Posted on 07/23/2011 12:29:35 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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 for over 40 year," Starliper said to Patch.com.
The code identifies "Leigh Allen" as the killer, which Starliper says refers to Arthur Leigh Allen.
Allen was a prime suspect at one point in the investigation, but was never arrested. He died at age 58 in 1992.
Robert Graysmith, who wrote a book on the case, maintains that Allen is the killer despite the difference in the handwriting.
He said: "Leigh Allen, in that situation, was forcing his handwriting to look different from the way that he normally wrote."
On the other hand, Starliper's claim to have successfully cracked the code has not been received well by San Francisco authorities and Special Investigative Units.
"It's disheartening to know that the authorities have basically shut the door on it," he said.
The following is the full text of the 340-character code that Starliper claims to have deciphered:
KILL/SLF/DR/HELP/ME/KILL/MYSELF/GAS/CHAMBER/AEIOUR/DAY S/QUESTIONSABLE/EVERYY/WAKING/MOMENT/IM/ALIVE/MY/PR IDE/LOST/I/CANT/GO/ON/LIVING/IN/THIS/WAY/KILLING/PEOPLE/I/ HAV/KILLD/SO/MANY/PEOPLE/CANT/HELP/MYSELF/IM/SO/AN GRY/I/COULD/DO/MY/THING/IM/ALONE/IN/THIS/WORLD/MY/W HOLE/LIFE/FUL/O/LIES/IM/UNABLE/TO/STOP/BY/THE/TIME/YOU /SOLVE/THIS/I/WILL/HAV/KILLD/ELEVEN/PEOPLE/PLEASE/HELP/ ME/STOP/KILLING/PEOPLE/PLEASE/MY/NAME/IS/LEIGH/ALLEN
Yes, but the 340 area code (US Virgin Islands, split from 809 in 1997) did not.
There used to be a rule that area codes had to contain a 0 or a 1 in the second position while exchange codes had to have 2-9 in the second position. The rule allowed switching equipment to tell whether a number being dialed was long-distance (included an area code) or not.
Area codes were created in 1947. By the 1990s, they began to fill up. So, the N[01]N rule was relaxed, allowing additional area codes to be assigned, and the requirement to dial 1+area code for long distance was introduced, solving the number length ambiguity problem for switches. See here.
I had forgotten that yes it was Leigh Allen. But the way he assigns letters to symbols and does the Caesar shift - is arbitrary, and this is something of a forced solution.
Apparently he started with “My name is Leigh Allen” and went from there, rather than starting with something like “I like killing people.”
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