His secret identity has puzzled the American public for six decades, but thanks to a mistake made by the Zodiac himself, sleuths claim he’s been exposed
By Associate Editor Jane Lavender, MIRROR; May 26, 2023
Brutally killing in California in the late 1960s, the serial murderer seemed to target lone men or young couples and quickly became a terrifying folk lore. In chilling anonymous letters and graphics (at left and right), the Zodiac proclaimed he was responsible for the deaths of 37 people, although he has only been formally linked to six.
The envelopes, graphic postcards were sent to regional newspapers, the police, and even a
lawyer – all including horrifying threats of future murder sprees and even bombings. Each of the missives contained ciphers, with the serial killer insisting he was ‘collecting’ his victims to be used as slaves in the afterlife. But the mailed notes in the San Francisco Bay and Southern California stopped abruptly in 1974.
Investigative Producer Thomas J. Colbert, however, claims a senior FBI agent quietly informed him that the suspect was Gary F. Poste (left, in 2016), an Air Force vet who died in 2018 at the age of 80.
The Case Breakers, a non-profit organization set up by Colbert to crack cold cases, offered another stunner: “We’ve been told the felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac suspect in Headquarters’ computers since 2016,” said Colbert. “Never mind the victim families who’ve been left in the dark for decades – especially the remaining 10 siblings.”
Poste has been also linked to the case by his alleged partial DNA, long secured at the federal agency’s lab. In addition, Colbert’s volunteer team, made up of 40 volunteer lawmen and women, discovered 11 evidentiary clues at a 1966 Riverside, California murder scene. Not only that, they insist there are six people who have all come forward to confess that Poste is the killer – three of them in court affidavits.
In the months leading up to his death, it seems the elderly Poste made a serious mistake that gave away his identity: He handed out a huge haul of weapons and ammo to friends and associates, but when his old hiking mattress was later forwarded to the Case Breakers, two private labs discovered his long-sought DNA.
The sleuths hope Riverside PD will accept the new genetic evidence for a comparison to the
hair DNA, recovered 56 years ago in the clenched fist of murdered college cheerleader Cheri Jo Bates (right).
Meanwhile, the stoic FBI still insists the case is open and has not been solved.
