• Consultation considers minimum service levels that covering urgent care 
• Junior doctors have so far held 19 days of industrial action in hospitals this year 

By Shaun Wooler Health Editor

Published: 19:01 EDT, 18 September 2023 | Updated: 02:34 EDT, 19 September 2023

Matt Gaetz threatens to try and force Kevin McCarthy OUT as Speaker if he stands in the way of impeaching Biden

• Gaetz has told his GOP colleagues to ‘seize the initiative’ to investigate Biden
• Warned McCarthy ‘may not have the job long’ if he ‘stands in the way’
• Republican Rep. added Americans are ‘disillusioned’ with House Republicans 

By Wills Robinson For Dailymail.com

Published: 08:11 EDT, 6 September 2023 | Updated: 12:52 EDT, 6 September 2023

Police task force begins hunt for sniper suspect tied to 22 car shootings in two weeks

•       Police are pursuing a male sniper suspect for nearly two dozen cars

shootings in Michigan that began October 16

•       More than 100 local officers, sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and

federal agents are involved in the investigation

•       Investigators and state police are pulling over local drivers and

questioning them for details

By Daily Mail Reporter

Published: 17:39 EDT, 31 October 2012 | Updated: 00:27 EDT, 9 May 2013

[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE

Police are hunting a sniper in Michigan tied to 22 car shootings in two weeks, which have caused one injury so far.

A task force of investigators has started questioning drivers in four Michigan counties in hopes of catching a man suspected of shooting at other highway motorists head-on. Police investigators are searching for anything out of the norm during their traffic stops in Oakland, Livingston, Ingham and Shiawassee counties.

More than 100 local officers, sheriff’s deputies, state troopers and federal agents are now involved in the investigation, which began with reported shootings in Wixom, about 25 miles northwest of Detroit on October 16.

A local male was shot in the behind Saturday while heading east along Interstate 96 in Livingston County, causing a nearby school to go into lockdown, according to United Press International.

That victim has been the only person injured so far, but the suspect is believed to be shooting at people and not just their vehicles, said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard on Tuesday.

‘It’s been more of the grace of God than the guy intentionally missing people,’ said Bouchard. ‘We’ve had people who have been missed (by) inches. One bullet was lodged in a driver’s seat.’

‘The suspect is believed to be shooting at vehicles approaching from the opposite direction,’ said Michigan State Police lieutenant Michael Shaw.

‘Some motorists had not realized that their vehicles had been hit until they had driven a quarter-mile or more,’ he said.

The investigative task force has received more than 800 tips so far and has increased the reward money for any information that leads to an arrest to $102,000 from $12,000.

Witnesses have described the suspect’s vehicle as resembling a dark

1998 Oldsmobile Alero or a 1998 Toyota Camry. Those initial descriptions may not be correct, said Shaw.

On Monday police stopped the driver of a dark-colored Chevy Cavalier after a woman reported that something hit her car on U.S. 23 near Brighton, Michigan at 9.05am.

No arrests have been made.

Local officials say it’s a must that they catch the suspect not only to protect lives, but also to stop the spread of fear among citizens in the area.

‘For Halloween, we are going to do special patrols in each of our subdivisions so kids can have a normal Halloween,’ said Clarence Goodlein, Wixom’s public safety director.

‘We’re not going to be in the business of letting a thug and hoodlum bully us and change the course of our lives.’

 

 

 

Before going to bed, Rebecca Downes and her partner Patrick Ramsey were always vigilant about unplugging equipment around the house.

Having lost her childhood home in a fire caused by an electrical fault, Rebecca, known to her family as Becky, had good reason to be careful.

So when Patrick brought an electric bike home one evening, they decided to charge it in the bedroom rather than the kitchen, so they could keep an eye on it ‘just to be safe’.

What ensued, in the three minutes after Patrick connected the lithium-ion battery charger to the wall, is the stuff of nightmares.

The battery, which measured approximately 14 x 3.6in, exploded like a ‘Roman candle’, Patrick would recall later, with shards of metal embedding in their skin, as flames and toxic smoke instantly engulfed the room.

As the blazing battery was blocking the door, the couple’s only means of escape was to jump 30ft from their second-floor window.

While Patrick survived, albeit needing months of hospital care, Becky, a mother of four, died from the horrific injuries she suffered in the fall. 

