On October 22nd 1969, somebody rang the Oakland Police Department to request that either Francis Lee Bailey or Melvin Belli appear on the Jim Dunbar chat show at KGO Radio in San Francisco. Melvin Belli would co-host the morning show at approximately 6:30 am, to which, after a period of inactivity, an unknown male would call and hang up numerous times. The dysfunctional sounding caller claimed he was the infamous Zodiac Killer, a man responsible for at least five murders in the Bay Area of California.

Three people who had heard the Zodiac Killer's voice, Nancy Slover, David Slaight and Bryan Hartnell, were confident that the caller was not the man they had heard during their respective encounters with the killer. A fourth person was absolutely certain, because he was about to compose a 340 cipher denouncing the caller to the Jim Dunbar Show as a fraud, by stating "That wasn't me on the TV show". Many have found it strange that the Zodiac Killer decided to encode this denial, when he could have simply written it into the Dripping Pen card that accompanied the cipher. He clearly expected this cryptogram to be decoded fairly quickly as the message was contemporary, and of diminishing value as the years ticked by.

However, his method of encoding such contemporary information to highlight that it wasn't him on the TV show, thereby confirming that the Jim Dunbar Show caller was an imposter, was to be repeated eighteen months later. Another cryptogram would be mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle in about May of 1971, harboring a hidden message that was again contemporary in nature, while calling out an imposter. This time though, the tables would be turned. On this occasion, the Zodiac Killer would be calling out a "phony", when in realty he was the imposter and the person he was addressing was the real killer. This stemmed from his false claim that he was the murderer of Kathy Snoozy (15) and Deborah Furlong (14) in San Jose. These two young girls were brutally stabbed on August 3rd 1969 and claimed as Zodiac victims when he mailed the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969. He would write "Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7", thereby falsely inflating his victim count to engender more terror over a wider area.

On April 29th 1971, Karl Francis Werner was arrested for the murders of Kathy Snoozy, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Bilek, and his story was covered by Paul Avery on April 30th 1971 under the title of San Jose Student Held in Slaying of Three Girls. 
The newspaper article stated "He was immediately advised of his rights concerning any statements he may make and legal representation to which he is entitled, the detectives said. Werner was then taken to the scenes of the crimes. 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". The Zodiac Killer was understandably horrified, because the two murders he had falsely adopted into his victim total for a year-and-a-half, were about to be handed over to someone else. Karl Francis Werner was ultimately charged (and later convicted) of all three murders, but the Zodiac Killer was having none of it, firing off a 148 character cipher and letter sometime in May (see below).

Just like his encoded message in the 340 cipher stating "That wasn't me on the TV show", he would again encode the following message "Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on your front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin". The Zodiac Killer was responding to the Paul Avery newspaper article, informing everybody that they should pay no attention to Karl Francis Werner and insisted they should "Stop listening to phonys". One can't help seeing the irony of the situation. The Zodiac Killer effectively declared that the caller to the Jim Dunbar Show was a phony because it wasn't him on the TV show, but has now become the phony calling out the real killer - and both of these declarations hidden within cryptograms separated by eighteen months. The Zodiac Killer felt angered enough to dissuade law enforcement in listening to Karl Francis Werner, yet disguised this pertinent message behind a wall of coding, just as he had done on November 8th 1969 with another contemporary message. However, there was one big difference. This latest cryptogram had returned back to the standard left-to-right homophonic technique employed by the 408 cipher. Bearing in mind his 340 cipher was yet to be deciphered - and knowing he wanted to declare Karl Francis Werner a fraud while it still mattered - the Zodiac Killer probably thought it wise to return back to the simplest form of encryption.

After several years of extremely hard work and off the back of the announcement of the 340 cipher being cracked, the eagerly anticipated three volumes of The Zodiac Revisited by Michael Cole were released on December 20th 2020. Michael was kind enough to forward me all three volumes in advance of their release, which I highly recommend to anybody wanting to learn about the Zodiac Killer story, who also want to delve further into the case on a deeper level. For this reason, Michael has split the presentation into three volumes entitled The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 1: The Facts of the Case, The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 2: Analysis and Fact-Based Speculation and The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 3: Tying It All Together. 

The three volumes are now available on the ebook stores of Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, !ndigo and Angus & Robertson. To secure purchase of the The Zodiac Revisited trilogy, please click the link provided by the image on the left.

Michael Cole has run his own website for many years, and is a highly respected member of the Zodiac community, so you can guarantee that every aspect of his presentation has been thoroughly researched and well-thought-out. If you would like any extra information regarding the contents of each volume, Michael has compiled a brief description in what to expect from each book. This is available on The Zodiac Revisited website under the banner The Zodiac Revisited Published.   

Early in December 2020, the 340 cipher was cracked by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke, which revealed the message shown below. Despite the fact the message left many rather deflated because of its banality, hoping it would reveal so much more, the message contained in the Dripping Pen card and the following Fairfield letters appear to show a running theme. It was recently highlighted how the 38 character code in the December 7th 1969 communication (1st Fairfield letter) showed a distinct correlation to the 340 cipher. Here is a brief recap:

If a Zodiac impersonator had created the 38 character code, this hoaxer would have had to guess that by separating the prominent ZO∆AIKꞮ+ characters on the bottom line of the 340 cipher, into AIKꞮ+ on the bottom line of the 38 character code, he would be reducing these characters to create something meaningful. He apparently did. By separating these characters into the five visible at the end of the 38 character code, he created the word "death", just like the solved 340 cipher. Druzer, an excellent Zodiac researcher, pointed out the same thing, stating "The most curious/compelling feats are that the author isolated actual words, most notably death, and that he refrained from copying Zodaik, which would certainly be expected of a hoaxer". In other words, he dismantled the ZO∆AIK element, while leaving Ɪ+ in place, to form "death" as the final word on the 38 character code. This appears to show knowledge of the hidden message in the 340 cipher. But there is so much more in the Fairfield letters that harks back to the Dripping Pen card and 340 cipher.

