BAD SIGN

Did the Zodiac Killer Lead a Bomb-Making, Bear-Slaying Youth ‘Posse?’

Controversial team that claims to have unmasked the unidentified murderer told The New York Post he trained followers.

The same group that announced it had solved the Zodiac Killer mystery last month now says it has uncovered his cadre of trained young followers, the New York Post reports.

According to Thomas J. Colbert, the author and former Hard Copy staffer who leads the Case Breakers investigative team, the cryptic murderer who slew at least five in the Bay Area in the late 1960s was all along a housepainter named Gary Poste. And what’s more, Colbert told the Post, the Groveland-based Air Force vet led a squad of “wayward boys” he turned into “killing machines,” teaching them to construct explosives and trap bears.

“He just didn’t have a conscience,” the Post quoted one purported ex-member of “The Posse” saying. “He could just kill indiscriminately. He couldn’t stop after he came up here. He had to continue to kill even if it was small animals —just to make himself feel better. Of course, he did end up killing other people.”

Not everybody is convinced Colbert has cracked the case. The FBI and local law enforcement continue to treat it as an unsolved mystery, and one expert described the Poste theory as “hot garbage” to Rolling Stone in October.