Old Police Reports May Shed New Light on Zodiac Murders

Newswise — Between 1966 and 1969, a serial murderer known as the Zodiac killer terrorized California. Despite intense law enforcement and media scrutiny, few clues to the killer’s identity or motives have ever emerged.

Now, old police reports may shed new light on characteristics common to the victims.

Collected for nearly a decade at a unique online repository for information about the case, Zodiackiller.com, the reports -- from Napa, Vallejo, and Solano County police and sheriff departments -- reveal that before they were murdered, sometimes within days or weeks, each of the Zodiac's four known or suspected female victims had broken off a relationship or rebuffed the advances of a male admirer in favor of another male partner, and each breakup involved public arguments or witnessed threats.

What's more, in the three murders involving male-female couples, the female victim was the “older woman” in either her former or current relationship.

Experts say the similarities suggest the killer may have known more about his victims than has previously been assumed, and may not have chosen them entirely at random.

"The similarities are very intriguing and worth taking a second look at," said Sheryl McCollum, founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute at Bauder College in Atlanta. "Similarities between victims are often telling about the killer. I do not believe in coincidences—much less four of them. Therefore, the victims all having had a breakup or male stalker becomes something that may need to be re-investigated."

Discovered during research for a story about the first public allegations in the Zodiac murders -- when, beginning in 1981, retired government librarian and true crime author Gareth S. Penn accused U.C. Berkeley public policy professor Michael H. O'Hare of the crimes in a series of articles and books -- the findings were presented at the 2009 Midwest Criminal Justice Association annual conference in Chicago and the 2009 Southern Criminal Justice Association annual conference in Charleston, South Carolina this September.

For more information and in-depth details, read the exclusive feature story at Weekly Scientist,

http://www.weeklyscientist.com