#160

Heriberto Seda

The New York Zodiac Serial Murder Case

Heriberto Seda

"no more games pigs"

In November 1989, a letter which arrived at East New York’s 17th Police Precinct bearing the heading, “This is the Zodiac”, was initially discounted as being authored by a crank and was quickly forgotten. However, by the new year a series of random shootings were eventually connected as the work of the same person and soon the newspapers and many New York residents came to believe the notorious Zodiac killer from San Francisco had resurfaced, and was claiming new victims.

Despite large gaps in the killer’s crime spree, the Zodiac continued to communicate with the media and throughout the latter half of 1993 three more people were shot with one dying from his wounds. The investigation soon drew to a standstill and by the end of 1994 the case grew cold, but it would be a chance encounter several years later that eventually led to the arrest of the New York Zodiac.

When a letter arrived at East New York’s 17th Precinct on November 17, 1989, not many considered the contents genuine. It was addressed to Anti-Crime, which was the elite street crimes unit, and contained the diagram of a large circle drawn with lines divided into sections which represented the signs of the Zodiac. The Virgo sign was missing and the Taurus sign was covered with the words, “The first sign is dead”. On another page the author had written text which began with a familiar if somewhat altered phrase;

This is the Zodiac.
The First Sign is dead.
The Zodiac will Kill the twelve signs in the
Belt when the Zodiacal light is seen?
The Zodiac will spread fear
I have seen a lot of police in Jamaica Ave and
Elden Lane but you are no good and will not get the Zodiac.
Orion is the one that can stop Zodiac and the Seven Sister

Despite reservations about the authenticity of the letter, detectives checked through open cases to see if any connection could be made. Those familiar with the murders in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960’s did notice the connection but few if any made their opinions known. Numerous crackpot and hoax letters arrived at police headquarters everyday, with people looking to gain attention, and soon the letter was all but forgotten about. Although murders in New York city are a common occurrence, one particular random shooting at the beginning of 1990 caught police attention.

On March 9, 1990, at around 3:00am, 49-year-old Mario Orozco walked down a street in East New York, an area of Brooklyn well-known for violent criminal activity and drug use. Orozco, who used a wooden cane to walk, worked in the kitchen of a New York restaurant and at that hour he was walking home from the subway after finishing his shift. He suffered from various health problems, including his congenital limp and poor eyesight.

It was the latter which caused him to fail to notice a young man who had been stalking him in the shadows. As he walked past a nearby cemetery, the young man emerged from his hiding place and without warning shot Orozco in the back. The victim never knew what happened, and the attacker calmly wrapped a note around his weapon and laid it on the sidewalk, then vanished.

Despite the brutality of the attack, Orozco survived but the bullet stayed lodged next to his spine. He was unable to provide police with any useful information, except recalling the person who shot him was wearing a maroon beret. The gun recovered from the scene was a 9mm zip gun, which appeared to be home-made, making it difficult to trace. With little to go on, detectives believed it was just a random attack, one of many throughout the city that evening. Just twenty days later a similar incident happened, in almost identical circumstances.

On March 29, around 3:00am, 34-year-old Germaine Montenesdro made his way through the streets of East New York. Slightly intoxicated, he walked past a high school campus and was unaware that someone was closely following him. Eventually the man fired a shot at Montenesdro, who lay on the floor bleeding, and then riffled his pockets looking for his wallet. Leaving his money, the shooter took the wounded man’s passport and then fled the scene. Despite the bullet hitting his lower body and penetrating his liver, Montenesdro also survived the attack and detectives chalked it up to another isolated incident.

Questioned by police, the victim said he had been drinking the night of the attack, and wandered the streets unsure if he should go home to his girlfriend who lived in the Bronx or to his father’s apartment nearby. It appeared he had been subjected to a particularly vicious robbery, despite the gunman leaving his money. Indeed, both of the March attacks appeared to be just two more mindlessly violent episodes on the streets of New York, and very little about these crimes were noted by detectives.

It would be two months later before the police would be given an obvious clue that a dangerous criminal was stalking the streets of New York. On May 31, 1990, 78-year-old Joseph Proce walked the streets at night, as he had done many times before, against the advice of his concerned friends. Proce would often rummage through trash looking for discarded food, something he was ashamed of, but did often. At around 1:30am, as he made his way to Woodhaven where he lived, a young man approached and asked for a glass of water. Wary of strangers, Proce refused and continued walking towards his house.