Despite stating in the above message he now had enough slaves to work for him in paradice, he would ultimately decide to "kill again" on December 7th 1969, in accompaniment to his brief 38 character code. The Zodiac Killer would never use the standalone word "life" outside of the November 8th and December 16th communications, yet he would end the 340 message with "life will be an easy one in paradice [death]", and begin the December 16th 1969 communication (2nd Fairfield letter) with "I just need to tell you this state is in troulbe, I will go for the Goverment life".

The Dripping Pen card containing the 340 cipher stated "Could you print this new cipher in your frunt page?", whereas the wording "you better print" preceded the small 5/9 character code in the December 16th 1969 letter. The decoded message in the 340 cipher (unknown to anyone until December 2020) began in mocking fashion, stating "I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me", while the message immediately beneath the small code in the December 16th 1969 letter stated "you will not catch me". It was almost as though the Zodiac Killer was replying to himself just over five weeks later, in absence of his cipher being solved.

On October 22nd 1969, the Oakland Police Department took a call in the early morning hours from somebody claiming to be the Zodiac, requesting that either Melvin Belli or Francis Lee Bailey, high profile lawyers at the time, appear on a chat show hosted by Jim Dunbar later that day. Melvin Belli agreed to appear on the show to which a man would eventually contact via telephone, claiming not only his name was 'Sam', but also by inference that he was the infamous Zodiac Killer. It was very quickly determined from Nancy Slover, David Slaight and Bryan Hartnell that the caller to the TV show wasn't the Zodiac Killer, which was confirmed by the decoded 340 message, which read "That wasn't me on the TV show". However, the Zodiac Killer didn't expand on who the person was that made the phone call to the Oakland Police Department. Whether he was leaving this open to speculation deliberately, nobody knows, but Oakland would feature in his murder destinations on December 16th 1969. This was the only time this city would feature by way of written text in any of the Zodiac Killer's communications, and it came just five weeks after the Bay Area murderer encoded the denial of "That wasn't me on the TV show". Was it a subtle admission that he did make the Oakland phone call to police and was now promising to murder eight of them, hence the renewed contact with Melvin Belli just four days later providing a piece of Paul Stine's shirt?

There are three things a hoaxer should not have known regarding the decoded 340 cipher message. [1] He shouldn't have known that by separating ZO∆AIKꞮ+ into AIKꞮ+ that it would produce the word "death" at the end of both codes, and provide a common link between the two. [2] He shouldn't have known that the opening line of the 340 message read "I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me", when he replied "you will not catch me" only 38 days later, unless you maintain that this is a coincidence. [3] He shouldn't have known that the Oakland inspired TV show had featured as a denial by the Zodiac Killer in the message, when he listed Oakland in the list of his murder sites.

The word "death" could be decoded using the Zodiac key through both the Z340 and Z38 within 29 days of one another. The December 16th 1969 letter also contained a configuration of four smaller crosshairs positioned around larger crosshairs, similar to the configuration of By Knife, By Gun, By Rope and By Fire on the Halloween card mailed on October 27th 1970. However, on this occasion the design was preceded by five characters. Could this be the word "death" once again, mirroring the Tim Holt comic book which likely inspired the design of the Halloween card in the first place? Anyway, "I thought you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news. Ha! Ha! Ha!"   

Whether the New York "by fire" attacks on Catholic churches in July 1974 were inspired by the events in San Francisco and Daly City in 1974 is unknown, but let us examine the story anyway.

Somebody purporting to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the San Francisco Police Department and several newspaper outlets on January 11th 1974 claiming to have murdered a woman and placed her body inside a Daly City church. Police mobilized a search, but after several hours they were unable to find any murdered woman, concluding it was very likely a hoax. On January 29th 1974, a letter believed to have been authored by the Zodiac Killer arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle stating "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen".

Exactly six months after the postmark date of The Exorcist letter, on July 29th 1974, a blaze erupted at the Roman Catholic Church, St. Vincent Ferrer, at 65th Street and Lexington Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan at about 9:50 pm. Reverend Thomas Smith (71) unable to escape the fire, unfortunately died of asphyxiation. Ten minutes after the fire engulfed the church, a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the news agency United Press International threatening to "unleash a tirade against the Catholic church. Priests are going to die. Someday people will realize that Christianity is a fraud". This phone call was followed by several more to The Daily News from 10:30 pm to 3:45 am, also claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer, The following day at 11:33 pm, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, at Fifth Avenue and 10th Street became the second church to be targetted by the arsonist, shortly followed by a third attack just 30 minutes later and two miles away, at the Episcopal church, St. Mary the Virgin, at 145 West 46th Street. No other casualties were reported at the latter two fires.

It was the fire at St. Mary the Virgin that gave officers their initial break, when a female eyewitness was able to give a description of the killer. He was eventually arrested close to West Side Church and identified as Gordon Earl Marais (56), a former mental patient living at 117 West 71st Street, located within three miles of every crime scene. After the arrest of the suspect, Assistant Chief James T. Sullivan, the acting chief of detectives, described the suspect as bearing “considerable animosity toward the Catholic Church". The police suspected he was the telephone caller, who used the pseudonym “Zodiac". 

The Zodiac Killer is often dismissed as a footnote in history, 'only' responsible for the murder of five people in California over fifty years ago, but it seems that his legacy may have inspired many more murders subsequent to his relatively brief reign of terror, that included Heriberto Seda, dubbed the "New York Zodiac", and the 1997 Tokyo Child Murders committed by Shinichiro Azuma. Arsonist and murderer, Gordon Earl Marais may not be the Zodiac Killer, but his attacks on Catholic churches just six months after the Daly City affair, along with the mailing of The Exorcist letter in San Francisco, in response to the William Friedkin movie revolving around catholicism, makes you wonder how far his legacy reached - and is still reaching. 

During the height of Zodiac activity, sandwiched between the murder of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969 and the mailing of the infamous 340 cipher on November 8th 1969, one man stared pensively out of the window in search of a prowler that was stalking his house, equally disturbed by the inevitability that his phone at some point would burst into life, threatening death at the other end. That man was Daniel Williams, a Salesian High School teacher in the city of Richmond, living at 1234 Bush Street in Martinez.

Almost certainly one and the same, this prowler had been calling Daniel Williams' residence from October 23rd 1969 to November 2nd 1969, which culminated in his pursuer lacing his 7-Up soft drink with more than enough arsenic to kill. Police had been summoned to his residence on November 2nd 1969 when he noticed the screen door of his house had been pried open, however, they left shortly thereafter when it was determined nothing had been stolen. A short time later, Daniel Williams went to his refrigerator for some light refreshment and took a swig of 7-Up. Had he swallowed after noticing the metallic tasting drink, he most certainly would have died alone on his kitchen floor. The person who called Daniel Williams on numerous occasions threatening his murder claimed to be none other than the Zodiac Killer. Somebody pretending to be the Zodiac Killer by phone or mail is one thing, but this person had intended to kill.

Daniel Williams was a 24-year-old school teacher at the very beginning of his life, so one can only wonder how it came to pass that somebody felt the persistent need to target this man over a period of thirteen days, when finally, on November 5th 1969, somebody rang the Martinez Police Department at 12:30 am stating "There's going to be a shooting at 1234 Bush Street", before immediately hanging the receiver up.

If Daniel Williams had a hidden enemy with a grudge, not only was he apparently unaware of this animosity toward him, but why would this person telegraph his intent over a two week period by way of malicious phone calls. The notion of somebody attempting to kill the school teacher, while passing it off as a Zodiac crime over a prolonged period, appears a rather convoluted approach, when the perpetrator could simply have killed Daniel Williams and then made a phone call or mailed a letter taking responsibility as the Zodiac Killer. Ringing a police department and making threats to kill, in advance of comitting the act, seems to negate the opportunity of surprise and allows the intended victim to take preparatory steps. When we consider the contents of the November 8th and 9th communications by the Zodiac Killer, only three days after the phone call to the Martinez Police Department on November 5th 1969, another possibility begins to materialize.    

The person behind the phone calls to Daniel Williams' house and the Martinez Police Department, along with the prowling incidents, had also made threats toward a Martinez school. When he rang the school teacher, the caller stated he "had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but left when he found police there". In light of the Zodiac Killer's desire to murder schoolchildren during the month of October, the claim of searching for victims at a nearby school should have raised significant alarm bells.

The persistence of this stalker may not have stopped on November 5th 1969, when the Zodiac Killer's Dripping Pen card arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle, stating "I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet". This phrase had all the hallmarks of activity ongoing, which had yet to reach its conclusion, backed up by the letter which arrived at the Chronicle the following day. In the Bus Bomb letter mailed on November 9th 1969, the Zodiac Killer made obvious that his victim count was only totalled "up to the end of Oct", suggestive of ongoing action between October 31st 1969 and the current mailing date. This apparent desire to add an eighth victim to his total, in light of a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer and ringing the Martinez Police Department on November 5th 1969 with the threat of murder, appeared to indicate he was not finished yet. Or at the very least, this is what he wanted us to believe.

The nature of the attack on Daniel Williams by way of arsenic poisoning, seemed to fit with the opening paragraph of the November 9th 1969 letter, in which the Zodiac Killer vented his frustration and promised to alter his approach to murder. He directly addressed law enforcement, remarking that "I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I committ my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, + a few fake accidents, etc". However, it's what he said next that may link the Zodiac Killer to the malicious phone calls perpetrated on Daniel Williams. The caller to 1234 Bush Street claimed he was thwarted by police outside a Martinez school during his search for victims, but they wouldn't catch him because, as he stated “I’m too smart for them". The next line of the Bus Bomb letter, after promising to change his way of collecting slaves, was to ridicule police by asserting that "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them". This could be argued as the Zodiac Killer reading the newspapers and mimicking the wording in the written text to plant a seed of his involvement in the Daniel Williams stalking. If this was his intention, it was so subtle, it went ignored for 51 years. The police probably believed this prolonged attack on Daniel Williams was just another successor in a long line of Zodiac hoaxers, but this supposed hoaxer was not only determined, he was prepared to kill to imitate the Zodiac Killer.      

