Inspired by the great work of Druzer on the Zodiac Killer Site forum, we can delve further into the possible Zodiac Killer threats toward Santa Rosa during the October of 1969. It was highlighted in the last article that a person claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned authorities in Santa Rosa (likely Santa Rosa Police Department) on, or shortly before October 15th 1969, threatening schoolchildren with bombs. This was crucially important, as the Stine letter text of "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out" had not been released to the newspapers at this juncture. This was compelling evidence that the phone caller to Santa Rosa was very likely the Zodiac Killer. If that wasn't nearly enough, there is a little more to bolster this claim.

On October 17th 1969, KRON News footage featured an interview with a school bus driver who claimed that someone fired a shot at the bus she was driving. The woman was driving a school bus in Santa Rosa. She stated "As I came around this bend I heard a loud shot from the left hand side of the bus. The children heard it too. Now I don't know if anything struck the bus. We can't find anything that struck the bus". The woman was confident she had heard a shot that day.

The release of Keith Power's article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 17th 1969 revealed that school bus drivers had been issued with evasion tactics in the event of a Zodiac attack. The article not only released the Zodiac threat on schoolchildren, but stated "Detectives issued an all-points bulletin yesterday, with advice to bus drivers if an attack is, in fact made. The drivers were told to keep the bus in motion "at all costs", instruct passengers to lie on the floor and to attract as much attention as possible with horn and lights". The perceived attack on this school bus in Santa Rosa could easily be attributed to imagination or hysteria, bearing in mind the attention the Zodiac Killer had drawn over recent months. However, the story given by the bus driver becomes more significant when we consider the October 21st 1969 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It stated "Even before starting on its routes each vehicle has undergone a thorough check to make sure a bomb isn't aboard. Someone hinting he might be Zodiac has telephoned such a threat in Santa Rosa. The man responsible for the safety of the students who ride the buses is Fred Sowash, the district's transportation director. Since last Wednesday (October 15th), when he learned of Zodiac's threat, Sowash has been devoting 18 to 20 hours a day to blunt it". 

This bomb threat (October 15th) on schoolchildren with respect to Santa Rosa was only made available in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 21st 1969. Therefore, it must be considered extremely coincidental that the first major news footage of an attack on a school bus, happened in Santa Rosa just four days earlier. This attack on a school bus could have happened anywhere in the Bay Area, but it just happened to occur in Santa Rosa, just two days after a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang Santa Rosa authorities threatening schoolchildren on buses. If they weren't the same person, then it has to be a massive stroke of luck for the Santa Rosa caller on October 15th 1969 to pre-empt the details in the Stine letter, which was shortly followed on October 17th 1969 by a reported shooting of a school bus in Santa Rosa, that coincidentally occurred in the same location as the target chosen by the caller.

Law enforcement were skeptical that any shooting took place on a school bus in Santa Rosa on October 17th 1969. If this was the case, then the reported "loud shot" heard by the bus driver just happened to never occur in Santa Rosa, rather than the innumerable other places in the Bay Area.

October 22nd 1969: PALO ALTO (AP) - Patrol cars convoyed school buses around Palo Alto yesterday after a telephoned murder threat by a man claiming to be the Zodiac killer of five persons. The caller to the Palo Alto Times said he intended to "pick the kids off as they get on the school bus." The weird slayer, who signs himself "The Zodiac," made a similar threat in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle last week after the Oct. 11 shooting of a taxi driver. Handwriting tests and descriptions of two victims who survived have convinced police that the same person. The district transportation supervisor said an armed guard might ride with each of the system's 25 buses. Officers in Napa and Vallejo, areas of the first three murderous attacks, some 75 miles north of Palo Alto, have been convoying police officers. Palo Alto Police Chief William Hydie called the new threat "extremely serious," but warned against over reaction to what might be a crank call.

This threat was extremely similar to the October 13th 1969 letter, in which the Zodiac Killer claimed "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out". At no point in either the October 13th 1969 letter or the Palo Alto telephone call did the perpetrator claim anything other than "picking off the kiddies as they come bouncing out" or "picking the kids off as they get on the school bus". The emphasis was squarely on shooting schoolchildren in close proximity to a school bus.

The mailing of the Bus Bomb letter on November 9th 1969 was the first time the Zodiac Killer suggested he was going to blow up a school bus by use of a bomb. He mocked the police who believed he was going to "pick off kids" by use of a firearm. The Zodiac Killer stated "If you cops think I'm going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads". He continued "What you do not know is whether the death machine is at the sight or whether it is being stored in my basement for future use. I think you do not have the manpower to stop this one by continually searching the road sides looking for this thing. + it wont do to re roat + re schedule the busses because the bomb can be adapted to new conditions". It was painfully clear that the Zodiac Killer was intimating the use of a bomb to kill schoolchildren. However, the November 9th 1969 communication may not have been the Zodiac Killer's first contact with police with respect to blowing up a school bus. This threat was telephoned through to the Santa Rosa Police Department a matter of days after the Paul Stine murder on October 11th 1969. The call arrived on, or shortly before October 15th 1969.

On October 21st 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle released an article entitled Fear Rides the Yellow Bus, stating "A climate of fear hangs over the Napa Valley. The fear is over "Zodiac" and his terrifying boast to "wipe out a school bus". No one takes the threat lightly, Zodiac has already struck here. The task of trying to insure the safety of 10,000 youngsters who ride the Napa Valley Unified School District is immense. The district encompasses an area of Southern Napa County of 229 square miles. Sixty-four bright yellow buses travel the county roadways each day - often into areas where houses are a couple of miles apart. The vehicles go a total of 4,000 miles daily in and from elementary schools, three junior highs and one senior high school. Even before starting on its routes each vehicle has undergone a thorough check to make sure a bomb isn't aboard. Someone hinting he might be Zodiac has telephoned such a threat in Santa Rosa. The man responsible for the safety of the students who ride the buses is Fred Sowash, the district's transportation director. Since last Wednesday, when he learned of Zodiac's threat, Sowash has been devoting 18 to 20 hours a day to blunt it".   

