David Oranchak (zodiackillerciphers.com) and Nick Pelling (ciphermysteries.com) unearthed some extremely interesting information regarding the Albany letter mailed by the Zodiac Killer on August 1st 1973. The letter postmarked Albany, New York was mailed to the Albany Times Union newspaper declaring "You were wrong, I am not dead or in the hospital. I am alive and well and I'm going to start killing again. Below is the name and location of my next victim. But you had better hurry because I'm going to kill her August 10th at 5:00 pm when the shift change. Albany is a nice town". It contained a code stating "(name) Albany Medical Center this only the beginning". The Albany letter was a direct response to a New York Daily News article about the Zodiac Killer on July 22nd 1973.

The Zodiac Killer was continuing his well-worn method of constructing his communications based upon recent newspaper articles he had read. The snippet on the left from the New York Daily News carried all the ingredients to shape the response given in the Albany letter, including the reply that he was "not dead or in the hospital" and his inclusion of a cryptogram with the letter. His rebuttal came with a threat to kill a female member of the Albany Medical Center during a shift change. Based on everything we know about the Zodiac Killer and his propensity for creating terror, it is extremely likely that this chosen victim was a real individual selected from this hospital.

If the Zodiac Killer applied the same methodology he had used in the past, claiming victims such as Kathie Snoozy, Debra Furlong, Richard Radetich, Donna Lass, Cheri Jo Bates and Kathy Bilek, along with possible future victims such as Diane Kennedy Pike and Daniel Williams, then there is good reason to believe he sourced his potential victim's name from the newspaper, rather than ambling around the hospital identifying potential targets in person or trawling through a phone book. The potential target, more than likely, had been featured in the newspapers which mentioned her working at the Albany Medical Center. 

One suggestion by David Oranchak for the name of the woman in the Albany letter was Connie Shenly (as shown below), but this name (in the short format) has not been found in any relevant and recent newspaper articles prior to August 1st 1973 . As David pointed out, some of the characters in the cryptogram are less than clear, so there is margin for error when attempting to decode the cryptogram. Between Nick Pelling and David Oranchak, the name "Consuelo" was put forward as a possibility because this could be reasoned based on the first eight characters of the cryptogram and the newspaper article unearthed by David Oranchak in comments. The newspaper article from the Times Record in New York on April 20th 1973 mentions the upcoming wedding of Miss Barbara Jeanne Zonitch of Watervliet and F. Michael Consuelo on Friday, August 17th 1973. She is detailed as a graduate of Troy High School in 1965, who was working at the Albany Medical Center Hospital at the time. Although "Consuelo" is a surname in this instance, when used as a forename it is sometimes shortened to "Connie". ​The threat to kill such a woman on the latest available Friday (August 10th) before her wedding, may be something the Zodiac Killer factored into the equation. When the Zodiac Killer mailed this letter on Wednesday, August 1st (or possibly a day earlier) he had every opportunity to select Friday, August 3rd 1973, but for whatever reason chose the weekend before the wedding. Of course, this assumes many things, such as whether this woman was ever the chosen target at all. However, she did work at the Albany Medical Center, she had an upcoming wedding one week after the proposed attack, and her married name fits into 5 of the first 8 characters of the cipher, despite the remaining 4 characters of the first 12 remaining problematic (unless these 4 are not part of the name, and are a mistake connected to the word "only" in the cryptogram message, which should have originally read "this is the beginning").

Admittedly, this newspaper article was dated just over three months before the arrival of the Albany letter on August 1st 1973, so it may be difficult to argue a strong connection unless the wedding between the eventual couple, Michael and Barbara Consuelo, was featured again in the newspapers closer to August 1st 1973. It may be productive for anybody with a subscription to newspapers.com to search the newspapers in and around Albany, New York in the July of 1973, or within the New York Daily News published on July 22nd 1973, which triggered the writing of the Albany letter in the first place. 

