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Ted Cruz plays along with Zodiac Killer jokes as identity of serial killer 'revealed'

A group constituting former investigators called 'The Case Breakers' said that Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018, was the Zodiac Killer

Texas Senator Ted Cruz chimed in Wednesday, October 6, on a longstanding joke that he was indeed the Zodiac Killer after a group of investigators claimed to have identified the notorious criminal.

A group constituting former investigative specialists called 'The Case Breakers' said that Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018, was the Zodiac Killer. Poste was reportedly identified through a series of photographs they uncovered from his so-called "darkroom," per a statement issued by the group. According to them, the photos date all the way back to 1963.

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While one would expect the latest news to quell the intrigue around Cruz, many opted to keep the joke alive by sarcastically claiming that he, and not Poste, was still secretly the cold-blooded serial killer.

"Oh yeah? That’s the identity of The Zodiac Killer? Then explain… TED CRUZ!” one joked, reacting to a news article.

"I refuse to acknowledge that the zodiac killer has been identified because we all already knew it was Ted Cruz," a comment read.

"I’ll believe they’ve caught the zodiac killer when Ted Cruz is locked up," a user added.

“‘Independent investigators funded by Ted Cruz say that the zodiac was definitely not Ted Cruz,'” another chimed in.

It appeared Cruz also wanted the joke to continue after he responded to the news with his own meme on Twitter.

It's worth noting that the Zodiac Killer was one of the most wanted serial murderers to ever exist. He terrorized San Francisco in the late 1960s and five known victims were attributed to him between December 1968 and October 1969 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Zodiac Killer was known to target young couples and had also killed a lone male cab driver.

Over the years, the serial killer grew bolder and began corresponding with the authorities via letters and sent postcards to media outlets. The killer once claimed to have murdered 37 victims in his letters and ciphers sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. He has since been linked to several other cold cases, including some outside the state of California. Two of the four ciphers the killer producers remain unsolved to this day. The first was cracked in 1969 and the second in 2020 by private citizens. The killings and investigation went on to inspire multiple books, documentaries, TV shows, and movies.

Having said that, the joke linking Ted Cruz to the Zodiac Killer originated in 2013, after a Twitter user quipped that his address at a political conference would be a confession that he was the killer. However, the sensational theory gained serious momentum only during Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. Fellow Republican Senator Lindsay Graham joked in 2016, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”

Cruz has alluded to the joke on several occasions in the past. In 2017, he posted one of the Zodiac Killer's cryptographic encoded message. The following year, he posted another cypher with the text, "Happy Halloween."

For the record, however, it is unlikely that the Texas Repiblican is the Zodiac Killer, whose first confirmed kill was in 1968, while the politician was born in 1970.