With virtually no coverage of this crime on the internet other than a few newspaper clippings, I have attempted to expand on the murder of Patricia King (20) at Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill on March 5th 1970. The college layout has altered over the last 48 years, but we can pinpoint the key locations based on the wording in the newspapers. Patricia King of 2200 Lisa Lane, Pleasant Hill had attended Diablo Valley College for her gym class at 7:00 pm on Thursday evening. Her classmates informed investigators that Patricia usually only stayed for the first hour of her gym class, which is what transpired that evening, when the young woman left the building at approximately 7:50 pm. Her boyfriend was expecting her back at her home and became concerned when she didn't return by 8:15 pm. 

Patricia King's body was found by a workman, Ernest Ellington, at 7:20 am the following morning in the DVC Vikings football stadium. She was wearing a black blouse and three-quarter length coat and had been strangled with her own gym tights. The newspaper reports stated "A purse (handbag) with her identification was found on the front seat of her car, in a lot adjacent to the stadium. A pair of leather sandals were on the floorboard. Her car keys were found on the Pleasant Hill campus parking lot Friday afternoon". Detective Sergeant Sam Ginsburg said "it was impossible to tell at this time if the girl knew her slayer. There was no reason for her to go into the stadium area coming to or from the parking lot to the class". If the gymnasium is located in the same position today, it is a short 300 feet walk from her class to the parking lot. It was later reported that no identification was found in her purse (handbag), but she was identified by a bus pass found in her clothing. Her wallet was apparently missing according to the newspapers, although Contra Costa sheriffs were in the process of interviewing her friends to discover if Patricia normally left her purse in the car, taking her wallet with her.  

Although detectives initially thought she may have been sexually assaulted or raped, the chief medical examiner, Dr. William Bogart, said preliminary tests did not bear this out. Results were inconclusive.  

Based on three newspaper statements of "A purse (handbag) with her identification was found on the front seat of her car, in a lot adjacent to the stadium", "The purse was left in her car parked near the body" and "The body was found across the college stadium's sunken football field from the women's gym structure", we can create a map of the likely locations within the Diablo Valley College campus.

The yellow rectangle is the likely location of the parking lot adjacent to the Vikings football stadium, with the gymnasium just 270 feet north of the stadium. Patricia King's body was discovered at 7:20 am on Friday March 6th 1970, but according to the newspaper reports, her keys were not found until Friday afternoon. This would indicate that it took police in excess of four hours to locate her keys, suggesting they were not discovered in close proximity to her vehicle, If they were found in the parking lot, one could therefore conclude they were likely found a distance from her car, on the route she took from the gymnasium towards her vehicle. There are many scenarios, but here are a couple:  [1] She was attacked on the journey back to her car, or [2] She fled from her car dropping her keys as she was accosted heading in the opposite direction. The end result being, she was forced into the adjacent football stadium and murdered. Since she was murdered with her own gym tights, does this indicate that the murderer carried no weapon and it wasn't planned in advance, or that she knew her murderer?  

The journey time from the gymnasium to the parking lot is 90-120 seconds, so either Patricia King was extremely unlucky to have crossed paths with a merciless killer in this short space of time, somebody followed her out of the gymnasium, or somebody, knowing she usually remained in her gym class for just one hour, lay in wait outside. Few leads transpired. 

Just like the July 13th 1971 Monticello card, giving us clues and directions to the murder of Kathy Bilek in April, near Monticello in San Jose, California, the March 22nd 1971 Pines card, in similar fashion, may have been designed to direct us to the deposition or burial site of Donna Ann Lass (25), who disappeared from Stateline, Nevada on September 6th 1970 having finished her shift that day at the Sahara Tahoe Hotel. Harvey Hines, a retired detective from Groveland, believed that Donna Lass was likely buried on the Donner Ski Ranch. He stated "After studying the card, I drove to Nordin, located on old Highway 40, north of Lake Tahoe, and found the SIERRA CLUB. I learned the club was not called the Sierra Club. It was named the Claire Tappan Lodge and it was a private club for Sierra Club members only. I believed if I followed the directions on the postcard I would find Donna Lass' grave. I believe she was buried near the Sierra Club and most likely on the Donner Ski Ranch. I would later have the pictures of the Sierra Club developed. Then using a copy of Zodiac's card, I cut out the phrases he had pasted on his card. Using these phrases, I overpasted them on the copy of the Sierra Club picture. It was striking similar to the original card." [see below left].
​   

​A newspaper article stated that "the site depicted on the 'Pines Card' was from an advertisement published last Sunday by several newspapers. It was an artist's rendition of houses among the trees at a Boise Cascade Company project at Incline Village, where construction has just begun on the development. While much of the Sierra area is under several feet of snow, Incline Village has only two feet on the ground. Police went to the area to determine if a search is possible".

If we use the directions given by the card from Incline Village, it tells us to "pass Lake Tahoe areas". To pass the areas of Lake Tahoe we have to travel westward, until we reach Clair Tappaan Lodge, "a private club for Sierra Club members only". 

Howard Davis, a contributor to the ZodiacKiller.com message board can pick up the story here: "Incredibly, her [Lass] grave remained hidden until August 1976, when retired Norden postmaster Otto Fredricks is believed to have found it on Donner Summit. He was hiking past the SIERRA CLUB'S Claire Tappan Lodge, near Norden, when he came across the intricately contrived wooden symbols alongside the path: in the center was a triangle around a cross containing 13 stones, and that was surrounded first by a six foot square and then by a circle of wood with a 14 foot diameter". The October 5th 1970 '13 Hole' postcard contained 13 punch holes and a red crucifix.

When they dug near the location of Clair Tappaan Lodge they found a pair of green tinted glasses, similar to a pair believed to have been worn by Donna Lass. It is not known for certain whether these glasses belonged to Donna Lass, or that the configuration was constructed by her murderer. Some believe the stone and wood configuration to be Rosicrucian in design, whereas 'The Foreigner' thought that Harvey Hines had misread the finding and it was a YMCA "Ragger’s Point" creation. Nevertheless, it is curious that "pass Lake Tahoe areas" takes us to the "Sierra Club" members of Clair Tappaan Lodge along Donner Pass Road, where we can "peek through the Pines" at the entrance to the lodge, and find some g(lass)es buried in the ground. The entrance to Clair Tappaan Lodge looks extremely similar to the depiction of the 1974 Christmas card mailed to Mary Pilker, Donna Lass' sister.​ Once inside the grounds we search "around in the snow". This can be interpreted as "a round in the snow" meaning "a circle in the snow". The circle of wood containing the crucifix. The alternative to finding meaning in the phrases pasted on the Pines card, is to believe the author pasted the text for no reason whatsoever. The two communications immediately after the Donna Lass disappearance were the '13 Hole' postcard and the Halloween card, each containing an inference to the number 13. The punch holes in the October 5th 1970 '13 Hole' postcard from the front side, arranged in a 10:3 formation (October 3rd), which could specify when he arranged the wood and stone configuration, meaning look for 13 in the form of a circle. The following Halloween card using 13 eyes in the design, telling us to look for 13. However, it must be stressed, that searching for clues and meaning behind such communications is down to the interpretation of the observer, with the above ideas often finding a resting place in the ever expanding graveyard of Zodiac theories. 

The Monticello card was mailed four months later, by somebody purporting to be the Zodiac Killer, and referencing the murder of Kathy Bilek in San Jose on April 11th 1971.

San Jose is home to the "Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, devoted to Ancient Egypt, located at Rosicrucian Park in the Rose Garden neighborhood of San Jose, California, United States. It was founded by the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC). The Rosicrucian Order continues to support and expand the museum and its educational and scientific activities. The museum holds the largest collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the Western United States, and is located next to the Rosicrucian headquarters". Wikipedia. The museum also had a purpose-built planetarium, where a budding Zodiac could add a knowledge of astronomy and the night sky to his search for the afterlife.  

"Rosicrucian Grand Master Julie Scott talks about the ancient Egyptian concept of the afterlife and shows us around the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose California". link.

But what if the murderer of Donna Lass added further directions using the crucifix, triangle, square and circle symbols as clues. Harvey Hines believed Donna Lass "was buried near the Sierra Club and most likely on the Donner Ski Ranch". So, were the symbols somehow related to the Donner Ski Ranch? Had the murderer of Donna Lass occasionally vacationed at Lake Tahoe, using the trails of Donner Ski Ranch? From 1964 to 1968 ski trails were rated on difficulty using a colored triangle, square and circle. Did the designer of the stone and wood configuration place the crucifix within the triangle, square and circle, using the glasses, to signify that Donna Lass was buried on Donner Ski Ranch along one of the trails? If the bottom left of the Pines card is placed over Clair Tappaan Lodge, the punch hole in the top right corner is facing the northeast, exactly where the ski lifts and trails are located. Was this the deduction of Harvey Hines? 

I would have to say that 'The Foreigner' is most likely correct, with the wood and stone configuration likely created by somebody other than the author of the Pines card (or Zodiac), and most probably a Ragger's Point creation. However, this doesn't preclude the Zodiac or an impostor using a pre-existing configuration as a burial site for the glasses. The wood and stone configuration would have been a perfect marker to direct the police towards, using the Pines card phrases from Incline Village.     

On July 13th 1971 a pasted card was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle with the words "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April".  Many have speculated on the location mentioned in the card as "Monticello" in Napa County, California, because of the Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard on September 27th 1969. It has been further speculated on whether "April" was a woman's name or the month of the alleged murder. After a comprehensive review of all the information, I believe the woman's identity, labelled as victim number 21, can finally be revealed, along with the exact location of Monticello.      