This is a good line of thinking by Nick Pelling and David Oranchak regarding the identity of the woman threatened in the Albany letter, and it could suggest that the Zodiac Killer spent considerable time in the New York region during this time period. It is fairly obvious that a threat on a female at the Albany Medical Center by the Zodiac Killer would have been taken very seriously by law enforcement, who would undoubtedly have informed the hospital and its staff of developments, and likely upped security during this period. If Barbara Zonitch Consuelo was the target of the threat in 1973, it's very likely she is unaware of the suggestion to this day.

​The 408, 340 and 148 character ciphers of the Zodiac Killer have officially been broken, and all revealed coherent messages. The Albany cipher was also genuine, containing the message "Albany Medical Center this only the beginning". Therefore, it's reasonable to assume the opening part of the message contained the name of his target, because without a readable or genuine name the threat would lose its impact through a perceived lack of knowledge by its sender. The specificity of name, location and time undoubtedly carries greater weight from the aspect of terror, despite the fact the Zodiac Killer was unlikely to have ever followed through after giving police notice of his proclaimed intentions. If the woman in the message isn't Barbara Zonitch Consuelo, then the real target may still be found in the pages of a New York newspaper in the weeks prior to August 1st 1973.

Anna Kane (26) was found strangled to death alongside the Ontelaunee Trail in Pennsylvania on October 23rd 1988, but her killer was not identified until 2022 after a breakthrough in genetic genealogy. Male DNA was retrieved from her clothing during the initial stages of the investigation and ultimately failed to produce a match to anybody in the database. Sixteen months after her murder, in February 1990, somebody mailed a sinister letter to the Reading Eagle newspaper with intimate details about the crime and signed it from a "concerned citizen". The DNA retrieved from the saliva on the sealed part of the envelope matched the DNA from the clothing of Anna Kane, inextricably linking the sinister letter to her murder, and dispelling any notion that the communication was mailed by a hoaxer. In 2022, the genetic genealogy analysis performed by Parabon NanoLabs identified Scott Grim, who had died aged 58, only four years earlier. 

On the condition that Inspector David Toschi was correctly exonerated from having mailed the April 24th 1978 letter, it is logical to conclude that the DNA retrieved from the sealed part of this envelope was from the Zodiac Killer, when you consider the inside information that would have been required to create this communication. The 1978 letter had to be authored by either somebody from law enforcement or the murderer of taxicab driver Paul Stine, because of their intimate knowledge of the visual design of the 1969 Melvin Belli letter. There is a widespread misconception being portrayed regarding the testing of Zodiac envelopes (based around events in 2002) that all forensic DNA specialists cannot reason the pitfalls of using DNA collected from the outer surface of envelopes and stamps, believing these highly intelligent professionals are completely devoid of common sense. Nobody in their right mind would consider testing the outside of the envelopes from early Zodiac letters as a productive means to securing the DNA from the Zodiac Killer, irrespective of whether a particular individual has done so.

The arguments used by some individuals in the Zodiac community have attempted to shed doubt on the bloody fingerprints from the Paul Stine taxicab based upon the idea it was a free-for-all at the crime scene, which they have no justification or reason to believe. The same individuals (with suspects) will never give the 1978 letter fair consideration as a Zodiac letter because they know it can potentially rule their suspect out of the investigation, hence they will discredit the bloody fingerprints on the taxicab and the 1978 letter as being from the Zodiac Killer in absence of valid reasoning. Too many people continue to claim a letter is not from the Zodiac Killer because of "handwriting and tone" rather than tackle the points brought forward for its authenticity and attempt to discredit them. It would be productive for these individuals to compare the "handwriting and tone" of the July 31st 1969 trinity of communications with the Melvin Belli letter and try to reason why the tone of these letters are consistent with one another, while simultaneously explaining why the Zodiac Killer is incapable of switching the tone of a letter by design. Stating a letter's tone isn't Zodiac, is an utterly meaningless statement because the handwriting and tone of a letter is subjective to the person interpreting it. Some Zodiac researchers, who once exuded confidence in the bloody taxicab fingerprints and the existence of usable salivary amylase, immediately backpedaled and used subterfuge once they became attached to a suspect whose fingerprints and DNA were already in the system. Having a suspect in tow will inevitably cloud your judgement when investigating the Zodiac case. Not one single researcher who has a suspect in tow (whose fingerprints are on file), will ever argue that the bloody fingerprints on the taxicab of Paul Stine are Zodiac's. Every single Zodiac researcher who thinks Ross Sullivan is the Zodiac Killer will never accept any Zodiac communication subsequent to his death in 1977. They will reject the 1978, 1986, 1987, 1990 and 2001 communications irrespective of any amount of evidence you can produce, because they have already made up their mind that these communications were not authored by the Zodiac Killer. Even if they had never set eyes on these communications, they have already concluded they are hoaxes in advance. Their conclusions are preconceived through the suspect and not the available evidence.    

