14 DAY TRIAL // An amateur code breaker from Massachusetts claims to have cracked the Zodiac Killer's famous 340-symbol cryptogram revealing his identity as Arthur Leigh Allen.
Corey Starliper, 27, of Tewksbury, says he has learned about the Zodiac Killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, after seeing the 2007 movie based on his crimes.
The Zodiac Killer case has never been solved. It involves five confirmed killings and two serious injuries, although the killer claimed to have murdered a total of 37 people.
The Zodiac Killer is famous for taunting police in letters sent to newspapers, some of which were encrypted. A total of six letters contained ciphers, but four of them were complete cryptograms.
The first three made up one single message which was decoded by couple Donald and Bettye Harden of Salinas, California, on August 8, 1969, after being published in the San Francisco Examiner.
The Zodiac claims in the letter that he is killing people to serve as his slaves in the afterlife. The purpose of eighteen seemingly random letters at the end of the message has never been determined.
Another 340-character cryptogram sent later by the Zodiac Killer has never been solved, although various solutions were proposed over the years.
It is this cipher that Starliper claims to have cracked. The decoded message is a plea for help. It ends with "Please help me stop killing people. Please. My name is Leigh Allen."
Starliper told the Daily Mail that he tried to contact the authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area, Solano, Vallejo, and Napa counties, as well as the San Francisco Cold Case and Special Investigative Units, who showed no interest.
That's likely because Arthur Leigh Allen, who was once the primary suspect in the case and died in 1992, was cleared by a lie detector test, as well as DNA, palm print and handwriting analysis. Even so, he was never ruled out as a suspect by the Vallejo or the San Francisco Police Departments.
