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In 1975, Law enforcement agencies were entertaining the theory that the Zodiac was responsbile for dozens of murders across four states and committed these murders in the practice of witchcraft.
The theory was drawn from one of the Zodiac letters where the killer claimed to be collecting slaves for his afterlife combined with the discovery of what police believed to be a sign of witchcraft.
The Zodiac claimed to have killed 37 people in the state of California. Only six have been confirmed. From Santa Rosa, CA, Sonoma County Sheriff Don Striepeke believed an arrangement of sticks and stones found at a remote crime scene was actually a symbol ancient English witchcraft (see above illustration). Carlstedt said that the symbol was used "to carry the souls away, to take them to paradise." Three of six victims were dumped at the remote site in Santa Rosa in 1972 and 1973. Striepeke believed Zodiac also murdered women in Utah, Washington, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Detective Sergeant Erwin "Butch" Carlstedt theorized that Zodiac was attempting to trace out a large "Z" across the western United States.
The two law enforcement agents developed their theory after studying the deaths of six girls in Sonoma County over a period of two years and a Seattle case in which the remains of seven young women were found.
All the victims on Carlstedt's list were found nude, except for occasional items of jewelry, and their clothing and belongings were never found. All were killed in one place and their bodies dumped in another — often in remote areas where they appeared to have been thrown from the roadside.
San Francisco homicide inspectors were not so keen on the witchcraft theories. "I just can't go that strong with it, Inspector Al Podesta said. Detective Dave Toschi dismissed the witchcraft theory. "He was trying to be dramatic. If he had such an interest in the occult, be never would have misspelled paradise as "paradice.' I think the letters are a screen, not a real clue."
Carlstedt said the witchcraft symbol was formed by twigs. The symbol was described as two rectangles connected by a line with two stones inside one rectangle. The symbol, according to the detectives, was once put on the hearth of English homes after a death occurred to speed the deceased to the afterlife.
Source: UPI, AP
A similar custom is described below.
According to an old custom (which at one time prevailed in England), every household in the district of Lechrain, in Bavaria, brings to the sacred fire which is lighted at Easter a "Walnut-branch, which, after being partially burned, is carried home to be laid on the hearth-fire during tempests, as a protection against lightning.
Source: Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics By Richard Folkard, 1884
Many of the victims attributed to the above theory were later found to have been the work of Ted Bundy.
Front Page Detective article at ZodiacKiller.com