This communication was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on April 24th 1978 with the author declaring "I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here ". This letter arrived after a perceived hiatus of just over four years from the last confirmed communication by the Zodiac Killer, widely considered to be the Exorcist Letter, mailed on January 29th 1974. But more importantly, it was postmarked only 42 days after a voice message was left on the telephone answering machine of an individual living in the Mission District, using similar wording to that used in the letter, and claiming to be the "Zodiac". The telephone caller stated "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco". Read more. When the April 24th 1978 communication arrived, Paul Avery had already left the Chronicle, joining the Sacramento Bee daily newspaper in 1976 - so the letter was handled by another reporter, Duffy Jennings, featured here in a short Zodiac documentary about the Paul Stine murder. The letter read:
Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here, I have always been here. That city pig toschi is good - but I am smarter and better he will get tired then leave me alone. I am waiting for a good movie about me. who will play me. I am now in control of all things. yours truly: (Zodiac crosshairs) - guess SFPD - 0 
The 1978 letter was thought to have been 'hoaxed' by San Francisco Police Inspector Dave Toschi, after
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Armistead Maupin who joined the San Francisco Associated Press in 1971, and went on to launch nine novels that included the popular Tales of the City series, had suspicions that fan mail he received for the series may not be genuine and may have been forged by Dave Toschi. Armistead Maupin had first met Dave Toschi in 1976 while he was writing the Tales of the City series. Wanting to energize the series with a murder mystery element he contacted San Francisco Chronicle reporter Bob Popp, who then introduced him to Dave Toschi. The police inspector would make a debut appearance in Tales of the City on September 10th that year, with a character based on his attributes. Further episodes would follow under his real name as a friend and confidant to Armistead Maupin's fictitious detective Inspector Henry Tandy.  The April 24th 1978 envelope with two 13c Liberty Bell stamps superimposed on the image. Click image to enlarge.
Things eventually came to a head when Armistead Maupin noticed a similarity between the suspicious fan mail he received for the series and the 1978 Zodiac correspondence and reported it to Dave Toschi's superiors. The Inspector was suspended from his position on July 10th 1978 and an investigation was begun almost immediately by Deputy Chief of Investigations Clement DeAmicis.
The transfer was announced by Chief Charles Gain, who told reporter Duffy Jennings that "Toschi did write letters praising himself, signed fictitious names to them and sent them to former Chronicle writer Armistead Maupin in 1976". Contacted at home immediately after the transfer Dave Toschi stated "I wrote no Zodiac letter. I don't need another letter, it only brings me tons of extra work. It's a strain enough being in homicide". He went on to elaborate about Armistead Maupin "they were a silly mistake. He made me the hero of the story and it was fun for me and my family. So I sent some notes, three or four, saying how good it was that he put a real life homicide inspector in the column. It was kind of like sending fan mail to myself. It was done in a harmless way. I didn't think anyone was going to be hurt by it. It was a vain thing to do, not an intelligent thing". Despite Dave Toschi admitting the fan mail, he was ultimately cleared of faking the Zodiac letter. KRON News report from July 11th 1978 at the San Francisco Hall of Justice featuring Armistead Maupin. KPIX News report from July 11th 1978 by Ed Arnow at the San Francisco Hall of Justice. 
 DAVE TOSCHI - CLICK TO EXPAND
Suggestions were abound that Dave Toschi had created the latest letter in an attempt to keep the dwindling newsworthiness of the Zodiac Killer story alive in the media. After early perceptions that this letter may be genuine Zodiac correspondence, the letter has subsequently gathered its fair share of detractors. Sherwood Morrill, a questioned documents examiner who analyzed many of the Zodiac letters, declared the 1978 letter to be genuine correspondence from the Bay Area murderer, among others.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a front page article on July 14th 1978 suggesting that Dave Toschi may have also been responsible for writing the January 29th 1974 Exorcist letter. The Exorcist letter was almost certainly a response to the San Francisco Chronicle article entitled 'Weird Goings on at the Movies,' authored by Paul Avery and published on January 11th 1974, detailing the audience reaction to the recently released Exorcist movie in 1973. The Exorcist letter would arrive only eighteen days after this article. Deputy Police Chief Clement DeAmicis stated "We are looking into the authentication of the letters. We have submitted a number of specimens of handwriting. Toschi's is one". Referring to other Zodiac correspondence he continued "We want to know whether they are authentic or whether they are written by somebody we know". 
