Will DNA Solve 1969 Zodiac Killings?

ByABC News
October 17, 2002, 6:36 PM

— -- To date, the San Francisco Police Department has found only a faint result in DNA testing on the three envelopes newly discovered by the Primetime source. But the partial profile found on one of the envelopes that was already in the department's files one containing a card sent on Nov. 8, 1969 does allow investigators to draw some conclusions.

Click here to read the card.

"I found a partial DNA fingerprint from a male individual who at some time has had contact with the stamp," said Dr. Cydne Holt, supervisor of the department's DNA lab. Investigators are working on the assumption that the man who licked the stamp was the Zodiac Killer.

Holt found four out of a possible nine DNA markers, plus an indicator of gender confirming that the killer was a male.

"It's not enough to positively identify anyone as Zodiac but it is enough to narrow suspicions, or perhaps even eliminate suspects," she said.

Next, Holt compared the Zodiac DNA with samples provided by Primetime from three men who have been identified by amateur investigators as possible Zodiac candidates. She immediately eliminated two of the men as possible matches for the Zodiac DNA: Bay Area schoolteacher Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992, and a prominent San Francisco lawyer who is still living.

The third sample, from Charles Clifton Collins, who died in 1993, required a closer examination, but Holt was ultimately able to confirm that it did not match the DNA found on the Zodiac envelope.

Collins' son, William Collins, who had suspected a connection between the Zodiac Killer and his father when he saw the Zodiac's handwriting, was relieved. "Not the guy, huh? This is a good thing in my life," he said.

While the Zodiac's partial DNA profile will enable the San Francisco Police Department to eliminate some of the possible suspects from its list, it will not be enough to confirm an identification. Solving the Zodiac killings will require more evidence.