On November 8th 1969 the Zodiac mailed the 'Dripping Pen' card to the San Francisco Chronicle insinuating his involvement in the brutal stabbing of Debra Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathie Ann Snoozy (15), who were found murdered on August 3rd 1969 in the Bay Area of San Jose, in what can only be described as a barrage of knife wounds. The inference of his chronological list of months on the card was suggesting there were two murders attributed to him in August. This crime was ultimately attributed to Karl Francis Werner.
On November 21st 1969 a letter and code from the alleged Zodiac was mailed to the San Jose Police Department threatening a widow. Police responded by implementing 24 hour surveillance on her residence. 
Ten days later, on December 1st 1969, Elaine Davis (17), a Pleasant Hill High School senior disappeared from her 158 Pioneer Avenue home in Walnut Creek. The abductor had likely traveled through San Jose to dispose of her body at Light House Point in Santa Cruz.

On Sunday, April 11th 1971, Kathy Bilek, 18, visited Villa Montalvo, in Saratoga, with the intent to read and engage in birdwatching in the seclusion of a remote, wooded portion of the park, near a small stream. Her body was found the next day by her father, Charles, while Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies searched nearby. She had been stabbed 17 times in the back, and 32 times in her chest and stomach, although her killer had taken care to avoid stabbing her breasts. Her murder was also attributed to Karl Francis Werner. Wikipedia. The brutal murder of Kathy Bilek would again be claimed by 'Zodiac', not only in the Monticello card, but in another alleged Zodiac letter, also mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle at about the same time as the Monticello card. Kathy Bilek was murdered in "April", exactly as mentioned in the Monticello card, and "in the woods" at Villa Montalvo (a wooded section of the park). Saratoga is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, directly west of San Jose, The appearance of San Jose once again. 

If Zodiac created the Monticello card, the reason may have been  a response, albeit belated, to an article written by Paul Avery in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 13th 1971, suggesting a possible link between the murder of Kathy Bilek and the Bay Area murders. Karl Werner was  charged with the murders of Snoozy, Furlong and Bilek over two months prior to the mailing of the Monticello card, so it's possible Zodiac saw the irony of claiming the Kathy Bilek murder, as he had done with the Debra Gaye Furlong and Kathie Ann Snoozy murders some 20 months earlier. The final thing to examine in the July 13th 1971 pasted card, were the words "near Monticello". It was easy to get sidelined into believing Monticello was referring to Napa County, because the town was completely covered by Lake Berryessa, the site of Zodiac's third attack.

However, the "Monticello" the author is referring to in the pasted card, is again in San Jose. Monticello is a neighborhood in San Jose, California, just over 9 miles east of Villa Montalvo, the site of Kathy Bilek's murder.
​In other words, the author of the card was saying "I killed Kathy Bilek near Monticello, in the Villa Montalvo woods in April".
​To view the proximity of Monticello to Villa Montalvo click here. 

This wasn't the only communication to refer to the murder of Kathy Bilek.
Sometime in 1971, likely just after the mailing of the Monticello card, a questionable Zodiac correspondence and cipher was received by the San Francisco Chronicle, postmarked Fairfield, California. It read:
I'll DO IT TO BECAUSE I DONE IT 21 TIMES. I CAN'T STOP BECAUSE EACH ThAT I KILL MAKES IT WORSE AND I MUST KILL MORE. MAN IS ThE MOST PRIZED GAME. ILL NERVER GIVE MY NAME BECAUSE YOU dONT UNDERSTAND. NEXT TIME I WILL SEND A PATCH OF HUMAN SKIN if their is SOME Left OVER.

The Monticello card stated "Shought victims 21", referring to the Kathy Bilek murder, whereas, in this correspondence the author was claiming he had already "done it 21 times." The Monticello card was never released to the newspapers or public, so bearing in mind these two communications were both likely mailed at approximately the same time, there is a high probability they were mailed by the same author - or Zodiac himself.

"I killed Kathy Bilek near Monticello, in the Villa Montalvo woods in April".
"Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April".

Brought to the attention of the Zodiac community by Lyndon Lafferty's book 'The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: AKA The Silenced Badge', Shiri-Dine Bana (19) was reported missing by her mother on May 10th 1979. Her body was discovered at noon on Friday May 18th 1979 by a Solano County employee, lying in weeds less than a quarter of a mile south of Lake Herman Road, on the west side. I have estimated the location using the newspaper reports, to the area of Reservoir Road shown below. This location is just 860 meters from the turnout where David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were murdered by the Zodiac Killer on December 20th 1968.

Her 1969 light blue Ford Torino was first spotted at the Blue Rock Springs parking lot on May 12th by a Solano County Sheriff's Deputy and later on Monday May 14th by a caretaker (parked across three parking stalls). It was ticketed as abandoned on May 17th by a Vallejo Police Department officer,  only to eventually be identified as Shiri-Dine Bana's vehicle on the 18th. The young woman disappeared on her way to Napa Community College (now Napa Valley College) from her residence at 260 American Canyon Road No 4 in Napa. View on Google maps. Her clothed body was lying on its stomach, badly decomposed. However, at autopsy they determined she had been stabbed at least 25 times, and possibly struck over the head and strangled. One clue surfaced from her trouser pocket - a registration form for the Napa Community College listing one name. The Ford Torino was hauled away to the Department of Justice crime laboratory in Sacramento, but after a thorough examination of the vehicle they found no traces of blood present in the car, or anything significant pertaining to Shiri-Dine Bana.      

Detective Bob Fletcher speculated 'that Bana was murdered at the Reservoir Road site where the body was found. He partially based the assumption on the fact the woman's eyeglasses were still on her head when she was found. Eyeglasses would most likely have been jarred loose in transport had she been killed elsewhere and later dumped along Reservoir Road. "The facts show she was murdered where she was found" he said. The car was apparently returned to the park and abandoned. Fletcher was seeking assistance in the murder investigation: "Does anyone remember seeing this car parked at Blue Rock Springs between the evenings of May 11 and May 12?"  he asked.'

The idea painted by the above passage, could be interpreted as: Shiri-Dine Bana headed off to Napa Community College on May 10th and met her assailant at this location, whether known or unknown. She was then either forced under duress, or she willingly drove to the area of Reservoir Road where she was murdered. The killer then drove her vehicle west to Blue Rock Springs Park, abandoned it, and made his escape on foot or by use of a second waiting vehicle. 

The analysis of Detective Bob Fletcher, however, seems questionable, when we consider Shiri-Dine Bana was stabbed 25+ times in the neck, chest and back, along with the possibility of a blow to the head and strangulation. They must have been extremely sturdy eyeglasses to have remained on the young woman's face throughout such a ferocious attack (with no mentioned damage), in which Shiri-Dine Bana would have offered sustained resistance over a lengthy period against her attacker. If the murderer had committed this brutal murder in a grassy field, how did he manage to avoid any blood transfer to his body and/or clothing, and therefore the vehicle of Shiri-Dine Bana when he drove it the four miles to Blue Rock Springs?

If the young woman had been murdered elsewhere, the eyeglasses could have easily been transported along with the body to Reservoir Road and placed back on her head a few feet into the field (or had remained on her head throughout the journey). The fact that the body was discovered just six feet in from Reservoir Road by a Solano County employee responsible for trimming the roadside weeds, could be more suggestive of a dump site rather than the location of her murder. The killer could have placed the victim's glasses back on her head to give the impression she was murdered here (but if he did, made an error in doing so). The extent of the injuries inflicted on the young woman, in what was obviously a brutal assault, makes it almost unbelievable that her eyeglasses could have remained on her head throughout. If Detective Bob Fletcher surmised that her "eyeglasses would most likely have been jarred loose in transport had she been killed elsewhere", then how could he square this with her eyeglasses not being "jarred loose" after a viscous and prolonged attack of 25 or more stab wounds. The Solano County deputy coroner Mark Berto stated that "it would take a lot of strength to first force a knife through the sternum, and then be able to remove the blade as well." This strength would have come in useful when the perpetrator was required to remove the body from a second vehicle and carry it six feet into the field. If we take a look at the location of the first quarter of a mile into Reservoir Road, there doesn't appear any accessible parking areas to pull over, and with virtually no coverage from a tree line, a killer attacking a woman just six feet or thereabouts into the field for a prolonged period of time, is taking an inordinate risk in the commission of the crime. With the body being discovered so close to the roadside edge, it gives the impression the murderer literally carried the body just two or three steps into the field.  

The Vallejo Times-Herald stated "she was reported missing by her mother on May 10 after she disappeared on her way to classes at Napa Community College." The wording appears to suggest she never arrived at her classes. She may very well have been abducted while parking up or shortly thereafter, by use of a second vehicle, murdered elsewhere and dumped along Reservoir Road. The need to then relocate her vehicle after the fact, away from the college, could suggest a perpetrator known to the victim and possibly somebody studying at the same college. The fact that the vehicle was dumped in the vicinity of the body deposition site, could have specifically designed to focus attention in the Vallejo/Benicia area. "Benicia Police Chief Pierre Bidou said Tuesday that despite the woman being a Napa resident, the investigation is solely Benicia's responsibility because the body was found here." The Napa Community College registration form found in the dead woman's pocket may hold the answers to her last known location, and center the focus back on the area of the college - the direction she was presumably heading before she disappeared.     

The obvious Zodiac connections have been drawn, with the body and vehicle having been found at virtually the same locations of Zodiac's first two attacks on December 20th 1968 and July 4th 1969. Napa Community College is also less than two miles from the 1231 Main Street, Napa payphone, where the Zodiac Killer confessed to the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard on September 27th 1969.

