Virtually every communication the Zodiac Killer mailed had an inspiration that can be traced back to recent newspaper articles about him. The first letters mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald on July 31st 1969 may have their roots in a Times-Herald (Vallejo) newspaper article written by Frances Flaherty on March 30th 1969, entitled "Teenagers' Slayer Still at Large".

​This was the last meaningful coverage of the Lake Herman Road murders before the Zodiac Killer began sending his communications, by writing "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. To prove I killed them I shall state some facts which only I + the police know". But rather than just announcing he killed David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen and taking the opportunity to glorify in their murders, the Zodiac Killer immediately provided a list of details only known to him and the police. There is a strong possibility he was responding directly to Sheriff's Sergeant Leslie Lundblad's cryptic utterance below.   

Lundblad was effectively saying there was plenty more information about the double murder that hadn't been released into the newspapers---which the killer would be able to inadvertently provide if he talked to him. So the Zodiac Killer spared him the effort, by wilfully speaking to Lundblad through the Bay Area newspapers and giving him four key details about Lake Herman Road on December 20th 1968, and three about Blue Rock Springs on July 4th/5th 1969---which happened in the interim. The use of the word "cryptically" at the end of the newspaper article is rather fitting, because if Lundblad could address the audience in a cryptic manner, then I suppose the murderer could reply in kind. ​Lundblad conceded that after almost 100 days they were only slightly closer to solving the grisly slayings at Lake Herman Road on Friday night in December. The Zodiac Killer would however promise more slayings, to begin on "Fry night" in August.

Despite the concise nature of facts and promises offered by the Zodiac Killer in his July 31st 1969 written text, the content of the 408 cipher deviated markedly by rambling about his victims becoming his slaves in paradise (and the afterlife). So why did the Zodiac Killer present two vastly contrasting sides to Lundblad, which included the divulgence of facts, but was cloaked in a disparate layer of fantasy reminiscent of a madman? The answer may have been shaped by the March 30th 1969 Times-Herald newspaper article which described him as a "hopelessly deranged person" and a "nut on the loose". If this is what they believed the murderer was, the Zodiac Killer may have opted to play to the gallery and send Lundblad a cryptically charged message describing a deranged vision of the afterlife. The newspaper may have [1] shaped a man who was prepared to supply facts only known to him and the police, [2] given the Zodiac Killer the opportunity to become the madman they already believed he was, and [3] Seeded in the mind of a killer to continue his search for "over a dozen people" to murder on "Fry night" and into the weekend--- and follow the theme of the two murders he had already claimed on "Friday night in December" (and July). 

​The March 30th 1969 newspaper article began on page one and concluded on page four, with Lundblad stating "If I talk to a suspect, I'll know positively whether he was there that night", he said cryptically. Sergeant Lundblad could not have known that the identity of the killer was but mere inches away. A simple glance to the right would have revealed the Zodiac pseudonym. 

Knowing that the Zodiac Killer was a narcissist who bathed in the spotlight of notoriety, it wasn't surprising that by 1974, after several of his communications failed to be published in the newspapers, that he ultimately harbored resentment towards the headline grabbers and decided to change course. Three consecutive letters on January 29th 1974, April 24th 1978 and March 2nd 1978 all focused on the movie industry and its associated award ceremonies  The "Exorcist" letter on January 29th 1974 responded to the recent Golden Globe film awards at the Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974, where "The Exorcist" film won four awards for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". The Zodiac Killer wrote "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy".

He followed this up on April 24th 1978---dissatisfied with being in the shade---by addressing his audience with "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me". Three weeks earlier, the 50th Academy Awards of cinematic achievement took place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles on April 3rd 1978, with Oscar winning films subsequently benefitting at the box office in cinemas and theaters across the country. Nine days after the April 24th 1978 letter, on May 2nd 1978, the Zodiac Killer began taunting the actors paraded at the ceremony, insisting that they needed to raise their game if they wanted to take on the role of the Bay Area murderer, by stating "Hey-you actors-this is your lucky Break. Remember-whoever plays me has his work cut out for him, I have decided to start killing again-please hold the applause". It really came as no surprise that his "Channel Nine" letter was addressed to KHJ-TV Studios at 5615 Melrose Avenue, as the Los Angeles television station was only 4.5 miles from where the Academy Awards were held one month earlier--- a television station that held its 13th annual 2-hour voting ceremony called "Your Choice for the Oscars" on the eve of the Academy Awards.  

