New Documentary Claims Zodiac Killer Never Existed, Is A Myth

The identity of the Zodiac Killer, the most notorious serial killer that roamed the homeland, eludes an answer 50 years later.

To this day, internet sleuths continue to investigate and theorize about the face behind the cryptic letters and list of unprompted murders. But an upcoming documentary on Peacock presents a rather untapped theory.

Titled Myth of the Zodiac Killer, the two-part series argues the Zodiac Killer is just that:

A myth.

 "What if the reason the Zodiac has never been caught...is because he never existed in the first place?" the press release for the series reads.

NBC released a trailer for the show on Tuesday:

Authorities have long used the Zodiac's infamous ciphers to rule out suspects -- particularly Arthur Leigh Allen, the prime suspect in the 2017 film Zodiac.

But the series will apply AI technology to the writings for the first time.

In the trailer, Thomas Horan points out that upon AI observation that "ballistics don't match, the fingerprints don't match, the witness descriptions and survivor descriptions of the killer don't match."

Horan concludes that the assumption that the Zodiac Killer is real "doesn't make sense."

Should We Believe Zodiac Killer Is A Myth?

Could it be? Could the monster who terrorized the West Coast be a mere myth promulgated by true crime fandom?

Certainly, we can't dismiss it. Especially until the doc airs and further presents its case.

After all, the varying descriptions of the Zodiac's body frame -- depicted in the film by casting three separate killers -- would be consistent with Horan's theory.

However, the case for an orchestrated hoax would have to explain the consistencies in the ciphers, the national investigations, and the connections between the deaths believed to be from the hands of the Zodiac.

It's also unclear what murders the doc examined to conclude the Zodiac is a myth. That is key.

More Questions Than Answers

The first question to every Zodiac theory reads as follows: did the study include Riverside?

On October 30, 1966, 18-year-old Cheri Jo Bates was stabbed and slashed to death at Riverside City College in California. Various investigations consider Bates the first murder victim of the Zodiac Killer.

But opinions still vary on if that were the case. See, Bates's murder doesn't quite match the other killings believed to be via the Zodiac.

It's our belief the Zodiac did not kill Bates in Riverside, and that such a theory only complicated the investigation by forcing authorities to focus on men with past ties to the location.

So, we await to see if the series used Riverside as part of its study. If so, it's likely the inclusion of the location derailed its investigation as well.

MAC Theory

MAC Theory remains the most convincing.

True crime expert Mike Morford released a podcast earlier this year declaring himself “100 percent” certain the Zodiac Killer was a man named William McDuff Andrew, who died in 2014.

Links between Andrew and the Zodiac are ominous. Morford presented the case on his website, ZodiacKiller.net.

William McDuff Andrew and the Zodiac sketch.

Myth of the Zodiac Killer Premiers Next Month

Andrew has ties to each location to which authorities tied the Zodiac Killer -- except Riverside.

Notably, Andrew's parents lived approximately 500 feet from the phone booth on which reports say the Zodiac called the police in 1969 some 30 minutes after the Blue Rock Springs attack.

Andrew owned at least two copies of “The Codebreakers,” the book experts believe Zodiac used to create his signature ciphers.

Eventually, Morford obtained Andrew's writings which he claimed closely resembled the Zodiac’s handwriting.

And get this: it is long believed something changed in Zodiac’s life in 1974 when he ceased written communications with police.

Where was Andrew in 1974?

Marrying his wife.

Arthur Leigh Allen was not the Zodiac Killer. Nor was Ross Sullivan. Neither was Gary Francis Poste, whom the Case Breakers identified last month.

But for Peacock to convince us the Zodiac was a myth, it will have to thoroughly debunk the eerie links that tie William McDuff Andrew to the case.

OutKick contacted Mike Morford for comment on the upcoming documentary:

"The entire hole in the theory of this documentary is that the case spans several jurisdictions and physical evidence, handwriting etc links all the cases across these jurisdictions. The theorist at the center of this documentary has accused one police office of orchestrating this hoax but his theory falls apart because this one officer did NOT have access to all of the evidence and jurisdictions most specifically the piece of the San Francisco victim’s Paul Stine’s shirt that was mailed to a newspaper by the killer. The Napa officer if he was a hoaxer would not have had access to the shirt material to mail it in the first place."

The series premieres on July 11. Check back for our follow-up at that time.