The map below shows the locations of two (possibly four) Zodiac communications postmarked December 7th 1969, December 10th 1969, December 11th 1969 and December 16th 1969 (all unpublished at the time). It is noteworthy that all four communications over a period of just 10 days were mailed in locations almost exclusively limited to Interstate 80 and the quickest route from Sacramento to San Francisco. Every single Zodiac communication from 1969 to 1970 was postmarked San Francisco, except for this burst of letters in just over a week from Fairfield and Sacramento, two cities northeast of Vallejo. On December 10th 1969, Leona Roberts was abducted from 749 Tormey Avenue in Rodeo at approximately 6:15pm, with the Day-By-Day Forecast for Cancer letter likely mailed from Sacramento before her abduction, because it had a PM postmark on the same day.

​The following day, on December 11th 1969, the Day-By-Day Forecast for Leo letter was PM postmarked in San Francisco, showing that the author had possibly driven along Interstate 80 through Rodeo as he negotiated his quickest route from Sacramento to San Francisco via Vallejo. In other words, he had passed within one mile of the abduction site of Leona Roberts at 749 Tormey Avenue during this journey (which may have been driven with no break). He then mailed a horocope letter entitled Day-By-Day Forecast for Leo, which could mean Day-By-Day Forecast for Leo(na Roberts), bearing in mind she had been abducted the previous day and her body was not found until December 28th 1969, with the coroner estimating she had been alive 10 to 14 days after her abduction.  

Three of the communications on December 7th, 10th and December 16th carried the pseudonym of Zodiac despite none being published in the newspapers. The Day-By-Day Forecast for Cancer letter had two prominent words pasted onto the horoscope page. Despite nearly 60 years of speculation on the inspiration for the pseudonym of "Zodiac" and the "crosshairs" symbol, the author of the Day-By-Day Forecast for Cancer letter appeared to anchor "Zodiac" and "Watch" together, implying that the Zodiac watch was the origin of his signatures on July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969.. 

The phrase "trying times" appeared to sum up the troubles of Melvin Belli in early December 1969 and may have influenced the language adopted in the Z38 cipher mailed in Fairfield on December 7th 1969. If we add the Melvin Belli letter mailed to 1228 Montgomery Street, San Francisco on December 20th 1969 into the mix, it brings the total to 5 letters mailed in the space of 13 days, bound by one major commuter route. If these communications were multiple hoaxers, what is the likelihood they would choose the locations of Sacramento, Fairfield and San Francisco to mail them from, which are all connected by Interstate 80 through Vallejo. ​

​The residence at 749 Tormey Avenue would return to the news on January 4th 1970 and January 6th 1970, when four malicious phone calls by a person identifying himself as the "Zodiac Killer" were received by Peggy Trainer in Rodeo. It was reported in the Contra Costa Times newspaper that Peggy Trainer lived directly behind the 749 Tormey Avenue apartment from which Leona Roberts was abducted.

​This means that the pseudonym "Zodiac" appeared in a communication mailed on the day Leona Roberts was abducted, and was used less than a month later over the phone on Peggy Trainer, who lived by the residence of the abduction site. This is significant because the Day-By-Day Forecast for Cancer letter had not been published in the newspapers by the time of the four phone calls. Therefore, the two "forecast" letters were very likely mailed by the same person who announced himself to Peggy Trainer and stated she would be his "next victim" - which of course - would have particular significance to a woman who experienced an abduction so close to her own doorstep. 

​The letters mailed on December 7th, 10th, 11th and 16th were all cryptic in nature, carrying two short codes/ciphers and an array of newspaper cuttings pasted on the backdrop of a November horoscope page. A third Fairfield letter arrived 17 months later in 1971. All  the Fairfield communications contained a code or cipher, and all can be shown to have been penned by the Zodiac Killer. The only question that remains, is the authenticity of the two "forecast" letters from Sacramento and San Francisco on December 10th and December 11th 1969 respectively.  

Although the Zodiac Killer has "only" been found responsible for the murder of five people in the Bay Area of California in late 1968 and 1969, he may be indirectly responsible for many other murders committed in his name. Outside of the canonical five, the Zodiac Killer has been widely linked to the abduction of Kathleen Johns (22) and her infant child near Modesto on March 22nd 1970, to which Zodiac claimed in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 24th 1970. It is believed that her abductor probably picked up her trail in downtown Modesto.

