The following is nothing new, but I am going to run an old story in reverse. Ever since July 31st 1969 the Zodiac Killer had been taunting us with his name or identity through various letters, cards and ciphers, yet only gave us three "signatures" up to January 29th 1974. The SLA letter, Badlands card and Red Phantom letter will not be included in this analysis because they were not authored by the Zodiac Killer.

​The Bay Area murderer gave us three ways to identify himself as the author, by using "Zodiac" and his "crosshairs" in numerous communications, and "Me" (only once) in his Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. The question being, why did he use "Me" in 1974 when he could have just written "Zodiac" or added his "crosshairs"? The Zodiac Killer usually had purpose beneath his assumed madness.

​The answer probably lay in the verse he added after writing "Signed, Yours Truley" in the Exorcist letter, which carried the 8-letter phrase "My name is" in the extended version of the "Tit-Willow" verse. Only one communication carried all three signatures of the Bay Area murderer if you apply the following logic.

​The April 20th 1970 letter not only began with "This is the Zodiac speaking", carried the 8-letter phrase of "My name is", and had three 8's in the code, but also produced "Me" and the "crosshairs" by simply circling through the code 8 positions from each circled 8. This would give us "Zodiac", "Me" and his "crosshairs" in one communication. A communication with a 13-character code that is practically unsolvable by using standard homophonic substitution methods. This form of cryptography is able to produce thousands of possible answers, so why would the Zodiac Killer use a methodology that provides no resolution to his puzzle?

​He gave us the answer to his Z32 code by writing  "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians" one month later, on July 26th 1970. Both "radians" and "inches" could be found in the Z32 solution, so why not "Me" in the Z13 solution. The Zodiac Killer, in mocking fashion, may have been giving us the answer to the Z13 code in the most simplistic of terms. A signature he would corroborate on January 29th 1974 when he unusually added "Me" to his letter. This is the only Z13 solution ever presented as a "signature" that was replicated in a later Zodiac Killer communication. The April 20th 1970 and January 29th 1974 letters would now carry both "My name is" and "Me" in each instance.

We also have to consider why the Zodiac Killer added three circled 8's to his code when he could have just added three triangles, three squares, or indeed, three circles without the 8's? The answer may lie in the dual purpose of both characters. In essence, we have to circle through 8 positions of the code to arrive at the answer. What are the chances that when we apply this methodology to the Z13 code, we produce a signature that is present in a letter nearly 4 years later, that also harbors the phrase "My name is".

If we know that replacing ciphertext characters with plaintext characters can never produce a verifiable answer without later validation, then the Zodiac Killer almost certainly knew it.

​The technique of rotating an outer circle of characters around an inner circle of fixed characters by a desired number of positions was ably covered by Edgar Allan Poe in "A Few Words on Secret Writing".. He wrote about this immediately after detailing another technique of splitting the alphabet into two lots of 13 characters, A through M, and N through Z. Odd therefore, that the Zodiac Killer would create a code of 13 characters beginning with A and ending with M, which when rotated by 8 positions on a circle, would create a signature later used in the Exorcist letter. Both of these techniques coming after Edgar Allan Poe described the scytale method of decryption, that can be used to solve the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher. A cipher that Zodiac referred to when opening his April 20th 1970 letter, stating "By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you?".

We have two techniques described in "A Few Words on Secret Writing" that when combined and rotated through eight positions, gives us a signature used in the Exorcist letter. However, it may just be one of those massive coincidences.  
​
FURTHER READING: DEATH IN PARADISE    

When the Zodiac Killer composed his "Exorcist" letter on January 29th 1974, he was likely comparing the "satirical comedy" of "The Mikado" stage play with "The Exorcist" movie by writing "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen". But did he create a "spoonerism" by switching the "i" and "e" from "satirical comedy" to play a practical joke on the audience? More accurately described as a "kniferism", he wrote "saterical comidy". A kniferism is a type of spoonerism that involves switching the vowels between words or syllables to change the meaning. By writing "signed, yours truley" and then choosing the Tit-Willow verse from "The Mikado" which contained "My name is", was the Zodiac Killer suggesting that his name could be found within the verse?

The Zodiac Killer may have noticed that "The Exorcist" movie was directed by William Friedkin, based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, and that William Shwenck Gilbert was responsible for the libretto of "The Mikado" (text of the musical work). Was this why he chose "Tit-Willow" because it contained "Will" within its text, effectively giving us "William" four times within one communication? The Zodiac Killer chose the introduction of "best saterical comidy" based upon "The Exorcist" movie winning four awards at the Golden Globe ceremony at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974,  for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". Therefore, it was just coincidental that the novelist William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin had the same forename as William Shwenck Gilbert, because he featured "The Mikado" on July 26th 1970, when he gave us more verses from the stage play. This wasn't something he could have manufactured, but it was something he could have noticed, thereby inspiring him to apply a type of "spoonerism" and altering "best satirical comedy" to "best saterical comidy" in his introduction. This may have been deliberate, because this "spoonerism" gave us our fifth William. 

