Zodiac Killer Allegedly Identified By Investigators

The Zodiac Killer - the infamous serial killer that terrorized California in the late 1960s. The Zodiac has become a dark American legend in the years since his killing spree took place - largely due to the fact that the infamous killer was never officially identified and apprehended by authorities. Well, now part of that legend is coming to an end, as a cold case team knowns as The Case Breakers - comprised of over 40 law enforcement investigators, journalists, military intelligence officers and the like is claiming they have identified the Zodiac and named him as none other than one Gary Francis Poste. 

Poste died in 2018, but The Case Breakers claim that new forensic evidence and photos from his darkroom link back to details and sketches of the Zodiac; in addition, letters from the Zodiac Killer seem to confirm his identity, with one letter even reportedly playing with the letters of his full name as the key to deciphering the message: 

"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," says Jen Bucholtz, former Army counterintelligence agent. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."

There are some discrepancies in the report from The Case Breakers, however. The team believes that a woman named Cheri Jo Bates (killed in Riverside, California, on Halloween night in 1966) may be another of Poste's victims, based on several connections between Poste's life, and the Bates murder scene. Despite all that, it's a connection that the Riverside Police Department Homicide Cold Case Unit refuses to accept: 

"Our Homicide Cold Case Unit has determined the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in 1966 is not related to the Zodiac killer," the Riverside Police Department's Homicide Cold Case Unit told Fox News. "We understand the public interest in these unsolved murders, but all inquiries regarding the Zodiac Killer should be referred to the FBI."

"The real portion here has everything to do with ego and arrogance," said Case Breakers team member Bill Proctor, a former police officer counters about the Riverside Police findings. "They're not talking about what they have which means that anybody else who comes to the table might have a reasonable argument that an outside organization's information is as valuable, if not more valuable, than what the police department has already done."

The Case Breakers have dug deep into the life of Gary Poste, and seem to have connected quite a few dots to his crimes as Zodiac - and beyond. They also interviewed those close to the man during his life, such as one neighbor named Gwen, who stated that Poste and his wife babysat her as a child - but that she also knew about a dark, abusive side he hid from public view: 

"He lived a double life," Gwen claims. "As I'm adult thinking back, it all kind of makes sense now. At the time when I was a teenager, I didn't put two and two together until I got older. It hit me full-blown that Gary's the Zodiac."

The story of the Zodiac may only get that much crazier once the full findings of The Case Breakers are out (and inevitably adapted into a TV series or movie). Gary Poste is said to have also been of a "criminal posse" that operated in California's High Sierra region; one alleged whistleblower that escaped the group and went into FBI protection paints the group as a training unit for killers. Frighteningly enough, that group is reportedly still at large, operating in the Zodiac's legacy, years after his death: 

"He targeted young men who didn't have a father figure," a witness named Michelle claims. "It was a posse of three but the one [Poste] did a lot of damage. He still has some kind of control… and he's gone."

And so, even with the story of Gary Poste now exposed to the light and done, the story of The Zodiac is apparently still ongoing. 

Source: Fox News