Texas Senator John Cornyn is currently introducing new legislation to provide federal funding in the solving of cold cases by using the cutting-dege crime fighting tool of Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG). Dubbed the Carla Walker Act, this would provide much needed funding to corporations such as Othram Inc. who are leading the way in this specialized field of genetics  

Carla Walker (17) was abducted from Brunswick Ridglea Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas on February 17th 1974 as she sat with her boyfriend in the parking lot. An unknown white male wrenched open the car door while brandishing a gun and pistol whipped Rodney McCoy, before grabbing the young woman and disappearing into the night. Three days later, on February 20th 1974, her battered and bruised body was found in a culvert in Lake Benbrook. The autopsy showed she had been drugged and kept alive for two days, having been tortured, raped and strangled to death. It would take 46 years to identify her killer as Glen Samuel McCurley (77), who was snared in 2020 through DNA left on her clothing by way of forensic genetic genealogy performed at Othram laboratories. Despite the DNA being heavily degraded, a full profile was achieved and closely matched family members of the killer, leading to his arrest and eventful conviction on August 24th 2021. He escaped any real justice, dying in a Texas state prison on July 15th 2023. 

In an interview with Houston's KPRC 2 news channel, retired law enforcement officer Paul Holes, instrumental in the Golden State Killer case, was asked what other cases may be solved with the assistance of federal funding. He stated "One case I had involvement with out in the Bay Area was the Zodiac case - that is still an unsolved case - and it's a very high profile case. If they can identify DNA from that offender, then this technology potentially could solve one of the biggest mysteries out there".

​There are 30+ communications connected to the Zodiac case, with DNA having already been sourced from one Zodiac letter mailed on April 24th 1978. With extra funding and an unbiased approach in testing all the contested communications mailed in the name of the Zodiac Killer, we can only hope for better news in the near future. 

Despite the vast majority of the 408 cipher being deciphered on August 8th 1969, we still had the small matter of 18 unsolved or unexplained characters at the foot of the cryptogram that were thought may have contained the name of the Zodiac Killer. Sergeant John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department pondered this conundrum in a newspaper article on August 12th 1969 entitled "A Name in Murder Cipher", in which "Robert Emmet the hippie" was suggested as one possible solution to the mystery. Sergeant John Lynch stated that he was "pursuing the possibility that the name might be a nom de plume - or not the cipher sender's name at all". Later in the article it mentioned that the cipher was turned over to Navy cryptographers before it was solved, and suggested that the Zodiac Killer send another letter explaining the final 18 characters of the 408 cipher. 

A letter mailed on October 7th 1969 signed by a "good citizen" was addressed to Sergeant John Lynch, giving him some advice. It read "On occasion, while thinking of the code letters, the pencil wrote: Go to 56 Beach Street. I get the name Jerry, perhaps he knows people or his name is XXXXXXX". It is fairly evident that "code letters" was a reference to the three cryptograms mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, postmarked July 31st 1969 - and the author of this letter was giving Sergeant John Lynch a name, who could maybe assist him by way of his knowledge of other people in codebreaking. In other words, it is possible that "Jerry" could assist Sergeant John Lynch because of his connection to law enforcement or Navy cryptography (or was holding a more advantageous position in attempting to solve the final 18 characters). If the "Jerry" mentioned in the correspondence was a real person, it could be argued that the sender believed "Jerry" could be of benefit to Sergeant John Lynch with the remaining unsolved portion of the 408 cipher. Therefore, I needed to find somebody called "Jerry", possibly with links to the Navy (and cryptography), who had a surname of seven letters, thereby explaining the XXXXXXX placed at the end of this correspondence. How Beach Street factors into the equation, I cannot ascertain. Unless Jerry is somehow linked to that address through a friend or acquaintance.   

Jerry Johnson was a Naval Intelligence Agent stationed at the Mare Island Naval Base in Vallejo, who worked on the Zodiac case with former California Highway Patrol officer, Lyndon Lafferty, who went on to release the book "The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge" with the assistance of Jerry Johnson. He appeared in a photograph alongside long-time Zodiac contributor Sandy Betts and other Zodiac researchers, when they gathered at Lake Herman Road for a reunion in 2016. The Vallejo Times-Herald article stated that "Orinda resident, Johnson said he was a federal agent stationed on Mare Island in the late 1960s, and it was then that the late Lyndon Lafferty, a retired California Highway Patrol officer, came to him about an encounter with a man he believed was the Zodiac Killer".

