title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland has three levels of education: primary, secondary and higher education. The education systems are largely under the direction of the Government via the Minister for Education. Recognised primary and secondary schools must adhere to the curriculum established by the relevant authorities. Education is compulsory between the ages of six and fifteen years, and all children up to the age of eighteen must complete the first three years of secondary, including one sitting of the Junior Certificate examination.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: There are approximately 3,300 primary schools in Ireland. The vast majority (92%) are under the patronage of the Catholic Church. Schools run by religious organisations, but receiving public money and recognition, cannot discriminate against pupils based upon religion or lack thereof. A sanctioned system of preference does exist, where students of a particular religion may be accepted before those who do not share the ethos of the school, in a case where a school's quota has already been reached.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The Leaving Certificate, which is taken after two years of study, is the final examination in the secondary school system. Those intending to pursue higher education normally take this examination, with access to third-level courses generally depending on results obtained from the best six subjects taken, on a competitive basis. Third-level education awards are conferred by at least 38 Higher Education Institutions – this includes the constituent or linked colleges of seven universities, plus other designated institutions of the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. According to the 2022 US News rankings, Ireland is among the top twenty best countries for education.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Ireland as having the fourth highest reading score, ninth highest science score and thirteenth highest mathematics score, among OECD countries, in its 2012 assessment. In 2012, Irish students aged 15 years had the second highest levels of reading literacy in the EU. Ireland also has 0.747 of the World's top 500 Universities per capita, which ranks the country in 8th place in the world. Primary, secondary and higher (university/college) level education are all free in Ireland for all EU citizens. There are charges to cover student services and examinations.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: In addition, 37 percent of Ireland's population has a university or college degree, which is among the highest percentages in the world.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Religious freedom is constitutionally provided for in Ireland, and the country's constitution has been secular since 1973. Christianity is the predominant religion, and while Ireland remains a predominantly Catholic country, the percentage of the population who identified as Catholic on the census has fallen sharply from 84.2 percent in the 2011 census to 78.3 percent in the most recent 2016 census. Other results from the 2016 census are: 4.2% Protestant, 1.3% Orthodox, 1.3% as Muslim, and 9.8% as having no religion. According to a Georgetown University study, before 2000 the country had one of the highest rates of regular mass attendance in the Western world.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: While daily attendance was 13% in 2006, there was a reduction in weekly attendance from 81% in 1990 to 48% in 2006, although the decline was reported as stabilising. In 2011, it was reported that weekly Mass attendance in Dublin was just 18%, and was even lower among younger generations.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The Church of Ireland, at 2.7% of the population, is the second largest Christian denomination. Membership declined throughout the twentieth century, but experienced an increase early in the 21st century, as have other small Christian denominations. Other significant Protestant denominations are the Presbyterian Church and Methodist Church. Immigration has contributed to a growth in Hindu and Muslim populations. In percentage terms, Orthodox Christianity and Islam were the fastest growing religions, with increases of 100% and 70% respectively.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland's patron saints are Saint Patrick, Saint Bridget and Saint Columba, with Saint Patrick commonly recognised as "the" patron saint. Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated on 17 March in Ireland and abroad as the Irish national day, with parades and other celebrations.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: As with other predominantly Catholic European states, Ireland underwent a period of legal secularisation in the late twentieth century. In 1972, the article of the Constitution naming specific religious groups was deleted by the Fifth Amendment in a referendum. Article 44 remains in the Constitution: "The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion." The article also establishes freedom of religion, prohibits endowment of any religion, prohibits the state from religious discrimination, and requires the state to treat religious and non-religious schools in a non-prejudicial manner.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Religious studies was introduced as an optional Junior Certificate subject in 2001. Although most schools are run by religious organisations, a secularist trend is occurring among younger generations.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland's culture was for centuries predominantly Gaelic, and it remains one of the six principal Celtic nations. Following the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century, and gradual British conquest and colonisation beginning in the 16th century, Ireland became influenced by English and Scottish culture. Subsequently, Irish culture, though distinct in many aspects, shares characteristics with the Anglosphere, Catholic Europe, and other Celtic regions. The Irish diaspora, one of the world's largest and most dispersed, has contributed to the globalisation of Irish culture, producing many prominent figures in art, music, and science.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland has made a significant contribution to world literature in both the English and Irish languages. Modern Irish fiction began with the publishing of the 1726 novel "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift. Other writers of importance during the 18th century and their most notable works include Laurence Sterne with the publication of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" and Oliver Goldsmith's "The Vicar of Wakefield". Numerous Irish novelists emerged during the 19th century, including Maria Edgeworth, John Banim, Gerald Griffin, Charles Kickham, William Carleton, George Moore, and Somerville and Ross. Bram Stoker is best known as the author of the 1897 novel "Dracula".


title: Republic of Ireland

text: James Joyce (1882–1941) published his most famous work "Ulysses" in 1922, which is an interpretation of the "Odyssey" set in Dublin. Edith Somerville continued writing after the death of her partner Martin Ross in 1915. Dublin's Annie M. P. Smithson was one of several authors catering for fans of romantic fiction in the 1920s and 1930s. After the Second World War, popular novels were published by, among others, Brian O'Nolan, who published as Flann O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, and Kate O'Brien. During the final decades of the 20th century, Edna O'Brien, John McGahern, Maeve Binchy, Joseph O'Connor, Roddy Doyle, Colm Tóibín, and John Banville came to the fore as novelists.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Patricia Lynch was a prolific children's author in the 20th century, while Eoin Colfer's works were NYT Best Sellers in this genre in the early 21st century. In the genre of the short story, which is a form favoured by many Irish writers, the most prominent figures include Seán Ó Faoláin, Frank O'Connor and William Trevor. Well known Irish poets include Patrick Kavanagh, Thomas McCarthy, Dermot Bolger, and Nobel Prize in Literature laureates William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney (born in Northern Ireland but resided in Dublin). Prominent writers in the Irish language are Pádraic Ó Conaire, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Séamus Ó Grianna, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The history of Irish theatre begins with the expansion of the English administration in Dublin during the early 17th century, and since then, Ireland has significantly contributed to English drama. In its early history, theatrical productions in Ireland tended to serve political purposes, but as more theatres opened and the popular audience grew, a more diverse range of entertainments were staged. Many Dublin-based theatres developed links with their London equivalents, and British productions frequently found their way to the Irish stage. However, most Irish playwrights went abroad to establish themselves. In the 18th century, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were two of the most successful playwrights on the London stage at that time. At the beginning of the 20th century, theatre companies dedicated to the staging of Irish plays and the development of writers, directors and performers began to emerge, which allowed many Irish playwrights to learn their trade and establish their reputations in Ireland rather than in Britain or the United States. Following in the tradition of acclaimed practitioners, principally Oscar Wilde, Literature Nobel Prize laureates George Bernard Shaw (1925) and Samuel Beckett (1969), playwrights such as Seán O'Casey, Brian Friel, Sebastian Barry, Brendan Behan, Conor McPherson and Billy Roche have gained popular success. Other Irish playwrights of the 20th century include Denis Johnston, Thomas Kilroy, Tom Murphy, Hugh Leonard, Frank McGuinness, and John B. Keane.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Irish traditional music has remained vibrant, despite globalising cultural forces, and retains many traditional aspects. It has influenced various music genres, such as American country and roots music, and to some extent modern rock. It has occasionally been blended with styles such as rock and roll and punk rock. Ireland has also produced many internationally known artists in other genres, such as rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Ireland's best selling musical act is the rock band U2, who have sold 170 million copies of their albums worldwide since their formation in 1976.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: There are a number of classical music ensembles around the country, such as the RTÉ Performing Groups. Ireland also has two opera organisations: Irish National Opera in Dublin, and the annual Wexford Opera Festival, which promotes lesser-known operas, takes place during October and November.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1965. Its first win was in 1970, when Dana won with "All Kinds of Everything". It has subsequently won the competition six more times, the highest number of wins by any competing country. The phenomenon "Riverdance" originated as an interval performance during the 1994 contest.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Irish dance can broadly be divided into social dance and performance dance. Irish social dance can be divided into "céilí" and set dancing. Irish set dances are quadrilles, danced by 4 couples arranged in a square, while céilí dances are danced by varied formations of couples of 2 to 16 people. There are also many stylistic differences between these two forms. Irish social dance is a living tradition, and variations in particular dances are found across the country. In some places dances are deliberately modified and new dances are choreographed. Performance dance is traditionally referred to as stepdance. Irish stepdance, popularised by the show "Riverdance", is notable for its rapid leg movements, with the body and arms being kept largely stationary. The solo stepdance is generally characterised by a controlled but not rigid upper body, straight arms, and quick, precise movements of the feet. The solo dances can either be in "soft shoe" or "hard shoe".


