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jury decided that his use of force had been justified, and the only charge he faced was for the unlicensed handgun. A second grand jury reversed that decision, and he stood trial. He admitted to the shootings but claimed self-defense. The jury acquitted Goetz of attempted murder and found him guilty of carrying a loaded, unlicensed weapon. He served eight months in jail. In a civil trial, a jury awarded Cabey forty-three million dollars, but Goetz has denied paying any of it.
    If the idea that Goetz went “looking for victims” is valid, he would be considered a mission-based offender, someone who meant to rid New York of at least a handful of muggers. He’s not a serial offender, though, or a spree offender, who takes his weapon and commits one crime after another until he’s caught or killed. Someone who shoots multiple victims in a single event is called a mass offender and a vigilante, a breed that is scarce when the citizens of a society feel protected by institutional law enforcement but that is more common when they’re afraid.
    Although Bernhard Goetz left New York after the furor died down, he returned to the city and ran for mayor in 2001. He lost.
     
     
    YET ANOTHER reference in the episode “A Real Rain” (117) is to the Zodiac Killer, who Spencer Reid suggests is similar to the unsub due to constant changes in the type of victim. One of the great unsolved serial-killer mysteries, Zodiac is also brought up in “Unfinished Business” (115) and in “Normal” (411).
    Zodiac’s first confirmed attack was on December 20, 1968, at Herman Lake in the Bay Area city of Vallejo, California. Two teenagers, Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday, were parked in a remote spot, no doubt steaming up the windows of Faraday’s station wagon. Witnesses saw them there at 11 p.m. The next time anyone saw them, Betty Lou was dead, several feet from the car, with five bullet holes in her back. David died en route to the hospital.
    Shortly after midnight on July 5, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau sat in Ferrin’s car at a golf course a few miles from Herman Lake. A man drove up, got out of his car, and opened fire on the young lovers. Darlene died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, but Michael survived and gave a description of their assailant.
    At 12:40 a.m., the Vallejo Police Department received a stunning phone call from a pay phone. A male voice said, “I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park, you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.”
    On July 31, three Bay Area newspapers each received part of a cryptogram allegedly sent by Zodiac, with a note warning of dramatic consequences if the newspapers did not print their respective parts. Proving once again that spelling is not a skill highly regarded by serial killers, Zodiac wrote, “I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1-69, If you do not do this I will go on a kill rampage Fry night that will last the whole week end. I will cruse around and pick off all stray people or coupples that are alone then move on to kill some more untill I have killed over a dozen people.”
    The cryptogram revealed that he enjoyed killing. “It is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl,” he wrote. And he added, “the best part is thae when i die i will be reborn in para-dice and all the i have killed will become my slaves.” The idea that he was collecting slaves for the afterlife continued to be part of what would turn into a long and frustrating correspondence among the killer, the police, and the press. One of the symbols on the cryptogram was a cross inside a circle, like a gun sight, that would become his signature.
    After the police announced that they had their doubts about the authenticity of these communications, the killer wrote again on August 4. This time his letter began,