William Archibald Spooner (July 22nd 1844 to August 29th 1930) was a British clergyman and long-serving Oxford don. He was most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionally comic effect. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms, and are often used humorously. Many spoonerisms have been invented and attributed to Spooner. William Spooner was well liked and respected, described as "an albino, small, with a pink face, poor eyesight, and a head too large for his body". It was said that "his reputation was that of a genial, kindly, hospitable man". In the opinion of Roy Harrod, Spooner exceeded all the heads of Oxford and Cambridge colleges he had known "having regard to his scholarship, devotion to duty, and wisdom".  Wikipedia.

​It would have been apt for the Zodiac Killer to use a "comedic spoonerism" when writing the "best saterical comidy". It may have been one big game for the Zodiac Killer, who seemingly liked taunting his pursuers with a plethora of cryptic puzzles. 

Over the weekend of March 13th 1971 numerous calls poured into the Dublin Police Department saying they had seen the infamous Zodiac Killer, days before the Zodiac Killer's Los Angeles letter, mailed in Pleasanton, was released into the newspapers. Pleasanton borders the city of Dublin, situated 40 miles (about 50 minutes journey time by car) from San Francisco. Not only were these sightings a considerable distance from San Francisco, from where the Zodiac Killer usually mailed his letters, but these sightings and letter were 4 1/2 months removed from the last Zodiac communication. Therefore, an uptick in sightings of the Zodiac Killer, at a time and location corresponding to the mailing of a Zodiac letter, has to carry some significance. 

Just under three years later, on January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer yet again deviated from San Francisco by mailing a letter from either San Mateo or Santa Clara County. There is good reason why I would like to focus on the possibility that his "Exorcist" letter was mailed in Santa Clara County, in which San Jose is the county seat and largest city. 

The Exorcist letter began in mocking fashion with the writing "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen". The Zodiac Killer's letter was almost certainly a reaction to "The Exorcist" film winning four awards at the Golden Globe ceremony at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974,  for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". However, the Zodiac Killer didn't describe the movie as "the best comidy", he described it as "the best saterical comidy", by adding the word "satirical" into the phrase. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, because the Zodiac Killer was equating "The Exorcist" movie with the satirical comedy "The Mikado", which followed on from this introduction (by citing a Tit-Willow verse). Despite the Zodiac Killer likening these two productions through humor, they didn't comfortably sit alongside each other in one communication. 

What reminded the Zodiac Killer of "The Mikado" theater play 3 1/2 years after he had previously referenced it on July 26th 1970? Especially in a communication that capitalized on the recent release of "The Exorcist" movie on December 26th 1973. Had the Zodiac Killer attended a performance of "The Mikado" or read about one in recent weeks? Enabling him to marry the two productions together.    

​If he had, I would expect this performance to have taken place in Santa Clara County in January, to have featured prominently in the newspaper to catch the Zodiac's eye, and to have the word "satirical" front and center of the article. The following newspaper cutting is from the "Sunday Mercury News" in San Jose, Santa Clara County, advertising an upcoming production of "The Mikado" in four performances at the San Jose State University Workshop, from January 11th 1974 to January 13th 1974. Did the Zodiac Killer attend this production and mail his "Exorcist" letter from Santa Clara County, with the inserted word "satirical", to unveil his recent movements? Or at the very least, to suggest that he had recently watched the operetta at the San Jose State University? The Zodiac Killer usually composed his letters by utilizing recent newspaper articles, but was this one of them?

The wording of "I saw and think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy" in the January 29th 1974 letter was an immediate response to the movie winning four Golden Globes on January 26th 1974, receiving the awards for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". The wording of "I am waiting for a good movie about me" in the April 24th 1978 letter was a belated response to the April 3rd 1978 Academy Awards (as was the Channel 9 letter on May 2nd 1978). Both of these letters on January 29th 1974 and April 24th 1978 were intrinsically bound to the movie industry, and both carried the Jack the Ripper style valediction of "yours truly", in the form of "yours truley" in 1974 (which was spelled incorrectly) and "yours truly" in 1978 (which was spelled correctly). This form of valediction is clearly not appropriate in the context of a threatening letter, so the use of this "act of farewell" is relatively unusual in this respect.

