DARLENE Elizabeth Ferrin was murdered by the Zodiac Killer on July 5, 1969.
The killer’s rampage is examined in the Netflix documentary This is the Zodiac Speaking, which uncovers new evidence in the search for the killer.
Midnight murder
Darlene was born on March 17, 1947 and grew up in Vallejo, California, alongside her friend Michael Mageau.
The pair were sat in Darlene’s car together on the night of July 5, 1969, when a mysterious car pulled up next to them.
Reportedly, Michael asked his friend whether she recognised the car and she replied “oh, never mind”.
Then, a man emerged from the vehicle and held his torch high to obscure his face, before he opened fire with a gun.
After shooting them both several times, the attacker vanished.
Darlene died from her injuries, on the way to the hospital, but Michael survived and was able to describe the killer.
He said the attacker was heavy set and around 5”8 in height.
Later, he picked out Arthur Leigh Allen’s picture out of a photo lineup and accused him of being the Zodiac Killer.
The Zodiac Killer’s cruel rampage
The Zodiac Killer claimed his first victims on December 20, 1968, with the murders of two teenagers named Betty Lou Jensen and David Arthur Faraday.
Darlene and Michael were attacked months later, after the killer had also attacked a 27-year-old named Ray Davis.
He would then murder Cecelia Shepard on September 27, 1969, and Paul Stine on October 11, 1969, before disappearing.
During his crime spree, he sent ciphers to Californian newspapers which he claimed would reveal his identity once solved.
The Zodiac Killer gave himself his own nickname in a series of letters which he sent to the police and signed with a bizarre symbol.
Arthur Leigh Allen’s possible involvement
Investigators often point to the fact that the Zodiac letters finally stopped when Allen was jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1974.
He had been fired from his teaching post in 1968, after allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against him, and he lived in Darlene and Michael’s hometown.
Even more evidence emerged after Allen died, with a Zodiac Sea Wolf wristwatch being found at his house.
The watch bore a symbol which was identical to the one that the Zodiac Killer would use in his letters.
The Seawater family, whom Allen was close to, also claimed that he would commit murders while on holiday with them.
On one holiday to the beach, Allen left the children and disappeared for a suspiciously long time.
When he returned, he was out-of-breath and had something red covering his hands.
The next day, it emerged that two teenagers named Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards had been murdered in the area.
They also believed that he may have drugged them in a motel room, at the same time that a woman named Cheri Jo Bates was murdered.
However, a group of investigators named The Case Breakers suggested that a different man was the Zodiac Killer.
They discovered that removing Gary Francis Poste’s name from the cipher solved the puzzle and claim that forensic evidence backs up this theory.