Knowing that we have the possibility of running the DNA from the 1978 letter through the genealogical process, why would anybody object by using the argument they are confident that the 1978 letter was written by a hoaxer based on nothing more than a cursory glance of handwriting, which is unscientific by its very nature. The statements in 2018 regarding communications from early Zodiac activity undergoing renewed testing makes little sense, when we consider that DNA has already been discovered on the 1978 letter. If investigators stand by their claim that David Toschi was cleared of any wrongdoing in the manufacture of the 1978 letter, then there should be no barrier to using the DNA found on this communication to potentially advance the case. The 1978 letter that ruled out both Arthur Leigh Allen and Lawrence Kane as being the Zodiac Killer. However, if investigators know the identity of the individual who deposited the DNA on the 1978 letter (for example, David Toachi), then it follows that they would have no current interest in pursuing this line of investigation through genealogy. The 1978 letter cannot be ruled out by handwriting, so why the apparent reluctance in pursuing this avenue to unearth the identity of the Zodiac Killer? Or maybe genealogy has been employed and nothing was found. 

You will hear or read claims that the Kathleen Johns incident, or the Donna Lass abduction/disappearance couldn't have been Zodiac because he had never abducted somebody previously (how do we know that). You will hear or read that a victim who was raped, bludgeoned or strangled to death couldn't have been Zodiac because he had never done this previously (how do we know that). These claims, again, are without foundation. Therefore, when Zodiac targeted taxicab driver Paul Stine, we could claim it wasn't him because he had apparently never done it before. The claim he killed taxicab driver Ray Davis in 1962 could be dismissed because we cannot find evidence of something similar prior to this murder. In fact, Zodiac couldn't have wore a costume during the Lake Berryessa crime or murdered a couple on a lonely road, because he had never done it before (how do we know that). There has to be a first time for everything in life, but we simply don't know when that was for Zodiac.

​Somebody stated that the 2001 communication made racially derogative comments, never done before by Zodiac. If this is justification for ruling out the 2001 communication, then we can rule out every single Zodiac communication where he did something for the first time, such as the Melvin Belli letter which expressed vulnerability and mental fragility in direct contrast to the July 31st 1969 letters that threatened more murder and mayhem if his demands were not met. Some may suggest the Melvin Belli letter was simply mocking investigators and the Jim Dunbar Show escapade, but this again requires the reader to interpret the tone of a letter to meet their own ends or argument. How many people on Twitter have posted thousands of benign comments before posting something racially offensive and had to apologize or be cancelled. They could say "it wasn't me because I've never done that before", which I doubt would convince many as a strong argument. Others will say that certain communications don't "feel right", and therefore are unlikely to have been authored by the Zodiac Killer. Our feelings have absolutely no bearing on whether a communication is genuine or otherwise. We have DNA from the 1978 letter, so whatever our feelings are about this letter based on handwriting and tone, the importance of using this letter to shake the ancestral tree should be our first port of call. 

