Cold case team claims to have identified the Zodiac Killer

FILE – In this May 3, 2018, file photo, a San Francisco Police Department wanted bulletin and copies of letters sent to the San Francisco Chronicle by a man who called himself Zodiac are displayed in San Francisco. A coded letter mailed to a San Francisco newspaper by the Zodiac serial killer in 1969 has been deciphered by a team of amateur sleuths from the United States, Australia and Belgium, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday, Dec. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

by: Joshua Kuhn

Posted: Oct 6, 2021 / 08:00 PM AST

Updated: Oct 6, 2021 / 05:48 PM AST

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A team of more than 40 retired and amateur investigators claims they have identified the Zodiac Killer, up to this point an unnamed serial killer that operated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s.

The team, calling themselves The Case Breakers, consists of former law enforcement officials, DNA experts, and journalists.

They say in a press release that they believe they have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018.

The Zodiac Killer was connected to five murders between 1968 and 1969, according to The Hill. The killer was known for taunting authorities through ciphers and riddles sent to the media and law enforcement.

The Case Breakers say they came to the conclusion that Poste was the Zodiac after uncovering forensic evidence and photos from Poste’s former darkroom.

The photos include evidence — described as “irrefutable” by a former FBI agent — of scars on the Zodiac’s forehead. The scars were reported by three witnesses and an observing police officer then passed on to a San Francisco Police Department sketch artist in 1969.

Member of The Case Breakers, and former Army counterintelligence agent, Jen Bucholtz said the team found deciphered letters sent by the Zodiac that revealed Poste as the killer, according to a Fox News report.

“So you’ve got to know Gary’s full name in order to decipher these anagrams,” she said in the report. “I just don’t think there’s any other way anybody would have figured it out.”