This article was released on Tuesday, October 21st 1969, indicating that the threat Fred Sowash was aware of last Wednesday, must have been delivered by the man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on October 15th 1969 at the latest. The telephone threat could conceivably have been delivered as early as October 14th 1969, the day before the October 15th 1969 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported a connection between the Paul Stine murder and the Zodiac Killer. But crucially, the October 15th 1969 Chronicle article withheld the threat of "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out", for fear of stateside panic. This meant that any telephone caller to Santa Rosa Police Department on October 15th 1969 threatening to blow up a school bus and kill schoolchildren, gave this information over the phone before any threat on schoolchildren was ever released in the newspapers. This caller effectively pre-empted the last paragraph of the Stine letter in absence of its contents being published. This almost certainly means, that the telephone caller claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on October 15th 1969, was the Zodiac Killer. He not only threatened schoolchildren before the full Stine letter contents were made public, but he threatened the use of a bomb to attack a school bus, twenty-five days before the Bus Bomb letter was postmarked. 

                                       THE SANTA ROSA THREAT:MUST PRINT IN PAPER

There appears a close correlation in the language the Zodiac Killer adopted in his communications, to the newspaper articles he read. But how much of this is a simple case of scanning old newspapers and forging links between the words used in each?

Something triggered the Zodiac Killer to begin a victim count on November 8th 1969, when he chronologically laid out the months of his murders in the following fashion: Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7". The Zodiac Killer, annoyed by the lack of front page coverage after his three murders and three cryptograms back in August, switched to murder by knife at Lake Berryessa after reading the extensive front page coverage of the August 3rd 1969 Snoozy & Furlong stabbings in the San Francisco Chronicle. His declarative statement of "by knife" on the car door at Lake Berryessa, a defiant response to this lack of front page coverage. The Zodiac Killer was effectively stating "do I now get front page coverage". The San Francisco Chronicle made the connection Zodiac had hoped for, by eventually linking him to the Snoozy & Furlong murders. By confronting Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa with a bladed instrument, he was prompting the newspapers to forge a link between the September 27th 1969 and August 3rd 1969 attacks.

On October 19th 1969, the San Francisco Examiner sent a message to the Zodiac Killer, stating "Five people are dead. Let there be no more killings. Police say you are intelligent. If you are, then listen to reason. You are being hunted everywhere in the state, and nation. You are alone in this world. You can share your secrets with no one. No friend can help you. You are as much a victim of your crimes as those whose lives you snuffed out. You cannot walk the streets a free man. There is no safety for you, anywhere. And you will be caught, there is no doubt. You face life as a hunted, tormented animal - unless you help yourself. We ask that you give yourself up to the Examiner. We offer you no protection, and no sympathy. But we do offer you fair treatment, the assurance of medical help and the full benefits of your legal rights. And we offer to tell your story. Why have you killed? How has life wronged you? Call the City Editor of the Examiner any time, day or night. The telephone number is (415) 781 24 24. Call collect. Your call will not be traced".

There are several things in this article that may have resonated with the Zodiac Killer, ultimately inspiring his choice of wording within the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969. The Zodiac Killer had urged the police and newspapers to make the connection to the Snoozy & Furlong murders, by not only switching his mode of attack on September 27th 1969, but by also adding the additional text of "by knife" on the car door. The San Francisco Examiner stated "Five people are dead. Let there be no more killings". On November 8th 1969, the Zodiac Killer would declare seven victims in defiance, by chronologically listing the months of his attacks: Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7". He was effectively saying "do you get the message now".

The San Francisco Examiner article continued by adopting the isolationist language of "You are being hunted everywhere in the state, and nation. You are alone in this world. You can share your secrets with no one. No friend can help you". This statement may have also struck a nerve with the Zodiac Killer, who replied in the Dripping Pen card with "I get awfully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my thing." The Examiner article continued: "There is no safety for you, anywhere. And you will be caught, there is no doubt". On November 9th 1969 in the Bus Bomb letter, the Zodiac Killer reiterated the words "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them", also reminiscent of the wording used by the sadistic caller to Daniel Williams during this period, by way of “I’m too smart for them" when referring to the police over the phone. It is also unsurprising that the Zodiac Killer would respond to "And you will be caught, there is no doubt", with "There's no doubt I will do my Thing!" on November 21st 1969, while providing yet another code.

One month after the November 21st 1969 letter to the San Jose Police Department, the Zodiac Killer wrote to Melvin Belli at 1228 Montgomery Street in San Francisco. The San Francisco Examiner article stated "No friend can help you. You are as much a victim of your crimes as those whose lives you snuffed out. You cannot walk the streets a free man. There is no safety for you, anywhere. And you will be caught, there is no doubt. You face life as a hunted, tormented animal - unless you help yourself. We ask that you give yourself up to the Examiner. We offer you no protection, and no sympathy. But we do offer you fair treatment, the assurance of medical help".

Thrice the San Francisco Examiner mentioned the word "help" in respect to the Zodiac Killer, so did he ultimately respond in mocking fashion four times via Melvin Belli? The Zodiac Killer adopted a pleading tone in the December 20th 1969 letter, stating "The one thing I ask of you is this, please help me", along with "I cannot reach out for help because of this thing in me wont let me". the brief "Please help me", and "Please help me I can not remain in control for much longer". The Zodiac Killer also continued the theme of a "thing" in three of the four communications.

Is this a case of "seek and you will find" with respect to the newspapers and language used by the killer, or did he feed off the newspapers and deliberately engineer his communications as a direct response to the articles he read? I will let you decide

An unknown caller claiming to be the Zodiac Killer threatened Daniel Williams, a Richmond high school teacher, from October 23rd 1969 to November 2nd 1969. It was reported that the sadistic caller stated he was going to "kill the lady in the blue house". Despite previous exploration of this subject, here we will examine two new ideas related to the lady in the blue house. One will be a simplistic approach, while the second may understandably be regarded as far-fetched.

