1969: The Dripping Pen: the Zodiac Killer Taunts Northern California Again

By late 1969, the unidentified killer calling himself Zodiac had already shot, stabbed and taunted his way across Northern California, mailing letters stuffed with cipher puzzles and cryptic boasts to newspapers and police. On 8 November 1969, he sent another: a card illustrated with a dripping fountain pen, mocking investigators who still had no name to put to the crimes.

It was one of dozens of communications he sent over the following years, part confession, part game, designed to keep himself in headlines while staying out of reach. No one was ever charged, and the case remains unsolved to this day.

Symbolism - Zodiac Serial Killer Mystery
Symbolism

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1989: See You in Disneyland: Richard Ramirez Sentenced to Death for the Night Stalker Killings

Richard Ramirez had terrorised California through 1984 and 1985, breaking into homes at night to kill, and when he was finally sentenced on this day in 1989, the courtroom saw the same chilling indifference that had defined his trial. He received nineteen death sentences for his string of murders, one of the largest capital verdicts in California history.

Asked for comment afterwards, Ramirez shrugged off the sentence entirely. He told reporters, "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland." He was sent to death row to await an execution that, due to decades of appeals, never came; he died of natural causes in 2013 while still awaiting it.

Night Stalker
Night Stalker

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1977: The Hillside Strangler Killers Posed as Undercover Police to Snatch a Teenage Runaway on Halloween Night

Judith Lynn Miller was a Hollywood High School student who had drifted into life as a runaway when two men claiming to be undercover police officers pulled her off the street on Halloween night in 1977. The men were Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, the so-called Hillside Stranglers, and they took her not to a police station but to Buono's upholstery shop.

On this day in 1977, her body was found dumped on a parkway in La Crescenta, California, left by a killing team that had already claimed several other young women across Los Angeles.

Hillside Strangler: Aerial view of rush hour traffic on the 101 Ventura Freeway
Hillside Strangler: Aerial view of rush hour traffic on the 101 Ventura Freeway

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1968: Ben-Hur Star Ramon Novarro Tortured to Death Over a Fortune That Never Existed

Ramon Novarro had been one of Hollywood's biggest stars of the silent era, hailed as the screen's first Latin American leading man after his role in Ben-Hur made him a household name. By 1968 his career had faded, but two brothers, Paul and Tom Ferguson, had heard a rumour that he kept a fortune hidden somewhere in his Laurel Canyon home. The younger of the two got Novarro's phone number from a former guest, called offering sexual services, and the pair talked their way inside.

When Novarro could not produce the money, because none existed, the brothers beat him for hours trying to force him to reveal where it was hidden. He died on 30 October 1968, choking on his own blood after the prolonged assault; the men left with just $20 taken from his bathrobe pocket. Both were convicted and served only a few years before being paroled in the mid-1970s.

Paul Ferguson denied responsibility for decades, but in a 1998 interview he finally admitted to killing Novarro.

Portrait of Ramon Novarro in 1925
Portrait of Ramon Novarro in 1925

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