TALLAHASSEE, Fla. >> A Florida State University class project about drug cartels and serial killers took a turn when students scrawled a message on a sidewalk associated with the infamous Zodiac Killer.

The Tallahassee Democrat reported Wednesday that police started investigating after finding the message that included the cipher associated with the serial killer responsible for several unsolved murders in northern California in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

The message near a student apartment complex stated “I’m alive and well and I’m going to start killing again.”

Police stepped up patrols and eventually discovered it was done for an English class project. Students were told to write a message in a public forum and take a picture of it.

Tallahassee police spokesman David Northway called it a class project gone wrong.