However, this wasn't the only similarity between the Melvin Belli letter and 1978 letter. Not once, in any of the widely touted list of authenticated Zodiac Killer communications from July 31st 1969 to January 29th 1974, did the killer ever cross out a spelling mistake (or otherwise) with a straight line (he blacked out errors). The Badlands card (not authenticated) on May 8th 1974 did scruffily cross out the misspelling of consternation, but failed in any capacity to identify its sender, such as the Zodiac introduction or his crosshairs. The Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969 and the April 24th 1978 letter both inserted an unnecessary word into the correspondence, spelled it correctly one alphabetical letter shy of completion, and then very neatly (almost ruler like) crossed out each word. Not only did the 1978 letter carry the identical introduction and punctuation error as the Melvin Belli letter, as well as being very deliberately and carefully written, but both inserted an unrequired word into the message before crossing it out, despite it being spelled correctly thus far. These are the only two communications up to April 24th 1978 that carried both of these features. The newspaper reports of the Melvin Belli letter never showed an image of the letter, or the straight line deletion of the so-far correctly spelled word, meaning the author of the 1978 letter could never have copied the aforementioned deviant introduction, or this 'correction' technique from the Belli communication, unless he authored both.          

When we look at the similarities between the Melvin Belli letter and 1978 letter described above, we also have to note that the 1978 letter was specifically using language adopted from the Belli letter when stating "I am now in control of all things". Just over eight years earlier, the Belli letter stated  "I will loose control again and take my nineth & possibly tenth victom" and "I will loose all controol of my self & set the bomb up. Please help me I can not remain in control for much longer". Therefore, the introduction similarity of "This is the Zodiac speaking I" between the two letters ​(with grammatical error), and the crossed out wording only existing in these two letters up to April 24th 1978, in all likelihood influenced the author of the 1978 letter when designing this latest correspondence. The introduction, the correction technique, and the use of the word "control" regarding the Zodiac Killer's mindset were unique only to these two letters up to April 24th 1978. Since these anomalies could not have been reasonably created without access to an original image of the Melvin Belli letter, it is reasonable to conclude - because Paul Stine's shirt piece was included with the Belli letter - that the 1978 letter is a genuine Zodiac correspondence without any doubt. 

Exactly one year before the murder of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights, Melvin Belli appeared in an episode of Star Trek on October 11th 1968 entitled "And the Children Shall Lead", playing the character Gorgan. When referencing the Melvin Belli letter in 1978, the Zodiac Killer stated "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me". 

Excerpt from Wikipedia on And the Children Shall Lead: "The federation starship Enterprise arrives at the planet Triacus. Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and First Officer Spock beam down in time to witness the death of Professor Starnes, the leader of a scientific expedition team. The other members of the expedition, apart from their five seemingly unconcerned children, seem to have died at their own hands. The crew bring the children back to the Enterprise, where McCoy evaluates them and determines that they are suffering from lacunar amnesia, unaware of what happened to their parents and unable to grieve. However, when left unattended in one of the ship's rooms, the children chant an evocation and summon a glowing humanoid named Gorgan. He advises them to take control of the crew in order to get to Marcus XII, his preferred destination. The eldest child, Tommy, uses mental powers Gorgan has bestowed on the children to trick the crew into steering the ship while presenting illusions that make them think they are still in orbit above Triacus. Upon reviewing a troubling expedition film recorded by Starnes, Spock, McCoy, and Kirk return to the bridge to find the children and Gorgan fully in control of the crew. Unable to break their hold on the crew, Spock observes that the children are merely possessed by Gorgan, who must be the evil embodiment of an ancient group of space-warring marauders released by Starnes's archaeological survey".

1978 letter: "I am now in control of all things". ​

The 1998 San Francisco Police Department DNA chart of suspected Zodiac correspondence shows that DNA was obtained from the 1978 letter, but it was deemed not authentic. If we believe that investigators correctly cleared Inspector David Toschi of any wrongdoing in the manufacture of the 1978 letter, then it is hard to argue against this communication being created by the same individual who mailed the 1969 Melvin Belli letter, with added shirt piece from the Paul Stine murder. The Zodiac speaking introduction with grammatical error on the opening line and the correction technique employed in the 1978 letter, which mimicked the Melvin Belli letter from 1969 (allied to the use of "control" in both communications), could only have been reasonably crafted by one person. If it wasn't David Toschi who wrote the 1978 letter, it was the Zodiac Killer. The DNA obtained from the 1978 letter has already ruled out both Arthur Leigh Allen and Lawrence Kane many years ago. The 1978 letter being genuine would also rule out Ross Sullivan, who died in 1977. If David Toschi didn't author the 1978 letter, the search for Zodiac DNA is effectively over - we have had it for 25 years and counting.      

