5 Reasons Why The Zodiac Killer Has NOT Been Caught (The 2025 Case Update)

The question of whether the Zodiac Killer has finally been caught remains one of the most persistent and frustrating mysteries in American crime history, capturing global attention for over five decades. As of December 18, 2025, the definitive, official answer from law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is No: The Zodiac Killer has not been formally identified, arrested, or convicted.

Despite a recent flurry of media attention and controversial claims by independent sleuths, the man who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s remains an unidentified serial killer. The key updates in 2025 center on a controversial new suspect, the frustrating pursuit of DNA evidence, and the enduring challenge of cracking his final ciphers.

The Zodiac Killer: A Brief Biography of Terror

The Zodiac Killer is not a person with a known biography but a moniker adopted by an unidentified serial killer. His "biography" is a timeline of confirmed attacks, cryptic letters, and taunts sent to Bay Area newspapers. He is known for his unique calling card: a crossed-circle symbol.

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• Active Period: December 1968 – October 1969 (Confirmed attacks). Letters continued into the early 1970s.
• Confirmed Victims: Five victims are officially attributed to the Zodiac Killer by law enforcement.
• Confirmed Victim List:
  • David Arthur Faraday (17) & Betty Lou Jensen (16): Shot dead on December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, Benicia.
  • Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin (22): Shot dead on July 4, 1969, at Blue Rock Springs Park, Vallejo. Her companion, Mike Mageau, survived.
  • Bryan Calvin Hartnell (20) & Cecelia Ann Shepard (22): Stabbed on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa, Napa County. Hartnell survived; Shepard died two days later.
  • Paul Lee Stine (29): Shot dead on October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. This is the only confirmed murder in San Francisco.
• Claimed Victims: The killer claimed to have murdered as many as 37 people in his letters.
• Primary Jurisdictions: Vallejo Police Department, Napa County Sheriff's Office, Solano County Sheriff's Office, and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). The FBI provides assistance.

1. The Official Stance: The Case Remains Unsolved

Despite decades of intense investigation, the Zodiac Killer's identity has never been confirmed by the police. The case is considered a "cold case" but remains open in multiple jurisdictions, including the SFPD and Vallejo. A key reason the case has not been "caught" is the lack of a definitive link between the evidence and any single suspect that satisfies the criteria for prosecution.

The FBI maintains a file on the case and has historically provided support to the local agencies. Their official position is that the case is still open, but they have not validated the claims made by independent groups. The sheer volume of letters, ciphers, and crime scenes across different counties has made a unified, conclusive investigation extraordinarily challenging.

The investigation has been hampered by issues common to 1960s-era crimes, including a lack of modern forensic techniques at the time of the murders, contamination of evidence, and relying on eyewitness accounts that were often contradictory or vague. The killer's ability to disappear after the Paul Stine murder in San Francisco, a densely populated area, remains one of the most baffling aspects of the case.

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2. The Controversial Gary Francis Poste Theory (The 2021-2025 Update)

The most significant recent update to the Zodiac saga is the emergence of Gary Francis Poste as a prime suspect. Poste, a California house painter and Air Force veteran who passed away in 2018, was named as the killer in 2021 by a group of independent investigators called 'The Case Breakers.'

The Case Breakers, a team of former law enforcement officers and military intelligence specialists, claimed to have found compelling evidence linking Poste to the murders, including:

• Forensic Evidence: Alleged DNA evidence and a darkroom photo that purportedly showed scars on Poste's forehead matching a police sketch of the killer.
• Cipher Clues: They claimed to have cracked a new code—the Z32 cipher—which revealed Poste's name.
• Geographic Links: Connections to a potential sixth, unconfirmed victim in Riverside, Cheri Jo Bates, though law enforcement in Riverside County publicly stated the evidence was insufficient to link Bates's murder to the Zodiac.

However, the theory has been widely dismissed by the FBI and the SFPD. Law enforcement has stated that the evidence provided by The Case Breakers is not conclusive enough to formally name Poste as the Zodiac. This division between independent cold case groups and official agencies highlights the ongoing difficulty in closing the case—a theory requires irrefutable evidence, not just circumstantial links.

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3. The DNA Breakthrough Hope and Frustration

The most promising avenue for finally unmasking the Zodiac Killer lies in modern forensic genealogy and DNA analysis. The successful identification of the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, through familial DNA searches in 2018 has given new hope to all cold cases, including the Zodiac investigation.

Law enforcement agencies, particularly the SFPD, have confirmed that they are actively working to analyze evidence from the crime scenes for genetic material. The primary sources of this potential DNA are:

• The Letters: Saliva, skin cells, or fingerprints on the stamps and envelopes sent by the killer.
• The Paul Stine Crime Scene: Evidence from the taxi cab where the killer was last seen.
• The Hood Fragment: The piece of Paul Stine's bloody shirt sent to the newspapers.

The critical challenge is the degradation of the samples. After more than 50 years, any available DNA is likely degraded or contaminated, making a clean profile difficult to obtain. While the technology is advancing rapidly, the process of extracting a viable profile and running it through genealogical databases is a slow, methodical, and often frustrating process. Until a definitive match is found, the killer remains uncaught.

4. The Enduring Shadow of Arthur Leigh Allen

Before Gary Francis Poste, the primary suspect for decades was Arthur Leigh Allen (1933–1992). Allen, a former elementary school teacher, was the focus of the investigation for many years and was even the central figure in Robert Graysmith's 1986 book, which popularized the case.

The reasons Allen was a strong suspect included:

• He owned a Zodiac-brand watch.
• He lived in Vallejo and was questioned early in the investigation.
• He allegedly confessed to a friend about his desire to kill people and write letters.

However, despite the circumstantial evidence, Allen was officially cleared by DNA testing on the Zodiac letters after his death in 1992. No definitive forensic evidence, including fingerprints or handwriting analysis, ever conclusively linked him to the crimes. The inability to definitively prove or disprove his involvement further illustrates why the Zodiac Killer remains uncaught—the evidence trail is too murky.

5. The Uncracked Ciphers and the Z13 Mystery

The Zodiac Killer was notorious for his cryptic letters and ciphers, which he used to taunt the police and the public. Of the four major ciphers he sent, two have been cracked:

• Z408 Cipher: Cracked in 1969 by a schoolteacher and his wife.
• Z340 Cipher: Cracked in 2020 by a team of code-breakers, which included a software developer and a mathematician.

Crucially, the two shorter ciphers, Z13 (or Z19) and the Z32 (or Z40), remain uncracked by official sources. The Z13 cipher, which ends with the phrase "My name is...", is believed to hold the key to the killer's identity.

The failure to definitively solve these final puzzles means a critical piece of the killer's identity—which he himself provided—is still missing. Until the Z13 cipher is conclusively decoded and validated by law enforcement, the mystery of the Zodiac Killer's true name will persist, leaving the case officially unsolved and the killer uncaught.