​Therefore, I looked for something on TV or in the movies that contained both elements of "Jack the Ripper" and "Yours Truly", and found the 1943 short story by Robert Bloch, subsequently made into a fifty minute TV thriller in 1961 entitled "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", hosted by Boris Karloff and starring John Williams, Donald Woods and Edmon Ryan. On the Internet Movie Database it is described as follows: "70 years after the Jack the Ripper killings in London, Sir Guy tries to convince the police that Jack may still be alive, eternally young, and still killing, currently in New York". After a  hiatus of several years, Jack the Ripper had returned to begin killing again in New York. 

The same has been argued in the Zodiac case, where the Bay Area murderer appeared to take a hiatus from 1971 to 1974 and returned with the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. The same can be said of his inactivity between 1974 and 1978, when he returned to mail the 1978 letter with the introduction "I am back with you". So it is noteworthy that he appeared to use the "yours truly" valediction from the book and TV episode of ​"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", which presented the story of a killer returning after a period of inactivity. 

​Another interesting feature of the Exorcist letter was the final paragraph where the Zodiac wrote "Ps. If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". You will notice that he described the communication as a "note" and not a letter. Bearing in mind that the TV episode of "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" featured Jack the Ripper taking his crimes from Whitechapel in London to New York, I looked for a Jack the Ripper "note" mailed in New York on the date of January 29th. A search of the newspaper archives didn't disappoint. The following newspaper article (among many) describes a "Jack the Ripper in New York", who wrote a "note" to Police Captain Ryan on January 29th 1889 promising that the streets of his precinct would soon be filled with murdered women.

In an odd turn of events, the script of "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" may have been turned on its head by the Bay Area murderer, because the previous letter claimed to have been mailed from the Zodiac Killer was postmarked August 1st 1973 from Albany, New York, six months before the arrival of the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. The letter, addressed to the Albany Times Union newspaper, stated he was "going to start killing again".

Robert Bloch, the author of "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" also wrote "The Thing" in 1932 and "Psycho" in 1959, the latter of which the Zodiac Killer featured in his 148 character cipher and letter in the middle of 1971. The 1971 letter stated that he would "skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin" if his cipher was not printed on the front page of the newspaper. This phraseology was reminscent of the murderer Edward Gein, who professed a desire to make a "skin suit" from his dead mother, and the movie "Psycho" that hit cinema screens in 1960 and featured the seated corpse of Norman Bates' dead mother. An arguable case can be made for Robert Bloch inspired letters from 1971 through to 1974, whether one was intended or not.

On January 19th 1889, ten days before the Jack the Ripper "note" on January 29th 1889, it is likely that the same individual first announced his presence to Captain Ryan in a letter (described in the newspaper cutting below), by stating "Do you think that Jack the Ripper is in England?", before promising to kill by next Thursday and signing it with the familiar valediction of "Yours truly, Jack the Ripper".

​CONNECTING RIVERSIDE TO THE ZODIAC USING JACK THE RIPPER [IN 7 PARTS]

It is no coincidence that the April 24th 1978 letter stated "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me" just three weeks after the 50th Academy Awards ceremony at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles on April 3rd 1978, and was followed by a second communication on May 2nd 1978 stating "Hey-you actors-this is your lucky Break. Remember-whoever plays me has his work cut out for him" and "​please hold the applause". The May communication having been mailed to the KHJ-TV Studios in Los Angeles after they ran a public voting poll on the eve of the ceremony (April 2nd 1978) on who their viewers thought would win certain categories at the Academy Awards. A ceremony where the Oscar winning song "You Light Up My Life" was sung at the ceremony by Debby Boone, whose father Pat Boone was threatened in the May 2nd 1978 letter.

​These two letters came four years after the last Zodiac letter arrived on January 29th 1974, which stated "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy", three days after the 31st Golden Globe film awards at the Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974, in which "The Exorcist" film won "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". Three consecutive communications that just happened to piggyback off award ceremonies for the film industry, that were all presumably conceived and written by Inspector David Toschi and/or Robert Graysmith according to some. If Inspector David Toschi wrote the April 24th 1978 letter, then he probably wrote all three of these letters, and had a hand in the phone call 42 days before the "I am back with you" letter, when somebody rang an individual living in the Mission District and stated "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco". ​

​Then we have the consistency of language between the April 24th 1978, May 2nd 1978 and July 19th 1978 letters, with all three using the verb "play" and the singular pronoun "me" in the same sentence. Only the first letter being published in the newspapers. They read "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me" (04/24/78), "whoever plays me has his work cut out for him" (05/02/78} and "Maybe you play chess with me" (07/19/78). The third author could not have copied the second author if different individuals, but they could have been the same person.

