Lab Testing Zodiac Killer DNA Renews Hope Of Solving Case

Just a week after police made a long-overdue arrest in the Golden State Killer case, police in Vallejo, California, are trying to use the same method to finally crack the case of the Zodiac Killer. Vallejo police sent old Zodiac DNA to a lab for testing in hopes of finally solving one of America’s most famous unsolved mysteries, the Sacramento Bee reported.

According to Vallejo detective Terry Poyser, they handed in envelopes from the letters Zodiac sent for DNA testing. Poyser did not say which lab was doing the testing but did say the samples were sent in well before the Golden State Killer arrest was made. Ideally, the lab will send back a DNA profile police can use by the summer, at the latest.

Police were able to catch who they think is the Golden State Killer late last month by using online DNA databases. Using DNA to catch criminals used to be limited by the fact that law enforcement databases almost exclusively contained samples from convicted felons. A criminal who had never been convicted before was much more difficult to find through DNA testing.

But now, people put DNA samples online all the time for the purpose of tracking down long-lost relatives or just finding out more about their genetic histories. Police put a Golden State Killer DNA sample through one of those databases and ultimately came to the conclusion that 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, a former cop, was the most likely suspect.

A likely snag in this process, as SFGate pointed out, is that Zodiac was not as cavalier about leaving behind DNA samples as the Golden State Killer was. Whoever committed the Zodiac murders did not give investigators the gift of blood and semen samples. Most of his confirmed attacks were committed with firearms.

However, Vallejo police are at least optimistic enough about the results of the lab’s DNA testing to give it a shot.

The Zodiac Killer operated throughout Northern California in the late 1960s, with police definitively linking him to five murders. The letters he sent to local newspapers to boast about his work and taunt investigators became legendary, complete with ciphers that he claimed would reveal his identity if solved. Unfortunately, nobody ever sufficiently solved the ciphers.