If that hadn’t killed her, her 60 per cent burns would have done, the coroner presiding over the inquest into her death last month was told.

‘These batteries are so deadly when they catch fire, Becky didn’t stand a chance,’ her sister, Julie Downes, 49, told the Mail. ‘It’s not like charging a mobile phone, which has just three volts and would probably smoulder, allowing plenty of time to get out. 

‘These e-bike batteries contain up to 52 volts (17 times as many) making them, I believe, far too dangerous to risk charging at home.

‘After what we’ve been through, and to prevent further loss of life, we would like to see all e-bikes and e-scooters completely banned.’

Fires from electrically powered scooters and bikes have caused eight deaths and at least 190 injuries in the UK since 2020, and are said to be the cause of at least six fires a week, according to safety campaigners.

What happened to Becky, who was 44, and her family is a particularly harrowing example of the potential dangers they pose.

The inquest into Becky’s death last year heard how the couple owned a bike shop in their home town of Blackpool, and had recently started trading in electric bikes and scooters. 

The weekend before the fire, Patrick had taken a bike to a friend who specialised in electronics, as there seemed to be a problem with the battery.

On Tuesday, July 5, he collected the battery and put it on to charge in the kitchen at home. But when he and Becky went to bed, she’d said she was not happy leaving it charging in the kitchen, so Patrick took it upstairs and plugged it in.

Becky’s anxiety, it turned out, was tragically well-founded.

Terrifyingly, campaigning charity Electrical Safety First estimates a fully charged e-bike battery can release a similar amount of stored energy as the explosive material contained in six hand grenades.

Fire chiefs predict there will have been another 338 blazes by the end of this year alone.

This reflects the huge surge in popularity of electric-powered transport, with over a million people now owning e-scooters, while more than 300,000 e-bikes have been sold over the past two years.

Concerns are also being raised about the safety of electric cars after a fire on a cargo ship in the North Sea killed a member of the crew and forced others to jump overboard last week. 

While the exact cause is still being investigated, Dutch broadcaster NOS quoted an unnamed official suggesting the fire may have been ‘sparked by an electric vehicle’.

Although it is strictly illegal to ride privately owned e-scooters anywhere other than on private land, e-bikes are considered a relatively safe, environmentally-friendly way of getting around.

However, challenging their ‘safe’ credentials, Electrical Safety First, insisted earlier last month, that regulations must be introduced for e-bike and e-scooter batteries, like those for ‘fireworks and heavy machinery’, which would force manufacturers to have their batteries approved by an accredited third party, such as a test lab, before going on sale.

Currently lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes and e-scooters, which release toxic smoke, can be sold with only the manufacturer’s declaration that they meet safety standards. This is in keeping with most electrical goods. However, Electrical Safety First believes vehicle batteries should be subject to more stringent regulations.

‘The huge amount of energy released over time when a battery bursts into flames is unlike other fires,’ warns chief executive Lesley Rudd. ‘In a matter of minutes a room can be decimated.’

Becky Downes’s family support any moves that will prevent other people suffering the ‘hell’ they have been through since her death.

Her daughter, Indiana, 14, was asleep when the blaze broke out. She was rescued by her brother, Callum, 27, who found her on the landing, her night clothes on fire, and crying for her mother, before handing her over to their brother, Coby, 17, and going back into the house to try to rescue Becky.

‘Callum ran back downstairs when someone said Becky had jumped,’ says her sister, Sonia Downes, 48. ‘Becky went straight into a cardiac arrest when she landed, and then the window frame landed on top of her.

‘For her children to witness that, I could cry just thinking about it. I don’t know how they’re ever going to get over what’s happened. Becky was a wonderful mum. We all miss her so much.’

Callum was treated for smoke inhalation, while Indiana suffered extensive burns and spent many weeks in both Manchester and Birmingham Children’s Hospitals, always with a devoted family member by her side.

Adele, Becky’s youngest sister, has taken the children in, while Callum is hoping to become Coby and Indiana’s legal guardians. Meanwhile, the family is on a waiting list for a council property, as their home is uninhabitable.

Indiana has recovered well and is awaiting a hospital appointment to discuss whether further treatment is needed for any scars. The emotional wounds, however, will take much longer to heal.

‘They’ve lost everything: their home, all their possessions . . . all this on top of grieving their lovely mum,’ says Sonia, tearfully. ‘They will never get over this; we just have to do what we can to make it as bearable as possible for them.’

