Was the Zodiac killer a teacher in SLO County? A new Netflix documentary thinks so

A new Netflix documentary about the Zodiac killer explores one of the most famous unsolved murder cases in the country — and it has a new detail: The prime suspect worked as a teacher in Atascadero.

“This is the Zodiac Speaking” is a three-episode series that investigates the only suspect police ever have named in the case: Arthur Leigh Allen.

Allen taught at Santa Rosa Elementary in Atascadero in the early 1960s. He was later convicted of child molestation in 1974, according to the Allen Files.

The documentary speaks to several former students, including siblings Connie, David and Don Seawater, who were first taught by Allen in 1961. Allen eventually became a family friend and father figure as the Seawaters’ father was at Atascadero State Hospital for molesting Connie.

The Seawaters described Allen as a one of the best teachers they had.

“Mr. Allen just endeared to us real quick,” David said in the first episode. “He treated us like royalty, like his own kids. We thought he was just the best.”

The Seawaters said they decided to come forward because they had no idea how much Allen was hiding, and hoped the information they had could help the families of victims of the Zodiac killed.

Connie later said that when she asked Allen if he was the Zodiac, he replied, “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you too.”

The Zodiac killer has five known victims, which he admitted to killing in his letters to newspapers accompanied by ciphers he asked the public and police to crack. The five were killed in four attacks — David Arthur Faraday, Belly Lou Jensen, Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, Cecilia Shepard and Paul Lee Stine. Three victims survived his attacks.

It appeared he targeted young adults in remote areas near water.

The only murder that doesn’t fit that pattern is Stine, who was a taxi driver in San Francisco. The Zodiac admitted to this murder in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle that included a torn portion of Stine’s bloody shirt.

The Seawaters said in the documentary that Allen would teach his students how to make codes and ciphers.

The documentary suggests that the killing of two Lompoc high school graduates on June 4, 1963, at a beach north of Santa Barbara was a “practice killing” before Allen became the Zodiac.

Linda Edward and Robert Domingo were found on Tajiguas Beach in a shack, tied up with pre-cut lengths of rope and shot dead.

The morning of the killing, the Seawaters say Allen drove them to the same beach and asked them to stay in the car while he went down the bluff.

When Allen returned after an hour, Connie tried to wipe blood off his hands and he shoved her away.

Allen died of a heart attack in 1992. No one has ever been arrested in connection to the Zodiac’s killing, and the case remains unsolved.