For many years, some observers have questioned the September 27th 1969 Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard as a genuine Zodiac crime. It is claimed that the MO of this crime wasn't like Zodiac, despite the fact he altogether only committed three other confirmed attacks in which Presidio Heights, one could argue, wasn't his MO either. The amount of crimes ascribed to the Zodiac Killer isn't a large enough sample size to make such astronomical claims based on modus operandi. 
​
Some people also believe that the attacker at Lake Berryessa intended to leave at least one victim alive (in this case Bryan Hartnell), because murdering both would have negated the wearing of the costume. This argument carries no weight whatsoever. ​Bryan Hartnell was bound hand and foot approximately 510 yards from the nearest roadway (Knoxville Road), and was brutally stabbed in the back six times, which resulted in extensive blood loss. In the 2007 Zodiac documentary he recalled the memories of his fight for life:after struggling to free himself from the clothesline bindings: "So I got up and made it about 5 feet and the sparkles and the darkness came back and I had to drop down immediately to keep from passing out. I'd just lost too much blood and had no energy to move. So I waited a minute, got some more strength, and thought I'm going to have to do this a little slower. I made it another five feet and dropped down myself. So I started just taking 5, 10 feet intervals, and found that if I wasn't trying to walk fast and walked bent over holding my chest and walk slower, I could make more distance in between having to stop and rest. I made it about halfway to the road and saw some lights coming". This is where he was eventually aided by park ranger Dennis Land.

At approximately 7:10 pm, or very shortly after, Ranger William White radioed Park Headquarters to summon an ambulance and deputies to the crime scene. An ambulance from Naps arrived at the crime scene at approximately 7:55 pm, and returned back to the Queen of the Valley Hospital, arriving at 8:50 pm. That is an approximate journey time of 45 minutes each way, including 10 minutes negotiating the crime scene. Therefore, one would have to assume that the attacker with an extensive knowledge of anatomy, surgically delivered the knife wounds to Bryan Hartnell, knowing he would free his bindings and would be discovered by a third party in a particular amount of time, as well as somebody who could factor in advance the overall time the ambulance would take to arrive at the crime scene and return to the hospital. Furthermore, calculating the blood loss to be suffered by Bryan Hartnell in order for him to be subsequently saved by the hospital surgeons and thereby recount his experience of being attacked by a costumed slayer with crosshairs on his chest. This is a totally unrealistic proposition.

It is clear that the Zodiac Killer (or copycat) intended to kill both Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell - and thought he had - evident by the payphone call placed in Napa approximately 70 minutes later, in which the killer stated "I want to report a murder, no, a double murder. They are two miles north of Park Headquarters. They were in a white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. I'm the one that did it". ​So why did the attacker wear a costume with crosshairs on the front if he had no intention of leaving the couple alive? ​The Zodiac had every reason to wear the crosshairs symbol, but the copycat didn't.

The attack took place during daylight hours, at 6:30 pm or slightly earlier - so the killer, whether Zodiac or copycat, had good reason to wear a costume or disguise in case he was spotted by any eyewitnesses - something I'm sure he was keen to avoid. For those in the copycat camp, the writing on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's 1956 White Karmann Ghia and the telephone call to police dispatcher Dave Slaight is not sufficient proof it was the Zodiac Killer, because the style of the handwriting on the car door and composition of the message in the phone call (based on the Blue Rock Springs call) were widely available in many newspapers, and could easily have been reproduced by a copycat. It is therefore imperative we find another reason to tie the Lake Berryessa attack to the Zodiac Killer rather than a copycat. 
​
Bryan Hartnell stated that the assailant wore a black hooded mask made of a cloth material, covering his entire head and shoulders, reaching down to the waist. On the front of the four cornered mask at the chest area was a white circle (3 x 3 inches in diameter) and a symmetrical cross. He would further elaborate on the design of the crosshairs, as well as later in the 2007 Zodiac documentary, stating "It looked like it was made with a machine or with some degree of care- it wasn't just scrawled on with white paint. It was proportional".      

Why would a copycat killer meticulously sew on perfectly symmetrical crosshairs onto a carefully crafted costume, when he had no intention of leaving anybody alive to report it. If the crime had been committed by a copycat, then imitating the Zodiac Killer's writing on the car door and subsequent phone call should have sufficed. He could simply have disguised his features with a mask, balaclava or plain hood. The same could be said of the Zodiac Killer, I hear you saying. However, there is one big difference.
​
The Zodiac Killer had murdered three and seriously injured a fourth person at this juncture, and had bathed in the spotlight of numerous newspaper articles in his name. This must have fed his egotistical nature - and in his own mind - elevated him to another level of self-aggrandizement. The idea that he would then carefully craft a costume befitting of such an infamous and feared villain, doesn't seem that far-fetched. Would a copycat spend this much time creating an elaborate costume bedecked with crosshairs, when nobody was going to be left alive to report their observations to police? It would be a pointless waste of time. A copycat would have just reproduced the handwriting on the car door and made the payphone call. The Zodiac Killer, on the other hand, had every reason to adorn himself with a costume befitting of the man he thought he was.

THIS ARTICLE HAS SINCE BEEN SUPERSEDED BY 'THE SACRAMENTO DMV' ARTICLE. Here is an accompanying extract from another valid DMV article (shown in red):

In October 1971, a magazine publication entitled 'True Detective' comprehensively featured the murders of Kathy Snoozy, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Bilek, stating "At about the same moment, Park Ranger Ken Williamson was informing a member of the investigative team that he, too, had noticed a tall, bespectacled young man who had been a frequent visitor at Villa Montalvo. He was a loner and had impressed the Villa's ranger staff with his almost furtive conduct, said Williamson. The ranger had jotted down the license number of the strange youth's auto. The license number was forwarded to the California Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Sacramento, the state's capital 150 miles to the north of San Jose. The information teletyped back from the registration bureau was that the auto was the property of a Karl Francis Werner, living at an address on Shawnee Lane in San Jose".

The Zodiac Killer, probably in one last throw of the dice, sent a letter to the chairman of the DMV in a desperate attempt to reclaim some lost pride. It likely read as follows "I am the murderer of the two kids in San Jose in August and the girl on the 11th of April near the park in Saratoga. I drove away quite slowly from both crime scenes so as not to draw attention to my car. Stop listening to phonys". Yet, on this occasion he couldn't supply any extra details known only to him and the police, finally bringing the Zodiac Killer's unabated fortune of claiming unsolved crimes to a crashing halt, and thereby exposing him as the real phony that many suspected he always was. The Zodiac Killer's race was run - and Ken Williamson was the architect in his unthroning.
Ken Williamson and the DMV Letter

Also read The Story of San Jose for full context surrounding the DMV letter.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE (NOW NOT APPLICABLE}
Tom Voigt, creator of the hugely successful ZodiacKiller.com website has been striving to secure Zodiac material previously withheld from the public for many years. Authenticated by a state document examiner, the DMV letter was mailed to the chairman of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, yet its delivery date and contents have remained elusive to this day. It appears the overriding consensus, that the closer this correspondence was mailed to the four canonical crimes, the more likely it is to be genuine Zodiac material. Having read the limited forum threads on this topic, the murder of taxicab driver Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969 comes to the fore.

Tom Voigt stated "While I don't yet have as many details as I would like, at some point the Zodiac wrote a letter to the chairman of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California. The letter was authenticated, apparently via handwriting, and was kept quiet for reasons unknown. The reason I have only lately been attempting to get permission from my source is because I just recently learned from victim Paul Stine's sister that Paul's wife at the time of his murder worked for the DMV". 

There is a California Department of Motor Vehicles at 1377 Fell Street, San Francisco, the same street that Paul Stine resided (1842 Fell Street) and just 700 meters away - but whether the suspect letter was mailed to the San Francisco offices and forwarded to the Department of Justice in Sacramento, or mailed directly to Sacramento, maybe Tom can elaborate. The Paul Stine police report suggested that the "suspect may also be in possession of the keys to the Yellow Cab, and possibly has the wallet belonging to the victim", so whether the Zodiac Killer mailed any possessions of Paul Stine with his communication to the DMV  chairman is uncertain. Having no idea the date this letter was mailed, opens up the possibility it may be connected to the Lake Berryessa attack on September 27th 1969, the only confirmed Zodiac crime in which the killer seemingly failed to document in letter form.

Having left his message on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's 1956 White Karmann Ghia, it is not unrealistic to consider that any correspondence following this crime may have been automobile related, hence the connections being drawn to the California Department of Motor Vehicles letter. Tom Voigt stated that "Paul's wife at the time of his murder worked for the DMV", but can we connect a possible Zodiac victim to the California Department of Motor Vehicles in or around the five murders attributed to Zodiac.

​On Saturday February 21st 1970, five months after the Paul Stine murder, John Franklin Hood (24) and Sandra Garcia (20) had traveled to East Beach, Santa Barbara, near East Cabrillo Boulevard - with John telling his parents he was to spend the day with his fiancee. Sandra had informed her parents that they "wouldn't be gone long," however, when they didn't return home that night the families became understandably concerned.

Their bodies were discovered early Sunday morning by beachgoers, fully clothed underneath a blanket. They had been brutally beaten and stabbed, predominantly in the back and face. ​John Hood had been stabbed eleven times, but it appears Sandra Garcia suffered the brunt of the attack, not dissimilar to the senseless attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. Had the Zodiac Killer returned to a familiar method of execution after his venture into the heart of San Francisco, and was the Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969 the foreboding of a man who was about to murder once again, stating he may "lose control again and take his ninth or possibly tenth victim." Were John Franklin Hood and Sandra Garcia those victims?

"The eldest of six children, Hood was born in Seattle. He came to California with his family in 1950. He attended El Rio Elementary School and graduated from Camarillo High School in June, 1965. After graduation, he worked at Wimpy's Drive-In in Oxnard and then joined the Army in January 1966. He spent two years in Germany with the 64th Armored Division after boot training in Ft. Bliss, Texas, and then returned home for leave before being sent to Vietnam. While on leave, Hood met Sandra while they were both vacationing in Tijuana, Mexico. An expert marksman, Hood was sent to Vietnam on January 6, 1969 with the 64th Armored Division. Hood was closed-mouthed about the combat-filled year he spent there and about the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and other medals he had received for valor. After returning to Oxnard, he went back to work for the drive-in eatery. Although Hood and Sandra were planning to be married, they had not set a wedding date." Oxnard Press Courier, February 23, 1970. 