As well as supporting Becky’s children, her sisters are eager to raise awareness about the risks of charging lithium batteries in the home, in the hope of preventing further tragedy.

However, the death toll is sadly rising. Just a month ago, Gemma Germeney, 31, and her children Lilly, eight, and Oliver, four, lost their lives in a fire believed to have been started by an e-bike left charging overnight at their maisonette in Cambridge.

Scott Peden, Gemma’s partner and the children’s father, was critically injured in the blaze while trying to rescue his family.

On January 8, Gary Shearer, 23, tried to rescue his father, Rab, 60, when fire, caused by an e-bike left charging overnight, tore through their home in Litherland, Merseyside. Tragically, it was an act of bravery which cost him his life. Sadly, his father did not survive.

Meanwhile, Sofia Duarte, 21, died on New Year’s Day, when an e-bike battery caught fire at her boyfriend’s flat in East London, where she was staying after they had worked late together in a club.

Sofia’s mother, Maria Macarro, who is also desperate to raise awareness about the risks of these fires, told the Mail: ‘It’s really scary how frequently these e-bike fires are happening. Since Sofia passed away, there have been more deaths. Why is the Government not imposing more regulations and punishments to prevent these deaths?’

Sofia’s boyfriend, Luis Zambrano, also 21, survived after leaping from the third-floor bedroom window, but Sofia was too scared to jump.

Maria and Luis are supporting the #ChargeSafe campaign, run by London Fire Brigade, to raise awareness of the risks.

It urges owners to buy from a reputable seller and make sure the battery and charger meet UK safety standards, store them in sheds or garages, never leave them charging while asleep or out, let the battery cool before charging and unplug once charged, and never leave them near exits. And, of course, to have working smoke alarms in every room.

However, while smoke alarms are undoubtedly lifesavers, the fires spread too rapidly for them to prevent Becky, Gemma, Sofia and the Shearers losing their lives.

This is one reason, according to Mark Hardingham, chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), that special precautions are needed. ‘If you see any signs of fire, raise the alarm, get out, stay out and call 999,’ he warns. ‘Only charge batteries when you are awake and alert so you can respond quickly if a fire should occur.’

Andrew Beaton, 59, supports this sound advice. He says his family was ‘lucky to escape’ after an e-bike burst into flames while charging under the stairs at their home in Lancaster.

Having been alerted by his son, Andrew threw the bike outside, giving his family time to flee, but still the flames gutted their house ‘in minutes’.

Avi Gooransingh, 29, is still haunted by thoughts of what could have been, had he not managed to get his e-bike out of the flat, in South-West London, which he shares with his mother and two siblings, before it exploded.

‘It was 11.30pm and I’d just got back from walking the dogs and I felt the bike smelt weird,’ recalls Avi. ‘I took it out and it exploded.

‘If I’d not taken the bike out, just two seconds before, it would have killed the whole family.’

So rapid was the blaze, which happened in the communal hallway of the third floor of their multi-storey 1970s block, that London Fire Brigade released a video of the e-bike going up in flames.

But while Andrew and Avi are among the lucky ones, the families grieving the loss of loved ones through preventable battery vehicle fires are doing all they can to raise awareness and stop more names being added to this tragic roll call.

Vladimir Putin has suffered his worst daily air force losses of the war after Wagner fighters killed 39 pilots and crew by downing strike helicopters and a military plane during Prigozhin’s rebellion, it has been claimed. 

Putin is also believed to be facing the humbling expectation to replace his top two war commanders – close ally defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the army staff general Valery Gerasmivov – or face new insurrection.

Coup leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a Putin loyalist, has agreed to be based across the border in Belarus – for now. Out of jail, and free to run his large mercenary army, he still poses an acute threat to the 70-year-old Russian president.

Putin is believed to have suffered grievous losses as he sought to halt the Wagner ‘march of justice’ against his corrupt regime towards Moscow as the Wagner Group reportedly killed pilots and crew members during their attempted ‘military coup’.  

The Wagner group claimed to have shot down multiple Russian helicopters during its assault. Shocking footage shows huge black plumes of smoke rising into the air on a field after what is claimed to be a helicopter was targeted and burst into flames. 

Russian forces appeared to confirm three of their attack helicopters had been shot down by Wagner. 

