Zodiac Killer: a Franco-Moroccan polytechnician decrypts two cryptograms

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Zodiac Killer: a Franco-Moroccan polytechnician decrypts two cryptograms

Zodiac Killer: a Franco-Moroccan polytechnician decrypts two cryptograms – (FRANCE 2)

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France 2 – L. Feuerstein, P. Aubert, C. Salmon

France Televisions

At the end of the 1960s, the Zodiac Killer sowed terror in California. He is said to have killed at least five people. His identity remains a mystery that amateur investigators are trying to discover using cryptograms. A Franco-Moroccan polytechnician deciphered two of them.

Could America be about to discover the identity of the mysterious Zodiac? For more than half a century, the story of the serial killer and his coded messages has intrigued. At the end of the 1960s, the criminal was rampant around San Francisco (United States, California). Several couples are shot or stabbed. The murderer sometimes masks himself, assures a victim who survived. The Zodiac boasts and claims 137 murders. The police officially count five. As a game, he sends letters to the press and four cryptograms, a mixture of letters and symbols.

Two cryptograms decrypted

The first is decoded quickly, but the second will only be decoded in 2020 by amateurs equipped with powerful computers. The criminal is not identified. Two years ago, Fayçal Ziraoui, a Franco-Moroccan polytechnician, carried out his own research. After weeks of research, he deciphers the last two codes.

It uses the 2020 decryption method and obtains a series of letters which it translates into GPS points “near Lake Tahoe”. After the taxi driver’s murder, one of the prime suspects moved from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. This suspect is Lawrence Kaye, who died in 2010. The researcher claims to have identified him in the last cryptogram. For a former FBI agent, the contribution of these amateur investigators can be useful.


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