An unsolved case investigator claims that the FBI has identified the man believed to be the infamous “Zodiac Killer” and believes authorities did not adequately investigate him while he was alive.
Journalist Thomas Colbert says an FBI whistleblower confirmed to him that Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste, previously believed to be a killer, is currently listed as a suspect.
He claims FBI labs have a “partial” DNA sample from Poste that links him to the murders. Poste has been dead since 2018.
“The criminal has been secretly listed in headquarters computers as a Zodiac ‘suspect’ since 2016,” Colbert’s organization Case Breakers said in a statement.
The FBI denied that the long-open case was solved and confirmed it was open as recently as October 2021.
Journalist Thomas Colbert says an FBI whistleblower confirmed to him that Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste (pictured left), previously believed to be a killer, is currently listed as a suspect
That same month, Case Breakers identified Poste as a prime suspect in at least five murders that took place in the Bay Area in 1968 and 1969.
On Wednesday, the organization said it believes it has evidence linking Poste to all of the killings, including a sixth victim in 1966 that the FBI has denied was connected to the Zodiac Killer stands.
Case Breakers believes federal law enforcement ignored evidence and state law in mishandling the case.
“Like cops, federal agents deal with massive caseloads, constant training, odd rules and bureaucracy,” says their FBI whistleblower.
“But when someone wearing a badge or uniform works with others to avoid or conceal materials, circumvent difficult procedures, or lie to evidence, they harm our volunteers and the thousands of families waiting for answers.”
In a statement, the FBI’s San Francisco office told Fox News that the case was “open and unresolved,” but made no further comment, citing “respect for the victims and their families.”
Case Breakers is calling for a review of the handling of the case by local and state law enforcement, including citing the victims and their families.
Celia Shepherd (pictured left) and Bryan Hartnell (pictured right) were both stabbed to death by a hooded assailant believed to be the Zodiac Killer in September 1969. Hartnell survived the attack.
Betti Lou Jensen (left), David Faraday (center) and Darlene Ferrin (right) are believed to be three of the Zodiac Killer’s victims
Paul Stine, another victim of the Zodiac Killer
The FBI denied that the long-open case was solved and confirmed it was open as recently as October 2021
“As a nation, we have failed them – especially the remaining ten brothers and sisters,” said Colbert.
He called it a “cover-up” that was “nonsensical to the people who are still waiting.”
In 2021, The Case Breakers had identified Poste, who died in 2018, as a suspected serial killer responsible for multiple murders in Northern California in the late 1960s.
The group, made up of about 40 independent detectives, revealed that Poste gave away guns and bullets before his death, which could eventually lead to the killer’s true identity.
“When Case Breakers approached officers about a new Zodiac suspect last spring, five police and state agencies refused to cooperate,” the group said in a statement Saturday.
The Case Breakers, an investigative team of about 40 detectives, believe they have new evidence identifying 80-year-old Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste as the Zodiac Killer
It was believed that Poste had quietly passed new evidence, including guns and bullets, to his “favorite residents” before his death.
“But last week, the man leading the 10-year cold case team, Thomas J. Colbert, received a tip from his longtime sources in the late Gary Francis Poste’s remote town: They had confirmed the existence of an indicative gold mine. “.’
The statement revealed that Poste had given away his guns and bullets, with most of them still untouched and hidden.
“Former associates of the painter and suspected serial killer allege that several years before Poste’s death in 2018 at the age of 80, he had quietly given away his guns, pistol parts, gunpowder, bullets and cartridge cases – more than a thousand, including 25 different ones.” to his favorite haunts,” they added.
“And most of these strange ‘gifts’ have sat untouched in basements and closets ever since.”
Thomas Colbert, one of the members of the group, wrapped up the loot and sent it to team members for examination of the items in labs in three different states.
Thomas Colbert, one of the investigators, had sent the evidence to labs in three different states for testing
The group’s investigators believe a scar on the Zodiac killer’s forehead resembles that of 25-year-old Poste
Colbert is adamant that more than five decades later they have resolved the identity of the Zodiac killer.
“My FBI people say it’s irrefutable. “It’s a match,” Colbert told Fox News in 2021.
“We also have six people to whom he confessed that he was the Zodiac.” Three of those on our court affidavits. We feel that very strongly.
“And then of course the Riverside murder scenes, we counted six similarities at the murder scene.”
The investigative team had also used photographic evidence to compare a prominent scar on the Zodiac Killer and matched it to photos taken by Poste.
They even asked the FBI to test their results for DNA.