The Russians are reportedly seeking to cover-up the losses of up to 39 pilots and crew in a few hours. 

They allegedly included some of Russia’s leading air force crew members with one account saying 20-plus combat pilots were killed.

Putin is believed to have lost six helicopters – including three Mi-8 MTPRs specialising in electronic warfare – as well as a sophisticated Il-22 plane used to conduct battle plans at high altitude.

A desperate quick fix deal saw Prigozhin’s Wagner heavily armed force halt their march on Moscow in return for a deal that drops all treason charges against him and his men.

It avoided a potential Russian v Russian bloodbath at the gates of Moscow.

Yet Putin has never seemed so weak in almost a quarter of a century at the helm of Russia as president or premier.

Russia analysts said that the 70-year-old – who has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999 – was wounded in the battle. 

Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who has become one of the foremost leaders of the Russian democratic opposition, said Putin had been ‘humiliated’ by Prigozhin.

‘The game ended with Putin’s worst humiliation – a run for his life from Moscow when Prigozhin’s army was hundreds of miles away,’ he told CNN.

Kasparov added: ‘Many of Putin’s top officials ran for cover. A dictator relies on his aura of invincibility.’

Sergey Sanovich, Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, who specializes in disinformation and autocracies, said Putin had never looked so weak.

He said needing Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, to negotiate with Prigozhin on his behalf was a sign of how enfeebled he was.

‘Prigozhin makes a daring move and gets away with it, potentially with additional gains to come,’ said Sanovich.

‘Lukashenko saves the day. Putin reduced to a bystander, complaining on TV and letting his top generals be humiliated.

‘Never in a quarter century Putin looked so ineffectual and hapless.’

Sanovich’s view on the involvement of Lukashenko was shared by Michael McFaul, Barack Obama’s advisor on Russia from 2009-11, who then became the U.S. ambassador to Moscow.

McFaul tweeted: ‘Putin could not control a mercenary force that he created & run by his buddy. He had to rely on Lukashenko of all people to cut a deal with a guy he called just hours ago a traitor.

‘These are signs of real weakness, not strength. What has weakened Putin’s grip on power? His disastrous war in Ukraine.

‘The longer the war continues, the weaker Putin’s regime becomes. Those that want to avoid Russian state collapse (i.e. Xi) should be pushing Putin to end his war.’

Among Putin’s losses is apparently a Ilyushin-22, which appears to have been shot down by a Pantsir missile system secretly supplied to Wagner by Russia’s own forces.

At first the aircraft was identified as an Il-18 turboprop plane, and it likely used such markings – but was in fact an Il-22 used for secretive command and control missions in wartime.

Ten crew were on board, according to Russian Channel One correspondent Irina Kuksenkova.

It is likely a ‘high ranking general’ and other top brass were on board, revealed former Soviet military tactician and politician Viktor Alksnis, now an analyst known as the Black Colonel.

But he indicated the death toll was almost certainly higher, amid reports that the Russian state media has been ordered to obscure the true figure.

‘I assume that the total number of cabin crew and task force on board the Il-22 ranged from 15 to 20 people. They all died,’ he posted.

Putin also lost a regular Mi-8, a Ka-52 strike helicopter and an Mi-35.

‘As a result of the destruction of five helicopters and one aircraft by the Wagner rebels between 34 to 39 people were killed,’ estimated Alksnis.

Some 19 of these were in the five downed helicopters, he made clear.

More damage was done in a day than the Ukrainians have managed in the war.

‘It should be noted that our Aerospace Forces did not suffer such losses even in the most difficult days of the special military operation in Ukraine,’ said the Black Colonel.

All the losses were caused by Russia’s Wagner forces shooting down Russia’s regular forces – yet under the terms of the patched-up peace deal no-one will be prosecuted. The bloody fiasco can only benefit Ukraine.

As part of the hasty peace deal between Putin and Prigozhin – brokered by Belarus tyrant Alexander Lukashenko – the billionaire Wagner chief will pay compensation of almost half a million pounds to the families of the slain Russian airmen.

As recriminations sounded today, Telegram channel Fighterbomber – with almost 400,000 followers – demanded: ‘Which idiot with big stars on his shoulder straps ordered a transfer of the Pantsir air defence system to an illegal armed group [Wagner], a gang…? Will this idiot go to a military tribunal?’

Putin and his top commanders ‘gave birth to this monster [Prigozhin] and now they are trying to fight it’.