It was later claimed that Lafferty's suspect, William Grant, once sought help from Dr. Edward C. Adams, a psychiatrist living in Orinda, California, and the potential recipient of a Zodiac Killer communication on October 17th 1970 with the pasted newspaper text of "Mon Oct 12, 1970. Edward Adams. The Zodiac is going to change the way of committing murders. I shall announce when I shall commit my murders, The Adamses are Next. you taught me to mean it.  ADAMS YOU ARE NEXT. Zodiac".  

It is important to identify "Jerry" because the author of the October 7th 1969 communication was almost certainly the author of the "concerned citizen" card mailed on August 10th 1969, two months earlier. Both communications had a similar signature of "good citizen" and "concerned citizen", both were addressed to Sergeant John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department, both referenced the 408 cipher (by way of "code letters" and the sending of a cipher key), and both used the word "name" in the correspondence twice. This is despite neither being published in the newspapers. The mischievous and cryptic nature of the "good citizen" letter may suggest that the "concerned citizen" author - if one and the same - was playing games with investigators all along. Something we know the Zodiac Killer enjoyed doing throughout his letter-writing campaign.

OFFERING A SOLUTION TO 18 ON 10/7/1969   

I had a great discussion on all things Zodiac with Ross Geraci, host of the Planet X Filmworks Youtube channel and long-time Zodiac researcher, Druzer, who is the engine behind the Citizen Detective Podcast, covering many aspects of true crime. The Zodiac Files Interviews series on Planet X Filmworks has featured former Bay Area resident Bryan, Thomas Horan (author of The Myth of the Zodiac Killer), Drew Beeson (author of Sighting In On the Zodiac Killer), Michael Morford (author of The Case of the Zodiac Killer), Howard Davis (author of The Zodiac Manson Connection) and Mark Hewitt (author of The Zodiac Hunted, Exposed and Revealed trilogy).

​The Planet X Filmworks channel has also covered The Seaside Slayings of Johnny & Joyce Swindle (Ocean Beach), The Death of Ray Davis (Oceanside) and the murder of Cheri Jo Bates (Riverside). These can be found in the Zodiac Files section.  


​[1] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Bryan former Bay Area Resident During the Zodiac Era
[2] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Author Drew Beeson 
[3] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Author Howard Davis
[4] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Professor Thomas Henry Horan
[5] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Author Dr. Mark Hewitt 
[6] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Richard Grinell
[7] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Professor Thomas Henry Horan & Richard Grinell
[8] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Michael Morford
[9] The Zodiac Files Interviews: Richard Grinell & Druzer

[1] The Zodiac Files Debate Series: Author Drew Beeson Vs Druzer on Suspect Donald Lee Cheney: Scheduled for September 2nd 2023 9:00pm UK time.

[1] The Zodiac Files: The Seaside Slayings 
[2] The Zodiac Files: The Death of Ray Davis 
[3] The Zodiac Files: The Cheri Jo Bates' Mystery ​

Below are the injuries to the face and neck of Cheri Jo Bates detailed at autopsy. .

Although emergency medicine providers commonly describe any break in the skin as a laceration, this terminology is forensically and technically incorrect. A laceration is defined as a tear in tissue caused by a shearing or crushing force. Therefore, a laceration is the result of a blunt-trauma mechanism. A laceration is further characterized by incomplete separation of stronger tissue elements, such as blood vessels and nerves. These stronger tissue elements account for “tissue bridging” which is seen in lacerations. In addition, lacerations commonly occur over bony prominences and tend to be irregularly shaped with abraded or contused margins. Lacerations are typically caused by hard objects like a pipe, rock, or the ground. Link to ACEPNow.

Unfortunately, F. Rene Modglin detailed the autopsy findings of Cheri Jo Bates incorrectly, when he labeled "incised wounds" as "lacerations" when describing the stab wounds to her torso. Therefore, we are presented with the injuries to her face as lacerations - and have to determine whether any of these wounds were caused by a knife blade or the mechanism of blunt force trauma, such as a hard object, punch or kick to the head, or from impact with the driveway floor. The analysis above shows that lacerations are commonly found over bony prominences and tend to be irregularly shaped with abraded margins. The three wounds described at autopsy (excluding the discoloration of the right lip) are found over the bony prominences of the zygomatic bone (cheekbone), the mentum (chin) and left side of the maxilla (upper jawbone}, where we have two accompanying abraded areas on the left cheek and chin, and an irregular (ragged edge) wound to her left upper lip. These wounds are all consistent with blunt force trauma, bearing in mind we have a dark blue-grey discoloration (probable bruising) present on the left cheek and chin. We have to discern whether these proposed blunt force injuries were caused through kicking (as claimed in the Confession letter), or by impact with the driveway floor.

