On Wednesday, the identity of the Zodiac Killer was finally revealed: It was Louis Myers, only 17 when he began the killings, who confessed from his deathbed back in 2001. In 2012, the identity of the Zodiac Killer was finally revealed: It was George Russell Tucker, a pseudonym for a then-recently-diseased 91-year-old former real estate salesman from Fairfield, California. In 2009, the identity of the Zodiac Killer was finally revealed: It was Guy Ward Hendrickson, a carpenter who brought his 7-year-old along for the ride during the killings.

It’s worth pointing out that last year, Dick Van Dyke also confessed.

Every cycle through the calendar brings with it a new media-corroborated claim that the Zodiac Killer case has been solved, and every claim is false. Critical of them all is Tom Voigt, owner and operator of ZodiacKiller.com, the expansive clearinghouse for all evidence related to the case since 1998.

Rick Paulas: How many people have claimed to know who the Zodiac was?

Tom Voigt: It happens about every week with me. At least once a week I’ll check my email and there’s somebody, somewhere in the world, that knows who the Zodiac is. It follows the same recipe. They’ll give me a few cryptic clues, but they don’t really come out and give any specifics. When I ask for some, I won’t hear from them anymore. Then maybe six months later, they’ll get back to me and claim they went to the police, and the police are very intrigued, and at that point they’ll usually give me an indication that it’s about money. They’re hoping I’ll endorse their theory and it’ll lead to a book deal. That’s when I usually don’t even respond.

Is there a specific time of year when the hoaxsters come out?

Probably the most-prominent was Deborah Perez. That was five years ago or something like that. She’d been in contact with me for several years. She was the first one I saw that really got a large amount of media coverage. That was early in the year as well. This most recent guy came forward in February. You know, maybe it’s a New Year’s Resolution. Some people want to get a job promotion, other people want to fill people in on who the Zodiac is.

Have you seen a change in news coverage about Zodiac allegations over the years?

Twenty years ago, when newspapers were still strong, these people wouldn’t get press coverage because there was actual journalism involved. Hoaxsters would have to provide proof and get the proof substantiated before it was considered news. Nowadays you have these admitted hoaxsters like Rick Dyer, this redneck going around claiming he had a Bigfoot body. He did the same thing five fucking years ago! Then late last year he said he was going to do it again, and the next thing you know he’s in The Huffington Post and CNN, and people are paying $20 to see his muppet. And it’s being covered by so-called mainstream journalists. I just think the integrity has gone downhill because of the Internet. There’s so much more competition than in the old days when you had maybe 50 big-time newspapers, and there was a lot to getting a job at the newspaper, you had to actually be trained, and have ethics. Now there’s a million news sources and people just publish anything.

What’s wrong with the most recent allegations?

This new guy, Louis Myers, it’s a worse theory than before. He was a teenager at the time the Zodiac was fully active. During one of the Zodiac crimes, he wore a mask. I don’t know what was under that mask, but I do not believe it included pimples.

By the way, it’s not a new suspect to me. The person who’s promoting the theory contacted me way back, shortly after the suspect died after allegedly confessing on his deathbed. And I said, okay, you know the Zodiac is famous for creating these cryptograms, but only one of them was solved. There’s three remaining. If your friend confessed, what do the codes mean? We can reverse engineer and see if your friend was telling the truth. And that’s when everything went sideways. The guy didn’t want to give me any details. He just thought I was going to put his name on my website and we’d all make millions of dollars. He made me an offer, like, if I join his team it’ll be really lucrative, crap like that. And I said, I get better offers in the mail every week from Ed McMahon. That’s not really a funny joke anymore, but that’s just how long ago this guy contacted me.

What pieces of evidence would someone have to provide in order for you to take them seriously?

Most people who know the case know that the Zodiac was famous for writing letters in his own handwriting. So, if someone claims they’re the Zodiac, let’s see their handwriting. And if it doesn’t match, then you have some explaining to do. Also, tell me the solutions to those cryptograms. There’s one that’s only 13 characters long and it was supposedly the Zodiac’s name. I don’t care who the Zodiac was, he’s going to remember what that code means, and if he confesses we can reverse engineer it. None of these logical things were done in this most recent case. They’re usually never done. I have not seen any handwriting from this individual. I haven’t seen any reference to what the codes mean. If you’re Randy Kenney, and you’re the one promoting this theory, even if you’re a total dimwit, you must at least ask one good question. I don’t need two or three, I’ll settle for one. Did you ask what the freakin’ codes mean, how he created the costume he used at Lake Berryessa, what he did with the remainder of the cab driver’s shirt he tore off, what he did with the weapons he used… there are so many good questions to ask, and this guy asked none.