By today, no details of the dead air crew were revealed and Moscow was apparently engaged in a campaign to keep their names secret.

Hours after saying the coup leaders including Prigozhin would suffer ‘inevitable punishment’ he revealed that no-one would suffer sanctions over the insurrection.

‘There was a higher goal: to avoid bloodshed, to avoid internal confrontation, to avoid clashes with unpredictable results,’ said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Highways used by tens of thousands of Wagner troops marching on Moscow yesterday remained closed today.

NASA is due to hold a historic public meeting about UFOs tomorrow — as the once-mocked subject becomes mainstream.

The space agency launched an independent task force which has been studying unidentified objects in our skies and oceans since September of last year.

Tomorrow’s panel will see a broad discussion of NASA’s ‘science perspective’ on UAP, alongside more specific and exotic presentations, including one NASA astrobiologist breaking down ‘relevant observations’ of anomalies ‘beyond Earth’s atmosphere.’ 

Tomorrow’s meeting, which is expected to last over four hours, will make history as the first time America’s space agency has presented any results from its UAP investigation to the public.

The mere existence of the agency’s independent study team has added greater legitimacy to many unusual claims and events that had previously spent decades relegated to the fringes of scientific inquiry.  

The study group, formed nearly a year ago in June 2022, has been mandated to explore both the feasibility and the wisdom of tasking NASA’s own hardware and brainpower in the hunt for ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ (UAP).

The term UAP is meant to broaden the search for the truth about UFOs, encompassing both mysterious objects or occurrences whether in the sky, underwater or in outer space. 

‘The charter of this committee was to recommend to NASA whether research is warranted on this subject,’ according to Harvard physicist Avi Loeb, founder of the extraterrestrial-hunting, UAP-studying Galileo Project. 

‘They were not supposed to do any research,’ Loeb told the DailyMail.com. ‘They were not supposed to conduct new scientific study into the question, but just listen to witnesses that tell them what was reported in the past.’ 

NASA has previously stated that they possess no current evidence that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin, nor any hard evidence of alien life out in the universe. 

But they have also stated that the limited state of the current data makes it difficult to draw scientific conclusions.

While their group is scheduled to publish the full results of their nine-month UFO study this July, tomorrow’s public hearing is shaping up to look more like a sprawling interagency task force.

UFO reports will be delivered by both the head of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), physicist Sean Kirkpatrick, and an advisor to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Surveillance Services Office, Mike Freie.

The meeting will go live on NASA TV, the agency’s official YouTube channel, at 10:30 am ET, 1430 GMT on Wednesday (May 31).

The panel will even answer written questions put to them by the public, which can be voted on via a dedicated NASA page here.

Thomas Zurbuchen, previously the associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, announced the independent study group last June by saying: ‘NASA believes that the tools of scientific discovery are powerful and apply here also.

‘We have access to a broad range of observations of Earth from space – and that is the lifeblood of scientific inquiry.

‘We have the tools and team who can help us improve our understanding of the unknown. That’s the very definition of what science is. That’s what we do.’

But some academics, like Harvard’s Avi Loeb, say the federal space agency is already playing catch-up on the science behind UFOS.

‘Bill Nelson. the head of NASA, said that as a Senator he saw the classified data behind these UAP reports and the hair on the back of his neck stood up,’ Loeb recalled. 

He added that Nelson’s professed interest in the topic led him to discuss his own UAP research with the NASA chief’s then-subordinate, Thomas Zurbuchen. 

‘He asked me to send a white paper on this, which I did, and this led to the establishment of this study,’ Loeb told the DailyMail.com, ‘but I never heard back from Thomas Zurbuchen until, a year later, when I heard that they established this [NASA study group].’

Loeb, who had already started his Galileo Project at Harvard by then, was not invited to contribute to NASA’s study group, he said, because Zurbuchen felt his new project might leave the impression of a conflict of interest. 

‘When I asked Zurbuchen a year later why,’ Loeb recalled, ‘He said, “Well, but you’ve already established the Galileo Project and we want this study to be indifferent to the subject, for the members to have no vested interest in the subject.”‘

Loeb says that the Galileo Project has already raised about $5 million for its UAP investigation efforts, including land-based observatories to watch the skies for signs of the phenomenon. 