Cosette Ellison (15) disappeared from her 423 Canyon Road, Moraga residence (near Walnut Creek) on Tuesday March 3rd 1970, believed to have been forcibly taken from outside her home after getting off the school bus from Campolinda High School. She was dropped off by bus driver, Eugene Yee, at 3:20 pm, who saw her cross the road and remove some letters from the mailbox before heading along the driveway. The bus driver noticed a man sitting in a truck near the residence. On his return journey 10 minutes later, the truck had edged closer to the driveway of the Ellison household, but the occupant was no longer inside. Thirty minutes later, at approximately 4:00 pm, Mr and Mrs Richard Ellison returned to an empty house. Cosette's school books were not in their usual place and no mail had been brought into the house, suggesting something untoward had happened close to the time Eugene Yee passed the Ellison residence. 

Three months earlier, on December 1st 1969, Elaine Davis (16) had been abducted from her 158 Pioneer Avenue residence in Walnut Creek. She was later found floating off Light House Point in Santa Cruz on December 19th 1969.
Police investigating her disappearance were contacted by a resident of North Gate Road, approximately 4 miles east of Elaine Davis' residence, stating her 17 year old daughter was being harassed. The Contra Costa Times stated "A resident of Northgate Road reported to the sheriff's office Tuesday that the man, described as between 30 and 35 years old, has been following her daughter for almost a week. Last Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, deputy sheriffs said, the man followed the petite mini-skirted high school girl home from a school bus stop. They said she received two suspicious phone calls Saturday morning, each time the caller attempting to find out if her parents were home. The girl finally told the caller her 19 year old brother was home, although she has no brother. She received no more phone calls. On Sunday, she was riding her horse in the yard of her home when the same man drove past in a small blue car. He later returned, stopped his car, but did not get out. About 6 pm, Monday, a car drove past the residence three times while the girl's parents were shopping. After the third time, there was a knock at the door and a man repeatedly said "I know you are home alone. Can I use your phone-my car has broken down". Lieutenant Holthus said the home was staked out but the man did not show up." 

​Was the man stalking this girl by trailing the school bus? Cosette Ellison had just been dropped off home, after returning from school, when she went missing. North Gate Road extends right into the Mount Diablo State Park foothills, which will become extremely relevant when we consider the location Cosette Ellison's body was discovered    

On January 1st 1971, nearly a year after the disappearance of Cosette Ellison, her body was found in a ravine of the Mount Diablo foothills. The residences of 423 Canyon Road and North Gate Road are extremely rural and spread, with a reduced chance of being overseen in the commission of an abduction. This may have been a consideration for the perpetrator, who likely followed school buses to a more remote setting. The risky nature of forcibly removing somebody from outside their residence necessitates a lack of eyewitnesses.

Shortly after the Elaine Davis abduction on December 1st 1969, a resident of North Gate Road reported a suspicious male hovering outside their residence and stalking their daughter. Was North Gate Road familiar to the suspicious male - somewhere he would return three months later in depositing the body of Cosette Ellison in the foothills of Mount Diablo? The method employed by the perpetrator in both cases is eerily similar, choosing remote locations, and likely trailing, or waiting for the school bus to deliver his victim to him. 

On December 10th 1969, Leona Roberts was abducted from her boyfriend's 749 Tormey Avenue, Rodeo residence. This deviates a little from the two cases above, however, in this case the perpetrator again targeted a residence and was observed numerous times between the front door and a blue station wagon, his likely getaway vehicle.  

If you have any pertinent information regarding the abduction and murder of Cosette Ellison, please contact the Moraga, California, Police Department via their website. Thank you.               

With extensive work done by AK Wilks on this topic, I would like to take a further look at the letter and code mailed to the San Jose Police Department on November 21st 1969. This came just ten days before the abduction of Elaine Davis from Walnut Creek on December 1st 1969. Her abductor traveling from the Bay Area, depositing her Navy peacoat just 26 miles south of San Jose, likely passing through it on his way to Light House Point in Santa Cruz. If the Zodiac was responsible for both letter and murder, then San Jose is a worthy avenue of interest. AK Wilks asked a pertinent question of the forum: "Does someone know of a recent murder case in San Jose that left someone a widow? Or a prominent widow who lived in San Jose in 1969? The police were seemingly able to determine who it was, so perhaps it was a well known case or person". The brief text in the letter clearly contained enough information for police to identify the woman and implement 24 hour surveillance on her residence. Was the author threatening to kill the 'widow' or abduct her from her residence?

The Zodiac Killer (or copycat) mailed a menacing postcard to Dr, Edward Adams in Orinda, California (near Walnut Creek) on October 12th 1970 stating "The Zodiac is going to change the way of committing murders. I shall announce when I shall commit my murders, The Adamses are Next you taught me to Mean it. ADAMS YOU ARE NEXT. ZODIAC."
As shown on the ZodiacKillerSite forum, Dr. Edward Adams and his wife featured in the newspapers prior to this threatening communication, so it is perfectly feasible that the author of the San Jose letter and code had identified his target in the days, weeks or months prior to the November 21st 1969 correspondence. Because of the nature of the redacted text, it appears that this letter was addressed specifically to a titled officer (possibly a Sergeant or Chief) of the San Jose Police Department. Bearing in mind the target of a 'widow' mentioned in the text, the author may be referring to a newspaper article involving the death of her husband, featuring commentary by the police official the letter is addressed to. The officer's name could be any number of characters in length depending on the title he holds, with the widow's surname just 5 or 6 characters in length. 
Was the widow a prominent member of society as suggested by AK Wilks, possibly a policewoman or politician, titled like Dr. Edward Adams. The Zodiac, on December 16th 1969, had set his sights on a cop or "government life". 

On the left is a December 22nd 1969 newspaper report from the San Mateo Times of somebody identifying himself as 'Zodiac' and threatening to kill five patrolmen and a family of five over the weekend, not dissimilar to his written threats in his trinity of July 31st 1969 letters: "I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend". 
The phone call was received on Friday December 19th 1969 by San Jose police dispatcher Shirley Searcy.

The disputed December 7th and 16th 1969 Fairfield letters (not published in the newspapers) both contained threats to murder cops for the first time, with the latter threatening to murder one policeman in San Jose. Three days later, this call to a San Jose Highway Patrol station threatening to murder police is remarkable timing. Was the caller responsible for both Fairfield letters - and more importantly - was it the Zodiac Killer?

I have searched high and low for the identity of this woman, but without a newspapers.com account to aid in the search, I have failed to make any inroads. The author of the San Jose letter (if Zodiac) certainly didn't need a valid reason to target anybody, as shown by his murderous assault in the Bay Area, but the identity of the 'widow' could help to add legitimacy to both Fairfield letters mailed in December, dependent on her profession or previous relationship. The November 21st, December 7th and December 16th communications all contained short codes, the amateurish nature of which, has led many to believe these three letters are the work of an impostor. But these features may actually bolster the argument for Zodiac involvement, as all three were never attempting to mimic the previously polished 408 and 340 cipher, which somebody attempting to mimic the Zodiac would surely have done.  

On December 1st 1969 Elaine Davis (17), a Pleasant Hill High School senior disappeared from her 158 Pioneer Avenue home in Walnut Creek, believed to have been forcibly removed from the residence by one or more assailants, while in the presence of her three year old sister, Heidi. Her glasses and her purse containing four dollars were still in the home. Her parents described Elaine as shy, with no boyfriend or relationship problems at the time of her disappearance. Her mother had driven to nearby Concord at 10:30 pm to pick up her husband from work and was out of the residence for just 45 minutes - and it is during this period of time that Elaine Davis vanished. Willingly leaving the house late at night, without her purse or glasses, leaving a three year old child alone in the residence was troubling for both parents, whose concerns would ultimately grow into fear in the coming hours. Elaine's father, a night manager of a Concord service station, speculated that "somebody has had his eye on her for a long time and just found his chance. That is all I can think of." But admitted that Elaine would have shared any concerns with them had she had any, and had never mentioned being trailed or stalked by anybody. Neighbors described seeing several strange vehicles in the vicinity of the Davis residence in the recent days, including a Volkswagen, but saw nothing on the night of Elaine Davis' kidnapping, which is how the police were now classifying this crime.   

The police had very few leads, when on Friday December 5th, one of Elaine Davis' brown loafers with a gold buckle was discovered on a freeway ramp of Stone Valley Road at Highway 680 in Alamo, and identified by her mother. An extensive search of the Danville-Alamo area under the guidance of Detective Sergeant James Battles unearthed no other clues in the disappearance of Elaine Davis, and despite numerous offers of rewards by a generous public, the case was generating little headway. 

On December 16th 1969, after an extensive search in and around the Walnut Creek home, a gold brass button, believed to have come from the Navy-style peacoat of Elaine Davis which she was wearing at the time of her disappearance, was discovered behind her house. On the same day, a resident of North Gate Road, approximately 4 miles east of Elaine Davis' residence reported that her daughter had been stalked by a 30-35 year old male for several days. The young girl had been trailed to and from her high school bus stop, from which she traveled to Ygnacio Valley High School. She also received two disturbing phone calls asking if her parents were home. On the Monday at 6:00 pm "a car drove past the residence three times while the girl's parents were shopping. After the third time, there was a knock at the door and a man repeatedly said "I know you are home alone. Can I use your phone-my car has broken down". Lieutenant Holthus said the home was staked out but the man did not show up.".   

Then, a San Jose housewife, Mrs Jeffield Sullivan revealed she had found the Navy-style peacoat worn by Elaine Davis on the day of her disappearance. She had actually discovered it on December 3rd 1969, only two days after the young girl's disappearance, on a remote stretch of Highway 17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, the woman at the time of its discovery was unaware of its connection to the Elaine Davis case, and after taking the coat home she took it to be dry cleaned, effectively wiping away any potential forensic evidence. The missing button found behind the Davis residence was matched to the other buttons on the coat, thereby determining unquestionably that the coat was that of Elaine Davis. The police stated the coat was discovered 65 miles south of San Francisco, a mile from Santa's Village, just shy of Scotts Valley. Santa's Village was a Christmas-themed amusement park located in Scotts Valley, California, United States.

