All the Evidence Proving Arthur Leigh Allen Was the Real Zodiac Killer Not Covered in Netflix’s Documentary
This Is the Zodiac Speaking is a new documentary on the infamous Zodiac Killer. In the documentary, David and Connie Seawater, who knew the main suspect for the crimes, Arthur Leigh Allen, are shedding new light on whether the man police always suspected was truly the serial killer who sent taunting ciphers to reporters for years and threatened to kill more people if the messages weren’t published in the front page of San Francisco newspapers.
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The Zodiac Killer murdered at least five victims between December 1968 and October of 1969, with two people escaping him. The serial killer was suspected of killing as many as 28 people, with him claiming at one point the number of victims went as high as 37. But despite the fact that police officially named Allen a suspect, they never had enough evidence to charge him with the crimes.
Related: Who were the other Zodiac Killer suspects?
Allen died in 1992 of a heart attack, but the Zodiac Killer case remains open, hoping that at some point enough evidence is discovered to conclusively determine who committed the murders, and whether more murders can be attributed to the serial killer.
But, was Arthur Leigh Allen the Zodiac Killer? Is the Netflix documentary This Is the Zodiac Speaking enough proof of his guilt?
Was Arthur Leigh Allen the Zodiac Killer?
The Seawater children say Arthur Leigh Allen confessed
Perhaps the biggest revelation in the Netflix documentary This is the Zodiac Speaking comes via the Seawater siblings sharing that Leigh Allen confessed to being the Zodiac killer to them. David and Connie Seawater also claim Leigh Allen drugged them as children and may have even brought them along to the killings.
According to both, Allen, who was like a father to them, often took them on weekend trips, to the movie theater, and even clam digging. It is during those trips the two believe he committed murders, including murderers that have never been officially linked to the Zodiac Killer.
Connie Seawater shared that in 1991, she went sailing with Allen and asked him if he was indeed the Zodiac Killer, to which Allen responded that if he told her, he’d have to kill her. David Seawater, however, admits that he got a full confession out of Allen – who he spoke to when his health was already declining. In the documentary David Seawater reveals that Allen not just admitted to being the Zodiac Killer, but also drugging them as kids and molesting his sister Connie.
Arthur Leigh Allen took the Seawater kids to all the murder sites
After seeing the 2007 film Zodiac, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. as San Francisco Chronicle staffers and Mark Ruffalo as a detective, the Seawater children realized that they had been to all the Zodiac Killer murder sites before the murders took place. “So much in that movie that was scary familiar,” Connie Seawater says in This is the Zodiac Speaking.
In the documentary, Connie Seawater also recalls that Allen took them to a racetrack in Riverside on October 28, 1966. She believes they were drugged while there, and only clearly recalls being led back to the car on October 31. On October 30, on the grounds of Riverside City College, a woman named Cheri Jo Bates was found dead. No connection between her murder and the Zodiac Killer has ever been established.
The murders stopped while Allen was in jail
People who think Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer also point to a crucial piece of circumstantial evidence that seems to support the theory that he was indeed the notorious serial killer. Allen was arrested for child molestation in 1974, going on to spend three years in prison. During that time the murders and the letters the killer used to send to reporters stopped completely.
He was identified in a police lineup
One of the Zodiac killer survivors, Michael Mageau, identified Allen in a photo line-up. However, conflicting testimony from other witnesses meant police could never use this to charge him with the crime.
Police found a suspicious watch in his home
After Allen’s death, police raided his house, and among the items they discovered was his watch, a Zodiac Sea Wolf wristwatch, which had the same logo seen on the killer’s letters and found on one of the crime scenes.
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