Zodiac Killer Solved? Letters, Symbols and Ciphers Involved in the Notorious Killings

The Zodiac Killer is believed to be behind at least five murders in Northern California between 1968 to 1969. His identity has remained unclear, but he gained notoriety for seemingly taunting the police officers after the murders.

Zodiac Killer Letters, Symbol, Code, and Cipher

Zodiac Killer is an anonymous American serial killer. He stabbed an 18-year-old college student to death in Riverside, California 1966. In 1968, a teenage couple was shot to death near their car in a remote area of San Francisco. A year later, another couple was attacked, but the man survived.

After a 1969 attack, the Zodiac Killer called the police to alert them about the crime. He also took responsibility for the murders in the previous years, Britannica reported.

Later that year, he attacked another young couple, and the male survived. His last assault was shooting a taxi driver in October 1969.

Due to the killer's mocking letters to newspapers and phone calls to police, the murders received extensive investigation and media coverage. His letters from 1969 to 1974 included four ciphers or cryptograms, the first of which was sent in three parts to three Bay Area newspapers in July 1969. His letters were signed with a symbol resembling the crosshairs of a gunsight and frequently began, "This is the Zodiac speaking."

A pair of private individuals quickly cracked it and became known as the "408 cipher" due to the number of characters it contained. Part of its message said, "I like killing people because it is so much fun."

Another Zodiac Killer symbol is the "340 cipher," sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in November 1969. It was decrypted in 2020 by a group of three amateur codebreakers. According to them, the message read, "I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me."

The Zodiac case still has many unanswered questions, not the least of which is when the crimes halted. Although this claim is debatable, actual crime author Robert Graysmith asserted that the Zodiac Killer continued to commit murders well into the 1980s.

The Vallejo, California, schoolteacher Arthur Leigh Allen (1933-1992), who had been institutionalized in 1975 for child molestation, was the suspect most frequently referenced by detectives who claimed to have identified the Zodiac Killer during the 1990s. However, his association with the Zodiac Killer has never been proven.

Zodiac Killer Solved?

The Case Breakers, a team of 40 former law enforcement investigators, claimed in a press release that they had identified the man they believe is the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Porte using new physical and forensic evidence and information from eyewitnesses, the Independent reported. The group filed court affidavits and secured decades of pictures from the man's former darkroom. Porte reportedly passed away in 2018.

However, the FBI shut down the report telling CNN that the Zodiac Killer case remains open and they have no new information to share.

The FBI, supporting local law enforcement in the investigation, also did not acknowledge the claims. They said they couldn't speak to potential suspects as the case is still in an open investigation.

CNN attempted to reach out to Porte's family members. However, their attempts have been unsuccessful.

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