New (reliable?) information on the infamous San Francisco Bay Area murderer

By: Angelina Salvador

The Zodiac

There have been numerous conspiracies, documentaries, podcasts, books, and even a movie on the infamous San Francisco Bay Area murderer.

In just two years, 1968-69, the Zodiac has taken five lives. His motive?

Power. A superiority complex.

He gave himself this name and wanted to be known, mysteriously.

The Zodiac’s identity is one of the largest mysteries. Many people are so invested in true crime and cases because of unsolved mysteries and identities.

Not figuring who they are feeds into the obsession of doing research, feeding into every single conspiracy surrounding the person who committed heinous crimes. A lot of people want answers to get justice for victims.

But a lot of people just want to decipher what the Zodiac was all about and who he was.

The Letters (Trigger Warning: the letter below might be too explicit for those who are sensitive towards ominous, harsh language.)

The Zodiac liked playing this game; cat and mouse between him and the San Francisco area newspapers on the case where he had formed these letters with cryptograms and ciphers. Although people weren’t able to decode them, they were eventually figured out.

50 years after the murders and cryptic letters, news broke out in 2011 about a cryptologist who decoded a Zodiac letter, ‘340’.

The Washington Post had explained in an article that code-breaker David Oranchak, mathematician Sam Blake and a programmer Jarl Van Eycke, had figured out the mysterious letter that consisted of the Zodiac’s own code and symbols. This blood-stained (a victim’s blood) letter was sent to the Chronicle, and the translation is:

“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 Movie

In 2007, a movie called Zodiac was released starring Jake Gyllenhaal Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo.

The movie was a fictional, psychological movie based on true events. The screenplay was inspired by the book, written by Robert Gray Smith (Gyllenhaal’s character in the movie) which was released in 1986.

The New Information

Earlier this month, a stream of posts throughout Tik Tok, Twitter, and even Facebook have been amplified on the supposed identity of the Zodiac. It all started with one girl’s Tik Tok, where she had begun theorizing that her grandfather was the supposed killer.

There were doubts from people, as well as shocked responses, and some people questioned why would she mention that?

Despite the video not being able to be found (deleted, taken down?), she was reading her grandfather’s darkly detailed and mysterious poetry that had led her to start believing that he might be the Zodiac. But if it’s already gone and no source, how trustworthy could this even be?

Not only did a random girl’s Tik Tok go viral, but a cold case team called The Case Breakers supposedly said they had figured out the identity of the killer.

The FBI has refuted their investigation, as well as people who like true crime. They’ve explained that there has been no new information and nothing solid to prove who the Zodiac is, and if they’re dead or alive.

There was also a Facebook post back in 2018 that was very odd to those who follow the Zodiac case. But again, there were more refutes against this weird claim. Could the Zodiac already be dead or long gone by now?

So, will anyone ever figure out who the Zodiac is? Was?

It all comes back down to this: do people like The Case Breakers want to uncover the mystery for the victims of the Zodiac? Or do they want to be the ones to be known for figuring it all out?