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Click image to enlarge letter
1963 June 4th-The Domingos/Edwards Murders
1966 October 30th-The Cheri Jo Bates Murder 1966 November 29th-The Confession Letter 1966 December- The Riverside Desktop Poem 1967 April 30th- The Three Bates Letters 1968 December 20th-The Lake Herman Murders 1969 July 4th-The Blue Rock Springs Attack 1969 July 31st- Vallejo Times-Herald Letter and 408 Cipher Page1 (solved) 1969 July 31st- Examiner Letter and 408 Cipher Page 2 (solved) 1969 July 31st- Chronicle Letter and 408 Cipher Page 3 (87% solved) 1969 July 31st- The Complete 408 Cipher 1969 August 3rd- The Snoozy & Furlong Murders 1969 August 4th- Debut of Zodiac Letter 1969 August 10th- Concerned Citizen Card 1969 September 27th- The Lake Berryessa Attack 1969 October 7th- The Good Citizen Letter 1969 October 11th- The Presidio Heights Murder 1969 October 13th-The Paul Stine Letters 1969 October 14/15th- Zodiac Call to Santa Rosa 1969 October 21st- The Phone Call to Palo Alto 1969 October 22nd- Call to Chat Show 1969 November 2nd- Daniel Williams Poisoning 1969 November 8th-The Dripping Pen Card and 340 Cipher (solved in 2020) 1969 November 9th-The Bus Bomb Letter 1969 November 19th-The Riddler Notes 1969 November 21st-The San Jose Code Letter 1969 November 28th-The Betsy Aardsma Murder 1969 December 7th- Oklahoma Radio Call 1969 December 7th-The 1st Fairfield Letter 1969 December 10th- Forecast for Cancer 1969 December 11th- Forecast for Leo 1969 December 16th-The 2nd Fairfield Letter 1969 December 19th- Zodiac Call to San Jose 1969 December 20th-The Melvin Belli Letter 1970 January 4th- Phone Call to Peggy Trainer 1970 Feb 21st- The Hood and Garcia Murders 1970 March 22nd-The Modesto Attack 1970 April 15th-The Robert Salem Murder 1970 April 20th-"My Name is" Letter, Cipher 3 and Bus Bomb Diagram 1970 April 28th-The Dragon Card 1970 June 18th- Oakland A's Letter 1970 June 26th-The Button Letter Cipher 4 and Map 1970 July 4th-The Sleeping Bag Murders 1970 July 24th-The Kathleen Johns Letter 1970 July 26th-The Little List Letter 1970 Sept 6th-The Donna Lass Disappearance 1970 October 5th-13 Hole Postcard 1970 October 17th- "You Are Next" Postcard 1970 October 27th-The Halloween Card 1971 March 13th-The Los Angeles Letter 1971 March 22nd-The Pines Card 1971 Possibly May- The 148 Character Cipher 1971 July 13th-The Monticello Card 1972 June 29th- The Novato Letter 1973 August 1st- The Albany Letter 1974 January 29th-The Exorcist Letter 1974 February 3rd-The SLA Letter 1974 May 8th-The Citizen Card 1974 July 8th-The Red Phantom Letter 1974 December 27th- Christmas Card 1975 November 3rd- The Belmont Letter 1976 August 26th-The Deep Real Estate Ad 1978 March 13th- The "I Am Back" Phone Call 1978 April 24th-The 1978 Letter 1978 May 2nd- The Channel Nine Letter 1978 July 19th- The Scotch Tape Letter 1981 March 8th- The Atlanta Letter 1982 January (?) - The Santa Claus Card 1986 May 6th- The Freeway Letter 1987 October 28th- The 1987 Letter 1988 February 1st- The McDonald's Letter 1988 February 8th- The McDonald's Letter [2] 1990 September 25th- The Celebrity Cypher 1990 December-American Greetings Card 1991-The Scorpion Ciphers to John Walsh 2001 January 10th- Happy New Year Card Unknown DMV Letter (possibly November 1971) 
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Click for Dave Toschi interview