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland has a wealth of structures, surviving in various states of preservation, from the Neolithic period, such as "Brú na Bóinne", Poulnabrone dolmen, Castlestrange stone, Turoe stone, and Drombeg stone circle. As Ireland was never a part of the Roman Empire, ancient architecture in Greco-Roman style is extremely rare, in contrast to most of Western Europe. The country instead had an extended period of Iron Age architecture. The Irish round tower originated during the Early Medieval period.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Christianity introduced simple monastic houses, such as Clonmacnoise, Skellig Michael and Scattery Island. A stylistic similarity has been remarked between these double monasteries and those of the Copts of Egypt. Gaelic kings and aristocrats occupied ringforts or "crannógs". Church reforms during the 12th century via the Cistercians stimulated continental influence, with the Romanesque styled Mellifont, Boyle and Tintern abbeys. Gaelic settlement had been limited to the Monastic proto-towns, such as Kells, where the current street pattern preserves the original circular settlement outline to some extent. Significant urban settlements only developed following the period of Viking invasions. The major Hiberno-Norse Longphorts were located on the coast, but with minor inland fluvial settlements, such as the eponymous Longford.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Castles were built by the Anglo-Normans during the late 12th century, such as Dublin Castle and Kilkenny Castle, and the concept of the planned walled trading town was introduced, which gained legal status and several rights by grant of a Charter under Feudalism. These charters specifically governed the design of these towns. Two significant waves of planned town formation followed, the first being the 16th- and 17th-century plantation towns, which were used as a mechanism for the Tudor English kings to suppress local insurgency, followed by 18th-century landlord towns. Surviving Norman founded planned towns include Drogheda and Youghal; plantation towns include Portlaoise and Portarlington; well-preserved 18th-century planned towns include Westport and Ballinasloe. These episodes of planned settlement account for the majority of present-day towns throughout the country.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Gothic cathedrals, such as St Patrick's, were also introduced by the Normans. Franciscans were dominant in directing the abbeys by the Late Middle Ages, while elegant tower houses, such as Bunratty Castle, were built by the Gaelic and Norman aristocracy. Many religious buildings were ruined with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Following the Restoration, palladianism and rococo, particularly country houses, swept through Ireland under the initiative of Edward Lovett Pearce, with the Houses of Parliament being the most significant.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: With the erection of buildings such as The Custom House, Four Courts, General Post Office and King's Inns, the neoclassical and Georgian styles flourished, especially in Dublin. Georgian townhouses produced streets of singular distinction, particularly in Dublin, Limerick and Cork. Following Catholic Emancipation, cathedrals and churches influenced by the French Gothic Revival emerged, such as St Colman's and St Finbarre's. Ireland has long been associated with thatched roof cottages, though these are nowadays considered quaint.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Beginning with the American designed art deco church at Turner's Cross, Cork in 1927, Irish architecture followed the international trend towards modern and sleek building styles since the 20th century. Other developments include the regeneration of Ballymun and an urban extension of Dublin at Adamstown. Since the establishment of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority in 1997, the Dublin Docklands area underwent large-scale redevelopment, which included the construction of the Convention Centre Dublin and Grand Canal Theatre. Completed in 2018, Capital Dock in Dublin is the tallest building in the Republic of Ireland achieving in height (the Obel Tower in Belfast, Northern Ireland being the tallest in Ireland). The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland regulates the practice of architecture in the state.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) is Ireland's public service broadcaster, funded by a television licence fee and advertising. RTÉ operates two national television channels, RTÉ One and RTÉ Two. The other independent national television channels are Virgin Media One, Virgin Media Two, Virgin Media Three and TG4, the latter of which is a public service broadcaster for speakers of the Irish language. All these channels are available on Saorview, the national free-to-air digital terrestrial television service. Additional channels included in the service are RTÉ News Now, RTÉjr, and RTÉ One +1. Subscription-based television providers operating in Ireland include Virgin Media and Sky.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The BBC's Northern Irish division is widely available in Ireland. BBC One Northern Ireland and BBC Two Northern Ireland are available in pay television providers including Virgin and Sky as well as via signal overspill by Freeview in border counties.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Supported by the Irish Film Board, the Irish film industry grew significantly since the 1990s, with the promotion of indigenous films as well as the attraction of international productions like "Braveheart" and "Saving Private Ryan".


title: Republic of Ireland

text: A large number of regional and local radio stations are available countrywide. A survey showed that a consistent 85% of adults listen to a mixture of national, regional and local stations on a daily basis. RTÉ Radio operates four national stations, Radio 1, 2fm, Lyric fm, and RnaG. It also operates four national DAB radio stations. There are two independent national stations: Today FM and Newstalk.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland has a traditionally competitive print media, which is divided into daily national newspapers and weekly regional newspapers, as well as national Sunday editions. The strength of the British press is a unique feature of the Irish print media scene, with the availability of a wide selection of British published newspapers and magazines.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Eurostat reported that 82% of Irish households had Internet access in 2013 compared to the EU average of 79% but only 67% had broadband access.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Irish cuisine was traditionally based on meat and dairy products, supplemented with vegetables and seafood.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Examples of popular Irish cuisine include boxty, colcannon, coddle, stew, and bacon and cabbage. Ireland is known for the full Irish breakfast, which involves a fried or grilled meal generally consisting of rashers, egg, sausage, white and black pudding, and fried tomato. Apart from the influence by European and international dishes, there has been an emergence of a new Irish cuisine based on traditional ingredients handled in new ways. This cuisine is based on fresh vegetables, fish, oysters, mussels and other shellfish, and the wide range of hand-made cheeses that are now being produced across the country. Shellfish have increased in popularity, especially due to the high quality shellfish available from the country's coastline. The most popular fish include salmon and cod. Traditional breads include soda bread and wheaten bread. Barmbrack is a yeasted bread with added sultanas and raisins, traditionally eaten on Halloween.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Popular everyday beverages among the Irish include tea and coffee. Alcoholic drinks associated with Ireland include Poitín and the world-famous Guinness, which is a dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate in Dublin. Irish whiskey is also popular throughout the country and comes in various forms, including single malt, single grain, and blended whiskey.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Gaelic football and hurling are the traditional sports of Ireland as well as popular spectator sports. They are administered by the Gaelic Athletics Association on an all-Ireland basis. Other Gaelic games organised by the association include Gaelic handball and rounders.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Association football (soccer) is the third most popular spectator sport and has the highest level of participation. Although the League of Ireland is the national league, the English Premier League is the most popular among the public. The Republic of Ireland national football team plays at international level and is administered by the Football Association of Ireland.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The Irish Rugby Football Union is the governing body of rugby union, which is played at local and international levels on an all-Ireland basis, and has produced players such as Brian O'Driscoll and Ronan O'Gara, who were on the team that won the Grand Slam in 2009.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The success of the Irish Cricket Team in the 2007 Cricket World Cup has led to an increase in the popularity of cricket, which is also administered on an all-Ireland basis by Cricket Ireland. Ireland are one of the twelve Test playing members of the International Cricket Council, having been granted Test status in 2017. Professional domestic matches are played between the major cricket unions of Leinster, Munster, Northern, and North West.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Golf is another popular sport in Ireland, with over 300 courses countrywide. The country has produced several internationally successful golfers, such as Pádraig Harrington, Shane Lowry and Paul McGinley.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Horse racing has a large presence, with influential breeding and racing operations in the country. Racing takes place at courses at The Curragh Racecourse in County Kildare, Leopardstown Racecourse just outside Dublin, and Galway. Ireland has produced champion horses such as Galileo, Montjeu, and Sea the Stars.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Boxing is Ireland's most successful sport at an Olympic level. Administered by the Irish Athletic Boxing Association on an all-Ireland basis, it has gained in popularity as a result of the international success of boxers such as Bernard Dunne, Andy Lee and Katie Taylor.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Some of Ireland's highest performers in athletics have competed at the Olympic Games, such as Eamonn Coghlan and Sonia O'Sullivan. The annual Dublin Marathon and Dublin Women's Mini Marathon are two of the most popular athletics events in the country.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Rugby league is represented by the Ireland national rugby league team and administered by Rugby League Ireland (who are full member of the Rugby League European Federation) on an all-Ireland basis. The team compete in the European Cup (rugby league) and the Rugby League World Cup. Ireland reached the quarter finals of the 2000 Rugby League World Cup as well as reaching the semi finals in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup. The Irish Elite League is a domestic competition for rugby league teams in Ireland.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: While Australian rules football in Ireland has a limited following, a series of International rules football games (constituting a hybrid of the Australian and Gaelic football codes) takes place annually between teams representing Ireland and Australia. Baseball and basketball are also emerging sports in Ireland, both of which have an international team representing the island of Ireland. Other sports which retain a following in Ireland include cycling, greyhound racing, horse riding, and motorsport.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland ranks fifth in the world in terms of gender equality. In 2011, Ireland was ranked the most charitable country in Europe, and second most charitable in the world. Contraception was controlled in Ireland until 1979, however, the receding influence of the Catholic Church has led to an increasingly secularised society. A constitutional ban on divorce was lifted following a referendum in 1995. Divorce rates in Ireland are very low compared to European Union averages (0.7 divorced people per 1,000 population in 2011) while the marriage rate in Ireland is slightly above the European Union average (4.6 marriages per 1,000 population per year in 2012). Abortion had been banned throughout the period of the Irish state, first through provisions of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and later by the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013. The right to life of the unborn was protected in the constitution by the Eighth Amendment in 1983; this provision was removed following a referendum, and replaced it with a provision allowing legislation to regulate the termination of pregnancy. The Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 passed later that year provided for abortion generally during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in specified circumstances after that date.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Capital punishment is constitutionally banned in Ireland, while discrimination based on age, gender, sexual orientation, marital or familial status, religion, race or membership of the travelling community is illegal. The legislation which outlawed homosexual acts was repealed in 1993. The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010 permitted civil partnerships between same-sex couples. The Children and Family Relationships Act 2015 allowed for adoption rights for couples other than married couples, including civil partners and cohabitants, and provided for donor-assisted human reproduction; however, significant sections of the Act have yet to be commenced. Following a referendum held on 23 May 2015, Ireland became the eighteenth country to provide in law for same-sex marriage, and the first to do so by popular vote.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce an environmental levy for plastic shopping bags in 2002 and a public smoking ban in 2004. Recycling in Ireland is carried out extensively, and Ireland has the second highest rate of packaging recycling in the European Union. It was the first country in Europe to ban incandescent lightbulbs in 2008 and the first EU country to ban in-store tobacco advertising and product display in 2009. In 2015 Ireland became the second country in the world to introduce plain cigarette packaging. Despite the above measures to discourage tobacco use, smoking rates in Ireland remain at approximately 15.4% as of 2020.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The state shares many symbols with the island of Ireland. These include the colours green and blue, animals such as the Irish wolfhound and stags, structures such as round towers and celtic crosses, and designs such as Celtic knots and spirals. The shamrock, a type of clover, has been a national symbol of Ireland since the 17th century when it became customary to wear it as a symbol on St. Patrick's Day. These symbols are used by state institutions as well as private bodies in the Republic of Ireland.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The flag of Ireland is a tricolour of green, white and orange. The flag originates with the Young Ireland movement of the mid-19th century but was not popularised until its use during the Easter Rising of 1916. The colours represent the Gaelic tradition (green) and the followers of William of Orange in Ireland (orange), with white representing the aspiration for peace between them. It was adopted as the flag of the Irish Free State in 1922 and continues to be used as the sole flag and ensign of the state. A naval jack, a green flag with a yellow harp, is set out in Defence Forces Regulations and flown from the bows of warships in addition to the national flag in limited circumstances (e.g. when a ship is not underway). It is based on the unofficial green ensign of Ireland used in the 18th and 19th centuries and the traditional green flag of Ireland dating from the 16th century.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: Like the national flag, the national anthem, (), has its roots in the Easter Rising, when the song was sung by the rebels. Although originally published in English in 1912, the song was translated into Irish in 1923 and the Irish-language version is more commonly sung today. The song was officially adopted as the anthem of the Irish Free State in 1926 and continues as the national anthem of the state. The first four bars of the chorus followed by the last five comprise the presidential salute.