Sandra Garcia worked for the California Department of Motor Vehicles in Oxnard, Santa Barbara. ​Was the DMV letter claiming this double murder, but was withheld from publication by police, who were unsure of a connection to the Zodiac Killer, or because of the sensitive details contained within the communication? We may have to wait a little longer to find out. 

FOOTNOTE: On September 12th 1987, Jose Santo Bugarin (26) and Rodolfo Alvaro (31) were traveling on King Road, San Jose, California when their car slammed into four children playing on the front lawn of a residence, killing three and injuring one. The driver then backed over the bodies and left the scene. Both were apprehended a short time later. "Bugarin was arrested on three counts of second-degree murder. Alvaro also was arrested on murder charges". Chicago Tribune. This was covered extensively in the newspapers. Just over six weeks later a letter claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer was mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald on October 28th 1987​.

"SAN JOSE (AP) A man who ran over and killed three children entered a plea bargain on Wednesday, pleading no contest to second degree murder and two vehicular manslaughter charges. Jose Santos Bugarin, 26, of San Jose, had two of the original murder charges filed against him changed to manslaughter. He will be sentenced to 21 years and eight months in state prison. Bugarin was the driver of a car that plowed through a front yard on King Road in San Jose on Sept. 12, killing three children." San Bernardino Sun- December 3rd 1987.

​Did the Zodiac Killer, or the author of the 1987 letter, read the news stories of this senseless crime and callously draw inspiration from this tragedy (Cars make nice weapons), compelling him to write the above correspondence, piggybacking off newspaper articles in not dissimilar fashion to his early communications. The Car movie featured a satanic driverless car running people over in the fictional desert town of Santa Ynez in Utah. IMDB. However, Santa Ynez is not so fictional in California. The town of Santa Ynez is one of the communities of the Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Barbara.  It is situated just 20 minutes or 12 miles (as the crow flies) from the site of the Robert Domingos (18) and Linda Edwards (17) murders on June 4th 1963, widely touted as an early Zodiac crime. See article 'Death on Four Wheels'. 

Thanks to Tom Voigt at ZodiacKiller.com

THE 340 CIPHER WAS CRACKED ON DECEMBER 3RD 2020 BY DAVE ORANCHAK, SAM BLAKE AND JARL VAN EYCKE, SO THIS EARLIER ARTICLE SHOULD BE VIEWED IN RESPECT TO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

This is a combination of previous articles (with a little extra) under one banner, attempting to dispel the idea that the 340 code is a genuine cipher, and all attempts at trying to reveal a continuous and coherent message will ultimately fail. By overwhelming consensus, the 340 cipher will soon be entering its 50th year unbroken, remaining impervious to all attempts at releasing its secrets, despite innumerable attempts by the best codebreakers and codebreaking machinery thrown at it. Either the Zodiac Killer created a cipher so stunningly impossible and misjudged the complexity of his cipher, or he didn't create one at all. The '13 Symbol' and '32 Symbol' codes were simply too short, with too many variables to be broken by conventional means. The '32 Symbol' cipher has 29 unique characters, meaning you can literally fill in the blanks however you choose. The '13 Symbol' cipher is simply too short to be called a cipher, and any solution proffered can be readily dismissed without a valid key. The Zodiac certainly wasn't stupid and must have known this - pouring huge doubt on whether he ever intended them to be solved in a conventional manner. Therefore, why should we treat the 340 cipher any differently. The whole thing just appeared to be one big game for the Zodiac Killer as we huffed and puffed long into the night trying to pry open his ultimate masterpiece.

Many observers have wondered whether the Zodiac Killer mailed the 'code key' to the Vallejo Police Department on August 10th 1969 under the guise of a "concerned citizen," unaware that it had already been solved by Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden, as well as the FBI in Washington. Unusual that he should then sit on the 340 cipher for many years to come, able to resist the temptation of revealing his subsequent ramblings. Keeping a secret for nearly 50 years would certainly take great restraint from a killer who bathed in the spotlight.

The 340 cipher may very well have been designed in the mind of the killer as early as August 4th 1969, or the moment his 408 cipher was cracked. The decrypted 408 read: "I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife". The answer to the 340 cipher probably already lay within the text of the 408 cipher - just designed in an altogether different format. The clue would later reveal itself in the design of the 'Halloween' card, mailed on October 27th 1970, where the killer placed "Paradice" and "Slaves" in a cross formation, and told us "sorry no cipher." This wouldn't be the only time the Zodiac Killer gave us clues, alluding to the fact we were chasing a solution to a cipher that didn't exist.        

One of the best finds in recent years was by Tahoe27, a regular contributor to the Zodiac Killer Site forum, who discovered a connection between a Tim Holt comic and the 'Halloween' card. Many features on the cover of the comic parallel the 'Halloween' card, including the wording By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife, along with "Redmask" (the skeleton eyes) and "Lady Doom" (peek-a-boo you are doomed). However, I believe Tahoe27 is not convinced that the 'Halloween' card was authored by the Zodiac Killer. 
If the 'Halloween' card was authored by an impostor, who based the 'Halloween' card on the Tim Holt comic, then are we to believe he was extremely fortunate that a year earlier, the real Zodiac Killer just happened to create a 340 cipher containing the word "BY" in all four corners of the cipher, along with PARADICE and SLAVES being a possibility, running down and across the cipher on the midpoint vertically and horizontally, just like the configuration on the 'Halloween' card.

Admittedly, the words paradice and slaves have not been proven to exist in the 340 cipher, but the fact they are a distinct possibility by comparison to the 'Halloween' card appears another very fortunate stroke of luck- particularly if we believe the author of the 'Halloween' card wasn't the Zodiac Killer- and only considered the Tim Holt comic in his design of the 'Halloween' card. If the 'Halloween' card was crafted by the Zodiac Killer using only the Tim Holt comic, then the above still applies. The more likely conclusion we could draw from this, is that the 340 cipher was designed with the Tim Holt comic in mind, and the 'Halloween' card (one year later) was giving us a clue.  

​On the right, we can see how the four words "BY" fit into each quadrant of the 340 cipher just like the 'Halloween' card offering. What are the odds that in each quadrant of 80 characters we would find the letters B and Y together either horizontally or vertically every time. Not to mention the fortunate appearance of paradice and slaves bisecting the cipher perfectly. The killer may even have given us his signature in the bottom right corner, along with the running total, which was seven and counting on November 8th 1969.

If this wasn't the intended design of the 340 cipher, then either the Zodiac Killer or an impostor got extremely lucky, in just happening upon a Tim Holt comic that mirrored the 340 cipher unintentionally. But we may just be able to prove a definite link between these two communications and confidently state that both were designed by the Zodiac Killer, and with a fair degree of confidence, argue that the 340 cipher is not a cipher in the true sense of the word. The majority of the characters likely filler, but in this instance, far more than the 18 characters at the foot of the 408 cipher. The reason we may be able to contend the 340 cipher is not a continuous and uniform message like the 408 cipher (and not a cipher as we believe one to be), is because the Zodiac Killer lined us up for a fall and then admitted to it a year later.

On the 'Dripping Pen' card accompanying the 340 cipher, the killer stated
"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. 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". Was that bad news to come on October 27th 1970, when he mailed the 'Halloween' card. If we believe that the 'Halloween' card design is referring back to the 340 cipher, then the message concealed on the envelope inner of "sorry no cipher," is the Zodiac Killer finally admitting that the 340 cipher is not the real cipher we had thought. He is declaring that the 340 is "no cipher" - and is in fact, based upon the paradice and slaves configuration. This is why he crosses the phrase "sorry no cipher" to mimic the design of paradice and slaves, using 13 letters in both instances. The Zodiac Killer could easily have written "sorry no cipher" just the once, but deliberately fashioned it to form a link between the 'Halloween' card design and the 340 cipher.

After searching for solutions to the 340 cipher for nearly half a century, the Zodiac Killer may have given us the answer to its design after just one year, but it was overlooked. We have took the phrase "sorry no cipher" as an apology, that he wasn't giving us a cipher in the 'Halloween' card, when in actual fact, he was apologizing for stringing us along for the best part of a year, and offered us the real solution to the 340 cipher on October 27th 1970, contained within the 'Halloween' card. You could say it was a "trick" and "treat" befitting of Halloween.

​You will notice that the paradice and slaves configuration from the 'Halloween' card fits nicely into the 340 cipher.
The two dashes on the 10th line are represented by the letter S. 
The left-facing V on the 9th column and 10th line are represented by the letter E. 
​The two addition signs on the 9th column are represented by the letter A.
When the letter R of paradice is placed into its only conceivable position, along with the L and V from slaves, it is reminiscent of the 'Halloween' card. What are the chances that this could be achieved accidentally?  

The word paradice travels vertically 17 lines, exactly matching the 17 columns that slaves travels horizontally.The Zodiac Killer placed crosshairs beneath the 9th column, the midsection of the cipher (shown here). The intersection on the 'Halloween' card configuration forms RAD and LAV, exactly the same as the bisecting center point of the 340 cipher. The Zodiac Killer also underlined the LAV of Paul Averly on the Halloween card envelope, on which he also placed the intersecting "sorry no cipher" on the envelope inner. 

The 'Halloween' card stamp depicts the surface of the moon with a half-earth in the distance and the words "In the beginning God." This phrase fits perfectly on the 1st line (the beginning) of the 340 cipher, with the 15th, 16th and 17th characters uncannily similar to the word GOD (the O in half phase just like the image on the stamp). 

But this wouldn't be the only correspondence that suggested the 340 cipher was designed as a puzzle rather than a 408 style message, If the paradice and slaves connection does exist between the 340 cipher and 'Halloween' card, then it makes more sense that the design of paradice and slaves was created in the 340 cipher first, and the 'Halloween' card was to "clue us in". If not, then the observation is just happenstance. ​If the 340 cipher doesn't actually contain a message, it will never be broken, and paradoxically will remain unsolved despite no solution being possible.
 
The cipher has many other issues - in that, the Zodiac Killer may have had 'cipher three' formulated or drafted before he designed 'cipher two', to enable the interconnectivity between both. He had to think forwards to create backwards. If we assume the 340 cipher has a solution and therefore a key (no matter how complex), then one may assume the Zodiac created the key, then created the message, and then applied the message to the key so as to encrypt it. If this were the case, we must believe that the 'near Zodiac' that emerged on line 20 was by sheer chance. We would also have to believe, that had he crafted 'cipher three' completely independent of 'cipher two', with no intention of connecting both, then the following observations also happened completely by chance.

