Writer Robert Greysmith and serial killer nicknamed Zodiac

It so happened that history forever linked the name of Gracemite to the soul-chilling crimes of a serial killer, nicknamed Zodiac. Of course, this is not accidental: we can say that because of the criminal, the former cartoonist became a writer. For more than twenty years, he has reworked a lot of material to get close to revealing the identity of this cruel man. And since the Zodiac case is one of the most mysterious of crimes uncovered by the US police , Robert Greismith, who devoted ten years of his life to studying the facts on this case, decided to write about him.

The first book "Zodiac" was published in 1986 and became a national bestseller. Inspired by success, the author wrote several more detective novels, but not all of them were unequivocally well received by critics.

In 2007, the book "Zodiac" was filmed. The director of the film with the same name was David Fincher.

Undisclosed crimes

In the late sixties, San Francisco and California were stirred by a series of brutal murders committed by a criminal who used the pseudonym "Zodiac." At that time, Robert Graysmith worked as a cartoonist in the San Francisco Chronicle. A distinctive feature of the murderer was encrypted letters, which he sent to the publishing houses of local newspapers after the crimes committed. In them, the Zodiac reported information about himself and the motives of the murders, and the best cryptographers worked on these texts. Graysmith was also carried away by unraveling the coded Zodiac crimes, believing that the police were not doing enough.

There were a lot of suspects, but there was not enough evidence and evidence to find the true criminal. The search for the killer was started by detectives, amateurs, among whom was the political cartoonist Robert Greysmith. The police claimed five murders and two assassination attempts by the maniac when the Zodiac himself claimed in his letters that at least 37 people were killed by his hand. In any case, despite all the efforts of the police and private investigators, the identity of the killer was never disclosed. And this criminal case to this day is a painful topic for US law enforcement agencies.

A life-long affair

When the first mention of a maniac that terrorized northern California appeared in the press, a successful caricaturist, Robert Graysmith, who at that time was 25 years old, did not think about changing his activities. But when it became clear that the police had come to a standstill with the investigation, Gracemith, like many others, decided to join the murder case. He was so immersed in the investigation that he lost interest in his usual life.

During the day, Robert sat on encrypted messages published in newspapers, pestered the thresholds of police stations in the hope of receiving at least some information, and this obsession affected the personal life of Gracemite: his marriage cracked at the seams. Later, in an interview with one of the television channels, the writer said that he was prompted by the sluggish activity of the police in this case for such a serious investigation of Zodiac's crimes. Everything was hushed up even inside departments, not to mention different jurisdictions. And then Robert decided to start the investigation as a private person: he spoke with the survivors, compared the facts and collected all the details missed by the police. Recalling his conversations with the police, Robert Graysmith said: "The zodiac is the criminal who craves fame, and he will certainly appear as an interested person who wants to help the investigation."

Prime suspect

Gracemith's words were not taken seriously, however, in the field of view of law enforcement officers in 1971, someone Arthur Lee Allen, convicted child molestation wounded. His friend told the police that the intent of Alen's crimes was similar to the Zodiac's motives, and Arthur once admitted that he was annoyed by young people who retired for visits. The police knew that the Zodiac basically just attacked and shot such couples.

In the ensuing investigation, the San Francisco and Vallejo police searched the trailer belonging to Allen, but the investigators could not find any evidence linking Allen to the crimes of the Zodiac. Despite the fact that the fingerprints of the killer and samples of his sweat from the phone were in the hands of the police, the examination of DNA was then imperfect, and nothing was proved.

"Zodiac", Robert Gracemite: a short summary of the book

The study of the crimes of the Zodiac took ten years of life Gracemite. He decided that people have the right to know the truth about this matter. So in 1986 the book "Zodiac" appeared. It is filed in the form of documentary notes and narrates all the difficulties that the police and the author had to face in an attempt to find a murderer. For the reader, the final of the book will be interesting, and, looking ahead, it must be said that the author expressed his opinion as follows: "The Zodiac was still identified, but punished not by earthly, but by heavenly justice." The work in the form of a journalistic investigation represents all the facts, including the letters of the Zodiac, and the conclusions to which the investigation came, and also puts forward his own point of view on what is happening. And although critics condemned the author and denied the authenticity of the texts of some of the letters of the murderer, the audience accepted the book enthusiastically.

Robert Graysmith, The Zodiac: Feedback

According to readers, the work of Gracemith certainly deserves attention with the reservation that this literature is not for the faint-hearted. There is noted the accuracy, realism and restraint of the submission of facts, similar to the dry language of filling the graph of the criminal case. Readers also express their regret at the lack of a Russian translation of the author's second book on the Zodiac case, in which the writer expresses his assumptions about this case.