In 1974, Richard Alford (19), son of a former Modesto banker, began a series of phony confessions to police about fictitious killings he had committed, which coincided with a flurry of reported Zodiac activity between January 29th 1974 and July 8th 1974. On Sunday, December 8th 1974 he switched from fantasy to real murder, when he offered Vivian Elaine Loughlin (13) and her friend Lonnie Jean Merritt (13) a ride in his truck at a north Modesto bowling alley, claiming he would take them home to Oakdale. Instead he drove them to a remote location near the Stanislaus River by a peach loading dock and ordered the two girls out of the truck. Lonnie ran for her life and narrowly escaped through heavy fog into the field beyond, but Vivian wasn't so lucky, being struck in the upper right arm and back by a shotgun.  

Richard Alford then rang the ambulance service and told attendant Mike Phillips that he was the Zodiac Killer, stating "I am the Zodiac". He gave directions to the body of Vivian Loughlin and cautioned Mike not to inform the police because the area had been wired with explosives. Although this latter claim was false, police recovered the body of Vivian lying on her back where Alford had claimed. It is believed she was raped.

Bearing in mind Kathleen Johns reported that she had been offered a lift by the Zodiac Killer on Highway 132 exiting Modesto, it is relatively easy to see the similarities to this case. On a Sunday, Richard Alford offered a lift to two young girls in Modesto, abducted them and drove both to a remote location under duress, murdered one of the terrified girls, before making a phone call to authorities under the guise of the Zodiac Killer and directing them to the crime scene, while embellishing the story and adding explosives into the mix. if Richard Alford's admission wasn't enough, his actions appeared to derive inspiration from the Modesto abduction of Kathleen Johns in 1970, while driven by the publicity received by the Zodiac Killer in the first seven months of 1974.

The Zodiac Killer can only be confirmed responsible for the murders of five individuals, but it begs the question, would Vivian Loughlin be alive today had the Zodiac Killer not embarked on his murderous campaign of terror, including the newspaper coverage of Kathleen Johns alleged abduction near Modesto. Richard Alford may have killed anyway, but it appeared that Vivian Loughline became "collateral damage" of a story that went before.

The Zodiac Killer, who taunted the Bay Area over many years, was simply a contemporary product of his surroundings that bled into virtually every communication that he fashioned and mailed to the newspapers. On Thursday, May 15th 1969, violent and deadly clashes between police and protesters occurred in the People's Park in Berkeley, California, resulting in the death of James Rector (26) and the permanent blinding of Alan Blanchard. Reinforcements were called in from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, who arrived carrying shotguns and shells of buckshot. They wore pale blue jumpsuits and were quickly nicknamed the Blue Meanies by protesters.

On February 2nd 1970 a federal grand jury indicted 12 deputies for the shotgun death of James Rector and the reported beating of prisoners in the aftermath of the Berkeley riot. Soon after, came the murder of San Francisco police officer Brian McDonnell on February 16th 1970, who suffered devastating and sadly fatal injuries when a bomb packed with 1 1/2 inch fence staples exploded on an outside ledge of Park Police Station in the Upper Haight neighborhood. Despite police caution and subsequent denials, one proposed consideration for the Park Police Station bombing in the newspapers was laid at the door of Berkeley radicals, who harbored ongoing resentment towards the police.

The bombing of the Park Police Station and death of Brian McDonnell on February 16th 1970, and the People's Park protest in 1969 re-emerging on February 16th 1970 after the arraignment in a U.S. District Court of  12 deputies for violating civil rights in Berkeley, almost certainly inspired the Zodiac Killer to mail his April 20th 1970 letter and invoke the "blue meannie" phrase in accompaniment to his reference of the Park Police Station bombing  The Zodiac Killer wrote on April 20th 1970 "I hope you do not think that I was the one who wiped out that blue meannie with a bomb at the cop station.  Even though I talked about killing school children with one. It just wouldn't doo to move in on someone else's teritory. But there is more glory in killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back". However, this wouldn't be the last time the Zodiac Killer used the term "blue meannies" - and it yet again had relevance to the court case of the 12 deputies regarding the People's Park protest in Berkeley. 

The following year, on March 13th 1971, the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the Los Angeles Times stating "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". Nine days earlier, on March 4th 1971, the government ended its efforts to convict 12 Alameda County deputy sheriffs of violating the civil rights of Berkeley protesters, and on March 10th 1971, just three days before this latest Zodiac letter, a Pleasanton Court dropped misdemeanor charges on Alameda County sheriff's deputies Gary R. Nelson (25) and Lawrence L. Riche (25). Pleasanton Judicial District Judge William Gale dismissed the charges after the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco announced it was to drop all charges against the 12 deputies because the government decided it couldn't rely on some of the witnesses.  

