We live in an age of unprecedented access—which not only affects how we view the present but how we see the past. As investigators apply cutting-edge technology to stalled-out investigations, as podcasts uncover fresh leads to old mysteries and true crime books like Michelle McNamara’s posthumously-published title I’ll Be Gone in the Dark help lead to major breakthroughs, cases that once seemed unsolvable are receiving a second look.

One particularly notorious cold case that just may be closer to a solution? The serial murders of the Zodiac Killer.

Beginning in 1968 (though possibly earlier), the Zodiac Killer took the lives of at least five people, and may have claimed as many as 32 more victims. His crimes at least partially inspired the plot of the original Dirty Harry film—released while the killer was still active—not to mention innumerable books and movies, among them David Fincher’s 2007 opus Zodiac, based on the book by Robert Graysmith, a former political cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who dedicated much of his life to finding the identity of the murderer.

While Graysmith’s book and the subsequent film posited who they believed to be likely suspects, the case officially remains unsolved. Yet that may not be the case for much longer. In 2014, Gary L. Stewart, writing with Susan Mustafa, published a book called The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching for My Father and Finding the Zodiac Killer. The title comes from the 1932 film The Most Dangerous Game, which the Zodiac Killer quoted in his letters.

The Most Dangerous Animal: Is the Zodiac Killer the Next Cold Case to Be Solved?

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