Zodiac Killer FBI Files & California Law Enforcement Agencies' Files

Zodiac Killer FBI Files & California Law Enforcement Agencies' Files

3,028 pages of files copied from the FBI, Vallejo Police Department, Solano County Sheriff Department, Napa County Sheriff Department, California Department of Justice, and the Benicia Police Department covering the Zodiac Killer case.

In the late 1960's a serial killer, who referred to himself as "Zodiac," claimed to have killed 37 people in the San Francisco Bay area. Law enforcement attribute six murders and two attempted murders to Zodiac. Most of the crimes were against couples in "lovers' lanes." Zodiac sent letters that included coded messages to local police departments and newspapers. One letter contained squares of blood-stained cloth, cut from a victim's shirt. Zodiac has never been officially identified.

His confirmed victims were:

Betty Lou Jensen, 16
David Faraday, 17
Darlene Ferrin, 22
Michael Mageau, 19, survived
Cecelia Shepard, 22
Bryan Hartnell, 22, survived
Paul Stine, 29
Donna Lass, 25
 

FBI Files

A total of 2,748 pages of FBI files, dating from 1969 to 1993, from four different Freedom of Information Act requests. Contains approximately 1,700 unique and discernable FBI documents.

Includes an 83-page Freedom of Information Act request release of San Francisco FBI Bureau files on Arthur Leigh Allen, a longtime suspect in the Zodiac case.

Three additional Freedom of Information Act request releases of Zodiac case files from the FBI Washington D.C. headquarters, includes a 1999 release containing 1,033 pages and a 2010 release containing 709 pages. The 2010 release seems not to contain any material not in the 1999 release, but the later released copies are significantly easier to read. A 923-page 2012 Freedom of Information Act request release of FBI Washington D.C. headquarters files contains previously unreleased material. Much of the 2012 release includes information on the decoding of coded messages and psychological assessments of Zodiac.

Files show there was a delay of over a year in getting a search warrant for the prime suspect's home. Authorities considered Arthur Leigh Allen the prime suspect. He was first interviewed by investigators on August 4th, 1971. Police first searched Allen's Santa Rosa trailer home in September 1972. Police in Vallejo California searched his apartment in 1991. Allen died in 1992.

The Zodiac investigation was disrupted in 1978, when San Francisco homicide detective Dave Toschi, the case's lead investigator, made three fake fan mail letters praising himself and sent them to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Armistead Maupin. This led to the belief that Toschi may have faked a 1978 letter from Zodiac.
 

California Law Enforcement Files

Vallejo Police Department Files - 97 pages of files dating from 7-5-1969 to 5-16-1975.  Files cover the Ferrin/Mageau attack. Michael Renault Mageau age 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin age 22 were shot by Zodiac on July 4, 1969, in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo. Although severely wounded with shots to his shot face, neck, and chest, Mageau survived. Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at Kaiser Foundation Hospital.

Solano County Sheriff Department Files - 76 pages of files, dating from 12-28-1968 to 3-22-1969, covering the earliest confirmed Zodiac killings, the Faraday/Jensen murders.  David Arthur Faraday age 17 and Betty Lou Jensen age 16 were shot and killed by Zodiac on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, within the city limits of Benicia, a waterside city in Solano County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Napa County Sheriff Department Files - 53 pages of files dating from 9-30-1969 to 10-4-1969, covering the Hartnell/Shepard stabbings.  Zodiac on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County stabbed Bryan Calvin Hartnell, age 20 and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22. Hartnell received eight stab wounds in the back and survived. Shepard died from her wounds on September 29, 1969. Files includes a detailed police transcript of interviews of Hartnell soon after the attack, while he was hospitalized.

California Department of Justice Files - 48 pages of reports. Includes a California Department of Justice Ballistics report on the Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday Case, a special report on the Shepard-Hartnell case and a report summarizing facts in the Cheri Jo Bates murder case, this is a case in which Zodiac’s involvement is disputed. The report also covers the other confirmed Zodiac cases.
 

The files contain a text transcript of all recognizable text embedded into the graphic image of each page of each document, creating a searchable finding aid. Text searches can be done across all files in the collection.