Reported in the newspapers on March 11th 1971, it was only two days later that the Zodiac Killer would mail a letter from Pleasanton in Alameda County, mentioning the "blue meannies" once again. Was it the finalizing of the court proceedings regarding the twelve "blue meannies" that drove the Zodiac Killer to head to Pleasanton and mail his "Los Angeles" letter on Friday, March 12th 1971 or Saturday, March 13th 1971? Sightings of the Zodiac Killer in the adjoining city of Dublin, California were reported over that weekend, including numerous phone calls to the Alameda County sheriff's office. This flurry of phone calls came 4 1/2 months after the last reported Zodiac letter on October 27th 1970, from a city approximately 40 miles (and 50 minutes) from San Francisco by car. Phone calls that were placed days before the newspapers released information about the latest Zodiac letter. This letter was first publicly released on Tuesday, March 16th 1971.

It begs the question that if numerous and separate individuals had reported sightings of the Zodiac Killer in Dublin (near Pleasanton) on the same weekend he mailed the "Los Angeles" letter, before its delivery and receipt had been mentioned in the newspapers, then how accurate was the Presidio Heights sketch of the Zodiac Killer? Numerous people were apparently claiming they saw the Zodiac Killer in close proximity to Pleasanton the very time he mailed a letter from this location. Does this somewhat validate the likeness of the sketch to the real Bay Area murderer?   

There are four viable options. [1] The Zodiac Killer was visiting (or stayed in) the Dublin area (before heading to Pleasanton) and was spotted by numerous independent individuals who contacted police, [2] The individual in question was somebody who looked like the Zodiac Killer sketch and was noticed in the Dublin area by numerous independent individuals who contacted police. [3] The Zodiac Killer made the phone calls for self-publicity (negated if the calls were established as different people), or [4] The numerous individuals who rang the police were known to one another and manufactured a story that they saw the Zodiac Killer in town, while simultaneously mailing a letter from neighboring Pleasanton and fashioning a hoax. In other words, the Pleasanton letter has nothing to do with the Zodiac Killer. The last two options seem awfully contrived, and number [2] would be an amazing coincidence if the letter was actually mailed by the Zodiac Killer over the same weekend. Option [1] appears the likeliest answer, but still begs the question of whether the Zodiac Killer had ulterior motives in Pleasanton on or around March 13th 1971? The court case remains a distinct possibility.  

It is clear that the Zodiac Killer knew he gave us insufficient clues to reasonably solve the Z32 cipher on June 26th 1970, so a month later, on July 26th 1970, he gave us some additional clues such as "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians". This provided us with the following answer. So where are the supplemental clues to the Z13 cipher mailed on April 20th 1970? There are hundreds (probably thousands) of possible unverifiable answers to the Z13 using substitution methods, which the Zodiac must have known to be the case. Therefore, one could conclude that this wasn't the method he chose to use. We had to find a later communication that contained the solution to the Z13 that can be simply demonstrated. The identity in this later communication may also be preceded by "My name is". The following is nothing new, but I just wanted to present the findings in a different format.

When we look at the Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer appears to add the "Tit-Willow" verse from "The Mikado" for no apparent reason. However, the verse was preceded by "Signed, yours truley;" This may suggest that his identity is within the verse. This concept gained little traction until I looked up the following line in the complete song. The Zodiac Killer plagiarised the section below (in red) to place into his letter. The next line in the below verse (in blue) reads in part "Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name Is". In other words, the Zodiac Killer introduced his Tit-Willow verse with "Signed, yours truley:", followed by the next line which contained the phrase "my name is", and ended with his identity of "Me". The complete sequence reading 
"Signed, yours truley: My name is Me". 

When we use the circled 8's in the Z13 to cycle around the cipher by a right shift of eight, we get an identity of "Me" (see below), just like the signature on the Exorcist letter. ​The Exorcist letter, in order, read "Signed, yours truley: My name is Me". The April 20th letter (with a right shift of 8) would now read "My name is Me". The common phrase "My name is Me" can now be shown as a Zodiac identity through two letters, both of which teased us with his name. But is there anything to indicate that the Zodiac Killer employed a "shift-type" cipher on April 20th 1970? Edgar Allan Poe may have the answer.

