If the Zodiac Killer was a native of the Bay Area and visited Lake Tahoe for recreational purposes such as hunting, fishing and hiking, then had he been responsible for the abduction and likely murder of Donna Lass on September 6th 1970, it seems a logical argument can be made for the killer disposing of his victim in an area he was familiar with. This area would be remote, free from prying eyes and somewhere the killer had previously frequented. Many killers will bury or conceal a victim in an area they feel comfortable spending the necessary time required for such a task, with limited or no fear of detection. If the Zodiac Killer was in Lake Tahoe for the wilderness and rugged terrain, he was probably familiar with the numerous hiking trails that surrounded the lake - and the many secluded areas at night, that would provide the perfect backdrop to bury a victim and lay a puzzle for the police. The burial site would likely be accessible by car, just off a hiking trail he knew well. It would be a reasonable distance from a main road, not too close to his residence, but not too far as to risk being pulled over with a body in his vehicle. The burial site of Donna Lass, as intimated by the March 22nd 1971 Pines Card fits all these criteria, and suggests (if the postcard is being truthful) that her body was hidden on the western edge of Lake Tahoe. The postcard itself, can be further backed up with the accuracy displayed by the July 13th 1971 Monticello Card. For those of you unaware of this correspondence, here is a brief recap.  

The Monticello Card mimicked the Pines Card in the directional nature of the communication. The Monticello Card contained the phrases "in the woods" and "near Monticello", whereas the Pines Card stated "pass Lake Tahoe areas" and "Sierra Club". Both communications provided us with a specific location and directions, and it is my belief that both contained a punch-hole on the right-hand side of the card  The combination of a punch-hole and directions should indicate that both these postcards were designed as an overlay, pinpointing a specific location. The Monticello Card read "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". The card was describing the murder of Kathy Bilek, who was brutally stabbed in the Villa Montalvo woods on April 11th 1971 in Saratoga. The location he pinpointed as Monticello, was a few miles east of the crime scene - but more important - was the reason he chose the neighborhood of Monticello in the first place. Immediately alongside the neighborhood of Monticello sat the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery where Kathy Snoozy was buried. The Zodiac Killer had previously claimed the murders of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong (San Jose) in his November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card by the addition of "Aug" in his running total. The Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery would have sat under the punch-hole on the Monticello Card. This punch-hole would not only be over a memorial park, but over a burial site. The only reason the Zodiac Killer identified this location in Monticello was to reveal the name of Kathy, the namesake of Kathy Bilek - and the final clue to the identity of the murder victim portrayed in the Monticello Card. The Pines Card followed exactly the same pattern, with the punch-hole again falling over a memorial park and the name of an alleged murder victim - that of Donna Lass. When the Pines postcard is positioned over the Sierra Club of Clair Tappaan Lodge, the punch-hole falls exactly over the Donner Memorial State Park. The Zodiac Killer gave us a memorial to Kathy and Donna in both instances.

But was it really that simple? The Monticello clue - although it identified a burial site - was not the burial site of the young woman that the Monticello Card was designed around (that of Kathy Bilek). Moreover, it was a clue to the name of Kathy. The punch-hole in the Pines Card may equally have been designed to give us the name of Donna, but not specifically denoting where she was buried. So, let us take an in depth look at the March 22nd 1971 Pines Card.   

You will notice that the wording "Sierra Club" has been inadvertently or deliberately pinned to the largest tree, as to mimic a "flagpole" or "starting point". Directly opposite (and of equal size to the pasted text) the Zodiac Killer has placed the punch-hole. When the center of Sierra Club on the flagpole is positioned over the Sierra Club of Clair Tappaan Lodge, with the postcard overlayed onto a map, the punch-hole on the right side drops nicely over the entrance to Donner Memorial State Park. But nobody in their right mind (even Zodiac) would have contemplated burying Donna Lass so close to Interstate 80 and the Donner Pass Road. As stated above, the killer would likely dispose of the body with the least chance of detection, away from the major roads, and probably alongside a hiking trail he was previously familiar with.

