had planned to introduce had been denied. smithart died of lung cancer in alaska prison while awaiting a retrial. c for six years a serial killer prowled the streets of new york city hunting his victims. he promised to kill 12 people, one for each astrological sign. and he only struck while certain constellations were visible. it took forensic astronomy, handwriting analysis, and a world war ii code breaker to find him. late one cold night in march 1990, 49-year-old mario orozco was walking home from his restaurant job in brooklyn.

without warning he was shot in the back. mario survived. but he couldn't describe his attacker. three weeks later there was a similar incident a few blocks away. 34-year-old factory worker jermaine montenesdro was walking home after a night of drinking when somebody shot him in the back. he too survived but he didn't see the gunman either. police recovered had 9 mm bullet. >> there were no grooves on the bullets. and we're probably dealing with a zip gun type of home made weapon. >> two months later, a short distance away in queens, 78-year-old joe proce was about to open the door to his apartment when he was shot with a 9 mm zip code. he died later at the hospital.

this time the killer left a note beside the victim. it was a threat to kill 12 people, one for each astrological sign of the zodiac. >> this is the zodiac. the 12 signs will die when the belts in heaven are seen. >> the next day a similar note arrived at the offices of the new york post newspaper. the killer called himself "the zodiac." the zodiac claimed responsibility for the three shootings. but he mistakenly believed that he had killed all three. it was apparent the zodiac knew his victim's birthdays and astrological signs. mario orozco was a scorpio. herman was gemini and joe proce was a taurus. but how did the zodiac know the victim's astrological signs?

>> are you kidding? it freaked them out completely. the new york city police department went into the biggest man hunt. it was mammoth. and it was driving them crazy. >> at this point investigators realized the zodiac had contacted them before. they just didn't know it. >> three months earlier he had written a letter to police headquarters but it was ignored. >> and basically it was viewed humorously. here's a nut letter. i believe it was posted on a bulletin board. it was not taken very seriously. >> this letter held yet another clue. >> the zodiac will kill the 12 signs in the built when the zodiacal light is sign. orion is the one who can stop zodiac and the seven sisters. >> an astrologist told that orion and the seven sisters of the pleiades were not visible on

the skyline. >> this thing is all over the newspaper now. like the biggest case for years in new york city. >> 25 years earlier a man in san francisco killed six people and wrote taunting letters to police. he too called himself the zodiac and was never apprehended. was it possible the san francisco zodiac was now in new york city? >> if the zodiac from california in the 60s had resurfaced in new york, they knew this was a complete law enforcement nightmare. ould save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know words really can hurt you?

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new york city police were searching for a killer who called himself the zodiac. he promised to kill one victim for each of the 12 astrological signs. >> before the zodiac killer when

a guy said to a girl what's your sign? he was hitting on her. afterwards there was literally a case where a guy asked for her sign and she screamed for the police. >> compared those letters to those written by the san francisco's zodiac killer 25 years earlier. >> one thing about this writer is he makes his horizontal lines in a descending way. the t bars tend to descend. the cross-bar on the lower case f tends to descend. >> handwriting experts concluded that the san francisco zodiac and the new york zodiac were two different men. investigators now realized they were dealing with a very sophisticated copy cat. the shootings had taken place at 21 and 63 day intervals. suggesting variations of the three-week cycle. and they happened on nights when the constellations orion and the

seven sisters of the pleiades were not visible in the sky. >> the planets aren't just named after gods and goddesses. they were the gods and goddesses. the stars also were the homes of gods or the lights into heaven. so these are powerful ideas. these are powerful symbols. >> to predict when the zodiac would strike next police asked astronomer to identify the next time within the 21-day cycle that orion and the seven sisters would not be in the sky. he predicted zodiac would strike next on june 21st, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. >> so we have hundreds of the plain clothes detectives out on nights when we think this guy is going to shoot again. >> and the zodiac was even more clever than anticipated. he did strike but not in the same area as before.