Here is a list of envelopes processed for DNA, minus the envelopes from July 31st 1969, as they had been misplaced at the time this list was compiled. It can be noticed that the 1978 'I am back with you' letter has yielded DNA material, but is attributed as not being an authentic Zodiac letter. Since authorities now claim to have a DNA profile from the 1978 letter (having stated this in the list}, it would appear that this is the reason they have effectively ruled out this letter - but one has to ask - how they can rule it out unless they already have a full DNA fingerprint of Zodiac to compare it to. A partial DNA fingerprint from earlier confirmed Zodiac correspondence could not be used to rule out the 1978 letter? When the 2002 TV exclusive with Cydne Holt of the San Francisco DNA laboratory compared the full DNA profile of three touted suspects to what they claimed was a partial DNA profile from confirmed Zodiac letters, this partial DNA profile would only have been good enough to rule suspects out (which they did during the show), but it isn't sufficient to definitively identify a suspect as Zodiac. For that you need a more comprehensive DNA profile. It boils down to the numbers of matching loci on a DNA strand.
The bulk of identifications using CODIS rely on short tandem repeats (STRs) that are scattered throughout the human genome and on statistics that are used to calculate the rarity of that specific profile in the population. STRs are a type of copy-number variation and comprise a sequence of nucleotide base pairs that is repeated over and over again. At each location tested during DNA analysis, also known as a locus (plural loci), a person has two sets of repeats, one from the father and one from the mother. Each set is measured and the number of repeat copies is recorded. If both strands, inherited from the parents, contain the same number of repeats at that locus the person is said to be homozygous at that locus. If the repeat numbers differ they are said to be heterozygous. Every possible difference at a locus is an allele. This repeat determination is performed across a number of loci and the repeat values is the DNA profile that is uploaded to CODIS. As of January 1, 2017, requirements for upload to national level for known offender profiles is 20 loci. Alternatively, CODIS allows for the upload of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) information into the missing persons indexes. Since mtDNA is passed down from mother to offspring it can be used to link remains to still living relatives who have the same mtDNA. Prior to January 1, 2017, the national level of CODIS required that known offender profiles have a set of 13 loci called the "CODIS core". Since then, the requirement has expanded to include seven additional loci. Partial profiles are also allowed in CODIS in separate indexes and are common in crime scene samples that are degraded or are mixtures of multiple individuals. Upload of these profiles to the national level of CODIS requires at least eight of the core loci to be present as well as a profile rarity of 1 in 10 million (calculated using population statistics).
What is apparent in the DNA chart, is the evidence of "few cells" in the widely accepted Zodiac letters up to the Kathleen Johns letter on July 24th 1970, after which there is an evident departure to "cells found" on the Kathleen Johns, Little List, Exorcist and 1978 letter. The Halloween Card, Los Angeles letter, Pines Card, Monticello Card, Citizen Card, Red Phantom letter and 13 Hole Postcard seem to have no attribution in comments. Admittedly many of these are postcards, hence may not have been tested or attributed on this list due to the absence of an envelope - but what we are left with - is that subsequent to the June 26th 1970 Button letter, biological material discovered on the communications appears more prevalent. However, the use of "few cells" and "cells found" to describe the findings, is fairly ambiguous.
