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Zodiac Killer 'Identified' By Team Of Detectives

Zodiac Killer 'Identified' By Team Of Detectives

The 40-strong team of sleuths believe they've found their man

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers

The Zodiac Killer has been 'identified' after more than 50 years, a team of detectives and journalists have claimed.

According to the 40-strong team called the 'Case Breakers', Gary Francis Poste was the man responsible for terrorising the people of San Francisco in the 1960s.

Unfortunately for the team, however, Mr Poste died in 2018.

According to the 'Case Breakers', Poste had scars on his forehead, which match those from a sketch of the Zodiac.

Gary Francis Poste.
Case Breakers

Jen Bucholtz, a former Army counterintelligence agent who works on cold cases, told Fox News that other clues that led to Poste were found in the killer's notes.

They removed the letters in Poste's full name, revealing a different message.

She said: "So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams.

"I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."

The team of sleuths believe that Poste was responsible for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on 31 October 1966, in Riverside, California, which was hundreds of miles away from the location of the Zodiac's first killing two years earlier.

Cheri Jo Bates.
Riverside Police Department

The 18-year-old was found dead in an alleyway on the campus of Riverside City College.

This latest apparent breakthrough comes a few months after Fayçal Ziraoui claimed that he managed to solve a mystery in just 14 days that has plagued experts for more than five decades.

He started his short quest when he spotted an article in a French magazine talking about how no one had managed to solve the cipher left by the killer as he wrought a path of death and destruction in the 60s and 70s.

So he thought 'why not me?' and gave it a go, despite the fact that most people in the know believe no one would ever be able to figure it out.

A letter the Zodiac sent.
PA

The 38-year-old claimed that he used the encryption key which only became available in December, and a number of code-breaking skills, including a program of his own devising, to break the cipher in two weeks.

He then went to reveal his findings to the online community but was met with anger, abuse, and disbelief.

Code-breaking boffins rejected his hypothesis, and one of his posts was even deleted by a community moderator.

One said: "I don't believe it for a second."

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Police, True Crime, US News, crime