On December 7th 1969 the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter and code from Fairfield just hours before he phoned the Oklahoma radio station KTOK, both times imitating the caller to the Jim Dunbar TV show on October 22nd 1969. The person who mailed the letter provided crucial information in the Z38 code that showed intrinsic knowledge regarding the mechanics of the 340 cipher and its use of the knight's move in chess. In other words, the person who mailed the December 7th 1969 letter knew how to solve the 340 cipher. They knew this because they were the Zodiac Killer. The following will show how I arrived at the plausible solution of  "TRYING TIMES. SO I NEED APPOINTMENT TO GET HELP". 

Bearing in mind that the phone call to Oklahoma and the letter mailed on December 7th 1969 to the San Francisco Chronicle, were both continuing the theme of the Jim Dunbar TV show and Melvin Belli fiasco, in which the hoax caller was pleading for help, there is a strong probability that the Z38 code may contain a message along the same lines. If it did, it would almost certainly have been something the Zodiac Killer read in the newspapers on this topic, such as the article in the Los Angeles Times newspaper on October 23rd 1969, the day after the television show.
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In the 340 cipher message, decoded by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke on December 5th 2020, the Zodiac Killer used the headlines from the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on October 24th 1969, which was titled over two pages, reading both "That Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know" and "It Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know". In his 340 message he stated "That Wasn't Me on the TV Show". The numerous references in the newspapers immediately after October 22nd 1969 about the caller saying "I don't want to go to the gas chamber", was replied to by Zodiac, who encoded "I am not afraid of the gas chamber". The Zodiac Killer would emphasize these two points in the first seven lines of the deciphered message.   ​

The news was abound with the failed meeting between the "Zodiac Killer" (Sam) and Melvin Belli at the Vincent de Paul thrift store in Daly City, later that day. The Los Angeles Times newspaper on October 23rd 1969 read "Attorney Melvin Belli in a phone booth at a San Francisco television station talking to caller who said he was the Zodiac Killer. Caller made an appointment but didn't keep it". This was the sort of the thing the Zodiac Killer may have mocked, after writing "I just need help" on December 7th 1969. There were two plus signs (+) together in the Z38 code, so I knew they had to represent the same plaintext letter, and gambled on the word "appointment". This would not only fill up a significant portion of the Z38 code, but would mean that the code ended with the plaintext letter "P". That was likely the last letter of "help", which also featured prominently in the Los Angeles Times newspaper and others. In fact, the title of the article was "I Want Help, Zodiac Caller Tells Attorney on Telephone". After placing "appointment" and "help" in the Z38 code, it allows us to form the word "to" immediately after "appointment" because of the double character (dotted circles). The phrase "appointment to get help" was then easy to work out. 

The first 18 ciphertext characters could then be filled in somewhat, with the dotted circle represented by the plaintext letter "T",  the circle with the single vertical line through it represented by the plaintext letter "I", the plain circle ​represented by the plaintext letter "E", the square represented by the plaintext letter "G", the triangle represented by the plaintext letter "O", and the slanted line​ represented by the plaintext letter "N". We were left with this.

The plaintext letters in blue on the top line looked like it could spell "times", followed by the word "so", thereby satisfying the double "L" ciphertext. So I took a gamble and placed the words into the message like so. 

The rest was pretty simple. After the word "so" I added the personal pronoun of "I", and "need" was the obvious next choice. The final part was filling in the blanks for the starting five plaintext letters ending in "G". Trying times" is a well-known phrase that one might experience, and necessitates the need for an "appointment to get help". This completed the Z38 code. Whether it is the correct solution I can't say for certain, but it satisfies the workings of a substitution cipher and has relevance to the contemporary events the Zodiac Killer was reading in the newspapers at the time, just like the message in the 340 cipher.

In cryptography, unicity distance is the length of an original ciphertext needed to break the cipher by reducing the number of possible spurious keys to zero in a brute force attack. That is, after trying every possible key, there should be just one decipherment that makes sense, i.e. expected amount of ciphertext needed to determine the key completely, assuming the underlying message has redundancy. For a simple substitution cipher, the number of possible keys is 26! = 4.0329 × 1026 = 288.4, the number of ways in which the alphabet can be permuted. Assuming all keys are equally likely, H(k) = log2(26!) = 88.4 bits. For English text D = 3.2, thus U = 88.4/3.2 = 28. So given 28 characters of ciphertext it should be theoretically possible to work out an English plaintext and hence the key. Wikipedia. 

• Simple Monoalphabetic Substitution Cipher: The theoretical unicity distance is about 28 characters. In practice, cryptanalysts typically need around 50 characters to perform reliable frequency analysis and achieve a definite solve.

FURTHER READING: "IRON" AND "DEATH" FEATURED IN TWO CIPHERS   

On October 22nd 1969 Will Stevens published an article in the San Francisco Examiner, in which Professor Donald C. B. Marsh urged the killer to contact him in code, stating "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name"

Professor Donald C. B. Marsh, by invoking the name of Edgar Allan Poe, was probably hoping that the Zodiac Killer was going to use techniques mentioned or used by Poe, making any future offering by Zodiac easier to solve. The next two ciphers/codes mailed by the Zodiac Killer can be linked to Poe's 1841 essay "A Few Words on Secret Writing" from the July edition of Graham's magazine. The scytale method of decryption featured by Poe can solve the 340 cipher. The immediate next passage of  A Few Words on Secret Writing further describes cryptographic techniques, showing the splitting of the alphabet into ABCDEFGHIJKLM and NOPQRSTUVWXYZ, creating two portions of thirteen letters. The Zodiac Killer's April 20th 1970 communication was a 13-Symbol cipher beginning with A and ending with M. Edgar Allan Poe then describes a cipher wheel that can be used to give a credible answer to the Z13 code. But of course, it doesn't end there.

Not only did the Zodiac Killer use the encryption techniques described by Edgar Allan Poe, he may have embedded two of Edgar Allan's poems in the mechanics of the 340 cipher. Notable words from these two poems were visible when the cipher key was applied to the 340 cipher (before the period 19 shift was used to acquire the message). The presence of the second Edgar Allan Poe poem in the 340 cipher (after the key was applied) was highlighted by the author of the Z38 code mailed from Fairfield on December 7th 1969, who was undeniably the Zodiac Killer.

But let us deal with the first poem that was plainly visible in the deciphered 340 message, that read: 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 LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH.

"To One in Paradise" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was first published as part of the short story titled "The Visionary" (later retitled as "The Assignation"). The poem was also published under the names "To lanthe in Heaven" and "To One Beloved". The title "To One in Paradise" was used in the February 25th 1843 edition of the Philidelphia Saturday Museum. This poem was written after the death of Poe's wife. He writes that she was his life and he lived for her and now he looks forward to the future where they will be together again in death. link. Now let's look for the second poem by Edgar Allan Poe. When the Zodiac Killer mailed the Z38 code on December 7th 1969, he repeated two notable segments of ciphertext from the 340 cipher. The first four ciphertext characters, and the last five ciphertext characters (shown below). 

This may not seem significant, until you consider that when the original 340 cipher was changed using the key, it created the words "IRON" and "DEATH" in these two exact positions (see below). Are we are expected to believe that when the author of the Z38 code selected these four and five sections of ciphertext from the 340 cipher, taken from the beginning and end of the cipher, he chose two legible words created by the 340 key by accident, which he should have had no knowledge of unless he was the Zodiac Killer. No hoaxer should have been aware of this fact and had the foresight to highlight these sections in the Z38 code. The person who created the Z38 code broke up the "Zodiac-like" pseudonym (ZO∆AIK) from the last row of the 340 cipher to create the word "death", something that would not have been expected from a hoaxer. The person who did this knew exactly what they were doing, because they created the 340 cipher.

