BuzzFeed Unsolved: The Zodiac Killer Case That Got Away

Content note: this video discusses a string of real unsolved murders in late-1960s California, including descriptions of violent attacks; some viewers may find it disturbing.

Ryan and Shane Take On America’s Most Famous Unsolved Killer

A true crime believer and a committed skeptic walk into the Zodiac case. BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime’s 2016 episode on the killer who taunted an entire state is still pulling in millions of views a decade later — here is what makes it work, and where it falls short.

If you watched any true crime on YouTube in the late 2010s, you already know Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej. The duo behind BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime turned one of the genre’s strangest formulas into a phenomenon: one host believes everything, the other believes nothing, and together they pick apart America’s most notorious cases. Their home channel, the BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, now has more than five million subscribers and over two billion total views.

Their 2016 episode “The Horrifying Murders Of The Zodiac Killer” is one of the series’ most-watched installments, with more than 16 million views. In about 21 minutes, the Ghoul Boys tackle the case that arguably defines American true crime: the Northern California killer who named himself, wrote letters and cryptograms to newspapers, and was never caught.

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At a Glance

What the Video Covers

Bergara opens with the bones of the case: between December 1968 and October 1969, a killer stalked the San Francisco Bay Area, committing five confirmed murders — young couples at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs, two college students at Lake Berryessa, and a cab driver in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights — while two more victims survived. He claimed dozens more, but those were never confirmed.

From there, the episode does what BuzzFeed Unsolved always did best: it follows the paper trail. The Zodiac sent a series of taunting letters to Bay Area newspapers, embedding cryptograms — including a 408-symbol cipher cracked within days in 1969 — and threatening more violence if his letters were not printed. Ryan runs through the attacks and the letters; Shane does what Shane does, puncturing the mythology with deadpan skepticism. The episode also tours the suspect carousel, including longtime prime suspect Arthur Leigh Allen, and lands where every honest Zodiac account must: the case remains officially unsolved.

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Strengths

The believer-skeptic dynamic is the engine. The format is the whole reason this series worked: Ryan’s wide-eyed theorizing crashes into Shane’s refusal to buy any of it, and the friction keeps a grim, decade-old case feeling alive. For a 21-minute episode, it never drags.

It doesn’t pretend to solve the case. Some Zodiac coverage arrives with a pet theory and bends the evidence to fit. This episode does the opposite — it walks through what is documented, flags what is speculation, and admits the case is still open. That honesty is rarer than it should be.

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A genuinely great entry point. If you have never gone down the Zodiac rabbit hole, this is the rare video that gives you the attacks, the letters, the ciphers, and the suspects in one sitting, without requiring homework first. The visual style — archival photos, newspaper clippings, animated recreations — does real work here.

Weaknesses

The comedy-first tone will put some viewers off. This is a format built on jokes, and five real people died. The episode keeps the victims secondary to the mystery, which is a defensible editorial choice for an entertainment show — but viewers who want solemnity should look elsewhere.

Twenty-one minutes is shallow for this case. The Zodiac has generated thousands of pages of books, documentaries, and investigation files. Regulars in the genre will learn little that is new here; this is a survey, not an investigation.

It is frozen in 2016. The episode predates several major developments, most notably the December 2020 decryption of the Zodiac’s 340-character cipher — unsolved for 51 years — and later suspect claims. A new viewer should treat it as a time capsule of where the case stood a decade ago.

Who Should Watch

• BuzzFeed Unsolved fans — classic Ryan-and-Shane energy at its peak.
• True crime newcomers — one of the most digestible introductions to the Zodiac case anywhere.
• Cold case enthusiasts — the unsolved-cipher angle is catnip for mystery lovers.
• Skeptics of the genre — Shane’s refusal to romanticize the case is a feature, not a bug.

Source: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network on YouTube; case details via the FBI’s Zodiac case files, the San Francisco Chronicle’s coverage, and CNN’s reporting on the 2020 decryption of the 340 cipher.