This summer, Loeb plans to travel to the Pacific Ocean to obtain and study the remnants of the first interstellar meteor to hit Earth. ‘This is an expedition that costs $1.5 million itself,’ Loeb told the DailyMail.com.

‘I don’t know what they will recommend tomorrow,’ Loeb said of NASA’s public presentations, ‘but if they say that scientific research on this subject is warranted the Galileo Project is already doing that. 

‘We have been doing it for two years now.’ 

But the Galileo Project is not the only professional group of scientists waiting for NASA’s imprimatur of authority to begin their own UAP investigations.

Last October, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an industry group which includes aviators, engineers and scientists from country’s largest military and NASA contractors, launched its own UAP taskforce.

Dubbed the AIAA’s Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Community of Interest, the group will be co-chaired by former Navy fighter pilot and UAP research advocate Ryan Graves and NASA planetary scientist Ravi Kopparapu. 

Kopparapu, who researches the potential habitability of Earth-like exoplanets for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, has advocated publicly for the scientific community to take UAP seriously since 2020. He told the the DailyMail.com that he had optimism about his employers’ own UAP investigations. 

‘I was not consulted by the study team,’ Kopparapu said, but added, ‘I am looking forward to hearing from the team tomorrow.’

A cold case investigator is claiming that the FBI has identified the man suspected to be the infamous ‘Zodiac Killer’ and believes the authorities didn’t look into him enough when he was alive.

Journalist Thomas Colbert says that an FBI whistleblower confirmed to him that Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste, who has been previously posited as the killer, is currently listed as a suspect.

He claims that FBI labs have a ‘partial’ DNA sample on Poste that links him to the murders. Poste has been dead since 2018.  

‘The felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac ‘suspect’ in Headquarters’ computers since 2016,’ Colbert’s organization, Case Breakers, said in a statement.

The FBI has been denying that the long-open case has been solved, confirming it was open as recently as October 2021. 

That same month, Poste was identified by Case Breakers as their leading suspect in at least five murders that took place in the Bay Area in 1968 and 1969.

On Wednesday, the organization announced they think they have evidence tying Poste to all of the murders, including a sixth victim from 1966 whom the FBI has denied was connected to the Zodiac Killer.

Case Breakers believes that the federal law enforcement has ignored evidence and state laws in their mishandling of the case. 

‘Like cops, federal agents are dealing with huge caseloads, constant training, odd rules and bureaucracy,’ their FBI whistleblower says. 

‘But when someone wearing a badge or uniform works with others to avoid or hide materials, sidestep difficult procedures, or lie about evidence, they’re hurting our volunteers and the thousands of families waiting for answers,’ 

In a statement, the FBI’s San Francisco Office told Fox News that the case remained ‘open and unsolved’ but provided no further comment, citing ‘respect for the victims and their families.’ 

Case Breakers is demanding a review into both local and federal law enforcement’s handling of the case, also referencing the victims and their families. 

‘As a nation, we’ve abandoned them – especially the remaining 10 brothers and sisters,’ Colbert said.

He called it a ‘coverup’ that was ‘nonsensical for the people that are still waiting.’

In 2021, The Case Breakers had identified Poste, who died in 2018, as the alleged serial killer who was responsible for multiple murders in Northern California in the late 1960’s.

The group – which is compiled of about 40 independent sleuths – announced that Poste had given away weapons and bullets before his death, which could finally lead to the true identity of the killer.

‘When The Case Breakers approached officials about a new Zodiac suspect last spring, five police and state agencies would not cooperate,’ the group said in a statement on Saturday. 

‘But last week, the man who runs the 10-year cold case team, Thomas J. Colbert, received a tip from his long-time sources in the remote town of deceased Gary Francis Poste: They had verified the existence of an evidentiary goldmine.’

The statement revealed that Poste had given away his weapons and bullets, with most of them still remaining untouched and hidden away.

‘Old associates of the housepainter/alleged serial killer claim that, a few years prior to Poste’s 2018 death at 80, he had quietly given away his weapons, pistol parts, gunpowder, bullets and shell casings – more than a thousand, involving 25 different calibers – to his favorite locals,’ they added. 

‘And most of these peculiar ‘gifts’ have remained in basements and closets, untouched, ever since.’

Thomas Colbert, one of the group’s members, boxed up the haul and sent it to team members to have the items investigated in labs in three different states. 

Colbert strongly believes they have nailed the identification of the Zodiac killer more than five decades later.

