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A cryptic code sent by the Zodiac killer on November 8, 1969 to San Francisco Chronicle has baffled authorities for decades, until now. Now a 27-year-old man is claiming he cracked this code as well as the identity of the Zodiac killer, who murdered at least seven people in the late 60s. Corey Starliper of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, was intrigued by the case after watching a 2007 movie "Zodiac" about the killings. He claims to have spent nine hours working on cracking the code. "I found it exciting, that I was actually able to get into his head when nobody had...

Corey Starliper believes he has solved the 41-year-old "340" cipher and has identified the legendary serial killer who terrorized northern California. To most, the word “Zodiac” conjures up images of astrological symbols and the positions of stars. Corey Starliper, a Tewksbury, Mass. native and hobby code-cracker, thinks of a serial killer of the same name. Starliper also thinks that he has solved a cipher devised by Zodiac that has remained unsolved for over 40 years. Zodiac was the name taken by a murderer who operated in the Bay Area, including Napa, Solano, and Vallejo counties, in 1968 and 1969. Zodiac...

Even on his days off from working overnights for the Chicago police, John Lewison usually stayed up through the night and slept during the day. It was often early in the morning, after having his fill of CNN, that he turned to a hobby of sorts. Sprawled on a couch in his North Side home in a T-shirt and sweatpants, Lewison tried to unravel a murder mystery that has mystified law enforcement and crime buffs for decades: the identity of the Zodiac killer, who is believed responsible for at least five homicides that terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in...

The Zodiac killer, it turns out, was a Jekyll and Hyde carpenter from Orange County who dragged his 7-year-old daughter along for thrills as he carried out his reign of carnage in the Bay Area 40 years ago. At least that's what the daughter, Deborah Perez, told reporters and a frenzied mob of Zodiac buffs Wednesday. Somewhere in between all the yelling and jostling for face time on TV cameras, an actual press corps listened to Perez, now 47, and her representatives lay out a case that the Zodiac was her father. Their guy: Guy Ward Hendrickson, a resident of...

The FBI's investigation to unmask the Zodiac Killer has expanded into another state and authorities are now working to determine a connection to a murder victim that was never linked to the infamous Bay Area serial killer. Dennis Kaufman, an El Dorado County resident, got federal investigators' attention when he found evidence that could link his stepfather, Jack Tarrance, to the Zodiac murders. Relatives knew he could be violent, but could Tarrance be the Zodiac Killer? "He said, 'I've been drunk and in fights, I've stabbed so many people I lost count,'" a relative said. Relatives of Jack Tarrance --...

It began quickly, a few minutes after 10 p.m. On Dec. 20, 1968, David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, pulled to the side of a road in Vallejo. An hour later, a man approached. He shot through their windows. They scrambled to get out. The guy shot Faraday point-blank in the head. Jensen, running away, was hit six times in the back. The next year, on the Fourth of July, two teenagers, also in Vallejo, drove to an isolated area. The same man approached them and shot them repeatedly. Thirty minutes later, he called the police. "I want...

Investigating the North Bay's most notorious unsolved murders with the cybersleuths at ZodiacKiller.comOn the Monday before Christmas, Tom Voigt, Ed Neil and Angie Avey will travel to Lake Herman Road on the eastern outskirts of Vallejo to a remote gravel turnout where an unknown assailant shot and killed a high school couple exactly 36 years ago. That attack was just the beginning of a murderous rampage that in the coming months and years would terrify Bay Area residents, capture national and international media attention and defy homicide investigators to this day. Voigt was just one year old when the murderer...

Deborah Perez announces at a news conference in San Francisco that she even rode in the car with the 1960s Bay Area serial killer when he went out to kill. Police are waiting for proof. The Zodiac, the hooded serial killer who menaced the Bay Area 40 years ago, has so fascinated the public that major motion pictures, books and blogs have been devoted to sifting through clues for his identity. Just when you thought every angle had been covered, along comes Deborah Perez, who announced at a raucous sidewalk news conference in San Francisco that the Zodiac was her...

A Southern California woman claimed her father was the infamous Zodiac killer who terrorized the Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s and said she helped him write and mail the letters that earned him the sensational nickname. Deborah Perez, 47, said Wednesday that she saw a composite sketch of the Zodiac killer in August 2007 and recognized the man as her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, who died in 1983. She said she had never heard of the Zodiac killer prior to seeing the composite sketch. "He told me he was sick and all I wanted to do was help...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Southern California woman said Wednesday that her late father was the infamous Zodiac killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay area four decades ago. San Francisco homicide investigators said they will check into the information from Deborah Perez, who said her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, killed at least two of the known victims 40 years ago. Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said the investigation into the 1969 death of San Francisco taxi driver Paul Lee Stine related to the Zodiac killer remains ongoing.

SAN FRANCISCO — A woman stepped forward today to claim her late father was the infamous Zodiac Killer and that she as a 7-year-old wrote some of the letters that taunted local police, a local television station reported. Kevin McLean, the former law partner of the late Melvin Belli, said he has led a two-year investigation into claims by Deborah Perez that her father, Guy Ward Hendrickson, was the Zodiac killer, according to KTVU. Hendrickson, who lived in Orange County, died in 1993 of cancer. "He was a Jekyll and Hyde," McLean said of Hendrickson. "He was nuts. He set...

The Zodiac killer, who taunted and terrified Bay Area residents in the late 1960s with cryptic letters and a trail of victims, has been identified, according to a group claiming to have cracked the case that has baffled police for decades. The killer is not one of the handful of men repeatedly linked to the 40-year-old crime spree, according to the group, which plans to announce its findings today.

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) Exclusive; The Zodiac Killer attacked at least eight people, terrorizing the Bay Area and taunting police in the 60's and 70's. Thursday, the FBI confirmed to CBS13 they are now running laboratory tests on some items that may link a suspect to the killer. The evidence was given to the FBI by a Pollock Pines man who also claims he recently found the disguise worn by the Zodiac Killer during one of his attacks. "The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance. He's my stepfather," says Dennis Kaufman. Eight years of Dennis Kaufman's life has been...

SFPD caseload renders 35-year mystery inactive It has been one of the longest, most famous and frustrating homicide investigations in San Francisco, haunting detectives for more than 35 years. Now, just two years after DNA evidence suggested that a break might come soon, police have "deactivated" the case of the Zodiac killer.