Feb 24, 2007 3:00 am US/Pacific
Zodiac Killer Case Gets New Life
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ―
A new movie has renewed interest in the unsolved case of the notorious Zodiac serial killer, who terrorized the Bay Area nearly 40 years ago.
Since his first murder in 1968, the Zodiac killer has eluded dozens of police in four Bay Area counties.
The Zodiac killings stopped after the murder of a San Francisco cab driver in 1969.
But his cryptic letters kept him in the news. He said he loved to kill.
Now Vallejo police say three of the envelopes from those letters are being sent to the state crime lab for more tests. Police detectives hope advanced DNA technology will help them find their killer.
Ken Narlow was the lead detective on the Zodiac case for the Napa County Sheriff's Department. He investigated the stabbing of two college students at Lake Berryessa, which left one student dead.
The Zodiac marked the couple's car with the dates of his other attacks in Vallejo.
"He kept a score, taunting us all along," Narlow said. "He did that clear through the 70s to '74."
Many of the Zodiac's taunting letters went to the San Francisco Chronicle.
"The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them," he wrote in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle. "I enjoy needling the blue pigs."
Duffy Jennings, who reported on the Zodiac for the Chronicle, recalled that one of the letters threatened a colleague, the late reporter Paul Avery.
"We had buttons made up that said, 'I am not Avery.' Everybody in the newsroom wore them," Jennings said. "He was wearing the same button we wore on the outside of his coat, but inside his coat, he was wearing a .38, and he got a police permit for a concealed weapon."
It's a cold case, but "Zodiac," a movie opening March 2, could draw out new clues.
"There are thousands of cops looking for him," Narlow said. "After this movie, there will be millions looking."
Vallejo police did focus on a convicted pedophile Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo as the possible Zodiac. Allen, who was never charged, died of a heart attack in 1992.
In an interview with CBS 5, he denied being the serial killer.
"I am not Zodiac. They had me questioning myself," Allen said.
Forensics tests conducted in 2002 failed to link Allen's DNA to the envelopes.
Narlow believes the Zodiac is still alive.
"I hope he has a sleepless night," he said.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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