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The Zodiac Killer, who terrorized people in the Bay Area in the late 1960s, remains one of the most notorious unsolved serial killer cases of all time. While the police never managed to arrest anyone in this case, they did name one suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen.
However, there was never enough evidence to arrest him and it remained merely a theory. But many supported this claim because, starting from the three years that Allen was in prison for child molestation, from 1974 to 1977, the murders and letters from the Zodiac killer stopped. The last confirmed letter from the Zodiac killer was in 1974.
Allen died in 1992 but the mystery of the Zodiac killer continues to haunt. This true crime story has been adapted by Netflix into a three-part docuseries, This is the Zodiac Speaking, which explores interviews from people close to Allen who believe he was the notorious serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the late 1960s.
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When did the Zodiac killings stop? Who is Arthur Leigh Allen and what is his connection to the Zodiac Killer?
The Zodiac killer was a notorious murderer in the Bay area who had at least five victims between December 1968 and October 1969. The killer left coded messages and demanded they be published on the front page of San Francisco newspapers, threatening more killings if his wishes were not complied with.
Arthur Leigh Allen, however, was a beloved schoolteacher, known for his joyful nature. According to Time, a former student, Darin Alvord even describes Allen teaching them how to decipher codes and simply thought his teacher was just trying to teach them a new skill. Nobody outright suspected in the beginning that Allen may have anything to do with the killings.
According to the Netflix docuseries, when David Seawater, Connie Seawater, and their younger brother Don Seawater met Allen in the early 1960s, he had bonded with their mother Phyllis and was a regular at their family dinners. Allen was an avid diver and he would take the children on excursions and movies.
Why was Arthur Leigh Allen suspected?
It all started with the deaths of Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards on June 4, 1963, which are not officially linked to the Zodiac killer. But the Seawater children believed Allen may have had something to do with it.
According to Time, they recall Allen showing up at their house to see if they wanted to watch him go diving but when they got to the beach Allen disappeared leaving the children alone to play. When he returned he was out of breath and had red stuff on his hands. The Seawaters think Allen may have been behind the double murder.
On October 28, 1966, when David Seawater was a sophomore in high school and Connie was a freshman, Allen took them to a racetrack in Riverside. Two days later Connie found her brother David in a deep sleep in the motel and she herself could only remember drinking some juice and then falling into a deep sleep.
On October 30, 1966, a woman named Cheri Jo Bates was found dead, and the Seawaters believed that Allen was the one behind it. Netflix's This is the Zodiac Speaking explores in detail these recollections from the Seawater siblings, who are the main source of the docuseries.
Connie Seawater even says in an interview in the Netflix documentary that she now believes that Allen hinted at being the Zodiac killer when she asked him once about it and he jokingly said if he told her that he would have to kill her. Allen had even confessed to David Seawater in 1992, when his health was declining, that he had drugged them as kids and even molested Connie.
After their mother's death, the Seawater siblings found countless letters between their mother and Allen where he made small confessions that hinted at him being the killer.
To add to this, the Zodiac murders surprisingly stopped when Allen was arrested for child molestation in 1974. He was in prison for three years and then served five years of felony probation until 1982. Allen died on August 26, 1992, at the age of 58.
Catch the full story on Netflix's This is the Zodiac Speaking.