The case breakers have also relied on accounts from people who knew Poste, including a neighbor whom the alleged series and his wife had babysitting, a man who claimed to have been part of Poste’s criminal “squad”, the Sierra region roaming the High Street and an ex-girlfriend of the alleged suspect’s son.
The members of The Case Breakers believe the Zodiac Killer was connected to the 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates, two years before the killing spree began
Police had recovered a watch they believed belonged to the Zodiac killer
The watch had been found with splatters of paint, which investigators believe was linked to Poste since he was a house painter at the time
Five people were fatally stabbed or shot in Northern California in 1968 and 1969, and their killer sent taunting letters and cryptograms to police and newspapers.
The killer was nicknamed “The Zodiac” because some of his cryptograms contained astrological symbols and clues.
The series of unsolved murders inspired many books, documentaries and films.
According to Case Breakers, the Zodiac Killer was also responsible for the brutal murder of 18-year-old college student Cheri Jo Bates, who was found stabbed 42 times and nearly decapitated on October 31, 1966 in Riverside, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco and two years before the first known murder on the Zodiac.
Investigative team members claimed that around the time of Bates’ murder, Poste, an Air Force veteran, was undergoing an examination at a hospital just 15 minutes from the scene.
One person had claimed they were responsible for Bates’ murder in 1967, but in 2016 it turned out to be a troubled youth seeking attention
Although the FBI claimed that Bates was the Zodiac Killer’s sixth victim, this was later refuted, claiming that there was no connection between Bates’ murder and the others
A paint-splattered wristwatch believed to have been worn by the killer was found near Bates’ body. Case Breakers noted that Poste had worked as a house painter for 40 years.
In addition, a heel print found in the dirt at the scene of the stabbing is said to be from a “military boot,” consistent in style and size with footprints found at three known crime scenes by Zodiac and also by Poste.
A year after Bates’ murder, the Riverside Police Department received an anonymous letter, the author of which apparently confessed to killing Bates because he had rejected his romantic advances.
In 1975, an FBI memo to the Riverside Police Department linked the Bates murder to the Zodiac murders and described the 18-year-old woman as the elusive killer’s sixth victim.
In 2021, Officer Ryan Railsback, the spokesman for the Riverside Police Department, told that their homicide squad, working with FBI genealogists, had no connection between the Bates murder and the Zodiac killer, or anyone who may have been identified as the Zodiac killer could be identified, Zodiac-Killer has ruled out.
Betti Lou Jensen (left), David Faraday (center) and Darlene Ferrin (right) are believed to be three of the Zodiac Killer’s victims
Detectives used to think the Zodiac killers were Ross Sullivan (left) or Lawrence Kane (right).
THE VICTIMS OF THE ZODIAC KILLER
Although the Zodiac killer claimed in his letters to local newspapers that he had killed up to 37 people, police have only linked five murders – and two other injuries – to him.
On December 20, 1968, David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, had their first date when they turned onto a love street off Lake Herman Road in Benicia. There they were pushed out of the car by a killer and Faraday was shot in the head. Jensen started running away but was shot multiple times in the back.
On July 4, 1969, Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22, were in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo — four miles from the first crime scene — when they were “shot to pieces,” according to investigators . But while Ferrin was pronounced dead upon arrival, Mageau survived being shot in the face, neck and chest.
On September 27, 1969, Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, were picnicking at Lake Berryessa in Napa County when a hooded man approached them, tied them up and stabbed them to death. Hartnell survived eight stab wounds in the back, but Shepard died two days later.
On October 11, 1969, 29-year-old cab driver Paul Lee Stine picked up a passenger and drove him to Presidio Heights — where he was shot in the back of the head and robbed. The killer also tore part of Stine’s shirt, which he later sent in a letter to a local newspaper.
Four other victims and one other fugitive have been linked to the Zodiac Killer, but none have been confirmed.
Railsback said the FBI memo linking the Bates killing to the Zodiac murder was based on the confession letter, which turned out to be fake in 2016.
That year, someone sent an unsigned, typed note to police revealing that they had sent off the false confession, which was in fact a call for the attention of a “troubled youth”.
Railsback stressed that the Bates case remains open and a $50,000 reward is still available for information leading to an arrest.
The police spokesman pointed out that last month an entertainment rights attorney with alleged ties to the case breakers contacted the department and said his client had information about the Bates case and asked if the tipster was even entitled to the reward if the alleged killer was already dead.
Railsback said he expressed an interest in the information but never received a response from the attorney.
