TALLAHASSEE (AP) – A Florida State University class project about drug cartels and serial killers took a turn when students scrawled a chalk message on a sidewalk associated with the infamous Zodiac Killer.
Tallahassee police started investigating Friday and receiving a report from someone who saw the graffiti, which included the cipher associated with the serial killer responsible for several unsolved murders in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“You were wrong. I am not dead or in the hospital. I’m alive and well and I’m going to start killing again,” read the message near The Luxe on West Call student apartment complex.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, police stepped up patrols, but eventually discovered it was done for an English class project.
Students were told to write a message in a public forum and send a picture of it to the professor.
Tallahassee police spokesman David Northway called it a class project gone wrong. We “are happy to report it was all a misunderstanding,” he said.
The student who wrote the message had left town for the weekend.
She and a roommate left while it was raining, thinking the chalk would wash away.
She returned and called police after learning of the anxiety the message caused.
