How ‘Zodiac Killer’ Gary Francis Poste tormented 5 victims’ families with riddles before case was cracked 50 years later
THE Zodiac Killer's reign of terror over San Francisco is back in the spotlight after a group of independent investigators claimed to have cracked the case.
The Zodiac's identity has been shrouded in mystery for nearly 52 years since he launched his killing spree in 1968.
He is known to have targeted at least seven victims - three couples and a lone taxi driver. Two of them survived gun and knife ambushes.
The same killer has been linked to as many as 28 murders -- and he claimed to have killed 37 people in his letters to newspapers and police.
The case was deemed inactive in 2004 but the San Francisco Police Department reopened it in March of 2007.
Eleven months later, , a team of specialists who have investigated some of America's most high-profile crimes.
The man they say is responsible for the string of five murders in 1968 and 1969 is Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018.
They also claim to have linked Poste to a sixth killing hundreds of miles away that police previously determined was not committed by the Zodiac.
"The Zodiac Killer remains an ongoing investigation for the FBI San Francisco Division and our local law enforcement partners."
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While authorities continue their search, the Case Breakers crew is confident that Poste is the Zodiac.
"I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
SIXTH VICTIM?
The Case Breakers have asserted that the Zodiac is also responsible for a sixth killing in Riverside, California, on October 31, 1966.
Cheri Jo Bates was 18 years old when she was found dead in an alley on the Riverside City College campus.
In 1967, police received a handwritten letter which later led them to believe Bates' killing may have been committed by the Zodiac.
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That theory was quashed in 2016 when investigators received an anonymous note from someone who claimed they'd written the earlier note as a "sick joke."
However, the Case Breakers have maintained that the Zodiac did kill Bates and claim investigators have blocked them from comparing her DNA to Poste's.
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