In an article by Paul Avery in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 22nd 1969 entitled 'The Search for Zodiac's Four Murder Weapons', Chief of Inspectors Martin Lee confirmed that ballistics had proved Zodiac used a different gun in three of the attacks, where he discharged his weapon. One of the murder investigators stated "It's part of the pattern, that there's no pattern at all". Another remarked "It may be that Zodiac has an arsenal of weapons at his disposal."  Investigators checked gun registration from stores, including handwriting in an attempt to identity the Zodiac, but failed to unearth any viable leads. Many people believe the Zodiac thrived on risk - the question though - is how much risk was he prepared to take?
When Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz questioned whether the author of the trinity of letters on July 31st 1969 was the same person as the killer, Zodiac's response was immediate in the 'Debut of Zodiac' letter the following morning, supplying more details of the first two crimes at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs to the police chief.   

Chief of Police Martin Lee stated in the San Francisco Chronicle article on October 18th 1969 entitled 'Zodiac Called a Clumsy Criminal,' that Zodiac possibly left his fingerprints on the taxicab, allowed himself to be spotted by three teenagers, and failed to kill all his victims. He went on say "His boast of being in the area we were searching is a lie. We had the whole area flooded with lights. We had seven police dogs and a large number of patrolmen searching the area tree by tree and bush by bush. The dogs are the best in the country. A mouse couldn't have escaped our attention." Zodiac again responded in the 'Bus Bomb' letter three weeks later, annoyed they were lying about him and giving details about his observations in the park. He challenged Chief of Police Martin Lee not to doubt him, referring back to his 'Debut of Zodiac' letter on August 4th 1969; "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves." 

To prove his link to the murder of Paul Stine, he brought the crime scene to his correspondence by mailing a section of Paul Stine's blooded shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 13th 1969 and November 9th 1969. The Zodiac did the reverse at Lake Berryessa two weeks earlier, taking his writing to the crime scene, and detailing his previous crimes in marker pen on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's 1956 white Karmann Ghia. The Zodiac Killer clearly took risks in every crime he committed, in particular, placing two phone calls after the Blue Rock Springs Park and Lake Berryessa attacks, wandering around Lake Berryessa in an executioner's outfit and tearing a section of blooded shirt from the dead taxicab driver in the heart of San Francisco, to name but a few. Many people have questioned his involvement in each of the crimes and the Zodiac Killer obliged every time, either by providing details only he and the police knew, placing his handwriting at Berryessa, or mailing a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt to the newspapers. For some people, there is nothing the Zodiac could have done to prove the letters and murders were linked. But he didn't have to claim any of the crimes after the Lake Herman Road murders to prove he was the killer. The answer lies in the words of Chief of Police Martin Lee who said "ballistics had confirmed a different weapon was used in three of the attacks."

All Zodiac had to do was use the same weapon at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs and Presidio Heights, and ballistics and shell casing analysis would have confirmed that the three attacks were inextricably linked, or at the very least left little doubt. He could have taken something from the previous crime scene and deposited it at the following. This would have saved the Zodiac Killer the effort of proving he was the killer in all four attacks. Yet the Zodiac Killer changed his weapon every time, casting doubt on all the crimes being linked. This left the Zodiac having to ultimately prove his association with each crime via his correspondence. 

The Zodiac was prepared to take risks, but evidently was not prepared to use the same gun that would link himself with each crime. How risky is hiding the same weapon under the floorboards of your residence or burying it inside a container in the woods, to be retrieved before each new crime? Not a great risk, when you compare it to his Lake Berryessa antics or the removal of the taxicab driver's shirt on Washington Street in the heart of San Francisco and exiting the crime scene on foot. Yet he never used the same weapon twice.

So what can we take from this? Zodiac was prepared to take risks, but was not prepared to extend this risk for weeks or months between his crimes, despite the fact that hiding the weapon away from his home residence would seem to be foolproof if the gun was not registered or had not possessed any identifying features. 