On December 19th 1969 the body of a young woman (in 2000, eventually identified as Elaine Davis after an exhumation) was discovered floating off Light House Point near Santa Cruz, CA. The body was decomposed, with extensive damage, described as a partial torso with arm-bones and parts of the legs. Santa Cruz's deputy county coroner, Luther Young stated "We'll work on this case until we run out of leads, but right now we have nothing that would indicate any identification. I wouldn't venture to say the body is that of Elaine Davis. We have never ruled on that possibility and we have never ruled it out."  

Had the abductor and murderer of Elaine Davis killed the young woman on December 3rd 1969 near the location of Santa's Village where her Navy-style peacoat was discovered? Had the abductor kept her alive for several more days, eventually depositing her body at Light House Point in Santa Cruz, before ditching the coat on Highway 17, near Scotts Valley on his return to the Bay Area? This avenue was examined as a possibility by detectives investigating the baffling case. The peacoat and brown loafer were found 64 miles apart.

This case is extremely similar to the December 10th abduction and murder of Leona Roberts, only 9 days after the abduction of Elaine Davis. She too was abducted from a residence - that of her boyfriend Greg V. Valo, at 749 Tormey Avenue in Rodeo. The residence of Elaine Davis and Greg Valo are only 13 miles apart (as the crow flies). Both murder victims were forcibly removed from their residence (likely by vehicle), both were presumably kept alive for an undetermined period, and both were eventually found in coastal regions. In the case of Leona Roberts, she was found at Bolinas Lagoon, Marin County, 42 miles from the 749 Tormey Avenue residence. Elaine Davis was discovered 79 miles from her 158 Pioneer Drive residence. Was the killer stalking the region of Contra Costa County, but making sure to deposit the bodies as far from 'home' as possible in an attempt to focus the investigation out of town?

In both cases, however, it does seem an awfully long way to travel to deposit a body, unless of course, the perpetrator came from out of town and was driving back towards home. If Elaine Davis had been murdered relatively close to the time of her abduction, then there are a multitude of places the killer could have disposed of her body on his way to Light House Point in Santa Cruz, rather than risk the more populated area around West Cliff Drive. Looking at the trail of evidence, it is easy to assume the killer traveled from Walnut Creek to Alamo, through Pleasanton and San Jose, towards Santa Cruz. Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County where the Zodiac Killer mailed the March 13th 1971 'Los Angeles' letter. However, it is the city of San Jose we shall focus on - situated just 26 miles by road from the area the peacoat was discovered on December 3rd 1969. 

Only ten days prior to the abduction of Elaine Davis on November 21st 1969, the Zodiac Killer or somebody purporting to be the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the San Jose Police Department. The FBI file read "Re Butte tel to Bureau 11/21/69. Enclosed herewith for the FBI laboratory are two copies of the letter received by (redacted) San Jose PD, San Jose, California on this date. As noted, the message reads (redacted). The laboratory is requested to have the Cryptogram Section attempt to immediately decipher the message and furnish the results to the San Francisco Office. For the information of the Bureau and Sacramento, after a cursory analysis, officers of the San Jose, California PD, believe widow in message may be Mrs (redacted), San Jose, California. San Jose PD instituting 24 hour surveillance on Mrs (redacted)". From the tone of the wording, it appears that the letter was in someway threatening towards a woman in San Jose, resulting in police providing 24 hour surveillance at the woman's residence. Was the author threatening to abduct the woman from her home, and police believing the letter was from the Zodiac Killer, took the threat extremely seriously and instituted round-the-clock protection? If the letter was mailed from San Jose, or the Zodiac Killer had reason to be in San Jose on November 21st 1969, then it is extremely relevant that the abductor of Elaine Davis just ten days later in the Bay Area, would again be heading to San Jose on his way to Light House Point. If the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the abduction and murder of Elaine Davis, he would have took her through or near to San Jose on his way to the coast. Was he living or working there during this period, or had reason to be in the San Jose area. The San Jose letter and cryptogram, one could argue, places him in San Jose on November 21st 1969. If he returned there only ten days later it may be significant. ​      

Howard Davis stated on the ZodiacKiller. com message board "I can say now, she was probably sitting on her porch smoking (her father was a military man and quite strict so she would hide this habit) and the perpetrator could have followed her to her home, as she and her mother were shopping at the outdoor Concord Mall that day and he may have spotted her there. The perpetrator may have walked by the house and asked her for a cigarette and/or light and once he got close to her she was grabbed and abducted - and possibly strangled and dumped in water. Her shoe and other clothing were found by the roadside as given." This is extremely relevant when we consider the abduction and murder of Leona Roberts on December 10th 1969, who left her job at the White Front Discount Store in Pleasant Hill, near Concord (560 Contra Costa Boulevard) at approximately 5:00 pm for the eleven mile journey to her boyfriend's apartment at 749 Tormey Avenue, Rodeo. Both Leona Roberts and Elaine Davis were abducted from a residence after having previously been at a mall in or near Concord.

Could the Zodiac Killer have been responsible for both the Elaine Davis and Leona Roberts abductions on December 1st and December 10th respectively, dumping both the bodies in coastal regions? Certainly, the San Jose letter and cryptogram provides a tantalizing connection to the murder of Elaine Davis and her discovery at Light House Point. If you have any information pertinent to the murder of Elaine Davis, please contact the Walnut Creek Police Department. 

Below is the envelope and letter mailed to the television station WXIA-TV "11 Alive" at 1611 West Peachtree Street, 30308 in Atlanta, Georgia. This article has been created for those unfamiliar with this correspondence. The letter stated:
Hello its me. Haven't you people figured out who is killing these little people yet. I'll give you a hint, I used to be in San Francisco. I used to stalk women, but I like to kill children now. At all my victims bodies I have left certain clues, but I guess it's too much for you Rebels to handle. So I guess I'll have to tell you. I'll (to) kill children because they are so easy to "pick off: Buy the way, if you still have letters from the other murders, I am not writing in the same hand writing. 

The author of the letter, dated March 8th 1981, was suggesting he was responsible (in part) for the Atlanta Child Murders from 1979-81, 

Wayne Williams would eventually be arrested on June 21st 1981 in connection to the Atlanta Child Murders  He was found guilty on two counts of murder and sentenced on February 27th 1982 to two consecutive life terms in Georgia's Hancock State Prison in Sparta. Some of the child murders were attributed to Wayne Williams and some were unresolved. The author of the Peachtree letter (Zodiac or not) was likely piggybacking off these crimes to garner attention.

The FBI Bureau requested that the FBI laboratory "compare this letter with any other letters on file from the Zodiac Killer, responsible for a string of unsolved murders in San Francisco in the early and mid 1970's." What 'unsolved murders' the Zodiac was responsible for in the early to mid 1970's is difficult to ascertain. 

Here is more great discussion on the ZodiacKillerSite forum regarding the 'Hello It's Me' or 'Peachtree' letter. If you scroll down the forum page you will notice a second mailing around the same timeframe, described as similar to the Sacramento 'Cancer' and 'Fairfield' Leo cards mailed on December 10th 1969 and December 11th 1969 respectively - in a prepaid envelope. The message read "PLEASE STOP FORCED BUSSING OR I WILL KILL 3 MORE BLACK BOYS IN ATLANTA IN MARCH !".. Note the comparison to the 148 character cipher and letter mailed from Fairfield to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1971, where the author threatened to "SKIN 3 LITTLE KIDS" if his communication was not published on the front page of the Chronicle. A weak connection admittedly.  

There is a strong possibility that the author of the 'Peachtree' letter was the same individual responsible for the May 1978 'Channel Nine' letter. Both were mailed to television stations, WXIA-TV in Atlanta and KHJ-TV in Los Angeles, the handwriting looked similar (although subjective) and both contained racial overtones. The 'Peachtree' envelope contained the acronym ATKID for Atlanta Child Murders, along with the Zodiac crosshairs. The 'Channel Nine' envelope contained the acronym AIC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 AGCGTH (All Good Children Go To Heaven) from the Manson Family's Spahn Ranch, along with the Zodiac crosshairs once again. All Good Children Go To Heaven is a British nursery rhyme: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, All good children go to heaven; When they die their sin's forgiven, One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, All good children go to heaven: A penny by the water, Tuppence by the sea, Threepence by the railway, Out goes she!"
   G

Sometime in 1971 a questionable Zodiac correspondence and cipher was received by the San Francisco Chronicle, postmarked Fairfield, California. This was now the fourth Zodiac related communication mailed from Fairfield, following the December 7th, December 11th and December 16th 1969 trinity. There is limited widespread information regarding this letter available on the internet other than the Zodiologists.com website, who have analyzed this correspondence in great detail. The letter and cipher is to be found using the Wayback Machine on Ed Neil's old website TheZodiacFiles.com. I have cleaned up the letter without altering any of the text by the author:

I'll DO IT TO BECAUSE I DONE IT 21 TIMES. I CAN'T STOP BECAUSE EACH ThAT I KILL MAKES IT WORSE AND I MUST KILL MORE. MAN IS ThE MOST PRIZED GAME. ILL NERVER GIVE MY NAME BECAUSE YOU dONT UNDERSTAND. NEXT TIME I WILL SEND A PATCH OF HUMAN SKIN if their is SOME Left OVER.