There is only one route that fits the criteria of "pass Lake Tahoe areas" that runs directly from the south side of Lake Tahoe where Donna Lass was abducted from (Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino), to the area of the Donner State Memorial Park. From the Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino, a direct route from the crime scene to remote wilderness, could be achieved by taking US Route 50 and California State Route 89. It is approximately 30 miles from the casino along the south and west side of the lake, to the area I have identified. Furthermore, the area is alongside the Pole Creek Trailhead - a hiking trail the Zodiac Killer may have been familiar with. This location sits directly over the crosshairs of Zodiac on the Pines Card. I have drawn a green line from the location of the punch-hole (Donner Memorial State Park) to the crosshairs on the Pines Card. This green line straddles California State Route 89, with the crosshairs falling a few hunded metres to the west of Route 89, by the Pole Creek Trailhead, along Pole Creek Road. Shown here on Google maps.

This is obviously an estimation to the possible burial site of Donna Lass, but when we "pass the Lake Tahoe areas" on the west side of the lake, this trailhead presents itself. The Zodiac Killer could exit California State Route 89 just past the Silver Creek Campground and travel a few hundred meters along Pole Creek Road. This area offers quick egress from the Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino via US Route 50 and California State Route 89, and into remote isolation in as little as 40 minutes. More importantly, the Zodiac crosshairs fell over this area when the Sierra Club of Clair Tappaan Lodge and Donner Memorial State Park were aligned with the Pines Card. The Zodiac Killer pasted "pass Lake Tahoe areas" and "Peek through the Pines" next to the Zodiac crosshairs, so it is rather fortunate that Pole Creek Road is just past the Lake Tahoe areas on the western edge, and forged between the pine trees of California State Route 89 (see below).

Many people have considered whether the Zodiac was inspired by previous serial killers, such as Jack the Ripper. who brought terror to the streets of Whitechapel, London in the latter months of 1888. Both killer's would be accredited with five canonical victims in a comparatively brief reign, and both cases would also be accompanied by letters to the press. The overarching consensus, is of a Zodiac Killer who readily supplied the newspapers with details of his crimes and intentions, in both a wilful and reactionary manner. He was urged by Vallejo Police Chief, Jack E. Stiltz to provide more information to the police, to prove that the murderer and letter writer were one and the same person. The Zodiac Killer duly obliged when he hand delivered the 'Debut of Zodiac' letter to the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th 1969 revealing his pseudonym to the world - the Zodiac Killer was born. If we ever needed to discover the purpose or meaning behind a Zodiac Killer communication, then often we need look no further than the previous months newspaper coverage. Although the Ripper letters were believed to be a concoction by the tabloid press of the day to boost circulation, the ridicule and taunting of the police became the mainstay that connected both Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer, despite being separated by eighty years.

On May 6th 1986, the Zodiac Killer or a hoaxer mailed a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle claiming the April 22nd 1986 murders of Koy Ien Saechao and Choy Fow Salee, who were brutally gunned down in similar fashion to the attack on Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin at Blue Rock Springs Park on July 4th 1969. The killer had approached their vehicle from the rear and fired off 15 small-caliber rounds into the vehicle, blowing out both front side windows. The author of the letter wrote "This is the Zodiac speaking. I am still out here an crackproof. I want you to know about my latest slaves that I have collected about two weeks ago up by Sacramento Ca. I will give you clue to help you with the mystry. They were killed by a freeway. The Blue Meannies almost caught me. The body count is growing now 100+ all over the state of Ca and Na". This letter is a complete outlier to the barrage of communications from 1969 to 1971 - so what inspired a lone communication such as this, if not the release of the Robert Graysmith Zodiac book in the January of that year. The 1986 letter would be belatedly followed by another correspondence on October 28th 1987 referencing the movie The Car - and it is this latest letter that would mimic one crucial detail from another outlier communication from 1978. 