His refusal angered the young man, who followed him and exchanged words with the older man about the water before pulling out a zip gun and shooting Proce in his lower back, hitting his kidney. As his victim fell to the floor, the young man placed a handwritten note next to his body and then disappeared. Proce was hospitalised, and Queens detectives Mike Ciravolo and Bill Clark visited him to question about the attack. The victim was a former combat soldier in World War II, who’s ill-health caused him to walk with a cane. The elderly Proce was lonely, living off public assistance and also suffered from a poor short-term memory.

This proved frustrating for the police, because Proce changed his story of the events of the attack several times, including the description of his assailant. First he described the shooter as African-American, then claimed the man was White or possibly even Hispanic. Detectives were unable to trust his memory, given that sometimes Proce didn’t even recognise the officers who questioned him.

There was however another witness to the shooting besides the victim, but police were unable to gain her cooperation. A young woman had watched the gunman flee the scene, but because she was spending the evening at her boyfriend’s, who was married, neither wanted the tryst to become public knowledge, and she refused out of fear of exposing their affair. Detectives Clark and Ciravolo were confused by the strange occultist note the attacker left next to Proce’s body.

Clark had previously worked on the Son of Sam task-force, and Ciravolo was soon placed in charge of the case, which they both suspected was no mere robbery, but rather an intentional homicide. Proce eventually died from his wounds on June 24, and the detectives were then hunting a killer. Because the previous two shootings had occurred across the Queens/Brooklyn border, Ciravolo did not become aware of these crimes or the connected Zodiac letter sent to the Anti-Crime Unit.

Ciravolo now believed they were looking for an apparent Serial Killer, possibly the original Zodiac who terrorised San Francisco, and this fear was strengthened when similar letters arrived at the New York Post and 60 Minutes, that were written in the same bizarre style as the earlier notes left besides the victims. The Zodiac detailed the time, place and date of each shooting so far, and listed the victims astrological sign too. The killer stated all the victims had been shot in Brooklyn, except the police knew Proce had been shot in Queens, something the Zodiac must have not realised. A reporter at the Post brought the letter to Brooklyn detectives, suspecting it was a genuine letter from the Zodiac killer.

She had hoped to boost her own career with a front page story, but was disappointed when no similar murders could be found that corresponded with those in the letter. Many officers considered it to be the work a hoaxer. The letter included a large Zodiac crossed-circle symbol at the top next to a Zodiac dial with the three star signs of Scorpio, Gemini and Taurus. It 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 1:45am
white man with cane shoot on the back in the street

the second sign is dead on march 29 1990 2:57am
white man with black coat shoot in the side in front of house

the third sign is dead on may 31 1990 2:04am
white old man with cane shoot
in front of house

next to this was written the word Faust, which was underlined three times. The author added the words “no more games pigs” above a large Z and then added at the bottom the words, “All shoot in Brooklyn with .380 RNL or 9mm”.

It was only through an unconnected incident during a visit to the 17th Precinct that detective Clark accidentally discovered the previous investigation into the Orozco note. He immediately recognised the similarity to the note left beside Proce, and became aware of an apparent astrological connection. He began to cross-check any shootings which corresponded to recent murder victims, but no results came up.

He then decided to check the dates of victims who had survived shooting incidents and stumbled across the Orozco and Montenesdro cases. The dates, times and places all matched. Orozco was the Scorpio sign, Montenesdro the Gemini and Proce was the Taurus. The zip-gun from the Orozco attack was never found, apparently being lost whilst in police custody, but detectives had the Zodiac notes.

Ciravolo contacted the Post reporter, requesting more time to investigate the possibility there were other victims, but the story was front-page news by June 19, with the New York Post headline reading, “Riddle of the Zodiac Shooter”. This placed even more pressure on detectives to come up with results because the frightened citizens of New York still recalled the Son of Sam murders, and how the killer taunted the police and media with deranged letters.

