Richard Gaikowski: The Bespectacled Newspaper Editor Who Went “Berserk”
TwitterVariations of Richard Gaikowski’s name seem to appear in the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers.
According to Tom Voigt, one of the most compelling Zodiac Killer suspects is Richard Gaikowski, a bespectacled San Francisco newspaper editor who bears a striking resemblance to police sketches of the murderer.
“Richard Gaikowski is my best bet,” Voigt explained to Rolling Stone. “If I was an employer looking to hire the Zodiac, he’d probably have the most impressive résumé in my eyes.”
As Voigt says on his Zodiac Killer website, Gaikowski was the editor of a counterculture newspaper called Good Times from 1969 to 1971, the same time period that the Zodiac operated in Northern California. The paper’s production schedule kept Gaikowski busy on Wednesdays, which happens to be the only day of the week that the Zodiac never mailed a letter.
San Francisco Police DepartmentThe Zodiac Killer’s letters abruptly stopped at the same time that Gaikowski was hospitalized for going “berserk.”
History also writes that one of Gaikowski’s former colleagues claimed that Gaikowski was the killer and that the editor had invited him to commit violent crimes together. Voigt additionally points out that a Zodiac Killer cipher appears to contain a variation of Gaikowski’s name, and that the Zodiac Killer’s letters abruptly stopped around the same time that Gaikowski was involuntarily committed to the Napa State Hospital after going “berserk.” The murderer didn’t send another letter for about three years.
So was Gaikowski the Zodiac Killer? Not everyone thinks he’s a strong suspect. A San Francisco police inspector described Gaikowski’s former colleague as “one of the three top Zodiac kooks.” And Gaikowski claimed that he was out of the country at the time of one of the Zodiac attacks (though, according to Voigt, his passport says otherwise).
Indeed, though some have taken the alleged inclusion of Gaikowski’s name in the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers as a strong indication of his guilt, Gaikowski isn’t the only Zodiac Killer suspect to supposedly appear in the ciphers.
