Zodiac Killer Suspects: As group claims vet is murderer there are plenty of ... trends now

Zodiac Killer sleuths are continuing to turn up new evidence more than half a century since the murderer terrorized Northern California leaving at least five people dead.

A group of investigators yesterday claimed to have new evidence proving that a USAF veteran was behind the slayings which primarily targeted young couples in the late 1960s.

The Case Breakers team first named Gary Francis Poste two years ago but now say that the FBI has a partial DNA match which could tie him to the murders.

However, Poste isn't the only suspect in the frame as the serial killer who claimed in menacing letters to newspapers into the 1970s that he had killed 37 people.

The only suspect authorities ever publicly identified is Arthur Leigh Allen, a schoolteacher who was institutionalized in 1975 for child molestation. But the cops only ever had circumstantial evidence against the pedophile who died in 1992.

Other suspects include Lawrence Kane, who was picked out of a photo line-up by a woman who claimed she was abducted by the Zodiac; Ross Sullivan, who bore a striking resemblance to the killer's police sketch; and Richard Gaikowski, who was said to have a similar voice.

Such is the fame of the case it has become a fixture of popular culture. Ted Cruz has even been the subject of facetious claims that he is the murderer. The Republican Senator yesterday played up to the internet meme as he retweeted DailyMail.com's article about the new suspect, saying: 'This is absolutely true'.

Here DailyMail.com looks at the Zodiac case: Who was murdered, why were they targeted and who are the suspects...

Although the Zodiac claimed in letters to newspapers to have committed 37 murders, investigators agree on seven confirmed victims, five who were killed and two who survived.

Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Faraday, 17

On December 20, 1968, the Zodiac Killer struck for the first time, taking the lives of high school sweethearts David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. The couple were parked in a secluded area of Benicia, California, when they were ambushed. The assailant shot Faraday in the head, killing him instantly, before turning his gun on Jensen, who was also fatally shot.

Darlene Ferrin, 22, and Michael Mageau, 19

Around seven months later, on July 4, 1969, the Zodiac attacked again, this time at Lake Herman Road near Benicia. Darlene Ferrin and her companion, Michael Mageau, were sitting in a parked car when the killer approached and opened fire. Ferrin died instantly, succumbing to multiple gunshot wounds, while Mageau, was gravely wounded but survived the attack.

Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, and Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20

Cecelia Ann Shepard, 22, and Bryan Calvin Hartnell, 20, were relaxing on a blanket at a remote location by Lake Berryessa in Napa County on September 27, 1969, at Lake Berryessa in Napa County. Hartnell was stabbed ten times while Hartnell was stabbed six times in the back. He survived the attack, while Cecelia succumbed to her injuries two days later. Hartnell told cops the killer initially struck up a conversation before tying them up and stabbing them with the 12-inch blade.

Paul Stine, 29

The Zodiac's final known victim was taxi driver Paul Stine. On October 11, 1969, in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, Stine unknowingly picked the killer up as a passenger. Shortly after entering the cab, the assailant shot Stine in the head, instantly killing him. This case gained significant attention due to the serial killer's brazen act of cutting a portion of Stine's shirt which he mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle two days later.

Gary Francis Poste 

Gary Francis Post (b. November 8, 1937 - d. August 23, 2018), an Air Force veteran, was first named as a suspect by cold case investigators in October 2021.

An organization, including ex-FBI agents, called Case Breakers fingered Poste for the killing of co-ed Cheri Jo Bates, 18. She was stabbed 42 times and nearly decapitated on October 31, 1966, in Riverside, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco and two years before the Zodiac's first known killing.

Case Breakers say that around the time of Bates' murder, Poste was getting a check-up at a hospital located just 15 minutes away from the crime scene.

A wristwatch splattered with paint and believed to have been worn by the killer was found near Bates' body. Case Breakers note that Poste spent 40 years working as a house painter.

Additionally, a heelprint found in the dirt at the scene of the stabbing was said to have been been from a 'military-style boot' consistent with the style and size of footprints found at three known Zodiac crime scene, and also of Poste.

Poste passed away aged 80 in Groveland, California, on August 14, 2018. He was 80 years old. He was never charged with any offenses related to the Zodiac killer.

Little is known about Poste's life beyond the fact that he was married, had a son, and worked as a painter after retiring from the military. 

In February 2016, The Union-Democrat reported that Poste was arrested on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse.

A California woman who lived next door to Poste and his wife, and who had been babysat by the couple as a child in the 1970s and 80s, told Fox News she now believes her neighbor was the Zodiac killer. 

The woman, who gave her name only as Gwen, Poste taught her how to shoot, sometimes going into the woods for target practice five days a week.

'In the last year of her childcare, [Gwen] witnessed his callousness and violence towards his wife – a wife that only slept on a couch,' according to the Case Breakers. 

In a phone call between Gwen with Poste's widow, who is now in her late 70s and residing in an assisted living facility, the elderly woman was said to have told her former neighbor: 'I'm sorry that I didn't tell the cops about his past.'

A man named Hans Smits told the Case Breakers that over the past 10 years, he had been shielding a 'Zodiac whistleblower,' who had allegedly escaped from Poste's criminal 'posse' that was said to have been active in the High Sierra area of California for several decades.