The letter on the right was mailed on April 24th 1978 claiming the Zodiac Killer was back and waiting for a good movie about him. This communication arrived seven years after the 1971 'Los Angeles' letter and four years after the quartet of communications in 1974. So, what drove the Zodiac killer out of the shadows and back into the limelight? (assuming it was him). We know the Zodiac Killer fed off the newspaper coverage of the day, so there must have been a considerable trigger to drive him to communicate with the San Francisco Chronicle once again. The answer may lie in the design of the April 24th 1978 letter.

The letter began with "Dear" and ended with "yours truly" (placed midline), in similar design to the Dear Boss letter, mailed and accredited to Jack the Ripper on September 27th 1888. This may not be wholly convincing on its own, unless we can discover the inspiration for why the Zodiac Killer decided to resurrect his contact with the Chronicle newspaper in 1978, akin to the release of the Zodiac book by Robert Graysmith in 1986. It may have been a newspaper story that he had followed closely over the preceding months or years. But one that inspired the Ripperesque style approach and the desire for his name to be up in lights.

Dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe terrorized the north of England from 1975 to 1981, finally being arrested on January 2nd 1981 and sentenced to 20 concurrent life sentences, to serve a minimum of 30 years (later given a whole life tariff). He was convicted for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more. The investigation was marred by police incompetence and a hoaxer called Wearside Jack. Over the course of a year between March 1978 and the end of June 1979, John Humble sent three letters claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Postmarked from Sunderland, two were addressed to Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, a member of the West Yorkshire Police who was heading the Ripper inquiry, and one to the Daily Mirror. However, these letters were not published until 1979, so couldn't have inspired the 1978 Chronicle letter. The Yorkshire Ripper case dominated the headlines in the UK - and it is extremely unlikely (whether or not the Zodiac Killer has British ancestry) that an avid reader such as the Bay Area murderer wouldn't have kept himself informed of world affairs.

On January 21st 1978, the Yorkshire Ripper claimed his seventh victim, that of Yvonne Pearson (21). Peter Sutcliffe repeatedly bludgeoned her about the head with a hammer, then jumped on her chest before stuffing horse-hair into her mouth from a discarded sofa under which he hid her body near Lumb Lane. On January 18th 1978, Helen Rytka (18) was struck on the head five times as she exited his vehicle - and after stripping many of the clothes from her body, he then repeatedly stabbed her in the chest. Her body was found beneath railway arches in the timber-yard to which he had driven her three days later. The body of Yvonne Pearson was not discovered and reported in the newspapers until March 26th 1978. One month later, the Zodiac Killer reappeared and wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle, in a communication bearing hallmarks of the Dear Boss letter of 1888. Did the Zodiac Killer keep abreast of the news from England and resurrect the Ripper for the newsrooms of the San Francisco Chronicle, or was there another reason he resurfaced in the April of 1978? 

In the history of cryptography, a grille cipher was a technique for encrypting a plaintext by writing it onto a sheet of paper through a pierced sheet (of paper or cardboard or similar). The earliest known description is due to the polymath Girolamo Cardano in 1550. His proposal was for a rectangular stencil allowing single letters, syllables, or words to be written, then later read, through its various apertures. The written fragments of the plaintext could be further disguised by filling the gaps between the fragments with anodyne words or letters. This variant is also an example of steganography, as are many of the grille ciphers. Wikipedia.

The Zodiac Killer began his letter writing campaign on July 31st 1969, when he mailed three portions of one cipher to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald. However, it wasn't until October 5th 1970 that his communications took on a different appearance entirely, in which the Bay Area murderer began claiming he was "crackproof" and stated "sorry no cipher", with four out of the next five communications (if we include the Monticello Card) employing the notion of a grille cipher. The '13 Hole' Postcard, possibly using a "red cross" decoder (akin to the Dick Tracy red decoder) , to be punctured by the 13 holes on the card and overlayed onto the 340 character cipher. This would reveal the enciphered "paradice" and "slaves" bisecting the 340 cipher both horizontally and vertically along its mid-section.

