Zodiac: Bay Area Killings and Fincher's Film

David Fincher's Zodiac begins its story on 4 July 1969 at a lovers' lane in Vallejo, California, where an unknown man attacks Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau with a handgun. In the real case the couple had turned into an empty parking lot at Blue Rock Springs Park, and a golf course caretaker heard the shots around 12:10 a.m. Only Mageau survived; the film has him disappear from public view for years.

A month after Vallejo, the San Francisco Chronicle receives encrypted letters from a killer calling himself Zodiac, who threatens to kill a dozen people unless his coded message is published. The real paper has been headquartered at 901 Mission Street, on the corner of 5th Street, since 1924. Fincher did not shoot here: the film's Chronicle was built inside the old post office in the Terminal Annex Building in downtown Los Angeles.

Location precision: The film's newsroom was a set in Los Angeles; the pin marks the real Chronicle headquarters at 901 Mission Street.

On 27 September the killer stabs law student Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. The real couple were picnicking on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge when a hooded man with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes approached them. Cecelia dies two days later, and Hartnell survives to recount his story.

Location precision: The pin marks the lake as a whole; the attack happened on a small island joined to Twin Oak Ridge, and the exact spot is not given here.

On 11 October San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine is shot and killed in the city's Presidio Heights district. In the real case the killer asked to be driven to Washington and Maple, then one block further, and shot Stine in the head at Washington and Cherry around 9:55 p.m. He later mailed pieces of Stine's bloodstained shirt to the Chronicle with a taunting letter, and the hunt that fills the rest of the film begins.

Location precision: The corner of Washington and Cherry streets is named in the sources, but no pin could be confirmed, so the stop is left unpinned.

Police inspectors Dave Toschi and Bill Armstrong are assigned to the Stine case by Captain Marty Lee. The San Francisco Police Department's operational headquarters was the Hall of Justice, known as 850 Bryant, until 2015. For the film, a building on Spring Street in Los Angeles subbed for the Hall of Justice and the police department.

Location precision: The film shot its police scenes in Los Angeles; the pin marks the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant Street, headquarters of the real police.