The overarching belief is that the Zodiac Killer disposed of each weapon immediately after each crime. The quicker you can separate yourself from the 'smoking gun' the better. But we still have the conflict of a killer quite prepared to take innumerable risks in the commission of his crimes, but wastes not a second in the disposing a weapon he could easily conceal. 

In all probability, even if the Zodiac Killer had used the same weapon at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs Park, Presidio Heights, and had also shot both Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa with the same gun, you can guarantee that some internet sleuths would still find a way to circumnavigate the evidence and cast doubt on one or more of these crimes once again. 

The negro male was supposedly never identified or mentioned in the Blue Rock Springs police report. Was the Zodiac lying about this encounter as many people would argue, or was this a genuine encounter by the Zodiac Killer? Here we will run through some of the arguments.   

In the police report it stated a call received at 12.40 am by unknown citizen: "I wish to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot by a 9 mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year.... Good-bye."

At 12.47 am Mrs Johnson PT&T operator called. The above call was traced to a coin operated telephone at Joe's Union, Tuolumne and Springs Road. The call was traced by Betty Main, whose supervisor would not allow her to give a statement at this time.

The Zodiac Killer called at 12.40 am and the call was traced inside of seven minutes, which is not possible with the technology of 1969. A caller had to be on the line a minimum of 15 minutes for a call to be traced. Although not completely  accurate, this was referenced in the Zodiac (2007) movie, featuring a clip of the Melvin Belli 'call to chat show,' when Belli was instructed "Pacific Telephone says you need to keep him on the line for 15 minutes."

​It is likely the word 'traced' is being used in the loose sense of the word, and they actually 'discovered' the call was made from Springs and Tuolumne. 

The answer may lie in Zodiac's wording at the top of the page where he said "When I hung the phone up the damn thing began to ring & that drew his attention to me + my car".  Betty Main traced the call but was not allowed to give a statement. This could have meant that what the witness had to say contained sensitive material, having been kept under wraps at that particular juncture. If the Zodiac Killer was telling the truth and the phone rang almost immediately after he hung it up, this was not likely a coincidence. Was it possible, that although Zodiac hung up the receiver, the operator didn't and was able to ring back the payphone? This would not identify the specific location of the payphone, but if somebody had picked it up the operator could ask the person on the other end to identify their location, ie; the negro male Zodiac identified as walking by. We know police officers were redirected from the Blue Rock Springs Park to the corner of Springs Road and Tuolumne Street, and it is here the witness to the phone call may have been interviewed. It is equally conceivable that the Zodiac Killer gave the payphone number to the operator when he was patched through to the Vallejo Police Department. Either way, the Springs and Tuolumne payphone was rang back by the operator.
  
​Michael Cole, author of Zodiac Revisited made some interesting points on the Zodiackiller.com forum:
(1) The information from the letter is being given in direct response to a request for additional identity verification. The other information given in the same context appears to be truthful (mostly). Therefore, I believe Z is being honest in the conveyance of this information. 
(2) We know that Z changed his behavior when he made his call to the Napa PD about three months later. Instead of hanging up the phone, he set it down thus avoiding the possibility of a ringback. This behavior modification is consistent with an experienced-based learning regarding the described ringback; not to mention it just sounds like good police procedure to implement a ringback under these circumstances. Therefore, I suspect the ringback did happen as described. Perhaps Nancy will provide some additional insight on this front. I've already asked the question in the other thread.
(3) We know that Mike Mageau described the car as being brown. 
(4) As mentioned previously, Z's statement implies that he knows somebody told police that his car was brown. Although I don't have the reference, this clearly implies that the detail was published somewhere.
Given all of the above, I suspect that Z honestly believed that the described witness was the person who told police about his car. He apparently, quite reasonably, believed that MM could not have ascertained the color of his car. This left the witness as the most probable source. The fact that the witness was never identified seems to imply that he chose not to come forward or that he was unaware of law enforcement's desire to talk to him."        