It could be argued that it would be rather meaningless for the sadistic caller to threaten a woman in a blue house, had this woman got no connection whatsoever to Daniel Williams. The caller was clearly targeting Daniel Williams and attempting to unnerve him. When Daniel Williams left his house on November 2nd 1969, the killer gained access by prying open his screen door and placing some arsenic in his soft drink. There is every chance that the perpetrator had followed Daniel Williams to some extent and was aware of his departure from his Martinez home that day. Had this person also seen Daniel Williams visit or converse with a woman in a blue house, possibly on Bush Street where he lived - and knowing that he was friendly with this woman - he knew that a threat to kill her would resonate with the school teacher? Threatening an unknown woman to Daniel Williams, plucked from nothing more than his imagination, appears rather pointless. However, there is a more unlikely alternative.  

The newspapers stated that the caller gave no explanation regarding the lady in the blue house, so either he expected Daniel Williams to work it out, or he had planned a future attack on a woman unknown to Daniel Williams, but hoped that Daniel Williams would relay his intention to "kill the lady in the blue house" to police. When his next attack was then threatened or carried out, police would understand that he was responsible for both events. It was suggested in the previous article that the sadistic caller may have had unfinished business with Daniel Williams after the failed poisoning, hence his statement of "up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people" in the November 9th 1969 Bus Bomb letter, thereby leaving investigators to speculate upon his intentions during the beginning of November and the likelihood of murder for the remainder of the month. Since nothing materialized with respect to Daniel Williams in this window of time and subsequent to November 9th 1969, it could be reasoned that it was just another idle, but menacing threat from the Zodiac Killer (assuming he played any part in the Daniel William affair). But what of his threat to "kill the lady in the blue house". 

The next possible letter by the Zodiac Killer arrived at the San Jose Police Department on November 21st 1969, threatening a woman and accompanied by the wording "There's no doubt I will do my Thing!". In the Dripping Pen card the Zodiac Killer wrote "I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. PS could you print this new cipher in your frunt page? I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing !!!!!!  Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7". Was the communication on November 21st 1969 the bad news he had promised us, and the culmination of the threat to "kill the lady in the blue house"? In this communication the author threatened a widow, with enough detail in the letter that police were able to identify her. They took the threat extremely seriously, instituting 24-hour surveillance on her and her property. It is impossible, fifty-one years after the fact, to establish whether any connection existed between this woman and Daniel Williams. The likelihood of a connection is extremely remote, but it would have been interesting to find out the color of her house. 

Daniel Williams, a Salesian High School teacher in Richmond, received ten days of sadistic telephone calls beginning on October 23rd 1969 from a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer. These calls were probably dismissed as the genuine Zodiac Killer because of the language adopted in the calls, mimicking the hoax caller who addressed Melvin Belli on the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. Daniel Williams would recall that the menacing caller would also "sob and complain of headaches". However, the calls to Daniel Williams shouldn't be ruled out on this basis, because two months later the real Zodiac Killer did speak of "losing control" and having difficulty "holding it in check" when writing to Melvin Belli on December 20th 1969. In previous articles covering this topic, the city of Richmond was identified as a possible future target on his Bus Bomb crosshairs. Also, the phraseology of “I’m too smart for them" by the sadistic caller to Daniel Williams was compared to the passage in the Bus Bomb letter of "I have been too clever for them". However, there is a little bit more.

It was November 2nd 1969 when Daniel Williams received the final call from the man presumably impersonating the Zodiac Killer, with the menacing threat of “You’re the dead duck". He would then leave his house in Martinez and return later, only to find his screen door pried open and arsenic in his soft drink. Fortunately for Daniel Williams he noticed the metallic taste and spat it out, which undoubtedly saved his life. Clearly the murder of Daniel Williams had been thwarted, meaning the perpetrator had unfinished business. This is why I find the Zodiac Killer's opening statement in the Bus Bomb letter particularly unusual. The opening line of the November 9th 1969 communication began "This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people".  But why didn't he just declare "This is the Zodiac speaking. I have killed 7 people to date", or "This is the Zodiac speaking. I have murdered 7 people". He deliberately chose to say "up to the end of Oct", almost like there was a murder he was still engineering or was attempting to complete between the end of October and November 9th 1969. In other words, he had unfinished business. Bearing in mind the murder attempt on Daniel Williams took place on November 2nd 1969, he may have been signalling by the statement of "up to the end of Oct" that he wasn't finished with Daniel Williams just yet. Especially when we consider that just a few lines later he issued the statement of "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them", in extremely similar fashion to “I’m too smart for them" spoken over the phone to Daniel Williams.    

When we couple these observations with his Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969, the story becomes a little more intriguing. It too gives the impression of unfinished business. The card read "This is the Zodiac speaking. I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. PS could you print this new cipher in your frunt page? I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing !!!!!!  Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7".

The wording of "I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news". appears to indicate that the Zodiac Killer has, or is actively seeking to generate some bad news - which would usually involve murder. He then qualifies this statement by adding "You won't get the news for a while yet". This could indicate that he had plans for murder, but was yet to complete his mission. If he was the caller and poisoner of Daniel Williams, his failed murder attempt may have inspired the statement of "up to the end of Oct" and "You won't get the news for a while yet" in reference to his continued pursuit of the Richmond school teacher. Ironically, the Dripping Pen card would be accompanied by the Zodiac Killer's second lengthy cryptogram, the first of which was cracked by a Salinas High School teacher.


RELEVANT ARTICLES: THE PROMISE OF MURDER ON LINE 5    A KILLER ON LINE FIVE

The above story broke in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 8th 1969, the day before the Zodiac Killer's Bus Bomb letter was postmarked. The previous two articles [1] [2] explored the idea that the Zodiac Killer may have positioned one of the X's on the Bus Bomb crosshairs to signify an impending attack/murder in Richmond, based upon the fact Daniel Williams was a school teacher at Salesian High School. How the police came to the conclusion this wasn't the genuine Zodiac Killer by virtue of relayed phone messages, appears rather speculative. If this wasn't the Zodiac Killer, then it becomes a distinct possibility that somebody known to Daniel Williams was trying to kill him, using the Zodiac Killer as a convenient fall guy.