In amongst the slew of Academy Award winning films hitting the big screen in March and April of 1978, was the movie "Blue Collar" starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel. Advertisements for this movie littered the newspapers alongside the Academy Award winning films---described as "A Damned Good Movie" in every publication. Contrast this with a newspaper hungry Zodiac Killer, who couldn't have failed to notice this advertisement when stating "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me". Well, I can certainly guarantee that it wasn't going to be Richard Pryor.

It really is quite amazing how David Toschi managed to author all of these letters under one common theme of award ceremonies, while generously taking time away from being a detective to mail the January 29th 1974 and April 24th 1978 letters from San Mateo/Santa Clara County, and take the short 6-hour journey to mail the "Channel Nine" letter from Los Angeles. This would have been unprecedented commitment from a serving detective, who with plenty of imagination and endeavor, had the foresight to manufacture such elaborate schemes over a 4-year period.

Inspector David Toschi even went so far as to investigate his own sinister phone call to the Mission District on March 13th 1978, when his voice was recorded on an answering machine, warning "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco". This came 42 days before the April 24th 1978 letter, which read "I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here". After an extensive investigation into this phone call, David Toschi concluded that he didn't recognise his own voice and the case was closed, yet he still decided to mimic the language used in the phone call for his April 24th 1978 letter. 

Not satisfied with being demoted to pawn detail after he was suspected of writing the April 24th 1978 letter, he decided to do a further impression of the Zodiac Killer on July 19th 1978, when he mimicked the language used in the unreleased May 2nd 1978 letter, which continued the theme of the April 24th 1978 letter. They read in chronological order "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me" (04/24/78), "whoever plays me has his work cut out for him" (05/02/78} and "Maybe you play chess with me" (07/19/78). All three used the verb "play" and the singular pronoun "me" in the same sentence. The third author could not have copied the second author if different individuals, but they could have been the same person. If David Toschi managed to accomplish all of the above---taking the time to scour the newspapers and travel around the country to fashion this elaborate hoax---then he deserves an Oscar and a massive posthumous round of applause. I doubt even I could have found these connections. 

A PAWN IN A GAME OF DEATH   

The "Good Citizen" letter mailed on October 7th 1969 was addressed to Sergeant John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department, just like the "Concerned Citizen" card was on August 10th 1969, which provided a key to the solution of the 408 cipher and the three "code letters" mailed on July 31st 1969 to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle. The "Good Citizen" and "Concerned Citizen" authors both mailed the letters to Sergeant John Lynch and used the word "citizen" in their signature. The two communications also referred to the July 31st 1969 "code letters"---one provided a key to the 408 cipher, while the other stated "On this occasion, while thinking of the code letters, the pencil wrote: "Go to 56 Beach Street. I get the name Jerry, perhaps he knows people or his name is SIMPSON".

​Thanks to some excellent research by "Desmitty11" from the Discord forum, who has done extensive work on the "Good Citizen" letter, the below redacted police file was provided to me. The communications on August 10th 1969 and October 7th 1969, despite being very short in nature, both used the word "name" twice in their message. The "Concerned Citizen" author typed "Please forgive the absence of my signature or name as I do not wish to have my name in the papers", with the "Good Citizen" letter author appearing to reply with "I get the name Jerry, perhaps he knows somebody or his name is SIMPSON".

Neither of these letters were released into the public domain at the time, so it is fairly obvious to conclude they were mailed by the same author. If the "concerned citizen" was attempting to disguise the fact he was the Zodiac Killer on August 10th 1969 when providing supportive material to the solving the 408 cipher, then the "good citizen" on October 7th 1969 by offering a cryptic array of nonsense, probably did nothing but give this deception away. The unhelpful and confused nature of the "Good Citizen" letter---in direct contrast to the "Concerned Citizen" letter---managed to throw shade upon the author in both instances.

In the above San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on August 12th 1969 entitled "A Name in Murder Cipher", Sergeant John Lynch ponders the name "Robert Emmett" suggested by code breakers about the "code letters". He concludes the search for a "name" by stating "We aren't sure Robert Emmett is who we are looking for. Maybe he'll send another letter and let us know". Another letter did arrive on October 7th 1969--- addressed to John Lynch personally---giving the sergeant the name of "Jerry" and suggesting that "perhaps he knows people" (in respect to the code letters). 