title: Republic of Ireland

text: The arms of Ireland originate as the arms of the monarchs of Ireland and was recorded as the arms of the King of Ireland in the 12th century. From the union of the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1603, they have appeared quartered on the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. Today, they are the personal arms of the President of Ireland whilst he or she is in office and are flown as the presidential standard. The harp symbol is used extensively by the state to mark official documents, Irish coinage and on the seal of the President of Ireland.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. The case has been described as the most famous unsolved murder case in American history. It became a fixture of popular culture and inspired amateur detectives to attempt to solve it.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The Zodiac murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969, operating in rural, urban and suburban settings. He targeted young couples and a lone male cab driver. His known attacks took place in Benicia, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, and the city of San Francisco proper. Two of his wounded victims survived. The Zodiac claimed to have murdered 37 victims. He has been linked to several other cold cases, some in Southern California or outside the state.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The Zodiac coined this name in a series of taunting letters and cards that he mailed to regional newspapers, in which he threatened killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. Some of the letters included cryptograms, or ciphers, in which the killer claimed that he was collecting his victims as slaves for the afterlife. Of the four ciphers he produced, two remain unsolved, and one was cracked only in 2020. While many theories regarding the identity of the killer have been suggested, the only suspect authorities ever publicly named was Arthur Leigh Allen, a former elementary school teacher and convicted sex offender who died in 1992.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Although the Zodiac ceased written communications around 1974, the unusual nature of the case led to international interest that has been sustained throughout the years. The San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive" in April 2004, but re-opened it at some point prior to March 2007. The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa and Solano counties. The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Although the Zodiac claimed in letters to newspapers to have committed 37 murders, investigators agree on seven confirmed assault victims, five of whom died and two survived. They are:


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The first murders widely attributed to the Zodiac Killer were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Arthur Faraday on December 20, 1968 on Lake Herman Road, just inside the city limits of Benicia. The couple were on their first date and planned to attend a Christmas concert at Hogan High School, about three blocks from Jensen's home. They visited a friend before stopping at a local restaurant and driving out on Lake Herman Road, a popular area for young couples. At about 10:15 p.m., Faraday parked his mother's Rambler in a gravel turnout, which was a well-known lovers' lane. Shortly after 11:00 p.m., their bodies were found by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. The Solano County Sheriff's Department investigated the crime but no leads developed.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Using available forensic data, Robert Graysmith later speculated in his 1976 account that another car pulled into the turnout just prior to 11:00 p.m. and parked beside the couple. The killer may have exited the second car and walked toward the Rambler, possibly ordering the couple out of it. It appeared that Jensen had exited the car first, but when Faraday was halfway out, the killer shot him in the head. The killer shot Jensen five times in the back as she fled; her body was found 28 feet from the car. The killer drove off after this.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Just before midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau drove into the Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo and parked. It is from the Lake Herman Road murder site. While the couple sat in Ferrin's car, a second car drove into the lot and parked alongside them but almost immediately drove away. Returning about 10 minutes later, this second car parked behind them. The driver of the second car exited and approached the passenger side door of Ferrin's car, carrying a flashlight and a 9 mm Luger. The killer directed the flashlight into Mageau's and Ferrin's eyes before shooting at them, firing five times. Both victims were hit, and several bullets passed through Mageau and into Ferrin. The killer walked away from the car but returned and shot each victim twice more before driving off.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On July 5, 1969, at 12:40 a.m., a man phoned the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack. The caller also took credit for the murders of Jensen and Faraday six and a half months earlier. Police traced the call to a phone booth at a gas station at Springs Road and Tuolumne, located about from Ferrin's home and a few blocks from the Vallejo Police Department. Ferrin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mageau survived the attack despite being shot in the face, neck and chest. Mageau described his attacker as a 26-to-30-year-old, or possibly even more, white male with short, light brown curly hair.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On August 1, 1969, three letters purportedly prepared by the killer were received at the "Vallejo Times Herald", the "San Francisco Chronicle", and "The San Francisco Examiner". The nearly identical letters, subsequently described by a psychiatrist to have been written by "someone you would expect to be brooding and isolated", took credit for the shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. Each letter also included one-third of a 408-symbol cryptogram which the killer claimed contained his identity. The killer demanded they be printed on each paper's front page or he would "cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The "Chronicle" published its third of the cryptogram on page four of the next day's edition. An article printed alongside the code quoted Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz as saying "We're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer" and requested the writer send a second letter with more facts to prove his identity. The threatened murders did not happen, and all three parts of the cryptogram were eventually published.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On August 7, 1969, "The San Francisco Examiner" received a letter with the salutation, "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." This was the first time the killer had used this name for identification. The letter was a response to Chief Stiltz's request for more details that would prove he had killed Faraday, Jensen and Ferrin. In it, the Zodiac included details about the murders that had not yet been released to the public. He also said that when the police cracked his code "they will have me".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Author Søren Roest Korsgaard explains that the "episode" paragraph in this letter referenced the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode "Museum Piece." The attachment of a light to a gun was a plot element which Zodiac adopted. The episode dialog also contains the phrase "The most dangerous game." Zodiac was both referring to and acting out Hitchcock story elements.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On August 8, 1969, Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California cracked the 408-symbol cryptogram. It contained a misspelled message in which the killer seemed to reference "The Most Dangerous Game". The author also said that he was collecting slaves for his afterlife. No name appears in this decoded text. The killer said that he would not give away his identity because it would slow down or stop his slave collection.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. A white man, about weighing more than , approached them wearing a black executioner's-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a white cross-circle symbol on it. He approached them with a gun, which Hartnell believed to be a .45. The hooded man claimed to be an escaped convict from a jail with a two-word name, in either Colorado or Montana (a police officer later inferred that the man had been referring to a jail in Deer Lodge, Montana), where he had killed a guard and subsequently stolen a car. He said that he needed their car and money to travel to Mexico because the stolen vehicle was "too hot".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The killer had brought precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell before he tied her up. The killer checked, and tightened Hartnell's bonds after discovering that Shepard had bound Hartnell's hands loosely. Hartnell initially believed this event to be a bizarre robbery, but the man drew a knife and stabbed them both repeatedly. Hartnell suffered six and Shepard ten wounds in the process. The killer hiked up to Knoxville Road, drew the cross-circle symbol on Hartnell's car door with a black felt-tip pen, and wrote beneath it:


