The Lake Herman Road murder site

This is the location where the Lake Herman Road murders occurred.

The site is situated on the northern outskirts of Benicia, California.

On December 20th, 1968, Betty Lou Jensen (16) and David Arthur Faraday (17) were shot to death while they were parked at this turnout.

The two teenagers are believed to be the first victims of an unidentified serial killer called the Zodiac Killer.

On that cold Friday night, Faraday and Jensen were on their first date together.

Although they originally planned to attend a Christmas concert at a local high school, they decided to go to a friend's house and then visit a local restaurant instead.

At roughly 10.15 p.m., Faraday parked his station wagon at this gravel turnout on Lake Herman Road, which was a well-known "make-out" spot at the time.

Shortly before 11 p.m., an unidentified man pulled into the turnout.

After exiting his vehicle, the man approached the couple with a .22 caliber handgun and ordered them to get out. To scare them into compliance, he fired two warning shots into the station wagon.

This clearly worked, as the crime scene indicated that the young couple had exited the vehicle before the killings took place.

When Faraday got out of the driver's door and walked around to the other side, his assailant wasted little time shooting him in the head.

The bullet entered his skull beneath his left ear, fatally wounding him.

Jensen, who had just witnessed her date being murdered right before her eyes, attempted to turn around and run away. She only managed to make it 10 yards, as the killer shot her five times in the back, causing her to collapse forward onto her stomach.

Once he was satisfied that the two teenagers were dead, the Zodiac Killer jumped back into his vehicle and drove away.

A few minutes later, a motorist named Stella Borges passed by the crime scene and saw Faraday and Jensen's bodies lying on the side of the road.

Realizing that she had just stumbled across a horrific double murder, Borges sped into Benecia until she came across a police car. At that point, she managed to grab their attention by repeatedly flashing her headlights and honking the horn at them.

Unfortunately, the investigation into the murder of Faraday and Jensen was hampered from the start. Not only were detectives unable to determine a motive, but the cold weather meant that the ground was too frozen to capture any footprints or tire marks.

With no leads or apparent motive, the case quickly stalled.

In July 1969, the Zodiac Killer called the Vallejo Police Department to claim responsibility for the shooting of another young couple, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. During the same phone call, he also confessed to killing Faraday and Jensen seven months earlier.

Despite decades of investigation by law enforcement, authors, and amateur crime sleuths, the identity of the Zodiac Killer remains a mystery to this day.

Photos

Photos of the site and other related images.

Aerial image

This is a south-facing aerial image of the gravel turnout on Lake Herman Road.

The X characters mark the locations where Faraday and Jensen's bodies were found.

When the Zodiac Killer shot Faraday in the head, it seems as though Jensen attempted to flee westward. However, she was gunned down about 10 yards away from the vehicle.

Shortly afterwards, a passing motorist noticed the teenagers' bodies.

At the start of the investigation, the police quickly determined that the victims hadn't been robbed or sexually assaulted. As a result, they struggled to establish a motive for the shooting.

Google Street View

This Google Street View image of the site was taken in March 2021.

At the time of the murders, the turnout was much larger. It also had a reputation for being a lovers' lane (of course, the killer may have known this and specifically targeted it for that reason).