The most likely answer is ring-back as Michael Cole suggests, which is how the call was 'traced.' Somebody may have picked up and given the operator the details he had just observed. This was alluded to by Zodiac who stated in the Debut of Zodiac Letter "The man who told police that my car was brown was a negro about 40-45 rather shabbly dressed". It is likely this information was withheld from the police report - and why Betty Main's statement was not made public. Either, as Michael Cole stated "The fact that the witness was never identified seems to imply that he chose not to come forward or that he was unaware of law enforcement's desire to talk to him", or he was located by responding officers, but requested his anonymity be respected and why this information was kept off the record.

But the fact the location of the payphone was 'traced' seems to implicate third party information, in that ring-back alerted somebody to its location. However, that still leaves the question of whether the negro male was interviewed and was able to give any additional information regarding Zodiac's description, that was 'incorporated' into the police report, or did his description simply tally with Michael Mageau's and was therefore not included. Or did he simply get no viable description of the killer or his vehicle at all. Either way, as Michael Cole stated, the Zodiac Killer would not make the same mistake again in Napa on September 27th 1969.       

The murder of Paul Stine occurred on October 11th 1969, providing us with the only real face of Zodiac, drawn up in the form of a sketch from the recollection of three teenagers who viewed Zodiac across the street. This sketch was then circulated around the Bay Area. Several days later an amended sketch was drawn up when the eyewitnesses requested it be slightly altered, because they believed it depicted a man younger than the one they initially described. The police department would later authorize a memorandum by Donald Fouke detailing his observations that night. This was released one month after the crime, and the similarities between his description of the Zodiac tally with that of the teenagers, other than Donald Fouke stating the man was a "little older and heavier." But how accurate is this sketch?   

Had Donald Fouke been asked to provide a sketch independently of the three teenagers, any similarities between them may have carried more weight, as opposed to Donald Fouke simply looking at the sketch drawn up from the three teenagers recollections and then adding his own input as an afterthought. So let us look for answers on how good this likeness may be, starting with the three teenagers.

The first time the teenagers saw the Zodiac Killer, he was in the front of the taxicab, having at no point spotted the subject in the rear of the vehicle. This is what they stated in the police report:
"Saw the suspect in the front seat of the Yellow Cab, mid to passenger side, with the victim slumped partially over his lap. The suspect appeared to be searching the victim's pockets. The suspect then appeared to be wiping on the interior of the cab, leaning over the victim to the driver's compartment. The suspect then exited the cab by the passenger side front door, also wiping with a white rag, possibly a handkerchief. The suspect then walked around the cab to the driver's side and proceeded to wipe the exterior of the left door area. The suspect then fled north on Cherry Street".      

​While the Zodiac was tearing the section of Paul Stine's shirt, he was supposedly looking at the prostrate taxicab driver, his head facing downwards. The Zodiac Killer is presumably unaware of the three teenagers and is not looking directly at them, which suggests that at no point while the Zodiac Killer is inside the taxicab can the three teenagers get a direct line of sight on the assailant's face. He then exits the passenger side door. This is the first time the teenagers will get an unobstructed look at the killer's face, when he is wiping down this door. He then walks to the driver side door with his face visible, front on, for approximately two to three seconds as he rounds the taxicab, before he turns his back and then faces away to wipe the driver side area. He then exits up Cherry Street. We are probably looking at five seconds in total where the teenagers have a direct view of Zodiac's face, but we have to factor in the distance of 50-60 feet and the visibility at 9:58 pm at night, with only street lighting for illumination.

​Donald Fouke likely passed the Zodiac on Jackson Street. Whether or not he stopped the suspect is down to what you believe, however, on this occasion we will take his version of events that he alluded to in the 2007 Zodiac documentary: "We slowed down as we passed him, still rolling, saw that it was a white male, step on the gas, 5,10,15 seconds tops from first spotting him until passing him." He went on to say "I would like to say he made eye contact with us, but I can't picture it, I remember seeing his eyes, I couldn't tell you what color they were, it was dark enough that his eyes were concealed, but you could sort of say he looked down.....because he was putting his head down when he spotted the police car." 

