Zodiac Movie vs. Zodiac Killer True Story

Did the Zodiac really call Melvin Belli on a KGO-TV talk show?
Yes. A clip from the 1969 program can be viewed in the videos section below. The caller, who is believed to have been the Zodiac, wants to be addressed as Sam. Melvin Belli, who is portrayed by Brian Cox in the movie, was a famous personal injury lawyer. He can be viewed here talking to the Zodiac killer. His clients included celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Muhammad Ali, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, Mae West, and Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. Melvin Belli also appeared in numerous films and television shows, and he was perhaps best known for his 1968 role as the evil being Gorgan on the television series Star Trek.

Did a police officer really spot the Zodiac killer after the Taxi cab murder?
Yes. The officer who was inside the police car, Don Fouke, told ABC's Primetime in 2002, "When the headlights hit him I took a look at him. It was a white male and continued on. He came down ... the north side of the street and turned and went up a flight of stairs into a courtyard." As revealed in the movie Zodiac, Officer Fouke didn't stop the man because the initial police bulletin reported that the suspect was black. Moments after Don Fouke passed the man, the dispatcher corrected her description of the suspect to say that it was a white male. In a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle approximately one month later on November 9, 1969, the Zodiac murderer confirmed that Officer Fouke had spotted him, "Hey pig! Doesn't it rile you up to have your nose rubbed in your booboos?"