A reporter named Dale Julin extracted Gary Francis Poste’s name from multiple Zodiac letters, using anagramming. He’s been hell-bent on this stuff for years. In fact, he cold called me recently because he wanted to know how to send his “evidence” to the FBI.
I guess he and his supporters have been sending this stuff around, and finally Fox News took the bait.
“It seems vanishingly unlikely that the name is actually in there,” [Oranchak] said.
Colbert said Oranchak’s team was largely right in its solution to the cipher, but that it missed the anagram that contained their suspect’s name.
“SF Chronicle, Oct 6, 2021
Dave. Very disappointing. How could you, of all people, have missed an anagram!? ? ? ?
"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." Albert Einstein
…..when i originally read the headline this morning, i totally thought it was going to say McDuff, … still could be, Poste(or anyone else), all though very interesting, doesn’t seem that promising for some reason… i guess we will see…the article makes it seem as if it definitely him or something, I don’t like that, shame of FOX, hope the podcast doesn’t mention him yet, seems like someone has jumped the gun
Mah-na Mah-na
@jacob even bad publicity is good publicity when you’re getting paid.
I dont think this is Z….there would have to be a lot more to him than what has been in the news.
People should know what cars he drove, if he studied codes/ciphers, etc.
I would also think he would have kept something from his murders because of the specificity that Z placed on everything.
Now if they found the other portion of Steins shirt in a tackle box in his house….I’d be convinced.
@alphadeltarho What’s unusual to me is how all the mainstream media outlets jumped on the story and definitively named Poste as Zodiac without hesitation. I don’t think this has happened on a comparable scale with any other POI who isn’t ALA.
The team advocating Poste want his DNA checked against Zodiac’s. They must be pretty confident to risk public humiliation and discrediting if they are wrong.
Public humiliation has never been a deterrent to making claims about this case in the past.
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
@bdholland It’s not clear to me from this photograph that this is even a silhouette. Not that the photographer would have to lift their camera to their eyeline, but I might expect some kind of change in posture, although the frame of the photo is too narrow to really be able to tell.
Also people usually take photos as part of a series. They don’t have to, but this is a weird one to take on its own. If this was Z and he was getting photographic proof of being at LB in the event that the papers refused to give him credit, I would think he would take a photo Hartnell and Shepherd before the attack. Just SOMETHING other than a photo that really serves no purpose other than to tantalize investigators years after the fact.
Not to mention it isn’t proof that Poste OR Zodiac is even the photographer. It’s just not a very compelling piece of evidence in the legal sense and, honestly, it’s not even really compelling as an interrogable piece of evidence. There’s just nothing there.
Zodiac Killer case solved? ‘Case Breakers’ group makes an ID, but police say it doesn’t hold up
https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/kevin-fagan/&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNE4H2Nvzhf8TqDEcxoZczKWz24xQ A”>Kevin Fagan
Oct. 6, 2021Updated: Oct. 6, 2021 2:52 p.m.
The Zodiac killer mailed a greeting card to The Chronicle that included a letter and a cryptogram on Nov. 11, 1969.
/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The latest of the hundreds of https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Zodiac-340-cypher-cracked-by-code-expert-51-years-15794943.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNHp8WMe09AN_zRM0lyg7LYwflUIj g”>Zodiac Killer theories floated each year emerged this week from a private team of investigators who named a man from the Sierra foothills who died three years ago as the killer, but FBI and police officials say the Zodiac case remains unsolved.
The team, calling itself the Case Breakers, said it is basing its theory on several factors, including a similarity in photos of their suspect to a 1969 police sketch of the Zodiac, and on anagrams they say reveal their suspect’s name. They also say they have proof that their suspect killed Cheri Jo Bates, a woman slain in Riverside in 1966 that some have attributed to https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Zodiac-killer-cipher-sleuths-16286260.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNFV6-IFr5wv4IFEt-3w9CKyTlI-P Q”>the Zodiac — a theory that Riverside police said in August they have now debunked.