It must be remembered that Edgar Allan Poe wrote "To One in Paradise" upon the death of his beloved wife, Virginia Eliza Poe. But how can "IRON" and "DEATH" introduce a second Edgar Allan Poe poem into the equation? Edgar Allan Poe wrote "To One in Paradise" about the death of his wife, but this wasn't the only poem written by Poe about the death of Virginia. The inspiration for the second poem, "The Bells", was reported as coming from his friend, Marie Louise Shew, who likened the sound of the Fordham University bell made of "iron", to "death".

​Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Bells" uses different types of bells (silver, gold, brazen, iron) as powerful metaphors for the stages of human life, from the joy and playfulness of childhood (silver sleigh bells) through the harmony of youth and marriage (golden bells), to the panic and chaos of maturity (brazen bells), culminating in the inescapable melancholy and terror of death (iron bells). Written at the end of his life, the poem's shifting sounds and increasing length mirror the journey from youthful delight to the despair and inevitability of mortality, exploring the passage of time and its emotional toll. Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Bells" was inspired by the sounds of bells from Fordham University's church while he lived nearby in the Bronx, New York, capturing the changing emotions of life, from youthful joy (silver bells) to despair and death (iron bells), a reflection of his own grief after his wife Virginia's passing.. Inspiration for the poem is often granted to Marie Louise Shew, a woman who had helped care for Poe's wife Virginia as she lay dying. One day, as Shew was visiting Poe at his cottage in Fordham, New York, Poe needed to write a poem but had no inspiration. Shew allegedly heard ringing bells from afar and playfully suggested to start there, possibly even writing the first line of each stanza.

I always wondered why these two prominent English words began and ended the 340 cipher after the key was applied to the original 340 ciphertext, and then highlighted by Zodiac in the Z38 code. The poems "The Bells" and "To One in Paradise" were written about the grief Edgar Allan Poe experienced upon the death of his wife, with "IRON", "DEATH" and "PARADISE" instrumental to both - which just happened to be present at the beginning and end of the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher after the key was applied (although "one in paradice" was reversed at this point). Throw in the essay A Few Words on Secret Writing by Edgar Allan Poe, containing a technique that can solve Zodiac's 340 cipher (and a further technique that possibly influenced the design and solution of the Z13), and we have a story steeped in history. 

FURTHER READING: THE MECHANICS OF THE Z38 CODE 

Thanks to the brilliance and determination of David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke, the 340 cipher was finally cracked after 51 years on December 5th 2020. However, with the exception of a few people, little has been done to find the inspiration for a killer who employed the knight's move in chess to scramble the ciphertext and encode the message further. The 340 cipher used a one down, two across system to make the cipher more difficult to crack, with the Zodiac Killer's errors creating a further roadblock. Ciphers are mathematical, relying on algorithms, modular arithmetic, and complex equations for encryption and decryption, evolving from simple letter shifts to advanced concepts in number theory and abstract algebra for modern digital security. They use mathematical procedures to transform readable text (plaintext) into unreadable text (ciphertext) and back, making them a core part of cryptography, which sits at the intersection of math and computer science.

Radians, chosen by the Zodiac Killer for us to discover the location of his hidden (likely pretend) bomb, are fundamental to mathematics, serving as the standard unit for measuring angles, especially in calculus and physics, because they simplify formulas by relating angles directly to the circle's radius, making calculations for arc length, sectors, and trigonometric functions much cleaner than using degrees. Radians are essentially a unitless count of "radius units", making them a natural fit for mathematical expressions. This was another of Zodiac's puzzles that lay unbroken for 51 years until Zodiac researcher, Druzer, filled in the blanks on December 27th 2020. But what is another form of mathematics that may have inspired the Zodiac Killer to fashion the 340 cipher the way he did? A form of mathematics that Zodiac mentioned in his letters?​  

On July 19th 1978, a deeply controversial communication, that is almost certainly genuine Zodiac material, was mailed to the Los Angeles Times. It read: "I am the ZODIAC and I am in control of all things. I am going to tell you a secret. I like friction tape. I like to have it around in case I need to truss someone up in a hurry....I have my real name on a small metallic tape. You see, while you have it in your possession, I want you to know it belongs to me and you think I may have left it accidentally. I am athletic. It could be swim fins, or a piece of scuba gear. But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape....My tape is waiting for me all over California. Do you know me? I am the ZODIAC and I am in control". This letter probably formed the basis of Robert Graysmith's mentioning of Zodiac's crimes as an "outdoor game of chess".

Chess is deeply mathematical, relying on logic, patterns, probability, and combinatorics, even though it's not about traditional arithmetic; it's a game of finite states and algorithms with a vast solution space, making it a practical application of mathematical thinking. While you don't need advanced math skills to play, the underlying principles of strategic calculation, geometry, and problem-solving connect it directly to mathematics. Coming the day after the opening game in the World Chess Championship between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi on July 18th 1978, this letter told of a person who had "chess sets all over California" and suggested that David Toschi, who had been demoted to pawn detail, play a game of chess with him.

​If the Zodiac Killer really had an avid interest in chess and puzzles, he would very likely have known about the knight's tour challenge, a mathematical problem where you have to move a knight around a chessboard (8 X 8 grid) and visit all 64 squares without landing on a square more than once. The Knight's Tour is very well-known, recognized as a classic, over-thousand-year-old mathematical puzzle and graph theory problem, first appearing in 9th-century Sanskrit texts and later analyzed by Leonhard Euler, becoming famous for its complexity and links to magic squares, popularizing it through chess history and computer science as an illustration of algorithms. 

Ciphers are essentially algorithms (or sets of rules/steps) used for encryption and decryption, transforming readable text (plaintext) into unreadable ciphertext and back again, using keys to control the process. So did the Zodiac Killer use a knowledge of chess and the well-known puzzle of the knight's tour, and create a more complex 340 cipher using the very same move to encode his message on November 8th 1969? 

FURTHER READING: A PAWN IN A GAME OF DEATH   ​

Oak Shores Day Use Area is a free public recreation site managed by the Bureau of Reclamation on the western shore of Lake Berryessa. Nestled in the blue oak woodlands east of Napa Valley, the area provides beach access, swimming, shoreline fishing, picnicking, and wildlife viewing opportunities. Oak Shores and Smittle Creek are two separate but nearby day-use areas at Lake Berryessa, connected by scenic trails, including the 2.6 mile Smittle Creek Trail, offering hiking, and lake access; you can drive between them or hike the trails, enjoying oak woodlands and creek views. This is an unmaintained single track path that travels along the western edge of Lake Berryessa. ​One (or parts) of these trails could have been used by the Zodiac Killer after possibly encountering the three Pacific Union College girls from Angwin, before the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard on September 27th 1969. He could have trawled the hillsides and trails looking for more potential victims, until he reached the location of Bryan and Cecelia just under a mile south.

After the suspicious man had been observed by the three girls for about 55 minutes, he apparently returned to his vehicle at about 4:25 pm, which was not in the parking lot at 4:30 pm when they decided to drive home. My initial belief was that the three girls were at a beach area of Smittle Creek slightly north of Coyote Beach, but now have concluded they were 450 meters south at Coyote Beach itself, which the excellent work of Gorillatrain on Discord highlighted several months earlier. The girls stated that they "parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road" (located at 5100 Knoxville Road). The Coyote Beach parking lot is exactly 2 miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand (1.8 miles by crow), and is a recreation spot in the Smittle Creek area. 

