It’s no real secret to my fam­ily that out of every unsolved mystery/crime case in his­tory, the one that I’ve become qui­etly obsessed with over the years is that of the “Zodiac Killer”.

Which is why when the media recently reported of a man reveal­ing the actual Zodiac killer to be his step­fa­ther, let’s just say my inter­est finally peaked. To the point where I blew the dust off my mind’s shelv­ing of this obses­sion and now with this re-examining of the case I hope to file it away for good. Of course I said that the last time and if this trails off to nowhere I’ll be doing this again.

For those with­out any knowl­edge of the Zodiac case, the ora­cle of dig­i­tal insight and magic Wikipedia says this:

The Zodiac Killer is a ser­ial killer who oper­ated in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia in the late 1960s. His iden­tity remains unknown. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunt­ing let­ters he sent to the press. His let­ters included four cryp­tograms (or ciphers), three of which have yet to be solved.

Creepy? Check. Despite the fact it’s unsolved it still remains an open case, unlike the stock­pile of cold cases that may never see the light of day. As Hank Hill would say, “That ain’t right.”

I’ve even rented the movie, Zodiac, with Mark Ruf­falo and Robert Downey, Jr. just to reac­quaint myself with a fas­ci­nat­ing (and yes, mor­bid) crime with a deranged man respon­si­ble for sev­eral deaths send­ing let­ters and greet­ing cards to author­i­ties. It was all very Jack the Rip­per but in mod­ern times.

There’s also another thread to this that hits close to home. Her name was Cheri Jo Bates, a stu­dent at River­side Com­mu­nity Col­lege and a pur­ported vic­tim of the Zodiac killer. Even though he claimed to be respon­si­ble for the mur­der, River­side police were con­vinced his con­fes­sion to be false.

I believe my obses­sion with this case has more to do with the air of mys­tery sur­round­ing it rather than the gritty details, I’ll leave that to Hol­ly­wood and the media. Yet I do want to see it solved once and for all, if any­thing to pro­vide some resolve for the vic­tims and their families.