​Because the '13 Symbol' cipher was thirteen characters in total (half the alphabet) and began with an A and ended with an M, it was considered that by placing the first half of the alphabet alongside the '13 Symbol' cipher and numerically counting the difference between the columns, something may emerge - It did.

For example: C to N produces a difference of 11, whereas B and E produces a difference of 3. Non alphabetical symbols cannot produce a difference, so a zero is inserted. The resulting numbers produced have been color coded. The red section is before the first circled 8, the green section is after the last circled 8 and the blue section spans the first and last circled 8. Notice the perfect symmetry. The red and green numbers are identical read forwards or backwards, and the blue numbers again read identically in either direction, producing a mirror image.

An equally symmetrical pattern was created using the identical technique, when placing the correct spelling of Zodiac alongside the 'near Zodiac' on line 20 of the 340 cipher. Furthermore, the three 0's and three 8's created, can be combined and carried forward onto his '13 Symbol' cipher, which seemingly is what he did. It is also apparent on the '13 Symbol' cipher, that either side of the three circled 8's are the Zodiac crosshairs and an inverted Aries symbol, also present on either side of the 'near Zodiac' on the final line of the 340 cipher. So, the author has effectively carried eight symbols from one cipher to another.
The point being, that when the Zodiac Killer sat down at his desk and began to create a unique key for his 340 cipher, into which he was to place his message, it accidentally created the 'near Zodiac' on the 20th line, accidentally created the correlation between 'near Zodiac' and Zodiac to produce three circled 8's, accidentally created the symbols either side of 'near Zodiac,' that fully or in part, carried forward to the '13 Symbol' cipher in the correct position, and accidentally created symmetry in both instances. Or, the Zodiac crafted the '13 Symbol' cipher before or alongside the 340 cipher, which I would argue nobody believes. The Zodiac Killer may have began his 340 cipher key from the bottom first, deliberately allocating specific letters in his message to create the 'near Zodiac' characters and continuing from there. But, if the interconnectivity exists between the 340 cipher and '13 Symbol' cipher, he effectively began with 'cipher three' first and worked backwards, and worked forwards with the words ​paradice and slaves from the 408 cipher. 

​The Zodiac may have presented us with a fictitious negro male on August 4th 1969, who by inference, provided us with some valuable information about the Zodiac Killer driving his brown car by the payphone at Springs and Tuolumne. Was this a red herring of a clue, much like the correction on line 6 of the 340 cipher.

It can be clearly seen on the left, that the Zodiac Killer was conscientious enough to correct an alphabetical K to a reversed K on line 6, even though spelling correctly was never much of an issue with the Zodiac Killer. To validate that this was a genuine mistake, he made sure that the original K had not been fully obscured. This may give the impression it is easy to mix up your K's when implementing your encrypted text. Or maybe this is what he wanted us to believe. Who in their right mind would correct a fake cipher? Therefore it must be genuine. Did the Zodiac Killer implement this correction, conveniently leaving the blacked out character still visible (and just reversing it), to give us the impression that the 340 cipher is undeniably genuine? Was this move just another red herring, to again validate something that never was?

Alternatively, the final line of the 340 cipher may contain just a part message, yet incomplete, bearing in mind that many believe the '13 Symbol' cipher may contain some form of a name. The 340 cipher may end with: "the Zodiac is".... to be continued on the next cipher. The anticipation of the newspapers and readers alike, for the sequel to be released, would be a Zodiac dream. The Zodiac Killer may have been pushing us in the right direction on October 27th 1970, but his attempt at revealing the workings of the 340 cipher may have begun far earlier - on December 16th 1969 - just 38 days after his 'so called' masterpiece, in which he would be claiming a potential 38 more victims.

The December 16th 1969 'Fairfield' letter, mailed to the San Francisco Examiner, has been considered dubious Zodiac correspondence, however, it may have been Zodiac's first foray into revealing the mechanics of the 340 cipher, albeit using a rudimentary code as a tool. Clearly, the Zodiac must have known that offering just five different symbols in a code of nine is open to many different interpretations, and hence practically unsolvable. Therefore, one could suggest this wasn't his intention - he was simply teasing us with the mechanics of how the 340 cipher was designed, by using a rudimentary diagram based on the Tim Holt comic - and something he would expand upon nearly a year later. One can see how he uses the Zodiac symbol around the crosshairs in the December 16th 1969 'Fairfield' letter code, implying a uniformity of message, but aligns five symbols as an introduction to this design. This marries perfectly with 'Death By Gun', 'Death By Knife', 'Death By Fire' and 'Death By Rope.' Death is the introduction, following by the methods of death around the crosshairs. This is exactly what he offered us on October 27th 1970, when he placed the methods of death in the four quadrants of the bisecting Paradice and Slaves.  Here is a representation. 

Another Fairfield letter was mailed prior to this correspondence on December 7th 1969, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle. Was the Zodiac Killer highlighting pertinent sections of the 340 code in as little as one month after his November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card and cipher, negating the idea he could resist the temptation of giving us clues to its design. The final offering to the mechanics of the 340 cipher may have come with his final confirmed correspondence - that of the 'Exorcist' letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29th 1974. ​         

The symbols at the foot of the 'Exorcist' letter were rearranged by Kevin Robert Brooks to reveal the words "To Kill". The message would then read "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing...To kill".

This threatening message was very similar to the trinity of communications that began the Zodiac's letter writing campaign on July 31st 1969, where he stated "I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".
 
In both the 'Exorcist' letter and July 31st communications the author would threaten "to kill' - as he would in the decoded 408 cipher. This is not particularly unusual for a serial murderer, but linking the unarranged symbols on the 'Exorcist' letter to the 340 code may connect yet another communication to the design of the cipher.

Key features of the 'Halloween' card, '13 Symbol' cipher, Fairfield communications and 'Exorcist' letter can be found in the 340 cipher, suggesting the Zodiac Killer was constantly pushing us towards the design of the 340 puzzle. The following presentation will show a perceived correlation of the 'Exorcist' letter symbols to the only corrected section of the 340 cipher.

​​In the image on the left I have moved the two symbols on the extreme left of the 'Exorcist' letter to the right side as shown, without altering their position on the vertical axis. Then I have turned the extreme right symbol on the 'Exorcist' letter 90 degrees clockwise to form the new arrangement, shown in the bottom left image. This can now be compared to certain characters on the fifth, sixth, seventh line of the 340 cipher. The area in the proximity of the corrected sixth line. Five of the six characters on the 'Exorcist' letter now bear a noticeable similarity to this area of the 340 cipher.

Did the Zodiac Killer sit down to create a uniform and continuous message using a code key in the 340 cipher, just like the message contained within the 408 cipher? If so, then the above findings were all created accidentally and unintentionally by the killer.

He placed an intersecting symbol at the center of the 340 cipher (+ sign), with two dashes at the periphery of the center line, to create the illusion of intersecting crosshairs. Paradice and Slaves (uniformly of 17 characters) was created as a viable possibility bisecting the 340 cipher along the X and Y axis, along with "RAD" and "LAV" on the intersection of the cipher. The word "BY" (horizontally) was present in all four quadrants of the cipher. The 'near Zodiac' allied with the correct spelling of Zodiac on the 20th line produced the symmetry of three circled 8's. Using the identical technique and placing half the alphabet alongside the '13 Symbol' cipher, yet again, perfect symmetry was observed. The three circled 8's, along with the symbols either side, all carried forward from the second cipher to the third cipher, and the 'Exorcist' letter symbols aligned with the corrected sixth line of the 340 cipher. This of course all happened by chance and the Zodiac Killer knew nothing about it. 
 
This would indicate that the Zodiac Killer had deliberately placed Paradice and Slaves into the 340 cipher, to which he would give us a clue one year later. The machinations of the '13 Symbol' cipher were most likely constructed in the mind of the killer before November 8th 1969, as to create a continuity between the two ciphers. The idea therefore, that the author of all these communications could interweave these designs together and still create a rambling uniform message to co-exist alongside them within the 340 cipher, would probably be a step too far. The idea of a killer who sat down one evening to write a rambling 340 character message, to which he enciphered using a code key, who would then accidentally and inadvertently create so many by-products in his cipher without his knowledge, seems rather fortuitous. The Zodiac seemingly couldn't resist showing us the workings of his great masterpiece, and would eventually tell us that the 340 code was "no cipher", by giving us a portion of its true design in the 'Halloween' card on October 27th 1970. However, it's far more fun chasing a real cipher, that will long continue for another 50 years.      

The following is based on a very interesting post by Mike Morford on the Zodiac Killer Site forum.
Just past midnight on Sunday November 2nd 1975 a man walked up to a couple's vehicle on Monte Cresta Drive, Belmont, California and shot 17-year-old Carlmont High School student Anthony Vincent Bruno Jr to death. "According to Police Captain George Stephenson, Bruno and his girlfriend (16 years) had been parked on Monte Cresta Drive, above Barclay Way in an isolated area of western hills when a man opened the driver's side door and apparently without saying anything fired the shotgun. The girl, who was not identified by police, pushed Bruno's body aside and drove the car to her home from where police were notified. She described the assailant as white, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 140 pounds and wearing an Army green parka with hood, according to police. Stephenson said also that a late model brown pick-up truck, possibly a Dodge or Chevrolet, had been seen in the area at about the time of the shooting."
San Mateo Times.

Anthony Vincent Bruno was shot in the mouth from close range while the couple were parked on the rise of a hill, described as a lovers lane area. The weapon (believed to be 25+ years old and not made now) malfunctioned when the cut-down stock of the shotgun broke free from the weapon and was found 10 feet from the scene of the crime. The police said it had been taped to the barrel. "The killer then ran south on Monte Cresta from the dark hillside area, past a streetlight 50 yards away, and then possibly to a late model Dodge or Chevrolet pick-up truck". The area of isolated hillside continued for several hundred feet, ending in a dirt road. Here is a newspaper cutting from the actual crime scene and its modern day equivalent on Google maps.

A follow up San Mateo Times article dated December 11th 1975 stated 'The youth, Anthony Vincent Bruno of 213 Bayview Drive, San Carlos, died instantly, his body sprawled on the seat of the parked car beside his terrified 16 year-old girlfriend. The killer then turned, dropped the sawed-off stock of his weapon on the ground, perhaps by accident, and fled. It was disclosed Wednesday that about an hour and a half before the brutal slaying, a man was seen struggling to drag a box about two feet long and 18 inches wide up a steep rise about 100 feet from the slaying site. A rod, or perhaps a rope, protruded from the box, according to police, and the dragging was being done by a man in mechanic's overalls with longish, dark brown hair. Stephenson also confirmed that police are searching for the driver of a maroon pick-up truck, equipped with blackwall tires and white wheels; a vehicle which they have information to believe may have approached the parked couple 15 minutes before the slaying, stopped a distance away, made a u-turn, and apparently drove off.' The girl gave a follow up description "She saw a face but couldn't identify him. She couldn't see whether he was black or white, or anything other than he was 5'5", 140 pounds and wearing a green army-type parka".      

"We've never had a case like this before. This is the bloodiest, most brutal killing I've ever seen", Belmont Police Chief William R Singer said as he surveyed the scene of Belmont's first potential murder case in over two years. "It could be another Zodiac", he added. '

Whether the description of the killer is accurate or not, it is an interesting addition from Mike Morford. The couple were attacked on an isolated lovers lane area while parked up in their vehicle at around midnight, and the killer may have approached their vehicle, left and returned 15 minutes later, not unlike the Blue Rock Springs Park attack on Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. The attack appeared motiveless - and probably the most important thing of all, we shall come to at the foot of this article.

'Wednesday afternoon, Juvenile Division Detective Gary Sickman drove this reporter to the scene of the slaying and replayed what police have linked together about it so far. "This is a little-known lovers' lane", Sickman said. "Many of the kids I've talked with at Carlmont were unaware of it." Sickman drove the patrol car down a narrow dirt road connecting with Monte Cresta Drive; a chuckhole-pocked stretch traversing a ridge high above Belmont Canyon. At the end of the road, a half-mile from the slaying site, a teenaged couple embraced in a parked car. Sickman checked their identification and jotted their names in his notebook after giving them a little fatherly advice'.

This murder was the first in Belmont in over two years. The Zodiac Killer's last confirmed communication was on January 29th 1974, although there were possible Zodiac communications up to July 8th 1974 with the 'Red Phantom' letter. There would have been hoax letters purporting to be the Zodiac Killer subsequent to this, but one would assume the 'novelty' of Zodiac would have worn off in time and the hoax letters would have dropped off in frequency by the November of 1975. That is what makes a letter purporting to be from the Zodiac Killer, found in a phone booth likely on the day of the murder, all the more interesting. 

​Mike Morford stated, in reference to a San Mateo news article dated November 14th 1975 "The reporter, a man named Bob Foster, mentions that on the night of November 3, 1975, the 11 pm TV news on channel KGO, ran a story about a Zodiac letter being found in a phone booth. This is pretty interesting to me for a couple reasons regarding the timing. First of all because, the night before, on 11/2/75, a young man and his girlfriend were attacked on a lovers lane by a gun wielding man. The male victim, Vincent Bruno was killed, but his girlfriend survived. If I recall correctly, there may have been a letter & cassette tape found the same night in a phone booth not far from the attack site, from someone claiming to be Zodiac".

I would like to thank Mike Morford for the information regarding this story. All images are courtesy of the Zodiac Killer Site forum and the San Mateo Times. Here is a link to the thread on Mike Morford's site.  

The last confirmed correspondence by the Zodiac Killer was the 'Exorcist' letter mailed on January 29th 1974, making the 1990 'American Greetings' or 'Eureka' card seem distant from the activities of the Bay Area murderer. We will therefore look at Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose known criminal activities were committed between 1978 and 1995. This will be working on the hypothesis that the Eureka 'Secret Pal' card was chosen separately and independently from the Zodiac Killer's 'Halloween' card mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 27th 1970, twenty years previously. It could have been sent 'piggybacking' on the Zodiac communications, but after two decades it is more likely a case of coincidence.

There is an excellent thread discussing this Christmas card on the Zodiac Killer Site forum, but here we would like to approach the 'Eureka' card from a more simplistic angle and the reasoning behind the xeroxed or photocopied keys contained within the communication.

The wording on the card exterior read; "FROM YOUR SECRET PAL CAN'T GUESS WHO I AM YET? WELL, LOOK INSIDE AND YOU'LL FIND OUT..." and once opened it revealed: "...THAT I'M GONNA KEEP YOU GUESSIN'! HAPPY HOLIDAYS, ANYWAY".  The suggestion, is that once the card is opened it will reveal the identity of its author - and although there is no written message within the Christmas card - there are two photocopied keys. One would therefore like to believe, that this is the clue to the author's identity in the form of an image. Here is a manufactured image of how the presentation may have looked before a negative was produced. 

Many theories have been presented in respect to the image on the left, including the keys being arranged to mimic Groucho Marx smoking a cigar (when viewed upside down) and a play on the words "keys" and "chain". A Unazod article entitled 'A New Zodiac Missive' shows the writing on the envelope of the 'Eureka' card in comparison to a letter mailed to Mrs Irene Preston from Ted Kaczynski in the December of 1990. It is a compelling comparison. However, is there a more simplistic answer to the identity of the author using the image mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Theodore John Kaczynski born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber, is an American domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned an academic career in 1969 to pursue a primitive lifestyle. Then between 1978 and 1995 he killed three people, and injured 23 others, in a nationwide bombing campaign targeting those involved with modern technology, in an attempt to start a revolution. In conjunction, he issued a social critique opposing industrialization and advancing a nature-centered form of anarchism. The initial 1978 bombing was followed by bombs sent to airline officials, and in 1979 a bomb was placed in the cargo hold of American Airlines Flight 444, a Boeing 727 flying from Chicago to Washington, D.C. A faulty timing mechanism prevented the bomb from exploding, but it released smoke, which forced an emergency landing. Authorities said it had enough power to "obliterate the plane" had it exploded. As bombing an airliner is a federal crime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation became involved in the case, designating it UNABOM for UNiversity and Airline BOMber. (U.S. Postal Inspectors, who initially had the case, labeled the suspect the "Junkyard Bomber" because of the material used to make the mail bombs. In 1979, an FBI-led task force that included the ATF and U.S. Postal Inspection Service was formed. The task force grew to more than 150 full-time personnel, but minute analysis of recovered components of the bombs and the investigation into the lives of the victims proved of little use in identifying the suspect, who built his bombs primarily from scrap materials available almost anywhere. The victims, investigators later learned, were chosen irregularly from library research". Wikipedia.

​Could Ted Kaczynski have used a photocopying machine during this library research and mailed the 'Eureka' card to the San Francisco Chronicle in the December of 1990? Ted Kaczynski was later to send carbon copies of his 'Manifesto' to various publications: "Last June and July, the Unabomber mailed carbon copies of the 62-page, single-spaced manifesto to the New York Times, Washington Post, Penthouse magazine and Tom Tyler, a UC Berkeley psychology professor. Tyler appears to have received his copy as something of an afterthought by the bomber. His only known connection to the case is that he had been quoted in a Bay Area newspaper commenting on the behavior of the serial killer". Los Angeles Times.

​"Beginning in the 1970s, Kaczynski targeted universities and airlines, injuring 23 people and killing three. After a threat mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle in June 1995, the USPS scrambled to come up with a plan to inspect all air mail packages out of California. For six days, USPS did not accept packages or letters bigger than 12 ounces. The threat, Kaczynski later admitted through an anonymous letter to the New York Times, was a prank. He had played the system against itself—delivering anonymous taunts through the mail and disrupting the very mail-delivery system". The Atlantic. 

The 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski would either mail his explosive devices using the postal service or hand deliver - so were the USPS (United States Postal Service) keys xeroxed and mailed with the 'Eureka' card to the San Francisco Chronicle, as a form of taunting towards the authorities he so obviously railed against in a game of cat and mouse - and within the image a clue to his name using only two alphabetical letters. The etched writing on the keys of USPS DO NOT DUPLICATE could be considered ironic with regards to the xeroxed image supplied.   

Ted Kaczynski claimed his first main casualty, when John Hauser, a captain in the Air Force was partially blinded in one eye and lost four fingers when receiving a mailed bomb in 1985. Hugh Scrutton, who owned a California computer store, in 1985 became the first fatality of the bombing campaign, followed in 1994 by Thomas J Mosser, an advertising executive and Gilbert P Murray in 1995, president of a lobbyist timber industry group. 

​Earlier in Ted Kaczynski's bombing campaign, on June 10th 1980, Percy Wood, president of American Airlines opened a package containing a book called 'Ice Brothers' packed with explosives, from which he narrowly cheated death. The device was constructed using wood - the victim's last name was Wood and the return address was from a street named Ravenswood. ​Was Ted Kaczynski playing a game of words with investigators in his attempted murder of Percy Wood? Inside the chiseled out section of the book Ted Kaczynski had inserted a small piece of metal in which the letters "FC" had been punched into its face. These two alphabetical letters would be used throughout his bombing campaign to identify his work to authorities. "In all, 16 bombs—which injured 23 people and killed 3—were attributed to Kaczynski. While the devices varied widely through the years, all but the first few contained the initials "FC." Inside his bombs, certain parts carried the inscription "FC," which Kaczynski later asserted stood for "Freedom Club."

One of Kaczynski's tactics was leaving false clues in every bomb. He would deliberately make them hard to find to mislead investigators into thinking they had a clue. The first clue was a metal plate stamped with the initials "FC" hidden somewhere (usually in the pipe end cap) in every bomb. One false clue he left was a note in a bomb that did not detonate, which reads "Wu—It works! I told you it would—RV".  Wikipedia.

One can see that Ted Kaczynski was fond of leaving cryptic clues for investigators to find - so is it any great leap of faith that Ted Kaczynski would choose a Christmas card beginning with the lines "From your secret pal. Can't guess who I am yet?  Well look inside and you'll find out". So If Ted Kaczynski was to leave his name within the 'Eureka' card, then it had to be connected with the xeroxed image, and quite possibly may have been two initials in length. The image presented is that of 'Two Keys", the initials of which are TK, representing Ted Kaczynski. ​It's a simplistic analysis - but it's a simplistic image, with limited room for maneuver. 

The idea that the murderer of JonBenet Patricia Ramsey on 25/26th December 1996 would break into the Ramsey household, write a two and a half page ransom note using a notepad and pen found within the house (taking in excess of 22 minutes to compose), rather than write the note beforehand, and then not actually kidnap the young girl, but kill her in the basement, beggars belief.
Analysis of the note and the language contained within it, tends to indicate that it was written by a female.

Mr. Ramsey,
Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction. We do respect your bussiness but not the country that it serves. At this time we have your daughter in our posession. She is safe and unharmed and if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to the letter.
You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier delivery pick-up of your daughter.
Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I., etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar with law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back.
You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the authorities. Don't try to grow a brain John. You are not the only fat cat around so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't underestimate us John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. It is up to you now John!
Victory!
S.B.T.C  Youtube.

This will be an exploration into the premise that the November 29th 1966 'Confession' letter, the Riverside 'Desktop Poem' and the three Bates letters were written by a female, consumed with hatred and jealousy towards her fellow womenfolk, and not by the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates, brutally stabbed and beaten in a Riverside alleyway on October 30th 1966. Here is the wording contained within the typed 'Confession' letter:
​
She was young and beautiful. But now she is battered and dead. She is not the first and she will not be the last. I lay awake nights thinking about my next victon. May'be she will be the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven. Maybe she will be the shapely blue eyed brunett that said xxx no when I asked her for a date in high school. But maybe it will not be either. But I shall cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see. So dont make it to easy for me. Keep your sisters, daughters and wives off the streets and alleys. Miss Bates was stupid. She went to the slaghter like a lamb. She did not put up a struggle. But I did. It was a ball. I first pulled the middle wire from the distributor. Then I waited for her in the library and followed her out after about two minutes. The battery must have been about dead by then. I then offered to help. She was then very willing to talk to me. I told her that my car was down the street and that I would give her a lift home. When we were away from the library walking, I said it was about time. She asked me "about time for what". I said it was about time for her to die. I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth and my other hand with a small knife at her throat. She went very willingly. Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands. But only one thing was on my mind. Making her pay for all the brush offs that she had given me during the years prior. She died hard. She squirmed and shook as I chocked her. And her lips twiched. She let out a scream once and I kicked her in the head to shut her up. I plunged the knife into her and it broke. I then finished the job out cutting her throat. I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game. This letter should be published for all to read it. It just might save that girl in the alley. But that's up to you. It will be on your conscience. Not mine. Yes I did make that call to you also. It was just a warning. Beware....I am stalking your girls now.
CC.
Chief of Police Enterprise.

Although not wholly scientific, the wording from the 'Confession' letter was placed into two online tools to determine the gender of its author. Textgain, a web service for predictive text analytics, predicted a female of 25 years or over, with 75% confidence. Hacker Factor, in formal genre, scored 849 for female and 428 for male, and a weak emphasis for European origin.

This analysis is not pushing the idea that the author of the Riverside communications was a female, simply considering it a possibility based on the language used - particularly within the 'Confession' letter and Riverside 'Desktop Poem'. 

The 'Confession' letter author appears to be reveling in the murder and demise of Cheri Jo Bates, a trait not exhibited by the Zodiac Killer, who not only never mentioned his victims by name, but didn't dwell on the nature of the murders themselves. Here, the author is positively wallowing in the details of their achievement, opening with the lines "She was young and beautiful. But now she is battered and dead". In addition to being morally bankrupt, the author is going out of their way to exhibit a spiteful and malicious streak in the tone of the letter. Providing details of the crime to prove their connection to it, which they ultimately failed to do, appears of secondary importance to the author.  

Scouring any piece of text to discover the gender of its author is similar to handwriting comparison - it's subjective and dependent on the observer - and therefore cannot be scientifically validated. This is important to remember when reading the following observations. Would a male individual have used the language contained within the 'Confession' letter? Just like the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note, the author appears to be selling a story - how "the shapely blue eyed brunett said no when I asked her for a date in high school" or maybe they will kill "the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven". Phrases such as "the shapely blue eyed brunett", "the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store", "she went very willingly. Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands", "keep your sisters, daughters and wives off the streets and alleys" and "it just might save that girl in the alley. But that's up to you. It will be on your conscience. Not mine", raises some questions as to the gender of the 'Confession' letter typist, who is adding superfluous detail into the story behind the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. In addition to this, making sure we understood that 'he' was rejected "by the shapely blue eyed brunett" and was "brushed off" by Cheri Jo Bates many times in 'his' pursuit of a heterosexual relationship. 

For those who believe a Riverside connection to the Zodiac Killer, another factor must be considered. Despite the addresses of the Bay Area victims being widely publicized in the newspapers, not once did the Zodiac Killer write to the family members of the victims, such as David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen and Darlene Ferrin, to name but three - as typified by the author of the Joseph Bates letter, in what can only be described as a cruel and unnecessary act. The mailing of the Joseph Bates letter, again exemplified the callousness of an individual who seemingly bathed in the misery of the murder itself, something evidently absent from the Zodiac communications.

Are these observations, particularly regarding the 'Confession' letter, suggestive of a female author, or a male of effeminate tendencies or inadequacies who just got "brushed off". Or possibly a complete stranger. Your thoughts on either the 'Confession' letter or the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note would be welcome.      

Here we will take a further look at the two letters mailed from Fairfield to the San Francisco Chronicle on December 7th 1969 and the San Francisco Examiner on December 16th 1969. Many have dismissed these two communications as having been penned by the Zodiac Killer, but either way, they were almost certainly written by the same individual. The most important question to ask - is were these letters ever publicized in the newspapers during the December of 1969. They seemingly got no coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle or Examiner newspapers, but did they appear in any other publication? If not, then there can be little doubt these two Fairfield letters were mailed by the Zodiac Killer. 

The article on the left appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 28th 1969, regarding the letter mailed to attorney Melvin Belli on December 20th 1969. It states "The Zodiac Killer-unheard of in recent weeks-is back in operation and pleading for help before he takes his ninth and tenth victims".

The Melvin Belli letter was mailed only 13 days after the December 7th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle 'Fairfield' letter, so it appeared as though the Chronicle had dismissed the Fairfield letter, claiming they had not heard from the Zodiac "in recent weeks". They apparently never published the Fairfield letter (unless anybody knows otherwise), and the follow up letter on December 16th 1969, mailed to the San Francisco Examiner equally appeared to make little impact. Why were these communications apparently overlooked? 

Many Zodiac researchers and enthusiasts regard the two Fairfield letters to have been penned by a hoaxer - but if the letters were created by a hoaxer why did he do such a poor job as to negate the purpose of sending them. The Zodiac Killer created two organized and structured ciphers of 408 and 340 characters. Both were designed with care, using seventeen characters in each row, and a form of 'filler' on the 408 code to keep the cipher symmetrical. The December 7th 1969 Fairfield letter contained a 38 character code, much of which was 'stolen' from the 340 cipher and formed into scruffy disorganized rows. If the letter writer was attempting to disguise himself as Zodiac, then why didn't he simply create a few lines of symbols in an organized fashion like the 408 and 340 cipher. The fact he didn't do this could suggest that he wasn't trying to pass himself off as Zodiac - because he was Zodiac. The argument, is that the December 7th 1969 letter is a poor Zodiac imitation and therefore not the Zodiac. However, it isn't very difficult to copy any of the characters from the first two ciphers and create a new and realistic looking cipher that mimics its predecessors. This is not a difficult task - and neither is the handwriting. The following image (December 7th 1969 Fairfield letter and 38 character code) was inspired by a forum thread on Zodiac Killer Site.

The December 7th 1969 letter stated "I just need help. I will kill again so expect it any time now. The will be a cop. Then I will Turn myself in  OK". If this letter was by a hoaxer and not published in any newspapers, then how was the Zodiac Killer able to know its contents. The December 20th 1969 'Melvin Belli' letter was confirmed Zodiac correspondence, as it contained a piece of Paul Stine's blooded shirt. The Melvin Belli letter pleaded for assistance: "Dear Melvin. This is the Zodiac speaking. I wish you a happy Christmass. The one thing I ask of you is this, please help me. I cannot reach out for help because of this thing in me won't let me. I am finding it extreamly dificult to hold it in check I am afraid I will loose control again and take my nineth & posibly tenth victom. Please help me I am drownding. At the moment the children are safe from the bomb because it is so massive to dig in & the triger mech requires much work to get it adjusted just right. But if I hold back too long from no nine I will loose complet all controol of my self & set the bomb up. Please help me. I can not remain in control for much longer".

Can it be argued that the Fairfield letter stating "I just need help" and the Melvin Belli letter thrice urging "please help me" just 13 days later, was just simple coincidence, or is it more likely the Zodiac Killer had written the earlier Fairfield letter and was just continuing the theme. In addition, the second part of the December 7th Fairfield letter is threatening to kill a cop just like the communication following the Belli letter on April 20th 1970, in which Zodiac suggested "there is more glory in killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back". Additionally. the Fairfield letter after stating he "needs help," intimates he "will kill again," as does the Melvin Belli letter when warning he "will lose control again".

Now let us approach this from a different angle and consider the possibility that the December 7th 1969 letter was featured in the Fairfield Daily Republic newspaper, or some other publication prior to the Zodiac Killer composing the Melvin Belli letter.
The Zodiac Killer certainly appeared to design his ciphers in a carefully structured way - so imagine - that when saw this poorly designed and crude 38 character code plagiarizing his 340 cipher in a newspaper, why on earth would he then validate the hoaxer by mimicking the December 7th 1969 letter by stating "please help me" in the Melvin Belli letter later that month. One would think he'd have wanted to disassociate himself from it. Whatever approach you pursue, tends to validate the December 7th 1969 letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, and by association, the December 16th 1969 letter mailed to the San Francisco Examiner, which was almost certainly penned by the same author. The latter Fairfield letter could also have links to the 'Halloween' card, with the code reading Death By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife. link    

Much has been made of the single postage on both the Fairfield envelopes, the writing paper used by the author and the crudeness of the two short codes. However, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all these anomalies.

The Zodiac Killer thought he had sent proof of his connection to the first two crimes when he mailed the trinity of July 31st 1969 letters. Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz urged the author for more details to prove he was the killer, and the Zodiac duly obliged on August 4th 1969. The Zodiac then mailed a piece of taxicab driver Paul Stine's shirt in his next three consecutive and 'confirmed' communications. Firstly, in the October 13th letter, secondly, with the November 8/9 card and letter, and finally with the Melvin Belli letter.

All these communications were mailed from San Francisco, likely during his normal routine - but the December 7th & 16th letters were mailed from Fairfield. If he was away from his usual residence during this span of 10 days (possibly having broken up for Christmas) and was on holiday, or visiting family, or simply away from his home location on business, then it is conceivable that he had to improvise with writing paper and stamps. He most certainly would have stored the blooded shirt piece in a secure location (possibly at home), to which he likely had no access during the mailing of the two Fairfield letters. These letters have all the hallmarks of 'spur of the moment' communications while away from his home location. This may explain their deviation from what had come before or after. Nevertheless, it is crucial to find out if these two Fairfield letters were published by any newspapers prior to December 20th 1969. If they weren't published, then the two Fairfield letters are almost certainly penned by the Zodiac Killer. 

THE 340 CIPHER WAS CRACKED ON DECEMBER 3RD 2020 BY DAVE ORANCHAK, SAM BLAKE AND JARL VAN EYCKE, SO THIS EARLIER ARTICLE SHOULD BE VIEWED IN RESPECT TO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

Here we will revisit an article published by the San Francisco Examiner on October 22nd 1969, in which Professor D.C.B. Marsh, president of the American Cryptogram Association laid down a challenge to Zodiac. The words he chose to use in this article may be the bedrock to much of the subsequent Zodiac communications, beginning with the 340 cipher, mailed only seventeen days after the San Francisco Examiner article. Here are the crucial extracts from that article.

'Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name-in cipher code-would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code, which will truly and honestly include his name". It is difficult to believe that Zodiac, an avid reader of the newspapers, could resist such a challenge, particularly as he had promised to reveal his identity in the 408 cipher two months earlier but failed to do so.  

The key section to note in the challenge by Professor D.C.B. Marsh is: "I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code, which will truly and honestly include his name". Seventeen days later, the Zodiac Killer duly obliged with the November 8th 1969 340 cipher. Could this cipher have included the killer's name, but not in the format envisaged by Professor D.C.B. Marsh?

In a previous article entitled 'Zodiac Admitted 340 Not a Real Cipher' we examined the idea that the 340 cipher was inextricably linked to the Zodiac's Halloween card, mailed on October 27th 1970. One can notice that the word "By" is located in each of the four quadrants of the 340 cipher. The author of the cipher also placed the letters F and K adjacent to one another no less than seven times (situated in each quadrant). But of particular interest was the corrected section on the sixth line of the 340 cipher, where the author chose to scrub out a forward facing K and replace it with a backwards K, elevated above the blacked out section (shown in red rectangle}.

The Zodiac Killer was known for numerous spelling errors in his communications, so why was it seemingly imperative to correct this one mistake? Was this correction crucial to the interpretation of the cipher, or was he drawing our attention to the letters in this section of the cipher? Are the F and K characters the initials of the Zodiac Killer? This observation carries little merit on its own, so to bolster any argument for the initials of the Zodiac Killer being present in the 340 cipher, we have to explore the rest of his communications, particularly from around the time of the 'Halloween' card, in which we suggested was his admission that the 340 was unfortunately "no cipher". 

Linking the Halloween card and 340 cipher through a Tim Holt comic book and explaining to us that the solution was "sorry no cipher" left us with the possibility that the 340 cipher was just a collection of puzzles, in which may have contained his name. The Zodiac Killer "wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts", but he may have given us the abridged version. We now enter the crucial phase of Zodiac communications, from the 13-Hole postcard mailed on October 5th 1970, to the Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974. This critical period of four consecutive communications, is probably key to understanding the message the Zodiac Killer was trying to push. That the 340 was "sorry no cipher".    

In the 13-Hole postcard the Zodiac Killer stated "There are reports city police pig cops are closeing in on me. Fk I'm crackproof. What is the price tag now?" This section of pasted letters was placed upside down. The question one should be asking is 'what is the purpose behind this'. If its significance had no relevance to the actual postcard, did it have relevance to another communication.

The wording "FK I'm crackproof" could indicate that the killer thought he was immune from capture, however, it could also be a reference to his 340 cipher once again. The word "crackproof" is something that is unable to be cracked. The 340 cipher would certainly be impervious to cracking, and certainly resistant to the attempts of The American Cryptogram Association had the killer devised a cipher not of conventional understanding, of which Professor D.C.B. Marsh was hoping when he laid down the challenge. The F and K text being flipped on the 13-Hole postcard reminds one of the flipped K (next to F) on the only corrected portion of the 340 cipher. If FK were the Zodiac Killer's initials, then he certainly could be declaring that he was crackproof. 

​Professor D.C.B. Marsh stated  "He knows, to quote Edgar Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name-in cipher code-would lead to his capture". However, the Zodiac Killer could give his name in the form of initials without any fear of revealing his identity, and without risking his immediate capture. This may have manifested itself when he mailed his following cipher on April 20th 1970, when he opened with the gambit "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you. My name is...."  The code placed underneath was likely an immediate rebuttal to this question. 

All he is probably doing, is stating "My name is FK," and once again telling us he is crackproof, just like the 13-Hole postcard, which would be mailed five-and-a-half months later. The phrase "FK I'm crackproof" fits perfectly in circular formation within the 13-Symbol cipher - which itself contains a series of circled 8's. Structured in this fashion, the F and K yet again align, as does the K and M in both the cipher and phrase. 

Continuing with our four consecutive communications from October 5th 1970 onward, we now have the October 27th 1970 Halloween card promising to yet again reveal his name: "I feel it in my bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in". Again we feel disappointed only to see the word "Boo" on the card inner - but we know the Zodiac Killer isn't going to make this a conventional and straightforward offering. He offers us the phrase "sorry no cipher," but can we find his name or initials within this communication. This is where it gets more difficult, nevertheless, we are aware that within the 13 -Hole postcard he reversed or flipped the text containing "FK I'm crackproof" and he flipped the K (next to the F) on the sixth line of the 340 cipher. So the obvious conclusion, is to look for flipped or reversed text within the Halloween card.  

The only place that F and K exist within one word on the Halloween card, is in the word "knife." either side of the reversed letter N. If we flipped the reversed N back to its appropriate position, the F and K of "knife" would be reversed yet again.

Now let us turn our attention to the peculiar configuration at the foot of the card inner. It would be extremely satisfying for the Halloween card to read "I feel it in my bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in... FK" - so that is what we will create, by manipulating this card to read whatever we want it to. The strange symbol, reading it as true as possible, appears like a number 7, followed by four dots and the letter F.
7+4=11=K (followed by F).

Without further ado, we shall move on to the next confirmed Zodiac communication on March 13th 1971, in which the Zodiac stated "This is the Zodiac speaking. Like I have allways said, I am crack proof. If the Blue Meannies are evere going to catch me, they had best get off their fat asses + do something. Because the longer they fiddle + fart around, the more slaves I will collect for my after life. I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there. The reason I'm writing to the Times is this, They don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others". You will notice that the Zodiac Killer refers to "crackproof" once again, parroting his October 5th 1970 communication five months earlier. However, he doesn't just state he is crackproof, he reminds us that he has always been telling us he is crackproof, and quite possibly we just haven't got the message.

Roll on the January 29th 1974 'Exorcist' letter, signed "yours truley," nearly three years later - giving us our final installment of FK contained within the array of symbols at the foot of the letter. On this occasion he mirrors the sixth line of the 340 cipher by elevating the K above the letter F, and to its left. In fact, five characters from the Exorcist letter can be found in and around the corrected sixth line of the 340 cipher, as shown here in a previous article. This was possibly the fourth consecutive communication inferring an FK link and the suggestion that the author was indeed "crackproof".
 
Was this a persistent and deliberate attempt to be true to the challenge laid down by The American Cryptogram Association and Professor D.C.B Marsh, by inserting his name (albeit initials) into the 340 cipher and subsequent communications, or just a case that my mind is F@@Ked after six exhausting years of looking for patterns where none exist.

As has been pointed out by many intelligent posters, the Zodiac Killer never actually claimed any crimes that would later be attributed to another criminal, because he was simply too vague when insinuating his attachment to these said crimes. Two notable examples would be the June 19th 1970 murder of Officer Richard Radetich and the October 30th 1966 stabbing of Cheri Jo Bates - the latter of which he only 'suggested' in March of 1971, stating "I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there". 

There is without doubt some interesting connections between the Zodiac and Riverside, in particular, the trinity of consecutive communications from April of 1967, to the three July 31st 1969 letters that began the letter writing campaign by the Zodiac Killer. It is therefore understandable that many observers want to interpret the symbol at the foot of the Bates letters as an alphabetical Z to bridge the connection between the Bay Area and Riverside, and bolster an argument for it. However, was this symbol seriously considered to be an alphabetical Z before the arrival of Zodiac just over two years later, or was it just a convenient reappraisal.   

Here are the two prominent Z like characters from the foot of the Bates letters, mailed to the Riverside Press Enterprise and Riverside Police Department. It is easy to want these to be an alphabetical Z, but unless the Zodiac performed a near identical error on two occasions, or just happened to have aligned his writing paper over an uneven writing surface in both instances, then there is little reason to believe these two characters are a Z. Additionally, if these two characters were a Z (representing Zodiac), then why not just write 'Zodiac' at the foot of the Bates letters. 
 
Two years later, on July 31st 1969, the killer we now know as Zodiac, announced himself to the world when he wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald newspapers, but yet again, despite supposedly masquerading as the Zodiac Killer he was still apparently reticent to reveal his pseudonym to the world, only introducing himself as "the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman + the girl on the 4th of July". For a egotistical murderer so bold, he seemed rather reluctant to reveal his identity. Had Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz not questioned the July 31st 1969 letter writer in the August 3rd 1969 San Francisco Examiner, stating he was "still not convinced the letters and codes were written by the actual killer, and urging the writer to send more letters, with more facts to prove his connections to the crimes," then the August 4th 1969 Debut of Zodiac letter would not have been written by the killer. In other words, the Zodiac Killer would still not have been born. How can we reconcile this reluctance to announce the pseudonym Zodiac to the world, with the fact he had supposedly concocted this pseudonym by the time of the Bates letters in April 1967?            

Many people have stated that the Zodiac Killer acquired the pseudonym Zodiac and the crosshairs symbol from the Swiss watchmaker, as they appear together under one banner.

"In 1882, Ariste Calame founded a workshop for the production of special watches in Le Locle, Switzerland. The original name of the company was Ariste Calame and would later become Zodiac. The name "Zodiac" was used early but was not registered until 1908. The founder's son, Louis Ariste Calame, was sent to watchmaking school, and then began to participate in the business in 1895, and took over the business that year". Wikipedia.