Obviously one of the major factors for shifting their encounter marginally south, is the girls mentioned a parking lot area in the police report, which wasn't conveniently situated near the location of the beach I had previously identified at Smittle Creek. More importantly, one of the girls stated that she saw "the subject go into the parking lot to the south. Subject went past their vehicle and backed up so their rear bumpers were nearly touching". Below I have shown the likely parking lot with north and south sections. The road leading from Knoxville Road to the parking lot joins the parking lot on its south edge, which is what the girl said when recollecting that the man entered the "parking lot to the south". The man then probably took the right turn into the parking lot and passed their vehicle, before reversing as she described. The journey to the beach (by the cluster of trees) is just over 760 feet. One of the girls noticed the man watching them from the edge of the trees about 40 or 50 feet away. Another stated that he was standing on the bank about 45 yards away (135 feet). From the red circle below to the front of the beach is 135 feet. After the encounter the man walked back up the hill. That area is sloped upwards from right to left. They stated that from the man's vantage point when he was initially in his vehicle, it was very doubtful he could observe them on the beach. Of course, I cannot say for sure the exact location they were sunbathing, but this stretch of beach ticks all the boxes,  

Gorillatrain has identified an area where he believes Dr. Rayfield and his son spotted the man on the hillside later that day (6:30 pm). If correct, the man would have been just 1,000 feet from the northern edge of the Coyote Beach parking lot, where his car was parked about 2 hours earlier (4:25 pm). According to a friend of Zodiac researcher, Dion Walker, the location of Dr. Rayfield's vehicle on September 27th 1969 at 6:30 pm, remembered by David Rayfield in later years, places it at the location shown in the image on the left.

The police report stated that they "went down to the beach when David noticed a white male subject walking in the area, described as 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves. The subject was walking alongside the hill area about halfway between the road and the lake". David stated the subject was about 100 yards away. The parking location of the Rayfield's vehicle shown in the accompanying image is 8/10ths of a mile from the Karmann Ghia of Bryan Hartnell, as described in the police report. They made no mention of leaving their vehicle in a parking lot, or directly referred to Coyote Beach, so the location depicted on the map is a distinct probability. There is a convenient turnout 250 feet from the red Google marker.

The recollection of David Rayfield was given many decades after the events at Lake Berryessa, which must be taken into account, but the location he identified does match the police report and this area of Smittle Creek - an area that both Gorillatrain and I have previously calculated to be the location of the Rayfield sighting based on measurements and descriptions given by investigators.

In a revised Lake Berryessa timeline we have the possibility of the Zodiac Killer signing 6:30 on the car door of Bryan Hartnell at approximately 6:07 pm. The journey time walking 0.8 miles north from the car of Bryan Hartnell to the Coyote Beach area, traversing the hillsides, would take approximately 25 minutes. This would place the Zodiac Killer passing the location of Dr. Rayfield and David at about 6:32 pm, almost matching the estimate of 6:30 pm given by the Rayfields. There is a turnout and small roadway just beyond the Rayfield's location shown above.

We have the accounts of the Rayfields and the three girls placing "a man they deemed worthy enough to report to police", possibly within 1,000 feet of one another, either side of the brutal stabbing of Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard on September 27th 1969. Everything occurring in a three hour window, from the 3:30 pm time the three girls first noticed the suspicious man, to the David Rayfield observations at 6:30 pm. Not forgetting that one of the girls described a white belt around his back, and thought that it may have been a tee shirt hanging out. ​Many have considered this observation significant, because the Zodiac Killer when he later approached Bryan Hartnell & Cecelia Shepard at around 6:00 pm, had some cut lengths of white clothesline cord seated in the rear of his trousers.

Of course, there is no way to know for certain whether the Zodiac Killer walked to the area where he stabbed both Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, or drove to this location, but this doesn't change the fact we have two sightings of a man in virtually the same location, that necessitated five people to contact the police and recount what they saw that day. And is it reasonable to conclude that the Zodiac Killer drove to Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969 and immediately found his victims at the first attempt at 6:00 pm? Or was he likely scouring the shores of Lake Berryessa for several hours until a suitable and safe opportunity arose? I will let you decide.

On September 27th 1969, three girls from Pacific Union College in Angwin, California noticed a suspicious man at approximately 3:30 pm at Smittle Creek, close to the shoreline of Lake Berryessa. They had left Angwin at 2:45 pm. They told investigators that the man had pulled up behind their vehicle in what they described as a late model silver blue Chevrolet with California license plates, and assumed the man had remained in his vehicle for about 30-45 minutes, before heading to their location and watching them sunbathing from a distance, for another 30-45 minutes. One of the girls described a white belt around his back, but thought that it may have been a tee shirt hanging out. ​Many have considered this observation significant, because the Zodiac Killer when he later approached Bryan Hartnell & Cecelia Shepard just after 6:00 pm, had some cut lengths of white clothesline cord seated in the rear of his trousers.

​The approximate times given by the three girls has the man departing Smittle Creek at anywhere between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm. However, the time given in the police report for the girls leaving that area was 4:30 pm, with the man's vehicle gone from the car park. So if this was the Zodiac Killer, he likely left the area shortly before 4:30 pm. He may have seen the girls packing up their belongings and decided to abandon what intentions he had envisaged. The journey time from Angwin to Smittle Creek is about 45 minutes, so this tallies with their initial departure time of 2:45 pm, to arrive at Lake Berryessa at 3:30 pm. 

One of the girls advised the responding officer (see above) that "she and her two girlfriends parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road" (located at 5100 Knoxville Road). But why had they clarified the position of their location with respect to the A & W Root Beer stand and not any other significant area? Knowing that they were going sunbathing on a pretty hot day (about 75 degrees Fahrenheit), did they briefly stop off to pick up some cool drinks at the Sugar Loaf Park general store at 5100 Knoxville Road, selling  A & W Root Beer, refreshments, sandwiches, hamburgers, fishing tackle and an array of other items? It would have added barely 2 minutes to their journey - and explained why they mentioned the A & W Root Beer stand to interviewing officers.

If the Zodiac Killer had traveled by car to Lake Berryessa from either Vallejo (40 miles) or San Francisco (70 miles), knowing that he was going to trawl the hillsides on a hot day looking for victims, he may have thought exactly the same as the three girls. As he was passing the Sugar Loaf Park general store, he had the option to stop off and purchase several cool A & W Root Beers or any other bottled soft drink, These specific Root Beers were usually manufactured in a brown bottle, but I have been unable to confirm if this product was also manufactured using green glass in the 1960s. Regardless, on a hot day, it is certainly plausible that the Zodiac Killer chose to enter this general store and purchase some fluids (which may have been a combination of beer and soft drink).

​It is at this location that the Zodiac Killer possibly crossed paths with the three girls, trailed them to Smittle Creek and pulled up behind their vehicle (bumper to bumper). Later, with the clothesline firmly nestled in his back pocket or waistband, he may have considered an attack on the three girls a little risky, and ultimately departed the scene when he saw they were packing up for the day. Two hours later, Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were brutally stabbed just 0.8 miles south. A green bottle, determined by investigators to have two latent fingerprints of value, was found near the stump of a tree, close to the crime scene. Obviously, this green bottle could have been disposed of by anybody visiting the lake that day, but there also remains a possibility that it was purchased by the Zodiac Killer at the Sugar Loaf Park store at approximately 3:25 pm, when he latched onto the three girls several hours earlier. If only they had CCTV in 1969.

On September 13th 1973, the San Jose Mercury reported on the September 10th 1973 murder of Yellow Cab driver Roland J. Canfield (41) of 551 Manor Drive, Pacifica, who was shot behind his right ear at 4:00 pm while parked at the intersection of 27th and Noe streets in San Francisco. The wallet of Roland J. Canfield, although empty, was still in his back pocket, with investigators concluding that robbery appeared not to be the motive. The taxicab strongbox was described as undisturbed. Homicide inspectors David Toschi and William Armstrong, investigatng the case, indicated a lack of evidence to form a Zodiac Killer connection to that of Paul Stine on October 11th 1969. However, a lack of evidence to form a Zodiac link, doesn't mean there wasn't one.

