This is the Zodiac Speaking (2024)
Unlike his victims, interest in the Zodiac case refuses to die. For more than five decades, fans of true crime have been hashing and rehashing the details of the Zodiac’s crimes. Zodiac remains one of the most unique serial killers of all time, from the costume he wore to the multiple letters and cyphers he mailed to the police. One might think that after more than 50 years every theory, clue, and story had been exposed and yet every few years the case resurfaces with a new angle, whether its an attempt to have AI crack the cyphers or, in the case of This is the Zodiac Speaking, the story of a family who lived with Arthur Leigh Allen, the only man ever named as a suspect in the Zodiac murders.
The star of this 2024 three-part Netflix docuseries isn’t Allen but rather the Seawater family. Mrs. Phyllis Seawater was a mother of three kids (David, Connie, and Don). Mr. Seawater was a bad father who went to prison for molesting Connie. Before long a single Phyllis attracted the attention of Allen, a grade school teacher who liked spending time with her and really really liked spending time with children. Like, a little too much.
The series bombards viewers with first hand (but circumstantial) evidence from the Seawaters that Allen was, in fact, Zodiac. Allen took the kids on outings which they later realized were all the Zodiac’s murder sites… prior to the murders. In his classroom, Allen taught his students how to write cyphers and codes, just like the ones the Zodiac made. Allen got pulled over while speeding near one of the crime scenes and was discovered to have blood on his car seat. Once he gave an old bloody knife to one of the Seawater kids. The Seawater kids made diving suits (with hoods) for Allen that resemble the Zodiac’s outfit. Allen used was convicted of molesting Connie and, during the time he was in prison, the letters from Zoziac to the police stopped. to drug the children so he could molest them.
Oh, and during a phone call between he and David Seawater, he allegedly confessed to being the Zodiac. He also kept a bunch of Zodiac-related newspaper clippings, had a VHS tape full of full of Zodiac-related news clips, and while incarcerated, wrote dozens and dozens of letters to Phyllis referencing Zodiac.
It’s all compelling stuff and everything lines up. In fact, part of the reason everything lines up is because any evidence that goes against the documentary’s narrative is eschewed. Allen’s DNA, fingerprints, and writing samples ruled him out as a suspect. It would be one thing to refute or discuss conflicting evidence, but here it is completely avoided.
In 1992 Allen was found dead with a letter in his hand that in which, despite years of teasing, proclaimed his innocence. And, that’s where the documentary ends, with no more answers than we started with. Sometimes it seems like Allen liked people thinking he was the Zodiac, and other times not so much; likewise, it’s tough to tell if Phyllis was caught up defending a man she knew was guilty or if she just liked the attention herself. Both are dead along with David Seawater (whom Allen allegedly confessed to) so none of them are talking.
In the end This is the Zodiac Speaking isn’t a scientific study on whether or not Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac killer — it’s more about the Seawater’s experience of knowing Allen and their feeling that it was him. There’s no denying that Allen was a bad human being. Whether he was Zodiac remains to be seen.