A woman who witnessed the crimes of the notorious Zodiac Killer has expressed belief there could have been more than one person responsible for the heinous attacks.
The serial killer is typically thought to have operated between 1968 and 1969, during which time they are believed to have killed five people in northern California.
The killer has never been found, meaning it's hard to say for sure when they stopped killing, but it's generally thought that their last victim was a taxi driver, who was killed in 1969.
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They were nicknamed the 'Zodiac Killer' due to the letters they sent to newspapers, which typically began with the phrase 'this is the Zodiac speaking'.
Among those who fell victim to the killer was Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, who was stabbed along with Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, in broad daylight at Lake Berryessa in Napa County on 27 September, 1969.
Shepard survived the attack, but Hartnell sadly died. Afterwards, the killer left the dates of their two previous murders on the side of Hartnell's car.
Linda Jensen was among those at the lake on the day the stabbings occurred, and now, more than 50 years later, she's spoken publicly about her thoughts on the case.
Opening up for a new docuseries on Peacock, titled Myth of the Zodiac Killer, Jensen put forward a chilling theory that there might have been more than one person responsible for the crimes attributed to the Zodiac Killer.
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Her belief stems from discrepancies she noticed between what she saw, and the sketches later shared by police.
"There are other drawings that came out, of the Zodiac, that looked nothing like what I saw that day," Jensen said.
She recalled sunbathing with a group of friends at the lake when she noticed a strange man following them and hiding behind a tree for around 45 minutes.
The group tried to pretend he wasn’t there, but saw him well enough to recognise that he had different hair, eyes and facial features to a sketch produced after the murder of the taxi driver a few weeks later.
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Describing the man she saw, Jensen said: "He had very smooth, parted hair and combed [it] really straight…[he looked] just very intense, like focused."
"The vibes coming off of him were bad, were dark. All of us felt that."
Jensen’s description of the man she saw is consistent with a description that Shepard gave to Napa County Sgt. David Collins on the scene after she was stabbed.
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Jensen isn't the only one to have considered whether the Zodiac's crimes could have been committed by more than one person, either.
Andrew Nock, who directed the Peacock series, told The New York Post: “It’s very unusual for cold cases to have this much information. But if you read all the police files, you see that there’s very little linking these crimes together. Different weapons, different M.O., different victim profile, even eyewitness statements, different locations -— or a trophy being taken from one, but none of the others.
“The letters are really the only thing that anchors these crimes together. There’s strong evidence to suggest that not only were the crimes committed by separate people, but the letters were written by more than one person as well.”
Myth of the Zodiac Killer is now streaming on Peacock.
Topics: Crime, US News, True crime, Film and TV