​Somebody had phoned the Yellow Taxicab Company and requested a pick up at 27th and Noe streets in Noe Valley, a family-friendly, wealthy, upper-middle-class neighborhood in central San Francisco, known for its charming Victorian homes and vibrant 24th Street with local shops and restaurants. The caller had clearly given this location to the Yellow Cab Company operator, but had provided a non-existent address. When Roland Canfield arrived at the intersection he was immediately flagged down by a lone male walking on the street, who apparently entered the rear of the taxicab and shot the driver behind the right ear. Witnesses nearby heard the shot and saw a man enter a vehicle and leave the scene.   

It is virtually impossible to dismiss the notion that the phone caller and murderer were the same individual. On first look, it is safe to conclude that the taxicab driver was deliberately lured to this location for the sole purpose of murder. The fictitious address (likely a house number) probably designed to keep Roland Canfield at that location temporarily as he radioed back to headquarters to notify them that the address didn't exist and he was available for hire once again. This information was obviously given to police by the Yellow Cab Company, who were likely informed by Canfield shortly after his arrival at the intersection. This short window of time would have given the eventual murderer, who "just happened to be walking" in close proximity to the taxicab, the opportunity to wave down the taxicab driver, who was probably grateful he hadn't wasted a journey. If the phone call, fictitious address and murder happening within a few minutes of one another was just a coincidence, then it's an unlikely one. 

After the Zodiac Killer's "Monticello" postcard on July 13th 1971, over two years had elapsed before a mini revival in "Zodiac" activity, beginning on August 1st 1973 with the arrival of the Albany letter, mailed to the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York, with the Zodiac Killer threatening he was "going to start killing again". Just under six weeks later, Roland Canfield, a taxicab driver, was killed at an intersection in San Francisco by an unknown assailant - seemingly directed to a location for nothing more than murder. Eight days later, on September 18th 1973, the Zodiac Killer surfaced in San Jose, removing the tombstone (of likely Kathie Snoozy) from the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery at 300 Curtner Avenue, where Kathie Snoozy (15) was buried. The tombstone being placed at the front gate of the cemetery with the pseudonym "Zodiac" written on it in crayon.

​A cemetery located in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose, which the Zodiac Killer referenced in his "Monticello" postcard after claiming the murder of Kathy Bilek, who "in the woods died April" (stabbed on April 11th 1971). Less than four months would pass, when on January 11th 1974, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the police and newspapers stating he had killed a woman and placed her body in a Daly City church in San Mateo County. Only 18 days later, the Zodiac Killer mailed the "Exorcist" letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29th 1974, threatening that if his latest letter wasn't published in the newspaper he would "do something nasty" which everyone knew he was capable of. We have five actual events, three of which can be proven to be Zodiac activity, in the space of six months. Question marks obviously remain regarding September 10th 1973 and January 11th 1974. 

The Albany letter mailed on August 1st 1973 was the only communication since the Paul Stine letter on October 13th 1969 to carry small crosshairs on the address side of the envelope, despite the Paul Stine envelope not having been released to the public, so it's uncanny that the next event to be associated with the Zodiac Killer was the murder of Roland J. Canfield on September 10th 1973, the following month. There is limited information on the Roland Canfield murder in the newspapers to forge any substantial link to the Zodiac Killer, but the mere fsct he was mentioned in connection to the murder, may have been the catalyst that drove him to the Monticello neighborhood in San Jose on September 18th 1973.  

The newspaper article at the foot of this article is single-handedly the most influential piece of text that governed and shaped the Zodiac Killer's actions for four years, which included one attack on September 27th 1969, a phone call on December 19th 1969 targeting a family of five in San Jose (likely the Furlongs), the brazen desecration of a cemetery plot in San Jose in 1973, and multiple communications from November 8th 1969 to July 13th 1971, including the Zodiac Killer's seventh cipher of 148 characters in (probably) May 1971. In the article, Dr. John E. Hauser described in detail the murders of Kathie Snoozy (15) and Debra Furlong (14), who were brutally stabbed in San Jose on August 3rd 1969 in a manner he articulated as exceeding the "Nazi sex mutilations during World War II". 

Dr. John E. Hauser is almost certainly referring to the events surrounding "The Beast of Buchenwald", a female German war criminal named Ilse Koch, who, by many accounts, was infamous for the creation of human skin artifacts during her time at Buchenwald concentration camp, made from the bodies of tortured and murdered prisoners of war, and described universally as a sadistic and perverse woman who enjoyed acts of cruelty, including the beating of male genitalia. Some of the grisly souvenirs reportedly made from human skin included lampshades and books. She hung herself at Aichach women's prison on September 1st 1967 aged 60. Some newspapers have claimed that Edward Theodore Gein may have been inspired by Ilse Koch and the Nazi's at Buchenwald, despite minimal evidence to support this claim. However, in 1957, investigator's did find many items in his Plainfield, Wisconsin house made from human body parts, dug up from the local cemetery, that included a wastebasket made from human skin and a lampshade created from the skin of a human face.    

On April 7th 1971, a movie entitled "The Zodiac Killer"​, directed by Tom Hanson, was released in US cinemas. Four days later, Kathy Bilek (18) was murdered in the Villa Montalvo woods on April 11th 1971. Eighteen days more had elapsed until the announcement in the newspapers, on April 29th 1971, about the arrest of Karl Francis Werner for the murders of Kathy Bilek, Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong. The fact that the Zodiac Killer had previously claimed the murders of Snoozy & Furlong on November 8th 1969, coupled with the release of "The Zodiac Killer" film, maybe provided the perfect cocktail for a communication in May of 1971.

A communication sometime in May that was seemingly inspired by Edward Theodore Gein and/or the movie Psycho (1960), based on the grisly events in Wisconsin. A letter that promised to "skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin", with the Zodiac Killer stating "next time I will send a patch of human skin if there is some left over". The suggestion in the letter was that the Zodiac Killer was going to dig up the remains of Bilek, Snoozy and Furlong, just like Gein did at his local cemetery. Soon after his mother's death, Edward Theodore Gein, the "Butcher of Plainfield", began to create a "woman suit" from pieces of skin so that "he could become his mother and literally crawl into her skin". It appeared as though Edward Gein wanted to feel close to his dead mother and become the embodiment of her once life. However, I could find no significant newspaper coverage about Edward Theodore Gein in 1971. So what inspired the Zodiac Killer to mimic the "Butcher of Plainfield"? Or was there another answer?  

Since the death of his mother, Ilse Koch, in 1967, Uwe Kohler had fought to clear his mother's name in the court of public opinion and through official means, contacting the The New York Times in Spring 1971. He utilized clemency documents from her former lawyer and spoke with international media, which included The New York Times on May 7th 1971 in a comprehensive article entitled "Ilse Koch's Posthumous Rehabilitation Sought by Son". The newspaper read "On her release in 1949 she (Koch) was retried by the West Germans and sentenced once more to life on two counts of “incitement to murder” of Buchenwald prisoners. None of the three courts established any connection between Mrs. Koch and the tattooed skins of Buchenwald inmates that were made into lampshades and other things. But by the time she had gone on trial a third time not even compelling evidence to the contrary could separate her from the allegation that she had ordered prisoners to be killed and skinned because she fancied their tattoos".,

​At about the same time of this newspaper article (and others) the Zodiac Killer mailed the 148 character cipher and letter, stating he would "skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin", adding that "next time I will send a patch of human skin if there is some left over". This letter would effectively shadow the August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle article (shown below), in which Dr. John E. Hauser compared the Snoozy & Furlong murders to the Nazi mutilations of World War II, and would draw from the current newspaper coverage about Ilse Koch and the skinning of humans.