Chief of Detectives Joseph Borrelli had served on the Son of Sam task-force, and being personally mentioned in one of Berkowitz’s letters, he knew more than anyone that swift action was needed in such a situation. He immediately called in detectives from Brooklyn and Queens precincts, in order to pool their resources and exchange information. It soon became apparent that the Brooklyn detectives had no notes, witnesses and very little information on the attacks in their area, and Borrelli voiced his outrage.

He was, however, impressed with the work of Ciravolo and his detectives, and assigned him to the Zodiac case which was code-named Operation Watchdog. Ciravolo, who was given as much support as he required, felt confident he would be able to catch the Zodiac before he killed again. Further connections were made when someone remembered the unusual letter which had been sent to the 17th Precinct back in ’89, which was removed from storage and added to the Operation Watchdog case file.

The New York press soon became obsessed with the prospect of the Zodiac’s return and for several weeks the story ran across the front pages. New Yorker’s were now terrified and intrigued in equal measures at the apparent reappearance of the San Francisco’s infamous Bay Area killer. Astrologers began appearing on television shows offering their own predictions on the crime spree, whilst many people wondered which star sign would be targeted next.

New York soon saw vigilante groups such as the Guardians Angels patrolling the streets in a bid to deter the Zodiac. After consulting with astrologers, Operation Watchdog officers noticed a recurring pattern in the Zodiac’s attacks, and made a prediction that he would strike again on the morning of Thursday, June 21. Dozens of officers were assigned to patrol East New York on foot and in cars, in an attempt to apprehend the killer.

However, little did any of them realise, they were patrolling in the wrong area and the Zodiac was stalking his intended victim across the East River in Manhattan. During those early morning hours, 30-year-old Larry Parham was settling to sleep upon his makeshift bed on a bench in Central Park, and concealed his wallet inside one of his sneakers. Due to some recent financial trouble, Parham found himself homeless and living on the streets, something he despised, but was determined to correct.

He kept himself clean-cut and well-dressed and had already saved up some $4,000 to begin a fresh start. He chose to sleep in the park because he felt it was safer than using sheltered accommodation. But that night he was being watched by a young man from the shadows, and when Parham fell asleep, the stalker crept over and examined his wallet. The $49 was left untouched as the young man replaced the wallet, stood up and fired his gun into the sleeping man.

The Zodiac shot his latest victim in the chest, but luckily the bullet missed his aorta and exited the body through his right armpit, saving his life. Parham’s star sign was Cancer, and the shooter had checked his wallet to confirm this before opening fire. The day after the Central Park shooting, a letter arrived at the Post which contained the same occultist symbolism as previous communications, including a listing of the time, place and victim’s astrological sign. However, one intriguing point about this latest letter was the authors blatant attempt to convince the police and media that the New York Zodiac and the San Francisco Zodiac were one and the same. The contents of the letter displayed an attempt by the author to prove he was the original killer.

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 handwriting look different it is
One of the same Zodiac one Zodiac

In San Francisco killed a man in the park with a
gun and killed a women with a knife and killed
A man in the taxi cab with gun

There was then a childlike drawing of the San Francisco Zodiac’s outfit he wore at the Lake Berryessa attack. Next to this was the Zodiac symbol used by the original Zodiac, and underneath was written a phrase in French and then the name Faust at the top of a compass with three 6’s representing west, south and east. To the left was a Zodiac dial with four symbols representing the Scorpio, Gemini, Taurus and Cancer signs. To the right of the page was written;

Fourth sign dead shoot in Central Park
white man sleeping on bench with little
black bag shoot in chest
June 21, 1990 3:52am

Next to this was written in thick black marker the word Zodiac.

Those familiar with the Bay Area murders were unconvinced by the letter writers attempts to link the two cases to a single individual. The first instance of doubt centred on the handwriting, which was distinctly different to that of the original Zodiac, whilst the victimology was also different. This new Zodiac was targeting lone individuals at night, whilst the Californian Zodiac targeted mainly couples and sometimes launched his attacks during the daytime. The evidence all pointed to the fact that this new Zodiac was a copycat with little in common with his predecessor apart from randomly targeting strangers and communicating with the authorities.