this time it was in manhattan. he shot a homeless man who was sleeping on a bench in central park. in the victim's shoe was a note. the zodiac somehow knew that larry parham was a cancer, a sign different from the other three victims. and the newspapers were calling him a copy cat. >> one zodiac. >> he's angry, he's trying to convince us, no no, i'm zodiac. one zodiac. and, you know, we -- we knew it wasn't him. we knew it was a copy cat. >> to look for forensic evidence one zodiac. and, you know, we -- we knew it wasn't him. we knew it was a copy cat. >> to look for forensic evidence criminalists saturated the letter with ninhydrin, a chemical that reacts with amino acids from skin oils. then the letter was placed in a

humidity chamber for several hours. the moisture in the chamber accelerated had chemical process eventually revealing an almost perfect thumbprint. this was photographed and then compared to prints in every fingerprint database available. >> they did databases for city employees, department of motor vehicle, postal workers, including police officers. and nothing. no hits. >> there had been no witnesses. none of the surviving victims could give a description. and the only forensic evidence was a single fingerprint. zodiac claimed that only the constellations orion and the seven sisters could stop him. new york police hoped to add themselves to the list. the zodiac killed one man and wounded three hours in new york city. and for some unexplained reason, he struck only on nights when the constellations orion and the seven sisters were not in the sky. just as unusual was the fact

the zodiac killed one man and wounded three hours in new york city. and for some unexplained reason, he struck only on nights when the constellations orion and the seven sisters were not in the sky.

just as unusual was the fact that he apparently knew the birthdays of all four of his victims. and it was clear from the zodiac's letters that he was following the investigation in the newspaper. >> i printed a story that the police had his fingerprints. he messed up. and i'm convinced that as soon as he saw that, you know, he folded his tent. because he knew that once they had fingerprints, if they had comparison, he was cooked. >> and for almost two years there were no more zodiac shootings. it wasn't until 1994 that the zodiac sent his next letter, announcing his return. the zodiac claimed responsibility for the stabbing death of 39-year-old patricia fonti in highland park. she was a leo. and 49-year-old joseph diacone was shot and killed while walking near this highway underpass.

he was a virgo. zodiac's next victim, james weber was shot in the same location. he was a libra and fortunately he survived the attack. >> snuck up behind him, shot him and ran away laughing, according to weber. weber said after he was shot in the buttocks he heard him laughing after he jumped into the creme tear. >> amazically, each of the zodiac's victims had a different astrological sign. but the pattern stopped with his eighth victim. diane ballard who also survived the shooting but was a taurus the same sign as an earlier victim. he also took credit for shooting a ninth man in highland park although police couldn't confirm the shooting took place. although the zodiac bragged the police would never catch him,

with this letter he made a mistake. he liquid the envelope flap and left enough saliva for dna testing. police now had the dna profile of the zodiac killer. the letter also included another clue. >> i knew it was a code. it was a nine towers because there were nine victims. and i wrote down all the different symbols. and i think i had 23. very close to an alphabet. and then i did something called a frequency count. which is, you write down how many times each letter is used. because for example e is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. >> karen crawly's father-in-law had been a code breaker in world war ii. together they discovered the alphabet was based on a maritime system of international flags and pendants. and with this discovery, they were able to decipher the zodiac's secret message. >> it said this is the zodiac

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streets of new york city undetected for six years. captain joseph herbert worked on the zodiac task force and he knew that eventually the forensic evidence would catch him. >> this case is actually studied in forensic investigations. because i knew at the time from working on the task force that we had partial fingerprints from two of the letters from the earlier shootings. the bullets that were removed from the bodies were not traditional lange and groove bullets but had battle markings on them that could be that others. we knew we had a dna sample from one of the letters. >> police continued to search for the zodiac. on a dark dreary march afternoon in 1996 their luck began to change. >> open the door. >> a young man in a brooklyn apartment apparently got angry

because his younger sister and her boyfriend were apparently alone in their bedroom. he demanded the boyfriend leave, when he refused he fired a shot through the bedroom door. when the woman ran out to confront her brother he shot her in the buttocks with a shotgun. the police arrived to discover the man was holding his sister's boyfriend hostage. captain herbert was assigned as the hostage negotiator. >> i'm behind one side of the door he's on the other and i'm talking to him and trying to articulate that enough damage has been done. after about three hours he indicated to me that he wanted to surrender. >> herbert convinced him to put all of his weapons in buckets police lowered from the roof ho his apartment window and he surrendered. his name was eddie seda.

