Zodiac Killer may never have existed, Channel 4 documentary claims
A new Channel 4 documentary argues that America's most notorious unidentified serial killer may have been a fiction. Professor Thomas Horan claims four murders were carried out by different people.
Channel 4 documentary challenges decades of Zodiac Killer mythology
A new two-part documentary coming to Channel 4 raises an extraordinary possibility about one of America's most enduring unsolved mysteries: the Zodiac Killer may never have existed.
The Sun reports that The Myth of the Zodiac Killer examines the theory that four attacks long attributed to a single serial killer were in fact carried out by different individuals — and that a series of letters sent to newspapers helped convince police they were hunting one man.
For more than half a century, investigators across California have pursued a killer who claimed to have taken 37 lives, taunted detectives with cryptic coded letters, and promised his victims would become his slaves in the afterlife. The case has inspired a Hollywood film and spawned countless theories. The documentary's central argument challenges all of them.
"The Zodiac killer is a fictional character. He's a literary invention," says Professor Thomas Henry Horan, who has spent years analysing the evidence.
Horan contends that police became so convinced they were dealing with a serial killer that they failed to consider the possibility that some victims had been targeted by people they already knew.
Filmmaker retraces the evidence across California
Filmmaker Andrew Nock travels across California to test Horan's theory, meeting relatives of victims, former detectives and individuals who fell under suspicion during the original investigation. Not everyone is convinced. Former detective Frank Falzon responds bluntly: "Speculation… That doesn't solve cases. I'm asking you, prove it."
One of the cases Horan examines most closely is the murder of Darlene Ferrin, a 22-year-old waitress shot dead on 4 July 1969 while sitting in a parked car with Michael Mageau, 19, at Blue Rock Springs Park near Vallejo, California. A second vehicle appeared at the scene, initially drove away, then returned. Its driver approached with a bright light and fired repeatedly through the window. Darlene died from her wounds; Michael survived, though the gunman had fled before police arrived.
The day after the shooting, someone telephoned police to claim responsibility — also confessing to the murders of two teenagers the previous December. Within weeks, letters began arriving at newspaper offices, apparently written by someone with detailed knowledge of the crimes, threatening further killings if the messages were not published.
Horan suspects Darlene's death was not a random attack.
Former husband recalls cryptic remark — and military training in codebreaking
His suspicions lead Nock to Jim Crabtree, Darlene's former husband, who had been questioned by police at the time and subsequently eliminated from their inquiries. Crabtree, who previously used the surname Phillips, had met Darlene in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s. Their marriage ended bitterly.
Crabtree tells the documentary he once said to Darlene that whatever she had done would come back to her nine times over. Darlene was subsequently shot nine times. He insists the remark was made years before her death and was not intended as a threat.
There is a further detail that catches Nock's attention: Crabtree received military training in cryptography — the creation and deciphering of codes — the same technique used by the Zodiac in his letters to the press.
Crabtree says that on the night of the murder he had taken LSD and was spending time outdoors, and suggests a judge could have confirmed his whereabouts. Nock cannot trace the judge, but does uncover police records showing that Crabtree's then-wife corroborated his alibi. Darlene and Crabtree had been separated for more than two years at the time of her death; both had remarried. The documentary establishes no evidence linking him to the killing.
First attributed attack: two teenagers on their first date
The first murder attributed to the Zodiac occurred seven months earlier, on 20 December 1968, when David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, drove to Lake Herman Road near Vallejo — a spot where young couples regularly parked — having promised their parents they would be home by 11pm. It was their first official date.
David was an Eagle Scout; Betty Lou was described by those who knew her as a popular schoolgirl. David was found beside his station wagon with a gunshot wound to the head. Betty Lou's body lay some distance away; she appeared to have tried to run before being shot five times in the back.
Police found no witnesses and no clear motive. For Betty Lou's family and friends, those questions have remained unanswered ever since. In the documentary, her childhood friend Diane visits the teenager's grave — a scene that underlines the human cost behind a case that has long been treated primarily as a puzzle.
A case built on letters and assumptions, Horan argues
At the heart of Horan's argument is the role the Zodiac's correspondence played in shaping the investigation. He believes the letters — dramatic, threatening, often written in cipher — created the impression of a single, organised killer operating across multiple crime scenes, when the underlying evidence for a single perpetrator may have been far weaker than it appeared.
The documentary does not claim to identify who carried out any of the murders. It does not exonerate any suspect. What it does, through Horan's analysis and Nock's interviews with those closest to the cases, is ask whether the most famous unsolved serial killer investigation in American history was built on a foundation that investigators never fully examined.
The Myth of the Zodiac Killer airs on Channel 4.
Source: The Sun