Of the three lengthy cryptograms crafted by the Zodiac Killer, the 408 cipher mailed on July 31st 1969 was his introductory message to the public, proclaiming his intention to collect slaves for the afterlife. The cryptogram was a simple homophonic substitution cipher, cracked in a matter of days by schoolteacher Donald Gene Harden and Bettye June Harden (née Tischer) of Salinas, California. The Zodiac Killer's next character laden cryptogram appeared reactionary, in that the design of the 340 cipher on November 8th 1969 was much more complex, despite the fact it contained a contemporary message regarding the "phony" (Eric Weill), who rang into the Jim Dunbar TV Show on October 22nd 1969 and February 5th 1970 pretending to be the infamous Zodiac Killer. Although the design of the cipher was arguably more difficult, it is clear that the Zodiac Killer underestimated its complexity and failings, resulting in the contemporary message contained within it being diminished and compromised by the passage of time.
When the Zodiac Killer created his third lengthy cryptogram (in possibly May, 1971), containing yet another contemporary message about "phony" Eric Weill (and claimed additional "phony" Karl Francis Werner), the Zodiac Killer, this time, made sure his message would not be lost to the hands of time by manufacturing a cryptogram much simpler than the 408 cipher, by allotting just one ciphertext character to each plaintext letter. The only three times he deviated from this technique in the cryptogram was with the bold letter "G" that concluded the word "LISTENING" on the third row, and the letter "T" in "THE" and "FRONT" on the first and fifth row. The Zodiac Killer likely incorporated two deliberate errors on the first row when he used two misspellings within his "This is the Zodiac speaking" introduction. These deliberate misspellings, by adding and subtracting a plaintext letter, very likely created to add minor complexity, and prevent an immediate decoding of his cipher.
Having used the letter "Z" in plaintext for the first time in three cryptograms, it seemed that the Zodiac Killer couldn't resist using the "sun cross" character (similar to his crosshairs) to represent the initial of his pseudonym. This becomes apparent when he uses this individual character to sign off his accompanying letter, rather than the traditional crosshairs or letter "Z".
When the Zodiac Killer created his third lengthy cryptogram (in possibly May, 1971), containing yet another contemporary message about "phony" Eric Weill (and claimed additional "phony" Karl Francis Werner), the Zodiac Killer, this time, made sure his message would not be lost to the hands of time by manufacturing a cryptogram much simpler than the 408 cipher, by allotting just one ciphertext character to each plaintext letter. The only three times he deviated from this technique in the cryptogram was with the bold letter "G" that concluded the word "LISTENING" on the third row, and the letter "T" in "THE" and "FRONT" on the first and fifth row. The Zodiac Killer likely incorporated two deliberate errors on the first row when he used two misspellings within his "This is the Zodiac speaking" introduction. These deliberate misspellings, by adding and subtracting a plaintext letter, very likely created to add minor complexity, and prevent an immediate decoding of his cipher.
Having used the letter "Z" in plaintext for the first time in three cryptograms, it seemed that the Zodiac Killer couldn't resist using the "sun cross" character (similar to his crosshairs) to represent the initial of his pseudonym. This becomes apparent when he uses this individual character to sign off his accompanying letter, rather than the traditional crosshairs or letter "Z".
Thanks to Howard Davis for unearthing this communication
Courtesy of Howard Davis
Victims of serial killers make up a very small percentage of the total number of murder victims each year. Communications written by such killers (and accompanying hoaxers) are even less. So imagine the percentage of serial killers and their accompanying hoaxers that mail communications to authorities with cryptograms and codes included within the correspondence. Now imagine two cryptograms contained within two letters unreleased into the public domain, both of which have many crossover features, that both use the ciphertext character "7" to represent the plaintext character "A" in the code, with both claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer, and both using the "sun cross" in their respective codes. These two letters were mailed from Fairfield, California (1971) and Albany, New York (1973). Now imagine mailing a 148 character cryptogram in 1971 using the root word "phony" that was previously used to describe the Jim Dunbar TV Show hoaxer Eric Weill in the headlines of a newspaper article on February 6th 1970, who was the focus of the 340 cipher solve in 2020, when the Zodiac Killer wrote "That wasn't me on the TV show" and effectively proclaimed the caller a hoaxer. A 340 cipher message that wasn't known to anybody else but the Zodiac Killer in 1971. Regardless, we must not let facts get in the way of the long told Zodiac narrative.
The August 1st 1973 Albany code
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