The ecliptic is the trajectory of the sun's annual movement in the sky. In order to indicate the position of the sun on the ecliptic, the ancients divided the ecliptic from the vernal equinox to the east into 12 equal parts, each equally divided into one house, and each house corresponded to a constellation.
The Zodiac of the Zodiac, also known as the Golden Zodiac. The twelve signs and twelve lifelines represent twelve completely different outlooks and values on life. To this day, "horoscope divination" is still talked about by many young women, and when looking for the other half, the first consideration is whether the constellations of the two sides are compatible. But the zodiac we will talk about next is not so romantic and gossipy, but has some "horror" meaning.
In the 1960s, there was a serial killer in the northern United States, and this person had a characteristic that after each killing, he would notify the police in the form of a letter and leave a constellation pattern at the end of each letter.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > "Zodiac Killer" Murder 1:</h1>
On December 20, 1968, a pair of young men drove to a vacant lot near Lover's Bay on Lake Herman, California, for a date, a 17-year-old boy named David and a 16-year-old girl named Betty. At 10 p.m., they began preparing for the upcoming Christmas concert.
At about 11 o'clock, another car suddenly stopped next to the two people's cars, and a man with a gun stepped out of the car. The man walked up to David and Betty's car and motioned for the two to get out of the car, and David pushed the car door to prepare to theorize with the other, and before he could stand, he was shot in the head. Frightened, Betty pushed the door and fled, and the man raised his gun and fired 5 shots at the girl's back.
A few minutes later, the two people lying in a pool of blood were found by a passing motorcycle driver, but unfortunately Betty had died on the spot, and David also died on the way to the hospital, and before dying, the boy intermittently told the process of the killer's killing.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="48" > "Zodiac Killer" Killing 2:</h1>
July 4, 1969, midnight. Just 4 kilometres away from a golf course where the last young couple was killed, Delle and Michael were sitting in their cars chatting. On the open road, almost no vehicles passed. Not long after, a car came from a distance and parked impartially next to their car.
A man got out of the car, holding a flashlight in his left hand and a 9 mm pistol in his right. The man approached the co-pilot position of the two men's car, suddenly raised his flashlight, shook them with a strong light, and then fired several shots at the two men. Delle Dale died instantly, while Michael was awakened by a brief coma, coughing and moaning loudly. The killer had already returned to his car to drive away, but when he heard the sound, he turned back and fired several shots at the two before turning to leave.
The well-wishers who passed by sent the two to the hospital for rescue, and Michael Fu was killed and was actually rescued, which gave him the opportunity to tell the killer's killing experience and interrogation. Judging from the location and method of the crime, the police judged that the two murders should be committed by the same person.
It was also at this time that Vallejo Police Received a call from an anonymous person who announced responsibility for two killings. The police found the public telephone booth through the tracking telephone, and immediately sent the nearby police officers to rush to it, but they still pounced, and they did not even see a personal shadow.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="51" > "Zodiac Killer" Murder 3:</h1>
On September 27, 1969, on a twin oak ridge island on Lake Burjesa in San Francisco, 20-year-old Bran Hatnell and 22-year-old Cecilia Shepard were having a picnic. A man wearing a black executioner masked hood approached with a gun and claimed to be a fugitive from a Montana state prison and asked the two to hand over their wallets and car keys.
The two were so frightened that they did not dare to resist at all, and then they were tied by the masked man with a prepared plastic rope and tied a strong and strong, unable to move. Originally thought that this person was just to rob the money, who expected that the masked man suddenly took out a dagger and began to stab the two people. The two men were stabbed several times and shouted for help, but fortunately a fishing man nearby heard the shouts and rushed over, and the masked man hurried away from the scene. Shepard fell into a deep coma on the way to the hospital and died of excessive blood loss, but Hatnal survived and the two were later killed in public.
In a short period of time, there were 3 consecutive homicides, resulting in 4 deaths and 2 serious injuries. Everyone, including the police, had their scalps tingling and trembling. In the 1960s, the surveillance system was still very backward, and the killer did not leave any clues at the scene of the crime, and this random homicide case made the police have no idea where to start. Just when the police were at a loss, the killer began to act again.