The 148 character cipher decodes to:
"Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on your front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin". 
The wording in the letter "I'll do it to because I done it 21 times" is consistent with a mailing date sometime after the March 13th 1971 'Los Angeles' correspondence from Zodiac, claiming 17+ victims. Using a simple calculation we can estimate how often the Zodiac claimed a victim. From December 20th 1968 to July 26th 1970 Zodiac claimed 13 victims over 584 days. That is one victim every 44.9 days. Therefore, from victim 13 to 21, another 8 victims were claimed (8 X 44.9 = 359 days). Add 359 days to July 26th 1970 and we arrive at July 20th 1971, approximately four months after the 'Los Angeles' letter.

This letter and cipher appears at first glance a dubious Zodiac communication, but as Zodiologists.com point out, how difficult would it be for a hoaxer to mimic the ciphers or crosshairs of Zodiac. The fact the author failed to do this, should be pause for thought. There is also something about this letter that indicates the author had written another 'Zodiac' communication (or the author was the actual Bay Area murderer). The other communication, also mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13th 1971, mirrored the 148 character cipher and letter in one crucial way - the victim total. The last two widely accepted Zodiac communications were the March 13th 1971 'Los Angeles' letter claiming 17+ victims, and the January 29th 1974 Exorcist letter  claiming 37 victims. The author of the above correspondence had 19 victim totals to choose from (18 to 36), yet he chose 21, the exact total mentioned in the July 13th 1971 'Monticello' card, which featured in the San Francisco Police Department DNA report under "suspected Zodiac correspondence". Did the author of the above correspondence just get lucky, in accidentally choosing 21 victims like the 'Monticello' card, or was he the author of both?

The 'Monticello' card was mailed on July 13th 1971 stating: 
'Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April'.
By my rudimentary calculations the 148 character cipher and letter should have been mailed on July 20th 1971, only one week after the 'Monticello' card. If somebody can find the exact date of mailing regarding the 148 cipher and letter, or when this correspondence was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, it would be of immense value. The 'Monticello' card, by all accounts, was not published in the newspapers. If this were the case, then the victim total of 21, chosen by two independent authors looks extremely unlikely. If the 'Monticello' card was designated as "suspected Zodiac correspondence" by the San Francisco Police Department, then by extension, the above correspondence should be afforded the same value.        

Denise Kathleen Anderson (22), who resided in Sacramento, was last seen on April 13th 1971 by her roommates at approximately 05.30 am - and as of writing her disappearance still remains a mystery - although foul play is suspected. What occurred with Denise Kathleen Anderson after last being seen by her roommates is unknown, but her disappearance (and possible murder) again took place in Sacramento, near Interstate 80, only five months after the murder of Carol Beth Hilburn and exactly one month after the Zodiac 'Los Angeles' letter mailed on March 13th 1971, claiming 17+ victims. In this correspondence Zodiac stated "If the Blue Meannies are evere going to catch me, they had best get off their fat asses + do something. Because the longer they fiddle + fart around, the more slaves I will collect for my after life." The question is, was Denise Kathleen Anderson one of them?
She disappeared on April 13th 1971, so the 'Monticello' card (with break added) could be referring to the possible murder of Denise Kathleen Anderson in the woods during April:
'Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods.  Dies April'.
The 148 character cipher and letter stating "I'll do it to because I done it 21 times" could very well be confirmation that the victim he sought (possibly Denise Kathleen Anderson) had now been claimed.

What are the chances the 'Monticello' card was also mailed from Fairfield? Denise Kathleen Anderson lived in Sacramento,  only 43 miles from Fairfield - but was she the 21st victim of the Zodiac Killer?  

On December 20th 1969 the Zodiac Killer mailed the 'Melvin Belli' letter claiming he may "lose control again and take his ninth or possibly tenth victim". The Zodiac Killer last stated his victim count on November 9th 1969, when he claimed "This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people". Therefore victim number eight (if there ever was one) would have to fall between these two dates. However, in this article I will present some new information that will narrow down victim number eight to a period of just nine days, and add some intriguing connections to the murder of Leona LaRell Roberts (16) who featured in Robert Graysmith's 1986 Zodiac book. 

Just four days before the 'Melvin Belli' letter arrived, the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter was mailed to the San Francisco Examiner insinuating the author's involvement in the September 27th 1969 Lake Berryessa attack, by including a drawing and the wording "The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac." The knife drawing had eight drops of blood falling from the blade, suggesting he had now claimed eight victims, but crucially, the same author had mailed a previous Fairfield letter on December 7th 1969 to the San Francisco Chronicle. This communication failed to acknowledge any current victim count, in conflict to the majority of his future correspondence - and he made no mention of victim number eight - leaving the very real possibility that victim number eight fell between the dates of December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969. There are also three other mailings that point to the abduction and murder of Leona Roberts as a Zodiac victim, or at the very least, a claimed Zodiac victim, ending with the 'Melvin Belli' letter on December 20th 1969 (the first anniversary of the Lake Herman Road murders). But first, let's outline the story of Leona Roberts, abducted from her boyfriend's house on December 10th 1969.   

On Wednesday December 10th 1969 Leona Roberts left her job at the White Front Discount Store in Pleasant Hill (560 Contra Costa Boulevard) at approximately 5:00 pm for the eleven mile journey to her boyfriend's (Greg V. Valo) apartment at 749 Tormey Avenue, Rodeo. This location is only 8 miles from the Lake Herman Road murder site. At about 5:50 pm a neighbor, Susan Clark, heard the sound of a girl screaming, followed by somebody running from the rear of the apartment. A suspicious male was observed many times between the front door and a blue station wagon, before he eventually drove away. The man was described as 25 years old, 5'8", short blond hair and wearing brown trousers and a jacket. A while later her boyfriend arrived home to find a disturbance inside the apartment, scuff marks near the back door and her red Volkswagen parked outside. 

Here is an excerpt from Websleuths by Steph54 "On 28 December 1969, a man searching for driftwood on the beach at Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County found the nude body of Leona Roberts. It was later determined that a unique wristwatch was missing from the girl's wrist, but a Napa High School class ring given to her by a neighbor still remained on her finger. The tan dress she wore when last seen, along with two pairs of bell-bottomed pants, a blouse, a black purse and wallet, a key chain with car and house keys were also reported missing. There were marks on the wrists and ankles indicative of binding, but the coroner was unsure whether they occurred before or after death. The cause of death was reported as "due to viral infection of an unidentified species." It was also reported that there was "evidence of choking which could probably be linked to the virus." link.

Leona Roberts time of death has not been pinned down, but it has been estimated at approximately ten days to two weeks before her discovery, somewhere between December 14th and 18th 1969, just before the mailing of the 'Melvin Belli' letter. It is this letter that may contain a subtle clue to the abduction of Leona Roberts on December 10th 1969. The Zodiac Killer wrote in the 'Melvin Belli' letter "I will loose all controol of myself. Please help me. I can not remain in control for much longer" (edited). This mirrored closely a message written in lipstick on the wall of a murder victim in Chicago in 1945. The message read "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more. I cannot control myself". Frances Brown was discovered at her 3941 North Pine Grove apartment in Edgewater, Chicago. She had multiple knife wounds, along with a bullet wound to the head. William George Heirens would eventually be convicted for this and two other murders, and jailed for life. But why would the Zodiac Killer seemingly pluck the wording from a murder case 24 years prior? Was it a clue to his eighth victim? Frances Brown was discovered on December 10th, exactly the same date as the abduction of Leona Roberts from the 749 Tormey Avenue apartment. She was abducted and likely restrained for approximately one week before her eventual murder.

Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer may have mailed the two Fairfield letters on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969, had he held the young girl somewhere in the vicinity of Fairfield, California, before eventually driving her body 65 miles to Bolinas Lagoon, located in the West Marin region of Marin County. There are another two potential Zodiac communications that may add weight to the Fairfield connection, mailed from Sacramento and Fairfield on December 10th and 11th of 1969. 

On December 10th 1969 (again, the date of Leona Roberts abduction), the Cancer FLT 555 Paste-Up Message was mailed from Sacramento to the Sacramento Bee newspaper, containing the wording "Action Guide, Watch, Want, Zodiac, Birds Fly South, Hidden, FLT 555 and Magic Amulet." The word "watch" has some relevance, regarding the missing "unique wristwatch" from the body of Leona Roberts, however, the phrase "Birds Fly South" may hold the biggest clue of all. Was the 'Cancer' card representative of the abduction of Leona Roberts and the invasion of her 'home' by an unwanted presence? A deadly invader of sorts. Her "cause of death was reported as "due to viral infection of an unidentified species."​

The following day, December 11th 1969, a similar paste-up message was postmarked Fairfield, and mailed to the San Francisco Newspaper Printing Company, P.O. Box 3100, Rincon Annex, San Francisco. If Leona Roberts was one day into her captivity and was to be held under duress for several days to one week, then the December 11th 1969 mailing was the most pertinent communication of all. It was entitled DAY-BY-DAY FORECAST FOR LEO, containing the words "A THRILLING PHENOMENON" and "C HARRY OTT can be Ridden", along with FLT Three of a kind, Hangups, Hidden, Train, time, Now, dangerous ride, warring love emotions and Ember's Lucky.  If Leona Roberts was being kept "hidden" in Fairfield, was the Zodiac Killer preparing to give us day-to-day updates and forecasts regarding the captivity and current status of Leona Roberts? The title of the communication may be a play on words by the Zodiac Killer: "DAY-BY-DAY FORECAST FOR LEONA ROBERTS". Unfortunately, the forecast for Leona Roberts would turn out deadly in a matter of days.

