LaFargeville man, claiming to be ‘Chinese Zodiac Killer,’ sentenced

ALBANY, New York (WWNY) - A 46-year-old LaFargeville man who claimed to be the “Chinese Zodiac Killer” and sent threatening letters throughout the Northeast is going to prison.

Jesse Bartlett was sentenced in federal court in Albany on Wednesday to 16 months behind bars.

Once he’s released from prison, he will be supervised for three years.

In December, Bartlett pleaded guilty to mailing threatening letters.

As part of the plea, Bartlett admitted that from about April 2021 to May 2022, he mailed threatening communications to media outlets, government offices, houses of worship, and private businesses throughout New York, as well as in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.

In the letters, which he signed as the “Chinese Zodiac Killer,” Bartlett wrote that he killed people, ate their flesh, and that he intended to kill more people, including an unnamed bus driver.

WWNY-TV received one of the letters in the fall of 2021. It was accompanied by a sheet of some sort of code or cipher.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett, there’s no evidence that Bartlett ever tried to carry out any of the things he described in his letters.

Bartlett was arrested on May 19, 2022, and has been in custody ever since.

His sentence includes the time he has already served behind bars, said Barnett.