Posts Tagged ‘ Zodiackiller.com ’

New Book Alleges Zodiac Killer Still Alive

and living in California

A new book claims that the infamous Zodiac killer is still alive and living in Northern California.

“The Zodiac Killer Cover Up” was written by a former California Highway Patrol officer, Lyndon Lafferty, and adds another theory to the much-discussed serial killer case in Northern California.

The  Zodiac killer is blamed for at least five slayings in 1968 and 1969. There was never an arrest in the case.

Three killings occurred in Vallejo. Teenagers David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen were shot to death in December 1968. Darlene Ferrin, 22, was shot and killed seven months later at Blue Rock Springs Golf Club. Her companion, Michael Mageau, 19, survived.

In “The Zodiac Killer Cover Up,” Lafferty claims the killer is now a 91-year-old man living in Solano County. The book uses aliases and does not identify the alleged killer by name. Lafferty claims he and other lawmen investigated the suspect in the early 1970s but were stymied by “power brokers” in Solano County.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the book has stirred new debate among those who have followed the famous killings.

The San Francisco police formally closed the case in 2004. The Zodiac killer got his name by taunting newspapers and the police with letters and puzzles.

Zodiackiller.com is a great place for information if you are interested. It is updated often and has information, files, clippings and more that you can not find elsewhere on the net. Also, note that LAPD did not actually ‘close’ the case, they just are placing it as inactive. If there is a new lead I am sure they’d jump on it. Even the article linked above states that it is inactive.

“The case is being placed inactive,” said San Francisco Police Lt. John Hennessey, head of the department’s homicide unit.

“Given the pressure of our existing caseload and the amount of cases that remain open at this time, we need to be most efficient at using our resources,” he said.

Link again.

“The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them,” he wrote in a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I enjoy needling the blue pigs,” he wrote. Detectives thought they might have had a break two years ago, when a partial DNA profile was taken from envelopes containing the letters.

The genetic evidence seemed to clear the only suspect ever named by police — Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo. Allen, who was never charged, died of a heart attack in 1992.

— Shelby Grad

There was a link up there that was supposed to go the book but it went to an “oops” page. This is the web site for the book. 

As the title suggests it is a conspiracy type book. I don’t think I am going to buy it but if I can down load it for free maybe. I have a hard time with most conspiracy theories, especially with this case. Too many people would have to be quiet for too long. They would risk their freedom, other people’s lives and on the other side there was reward money and other monies to be had.

Besides the Zodiackiller.com site you can also read the FBI files on the Zodiac if you want. Lots of real information on those 2 sites. Plus it is always ‘fun’ to look at the actual FBI files!

Zodiac Killer: Massachusetts Man Says He’s Cracked the Cipher

Solved?

A Massachusetts man says he’s cracked the Zodiac killer’s cipher that has befuddled law enforcement agencies for the last 40 years since the enigmatic serial killer went on his Bay Area killing spree. The amateur sleuth says the 340-character code sent to the San Francisco Chronicle declares at the end “My name is Leigh Allen,” one of the principal suspects in the case who died in 1992.

Corey Starliper of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, became obsessed with the Zodiac case and decided he could break the code, according to news reports.

“It was just instinct,” he told the Burlingame Patch. “I have a gut feeling that it could be cracked.”

Not to say it wasn’t a complex process. Starliper did it in two sessions — one that was six hours long and another where he spent three hours on it.

According to the Patch:

According to Robert Graysmith, in “Zodiac” tips received by police after Darlene Ferrin’s murder indicated that the killing was connected to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Starliper believed that the “340” of the 340 cipher was significant, and had some tie-in with the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was then that he found out that 340 is the area code for a portion of the U.S. Virgin Islands — not an insignificant connection.

“So that’s what I started with,” said Starliper. “I thought, there’s no way … that Zodiac is going to be prosaic enough not to mention the U.S. Virgin Islands in this code. This is where it gets even creepier. 3+4+0=7. Right. So you get 7+0=7. 707… 707 are the area codes for Vallejo, Napa, and Solano. So I figured, why not start this with Caesar code using 3,4.”

