What's your sign, Ted Cruz?

An election season is ripe for viral content, and none more so than the US primaries. While the office of President is always an invitation for people to go rummaging deep in the closet for skeletons, no-one usually believes they're going to find any actual bodies. That changed when Ted Cruz put himself into the light. What started as a single off-the-cuff tweet in 2013 would resurface in December 2015 with a Facebook page titled "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer".

#ZodiacTed pic.twitter.com/bjTt6tM0TH

— TCITZK (@ZodiacTed) February 22, 2016

Then. Then. Ted Cruz appeared in a CBS candidate debate. The debate ran a Google Trends ticker across the bottom of the page to engage the audience with current google searches about the candidates. Twitter user @vrunt put out a call for everyone to search "is Ted Cruz the zodiac killer", and, shortly after, photoshopped a screencap of the debate listing it as the number one search enquiry for the debate. Despite it being an obvious fake, the Internet adopted it as lulzy gospel and went forth.

holy shit we did it. oh my god oh my god #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/d6WQFAC4am

— nate (@vrunt) February 14, 2016

whew! went on a great run today :) pic.twitter.com/jNuGxgdUQX

— Kevin Tang (@Yolo_Tengo) February 26, 2016

http://tedcruzconfirmed.tumblr.com/post/142485261359

Why does everyone keep joking about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer?

I mean he definitely is but like, people died

— Griffin McElroy (@griffinmcelroy) February 26, 2016

http://zodiac-ted-cruz.tumblr.com/post/140585319559

I think it’d be hilarious if the Zodiac Killer came forward because he couldn’t stand the idea that people think he is Ted Cruz.

— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) February 26, 2016

This simple bit of satire managed to gain enough traction that Heidi Cruz, Ted's wife, was asked about it by Yahoo News, responding that "...I’ve been married to him for 15 years, and I know pretty well who he is, so it doesn’t bother me at all." Of course, the Zodiac Killer was killing people before Ted Cruz was born, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

they say, "oh, Ted Cruz is too young to be the Zodiac Killer," but lying about his age is exactly the kind of thing the Zodiac would do.

— Cannes Boo (@J_Rosenfield) February 26, 2016