Again, in relative darkness, with only streetlights for aid and viewing from the driver side of the patrol car, what sort of clear recollection can be harnessed from such a brief encounter. In the memorandum of Donald Fouke on November 12th 1969 it stated "My partner that night was officer E. Zelms of Richmond Station. I do not know if he observed this subject or not." Officer Eric Zelms was on the passenger side, closest to the sidewalk, but little is known regarding his contribution to the final drafting of the sketch, if any at all.  

Eyewitness recollection is notoriously unreliable and any conviction made primarily from such testimony will inevitably be unsafe. It doesn't take much searching on the internet to find plenty of cases where this is the case, often where the suspect is far closer and viewed in broad daylight. Memory simply doesn't function like a video recorder. The problem we have in this case, is not having two sketches drawn up independently of one another - one from the teenagers and one from Donald Fouke. Once Donald Fouke has seen the sketch, he is open to suggestion and will inevitably be influenced by its viewing.   

Dave Toschi chased the Zodiac for years, but even he was quoted as saying the 1969 sketch was unhelpful in many ways. In the San Francisco Chronicle of 1978 he stated "The sketch is killing me" noting that most of the calls to police were from persons who saw the drawing in Wednesday's Chronicle and think they know somebody who resembles it", adding that the 1969 composite sketch of Zodiac is no longer reliable and should not be the basis for telephone tips to police. He further remarked "It is of no value to me at this point, even in 1969, we didn't know how good it was".

What we are looking at here, are brief eyewitness recollections late at night, one from 50-60 feet away for possibly 5 seconds and one from a moving vehicle for around 10 seconds, if you maintain the Zodiac was not stopped by the two responding officers on Jackson Street. The Zodiac declared "I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different." The question is, do you believe him or not?

"To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves". In the previous article we examined the identity of the Vallejo cop in the November 9th 1969 Bus Bomb letter and concluded it was almost certainly Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz he was referring to. The Zodiac Killer was highlighting the Debut of Zodiac letter - hand delivered to the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th 1969, where he replied to Chief Jack E.. Stiltz and supplied him with extra details, confirming he was both the letter writer and killer of David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen and Darlene Ferrin. The Zodiac seemed to avidly follow his story in the newspapers and often would be compelled to reply.

On this occasion we will look at the possible inspiration behind the Zodiac Killer's choice of correspondence, when he mailed the Dripping Pen card' and 340 cipher on November 8th 1969. We will consider that the answer, in all probability, lies in the text of the newspaper articles in the run up to the Dripping Pen card. Depicted on the card is a pen that appears to be dripping blood, with the accompanying message "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen..."  On the inside of the card, the Zodiac added his own wording "This is the Zodiac speaking, I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news, you won't get the news for a while yet. PS Could you print this new cipher in your frunt page ?  I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing".

Three weeks earlier, Paul Avery ran an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 18th 1969, entitled Zodiac Called a  Clumsy Criminal.  Well, I suppose washing your pen is a fairly clumsy thing to do. The following day, on October 19th 1969, the San Francisco Sunday Examiner ran an appeal addressed directly to the Zodiac Killer, entitled Message to the Zodiac Killer.  It is possible the Zodiac Killer read both these articles and replied in kind. In the first appeal on October 18th Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch implored Zodiac to turn himself in, stating
"We will see that he gets help and all his rights are protected. He is obviously an intelligent individual. He knows that eventually he will be taken into custody, so it would be best that he give himself up, before tragedy is written in blood".

