The Zodiac Killer -- Gunman Leaves A Trail Of Fear As He Stalks New York Streets

NEW YORK - They're sure they've seen him before, probably around the neighborhood. Their dogs must have picked up his scent. He probably walked right by the kids' stickball game. If only they could remember when.

``Probably passed by here a million times. There's a lot of mental cases walking around this neighborhood,'' said Tony Royal, proprietor of Tony Royal Quality Used Cars on Atlantic Avenue.

On March 8, on nearby Sheridan Street, the Zodiac killer shot his first victim, Mario Orosco. He is 49, blind in one eye, and walks with a cane. He was born under Scorpio, and the heavens were in the Pisces phase.

Royal, who works within the murderous confines of East New York's 75th Precinct, didn't think twice about it. ``I thought it was just a regular shooting,'' he said.

But three months and two shootings later, after his taunting letters were made public, Zodiac became a banner headline.

The following week, Zodiac shot a homeless man in Central Park. Fear spread as fast as the speculation. New Yorkers became wary about revealing their birth dates or signs. Zodiac became an uneasy joke.

Then, a week ago, the third of the four victims, 78-year-old Joseph Proce, died. Zodiac became a killer.

The police released Zodiac's sketch, depicting a disheveled black man in his 30s who had met Larry Parham in Central Park and asked his sign the day before he was shot. Zodiac had become real, but in the minds of most New Yorkers, he remains a creature of the imagination.

New Yorkers figure him for everything from a check casher to a postal worker to a census worker to a cabby. Maybe he's homeless. Maybe, as Parham says Zodiac told him, he has

family problems.

In a city seemingly anesthetized to murder and violent crime, Zodiac was different.

``People can explain away drug shootings. But the random killer who stalks the streets always strikes a great deal of terror,'' said Thomas Repetto of the Citizens Crime Commission.

A serial killer who brags in cryptic letters to newspapers commands a public stage. ``Everybody wants to know who's he going to strike next and where,'' Repetto said.

Zodiac feeds paranoia and has left a trail of fear, loathing and suspicion.

``It could be the guy next door,'' said Louis Chimbo, 23, a college student who lives on Nichols Avenue. Chimbo's neighbor, Germaine Montenesdro, was shot as he stumbled home drunk at 3 a.m. March 29. ``Everybody's looking behind their back, making sure they're not No. 5.''

Eddie Vargas, 39, a mechanic who lives on Nichols, envisions a man who ``stays home nights and watches the TV news and laughs. . . . He probably lays down in bed and says, `I got all those cops one step behind me.' ''

His son, Felix, 9, speaks for the neighborhood when he calls Zodiac ``a coward'' who sneaks up on vulnerable men, either feeble, drunk or sleeping.

At the end of the block, behind the J train el, is the Mount Hope Cemetery. The gatehouse is covered with graffiti, melding gothic with urban. On Nichols, many believe Zodiac has been there.

They believe he has also visited the Gemini III diner, a few blocks away on Jamaica Avenue.

The woman behind the counter, who refuses to give her name, said a man she believes to be Zodiac sat in a booth sipping Olde English 800 Malt Liquor and doodling zodiac signs with a pen.

In nearby Woodhaven, an elderly man with a limp walks his dog in the sweltering midday heat. ``I used to take the dog for a walk at 10:30 at night,'' he says. Not anymore. Not since Joseph Proce was shot and fatally wounded on May 31 by Zodiac around the corner.

``I've seen that face somewhere,'' he says. ``It's a funny feeling.''

Near the Central Park Bandshell, where Zodiac shot Parham as he slept, serial murder dominates conversations and theories abound.

One theory has it that Zodiac is trying to form the constellation Orion over the map of New York, using shooting sites in place of stars.

According to that theory, Zodiac will strike in the Whitestone-Bayside, Queens, area. Tony Buttino, 30, a bill collector from that neighborhood, said, ``I think he could be the person sitting next to me at work. He could be the friendliest person in the world.''