On August 26th 1976, an article (see below) appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled Tips Still Pursue Multiple Slayer, chronicling the relentless pursuit of the Zodiac Killer by Inspector David Toschi, who stated "I feel he's out there. I feel he's going to surface". The third paragraph of the newspaper article continued: "With the transfer of his long time partner, William Armstrong, to the fraud detail, Toschi is the only San Francisco detective on the case now, one of the most baffling in the history of American crime". A personal advertisement appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in the same morning edition, seemingly connected to the now extremely rare coverage of the Zodiac Killer story. The fact that the story and personal advertisement coincided, with linguistically similar traits, could be interpreted in two different ways.   

Many have considered that the personal advertisement may have been placed in the San Francisco Chronicle by law enforcement to encourage a reply from the Zodiac Killer. However, the cryptic nature of the message seems to refer directly to the opening section of the newspaper article, shrouded in confusing language, rather than any meaningful attempt to lure the Zodiac Killer from the shadows and have him begin speaking to law enforcement once again. The second possibility, is that the message is a threat to kill Inspector David Toschi by promising to terminate his case, especially when you consider that Inspector David Toschi was the only investigator currently working the Zodiac case in 1976. A threat upon his life would certainly terminate his involvement in pursuing the Zodiac Killer. The beginning of the advertisement, after possibly declaring he was "Zodiac", suggested that David Toschi's once partner was in "Deep Real Estate". Having been transferred to fraud detail, it would certainly be worthwhile looking for recent newspaper articles concerning William Armstrong and discover if he had been involved in any high profile mortgage frauds during the month of August (or recent months). One of the most lucrative crimes during the 1970s (and today) is mortgage fraud, and may explain the phrase "Your partner is in Deep Real Estate". 

The personal advertisement coincided with the newspaper story of Zodiac on August 26th 1976, so it would appear that the personal advertisement could not be a response to the San Francisco Chronicle article, unless the Zodiac Killer (or author) knew in advance that the story of David Toschi and his drive to solve the case in absence of his long time partner, was about to break in the newspapers. This, of course, would require the author of the advertisement to have prior knowledge to its publication, such as somebody connected to law enforcement or the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper      

The meaning behind "The Imperial Wizard can save you" is a lot more ambiguous, having no apparent connection to the newspaper article, other than known affiliations between law enforcement personnel and the Ku Klux Klan. The notion of infiltrating an organization with white supremacists to promote an agenda of hate is nothing new. Suggesting that David Toschi surrenders to the Imperial Wizard, could imply this was his only redemption. Two years earlier, in 1974, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Scott Nelson, claimed they had infiltrated the Houston Police Department, including narcotics officers and members of the theft and burglary divisions.   

Contact with David Toschi would become a feature of future Zodiac letters, such as on April 24th 1978 and October 28th 1987, as well as inferences (through the wording used) in the May 6th 1986 letter, and questionable July 19th 1978 Scotch Tape communication. Therefore, based on the correlation between the language used in the personal advertisement and newspaper article featuring David Toschi on August 26th 1976, the threat to "terminate his case" could be perceived as a direct threat on the life of the renowned Zodiac investigator. The newspaper article closed with: "I don't know if I'll ever get the case solved, but I'm sure as hell trying, Toschi said gamely".  

On October 22nd 1969, the Zodiac Killer (or somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer) rang the Oakland Police Department requesting an airing on the Jim Dunbar TV Show with either Melvin Belli or Francis Lee Bailey, two high profile celebrity lawyers of the day. Unfortunately this never materialized, with Zodiac Killer hoaxer Eric Weill taking the limelight and ringing into the KGO Radio Station in San Francisco that same morning. The Zodiac Killer would react to this when he enciphered a message in the 340 cryptogram on November 8th 1969, stating "That wasn't me on the TV show".  As time went by, the narcissistic traits of Zodiac realized that by focusing his attention towards high profile individuals such as Melvin Belli and Paul Avery, it would inevitably garner more attention for himself. But this may not have been the only time the Zodiac Killer responded to a TV show by creating a cryptogram.