This card may have been the Zodiac Killer's response. The Zodiac Killer was fond of tragedy, mailing a blood soaked piece of Paul Stine's shirt in the Bus Bomb letter the following day, according to the October 12th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle article, entitled I've Killed Seven, the Zodiac Claims.  In the article it states "As proof the letters were from the true Zodiac and not an impostor, the maps murderer enclosed another portion of the piece of shirt he tore off the body of San Francisco taxicab driver Paul Stine, his victim last October 11th". A clear statement that the murder of Paul Stine was indeed the work of the Zodiac Killer and was "written in blood"'.

After the 'Clumsy Criminal' article by Paul Avery, a second appeal was authored by the San Francisco Chronicle the following day on October 19th 1969 entitled Message to the Zodiac Killer. The article stated "Police say you are intelligent. If you are, then listen to reason. You are being hunted everywhere in the state, and nation. You are alone in this world. You can share your secrets with no one. No friend can help you. You are as much a victim of your crimes as those whose lives you snuffed out. You cannot walk the streets a free man. There is no safety for you anywhere". 

​Well, maybe this was the Zodiac Killer's second response, contained within the same Dripping Pen card,  and delivered with a sense of irony: "I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing".

The Zodiac signed off the Bus Bomb letter mailed on November 9th 1969 with the words "To prove that I am the Zodiac, ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves."  But to whom was the Zodiac referring. The answer is almost certainly Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz, a native Vallejoan who first joined the police force in 1939 and oversaw many changes, including the new station located at 111 Amador Street, before retiring with health issues in 1970. Jack E. Stiltz died in 1974. 

The Zodiac sent three coded segments in three letters on July 31st 1969 to the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle and Vallejo Times-Herald, giving details of his first two crimes to prove he was the actual killer. However, the Zodiac Killer was still doubted, with Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz wanting further proof the killer and letter-writer were one and the same. This can be seen here in this extract from from the Saturday August 2nd 1969 San Francisco Chronicle. He requested the writer send a follow up communication  "with more facts to prove it."  

This story was featured again on Sunday August 3rd 1969 in the San Francisco Examiner (shown here on the left). Jack E. Stiltz was "still not convinced the letters and codes were written by the actual killer". The police chief "urged the writer to send more letters, with more facts to prove his connections to the crimes".

The Zodiac Killer's response was almost immediate, when he hand delivered the Debut of Zodiac letter just one day later, on August 4th 1969 to the San Francisco Examiner, to leave you in no doubt he was replying directly to Jack E. Stiltz. The Zodiac's opening gambit was "In answer to your asking for more details about the good times I have had in Vallejo, I shall be very happy to supply even more material. By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me". He went on to describe the Blue Rock Springs Park and Lake Herman Road attacks in much greater detail and effectively informed Jack E. Stiltz about his attached gun sight;  "What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in the light. All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose; there was no need to use the gun sights. I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage". 
​  
Fast forward to Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969 and Chief Inspector Martin Lee's claims that Zodiac "has made some mistakes." They did not believe that Zodiac could have been hiding in the park. Chief Inspector Martin Lee stated "His boast of being in the area we were searching is a lie. We had the whole area flooded with lights. We had seven police dogs and a large number of patrolmen searching the area tree by tree and bush by bush. The dogs are the best in the country. A mouse couldn't have escaped our attention". They also irked the Zodiac by claiming he had left fingerprints on the interior and exterior of the taxicab, particularly the bloody fingerprints on the driver side door panel.

Zodiac again felt compelled to reply in the November 9th 1969 Bus Bomb letter: "I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me...... p.s. 2 cops pulled a goof abot 3 min after I left the cab. I was walking down the hill to the park when this cop car pulled up + one of them called me over + asked if I saw anyone acting suspicious or strange in the last 5 to 10 min + I said yes there was this man who was runnig by waveing a gun & the cops peeled rubber + went around the corner as I directed them + I disappeared into the park a block + a half away never to be seen again", and again asked for newspaper coverage similar to the Debut of Zodiac letter by threatening more attacks: "By the way it could be rather messy if you try to bluff me. PS. Be shure to print the part I marked out on page 3 or I shall do my thing. To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves".

