An upstate New York man claims his best friend was the Zodiac Killer—and that the impetus behind the 1960s murder spree was over a girl. Figures.

The Zodiac left an otherwise free-loving Bay Area paralyzed with fear in the latter part of the 1960s, with the mysterious killer sending cryptic notes to newspapers and leaving haunting symbols at the murder scenes of his victims. Despite the killer's voluble nature, though, no arrests were ever made.

But according to Randy Kenney, the mystery of the Zodiac isn't a mystery at all—the perpetrator was Louis Myers, who revealed his identity to his friend as he lay dying from liver failure in 2001. Myers would have been only a teenager at the time of the murders, a fact that Kenney said Myers tried to reveal in one of his infamous letters.

"The Halloween card said 'look for teen.' Alright? And at that time the authorities just thought it meant 14 victims. But it meant 'look for a teen,'" Kenney told Bay Area news station KGO.

The Zodiac was known for killing couples, and murdered five individuals between 1968 and 1969—though through prolific correspondence with newspapers, claimed to have killed more. "It was over a girl he broke up with," Kenney said. "That's what the deal was with the couples."

Kenney said he's spent the last 12 years trying to get police to take his claim seriously. Even now, authorities remain skeptical since Myers doesn't match survivors' descriptions, in addition to the fact that it seems unlikely a teenager could pull off such attacks. Still, Kenney's tip still has enough merit to pursue. Bay Area law enforcement say they still get around one tip a week on the case. According to KGO, Myers' name was on an extant list of suspects.

"I really, truly feel that Louie was 100 percent honest with me that day," Kenney said,