Was the October 7th 1969 author giving Sergeant John Lynch a pointer towards somebody named "Jerry" to aid in his quest for answers? It is almost certain that the Zodiac Killer accidentally missed out a line in the 408 cipher while transcribing his plaintext draft message into ciphertext, with seven consecutive characters pulled from the columns above (four from the same row). This strongly suggests (if Zodiac) that the October 7th 1969 cryptic message pertaining to "Jerry" as a name in the unsolved eighteen characters of the 408 cipher, was not the intended message meant by the so-called "good citizen". A helpful message, attempting to aid Sergeant John Lynch in his investigation, would be coherent and understandable, in complete contrast to the October 7th 1969 offering which lacked clarity and direction. It seems that "Jerry" was able to provide answers, rather than being the answer.
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It is easy to believe that the "Good Citizen" letter author was confused and uncertain, but that doesn't mean "Jerry" was just plucked out of thin air---and was irrelevant to the sender and/or Sergeant John Lynch. If these two communications were mailed by the Zodiac Killer, then their conception would usually be found in the newspapers he recently read. The name of "Jerry" may be found in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner or Vallejo Times-Herald sometime between August 10th 1969 and October 7th 1969, with obvious relevance to the content of the letter. Maybe the pencil holds the name. 

The Zodiac Killer employed only two pseudonyms between 1969 and 1987 in the form of "Zodiac" and "Me"---the latter of which appeared in the only known genuine mailing of 1974, when the Zodiac Killer sent the "Exorcist" communication on January 29th 1974. A signature that can easily be unearthed by taking a right shift of eight from each circled 8 in the Z13 cipher.

But it was the "Halloween" card on October 27th 1970 that again teed us up with the promise of his identity, by the Zodiac choosing a card with the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". Knowing that this was written on the front of the card, one might have expected the Bay Area murderer to supply us with a humorous answer subtly concealed within the design of the card inner, just like "My name is" may have been followed by "ME ⊕" in the April 20th 1970 letter. This was covered extensively in a previous article, however, it appeared that the Zodiac Killer made a deliberate choice to add two exclamation marks to the "Halloween" card inner to compliment the third exclamation mark already present in the writing "But, then why spoil our game!".  The fourth was partially hidden by the the skeleton's right foot.
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In the earlier article it was shown that the Zodiac Killer placed "Peek-a-boo you are doomed" around the knothole of the tree, yet it was fashioned in such a way that the "ME" of "DOOMED" was noticeably larger and bolder than the rest of the text. The following letter "D" returned to normal size, but was followed by an oversized exclamation mark, effectively creating an emphasis on "ME!".(ME complimented by an exclamation mark). This mimicked the word to the right of the inner skeleton's left arm, which was the only part of the "cut and pasted" skeleton out of position compared to the original. The left arm had been accidentally or deliberately shifted to the right to obscure the "a" of "game" to spell "me!". This was not all.

The phrase "PEEK-A-BOO" around the knothole is positioned so that "BOO" lines up with the personal pronoun of "ME". The "D" and exclamation mark is broken off to line up with the large "BOO!" (BOO and exclamation mark) in the center of the card inner, which in turn is tilted 45 degrees anticlockwise to line up with the "me!" by the skeleton's left arm, which just happens to be the only part of the skeleton out of place compared to the original (see below). So, did.the Zodiac Killer deliberately add two exclamation marks to the card inner to form a bridge to the third, positioned after "me" by the misplaced left arm? The Zodiac Killer would have lined up "BOO" with "ME" twice (with both "BOO'S" sitting at approximately 45 degrees on the card), and fashioned "ME" followed by an exclamation mark twice. Was this a further mocking joke to compliment the simplistic answer to the Z13 on April 20th 1970? A joke that the Zodiac Killer finally got tired of on January 29th 1974, when he eventually exorcised the true identity of himself. Did anybody really expect the Zodiac Killer to give us his real name?  