Some people believed and still do, that the prime Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen to be responsible for the 1978 letter based upon the fact that during the four years between this communication and the previous Exorcist Letter, he had been serving time in a psychiatric facility in San Luis Obispo County. On September 27th 1974 Allen was arrested by the Sanoma County Sheriff's Department for child molestation, involving a young boy and sentenced on March 14th 1975, but after his release from the Atascadero State Hospital on August 31st 1977, the 1978 declaration of "I am back with you" appeared to be marking his return to public notoriety.
Fingerprinting, and in later years DNA, seemingly ruled out Allen as a suspect in the Zodiac case, although suspicions still linger to this day. The San Francisco Police Department compared a DNA sample taken from Arthur Leigh Allen shortly after his death in 1992, that ultimately provided no match to a sample recovered from the 1978 envelope.
The bulk of identifications using CODIS rely on short tandem repeats (STRs) that are scattered throughout the human genome and on statistics that are used to calculate the rarity of that specific profile in the population. STRs are a type of copy-number variation and comprise a sequence of nucleotide base pairs that is repeated over and over again. At each location tested during DNA analysis, also known as a locus (plural loci), a person has two sets of repeats, one from the father and one from the mother. Each set is measured and the number of repeat copies is recorded. If both strands, inherited from the parents, contain the same number of repeats at that locus the person is said to be homozygous at that locus. If the repeat numbers differ they are said to be heterozygous. Every possible difference at a locus is an allele. This repeat determination is performed across a number of loci and the repeat values is the DNA profile that is uploaded to CODIS. As of January 1, 2017, requirements for upload to national level for known offender profiles is 20 loci. Alternatively, CODIS allows for the upload of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) information into the missing persons indexes. Since mtDNA is passed down from mother to offspring it can be used to link remains to still living relatives who have the same mtDNA. Prior to January 1, 2017, the national level of CODIS required that known offender profiles have a set of 13 loci called the "CODIS core". Since then, the requirement has expanded to include seven additional loci. Partial profiles are also allowed in CODIS in separate indexes and are common in crime scene samples that are degraded or are mixtures of multiple individuals. Upload of these profiles to the national level of CODIS requires at least eight of the core loci to be present as well as a profile rarity of 1 in 10 million (calculated using population statistics).
What is apparent in the DNA chart, is the evidence of "few cells" in the widely accepted Zodiac letters up to the Kathleen Johns letter on July 24th 1970, after which there is an evident departure to "cells found" on the Kathleen Johns, Little List, Exorcist and 1978 letter. The Halloween Card, Los Angeles letter, Pines Card, Monticello Card, Citizen Card, Red Phantom letter and 13 Hole Postcard seem to have no attribution in comments. Admittedly many of these are postcards, hence may not have been tested or attributed on this list due to the absence of an envelope - but what we are left with - is that subsequent to the June 26th 1970 Button letter, biological material discovered on the communications appears more prevalent. However, the use of "few cells" and "cells found" to describe the findings, is fairly ambiguous.
Some people believed and still do, that the prime Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen to be responsible for the 1978 letter based upon the fact that during the four years between this communication and the previous Exorcist Letter, he had been serving time in a psychiatric facility in San Luis Obispo County. On September 27th 1974 Allen was arrested by the Sanoma County Sheriff's Department for child molestation, involving a young boy and sentenced on March 14th 1975, but after his release from the Atascadero State Hospital on August 31st 1977, the 1978 declaration of "I am back with you" appeared to be marking his return to public notoriety.
Fingerprinting, and in later years DNA, seemingly ruled out Allen as a suspect in the Zodiac case, although suspicions still linger to this day. The San Francisco Police Department compared a DNA sample taken from Arthur Leigh Allen shortly after his death in 1992, that ultimately provided no match to a sample recovered from the 1978 envelope.
