What was the name of the first victim to be killed by the Zodiac Killer?

Answer 1

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s. The killer coined the name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press. His letters included four cryptograms, three of which have yet to be solved. He is believed to have murdered at least five victims in Benicia; Vallejo; at Lake Berryessa near Napa; and in San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969.

In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officially closed the case, even though the killer's identity remained unknown and there was no statute of limitations on murder. The last investigators of the case were SFPD Homicide Detail Inspectors Michael N Maloney and Kelly Carroll. These investigators were the first to submit DNA from the case for analysis, which ruled out the lead suspect at least on the small sample taken from one of the Zodiac's letters. Maloney vociferously objected to the closing of the Zodiac case by his supervisor, Lieutenant John Hennessy.

There has been recent speculation that there may have been more than one Zodiac Killer.

The Zodiac Killer came to police attention for the apparently random murders of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20, 1968, just inside the Benicia city limits in a turnout on Lake Herman Road near Vallejo; it was their first date together, and Jensen's first date.

They were supposed to go to a Christmas concert that night at Hogan High (just a few blocks from Jensen's home), but visited a friend named Sharon instead, then stopped at Mr Ed's, a restaurant. Meanwhile on Lake Herman Road, a white Chevrolet was observed parked in a gravel turnout by two hunters, who approached it at one point, but the driver was nowhere to be seen.

At 9.30pm, Bill Crow and his girlfriend stopped in the turnout and saw a white Chevy drive past, heading towards Vallejo. It stopped and backed up, and Crow, who left the engine running, took off towards Benicia with the Chevy in hot pursuit. At Reservoir Road, Crow made a sharp right, but the much bigger Chevy could not follow them and stopped a short distance past the intersection, as did Crow. Crow then got out and shouted a challenge at the other driver, but the Chevy drove off. Faraday and Jensen parked in that same gravel turnout about 45 minutes later and were seen by several witnesses, and shortly after 11pm, the Zodiac pulled into the turnout and parked beside them. At least one witness drove by moments later and saw both cars; with a .22 handgun, the Zodiac shot out the rear passenger window, shot through the roof of the car, then forced Jensen and Faraday out on the passenger side.

He shot Faraday once in the head and Jensen five times in the back as she was running away. Their bodies were found minutes later by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. She who raced into Benicia and alerted Captain Daniel Pitta and Officer William T Warner, whom she found at an Enco station in town. Detective Sergeant Les Lundblad of the Solano County Sheriff's Department investigated the crime, but no solid leads developed.

Answer 2

It should be mentioned that the zodiac killer's signature symbol, a circle with a cross through it, had nothing to do with the zodiac or "satanic" symbols like originally though. The symbol is actually a unit circle, that when placed on a map of San Francisco with "Twin Peaks"? I think, at it's center, gives the location of each killing...that is, each murder falls on the unit circle.