The Zodiac Killer was certainly well-read when it came to the newspapers, so it is reasonable to conclude he knew of the connections being forged between Edward Theodore Gein and the brutal practices of Ilse Koch at Buchenwald. The Zodiac Killer wrote about skinning people at the near same time that the story of Ilse Koch broke in the newspapers about her skinning prisoners in the concentration camp. Two months later, on July 13th 1971, the Zodiac Killer mailed the Monticello postcard to the San Francisco Chronicle, with the pasted newspaper text reading "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". 

This postcard spoke of the murder of Kathy Bilek in the woods on April 11th 1971, by pointing out that the location of Villa Montalvo in Saratoga was near Monticello. In a 2018 article on this website, I discovered that the Monticello neigborhood in San Jose was near to Saratoga, and contained the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery at 300 Curtner Avenue, where Kathie Snoozy was buried. The Zodiac Killer was simply giving us a further clue to the name of Kathy Bilek in the Monticello card, by pointing us towards the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery and her phonetic namesake, Kathie Snoozy (spelled Kathy in the newspapers).

​Although I knew I was correct, any lingering doubt was fully removed in 2023, when I found a newspaper article stating that a tombstone had been removed from the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery in Monticello on September 18th 1973 and placed in front of the cemetery gates, with the pseudonym "Zodiac" written on it in crayon.  The tombstone was almost certainly that of Kathie Snoozy. The Zodiac Killer hadn't dug up the bodies of Bilek, Snoozy and Furlong from their graves and removed a section of the skin from their corpses, but he had done the next best thing from his perspective, by visiting the cemetery containing the remains of Kathie Snoozy's body and removing her tombstone. 

                                              San Francisco Chronicle
                                            August 6, 1969 - front page
                  The 'Frenzy' Of San Jose Girls' Slayer
    The two young girls, found dead Sunday on a sun-parched San Jose hillside, appear to have been victims of a sexual psychopath, whose blood frenzy led him to "overkill."
    Dr. John E. Hauser, Santa Clara county's chief medical examiner and coroner, said yesterday that the girls, Deborah Gay Furlong, 14, and Kathy Snoozy, 15, died in a "frenzied flurry of knife-wounds" inflicted so swiftly that neither gave any evidence of having struggled against the attack.
    Dr. Hauser, so shaken by the brutality of the crime he could scarcely find words, said the Snoozy youngster had 150 wounds on her back, 50 on the front and a "storm" of punctures on her neck. Deborah's body had about 100 wounds on her back and upper front and a dozen on her neck.

                                                                           PUZZLE

    Dr. Hauser said he was "puzzled" by many aspects of the brutal slaying. He said neither girl had been sexually molested; neither had suffered any wounds below her waist, neither gave evidence of having struggled to escape.
    Only the Snoozy girl, he said, had one small mark on her hand, suggesting she may have tried vainly to deflect the plunging knife.
    The coroner said both girls must have died very quickly and he is investigating the possibility they may have been drugged before the stabbing began. Blood and skin samples as well as stomach contents have been sent for further examination to area laboratories, he said. The results should be known in a few days.
    It is Dr. Hauser's opinion that the multiple puncture wounds were inflicted by one or two small knives, the largest wound the size of a pocket knife with a half-inch blade.
    "I've never seen a case with this many stab wounds," Dr. Hauser said. "You know, I've been in this profession a long time and sometimes I think I'm rather callous, but when I saw these girls, believe me it was terrifying.
    "The Nazi sex mutilations during World War II were nothing compared to what was done to these young girls.

                                                                       INVESTIGATION

    So far, according to Chief of San Jose Detectives Barton Collins, his investigators have uncovered no solid clues to the slaying.
    He said police and sheriff's deputies are looking for a "light colored van—a Volkswagen, a Dodge, a Chevrolet or a Ford" in which the girls may have been killed and then rolled, carried or dragged down the hillside to a grove of snarled, dusty oaks where their bodies were found.
    Both he and the coroner emphasized that at the scene there was almost no blood, suggesting they had been slain elsewhere.
    Collins said he and his men have talked to at least 200 people so far, searching for some information that might draw them closer to the killer.
    Asked if he were looking for a "mad man," Collins, pale and exhausted, snapped:
    "I'm looking for a killer and it doesn't matter whether he was under drugs or what."
    Collins did not mention this, but the Chronicle learned that wedged in between the two bodies of the dead girls police found a "new," but empty beer can. There was speculation the killer may have rolled or carried one girl down, then finished off a can of beer, and then disposed of the second body without noticing the can.
    The scene, not more than six blocks from where the two girls lived with their families in a neat, prosperous subdivision in San Jose's Almaden area, was utterly desolate yesterday.
    A few small boys on bicycles paused to look up at the tanned knoll, swathed with wide paths used for scrambles by neighborhood motorcyclists, and scurried off.
    Normally scores of children play in that area, because, in the words of Deborah's father, Glen Furlong, "It's the only open area close by where kids can go to."
    Housewives living in the immediate area, across the street and around the corner, conceded they were suddenly "very frightened."
    One mother said that since the murder she had seen some children poking around the scene, and added, "We were shocked.
    "Maybe their parents don't care. But I wouldn't let mine go up there"

                                                                         PUBLICITY

    Although very close to tears, Furlong said yesterday that he was allowing interviews in the hope that more and more publicity "would trigger something in someone's mind and we can solve this crime."
    The 40-year old father works at the big International Business Machines plant only about a mile away from the family home. He is a senior associate engineer in the logic design section of IBM and he tried to bring objectivity to the disaster that has befallen his family.
    "The individual or individuals who did this either had to be deranged or high on dope or something of that nature," he said. "They didn't know what they were doing. It was such a senseless killing."
    He said his neighborhood has never had any problems, although mahy complain about the noise made by the weekend cyclists.
    He noted parenthetically that the riders are not of the Hell's Angel variety, but use lighter motorcycles.
    He said his neighbors were "very sympathetic," but complained he found some of his phone calls "very disconcerting."

                                                                        CALLERS

    "On several occasions people have called and as soon as we answer, they hang up," he said in bewilderment.
    Furlong tried to control his emotions as he spoke of his eldest daughter — one of his four children.
    "She was only a freshman in high school," he said, "and this was the first year we allowed her to date. We talked to her about it, and I sort of teased her. She went out with a boy friend a few times — a very nice boy who came over yesterday morning to extend his condolences — but most of her social activities were confined to her school. She was never any trouble."
    School mates and neighborhood friends of Deborah said the girl, very slim and looking more like a 10-year-old than a 14-year-old, was "just an ordinary nice girl who baby set and had a boy friend and talked about becoming an airline stewardess."

                                                                         CHILDREN

The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11.
    Furlong said he did not know and had not yet talked to Kathy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Snoozy. Both Snoozy, a carpet layer, and Mrs. Snoozy reportedly are in a state of collapse.
    Her funeral has been scheduled Friday at 11 a.m. at the Place Funeral Home in Los Gatos. Burial will be at Oak Wood Cemetery in Santa Cruz.
    Funeral services for Kathy will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park Mortuary in San Jose. Burial will be at Oak Hill Memorial Park.

On December 20th 1968 the Zodiac Killer murdered David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in a lonely turnout in Benicia, waking up the following day to news about the slayings and the manned Apollo 8 mission to the moon, which launched on December 21st 1968. It would be 6 1/2 months before the return of the Zodiac Killer, when he attacked Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin at Blue Rock Springs on July 5th 1969, before mailing his first communications on July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969.

