Netflix's docies Catching Killers season 3, episode 2 follows investigators and prosecutors on the hunt for New York's Zodiac Killer, Heriberto "Eddie" Seda; here's what happened to him after the events of the series. A cowardly and opportunistic killer, Seda would sneak up on his unsuspecting victims and shoot them with a homemade pistol during a string of violent attacks in the 90s. Using star signs and basic astronomy, Seda attempted to copy the enigmatic original Zodiac Killer. The New York Zodiac Killer used occult astrology and secret methodology for choosing his victims, which left law enforcement baffled on how best to apprehend the star-driven killer.
Frustrated by Seda's constant taunting through coded messages, detectives and police worked tirelessly to track the killer down. Through luck and quite possibly hubris on Seda's part, law enforcement authorities eventually unwittingly captured the serial killer they were looking for in a completely unrelated incident. Coincidentally, he would be apprehended by one of the very detectives who were investigating the New York Zodiac Killer case. Somewhat annoyingly, though, the series completely omits what happened to Heriberto Seda after his arrest and capture and gives no details on where the killer is now.
Heriberto "Eddie" Seda Is Currently In Jail
Captured in June 1996, Heriberto Seda was convicted of murder in the first degree two years later. Seda is still in prison. The Brooklyn native even found love behind bars, cultivating a relationship with a trans woman by the name of Synthia-China Blast (via NY Mag). Sentenced without consideration for parole, the self-proclaimed Zodiac and occult killer has resigned himself to his life of incarceration and has, perhaps unsurprisingly, taken up reciting biblical ages to other inmates.
Arrested at the age of 26, Seda, now 55, is currently serving his sentence in Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He spends the majority of his time folding origami animals, working as a porter, reading the Bible, and watching hunting programs. In direct contrast to the satanic and occult narrative put forth by Catching Killers, Seda was raised Catholic and would regularly call the cops on suspected drug dealers in his neighborhood. In an interview with Unforbidden Truth, Heriberto even stated "I could, uh, apologize, you know, but that's not gunna make up for anything. If you really wanna overcome this tragedy, read the Bible."
How The New York Zodiac Killer Was Caught & How Long His Prison Sentence Is
His crimes starting as a rash of seemingly unrelated gun violence, Heriberto gained notoriety by using cryptic and encoded messages that he sent to the New York Post and left among his victims for the cops to find and decipher. Law enforcement, eager to catch this enigmatic killer, created a special Zodiac task force in an attempt to track down the New York Zodiac Killer. Unfortunately, Seda's sporadic and random violence proved far more difficult to track than detectives first considered. Seda's lack of criminal history further helped him elude capture, as the sole partial fingerprint law enforcement found could not be compared to anything in their current database. Heriberto Seda was even apprehended by police in 1994 for carrying one of his homemade guns, but evaded criminal charges after the weapon was found to not be functional, a fact left out of the Netflix series coverage.
Eventually, Seda's luck ran out, and he was arrested for charges unrelated to his killings. In a domestic dispute with his sister and her new boyfriend, Seda shot his sister, after which she escaped their mother's apartment and called the cops from a neighbor's phone. After a standoff with the police, Seda surrendered himself to authorities. According to Catching Killers, when the detectives assigned to his case recognized his written confession matched the writing of the New York Zodiac Killer, they realized they had their man. Seda was eventually sentenced to a lengthy 232-year prison sentence for his violent crimes of deadly assault and murder. Serving part of his over two century-long sentence in New York State's infamous Attica Correctional Facility, some 30 miles outside the city of Buffalo, he now resides in the aforementioned Clinton Correctional Facility.
(Source: NY Mag, Unforbidden Truth)