The 13 holes overlayed onto the 340 cipher in a cross formation, taken from the '13 Hole' Postcard would reveal the hidden arrangement in the 340 cipher (similar to the depiction on the right, although portrayed with yellow squares as opposed to white punch-holes). This was the arrangement already present on the Halloween Card in reveal mode.

The '13 Hole' Postcard has 13 punch-holes in the fabric of the card, the Halloween Card has an eye peeking through the knothole in the tree, and the mask on the skeleton has two eyeholes. Then (if I am correct) we have one hole punched in both the March 22nd 1971 Pines Card and the July 13th 1971 Monticello Card, which when overlayed on a map by the Sierra Club of Lake Tahoe and the Villa Montalvo woods in Saratoga, would both reveal the name of the victim in both instances. The point being, we have a rudimentary grille cipher being employed or insinuated in four communications spanning through October 5th 1970 and July 13th 1971. The arrangement of "paradice" and "slaves" on the Halloween Card, and the punch-holes in every other card during this period, revealing something significant hidden beneath. The name of Donna and Kathy in the two 1971 postcards, and the hidden configuration in the November 8th 1969 340 cipher, derived from both October 1970 communications.

The grille cipher, even in its most rudimentary form, was implied or used through four of Zodiac's last five communications from October 5th 1970. I am completely confident that the Monticello Card is fashioned in exactly the same manner as the Pines Card, separated by less than four months, with the single punch-hole revealing the location of Donner Memorial State Park (Donna Lass) and Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery (Kathy Snoozy) by the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose. Two locations, two victims and two names, all bound by two postcards. If these overlays didn't drop over these locations accidentally, then why should the cross design on the '13 Hole' Postcard and Halloween Card mimic the 340 cipher accidentally as well.

Was the Zodiac Killer inspired by the simple Dick Tracy grille cipher, or had he invested in the book The Codebreakers - The Story of Secret Writing by David Khan, released the year before the Zodiac attacks began on December 20th 1968? It is without much doubt, that the grille cipher featured heavily in his final two communications of 1970, even though one could argue that the single holes punched into the 1971 postcards are more representative of an overlay, rather than a decryption technique - yet in every instance, a message was revealed through the punch-holes.

After the final flurry of communications had ceased in 1971, many have speculated on a killer who upped sticks and left the state of California. One dubious Zodiac letter was received nearly a decade later in 1981, postmarked Atlanta, Georgia and mailed to the television station WXIA-TV "11 Alive" at 1611 West Peachtree Street, 30308 on March 8th. Wayne Williams was a serial killer attributed with twenty plus murders in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981, primarily that of children. However, Wayne Williams was only ever convicted in the murders of Jimmy Ray Payne (21) on April 23rd 1981 and Nathaniel Cater (27) on May 22nd 1981, both of whom were adults. This has led some people to question whether Wayne Williams was responsible for any or some of the murders attributed to him. Wayne Williams wasn't arrested until June 21st 1981, which in retrospect, makes the alleged Zodiac letter on March 8th 1981 claiming he was responsible for some of the Atlanta child murders even more interesting. This letter was mailed 3 1/2 months prior to the arrest of Wayne Williams. Is it possible the Zodiac Killer was responsible for some or any of the child murders just over 2,300 miles from California, bearing in mind the doubt that has surrounded the crimes? Let us examine the letter and a similar threat received in the same timeframe. 

Two black children and three black adults were murdered in March that year, with the three adults aged between 20 and 23 years, murdered between March 20th and March 25th of 1981. The letter stated:

Hello its me. Haven't you people figured out who is killing these little people yet. I'll give you a hint, I used to be in San Francisco. I used to stalk women, but I like to kill children now. At all my victims bodies I have left certain clues, but I guess it's too much for you Rebels to handle. So I guess I'll have to tell you. I'll (to) kill children because they are so easy to "pick off: Buy the way, if you still have letters from the other murders, I am not writing in the same hand writing. 

