At around 2am on the morning of October 22nd 1969 an unknown male called the Oakland Police Department, claiming he was the Zodiac and requested that Francis Lee Bailey should appear on a channel 7 talk show later that day, but if F. Lee Bailey was unavailable he would accept Melvin Belli instead. Both were high profile lawyers of the day.
Melvin Belli, known as 'The King of Torts' by many, but also referred to as 'Melvin Bellicose' in a less favorable light by some, accepted the invitation to the Jim Dunbar Show, eventually receiving a telephone call from a man claiming to be the Zodiac, but Nancy Slover, Dave Slaight and Bryan Hartnell, the only three people to have heard the killer's voice, all categorically stated that the man who had phoned into the show was not the Zodiac. It turned out to be a mental patient called Eric Weil.
However, the Oakland officer who took the original call believed that the voice from the channel 7 talk show did not match his mystery caller, leaving open the possibility that the Zodiac may have still been involved in events.   

Francis Lee Bailey was a criminal defense attorney prominent in the retrial and subsequent release of Sam Sheppard, originally convicted for the murder of his wife Marilyn on July 4th 1954, who was found bludgeoned to death in her bed.
However, Francis Lee Bailey was not to be forgotten by the Zodiac Killer or at the very least it appeared that way.
After the questionable 'Pines' card of March 22nd 1971, the Zodiac Killer seemingly disappeared from prominence, either through incarceration, work commitments or simply by choice, having found a new pathway. But he was to reappear just shy of three years later heralding the Exorcist Letter on January 29th 1974, closely followed by the SLA letter on Valentine's Day of that year.
The letters of this period took a turn, and appeared less threatening, with the emphasis now shifting to a media driven fascination, citing the movies The Exorcist, Badlands, The Red Phantom, and indeed implied he was showing an avid interest in the current news of the day.
Throughout 1973 and 1974 breaking stories were pushing the Zodiac murders further from the front pages and in an apparent late rally the killer attempted to thrust himself back into prominence, allying himself to news articles, fearing his notoriety was beginning to dwindle. The Zebra murders in San Francisco spanning seven months from October 19th 1973 to April 16th 1974, and the Patty Hearst kidnapping from her Berkeley, California apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) on February 4th 1974 seemed to reignite the dormant Zodiac into a response, but with one key figure possibly still prominent in his thinking.  

Patricia Hearst was the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, gaining notoriety during the latter years of the counterculture revolution on account of her seemingly complicit involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army. 
William Randolph Hearst's beginnings started when he took charge of the San Francisco Examiner in 1887 and his life story was the inspiration that drove the lead character in the Orson Welles 1941 film Citizen Kane, in certain polls voted the greatest film of all time.

It has been noted previously that the 'Citizen' card mailed on May 8th 1974 was indeed the 33rd anniversary of the Los Angeles premier of the Citizen Kane film in 1941. And in a previous article, that the 'Exorcist' letter mailed on January 29th 1974 was the 16th anniversary of the demise and capture of Charles Starkweather back in 1958. 
The 'Citizen' card criticized the glorification of Badlands in light of recent events, the 'Exorcist' letter was the notable anniversary of Charles Starkweather's arrest, and the 'SLA' letter can be associated with the Citizen card/Badlands letter through the Hearst family name, tying up all three pieces of correspondence into a neat bundle.
But if the Citizen Kane angle is not one you subscribe to, then the pack of cards we have just built is sitting on fragile ground. 

Thanks to http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/reply/68764#.UwuiYfl_tZl
http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/6105/Citizen-Card-at-33-yr-anniv-of-Citizen-Kane#.UwujGvl_tZl

On May 8th 1974, a letter was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, often referred to as the 'Badlands' letter or 'Citizen' card, referencing the 1973 movie Badlands, directed by Terrence Malick and starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.
The movie was based upon the real life events of Charles Raymond Starkweather (20) and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate (14), a pair of spree killers who went on a two month rampage killing numerous people, beginning in 1957 and culminating in 1958, including Fugate's entire family in the area of Nebraska and Wyoming, before they were finally captured. Starkweather was sentenced to death and died in the electric chair just after midnight at Nebraska State Penitentiary on June 25th 1959, while Fugate received a life sentence, eventually commuted, allowing her to be released in June 1976.
If this letter was genuine Zodiac correspondence, what was it about the movie Badlands that struck a chord with the killer of at least five people between December 20th 1968 and October 11th 1969. Was there anything in the movie or case history of these murderers, that sparked the trigger behind the Zodiac Killer, he now appeared to be at odds with.
Charles Raymond Starkweather was afflicted early on in his life with several handicaps, including bow leggedness, severe myopia, bordering on blindness and a speech impediment, which unsurprisingly led to bullying and teasing at Saratoga Elementary School, Everett Junior High School and Lincoln High School. The tables however would eventually be turned, as Starkweather grew from the bullied to the bully, in reaction to his years of torment at the hand of classmates.
He assimilated an identity based on the actor James Dean, famous for his starring role in the 1955 movie 'Rebel Without a Cause', even sweeping his hair back in similar fashion. 
This next section will be looking for any correlation between the killer in Northern California and the Starkweather and Fugate murder spree. 
We have previously considered that the Zodiac Killer may have suffered with a speech impediment, and we know the Zodiac Killer's voice was only heard by three people. Two police dispatchers, Dave Slaight and Nancy Slover took calls from the killer minutes after the Lake Berryessa and Blue Rock Springs Attacks, along with the surviving victim of the Lake Berressa Attack, Bryan Hartnell. Was our killer identifying or empathizing with Charles Starkweather in any way, however small. 
Nancy Slover described the voice as mature, without accent, who spoke even but consistent, soft but forceful, as if reading from a script. Bryan Hartnell stated that the man spoke with a drawl, a form of slow drawn out speech pattern, and later during an interview described the man's voice as a "unique way of talking". It has been surmised that the Zodiac Killer may have been afflicted with a moderate speech impediment, that he controlled in later years by speaking in a deliberate monotone fashion, not unlike the voice described by both Nancy Slover and Bryan Hartnell.
Kevin Robert Brooks highlighted that his prime suspect Donald Lee Bujok suffered progressive bullying at school on account of his speech impediment, that may have carved out the resentment that he carried forward into his adult life, not unlike Charles Starkweather before him.  

