About this episode Dive into the intriguing world of unresolved mysteries with 'Unsolved Files,' where each episode revisits a famous cold case, exploring every angle, suspect, and theory that has left investigators puzzled for years. Narrated with the tone of a dedicated detective, this series uncovers hidden clues and presents fresh perspectives, offering listeners a compelling journey through history’s most perplexing unsolved crimes and inspiring curiosity about justice delayed.
0:00 On November eighth, 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle received a greeting card.0:07 Inside was a 340-character cipher and a promise: the killer's name was hidden inside.0:15 Last week, we navigated the labyrinth of the JonBenét Ramsey case, where every path seemed to lead to a dead end.0:26 This week, we enter a different kind of maze—one built of ink and symbols, by a killer who called himself the Zodiac.0:37 The file is still open.0:39 The ghost is still loose.0:41 The official count is five dead.0:44 David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in December 1968.0:49 Darlene Ferrin in July 1969.0:52 Cecelia Shepard in September '69.0:55 Paul Stine, a cab driver, in October '69.0:59 But the Zodiac claimed more.1:01 Maybe many more.1:03 The murders were brutal, but they were only the beginning.1:08 The real performance was in the letters he sent to the press.1:14 Taunting, bragging, demanding they be published.1:19 And in those letters were the ciphers.1:22 A game played with the entire Bay Area as the board.1:27 Let's open the file on the prime suspect.1:31 Arthur Leigh Allen.1:33 For years, he was the ONE.1:35 A survivor of the Lake Berryessa attack described the attacker's walk and build, and it fit.1:44 Allen owned a Zodiac-brand watch, and wore the same boot size as a print found at the scene.1:52 He'd been fired from his teaching job for misconduct.1:57 And a friend told police that Allen had confessed to him, describing his desire to hunt people with a gun and a knife.2:09 It all lines up.2:10 So clean.2:11 So perfect.2:12 Too perfect.2:13 Here's the problem.2:15 Arthur Leigh Allen's fingerprints were never a match to the prints the killer left behind.2:23 His DNA, tested against a sample from the back of a stamp on a Zodiac letter, was not a match.2:32 Multiple handwriting experts could NOT definitively connect his writing to the Zodiac's distinctive scrawl.2:42 He passed polygraph tests.2:45 Allen died of a heart attack in 1992, a free man.2:49 The evidence against him was a mountain of coincidence.2:55 A compelling story that never became a fact.2:59 So we turn the page.3:01 Richard Gaikowski.3:02 A newspaper editor in San Francisco.3:06 Some investigators noted his work schedule seemed to free him up around the times of the attacks.3:15 His face bore a resemblance to the famous composite sketch.3:20 Amateur sleuths found that his name, or an anagram of it, could be teased out of one of the unsolved ciphers.3:31 It’s a theory built on patterns.3:34 On echoes.3:35 But like with Allen, there is no physical evidence.3:39 No smoking gun.3:41 Just another ghost.3:43 Another narrative that dissolves when you hold it up to the light.3:49 The file is full of them.3:51 Lawrence Kane.3:53 Rick Marshall.3:54 Dozens of names.3:55 Each one a theory.3:57 Each one a dead end.3:59 Which brings us back to the cipher.4:02 The Z-340.4:03 The one that promised a name.4:06 For fifty-one years, it was a wall of gibberish, taunting codebreakers professional and amateur.4:15 Then, in 2020, a team of private citizens—a software engineer from Virginia, a Belgian programmer, an Australian mathematician—cracked it.4:28 Fifty-one years of waiting for the killer to finally give up his name.4:35 And the message read: "I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME...4:42 THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW...4:45 I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER..." No name.4:54 No confession.4:56 Just more ego.4:57 More games.4:58 That's the turn.5:00 That's the clue we all missed.5:02 The ciphers were never meant to be a key to his identity.5:08 They were the crime itself.5:10 An act of psychological warfare.5:13 He wasn't leaving clues; he was building a legend.5:18 He wanted to create a puzzle so vast, so unsolvable, that we would never stop talking about him.5:27 And here we are.5:29 The real mystery isn't who he was.5:32 The mystery is that he convinced the world to search for a man, when all he ever wanted us to see was the monster.
