THE Zodiac Killer is one of the most fascinating serial killers in history, with his case shrouded in mystery.
In a horrifying spree, he murdered five people between 1968 and 1969, all in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California.
Was the Zodiac Killer identified?
No, the Zodiac Killer has never been identified.
There has been a long list of suspects accused with varying degrees of credibility in the more than 50 years since the terrible crimes.
Arthur Leigh Allan was identified as an early suspect based on circumstantial evidence, including the fact that he owned the same make of typewriter used to create Zodiac's letters to the press and wore a Zodiac-brand watch.
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He had been discharged without honor from the US Navy and was fired as a primary school teacher after allegations of sexual misconduct.
However, both he and his friend Don Cheney were both excluded from the investigation in 2002 after handwriting and DNA samples from the letters were found not to match theirs.
Allan died in 1992.
In 2021, a cold case team known as the Case Breakers claimed to have identified Zodiac as Gary Francis Poste who passed away in 2018.
According to Fox News, the letters of Gary Francis Poste's name were completely removed from one of the Zodiac's anagrams, adding that his full name had to have been known in order to figure out the code.
However, investigators did not believe their evidence was significant enough to merit focussing on Poste.
This was not helped by the fact that one of the team's key claims was that Poste had scars on his forehead matching those described on the killer.
Author Tom Voigt slammed this as "bulls***" and noted that no witnesses to any of the murders believed to be connected to Zodiac made any report of scars.
However, in 2023, witness Linda Jensen came forward and disputed the existing police sketches of the killer.
She said: "He had very smooth, parted hair and combed [it] really straight…[he looked] just very intense, like focused.
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"The vibes coming off of him were bad, were dark. All of us felt that."
The Zodiac Killer is believed to be a California man who gave himself that nickname to conceal his identity from authorities.
He is known to have targeted at least seven victims - three couples and a lone taxi driver. Two of them survived gun and knife ambushes.
The same killer has been linked to as many as 28 murders -- claiming to have killed 37 people in letters to newspapers.
How did Gary Poste die?
Just hours after his alleged identity was released, TMZ obtained the death certificate of Poste and revealed how he died.
According to the media outlet, Poste suffered from hypertension, osteoporosis, hypothyroidism and atrial fibrillation.
At the age of 80, he passed away and was then cremated and had his remains scattered in the Sierra Mountains.
According to the document, Poste was married and had served in the armed forces before becoming a house painter.
His wife's identity remains unknown.
Why is the Zodiac Killer called the Zodiac Killer?
He called himself "Zodiac" in his fourth letter to the press on August 7, 1969.
In it, he wrote: "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking."
From then on the press called him the 'Zodiac Killer' - but it is not known why the killer gave himself that name.
He would also sign his letters with a circle and a cross over it, seemingly appearing as a target or a coordinate symbol.
Authorities believe that the signature symbols were meant to represent coordinates possibly indicating future killing locations.
However, authorities have never fully decoded the symbols.
What are the latest updates on the Zodiac Killer?
The Zodiac Killer’s case was inactive since 2004 but the San Francisco Police Department reopened it in March of 2007.
Australian software engineer Sam Blake, American cryptographer David Oranchak and Belgian software engineer Jarl Van said they finally got the symbols, numbers and letters to decipher a message left by the Zodiac.
The message read: "I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE.
"ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH," the killer said.
It is unknown what television show the Zodiac was alluding to.
In a statement to NBC from FBI headquarters, the bureau said its own Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) acknowledged and confirmed the code breakers' work.
They said: "Over the past 51 years CRRU has reviewed numerous proposed solutions from the public — none of which had merit. The cipher was recently solved by a team of three private citizens."
"The FBI is aware that a cipher attributed to the Zodiac Killer was recently solved by private citizens," the FBI's San Francisco office said in a statement.
In 2018, the Vallejo Police Department tried to gather conclusive DNA evidence from stamps on the letters, but no results have yet been reported.