As shown numerous times before, we can usually find the inspiration for Zodiac communications by looking at the most recent newspaper articles published in the Bay Area or Los Angeles. The November 21st 1969 letter to the San Jose Police Department was possibly directed at the recently widowed Diane Kennedy Pike, whose husband James Albert Pike had met an unfortunate death in Israel in September (information provided by Cragle). The letter caused enough alarm to institute 24-hour surveillance on the young woman and her residence. Information regarding this letter is sparse, but the language adopted in this communication is taken directly from the last San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on November 13th 1969 entitled Zodiac 'Legally Sane', featuring the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher and investigators attempts to snag the murderer of five.    

The newspaper snippet on the left reads "Through physical clues Zodiac has clumsily left behind at crime scenes and bits and pieces of information about himself he has inadvertently revealed in letters sent to The Chronicle, police feel sure there will be no doubt they have the right man in custody when an arrest is made". Eight days after this newspaper article was released, and thirteen days after he had claimed seven victims (the canonical five and the two San Jose murders of Snoozy & Furlong), the Zodiac Killer wrote to the San Jose Police Department and responded to "there will be no doubt they have the right man in custody when an arrest is made", by writing "There's no doubt I will do my Thing". The Zodiac Killer was clearly confident that no arrest was forthcoming, and his reign of terror would continue by doing his "Thing". His chronological list of victims by using months of the year would continue, when he wrote November=8 in his latest letter. He also added a short six character code of ~+62+~.  

His next letter, postmarked December 7th 1969 from Fairfield, was shown to be authentic by pre-empting the pleading nature of the Melvin Belli letter and his use of another code of 38 characters. This code contained similar characters to the 340 cipher, unlike the following 13-Symbol and 32-Symbol ciphers. It opened the door to the possibility that the 38 character code was somehow related to the 340 cipher and maybe contained a clue to its construction. Druzer, an avid and diligent Zodiac researcher, mailed me the 38 character code deciphered with the 340 cipher key. The result is mostly garbled, but he drew my attention to the final line of both codes ending in "death". The Zodiac Killer only took a 4+ horizontal combination of characters from the 340 cipher to the 38 character code on two occasions. Those were HER> and AIKꞮ+, which spelled the standalone words of IRON and DEATH before the diagonal shift was applied to the 340 cipher to reveal the message. Despite the last two rows of the 340 cipher being a mixture of forward and backward reading words, the word "death" sits at the end of both the 340 and 38 character ciphers, indicating that this word likely concludes the message in each instance. 

Other horizontal words do exist in this format, however, the Zodiac Killer gave us 4 and 5 characters which bound the 340 and 38 character ciphers together, and both formed English words. The Zodiac Killer began and ended his 38 character code with two prominent sections from the start and end of the 340 cipher, both of which contained visible words before any shift was applied (the final word remaining static). This may be another observation, which confirms to the doubters the December 7th 1969 letter as an authentic Zodiac communication. Unless of course, the 38 code hoaxer identified two passages of 4 and 5 characters from the undeciphered 340 cipher, that just happened to accidentally find two English words after the 340 key was applied. This hoaxer would also have to guess that by separating the prominent ZO∆AIKꞮ+ characters on the bottom line of the 340 cipher, into AIKꞮ+ on the bottom line of the 38 character code, he would be reducing these characters to create something meaningful. He apparently did. By separating these characters into the five visible at the end of the 38 character code, he created the word "death", just like the solved 340 cipher. Druzer pointed out the same thing, stating "The most curious/compelling feats are that the author isolated actual words, most notably death, and that he refrained from copying Zodaik, which would certainly be expected of a hoaxer". In other words, he dismantled the ZO∆AIK element, while leaving Ɪ+ in place, to form "death" as the final word on the 38 character code. This appears to show knowledge of the hidden message in the 340 cipher. 