If the Zodiac Killer was inspired by a watchmaker, then one has to ask the question - why did he only use the crosshairs in his three July 31st 1969 letters and seemingly abandon the name Zodiac, if an advertisement such as the one on the right was the trigger? Again, he only introduced himself as the Zodiac Killer four days later when the Debut of Zodiac letter arrived at the San Francisco Examiner, and even that wouldn't have arrived if the killer had not been prompted by Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz.

The idea of gunsight crosshairs, proposed by many, may be the likely inspiration for the murderer of three young people at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park. The standalone crosshairs at the foot of each of the July 31st 1969 letters appear to be the logical conclusion to the threat that preceded it. The San Francisco Chronicle, for example, finished with an ominous threat: "I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend". So it isn't particularly illogical that this threat may be followed by a "target" sign or the crosshairs of a gun, without the need for the pseudonym Zodiac or a connection to a famous watchmaker. The killer is simply signing off his letters by indicating he has more people in his sights.
If there ever was the perfect opportunity to announce himself to the American people under the name Zodiac, this was the perfect time - in accompaniment with a trinity of letters and his opening coded message - in which he actually promised to reveal his identity. However, this opportunity was spurned. The reason for this, one could argue, was the pseudonym Zodiac had not been conceived by the killer at this juncture.

The San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle of August 3rd 1969 opened with the lines "A self-accused killer failed to keep a threat of mass murder here, but there was no slackening of tension or mystery caused by the warning. The police department telephone system was clogged at times by anxious callers asking if the "cipher killer" had been caught".  In this short snippet of text, probably lay the inspiration behind the pseudonym Zodiac, as he was not prepared to be labelled the "cipher killer" by anybody. This was the push he needed. The following day the Zodiac was etched into the minds of police and newspapers alike, and has remained so for nearly half a century.    

The answer to the origin of the pseudonym Zodiac likely sits within the pages of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle of August 3rd 1969. Somebody with access to newspaper archives may be able to discover the inspiration behind America's most infamous serial killer. One possibility could be the Zodiac horoscope section, or an advertisement such as the one above for Zodiac watches. Had the latter been the case, it could be strongly argued that the Zodiac Killer was extremely fortunate in signing off his three July 31st 1969 letters with threatening crosshairs, only to discover they were also the symbol used by the Swiss watchmaker only three days later.

On the contrary, had the Swiss watchmaker been the original inspiration behind the Zodiac's pseudonym and logo, then why did he fail to introduce the name "Zodiac" in his July 31st 1969 letters. He delayed the introduction until his August 4th 1969 letter to the San Francisco Examiner, in direct response to the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle article of August 3rd 1969. Therefore, this newspaper had to be the driver behind the name Zodiac, not only because of his lack of affection for the "cipher killer" pseudonym, but because the name Zodiac probably lay somewhere within its folded pages.       

Randall Scott Clemons has recently released a book on Amazon examining the ciphers and codes of the Zodiac Killer.
​Entitled 'Zodiac Killer Enigma-The Secret of the Zodiac Killer Schematic,' it encompasses ten years of dedicated research into the mechanics of the Bay Area killer's letters, postcards, maps and codes in a visually stunning presentation.
This is an altogether new and fresh approach into the workings of the Zodiac Killer, tackling the codes and puzzles from a completely unique perspective, and unearthing interesting new avenues into what drove and inspired the Zodiac Killer during his reign of terror in Northern California nearly half a century ago.
Along with the ciphers and codes, the book also covers the crimes of the Zodiac Killer, bringing the black and white photographs of yesteryear into full color images, thereby breathing new life into a case that has rivaled the Jack the Ripper mystery in recent years.
The Zodiac Killer enigma has gathered unfettered momentum since the release of the blockbuster David Fincher movie in 2007, inspiring a collective push to unearth the identity of America's most elusive and infamous serial killer. Randall Scott Clemons' book is further proof of how this mystery captivates everyone that becomes embroiled in its web of intrigue, and as such, has resulted in a comprehensive analysis of great detail.
​                                     Amazon Books.    

In 2013, Tahoe27 made an excellent discovery, almost certainly linking the Halloween card with a Tim Holt comic featuring the Wheel of Fortune or Rota Fortunae. The cover displayed the four methods of death used by the Zodiac Killer on his Halloween card configuration of Death By Gun, Death By Knife, Death By Fire and Death By Rope.

However, the discovery may be far greater than first considered, with the 1952 Tim Holt comic the source behind the design of the 340 cipher on November 8th 1969. The Halloween card was just the confirmation that the 340 was not a cipher at all, hence the crossed "sorry no cipher" addition on the inside of the envelope, linking the Paradice and Slaves configuration back to the November 8th 1969 offering. ​See 'Zodiac admitted 340 not a real cipher' [pt1].' The Zodiac Killer may have been pushing us in the right direction on October 27th 1970, but his attempt at revealing the workings of the 340 cipher may have begun as early as December 16th 1969 - when just 38 days after his 'so called' masterpiece, the Zodiac Killer was claiming a potential 38 more victims.

The December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter has been considered dubious Zodiac correspondence, however, it may have been Zodiac's first foray into revealing the mechanics of the 340 cipher, albeit using a rudimentary code as a tool. There are two key features of this correspondence which possibly links it to the Halloween card - and more importantly - to the Tim Holt comic. The second we will deal with later, but the first is the rather amateurish offering of a code consisting of only nine characters.

Clearly, the Zodiac must have known that offering just five different symbols in a code of nine is open to many different interpretations and therefore practically unsolvable. Therefore, one could suggest this wasn't his intention - he was simply teasing us with the mechanics of how the 340 cipher was designed by using a rudimentary diagram based on the Tim Holt comic - and something he would expand upon nearly a year later. One can see how he uses the four Zodiac crosshairs around the large crossed circle in the Fairfield letter codethereby implying a uniformity of message in these four quadrants, but aligns five symbols as an introduction to this design. This marries perfectly with Death By Gun, Death By Knife, Death By Fire and Death By Rope. Death is the introduction, followed by the methods of death around the large crossed circle. This is exactly what he offered us on October 27th 1970, when he placed the methods of death in the four quadrants of the bisecting Paradice and Slaves.  Here is a representation. 

The November 8th and 9th 1969 communications came as one package, and he certainly wasn't going to reveal the workings of the 340 cipher after just one day in the Bus Bomb letter, so the December 16th 1969 (or possibly December 7th 1969) Fairfield communication was effectively the Zodiac Killer's first communication after the 340 cipher. Can we again call it coincidence that, not only did the Fairfield offering give us a further code, but Death By Gun, Death By Knife, Death By Fire and Death By Rope would fall readily into its design, as would the Halloween card configuration of Paradice and Slaves so readily mirror the 340 cipher - possibly bringing these three communications in line with one another. The second interesting feature of the Fairfield letter is the wording the author uses: "This is the Zodiac speaking. I just want to tell you this state is in trouble. I will go for the Goverment life, so don't foreget me. I will kill more people than you cops can count, so look for more blood. You better print".    

The Halloween card has become synonymous with either a threat of a fourteenth victim or the claim of a fourteenth victim. However, the number four may hold more significance within its design. The eyes are obviously of great importance to the Zodiac Killer - after all, he added twelve to the card inner, along with 4-TEEN and the unusual symbol. He deliberately chose to separate fourteen, creating the number 4. He added four larger eyes outside of the tree, as well as placing four dots around the symbol. He also highlighted four eyes on the skeletons in red, on both the card outer and inner. 

The strange symbol (with the four dots) could be a joined Z, V and F - and being preceded by four eyes - could simply be interpreted as "look for Zodiac victim fourteen", or with respect to 4-TEEN, "look for number four-teen". Up to this point and beyond, none of Zodiac's confirmed or insinuated victims (Kathleen Johns, Cheri Jo Bates and Richard Radetich) lay undiscovered, so it is entirely possible that this card was referring to the disappearance of Donna Ann Lass 51 days earlier. The skeletons indicative of a body lain undiscovered for a measurable period of time. The coloring of the four skeleton eyes may be suggestive of blood or death - a formula used in the creation of the 13 Hole postcard on October 5th 1970, where the author added a pasted red crucifix to the card.

The Halloween card could be telling us to "look for Zodiac victim fourteen" or equally "look for blood," as did the Fairfield letter on December 16th 1969 when the author stated "I will kill more people than you cops can count, so look for more blood. You better print". This discovery by Tahoe27 on December 30th 2013 was certainly a great find, but it may just turn out to be the greatest find of them all. A discovery that may finally reveal the 340 offering to be masquerading as a fully fledged cipher, that has had us chasing our tails for nearly half a century. Albeit, undecipherable at the time, the answer was probably staring us in the face just 38 days after the November 8th 1969 communication - in a letter many thought was penned by a hoaxer.

ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT1]
ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT2]

Courtesy of Zodiac Killer Site forum. These envelopes have been cleaned up using editing tools. 

This is a continuation from the previous article 'Zodiac Admitted 340 Not a Real Cipher.'
You will notice that the paradice and slaves configuration from the Halloween card fits nicely into the 340 cipher.
The two dashes on the 10th line are represented by the letter S.
The left-facing V on the 9th column and 10th line are represented by the letter E.
​The two addition signs on the 9th column are represented by the letter A.
When the letter R of paradice is placed into its only conceivable position, along with the L and V from slaves, it is reminiscent of the Halloween card. What are the chances that this could be achieved accidentally?  

The word paradice travels vertically 17 lines, exactly matching the 17 columns that slaves travels horizontally. The Zodiac Killer placed crosshairs beneath the 9th column, the midsection of the cipher (shown here). The intersection on the Halloween card configuration forms RAD and LAV, exactly the same as the bisecting center point of the 340 cipher. The Zodiac Killer also underlined the LAV of Paul Averly on the Halloween card envelope, on which he also placed the intersecting "sorry no cipher" on the envelope inner. 

The Halloween card stamp depicts the surface of the moon with a half-earth in the distance and the words "In the beginning God". This phrase fits perfectly on the 1st line (the beginning) of the 340 cipher, with the 15th, 16th and 17th characters uncannily similar to the word GOD (the O in half phase just like the image on the stamp). 

ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT3]
ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT1]

Many have questioned whether the November 8th 1969 340 cipher was a genuine offering by the Zodiac Killer, designed to reveal a complete message akin to the 408 cipher. Another consideration was whether the Zodiac Killer concealed the key to the 340 cipher in one of his other communications? The answer to the last question is almost certainly yes, but the answer to the first question is looking less likely with every passing year. The Zodiac Killer may very well have admitted in one of his correspondences that the 340 code was not a cipher. 

One of the best finds in recent years was by Tahoe27, a regular contributor to the Zodiac Killer Site forum, who in December 2013 discovered a connection between a Tim Holt comic and the October 27th 1970 Halloween card. Many features on the cover of the comic parallel the Halloween card, including the wording By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife, along with "Redmask" (the skeleton eyes) and "Lady Doom" (peek-a-boo you are doomed). However, I believe Tahoe27 is not convinced that the Halloween card was authored by the Zodiac Killer. If the Halloween card was authored by an impostor, who based the Halloween card on issue 30 of the Tim Holt comic, then are we to believe he was extremely fortunate that a year earlier, the real Zodiac Killer just happened to create a 340 cipher containing the word "BY" in all four quadrants of the cipher, along with PARADICE and SLAVES being a possibility, running vertically and horizontally along the midpoint of the cipher, just like the configuration on the Halloween card.
​
Admittedly, the words paradice and slaves have not been proven as the intention by the Zodiac Killer in the 340 cipher, but the fact they are a distinct possibility when we draw a comparison to the Halloween card, appears another very fortunate stroke of luck - particularly if we believe the author of the Halloween card wasn't the Zodiac Killer - and only considered the Tim Holt comic in his design of the Halloween card. If the Halloween card was crafted by the Zodiac Killer using only the Tim Holt comic, then the above still applies. The more likely conclusion we could draw from this, is that the 340 cipher was designed with the Tim Holt comic in mind, and the Halloween card mailed one year later was giving us a clue.    

On the right, we can see how the four words "BY" fit into each quadrant of the 340 cipher just like the Halloween card offering. What are the odds that in each quadrant of 80 characters we would find the letters B and Y together either horizontally or vertically every time. Not to mention the fortunate appearance of paradice and slaves bisecting the cipher perfectly. The killer may even have given us his signature in the bottom right corner, along with the running total, which was seven and counting on November 8th 1969.

If this wasn't the intended design of the 340 cipher, then either the Zodiac Killer or an impostor got extremely lucky in just happening upon a Tim Holt comic that mirrored the 340 cipher unintentionally. But we may just be able to prove a definite link between these two communications and confidently state that both were designed by the Zodiac Killer - and with a fair degree of confidence argue that the 340 cipher is not a cipher in the true sense of the word. The majority of the characters likely filler, but in this instance, far more than the 18 characters at the foot of the 408 cipher. The reason we may be able to argue that the 340 cipher is not a continuous and uniform message like the 408 cipher (and not a cipher as we believe one to be), is because the Zodiac Killer lined us up for a fall and then admitted to it a year later.

On the 'Dripping Pen' card accompanying the 340 cipher, the killer stated
"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. 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". Was that bad news to come on October 27th 1970 when he mailed the Halloween card. If we believe that the Halloween card design is referring back to the 340 cipher, then the message concealed on the envelope inner of "sorry no cipher" is the Zodiac Killer finally admitting that the 340 cipher is not the real cipher we had thought. He is apologizing and declaring that the 340 is "no cipher", but is primarily based upon the paradice and slaves configuration. This is why he crosses the phrase "sorry no cipher" to mimic the design of paradice and slaves, using 13 letters in both instances. The Zodiac Killer could easily have written "sorry no cipher" just the once, but deliberately fashioned it to form a link between the Halloween card design and the 340 cipher.

After searching for solutions to the 340 cipher for nearly half a century, the Zodiac Killer may have given us the answer to its design after just one year, but sadly it was overlooked. We have took the phrase "sorry no cipher" as an apology that he wasn't giving us a cipher in the Halloween card, when in actual fact, he was apologizing for stringing us along for the best part of a year, before finally offering us the real solution to the 340 cipher on October 27th 1970, contained within the Halloween card. You could say it was a "trick" and "treat" befitting of Halloween. However, there is still a little more to find regarding the methods of death and how they configure within the 340 itself - so the search is not over yet.

ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT2]
ZODIAC ADMITTED 340 NOT A REAL CIPHER [PT3]

​Cipher Explorer tool below, courtesy of Zodiac Killer Ciphers. 

The Zodiac Killer did not mail the three July 31st 1969 letters to the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle and Vallejo Times-Herald, although the murderer of Betty Lou Jensen, David Faraday and Darlene Ferrin certainly did. In the letter to the Chronicle, the author suggested that within the code he had mailed we would discover his identity.

He wrote "Here is part of a cipher the other 2 parts of this cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo Times and SF Examiner. I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".

When the cipher was decoded a matter of days later, the code revealed "I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife".

The killer of three assured us that his identity was concealed within the cipher, while all along, knowing the enciphered text would reveal that he was unprepared to give us his name. He was effectively equating his identity with his name, not with his pseudonym or other covert means of identifying him. That is probably because the assailant at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs was technically not the Zodiac Killer. The "Zodiac Killer" 'only' killed two people under the Zodiac pseudonym, that of Cecelia Shepard and Paul Stine. As covered in a previous article 'Born on August 3rd,' it was argued that the killer had no "identity" or pseudonym to reveal to us before August 3rd 1969, because he hadn't yet assigned one to himself. Being called the 'code killer' or 'cipher killer' in the newspapers clearly didn't sit well with an ego-driven murderer. He had to give himself a pseudonym worthy of his perceived stature - hence, the "Zodiac Killer" was born. 

​The San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle of August 3rd 1969 opened with the lines "A self-accused killer failed to keep a threat of mass murder here, but there was no slackening of tension or mystery caused by the warning. The police department telephone system was clogged at times by anxious callers asking if the "cipher killer" had been caught".  The next day the killer would waste no time in introducing us to his new identity or pseudonym, opening with the line "This is the Zodiac Speaking". In other words, looking for his identity in the 408 cipher, in either the enciphered or decoded version may be a futile exercise, because it appeared he wasn't going to reveal his real name - and it is extremely likely he had no identity or pseudonym at this juncture.

Had he already attributed himself the pseudonym "Zodiac" prior to the July 31st 1969 letters, then this threefold barrage was the perfect time to announce the menacing "Zodiac" to the world, something he clearly failed to do. In fact, he could only muster the unoriginal "This is the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman + the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo". ​Four days later however, he would be triggered into action by the lame 'cipher killer' pseudonym designated to him by the public and featured in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle of August 3rd 1969. He was in control, and as such, was not going to be labelled by anybody.

It was now a simple task of replacing one word in his introduction, from "This is the murderer" to "This is the Zodiac". This could have significant implications regarding the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966, and in particular the three Bates letters. The idea that the symbol on these letters was an alphabetical Z indicating Zodiac would now be nullified, as the Zodiac pseudonym was 827 days in the making. 

Had the murderer opened up with the 340 cipher on July 31st 1969 rather than the 408 cipher, then the statement "in this cipher is my identity" would have had very few detractors, when just four days later a further communication arrived stating "This is the Zodiac Speaking".

Comparing this introduction to the 'near Zodiac' at the foot of the 340 cipher would have left few in doubt this was deliberately placed, and indeed, he had concealed his identity in the cipher. However, because the 340 cipher was mailed on November 8th 1969, it is often argued that the 'near Zodiac' may have fell out accidentally on his creation of the cipher - something that would likely never have been argued three months earlier. Therefore, if the Zodiac Killer did belatedly give us his identity or pseudonym in the second cipher, when we already knew it, one could suggest it has a secondary purpose, other than to be deciphered in exactly the same way as the other 334 characters. 
 
There is a growing perception that the 340 cipher is effectively a "bag of puzzles" rather than a continuous uninterrupted message, as many of its features can easily be linked or shown to compare favorably with other correspondences mailed by the Zodiac Killer. This man wasn't a Professor Moriarty style genius - so he either created a method of encryption so illogical, as to make the cipher unsolvable by the logical mind or computer created by logic, he created a mix of puzzles disguised within the cipher, or he created the perfect ghost cipher, to which he would eventually keep his promise by placing his identity within a cipher, but little else. 

Without identifying a key and demonstrating which communication it was found, then the '13 Symbol' and '32 Symbol' ciphers are simply too short to ever be proven as solved. In a previous article we highlighted a piece by Dave Oranchak, in which 46 consecutive alphabetical letters from the historical text of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon can be placed successfully into a portion of the 408 cipher. Dave Oranchak, the foremost expert on the Zodiac ciphers, commented on this "So, only one piece of text, from a vast collection of eleven billion pieces of text, fit into this chunk of cipher text. A one in eleven billion chance seems to suggest some significance. But don’t be fooled by this. Just because this rare event occurred, doesn’t mean it is anything more than a simple coincidence. If we didn’t already know the real solution to the 408, how do we know that this chunk of old and obscure text isn’t the correct solution?"  

Therefore, one can easily see the multiple solutions that can be harvested from these inadequately designed ciphers. The Zodiac Killer wasn't a genius, but he certainly wasn't a fool either - and must have known that the variability of the '32 Symbol' cipher, and lack of characters within the '13 Symbol' cipher were open to multiple solutions. This was probably part of the fun.
The man, eventually to become known as the Zodiac Killer, mailed the 408 cipher on July 31st 1969. This was a genuine cipher, decoded by Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden of Salinas, California, who both used homophonic substitution to identify the solution. The "cipher killer" or "code killer" would not have lived up to the name given him by the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle on August 3rd 1969 -  the "killer of codes" would have been far more suitable. 

The following card (pasted with the date of Oct 12, 1970) was postmarked October 17th 1970, arriving soon after the 13-Hole postcard, which carried the pasted date of Mon, Oct 5 1970. The menacing postcard was directed toward Dr. Edward Adams in Orinda, CA, stating:

The Zodiac is going to change the way of committing murders. I shall announce when I shall commit my murders, The Adamses are Next   you taught me to Mean it.
ADAMS YOU ARE NEXT. ZODIAC.

The 13-Hole postcard can be shown to be authentic Zodiac correspondence, making this communication very interesting indeed. The Zodiac Killer Site forum has covered this topic extensively, so to read more about this postcard, please visit the link above. Any opinions regarding the 'You are next' and 13-Hole postcards would be welcome.  I have cleaned and enhanced the postcard for better viewing (see below).