“If we really had information that the Zodiac killer was related to Cheri Jo Bates, we wouldn’t hide it,” he said. “We will not hide any information, certainly not 55 years later.”
In 2020, an international code-breaking team cracked Zodiac’s infamous “340 cipher” (pictured), which was submitted to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969
In 2020, an encrypted letter sent to a San Francisco newspaper by the Zodiac killer in 1969 was cracked by a team of amateur codebreakers from the US, Australia and Belgium.
A woman named Gwen, who lived next door to Poste and his wife and was cared for by the couple as a child, now believes her neighbor was the Zodiac Killer
Full text of “340 Cipher”
“I hope you have fun catching me.”
That wasn’t me on the TV show, which raises a point about me.
I’m not afraid of the gas chamber.
Because it sends me to paradise all the faster now that I have enough slaves to work for me.
Where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradise and is afraid of death.
I am not afraid because I know my new life in paradise will be easy.”
According to code-breaking expert David Oranchak, the text of the cipher reads: “I hope you have fun trying to catch me.” … I am not afraid of the gas chamber, for it will me send it to paradise all the faster because I now have enough slaves to work for me.”
Little is known of Poste’s life, other than that he was married, had a son, and worked as a house painter after retiring from the US Air Force, according to information gathered by Case Breakers.
In February 2016, The Union-Democrat reported that 78-year-old Groveland resident Gary Francis Poste was arrested at his Merrell Road home on suspicion of assaulting a spouse.
A Californian woman who lived next door to Poste and his wife and was cared for by the couple as a child in the 1970s and 1980s told Fox News she now believes her neighbor was the Zodiac killer.
The woman, who gave her name only as Gwen, was taught by Poste to shoot and sometimes went into the woods for target practice five days a week.
“In the last year of her child care, [Gwen] witnessed his indifference and violence towards his wife – a woman who only slept on the couch,” according to the Case Breakers.
In a recent phone conversation between Gwen and Poste’s widow, now in her late 70s and living in an assisted living facility, the elderly woman reportedly said to her former neighbor, “I’m sorry I didn’t say so.” the police about his past.’
A man named Hans Smits told Case Breakers that for the past decade he has protected a “Zodiac whistleblower” who allegedly escaped from Poste’s criminal “squad” allegedly active in the High Sierra area of California been for several decades.
A woman named Michelle said she was the wife of Poste’s son and that Poste had hired members of his criminal “squad” to harass and intimidate them
“Now he’s over 50 and hiding in the Northwest. [the whistleblower] says he is angry and ashamed and claims the psychopath “made me a killing machine,” according to the investigative team.
The whistleblower also claimed to have witnessed Poste burying murder weapons.
A woman named Michelle said she is the wife of Poste’s son and the mother of his grandson, who is now in his 30s.
According to Michelle, after her 10-year relationship with Poste’s son ended, the house painter unleashed two members of his “troupe” on her, ordering them to smash her windows, harass and attack her, and eventually evict her from the state.
The Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco remains unidentified after 50 years
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a serial killer terrorized Northern California.
The killer evaded capture and taunted the police by sending leads in the form of cryptograms to the local Bay Area press, hence the Zodiac killer’s name.
Although police linked him to five murders, he boasted in his letters to the press of at least 37 victims.
The inability of the police to solve the case so frustrated Dave Toschi, who was the lead investigator in the San Francisco murders from 1969 to 1978, that he continued to visit the Zodiac murder scenes long after his release.
Below are the five confirmed cases related to the Zodiac Killer:
On December 20, 1968, David Arthur Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, had their first date when they turned onto a love street off Lake Herman Road in Benicia. There they were pushed out of the car by a killer and Faraday was shot in the head. Jensen started running away but was shot multiple times in the back.
On July 4, 1969, Michael Renault Mageau, 19, and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin, 22, were in the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo — four miles from the first crime scene — when they were “shot to pieces,” according to investigators . But while Ferrin was pronounced dead upon arrival, Mageau survived being shot in the face, neck and chest.
On September 27, 1969, Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, and Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, were picnicking at Lake Berryessa in Napa County when a hooded man approached them, tied them up and stabbed them to death. Hartnell survived eight stab wounds in the back, but Shepard died two days later.
On October 11, 1969, 29-year-old cab driver Paul Lee Stine picked up a passenger and drove him to Presidio Heights — where he was shot in the back of the head and robbed. The killer also tore part of Stine’s shirt, which he later sent in a letter to a local newspaper.
Four other victims and one other fugitive have been linked to the Zodiac Killer, but none have been confirmed.