The Zodiac Killer mailed two letters on October 28th 1987 to the Vallejo Times-Herald and San Francisco Chronicle, so it had been nearly three years since any confirmed correspondence had arrived at any newspaper offices, when on September 25th 1990, somebody insinuating he was the Zodiac Killer mailed the Celebrity Cypher postcard to the Vallejo Times-Herald containing a 63 or 64 character cryptogram. This correspondence was reminiscent of the April 20th 1970 code mailed by the Zodiac Killer, as it too promised a name at the foot of the postcard and the address side of the communication. Both the April 20th 1970 letter and September 25th 1990 postcard tempted us with a 13 character name. The final three words on the September 25th 1990 message were highly suggestive of the words "My name is". We know that the Zodiac Killer was often triggered into writing to the newspapers because of recent published articles that featured him, but at this point in time (after nearly 3 years), the newspaper articles about the Zodiac Killer had become extremely threadbare. Therefore, the pool of newspaper articles that triggered the September 25th 1990 postcard shouldn't be too difficult to find. This cryptographic postcard message was also highly relevant to the 340 cipher mailed on November 8th 1969.

The 340 cipher was a direct response to Jim Dunbar, an American radio program director, talk show host and news anchor, and Melvin Belli, a flamboyant lawyer, writer and actor. The Zodiac Killer, in this instance, took the opportunity to reply to the Jim Dunbar TV Show with his message concealed in code. He may have done exactly the same on September 25th 1990, because one month before the Celebrity Cypher was mailed, the Sally Jessy Raphael TV Show featured the story of the Zodiac Killer with three high profile guests, including Robert Graysmith (author of the 1986 book Zodiac), James Fox (professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston) and Pam Huckaby (sister of murder victim, Darlene Ferrin). So, there is every chance the Zodiac Killer responded to a second TV show with another cryptographic message. It is important to note, that when the Celebrity Cypher was mailed, nobody knew that the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher was a response to the Jim Dunbar TV Show. Therefore, the timing of the postcard to the Vallejo Times-Herald on September 25th 1990, a matter of weeks after the Sally Jessy Raphael TV Show and the accompanying newspaper article in the Vallejo Times-Herald, which featured the revelations on the TV Show, is a strong indicator that the postcard and TV show are relevant to one another. Especially when you consider the contents of the newspaper article.

The newspaper article began with "A former Vallejo woman related to one of the Zodiac's victims told a national television audience Wednesday that she is being harassed with death threats from the serial killer. Pam Huckaby, a guest on Sally Jessy Raphael's talk show, said that just days before she was to leave for New York to film Wednesday's show, she was assaulted and knocked unconscious in her home near Antioch". The newspaper continued "The killer is called the Zodiac because of his cryptic messages, loaded with astrological symbols, to the news media and investigators". But here is the crucial part of this newspaper article, where it stated "In a 1986 Times-Herald interview, Huckaby said she received annual calls from somebody claiming to be the Zodiac who said "This is the Zodiac speaking. I have collected the slaves I needed to collect. Now I'm going after the family". The Zodiac Killer in his 340 cipher stated "I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice all the sooner. I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradice". In summary, we have two cryptographic communications, very likely a response to celebrities appearing on a TV show, both occurring just weeks after the show aired. 

​Below are two possible decodings of the Celebrity Cypher postcard, bearing in mind Pam Huckaby was the focus of the Sally Jessy Raphael Show and subsequent Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper article.

If that wasn't enough, the author of the Celebrity Cypher on September 25th 1990 misspelled the address of Vallejo Times-Herald, using "Vallejo Times Herold", just as the Zodiac Killer had done on July 31st 1969 (and the 1969 envelope wasn't in the public domain in 1990). The October 28th 1987 envelope was also likely misspelled "Herold" as well. That is three communications to the Vallejo Times-Herald spanning 21 years, all probably misspelled the same way. ​

A few months after the Celebrity Cypher was received by the Vallejo Times-Herald, beginning in 1991, another series of cryptograms would be mailed concerning another TV show host. John Edward Walsh Jr. is an American television personality, and victim rights advocate, and the host/creator of America's Most Wanted. Beginning in 1991, John Walsh started receiving a sequence of sinister letters and cryptograms that many have considered may have been authored by the infamous Zodiac Killer. The title of the fifth cipher, accompanied by a 180 character cryptogram, read "Hi!, Remember me?", while another was signed by the pseudonym of "Scorpion". The author of these latest series of letters is unknown, but we have three high profile TV hosts, connected closely to several cryptograms, with the most recent offerings mailed in 1990 and 1991, just months apart. 

On July 31st 1969, three parts of one whole cipher were mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle by the Zodiac Killer, with the latter promising to give us his identity. But what was the inspiration behind the Zodiac Killer mailing letters to three newspapers with part of his manifesto encoded in ciphertext? In his San Francisco communications he spelled his offerings as a "cipher", yet in his offering to the Vallejo Times-Herald he used the variant spelling of "cypher", with the addition of letter "i" to form "cyipher". The Chronicle and Examiner jointly released a Sunday newspaper with a dedicated weekly section called The Puzzle Page, that contained a cryptogram called the Chronicle Cypher. The July 27th 1969 edition supplied us with a 78 character cryptogram, split by message and name, with the answer supplied on page 27. The newspapers puzzle and answer section also contained two variant spellings of the word cipher.

On August 10th 1969, a "concerned citizen" addressed a communication to Sergeant John Lynch of the Vallejo Police Department and supplied the code key to the 408 cipher, stating "Dear Sergeant Lynch. I hope the enclosed "key" will prove to be beneficial to you in connection with the cipher letter writer. Working puzzles criptograms and word puzzles is one of my pleasures. Please forgive the absence of my signature or name as I do not wish to have my name in the papers and it could be mentiond by a slip of the tongue. With best wishes. concerned citizen". The author of this communication (who many believe to be the Zodiac Killer) also gave us a variant spelling (albeit incorrect) of "cryptogram", by using "criptogram". The author also expressed an interest in "word puzzles" on August 10th 1969. So was the Zodiac Killer's inspiration for the July 31st 1969 letters derived from the Sunday newspaper puzzle page?  

Thanks to Cragle for the information used in this article. 

Bearing in mind the propensity of the Zodiac Killer to respond to recent newspaper articles about himself, it would have crossed the minds of Zodiac researchers that the hidden message in the 340 cipher may have concerned the recent attempted poisoning of schoolteacher Daniel Williams by somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer. The logical conclusion may have been a hidden message regarding the murders of Kathie Snoozy & Debra Furlong, on account of the Zodiac Killer raising his victim count from five to seven in the Dripping Pen card. However, it ultimately transpired to be a rebuttal or rejection of Eric Weill, the Zodiac hoaxer who rang into the Jim Dunbar TV Show on October 22nd 1969. The Zodiac enciphered the message "That wasn't me on the TV show" and "I am not afraid of the gas chamber", based entirely upon the Zodiac imposter and the interaction with Jim Dunbar and Melvin Belli.

When the Zodiac Killer's seventh cipher/code was mailed shortly after the Snoozy & Furlong murders saw an arrest in the case, on April 30th 1971, it too would ultimately prove to contain a contemporary hidden message concerning the arrest and questioning of Karl Francis Werner. The 148 character cipher was probably mailed shortly after the arrest of Werner (likely May 2nd 1971 or just after). This cipher called out Werner as a phony, utilizing the wording of Inspector David Toschi and the newspaper headlines regarding a second phony Zodiac call on February 5th 1970, likely from Eric Weill once again. In fact, the Zodiac Killer didn't express an individual reference to Karl Francis Werner as a phony, he utilized the plural, enciphering "phonys" to bind Werner and Weill under one banner. In other words, the Zodiac Killer was calling out Eric Weill in the 148 character cipher, just as he had done in the 340 cipher on November 8th 1969 (through rebuttal). The 148 character message and accompanying letter was attempting to maintain his claim, not only to his perceived ownership of the Snoozy & Furlong murders, but the recent murder of Kathy Bilek on April 11th 1971, also accredited to Karl Francis Werner. The fact that both the 340 and 148 character ciphers indirectly referenced Eric Weill, inextricably links them to the same author, bearing in mind the 340 cipher was unsolved when the 148 character cipher was created and mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Based on the Zodiac Killer's ability to use phrases from newspapers many months and years ago when composing a new letter, there is every chance the Zodiac Killer kept a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about himself. In the newspaper clipping above, it stated "Homicide detectives later listened to a tape recording of the conversation and concluded that "Sam" was a phony". In the newspaper clipping below, with respect to the apprehension of Karl Francis Werner, it stated "Late yesterday he was undergoing questioning. The detectives would not reveal what statements, if any, he had made concerning the killings of the three girls". Therefore, it is with little surprise, the Zodiac Killer would respond to the April 30th 1971 article below, by urging that law enforcement "stop listening to phonys".     