However, there are crucial parts of the Daniel Williams story that were not covered in the San Francisco Chronicle article above. The day after this article was published, the Bus Bomb letter was postmarked, meaning it was out of the Zodiac Killer's hands by November 9th 1969. The Bus Bomb letter continued the theme of threatening schoolchildren by means of a bomb. But the November 9th 1969 letter contained one important line, after his introduction of "changing his way of collecting slaves". He stated "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them".

The following day (November 10th), the Desert Sun newspaper would expand on the details of the sadistic phone call to Daniel Williams. It read "MARTINEZ (UPI)—A young scoolteacher who received threatening telephone calls for 10 days thought the caller was a crank who was pretending to be the Zodiac Killer. But police took the threats seriously after 24-year-old Daniel Williams found a lethal dose of arsenic in a bottle of soft drink in his refrigerator. Williams, a teacher at Salesian High School in Richmond, told police the caller talked of how he intended to kill several persons, then last; Sunday said: “You’re the dead duck.” Williams went out and when he returned home found someone had pried open the screen on a back door. However, a police search showed nothing was missing. But after the officers left and Williams took a drink from a bottle of opened soft drink in his refrigerator, he found it tasted “metallic” and immediately spat it out. Police reported Friday that the bottle contained more than enough arsenic to kill a human being. Williams said the caller identified himself as the still sought Zodiac killer of five, but police discounted the idea. The caller would “sob and complain of headaches.” Williams said, and on one occasion said he had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but left when he found police there. Williams said the caller told him: “I’m too smart for them". This story was also published (word for word) in the San Mateo Times on November 8th 1969.

The sadistic phone calls to Daniel Williams began on October 23rd 1969 and lasted 10 days until November 2nd 1969, with the caller mocking police by stating “I’m too smart for them". The Zodiac Killer in reference to the police on November 9th 1969 (Bus Bomb letter), stated "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them". Very similar phraseology aimed towards the police by the real Zodiac Killer and somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, separated by approximately one week. The expanded story of Daniel Williams (in the Desert Sun on November 10th) was copied from an identical version in the San Mateo Times newspaper, published on November 8th 1969, which covered the details of the phone call boasting “I’m too smart for them". But if the Zodiac Killer only read the Chronicle article (which didn't cover the phrase), then it's rather fortuitous that he would also use the near identical wording of "I have been too clever for them" at the beginning of the Bus Bomb letter on November 9th 1969. If they were not the same person, then there is a possibility that the Zodiac Killer read the version of Daniel Williams story, covered in the San Mateo Times or another newspaper prior to the mailing of the Bus Bomb letter, and used the phraseology of the sadistic caller detailed in the newspapers in his latest letter, so as to convince the police he was the caller and poisoner of Daniel Williams. Does the phraseology suggest one perpetrator as sadistic caller and Bus Bomb letter author, a Zodiac Killer mimicking the newspaper articles, or is the wording just a simple coincidence?

RELEVANT ARTICLES: THE PROMISE OF MURDER ON LINE 5    A KILLER ON LINE FIVE

Daniel Williams (24), a young school teacher from Martinez, California started receiving sadistic calls from a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, beginning on October 23rd 1969 (the day after the Jim Dunbar Show call). While this was initially passed off as just another copycat by Daniel Williams, he and the police took it extremely seriously when a lethal dose of arsenic was discovered in a soft drink inside his refrigerator. Many copycats forging communications and phone calls would not be considered unusual in a high profile case such as the Zodiac Killer, but I doubt many would take it to the next level and commit murder in the name of impersonating the murderer of five. The phone calls spanned a period of ten days, culminating in somebody breaking into his house and spiking his drink. Had Daniel Williams not noticed the metallic taste in his drink, the young teacher would have been a "dead duck" as the phone caller had promised.

The Zodiac Killer, would eventually, on November 9th 1969, promise to "change the way the collecting of slaves". Was this the first step in that direction, attempting to kill remotely after his fortunate escape subsequent to the murder of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969, buoyed by the publicity he received during the Jim Dunbar Show circus?

The Zodiac Killer may not be responsible for the phone calls or attempted murder of Daniel Williams during this period, however, it may be possible he was inspired by the reporting of this story. The case of Daniel Williams was reported in the Zodiac Killer's favorite newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle on November 8th 1969, the day before the Bus Bomb letter was postmarked. One notable passage in the San Francisco Chronicle read "The string of sadistic calls began on October 23rd 1969 (the day after the Jim Dunbar Show call). On one occasion, the caller told Williams he had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but had left when he found police there". Did the Zodiac Killer use this to his advantage? In the previous article, The Promise of Murder on Line 5, it was noted that the Zodiac Killer placed four X's around his Bus Bomb letter crosshairs, possibly denoting the seven victims he was claiming. Only line 5 (the fifth X) was unexplained. This line ran over the city of Richmond.   

On October 13th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter with an ominous warning at its base, stating "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out". The caller to Daniel Williams had continued this theme by claiming "he had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but had left when he found police there".

Daniel Williams residence was situated at 1234 Bush Street in Martinez, so why would police have visited a Martinez school, when Daniel Williams was a school teacher at Salesian High School in Richmond? Wouldn't police more likely have placed protection in and around the Richmond school where he worked? Isn't it more likely the sadistic caller to Daniel Williams may have planned to target the Richmond school, with police pre-empting this eventuality? The newspaper may have made an error, and should have read "he had gone to a Richmond school in search of victims but had left when he found police there".

