The Zodiac Killer cases: One of the most famous unsolved crimes in American history. After more than fifty years of the infamous serial killer going completely unknown, an independent group may have just found the man behind the killings.
The independent group, the Case Breakers, is comprised of 40 former law enforcement officials who believe a man named Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018. The group attributed Poste to not only the five 1968 and 1969 murders linked to the Zodiac Killer, but an additional murder in Riverside County, California in 1966. While Riverside Police Department could not comment, RPD public information officer Ryan Railsback denied the claims made by the Case Breakers regarding the 1966 killing.
Poste had been arrested on other charges in the past. On February 22, 2016, he was booked in Tuolumne County Jail on a domestic violence charge. He was seventy-eight when arrested and would die two years later in a state-run nursing facility after being found incapable to stand trial due to his dementia.
According to his neighbors in Groveland, rumors that Poste was the Zodiac Killer had been circling around for years but despite this was “a great neighbor”, according to Brian Pladsen, 68 who knew Poste for “twenty years or so”.
Official law enforcement now investigating the cold case have expressed doubt regarding the Code Breakers’ claims. San Francisco FBI office in a statement sent via email stated their “investigation into the Zodiac Killer remains open and unsolved”. They declined to answer questions related to the Code Breakers’ theory “due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, and out of respect for the victims and their families”.
Other sources have expressed doubt over Poste and the Code Breakers, such as SFits.com who wrote “Just a tip, if you want to get on Fox News or TMZ, just pick a popular cold case, declare with certainty that you have solved it, put out an overly complicated press release, and wait.”
Want more cold case drama? Read this article on the note that solved a decades-old serial killer mystery.