Through the many claims of people saying they knew who the Zodiac was, how many actually made you take a closer look?

I think I have more data about possible suspects than all of the original law enforcement agencies combined. I say that because I have the original police reports from way back in the day, and then I have all the materials that I have collected since 1998. I have a form people can fill out online, anonymously if they want, if they think they know who the Zodiac is. So, there’s all the original suspects I know about, and all of the suspects since 1998. I have thousands and thousands and thousands of suspects, and I’ve only found three that were really worthy of close scrutiny. I’ve had a hand in obtaining all three of their DNA, so three out of ten thousand isn’t that many.

You know, I’ve had people turn in a suspect that was their junior high teacher, and they thought he could be the Zodiac because he’d bring in his lunch every day in a paper sack. He always used the same paper sack, so they thought he could be the Zodiac. It’s like panning for gold. Most of it’s junk, but occasionally you find a good one, and then you look at the good one really closely.

What happened with any of these good suspects?

The most recent good suspect was Richard Gaikowski, and I can’t get the police to compare his DNA to the Zodiac’s DNA. They have the Zodiac’s DNA, it’s a series of numbers. And I have Gaikowski’s DNA, which is a series of numbers. And I can’t get anybody to compare the two series of numbers. It’s very strange.

Do you think the case will ever get solved?

I think it’ll be solved. I think what’s going to happen is eventually the Department of Justice in Sacramento will take over and they’ll re-examine the letters, and they’ll obtain a full DNA profile from, perhaps, the saliva the Zodiac used when he licked the stamps on the envelopes. And they’ll put it in the national database, and they’ll get a hit, and that’s what’s going to close the case eventually. But if the Zodiac never got arrested — if he’s not in the database — the good news is that Zodiac’s codes are so famous now, puzzle solvers around the world are working on them. If just one of those three unsolved codes gets cracked, there could be a clue to his identity.

Rick Paulas once spent a full month trying to crack the 340-symbol cipher. He did not.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Aubade While Falling

From here,
the smallest increment above
the sheet, I plummet. We know the law:
we are all repulsive. Nothing
touches anything else.
A café and some version
of you, impatient, dressed in furs,
but this alleyway circuit board. I never
know who’s chasing me.
Define close as nearby
though not imminent: you are close,
but not here. The warm vacuum
between us, not your skin,
but the sensation of force. I am
a magnet. I am a pole.
In this mountain
village, gravity is a lie we tell
to feel connected. I know what’s
coming. Pigeons
scatter. Nothing solid in the stairwell.
From this height, I watch you leave
the table. Have faith: when I
jump from this balcony, or fall,
I will keep on falling, will never
touch the ground.

Adam Boles lives and works in Tallahassee, FL. He holds an MFA from Florida State University’s Creative Writing Program.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

I don’t know why everything about this seems to say, “right now,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with the fact that winter is never going to end and things are never going to get better. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another reason either, but given what we’ve got to work with my guess remains “seasonal.” Enjoy. [Via]

“A trio of ‘style-conscious germaphobes’ have designed a scarf made from special germ-filtering cloth, in a high-tech bid to keep nasty bugs at bay — particularly on the subway. The Scough — a mashup of the words ‘scarf’ and ‘cough’ — was the brainchild of Alexa Nigro, Ari Klaristenfeld and Andrew Kessler, who couldn’t stand another winter riding the subway next to people who don’t cover their mouths when they cough. The scarf that retails for $39 to $59 on the company’s website and on Etsy, can be drawn around the face to act as a fashionable mask, its creators said.”

Grief-Stricken Polar Bear Occasionally Distracted From The Crushing Burden Of Existence By Frozen Fish Treat

“I went to do a panel. It must have been entertainment related. I was very involved in early music on the web. I was part of the team at Apple that helped do the earliest webcasting. The guy who picked me up at the airport was incredibly drunk. I was like, ‘I need to get out of this car.’ We went right to the opening event. I looked for the safest-looking person in the room, walked up to him and said, ‘I need you to give me a lift back. I can’t get in the car with this person.’ That guy and I are still good friends to this day. That’s my first moment at SXSW. I will always remember that.”