The Zodiac Killer, had he read this newspaper article the day before he mailed the Bus Bomb letter, would have known Daniel Williams taught kids at Salesian High School in Richmond (even if he wasn't the caller or poisoner). Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer's recent fascination with targeting schoolchildren, the notion that line 5 on the Bus Bomb crosshairs runs directly over Salesian High School in Richmond and may have been chosen deliberately by the Zodiac Killer, is not out of the question. The Bay Area murderer may have been insinuating a continued threat towards the school where Daniel Williams taught, thereby attempting to lay credence to his involvement in the phone calls and poisoning. Or maybe he was just taunting the police. 

FOLLOW UP ARTICLES: DID ZODIAC POISON DANIEL WILLIAMS?   DID ZODIAC POISON DANIEL WILLIAMS? [PT2]

After watching the very educational and insightful presentation of Let's Crack Zodiac (Part Four) by Dave Oranchak for the National Cryptologic Museum, the section about the X's positioned around the Bus Bomb crosshairs sparked a fresh interest. Dave Oranchak is correct when he identifies the difficulty regarding scale when overlaying the crosshairs over a map. The Zodiac Killer overlayed his crosshairs over Mount Diablo as part of the Button letter on June 26th 1970, which he followed up with a further clue in the Little List letter on July 26th 1970. The Zodiac Killer explicitly stated that the crosshairs were to be set to Magnetic North (17 degrees in 1970). Therefore, it wasn't particularly surprising that the center of the black circle around the circumference of the first crosshairs on the Little List letter, fell exactly at 4 radians when set to Magnetic North, ultimately identifying Ingleside Police Station as the focus for the bomb.

Two overlays were used to great effect in the June 26th and July 26th communications. It is with little doubt that the Bus Bomb crosshairs were designed to pinpoint locations as well. However, as Dave Oranchak pointed out, the scaling of such an operation is likely to lead to inaccuracy. Therefore, we have to treat the crosshairs on the Bus Bomb letter as a guide. Only a day earlier, the Zodiac Killer had listed his murder count on the Dripping Pen card, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on November 8th 1969. He chronologically listed the murders he was claiming by use of months, writing "Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7".

We know the Zodiac Killer had murdered five victims at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa and Presidio Heights, but he added in the murders of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. To this point, the Zodiac Killer had listed his victims, but always left us dangling with the promise of more murders. Would it be all that unusual if the Zodiac Killer again pinpointed these seven victims the following day by use of X's around the circumference of his crosshairs, just like he pinpointed 4 radians and Magnetic North around the circumference of his crosshairs in the Little List letter on July 26th 1970 - with both crosshairs overlayed over Mount Diablo. But in true Zodiac style, the promise of another location in which he would soon murder. If this were the case, we would expect one X on the circumference of the Bus Bomb crosshairs to be unknown.              

To a reasonable degree of accuracy, line [1] falls over Lake Berryessa and the murder victim Cecelia Shepard. Line [2] passes directly over Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs, accounting for David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen and Darlene Ferrin. Line [3] passes over Presidio Heights and the murder of Paul Stine. Line [4] passes over San Jose and the murders of Kathy Snoozy & Deborah Furlong. These were the locations of his seven victims which he had claimed just a day earlier. One line remains unknown. This line passes over Walnut Creek (where Elaine Davis was abducted from on December 1st 1969, and eventually murdered), as well as Richmond and San Rafael. Had the Zodiac Killer deliberately created this X on the 9 o'clock position as a teaser to his next destination of murder? Next to the bottom right quadrant of his crosshairs on the Bus Bomb letter, he wrote "Be sure to print the part I marked out on page 3 or I shall do my thing". Considering this section of text was placed next to the crosshairs with the X's, was his "thing" going to occur somewhere in the vicinity of Walnut Creek, Richmond or San Rafael, along the unknown line? As far as we know, no murders can be connected to the Zodiac Killer over the next few months in these locations, making you wonder whether this was just another threat that didn't materialize. Or it was simply just a game he was playing.  

FOLLOW UP ARTICLE: A KILLER ON LINE FIVE  

Tom Voigt was recently interviewed by CBS8 News in San Diego regarding the 1962 Ray Davis and 1964 Swindle murders, and their possible connection to the same individual responsible for the Zodiac Killer murders in Northern California in the late 1960s. Tom Voigt is correct when he says he doesn't "understand why agencies withhold information after all this time. The police departments aren't that forthcoming. They are not doing the victims any justice, as they can still get a prosecution. The guy could still be alive". The same could be levelled at the Riverside Police Department, sitting on information with respect to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966. Although this case, along with aforementioned murders are heading towards the 60-year mark, the suggestion that the Zodiac Killer may have been responsible and could have made mistakes in the infancy of his murderous career, is a reasonable assertion. The majority of serial killers will learn from their mistakes with time, often refining their approach to avoid capture. However, there is a possibility that towards the back end of their reign, they begin to feel impervious to capture and begin to take greater risks. This too could provide an opening.    

Tom Voigt is again correct that the answers could possibly lie outside of the four canonical attacks, which have literally been examined to breaking point. Rather than solely pinning our hopes on the search for DNA within the Zodiac communications, it is imperative that we don't put all our eggs in one basket. Linking the Zodiac Killer through different cities and using geographic profiling to pinpoint locations within those cities, could provide a common name to investigate. Tom Voigt also stated "It's amazing to me that the murder of Ray Davis was not to linked the Zodiac until earlier this year. There was nobody in the Zodiac world, professional or amateur detectives - nobody had ever heard of the murder of Ray Davis (which) it's clear is probably a Zodiac murder. I think there are other cases like that in Southern California in the early 1960s, and I think it's crucial to focus on that area in that time period".  While I agree again, there appears a contradiction when investigating the Zodiac case for potential leads. While the Ray Davis murder has rightly been hailed as a good avenue to pursue, there is another case that has been routinely ignored by virtually all amateur sleuths, despite the fact it has thirty pieces of ballistic evidence and an accompanying Zodiac letter. Not only does it have viable cartridge cases and bullets, it also has closer parallels to a known Zodiac murder than that of Ray Davis. Yet this crime lies virtually abandoned.