Click to enlarge
Irrespective of the many in the Zodiac community who doubt the 1986 letter as authentic, on the left is a genuine Zodiac correspondence entitled "The Freeway letter" or "The 1986 letter".. Below I have discovered the only crime mentioned by the letter that matches the date, location, number of victims - and more importantly - a crime that exhibited many of the traits of the Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs attacks. The date was Tuesday April 22nd 1986, when Laotian couple Koy Ien Saechao (48) and Choy Fow Saelee (40) were traveling back on the two and a half journey to their residence in Dorman Road, Yuba City after visiting their son in a Merced CA hospital, situated in the area of the San Joaquin Valley of Northern California. They were only 45 minutes from home when it was believed they had opted to take a rest on the roadside edge (or ushered over by a second vehicle), near the interchange of Highway 99 and I-5 Sacramento and attacked without remorse. The 1986 and 1987 letters-One Hand.
How the killer approached is open to question, but the assailant unleashed a barrage of gunfire into their 4-door, light-blue 1983 Mercury, blowing out both front side windows, testimony to which, was the 15 small caliber shell casings scattered and retrieved from beside the vehicle. The couple suffered multiple shots to the head and were found sitting upright in the car by somebody described as a hitchhiker in the newspapers. Sacramento is situated approximately a one hour drive North-East from Vallejo CA and one hour and forty minutes due east of Lake Berryessa, and mentioned in two letters by the Zodiac Killer. Firstly, in the dubious Fairfield Letter postmarked December 16th 1969, it was claimed by the author he would go on to kill at least 38 more people, including three in Fairfield CA and nine in Sacramento. Fairfield is on a direct route from Vallejo through to Sacramento and within easy traveling distance for the Zodiac Killer, if indeed he was a resident of the Benicia, Vallejo or San Francisco area at the said time period.
How the killer approached is open to question, but the assailant unleashed a barrage of gunfire into their 4-door, light-blue 1983 Mercury, blowing out both front side windows, testimony to which, was the 15 small caliber shell casings scattered and retrieved from beside the vehicle. The couple suffered multiple shots to the head and were found sitting upright in the car by somebody described as a hitchhiker in the newspapers. Sacramento is situated approximately a one hour drive North-East from Vallejo CA and one hour and forty minutes due east of Lake Berryessa, and mentioned in two letters by the Zodiac Killer. Firstly, in the dubious Fairfield Letter postmarked December 16th 1969, it was claimed by the author he would go on to kill at least 38 more people, including three in Fairfield CA and nine in Sacramento. Fairfield is on a direct route from Vallejo through to Sacramento and within easy traveling distance for the Zodiac Killer, if indeed he was a resident of the Benicia, Vallejo or San Francisco area at the said time period.
More crucially though, the 1986 letter was relevant to the date and area where Koy Ien Saechao and Choy Fow Saelee were gunned down, having been mailed on Tuesday May 6th. The author of the 1986 letter stated that these latest victims were killed "about two weeks ago". Exactly two weeks prior to May 6th would have been April 22nd 1986, and the exact date of the cold-blooded murder of Koy Ien Saechao and Choy Fow Saelee.
The method of execution here is eerily familiar to that of the Lake Herman Road double murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968 and the Blue Rock Springs Park murder and attempted murder of Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau on July 4th 1969. All couples ambushed in their car, and although not substantiated, it seems likely the killer approached this couple from behind in his vehicle, due to the locality of the crime.
The most interesting aspect of the Laotian couples murder though, was that shortly afterwards a "Mystery" Man, thought to be a hitchhiker, flagged down a California Highway Patrol Officer in East Nicolaus and informed him of an automobile accident at the precise location the couple were eventually discovered. There are also newspaper reports suggesting the hitchhiker informed authorities in Marysville, Yuba County, that he had discovered the couple at approximately 6:30 am. Marysville, California is 37 miles north of the crime scene (by crow), but just over one mile from the murdered couple's residence in Dorman Avenue. He was later sought for questioning in connection to the double murder on Highway 99, but he failed to come forward and his identity remains unknown to this day.
