Jack Tarrance
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Jack or "JW" Tarrance, (born February 6th, 1928, died August 26th 2006): Believed by his step-son, Dennis Kaufman, to be the "real" Zodiac Killer. Although he makes for an interesting suspect and there seems to be a plethora of circumstantial evidence, nothing concrete has surfaced to confirm his direct involvement. After months of speculation, Kaufman carefully confronted Tarrance on the subject of his possible involvement in the Zodiac killings and even recorded some of their conversations. At several points in the recorded conversations it seems as if Tarrance is admitting at least some involvement, but is clever enough to keep the conversation "hypothetical." It is not certain that Tarrance had any intimate knowledge of the Zodiac murders as he never denied or confirmed involvement. Jack died (presumably of emphysema) about three weeks after predicting to several relatives and associates that he would be arrested and imprisoned, for which he gave no explanation. Tarrance bore a strong resemblance to the composites and police sketches of the Zodiac killer.
Jack Tarrance has not been eliminated as a suspect by any law enforcement agency to date. On America's Most Wanted website, it states that Jack Tarrance has been eliminated as a suspect, this information cannot be confirmed. I[attribution needed] spoke with an FBI agent on March 2 2007, he told me that Jack was not eliminated as a suspect by their dept, or any other dept that he was aware of.[citation needed]
One of the claims that because Jack Tarrance was a Ham Radio Operator, he was very skilled in codes and ciphers is completely false and misleading. Amateur Radio operators, also known as "Hams" are not prone to being skilled in codes and ciphers. This misconception may be from the fact that Amateur Radio Operators sometimes use Morse Code, a widely known and worldwide accepted method of sending letters and numbers through a series of short and long pulses.
