Mystery of a Murderer’s Message

The case of the so-called Zodiac Killer—a never-identified serial slayer who terrorized Northern California during the late 1960s and early ’70s—is old enough, that many readers of this blog have probably heard little about it. Not so David Oranchak, a 46-year-old Web designer in Virginia. From The Washington Post:

For 51 years, one of the Zodiac Killer’s puzzling codes he sent in letters to newspapers in the late 1960s and early 1970s has confounded the cryptography community, law enforcement and curious citizens.

But the Bay Area killer’s 340-character cipher mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle has been cracked by an international team of code-breakers. The breakthrough, first reported by the Chronicle, was verified by the FBI.

“I felt vindicated,” said American code-breaker David Oranchak, who told The Washington Post that he first saw the cipher 14 years ago and thought he could decipher it quickly.

Click here to find out what that cipher “roughly translates to.”

READ MORE: “Zodiac ‘340 Cipher’ Cracked by Code Experts 51
Years After It Was Sent to the S.F. Chronicle,” by Kevin Fagan (San Francisco Chronicle).