If the author of the January 29th 1974 (Exorcist), April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 letters is one person (linked through a film industry theme), then where does that leave us with the July 19th 1978 letter, which has a common theme with both the April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 letters? The author of the July 19th 1978 letter could have borrowed wording from the published April 24th 1978 letter, however, they did manage to continue the consistency in language used in the May 2nd 1978 letter, which they could never have seen if not the same person. The author on May 2nd 1978 and July 19th 1978, on both occasions, opted to mimic the verb "play" and singular pronoun "me" in the same sentence, from the April 24th 1978 letter. That probably leaves one author responsible for the last two letters. And if the May 2nd 1978 letter is linked by one theme to the January 29th 1974 and April 24th 1978 letters, then the July 19th 1978 letter is probably genuine too.

​This consistency, now seen through four communications, would be implicating Inspector David Toschi in a much bigger hoax, who would have also investigated the "I am back in San Francisco" phone call on March 13th 1978 and then mailed the "I am back with you" letter the following month. Additionally, it could open the door to the similarities shown between the April 24th 1978 and Melvin Belli letters. Either David Toschi has played a leading role in fabricating many Zodiac communications, or he is responsible for none. The obvious choice seems to be none. Inspector David Toschi was a busy man, unlikely to be scouring the newspapers for Academy Award and Golden Globe ceremonies, KHJ-TV Studios polls and the World Chess Championships, to create common themes in order to manufacture an elaborate hoax. But there was one man that seemed to find the time. Bearing in mind that the author of the April 24th 1978 letter wrote "I am waiting for a good movie about me. Who will play me", it was quite ironical that the winner for best film in 1978 at the Academy Awards was a "satirical comedy", claimed by some to be semi-autobiographical about the life of "Allen". Woody Allen that is. The film was "Annie Hall", winner of four Academy Awards, not unlike "The Exorcist" movie, which won four Golden Globes on January 26th 1974  

On January 29th 1974 the Zodiac Killer tempted us with his name by writing "Signed, yours truley" and then placing an extract from The Mikado's Tit-Willow verse. The implication being that the Zodiac Killer's name may be found within the verse. In 2017, I noticed that the complete Tit-Willow verse from Gilbert & Sullivan's play had the phrase "my name is" within the wording "my name isn't", reminiscent of the April 20th 1970 letter stating "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is....", followed by a 13 character code.

The full Tit-Willow verse read "my name Isn't Willow, tit-willow, tit-willow", so could this have featured in the 13 character code? The Zodiac Killer could have playfully used Tit-Willow as his name on April 20th 1970, before reversing this on January 29th 1974 by invoking the Tit-Willow verse in his Exorcist letter. The proposed suggestion being "My name is only Tit-Willow". Although this solution fails by using the plaintext letters "T" and "I" to represent the ciphertext "circled 8", the three "circled 8's" can spell "TIT". One would like to believe that the Zodiac Killer - knowing his 13 character code was practically unsolvable - would have given us a clue in his later letters. So was the "Signed, yours truley" phrase, followed by "my name isn't" in 1974, that clue?   

Recently I showed a plausible link between James Hogg's 1824 novel The Suicide's Grave: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and "The Exorcist" movie released in 1973, both of which centered around demonic possession. But what I didn't contemplate at the time of writing, is what triggered the Zodiac Killer to select a portion of The Mikado verse containing the wording "suicide's grave", if indeed it was a deliberate choice for the reasons previously stated. After all, this was a novel released 150 years previously.

It goes without saying that the Zodiac Killer often referenced, or was triggered by recent newspaper articles he had read - so the idea of the "suicide's grave" could have germinated in the mind of the Zodiac Killer just before he mailed The Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. Therefore, what are the odds of the "suicide's grave" being mentioned in the newspapers the day before "The Exorcist" letter was postmarked, that tied into the Japanese themed "The Mikado" (Tit-Willow) and the Asian style characters at the foot of the letter? In total, we would have "The Exorcist" movie and the "suicide's grave" of demonic possession, the Tit-Willow verse from a Japanese satirical comedy, a Japanese relevant newspaper headline on January 28th 1974 referencing the "suicide's grave" of Kao Kang and some Asian symbolism arranged at the bottom of The Exorcist letter. The content in the article below appeared in several newspapers, but this one was published on January 28th 1974, with the inset image (bottom right) from January 26th 1974. They tell of the demise of Kao Kang to his suicide's grave. 

Kao Kang was a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader during the Chinese Civil War and the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC) before he became the victim of the first major purge within the party since before 1949. The events surrounding Gao's purge, the so-called "Gao Gang Affair". After disagreements with Chairman Mao Zedong, and apparently distraught, Gao Gang (also called Kao Kang) made several attempts to talk to Mao Zedong but was refused an audience with the Chairman. It is possible that Mao avoided facing Gao because of the secret talks between the two men that had prompted Gao's attempts to advance his own position. Gao tried to shoot himself during the February meetings and succeeded in poisoning himself in August 1954. After his suicide, in 1955, Gao was formally expelled from the Party. Gao's ally, Rao, was also expelled from the CCP, and was jailed until his death in 1975. Gao's death not only brought closure of the most immediate sort to the affair but also made sure that he was duly remembered in a dishonorable fashion as a traitor to the party. Wikipedia.

The Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974 is a curious blend of film and theater, where the Zodiac Killer gives us his opinion on the recent movie The Exorcist (1973) stating "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen", before oddly switching to a small portion of the Tit-Willow verse from The Mikado (1885), adding "Signed, yours truley: He plunged him self into the billowy wave and an echo arose from the sucides grave tit willo tit willo tit willo".

One might expect a running theme between the message in "The Exorcist" film and "The Mikado" verse, other than they are two forms of entertainment. Why did the Zodiac Killer choose to blend these seemingly strange bedfellows? The Exorcist movie was about the demonic possession of a young 12-year-old girl and the battle between good and evil, therefore we have to consider a possible connection to this and the chosen phrase from Tit-Willow.

The origin of suicide's grave can be found in the then anonymous writings of James Hogg in 1824, a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who published The Suicide's Grave: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. "The plot concerns Robert Wringhim, a staunch Calvinist who, under the influence of the mysterious Gil-Martin, believes he is guaranteed Salvation and justified in killing those he believes are already damned by God. The novel has been classified among many genres, including gothic novel, psychological mystery, metafiction, satire and the study of totalitarian thought; it can also be thought of as an early example of modern crime fiction in which the story is told, for the most part, from the point of view of its criminal anti-hero. The action of the novel is located in a historically definable Scotland with accurately observed settings, and simultaneously implies a quasi-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession. James Hogg's brief cameo role in the final pages of the novel is effectively his "signature" appended to the otherwise anonymous original publication. Wikipedia. 

​Emma John of The Guardian writes "If you think that the best response to religious extremism is to laugh at it, then James Hogg's most famous work, published in 1824, demands your full attention. A tale of demonic possession, it is also a caustic comedy, skewering the religious bigotry that existed among the era's Scottish Reformers".

The James Hogg novel has been described as comedic and satirical in nature, exactly the same as the Zodiac Killer described The Exorcist movie in 1974. Both "The Exorcist" and "The Suicide's Grave" are tales of demonic possession, so was the choice of "Tit-Willow" containing the wording of "Suicide's Grave" from The Mikado (1885), also released in the 19th century, just a fortunate coincidence, or did the Zodiac Killer deliberately create a running theme of demonic possession in his January 29th 1974 letter? The anonymous nature of James Hogg's book and cameo signature appears consistent with the mysterious "Signed, yours truley" adopted by the Zodiac Killer in his letter. The middle section of James Hogg's book is called "The Confession", describing a tale of murder, which portrays Robert Wringhim's descent into madness and believed murder of his brother, George, by stabbing him in the back. Despite being an obvious "clutching at straws", this is reminiscent of "The Confession" letter mailed in 1966 that describes a murderer who declares "I am insane" while stabbing Cheri Jo Bates once in the back. 

​The Zodiac Killer appeared to be a well-read individual with a penchant for the historical, so was the choice of The Exorcist movie and the "Suicide's Grave" reference another example of look long enough and you will find, or was the Zodiac Killer manufacturing his communications carefully and creatively, with meaning behind his madness?       

It has previously been shown that the Zodiac Killer designed the April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 letters in response to the Oscars movie ceremony, which was celebrating its 50th Academy Awards of cinematic achievement at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles on April 3rd 1978. The Dorothy Chandler Pavillion at North Grand Avenue was situated 4.5 miles from the KHJ-TV Studios at 5615 Melrose Avenue, which was the target of the May 2nd 1978 letter mailed by the Zodiac Killer that opened with the words "Dear Channel Nine".

But why would the Zodiac Killer choose a seemingly random television station in Los Angeles to deliver his Oscars message, by writing "Hey-you actors-this is your lucky Break. Remember-whoever plays me has his work cut out for him", preceded by the message "I am waiting for a good movie about me" on April 24th 1978?

On the eve of the Academy Awards ceremony the KHJ-TV Studios ran its yearly special about the Oscars (voted on by polling), hosted in 1978 by George Hamilton and Brenda Vaccaro on Channel 9. Wayne Thomas joined KHJ-TV Studios as an announcer in 1959 and served for 27 years. The "Your Choice for the Oscars" production was the brainchild of Wayne Thomas, which voted for the best film, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, and best song, spanning six categories. The Zodiac Killer, back with us in 1978 after four years in the wilderness, was clearly yearning attention from the movie industry for his perceived special achievements (or he wanted to make it appear so). The May 2nd 1978 "Channel 9" letter would target Pat Boone for his perceived religious zealotry, stating "Pat Boone-his theocratic crap is an obscenity to the rest of the world". He was present at the Oscars watching his daughter, Debby Boone, perform her 1977 hit song "You Light Up My Life", which spent 10 weeks at No 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won the best original song category at the Academy Awards ceremony. This song was also voted for in the  KHJ-TV Studios 2-hour television special. So it's no surprise that the Zodiac Killer wanted to know which actor was going to play him in a "good movie" a few weeks later, hinting at the Academy Awards and stating "I have decided to start killing again-please hold the applause". However, this tactic employed by the Zodiac Killer in 1978 was not the first time he used this methodology of invoking movie award ceremonies in his correspondence, when he mailed the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974 - effectively binding three consecutive letters under the banner of acting and film awards.    

