Thomas J. Colbert’s “Case Breakers” (CB) harvested DNA from a 30-year hiking mat that was once owned by U.S. Air Force veteran Gary F. Poste. Poste is also the man a senior FBI agent alerted the team about: The convicted felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac “suspect” in Headquarters’ computers since 2016, with his “partial DNA” safely secured at the federal lab in Quantico, Virginia.
This shocker triggered an immediate “Plan B”: The CB tracked down the remote ancestral town of the now-dead Poste, where DNA from a blood relative was offered by a confidential informant.
Days later, “good profiles” from Poste’s kin and the mat’s DNA were scrutinized by forensic specialists from five elite universities. Their conclusion: “Strong similarities” were in fact identified. The investigators hope these genetic results will be compared to the mystery hairs found in the clenched fist of 1966 Riverside murder victim Cheri Jo Bates.
In 1975, Bates was officially declared to be the sixth Zodiac victim in an FBI memo. The bureau’s moment of clarity, however, was short-lived.
LAUNCH OF THE COVER-UP: In 2014, emboldened neighbors and their supporters in the one-street mountain town of Groveland decided to give up the goods on 77-year-old Poste. “Jaw-dropped” FBI agents at the Watsonville field office were shown the suspect’s elaborate escape map, photographs, dual identities, cryptic writings (right), cartridge shell casings – and in 2016, his DNA.
But emails and witnesses reveal those federal agents, the Riverside PD and San Francisco PD quickly concealed the involvement of these High Sierra heroes, then seized their briefcase with all of the critical documentation.
Fortunately, those actions were chronicled by the award-winning TV investigator, anchor and author Dale K. Julin (left) — now a historical book. When the newsman and Groveland locals approached the CB in 2020, they all decided to merge efforts.
Later, friendly cops from other agencies reported that Riverside’s murder-scene DNA, along with Poste’s genetic profile, were never uploaded on the FBI’s CODIS crime database. The dead suspect’s missing sample was particularly disturbing, considering Julin had arranged for all three aforementioned departments to have access to it. Ignoring or evading this crime-comparison tool is a violation of a 2016 California law.
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Question: If this FBI tip about Poste is true, why haven’t the bureau brass or the California DOJ had the decency to notify the 15 victim families? Colbert said, “As a nation, we abandoned them – especially the remaining 10 brothers and sisters.”
The 40 volunteers, organized in 2011, also wonder: How many other families around the nation have had their loved one’s case go unsolved because law enforcement failed to use CODIS to enter (1) the DNA from a crime scene or (2) the DNA profile from a person arrested for a felony? When this investigation is completed, the CB hope the troubling activities by these three agencies will come up for official review.
Forensic DNA cases in the USA have been backlogged for decades. The CB who cordially approached Riverside Police, ballistics expert Stephanie C. Luehr (left), and CEO Colbert agree on the solution: After a realistic period of time, new laws should allow families to access their victim’s case file. And like the minutemen of old, colleges, accredited private labs, chain-of-custody cold case teams and skilled crowd-sourcing groups are all eager to contribute.
TO VIEW the 20 pages of supporting documents, diagrams, 23 examples of agency corruption, Case Breakers’ CONTACTS, and final END NOTES, please Click Link Below: Whistleblower Reveals FBI Zodiac Cover-Up; DNA in Lab
