While American Horror Story has taken various liberties with history throughout its nine seasons, the suggestion that Valerie Solanas—the woman who shot Andy Warhol—was also the Zodiac Killer is one of the strangest, but is it even possible?
It’s likely not the case in real life at all, but in American Horror Story canon, which was introduced in season 7, Cult, it’s still a little out of the ordinary. One of Ryan Murphy’s more maligned seasons, Cult focused around the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election and a culture of fear that was created after the election of Donald Trump. Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson) and her wife, Ivy (Alison Pill) are struggling to accept the results of the election, and Ally starts to fear for her own safety and sanity after encountering the charismatic and dangerous Kai Anderson (Evan Peters), who has decided to run for elected office. Kai not only is a staunch Trump supporter, but he looks up to other infamous cult leaders such as Jim Jones and Charles Manson; his radical beliefs also focus on male superiority and anti-feminist values.
How Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham) enters the plot came about suddenly. The larger implications created by her inclusion added fuel to the already confusing season, which would have likely been more cohesive if they’d stuck to simpler narrative, such as focusing on the killer clown cult. As the Zodiac Killer is one of the most notorious cases in American history, due to the killer never being apprehended, the decision to essentially solve the crimes by putting a face and motivations to these killings opened the series up not only to criticism for historical inaccuracy, but potentially created a plot hole within American Horror Story‘s interconnected universe.
AHS Cult: Was Valerie Solanas Really The Zodiac Killer?
Valerie Solanas was not the Zodiac Killer. However, Cult used her legacy to inspire women who were part of Kai’s fictional cult by using her real manifesto: SCUM. SCUM was published in 1967 and described Solanas’ radical views, which pertained to men being the root of all evil and accusing them of being the primary reason behind all of the world’s problems. In 1968, Solanas shot Andy Warhol. She ended up serving a year in prison, and was arrested again in 1971 for stalking Warhol and other associates; Solanas served less time on her initial sentencing for shooting him because she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, and pleaded guilty to a lesser sentence. She was later institutionalized after her second arrest. Solanas died in 1988 at the age of 52.
In Cult, Bebe Babbitt (Frances Conroy) was Solanas’ ex-lover, and used the story of what she’d done with SCUM to inspire the women in Kai’s cult. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Bebe and Kai had forged an alliance. It’s very likely that her story of Solanas being the Zodiac Killer was just an elaborate lie, like the fictional story woven into American Horror Story‘s narrative itself. There’s another instance in the show’s canon that also suggests Valerie Solanas wasn’t the Zodiac Killer; she didn’t commit the murders alone, according to Bebe’s stories. In season 5, episode 4, “Devil’s Night”, James March hosts an elaborate Devil’s Night celebration with serial killers—both living and dead. Amongst these killers is the Zodiac Killer, who is shown wearing a hood, black robes, and Zodiac’s sigil.
While this is likely due to the real identity of the Zodiac Killer being unknown, it could have been because Murphy had plans to reveal a fictional identity for him (or her) later on. Murphy is known for thinking ahead to future seasons of American Horror Story, but as season 7 was based around an event that couldn’t have been fully predicted during season 5, it’s likely just a plot hole, and Valerie Solanas wasn’t the Zodiac Killer.
