A group of investigative specialists claim to have identified the Zodiac Killer, one of America’s most notorious serial killers who terrorized communities in the San Francisco area in the late 1960s.
Led by retired FBI personnel, a group of more than 40 volunteer sleuths who previously worked as law enforcement officers, prosecutors and in military intelligence, believe they’ve uncovered enough evidence to identify the Zodiac.
The team, known as the Case Breakers, allege that Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018, was the Zodiac Killer based on evidence collected over several years. The group additionally claims that a 1966 murder in Southern California was also the work of the Zodiac, they said in a press release.
Five murders that occurred in 1968 and 1969 in the San Francisco area have been confirmed to be connected to the Zodiac Killer.
The Zodiac taunted authorities with coded messages in letters sent to newspapers and law enforcement. Over the years, potential suspects have been investigated, but the Zodiac’s identity has never been revealed.
Some of the evidence includes photographic proof taken from Poste’s darkroom. The team alleges photos of Poste bearing scars on his forehead irrefutably match sketch depictions of the Zodiac featuring the same markings on his forehead.
They also believe he was responsible for a sixth murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, California, in 1966 – two years before Zodiac’s first killing hundreds of miles north in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The group of sleuths have tried to confirm with the Riverside Police Department that Bates, 18, was killed by the Zodiac, but with no success.
Riverside’s Public Information Officer Ryan Railsback said the department is ‘100% sure’ that Bates was killed by someone other than the Zodiac Killer.
The group contests that the FBI in 1975 referred to Bates in a memo as the sixth victim of the Zodiac, a co-ed murdered in Riverside, California in 1966.
Among additional evidence the group has found that leads them to believe Poste killed Bates is a broken wristwatch found at the scene of the crime. Investigators believe the Timex was purchased at a military base, and that Poste at the time was a US air force veteran receiving medical treatment at a base hospital 15 minutes away from where Bates was murdered.
There was also paint splattered across the watch’s face. In 1963, Poste was a housepainter for over 40 years, according to the group.
The group also alleges that the Riverside County Coroner’s Office spotted four of the attacker’s brown hairs in Bates’ clenched fist, which they believe were Poste’s hairs.
Bates was attacked outside of the town’s college library and found ‘almost decapitated’ with 42 stab founds, the press release states.
The Case Breakers had hoped to obtain DNA of Bates to compare with DNA they have secured from the deceased Poste, but their chief of police denied their request.
The department’s past eight chiefs have denied the request.
‘Fifty-five years ago this month, RPD chose to ignore the obvious. It would just take minutes to quickly and quietly compare Poste’s DNA,’ said Case Breaker organizer Thomas Colbert.
‘You’d think the pain Cheri Jo’s family and her old friends have been living with would be priority No 1.’
The Case Breakers also allege that a typed confession sent to the Riverside Police Department a month after Bates was murdered is similar to a note sent by the Zodiac Killer four years later.
The Zodiac Killer has been connected to five killings but claimed to have murdered 37 people in total.
The first of the confirmed Zodiac slayings occurred in December 1968 when a man and woman were shot dead in a car in Benicia, California. On July 4, 1969, another man and woman were shot in Vallejo. He survived.
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