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Has the Zodiac Killer's Cipher Been Cracked?

A Massachusetts man says he has solved something that has boggled authorities for 40 years – the writings of a notorious murderer.

Known as the Zodiac Killer, the unknown subject killed at least seven people and terrorized California’s Bay Area in the late 60s.

The high-profile crimes were made more mysterious by the cryptic writings the killer sent to local newspapers.

Now, Corey Starliper, of Tewksbury, says he has solved those writings.

Mr Starliper, 27, who admits he’s ‘extraordinarily consumed’ in the case, spent nine hours working on the code.

He told Patch.com: ‘I found it exciting, that I was actually able to get into his head when nobody had for over 40 years.’

The first cipher, which appeared three parts sent to three newspapers in August of 1969, contained 408 characters.

It took just a few days for a history teacher and his wife to solve it.

Mr Starliper said: ‘The first code was cracked by amateurs. So they figure that any communication after that would be able to be cracked by amateurs.’

So he began to work on the most famous – and unsolved – code, a 340-character cipher mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on Nov. 8, 1969.

‘The first one was cracked by a history teacher and his wife,’ said Starliper.

‘What I’m driving at was the first code was cracked by amateurs. So they figure that any communication after that would be able to be cracked by amateurs.’

Starliper’s interest in the infamous killer was sparked by Zodiac, the movie about the murders.

The 2007 film starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Marc Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr.

It was based on the writings of Robert Graysmith, who scribed two books about the case.