Zodiac Killer Research Paper
Running Head: ZODIAC
The Zodiac Killer Mystery
Criminal Justice 409
Professor Carr
April 22, 2012
The zodiac killer may be dead, in prison or out there living his life as a free man. All the killings that were supposedly committed by the zodiac killer may not have been by the same person, and this suggests that there were more than one killer. The publicity that the Zodiac killer developed in the period 1968-69 could have encouraged a rise of other killers who would impersonate the original killer. However, there were letters after most murders, and these letters were written in the same hand. However, this does not nullify the possibilities of a second killer.
Another possibility is that the letters were not connected to the murderer. This means that the murderer could have enjoyed killing, but was not interested in exposing his penchant, and neither was the person looking for publicity. Conclusively, it could be that the individual who wrote the letters took advantage of the killings so that he made investigations complex and scary. With the technology that is currently existent today, it would have been …show more content…
possible to catch the serial killer. Unfortunately, this was 1968 when the only forensic evidence was fingerprints, and according to one of the letters, the killer was meticulous about not leaving his fingerprints at the site of murder, including wearing transparent fingertip guards made of airplane cement (Haugen, 2010). There were no system to match fingerprints to those stored in files, and this means it was possible to miss out on the killer from the prints left in a cab after the zodiac killer murdered the driver.
Arthur Leigh Allen is among the more than 2500 suspects who have been questioned in connection with Zodiac (Feature, 2008). There are so many leads that link him to Zodiac and the murders, but all the DNA and fingerprints recovered from the letters, the telephone booth and on the cab do not match those of Zodiac, the person who sent the letters, and this confirms the second possibility. Arthur was an elementary school teacher at the school where Bates, the first victim of the serial killer went, and it is believed that she spent at least one and a half hours with the person who murdered her. This means the person was someone she knew and trusted, and thus puts Arthur, her teacher and coach in the school, as a prime suspect. He also did not have an alibi for the day Cecilia and her boyfriend were stabbed, leaving Cecilia dead and her boyfriend in critical condition although he had said earlier that he would be at the riverside, where the murder took place.
Additionally, a former schoolmate and friend hinted that Arthur used to refer to himself as Zodiac in school way before zodiac became popular.
He was also known to misspell words exactly as the zodiac killer did and in one instance, Zodiac, in his letters to the Vallajo police, used a term “busy work” which was used by elementary school teachers for menial tasks to pupils (Wark, n.d). Unfortunately, although all this information pointed fingers at him, there was not enough evidence to prosecute him because there were no prints at the scenes of murders and those on the letters did not correspond to his fingerprints (FBI, 2007 ). With good technological advancement, it would have been easier to determine if he was the murderer through taking debris from the slain victims and using DNA profiling to determine if Allen was the Zodiac
killer.
There were several detectives and police officers working on the case because it was big. Zodiac was an intelligent person and created the popularity so that the detectives, in the bid of each one to make names for themselves, would not share information. Through this, he avoided capture. He stated in a letter after killing the cabbie that the police would have caught him if they had been looking in the right places, especially the park, instead of going round the city in vehicles that made noise. The failure was therefore due to technology and lack of sharing intelligence within the police and FBI (Graysmith, 2007 ).
References
FBI. (2007 , February 02). The Zodiac Killer. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/march/zodiac_030207
Feature. (2008, February 9). America 's Most Wanted Saturdays 9/8c on FOX features. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.amw.com/features/feature_story_detail.cfm?id=1542
Graysmith, R. (2007 , May 1). Failure to catch the Zodiac killer was a sign of the times. The Zodiac Killer mystery .
Haugen, B. ( 2010). The Zodiac Killer: Terror and Mystery. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press.
Wark, J. (n.d). The Zodiac Killer. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/zodiac/evidence_11.html
The Zodiac Killer Mystery
Criminal Justice 409
Professor Carr
April 22, 2012
The zodiac killer may be dead, in prison or out there living his life as a free man. All the killings that were supposedly committed by the zodiac killer may not have been by the same person, and this suggests that there were more than one killer. The publicity that the Zodiac killer developed in the period 1968-69 could have encouraged a rise of other killers who would impersonate the original killer. However, there were letters after most murders, and these letters were written in the same hand. However, this does not nullify the possibilities of a second killer.
Another possibility is that the letters were not connected to the murderer. This means that the murderer could have enjoyed killing, but was not interested in exposing his penchant, and neither was the person looking for publicity. Conclusively, it could be that the individual who wrote the letters took advantage of the killings so that he made investigations complex and scary. With the technology that is currently existent today, it would have been …show more content…
possible to catch the serial killer. Unfortunately, this was 1968 when the only forensic evidence was fingerprints, and according to one of the letters, the killer was meticulous about not leaving his fingerprints at the site of murder, including wearing transparent fingertip guards made of airplane cement (Haugen, 2010). There were no system to match fingerprints to those stored in files, and this means it was possible to miss out on the killer from the prints left in a cab after the zodiac killer murdered the driver.
Arthur Leigh Allen is among the more than 2500 suspects who have been questioned in connection with Zodiac (Feature, 2008). There are so many leads that link him to Zodiac and the murders, but all the DNA and fingerprints recovered from the letters, the telephone booth and on the cab do not match those of Zodiac, the person who sent the letters, and this confirms the second possibility. Arthur was an elementary school teacher at the school where Bates, the first victim of the serial killer went, and it is believed that she spent at least one and a half hours with the person who murdered her. This means the person was someone she knew and trusted, and thus puts Arthur, her teacher and coach in the school, as a prime suspect. He also did not have an alibi for the day Cecilia and her boyfriend were stabbed, leaving Cecilia dead and her boyfriend in critical condition although he had said earlier that he would be at the riverside, where the murder took place.
Additionally, a former schoolmate and friend hinted that Arthur used to refer to himself as Zodiac in school way before zodiac became popular.
He was also known to misspell words exactly as the zodiac killer did and in one instance, Zodiac, in his letters to the Vallajo police, used a term “busy work” which was used by elementary school teachers for menial tasks to pupils (Wark, n.d). Unfortunately, although all this information pointed fingers at him, there was not enough evidence to prosecute him because there were no prints at the scenes of murders and those on the letters did not correspond to his fingerprints (FBI, 2007 ). With good technological advancement, it would have been easier to determine if he was the murderer through taking debris from the slain victims and using DNA profiling to determine if Allen was the Zodiac
killer.
There were several detectives and police officers working on the case because it was big. Zodiac was an intelligent person and created the popularity so that the detectives, in the bid of each one to make names for themselves, would not share information. Through this, he avoided capture. He stated in a letter after killing the cabbie that the police would have caught him if they had been looking in the right places, especially the park, instead of going round the city in vehicles that made noise. The failure was therefore due to technology and lack of sharing intelligence within the police and FBI (Graysmith, 2007 ).
References
FBI. (2007 , February 02). The Zodiac Killer. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/march/zodiac_030207
Feature. (2008, February 9). America 's Most Wanted Saturdays 9/8c on FOX features. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.amw.com/features/feature_story_detail.cfm?id=1542
Graysmith, R. (2007 , May 1). Failure to catch the Zodiac killer was a sign of the times. The Zodiac Killer mystery .
Haugen, B. ( 2010). The Zodiac Killer: Terror and Mystery. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press.
Wark, J. (n.d). The Zodiac Killer. Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/zodiac/evidence_11.html