Okay, so the bad news is that we are looking at what could potentially be 8 inches or more of snow from Sunday night into early Monday evening. Even if that amount ends up being substantially less, temperatures will continue to remain lower than usual for the foreseeable future. The frigid weather will serve as a constant reminder that the world is cold, empty and meaningless. The sun will rise and then set and the darkening sky will settle in as you huddle beneath a blanket on your couch, the glare of the television screen the only light in your life, the blare of whatever’s on the only other human voice you hear or want to before another day dawns and you force yourself to go through the agonizing routine in which you have somehow found yourself trapped, seemingly forever. The good news is that no matter what they do February ends at midnight tonight, and however much snow or cold or darkness there is, it will all be worth it just to get out of this awful, nightmarish month. Sweet Christ, it is supposed to be the short one. Good riddance, February! I hope I’m dead by the time you come back around again.

So long, Mt. Gox! Early this morning our time, the Bitcoin exchange announced it was entering bankruptcy protection. What was Mt. Gox? It was a dreaaaammmmm. And how:

“The company’s lawyers added that Mt.Gox may have lost nearly all of its virtual currency, leading to a black hole of 2.8 billion Japanese yen, local media reported.”

by Natasha Vargas-Cooper

Pam has come to dependency court on behalf of Jacob, who is four years old. Pam wants the judge to arrest Jacob’s mother.

Pam is a volunteer in the Court Appointed Special Advocate program in juvenile dependency court in California. These CASA volunteers are independent advocates for the child during any court procedure.

“Children’s lives are ripped apart here,” Pam told me, just before the day’s session.

Jacob’s mother, let’s call her Tina, is 28.1 She has a decade-long crystal meth addiction. It’s kept her bouncing in and out of court-mandated rehab beds and jail cells.

When Jacob was two, Tina’s probation drug test came up dirty for meth. She got her longest sentence: three months in jail. Jacob went into foster care. His first placement was considered an “emergency stay” — in the home of a foster family for only a few days, because Pam had no relatives nearby. Then he was off to another longer stay with a foster couple.2

While Tina served jail time, Jacob’s social worker told the foster parents that the adoption was going to be a “slam dunk,” because women like Tina rarely stay clean and was pretty much destined to have her parental rights terminated.

It’s fairly hard to lose custody of your kids in Los Angeles County. In some ways, you have to really try at it. The process takes no less than 14 months.3 It can — and often does — last up to two years. Drugs, negligence, abuse, and felonies: None of these speed up the process of losing parental rights. They typically do the opposite; slowing down the process to give a parent every opportunity to sober up and straighten themselves out so they can be functional caretakers.4 The place where custody decisions are meted out, or delayed, is the juvenile dependency court.

The mandate of California dependency court is to “fix” families through social services so children can be reunited with their biological parents. If children are not placed with their biological families, then they become wards of the state (through long-term foster care or group homes) until they are adopted or age out of the system.5

In some cases, a child’s welfare and parental custody are at odds.6 To put it more bluntly, some parents are beyond redemption and their child’s life would be greatly improved if he or she were taken away. A judge makes this decision based on what social workers, foster parents, volunteer child advocates, siblings, relatives, parents and sometimes probation officers say. In some California counties, to be a judge in dependency court is a considered a position of great prestige. In others, it’s a rung down the ladder from traffic court.

The great bulk of CASA volunteers, rigorously trained to navigate the labyrinths of dependency law, are mothers, like Pam, with grown children. The margin of maneuver granted a CASA is quite wide: Everything from making sure a child gets placement in a reading proficiency program, to arranging free transportation to therapy sessions, to getting foster parents to purchase cleats for a child who is interested in sports.

Jacob’s adoption was not, it turns out, a slam-dunk. “But she surprised everyone,” Pam said. “Tina took it all very seriously. She wanted to be a good mom.” After Tina did her jail sentence, she attended a dispositional hearing in dependency court. This is the first step the court takes. A case plan was presented by the social worker: in order for Tina to get custody of Jacob, she would need to go through rehab, stay sober, and take parenting classes.

