He made a movie about the Zodiac Killer to catch the real Zodiac Killer. It almost worked. In 1973, Tom Hanson wrote and directed the world's first movie about the Zodiac Killer - an infamous serial killer that terrorized Northern California for months, killing multiple victims. The movie was released mere months after the grisly killings. It was one of the most flagrant examples of exploitation cinema, but was there another motive for making the movie besides just shamelessly capitalizing off of a tragedy? In fact, Tom Hanson had made the movie as part of an elaborate plot to catch the real life killer. He planned to have a red carpet premiere for the movie in downtown San Francisco, lure the killer there, trick him into confessing his crimes, and perform a citizen's arrest on him. Sound far fetched and insane? Well, it was. But the craziest thing was - it nearly worked. On this episode of Deep Cuts, we delve into the unbelievable story of Tom Hanson, and his outlandish plot to catch the Zodiac Killer at a movie theater screening. 01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices