Despite some interesting avenues having been pursued in the search for "Jerry" in the "Good Citizen" letter mailed on October 7th 1969, it is clear that the cryptic nature of the language adopted in this communication has made it difficult to interpret its meaning. Both the August 10th 1969 "Concened Citizen" card and October 7th 1969 "Good Citizen" letter were addressed to Sgt John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department, both utilized the word "citizen" in the signature, both used the word "name" twice in the message, with the "Good Citizen" author referring to the "code letters", which can only be reasonably assumed to be the letters mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner on July 31st 1969 (and the 408 cipher).  A footnote from Sergeant John Lynch concerning the "Good Citizen" letter stated that the writer has a strong feeling of ESP. While having these feelings, the writer writes with a pencil. "On occasion, while thinking of the code letters, the pencil wrote: Go to 56 Beach Street. I get the name Jerry, perhaps he knows people or his name is XXXXXXX''. 

The last major article featuring Sgt John Lynch and the 408 cipher, entitled "A Name in Murder Cipher", suggested the name "Robert Emmet the hippie" as one possibility, despite it being too long to accommodate the 18 unsolved characters at the foot of the 408 cipher. At the end of the August 12th 1969 article, Sgt John Lynch stated "We aren't sure Robert Emmet is who we are looking for. Maybe he'll send another letter and let us know". This request from Sgt John Lynch was specifically about the 18 seemingly nonsensical characters remaining at the base of the "murder cipher" and the search for a name. Therefore, the response of the "Good Citizen", stating "On occasion, while thinking of the code letters, the pencil wrote: Go to 56 Beach Street. I get the name Jerry, perhaps he knows people or his name is XXXXXXX", was likely a response to this conundrum. Sgt John Lynch was searching for a name in the 408 cipher, to which the "Good Citizen" replied: "I get the name Jerry" or "his name is XXXXXXX". The October 7th 1969 letter mentioning Beach Street (at the north-eastern edge of Presidio Park), just four days before the Paul Stine murder, is so cryptic in nature, it could be construed as unhelpful and possibly malevolent or mischievous in nature. There is a high degree of probability that the same author was responsible for the "Concerned Citizen" card and "Good Citizen" letter, bearing in mind the August 10th 1969 communication was not in the public domain by October 7th 1969. The two communications both offering answers to the 408 cipher, in addition to the aforementioned similarities. To believe these were authored by separate individuals would require a high degree of mental gymnastics.  

If we have the Zodiac Killer as the author for both of these communications - and consider the message in the 408 cipher and "Concerned Citizen" card declaring "I will not give you my name" and "please forgive the absence of my name" - then the offering of "I get the name Jerry" or "his name is XXXXXXX" as a possible solution to these 18 unsolved characters, would shed doubt on the credibility of, not only the "Good Citizen" author, but the "Concerned Citizen" as being genuinely concerned. If the author of both communications was the same person, we have two conflicting messages. If it's Zodiac, then he is likely playing a game. An individual who helpfully provides a valid key to the 408 cipher on August 10th 1969, while subsequently offering an array of unhelpful cryptic nonsense just two months later, appears to invalidate the original communication as a concerned citizen.

​Does the name "Jerry" or the grouping of seven X's in the "Good Citizen" letter have any bearing on the 18 unexplained characters at the foot of the 408 cipher, or is it just another wild goose chase? One would like to think that the reference to "Jerry" or "XXXXXXX" had some meaning to its author and had some benefit to Sgt John Lynch, rather than complete nonsense that achieves nothing for the sender. The fact that the "Good Citizen" letter (if Zodiac) appears totally unhelpful and arguably bereft of a reasonable aid to solution, could suggest the 18 unsolved characters have no meaning to be found (in complete contradiction to the code key supplied on August 10th 1969 which did aid a solution). Whatever the case, it is with little doubt that the author of these two communications are one and the same - whether that author is Zodiac or not.

On October 22nd 1969, the San Francisco Examiner newspaper published an article by Will Stevens, which laid down a challenge from Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA) to the Zodiac Killer, attempting to coax him into revealing 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 Allan 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".

It has been proposed that Dr. Marsh was invoking the name of Edgar Allan Poe to guide the Zodiac Killer down the path of creating a code featured in one of Poe's essays or journals. Just over two weeks later, on November 8th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed the recently solved 340 cipher. The scytale method of decryption, that can be used to reveal the message in Zodiac's 340 cipher, was featured in the opening section of Edgar Allan Poe's essay  A Few Words on Secret Writing. The final section of the revealed message in the 340 cipher almost mirrored one of Poe's poems, The final line of the 340 cipher was probably intended to read: "I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS DEATH. LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE". "To One in Paradise" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was first published as part of the short story titled "The Visionary" (later retitled as "The Assignation"). The poem was also published under the names "To lanthe in Heaven" and "To One Beloved". The title "To One in Paradise" was used in the February 25, 1843 Saturday Musuem. This poem was written after the death of Poe's wife. He writes that she was his life and he lived for her and now he looks forward to the future where they will be together again in death.​ In the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher, part of the message read: "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the I have killed will become my slaves". The question has always been - what was the inspiration for some of the language he adopted? 

On of the overarching themes in the Zodiac correspondence was his plagiarized acts from The Mikado, a two-part comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan which opened to the paying public on March 14th 1885, and was hugely successful, running for 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre in London. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese.

​The Zodiac would feature three acts from The Mikado in his July 26th 1970 and January 29th 1974 letters - leading many to believe the Zodiac Killer had an avid interest in the theatre, or quite possibly worked there. His Japanese style characters at the foot of the 1974 Exorcist letter could suggest an affinity to Japanese history or culture. 

Taken from Palladiummag.com: "The world of medieval Japan was one of division. The Emperor was, in practice, a distant memory; the shoguns had lost all control over their vassals. Even shrines and temples, once united in strengthening the state through prayer and ritual, now competed for believers and alms. Japan was divided against itself and circumstances forced its inhabitants to form new bonds to survive. Among the new alliances which this age produced were the Ikkō-ikki, a network of autonomous religious collectives that led major uprisings and controlled significant parts of Japanese society for nearly a century. Their final defeat at the hands of Japan’s warrior class set the stage both for a centralized Japanese state and the social hierarchy behind it. Nobunaga, head of the powerful Oda clan, conquered the capital city of Kyoto in 1568. In the years that followed, he made clear his intention to destroy the Honganji sect. The Patriarch Kennyo took him at his word and summoned all Ikkō-ikki from across the country to defend the faith with their lives. Despite graver circumstances than those faced by his predecessor Shonyo, Kennyo did not go as far as implying that those who fought for the Amida Buddha would be guaranteed rebirth in the Pure Land. Nevertheless, he threatened expulsion from the sect for those who failed to respond to the call and he did not crack down on those who raised the Ikkō-ikki’s now-famous banner of war: “Advance and be reborn in Paradise, retreat and fall immediately into Hell.”

​Bearing in mind the numerous plagiaristic references to The Mikado in his letters, along with the plausible connection between the afterlife poem To One in Paradise from Edgar Allan Poe and the wording chosen in the 340 cipher, was the Zodiac Killer influenced by the Japanese Ikkō-ikki’s banner of war “Advance and be reborn in Paradise" and an affinity for the country's culture and belief system, that ultimately manifested in part of his 408 cipher? Not so much a paradise lost, but a paradise found.​

In the police report regarding the attack at Lake Berryessa, Bryan Hartnell is quoted as estimating the Zodiac Killer's age as 20 to 30 based on voice concept. Despite the analysis of age based on somebody's voice being wholly unreliable, the age range given by Bryan Hartnell is often used by Zodiac researchers to partly validate a proposed person of interest who is within this range. The same is done with David Slaight, who received the phone call from the Zodiac Killer seventy minutes after the Lake Berryessa attack, who appeared to corroborate the earwitness testimony of Bryan Hartnell by describing the voice he heard at 7:40pm on September 27th 1969 as young (possibly early twenties). 

However, the following observations show just how unreliable it is to estimate somebody's age based on nothing more than hearing their voice. Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight's thoughts that the Zodiac Killer may have been somebody in his twenties will be called into question by none other than Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight. The San Francisco Chronicle released a newspaper article on October 24th 1969 entitled "That Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know", in which Bryan Hartnell, David Slaight and Nancy Slover listened to the recorded voice of "Sam" on the Jim Dunbar TV Show. The article stated that "Bryan Hartnell told Napa County homicide detectives he remembers Zodiac's voice as being much older and deeper than the one heard in the series of telephone calls to KGO-TV. His opinion was backed up by Napa police Patrolman David Slaight and Vallejo police clerk Nancy Slover, who have also heard the real killer's voice". 

The voice of "Sam" was later found to be that of Eric Weill, who pretended to be the Zodiac Killer when interviewed by Jim Dunbar and Melvin Belli on October 22nd 1969. Therefore, Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight both described the Zodiac Killer's voice as "much older" than Eric Weill, who was aged 29 in 1969. This seemingly contradicts Bryan Harnell's earlier police report of a 20 to 30 years estimation, and David Slaight's recollection of a man possibly in his "early twenties". Somebody described as "much older" than 29, must be at least 35 to 40 years of age. Of course, both Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight could have been influenced by their perception of the voice of "Sam" (Eric Weill) believing him to be much younger when they heard the recordings. They may have thought "Sam" to be about 18, thereby making their "much older" perception of Zodiac still viable as somebody in their mid-twenties, or up to 30 years. This appears like a reasonable explanation for the discrepancy. However, if "Sam" was 29 years of age and sounded 18 years of age (11 years younger), then the Zodiac Killer could have been 39 years of age at Lake Berryessa, yet sounded like a man aged 28, in line with Bryan Hartnell's 20 to 30 age estimation. If Bryan Hartnell can mistake the age of "Sam" by at least a decade, he can mistake the age of Zodiac by the same amount at Lake Berryessa.

This is why perceiving individuals age based on the sound of their voice is inherently flawed. So when Zodiac researchers use the interpretations of earwitnesses and eyewitnesses to argue their case for a suspect (or person of interest) fitting the desired age range, they employ confirmation bias and augment the attributes of some and not others. The testimony of Bryan Hartnell, Donald Fouke, Michael Mageau and the three teenagers, regarding the age of the Zodiac Killer, will be dissected meticulously to discredit and promote each that best fashions a case for their person of interest. Interpreting information to conform to an existing belief system, while ignoring information that doesn't conform to an existing belief system, is highly beneficial in crafting a false narrative and magnifying the likelihood an individual will be perceived as the Zodiac Killer by the reader. The problem is that everybody does it, but it's only recognizable in others.

The home of Barbara Bates Keenan was located only 3,700 feet from the residence of psychiatrist, Edward C. Adams, who received a threat upon his family from somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on October 17th 1970, just six months after the murder of Barbara. The pasted communication read "Mon Oct 12, 1970. Edward Adams. 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". The renewed reference to changing the way he was going to commit his murders, allied to the proximity of the Keenan residence to the Adams home, conjured up the notion that the Zodiac Killer may have targeted the Adams family because they too were well known in fashionable society, and this may have generated more publicity for the Zodiac Killer's latest communication. The proximity of the two residences - and the strong likelihood that Mr. and Mrs. Adams knew about the murder of Barbara Bates Keenan close to their doorstep - may have invoked a heightened visceral fear in the wording of "The Adamses are Next". It is possible that the Zodiac Killer knew about the April 10th 1970 murder of Barbara Bates Keenan and used the brutal crime to magnify the relevance of his latest threat on a family, that would otherwise have seemed like a random choice, without meaning. Could the families have been known to one another and frequented the same social circles? 

Another murder occurred in Alamo, Contra Costa on April 28th 1969, just one year prior to the fatal shooting of Barbara Bates Keenan, with many parallels. Mrs. Anna S. Aarons (49) was also found murdered in her residence in another seemingly motiveless daytime attack. Dr. Z. Alexander Aarons, also a psychiatrist, discovered his wife lying on the patio of their home at about 9:30am as he was preparing to go to work. The residence of the Aarons family at 2750 Lavrock Lane was situated approximately 9 miles east of the Keenan home. Anna Aarons had been bludgeoned in the head, not dissimilar to Barbara Bates Keenan, who received injuries to the rear of her head from what was believed to be a household iron.

There is no suggestion that the Zodiac Killer had any involvement in the murder of Barbara Bates Keenan - only that he may have targeted the Orinda residence of the Adams family to create the notion that he may have been. Some Zodiac researchers have contemplated the idea that the Zodiac Killer may have read about the Adams family in a November 17th 1968 Oakland Tribune newspaper article that featured the Adamses home. The newspaper article, available on ZodiacKiller.Net, focused heavily on the design of their home and garden, referred to the family as the "Adamses", and showed an image of Mrs. Edward Adams.

Although this was featured many years earlier, in 1959, a photograph of Barbara Bates Keenan was shown in the San Francisco Examiner newspaper in the Pictorial Living section under the title of "A Hillside Home in Orinda". This article also placed the home and garden front and center of the publication, along with an an image of Barbara Bates Keenan and her dog.
The newspaper article also showed an image of her kitchen, where sadly she would be found viciously murdered just 11 years later. Hal Keenan wrote on April 10th 2014 "Thinking of my mother today. She passed away on this day in 1970, brutality murdered in our home sometime around noon. My sister and I found her when we came home from school. The photo is from May of 1959 when our house was in the Pictorial Living section of the SF Examiner. Gone but not forgotten. RIP Barbara Keenan". Closing in on the 53rd anniversary of the murder, time is not on our side in finding the perpetrator or perpetrators in the callous murder of Barbara Keenan, but hopefully one day, some answers may be found.  

Thanks to Jibberjabber for his assistance in this matter.

The Albany Medical Center in New York, alongside the Albany Medical College, established a public radio station in 1958 carrying the call letters WAMC, that served parts of seven northeastern US states including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. The Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the Albany Times Union newspaper on August 1st 1973 stating "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, which when solved read ​"(name) Albany Medical Center this only the beginning". There were many medical facilities in and around New York, so why would the Zodiac Killer target this particular location? Did he have some connection to Albany, or was it because the Albany Medical Center had broadcast capabilities to get his message out to a wider audience. Or both? 

Eight years later, on March 8th 1981, the Zodiac Killer would resurface in Atlanta, Georgia when he wrote to 1611 W Peachtree Street NE, the home of the television station WXIA-TV "11 Alive", stating "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". Was the Zodiac Killer targeting public radio and television stations for a wider audience reach after many barren years in the newsprint media? The Zodiac Killer may have mailed far more communications to the newspapers than we currently know of - but without allying murder to his missives - his ability to attract column inches gradually dwindled. 

These are the only two letters that we currently know of that, were not only were mailed to radio and television stations, but carried small Zodiac crosshairs on the address side of the envelope subsequent to 1969 - and both were postmarked outside of California. Two letters, mailed eight years and 1,000 miles apart (seemingly distant from the bulk of Zodiac activity), yet both envelopes mimicked the October 13th 1969 letter, which also contained small Zodiac crosshairs on the address side of the envelope (and not available to the public in 1973 and 1981). The Atlanta letter made mention of San Francisco and used phrases borrowed from his October 13th 1969 and November 9th 1969 letters (both about Paul Stine), so it seems uncanny that his 1981 envelope would mimic the envelope postmarked two days after the Paul Stine murder in San Francisco. The Albany, Atlanta and October 13th 1969 letters are the only three envelopes known to carry the small Zodiac crosshairs on the address side of the envelope. None of these envelopes were in the public domain by 1981, so could not have been used by a copycat attempting to mimic previous communications (unless they were members of the press or law enforcement).   

Forty-two days before the mailing of the April 24th 1978 letter which stated "I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here", somebody made a telephone call on March 13th 1978 to an individual in the Mission District proclaiming "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco". The obvious similarities in the language indicates there could be one individual responsible for both messages. The person who received the telephone call is unlikely to be some random member of the public, but somebody relevant to the Zodiac Killer case who lived in the Mission District in 1978 and had some influence in passing on the message. It could be somebody in the media or somebody connected to law enforcement, so if anybody can offer a suggestion please post it on any relevant Zodiac forum. The incident was obviously taken seriously because it was personally investigated by Inspector David Toschi - and if not reported in the newspapers - made the mention of David Toschi in the 1978 letter even more curious, in accompaniment to the use of "I am back" in both messages, along with "Tell the press" and "Tell herb caen".

This phone call was captured as a recording on a voice answering machine, but I suspect it was routinely dismissed as a hoax as many phone calls had been previously and likely lost to the hands of time, despite no evidence for such a conclusion. Much evidence has fell by the wayside through incompetence and lethargy in the Zodiac case, and this phone call is just another example of a missed opportunity.

On May 5th 1978, just 11 days after the "I am back with you" letter, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the San Mateo Police Department and falsely reported that a bomb had been placed in the Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street. This too had a loose connection to the 1978 letter, which mimicked the Melvin Belli letter mailed on December 20th 1969. Both the 1978 and Melvin Belli letter began the introduction with "This is the Zodiac speaking I", which were not only grammatically incorrect in both instances by failing to punctuate between "speaking" and "I", but were the only two communications to date that didn't keep the "This is the Zodiac speaking" introduction exclusively on one line. Something a copycat would have been expected to do, had he copied at least four Zodiac letters published in the newspapers. The 1978 and Melvin Belli letters also inversely mimicked each other by the use of  "I can not remain in control for much longer" in 1969 (one example) and "I am now in control of all things" in 1978. Bearing in mind these comparisons between the two letters - and the Melvin Belli letter was mailed to 1228 Montgomery Street in San Francisco - it is unusual that the telephone threat on May 5th 1978 was directed against the Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street, just 600 meters south of the Belli residence. The law offices of Melvin Belli at 722 Montgomery Street, purchased in 1959, were even closer to the Transamerica Pyramid at a mere 100 meters.

​It should also be noted that the 1978 letter was thought to have been mailed in either San Mateo or Santa Clara County, just like the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. On April 28th 1978, the Chronicle reported that "Toschi said yesterday that the common, white envelope had no outstanding marks and that the single piece of plain white stationary on which the note was written contained nothing that would give us any indication where he might have gotten it. It was also learned that although the envelope bore a San Francisco postmark, other notations on the cancelation indicated that the letter might have been mailed in San Mateo county or Santa Clara county and was brought here for processing". The threat towards the Transamerica Pyramid was phoned into the San Mateo Police Department.  

When the Zodiac Killer last claimed he was to plant a bomb on June 26th 1970, he utilized the peak of Mount Diablo on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay in Contra Costa County, which dominated the skyline at 3,849 feet. When the Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972 it was the tallest building in San Francisco, with an elevation of 853 feet. Would it really be a surprise if the Zodiac Killer had chosen the two most prominent landmarks on the San Francisco Bay Area skyline to threaten its residents with bombs? The Transamerica Pyramid would also feature in the 2007 Zodiac film directed by David Fincher, shown in time lapse photography to depict the transition of time between Zodiac events.