As Tina’s drug tests continued to come up clean, she was granted visitation rights, visiting Jacob weekly. Pam would meet Tina and Jacob in the park for her monthly visit with the two. Tina’s recovery foiled the foster parent’s petition to adopt and “there was a lot of anger from the foster parents,” Pam said. “They were sure they’d be able to adopt Jacob, and as Tina got better, they saw him slipping away.”

Tina was living in a homeless women’s shelter but she had six months sober when Jacob was put back in her custody. Jacob was still considered a ward of the state but for the time being, he was in the care of Tina.

Tina, Pam, and Jacob continued having biweekly visits. “Sometimes I’d meet them in the park or I’d come by the shelter,” Pam said. Tina’s next hearing in dependency court — a 12 month review to determine if she was still sober and therefore able to regain full parental custody of Jacob — was another six months away.

Six weeks after Jacob came to live with Tina at the shelter, Tina tested positive for meth and was kicked out. Tina called Pam and left a voicemail saying she and Jacob would not be able to make their biweekly visit. Then she turned her phone off. The two have vanished. “I’m worried she took him to Arkansas,” Pam said. “That’s where Tina’s only family is from.” If Tina did take her son across state lines, then she could be charged with kidnapping.

If and when Tina resurfaces she will be immediately arrested. Her parental rights will be permanently terminated. Then where will Jacob go? Jacob’s former foster parents, who Pam says were excellent, will be barred from housing or adopting him. That’s because their initial adoption petition was thrown out by the court as a result of Tina’s initial recovery.

So when he turns up, Jacob will be remanded to the foster home of strangers.

The judge issued the arrest order, as recommended by Pam. “I hope he’s resilient,” the judge said of the four-year-old, before gaveling the court to adjournment.

1. All names have been changed.

2. There are three options in the first days of a child being removed from a parent: the first and most prefered is with a nearby relative (who has no felonies and a relatively safe home for children). Next is a short term foster home, meant only for a few days stay. If neither can be found in time then the child goes to an emergency shelter.

3. There are about 8 to 10 hearings that have to take place before a parent’s rights are terminated. If done according to schedule that process takes 14 months to complete.

4. Reunification as a primary goal has become increasingly controversial in Los Angeles. The state of California gives incentive bonuses to private foster care agencies if they reunify children with their biological parents. While this is a noble idea in theory, what has occurred in L.A. is children being reunited prematurely with their parents who are incapable of keeping their children safe.

5. The ideal scenario for a child in foster care is that they are place with no more than two foster homes. But if a child is not adopted within the first year of being in foster care, they are more likely to average ten to twelve foster home placements. The longer a child is in foster care, the less likely they are to be adopted.

6. Parents are entitled to a trial and due process when there is suspicion of abuse. For instance, on the same day I attended dependency court, a very distraught couple were in court because medical staff suspected them of abusing their infant. The infant had fallen and fractured her arm. The couple rushed the baby to the hospital, where one of the doctors filed an abuse complaint with DCFS. The baby was taken out of the couple’s home that evening and placed with an aunt. Multiple people came into the testify that their hearing that the couple were not at all abusive — that they were very devoted and affectionate parents — and that the injury was a result of an accident. The judge explained that he believed their testimony and put the baby back in the parent’s care, and ruled on that there was no substantiated abuse.

7. This of course assumes that they were placed with a relative or foster family that was not abusive or neglectful.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper is a reporter in Los Angeles. Pictured: the Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Court, as seen from the highway.

★★★ Fine snow was blowing up through the clogged traffic on Amsterdam. From the 27th floor, only the outline of a cruise ship really backed up the broker’s assurance that the river really would be in view out there, somewhere. The flakes turned bigger and quickly put a white layer on everything that wasn’t moving and some things, like hoods and coat sleeves, that were. Snow gathered on the railing outside the walkup apartment where that apartment’s broker was not. Inside at last, the fifth-floor radiator heat was stupefying. The dead roaches looked well dried. For a moment, the snow seemed to have cleared, but it had just gotten fine again and a little bit stinging. In the span of a train ride downtown, though, the clouds did break apart. A last few flakes drifted from the blue sky. The afternoon, sharply bright and sharply cold, belonged to a completely different day. There were not enough clouds for the peach light at sunset to catch on, so it settled for catching on a banking airplane and the window facets of the apartment tower.