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For the last 50 decades, the identity of the Zodiac Killer has remained one of the most puzzling cold cases in American true-crime culture. With countless suspects emerging and fading into obscurity, the serial killer struck terror throughout Northern California’s Bay Area in the late 1960s, inspiring countless podcasts, books, and even the 2007Zodiacfilm starring Jake Gyllenhaal,Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.
For those who are unaware of the cold killer, the Zodiac Killer is an unidentified serial murderer who terrorized Northern California. He is infamous for his cryptic letters, taunting authorities with symbols, ciphers, and claims of several unsolved murders. The Zodiac Killer also claimed to have killed 37 people, but only five murders and two attempted murders have been linked to him. Despite extensive investigations, the Zodiac Killer’s identity remains a mystery, except, for Arthur Leigh Allen, a former elementary school teacher and convicted sex offender, who was a prime suspect in the case but was never officially identified as the Zodiac Killer.
Now, after decades of mysteries, Netflix has acquired a three-part docuseries to shed light on the unsolved murder case of the Zodiac Killer,This is the Zodiac Speaking. The show features a new perspective on the case with never-seen-before interviews and clues.
This Is the Zodiac Speaking: A Documentary on the Infamous Unsolved Case
Directed by Ari Mark and Phil Lott,Netflix’sdocumentaryThis Is the Zodiac Speakinggives new insights into the decades old unsolved case. The three-part series revisits the case once more with new interviews and evidence from people who knew Arthur Leigh Allen.
Reflecting on the Zodiac docuseries, Lott shared withVariety,
“A lot of this material is brand new. It hasn’t been seen before because when [Allen] died, there was no more investigation from a law enforcement perspective. So there’s no one really to send it to. So we got to look all those letters and read the crazy, very incriminating material.”
The series provides Allen’s conversation with local TV reporter, Williams and an investigative reporter, Robert Graysmith, before he died in the early ‘90s. The interviews also include conversations with Allen’s former students and the surviving friends of the Zodiac’s victims.
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However, the key aspect of the docuseries lies with the Seawater family who revealed a chilling connection to Allen. The suspect was a key figure in their childhood as he would take them on trips and care for them. In the trailer of the docuseries, David Seawater said,“We realized we had been to all the murder sites before the murders,”pointing details that even the authorities have never seen or heard.
Is David Fincher’s Zodiac Based On Facts?
David Fincher’s 2007Zodiacwas lauded for impressively portraying the Zodiac killings that reigned terror in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Although the movie didn’t perform well, grossing only $85 million with roughly the same budget, the reason behind its commercial failure was its huge running time and the lingering questions of its credibility.
Interestingly,Zodiacmovie is an adaptation of Robert Graysmith’s book, Zodiac, which he wrote in 1986. His book detailed the cases, evidence, clues, and Graysmith’s own theories regarding the killer’s identity. While he got many of his facts right, however, the critics have long taken issue with his investigative approach and speculative conclusions, questioning the reliability of the facts.
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Moreover, while filming the movie,David Flincherrealized that the unsolved case of the Zodiac Killer is surrounded by conspiracy theories, hearsay, unwarranted suspects, and speculation, and he didn’t want to make a movie based on theories. To make the story sound authentic, Flincher approached the survivors of the Zodiac killings as well as the investigators and family members of the suspects. He even hired a forensic linguistics expert from California State University to cipher the Zodiac letters and the languages used within.
Is Zodiac Cipher Z340 Still Unsolved?
The Zodiac Killer became notorious for sending cryptic ciphers to the media, sharing the details of his killings through puzzles. His popular ciphers include the Z408, Z340, Z13, and Z32. While Z408 was easy to solve, revealing a disturbing message about his thrill for murder, Z340 stumped experts for over 50 years until it was finally cracked in 2020.
On July 09, 2025, the killer mailed a 340-character cipher, known as the Z-340 Cipher, however, it couldn’t be solved by amateur and professional cryptographers. It was not until August 12, 2025, that three men, a Virginia software developer David Oranchak, a Belgian computer programmer Jarl Van Eycke, and an Australian mathematician Sam Blake finally cracked it.
To explain the Z340 cipher, it contains 63 unique symbols which were split into three sections. The first two sections contained nine lines and the third section had two lines. Next, Oranchak used a computer program, AZ Decrypt, written by Eycke, that examined 65,000 different permutations of the cipher.
Then, they used a clever transportation method to crack the Zodiac’s cipher beginning at the top left corner, moving down one letter and two spaces to the right, and repeating this pattern until they hit the edge of the cipher. Once they were finished with one row, they’d start the process again, starting with the second letter in the top row. This approach helped the codebreakers to reorganize the jumbled letters and reveal the hidden message within the cipher.
With one last adjustment, the first section of the cipher finally became readable. However, the second and the third sections remained scrambled. To solve them, they realized that some words in the second section were spelled backward and also spotted a mistake made by the Zodiac. By correcting the error, they managed to crack the remaining parts of the cipher and unveil the hidden message which read,
“I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch meThat wasn’t me on the TV show which brings up a point about meI am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice all the soonerBecause I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradice so they are afraid of deathI am not afraid because I know that my new life will be an easy one in paradice death.”
Oranchak, Eycke, and Blake shared their findings to the FBI’s Cryptoanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit on July 10, 2025.
Who Were The Other Zodiac Killer Suspects?
While Arthur Leigh Allen was the only focused prime suspect in the Zodiac Killer unresolved case, however, there were other potential suspects that the authorities were looking into and believed could’ve been responsible for the killings.
Rick Marshall, whose real name was Joe Don Dickey, was also a key suspect on the police radar. Marshall spent 40 years living in and around the Bay Area before passing away from complications due to Parkinson’s disease. At the time of the Zodiac murders, he was working at a silent movie theatre and had served in the Navy. He became a suspect in 1976 after he made a suspicious remark on his ham radio. On top of it, the police found it intriguing that one of the Zodiac killer’s letters was sent on his birthday. However, no other evidence connected him to the crimes.
Another suspect was Richard Gaikowski, who looked quite similar to the police sketches. He became a suspect after one of the Zodiac killings happened less than five miles from his house. When he was questioned about his whereabouts during the murders, he claimed he was out of the country, however, passport records later revealed it was a lie.
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The fourth suspect among Allen, Gaikowski, and Marshall was Lawrence Klein, also known as Larry Kane. Kane had an extensive criminal background and became a suspect when a victim’s sister claimed that he stalked her sister for months leading up to the murder. Moreover, a potential Zodiac abductee, Kathleen Johns alleged Kane as her kidnapper.
What Happened To Arthur Leigh Allen?
Born in 1933, Arthur Leigh Allen already had a troubled history by the time the Zodiac investigation began. He was institutionalized for sexually abusing children in 1975 which cast further doubt on his claims of innocence. Moreover, he had a dishonorable discharge from the Navy in the 1950s.
Allen died from heart failure in 1992, but his story didn’t end there. A documentary was released in 2007, His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen, which dived into his life and connections to the Zodiac case. Despite numerous suspicions, there was never enough evidence to prove Allen was the real Zodiac Killer.
This Is the Zodiac Speakingis streaming on Netflix.
Samridhi Goel
Content Writer
Articles Published :376
Samridhi breathes HOLLYWOOD. A seasoned professional content writer boasting three years of experience. Her expertise shines in the realm of entertainment, where she skillfully craft narratives that breathe life into movies, music, and pop culture. She has completed her Masters in Commerce but her obsession with Hollywood lead her to curate content for the same.