The murderer of Leona Roberts may have known the location he was going to dispose of her body in advance. The phrase "Birds Fly South" could very well be a reference to his chosen dumping ground of Bolinas Lagoon, somewhere he may have frequented on a regular basis. "One of the main attractions at Bolinas Lagoon are the millions of shorebirds and other waterfowl that visit the mudflats and quiet waters each year. The lagoon is one of the most important stopover points for birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway. The lagoon is also home to a thriving population of harbor seals that can always be seen at low tide when they haul out to rest and replenish their depleted oxygen supply. Wildlife at this preserve should be observed at a respectful distance; seals that are flushed into the water suffer if they aren’t allowed to spend a minimum amount of time drying out. Birds may be exhausted and near starvation after having traveled nonstop for several hundred miles to reach the safe haven of the lagoon". Marin County Parks.

Bolinas Lagoon is a tidal estuary, approximately 1,100 acres in area, located in the West Marin region of Marin County, California, United States, adjacent to the town of Bolinas. The Pacific Flyway is a major north-south flyway for migratory birds in America, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. Every year, migratory birds travel some or all of this distance both in spring and in fall, following food sources, heading to breeding grounds, or travelling to overwintering sites. Along the Pacific Flyway, there are many key rest stops where birds of many species gather, sometimes in the millions, to feed and regain their strength before continuing. Some species may remain in these rest stops for the entire season, but most stay a few days before moving on. Wikipedia.

So, we have the 'Melvin Belli' letter and the December 10th murder of Frances Brown and abduction of Leona Roberts, linked by the wording in the correspondence, the "DAY-BY-DAY FORECAST FOR LEONA ROBERTS" mailed on December 11th 1969, and the dumping ground of Bolinas Lagoon, where "Birds Fly South". 

Other crimes loosely linked to the Zodiac Killer (and close to Bolinas Lagoon) involve the hanging of Pat Tan on Mount Tamalpais on April 19th 1970 (one day before the '13 Symbol' cipher communication) and the 'Tamalpais Valley Attack' on Isobel Watson. 
Isobel Watson (33) had just got off the bus on the evening of April 7th 1972, and was walking home along Pine Hill Road, Tamalpais Valley, Marin County at 9.00 pm, when a light colored vehicle veered towards her, knocking her to the ground. The driver exited his vehicle offering to take her home, but after she had refused his offer of apparent help a second time, the concerned citizen suddenly became enraged, pulling out a knife and stabbing the woman in the neck and shoulder. ​Her screams alerted the neighborhood, forcing the assailant into a hasty retreat from the scene. She was treated at Marin General Hospital and fortunately survived the brutal attack. Her description of the man alerted investigators to a possible Zodiac connection - that of a man with heavy rimmed black glasses, in his early 40's, 5' 9" in height and short brown hair. It was not overlooked by police that the killer had attempted to lure the woman into his vehicle, not dissimilar to the method employed in the Modesto abduction of Kathleen Johns. Napa County homicide detective Ken Narlow believed in a greater than 50-50 chance of a Zodiac connection, bearing in mind the description given by Isobel Watson.

On October 27th 1970 the Zodiac Killer mailed the Halloween card to the San Francisco Chronicle, stating "sorry no cipher" in the form of a cross, and fashioning "Paradice" and "Slaves" in the same manner. In the four corners he placed By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife. For anyone who believes the September 27th 1969 Lake Berryessa attack was at the hand of the Zodiac Killer, must surely conclude the "by knife" reference on the Halloween card to be admitting his participation in this crime, as this phrase on the car door had been withheld from the public and newspapers alike. This inextricably links the author of the Halloween card to the Lake Berryessa attack. Elements of the Halloween card can be found in the 340 cipher, with "Paradise" and "Slaves" bisecting the cipher (17 X 17) horizontally and vertically, with the word "by" placed horizontally in each of the four quadrants. 

The Halloween card alliance to the Lake Berryessa attack formed "by knife", in conjunction with the knothole in the tree and the wording "peek-a-boo you are doomed", should leave little doubt the two are connected. There is also a strong connection from the Halloween card to both the December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969 Fairfield letters, and in turn, all three to the 340 cipher. The December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter contained a crude arrangement of 9 symbols (10 including the large crosshairs), impossible to decode as it stood. The four crosshairs around a larger version looked extremely similar to the Halloween card arrangement - and bearing in mind the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter was accompanied by a crude drawing of a knife entitled "The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac", it seemed likely the short code may have been Zodiac's initial attempt at revealing the hidden words on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's 1956 white Karmann Ghia. 

Thanks to Tahoe 27's excellent find linking the Halloween card to a Tim Holt comic book, depicting Death By Fire, Death By Gun, Death By Rope and Death By Knife, it seemed obligatory to consider the connection from the Halloween card "by knife" to the "The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac", along with the similarity in design between the Paradice/Slaves arrangement and the four crosshairs circling a larger version. The four methods of death represented by the four crosshairs or targets.   

The Halloween card, 340 cipher and both Fairfield letters seemed intertwined. The fact that Zodiac placed "sorry no cipher" in the form of a cross rather than just singularly, can be linked to "Paradice" and "Slaves", and therefore the 340 cipher. Was he suggesting the 340 cryptogram was not a true cipher? It appeared he may have been dropping clues to the design of the 340 cipher as early as December 7th 1969, placing a 38 character code in the first Fairfield letter.

On the left, "by" can be observed in all four quadrants. Parts of the December 7th 1969 code are highlighted in blue, while four of the adjacent symbols from the December 16th 1969 code are highlighted in yellow.

The December 7th letter opened with the words "I just need help", reminiscent of the December 20th 1969 Melvin Belli letter, and followed by "I will kill again, so expect it any time the will be a cop", similar in fashion to the April 20th 1970 letter, where Zodiac stated "But there is more glory in killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back". The December 16th letter opened with the same two words as the December 7th letter, stating "I just want to tell you", almost certainly tying them together - along with the handwriting and crude coding. Bearing in mind neither of the Fairfield letters appeared in the newspapers, it appears that Zodiac either just accidentally mirrored these communications with the subsequent December 20th 1969 and April 20th 1970 letters, or he was the author of all four.

Was the Paradice, Slaves, By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife configuration a representation of the number of murders he was intending to secure for the afterlife. Paradice, Slaves, By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife oddly contained 38 letters. The character count on the December 7th 1969 Fairfield letter code was 38. The intended victims on the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter was 38. The 340 'Dripping Pen' card, eerily similar to the "Bleeding Knife of Zodiac" depiction, opened with the wording "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen." This phrase again contained the words "I just", but also an alphanumeric count of 38. The April 20th 1970 letter, stating "I hope you have fun trying to figgure out who I killed" had a code that added up to 38 when the alphabet was placed alongside it.
And finally, the Exorcist letter (widely believed to be the final offering by the Zodiac Killer) claimed 37 victims, but promising to kill again if his demands were not met. Probably coincidence, but curious nonetheless.  

The 'Dripping Pen' card may have been a depiction chosen by the Zodiac Killer regarding his exploits at Lake Berryessa. The pen dripping blood as he is writing on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, and his reason for washing it. The 340 cipher accompanying this card, with the "Paradice", "Slaves" and "by knife" link back to the Halloween card, further indicating a connection to Lake Berryessa through these communications. 

​The 'Death By Fire, Death By Gun, Death By Rope and Death By Knife' agenda could have been formed in the mind of the killer as early as the beginning of his campaign of terror, when he mailed the 408 cipher, stating  "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife". The same paradice and slaves permeating through much of his correspondence, and possibly the 340 cipher also. "By knife" an integral part of both Fairfield letters and the Halloween card, to hopefully lay any doubts to rest, of his involvement and knowledge of the writing at the foot of the message on Bryan Hartnell's car door.

The December 16th 1969 "knife," in a side-by-side comparison to the writing on the car door of Bryan Hartnell. Anyone could have read about the Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard with a knife, but would an impostor have emphasized it in the form of a drawing, as to signify its importance, without knowing for certain the hidden message on the car door? And how would the Zodiac Killer, when designing the Halloween card, accidentally mirror the "death by fire, gun, rope and knife" arrangement on the Fairfield letter, when the December 16th 1969 letter was never published in the newspapers. Somebody attempting to imitate the Zodiac Killer in both December letters, would surely have attempted to imitate him, not go out of their way to undo the neatness and organization exhibited by the 340 cipher and thereby nullify their efforts? The Zodiac Killer would have had no such concerns.

The Exorcist letter has recently come under the spotlight regarding its authenticity as a Zodiac communication, but regardless, we will examine it in context to previous correspondence from the Bay Area murderer and hopefully show that the entire letter is designed around the Gilbert & Sullivan comedic opera 'The Mikado', in particular Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner. The Zodiac Killer had now seemingly dropped his long-held pseudonym after a three year hiatus and had reemerged, vowing to continue his campaign of murder under a new guise.    

The Zodiac Killer had previously used two musical numbers from The Mikado when he mailed the Little List letter on July 26th 1970. The first was 'A More Humane Mikado', followed by 'As Some Day It May Happen', featuring Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner.​
This was noted in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 12th 1970, just 15 days prior to the mailing of the 'Halloween' card: "It was immediately apparent that Zodiac had plagiarized several stanzas from an aria in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta 'The Mikado'. It is the entrance aria of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner. A quiet search of onetime Ko-Ko's has turned up none that could be Zodiac. Obvious differences in physical description and handwriting comparisons have cleared all Ko-Ko's tracked down since the arrival of the July 27 letters."

The text on the Exorcist letter is split into three sections: [1] The introduction referring to the recently released Exorcist movie, and featured in a newspaper article by reporter Paul Avery, [2] The latest Zodiac pseudonym disguised under the heading of 'Yours truley', and [3] The customary threat promising more victims if his "note" is not published.

