Photo via @drewtoothpaste/Twitter, San Francisco Police Department
October 6, 2021, 11:55 am
A team of investigators and specialists calling themselves The Case Breakers believe that they have finally figured out the identity of the infamous Zodiac Killer who murdered at least five people in a spree that terrified the nation as he taunted police with his cryptic letters and ciphers. The investigators — mostly former cops, military officers, and journalists — have named him as Gary Francis Poste.
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Before you get too excited, Poste died in 2018 and therefore cannot be questioned, and indeed never was by the police at any point in connection to the murders. The Case Breakers also believe that the killer had a sixth victim who lived hundreds of miles from the San Francisco area where the other murders took place and was assumed not to be connected to the rest.
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According to the investigators, they reached the conclusion that Poste was the Zodiac Killer thanks to new forensic evidence and photos found in Poste’s darkroom, including a self-portrait that they say reveals scars that match those on the famous sketch of the killer. Additionally, they claim that Poste’s full name provides keys to cracking the ciphers sent to police following the San Francisco murders.
“So you’ve got to know Gary’s full name in order to decipher these anagrams,” said former Army counterintelligence agent Jen Bucholtz. “I just don’t think there’s any other way anybody would have figured it out.”
While true crime fans eagerly await the details into that little tidbit, the information around the alleged sixth victim, Cheri Jo Bates. The 18-year-old was found dead hundreds of miles south of San Francisco in 1966, two years before the first killing linked to the Zodiac Killer. A year later, police received a handwritten letter about the murder that later led to the suspicion that Bates was a Zodiac victim.
However, in 2016, someone claiming to be the author of this letter sent another, this one typed, saying that they were not involved in Bates’ death and had sent the original letter as a “sick joke.” The Riverside Police Department’s Homicide Cold Case Unit now maintains that Bates was not a Zodiac Killer victim, though according to a 1975 memo from the FBI to the Riverside police, the federal agency has a different opinion on the matter.
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According to The Case Breakers, Poste received medical care for a “gun incident” at a hospital just 15 minutes away from where Bates’ body was found, along with a watch that was splattered with paint. Poste was a house painter for over four decades. Internet sleuths have already discovered that he was arrested in 2016 for a minor offense but was soon released.
While these details and more reported by Fox News has renewed interest in the Zodiac Killer mystery, as well as Ted Cruz jokes, many people are remaining skeptical about this alleged solving of the case, having had their hopes raised and dashed before. But also, jokes.
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what are the odds that a group of independent researchers found the zodiac killer but you still haven’t found love
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this is palloween
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*First Published: October 6, 2021, 11:55 am
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