One has to ask themselves the question of why did the Zodiac Killer wait from December 26th 1973 (The Exorcist release date) to January 29th 1974, to mail a letter beginning with "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen"? The use of "best satirical comedy" gives the impression of comparison to other movies in a genre, by categorizing The Exorcist into a grouping of comedy films. In other words, it wasn't the best movie, it was the best satirical comedy. The timing of this letter, the Zodiac Killer's use of the word "best", and his propensity to respond to recent newspaper coverage, compelled me to search through newspapers.com in the days leading up to the Exorcist communication, to see what may have inspired the Bay Area murderer to compose this introduction. I didn't have to go far.

​The Exorcist movie won multiple 31st Golden Globe film awards at the Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills, California on January 26th 1974 for "Best Film", "Best Director", "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Screenplay". This was featured in many newspapers, including the Santa Cruz Sentinel and The Sun Times on January 28th 1974. So, it's not difficult to see why the Zodiac Killer mailed the Exorcist letter three days later (January 29th 1974) and began his snarky rebuttal of the film by writing "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy". He simply used the newspaper headlines and stories to compose a response to the accolades received by an extremely popular and successful film. His response to the Golden Globe film awards would be replicated after the 50th Academy Awards ceremony on April 3rd 1978, when he mailed the April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 letters, stating "I am waiting for a good movie about me", "Hey-you actors-this is your lucky Break. Remember-whoever plays me has his work cut out for him" and "please hold the applause". 

This running theme of movie awards present in three consecutive Zodiac Killer communications, that hasn't been spotted by amateur researchers for nearly 50 years, should convince you that one mind was responsible for composing the January 29th 1974, April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 letters. But unfortunately for many it won't. The idea that a hoaxer could have spotted the inspiration for the Exorcist letter and replicated it four years later (in 1978), that no Zodiac researcher has found in nearly half a century, will now be used as a viable explanation. For some, no amount of evidence will shift their belief that the April 24th 1978 letter is a hoax. They will die with this inscription on their tombstone. But hopefully, some people will keep an open mind and consider the possibility that the Zodiac Killer did return in 1978.

MORE READING:  A PAWN IN A GAME OF DEATH     REVIVING THE 1978 LETTER   

THE 1978 LETTER UNLIKELY PENNED BY TOSCHI     THE GREATEST COPYCAT IN TOWN

In a letter postmarked January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer described The Exorcist movie as "the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen". The Exorcist movie, released on December 26th 1973, was directed by William Friedkin. But why did the Zodiac Killer wait just over one month to describe this horror film as a satirical comedy? I suspect that the timing of this communication and the phraseology chosen within it was carefully designed by the Bay Area murderer. This letter was likely mailed in the hope the San Francisco Chronicle would publish the Zodiac Killer's handiwork on January 30th 1974. The day after, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote under the heading "Zodiac Mystery Letter - First Since 1971", "The killer who calls himself Zodiac broke a silence of nearly three years yesterday with a bizarre note to The Chronicle".

William Friedkin made his directorial debut in the comedy movie "Good Times" in 1967 starring Sonny Bono and Cher, who appeared as themselves in this musical parody of various genres, including mysteries, westerns, Tarzan movies and spy thrillers. A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satirical or ironic imitation. The connection between Sonny Bono, Cher and William Friedkin would come full circle in January of 1974, when the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on Channel 7 was advertised in many newspapers. The Comedy Hour was to feature a satirical (mocking) presentation of The Exorcist movie by showing the comedic reactions of patrons leaving the cinema. This can be viewed on YouTube. 

The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour was an American variety show that starred American pop singers Sonny Bono and Cher, who were married to each other at the time. The show ran on CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) in the United States, beginning in August 1971. The show was cancelled in May 1974, due to the couple's divorce, but the duo reunited in 1976 in a similarly formatted show. 

