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A cryptic message hidden in 340-character cipher by a criminal dubbed the Zodiac Killer who terrorized Northern California communities in the 1960s and ’70s has been cracked by code breakers.
The Zodiac Killer and the 340 Symbol Cipher Source: Supplied
The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that experts from the US, Australia and Belgium had cracked the encryption that has been around since 1969.
The Zodiac Killer haunted communities in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was never caught. He is known to have killed at least five people.
Letters from the killer were sent to various media outlets, but in the form of cryptic or encrypted messages about the course of his crimes. The FBI has now told the Chronicle, one of the means of receiving letters, that the puzzle has been solved.
“Last weekend, a team I’m on solved 340 and presented it to the FBI,” spokesman David Oranchak told the Chronicle.
“They’ve confirmed the solution. I’m not kidding! This is the real deal.”
He says: “I hope you are having a lot of fun trying to catch me, that was not 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 paradise much sooner. because now I have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they get to paradise.
“So they are afraid of death; I am not afraid because I know that my new life will be an easy life in the paradise of death.”
The case, which is still open in several states, was made into a movie in 2007 by Hollywood director David Fincher, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist Robert Graysmith, who investigated the case and proceeded to write two books about it.