‘My FBI guys say it’s irrefutable. It’s a match,’ Colbert told Fox News back in 2021.

‘We also have six people that he’s confessed to that he was the Zodiac. Three of them on our court affidavits. So we strongly feel that.

‘And then of course the murder scenes in Riverside, we have counted six similarities at the murder scene.’ 

The team of investigators had also used photographic evidence to compare a distinctive scar seen on the Zodiac Killer and compared it to photos of Poste. 

They have even requested the FBI to test their findings for DNA.

The Case Breakers have also relied on accounts of people who knew Poste, including a neighbor whom the alleged serial and his wife used to babysit as a child, a man who claimed to have been a part of Poste’s criminal ‘posse’ that roamed the High Sierra region, and an ex-girlfriend of Poste’s son. 

Five people were fatally stabbed or shot to death in Northern California in 1968 and 1969, and their killer sent taunting letters and cryptograms to the police and newspapers.

The killer was dubbed ‘Zodiac’ because some of his cryptograms included astrological symbols and references.

The series of unsolved murders inspired many books, documentaries and movies.

According to information released by the Case Breakers, the Zodiac killer was also responsible for the brutal killing of co-ed Cheri Jo Bates, 18, who was found stabbed 42 times and nearly decapitated on October 31, 1966, in Riverside, more than 400 miles south of San Francisco and two years before the Zodiac’s first known killing.

Members of the investigative group claimed that around the time of Bates’ murder, Poste, an Air Force veteran, was getting a check-up at a hospital located just 15 minutes away from the crime scene.

A wristwatch splattered with paint and believed to have been worn by the killer was found near Bates’ body. Case Breakers noted that Poste spent 40 years working as a house painter. 

Additionally, a heelprint found in the dirt at the scene of the stabbing was said to have been been from a ‘military-style boot’ consistent with the style and size of footprints found at three known Zodiac crime scene, and also of Poste.

A year after Bates’ murder, the Riverside Police Department received an anonymous letter, whose author appeared to confess to murdering Bates for turning down his romantic advances. 

In 1975, an FBI memo sent to the Riverside Police Department linked the Bates murder to the Zodiac killings, describing the 18-year-old woman as the elusive murderer’s sixth victim.   

In 2021, Officer Ryan Railsback, the spokesperson for the Riverside Police Department, told DailyMail.com that their homicide unit, working with FBI genealogists, has ruled out any links between the Bates murder and the Zodiac killer, or anyone being potentially identified as the Zodiac killer. 

Railsback said the FBI memo tying Bates’ slaying to the Zodiac killing was based on the confession letter, which in 2016 was revealed to be a fake. 

That year, someone sent an unsigned, typed-up note to the police, revealing that they had sent the bogus confession, which was in fact a cry for attention from ‘a troubled youth.’ 

Railsback stressed that the Bates case remains open, and there is still an active $50,000 reward being offered for information leading to an arrest. 

The police spokesperson noted that last month, an entertainment lawyer with alleged ties to the Case Breakers reached out to the department, saying that his client had information about the Bates case, and asking if the tipster would be eligible to receive the reward money, even if the alleged killer was already dead. 

Railsback said he expressed interest in the information but never heard back from the attorney. 

‘If we really had information that the Zodiac killer was related to Cheri Jo Bates, we would not hide that,’ he stressed. ‘We’re not going to hide information, especially 55 years later.’    

In 2020, a ciphered letter mailed to a San Francisco newspaper by the Zodiac killer in 1969 was cracked by a team of amateur code-breakers from the United States, Australia and Belgium.

According to code-breaking expert David Oranchak, the cipher’s text includes: ‘I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me. … I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me.’ 

Little is known about Poste’s life beyond the fact that he was married, had a son, and worked as a house painter after retiring from the US Air Force, according to information gathered by the Case Breakers. 

In February 2016, The Union-Democrat reported that 78-year-old Gary Francis Poste, from Groveland, was arrested at his home on Merrell Road on suspicion of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse.

A California woman who lived next door to Poste and his wife, and who had been babysat by the couple as a child in the 1970s and 80s, told Fox News she now believes her neighbor was the Zodiac killer. 

The woman, who gave her name only as Gwen, Poste taught her how to shoot, sometimes going into the woods for target practice five days a week.