Despite this, the media savoured the prospect of a serial killer long thought dead or incarcerated, having returned to murder once more and many journalists hoped for such an explosive story. Regardless of whether this new Zodiac was from same person from the 1960’s and 70’s, the NYPD were still hunting a killer who had viciously attacked four people, leaving one dead. Of the three surviving victims, none got a good look at their attacker. Parham was interviewed by police and provided them with enough of a description to compile a composite sketch of the suspect. He described the young man as black, about 30-years-old, 5 foot 10 inches to 6 feet tall and around 185 pounds. The sketch was released to the press, and journalists soon began referring to it as the “Evil Al Roker”, because of its resemblance to the cheerful TV weatherman.

Detectives working the case explored every possible angle. They consulted astronomy professors in order to gain a better insight into the constellations, which seemed to dictate the killers actions, whilst psychics, hungry for the publicity, offered their help to solve the case. The release of the suspect sketch prompted hundreds of calls and soon tips flooded into from every suspicious person in New York, with people reporting their friends, co-workers and neighbours as the Zodiac. One man was arrested because he had sign a friends yearbook back in 1980 with a quote from one of the Bay Area Zodiac’s letter. Another young man was brought in for questioning and fingerprinted after it was learned he had taken out a book on astrology from the New York Public Library.

Despite all this, the NYPD was determined to catch the Zodiac, and believed they knew the precise date he would strike next, and the detectives and officers of Operation Watchdog prepared for an August attack, but it never came. It seemed the murders had ceased, and soon the task-force was scaled down from 50 officers to just 18. As several more months passed, New Yorkers began to calm down and the city was no longer in the grip of the Zodiac’s shadow. The case was still pursued by Ciravolo and other detectives because there was no statute of limitations on murder, and so the killer of Joseph Proce would still be hunted, but the Zodiac would no longer be the NYPD’s top priority.

It would be just over two years after the last attack when the Zodiac would decided to reappear. On August 10, 1992, he perpetrated his most vicious crime so far. At around 1:00am, 39-year-old Patricia Fonti met a stranger near the Highland Park reservoir. After some flirting with the good-looking young man, she agreed to accompany him on a walk to the short of the reservoir. At 1:30am, the young man pulled out a .22 calibre zip gun and shot her. As she got up and struggled with her assailant, he panicked and stabbed her over 100 times. The victim died at the scene, before paramedics and police arrived.

It appeared the killer had changed his preferred day, meaning he knew the police were aware of his penchant for attacking on Thursdays. The Zodiac had also dispensed with checking his victims identity to see their star sign, possibly to avoid wasting time and allowing the victim to identify him. It seemed the killer wanted to make his presence known, and he had done so in a brutal display of savagery. Again the killer disappeared, and for almost a year nothing was heard of the Zodiac.

On June 4, 1993, a young man accosted 40-year-old unemployed construction worker Jim Weber outside Highland Park at around midnight. The man pulled a gun and shot Weber in the buttocks, then fled. The wound was superficial, and although the victim made a full recovery, this incident was not immediately connected to the Zodiac crimes. But the next month, on July 20, the killer struck again. At the same area as the previous attack, Highland Park, 40-year-old Joseph Diacone was shot in the head at close range by a young man. Diacone, who was a mental patient, had been attacked at around 11:35am and subsequently died from his wounds.

Three months later another, similar attack occurred at Highland Park. The victim was 40-year-old Diane Ballard, who was sat on a park bench when she was shot by a young man. The bullet hit her in the neck, but missed any vital arteries and ended up lodged against her spin. She survived, but was unable to provide detectives with a description of her attacker. Initially these three incident were not associated with the Zodiac, who did not send any communication to the authorities claiming new victims as he had done previously. With an average of five murders a night, NYPD detectives did not find anything that connected them. With no crimes associated with the Zodiac since June 1990, many believed he had vanished for good.

On March 10, 1994, police arrested 26-year-old Heriberto Seda after noticing a suspicious bulge in his jacket pocket. The young man was polite, cooperated fully but when searched, officers found a home-made zip gun and he was charged with possession of a deadly weapon. However, it was incorrectly labelled at the evidence lab and so was never tested properly. Police determined the weapon was not functional and Seda’s public defender succeeded in getting all of the charges against his client dropped and his arrest record sealed. He was released a week later.

