Jake Gyllenhaal Turns Detective  3/8/07

Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal is obsessed with solving the crimes of a 1960s murderer, portrayed in his new movie Zodiac.

The movie, which premiered last night (07MAR07), is a fictionalized account of a San Francisco Bay killer who taunted police by sending letters and cryptic messages to a newspaper. The movie follows both investigators and reporters while they search for the murderer.

Gyllenhaal is desperate to work out the identity of the killer in the film, which is based on the novels of Robert Graysmith.

He says, "You become obsessed by this stuff just as a result of being around it.

"There were ciphers sent to the San Francisco Chronicle along with a letter from someone claiming to have murdered these two kids.

"It became a mass hysteria because the ciphers were printed, and it became this obsession and fear of the whole community."