The street where Paul Stine was murdered

This is the location where the Zodiac Killer murdered Paul Stine.

It is situated outside 3898 Washington Street in San Francisco, California.

Stine was the Zodiac's last confirmed victim.

On the night of October 11th, 1969, the 29-year-old cab driver picked up a man near Union Square in downtown San Francisco.

Judging by the entry that Stine logged, the passenger originally asked him to drive to the corner of Washington Street and Maple Street. However, for reasons that remain unknown, he drove roughly 350 feet west of that location before stopping at this spot near Cherry Street.

The discrepancy between the log entry and the location where Stine parked his taxi remains a mystery. However, it seems likely that the killer directed him to park further up the street. For example, he may have noticed that there was a potential witness standing in the area.

When the cab pulled over to the side of Washington Street, the Zodiac Killer held up a 9mm handgun and shot Stine in the back of the head, killing him almost immediately.

After taking his victim's wallet and car keys, the killer also ripped off a piece of his bloodstained shirt. By removing a piece of Stine's shirt, he could mail it to one of the local newspapers at a later date and proudly take responsibility for the crime.

While all of this was unfolding, three teenagers in a house across the street spotted the "robbery" and called 911.

They reported that the man, who had a crew-cut hairstyle, turned the corner and walked north along Maple Street, towards the park at the Presidio.

Shortly afterwards, two patrol officers who were responding to the "robbery" noticed a white male with a similar haircut on Jackson Street, which is just one block north of the crime scene. The man was purposely walking eastward while they were driving in the opposite direction.

Frustratingly, there was a mix-up during the dispatch call, and the suspect was originally described as being a Black male.

As a result, the man with the crew-cut hairstyle was allowed to continue walking.

Had the original description not messed up the killer's skin color, it is likely that he would have been apprehended.

When he saw the patrol car approaching in the distance, he must have thought that he had finally reached the end of the line.

Unfortunately, he got extremely lucky due to the dispatcher's mix-up.

This close call may have convinced the killer to "hang up his boots," so to speak. Following Stine's murder, it appears as though the Zodiac never killed again.

Although detectives initially believed that the shooting was a robbery gone wrong, that notion was shattered when the killer sent a piece of Stine's shirt to a local newspaper, along with a letter that mocked the police's ineptitude.