Thread by @Billyjensen

A note on this #ZodiacKiller news.
In 2015, I was called upon by a team of producers for the History Channel to pressure test a suspect in the DB Cooper case that a group of investigators had zeroed in on. They paired me with Tom Fuentes, former asst. director of the FBI.
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We spent months going through the DB Cooper case—as well as the suspect’s background. And we concluded that there was no concrete proof that the suspect—Robert Rackstraw—was the man known as DB Cooper. The head of the investigators, a man by the name of Tom Colbert,
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was pretty upset, but there was just nothing there, just a lot of shadows and circumstantial evidence. The investigators couldn’t even place Rackstraw in the area at the time of the hijacking. You can watch the show on the History Channel: "DB Cooper: Case Closed." It was
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a four hour special that the producers thought would be solving one of the biggest unsolved crimes in history—and instead it was Fuentes and I saying—this ain’t the guy. Yesterday, news came out that a group of investigators had solved another huge unsolved crime—perhaps
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the most infamous in US history. The group said they had identified the man known as the Zodiac Killer. The head of that group? Tom Colbert. The news media ran with it. Right now, I’m getting flashbacks of being in a room with Colbert for a week as he tried to convince me
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and Fuentes that his suspect was DB Cooper—with no concrete evidence. Colbert is tenacious and does a lot of research, but unless he and his team are holding evidence back, there is no proof that Zodiac is solved. They are saying the name of their suspect was revealed in
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the recently-cracked cipher. David Oranchak, the man who cracked the cipher in December (which was confirmed by the FBI), told the SF Chronicle yesterday that “It seems ... unlikely that the name is actually in there,” saying that the anagrams
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the group was interpreting can be pushed and pulled to say millions of things. The group also said scars on their subject match scars on the forehead of a sketch of zodiac. Then they presented a bunch of photos of the subject. Have a look at the press release they put out
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Now, if you go through the release, you can see what this team is trying to do is force Riverside PD’s hand to run DNA samples found under Cheri Jo Bates’ fingernails after her body was discovered in October of 1966--and then compare with their suspect’s,
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who they say has a DNA sample sitting at the Vallejo police department. Bates is theorized to have been the Zodiac Killer’s first victim, but Riverside PD does not think that’s the case. I am not sure if either of these samples exist.
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But I will say this: If there is DNA in Cheri’s case—as there are for thousands of unsolved cases sitting in police storage lockers—and this news puts pressure on the PD to process and use forensic genealogy to find her killer, then this could all be a good thing.
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Police departments across the country need to utilize forensic genealogy to solve murders and identify rapists from sexual assault kits. Some are doing it, but not nearly enough. So make some noise. Get loud. But be careful with your headlines--Zodiac is not solved yet.
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