How to Survive the Zodiac Killer

5 min read

In December 1968, two teenagers were shot to death in their car. There were no clues. Seven months later, there was another shooting. Another couple was attacked in their car. Only two months after that, a third couple got attacked. This time the attacker stabbed them. Who could be responsible for these gruesome crimes? Could somebody grab the phone?

In 1968, someone calling himself the Zodiac Killer terrorized the San Francisco area. He got the media’s attention by calling or sending coded messages to police and various newspapers. They contained details of his crimes. He signed his letters with a symbol, a circle with a plus sign over it. He sent his last letter in 1974. Then he vanished, leaving both the media and the authorities baffled.

The Zodiac said he killed 37 people, but the police could only link him to seven victims. Five of them died. Today we’ll look at the stories of the victims who survived and the people who think they broke the case. Who was the Zodiac killer? How did someone survive after being stabbed five times? And who finally cracked the Zodiac’s code?

We know that the Zodiac intended to kill. Surviving his attack could have been sheer luck. But maybe there’s something we can learn from these victims’ experiences. We’ll start with a crime that’s still as shocking as the day it happened.

Number 3. An Evening by the Lake

In September 1969, 20-year-old Bryan Calvin Hartnell and his friend, 22-year-old Cecelia Shepard, were on the shoreline of Lake Berryessa near Napa, California. They were lying on a blanket when they noticed an armed person approaching. He was wearing a strange costume with a hood, and he looked tall with a heavy build. It was around 6 p.m., and they were alone. The mysterious man claimed to be a prisoner on the run. But he refused to take Hartnell’s money and car keys.

He eventually tied the couple and began stabbing them. The stranger stabbed Hartnell five times in the back. Then he stabbed Cecelia five times in the back and five in the front. Then he calmly returned to his vehicle and left. Minutes later, a fisherman heard Hartnell and Shepard screaming. They had managed to untie themselves, but both were in critical condition. An ambulance arrived nearly an hour later. Cecelia passed away at the hospital, but Bryan survived.

On the victim’s car door, a message claimed responsibility for this attack and two more. Hartnell is still alive today, married, and has two sons. When interviewed by a news station, he said the secret to surviving was setting goals. The first goal was to live, then untie himself, get help, and go to the hospital.

Number 2. The Secret Date

On July 5, 1969, Mike Mageau met Darlene Ferrin at a quiet parking lot on the outskirts of Vallejo, California. Ferrin was married to Dean Ferrin, and it appears that she saw Mageau secretly. They were sitting in a parked car when a car approached them and shone its lights at them. There were no other cars or people in the parking lot. The mysterious car’s driver got out and started firing at the couple.

Mageau screamed in pain as the man came closer to their car and fired more shots at them. Mageau was conscious enough to get a look at the attacker. Mageau survived the attack, but Ferrin died of gunshot wounds. The man called the Vallejo Police line less than an hour later. He claimed responsibility for this attack and a previous one.

The Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle received letters about the crime roughly three weeks later. These were the first of many letters containing details of the crimes and ciphers that, if solved, would supposedly reveal the killer’s identity.

Mike Mageau seems to have stayed under the radar all these years and has avoided interviews. If you want to avoid your own Zodiac encounter, stay away from dark, isolated areas like the one where Mike was attacked. But according to a group of experts, there’s nothing to worry about anymore. Let’s see why they’re so sure.

Number 1. Breaking the Case

There were four major suspects in the Zodiac Killer’s case. But none of them were charged with committing the crimes. The killer sent ciphers and letters that would supposedly identify him, but they were not helpful. One of his most famous ciphers contained 340 characters. It finally got cracked in December 2020. The Case Breakers, a team of 40 detectives, journalists and military intelligence officers claimed they had identified the Zodiac Killer in October 2021.

They stated that Gary Francis Poste was responsible for the attacks and murders in 1968 and 1969. Including Cecelia Sheppard and Darlene Ferrin. The team claimed they discovered Poste’s identity after finding a picture that showed scars on Poste’s forehead that match a sketch of the Zodiac Killer. They revealed that using Poste’s full name was the secret to solving one of his ciphers.

But Gary Francis Poste died in 2018 when he was 80 years old, so he was never officially questioned or charged. Some people doubt the breakthrough, claiming it relies on inaccurate sketches and does not provide new forensic evidence or witnesses. The FBI and San Francisco police reject this theory and declare the case is still open. Do you think the Zodiac Killer is still hiding among us? Sometimes the cruelest monsters don’t hide behind a hood or riddles.

Some of them could charm you with their innocent faces before brutally beating you to death. That is what Ted Bundy used to do.