title: Zodiac Killer

text: At 7:40 p.m., the killer called the Napa County Sheriff's office from a pay telephone to report this latest crime. The caller first stated to the operator that he wished to "report a murder – no, a double murder," before saying that he had committed the crime. KVON radio reporter Pat Stanley found the phone, still off the hook, a few minutes later at the Napa Car Wash on Main Street in Napa. It was a few blocks from the sheriff's office, and from the crime scene. Detectives lifted a still-wet palm print from the telephone but were never able to match it to any suspect.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: After hearing the victims' screams for help, a man and his son fishing in a nearby cove discovered the couple and got help by contacting park rangers. Napa County Sheriff's deputies Dave Collins and Ray Land were the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the crime scene. Shepard was conscious when Collins arrived, and provided him with a detailed description of the attacker. Hartnell and Shepard were taken to Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa by ambulance. Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport, never regained consciousness, and died two days later. Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press. Napa County detective Ken Narlow, who was assigned to the case from the outset, worked on solving the crime until his retirement from the department in 1987.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Two weeks later, on October 11, 1969, a white male passenger entered the cab driven by Paul Stine at the intersection of Mason and Geary Streets (one block west from Union Square) in San Francisco, requesting to be driven to Washington and Maple streets in Presidio Heights. For reasons unknown, Stine drove one block past Maple to Cherry Street. The passenger shot Stine once in the head with a 9 mm handgun, took the driver's wallet and car keys, and tore away a section of his bloodstained shirt tail. Three teenagers across the street at 9:55 p.m. saw the incident, and phoned the police while the crime was in progress. They observed a man wiping the cab down before walking away toward the Presidio, one block to the north.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Two blocks from the crime scene, patrol officers Don Fouke and Eric Zelms, responding to the call, observed a white man walking along the sidewalk east on Jackson Street and stepping onto a stairway leading up to the front yard of one of the homes on the north side of the street; the encounter lasted only five to ten seconds.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Fouke estimated the white male pedestrian to be 35 to 45 years old, 5'10" tall with a crew cut, similar to but slightly older than the description provided by the teenagers who observed the killer in and out of Stine's cab. The teenagers described the suspect to be 25 to 30 years old with a crew cut and standing approximately to tall. However, the police radio dispatcher had alerted officers to look out for a black suspect, so Fouke and Zelms drove past the perpetrator without stopping; the mixup in descriptions remains unexplained. A search ensued, but no suspects were found. This was the last officially confirmed murder by the Zodiac Killer.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The Stine murder was initially believed to be a routine robbery that had escalated into homicidal violence. However, on October 13, the "San Francisco Chronicle" received a new letter from Zodiac that claimed credit for the killing and contained a torn section of Stine's bloody shirt to "prove this" fact. The three teen witnesses worked with a police artist to prepare a composite sketch of Stine's killer; a few days later, this police artist returned, working with the witnesses to prepare a second composite sketch. Detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case. The San Francisco Police Department investigated an estimated 2,500 suspects over a period of years.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On October 14, 1969, the "Chronicle" received another letter from the Zodiac, this time containing a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt tail as proof he was the killer; it also included a threat about killing schoolchildren on a school bus. To do this, Zodiac wrote, "just shoot out the front tire & then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out". At 2:00 p.m. on October 20, 1969, someone claiming to be the Zodiac called the Oakland Police Department (OPD), demanding that one of two prominent lawyers, F. Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli, appear on "A.M. San Francisco", a talk show on KGO-TV hosted by Jim Dunbar. Bailey was not available, but Belli did appear on the show. Dunbar appealed to the viewers to keep the lines open. Someone claiming to be the Zodiac called several times, and Belli asked the caller for a less ominous name and the caller picked "Sam". The caller said he would not reveal his true identity as he was afraid of being sent to the gas chamber (then California's capital punishment method). Belli arranged a rendezvous to meet the caller outside a shop on Mission Street in Daly City, but no one arrived. The call was later traced back to a patient in a mental institution, and investigators concluded that the man was not the Zodiac.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On November 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a card with another cryptogram consisting of 340 characters. This cipher, dubbed "Z-340", remained unsolved for over 51 years. On December 5, 2020, it was deciphered by an international team of private citizens, including American software engineer David Oranchak, Australian mathematician Sam Blake and Belgian programmer . In the decrypted message, the Zodiac denied being the "Sam" who spoke on "A.M. San Francisco", explaining that he was not afraid of the gas chamber "because it will send me to paradice ["sic"] all the sooner". The team submitted their findings to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which verified the discovery. The FBI stated that the decoded message gave no further clues to the identity of Zodiac.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On November 9, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a seven-page letter stating that two policemen stopped and actually spoke with him three minutes after he shot Stine. Excerpts from the letter were published in the "Chronicle" on November 12, including the Zodiac's claim; that same day, Officer Don Fouke wrote a memo explaining what had happened on the night of Stine's murder. On December 20, 1969, exactly one year after the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, the Zodiac mailed a letter to Belli that included another swatch of Stine's shirt; the Zodiac said that he wanted Belli to help him.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Various authors speculated at the time of the killings that other murders and attacks may have been the work of the Zodiac, but none have been confirmed:


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On October 30, 1966, an 18-year-old student at Riverside City College, Cheri Jo Bates, spent the evening at the campus library annex until it closed at 9:00 p.m. Neighbors reported hearing a scream around 10:30 p.m. Bates was found dead the next morning, a short distance from the library, between two abandoned houses slated to be demolished for campus renovations. The wires in her Volkswagen's distributor cap had been pulled out. She was brutally beaten and stabbed to death. A man's Timex watch with a torn wristband was found nearby. The watch had stopped at 12:24, but police believe that the attack had occurred much earlier.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: A month later, on November 29, 1966, nearly identical typewritten letters were mailed to the Riverside police and the "Riverside Press-Enterprise", titled "The Confession". The author claimed responsibility for the Bates murder, providing details of the crime that were not released to the public. The author warned that Bates "is not the first and she will not be the last". In December 1966, a poem was discovered carved into the bottom side of a desktop in the Riverside City College library. Titled "Sick of living/unwilling to die", the poem's language and handwriting resembled that of the Zodiac's letters. It was signed with what were assumed to be the initials "rh". During the 1970 investigation, Sherwood Morrill, California's top "questioned documents" examiner, expressed his opinion that the poem was written by the Zodiac.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On April 30, 1967, exactly six months after the Bates murder, Bates' father Joseph, the "Press-Enterprise", and the Riverside police all received nearly identical letters. In handwritten scrawl, the "Press-Enterprise" and police copies read "Bates had to die there will be more," with a small scribble at the bottom that resembled the letter Z. Joseph Bates' copy read "She had to die there will be more," this time without the Z signature. In August 2021, the Riverside Police Department's Homicide Cold Case Unit announced that the author of the handwritten letters anonymously contacted investigators in 2016 and was identified via DNA analysis in 2020. He admitted the correspondence was a distasteful hoax and apologized, explaining that he had been a troubled teenager and wrote the letters as a means of seeking attention. Investigators confirmed that the author was not the Zodiac.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On March 13, 1971, five months after Avery's article linking the Zodiac to the Riverside murder, the Zodiac mailed a letter to the "Los Angeles Times". In the letter he credited the police, instead of Avery, for discovering his "Riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The connection between Cheri Jo Bates, Riverside and the Zodiac remains uncertain. Paul Avery and the Riverside Police Department maintain that the Bates homicide was not committed by the Zodiac, but did concede that some of the Bates letters may have been his work to claim credit falsely.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On March 22, 1971, a postcard to the "Chronicle", addressed to "Paul Averly" and believed to be from the Zodiac, appeared to claim responsibility for the disappearance of Donna Lass on September 6, 1970. Made from a collage of advertisements and magazine lettering, it featured a scene from an advertisement for Forest Pines condominiums and the text "Sierra Club", "Sought Victim 12", "peek through the pines", "pass Lake Tahoe areas", and "around in the snow". The Zodiac's crossed-circle symbol was in both the place of the usual return address and the lower-right section of the front face of the postcard.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Lass was a nurse at the Sahara Tahoe hotel and casino. She worked until about 2:00 a.m. on September 6, 1970, treating her last patient at 1:40 a.m. Later that same day, both Lass's employer and her landlord received phone calls from an unknown male falsely claiming that Lass had left town because of a family emergency. Lass was never found. What appeared to be a gravesite was discovered near the Clair Tappaan Lodge in Norden, California, on Sierra Club property. No evidence has been uncovered to definitively connect the Lass disappearance with the Zodiac Killer.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving from San Bernardino to Petaluma to visit her mother. She was seven months pregnant and had her 10-month-old daughter beside her. While heading west on Highway 132 near Modesto, a car behind her began honking its horn and flashing its headlights. She pulled off the road and stopped. The man in the car parked behind her, approached her car, stated that he observed that her right rear wheel was wobbling, and offered to tighten the lug nuts. After finishing his work, the man drove off; yet when Johns pulled forward to re-enter the highway the wheel almost immediately came off the car. The man returned, offering to drive her to the nearest gas station for help. She and her daughter climbed into his car.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: During the ride, the car passed several service stations, but the man did not stop. For about 90 minutes, he drove back and forth around the back roads near Tracy. When Johns asked why he was not stopping, he would change the subject. When the driver finally stopped at an intersection, Johns jumped out with her daughter and hid in a field. The driver searched for her using a flashlight, telling her that he would not hurt her, before eventually giving up. Unable to find her, he got back into the car and drove off. Johns hitched a ride to the police station in Patterson.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: When Johns gave her statement to the sergeant on duty, she noticed the police composite sketch of Paul Stine's killer and recognized him as the man who had abducted her and her child. Fearing that he might return to kill them all, the sergeant had Johns wait in the dark at nearby Mil's Restaurant. When her car was found, it had been gutted and torched.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Most accounts say that the man threatened to kill Johns and her daughter while driving them around, but at least one police report disputes that. Johns's account to Paul Avery of the "Chronicle" indicates that her abductor left his car and searched for her in the dark with a flashlight; however, in one report she made to the police, she stated that he did not leave the vehicle.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: There is no consensus on the number of people Zodiac attacked or the years in which the attacks took place. The attacks on Kathleen Johns and Donna Lass, if attributable to Zodiac, suggest a new MO. The targets would be individual females rather than couples, and they would be abducted. Many of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders exhibit these themes and have long been considered possible Zodiac crimes. The strangulation of some of these victims is in line with the Zodiac's October 1970 claim to kill by "Rope." In 1986, Robert Graysmith published a list of 49 confirmed and possible Zodiac targets. This list includes some of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murder victims.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Sometimes authors claim that Zodiac should be a suspect for some high profile unsolved homicides which are not currently considered Zodiac crimes. While such claims are unpopular, John A. Cameron did document similarities between the murder of JonBenét Ramsey and Zodiac actions. The fake "ransom note" contained Zodiac-like misspellings and references to crime films. One of these films was Dirty Harry, which Zodiac inspired. Cameron also wrote that JonBenét told a neighbor that she would meet "Santa Clause" on the night that she was later killed. Zodiac did wear a costume at Lake Berryessa and claimed to use disguises. If Cameron was correct, Zodiac would have killed over the span of decades.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Zodiac continued to communicate with authorities for the remainder of 1970 via letters and greeting cards to the press. In a letter postmarked April 20, 1970, the Zodiac wrote, "My name is _____," followed by a 13-character cipher that hasn't been solved to this day. The Zodiac went on to state that he was not responsible for the recent bombing of a police station in San Francisco (referring to the February 18, 1970, death of Sgt. Brian McDonnell two days after the bombing at Park Station in Golden Gate Park) but added "there is more glory to killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back." The letter included a diagram of a bomb the Zodiac claimed that he would use to blow up a school bus. At the bottom of the diagram, he wrote: " = 10, SFPD = 0."