The last time the Zodiac Killer was doubted, he supplied extra details of the Blue Rock Springs and Lake Herman Road attacks to Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz, including his "small pencel flash light". He would repeat this in the Bus Bomb letter, reminding everybody that he most certainly was the Zodiac Killer. In other words, to not doubt him and "Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves". The Vallejo cop he is referring to is Jack E. Stiltz. The Vallejo cop, to which he sent details about his improvised gun sight in the Debut of Zodiac letter only three months earlier. He proved to Jack E. Stiltz that he was both the letter writer and the killer, and again here, in the Bus Bomb letter, he is referring back to this Vallejo cop - and to not doubt him again.  

In the police report Bryan Hartnell backed up Cecelia Shepard stating "He could see hair through the mask's eyelets and observed the hair to be dark brown." Bryan Hartnell in the 2007 documentary remarks that Cecelia Shepard "saw a man over there" and "he went behind a tree." He went on to say "I'll tell you another thing that probably made me think that it was somebody over there, it wasn't an improved park site, there wasn't regular established bathroom, so if you had to go to the restroom you'd just kinda get outta eye-shot of whoever you were with or go behind a tree like that".
​
During the Presidio Heights murder two weeks later, three teenagers saw the Zodiac exiting the taxicab and walking around the taxicab to apparently wipe fingerprints off the driver side door. This was the only time outside of the taxicab that a clear unobstructed view of the assailant was observed. This was a matter of seconds before the assailant turned around and departed the scene up Cherry Street. The three teenagers were viewing the suspect from approximately 60 feet away, at 9.58 pm at night, with only the aid of street lighting, albeit, described a man sporting a reddish-brown crew cut. This description was backed up by one of the responding officers Donald Fouke, who had typed in his scratch 'a crew cut, light colored hair, possibly graying in rear'.The police sketch was compiled depicting a man with short hair - a man viewed by four eyewitnesses. Many have questioned how accurate this sketch may be, but they are confident of a short-haired crew cut.

During the Lake Berryessa attack Cecelia Shepard spotted the man initially unmasked from 200-300 yards away to the point of 75 to 100 feet away. Taking the minimum distance she first observed the Zodiac of 200 yards (600 feet), he then approached to within 100 feet, meaning his approach distance was a minimum of 500 feet. This distance at a walking speed of 3 mph would take approximately 1 minute 50 seconds. Now we do not know if Cecelia Shepard was watching him the whole time, but she definitely stated she saw him before he had donned his mask, and definitely saw him approach the tree and duck behind it. Cecelia Shepard saw the man for considerably longer than the three teenagers at Presidio Heights, and sometime shortly after 6.00 pm on a clear sunny day. If you argue that the sketch from Presidio Heights is likely accurate, then clearly Cecelia Shepard's description is equally viable, if not more, because she saw the suspect in daylight for a considerably longer period of time.          

The validity of the Lake Berryessa stabbings have been called into question as a Zodiac attack, but the handwriting on the car door and the composition of both phone calls at Main Street and Springs/Tuolumne seem to discredit this notion. ​We have been told by David Collins that he took notes at the scene, so the recollection of events by Cecelia Shepard carries great significance, describing her assailant with 'brown hair that hung down across his forehead and was showing through the eye-holes.'

Two weeks later at Presidio Heights, not only had his hair color changed, it was markedly shorter. The Zodiac Killer wrote in the 'Bus Bomb' letter on November 9th 1969. "I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill." So the question is, if these two assailants are one and the same, what disguise did he employ. The Presidio Heights sketch exhibited a slight widows peak, not something you would associate with a wig - so is the only conclusion to be had, one of a killer who disguised his looks by cutting his hair and then dying it. However, on the face of it, this appears to be a change as opposed to a disguise. Furthermore, this would negate the Zodiac declaration "I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill."  He most certainly didn't look the description at Presidio Heights during the Lake Berryessa attack as recalled by Cecelia Shepard.     

