In People v. Seda (93 N.Y.2d 307, 311 [1999]) the defendant was charged with three counts of attempted murder and related crimes arising out of three shooting incidents, two of which occurred in March 1990. In a series of letters to the New York City Police Department and the New York Post, a person identifying himself only as "The Zodiac" had claimed responsibility. As the Court of Appeals noted, "from 1990 until 1996, the police conducted extensive investigations in an effort to find the so-called 'Zodiac Killer.' " (Seda, 93 NY2d at 309.) Finally indicted on August 20, 1996, the defendant moved to dismiss the charges arising out of the March 1990 shootings, claiming that because they were brought more than six years after the shootings had occurred, they were barred by the statute of limitations. The Court of Appeals observed that in enacting the statute of limitations, the legislature "carefully balanced the general policy in favor of avoiding prosecution of stale cases against the countervailing policy of ensuring that law enforcement officers have sufficient time to bring suspected criminals to justice by imposing important limitations on the tolling exceptions." (Id. at 311.) Significantly, the Court noted that "[t]he 'reasonable diligence' requirement is certainly a deterrent to delaying an investigation, as no automatic toll is contemplated." (Id. at 312.) Explaining that "the focus of the tolling exception rests on the difficulty of finding the defendant whether or not the police are aware of his or her identity," the Court concluded that: "in light of the extensive and prolonged police manhunts for 'The Zodiac Killer,' there is ample record support for the Appellate Division's finding that, during the six-plus year period from the March 1990 shootings until defendant's arrest in June 1996, his whereabouts were continuously unknown and continuously unascertainable by the exercise of reasonable diligence." (Id.) Accordingly, the Court held that pursuant to CPL 30.10 (4) (a) (ii), the statute of limitations was tolled during that period. The Court of Appeals held that the phrase "whereabouts of the defendant" includes not only a situation in which "the police may be ignorant of the whereabouts of a perpetrator of a crime where they have identified the perpetrator but lack knowledge of his or her physical location," but also one in which "they have not identified the perpetrator at all and thus cannot determine where he or she is."