DURING the late 1960s and early 1970s, the infamous Zodiac Killer terrorised northern California leaving a trail of murders in his wake.

To this day, the Zodiac Killer is yet to be identified, despite him taunting police with a series of letters and cryptograms.

The perplexing mystery has since attracted the attention of professional and amateur sleuths, hoping to bring closure to the case.

Recent times have seen an emergence of people claiming to have solved the mystery, naming Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz as the Zodiac Killer.

It all started in 2013, when Cruz delivered a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference titled ‘This is the Zodiac Speaking’.

Despite the small fact the Cruz wasn’t born until two years after the murders hasn’t stopped people from making the connection — or at least making fun of it.

Proof that Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer. (Vine by @rickyftw) https://t.co/DkW43COwty — Young Brad Bramish (@ChefGod_) April 10, 2016

If @BarackObama can fake his birth certificate why can't @tedcruz? Show us your real birth certificate! #ZodiacTed — Stephen Willhite (@sms3eb) February 14, 2016

Ted Cruz was born in CALGARY. The Zodiac Killer's first two victims were named CAL and GARY. #ZodiacTed — zeppo wilbury (@ZeppoWilbury) January 20, 2016

ted Cruz wasn't alive when the zodiac murders took place , so i have a question: do U want a time-traveling serial killer as President ? — duunk, (@duunk) April 15, 2016

Here you can see a photo of Ted Cruz next to a photo of the infamous Zodiac Killer. This can't be a coincidence. pic.twitter.com/XJuNfIMdZU — C (@CorCorMac) January 20, 2016

whew! went on a great run today :) pic.twitter.com/jNuGxgdUQX — Kevin Tang (@Yolo_Tengo) February 26, 2016

As the conspiracy theory gained momentum, many people were heading to Google for answers and the search engine appeared to be open to the idea.

At the height of the allegations in February this year, typing “is Ted” on Google would show “is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer” as the second suggested post.

However, it appears Ted Cruz has friends in powerful places who are willing to cover his tracks because heading to Google now and typing “is Ted Cruz” or even “is Ted Cruz the”, brings no suggested searches for “is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer”.

Even typing “is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer” still doesn’t bring up the question as a suggestion — although Google searches do show stories on the topic.

When asked why the suggestion had been removed from the search engine, Google gave a pretty reasonable sounding answer.

“Autocomplete predictions are produced based on a number of factors including the popularity of search terms,” a Google spokesman told theDaily Dot.

While this sounds like a logical explanation, a quick perusal of Google trends shows a different story.

When news.com.au searched for all of the suggested searches offered by Google and compared them to “is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer”, the search engine’s own service showed the later was far more popular than other inquires.

To be fair, Google said autocomplete predictions were “based on a number of factors” and maybe protecting the identity of Cruz’s past as the Zodiac Killer is one of those “factors”.

Continue the conversation on Twitter @mattydunn11