The New York Post received a new Zodiac letter on August 1, 1994, which had been mailed with a love stamp and contained a list of victims claimed so far. The letter included nine bizarre totem pole codes, underneath of which was written, “Sleep my little dead how we loathe them”. To the right of the totem pole codes was written the dates, times and manner of attack of each new victim. The details corresponded to the attacks on Patricia Fonti, Jim Weber, Joseph Diacone and Diane Ballard, as well as an unreported attack on a white man who was shot with a .22 calibre zip gun in Highland Park on June 11, 1994.

The police released the letter to the public a week later and soon the city was gripped in a blind panic, fearing the return of the Zodiac. Detectives were hesitant to declare this new letter the work of the New York Zodiac, suspecting it might possibly have come from a copycat. The Zodiac’s totem pole code was composed of International maritime signal flags and was cracked by New York Post journalist Kieran Crowley, who decoded them with help from his father-in-law, a veteran of World War II who had worked in signals intelligence and cryptography. When deciphered, the code read;

T H I S / I S / T H E
Z O D I A C / S P E
A K I N G / I / A M / I
N / C O N T R O L / W
H O / M A S T E R Y
B E / R E A D Y / F O
R / M O R E / Y O U R
S / T R U I Y

After several more years elapsed, most believe the Zodiac really had stopped his reign of terror against New York. It would be an completely un-related incident which would lead to the arrested of a suspect who would eventually confess to the Zodiac murders. The incident occurred at an East New York, Brooklyn apartment building, almost two years after the last Zodiac letter had been received.

Officers responded to a call on June 18, 1996 and found 17-year-old Gladys “Chachi” Reyes wounded and claiming her brother Eddie, who was still inside the residence, had shot at her and her boyfriend with one of his home-made zip guns. An ambulance which had arrived first on the scene was parked outside, and the EMT’s had been let inside by a neighbour. Four people were now trapped inside the apartment building as the gunman fired shots out of the window at police.

Detective Joey Herbert of the 17th Precinct arrived on the scene and was able to talk with the man inside, and after several hours he convinced 27-year-old Heriberto “Eddie” Seda to give up and surrender to police. When the arresting officers entered the apartment and saw the zip guns owned by Seda, they joked how it would be too much of a coincidence if the guy turned out to be the Zodiac Killer.

The school-aged Reyes described for detectives the events which led to her half-brother’s rampage. That evening she had invited her young male friend over to the apartment where they spent time in her bedroom. Her brother listened in as the two joked and he soon became outraged. Seda did not like the type of people his sister hung around with, who were mostly drug dealers, some of whom he had ratted on to the police. The two lived with their mother, and because Seda was an unemployed high school dropout, Reyes believed he had no right to tell her who she could and could not socialise with. She often argued with him about his freeloading, because she brought in the only paycheck for the household.

Seda pounded the wall of her bedroom and when his sister ignored him, he grabbed one of his zip guns and fired into the wall. She screamed for him to stop, and the siblings confronted each other in the living-room where Seda shot his sister in the back as she attempted to flee, hitting her in the buttocks. She was able to make it out the door and to a next-door neighbours where she dialled 911. Reyes boyfriend locked himself in her bedroom for his own protection and cowered in fear for his life.

At the station, detectives asked Seda to write his version of events on what happened, and he obliged. In a lengthy confession, with poor spelling and grammar, he described the events which led to his arrest and at the bottom of the page he drew the crossed-circle symbol of the Zodiac which had been added to each of the killers letters. Immediately Detective Danny Powers recognised the symbol and brought his concerns to Detective Herbert and other colleagues, who all agreed that it looked very much as though Seda was the Zodiac.

Major case prints, which included fingerprints of the palm and sides of the fingers, as well as the fingertips, were taken from Seda. The prints were transported to the Police plaza by Detective Tommy Maher so they could be crossed checked against the prints of the Zodiac. Another detective, Louie Savarese went home to retrieve some of the Zodiac letters he kept there. Savarese had developed something of an obsession with the case, which he worked on during his spare time. As Herbert and Savarese began the lengthy process of questioning Seda, the prints returned, it was a match.

Under questioning detectives Herbert and Savarese learned more about their suspect. He was clean-cut, handsome and kept his room fastidiously clean. He didn’t date girls, preferring to devote his life to God and was deeply religious, attending church regularly, something which made his mother proud. At first Seda had doted on his younger half-sister when she was a small child, but as she grew he often abused her, both mentally and physically. She would attend school with bruises and her teachers notified social workers who checked on her at home.

