Zodiac Killer and Black Dahlia killer may finally have a single name attached to them, according to explosive new claims that weave together two of the most horrifying and enduring unsolved crimes in American history. Two of the most sadistic murders in history stoked fear and nightmares across America for years. that were the stuff of nightmares. .
The Zodiac Killer launched a campaign of terror across Northern California in the late 1960s. The Zodiac killer shot and stabbed young couples, murdered a San Francisco cab driver, and taunted police and newspapers with letters, ciphers, and threats. At least five murders are officially attributed to Zodiac, though investigators have long suspected the true number may be higher. His identity was never confirmed, turning him into one of the most infamous criminals in history. The Zodiac Killer emerged more than 20 years after the Black Dahlia slaying.
At the center of the renewed crime investigation is fresh analysis of the Zodiac Killer’s infamous coded messages. The Zodiac repeatedly hinted that the short cipher known as Z13, mailed to newspapers in April 1970, contained his true name. For decades, cryptographers failed to conclusively crack it. Now, Alex Baber, co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America, says he has finally solved the cipher using artificial intelligence, newly released U.S. Census records, and classical cryptographic techniques.
According to Alex Baber, the decoded Zodiac killer Z13 cipher reveals the name of a man who was already a prime suspect in the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, the aspiring actress known to history as the Black Dahlia. Baber also claims to have decrypted the Zodiac’s Z32 cipher, another long-unsolved message, and says its solution contains references that further connect the Zodiac Killer to the Black Dahlia crime scene and timeline.
Since there is too much misinformation going around right now, I want to clear up the misconceptions on the case of Elizabeth Short, or “The Black Dahlia” a gruesome murder case that occurred back in Los Angeles, 1947 🧵 pic.twitter.com/QSaswI0jVk
— key 🐷 (@tsukeyi) November 8, 2025
Actress Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was just 22 years old when her brutally mutilated body was discovered in a vacant lot known as “Lovers Lane” in Los Angeles in January 1947. The Black Dahlia murder victim had been severed cleanly in half, drained of blood, and carefully posed, her mouth slashed into what investigators described as a grotesque “Glasgow smile.” The killing showed surgical precision and chilling control. Despite intense media coverage, hundreds of suspects, and a grand jury investigation, no one was ever charged, and the case became one of America’s most infamous unsolved murders.
The Black Dahlia and Zodiac suspect now identified through the cipher analysis is Marvin Skipton Margolis, later known by the alias Marvin Merrill. Born in Chicago in 1925 to Russian and Polish immigrant parents, Margolis joined the U.S. Navy in 1943 and served with the 1st Marine Division as a corpsman. In that role, he learned battlefield medicine, anatomy, and marksmanship, a combination investigators say mirrors the surgical skill and weapons proficiency seen in both the Black Dahlia murder and Zodiac killings.
Marvin Margolis served overseas for 27 months and took part in the Battle of Okinawa, the last major conflict between U.S. and Japanese forces. Veteran Affairs records obtained through a grand jury inquest paint a disturbing psychological picture. While in Okinawa, Margolis was reportedly buried alive in a cave and forced to dig himself out. Afterward, military evaluations described him as resentful, apathetic, and increasingly aggressive. When asked by a military neuropsychiatrist what he would do if another war broke out, Margolis allegedly replied that only two people would not go — “the one who comes after me and myself.”
His resentment reportedly deepened after repeated denials of his request to serve in a surgical unit, a position he persistently demanded. Margolis ultimately left the Navy on 50 percent mental disability grounds. According to a 1945 newspaper article and later confirmed by his youngest son, he returned home with a Japanese military rifle and a bayonet with a wooden sheath. That bayonet, Alex Baber claims, would later be tied to at least one confirmed Zodiac attack.
The Zodiac killer and Black Dahlia murderer were the SAME MAN: Explosive new investigation unmasks suspect allegedly behind the two most chilling unsolved cases in history https://t.co/LXwLtnl6dB pic.twitter.com/HxL1S5C6Tl
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) December 23, 2025
After leaving the military, Marvin Margolis moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1946 as a medical student. His first task was dissecting a human corpse. Around this period, investigators believe he had a brief but volatile relationship with Elizabeth Short. When Short was murdered months later, Margolis immediately fell under suspicion. Court records from the 1949–1950 Los Angeles grand jury investigation list “Marvin Margolis” among 22 primary suspects.
As the Black Dahlia case exploded in the press, Marvin Margolis vanished. Records show he fled Los Angeles and moved between Chicago, Atlanta, Arizona, and Kansas, eventually changing his name to Marvin Merrill. Social Security documents confirm the alias. Investigators say Merrill resurfaced in California just a few years before the first confirmed Zodiac attack in the late 1960s.
No the cyphers the zodiac killer made are legit case studies of what a perfect cypher is.
He made easier ones for the police to solve and then made these two Z13 and Z32 which have still never been solved.
CIA, NSA and every expert around couldn’t even solve these pic.twitter.com/Wzb901fLET
— Cha_Rac (@Cha_Racs) December 22, 2025
The Zodiac Killer then launched a new reign of terror, murdering young couples and a San Francisco cab driver, while taunting police and newspapers with letters, threats, and cryptic ciphers. At least five murders are officially attributed to Zodiac, though investigators long suspected more. Baber believes the Zodiac moniker itself may have been inspired by the site where Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short was killed decades earlier, a symbolic callback by a killer who relished games with law enforcement.
In Marvin Merrill’s final years, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, he reportedly produced a disturbing sketch depicting a woman named Elizabeth alongside what appears to be a hidden word reading “ZoDiac.” Baber believes the drawing amounts to a symbolic confession.
The Black Dahlia: In 1947 Los Angeles, aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found severed in half, drained of blood, posed grotesquely—smile carved ear to ear. Gruesome clues, confession letters, no arrest. Hollywood’s most infamous unsolved murder. pic.twitter.com/HsXjqW1vF1
— David Lapadat (@david_lapadat) December 21, 2025
“It’s irrefutable,” Alex Baber told the Daily Mail. “It’s mathematically impossible for it not to be him. Either he’s the unluckiest man in history, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he’s the perpetrator.”
Law enforcement agencies have not formally endorsed the conclusions, noting that the Zodiac killer and Black Dahlia crime suspect is long deceased and DNA evidence from both cases is limited and degraded. Still, the findings have reignited national fascination and reopened old wounds. Still, the renewed claims have stirred strong reactions among true crime researchers and the families of victims. Some argue that even if legal closure is impossible, identifying a likely perpetrator can bring a measure of truth and historical clarity after decades of uncertainty.
More than 75 years after Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short’s murder and over half a century since the Zodiac Killer vanished, the possibility that both nightmares were the work of a single predator forces a chilling reckoning: that one man may have stalked California for decades, leaving behind two of the darkest legacies in American criminal history.