‘In the last year of her childcare, [Gwen] witnessed his callousness and violence towards his wife – a wife that only slept on a couch,’ according to the Case Breakers. 

In a recent a phone conversation between Gwen with Poste’s widow, who is now in her late 70s and residing in an assisted living facility, the elderly woman was said to have told her former neighbor: ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t tell the cops about his past.’

A man named Hans Smits told the Case Breakers that over the past 10 years, he had been shielding a ‘Zodiac whistleblower,’ who had allegedly escaped from Poste’s criminal ‘posse’ that was said to have been active in the High Sierra area of California for several decades.

‘Now in his 50s and hiding in the Northwest, [the whistleblower] says he’s angry and ashamed, claiming the psychopath ‘groomed me into a killing machine,” according to the investigative group.

The whistleblower also claimed to have witnessed Poste burying murder weapons.

A woman named Michelle said she was the common-law wife of Poste’s son, and the mother of his grandson, who is now in his 30s. 

According to Michelle, when her 10-year relationship with Poste’s son ended, the house painter sicced two members of his ‘posse’ on her, ordering them to break her windows, harass and assault her, ultimately driving her out of state.  

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled he would try to force a vote on a clean debt ceiling raise using a parliamentary tactic known as a discharge petition even as Republicans continue to insist the president must negotiate.

With financial markets eyeing the potential blowback should Republicans and Democrats fail to make a deal, it offers a prospect for moving a solution – but one with low chances of working. 

The Republican bill, which would slash some of President Joe Biden’s favorite programs, is dead on arrival in the Democrat-led Senate. Now Jeffries is using a rarely used procedural tactic where the minority can force a clean debt ceiling bill to the floor. 

The discharge petition allows a sizable group of members to go around leadership to get legislation directly to the floor.

‘We will be in direct contact next week upon our return to Washington in connection with the discharge effort,’ Jeffries wrote in a Dear Colleague letter. 

But Jeffries, of New York, would need the signature of five GOP moderates in the House to bring the bill forward, in addition to all of his members, and he would need 60 votes in the Senate to get it through. 

Only two discharge petitions have ever gotten through the House – in part because party leaders drill into their caucuses not to let the minority party seize control of the agenda and undermine their leverage.

Both Democrats and Republicans are feeling a new sense of urgency after the Treasury announced Monday the nation could run out of money to pay its bills as early as June 1. 

President Biden has convened a meeting with McCarthy for May 9, after three months of refusing to meet with the GOP leader – though he insists he still will not negotiate on the debt ceiling. 

He’s also invited Jeffries, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – who will all attend the meeting. 

Biden’s insistence that he won’t negotiate is proving unpopular with Americans – a majority in both parties and 74 percent of all respondents to an Echelon Insights poll  insist the president ‘should agree to negotiations and try to find common ground around the debt ceiling, including some reductions in government spending.’

Though McConnell said he would be witness to the negotiations, he stressed the Senate had no central role in striking a deal. 

‘The president and the speaker need to reach an agreement,’ he said. ‘There is no solution in the Senate.’ 

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted the Senate pass a clean debt ceiling package — throwing cold water on the idea floated by some Republicans of a short-term 30-day debt ceiling extension. 

He put a vote for a clean debt ceiling bill on the Senate floor calendar.

‘We should not kick the can down the road. We should go for a full two year [extension],’ he said.

He plans to bring a bill increasing the debt limit until December 21, 2024 and insists the time to talk about budget cuts is not until after the debt limit is increased. 

Schumer also tamped down the possibility of invoking the 14th Amendment – as one idea thrown around cites a little-used provision that states: ‘The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.’

It offers a potential workaround in case negotiations collapse completely leading to a potential default scenario, but the move would be full of uncertainty, both politically and for markets. 

‘The way to go is a clean debt ceiling,’ Schumer said. 

Senate Republicans backed up Speaker McCarthy in saying no debt ceiling bill would happen unless Democrats agreed to budget cuts.  

‘A clean debt ceiling is not going to happen,’ said Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that in the meeting Biden won’t negotiate the GOP’s demands for raising the debt limit, but ‘will discuss initiating a separate process to address the budget and appropriations.’ 

‘The only practical path is to suspend the debt limit without conditions,’ Jean-Pierre said. 

Last week House Republicans passed a party-line bill that would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $4.5 trillion in spending cuts. Biden had long insisted he would sit down with the speaker once Republicans had a plan in writing.