The below image shows the 5 incised (stab) wounds to the front torso and right arm of Cheri Jo Bates (denoted by the blue circles). Wound 6 is described as two abraded lacerations, so it's unclear whether this injury was caused by a knife blade.
Wounds 7, 8 and 9 to the dorsal side of the left hand and lateral aspect of the right index finger are congruent with Cheri Jo Bates using her hands and arms in a defensive posture while being secured from behind. The absence of prolonged screaming and the close grouping of these 9 wounds, can be argued from the standpoint of a killer restraining Cheri Jo Bates around the neck while stabbing backwards into her chest region.

Without more information it is difficult to ascertain whether the injuries to her hand and finger were separate stab wounds that never struck her torso, or were injuries created as the knife passed by. Discounting wound 6, we have 5 knife wounds to the upper region of her body in close proximity to one another. It must be pointed out that I have placed the 2 wounds to her left breast slightly off-center to avoid showing the blue circles over her right hand and confuse the observer. If the right hand of Cheri Jo Bates was more centrally positioned when injury 9 occurred, it can be seen how the grouping of stab wounds narrows. This grouping would be much more difficult to achieve if no restraint was applied by the killer and the interaction was much more dynamic in nature. If we change the position of Cheri Jo Bates' hands, with her right hand protecting her right side, and her left hand protecting her left side, then the incised wounds to each hand would mirror the stab wounds to her left and right breast. For these to be related it would require three knife strikes cutting her hands and finger as the blade passed by. With the final stab wound to her back possibly being administered after she was forced forward onto the driveway floor, with the killer kneeling over her.

In conclusion, we have between 6 and 10 stab wounds in total, with the seven knife slices across her neck being the final horrific act that night. The close grouping of the stab wounds, the lack of screaming, and the consistency of the wound widths to her breasts and right armpit of 1.4 cm, 1.5 cm, 1.7 cm and 1.9 cm (with her back wound 1.5 cm), could suggest restraint rather than a dynamic moving target, in which more shearing type wounds may be expected (as observed in the Cecelia Shepard autopsy). This can be seen on the arms of Cheri Jo Bates by the two somewhat abraded wounds to her left arm (of 3.5 cm and 4.0 cm), and the 4.0 cm wound to her right arm, which would have exhibited greater motion than her torso, assuming she was restrained by the neck region. These observations are consistent with the claims of the Confession letter author.  PART TWO. 

The December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969 Fairfield letters mailed by the Zodiac Killer were almost certainly responses to two newspaper articles published by the Los Angeles Times. A third Los Angeles Times article on December 18th 1969 likely triggered the Zodiac Killer into phoning the San Jose Highway Patrol on December 19th 1969, stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". The newspaper headlined with "Cult May Be Linked to Slaying of 2 Girls", incorrectly suggesting a possible connection between the Mansion Family and the murders of Kathie Snoozy & Debra Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969, to which the Zodiac Killer had already claimed on November 8th 1969 when he mailed the Dripping Pen card.

The newspaper detailed the slayings of the Manson Family at the Sharon Tate residence and stated "San Jose detectives developed a possible connection between the cases after conferring with Los Angeles officers. Six members of a hippie clan led by Charles Manson have been charged with murdering five persons. One of the members of the nomadic band, Susan Denise Atkins, 21, is from San Jose. The Manson "family" has visited Miss Atkins' father there". This newspaper article had all the ingredients for the phone call on December 19th 1969. in which the Zodiac Killer may have used the Manson "family" murder of "five" people to concoct the San Jose telephone message of "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". 

It must also be remembered that a comprehensive newspaper article published by the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969 about the San Jose murders conducted an interview with the father of murdered Debra Furlong, who had a wife and three surviving children. In other words, a remaining "family of five" from San Jose. Probably upset that San Jose law enforcement had mentioned two of Zodiac's claimed victims and were implying a murder link to the Manson Family, it probably wasn't too surprising that he would phone the San Jose Highway Patrol on December 19th 1969 and threaten five officers, just as he had threatened multiple cops in different jurisdictions when he mailed the Fairfield letter on December 16th 1969, just three days earlier.  

