The Zodiac Killer has been a mystery for 50 years – but one man thinks he’s solved it
In docuseries The Most Dangerous Animal of All, Gary Stewart claims his birth father was one of America’s most notorious serial killers
There are few unsolved mysteries that fascinate quite like that of the Zodiac killer. The unknown perpetrator terrorized the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, killing at least seven people (in letters, he claimed to have killed 37), most of them in surprise attacks on so-called “lover’s lanes”. His taunting of the police and press with cryptic letters precipitated an era of media-disseminated public terror; the puzzle of his unsolved ciphers and terrifying peeks into an unhinged mind inspired the David Fincher 2008 film Zodiac, countless true crime TV specials, and passionately active amateur detective forums.
The Zodiac case, in other words, has been prime for a breakthrough for decades. So what if you thought, based on handwriting and fingerprint evidence, family lore and the questionable investigative methods of the mid-century San Francisco police department, that your father was the killer?