Beginning on October 23rd 1969 and culminating on November 5th 1969, Daniel Williams (24), a Salesian High School teacher in the city of Richmond received multiple telephone threats from an individual claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, who stated he "had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but left when he found police there". His residence at 1234 Bush Street in Martinez was broken into and his 7-Up drink was spiked with enough arsenic to kill him. Finally, on November 5th 1969, the same individual almost certainly rang the Martinez Police Department at 12:30 am stating "There's going to be a shooting at 1234 Bush Street", before immediately hanging the receiver up. These were prolonged threats of murder spanning two weeks, before the "Bus Bomb" letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle on November 9th 1969 threatening to blow up a school bus and likely identifying the Salesian High School of Daniel Williams as the next target (by way of X's on crosshairs). 

However, this wasn't the first threat on a Richmond school, because four days before the first "Zodiac" telephone call to Daniel Williams on October 23rd 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer telephoned "The Independent" newspaper in Richmond twice on the night of October 19th 1969 and threatened to target the Peres Elementary School on 5th Street & Pennsylvania Avenue. He again called "The Independent" newspaper twice on October 20th 1969 at 7:01 pm and 7:16 pm stating "Keep the police away from Peres" and "Keep the police away from Peres. I was there today...there were too many police". Many concerned citizens contacted police, with one woman reporting hearing a prowler and was "sure it was him". Another reported seeing a man chasing a girl and asserted that "he looks like the Zodiac". Police cautioned residents not to automatically assume any suspicious person was the Zodiac Killer, having been whipped up by the newspaper coverage of the phone caller the previous day.

​This school was situated only 1.4 miles (by crow) from the Salesian High School where Daniel Williams taught. I highly doubt that two separate and autonomous individuals claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, within four days of one another, both began the sustained targetting of the Peres Elementary School in Richmond, and the subsequent and prolonged two-week attack on the school teacher Daniel Williams, who worked at Salesian High School in Richmond----although it's certainly feasible that one had been inspired by the "The Independent" newspaper stories about the Zodiac Killer days earlier and acted upon it.

This threat on Peres Elementary School is currently the earliest known threat on schoolchildren reported in the newspapers since the October 13th 1969 "Paul Stine" letter was made public. The threat on Peres Elementary School came just two days after the San Francisco Chronicle published the Zodiac message which promised to "wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out".  

On November 9th 1969, the Zodiac Killer wrote "This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I committ my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, + a few fake accidents, etc". If the Zodiac Killer was going to disguise his upcoming murders, clearly the intention---at this juncture---was to cease contact with the newspapers and remove or diminish the pseudonym "Zodiac" from being linked to any reported crimes. To continue writing to the newspapers under the guise of "Zodiac" and linking himself to future murders would have totally defeated the object of disguising them as accidents and robberies. The phone caller to "The Independent" newspaper on October 19th 1969 showed an earlier reluctance to be connected to the pseudonym "Zodiac", by stating "Don't call me Zodiac anymore". Was this the precursor to no longer announcing himself? Unfortunately for the Zodiac Killer, this commitment to future anonymity didn't last long.

Unsurprisingly, no attack transpired on Peres Elementary School, so if this was the Zodiac Killer targetting schoolchildren at a Bay Area location, why did he choose this specific school as his starting point? If you believe that the Daniel Williams attack was the Zodiac Killer, then there is good reason to believe that the person who delivered their threats to the Peres ​Elementary School via "The Independent" newspaper---all with links to Richmond--- was the Zodiac Killer too.   

The opening line of the "Exorcist" letter mailed on January 29th 1974 borrowed from the newspaper coverage of the 1973 film which won four Golden Globe awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974, Having received four awards for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay", the Zodiac Killer chose to mock the film's achievements by writing "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy". He then featured a verse from "The Mikado", a British comic opera by Arthur Seymour Sullivan and William Schwenck Gilbert, based in a fictionalised version of Japan.

After plagiarising a verse from Tit-Wllow, the Zodiac Killer then added what appears to be Japanese style symbolism at the foot of the letter, preceded by a threat, which read  "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". Kevin Robert Brooks "To Kill" is the arguable frontrunner of solutions to this strange array of characters. If the Zodiac Killer had watched "The Exorcist" movie in the days or weeks before writing this letter, did anything in the film contain Japanese characters that may have inspired him to add this symbolism to his communication addressed to the San Francisco Chronicle?

