In December 1968,
two teenagers were shot to death
in their car.
There were no clues.
Seven months later,
there was another shooting.
Another couple was attacked in their car.
Only two months after that,
a third couple got attacked.
This time the attacker stabbed them.
Who could be responsible
for these gruesome crimes?
Could somebody grab the phone?
"This is the Zodiac speaking."
"San Francisco was terrorized
in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s
by a man who called himself
the Zodiac Killer"
"Who is the Zodiac?
And where is he?"
The Zodiac Killer got the media's attention
by calling or sending coded messages
to police and various newspapers.
They contained details of his crimes.
He signed his letters with a symbol,
a circle with a plus sign over it.
He sent his last letter in 1974.
Then he vanished,
leaving both the media
and the authorities baffled.
The Zodiac said he killed 37 people,
but the police could only link him
to seven victims.
Five of them died.
Today we'll look at the stories
of the victims who survived
and the people who think
they broke the case.
We know that the Zodiac intended to kill.
Surviving his attack
could have been sheer luck.
But maybe there's something we can learn
from these victims' experiences.
We'll start with a crime
that's still as shocking
as the day it happened.
"This is...
one of the worst things
I've ever witnessed.”
In September 1969,
20-year-old Bryan Calvin Hartnell
and his friend,
22-year-old Cecelia Shepard,
were on the shoreline of Lake Berryessa
near Napa, California.
They were lying on a blanket
when they noticed
an armed person approaching.
He was wearing a strange costume
with a hood,
and he looked tall with a heavy build.
It was around 6 p.m., and they were alone.
The mysterious man claimed to be
a prisoner on the run.
But he refused to take Hartnell's money
and car keys.
He eventually tied the couple
and began stabbing them.
The stranger stabbed Hartnell five times
in the back.
Then he stabbed Cecelia
five times in the back
and five in the front.
Then he calmly returned to his vehicle
and left.
Minutes later, a fisherman heard Hartnell
and Shepard screaming.
They had managed to untie themselves,
but both were in critical condition.
An ambulance arrived nearly an hour later.
Cecelia passed away at the hospital,
but Bryan survived.
On the victim's car door,
a message claimed responsibility
for this attack and two more.
Hartnell is still alive today,
married, and has two sons.
When interviewed by a news station,
he said the secret to surviving
was setting goals.
The first goal was to live,
then untie himself,
get help,
and go to the hospital.
On July 5, 1969,
Mike Mageau met Darlene Ferrin
at a quiet parking lot
on the outskirts of Vallejo, California.
Ferrin was married to Dean Ferrin,
and it appears
that she saw Mageau secretly.
They were sitting in a parked car
when a car approached them
and shone its lights at them.
There were no other cars or people
in the parking lot.
The mysterious car's driver got out
and started firing at the couple.
Mageau screamed in pain
as the man came closer to their car
and fired more shots at them.
Mageau was conscious enough
to get a look at the attacker.
Mike survived the attack,
but Ferrin died of gunshot wounds.
The man called the Vallejo Police line
less than an hour later.
He claimed responsibility for this attack
and a previous one.
The Vallejo Times-Herald,
San Francisco Examiner
and San Francisco Chronicle
received letters about the crime
roughly three weeks later.
These were the first of many letters
containing details of the crimes
and ciphers that, if solved,
would supposedly reveal
the killer's identity.
Mike Mageau seems to have stayed
under the radar all these years
and has avoided interviews.
If you want to avoid
your own Zodiac encounter,
stay away from dark, isolated areas
like the one where Mike was attacked.
But according to a group of experts,
there's nothing to worry about anymore.
Let's see why they're so sure.
There were four major suspects
in the Zodiac Killer’s case.
But none of them were charged
with committing the crimes.
The killer sent ciphers and letters
that would supposedly identify him,
but they were not helpful.
One of his most famous ciphers
contained 340 characters.
It finally got cracked in December 2020.
The Case Breakers,
a team of 40 detectives,
journalists
and military intelligence officers
claimed they had identified
the Zodiac Killer
in October 2021.
They stated that Gary Francis Poste
was responsible for the attacks
and murders
in 1968 and 1969.
Including Cecelia Sheppard
and Darlene Ferrin.
The team claimed they discovered
Poste's identity
after finding a picture that showed
scars on Poste's forehead
that match a sketch of the Zodiac Killer.
They revealed that using Poste's full name
was the secret to solving
one of his ciphers.
But Gary Francis Poste died in 2018
when he was 80 years old,
so he was never officially questioned
or charged.
Some people doubt the breakthrough,
claiming it relies on inaccurate sketches
and does not provide
new forensic evidence or witnesses.
The FBI and San Francisco police
reject this theory
and declare the case is still open.
Do you think the Zodiac Killer
is still hiding among us?
Sometimes the cruelest monsters
don't hide behind a hood or riddles.
Some of them could charm you
with their innocent faces
before brutally beating you to death.
That is what Ted Bundy used to do.
And we've got the stories
of the people who survived him,
right here.