On October 6 after 51 years, an independent group claims they have solved the identity of the Zodiac Killer.   

On Wednesday, a group of cold-case investigators came forward with their knowledge of who they believed the Zodiac Killer was and the evidence as to why. The Case Breakers, a team of about 40 former law enforcement investigators, used new physical and forensic evidence and information from eyewitnesses. 

“The team believes Poste also killed Cheri Jo Bates on Oct. 31, 1966, in Riverside, Calif., hundreds of miles south from the San Francisco area and two years before the first killing linked to the Zodiac occurred,” Fox News said. 

The following year after Bates’ murder, authorities received a letter that was presumed to be linked to the Zodiac Killer. In 2016, investigators received an anonymous typed letter from someone who admitted to writing the earlier note and said it was a “sick joke.” 

“The Zodiac Killer is believed to be responsible for at least five murders in Northern California from 1968 to 1969,” CNN said. “The Case Breakers also said in the release that the man is responsible for the 1966 killing of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside County, California.” 

The cold case solvers claim that the murderer is Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018. An image of Poste consists of a scar that matches that of the scar on originally sketched of the alleged Zodiac Killer at the time. Other suspicions and clues pertain to the letters deciphered, sent by the killer that revealed himself as being so. The investigators said there were many coincidences in which Bates and Poste were connected. 

“The ciphers had long baffled cryptographers, law enforcement agents and amateur sleuths obsessed with the unidentified serial killer with a penchant for ciphers,” the New York Times said. “Half a century of unsuccessful research had led many to believe that the identity of the Zodiac killer would forever remain a mystery.”