Both letters contain racist overtones, with the use of the capitalized Rebels and the demand to stop Forced Bussing.
Patriots (also known as Revolutionaries, Continentals, Rebels, or American Whigs) were those colonists of the Thirteen Colonies who rejected British rule during the American Revolution and declared the United States of America as an independent nation in July 1776. Their decision was based on the political philosophy of republicanism as expressed by spokesmen such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine. They were opposed by the Loyalists who supported continued British rule. Soldiers fighting for the southern states in the American Civil War were called rebels. Wikipedia. Therefore, by invoking the title of Rebels may indicate the identity or character of the person behind the letter, particularly if he was also responsible for the short note, stating "Please stop forced bussing or I will kill 3 more black boys in Atlanta in March".  

Busing, also called desegregation busing in the United States, was the practice of transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts as a means of rectifying racial segregation. Although American schools were technically desegregated in 1954 by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in practice they remained largely segregated owing to trends in housing and neighbourhood segregation. Busing came to be the main remedy by which the courts sought to end racial segregation in the U.S. schools, and it was the source of what was arguably the biggest controversy in American education in the later 20th century.

With extremely limited information available to be gleaned from these communications, we have to consider the possibility that the author chose the WXIA-TV "11 Alive" Station at 1611 West Peachtree Street because he may have lived or worked somewhere close to this location. Because the letter was mailed on March 8th 1981, we shall look at three of the recent victims from January 22nd 1981 to March 2nd 1981 - that of Terry Pue (15), Patrick Baltazar (11) and Joseph Bell (15), who were last seen at 4796 Memorial Drive, 201 Courtland Street and Westview Drive respectively. These locations are all within an 8.5 mile radius of the television station. But it is the abduction and murder of Terry Pue on January 22nd 1981 that we will concentrate on, primarily because of the telephone calls that accompanied this crime. Telephone calls with a racist overtone, similar to the correspondence above. These calls and letters could have been a diversionary tactic to throw off police, employed to place the murders squarely at the feet of the Ku Klux Klan or some other white supremacy group, but equally we have to consider the Zodiac Killer because of the claims in the letter - however slim that possibility.

An excellent website covering the Atlanta Child Murders is http://atkid.weebly.com, from which this excerpt has been taken: "Terry Pue's body was found off Sigman Road in Rockdale County by a passerby.  This was where an anonymous man, on January 8th, called to tell police to find a boy's body. When police came up empty handed, the man called again, claiming he put another body there, just before Pue was found.  Another call, believed to be from the same man, was traced to North Indian Creek Drive. A couple years later, a second skeletal body was found in this area".

These were the sort of 'cat and mouse' games employed by the Zodiac Killer - although it is extremely difficult to sell this notion on the basis of a few telephone calls - even if they did contain a racial element to their content. This was featured in episode six (season 2) of the Mindhunter series by Joe Penhall. The author of the letter stated that he had left "certain clues" at all his victims bodies. If this were the case in respect to Terry Pue, what could he have possibly meant?

Earlier this year, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Atlanta police chief Erika Shields announced that, following advancements in DNA technology, the city would be retesting evidence associated with the Atlanta child murders, a series of gruesome killings of more than 25 black children and adolescents in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During the press conference, Shields said there were boxes of evidence associated with the case, some of which had never been tested, and that the department believed it had a responsibility to the families of the victims to reopen the case. Rolling Stone.

Terry Pue was discovered strangled near to Interstate 20 on Sigman Road, wearing a blue windbreaker with the name "Kim" in red lettering on its rear, with dog hairs adhering to his clothing. But I doubt these are the sort of clues that Zodiac would have left behind for the police. The phone calls in the run up to the discovery of Terry Pue's body are an interesting feature of this crime, with the caller in one instance traced to the area of North Indian Creek Drive. This location is approximately 8.5 miles east of 1611 West Peachtree Street Northeast.