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The
Zodiac Killer murdered cab driver Paul Stine in his cab in front
of this house at 3898 Washington Street in Presidio Heights at approximately
10 p.m. on October 11, 1969. Stine was the last of seven confirmed victims
of Zodiac, who claimed in letters to Bay Area newspapers to have killed
37. The shooting of the San Francisco cabbie brought national attention
to the bizarre killer who corresponded with the media and others using cryptograms
featuring astrological signs and mocking the efforts of police to find him.
Zodiac shot Stine in the head. Three teenagers watched from the second story
of #3899 across the street as a man struggled with the cabbie. Police responded
quickly to the scene but allowed the killer to slip away because a dispatcher
mistakenly communicated that the suspect was black. A white man now believed
to be Zodiac was observed by police walking in a direction away from the
crime scene but was not detained. Zodiac used blood soaked swatches cut
from Stine's shirt to identify himself in a letter sent to the Chronicle
two days after the murder. In the letter Zodiac - who had previously
stabbed and shot victims in Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and Riverside -
threatened to blow up a school bus. Though letters from the Zodiac
continued to appear until 1978, the notorious serial killer was never captured.
The case influenced copy cat criminals, counterfeit Zodiac letters, and
fictional murderers including the serial killer in "Dirty Harry," the Gemini
in William Peter Blatty's "Legion," and the Tinkerbell murderer in Armistead
Maupin's "Tales of the City." Controversy surrounds the final Zodiac letter,
now believed by police and researches to be counterfeit. In an only-in-San
Francisco twist, police Inspector David Toschi was exposed for writing counterfeit
fan letters to Maupin after the writer used Toschi as a character in "Tales
of the City" in 1976. The letters encouraged Maupin to continue using Toschi
in the serial. Though Toschi was transferred off the Zodiac case for writing
the Maupin letters, he was later reinstated as a homicide Inspector. Speculation
- but not much - lingers that Toschi authored the final Zodiac letter, the
only one to mention the inspector by name. The seven victims, says Zodiac
researcher Ray Nixon, were Betty Lou Jensen & David Faraday, Darlene
Ferrin & Mike Mageau, Brian Hartnell & Cecilia Ann Sheppard, and
Paul Stine. Says Nixon, "Both Mageau and Hartnell recovered from their wounds.
Hartnell is an attorney in San Diego and Mageau, still suffering severe
psychological stress from his ordeal, is apparently in hiding." |