The 340 cipher was unbroken by the time the 148 character cipher was mailed, so this probably explains why the Zodiac Killer reverted back to an extremely simple cipher in 1971. Having another message carrying a contemporary message lost in time, was probably not the ideal scenario for the Zodiac Killer. By signing off his accompanying letter in 1971 with a sun cross symbol, he was probably giving us a clue to his signature of "Z", because this symbol featured only once in the cipher, and it represented the plaintext letter of "Z" beginning the pseudonym "Zodiac". Quite a clever addition by the Bay Area murderer. The Zodiac Killer would further give us an eighth cipher/code on August 1st 1973, when the Albany letter was mailed with coding extremely similar to the one shown below.

Sherwood Morrill, Robert Prouty and Satoru C. "John Shimoda" were just three document examiners (of many) who had differing opinions as to the authenticity of Zodiac communications and the handwriting contained within them. For those interested in handwriting analysis need to read the principles of the Daubert Standard and the admissibility of expert testimony in a US court of law regarding such nonscientific methods as handwriting analysis, which is relevant to the Zodiac case.

In other cases, such as the JonBenet Ramsey murder, you can find many certified document examiners that will claim the 3-page ransom note found in the Ramsey household was written by Patsy Ramsey, while there are many others who will counter this argument. Therefore, the creation of a list of authenticated Zodiac communications, routinely trotted out by individuals such as Tom Voigt, can only be arrived at through percentages rather than complete agreement. In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so. Just because the majority of people think the Fairfield letter or 148 character cipher & letter are obvious Zodiac hoaxes doesn't make it true. Conversely, the majority of people thinking the Fairfield letter or 148 character cipher & letter are genuine, equally doesn't make it true. These communications are either genuine or not - and this can only be ascertained through examination beyond handwriting analysis. The idea a defendant could be incarcerated for life based solely on the handwriting analysis of one document or letter is obviously preposterous, so claiming with utmost confidence that a Zodiac communication is genuine or otherwise, based solely on handwriting analysis is equally ludicrous.

Irrespective of these facts, individuals such as Tom Voigt continue to perpetuate this myth by constantly referring to his authenticated list of communications based on little more than handwriting and opinions formed many decades ago. New findings over the last 53 years, including the solving of the 340 cipher, has created new avenues to authenticate once believed hoaxes in the Zodiac case. And I reiterate, believed hoaxes based on nothing more than handwriting, the year the communication was mailed, and the tone of the letter. Nobody in good conscience can claim that the handwriting and tone of the July 31st 1969 letters and Melvin Belli letter are the same, yet both of these communications are from the Zodiac Killer. The Melvin Belli letter, if mailed in 1986, in absence of a shirt piece would be roundly dismissed by virtually everybody, just like the Paul Stine murder as being perpetrated by Zodiac in absence of his subsequent letter and shirt piece.              

It is not difficult to destroy the arguments presented by individuals such as Tom Voigt, when he lists the SLA , Citizen card and Red Phantom letter as genuine Zodiac communications (particularly the SLA and Red Phantom letters). They sit proudly in his list of authenticated Zodiac communications based on what? Even the handwriting and tone argument is weak in both cases. Maybe he can explain why the Los Angeles letter mailed on March 13th 1971 is on his list without saying "handwriting and tone", or why the Sierra Club communication is genuine based on "att. Paul averly = chronicle". Therefore, his claim for these being Zodiac communications is based solely on "someone told him they are genuine", in absence of any research he has conducted himself.

​This drives to the heart of the problem: that he does no meaningful research into many of these communications (with the exception of the Eureka card), just smears people who do. Unfortunately, this has become a trait of people like Tom Voigt, whose first impulse is to attack and straw man people in the Zodiac community, to rally the blinkered and partisan followers who fester on his forum. He cannot tackle the points raised for claiming certain communications are genuine, so just reverts to smears and condescension, commonly used by politicians who lack policy ideas and substance. Not only won't he tackle the counter-arguments to his position on certain communications - he often doesn't know them. Anybody that wants to make serious inroads into the Zodiac case should visit forum threads such as "Reddit/Youtube Zodiac Nonsense" on Tom Voigt's forum: an uninformative and unproductive series of comments that achieves nothing, other than showing how spending your time moaning about everyone else in absence of countering credible and raised points, takes time away from doing anything meaningful and productive. The more you comment here, means the less you have to offer to the Zodiac case. 

