Ranked alongside Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer is one of the most notorious serial killers the world has ever seen. Some of the classic signs of a serial killer are a person who has killed three or more people, with the killings occurring within a month’s time period with breaks in between each murder, and even when they are not killing they want to be the person in control of every situation (Levin). Serial killers most often kill for the psychological gratification, which is an emotion of happiness to a fulfilment of a goal that motivates people to kill. Serial killers only kill for the gratification of the kill. Usually a trait of a killer’s victims is that they have no relationship or direct correlation with the killer. This makes …show more content…
The Zodiac Killer taunted the San Francisco Police department by sending encrypted letters to them as well as many other letters in his own handwriting. Out of the encrypted letters three of the codes were never found out. The Zodiac Killer found pleasure in taunting the police. He gave them the clues to find him which would create a thrill for him. It is a psychological factor found in many serial killers, some examples being the Washington Sniper, Son of Sam, and Jack the Ripper.
The Zodiac Killer took the lives of 7 victims, however, the killer from the letters claimed 37 victims(The Zodiac Killer). Of the confirmed victims 3 of them were female and 4 were male and of those 7, two of them survived. The age range was 16-29 and the average age was 21. The victims were all killed in proximity to San Francisco, CA. This is very important because it shows that he lived nearby, which narrowed down the suspect list (NIJ). The first two victims were David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16. They were killed on December 20, 1968, and were killed by a gunshot. The murders happened on a seldomly traveled road along Lake Herman outside of Vallejo, CA. The