Law enforcement agencies said they’re still researching the Zodiac Killer case as an independent group of cold-case investigators came forward Wednesday to claim they had doped the why of who was behind the decades-old serialized murders. The Case Breakers, a squad of 40 former law enforcement investigators, said they related the man they believe is the Zodiac Killer using new physical and forensic witnesses and information from voyeurs, according to a press release.
The group also filed court affidavits and secured decades of the screen from the man’s former darkroom, Case Breakers said. They named the man in the release, saying they believe he passed away in 2018.
CNN’s attempts to reach out to the family members of the named commodity have been bootless.
The Zodiac Killer is believed to be responsible for at least five murders in Northern California from 1968 to 1969. In response to the new claims, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) corroborated to CNN that it’s still an open inquiry. “We’re unfit to speak to possible suspects as this is still an open inquiry,” the SFPD said in a statement. The FBI, which has been supporting nonnative law enforcement in the inquiry, also didn’t concede the claims. “The Zodiac Killer case remains open. We’ve no new information to participate at the moment,” the FBI said in a statement to CNN.
The Case Breakers also said in the release that the man is responsible for the 1966 salary of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside County, California. While the Riverside Police Department couldn’t opine on the man linked by the Case Breakers, RPD public information officer Ryan Railsback said the Zodiac Killer is clearly not the person responsible for the death of Bates. The only link the Bates murder had in common with the Zodiac Killer was a handwritten letter entered in the post claiming responsibility, Railsback said. The Zodiac Killer, who was nowise caught, gained notoriety by writing letters to police and exotic media boasting of the killings up until 1974. Claiming to have killed as multitudinous as 37 people, he also wrote some letters in law and included bloody bits of vesture to use as validation of the acts.