On June 6, 1990, identical handwritten letters were mailed in New York City to the New York Post and the production office of the CBS news program "60 Minutes." The letters read:

This is the Zodiac the twelve sign
will die when the belts in the heaven
are seen
the first sign is dead on march 8 1990 1:45 AM
white man with cane shoot on the back in the street
the second sign is dead on march 29 1990 2:57 AM
white man with black coat shoot in the side in front of house
the third sign is dead on May 31 1990 2:04 AM
white old man with can shoot in front of house
Faust
no more games pigs
all shoot in Brooklyn with .380 RNL or 9mm
no grooves on bullet

In addition to the chilling message, each letter was decorated with three pie-shaped wedges, each marked with the astrological signs for Gemini, Taurus, and Scorpio. The other was a cross and circle, variously interpreted as an ancient Celtic cross or the cross hairs of a telescopic gun sight.

Police "studied" the letters for two weeks before going public with the announcement that their correspondent--"Zodiac" or "Faust"--was wanted in connection with three unsolved shootings from the dates in question. There were certain obvious discrepancies, including the fact that one victim had been shot in Queens and all three were still alive, but the description of events was otherwise strikingly accurate. Even the ballistics reference to caliber and "RNL"--for round-nosed lead projectiles--was precise. A similar note, including mention of the "Zodiac" and "belts of heaven," had been found beside the third victim, with a positive handwriting match completing the chain of evidence.

Target number one was 49-year-old Mario Orozco, shot in the back near the intersection of Atlantic and Sheridan Avenues. Orozco told police that his assailant, wearing a brown ski mask and gloves, had crossed the street to intercept him, pressed a gun against his back, and fired one shot, then stood above his prostrate body for a moment or two, aiming the pistol at his victim's face before he fled the scene. Number two, 33-year-old Jermaine Montenesdro, was staggering home from a late party in the Bronx when he was gunned down near a subway station, six blocks from the scene of the first attack. Shot in the back and seriously wounded, Montenesdro never got a look at his attacker. The third victim, 78-year-old Joseph Proce, was standing on 87th Road in Woodhaven, Queens, when a bearded black man approached him and asked for a dollar. Proce refused and was moving away when a shot from behind knocked him sprawling.

Initially, the gunman's pattern seemed to consist of close-range attacks on "elderly" white males (two walking with canes, while Montenesdro's boozy stagger indicated physical infirmity). The shocker came when a review of background information on the victims showed that each was born within the astrological sign noted by their attacker--Gemini, Taurus, and Scorpio, respectively. None of the wounded men had recognized his assailant, but the gunman obviously knew them well enough to pick his targets by their birth signs.

In short, the attacks were not random, but carefully planned in advance.

While the gunman signed his letters "Faust"--a character from German literature who sold his soul to Satan--the "Zodiac" reference prompted speculation on a possible link to California's unidentified serial stalker from the 1960s. NYPD's new "Zodiac" task force requisitioned dusty files from San Francisco, poring over 20-year-old leads in hopes of finding something, anything, to help them crack the case. Newsmen were quick to jump on the "Zodiac" bandwagon, noting "similarities" between the New York letters and some of the earlier California correspondence. Aside from the opening lines--"This is the Zodiac"--reporters noted duplication of the original "Zodiac's" cross-hairs symbol, "similar" handwriting patterns, detailed ballistic descriptions, and reference to the police as "pigs. On the down side, the original "Zodiac's" letters had been widely published since 1969, and the California killer was known to be a white man. Barring some unknown personal relationship, New York's case seemed to be the work of a demented copycat.

Detectives noted that the gunman's three attacks had taken place at 21- and 63-day intervals, suggesting variations on a compulsive three-week cycle. Man hunters were ready on June 21, first day of the astrological month for Cancer, but the gunman outsmarted them, shifting his target zone miles away to Central Park. This time the victim was a homeless black man sleeping in the park. He would survive his wound, and police were mystified that his birth sign--Cancer--matched the note that his assailant left behind to mark the crime scene.

On June 22, angered by public debate over his link to the original "Zodiac" killer, New York's gunman sent another letter to the Post. Marked with the satanic number 666, it read in part: "This is the Zodiac I have seen the Post and you say the note sent to the Post not similar to any of the San Francisco Zodiac letters you are wrong the hand writing look different it is one of the same Zodiac one Zodiac."

The charge became murder on June 24, when Joseph Proce finally died from his wound. Police continued their alerts at three-week intervals through August, but there were no more shootings, no more notes from the elusive gunman. In mid-July, members of the Zodiac task force announced that they were correlating passages from the killer's last letter with Aleister Crowley's Book of the Law, including a statement that "Nature's way is to weed out the weak." It was a tantalizing lead, but ultimately it proved fruitless, and the task force was disbanded in October 1990.

Almost four years later, in August 1994, NYPD announced a new investigation of the case, in response to a letter the Post received, claiming responsibility for five more shootings since the summer of 1992. Four of those attacks were fatal, and the letter once again "suggested special knowledge of the shootings by providing details of cases that had not received wide publicity." At the same time, there were obvious discrepancies--including a reference to the shooting of one victim who was actually stabbed--which led investigators to question the new writer's link to their previous crimes. At this writing, the case remains unsolved, the gunman--or gunmen--still at large.