[Spoiler] Isn’t the Only Zodiac Killer Suspect—Here’s Who Netflix’s Documentary Left Out

Lissete Lanuza Sáenz

Wed, October 23, 2024 at 2:00 PM UTC

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[Spoiler] Isn’t the Only Zodiac Killer Suspect—Here’s Who Netflix’s Documentary Left Out

The identity of the Zodiac Killer has been one of the biggest law enforcement mysteries of the past century. Who is the man who murdered at least 5 people in the ’60s and ’70s and was never caught? Police only ever identified one suspect, but the list of people who have been accused or suspected of being the Zodiac Killer is longer than that.

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Netflix’s new documentary, This Is the Zodiac Speaking focuses on perhaps the biggest suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen, as it examines the possibility that he was indeed the notorious killer. In the documentary people close to Allen, particularly the Seawater family, whose children spent a significant time with him and even went on trips with the man, try to understand the possibility that he was indeed the Zodiac Killer and they didn’t know.

The Zodiac Killer is suspected of having murdered more than the 5 that the police tied to him directly, with numbers ranging from a suspected 28 to the 37 claimed by the Zodiac Killer himself, but law enforcement could never confirm the number of murders. He was known for targeting at least 7 different people, three couples, and one taxi driver. Two of those people survived the ambush.

Notorious not just for the killings but for taunting police and promising more violence in a series of chilling, hand-written letters written in code or ciphers, the Zodiac Killer’s identity was never confirmed. The name the Zodiac Killer was adopted by the murderer himself in letters sent to reporters. Those letters also included a cross inside a circle as his signature. This same logo was found scrawled on one victim’s car.

But who was the Zodiac killer? Who has been suspected of being the notorious murderer? And why did police never act on their suspicions about Arthur Leigh Allen, who is at the center of the new documentary?

Arthur Leigh Allen

Arthur Leigh Allen was the only man ever named by police as a suspect in the investigation. A convicted sex offender who was fired from his job as a primary school teacher after allegations of sexual misconduct, Allen was also discharged without honor from the US Navy.

He was first interviewed by the police in 1969 after he was seen near the scene of one of the crimes. Later, it was discovered that in his job as a teacher, Allen worked just minutes away from where the Zodiac Killer’s first victim, Darlene Ferrin, was murdered.

In 1971 police once again investigated Allen after a friend claimed Allen spoke of his desire to kill people and used the name Zodiac. One of the Zodiac killer survivors, Michael Mageau, identified Allen in a photo line-up, but conflicting testimony from other witnesses meant police could never charge him with the crime.

After he died in 1992, police searched his house and discovered more evidence that points to Allen having been the Zodiac Killer: his watch, a Zodiac Sea Wolf wristwatch, had the same logo seen on the killer’s letters.

Gary Francis Poste

In 2021 a group named The Case Breakers claimed they had solved the Zodiac Killer case, and the name they presented was not the same as the police’s prime suspect. Instead, the group made up of ex-journalists, military intelligence workers, law enforcement officers, and academics, claimed the murderer was Gary Francis Poste.

The group also claimed to have linked Poste to a sixth murder that had never been associated with the Zodiac Killer. Poste, who had a history of violence against animals that The Case Breakers also indicate fits with the profile of the Zodiac Killer, died in August 2018 at the age of 80, after being diagnosed with sepsis and vascular dementia.

According to The Case Breakers, Poste’s connection to the case became obvious looking at the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers. In one particular note, they claimed, removing the letters of his full name revealed a hidden message.

“So you’ve got to know Gary’s full name in order to decipher these anagrams,” former Army counterintelligence agent Jen Bucholtz told Fox News.

“I just don’t think there’s any other way anybody would have figured it out.”

Earl Van Best Jr.

Earl Van Best Jr.’s son and daughter-in-law accused him of being the Zodiac Killer, but the evidence of Van Best Jr. being the killer was always thin at best. He bore a striking resemblance to the man on the police sketch, and that was enough to make him a suspect, but nothing ever came of this suspicion.

After marrying 14-year-old Judy Chandler when he was 28, Van Best Jr. was arrested and imprisoned for statutory rape. Chandler, however, was already pregnant by that time and gave birth to a son, Gary Stewart, who she would later give up for adoption. That son, Stewart, wrote a nonfiction book in 2014 titled “The Most Dangerous Animal of All” which accused his father of being the Zodiac Killer.

Van Best Jr. died in 1984 in Mexico, after a life of crime that included being charged with DUI, fraud, rape, and pedophilia.

Ross Sullivan

Sullivan, a library assistant at Riverside City College, was another man who was suspected mostly because he looked very similar to the police sketch of the murder. Additionally, his coworkers became suspicious after Sullivan went missing for days after Cheri Jo Bates’ murder, which took place in Riverside City College.

However, there was no other evidence tying Sullivan to the murders. In 1968, Sullivan moved to Santa Cruz and was treated for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He died in 1977 at the age of 36.

Louis Joseph Myers

Meyers reportedly confessed to the murders in 2001 after finding out he was dying from cirrhosis, and instructed his friend Randy Kenney to go to the police after his death. However, the only evidence typing Meyers to the case was that no Zodiac letters were sent from 1971-1973 when Meyers was stationed abroad with the military.

According to Kenney, Meyers targeted couples after a bad breakup.

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