The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour was due to be aired on Wednesday, January 30th 1974, the exact day the Zodiac Killer had likely hoped his Exorcist letter would be published by the San Francisco Chronicle. So were the words "satirical" and "comedy" deliberately chosen to coincide with this show?   ​

I would like to revisit something I've covered previously regarding the Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974 and the "My Name is" letter mailed on April 20th 1970. When the Zodiac Killer designed the Exorcist letter he wrote "signed, yours truley" and then proceeded to paraphrase a verse from Tit-Willow and Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. One would have thought that placing "signed, yours truley" preceding this verse was a prelude to his identity. When we visit the entirety of this act from The Mikado, it becomes apparent that the next line in the verse following what Zodiac quoted is "Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name is(n't) Willow, titwillow, titwillow".

​In this instance we have a trinity of coincidences, where the Zodiac Killer tempts us with a signature from the verse, from which we can form the sentence of "my name is", that he previously used in his April 20th 1970 letter as an introduction to a mystery 13 symbol code and his name.

The Exorcist letter broke with tradition when he used "Me" instead of his crosshairs as an identity, before giving us his running victim total. Bearing in mind the aforementioned correlation between the Exorcist letter and "My Name is" letter, I couldn't help thinking his identity of "Me" would be found in the 13 symbol code using an extremely simplistic method. There is little doubt that the Zodiac Killer knew a 13 character code could not be solved using conventional techniques because of its length, so very likely created something superficial. The fact that this letter was mailed with an AM postmark on the same day the Robert Salem murder broke in the morning edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, with the Zodiac pseudonym scrawled on the wall of the victim's apartment - likely meant that this letter was prepared in haste. A code created this quickly has a high probability of being solved - a code with one repetitive feature of three circled 8's. Using the shift technique the Zodiac Killer employed in the 340 cipher, solved by David Oranchak (USA), Sam Blake (Australia) and Jarl Van Eycke (Belgium) in 2020, I used a period 8 shift in the code to select new characters 8 places to the right. 

Using a circular shift pattern, the first circled 8 right-shifted to the letter "M", the second circled 8 right-shifted to the letter "E", and the third circled 8 right-shifted to the Zodiac crosshairs, thereby equating the Zodiac Killer's identity to "ME", just as he had done in the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. Both of these correspondences tempted us with a name, both communications can be linked to The Mikado and the "my name is" phrase, and the April 20th 1970 code can easily reproduce the "Me" signature present in the Exorcist letter using the standout numerical feature in the code.

​Another communication, mailed on October 27th 1970, also featured a name synonymous with The Mikado, when the Zodiac Killer wrote *peek-a-boo you are doomed" around the knot-hole of a tree. Peek-a-boo was a character from an 1888 production of The Mikado, entitled The Capitalist. But take a look at the "ME" in the word doomed, in a card that stated "I feel it in my bones, you ache to know my name, and so I'll clue you in." 

The following is an amalgamation of previous articles: 

​Six months after the Zodiac Killer's Albany, New York letter and code, another letter would arrive at the San Francisco Chronicle on January 30th 1974. Postmarked the day before (January 29th), this letter was a curious blend of The Exorcist movie (1973) and the comedic opera The Mikado (1885), two productions separated by 88 years.

The Zodiac Killer plagiarized The Mikado twice in the July 26th 1970 letter, but this appeared to have some purpose in relation to his hunting activities - that the Zodiac Killer had created a list of potential victims, who he would then kill and ultimately torture in paradise. This seemed at odds with his use of The Mikado in 1974. Any suggestion that the Zodiac Killer was contemplating suicide at this juncture because of his choice of Tit-Willow, appeared to be dashed in the following paragraph when he stated "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". The notion that the Zodiac Killer had reached a watershed moment and was about to ditch the pseudonym he had coveted for so many years, would also be premature, when he mailed the 1978, 1986 and 1987 letters, all containing his infamous introduction of "This is the Zodiac speaking".

​The 1978 and 1987 letters had one thing in common with the 1974 letter, in that they all carried the wording "yours truly" or "yours truley", followed by a colon. This wording is commonly used before a signature, with the colon used to separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first. In the 1978 and 1987 letters the Zodiac Killer follows "yours truly" with "guess", whereas, he inserts the plagiarized verse from Tit-Willow where his signature should be placed in the 1974 Exorcist letter. The primary conclusion to draw from this, is the Zodiac Killer was yet again asking us to "guess" his name through the verse of Tit-Willow. 

He may have been bluffing, but giving us his first name in such cryptic fashion could never be realistically used as evidence against him, because any conclusions drawn from this verse through subjective interpretation, would never have any standing in a court of law. There are five things in relation to The Exorcist movie and the Tit-Willow verse that point to one name. There is also another that points backwards to the April 20th 1970 letter, when the Zodiac Killer teased us with his name by stating "My name is", followed by a thirteen character code. The Exorcist book was written by William Blatty in 1971, which told the story of a twelve-year-old girl possessed by a powerful demon, that was later adapted by director William Friedkin in the film version released on December 26th 1973. The Tit-Willow verse from The Mikado was created by William Schwenck Gilbert, which contained multiple examples of "Will" and "Bill" within words such as "Willo" and "Billowy" (Will and Bill being short for William). This verse followed The Exorcist introduction and the promise of a signature by use of "yours truley". If we look at the next paragraph in the Tit-Willow verse from the complete version, it reads "Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name Isn't Willow, titwillow, titwillow". Very reminiscent of the "My name is" letter, but in this instance "My name Isn't". 