​In later years there has been much debate on the origin of the pseudonym "Zodiac" and his "crosshairs" logo, with many believing the inspiration lay in the Zodiac watch brand, founded in Switzerland by Ariste Calame in 1882. The Zodiac watches contained both the pseudonym and crosshairs together on the watch face. This thought process featured heavily regarding the prime suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen, who owned this very watch.

In the run up to the Zodiac Killer's commuications on July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969, a new Zodiac watch brand was about to hit the market, designed to coincide with the current Space Age and the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 21st 1969. A mission that began on July 16th 1969 and ended when the astronauts returned to Earth on July 24th 1969. A week later, the Zodiac Killer mailed three letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald, which all contained crosshairs. Four days further on, the Zodiac Killer mailed the "Debut" letter with his now infamous pseudonym "Zodiac". The watch brand was called the Zodiac Astrographic, and was designed with a "mystery dial" timepiece of floating hands. Whether the launch of Apollo 8 on December 21st 1968 had stuck in the Zodiac Killer's mind when he noticed the "space inspired" Zodiac Astrographic watch prior to his earliest communications, is anybody's guess. But it does bring forward the astrological connection.     

I have failed to find any mention of the watch connection to Zodiac in any of the early newspaper articles about this case, which is why I found the two pasted horoscope letters on December 10th 1969 and December 11th 1969 so very curious. The December 10th 1969 letter from Sacramento, called the Day-by-day forecast for Cancer, contained two prominent cuttings aligned with one another, giving us the words "Zodiac" and "Watch". Was this a clue to the origin of the Zodiac Killer's pseudonym? Had he read this as a suggestion somewhere in the newspapers or other media outlets and dropped us a clue? Postmarked the following day on December 11th 1969, there was a further horoscope page mailed from San Francisco, called the Day-by-day forecast for Leo. Two unusual cuttings were placed on this correspondence, that featured the wording "Run a Crooked Mile Mystery", a British crime thriller released on November 18th 1969. The second appeared to be a cross symbol. These two cuttings on December 11th 1969 made little sense whatsoever, compared to the use of "Zodiac" and "Watch" on December 10th 1969. Until we consider that this cross looks like the flag of Switzerland, the origin country of the Zodiac watch brand. But what on earth has the ​"Run a Crooked Mile Mystery" TV movie got to do with any of this?

The movie is described as follows: "A man witnesses a murder in a secluded mansion. When he reports it, there's no evidence of the murder, or that anyone was there. He finds a key on the floor and goes to his boss to get help when he's struck from behind. He wakes up in a hospital room after a polo accident to find he's had amnesia for two years, is now married, and living in Switzerland. He still has the key and the memories of the murder". We now have two connections to Switzerland on December 11th 1969, allied with "Zodiac" and "Watch" on December 10th 1969 (to give us four in total). The horoscope page entitled  Day-by-day forecast for Cancer, containing the words "Zodiac" and "Watch", had the star sign of "Cancer" circled as if to imply some significance to this sign. The horoscope date of the Cancer sign runs from approximately June 22nd to July 23nd and encompasses the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 21st 1969, thereby taking us back to the impending launch of the Zodiac Astrographic watch.

Ten months after the two horoscope pages the Zodiac Killer mailed the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, a partial response to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article "Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac", which two weeks earlier mentioned the murders of teenagers David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. The Zodiac Killer appeared to incorporate the young couple into the Halloween card by writing 4-TEEN above the skull of the skeleton, reminding us that four teenagers were part of his running victim total. As of October 27th 1970 the Zodiac Killer was claiming the murders of David Faraday (17), Betty Lou Jensen (16), Kathie Snoozy (15) and Debra Furlong (14). To accompany the Halloween card he used an Apollo 8 stamp on the envelope, which commemorated the launch of the manned mission on December 21st 1968, the day the first Zodiac murders broke in the news

Discovered by Tahoe27 many years ago, she noted the resemblance of By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife on the Halloween card, to the 30th issue of the Tim Holt comic book series, whose front page contained a "Death Wheel" of punishment By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife. However, if we turn to page 2 of the Tim Holt comic book we get an advertisement for Switzerland airlines (Swissair) mentioning a record flight (FLT) between New York and Geneva. Prominent front and center of this advertisement is the Swiss flag, which mirrors the cross image pasted onto the Day-by-day forecast for Leo horoscope page on December 11th 1969, which accompanied the TV movie ​"Run a Crooked Mile Mystery", partly filmed in Geneva, Switzerland. This horoscope page followed the Day-by-day forecast for Cancer communication on December 10th 1969, which featured the wording "Zodiac" and "Watch", synonymous with the Swiss watchmaker. A company that made the Zodiac Astrographic watch to commemorate the Space Age and the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 21st 1969. A watch that maybe inspired the Zodiac Killer's pseudonym and logo on July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969.        

Inspector William Hamlet of the San Francisco Police Department crime laboratory observed that there was a similarity between a bloody fingerprint retrieved from the door of Paul Stine's taxicab and the left ring finger latent taken from the Zodiac Killer's "Little List" letter. Please visit Dion Walker's YouTube channel for more information. 

• ​Minutiae Points: The primary basis for comparison in traditional forensic science are minutiae, which are specific points along the friction ridges, such as bifurcations (where a ridge splits), ridge endings, and dots. Similarity is measured by comparing the type, position, and angle of these corresponding points. A specific number of matching minutiae points are generally required for a positive identification in legal contexts. In other words, William Hamlet must have noticed some corresponding points, but not enough to absolutely declare a match.

In the FBI document below, it specifically mentions a similarity of the left ring finger latent from the letter to the door of the taxicab, not the door handle. There are bloody fingerprints on the outside front passenger door handle and the outside rear post of the left front door (driver's door). Therefore, the similarity observed between the letter and taxicab prints, almost certainly involved the driver side door post (circled in white below). One of these bloody prints was considerably larger than the others, so it's reasonable to conclude that this was the fingerprint compared to the left ring finger latent noted on the "Little List" letter. The bloody print (shown below) was not only the one with most detail on the driver's door, but it had more distinguishing features than either of the two bloody prints noticeable on the front passenger door handle 

Whether this bloody fingerprint was deposited on the taxicab door by grabbing or pushing it shut is obviously difficult to say, but the location of this print corroborates the testimony of the Robbins teenagers, who saw the Zodiac Killer open the driver door from the outside and attempt to pull Paul Stine into an upright position, before closing it and departing the scene. For a moment in time, the Zodiac Killer was observed at the driver's door just seconds after removing a large section of bloody shirt. The fact that William Hamlet noted a similarity between (likely) this print and one retrieved from the "Little List" letter, should carry more weight than comparing two random prints at two locations,

These prints can be linked to two surfaces the Zodiac Killer had every reason to touch. One being the open driver's door of the taxicab, and the other being a confirmed Zodiac letter. Even four points of a print matching in these circumstances is therefore highly significant. I suspect William Hamlet had more than four points in declaring a similarity between the two prints. In fingerprint analysis, similarity refers to the measurable likeness between two prints, assessed by comparing their unique ridge patterns, minutiae (ridge endings/bifurcations), angles, and density, with high similarity suggesting they might be from the same finger. 

Partial fingerprints exclude a suspect by showing distinct features (minutiae) that don't match the suspect's known prints, even if the print is small. Forensic experts look for specific ridge endings, bifurcations, and patterns, and if the available detail in the partial print isn't enough to form a positive match or clearly contradicts a match, the suspect can be eliminated from the investigation, often requiring less information for exclusion than for positive identification. 