On December 26th 1973, The Exorcist film, directed by William Friedkin and based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, was released over the festive period to an eagerly anticipated American audience, who were both shocked and amazed in equal measure. Reactions ranged from laughter and enjoyment, to vomiting, fainting, suicide, miscarriage, the clutching of rosary beads and the inevitable response of the church, who for the most part, found the movie ill-timed and offensive. However, this was no deterrent to a voracious public, quite prepared to queue around the block for hours in freezing weather. The Exorcist became the second most lucrative film that year behind The Sting, grossing $66.3 million during its initial run. It played to captivated audiences at the Northpoint Theatre, 2290 Powell Street, San Francisco, with quite possibly one person in attendance who was less than impressed.

The film and its audience reaction was covered by San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Paul Avery, who released an article entitled Weird Goings-On At the Movies on January 11th 1974. One person had a fixation with the San Francisco Chronicle and Paul Avery, having addressed the reporter personally on at least two occasions. Therefore, despite the Zodiac Killer story having largely vanished from the newspapers, it seems rather unusual that later on that night, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer would ring the San Francisco Police Department and several newspaper outlets, making a chilling claim that would cause police "to run all over town with".

The caller claimed to have murdered a woman and placed her body inside a Daly City church. Despite the police suspecting it was the usual hoax, the storyline of The Exorcist film and the publication by Paul Avery just hours earlier, makes the premise of the caller being the Zodiac Killer appear much more likely, when one considers the arrival of The Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974, just over two weeks later. The phone calls and letter, seemingly with The Exorcist film the common thread, after barely, if any Zodiac activity for two years, could be argued as having originated from the same responsible.

When we also consider that The Exorcist letter was mailed from either San Mateo or Santa Clara County, of which Daly City is the largest city in San Mateo County, one could be forgiven for believing the mailing location of The Exorcist letter was deliberately chosen because of the threat of murder bestowed upon the churches of Daly City. 

The phone calls to the San Francisco Police Department and newspaper outlets occurred eighteen days prior to the postmarked date of The Exorcist letter, so either they are bound by the real Zodiac Killer, a hoaxer was responsible for both phone calls and letter, or quite possibly, the hoax phone calls reinvigorated the authentic Zodiac Killer from hibernation into action once again. But if the Daly City wild goose chase was connected to the January 11th 1974 newspaper article by Paul Avery and The Exorcist film, why would a phone caller playing games with police, need to invoke the name of the Zodiac Killer after very little newspaper publicity regarding the case during the last two years? For somebody to make several phone calls on January 11th 1974 claiming to be Zodiac Killer, shortly followed by a similar inference in The Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974, may lend credence to the authenticity of this later communication. 

In respect to the Mount Diablo code, the Zodiac Killer gave us two clues to where his bomb was to be set, in the form of two crosshairs on July 26th 1970. The first crosshairs contained a bold, black circle positioned at 4 radians and magnetic north around its circumference. Next to this circle, the Zodiac Killer placed SFPD=0, indicating the target was a San Francisco Police Department. The second crosshairs were overwritten with the wording "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians". The hashtag (recognized as a number sign) was positioned above a pointing arrow, beckoning us to insert a number value before inches. The answer is five inches, because this is the only value that falls over San Francisco from Mount Diablo using the map scale of 6.4 miles to the inch. The bomb was to be set alongside Ingleside Police Station, on an embankment bordering the Southern Freeway. For further explanation in simplified form, please visit here, or for more extensive coverage read the article The Answer to the Mount Diablo Code.

Footnote: Ordinarily radians would be measured counter-clockwise, but the Zodiac Killer gave us crosshairs superimposed over Mount Diablo with an arrow pointer set in the north facing position, "to be set to Mag. N". He allocated it a zero position, with a 3, 6 and 9 in the form of a clock face around its circumference. This was to instruct us to travel clockwise around the circumference of the crosshairs in this instance. Which is why it was no fluke that the bold, black circle fell exactly at 4 radians and magnetic north.

The Blast Estimate of Zodiac (Part Two)

Former Navy SEAL John Allen has created an excellent Youtube channel under the title of MrBallen. Covering strange and frightening stories, sprinkled with mystery and intrigue, John Allen has achieved formidable success in just one year, taking his channel to 1.25 million subscribers in breakneck speed (at the time of writing}.

His delivery in story format is excellently crafted using a mixture of imagery and occasional video, guaranteed to keep you enthralled throughout each of his presentations. Going from zero to over a million subscribers in just one year is testimony to the quality of his storytelling abilities. So put the logs on the fire, turn down the lights, and enjoy.

Here is a link to his video playlist which he currently updates by producing anywhere from three to five new videos a week. Hopefully you will pay him a visit, because he desrerves great success in keeping alive the art of good storytelling for all ages.
MrBallen Youtube Video List.

The discovery of the message in the 340 cipher has triggered a new debate on the intelligence of the Zodiac Killer, bearing in mind the greater complexity of the encryption used to disguise its contents. Creating an extremely difficult cipher is actually far easier than attempting to decode it, especially when the person who designs the cipher accidentally bakes errors into his cipher as shown by the Zodiac Killer.

However, Cragle on the Zodiac Killer Site forum made an astute observation regarding the Zodiac Killer's switch from describing his hidden messages as ciphers, to codes in the June 26th 1970 and July 26th 1970 letters. While not completely true, because the Zodiac Killer stated "By the way, are the police having a good time with the code?" on August 4th 1969, it does open up the broader point of the difference between codes and ciphers, which is effectively what Cragle was implying. Codes generally operate on semantics, while ciphers operate on syntax. A cipher is a system to make a word or message secret by changing or rearranging the letters in the message, whereas a code is a system of changing entire words or phrases into something else. Codes are not just secret messages, they can be any symbol or signal used to represent, or communicate, something else.