There is little doubt that the Zodiac Killer (now Lord High Executioner) is describing the William Friedkin movie 'The Exorcist' in terms of 'The Mikado'. The Gilbert & Sullivan play is often described as a comedic opera of political satire, so the author choosing the words "I saw and think "The Exorcist" was the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen" is certainly not by accident. However, it is the introduction of "I saw and think" that may carry more meaning than initially thought.
​
'As Some Day It May Happen' featured heavily in the July 26th 1970 letter. It was spoken by Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, with the word "think" appearing four times during this act, including the introduction :
[1] "Gentlemen, I'm much touched by this reception. I can only trust that by strict attention to duty I shall ensure a continuance of those favours which it will ever be my study to deserve. If I should ever be called upon to act professionally, I am happy to think that there will be no difficulty in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a distinct gain to society at large". [2] and [3] "And who doesn't think she dances, but would rather like to try; And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist — I don't think she'd be missed — I'm sure she'd not be missed". 
[4] "He's got her on the list — he's got her on the list; And I don't think she'll be missed — I'm sure she'll not be missed".

Was the Zodiac Killer reprising his performance of the Little List letter and using the introduction of "I saw and think" under the guise of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner?  This argument may be bolstered, when he immediately follows this up by signing his new pseudonym in the form of another Ko-Ko, Lord High Executioner verse from 'On A Tree By A River' featuring tit-willow. The author is simply saying "Signed, yours truley: The Lord High Executioner." 

The third section of text on the 'Exorcist' letter is uncannily similar to the first letters mailed by the Zodiac Killer on July 31st 1969. The 'Exorcist' letter was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, so we will take a look at the July 31st 1969 letter mailed to the same paper. This is what the killer signed off with: "I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend." It begins with a demand to print his material in the paper, and finishes with the threat "to kill" again if his instructions are not followed, exactly like the Exorcist letter. 

The 'Exorcist' letter symbols were decoded by Kevin Robert Brooks to spell the words "To Kill", which although not proven, makes perfect sense with respect to the July 31st 1969 letters, and in keeping with the Lord High Executioner's list of people who will not be missed. The Mikado style symbolism at the foot of the Exorcist letter threatening "To Kill" again, lending credence to the notion the Zodiac Killer is now operating under the pseudonym of a Japanese High Executioner. 

The answer that has always eluded people - is did the Zodiac Killer begin his murders and letter writing in Riverside, before resuming his campaign of terror in the Bay Area? The Zodiac Killer communications began on July 31st 1969, and presumably ceased with the last confirmed correspondence on January 29th 1974. We have shown the similarity of threats exhibited by the Exorcist letter and the trinity of July 31st 1969 letters, regarding his promise "to kill" if his cipher or "Tit-willow" communications were not published. The 408 cipher was split into three parts (similar to the Exorcist letter) containing 8 lines of text, thereby 24 lines in total. The verse Tit-willow was split identically to the 408 cipher, three verses of 8 lines. The three Bates letters were mailed to Joseph Bates, the Riverside Press Enterprise and Riverside Police, and once again contained double postage like much of the Zodiac correspondence, with each containing just 8 words: "Bates/She had to die there will be more".   

The Mikado influence is present in all three sections of the Exorcist letter (including the Asian style characters) in a reinvention of the July 26th 1970 Little List letter. Was the Exorcist letter a hoaxer operating under the guise of the Zodiac Killer, plagiarizing the Gilbert & Sullivan opera once again and convincing us the threat was still alive in the Bay Area after nearly five years, or was the executioner at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969 biding his time, before extinguishing the Zodiac Killer once and for all?

Many people have attempted to understand the meaning of the December 27th 1974 Christmas card mailed to Donna Lass' sister, Mary Pilker, with the wording "Best Wishes, St Donna & Guardian of the Pines." Was it innocuous or a sinister message from the Zodiac Killer, forever connected to the disappearance of Donna Ann Lass from the Sahara Tahoe Hotel on September 6th 1970? The following is not an attempt to claim an answer to this mystery, but to throw out a few ideas regarding this subject. The title of 'Saint' is often attached to a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and regarded in Christian faith as being in heaven after death. Therefore, the inference that can be drawn from this card, is that Donna Lass is likely dead and her spirit is somehow serving as a "guardian of the Pines", leading some to believe she is buried in a location around Lake Tahoe. Could the author of the 1974 Christmas card be referencing something in his past in the wording he chose? ​

A newspaper article stated that "the site depicted on the (March 22nd 1971) 'Pines Card' was from an advertisement published last Sunday by several newspapers. It was an artist's rendition of houses among the trees at a Boise Cascade Company project at Incline Village, where construction has just begun on the development. While much of the Sierra area is under several feet of snow, Incline Village has only two feet on the ground. Police went to the area to determine if a search is possible".

If the author of the 1974 Christmas card was the same individual as the 1971 'Pines' card, could he again be referring to vacation properties at a different location, where we can tie the words "Guardian", "Pines" and "Donna" together. 

On December 15th 1971, a correspondence was mailed from Scottsville, New York and addressed to Mr J Edgar Hoover, first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The communication would claim that with proper investigation it would disclose the name and identity of the infamous Zodiac Killer of California. In an article entitled 'The John Edgar Hoover Letter', a similarity in the handwriting between this communication and the 1974 letter was noted. 

​On August 1st 1973, a suspected Zodiac letter was mailed to the New York, Albany Times Union newspaper threatening to murder an employee/nurse at the local hospital during "shift change", reminiscent of Donna Lass, who disappeared near her end of shift three years earlier. Although it appears the 1974 Christmas card was mailed from Alameda County, California, could the Zodiac Killer have been living in New York from 1971 to 1974, or beyond, and occasionally commuting to the Bay Area? The 'Pines' card was mailed on March 22nd 1971, before a hiatus of nearly three years, when the 'Exorcist' letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29th 1974 and culminating with the Christmas card correspondence on December 27th 1974, tenuously linked to the Zodiac Killer. Can any link be forged to New York with respect to the 1974 Christmas card?

On October 18th 1969 Paul Avery ran a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle describing the Zodiac Killer as a 'latent homosexual'. Under the banner 'Zodiac-Portrait of the Killer' he stated "The killer of five who calls himself 'Zodiac' is a clumsy criminal, a liar and possibly a latent homosexual."  Had the Zodiac Killer murdered young heterosexual courting couples as a result of his own suppressed homosexual leanings? This topic was explored in the article 'Skeleton in the Closet'. Had the Zodiac Killer moved to, or near an area of New York, akin to the Castro District of San Francisco, where he could explore his repressed identity? We now need to use a bit of that 'pattern seeking animal', in order to knit "homosexuality", "Guardian", "Pines" and "Donna" into one single location.

On the right is the 1952 brochure for 'Fire Island Pines'. It states "The original brochure from the Home Guardian Company of New York for the new Fire Island community called the Pines".
​
"Fire Island Pines (often referred to as The Pines, simply Pines, or FIP) is a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on Fire Island, a barrier island on the southern side of Long Island.
Fire Island Pines along with the adjoining Cherry Grove, are the areas most strongly associated with the gay community on Fire Island. The island has been referred to as America’s first gay and lesbian town and served since the 1920s and 1930s as a refuge for vacationers and others who desired the more liberal attitude the island's occupants allowed.
The Pines, which has the most expensive real estate on Fire Island, has approximately 600 houses and a 100 unit condominium complex on its square mile of location. It has two-thirds of the swimming pools on Fire Island. Its summer seasonal population is between 2,500 and 3,000." Wikipedia.

This is the original brochure from the Home Guardian Company of New York for the new Fire Island community called the Pines, supplying bungalow sites and condominiums, much like the Boise Cascade Company project at Incline Village, Lake Tahoe. 

The Zodiac Killer had taken the phrase "peek through the pines" from the Boise Cascade Company advertisement. Did his inspiration for the 1974 Christmas card have similar roots of the Home Guardian Company?

"The surveyor called it “Five Islands.”  After a hundred years came another survey.  By then the cuts had healed, giving this surveyor the impression of a beach entire; taking “Five” for a misprint he “corrected” it to “Fire.”  Why fire?  Because fires did appear, campfires of Indians (whose name for the island was “Seal” and “Raccoon”), fires of whalers rendering blubber, fires of salvagers luring ships aground, and more kindly ones as beacons warning them away, fires of runaways, survivors– perhaps even early Sierra Club Outings".  
​Pines History.   Hurricane History at Fire Island Pines.

"The last major storm in the New York metropolitan area was in June 1972, when Hurricane Agnes tore for 10 days along the Eastern Seaboard". New York Times. 
Was the Zodiac Killer invoking the spirit of Saint Donna from the afterlife as a Guardian of the Fire Island Pines, recalling memories from his formative years? Donna Lass disappeared on September 6th 1970. Hurricane Donna appeared and dissipated between August 29th and September 13th 1960, ten years earlier. 

By coalescing various stories of homosexuality, Fire Island Pines in New York, the Home Guardian Company and Hurricane Donna, a perceived link can be forged back to the 1974 Mary Pilker Christmas card. But it's just a work of fiction like so many Zodiac claims on the internet.

Here I would like to return to an old topic with a fresh approach, partly inspired by 'Nobody,' a regular contributor to this site.
As early as August 10th 1969 Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA) was commenting on the Zodiac ciphers. In the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle he praised Donald Harden's deciphering skills and called the code "complicated and obviously drawn by somebody who knows his business". 
​
The Zodiac Killer had already responded to prompts by Vallejo Police Chief Jack Stiltz to send more details to prove the letter writer and killer were one and the same. The more the Zodiac Killer wrote, not only lessened his time for killing, but may have provided additional clues to detectives regarding his identity. This tactic was likely adopted by Professor D.C.B. Marsh in the October 22nd 1969 San Francisco Examiner newspaper article by Will Stevens, which laid down a challenge to the Zodiac Killer to reveal his name. The newspaper stated "Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name -in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name." 