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Zodiac sent a greeting card postmarked April 28, 1970 to the "Chronicle". Written on the card was "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my BLAST," followed by the Zodiac's cross-circle signature. On the back of the card, the Zodiac threatened to use the bus bomb soon unless the newspaper published the full details that he had written. He also wanted to start seeing people wearing "some nice Zodiac butons ".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In a letter postmarked June 26, 1970, the Zodiac stated that he was upset that he did not see people wearing Zodiac buttons. He wrote, "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38." The Zodiac was possibly referring to the murder of 25-year-old Sgt. Richard Radetich one week earlier. At 5:25 a.m. on June 19, Radetich was writing a parking ticket in his squad car when an assailant unrelated to the traffic violation shot him in the head with a .38-caliber pistol through the closed driver's side window. Radetich died 15 hours later. The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) denies that the Zodiac was involved; the murder remains unsolved.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Included with the letter was a Phillips 66 roadmap of the San Francisco Bay area. On the image of Mount Diablo, the Zodiac had drawn a crossed circle similar to those from previous correspondence. At the top of the crossed circle, he placed a zero, a three, six, and a nine. The accompanying instructions stated that the zero was "to be set to Mag. N." The letter also included a 32-letter cipher that the killer claimed would, in conjunction with the code, lead to the location of a bomb that he had buried and set to detonate in the fall. The cipher was never decoded, and the alleged bomb was never located. The killer signed the note with " - 12, SFPD - 0".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In a letter to the "Chronicle" postmarked July 24, 1970, the Zodiac took credit for Kathleen Johns's abduction, four months after the incident. In a July 26, 1970 letter, the Zodiac paraphrased a song from "The Mikado", adding his own lyrics about making a "little list" of the ways in which he planned to torture his "slaves" in "paradice". The letter was signed with a large, exaggerated crossed-circle symbol and a new score: " = 13, SFPD = 0". A final note at the bottom of the letter stated, "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians." In 1981, a close examination of the radian hint by Zodiac researcher Gareth Penn led to the discovery that a radian angle, when placed over the map per Zodiac's instructions, pointed to the locations of two Zodiac attacks.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On October 7, 1970, the "Chronicle" received a three-by-five inch card signed by the Zodiac with the and a small cross reportedly drawn with blood. The card's message was formed by pasting words and letters from an edition of the "Chronicle", and thirteen holes were punched across the card. Inspectors Armstrong and Toschi agreed that it was "highly probable" that the card had been sent by the Zodiac.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On October 27, 1970, "Chronicle" reporter Paul Avery (who had been covering the Zodiac case) received a Halloween card signed with a letter 'Z' and the Zodiac's crossed-circle symbol. Handwritten inside the card was the note "Peek-a-boo, you are doomed." The threat was taken seriously and was the subject of a front-page story in the "Chronicle". Soon after receiving the letter, Avery received an anonymous letter alerting him to the similarities between the Zodiac's activities and the unsolved murder of Cheri Jo Bates, which had occurred four years earlier at the city college in Riverside in the Greater Los Angeles Area, more than south of San Francisco. Avery reported his findings in the "Chronicle" on November 16, 1970.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: After the "Lake Tahoe" card, the Zodiac remained silent for nearly three years. The "Chronicle" then received a letter from the Zodiac, postmarked January 29, 1974, praising "The Exorcist" as "the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen". The letter included a snippet of verse from "The Mikado" and an unusual symbol at the bottom that has remained unexplained by researchers. Zodiac concluded the letter with a new score, "Me = 37, SFPD = 0".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Of further communications sent by the public to members of the news media, some contained similar characteristics of previous Zodiac writings. The "Chronicle" received a letter postmarked February 14, 1974, informing the editor that the initials for the Symbionese Liberation Army spelled out an Old Norse word meaning "kill". However, the handwriting was not authenticated as the Zodiac's.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: A letter to the "Chronicle", postmarked May 8, 1974 featured a complaint that the movie "Badlands" was "murder-glorification" and asked the paper to cut its advertisements. Signed only "A citizen", the handwriting, tone, and surface irony were all similar to earlier Zodiac communications. The "Chronicle" subsequently received an anonymous letter postmarked July 8, 1974, complaining of their publishing the writings of the antifeminist columnist Marco Spinelli. The letter was signed "the Red Phantom (red with rage)". The Zodiac's authorship of this letter is debated.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: A letter, dated April 24, 1978, was initially deemed authentic but was declared a hoax less than three months later by three experts. Dave Toschi, the SFPD homicide detective who had worked the case since the Stine murder, was thought to have forged the letter. Author Armistead Maupin believed the letter to be similar to "fan mail" that praised the work of Toschi in the investigation, which he received in 1976; he believed both letters were written by Toschi. While he admitted to writing the fan mail, Toschi denied forging the Zodiac letter and was eventually cleared of any charges. The authenticity of this letter remains unverified.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On March 3, 2007, an American Greetings Christmas card sent to the "Chronicle", postmarked 1990 in Eureka, was re-discovered in their photo files by editorial assistant Daniel King. This letter was handed over to the Vallejo police. Inside the envelope, with the card, was a photocopy of two U.S. Postal keys on a magnet keychain. The handwriting on the envelope resembles Zodiac's print but was declared inauthentic by forensic document examiner Lloyd Cunningham; however, not all Zodiac experts agree with Cunningham's analysis. There is no return address on the envelope nor is his crossed-circle signature to be found. The card itself is unmarked. The "Chronicle" turned over all the material to the Vallejo Police Department for further analysis.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In his 1976 autobiography, Melvin Belli described an engineered encounter with himself, undercover police officers, and a Riverside law student. The young man had allegedly claimed that he was the Zodiac Killer. Upon meeting the young man face-to-face, Belli decided that they were investigating the wrong man for the Zodiac crimes. In 2002, Robert Graysmith described the possibility that a former student of Pacific High School, in the San Bernardino area, was the source of the Zodiac alias.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In April 2004, the SFPD marked the case "inactive", citing caseload pressure and resource demands, effectively closing the case. However, they re-opened their case sometime before March 2007. The case is open in Napa County and in the city of Riverside.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In May 2018, the Vallejo Police Department announced their intention to attempt to collect the Zodiac Killer's DNA from the back of stamps he used during his correspondence. The analysis, by a private laboratory, was expected to check the DNA against GEDmatch. It was hoped the Zodiac Killer may be caught in a similar fashion to the "Golden State Killer" Joseph James DeAngelo. In May 2018, a Vallejo police detective said that results were expected in several weeks. However, as of 2022, no results have been reported.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Robert Graysmith's book "Zodiac" advanced Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992, as a potential suspect based on circumstantial evidence. Allen had been interviewed by police from the early days of the Zodiac investigations and was the subject of several search warrants over a 20-year period. In 2007, Graysmith noted that several police detectives described Allen as the most likely suspect. In 2010, Dave Toschi stated that all the evidence against Allen ultimately "turned out to be negative". Toschi's daughter said in 2018 that her father had always thought Allen had been the killer, but they did not have the evidence to prove it. Mark Ruffalo, who portrayed Toschi in the 2007 film "Zodiac", commented, "If you get into who these cops were, you realize how they have to take their hunches, their personal beliefs, out of it. Dave Toschi said to me, 'As soon as that guy walked in the door, I knew it was him.' He was sure he had him, but he never had a solid piece of evidence. So he had to keep investigating every other lead."


title: Zodiac Killer

text: On October 6, 1969, Allen was interviewed by detective John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department. Allen had been reported in the vicinity of the Lake Berryessa attack against Hartnell and Shepard on September 27, 1969; he described himself scuba diving at Salt Point on the day of the attacks. Allen again came to police attention in 1971 when his friend Donald Cheney reported to police in Manhattan Beach, California, that Allen had spoken of his desire to kill people, used the name Zodiac, and secured a flashlight to a firearm for visibility at night. According to Cheney, this conversation occurred no later than January 1, 1969.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Jack Mulanax of the Vallejo Police Department subsequently wrote that Allen had received a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1958 and had been fired from his job as an elementary school teacher in March 1968 after allegations of sexual misconduct with students. He was generally well-regarded by those who knew him, but he was also described as "fixated on young children and angry at women".