The two murders occurred on April 22nd 1986, and were featured in a Zodiac letter just two weeks later. I won't expand on this particular case any further, not only because it has been covered multiple times before on this site, but because no agency I have contacted is the slightest bit interested. Tom Voigt was amazed that nobody had linked the Ray Davis murder to the Zodiac until earlier this year, yet the Sacramento murders on April 22nd 1986 have been linked to the Zodiac Killer since 2013, but have essentially been ignored, gathering dust to this day. The constant search for answers down south is certainly an avenue worth investigating, yet the search for answers on the doorstep of the Bay Area under the Zodiac umbrella, seemingly appears an avenue worth ignoring. The contrast in approach to these two cases couldn't be more stark within the Zodiac community. It isn't just the police agencies we should be looking at. Cooperation is lacking at every level.  

On April 20th 1970, the Zodiac Killer made reference to the murder of San Francisco police officer Brian McDonnell (44) on February 16th 1970, who suffered devastating and sadly fatal injuries two months earlier, when a bomb packed with fence staples exploded on an outside ledge of Park Police Station in the Upper-Haight neighborhood.  He wrote "I hope you do not think that I was the one who wiped out that blue meannie with a bomb at the cop station", while simultaneously giving us a diagram of a bomb to be placed just 274 feet from another "cop station", that of Ingleside. This sense of irony didn't seem lost on the Zodiac Killer. What the Zodiac Killer knew of Brian McDonnell, other than what he read in the intervening two months is unknown, but in the remainder of his short message he stated "But there is more glory in killing a cop than a cid because a cop can shoot back". Was this just an offhand comment, or was this statement relevant to the history of Sergeant Brian McDonnell?

The Desert Sun newspaper of February 17th 1970 read: Haight Ashbury Police Station Rocked By Bomb Six Officers Injured In Blast Showering Big U-Shaped Staples.

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) - A powerful bomb packed with U-shaped staples rocked a Haight-Ashbury District police station Monday night injuring six policemen, one of them critically. New Police Chief A. Nelder said the fused explosive was placed on the rear window sill of the sergeant’s office at Park Station in Golden Gate Park. The thunderous blast, which jarred residents for blocks around, sprayed staples through the office like miniature machinegun bullets. Sgt. Brian McDonnell fell gravely wounded with multiple head injuries. Patrolmen Robert Fogerty, 43, and Frank Rath. 27, were hospitalized with multiple puncture wounds. Officers Alfred Arnaud, 24, Robert O’Sullivan, 26. and Ronald Martin, 28, were treated for lesser injuries. “All I remember was a bomb exploded,” said one shaken officer who survived with only scratches. “I saw Sergeant McDonnell lying in the rubble, bleeding from an artery wound in his neck.” Police immediately sealed off the area and rerouted traffic. First reports indicated the building had been demolished. The blast did knock out all power in the station and shattered every window. It also demolished the sergeant’s police station wagon which was parked behind the station near Kezar Stadium, where the San Francisco Forty Niners play National Football League opponents. There were reports that a man was seen running from the station, and police later said a white and pink van was sighted leaving the area. However, there were no immediate suspects. Four days ago, three cars were blown up and two reserve policemen were injured by two bombs which exploded in a parking lot adjacent to the Berkeley police station across the bay from San Francisco. The explosive used in the Berkeley bombing was a metal pipe filled with powder and set off by a lighted fuse. The type of bomb used in the bombing of the Park police station was not determined immediately. A special U.S. Army bomb squad was summoned to the scene from the Presidio nearby. After the bombing, all district police stations in San Francisco were ordered to secure all doors and exits and post a guard.

Would it be surprising the Zodiac Killer after reading and referencing the attack on Park Police Station, that he would then focus his bomb threats in close proximity to another police station on April 20th 1970 and June 26th 1970. The diagram of the bomb location on April 20th 1970, coupled with the radians and inches values from July 26th 1970, leaves little doubt that the unfortunate murder of Brian McDonnell was the catalyst for his remaining bomb threats towards Ingleside Police Station in 1970. It is also unsurprising that after reading headlines such as "Six Officers Injured in Blast Showering Big U-Shaped Staples", that the Zodiac Killer would follow up his April 20th communication with the Dragon card on April 28th 1970, writing on the front of the card "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my Blast". He would repeat this approach on the card inner, stating "If you don't want me to have this blast you must do two things".

The Dragon card is thought to depict the Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. This may have been a deliberate choice on behalf of the Zodiac Killer, as these characters were featured in statue form within Golden Gate Park, the location of Park Police Station. The two locations are about one mile from one another. Despite claiming he wasn't responsible for the Park Station bombing, he certainly wasn't averse to mocking the police at a time of immense grief. The Zodiac Killer, despite making many threats to murder by use of bomb, constantly made excuses for not doing so. On November 9th 1969 he claimed that the bomb was ready for "future use". On April 20th 1970, the problem was "I have killed ten people to date. It would have been a lot more except that my bus bomb was a dud.  I was swamped out by the rain we had a while back". On June 26th 1970 he promised to annihilate a full school bus, "but now school is out for the summer". It seemed for the Zodiac Killer the lingering threat was all that was required, pouring huge doubt on him having any serious intentions of following through on his bomb threats towards San Francisco. Knowing that the police had to take the threats seriously was satisfactory enough for a killer who thrived on instilling fear in the Bay Area community.

Despite the limited Zodiac connections to the Ray Davis murder on April 10th 1962, the Domingos and Edwards murders on June 4th 1963 and the Swindle murders on February 5th 1964, each crime cannot entirely be ruled out on this basis. The idea that the Zodiac Killer had previously murdered individuals prior to his Bay Area attacks and outside of the Zodiac umbrella is not a fantastical one. Over the last 51 years there has always been an insatiable desire to connect the Zodiac Killer to crimes beyond the canonical four. The Zodiac Killer's claim of 37 murders by January 29th 1974 has allowed the imagination to run wild, despite little evidence he was responsible for any more than the five he has been credited with (six if you include the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates). What we do know, is that the Ray Davis, Domingos/Edwards and Swindle murders are not a type of attack exclusive to the Zodiac Killer. Neither are three of the attacks we know he was responsible for. Regardless of this fact, the desire to keep digging for new avenues of investigation in the Zodiac Killer story is an admirable one - and shouldn't be quashed.