Is it possible the murderer of five people in Northern California, in any way identified with the infamous Charles Starkweather, in particular that they both suffered constantly throughout their childhood, possibly identifying through news reports the similarities of their upbringing, and the hurt that manifested itself in the most brutal way. Having possibly viewed the 1973 movie Badlands, the memories in our killer were reborn. But, in an apparently reformed guise, he was now condemning the glorification of murder depicted in the movie, the real instigators, which in his mind were fundamentally being ignored as the underlying reasons behind the crimes, signing off the latest letter and placing emphasis on the now reformed citizen. 
There is no suggestion of any correlation between the nature of the crimes in 1958 and the Zodiac Killer attacks over a decade later, although interesting observations have been noted from time to time. Here is an example from Zodiackiller.com. 
But there is another one, although it must be stressed this is only an observation and no credence should be necessarily given to whether or not a link exists. 
Charles Starkweather's final victim was attacked and murdered in his car, as was the Zodiac's. This final act ultimately was to bring about the demise of Charles Starkweather, whereas the Zodiac Killer exited the scene of Washington and Cherry Streets, never to be seen again and the rest, as they say, is history.
During the morning of January 29th 1958, Starkweather and Fugate were fleeing towards the state of Wyoming, near Douglas, but they needed to get rid of their 1957 Packard Patrician, as it was attracting too much attention. They spotted a traveling salesman Merle Collison (37) sleeping in his Buick and demanded that he relinquish his vehicle, but when he refused Starkweather shot him nine times in total, three times in the face. (View crime scene photograph). However he could not drive the Buick, as he was unfamiliar with its push pedal emergency brake system. When a passer-by offered his assistance Starkweather produced his rifle and the two men ended up wrestling with each other. At that exact moment Deputy Sheriff William Romer appeared on the scene, giving Fugate her opportunity to run to the Sheriff shouting "He's killed a man". Starkweather got back in the Packard and sped off into the distance. After a brief chase of speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour, finally law enforcement officers shot out the Packard's back window, injuring Charles Starkweather with shards of flying glass. He mistakenly thought he had been shot and surrendered meekly.

Driving through the dark lanes and highways from Montana to the fringes of Vallejo may have seemed a daunting journey for many back in December 1968, especially having just been released from Old Montana State Prison near Deer Lodge, but Donald Lee Bujok was no ordinary man.
Possibly fuelled by his mission to exact his revenge on the police and authorities and gripped by the psychosis that shaped his very nature, the thousand mile long journey began, before he would reach the dim flicker of the California skyline, driven by a disorder that few understood but many would fail to forget.
Did this journey of Donald Lee Bujok ever take place, one cannot be certain looking in from the window outside, but Zodiac researcher Kevin Robert Brooks takes a passenger side view of a man he believes is none other than the Zodiac Killer.
Donald Lee Bujok was marginalized early in his fledgling life and suffered from a form of bi-polar disorder, in which mania is a common trait, manifesting itself in distraction and behavioural changes that include aggression, invincibilty and sometimes rage, in which the subject may feel they have been chosen for a higher purpose.

'Montana Connection', despite many researchers having written Donald Lee Bujok out of their thoughts as a viable suspect.
But without being privy to the complete Donald Lee Bujok story, we can extract some interesting processes from the mind of Bujok from several letters he mailed to the Billings Gazette in 1974/5, and draw some interesting parallels to the Zodiac letters. Although nothing new, it is interesting none the less, to highlight once again this comparison.
Probably the most interesting letter he sent to the Billings Gazette was his reference to the Exorcist film (see here), dated June 2nd 1974, approximately four months after the Zodiac mailed the Exorcist Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29th 1974. Within the article he ridicules the idea of possession and thoughts of the supernatural, not unlike Zodiac's declaration at the top of the Exorcist Letter, where he stated "I saw and think the Exorcist was the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen".
On March 22nd 1974, in another letter to the Billings Gazette, he seemed irked by a Dick Tracy horror strip apparently promoting poor moral values, mirroring the Badlands/Citizen Letter sent by the supposed Zodiac on May 8th 1974, just one and a half months later, in which he chastised the running of advertisements for the Badlands movie in similar poor taste, as well as parallels to the attack on columnist Marco Spinelli in the Red Phantom Letter on July 8th 1974.
But certain inferences in the letters fly in the face of the Zodiac's tendency for threats and humiliation of law enforcement, when Donald Lee Bujok attempts to take the moral high ground. Unless of course you believe the 1974 Exorcist Letter marked the end of Zodiac's reign of terror and the address to the Billings Gazette, culminating with the Badlands Letter, marked a new dawn for Donald Lee Bujok, and the day when the mask of the Zodiac finally slipped from the face of a killer. 
Kevin Robert Brooks has taken this journey alongside Donald Lee Bujok- it has been a long one, but was the destination Benicia on one dark December night back in 1968, or was the road map just another twisting diversion of dead ends......    

Thanks to Kevin Robert Brooks.