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In September 1972, San Francisco police obtained a search warrant for Allen's residence. In 1974, Allen was arrested for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy; he pleaded guilty and served two years imprisonment.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Vallejo police served another search warrant at Allen's residence in February 1991. Two days after Allen's death in 1992, Vallejo police served another warrant and seized property from Allen's residence. In July 1992, victim Mike Mageau identified Allen as the man who shot him in 1969 from a photo line-up, saying "That's him! That's the man who shot me". However, police officer Donald Fouke, who is speculated to have seen the Zodiac fleeing from the Stine killing, said in the 2007 documentary "His Name Was Arthur Leigh Allen" that Allen weighed about 100 pounds more than the man he saw, adding that his face was "too round". Nancy Slover, who received the call from the Zodiac in the aftermath of the Mageau/Ferrin shooting, said that Allen did not sound like the man on the phone.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Other evidence existed against Allen, albeit entirely circumstantial. A letter sent to the Riverside Police Department from Bates's killer was typed with a Royal typewriter with an Elite type, the same brand found during the February 1991 search of Allen's residence. He owned and wore a Zodiac brand wristwatch. He lived in Vallejo and worked minutes away from where one of the Zodiac victims (Ferrin) lived and from where one of the killings took place.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In 2002, the SFPD developed a partial DNA profile from the saliva on stamps and envelopes of Zodiac's letters. The SFPD compared this partial DNA to that of Arthur Leigh Allen. A DNA comparison was also made with the DNA of Don Cheney, who was Allen's former close friend and the first person to suggest Allen may be the Zodiac Killer. Since neither test result indicated a match, Allen and Cheney were excluded as the contributors of the DNA.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: Retired police handwriting expert Lloyd Cunningham, who worked on the Zodiac case for decades, stated, "They gave me banana boxes full of Allen's writing, and none of his writing even came close to the Zodiac. Nor did DNA extracted from the envelopes (on the Zodiac letters) come close to Arthur Leigh Allen."


title: Zodiac Killer

text: In October 2021, the Case Breakers, a team of over 40 cold case investigators composed of former law enforcement investigators, military intelligence officers, and journalists, claimed to have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018 at the age of 80 years. The team claimed to have uncovered forensic evidence and photos from Poste's darkroom, and noted that scars on Poste's forehead matched those they said were described on the killer. They also claimed that removing the letters of Poste's name from one of Zodiac's cryptograms revealed an alternate message. In this “decoded” anagram, Poste states that the killing of Paul Stine was his only murder that was 'personal'.


title: Zodiac Killer

text: The FBI subsequently stated that the case remained open and that there is "no new information to report," while local law enforcement expressed skepticism to the "Chronicle" regarding the team's findings. Riverside police officer Ryan Railsback said the Case Breakers' claims largely relied on circumstantial evidence, and author Tom Voigt, a Zodiac Killer investigator, called the claims "bullshit." Voigt noted that no witnesses in the case described Zodiac as having scars on his forehead.


title: Zac Efron

text: Zachary David Alexander Efron (; born October 18, 1987) is an American actor. He began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence in the late 2000s for his leading role as Troy Bolton in the "High School Musical" trilogy (2006–2008). During this time, he also starred in the musical film "Hairspray" (2007) and the comedy film "17 Again" (2009). Efron subsequently rose to mainstream prominence with starring roles in the films "New Year's Eve" (2011), "The Lucky One" (2012), "The Paperboy" (2012), "Neighbors" (2014), "Dirty Grandpa" (2016), "Baywatch" (2017), and "The Greatest Showman" (2017). He played Ted Bundy in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" (2019). In 2021, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for the Netflix web documentary series "Down to Earth with Zac Efron" (2020–present).


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron grew up in Arroyo Grande, California. His father, David Efron, is an electrical engineer at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and his mother, Starla Baskett, is an administrative assistant who also works at Diablo Canyon. Efron has a younger brother, Dylan, and a younger paternal half-sister, Olivia, and had, as he has described, a "normal childhood" in a middle-class family. His surname originates from Hebrew. His paternal grandfather is Jewish, and Efron has described himself as Jewish, though he was raised agnostically and did not practice religion as a child.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron has said that he would "flip out" if he got a "B" and not an "A" in school, as well as that he was a class clown. Efron subsequently worked in the theater The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville, and began taking singing lessons. He performed in shows such as ""; "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up"; "Little Shop of Horrors"; and "The Music Man". He was recommended to an agent in Los Angeles by his drama teacher, Robyn Metchik, the mother of actor Aaron Michael Metchik. Efron was later signed to the Creative Artists Agency.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2006 and was then accepted into the University of Southern California but did not enroll. He also attended Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, a theatre company operating out of Allan Hancock College, a community college located in Santa Maria, California, where he performed in 2000 and 2001.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron began acting in the early 2000s with guest roles on several television series including "Firefly", "ER", and "The Guardian". In 2004, he began appearing as a recurring character in the first season of the WB series "Summerland". For the show's second season, which aired in 2005, he was promoted to the main cast. He also appeared in some films, including the Lifetime television film "Miracle Run" (2004), for which he earned a Young Artist Award nomination for his performance as one of two autistic twins.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron's career reached a turning point with the teen musical television film "High School Musical" (2006), which premiered on the Disney Channel in January 2006. The film, which has been described as a modern adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet", saw Efron playing the male lead Troy Bolton, a high school basketball player who feels conflicted when he finds himself interested in participating in the school musical with Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), a girl from the scholastic decathlon team. The film became a major success and helped Efron gain recognition among teenage audiences. The film's soundtrack was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA, and was one of the best-selling albums of the year in the United States. Efron's recordings of the film's songs were not included in the final cut, and the majority of his parts were sung by Drew Seeley. In his subsequent musical films, Efron did his own singing.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron was next seen as Link Larkin in the musical comedy film "Hairspray" (2007), based on the 2002 Broadway musical of the same name. The film became a major commercial and critical success upon its release in July 2007. Later that year, he reprised his role of Troy Bolton in "High School Musical 2" (2007), which aired on the Disney Channel in August 2007.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron again reprised his role in "" (2008), the first film in the "High School Musical" franchise to receive a theatrical release. The film became a major blockbuster at the box office, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics. He followed this with the commercially successful comedy "17 Again" (2009) about a 37-year-old man (Matthew Perry) who is transformed into his 17-year-old self (Efron) after a chance accident.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron's next release was Richard Linklater's period drama "Me and Orson Welles", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008 and received a wide release in late 2009. The film earned mostly positive reviews from critics. He then played the title role in the supernatural romantic drama "Charlie St. Cloud" (2010), which became a moderate success at the box office despite receiving mostly negative reviews from critics.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron appeared as a part of the large ensemble cast in Garry Marshall's "New Year's Eve" (2011), which depicted a series of holiday vignettes of different groups of characters. The film received almost unanimously negative reviews from critics, but became a major success at the box office. He also played a supporting role in the critically successful "Liberal Arts" (2012), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012 and received a limited release later that year. He also starred in "The Paperboy" (2012), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 and received a wider release later that year. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics.


title: Zac Efron

text: After lending his voice to the commercially successful computer-animated film "The Lorax" (2012), he appeared as the male lead in the romantic drama "The Lucky One" (2012), based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film became a major box office success despite negative reviews from critics. He also starred in the drama "At Any Price", which premiered at the 2012 Venice International Film Festival, and the historical drama "Parkland", which premiered at the 2013 Venice International Film Festival. Both films received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron's first release of 2014 was the romantic comedy "That Awkward Moment", on which he was also an executive producer. The film, which starred Efron as one of three bachelors in New York City, became a moderate commercial success despite receiving mostly negative reviews from critics.


title: Zac Efron

text: Later in 2014, Efron was seen in the adult comedy "Neighbors" (2014). The film revolved around a young couple (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) who struggle to raise their baby daughter while living next to the house of a wild fraternity led by its president, played by Efron. The film became a major commercial success and earned mostly positive reviews from critics, who also added that Efron had successfully shed his "Disney pretty boy" image.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron's only release in 2015 was the moderately successful "We Are Your Friends" (2015), in which he played a struggling DJ. In January 2016, he starred with Robert De Niro in the adult comedy "Dirty Grandpa", about a straitlaced young man who begrudgingly indulges his grandfather's unhinged personality by taking him on a vacation to Florida. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics for its crude humor, but became a commercial success upon its release. He subsequently starred in the comedy sequel "", which became a commercial and critical success upon its release in May 2016. The film followed the same couple who team up with their former rival (Efron) to take down a hard-partying sorority led by a freshman (Chloë Grace Moretz). His third 2016 comedy, released in July, was "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates."