One could argue, that if the Zodiac Killer invested the time to construct a period nineteen cipher, then he was certainly aware that by creating the Z13 and Z32  codes of such brevity and variability, he was effectively creating an impossible task and any realistic possibility of a solution without ultimately providing a key to each code. The fact that the Mount Diablo code had 29 unique characters in a 32 character array, makes it practically unsolvable without that key, A key explaining these 29 unique characters in his remaining communications appears not to be the case. The Zodiac Killer stated that "the map coupled with the code will tell you where the bomb is set", so if we take this literally, then the Zodiac Killer by June 26th 1970 expected us to solve the 32 character code with nothing more than the Phillips 66 map he supplied alongside the letter. He did supply additional clues on July 26th 1970 in the form of "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians", but as of June 26th 1970 he fully expected us to decipher these 29 unique characters with nothing more than a map, lending credence to the notion that this encryption was designed as a code rather than a cipher. Finding corresponding alphabetical letters to 29 unique characters appears an unlikely proposition with the limited information he provided. A man with the patience to design the 340 cipher encryption must have known this.

Sam Blake, who contributed to the solving of the 340 cipher, made an extremely valid point when stating that the decoded message was contemporary. By the Zodiac Killer claiming that "it wasn't me on the TV show", he fully expected his 340 cipher to be decoded fairly quickly. This message was for the moment, not for 51 years later. The same is probably true for the Z13 and Z32. These codes were apparently designed with the promise of a hidden name and bomb at a time when newspapers were king. When the Zodiac Killer started fading from the newspaper headlines by 1971, the ongoing quest to decipher these two codes had equally faded into obscurity. This isn't the case today, with the internet endlessly keeping the mystery and speculation alive. But as the 1970s rolled forward these codes would have faded from the publics gaze, making these puzzles much more contemporary at the time they were designed. The Zodiac Killer could enjoy the speculation surrounding his unsolved puzzles and codes while they were still being discussed in the newspapers, but once the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner have moved away from featuring the Zodiac Killer, the feedback surrounding his unsolved codes would equally fade away. He probably expected these two codes to remain unbroken for a limited time only.

Therefore, as Cragle intimated, we might be better rewarded by looking at the Z13 and Z32 codes through the lens of codes rather than ciphers. The search for words or phrases, in accompaniment to the limited clues he supplied, quite possibly a much more profitable avenue to go down. The solving of the 340 cipher has inevitably switched the focus of attention toward the remaining unbroken codes, with every effort being made to follow up on the success of Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke. However, adopting an approach using cipher-type encryption may possibly lead to another 51 years of blind alleyways and false beliefs, scattered with the graveyards of "solved solutions" that never were.

On October 28th 1987, a Halloween letter arrived at the Vallejo Times-Herald with the usual threats.
 
Agent Fred Shirasago observed that the first three sentences of the new letter, postmarked Tuesday from San Francisco are almost verbatim the April 24, 1978, letter that led to Toschi’s demotion. In Sacramento, spokeswoman Melinda Stehr of the attorney general's office said handwriting experts confirmed the letter was a simulation of a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle a decade ago, which was also considered to be a hoax. "Someone saw the letter and was using it as a copy". Stehr said. "It's a fake. It's a hoax". Vallejo Police Captain Roy Conway said the letter ″was not authored by the authentic Zodiac, but that it is a simulation of a hoax letter written in 1978". The letter, in which the writer threatened to kill trick or treaters on Halloween, was similar to several mailed to area newspapers in the late 1960s and early 70s. It was received by the Vallejo Times-Herald Wednesday, but a handwriting analysis found it to be a phony, reported.Conway

Melinda Stehr and Roy Conway are effectively claiming that somebody pretending to be the Zodiac Killer was imitating the letter mailed on April 24th 1978, which had previously been determined to be a copycat. Not only would it be immensely stupid judgement for a copycat to mimic a "copycat letter" to pretend to be Zodiac, but how did this 1987 copycat manage to imitate the July 31st 1969 Vallejo Times-Herald envelope, when not only had this envelope been "misplaced" at the time, but it had never been made public by October 28th 1987? Melinda Stehr stated "Someone saw the (1978) letter and was using it as a copy". If that was the case, then how did this person in 1987 "see" the 1969 envelope in order to copy it so perfectly? This latest envelope had the same exact 13 words as the 1969 envelope, the same lack of punctuation, and both envelopes addressed the Vallejo Times-Herald in full, whereas the 1969 publicly available Zodiac letters to the Chronicle and Examiner didn't (they only stated Vallejo Times). There is also a strong likelihood that both envelopes were addressed "Herold" instead of "Herald", as was the Celebrity Cypher postcard that arrived three years later. Although I'm not a staunch handwriting advocate when comparing Zodiac communications, we have similarity between both envelopes, plus excellent corroborating material in the wording used in each instance.

But what some people may or may not know, is the October 28th 1987 "Zodiac" letter had a companion, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle at about the same time. It too was dismissed because it "appeared to be composed of previous letters which have since been made public". However, this letter to the Chronicle also came with an envelope, making a comparison to the envelope on July 31st 1969 a possibility.

The envelope on July 31st 1969 was addressed S.F. Chronicle San Fran, Calif Please Rush to Editor! with Please Rush to Editor on the reverse. If the 1987 envelope to the Chronicle was addressed in identical fashion to the 1969 envelope, with corresponding wording and punctuation marks (including the exclamation mark), we could almost certainly declare both the 1987 letters genuine Zodiac material. The notion of a lazy copycat just mimicking old letters is possible, but mimicking two envelopes identically to which he had no access to, is virtually impossible (barring the usual claim of an inside job).