Michael Mageau, in the aftermath of the Blue Rock Springs Park attack described the assailant as "short, possibly 5'8", heavy set, beefy build, 195-200 lbs or maybe larger, short curly hair, light brown, almost blond."  Although Michael Mageau's view was fleeting, his observation corroborates the short light-colored hair description at Presidio Heights by Donald Fouke. However, nearly 3 months later, the man who appeared at Lake Berryessa had not only considerably darker hair, but hair that was now long enough to fall over his forehead - so much so, it had been noticeable in the eyelets of the mask. This could be a wig - although the donning of an executioner's hood would appear to make this choice unnecessary. This discrepancy has to be addressed from the standpoint of tying together these three crimes together and certainly something that needs clarifying.
​
​The attacker at Lake Berryessa seemingly failed to mail any correspondence regarding the events of September 27th 1969, but with Bryan Hartnell surviving the attack and outlining the events in great detail, maybe the Zodiac felt Bryan Hartnell had done a good enough job on his behalf. Nevertheless, it did seem strange to not capitalize on his grand theatrical appearance.
​
If we take the final three attacks in sequence - his hair was short, almost blond, then changed to dark hair, long enough to reach the eyelets of the mask and then reverted back to a short reddish-brown/blond crew cut at Presidio Heights, thereby challenging us to examine the claim "I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shall not tell you what my descise consists of when I kill".
Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell both described brown hair, long enough to reach the eyelets of the mask, Regarding the four canonical attacks, no other living eyewitness got as close as them for such an extended period, described by Bryan Hartnell as an interaction that lasted approximately 15 minutes. It was a clear sunny day in September with perfect visibility, and Cecelia Shepard had the man in direct line of sight, unmasked, for at least one and a half minutes. If the same killer emerged from the taxicab of Paul Stine and drove away from the Blue Rock Springs parking lot, we should consider that this short brown/blond appearance was his disguise as he claimed, and the 'real' Zodiac is the one who appeared on the shores of Lake Berryessa, when a wig on this occasion was rendered unnecessary by the donning of an executioner's hood. It could therefore be reasoned, that the long brown hair by the eyelets may be all we require to confirm the true face of the Zodiac Killer.            

One of the best Zodiac websites on the internet is The Zodiac Revisited operated by Michael Cole, covering all topics related to the Zodiac case. Michael regularly posts articles, which is a refreshing change from the standpoint of websites, that have largely been superseded by the Zodiac forum as the first port of call for Zodiac sleuths. Forums have their place and are great for exchanging ideas and theories, but can also be a source of misinformation regarding the Zodiac case. Michael Cole is extremely knowledgeable regarding all aspects of the case, and his website should be one of your first choices when learning the facts on anything Zodiac related.      

Many outlandish theories and numerous suspects have emerged regarding the identity of the Zodiac Killer since the emergence of Robert Graysmith's two books, the last of which was Zodiac Unmasked in 2002. These books are not designed to be impartial, but heavily selective in the 'evidence' they present - and as such - should be routinely questioned as a reliable source of information. If you buy any Zodiac books in 2020, then The Zodiac Revisited Trilogy by Michael Cole is not a bad place to start, whether you are a seasoned Zodiac veteran or completely new to the case.

Michael Cole has a revamped website, with an easy category navigation, a video and newspaper section, and a comprehensive archive. One article I would recommend is the "My Name is" Cipher Motivation, examining the driving force behind Zodiac's ego and his ability to respond to the newspaper articles that crossed his path. However, there are numerous extremely interesting articles and a comment section so you can contribute your thoughts. Here are five other articles from the website I would recommend to get you started.

1. PAUL STINE:A VICTIM OF OPPORTUNITY 
2. CHARLIE CHAN AT TREASURE ISLAND
3. ROBERT DOMINGOS AND LINDA EDWARDS VIDEO
4. ZODIAC EXCEPTIONAL RELATIONSHIP SYNDROME  
5. SAN DIEGO-RIVERSIDE CONNECTION?