In "The Exorcist" movie, Father Karras takes audio recordings of the possessed Regan to a university language laboratory. The laboratory director (played by John Mahon) analyses the eerie, garbled noises and realises that the demonic speech is actually English spoken in reverse. The red writing on the wall of the laboratory in the above image reads "TASUKETE" (タスケテ) which is Japanese for "Help me", that appears on possessed Regan's torso in the very next scene. In Japanese writing, this is written in Katakana (the phonetic alphabet used for foreign words and emphasis). It serves as a subtle, eerie Easter egg placed in the background of the scene, mirroring the demonic possession. This personal pronoun (of "Me") was used by Zodiac in the "Exorcist" letter on January 29th 1974, when he wrote "Me-37, SFPD-0". To the left of "Me" in the "Exorcist" letter are a group of Japanese style symbols. To the left of "Help me" on the wall of the language laboratory are a row of Japanese symbols. The plea of "Help me" featured three times in the "Melvin Belli" letter on December 20th 1969. 

Zodiac researcher, Jibberjabber, pointed me in the direction of the highlighted Katakana symbol on the left, which resembles one of the Japanese style characters used by the Zodiac Killer in his Exorcist letter. However, we have hit a roadblock since, and have been unable to properly identify any of the remaining characters. It might be very useful to "decode" the Japanese writing shown in the visible image below, because if the Zodiac Killer saw "The Exorcist" movie as he claimed, he may have "thinked" a little longer than we thought.

"The Most Dangerous Game" was released into US cinemas on September 16th 1932 following much publicity, with its associate producer Merian C. Cooper sought by the press to give comment on his latest venture. He duly obliged by giving reporters the quote of "man is the most dangerous animal of all", which was published in a handful of newspapers such as the Oregon Daily Journal on September 27th 1932. Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer used this exact quote in his July 31st 1969 cipher---that most agree was referring to "The Most Dangerous Game" movie---it's extremely unlikely this was chosen by accident. Either the Zodiac Killer drew this sequence of eight words from memory, or he made a conscious decision to visit the library and search the newspaper microfiche for memorable quotes to apply to his opening communications, which he had ample time to prepare after the Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs attacks on December 20th 1968 and July 5th 1969 respectively.

Many things point to a killer who attached a sighting implement to his gun and ventured into the fields surrounding the Gate #10 turnout on December 20th 1968---implying that the eventual murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen may never have happened if the Zodiac Killer's earlier searches had turned out to be successful---and probably why he wrote "there was no need to use the gunsights" in his August 4th 1969 letter. The "pencil flashlight" would have been extremely useful in the extreme darkness of the field, but less so in the turnout with the additional lighting from both vehicles. The movement of a killer into the surrounding wilderness is also explained by the vacant white Chevrolet Impala sitting idle in the Lake Herman Road turnout for a minimum of one hour on at least two separate occasions. A driver who very likely walked beyond the road and turnout on a dark, freezing night in December with a distinct purpose in mind. A purpose that would reflect the content of the July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969 letters, in which a killer would search for prey in the forest using a mounted flashlight, that necessitated him leaving his vehicle for an extended period of time. The 408 cipher was the motivation for the crimes, whereas the accompanying text in the letters was the proof. 

The above newspaper article---had the Zodiac Killer searched the library microfiche regarding the 1932 movie release---would have been the sort of reporting that would have caught his eye. This was the most comprehensive newspaper article containing the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" that the Zodiac Killer would have come across, so may have heavily influenced the language chosen in the opening section of his 408 cipher.

After plagiarising the Merian C. Cooper quote "man is the most dangerous animal of all", the newspaper article read "his career has been a succession of thrilling adventures in which the most ferocious beasts have figured". The Zodiac wrote "to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience".  The newspaper article told of a "big game hunter tracking down and killing wild beasts". The Zodiac Killer wrote of "killing wild game". The opening gambit of his 408 cipher somewhat mirrored the Oregon Daily Journal newspaper article from September 27th 1932, about a movie exploring the notion of hunting human prey in the wild. The is the story of two killers---Count Zaroff and the Zodiac Killer---both armed with a .22 small calibre weapon in search of the ultimate prize. Unfortunately, one of them was real, despite some current Zodiac researchers attempting to turn him into the fiction that preceded him.