FBI Identifies Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste: Air Force Veteran Who Died in 2018, DNA Sample Could Link Him to Five Serial Murders
More than 50 years after the notorious Zodiac Killer terrorized California, the murderous monster has finally been unmasked, RadarOnline.com has learned.
A task force of 40 retired lawmen led by ex-FBI famed for solving cold cases has identified the elusive psycho as Gary F. Poste, who worked as a union painter in the San Francisco area for 40 years.
Tom Colbert, leader of the team known as the Case Breakers, said: “Poste confessed to six people that he was indeed the Zodiac Killer. That includes three people in court affidavits.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the infamous Zodiac Killer was a maniac who shot, stabbed, or choked to death as many as ten people between 1962 and 1970.
Thomas Colbert
He murdered at least five known victims in the San Francisco Bay area and claimed to have slain a total of 37 people.
The madman taunted police and the public by sending a series of letters and encoded messages to newspapers during his reign of terror. But he was never caught.
In the latest twist, the Case Breakers have linked Poste to 18-year-old college coed Cheri Jo Bates, who was stabbed to death on Oct. 30, 1966, in Riverside.
A 1975 memo from the FBI revealed the Zodiac Killer “acknowledged that he had indeed been responsible for the Riverside slaying.”
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Now, according to Colbert, the Case Breakers had been hoping the Riverside police could match hair, skin, and blood found under Cheri Jo’s fingernails to DNA collected from Poste, who died in August 2018.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Riverside Police Department has refuted Colbert’s findings that Poste – under the guise of the Zodiac Killer – murdered Bates in 1966.
“If we really had information that the Zodiac killer was related to Cheri Jo Bates, we would not hide that,” Riverside Police Department spokesperson Ryan Railsback stressed. “We're not going to hide information, especially 55 years later.”
Also surprising are Colbert’s claims that Poste gave away an “evidentiary goldmine” just a few years before his 2018 death.
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“Old associates of the housepainter/alleged serial killer claim that, a few years prior to Poste's 2018 death at 80, he had quietly given away his weapons, pistol parts, gunpowder, bullets and shell casings – more than a thousand, involving 25 different calibers – to his favorite locals,” Colbert said this week, according to Daily Mail.
“And most of these peculiar 'gifts' have remained in basements and closets, untouched, ever since,” the Case Breakers member added.