We’re no cipher experts, but it Starliper’s result is at least highly readable:

KILL/SLF/DR/HELP/ME/KILL/MYSELF/GAS/CHAMBER/

AEIOUR/

DAYS/QUESTIONSABLE/

EVERYY/WAKING/MOMENT/IM/ALIVE/

MY/PRIDE/LOST/

I/CANT/GO/ON/LIVING/IN/THIS/WAY/

KILLING/PEOPLE/

I/HAV/KILLD/SO/MANY/PEOPLE/

CANT/HELP/MYSELF/IM/SO/ANGRY/

I/COULD/DO/MY/THING/

IM/ALONE/IN/THIS/WORLD/

MY/WHOLE/LIFE/FUL/O/LIES/

IM/UNABLE/TO/STOP/

BY/THE/TIME/YOU/SOLVE/THIS/I/WILL/HAV/KILLD/ELEVEN/PEOPLE/

PLEASE/HELP/ME/STOP/KILLING/PEOPLE/

PLEASE/

MY/NAME/IS/LEIGH/ALLEN/

Starliper told the Patch that he’d contacted various Bay Area law enforcement agencies, but has only gotten a tepid response. SFPD Homicide Inspector Kevin Jones told SF Weekly he never heard from Starliper, but would send the code onto the FBI, which has the experts to check Starliper’s method.

“There’s people who over the years think they’ve come with answers to the cipher but the FBI hasn’t been able to validate it,” Jones says. Could this be the one?

I do not think that Arthur Leigh Allen is the Zodiac. I guess that means that I doubt this guy actually cracked the code.

Arthur Leigh Allen

Here is info on why I do not think Allen was the Zodiac:

The police sketch of the Zodiac Killer.

UPDATE: In October 2002, Allen’s DNA was compared to DNA obtained from a confirmed Zodiac letter. There was no match. In 2003, due to Allen’s alleged habit of having others lick his stamps and envelopes (he claimed the taste of glue made him sick), SFPD obtained a voluntary DNA sample from Don Cheney. The results were negative.
From Wikipedia:
Arthur Leigh Allen was the only suspect in the Zodiac murders to be served search warrants by police. He was never charged with any Zodiac-related crime and his fingerprints did not match those left by the killer of taxi cab driver Paul Stine. In 1991, 22 years after the shootings, survivor Michael Mageau identified Allen as the man who shot him, from a photo lineup of 1968 driver’s licenses. Mageau stated he had never been shown a photo line up prior to that appointment in 1991. Allen, who suffered from diabetes, died on August 26, 1992 from kidney failure.
In 2002, SFPD developed a partial DNA profile from the saliva on stamps and envelopes of Zodiac’s letters. SFPD compared this partial DNA to the DNA of Vallejo Police Department’s lead suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen. A DNA comparison was also made with Don Cheney’s DNA, who was Allen’s former close friend and the first person to suggest Allen may be the Zodiac Killer. Since neither test result indicated a match, Allen and Cheney were excluded as the contributors of the DNA, though it cannot be stated definitively that it is DNA from the Zodiac on the envelopes.Additionally in 2002, a partial palm print (called “Writer’s Palm”) was lifted from “The Exorcist” letter and then compared to a palm print of Allen’s. Again, test results showed the palm prints did not match. Even though DNA samples taken from the letters sent by the Zodiac ruled out Allen as the person who handled them, neither the Vallejo nor the San Francisco Police Departments have ruled out Allen as a suspect.
I kind of hope that I am wrong and that the cipher has been solved, meaning the killer is exposed. I just really doubt it.
I think that Mr. Starliper started out with Allen as a suspect and with that in mind (and believing the Hollywood hype) he fit his solution around that.
The Zodiac Killer was boastful. He enjoyed killing, tormenting , threatening the general public and he liked playing mind games, especially with the police.
This ‘solved’ cipher does not sound at all like the first. It sounds more like a Son of Sam letter.