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2017, Efron starred alongside Dwayne Johnson in "Baywatch", an action comedy film version of the television series of the same name, released in May. Also in 2017, Efron had a supporting role in two biographical films released in December, "The Disaster Artist", a comedy-drama directed by and starring James Franco, and, as Phillip, in the musical "The Greatest Showman". Both were nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2019, Efron played a drug-addled libertine in the Harmony Korine film "The Beach Bum". He also starred as serial killer Ted Bundy in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile", alongside Lily Collins as Bundy's girlfriend. The film premiered at Sundance in early 2019 and was released by Netflix on May 3.


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2020, Efron voiced Fred Jones in Warner Bros.' "Scooby-Doo" animated film, "Scoob!" In 2021, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Program Host for the Netflix web documentary series "Down to Earth with Zac Efron".


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2022, he starred in the survival thriller "Gold", directed by Anthony Hayes, and headlined the horror film "Firestarter", a remake of the 1984 film based upon the novel of the same name by Stephen King, directed by Keith Thomas. Also that year, he starred in Peter Farrelly's Vietnam War–set comedy "The Greatest Beer Run Ever", which received mixed reviews.


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2010, Efron started his own production company under Warner Bros., Ninjas Runnin' Wild. The company played a part in the production of his films "Dirty Grandpa", "That Awkward Moment", and "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile". In 2019, Efron's brother Dylan, who also plays a role in the company, stated that Ninjas Runnin' Wild has started to produce more digital content in addition to their traditional film work.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron announced the creation of his YouTube channel in March 2019. The video sharing platform hosts two weekly series. "Off the Grid" follows Efron and his brother Dylan as they participate in outdoor activities and trips without electronic devices—with the exception of a video camera in order to document their experiences. "Gym Time" spotlights fitness and nutrition, with Efron informing his viewers that he plans to "train with celebrities, athletes, and interesting people". YouTube received backlash for promoting Efron's new channel in a post made from their official Twitter account. Some YouTube users accused the platform of promoting a mainstream celebrity's account, which they feared would overshadow lesser known creators.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron was on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2008 at number 92, with estimated earnings of $5.8 million from June 2007 to June 2008. In April 2009, his personal wealth equaled about $10 million. In May 2015, Efron's net worth was $18million.


title: Zac Efron

text: "People" magazine reported in 2007 that Efron and Vanessa Hudgens began dating in 2005 during the filming of "High School Musical", although "Us" magazine reported, after the two broke up in December 2010, that they "met in 2005 while making the first "High School Musical" flick, and became a romantic item about two years later." Efron began a relationship with model and entrepreneur Sami Miró in September 2014. The couple split in April 2016.


title: Zac Efron

text: In March 2014, Efron engaged in a fight with a homeless man on Skid Row. Law enforcement officials did not make any arrests because they viewed it as mutual combat.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron turned to transcendental meditation (TM) to help decompress after struggling to separate himself from his role as serial killer Ted Bundy in his movie. "I really love TM, transcendental meditation. I did TM on the way home. Not while driving, but when you're shooting a movie, one thing we can afford is a ride home, so on the way home I just do some TM and try to phase out of it."


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron moved to Australia after selling his Los Angeles home in early 2021 and purchased a property in Byron Bay while working on a number of projects there.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron sought treatment in early 2013 after struggling with alcoholism and substance abuse. He has been sober since June 2013. In November 2013, Efron had to have his jaw wired shut after breaking it in a fall at home.


title: Zac Efron

text: In December 2019, Efron contracted a serious and potentially life-threatening illness, a "form of typhoid or similar bacterial infection", while filming his adventure series "Killing Zac Efron" in Papua New Guinea. He was flown to St Andrews War Memorial Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, and was treated before flying back home on December 25. He recovered with little issue.


title: Zac Efron

text: Efron was a vegan for two years until 2022, when he began intermittent fasting, and reintroduced meat into his diet after undergoing a series of food sensitivity tests.


title: Zac Efron

text: In 2022, Efron opened up about his struggles with mental illnesses including insomnia, agoraphobia, and depression. He developed insomnia and depression after taking "too many diuretics for way too long" to prepare for his role in the 2017 movie "Baywatch".


title: Diego Maradona

text: Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the 20th Century award. Maradona's vision, passing, ball control, and dribbling skills were combined with his small stature, which gave him a low centre of gravity allowing him to manoeuvre better than most other players. His presence and leadership on the field had a great effect on his team's general performance, while he would often be singled out by the opposition. In addition to his creative abilities, he possessed an eye for goal and was known to be a free kick specialist. A precocious talent, Maradona was given the nickname "El Pibe de Oro" ("The Golden Boy"), a name that stuck with him throughout his career. He also had a troubled off-field life and was banned in both 1991 and 1994 for abusing drugs.


title: Diego Maradona

text: An advanced playmaker who operated in the classic number 10 position, Maradona was the first player to set the world record transfer fee twice: in 1982 when he transferred to Barcelona for £5 million, and in 1984 when he moved to Napoli for a fee of £6.9 million. He played for Argentinos Juniors, Boca Juniors, Barcelona, Napoli, Sevilla, and Newell's Old Boys during his club career, and is most famous for his time at Napoli where he won numerous accolades.


title: Diego Maradona

text: In his international career with Argentina, he earned 91 caps and scored 34 goals. Maradona played in four FIFA World Cups, including the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where he captained Argentina and led them to victory over West Germany in the final, and won the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player. In the 1986 World Cup quarter final, he scored both goals in a 2–1 victory over England that entered football history for two different reasons. The first goal was an unpenalized handling foul known as the "Hand of God", while the second goal followed a dribble past five England players, voted "Goal of the Century" by FIFA.com voters in 2002.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona became the coach of Argentina's national football team in November 2008. He was in charge of the team at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa before leaving at the end of the tournament. He then coached Dubai-based club Al Wasl in the UAE Pro-League for the 2011–12 season. In 2017, Maradona became the coach of Fujairah before leaving at the end of the season. In May 2018, Maradona was announced as the new chairman of Belarusian club Dynamo Brest. He arrived in Brest and was presented by the club to start his duties in July. From September 2018 to June 2019, Maradona was coach of Mexican club Dorados. He was the coach of Argentine Primera División club Gimnasia de La Plata from September 2019 until his death in November 2020.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Diego Armando Maradona was born on 30 October 1960, at the Policlínico (Polyclinic) Evita Hospital in Lanús, Buenos Aires Province to a poor family that had moved from Corrientes Province; he was raised in Villa Fiorito, a shantytown on the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was the first son after four daughters. He has two younger brothers, Hugo ("el Turco") and Raúl (Lalo), both of whom were also professional football players. His father Diego Maradona "Chitoro" (1927–2015), who worked at a chemicals factory, was of Guaraní (Indigenous) and Spanish (Basque) descent, and his mother Dalma Salvadora Franco, "Doña Tota" (1930–2011), was of South Italian descent from Calabria.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona's parents were both born and brought up in the town of Esquina in the north-east province of Corrientes on the banks of the Corriente River. In the 1950s, they left Esquina and settled in Buenos Aires. Maradona received his first football as a gift at age three and quickly became devoted to the game. At age eight, he was spotted by a talent scout while he was playing in his local club Estrella Roja. In March 1969 he was recommended to "Los Cebollitas" (The Little Onions), the junior team of Buenos Aires's Argentinos Juniors by his close friend and football rival Gregorio Carrizo who had already been picked by coach Francis Gregorio Cornejo. Maradona became a star for the Cebollitas, and as a 12-year-old ball boy he amused spectators by showing his ball skills during the halftime breaks of Argentinos Juniors' first division games. During 1973 and 1974, Maradona led Cebollitas to two "Evita Tournament" wins and 141 undefeated games in a row, playing alongside players like Adrian Domenech and Claudio Rodríguez, in what is regarded as the best youth team in the history of Argentine football. Maradona named Brazilian playmaker Rivellino and Manchester United winger George Best among his inspirations growing up.


title: Diego Maradona

text: On 20 October 1976, Maradona made his professional debut for Argentinos Juniors, 10 days before his 16th birthday, versus Talleres de Córdoba. He entered to the pitch wearing the number 16 jersey, and became the youngest player in the history of the Argentine Primera División. A few minutes into his debut, Maradona kicked the ball through the legs of Juan Domingo Cabrera, a nutmeg that would become symbolic of his talent. After the game, Maradona said, "That day I felt I had held the sky in my hands." Thirty years later, Cabrera remembered Maradona's debut: "I was on the right side of the field and went to press him, but he didn't give me a chance. He made the nutmeg and when I turned around, he was far away from me". Maradona scored his first goal in the Primera División against Marplatense team San Lorenzo on 14 November 1976, two weeks after turning 16.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona spent five years at Argentinos Juniors, from 1976 to 1981, scoring 115 goals in 167 appearances before his US$ 4 million transfer to Boca Juniors. Maradona received offers to join other clubs, including River Plate who offered to make him the club's best paid player. However, River decided to drop its bid due to its large payroll in keeping Daniel Passarella and Ubaldo Fillol.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona signed a contract with Boca Juniors on 20 February 1981. He made his debut two days later against Talleres de Córdoba, scoring twice in the club's 4–1 win. On 10 April, Maradona played his first "Superclásico" against River Plate at La Bombonera stadium. Boca defeated River 3–0 with Maradona scoring a goal after dribbling past Alberto Tarantini and Fillol. Despite the distrustful relationship between Maradona and Boca Juniors manager, Silvio Marzolini, Boca had a successful season, winning the league title after securing a point against Racing Club. That would be the only title won by Maradona in the Argentine domestic league.


