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Writer's pictureLeslie Alvarez

Who was the Zodiac Killer who taunted Northern California?

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated over a five-year span, from 1963-1969. He is famous for his unsolved murders. To this day he has not been identified. How did the Zodiac Killer get his name? He chose his own name and revealed it with his fourth letter. Cryptograms would be used to taunt the police department and local news.


He claimed to have murdered 37 potential victims. Investigators were only able to link him to five deaths, with only two surviving victims (Bryan Calvin Hartnell and Michale Mageu).


From 1968-1969, “the Zodiac terrorized northern California communities,” where five deaths were confirmed to be by him. The Zodiac Killer used letters with symbols, which would represent coded messages. Zodiac created the cryptograms after the police department had asked him for hints to prove from the Zodiac that he had murdered victims. There has not been any clear DNA evidence that would potentially lead to finding the identity of the Zodiac Killer. However, after 51 years the FBI cracked one of the Zodiac’s cryptograms, and now the Zodiac Killer is believed to have passed away in 2018,


A sketch of the Zodiac Killer

After all this time, they have a potential killer, Gary F. Poste, yet he hasn’t been officially identified to be the murderer. There had been a claim that his name was in one of the cryptograms. DNA has been proven to be sometimes misleading and wrong people can be incriminated. To this day the primary “evidence” was a sketch of the potential Zodiac Killer.. Multiple people had a similar description of the Zodiac Killer. The facial sketch was of a middle-aged white man with glasses. It is known that sketches from memory are not reliable.


No family has gotten justice, but hopefully someday they all will and get to live their lives in peace.


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