Cold-case investigators ‘identify Zodiac Killer’

An independent group of cold-case investigators say they have identified the man known as the Zodiac Killer.

The announcement comes more than 50 years after the notorious serial killer terrorised San Francisco.

A volunteer organisation known as Case Breakers, which is made up of former law enforcement officials and led by retired FBI agents, is behind the discovery.

They say it was made after new physical and forensic evidence was uncovered and information was gathered from witnesses.

The group submitted court affidavits and secured decades of pictures from the suspected killer’s former darkroom.

They named the man as Gary Francis Poste in a press release, saying they believe he died in 2018.

The Case Breakers say they have also identified a sixth murder victim of the Zodiac Killer – Cheri Jo Bates, a woman murdered in Riverside, California, in 1966.

The murder had been attributed to the Zodiac Killer in the past, but Riverside police debunked the theory.

The San Francisco Police Department said the case of five people murdered in the late 1960s in the city remained open. They did not comment on the newly identified suspect or victim.

The Zodiac Killer shot or stabbed seven people in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1968 and 1969, killing all but two.

During his killing spree, he sent a series of taunting letters to the San Francisco Chronicle. The letters contained ciphers that the killer claimed would reveal his identity once decoded.

Of the four ciphers sent, only two were decoded in the decades since the murders.

Last year, a volunteer team solved one of the ciphers.

“I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me,” it said.

“I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me.”

The only person to be named as a suspect by police was Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo, California, who died in 1992.