Zodiac case solved? ‘Case Breakers’ group makes an ID, but police say it doesn’t hold up

^{(Oct. 6, 2021; The San Francisco Chronicle.)}

Greeting card mailed to The Chronicle on Nov. 11, 1969 with a letter and a cryptogram.

The latest of the hundreds of 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, particularly with what appear to be identical forehead scars, 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 the Zodiac — a theory that Riverside police said in August they have debunked.

...

“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.

Read the rest from The San Francisco Chronicle: Zodiac case solved? ‘Case Breakers’ group makes an ID, but police say it doesn’t hold up
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I seem to have seen a movie called Zodiac that was a serial killer, but I don't quite remember when I saw it. By the year Cheri Jo Bates died, if the killer is still alive, he must already be an older man or 10 feet underground.

Yes, theories from recent years have identified various people who've died.

Interesting, but if neither the SFPD nor the FBI codebreakers are buying it, I'd say it's far from conclusive. On the other hand, Michelle Wynn is an independent third party who agrees that the suspect matches the 1969 police sketch. Stay tuned, I guess.

It's also interesting that the Chronicle declined to publish the alleged suspect's name.

The Chronicle traditionally has not named Zodiac suspects unless law enforcement investigators confirm they are being actively looked into. The only man named as a suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen of Vallejo, who died in 1992.

More here from the UK's Independent and republished, here on the CaseBreakers web site.

I agree. From the little more that I read about it, it seems like this single theory out of a typical handful that emerge regularly got a little extra attention, maybe because of the potential interest of the sketch match aspect, and an asserted connection to another murder.

I found the refusal to publish a name interesting too. I wonder if there was a precedent for that, or if the zodiac case helped lay the groundwork for that as policy.

I was wondering that too. It seems like this policy might be specific to the Zodiac case, but as a matter of journalistic integrity, I think a policy like this might make sense when reporting on many/most criminal investigations. There is a need to balance between reporting news and reporting gossip.