This 1987 letter and envelope to the San Francisco Chronicle could finally tell us whether the Zodiac Killer was still alive and driving around on Halloween once and for all. An everyday person just committing a casual hoax eighteen years after the Zodiac Killer's first letters, would find it extremely difficult to accidentally compose the exact wording and punctuation from the Vallejo Times-Herald envelope in 1969, let alone recreate the identical text and punctuation from the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 also. One man who may be able to validate whether the 1987 Chronicle letter still exists, is Kevin Fagan, a longtime reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. It would also beg the question of, how would the real Zodiac Killer have remembered the exact wording he placed on either envelope from eighteen years previously? Had he kept a record of everything he did during his campaign of terror in the Bay Area and memorialised it for posterity? This communication to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1987 could tell us so much. 

After two Zodiac attacks in close succession on September 27th 1969 and October 11th 1969, investigators must have feared an escalation in terror from the Bay Area murderer, so it would have certainly been in their interests to switch the Zodiac Killer's attention to communication instead of murder. On October 22nd 1969, Dr. D.C.B Marsh in alliance with investigators and the San Francisco Examiner, attempted to refocus the Zodiac Killer's attention toward creating a second major cryptogram and "reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts". Marsh would continue to press the killer throughout the article, stating "I invite Zodiac to send to The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name". However, in order to crack any cipher the killer may send, it would have been wise to place certain triggers within the article to guide the Zodiac Killer into choosing a particular cryptographic technique. This may have been the purpose of dropping the name Edgar Allan Poe into the San Francisco Examiner article, thereby influencing the killer to choose a cryptographic technique highlighted by Poe in one of his essays. If the Zodiac Killer then responds with a second cipher, your first port of call would obviously be Edgar Allan Poe.

Although Dave Oranchak doesn't believe the Zodiac Killer used the scytale method of encryption in the recently decoded 340 cipher, this decryption tool does actually decode the message in the 340 cipher. If the Zodiac Killer responded to the prompt by Dr. Marsh and read Edgar Allan Poe's essay A Few Words on Secret Writing, he would have noticed that the first topic of discussion was the scytale cipher, which involves disguising a message by separation, avoiding the common left-to-right method of decryption. This is what the Zodiac Killer used in his 340 cipher. In further reading of A Few Words on Secret Writing, it became apparent that other encryption methods were discussed in addition to the scytale method, with the possibility existing that the Zodiac Killer may have adopted one of these techniques for his following 13-Symbol cipher on April 20th 1970. The most notable encryption methods discussed included separating the alphabet A to M, and N to Z, into two equal parts of 13 letters. Followed by a technique involving two concentric discs, akin to the Union Cipher Disk that held the number configurations of 000 and 888. These techniques show promise when we consider the design and structure of the 13-Symbol cipher. This has been covered in a much more extensive article, so it will not be covered any further here.  

Dr. Marsh, under the banner of Cipher Expert Dares Zodiac to Tell Name, would persist throughout the article into cajoling the Zodiac Killer to reveal his name by way of a cryptogram. This is why another passage in A Few Words on Secret Writing caught my attention - and may have resonated with the Zodiac Killer too. It concerned a reader sending in cryptograms to Edgar Allan Poe, but refraining from giving his name. The passage read "This challenge has elicited but a single response, which is embraced in the following letter. The only quarrel we have with the epistle, is that its writer has declined giving us his name in full. We beg that he will take an early opportunity of doing this, and thus relieve us of the chance of that suspicion which was attached to the cryptography of the weekly journal above-mentioned–the suspicion of inditing ciphers to ourselves. The postmark of the letter is Stonington, Conn".

This reminded me of the statement by Dr. Marsh when he challenged Zodiac, who he contended "had not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald". He claimed "Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name would lead to his capture". Did the Zodiac Killer read this passage in A Few Words on Secret Writing and get some ideas?

The reader who mailed Edgar Allan Poe from Stonington, Connecticut, failed to supply his name, but did begin by placing a letter S, followed by a horizontal dash, similar to the Zodiac Killer's introduction on April 20th 1970, The Zodiac Killer began the introduction to his 13-Symbol cipher by stating MY NAME IS ---------. The sender of the cryptograms to Poe only signed his name at the bottom of the intoductory letter by use of initials, concluding with "I am yours, respectfully S.D.L." Not wanting to shy away from the challenge of Dr. Marsh a second time, I couldn't help thinking that the Zodiac Killer may have rose to the challenge and given us the initials to his name (or fictitious initials), just like the sender of the cryptograms from Stonington, Connecticut. Another thing to note, is that Dr. Marsh laid down this challenge on October 22nd 1969, so 182 days had elapsed before the Zodiac Killer's third confirmed cryptogram arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle on April 21st 1970.

Paul Avery wrote on April 22nd 1970, in an article entitled Zodiac Sends New Letter-Claims Ten, that "the killer who calls himself Zodiac has once again written to the Chronicle. In a letter received yesterday, Zodiac claims he has killed again". This letter was received by the San Francisco Chronicle on April 21st 1970, the exact day and month the letter from Stonington, Connecticut was postmarked from the anonymous sender to Edgar Allan Poe. This all may have been coincidence, but it would certainly be worth looking for the Zodiac Killer's initials as part of the answer to the 13-Symbol cipher.