The Zodiac Killer had murdered three people, seriously injured one, and mailed four communications, including three cryptograms forming one whole, by August 4th 1969, yet failed to receive the front page coverage he felt he deserved from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner newspapers. This may have influenced his decision to switch from gun to knife, when he read the San Francisco Chronicle article on August 6th 1969 regarding the brutal knife killings of Debra Furlong and Kathie Snoozy three days earlier in San Jose, which received extensive from page coverage. After this, the Zodiac Killer turned up on the shores of Lake Berryessa armed with bayonet type weapon measuring 9 to 11 inches. He would later claim the murders of Snoozy & Furlong by the addition of "Aug" in the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card.

The extensive coverage of the Tate–LaBianca murders at 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles may also have had a galvanising effect in the Zodiac Killer's switch to a more hands-on approach at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. However, the Zodiac Killer would intimate his involvement in the Snoozy & Furlong many times by the close of 1971, yet would not reference the Manson murders once. This suggests that the driving force was predominantly the murders of Snoozy & Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969.  

​As with many Zodiac communications, they were often a response to recent newspaper articles detailing his exploits. So with this in mind I took a look at the Zodiac Killer's letter mailed from Fairfield on December 16th 1969, stating "This is the Zodiac speaking. I just want to tell you this state is in trouble. I will go for the government life. So don't forget me. I will kill more people than you can count. So look for more blood.". (corrected for errors). The following article (edited for conciseness) was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 16th 1969, a matter of hours before the Fairfield letter was mailed with an afternoon postmark. Therefore, a strong possibility exists that this article featuring the Zodiac Killer could have influenced the language and tone of the Fairfield letter. The opening sentence of the Fairfield letter: "I just want to tell you this state is in trouble", can be seen to be synonymous with the newspaper article that headlines with "State Furnishes List of Murders Similar to 7 Slayings Here", as well as the opening paragraph of the article that adds "State officials have provided Los Angeles police with details of 30 unsolved murders", and the sub-headline of "All Murders Logged by State". 
​
​The Zodiac Killer would counter the list provided by state officials with a list of his own. At the foot of his Fairfield letter he would give us a list of locations and the number of police he promised to kill in each city (38 in total). This would develop in later communications, in which the Zodiac Killer gave us a list of "society offenders" to be targeted when he plagiarized verses from The Mikado, a Savoy comic opera crafted by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert and Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan,  released in London on March 14th 1885.

Government Official means any officer, employee or other individual acting in an official capacity for a Governmental Authority or agency or instrumentality thereof (including any state-owned or controlled enterprise). This may explain the Zodiac Killer's use of the phrase "government life" in his letter. It appeared that the Fairfield letter was specifically responding to this newspaper article - both of which corresponded to one date. Susan Denise Atkins (21), one of six persons charged with the Tate-LaBiaca murders, provided information to police where they could find items of disposed bloody clothing related to the Cielo Drive attack, detailed in the article as "A station spokesman said the clothes, stained with what appeared to be blood and knotted in a bundle were turned over to police". I have highlighted these below in reference to the Zodiac Killer's statement of "look for more blood" in the Fairfield letter. The police were effectively dispatched to look for items of clothing stained with blood in the Tate-LaBianca slayings, to which Zodiac suggested there would be more blood in future for police to find. 

Two days later, on December 18th 1969, another article by Dial Torgersen in the Los Angeles Times, again featured the Tate-LaBianca murders, and the San Jose murders of Snoozy & Furlong, with accompanying references to the Zodiac Killer and the once consideration he may have been involved in the two teenagers deaths. The following day, on December 19th 1969, the Zodiac Killer made a payphone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". He had threatened to kill one copper in San Jose in his Fairfield list, but had now upped that total to five, in line with rest of the Fairfield communication (unpublished at the time this phone call was made). The family of five, I believe, was Mr. and Mrs. Furlong and their three remaining children, Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11, who featured heavily in the San Jose article on August 6th 1969 in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article that likely triggered the attack at Lake Berryessa. The article that triggered the choice of "Monticello" in the Zodiac Monticello card on July 13th 1971, where Kathie Snoozy was buried in San Jose. "Funeral services for Kathy were held on Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park", which is situated in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose.

THE SAN JOSE MURDERS AND ZODIAC-THE COMPLETE STORY