The above image from the San Francisco Chronicle on November 13th 1969 shows the correlation on three rows of the 38 character code to the 340 cipher. We have 4, 5 and 5 characters from three rows of the 38 character code, organized in the correct order to three rows on the 340 cipher. The crucial 10th row of the 340 cipher which begins the second section of the 3-part cipher (9, 9 and 2), contains the four symbols of ~+62+~ in the correct order (and FB which numerically equals 62). Both the November 21st 1969 and December 7th 1969 letters were unreleased to the public, so it would be difficult to envisage how two different authors would choose to supply two relatively short codes that mimicked important features of the 340 cipher independent of one another. The three rows of the Z38 highlighted in blue rectangles above, all either begin or end a row on the 340 cipher - as does the six character code of the November 21st 1969 letter. Was the 38 character code on December 7th 1969 a clue to the construction of the 340 cipher or somehow related to the message ultimately found within it? If so, then the short code of ~+62+~ in the November 21st 1969 letter could be somehow related to the 340 cipher also. The December 16th 1969 letter, also mailed from Fairfield, contained another short code of five characters. This completed a quartet of puzzles from the Zodiac Killer in just over a month.

​The Zodiac Killer was likely reading this newspaper article on November 13th 1969 when he used the wording "There's no doubt I will do my Thing", so it's perfectly feasible that the presence of his 340 cipher prominently displayed within this article, may have been the inspiration to provide further codes based upon its construction. The newspaper article concluded with "Amateur cryptographers by the hundreds were at work trying to decode the cryptogram from Zodiac published in yesterday's Chronicle. It was an amateur - a Salinas teacher - who cracked Zodiac's cipher message in August to which he said the people he killed would serve him as his slaves in paradise. One cryptographer, who has studied the latest message, says it definitely contains word patterns hidden in the 340 symbols. "There is a definite message" he said. "Testing shows it is not just gibberish. Once that is determined then it's just a matter of patience before it pieces itself together". Did the Zodiac Killer take note of this section and provide "bits and pieces" in his next two codes to help in its decryption? 

The following is an amalgamation of previous articles: 

​Six months after the Zodiac Killer's Albany, New York letter and code, another letter would arrive at the San Francisco Chronicle on January 30th 1974. Postmarked the day before (January 29th), this letter was a curious blend of The Exorcist movie (1973) and the comedic opera The Mikado (1885), two productions separated by 88 years.

The Zodiac Killer plagiarized The Mikado twice in the July 26th 1970 letter, but this appeared to have some purpose in relation to his hunting activities - that the Zodiac Killer had created a list of potential victims, who he would then kill and ultimately torture in paradise. This seemed at odds with his use of The Mikado in 1974. Any suggestion that the Zodiac Killer was contemplating suicide at this juncture because of his choice of Tit-Willow, appeared to be dashed in the following paragraph when he stated "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". The notion that the Zodiac Killer had reached a watershed moment and was about to ditch the pseudonym he had coveted for so many years, would also be premature, when he mailed the 1978, 1986 and 1987 letters, all containing his infamous introduction of "This is the Zodiac speaking".

​The 1978 and 1987 letters had one thing in common with the 1974 letter, in that they all carried the wording "yours truly" or "yours truley", followed by a colon. This wording is commonly used before a signature, with the colon used to separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first. In the 1978 and 1987 letters the Zodiac Killer follows "yours truly" with "guess", whereas, he inserts the plagiarized verse from Tit-Willow where his signature should be placed in the 1974 Exorcist letter. The primary conclusion to draw from this, is the Zodiac Killer was yet again asking us to "guess" his name through the verse of Tit-Willow. 

He may have been bluffing, but giving us his first name in such cryptic fashion could never be realistically used as evidence against him, because any conclusions drawn from this verse through subjective interpretation, would never have any standing in a court of law. There are five things in relation to The Exorcist movie and the Tit-Willow verse that point to one name. There is also another that points backwards to the April 20th 1970 letter, when the Zodiac Killer teased us with his name by stating "My name is", followed by a thirteen character code. The Exorcist book was written by William Blatty in 1971, which told the story of a twelve-year-old girl possessed by a powerful demon, that was later adapted by director William Friedkin in the film version released on December 26th 1973. The Tit-Willow verse from The Mikado was created by William Schwenck Gilbert, which contained multiple examples of "Will" and "Bill" within words such as "Willo" and "Billowy" (Will and Bill being short for William). This verse followed The Exorcist introduction and the promise of a signature by use of "yours truley". If we look at the next paragraph in the Tit-Willow verse from the complete version, it reads "Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name Isn't Willow, titwillow, titwillow". Very reminiscent of the "My name is" letter, but in this instance "My name Isn't". 