​The Zodiac Killer may have had a long memory, because 8 1/2 years later, a letter mailed to a Los Angeles radio station again threatened to kill two officers and "five" people in total, including Susan Atkins of the Manson Family, whose name featured three times in the Los Angeles Times article on December 18th 1969. On May 2nd 1978, a letter arrived at KHJ-TV in Los Angeles, stating that the Zodiac Killer was "planning to kill five people in the next three weeks", rather than "five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". The new threat promised to kill Chief Daryl Gates, Chief Ed Davis, Pat Boone, Eldridge Cleaver and Susan Atkins. The phone call on December 19th 1969, and the letter mailed on May 2nd 1978, were both seemingly inspired by news related to the Manson Family and Susan Atkins, suggestive of one mindset that yearned to kill five. 

The consensus opinion on the decoded 408 cryptogram message is that the killer took inspiration from "The Most Dangerouse Game" short story, authored by Richard Connell in 1924, or the 1932 adapted movie version starring Joel McCrea and Leslie Banks. Subsequent Zodiac communications have led people to believe that the Bay Area murderer may have had a fascination for the theater, movies, books and comics, such as the 1952 Tim Holt comic publication, likely used in the design of the Halloween card and "The Mikado" by Gilbert & Sullivan, which premiered in 1885 and was plagiarized in the Little List and Exorcist letters. These two examples, along with the suggested links to Charlie Chan and Alfred Hitchcock, appear to suggest the Zodiac Killer wasn't averse to drawing inspiration from yesteryear.

​Recently Jarett Kobek, in his book "How to Find Zodiac", has looked into the fanzine culture, in which enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as the literary or musical genre) share their passions through a shared interest magazine. Hence the suggestion of the Zodiac Killer's ability to source the limited 1952 Tim Holt comic book to reproduce in his October 27th 1970 communication. The term was coined in a 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, before being adopted by other communities. 

Stanton Arthur Coblentz, born in San Francisco, was a science fiction author and poet, whose first published books began with "The Sunken World" in 1928 and continued into the 1970s, that included "When the Birds Fly South" (1945) and "Hidden World" (1955). When the Birds Fly South is a fantasy novel, first published by "The Wings Press" in Mill Valley, Marin County in 1945 (later reprinted in 1951). The story features Dan Prescott, an American adventurer, who discovers the hidden valley of Sobul in a mountainous region of Afghanistan, inhabited by a strange race of winged people known as the "Ibandru". He falls in love with one of them, Yasma, and they marry in a scene of general celebration. When fall comes, however, the Ibandru abandon their valley to fly south with the birds for the winter. Stanton Coblentz also authored and released the book "Mountain of the Sleeping Maiden & Other Poems" on January 1st 1946 - a reference to Mount Tamalpais, which overlooks Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County.

Was there a possibility that the Zodiac Killer knew about the works of Stanton Coblentz and where he lived, using the cryptic pasted text of "Birds Fly South" and "Hidden", next to each other in the communication, when he mailed a horoscope page to the Sacramento Bee newspaper on December 10th 1969, entitled "Day-By-Day Forecast for Cancer"? This was the date Leona Roberts was abducted from the 749 Tormey Avenue residence in Rodeo, California. Her body was discovered eighteen days later on December 28th 1969 at Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County, a north-south Pacific flyway for birds migrating south for the winter. On December 11th 1969, another possible Zodiac letter arrived in San Francisco with the title "Day-By-Day Forecast for Leo", leading one to conclude it may have been a play on words, insinuating that it was a "Forecast for Leona Roberts", who wasn't killed for at least a week after her abduction. 

Both "The Wings Press" and Stanton Coblentz's residence were located in Marin County, where Leona Roberts body would ultimately be found, During the early Zodiac Killer years, Stanton Coblentz lived at 37 Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley, just 600 feet from the Throckmorton Theater at 142 Throckmorton Avenue (originally called The Hub Theater when it opened in 1912), and only 5.8 miles from Bolinas Lagoon. Not too far from his residence was the Port Theater (forever connected to The Red Phantom & El Espectro Rojo), once operated by Zodiac suspect Richard Marshall, circa 1974 and beyond.