Clearly, Dr. Marsh and the detectives would have considered it highly unlikely for the Zodiac Killer to respond by giving us his name, but while he was constructing ciphers he wasn't murdering innocent civilians. There also remained an outside chance that Zodiac would rise to the challenge and create a code, "however complicated", that Dr Marsh and his fellow cryptographers could unpick. This article, rather than a straightforward challenge to Zodiac, could have been deliberately manufactured with the assistance of detectives, to bait the Zodiac Killer into using a particular methodology in his cipher construction. If the police knew the source of Zodiac's inspiration, then it could unearth the cipher technique he employed when designing his next code. 

'Nobody' considered the idea that the Zodiac Killer may have used a foreign language in the cipher, or possibly a rotating key that switches at certain intervals. By employing such a technique, the Zodiac Killer could make the cipher virtually "crackproof". 
The article in the October 22nd 1969 San Francisco Examiner may have been specifically designed to lead the Zodiac Killer down a particular path, making his next cipher easier to crack. Dropping innocuous sections of text into an article such as "to quote Edgar Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man", can be specifically designed to guide the Bay Area murderer into using one of Edgar Allan Poe's cipher techniques or a model suggested by him. We know the Zodiac Killer was an avid reader of the newspapers and may have took this bait of using a publication by Edgar Allan Poe, thinking he was getting one over on Dr Marsh and the police. The hope from the standpoint of law enforcement, was that the Zodiac Killer would bite the hook and get reeled in. 

Sixteen days later the Zodiac Killer mailed the 340 cipher revealing, not his name, but his identity, carefully positioned at the base of his cipher. This catapulted the idea that the Zodiac Killer had indeed responded to the article by Dr Marsh, but wasn't quite ready to reveal his name to authorities. But it is my belief that the Zodiac Killer did create the 340 and 13 Symbol ciphers in tandem, with a view to inextricably link his identity to his name using the word "Zodiac" on the final row of the 340 cipher, with the three 8's as the conduit between the two. See here.

The Zodiac Killer, however, would hold back his '13 Symbol' cipher for approximately six months. Zodiac researcher Michael Cole stated "Clearly, the Zodiac did not send the cryptogram to Marsh, as had been requested (this non-public way of satisfying the challenge was apparently unacceptable to the attention-craving serial killer). Neither did he respond in a time frame that most would have expected. But these details matter little. In fact, the timing itself provides yet another reason to conclude that what we have here is a specific instance of cause and effect. As mentioned, this article was published in the Examiner on October 22, 1969.  Six months to the day later, April 22, 1970, the people of the San Francisco Bay Area were reading about the My Name Is cipher in the Chronicle."

But there may have been a much more cunning reason why the Zodiac Killer delayed his mailing of the April 20th 1970 communication, and it has everything to do with Edgar Allan Poe. Did the Zodiac Killer pick up on the wording of Dr. D.C.B. Marsh in the article, create and mail his '13 Symbol' cipher based on something in the writings of Edgar Allen Poe? 

We can see in the Edgar Allan Poe essay 'A Few Words on Secret Writing,' at the very beginning he shows the alphabet being split into two halves of 13 letters, A to M, and N to Z.
"Were two individuals, totally unpractised in cryptography, desirous of holding by letter a correspondence which should be unintelligible to all but themselves, it is most probable that they would at once think of a peculiar alphabet, to which each should have a key. At first it would, perhaps, be arranged that a should stand for z, b for y, c for x, d for w, &c. &c.; that is to say, the order of the letters would be reversed. Upon second thoughts, this arrangement appearing too obvious, a more complex mode would be adopted. The first thirteen letters might be written beneath the last thirteen, thus:
n o p q r s t u v w x y z
a b c d e f g h i j k I m; and, so placed, a might stand for n and n for a, o for b and b for a, &c. &c. This, again, having an air of regularity which might be fathomed, the key alphabet might be constructed absolutely at random." ​​

The Zodiac Killer not only created the April 20th 1970 cipher with 13 characters, but it too began with an A and ended with an M, just like the suggested encryption technique featured by Edgar Allan Poe. Notice the way the cipher is organized symmetrically using the alphabetical characters, the three 8's and the two symbols. The same symmetry was observed when placing half the alphabet alongside the 13 character cipher. See here.  

The Dr. Marsh newspaper article opened with "A Challenge perhaps unique in the annals of American crime was injected today into the bizarre case of the killer who begins his letters to newspapers 'This is the Zodiac Speaking'."
The article continued, and bemoaned the fact that Zodiac hadn't revealed his true identity: "Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name." 

'A Few Words on Secret Writing' stated "This challenge has elicited but a single response, which is embraced in the following letter. The only quarrel we have with the epistle, is that its writer has declined giving us his name in full. We beg that he will take an early opportunity of doing this, and thus relieve us of the chance of that suspicion which was attached to the cryptography of the weekly journal above-mentioned–the suspicion of inditing ciphers to ourselves. The postmark of the letter is Stonington, Conn." ​link. 

If the Zodiac Killer was basing the '13 Symbol' cipher on the Dr. Marsh article and secret writing of Edgar Allan Poe, why did he wait approximately six months to mail it to the San Francisco Chronicle?
It may not have been the six month anniversary that was important to him, but the only date mentioned in the Edgar Allan Poe literature, 'A Few Words on Secret Writing'. The date was April 21st. 
Had the Zodiac Killer deliberately waited six months to ensure his '13 Symbol' cipher letter would be postmarked April 21st, or be published on April 21st, which unfortunately for him never materialized? He was slightly early on the mailing, resulting in the postmark of April 20th, and the San Francisco Chronicle published his cipher in the April 22nd edition, effectively thwarting any intentions to recreate the Connecticut letter.

However, the possibility remains, that the Zodiac Killer could have used one of the cipher techniques employed or suggested by Edgar Allan Poe in 'A Few Words on Secret Writing', and the idea proposed by 'Nobody' regarding the use of a second language as the key, a much more viable proposition than initially considered.
​
 "It is not to be supposed that Cryptography, as a serious thing, as the means of imparting important information, has gone out of use at the present day. It is still commonly practised in diplomacy; and there are individuals, even now, holding office in the eye of various foreign governments, whose real business is that of deciphering. We have already said that a peculiar mental action is called into play in the solution of cryptographical problems, at least in those of the higher order. Good cryptographists are rare indeed; and thus their services, although seldom required, are necessarily well requited. An instance of the modern employment cipher is mentioned in a work lately published by Messieurs Lea & Blanchard, of this city–“Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France.” In a notice of Berryer, it is said that a letter being addressed by the Duchess de Berri to the legitimists of Paris, to inform them of her arrival, it was accompanied by a long note in cipher, the key of which she had forgotten to give. “The penetrating mind of Berrver,” says the biographer, “soon discovered it. It was this phrase substituted for the twenty-four letters of the alphabet–Le,gouvernement provisoire.” 'A Few Words on Secret Writing' by Edgar Allan Poe.

 Beach Street runs from Pier 39 to the Maritime Museum, but despite what Google maps indicates, there is no 56 Beach Street present today. Thanks to 'Nobody':"56 Beach St is the old block numbering from the original planning maps, which comes out as 1654/1656 on the street numbering. 1654/56 Beach St, San Francisco, CA is a condo home that contains 2,141 sq ft and was built in 1938." 

"During the 1960s, California was the site of many outdoor art fairs, which nurtured a culture of independent artists and craftspersons. At this time there was an effort to sell crafts on the sidewalks of the liberal Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Artists and street performers who illegally set up in public areas were frequently harassed and arrested by the police. In the 700 block of Beach Street adjacent to Victorian Park and near Fisherman's Wharf, between 15 and 25 artists would set up their displays and use lookouts to alert them to the arrival of the police." Wikipedia.

Sergeant Lynch couldn't locate a 56 Beach Street in 1969, so considered Beechwood Street starting in the 700 block. This location was actually Beechwood Drive, Daly City, CA 94015. It is 8.6 miles from Beach Street, San Francisco.
This clearly indicates that Sergeant Lynch was considering the letter from the standpoint of San Francisco, due to its proximity to San Mateo. 

The question that arises from this letter, is were the "concerned citizen" and "good citizen" communications designed by the same author, or linked in any way? The first supplied a code key relating to the 408 cipher, solved by Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden of Salinas, California. The second referred to "code letters". Both correspondences were mailed to Sergeant John Lynch. Bearing in mind the "concerned citizen" card wasn't mentioned in any newspapers, does this increase the significance of the October 7th 1969 mailing?
U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 links Salinas, San Mateo and Beach Street.​ Paul Stine picked up the Zodiac in the proximity of Union Square on October 11th 1969. The "good citizen" letter, mailed only four days earlier, mentioned ESP and Beach Street - this location is only 1.4 miles from Union Square.   

Without knowing more about this communication and its exact contents, this analysis must be treated with caution. 

# "Zener cards are cards used to conduct experiments for extrasensory perception (ESP) or clairvoyance. Perceptual psychologist Karl Zener (1903–1964) designed the cards in the early 1930s for experiments conducted with his colleague, parapsychologist J. B. Rhine (1895–1980). The original series of experiments have been discredited and replication has proved elusive. The Zener cards are a deck of twenty five cards, five of each symbol. The five symbols are: a hollow circle, a plus sign, three vertical wavy lines, a hollow square, and a hollow five-pointed star. They are used to test for ESP." Wikipedia.