Zodiac (2007)

On July 4, 1969, an unknown man attacks Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau with a handgun at a lovers’ lane in Vallejo, California. Only Mike survives. One month later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives encrypted letters written by the killer calling himself the “Zodiac,” who threatens to kill a dozen people unless his coded message containing his identity is published. Political cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who correctly guesses that his identity is not in the message, is not taken seriously by crime reporter Paul Avery or the editors and is excluded from the initial details about the killings. When the newspaper publishes the letters, a married couple deciphers one. In September, the killer stabs law student Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa in Napa County; Cecelia dies two days later.

At the office, Avery makes fun of Graysmith before they discuss the coded letters. Graysmith interprets the letter, which Avery finds helpful, and he begins sharing information. One of Graysmith’s insights about the letters is that the Zodiac’s reference to man as “the most dangerous animal of them all” is a reference to the film The Most Dangerous Game, which features the villainous Count Zaroff, a man who hunts live human prey. Two weeks later, San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city’s Presidio Heights district. The Zodiac killer mails pieces of Stine’s bloodstained shirt to the Chronicle along with a taunting letter. San Francisco police inspectors Dave Toschi and his partner Bill Armstrong are assigned to the case by Captain Marty Lee, and work closely with Vallejo’s Jack Mulanax and Captain Ken Narlow in Napa. Someone claiming to be Zodiac continues to send taunting letters and speaks on the phone with lawyer Melvin Belli on a television talk show hosted by Jim Dunbar.