“I absolutely feel we solved this case,” Tom Colbert, a member of the Case Breakers, told The Chronicle. He said his team, which includes former journalists and law enforcement officers, has been investigating cold cases for 10 years and also believes it solved the D.B. Cooper robbery mystery and union boss Jimmy Hoffa’s murder.
“There’s no ego here,” he said. “We do this to solve cases.”
More for you
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Zodiac-killer-cipher-sleuths-16286260.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNFV6-IFr5wv4IFEt-3w9CKyTlI-P Q”>Zodiac killer code cracked? The S.F. Chronicle gets tips like this almost every day
https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Did-a-French-engineer-crack-the-last-two-Zodiac-16268578.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNFnqehGMVrYeKMPkde0r7iA1h7-I w”>Did a French engineer crack the last two Zodiac ciphers?
The Chronicle traditionally has not named Zodiac suspects unless law enforcement investigators confirm they are being actively looked into. The only man ever named as a suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo, who died in 1992.
Federal and police investigators tasked with solving the 52-year-old Zodiac mystery, however, said this new tip doesn’t hold up. The Zodiac https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Zodiac-Killer-case-50-years-later-Tracing-the-13464347.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNGImWAmwabPiGpLEj49aSZ3nsrQv w”>killed five people in 1968 and 1969 in the Bay Area, his last victim being cab driver Paul Stine in San Francisco, and mailed taunting letters with ciphers to The Chronicle as he rampaged.
“The Zodiac killer case remains open. We have no new information to share at the moment,” the San Francisco office of the FBI said in a statement Wednesday. The San Francisco Police Department echoed the statement. Sources at both agencies told The Chronicle the evidence presented by the Case Breakers does not appear to be conclusive.
“Is there a chance that (the Case Breakers suspect) killed Cheri Jo Bates? No,” Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback told The Chronicle. “If you read what they (the Case Breakers) put out, it’s all circumstantial evidence. It’s not a whole lot.”
As for any Zodiac links to Bates’ murder, Railsback said his department worked with FBI agents to debunk a letter and other indicators that had purportedly pointed to the Zodiac, and in August announced that information along with a $50,000 reward for tips leading to Bates’ actual killer. The Case Breakers called him about the reward, he said, but didn’t follow up when he asked for more information.
The Chronicle and police get hundreds of tips every year on https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Zodiac-Killer-case-50-years-later-Tracing-the-13464347.php&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNGImWAmwabPiGpLEj49aSZ3nsrQv w”>potential Zodiac suspects and solutions to the ciphers, pointing to everyone from people’s fathers to other killers like Charlie Manson and even newspaper columnists.
The Chronicle was called six years ago by a relative of the Case Breakers suspect, who said the man lived in Groveland (Tuolumne County) and had tried to kill him with a hammer. He said he contacted investigators, but when The Chronicle followed up with law enforcement, they said the Zodiac connection did not appear to be there.
David Oranchak of Virginia, who led a team that the FBI confirmed cracked the Zodiac’s 340 Cipher in December, said Wednesday it was improbable that the Case Breakers were correct in their analysis that the killer’s ciphers contained their suspect’s name. The Case Breakers were interpreting anagrams, he said, and that technique can produce a dizzying array of names and words with easy manipulation.
“It seems vanishingly unlikely that the name is actually in there,” he said. Colbert said Oranchak’s team was largely right in its solution to the cipher, but that it missed the anagram that contained their suspect’s name.
Other teams over the years, including some that involved former law enforcement officers like the Case Breakers, have come up with different suspects. Perhaps the most prominent one was based in Vallejo, led by former California Highway Patrol Officer Lyndon Lafferty. It determined in 2011 that the Zodiac was a 91-year-old former real estate salesman in Fairfield. Both Lafferty and the salesman have since died, and investigators say there wasn’t enough evidence to prove their suspect was the right man.
Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/KevinChron&source=gmail&ust=1633650268909000&usg=AFQjCNH3KPyMFr7iWN7SxG-dyus40yks2 w”>@KevinChron
Kevin Fagan
S.F. Chronicle Staff Writer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If Zodiac ever joined a Z forum, I’m sure he would have been banned for not following forum rules. Zam’s/Quote
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MODERATOR
@alphadeltarho What’s unusual to me is how all the mainstream media outlets jumped on the story and definitively named Poste as Zodiac without hesitation. I don’t think this has happened on a comparable scale with any other POI who isn’t ALA.
Really they been doing it for many including Earl Van.
in August announced that information along with a $50,000 reward for tips leading to Bates’ actual killer. The Case Breakers called him about the reward, he said, but didn’t follow up when he asked for more information.
well there you go.
Okay a lot of the group is ex law enforcement but don’t know where to send their proof and have to ask Dave ?This stinks worse then some of TV’s epic dumps.
This stinks worse then some of TV’s epic dumps.
That’s because that’s exactly what this is. Thomas J. Colbert is the founder of the Case Breakers and he splits his time between writing D-list spec scripts for True Crime type TV pilots and shilling DB Cooper fanfiction.
Bio from his Consulting Firm website
https://www.tjcconsulting.biz/about-tjc-consulting/
IMDB page
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0170309/
About section from their website to confirm this is the same guy
https://thecasebreakers.org/about-the-case-breakers/
I’m not saying that you can’t have a career in Hollywood without being a complete sellout, I’m just encouraging a little bit of Occam’s razor in this case. The guy literally makes zero-nudity crime porn for 30 years and we’re supposed to believe that now he’s decided to commit himself to performing a disciplined criminal investigation with strict probative standards? Yeah, I don’t think so. One of his top dudes is a Questioned Documents expert and not only is he still arguing that the Bates letters were written by Zodiac, he’s presented absolutely nothing in the form of handwriting analysis.
These guys want to lead an expedition into the mountains up to this supposed evidence cache, do you suppose they might want to take a film crew up there with them? I hate to be a cynic but this is embarrassingly transparent.
As for why everybody is covering this (Newsweek is the biggest name I’ve seen), if I had to guess, I would say that Tom Colbert has probably signed a contract with some major media firm to produce another garbage-tier Zodiac special. I mean, for heaven’s sake, Newsweek got spun off from it’s parent company in 2018 and the former owner of the parent company (IBT Media) pled guilty to money laundering and fraud last year. Your guess is as good as mine how much restructuring has taken place in broadcast and print media over the past 2 years, but I feel confident in saying that the media they produce tends to be on the exploitation end of the journalism spectrum. I’m so tired of the soap-operafiction of this case and others like it. If these guys don’t like it, then they are welcome to prove Poste is Zodiac on their own dime. I’ll wait.
EDIT: literally just realized who you were talking about. No this is far more cynical than that. I thought you were talking about television, I don’t know why. As abrasive as he can be, he does have some decent resources on his yt which I appreciate. This Case Breaker shit is pure grift, though.
Maybe they will find the weapons cache and release an irrefutable cipher by Poste, but I’m not holding my breath.
Repercussion of the news here in Brazil, in several sites, however, fortunately, says that there is nothing conclusive and no police authority of the USA, considers, yet, that the case has been solved.
But, you see, today my nephew came to me and said
“Uncle, they finally found out who is the Zodiac!”
https://zodiacode1933.blogspot.com/
@tegean Indeed. Tom Colbert is best known for his book The Last Master Outlaw which claims a man named Robert Rackstraw was DB Cooper. The claims made in the book have been roundly criticized and debunked by Cooper experts, but that hasn’t stopped Colbert from getting his name and face all over television including a History Channel documentary.
This is a farce at best and a money grab at worst.
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