Now let us take a look at the final paragraph of the Exorcist letter where he wrote "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". This mirrors his very first communications on July 31st 1969 when he wrote "I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1-69, If you do not do this I will go on a kill ram page Fry night that will last the whole week end. I will cruse around and pick of all stray people or coupples that are alone then move on to kill some more untill I have killed over a dozen people". On July 31st 1969 and January 29th 1974, he concluded both correspondences with the threat "to kill" more people if his letters were not published in the newspapers. In his decoded 408 cipher, he wrote "To kill something gives me the most thrilling experence". To the best of my knowledge, this is the only time the Zodiac Killer used the word "something" prior to January 29th 1974 - and used it in reference "to kill something". So, when we look at the final paragraph of the Exorcist letter where he wrote the words "I will do something nasty", it is apparent that "to kill something" was his likely threat. The Zodiac Killer then finished the letter with another puzzle (likely decoded by Kevin Robert Brooks). 

Despite having reservations that the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates was the author of the Confession letter, let us look at certain aspects of the Confession letter in relation to the published details of the crime and the unpublished details of the autopsy report by November 29th 1966. Many of the newspaper articles prior to November 29th 1966 mentioned the stab wounds to her arms, back and face, along with her throat being slashed, but I could find none that mentioned stab wounds to her breasts, or any mention of Cheri Jo Bates being choked or strangled (unless you know better). The autopsy did show she had at least seven incised wounds across her throat and one stab wound to her right arm, although no concrete evidence of any stab wounds to her face (rather, blunt force lacerations and abrasions to her lip, chin and left cheek). The following snippet is the relevant part of the Confession letter pertaining to the autopsy report.

It seems unusual that Cheri Jo Bates received three stab wounds to her breasts, with no other stab wounds to her front torso, bearing in mind the author of the Confession letter infused a sexual element into their typing, by stating "Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands" and mentioned "cutting off female parts to deposit for the whole world to see". The author was claiming contact with her breast region just before stating that "she died hard". The author also stated that he initially grabbed Cheri Jo Bates around the neck and mouth, and choked her. This could explain the petechial haemorrhaging visible on her forehead at autopsy. The Confession letter then mentioned her lips twitching before he kicked her in the head, which could explain the 2cm ragged non-gaping oblique laceration to the left side of her lip, and the dark blue-gray slightly swollen discoloration of the mucocutanous portions of the upper and lower lips to the right side - both consistent with a kick to her head while in close contact with the driveway floor - and to the claims in the Confession letter.

The stab wounds (as explained in the previous analysis) to her left breast (2), right breast (1), right axillary fold (1) and right upper arm, grouped on an approximate 10cm vertical plane, is also consistent with an assailant holding the victim around the neck (possibly with their left arm) from behind, and stabbing backwards into the upper torso and upper right arm of Cheri Jo Bates, thereby resulting in the relatively close grouping of stab wounds to her frontal region. Her right arm being motioned across her body for protection would explain the two stab wounds to the upper right arm and right axillary fold. In fact, had she been stabbed here while using her right arm for protection over her chest, it would further narrow the horizontal plane width of the incoming knife. After thrusting Cheri Jo Bates to the driveway floor and kicking her in the head, the author of the Confession letter then claimed he "plunged the knife into her". This, too, is consistent with the one knife wound to her back detailed at autopsy. The word "plunged" maybe suggestive of a downward strike as she lay face down on the driveway floor, before he "finished the job out cutting her throat". The limited details given in the Confession letter are consistent with the previous analysis and the autopsy report, yet insufficient to fully claim that the author and murderer are one and the same.
PART ONE  PART TWO