Police reports were filed in San Francisco

and filed in vallejo and filed at lake berryessa,

so there wasn't the communication that you see now.

That really hurt us.

The case went cold,

and the zodiac killer sort of faded from the front page.

Then Robert Graysmith came out with a book

in the 1980s on the zodiac killer

that was later made into the very famous movie in 2007.

It was just called "zodiac," and it introduced the case

to just a new generation of people.

The main villain in the movie was Arthur Leigh Allen,

and he was, you know, it was so compelling,

the case that they made against him,

that people leaving thought that he had to be the killer.

But the movie doesn't bring any new evidence,

and again the case fades from the headlines.

In 2014, a man named Gary Stewart in Louisiana

wrote a book

claiming that he knows who the zodiac killer is,

and it's someone very close to home.

The wanted poster from 1969 from the San Francisco

police department flashes on the screen,

and my heart stops.

It's my father.

Earl Van best Jr.'s son was very impressed

with a photo he found of his father.

I believe for the first time in the history of this case

that I've presented more evidence

that's ever been presented on any one suspect

and had the belief of the head of homicide behind me

at one time.

Reporter #5: Gary Stewart's father died in 1984,

but he says forensic experts

have matched his father's handwriting

to cryptic notes the killer left behind.

He cites forensic evidence of handwriting exemplars.

He says that the handwriting of his father matches

that of the zodiac killer,

and he presents as his evidence a marriage certificate,

but there's a fatal flaw to this theory

because it turns out

that the handwriting on the marriage certificate

actually traces back to the minister

who married his parents and not his father at all.

The zodiac killer insisted to the press

and to the police that,

"if you crack this cipher, you will have my identity."

They cracked the cipher and got the cryptic message,

but they didn't know what name to look for.

Woman: Because they didn't know your father's name, right?

And that's there.

You can find anything in the cipher.

You could find your name in the cipher if you wanted to,

but it's not scientific. It's not conclusive.

The media said that, "if he has any information,

please come forward,"

and I believe I've come forward.

I got to tell you something, though.

He did not take this information to police,

which in a way, sort of undermines his credibility.

But there is no credible evidence linking

Earl Van best to the zodiac crimes

and no reason to believe he was the zodiac.

??

Years went by and then decades.

Suspects, witnesses, investigators died,

but the zodiac remains hidden.

Butterfield: It's my personal belief that if and when

the zodiac killer is ever identified,

he will turn out to be someone

who was never named as a suspect.

It's one of those cases that looks like

it might stay a mystery forever.

In April of 2018,

California police make a stunning announcement

that could help solve the zodiac case.

Over 40 years after the golden state serial killer

began raping and murdering throughout California,

an arrest today just outside Sacramento.

Another cold case from northern California might be solved.

Butterfield: The golden state killer

was captured through the use

of forensic genealogy and DNA technology.

They upload that DNA profile into an ancestry website

called ged match, which contained approximately

960,000 genetic profiles of individuals.

Investigators found what we think

are three distant cousins of the killer in that database,

and then they were able to trace

back to a common ancestor from those three people

to a great-great-grandparent of the killer.

There was only one individual who stood out,

and that was a man named Joseph James Deangelo.

We all knew as part of this team that we were looking

for a needle in a haystack.

We found the needle in the haystack,

and it was right here in Sacramento.

If the police were able to find a complete profile

of the zodiac's DNA,

the hope is that he can be captured in the same way

that the golden state killer was captured.

Reporter #6: Investigators just obtained enough DNA

for a partial profile.

First the suspected golden state killer,

could the zodiac killer be next?

Tonight, the case that was considered

all but unsolvable may have new legs.

??

There is hope that, by using the same technology,

the identity of the zodiac killer will be discovered.

What they're trying to do with this case

is what they did with the golden state killer,

so they're going to try and do some genealogical testing first.

If they can collect the zodiac's DNA,

they could possibly connect it to a family member of the zodiac

and find the zodiac in the same way.

The previous attempts in the zodiac case

to test the DNA was done in 2002,

and that would have been pretty limited.

Reporter #6: Investigators just obtained enough DNA

for a partial profile in the saliva on a licked stamp

on one of the many letter the zodiac sent in the late '60s

taunting police and bragging about his crimes.

They obtained a partial profile from the evidence

which, to me, says that it's a very degraded sample

and probably not very useful for identification.

It was only sufficient to exclude suspects,

but not to positively identify anyone.

??

Jordan: Today, DNA technology can find the most microscopic,

minuscule traces of DNA.

Those envelopes he may have licked,

the stamps he may have licked, and they're thinking that

if they can extract some of the DNA,

they may be able to match it to somebody's DNA today.

There are renewed efforts to get new DNA

from other zodiac letters

and possibly from other items in the zodiac case.

Right now, it's my understanding

that the vallejo police department

is attempting to find zodiac DNA.

There are multiple ways to try and obtain samples,

but the best way, especially if you think that the stamp,

for instance, was licked, is to actually remove the stamp

from the envelope it's on, and it's simple.

You use steam to remove it and very gently take it off,

and then scrape the glue from the back of the stamp

and from the envelope, and you extract DNA from it.

The changes in the technology that would allow you

to get better results at this time

would be that the sensitivity of the test

has increased substantially.

??

Butterfield: If they can find a sufficient DNA profile,

they can take the same process

and put that into an ancestry website.

Hopefully that ancestry website database would contain

someone's DNA who was a part of that killer's family.

Barlow: The probability of getting a high-quality sample

from evidence that was collected in the late '60s

and early '70s is extremely low.

All these homicide samples ended up in a warehouse

infested with cats and rats for a period of time.

The samples are going to degrade.

Butterfield: It's not just looking

for a needle in a haystack.

It's not even being sure if there's a needle

in the haystack you're looking through.

As forensic scientists like to say, "anything is possible."

Voigt: The case continues to intrigue people,

and it's now, like, the last major

north American unsolved serial-killer case.

Graysmith: There's no resolution.

There's something about that in the human nature.

We want to know the answer.

Hewitt: It's the greatest unsolved American mystery,

in my opinion.

He has garnered an awful lot of attention, books,

press, legends, stories.

Butterfield: One aspect of the zodiac's game

appears to be creating publicity for himself,

which ensures that his status as some sort of legendary killer,

and if that was his purpose, he certainly succeeded

because here we are 50 years later.

People are still talking about him.

He's still viewed as some sort of boogeyman from the past,

and he most certainly escaped justice.

Every year on the anniversary of each confirmed killing,

a small group of zodiac hunters revisits the crime scenes.

Former law-enforcement officials,

family members of the victims and civilians

who are drawn to the mystery use these occasions

to debate the facts of the case.

Though DNA experts continue their work

to uncover his real identity,

the zodiac is one of the last major serial-killer cases

to remain unsolved.

The zodiac, a man who wanted to be famous

has remained both in the public eye

and mysteriously just out of reach.

I'm Donnie wahlberg.

Thanks for watching "very scary people."

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