Recently, Søren Roest Korsgaard, author of America's Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Account of the Zodiac Killer, has released a couple of Youtube videos. The first is his interview with CBS News 8 in San Diego, in respect to the murders of Ray Davis, Robert Domingos & Linda Edwards, and John & Joyce Swindle. In the second video he notes (in his words) that "CBS8 did a fantastic job and went to their archives and dug up a lot of footage which hasn't been shown in more than 50 years". Below are the two Youtube videos he has recently released. Click each image to view.      

Subsequent to the official police report regarding the Paul Stine murder on October 11th 1969 there has been limited further contact with the Robbins teenagers, who observed the Zodiac Killer in and around the taxicab that night. The later recollections of the Robbins kids went something like this: Not many know this, but Lindsey (being 16. feeling immortal, and believing the suspect to be armed with only a knife) ran out of his door to see where Zodiac was going. He ran to the corner of Cherry and watched as Zodiac continued his casual pace right up to the corner of Jackson & Cherry.
At this exact point, the first SFPD car arrives with two officers. One, Pelissetti, approached Lindsey and tried to extract what was happening. The other officer went to the cab and found the bloody victim. While Pelissetti was asking questions, Lindsey was trying to explain that the suspect was in sight on Cherry St. By the time Pelissetti got the point, they both looked and the Zodiac was gone. The following is not to doubt their recollections, but much of the interaction between them and Officer Armond Pelissetti remains unresolved.

According to their statements, they told Officer Armond Pelissetti that the man walking towards the intersection of Jackson and Cherry was the attacker of Paul Stine, clearly pointing to the man walking north on Cherry Street on the east side. "By the time Pelissetti got the point, they both looked and the Zodiac was gone". However, there seems little to show that Officer Armond Pelissetti ever got the point. Moments later he would discover to a 99.9% certainty that Paul Stine had been killed. With the perpetrator having been clearly pointed out to him walking up Cherry on the east side (close to Jackson), it doesn't take much reasoning to conclude he turned east into Jackson Street, given the time that they looked away and looked back. Wouldn't the appropriate course of action taken by Pelissetti been, to have got to the radio and immediately informed the other units of a white killer traveling east on Jackson Street towards Maple. The killer at that point would have had considerable journey time along Jackson Street before a possible exit at the next intersection. But from what we have seen in the various interviews from Pelissetti during the last five decades, there is no mention of his discussion with the teenagers and why he failed to act on their pointing to the killer (assuming their story to be accurate).

In the 2007 Zodiac documentary he stated "The kids had told me that whoever had done this crime left the cab and was ambling or walking down Cherry Street in a northerly direction, kinda towards the Presidio. I walked that way myself, I did not run, because there are innumerable alcoves and parked cars. So, I went down following every technique I knew so I didn't get my head blown off. Got down to the corner of Jackson Street - had to make a choice - I was on the east side of the street so turned right to the east and went up in that direction". This statement seems to negate that any conversation between him and the Robbins kids ever took place, or that he completely ignored everything they pointed to that night. If he had been told by Lindsey that the perpetrator was approaching the corner of Jackson and Cherry, and then was gone, not only would he have known the killer was not hiding behind a parked car or in any alcove along the majority of Cherry Street, he would have known the killer likely turned east on Jackson Street. But the impression given in the 2007 documentary was of an officer unaware of being told anything. His only reason given for turning east on Jackson Street was because he was already on the east side, not that the perpetrator was pointed out to him on the east side of Cherry, and then moments later had vanished.

There still remains another conflict regarding this statement by the Robbins kids. If Armond Pelissetti and Donald Fouke received the initial radio broadcast (APB) at the same time (about 9:58 pm), with Armond Pelissetti arriving at the crime scene no quicker than 40-50 seconds, then Pelissetti is getting Zodiac pointed out to him approaching the intersection of Jackson and Cherry at about the minute mark. One minute into Donald Fouke's journey, he gets a visual on the Zodiac Killer approaching Jackson and Maple, with one block separating the sightings at the same time of 9:59 pm.

If both sightings are of a lone Zodiac Killer, then one of the stories pertaining to the Robbins kids or Donald Fouke is factually incorrect. One killer can't be in two places at the same time. To this day, the discrepancy has yet to be explained.

The above message of 408 characters is what I believe was originally crafted by the Zodiac Killer before he accidentally skipped a line during encryption. There is every chance the Zodiac Killer wrote the plaintext of his message in a continuous 17 by 24 grid, from which he would create three ciphertext messages of 17 by 8 to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle. He finished encrypting the plaintext message of "TH" to the Examiner, knowing that he had to begin the Chronicle message by encrypting the "E" to complete the word "THE". Unfortunately, when he returned to his plaintext grid of 17 by 24, he accidentally used the "E" from the 18th line instead of the 17th line, thereby creating an encrypted message that read "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". 

At some point he must have realized this, so effectively used some type of filler at the bottom of the cipher. Had the original message finished with "stop my collecting of slaves for the afterlife", rather than grammatically inferior "stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife", the original message would have been the full 408 characters (shown above). It may be the case that once he realized his mistake of missing a line - and knew he now had only seven rows comprising the ciphertext to the Chronicle - he lost his train of thought. The accuracy of the remainder of the message regarding "THE" or "MY" was now an irrelevance.

The Zodiac Killer only used the word "LONE" in his address to the San Francisco Chronicle when requesting they print the cipher, so it's fitting that this word should have begun the ciphertext he mailed to them. The use of "STRAY PEOPLE" featured in the communication to the Vallejo Times-Herald, thereby completing the phrase "all the lone or stray people" that ran through rows 16, 17 and 18. The missing line (added in the diagram above left) only uses words from his July 31st 1969 letters.