It seems rather uncanny that Leona Roberts was abducted on the same day the "Forecast for Cancer" horoscope letter arived on December 10th 1969 with the pasted text of "Zodiac" and "Birds Fly South", to be then followed by the "Forecast for Leo" horoscope page, with her body being found eighteen days later at Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County where "Birds Fly South", which was prominent in the book title of a science fiction author, whose home and the publishing house for this book, was located in Marin County. If that wasn't enough, somebody calling themself "Zodiac" made a phone call to Peggy Trainer and threatened her life on January 4th 1970. She lived at 749 Tormey Avenue in Rodeo, where Leona Roberts was abducted from on December 10th 1969. The two horoscope letters had not been published in the newspapers by January 4th 1970, meaning the phone caller was not mimicking the author of the letters in December. This phone call arrived just seven days after Leona Roberts' body was found at Bolinas Lagoon..

Was the Zodiac Killer laying down cryptic clues in the two horoscope letters, partly using the works of a book author, with the intention of pointing us towards the abduction and murder of Leona Roberts? The pseudonym of "Zodiac" being present in a communication the day of Leona Roberts abduction, and spoken in a phone call on January 4th 1970 to the address she was abducted from. If these were different individuals, then that is a coincidence worthy of science fiction and the writings of Stanton Arthur Coblentz.

In the aftermath of the Lake Herman Road double murder on December 20th 1968, law enforcement combed the turnout for ballistics evidence well into the next day. A supplemental investigation report listed the 2 bullets removed from Betty Lou Jensen's body at autopsy, the bullet retrieved from her panties and the bullet found on her "blood splattered path" on the turnout floor. It described this bullet as exiting from the center of her stomach and falling to the ground without penetrating the front of her dress. Only 4 of the 5 bullets were noted. There were 5 bullet holes in the rear of her dress and only one to the front of her dress. The bullet wound mentioned as passing through her stomach was described at autopsy as the one that entered "the tip of the right 12th rib, 3 and 1/2 inches from the midline", penetrated the liver and exited "below the xyphoid process and 1/2 an inch from the midline". This is entry wound 4 on the diagram, described in the supplemental investigation report as being found near her body in the turnout - backing up the contention that this was very probably the final shot fired by the Zodiac Killer that night, as Betty Lou Jensen was hunched forward, before collapsing backwards onto the ground.  Both the bullet found in her panties and the bullet that fell to the ground had both lost such velocity through her body, that neither penetrated the front of her dress.  

The exit wound (furthest red circle to the left in the diagram) is described at autopsy as "over the left interior chest laterally and left margin of the breast, in the 4th intercostal space and 5 and 1/2 inches from the sternum". This is the bullet wound that caused the hole in Betty Lou Jensen's dress and had an extreme right to left trajectory, fired by the Zodiac Killer as her right side was predominantly facing him at very close range. If this bullet had lost comparable velocity to the other two bullets that exited her body, it should have been found just a few feet to the right of the Rambler, close to the cluster of shell casings that peppered the turnout floor. Yet this bullet was seemingly never retrieved from the Lake Herman Road turnout, despite an extensive search by law enforcement. In fact, this bullet was never documented as submitted items in the Department of Justice report either (see below).

So what happened to this bullet? Despite traveling across her body at an extreme right to left trajectory, can we expect this bullet to have retained a markedly higher velocity than the other two "exited bullets", that it flew out of the much larger turnout of 1968? Or did the Zodiac Killer retrieve this bullet from the turnout floor using his "pencil flashlight", to later mail in a letter alongside the shirt piece of Paul Stine, thereby proving he was responsible for the murders of the "people in the north bay area" as well. The opening section of the October 13th 1969 letter referring to the San Francisco murder through the evidence of the shirt piece, with the bullet being the evidence for his following line of "I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area". This (if it happened) would be two crime scenes where the Zodiac Killer took evidence away, with Lake Berryessa being the crime scene where he left evidence behind.  

Bearing in mind we have two documents that have failed to itemize the same bullet that exited Betty Lou Jensen's dress, it is rather unusual that a 1995 BBC2 documentary called "Great Crimes and Trials" stated that "any doubts about the killer's identity were dispelled the next day when a letter from Zodiac arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle. With it was a bloodstained piece of the driver's shirt and a bullet from the same pistol that had killed Jensen and Faraday". We do come across errors in newspapers and documentaries, but considering we do have a "missing bullet" from the Jensen/Faraday murders, this outrageous claim doesn't seem so outrageous after all. It certainly isn't unusual for law enforcement to withhold evidence from the public to distinguish between any future hoaxers and the real murderer in any crime. But was this one instance?