That answer could be "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Fk, I'm crackproof", given to us in the Zodiac Killer's postcard five-and-a-half months later as a big hint to its decipherment. The 340 character cipher was split into rows of 9, 9 and 2 sections. The 13-Symbol cipher may have been split into 2. 2 and 9 sections, with the circled 8's beginning each section of the phrase. The letters K and M were already in place for a perfectly circular message, as highlighted in the October 5th 1970 communication by the Zodiac Killer, in which he supplied us with the phrase Fk I'm crackproof.   

Here is the message in the 340 character cipher (corrected for spelling mistakes), split into three sections of nine, nine and two rows. The message in the first two sections has been left untouched, while in the third section only one word has been shifted.

The word "DEATH" has been moved from the end of the original message to the beginning of the nineteenth line. It now reads:

I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME. THAT WASN’T ME ON THE TV SHOW. WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME. I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER. BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE. SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH. I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS DEATH. LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE.

Since the decoding of the Zodiac Killer's infamous 340 cipher by Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke earlier this month, it is now possible to almost certainly confirm the two letters mailed on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969 as authentic Zodiac communications. It has long been known that these two letters were authored by the same person, but it has always been difficult to convince certain sections of the Zodiac community these letters were penned by the Zodiac Killer, who insisted they were a hoaxer based on nothing more than handwriting analysis and the disorganized appearance of the coding in each. The following, will hopefully show that handwriting alone should never be used to dismiss a questioned Zodiac correspondence. By examining the encryption methods between the 340 and 38 character codes, much can be revealed

A 38 character code accompanied the Fairfield letter on December 7th 1969, just twenty-nine days after the Zodiac Killer's recently deciphered 340 cipher. This code contained only characters available in the 340 cipher, unlike the following 13-Symbol and 32-Symbol ciphers. This opened the door to the possibility that the 38 character code was somehow related to the 340 cipher and maybe contained a clue to its construction. Druzer, an avid and diligent Zodiac researcher, mailed me the 38 character code deciphered with the 340 cipher key. The result is mostly garbled, but he drew my attention to the final line of both codes ending in "death". The Zodiac Killer only took a 4+ horizontal combination of characters from the 340 cipher to the 38 character code on two occasions. Those were HER> and AIKꞮ+, which spelled the standalone words of IRON and DEATH, before the diagonal shift was applied to the 340 cipher to reveal the message. Despite the last two rows of the 340 cipher being a mixture of forward and backward reading words, the word "death" sits at the end of both the 340 and 38 character ciphers, indicating that this word likely concludes the message of the rearranged final two lines. It could mean that the final sentence of the 340 cipher is "life is death" rather than "death is life".   

Other horizontal words do exist in this format, however, the Zodiac Killer gave us 4 and 5 characters which bound the 340 and 38 character ciphers together, and both formed English words. The Zodiac Killer began and ended his 38 character code with two prominent sections from the start and end of the 340 cipher, both of which contained visible words before any shift was applied (The final word remaining static). This may be another observation, which confirms to the doubters the December 7th 1969 letter as an authentic Zodiac communication. Unless of course, the 38 code hoaxer identified two passages of 4 and 5 characters from the undeciphered 340 cipher, that just happened to accidentally find two English words after the 340 key was applied, specifically the two which began and ended the 340 cipher. This hoaxer would also have to guess that by separating the prominent ZO∆AIKꞮ+ characters on the bottom line of the 340 cipher, into AIKꞮ+ on the bottom line of the 38 character code, he would be reducing these characters to create something meaningful. He apparently did. By separating these characters into the five visible at the end of the 38 character code, he created the word "death", just like the solved 340 cipher. Druzer pointed out the same thing, stating  "The most curious/compelling feats are that the author isolated actual words, most notably death, and that he refrained from copying Zodaik, which would certainly be expected of a hoaxer". In other words, he dismantled the ZO∆AIK element, while leaving Ɪ+ in place, to form "death" as the final word on the 38 character code. This appears to show knowledge of the hidden message in the 340 cipher

This also opens up the possibility that the word "death" was present in the 5 character code on December 16th 1969, when the Zodiac Killer mailed his second Fairfield letter mimicking the yet to be designed Halloween card. The word "death" would then span three consecutive Zodiac ciphers from November 8th 1969 to December 16th 1969, with the Halloween card on October 27th 1970 the icing on the cake.

The November 8th 1969 greeting card came without a section of Paul Stine's shirt, as did the two Fairfield letters on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969. When neither of the Fairfield letters were published in the newspapers, the Zodiac Killer would add a shirt piece to the Melvin Belli letter just four days later. In the Melvin Belli letter the Zodiac Killer pleaded for help on four occasions, stating "please help me" on three of those occasions. The unpublished December 7th 1969 letter contained the phrase "I just need help".

In the early morning hours of October 22nd 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer called the Oakland Police Department and requested that Francis Lee Bailey or Melvin Mouron Belli appear on the Jim Dunbar Show at KGO Radio in San Francisco, to which he would ring in. Somebody did ring the chat show, but this caller was later identified as mental patient, Eric Weill. However, we still don't know to this day whether the original caller to the Oakland Police Department was the Zodiac Killer or not, because the genuine Zodiac Killer only stated "That wasn't me on the TV show" in his now decrypted 340 cipher. At no point did he deny being the caller to the Oakland Police Department.

