There are a few people at the heart of the investigations into the Zodiac Killer, and Tom Voight is one. He's behind ZodiacKiller.com, and in 2020, Portland interviewed him about who was at the top of his list of suspects.
That was Richard Joseph Gaikowski, an ex-Army medic from South Dakota. Gaikowski ended up in California by 1963, and in 1971, his coworkers got together to have him committed to the Napa State Mental Hospital. He was treated, went on to run a movie theater, and eventually died in 2004.
Why does Voight think he's the Zodiac Killer? Gaikowski was working as a journalist and editor in the area at the time of the killings, and he tended to show up in circles around the Zodiac. One of the Zodiac's victims, Darlene Ferrin, reportedly had a journalist ex named Richard, and her boyfriend Michael Mageau — who survived the Zodiac's attack on himself and Ferrin — later said that she knew "Richard" was jealous, and stalking her.
Gaikowski's voice was identified by the police dispatcher who had taken a call from the Zodiac Killer, saying, "I listened to the voice of Richard, and felt shock and deja vu. In my opinion, he was the same person I listened to in July of 1969."
Voight had first been tipped off about Gaikowski by one of his former coworkers, who had gone to the police with the same information in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the coworker says that because they're transgender, they were written off entirely and the lead was never taken seriously.
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