The method of execution here is eerily familiar to that of the Lake Herman Road double murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968 and the Blue Rock Springs Park murder and attempted murder of Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau on July 4th 1969. All couples ambushed in their car, and although not substantiated, it seems likely the killer approached this couple from behind in his vehicle, due to the locality of the crime.
The most interesting aspect of the Laotian couples murder though, was that shortly afterwards a "Mystery" Man, thought to be a hitchhiker, flagged down a California Highway Patrol Officer in East Nicolaus and informed him of an automobile accident at the precise location the couple were eventually discovered. There are also newspaper reports suggesting the hitchhiker informed authorities in Marysville, Yuba County, that he had discovered the couple at approximately 6:30 am. Marysville, California is 37 miles north of the crime scene (by crow), but just over one mile from the murdered couple's residence in Dorman Avenue. He was later sought for questioning in connection to the double murder on Highway 99, but he failed to come forward and his identity remains unknown to this day.
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 24th April 1986
The author of the 1986 Letter stated "I will give you a clue to help you with the mystry, They were killed by a freeway. The Blue Meannies almost caught me". Had the murderer already given the clue about his own identity to the California Highway Patrol Officer and he indeed was the 'Mystry' Man. Furthermore was the alluding of the "Blue Meannies almost caught me", as just another case of the Zodiac Killer toying with the long suffering police and authorities, that he seemingly enjoyed ridiculing during his long campaign of terror.
In fact the letter matches the crime almost perfectly. The author states "latest slaves", indicating more than one person was killed, they were killed "by Sacramento", they were killed "by a freeway", the date of the crime of "two weeks ago" was correct, the method of execution bore striking similarities to previous Zodiac crimes and the helpful "mystry" man, being a concerned citizen has never been identified.
A relative of Koy Ien Saechao and Choy Fow Saelee said "We don't want to get killed in the United States, we want to live here for freedom".
Let us hope one day they find a resolution to the answers they desperately yearn, and the killer, whomever they may be, finds that freedom will one day be no more.
Follow up: http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/sacramento-cold-case-contact
In fact the letter matches the crime almost perfectly. The author states "latest slaves", indicating more than one person was killed, they were killed "by Sacramento", they were killed "by a freeway", the date of the crime of "two weeks ago" was correct, the method of execution bore striking similarities to previous Zodiac crimes and the helpful "mystry" man, being a concerned citizen has never been identified.
A relative of Koy Ien Saechao and Choy Fow Saelee said "We don't want to get killed in the United States, we want to live here for freedom".
Let us hope one day they find a resolution to the answers they desperately yearn, and the killer, whomever they may be, finds that freedom will one day be no more.
Follow up: http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/sacramento-cold-case-contact
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Another letter (see right) was mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald on Tuesday, October 27th 1987, bearing similar traits to the 1978 letter, in that the first few lines are almost identical. For this reason only, it has been considered that this letter should reside in the Zodiac copycat files. A recent discovery on this site has challenged this narrative and shown that this letter is authentic Zodiac correspondence, by comparing the 1987 envelope to the July 31st 1969 Vallejo Times-Herald envelope, which had never been released into the public domain by October 27th 1987. The text reads:
This the Zodiac speaking. I am crack proof. Tell herb caen that I am still here. I have always been here. Tell the blue pigs if want me I will be out driving around on Halloween in my death machine looking for some kiddies to run over. Cars make nice weapons. The pigs can catch me if They can find me out there. Just like in the movie The car. Tell the kiddies watch before They cross the street on halloween nite. Tell Tochi my new plans. Yours Truly: (image of crosshairs) - guess VPD - 0 Below is the best image available on the internet of the Vallejo Times-Herald October 27th 1987 envelope. It shows extreme similarity to the handwriting, composition and structure of the July 31st 1969 Vallejo Times-Herald envelope.. The VTH 1969 envelope was not released into the public domain prior to October 27th 1987, adding weight to the notion of the above letter being genuine Zodiac correspondence.
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Comparing the 1969 and 1987 Vallejo Times-Herald envelopes
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