MUST READ FOLLOW UP ABOUT THE EDGAR ALLEN POE CONNECTION TO THIS ARTICLE 
​ALSO: CRACKING THE CRACKPROOF AND AN IDENTITY IN THE HALLOWEEN CARD

It has long been thought that the Zodiac Killer had a penchant for the theater, movies and comic books, based upon his letter writing to the newspapers. We don't know whether this was a protracted case of misdirection by the Zodiac Killer, who was simply playing to the audience, or whether the themes he portrayed in his communications were an extension of himself. We know that he was inspired by the exact words of Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), when he created his 408 cryptogram and enciphered the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" - but did any other movies have an influence in the design of his July 31st 1969 letters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle?

​The Zodiac Killer wrote "In this cipher is my idenity" in the Chronicle letter, to which he added the third portion of cipher, stating "I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife". In other words, he promised us an identity, but when the 408 cipher was decoded he assured us that it wouldn't be his name. We know of two identities for the Bay Area murderer [1] The "Zodiac", and [2] "Z". These appeared first in the August 4th 1969 "Debut" letter, and the October 27th 1970 "Halloween" card. One of these identities should be hidden in the 408 cipher if the Zodiac Killer was telling the truth. Unfortunately we have 18 unsolved characters in the 408 cipher which nobody has adequately explained, until David Oranchak highlighted the concept of a missing line. 

One other movie that the Zodiac Killer may have been influenced by was "The Mark of Zorro" released in 1920 and 1940, featuring an individual who had a secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega, a wealthy nobleman who lived in Los Angeles during the Spanish colonial era. By night, he transformed into the masked vigilante "Zorro" (Z), fighting the injustice and oppression of the corrupt. This duality allowed him to operate with impunity, as his true identity remained hidden from those he sought to neutralize. He was a type of masked superhero who left his signature or identity in the form of the letter "Z", often carved onto his slain victims by virtue of his sword. Somebody the Zodiac Killer may have identified with when he masked up for his "adventure" on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, armed with a bayonet-type weapon. The whole concept of Zorro was a masked man who had ties to early California, whose "secret identity" was cloaked behind the letter "Z" that signed his perilous work. Sounds like the October 27th 1970 "secret pal" card, signed with a "Z". But how does the word "identity" and the signature "Z" tie in with the 408 cipher. The letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on July 31st 1969 carried the wording "In this cipher is my idenity", so where is the letter "Z" in the third and final portion of cipher mailed to the Chronicle?

Count Zaroff was the murderous host of "Ship Trap" Island, where unlucky sailors were lured to their fate of being hunted for sport in "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932). Zorro was the masked avenger seeking to right the wrongs of society with his trademark signature that struck fear into his adversaries. The Zodiac Killer seemingly flipped the script and lashed out at the innocent in a society that he had developed an animosity towards - but in all cases - the leading protagonist carried an identity beginning with the letter "Z". Bearing in mind that these two movies may have had an influence on the thinking of the Zodiac Killer, it isn't unrealistic to believe he adopted the letter "Z" from the pseudonym "Zodiac" and inserted it in position 408 in his cipher. An identify just like "Zorro".

​It is a fair to good assumption that the Zodiac Killer made a draft version of his 408 message in a grid of 17 by 24 characters, to be enciphered and mailed in three parts of 136 characters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle - but he made a mistake during this process when moving from the San Francisco Examiner to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. The problem was that the first three lines of the Chronicle section may have all began with the letter "E", so he likely accidentally missed out line 17 from his draft version of the message and continued his enciphering to the Chronicle beginning on line 18 instead (see associated image).

​This created the error in the deciphered message of "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (?) I have killed will become my slaves". His letters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle described his potential dozen victims as being "couples", "stray people", "lone people" or "people who are alone in the night". Therefore, the missing line preceding "I HAVE KILLED" probably contained these descriptors. The original message could have read "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the lone or stray people I have killed will become my slaves". ​Had the Zodiac Killer not made this error, we would have been left with one unexplained character in position 408 (the letter E).

David Oranchak noted in his 408 cipher analysis that the Zodiac Killer adopted noticeable cycles in his encryption technique when allocating ciphertext characters to the same plaintext letter. Below is one for the plaintext letter "E", which David shows here in his YouTube video.

It appeared that the Zodiac Killer's original message read perfectly well for 407 characters (finishing with "for my afterlife"), but then he placed the letter "E" to end the 408 message. Was this his identity or signature we had to further decode? The plaintext letter "E" is first represented by the letter "Z" in Zodiac's cycled code key above. Is it possible that we had to run this anomalous letter through the key for a second time to reveal his true identity?  Could this be the link between the Bates letters mailed in Riverside in 1967, thereby binding the two cases together through a trinity of communications spanning two years?