This time he stopped killing people and wrote to the newspaper instead. August 1, 1969, 26 days after the golf course killings. The killer wrote a letter to the Vallejo Times, the Herald, the San Francisco Observer, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The letters were nearly identical, with the writers saying they were responsible for the previous murders and drawing a password of 340 special characters, claiming that the code contained important information about his identity and leaving a sign of a constellation. In addition, the killer asked the media to print the letters on the front page of the newspaper, otherwise he would continue to kill randomly at night until he killed enough 12 people.
Hidden behind the zodiac signs, this killer is brutal and mysterious, and people are afraid of bad luck on the one hand, and on the other hand, they also add fuel to his murderous methods and weave stories into a widely circulated story. In order to create a mysterious and terrifying atmosphere, the market gave him a name of "Zodiac Killer", and some people called him "Zodiac Killer".
Rough, psychological quality is extremely strong, whether men, women and children, as long as they are targeted by him, almost nine deaths. What is even more unbelievable is that the killer seems to have no specific goal at all, but only a random crime, which makes people invincible. His killing methods are simple and not afraid of the police, but instead enjoy this thrilling "cat and mouse game".
The next day, the San Francisco Chronicle published the password part of the killer's letter on its front page, and questioned below the article: Was the letter really written by the killer himself? Then shout at the killer and ask the killer to write a second letter to prove his identity.
A few days later, the San Francisco Observer received a second letter from the "Zodiac Killer," which began with the words "I am the Zodiac," the first time the killer had presented himself by that name and seemed to be satisfied with the nickname given to him by the people. He said the letter was in response to questions from the media and police about his identity.
In this letter, the killer revealed many details of the crime that the police had never released, such as what kind of pistol the murderer used, how many bullets were fired, and the victim's dress, etc., to prove that he was the killer himself. The letter also ends with a cipher and a sign of a constellation pattern. The "Zodiac Killer" did not forget to emphasize that as long as these codes are cracked, his true identity will naturally surface.
According to common sense, the police should not be led by the nose of the suspect, so that they will fall into the trap carefully set by the other party and miss the best time to solve the case. But at that time, the police had very few clues, and in order to avoid more innocent people being killed, they had to gamble and start to crack the code left by the murderer.
After the Virginia website designer Oranchaik and the digital cracking engineer Ike got the password for the "Zodiac Killer", they formed a team to try to solve the puzzle using the methods in various ancient book records. After their tireless efforts, hundreds of reversals, they finally translated a passage of text to the effect of the following:
I hope you (the police) have fun in arresting me. By the way, the guy on TV wasn't me. For me, the gas chambers were just a shortcut to heaven. People have nothing after they die, so they are afraid of death, and I am not afraid of death, I have slaves in heaven (referring to those who he kills) to serve me, and it is a very happy thing to go to heaven. I won't give you my name, and you'll stop me from recruiting slaves...
After seeing the hidden message in the killer's password, everyone took a breath of cold air. This killer is clearly a psychopath who takes pleasure in killing, extremely paranoid and dangerous. What annoyed the police the most was that they were really tricked and the contents of the code were worthless. The most important thing is that he will not stop here, and will continue to kill.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="55" > "Zodiac Killer" Killing 4:</h1>
On October 11, 1969, Stern, a 29-year-old taxi driver, was shot in the head by a mysterious passenger in the car and died at an intersection in "Fortress Heights." Three days later, the San Francisco Chronicle again received a letter from the killer with a bloody rag that, after a police test, confirmed that it was a fragment of the shirt Paul was wearing when he was killed. In addition, the killer said in the letter that he would attack the school bus of the local school and kill every student.
On November 9, 1969, the "Zodiac Killer" wrote a letter to the newspaper, detailing the whole process of making a school bus bomb. The police, like a great enemy, sent people to guard the side of the school bus 24 hours a day, only to find out later that they had been tricked again, and the school bus was not the target of the killer at all. Not long after, the newspaper received a ridiculous letter from the "Zodiac", in which he said that he had rubbed shoulders with two policemen when he killed people and left, but they turned a blind eye, which was really a group of "fools".
