The enduring legend and unsolved case of the Zodiac murders in the Bay Area has now haunted multiple generations of both police detectives and crime reporters in the city. Kevin Fagan is one of them, and he's retiring, effective today.Kevin Fagan would like everyone to know that, first of all, he has not good theory of his own about who the Zodiac Killer was, and he trusts that police don't either. Only one suspect was ever named, he died over 30 years ago, and whoever the real Zodiac was, given these killings occurred in the late 1960s, he is likely dead too.In a goodbye missive about the case in the Chronicle, Fagan writes that he has been inundated with tips and theories by amateur sleuths and those with too much spare time since he wrote his very first piece about the Zodiac Killer in 1996 — long after the original reporters on the case were themselves retired or moved on. After suddenly receiving a boatload of these tips, his editor at the time said, "I guess you're on the Zodiac beat now."But it sounds like Fagan never really wanted to be on this beat, even though crime reporting has been his bread and butter. (If you missed a few years back, his podcast about another unsolved case from the 70s, the Doodler murders of gay men in San Francisco, is great and worth a listen.)The Zodiac, or "Z" as many amateur sleuths call him, is a figure who holds some special place in the minds of far too many obsessives, Fagan says. And while he's followed up on hundreds of tips over the years, yielding very little, he's now officially off the clock."The overwhelming majority of the amateur sleuths who have reached out to me were polite, sincere and intelligent," Fagan writes. "But I have also been stalked, threatened and badgered for not anointing some tips as the absolute truth — and I’m done."Fagan also notes that the most compelling update in the case came four years ago, in 2021, when some code experts claimed to have cracked the "340" cipher sent by the Zodiac to the Chronicle in November 1969. And it wasn't even that compelling."I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me," the cipher says. "I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice [sic] all the sooner because now I have enough slaves to work for me." (The Zodiac Killer had previously said he believed his victims would become his "slaves" in the afterlife.)As Fagan writes, "The word 'crazy' is considered improper in polite journalism. But this stuff from Z is crazy. And did that cipher solution satisfy the sleuth world? Not really."Another possible update in the case came one year ago, when the remains of a purported twelfth victim of the Zodiac were identified by DNA. That victim, 25-year-old Donna Lass, disappeared from the Lake Tahoe area in September 1970, and it would be over 50 years until a skull found off a highway in Placer County was positively identified as hers. Following her diappearance, the Chronicle's newsroom received a postcard from Lake Tahoe that seemed to imply a Zodiac connection to Lass's disappearance, and Lass's sister received a similar postcard four years later.When it comes to future updates in the case, Fagan says, you should take it from him, this isn't fun and games, and there were real victims to remember, and family members whose lives were destroyed by the killings."Murder is anything but infotainment, but that’s how a lot of people regard it unless and until they’re forced to grapple with the genuine horror," Fagan writes.Related: Internet Sleuths Decide On New Zodiac Killer Suspect, Many Sites Take the Bait