This abuse stopped around 1989, the year he sent the first Zodiac letter, however the siblings continued to disagree. Seda had initially been a good student, but was expelled after he brought a starter pistol to school. He refused to accept public assistance, and earned his money by placing plastic bags inside pay phones and vending machines. He would then return several days later and remove the bag to collect the lodged coins. He spent most of his time and home and would often stay in his room to pursue his own hobbies, and he enjoyed reading, mostly books and magazines about violence and guns such as Soldier of Fortune.

He also collected books on Serial Murder and had a strong fascination with Serial Killers, specifically Ted Bundy, who Seda apparently idolised. But the Serial Killer he most admired was the San Francisco Zodiac, who terrorised the Bay Area during the 1960’s and 70’s, because he was never caught and considered his victims sinners who would serve as his slaves in the afterlife. Seda watched the Dirty Harry movies which were loosely based on the Zodiac crimes and owned a well worn copy of Robert Graysmith’s Zodiac.

Graysmith’s book was considered the definitive work on the case and Seda used it as the blueprint for his own crime spree. He compiled a scrapbook of the New York Zodiac Case, keeping it next to previous ones he had completed on Ted Bundy, the West Coast Zodiac and other serial killers. Seda ordered ammunition catalogues, and owned a small arsenal of home-made weapons, including explosives and a collection of zip guns he crafted himself. He intended to escape capture by using zip guns, which he believed could not be detected through ballistic tests meaning he could change the barrels at will.

When Maher returned from Police Plaza he joined in the interview and played the good cop. He attempted to get Seda on side, telling him he needed to confess to cleanse his soul. Seda told detectives after the first four attacks he decided to wait for a year before he struck again. He searched through his scrapbook and visited the scenes of each of the four shootings. By late 1992 he decided the Zodiac should return, but he knew he had to make changes to his M.O., knowing the police would work out his routine.

He admitted that when he was arrested on March 10, 1994 in possession of one of his zip guns and released without charge a week later, he felt it was a sign and his actions were divine. Seda truly believed he was protected by magic, but he claimed it was wearing off because the police had his fingerprints. He said he had to lay low because if he was arrested anything, the police could connect him to the Zodiac crimes. Much like his predecessor the San Francisco Zodiac, he stopped for fear of capture.

The detectives showed him crime scene photos, and for the first time he saw his own murders up close. He was questioned about every detail of his crimes and described everything he had done. After hours of intense questioning, Seda became tired, agitated and angry. He persistently asked about his sister. Police believed they had enough evidence to link Seda with the New York Zodiac crimes, and he was formally charged on June 21, 1996. The handwriting on his incident statement matched that of the Zodiac letters, whilst his fingerprints matched those found at the crime scenes, but most damning off all, his DNA was found on a stamp attached to one of the Zodiac letters sent to police.

During his subsequent trial at the State Supreme Court for the County of Queens, New York, he was charged with three murders and five attempted murders. Seda, who was defended by his court appointed attorneys David Bart and John Wallenstein, caused repeated disruptions during the proceedings, often shouting obscenities directed at the presiding judge Robert J. Hanophy.

The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorneys Robert J. Masters and Raymond E. Scheer called 45 witnesses to give testimony and over 150 pieces of evidence were submitted. After a six-week trial, Heriberto Seda was found guilty by a jury on June 24, 1998 and sentenced to 232 years imprisonment. In prison, Seda read the bible every day and often quoted scripture to his fellow inmates.

His sister has refused to reconcile with him, despite numerous attempts by Seda to contact her. Gladys Reyes continued to live with her mother in East New York. In 2003, whilst serving his sentence at Attica, Seda began a romantic relationship with a Latina trans-woman named Synthia-China Blast who was a member of the Latin Kings street gang. Blast had tried on numerous occasions to obtain gender-reassignment surgery and the couple started legal action in a bid to be granted permission to marry.

Seda’s surviving victims still suffer physical and psychological trauma from the attacks. Parham, who is devoutly christian has said he forgives Seda, whilst others like Orozco and Montenesdro have not allowed the pain they suffered to stop them from the walking the streets of New York. The original Zodiac from San Francisco, who Seda held in such high regard, even emulating his crimes, has never been caught and his identity remains a mystery.