The "Zodiac Killer" successfully brought the police into his own "rhythm" with a letter that was difficult to distinguish between true and false, and the police could only passively follow behind his ass and shout at the shadow of nothingness. And he himself just hid in a dark corner, enjoying the policemen's troubles.
In a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, the "Zodiac Killer" also attached a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, densely marked with mysterious symbols and text, which some speculated was a plan for the killer's crime.
What is even more bizarre is that the "Zodiac Killer" requires people in the Bay area to wear the "Zodiac Button" he designated when traveling at night, otherwise he will kill people. A few days later, a man was shot in his car, and next to him was the "Zodiac Button" that he had not had time to put on. During that time, the whole of San Francisco was shrouded in the shadow of the "Zodiac", and people were almost afraid to go out at night.
The forest is big, there are birds, and such a terrible murderous maniac actually has loyal "fans". In the summer of 1971, people who liked him brought the image of the "Zodiac Killer" to the big screen, and the classic action film "Dirty Harry" was a box office hit. The film was shot in San Francisco, and the villain is a villain named "Scorpion", which is based on the "Zodiac Killer". In the movie, Detective Callahan, with his meticulous thinking and extraordinary courage, finally killed the "Scorpion" in a gunfight, satisfying the wishes of people in reality.
In 1974, in the last letter of the "Zodiac Killer", he actually made a film review for the horror movie "The Conjurer", which he thought was the best comedy so far. Since then, the "Zodiac Killer" has completely disappeared, and he has never written to the newspaper again, nor has he ever killed anyone.
In the folk, this enigmatic killer was soon enshrined as a legend, and even became a popular cultural phenomenon at that time, and there were many imitators who followed the trend. People have speculated about his identity, but it is basically imaginary and has no factual basis. By April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department issued a statement suspending the case and devoting limited police resources to other cases, making the "Zodiac" series of homicides one of the largest unsolved cases in U.S. history.
Until 2008, the "Zodiac" case suddenly ushered in a turning point. A man broke the news to the FBI that his stepfather was likely to be the "zodiac killer", and provided a lot of valuable clues and physical evidence. The man, Whose name was Kaferman, lived in California, and whose stepfather was Trans died in 2006.
While Kaferman was sorting out the relics, he found in a public storage box a number of notes written by his stepfather, with handwriting highly similar to the letters written by the "Zodiac Killer" to the newspaper. In addition, Tracy has a collection of photographs of corpses and a blood-stained dagger. In a tape, Tracy himself admits to being the "Zodiac Killer." And on the turbans that wrap these items, there are obvious "zodiac" exclusive symbols.
When He found the items, Carverman said, his heart seemed to stop beating in fear. He couldn't have imagined that the person closest to him, the stepfather who grew up with him, was actually a murderous demon who did not blink--the-notorious "zodiac killer".
In addition, Carverman also suspected that his mother was killed by his stepfather, saying that his mother suddenly suffocated more than a decade ago, and the police did not conduct an in-depth investigation, and the cause of death is still in doubt. Kaferman recalls that his mother had told him that Tras had tried to murder her, but Kaferman did not believe it, and it was too late to understand.
On June 26, 2009, after DNA comparison, the FBI confirmed that Tracy was the infamous "zodiac killer". However, in April 2020, the DNA test report was overturned because of flaws in the DNA results and methods of DNA testing preserved by the police, but the police still determined that Trance was the serial murderer who committed multiple homicides in the northern United States in the 1960s.
The "Zodiac Killer" claimed to have killed 37 people, but from the confirmed cases, a total of 7 people died at his hands, which is not a small number. What is the truth? Whether Thrans is really the murderer, or whether the American police have directed themselves to cover up their incompetence, no one can say clearly. And for us, it's not that important.
Continuous killings have not fallen into the net until death, mainly because the target of the murderer's killing is randomly selected, and the location of the crime is in a deserted place, so that the victim is invincible, and also brings great challenges to the arrest of the police. At the same time, we must also face up to the huge hidden dangers of the proliferation of guns in the United States, if violent elements have guns in their hands, it is difficult for good people to carry out effective legitimate defense, which is also a major "original sin" of the proliferation of gun murders in the United States.