Attempting to find an answer to the "18 unsolved characters" relies on the assumption that his original encryption was correct, which clearly it wasn't. The Zodiac Killer certainly misspelled words in his communications, but rarely, if ever, did he omit words entirely. If the Zodiac Killer had written his original plaintext grid of 17 by 24 into three separate and distinct sections, it's highly unlikely this mistake would ever have occurred (so it's likely he didn't). When reading text in any form, it's easy to accidentally skip a line or read a line twice. The former may have been the case with respect to the Zodiac Killer. 

Thanks to Dave Oranchak for first floating the idea of a missing line, which I now believe is the likeliest answer.

It isn't surprising that we never heard from the police dispatcher who took the call from the three teenagers on October 11th 1969, because the narrative was closely controlled by the San Francisco Police Department, who, could be argued, concocted a tissue of lies regarding the supposed misunderstanding in respect to the description of the suspect. One month after the murder of Paul Stine, their lack of transparency was compounded by an unnecessary memorandum written largely on behalf of Officer Donald Fouke in the third person. For reasons unknown, the San Francisco Police Department could have just denied the Zodiac Killer's claims of "two cops pulled a goof" in the November 9th 1969 letter, but decided to concoct a memorandum on November 12th 1969, underlining and seemingly inventing a reason why officers Donald Fouke and Eric Zelms didn't stop the white male adult. It was apparently because the dispatcher had radioed a description of a negro male adult to responding personnel. The closing of ranks to protect Officer Donald Fouke, because he stopped the suspect and let him on his way, ultimately left Donald Fouke twisting himself inside out during an uncomfortable interview in the 2007 Zodiac documentary, which accompanied the Fincher movie. Are we really to believe the dispatcher took a full description of the suspect from the three teenagers, and nobody, including the dispatcher and responding officers, thought it strange that a negro male adult in 1969 had a reddish-blond crew cut.   

Donald Fouke was approaching the intersection of Jackson and Maple Streets, when he observed a man matching virtually every characteristic passed to him over the radio by the dispatcher, apart from the skin color of the suspect, Despite the fact this man had a light-colored hair in a crew cut - the same as the description given to Fouke - he naturally didn't believe it to be the suspect because it wasn't a black male with a blond crew cut. Doesn't this seem rather strange? As Officer Donald Fouke approached the subject, the first thing he would have realized was the man was white. A cursory glance would have been all that was required to realize this wasn't the perpetrator of the attack on the taxicab driver. He could logically have asked the man in passing, had he seen a negro male adult in the area, but apparently he denied ever speaking to the shuffling man. This makes the memorandum even more unbelievable, when we consider the glossary of detail Officer Donald Fouke went into regarding the "man he wasn't looking for". 

In the November 12th 1969 memorandum, Officer Donald Fouke was attributed the description of the subject, as "a WMA 35-45 years, about 5'10", 180-200lbs. Medium heavy build - Barrel chested - Medium complexion - light colored hair possibly graying in the rear. Crew cut - Wearing glasses - Dressed in dark blue waist length zipper type jacket (Navy or royal blue). Elastic cuffs and waist band zipped part way up. Brown wool pants pleated type baggy in rear (Rust brown). May have been wearing low cut shoes". Amazing detail provided by Officer Donald Fouke, bearing in mind he was looking for a negro male adult. Not only describing the elasticated cuffs and waist band part way up, as well as the low cut shoes (later described as tan engineering boots), but took the extraordinary step of noticing the man possibly graying in the rear and having baggy pants in the rear also, despite knowing by now the man was white. One could be forgiven for believing they actually stopped the Zodiac Killer, to facilitate such clarity of detail. Officer Donald Fouke noticed all of this, yet was apparently unaware whether his partner Eric Zelms (who was seated closer to the sidewalk) saw anything. If Donald Fouke was able to provide such a vivid and clear description of the killer on November 12th 1969, then he was capable of providing this description the night of the crime. Do we really believe that neither Fouke or Zelms thought to report this sighting of a man on Jackson Street at the appropriate time - or that they were not interviewed by their superiors to what they saw that night? Are we to believe that no communication happened between Officer Donald Fouke and his superiors for one month until the belated memorandum? Officers Armond Pelissetti and Frank Peda (the first officers at the crime scene) countersigned a police report the following morning, yet inexplicably we heard nothing from the two officers who crossed paths with a killer. The whole story leaves a lot to be desired.       

Had officers Donald Fouke and Eric Zelms simply passed the white male and continued onwards without stopping, then from their initial position when receiving the first radio broadcast (APB), they would have arrived at the crime scene in no more than 90 seconds (likely less). Officer Armond Pelissetti would still have been at the crime scene, supposedly retaking the updated description from the teenagers and updating all other units. This is not the story told in the 2007 documentary, which was littered with inaccuracies during the retelling of events from October 11th 1969. Officer Donald Fouke never turned into Cherry Street traveling west on Jackson Street. According to the 1989 Crimes of the Century documentary, he apparently received the second and amended description from Pelissetti while heading towards Arguello Boulevard. If we accept the negro male adult story, we still have the added problem of Officer Donald Fouke heading away from a crime scene he is supposed to be responding to. Had he headed to the crime scene directly from the first radio broadcast, he would have been receiving the updated description from the intersection of Washington and Cherry Streets, alongside Armond Pelissetti and Frank Peda (and certainly not at the top of Cherry as told in 2007). Instead, he was receiving it from near Arguello Boulevard. What is the reason for Officer Donald Fouke heading away from an assault and robbery on Washington Street? The obvious answer is, he was directed there by the Zodiac Killer, exactly as was described in the November 9th 1969 Bus Bomb letter, when he claimed "two cops pulled a goof". The reason Officer Donald Fouke was able to recall such detail about the Zodiac Killer, is because he stopped and questioned him - and thereby explaining why he didn't travel directly to the crime scene that night.