title: Diego Maradona

text: After the 1982 World Cup, in June, Maradona was transferred to Barcelona in Spain for a then world record fee of £5 million ($7.6 million). In 1983, under coach César Luis Menotti, Barcelona and Maradona won the Copa del Rey (Spain's annual national cup competition), beating Real Madrid, and the Spanish Super Cup, beating Athletic Bilbao. On 26 June 1983, Barcelona won away to Real Madrid in one of the world's biggest club games, "El Clásico", a match where Maradona scored and became the first Barcelona player to be applauded by arch-rival Real Madrid fans. Maradona dribbled past Madrid goalkeeper Agustín, and as he approached the empty goal, he stopped just as Madrid defender Juan José came sliding in an attempt to block the shot. José ended up crashing into the post, before Maradona slotted the ball into the net. With the manner in which the goal was scored resulting in applause from opposition fans, only Ronaldinho (in November 2005) and Andrés Iniesta (in November 2015) have since been granted such an ovation as Barcelona players from Madrid fans at the Santiago Bernabéu.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Due to illness and injury as well as controversial incidents on the field, Maradona had a difficult tenure in Barcelona. First a bout of hepatitis, then a broken ankle in a La Liga game at the Camp Nou in September 1983 caused by a reckless tackle by Athletic Bilbao's Andoni Goikoetxea—nicknamed "the Butcher of Bilbao"—threatened to jeopardize Maradona's career, but with treatment and rehabilitation, it was possible for him to return to the pitch after a three-month recovery period.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona was directly involved in a violent and chaotic fight at the 1984 Copa del Rey Final at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid against Athletic Bilbao. After receiving another hard tackle by Goikoetxea, as well as being taunted with racist insults related to his father's Native American ancestry throughout the match by Bilbao fans, and being provoked by Bilbao's Miguel Sola at full time after Barcelona lost 1–0, Maradona snapped. He aggressively got up, stood inches from Sola's face and the two exchanged words. This started a chain reaction of emotional reactions from both teams. Using expletives, Sola mimicked a gesture from the crowd towards Maradona by using a xenophobic term. Maradona then headbutted Sola, elbowed another Bilbao player in the face and kneed another player in the head, knocking him out cold. The Bilbao squad surrounded Maradona to exact some retribution, with Goikoetxea connecting with a high kick to his chest, before the rest of the Barcelona squad joined in to help Maradona. From this point, Barcelona and Bilbao players brawled on the field with Maradona in the centre of the action, kicking and punching anyone in a Bilbao shirt.


title: Diego Maradona

text: The mass brawl was played out in front of the Spanish King Juan Carlos and an audience of 100,000 fans inside the stadium, and more than half of Spain watching on television. After fans began throwing solid objects on the field at the players, coaches and even photographers, sixty people were injured, with the incident effectively sealing Maradona's transfer out of the club in what was his last game in a Barcelona shirt. One Barcelona executive stated, "When I saw those scenes of Maradona fighting and the chaos that followed I realized we couldn't go any further with him." Maradona got into frequent disputes with FC Barcelona executives, particularly club president Josep Lluís Núñez, culminating with a demand to be transferred out of Camp Nou in 1984. During his two injury-hit seasons at Barcelona, Maradona scored 38 goals in 58 games. Maradona transferred to Napoli in Italy's Serie A for another world record fee, £6.9 million ($10.48 million).


title: Diego Maradona

text: Maradona arrived in Naples and was presented to the world media as a Napoli player on 5 July 1984, where he was welcomed by 75,000 fans at his presentation at the Stadio San Paolo. Sports writer David Goldblatt commented, "They [the fans] were convinced that the saviour had arrived." A local newspaper stated that despite the lack of a "mayor, houses, schools, buses, employment and sanitation, none of this matters because we have Maradona". Prior to Maradona's arrival, Italian football was dominated by teams from the north and centre of the country, such as A.C. Milan, Juventus, Inter Milan, and Roma, and no team in the south of the Italian Peninsula had ever won a league title. This was perhaps the perfect scenario for the Maradona and his working-class-sympathetic image, as he joined a once-great team that was facing relegation at the end of the 1983–84 Serie A season, in what was the toughest and most highly regarded football league in Europe.


title: Diego Maradona

text: At Napoli, Maradona reached the peak of his professional career: he soon inherited the captain's armband from Napoli veteran defender Giuseppe Bruscolotti and quickly became an adored star among the club's fans; in his time there he elevated the team to the most successful era in its history. Maradona played for Napoli at a period when north–south tensions in Italy were at a peak due to a variety of issues, notably the economic differences between the two. Led by Maradona, Napoli won their first ever Serie A Italian Championship in 1986–87. Goldblatt wrote, "The celebrations were tumultuous. A rolling series of impromptu street parties and festivities broke out contagiously across the city in a round-the-clock carnival which ran for over a week. The world was turned upside down. The Neapolitans held mock funerals for Juventus and Milan, burning their coffins, their death notices announcing 'May 1987, the other Italy has been defeated. A new empire is born.'" Murals of Maradona were painted on the city's ancient buildings, and newborn children were named in his honour. The following season, the team's prolific attacking trio, formed by Maradona, Bruno Giordano, and Careca, was later dubbed the "Ma-Gi-Ca" ("magical") front-line.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Napoli would win their second league title in 1989–90, and finish runners up in the league twice, in 1987–88 and 1988–89. Other honours during the Maradona era at Napoli included the Coppa Italia in 1987 (as well as a second-place finish in the Coppa Italia in 1989), the UEFA Cup in 1989, and the Italian Supercup in 1990. During the 1989 UEFA Cup Final against Stuttgart, Maradona scored from a penalty in a 2–1 home victory in the first leg, later assisting Careca's match–winning goal, while in the second leg on 17 May – a 3–3 away draw – he assisted Ciro Ferrara's goal with a header. Despite primarily playing in a creative role as an attacking midfielder, Maradona was the top scorer in Serie A in 1987–88 with 15 goals, and was the all-time leading goalscorer for Napoli, with 115 goals, until his record was broken by Marek Hamšík in 2017. When asked who was the toughest player he ever faced, A.C. Milan central defender Franco Baresi stated it was Maradona, a view shared by his Milan teammate Paolo Maldini.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Although Maradona was successful on the field during his time in Italy, his personal problems increased. His cocaine use continued, and he received US$70,000 in fines from his club for missing games and practices, ostensibly because of "stress". He faced a scandal there regarding an illegitimate son, and he was also the object of some suspicion over an alleged friendship with the Camorra crime syndicate. He also faced intense backlash and harassment from some local fans after the 1990 World Cup, in which he and Argentina beat Italy in a semi-final match at the San Paolo stadium. In 2000, the number 10 jersey of Napoli was officially retired. On 4 December 2020, nine days after Maradona's death, Napoli's home stadium was renamed Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.


title: Diego Maradona

text: After serving a 15-month ban for failing a drug test for cocaine, Maradona left Napoli in disgrace in 1992. Despite interest from Real Madrid and Marseille, he signed for Sevilla, where he stayed for one year. In 1993, he played for Newell's Old Boys and in 1995 returned to Boca Juniors for a two-year stint. Maradona also appeared for Tottenham Hotspur in a testimonial match for Osvaldo Ardiles against Internazionale, shortly before the 1986 World Cup. In 1996, he played in a friendly match alongside his brother Raul for Toronto Italia against the Canadian National Soccer League All-Stars. In 2000 he captained Bayern Munich in a friendly against the German national team in the farewell game of Lothar Matthäus. Maradona was himself given a testimonial match in November 2001, played between an all-star World XI and the Argentina national team.


title: Diego Maradona

text: During his time with the Argentina national team, Maradona scored 34 goals in 91 appearances. He made his full international debut at age 16, against Hungary, on 27 February 1977. Maradona was left off the Argentine squad for the 1978 World Cup on home soil by coach César Luis Menotti who felt he was too young at age 17. At age 18, Maradona played the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship in Japan and emerged as the star of the tournament, shining in Argentina's 3–1 final win over the Soviet Union, scoring a total of six goals in six appearances in the tournament. On 2 June 1979, Maradona scored his first senior international goal in a 3–1 win against Scotland at Hampden Park. He went on to play for Argentina in two 1979 Copa América ties during August 1979, a 2–1 loss against Brazil and a 3–0 win over Bolivia in which he scored his side's third goal.


title: Diego Maradona

text: Speaking thirty years later on the impact of Maradona's performances in 1979, FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated, "Everyone has an opinion on Diego Armando Maradona, and that’s been the case since his playing days. My most vivid recollection is of this incredibly gifted kid at the second FIFA U-20 World Cup in Japan in 1979. He left everyone open-mouthed every time he got on the ball." Maradona and his compatriot Lionel Messi are the only players to win the Golden Ball at both the FIFA U-20 World Cup and FIFA World Cup. Maradona did so in 1979 and 1986, which Messi emulated in 2005 and 2014 (and again in 2022).