The Zodiac Killer has finally been identified as Gary Francis Poste
The Zodiac Killer has been connected to five murders that occurred in 1968 and 1969 in the San Francisco area. Unlike most serial killers, the Zodiac taunted authorities with complex ciphers in letters sent to newspapers and law enforcement. The slayings have spawned books, movies and documentaries in the years since, and amateur and professional sleuths have pored over the case in an effort to unmask the killer.
In the decades since the first murder, many potential suspects have been investigated.
Now the Zodiac Killer had been identified as Gary Francis Poste, who passed away in 2018. The years of digging uncovered new forensic evidence and photos from Poste’s darkroom. One image features scars on the forehead of Poste that match scars on a sketch of the Zodiac.
Other clues include deciphering letters sent by the Zodiac that revealed him as the killer, said Jen Bucholtz, a former Army counterintelligence agent who works on cold cases. In one note, the letters of Poste’s full name were removed to reveal an alternate message.
“So you’ve got to know Gary’s full name in order to decipher these anagrams,” Bucholtz said. “I just don’t think there’s any other way anybody would have figured it out.”
The team believes Poste also killed Cheri Jo Bates on Oct. 31, 1966, in Riverside, Calif., hundreds of miles south from the San Francisco area and two years before the first killing linked to the Zodiac occurred. Bates, 18, was found dead in an alleyway on the Riverside City College campus after her father phoned police to report her missing.
The team said a series of coincidences connect Bates and Poste: Poste was an Air Force veteran when he received medical check-ups for a gun incident at a hospital located 15 minutes away from the Bates murder scene. A wristwatch with paint splatter on it was collected at the murder scene and is thought to have been worn by the killer.
Poste painted homes for more than four decades, the team said. In addition, detectives found a heel print from a military-style boot, which matched the same style and size of those found in other Zodiac crime scenes and of Poste.
The Zodiac terrorized communities across Northern California in the late 1960s. The killer has been connected to five killings but claimed to have murdered 37 victims. The first of the confirmed Zodiac slayings occurred in December 1968 when a man and woman were shot dead in a car in Benicia, California. On July 4, 1969, another man and woman were shot in Vallejo. He survived.
Later that year, a couple was stabbed near a lake. The man survived despite sustaining multiple stab wounds.
A cab driver was fatally shot in San Francisco that year as well. No one has ever been charged or identified in connection with the slayings. Unlike most serial killers, the Zodiac taunted authorities with complex ciphers and letters.
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