​If, for example, we examine the 10-digit prints of Arthur Leigh Allen and none match the detail shown above, then he isn't the Zodiac Killer, assuming the bloody prints were deposited by the killer on October 11th 1969. In fact, every single suspect whose fingerprints are on file can be excluded using the bloody fingerprint detail present on the taxicab of Paul Stine. This is an uncomfortable truth for people with suspects in the Zodiac community, who have to resort to discrediting the evidence to keep their story alive, or falsely posit the notion that no elimination prints were taken from individuals subsequent to the Presidio Heights murder. Below are the two observable bloody prints fron the front passenger door handle, shown in more detail thanks to Zodiac researcher, Cragle. 

If you are not interested in the recent examinations of the Z13, Halloween card and Exorcist letter with respect to the identity of "Me" as the Zodiac Killer's "name", then you need go no further. In this article I will be looking again at the Halloween card inner, following the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in" on the card outer. When the Halloween card was opened the most prominent writing on the card was "BOO". But why did the Zodiac Killer choose to angle this writing at about 45 degrees to the horizontal, when he had ample room to write it normally? The word "BOO" is facing the word "me" just beyond the skeleton's left arm, as if to complete the introduction to "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in. BOO. ME". Choosing a card with the promise of a name, yet jokingly delivering a self-identity of "me".

This isn't particularly noteworthy, until we look at the word "BOO" in "PEEK-A-BOO" around the knothole of the tree, which is also facing the word "ME" of "DOOMED". But the "M" and "E" have been written significantly bigger and bolder as if to emphasize this section of the word "DOOMED". Just check out the size of the other three E's for comparison. One could argue that the Zodiac Killer is peeking through the knothole in the tree and identifying himself as "ME", which he repeats for a second time on the card inner in identical fashion.

On December 28th 2024, a Reddit forum contributor using the moniker of SmallOrbit discovered the origin of the inner skeleton, which the Zodiac Killer had carefully cut from another card and pasted onto the Halloween card. But why did the Zodiac Killer go to great lengths to perform this task?

One would like to believe that the pasted skeleton was placed onto the Halloween card for a specific purpose, other than it was just another spooky addition. However, it wasn't pasted onto the October 27th 1970 card exactly as it appeared on the original card. Everything was kept the same except for the position of the skeleton's left arm, which was now further away from the skull. The question being, was this an accidental occurrence when the Zodiac Killer added the cut skeleton, or had he deliberately pulled the left arm away from the skull to achieve his objective of turning "game" into "me", to be highlighted by the word "BOO" seemingly angled purposefully at 45 degrees, which copied the scenario created around the knothole of the tree?
Ordinarily I wouldn't claim massive significance to this observation, if it hadn't been so easy to create "ME" by using the three 8's in the Z13 code, and the presence of "Me" as Zodiac's signature in the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. To read all the findings regarding "me" as an identity, here are six further articles [1], [2], {3], [4], [5], [6].. 

Below are some high magnification images of the bloody fingerprints retrieved from the "OUTSIDE REAR POST OF LEFT FRONT DOOR" of Paul Stine's taxicab, showing the minutiae (island and bifurcation detail) of one fingerprint. The fingerprints on the taxicab are unlikely to identify a particular individual, but they do contain enough ridge detail to exclude suspects from the investigation. In one of the images I have traced (in white) just four points of interest on a fingerprint in close proximity to one another. However, I could have added several more. If none of an individual's ten digits carry the pattern shown below (the more points the better), then he wasn't the person who deposited the bloody fingerprints on October 11th 1969. In other words, he wasn't the Zodiac Killer. Researchers with a pet suspect's fingerprints on file should embrace this detail, because it could keep them in the frame and possibly bolster their credibility. Unfortunately, this won't happen.   

The July 31st 1969 letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald provided information that proved the Zodiac Killer was the murderer at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. To all three newspapers he threatened to go on a kill rampage over the weekend if his demands were not. To the San Francisco Chronicle he stated he was going to target "lone people". To the San Francisco Examiner he stated he was going to target "people who are alone at night". To the Vallejo Times-Herald he stated he was going to target "stray people or coupples that are alone". When he addressed the San Francisco newspapers he promised to target "lone or alone people", but to the Vallejo Times-Herald he opted to use the words "stray people" and "couples". Believing that his first two attacks on couples were committed in Vallejo, it really isn't surprising that he only used the word "couples" when writing to the Vallejo newspaper. Did this suggest his knowledge of courting couples and the areas they frequented was greater in Vallejo rather than San Francisco, because he lived there? 

But why did he opt to use the word "stray" when addressing the Vallejo Times-Herald​, rather than just "alone" or "lone". Stray can mean wander away from the correct path or from a given area, but is commonly used to refer to an animal. A stray sheep symbolizes a person who has wandered from their faith, community, or moral path, representing vulnerability and separation, but also the focus of divine compassion and pursuit, as shown in the Biblical parable where a shepherd joyfully retrieves the single lost sheep. Did the word "stray" leak into the Zodiac Killer's thought process when writing to the Vallejo newspaper because of what occurred on December 20th 1968, and the individual the Zodiac may have originally targeted? Who would have been a person off the beaten path in solitude? Somebody who would have been in pitch darkness, known to frequent a particular remote location (possibly with a schedule), that required the Zodiac Killer to attach a pencil flashlight onto his gun to facilitate a hunt in the wilderness. And more importantly, a relatively safe area for a first kill, where gunshots are a familiar sound to the residents nearby. 

The driverless white Chevrolet Impala was noticed in the Lake Herman Road turnout at 9:00 pm by Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser on their way to the Marshall Ranch. The white Impala was also noticed in the turnout at 10:00 pm by sheepherder Bingo Wesner, who was tending his sheep in the adjoining field, and possibly by Helen Axe at 10:15 pm and 10:30 pm, who after reading publicity surrounding the murders, likely assumed she had seen the Faraday Rambler. But for a few minutes, when William Crow was parked in the turnout (and chased by a mystery vehicle) sometime between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm, the Chevrolet Impala could have been in the turnout for upwards of 90 minutes on at least two separate occasions.

​The question being, did it arrive a third time carrying the Zodiac Killer to the murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen? The individual driving this vehicle had obviously ventured beyond the roadside for at least 60 minutes (and upwards of 90 minutes) on a freezing night in December, in total darkness. Routine enquiries by police on local residences could have easily eliminated this person as doing anything suspicious, but we have heard nothing about this individual being cleared from the investigation in 57 years. If the person driving the Chevrolet Impala wasn't there on business or visiting friends, what other reason could there be to venture into the fields and hillsides in such inclement weather, other than "hunting"?          

When we first learn of the Zodiac Killer story it's easy to become controlled by the narrative that has gone before, of a killer that arrived at the turnout, pulled alongside the Faraday Rambler, immediately left his vehicle and began the attack to its conclusion, where Betty Lou Jensen received five shots to her back as she is running away, square on to the killer. Of course, the preponderance of the evidence doesn't point to a killer pulling alongside the Rambler when arriving at the turnout, with the killer failing to immediately vacate his vehicle and kill the couple in one continuous sequence, if we believe the testimony of James Owen. And the autopsy proves beyond any doubt that Betty Lou Jensen was not square on to the killer when he began firing at her. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a generational story.

We have an unaccounted for white Chevrolet Impala with an occupant that has seemingly never been traced, parked in a remote turnout in freezing weather, who was confirmed present in the same location twice, as testified by Robert Connelly and Bingo Wesner, within (or close to) one hour before a double murder. A double murder that wouldn't have required an illuminated gunsight had he initially parked behind the Faraday Rambler and prevented it from escaping the turnout. However, when you leave the confines of the turnout on foot at night, additional lighting would have been an absolute must. When we consider the illuminated gunsight mentioned by the Zodiac Killer and the reference to hunting humans rather than wild game in the forest, it brings the unoccupied white Chevrolet, parked next to rolling hills and woods, into sharp focus. High hills and trees that the Zodiac Killer pointed out didn't produce silhouettes on the horizon, and necessitated the use of his pencil flashlight. Everything the Zodiac Killer said here is true, but only for a killer standing in the surrounding fields and trees, not for somebody looking for victims in the turnout with the use of a vehicle. A fact that the Zodiac Killer admitted when finishing his "Debut of Zodiac" letter on August 4th 1969, by stating "there was no need to use the gun sights".