Probably the most important question to ask, is why would the Zodiac Killer choose to ring the Oakland Police Department above any other. There appeared no connection between the Zodiac Killer and Oakland prior to October 22nd 1969. However, this was also the case on October 15th 1969, when the Zodiac Killer almost certainly phoned the Santa Rosa Police Department to threaten schoolchildren on buses, who then implemented the routine checking of every school bus for hidden bombs. This caller, claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, was threatening schoolchildren two days before the details of "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning" was released by the San Francisco Chronicle, and one day before it was released by the Los Angeles Times. .

On October 21st 1969, the day before the Oakland Police Department call, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang the Palo Alto Times newspaper. The Palo Alto Times reported on October 22nd 1969, that 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. This would come only six days after the Santa Rosa threat on schoolchildren. The caller also stated to the Palo Alto Times that he had left San Francisco "because I'm too hot there". On December 7th 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang commercial radio station KTOK in Oklahoma City, claiming he left California "because it got too hot for me". There was a further call on December 19th 1969, the day before the Melvin Belli letter, threatening "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". This call was received by Shirley Searey, a police dispatcher at the San Jose Highway Patrol.

Captain Martin Lee stated, after the Zodiac Killer's October 13th 1969 letter: "His boast of being in the area we were searching was a lie. We had the whole area flooded with lights. We had seven police dogs and a large number of patrolmen searching the area tree by tree and bush by bush. The dogs are the best in the country". Captain Lee added that Zodiac's failure to mention the dogs and floodlights was proof "he wasn't anywhere in the vicinity". The Zodiac Killer responded on November 9th 1969 with "I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. The dogs never came with in 2 blocks of me + they were to the west + there was only 2 groups of parking about 10 min apart then the motor cicles went by about 150 ft away going from south to north west".

However, this ire likely began on October 15th 1969, when the San Francisco Chronicle failed to publish his threat on schoolchildren, resulting in his phone call to the Santa Rosa Police Department. The call to Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969 may have been triggered by these perceived slights from law enforcement. By avoiding the San Francisco Police Department and calling the Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969, the Zodiac Killer could request a prominent attorney to represent him on the Jim Dunbar Show, and set the record straight on the misinformation and lies spoken about him by Captain Martin Lee to the San Francisco Chronicle. This TV audience on the popular Jim Dunbar Show in San Francisco may have been the ideal way to set the record straight, circumventing the San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Chronicle and receiving maximum exposure. Ultimately, the Zodiac Killer may have had second thoughts, surmising that it could have led to somebody identifying him. This hesitancy opened the door to hoaxer Eric Weill.

Despite the phone call to the Jim Dunbar Show having been roundly dismissed as the Zodiac Killer "by three who knew", the murderer of five still felt compelled to disassociate himself from being the caller to the TV show, by mailing a cryptogram and greeting card on November 8th 1969. If the Zodiac Killer had rang the Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969 with the intention of appearing on the Jim Dunbar TV show and setting the record straight concerning Captain Martin Lee and the San Francisco Police Department - then having not done so - one would have expected his next communication to do exactly that. Therefore, it's no surprise that the Bus Bomb letter on November 9th 1969 was the Zodiac Killer's longest communication of them all, attacking the police with the venom he so wanted to do with a captive TV audience. The two communications on November 8th 1969 and November 9th 1969, inextricably bound by his failure to appear on the Jim Dunbar Show just over two weeks earlier.

The phone calls wouldn't stop there, when Daniel Williams (24), a Salesian High School teacher, started to receive malicious phone calls to his 1234 Bush Street, Martinez residence on October 23rd 1969. These calls continued for ten days and culminated with somebody breaking into his residence on November 2nd 1969 and lacing his 7-Up soft drink with enough arsenic to kill. The caller, claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, told Daniel Williams over the phone that he "had gone to a Martinez school in search of victims but left when he found police there", mocking law enforcement by stating “I’m too smart for them". This was considered particularly relevant because of the language Zodiac adopted on November 9th 1969 in the Bus Bomb letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle of "The police shall never catch me, because I have been too clever for them".

On Wednesday, November 5th 1969, somebody rang the Martinez Police Department at 12:30 am stating "There's going to be a shooting at 1234 Bush Street", before immediately hanging up. The threat to find victims at a Martinez school, coupled with the menacing phone calls, were not dissimilar to recent Zodiac activity during the month of October. After the threat to shoot Daniel Williams at his residence, police instigated surveillance in the immediate area of Bush Street for the remainder of that morning, but no suspicious activity was detected. The next Zodiac Killer communications would be postmarked just two and three days later, with the promise of more bad news and a victim count left dangling at the end of October. If the perpetrator of the crimes inflicted upon Daniel Williams wasn't the Zodiac Killer, then it was a pretty determined hoaxer claiming to be him. The call to Oakland Police Department was made on October 22nd 1969, with the threats on Daniel Williams beginning just a day later, on October 23rd 1969. The Salesian High School where Daniel Williams worked, only thirteen miles north of the Oakland Police Department. When we place all of this in context, does it indicate that the Zodiac Killer was likely the caller to Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969, or did Eric Weill just spontaneously call law enforcement because he had nothing better to do at the time? 

On April 20th 1970, the Zodiac Killer mailed a 13-Symbol cipher to the San Francisco Chronicle, in addition to a bus bomb diagram threatening to blow up a school bus. Let's compare the 13-Symbol cipher to the 13-Hole postcard on October 5th 1970, in which the Zodiac Killer may have completed the introduction of "My name is" to "My name is Fk, I'm crackproof", again teasing us with a less than complete resolution to his real identity.