The Zodiac Killer

11 Pages 2766 Words

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s represented a great deal of things to a great deal of people. To the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the rest of California, the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s represented terror, fear, and death. What started out as a seemingly random, but brutal murder on the night of October 30th, 1966, turned out to be the start of a series of horrific murders that would span 2,500 suspects, 56 possible victims, and over 400 miles. On the calm, cool night of December 20th, 1968, a young seventeen year-old named David Arthur Faraday was getting ready to take a young sixteen year-old named Betty Lou Jensen on her first date. David arrived at Betty’s house, picked her up, and promptly proceeded to Lake Herman Road, a well known "lover’s lane" of the local teenagers.

After a while, a car, possibly a blue Valiant, pulled up next to David’s 1961 brown and beige four-door station wagon, and a man got out. "Framed only in silhouette, the man appeared to be stocky in build and slightly heavy, with an eerie sense about him" (Tina 3). The man requested that the teens get out of their car, but they refused. Upon hearing David and Betty’s refusal, the man pulled out a gun, and fired a round into the right rear window, shattering it with incredible force. He then moved to the front of the car and fired another round into the left tire. Stricken with panic, David and Betty rushed out of the car, but the man was there to meet them. Betty was able to scramble out, but David wasn’t so lucky, as he was met with the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressing behind his left ear. "The shot made a deafening blast, as the bullet entered David’s head at a horizontal angle, blowing it apart" (Tina 3).

With David out of his way, the killer turned his attention back to Betty. "He pursued her through the woods, his gun drawn, and shot her five times in the back from less than ten feet away." (Tina 3). The killer then got...