a 26-year-old high school dropout, unemployed who was still living at home with his mother and younger sister. >> on days he seemed religious and quiet and strange and other days he seemed aggressive and scary. >> at headquarters police asked seda to provide a written statement describing what happened inside his apartment. seda complied and when finished he signed it with an odd symbol next to his name. >> and the detective who did it looks at it and says what's this? >> and he said that that was a symbol for god and god's love or something. >> an alert police officer asked hostage negotiator joseph herbert to have a look. herbert knew immediately what he was looking at. >> the statement out of my mouth was, as sure as i'm standing here this is the zodiac killer.

>> to prove their suspicions, police turned to forensic science. first seda was fingerprinted. his prints were then compared with the print left on the letter in central park. it was a match. next, handwriting experts compared the handwriting from the zodiac's letter to seda's known handwriting sample. the experts concluded they were written by the same hand. ballistics experts examined seda's collection of 15 zip guns. >> his letters, zodiac claimed no one would catch him because his gun barrel didn't have the traditional lands and grooves inside for testing. but the zodiac apparently didn't know about forensic tool mark analysis.

>> a tool mark is a characteristic left behind during the process of using a tool to either cut, grind, file or polish a piece of metal. >> there can be hundreds of microscopic tool marks in a pipe used in a homemade gun. when ballistics experts compared the bullets from the victims to those fired from seda's zip gun, the tool marks were microscopically similar. finally police asked seda for a blood sample for dan testing. dna matched that of the letter from the zodiac killer. detectives had the pleasure of telling seda they knew his true identity. >> i put out my hands and said i've been looking for you for six years and i said you're the zodiac and he says no i'm not. and i said you're the zodiac. >> that was the beginning after six hour interview on the zodiac

shootings until he gave it up. he confessed. >> he didn't want to go to jail for shooting his sister in the buttocks with a shotgun. he wanted to take credit for his years of handy work. >> in one of his letters he claimed that only the orion and the seven sisters could stop him. >> ironically on that day they were over head they just weren't visible in the overcast sky. he was charged with killing six people and shooting three others. prosecutors had so much evidence they were. >> we weren't certain that the public at large would be interested in all this forensic evidence. and we ultimately just set aside

a week we referred to as forensic week. we were shocked to see the jury sat on the edge of their seats. >> and i just remember one morning sitting there sifting through the guns and knives whatever it was that day and looking at it and being struck by wow, what am i going to do with this stuff? you beat the ballistics, you've got the fingerprint. you got the handwriting you've got the fingerprints. you beat the handwriting you've got a statement. you beat one statement you have another statement. >> all those entities came back to haunt eddie big time. >> eddie seda was sentenced and convicted to 203 years in prison. >> eddie seda was a coward. he attacked victims from if rear and shot them for no reason other than he could. >> but one question remains, how did seda know his victim's birthdays? some speculate that he looked inside his victim's wallet after

each shooting and that all had different astrological signs due to nothing more than luck. a series of medical mixups left one woman dead and her doctor in prison for negligent homicide. but that wasn't the entire story. in a single strand of hair, a forensic toxicologist found evidence of another medical mystery, one that made headlines around the world. >> hi. say "happy halloween." >> happy halloween. >> happy halloween. >> who is that guy? >> 1997 looked like it would be a banner year for the pignataro family. dr. anthony pignataro had a thriving medical practice, a wife, two children and social stan.