Zodiac Killer's Cipher Cracked

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The Zodiac Killer was responsible for five murders in the San Francisco area in 1968 and 1969. Unlike other serial killers, the Zodiac Killer taunted police with enigmatic ciphers and bizarre letters to the newspaper. In them, he claimed as many as 37 victims.

The San Francisco Chronicle received the 340 Cipher in November 1969, over 50 years ago and up to this time no one was able to crack it.



A code-breaking team with members in the U.S., Australia and Belgium claims it cracked the decades long mystery and reported its breakthrough to the FBI, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. Expert code breaker and team member David Oranchak said the cipher’s text includes: “I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me. ... I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me.”

Source: Zodiac Killer cipher cracked after being mailed to San Francisco newspaper 51 years ago

This is the cracked "340 cipher" ...

Such cool news. I recently watched some zodiac killer themed movie, too.

He claimed to have killed something like 37 people. It’d be awesome if he got caught & is still alive.

fascinating.

Mr. Zodiac is becoming America's "Jack the Ripper". A perennial mystery. Like Jack we probably wont bring the living perp to justice, but unlike the Ripper this gives hope that we might at least finnally figure out who he was. Though who knows?...maybe there is some still living 70 plus year old man who saw this story, and ...is both chortling about how "it took them fifty years to figure out my cipher", and his also shaking in his boots.

It depends on when he was born. He could still be alive, He may not be.

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1337480518074503170

Edit: for those who don't get the joke https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ted-cruz-zodiac-killer

Better article with a bit more interesting info throughout it And a complete & more accurate transcription of this cipher, including what was mentioned in another article I read as being an apparent misspelling of the word “paradise,” as “paradice,” - which must have some significance to the zodiac.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.sfchron ... 794943.php

Too bad the article is behind a pay wall.

There is a Par-A-Dice Hotel and Casino in East Peoria, Illinois.
There is a small business serving Hawaiian style shave ice and premium, locally made ice cream in Santa Barbara, California called ParadICE.
There is a Para-Dice Avenue Souf [clothing store] located in Seattle, Washington. This one is a little interesting. See their website. This one sports machetes with clothing. Paradice Avenue Souf


Somehow I think those spellings are just anomalies.

Thats what I friggin said. Cant you read?

Paradice makes me think of Las Vegas.

Ya, me too. But that may be too obvious.

He was a better code maker than he was a speller.

Unless...the misspellings are deliberate, and are some kind of code within a code.

Maybe he only visited San Francisco, but lived in Vegas, or Reno. And "pair of dice" is a deliberate pun about his real home town.

I thought for sure there would be a seedy motel or little casino in Las Vegas called that. But all I found was Pair-A-Dice Trailer Park in North Las Vegas, NV. And Pair-A-Dice Tattoo 304 E Sahara Ave, Las Vegas, NV.

I remember in the film Zodiac (2007) it being said that he, or one of the suspects, liked to purposely misspell words because he thought it was funny.

For some folks paradise IS holding a pair of dice. So you would think that that would be a common name for watering holes and the like in and out of areas of legal gambling. Like "the dew drop inn".

That was good sleuthing you did just now...even if it dead ended. But who knows? Maybe in 1973 there was some no longer extant specific place of that pun name that he lived near.

"Paradise" spelled correctly is a fairly common town name. One such town, in western Kentucky, was completely dismantled and hauled away for strip mining back in the Seventies (its demise is celebrated in a great song by the late John Prine).