​The.confidence that the Zodiac Killer exhibited when proclaiming "Bullshit that area is surrounded by high hills and trees. What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun". suggested he was more than familiar with that area. He knew that he required a sighting flashlight to roam those hills, but he must also have known he didn't need a sighting flashlight for the turnout, which he ultimately admitted to in his communication. So the fact he claimed he fastened a pencil flashlight onto his gun prior to venturing out that night, strongly indicates he knew he was heading for the fields beyond the Gate #10 turnout that night, rather than cruising around looking for uncertain victims in random turnouts.

A local sheepherder with a routine, in the middle of nowhere, where heard gunshots were nothing out of the ordinary, seems like the perfect victim for a first murder. The stumbling block that may have scuppered the Zodiac Killer's plans, could have been the presence of Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser with their guns and dogs, who chose to go raccoon hunting in the very same area that night. Crossing paths with Bingo Wesner and a safe avoidance of the two hunters probably never materialized for the Zodiac Killer on December 20th 1968. But maybe everything fell into place on his third attempt, with the arrival of the unfortunate David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen into the turnout on their first date. The Zodiac Killer, having failed in his original mission of targeting "stray people in the night", was presented with the conundrum of going home or murdering the young teenagers from Vallejo. The rest is history. 

On November 7th 2025, respected Zodiac researcher Cragle, sent me close-up images of the dividing panel (B-pillar) from the taxicab of Paul Stine, showing bloody prints in the image below. The B-pillar is located between a vehicle's front and rear side glass, where it serves as a structural support of its roof. The average male hand width (across the widest part of the palm) is about 3.5 inches (8.9 cm). The distance between the extreme prints on the dividing panel measure about 3 1/4 inches or 8.3 cm, approximating that of closed fingers from the hand (excluding the thumb). We can't learn a great deal from this, but we can assert that these were almost certainly the fingerprints of the Zodiac Killer, who was witnessed by the teenagers across the road to have opened the driver side door from the outside. 

The extended recollection of the teenagers read "At this time, Lindsey went downstairs to get a better look at what was happening, while one of the kids upstairs called the police. Downstairs, the lights were off, so Lindsey knew he could not be seen from the outside. He got close to the window and watched his actions. He was shortly joined by Rebecca. They both watched and observed in silence as Zodiac pushed the driver to an upright position behind the steering wheel, exited the car and walked around the rear of the car and opened the driver's door. Stine had fallen over onto the seat and Zodiac pulled him back up into the seated position and had some difficulty keeping him upright. Once upright, he was seen to have a rag, or something like a handkerchief and began to wipe down the door area and leaning over the driver, part of the dashboard. When he was finished, Zodiac calmly walked to Cherry St. and walked north".

The only way the Zodiac Killer can create the leverage to pull Paul Stine from his fallen position to upright, was to either (A) brace his right hand upon the central fixed dividing panel of the taxicab, and use his left hand to lever the body of Paul Stine back into the seated position, or (B) grip the upright post of the left driver door frame and use his right hand to upright Paul Stine. The location of the bloody fingerprints are consistent with the actions of Zodiac as observed by the eyewitnesses that night. These were the prints that Officer Armond Pelissetti claimed he saw as he approached the taxicab, once he had escorted the kids back to the alcove of their house. Of course, Zodiac researchers with suspects will do anything to claim these are not the bloody fingerprints of the killer, because any evidence that has the power to rule out their suspect has to be vigorously rubbished. They will fight tooth and nail to dismiss any fingerprints and DNA found in the Zodiac case. 

​The bloody fingerprints shown above are not on the central (middle section) of the pillar, and are listed as "OUTSIDE REAR POST OF LEFT FRONT DOOR". It is with certainty that these bloody fingerprints were noted on the upright post of the driver side door. In other words, the right side of the glass on the driver's door (as shown below). This being the case, suggests that these fingerprints should be from the left hand of the Zodiac Killer. With his left hand pulling the door into his body, he can acquire the leverage and use his dominant right hand to pull up the body of Paul Stine. It would have been easier to brace the right hand on the fixed central pillar and use the left hand to upright the stricken taxicab driver, but this apparently wasn't the methodology used by the Zodiac Killer. The only other plausible option for the location of these fingerprints, is that he used the fingertips of his right (or left) hand to push the driver door shut by using this upright post of the left door. However, this would have been totally unnecessary, with multiple other more sensible ways to achieve the same task. 

The Robbins kids may have observed the Zodiac Killer wiping down the taxicab driver door area, but this doesn't necessarily mean he managed to erase all of the fingerprints he deposited that night. He may have wiped the taxicab inadequately, or failed to wipe this section of the door post. This was an extremely dynamic situation in reduced lighting, with the pressure of time and the impending arrival of law enforcement - so it really isn't that surprising that the Zodiac Killer wasn't able to remove every fingerprint he left at the scene of the murder.  

HOW THE SHIRT PIECE WAS REMOVED: PART ONE PART TWO

On September 25th 1990, the Zodiac Killer mailed the Celebrity Cypher to the Vallejo Times-Herald, very likely responding to the Sally Jessy Raphael TV Show featuring Robert Graysmith and Pam Huckaby, which aired a few weeks earlier. This postcard, written largely in code, suggested an introductory message, a name and a return address  But before the name (or more likely a pseudonym) of 13 characters (5 and 8) we have three coded words of 2, 4 and 2 characters, very reminiscent of the April 20th 1970 "My name is" letter.

​It is with little doubt that this was the intention of the sender. This meant that the ciphertext character "M" was represented by itself, and the fourth word in the message sequence of seven words, was likely two letters in length (one hidden beneath the stamp). If this had been designed as only one word (either "I" or "A") then the next word in the sequence becomes problematic. Bearing in mind who appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show, it would be reasonable to conclude that the sender was addressing Pam Huckaby by coding the words "To Pam from me, my name is" or "To you from me, my name is". Once the letter M's were placed into the cryptogram below, the introductory message becomes very limited. 

Just after the television show, the Vallejo Times-Herald released a comprehensive newspaper article about Pam Huckaby, mentioning that she had received cryptograms and zodiac signs at her home in Antoch, entitled "Zodiac victim's sister says killer is after her". So it's not surprising that a few weeks later the Vallejo Times-Herald received a cryptographic correspondence from the killer, that may have included her name.

In my recent articles I have presented a case that the Zodiac Killer jokingly gave his name as "ME ⊕" ("ME" followed by the Zodiac crosshairs) in his April 20th 1970 letter. And here in 1990, we possibly have a message of "To Pam from me, my name is" or "To you from me, my name is". The Zodiac Killer could have been jokingly referring to himself as "me" yet again, followed by "my name is", to remind us what was present in the code on April 20th 1970.

​A few months later, somebody masquerading as the "Scorpion" mailed several cryprograms to John Walsh, host of the TV show "America;s Most Wanted", one of which was headlined by "Hi, Remember me". Therefore, we have two sets of cryptographic mailings in response to two TV shows in 1990 and 1991 (just like the Zodiac Killer did when he responded to the Jim Dunbar TV show in 1969), and mailed the 340 cryptogram to the San Francisco Chronicle. Three TV shows and three cryptograms, headlined by "I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me", "To Pam from me, my name is" or "To you from me, my name is" (maybe). and "Hi, Remember me".

EXTRA READING:  Four and Half Years of Me and The Identity in the Halloween Card