Now let us take a look at the final paragraph of the Exorcist letter where he wrote "If I do not see this note in your paper, I will do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing". This mirrors his very first communications on July 31st 1969 when he wrote "I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1-69, If you do not do this I will go on a kill ram page Fry night that will last the whole week end. I will cruse around and pick of all stray people or coupples that are alone then move on to kill some more untill I have killed over a dozen people". On July 31st 1969 and January 29th 1974, he concluded both correspondences with the threat "to kill" more people if his letters were not published in the newspapers. In his decoded 408 cipher, he wrote "To kill something gives me the most thrilling experence". To the best of my knowledge, this is the only time the Zodiac Killer used the word "something" prior to January 29th 1974 - and used it in reference "to kill something". So, when we look at the final paragraph of the Exorcist letter where he wrote the words "I will do something nasty", it is apparent that "to kill something" was his likely threat. The Zodiac Killer then finished the letter with another puzzle (likely decoded by Kevin Robert Brooks). 

Mike Rodelli is convinced that DNA will not solve the Zodiac case because the authenticated letters were not licked by the sender. Mike Rodelli spoke to Alan Keel in 2007, who was a Criminalist at the San Francisco Police Department from 1996 to 1999. He gave Mike Rodelli the following information: "that there were two letters in possession of the department that, in contrast to the "true" Zodiac letters, had abundant saliva and DNA-containing oral epithelial cells on them, that DNA was easily extracted from these two letters, and that the DNA extracted from these two letters matched between them. These two letters were considered forgeries, since the "true" Zodiac verifiable letters had not been licked by the sender". According to Mike, Alan Keel had "analyzed two letters, one of which is the 1978 'forgery', and finds that this letter and one of the 1974 letters are loaded with saliva and cells. He then easily extracts DNA from both of these letters using the more primitive DNA technology of that time and finds that the DNA matches between those two letters, thus proving that one person sent both".

On October 29th 2021, Mike Rodelli stated on the Zodiac Killer message board "The fact remains that in 2007 Keel told me, as he had told Lafferty before me, that there is a 1974 forgery based on DNA and the ONLY 1974 letter that had been tested for the presence of cells during Keel's tenure (as demonstrated by the DNA chart that I believe Keel made in about 2000) was the Exorcist letter. This is not rocket science.  Even if it is not the Exorcist letter that Keel was talking about, it IS a candidate as being a forgery whose DNA matches the 1978 letter based on the information in the chart".

In his book, The Hunt For Zodiac, he stated "Now there was DNA proof that whoever had penned the April 1978 letter had also penned one of the 1974 letters. And apparently it was not Zodiac. According to the chart of DNA testing results compiled by SFPD's lab in ca. 2000, the only one of the 1974 letters that had been tested by Keel up to that time was the January Exorcist letter. This was the letter that had a swarm of palm prints on it. This created an interesting dilemma that lends credence to the possibility that this is a forged letter. Zodiac had penned a dozen letters prior to writing the Exorcist letter and had never left even a single palm print on them. So why had he suddenly and carelessly taken off his glove(s) to write this one and leave a virtual montage of his palms all over it. From that standpoint alone, it makes sense that someone else may have written the Exorcist letter, its bizarre content notwithstanding. While it is possible that one of the other three letters was tested for DNA subsequent to the compilation of the DNA summary chart that Keel had assembled, I believe that on balance the most likely candidate for being the 1974 forgery is the Exorcist letter until proven otherwise". Mike Rodelli is almost certainly correct that the 1974 Exorcist letter is overwhelmingly the most likely DNA match for the 1978 letter (because it was the only tested in the DNA chart), but here is the almost certain proof that neither the 1974 Exorcist or April 1978 letter were forgeries. 
​
Take a look at the address style, spacing and handwriting of the Exorcist letter envelope (below), and compare it to the two April 1970 communications (in particular the Dragon Card envelope). These two April 1970 envelopes had not been publicly released by 1974. They were the only confirmed Zodiac communications to use the address style of San Fran (dot) Chronicle prior to January 29th 1974. The January 29th 1974 author (if a hoaxer) could never have produced such similarity, or had knowledge of the address style of the April 1970 communications. But the real Zodiac Killer could have. 

​Mike Rodelli is confident that the SLA letter mailed in 1974 was authored by the Zodiac Killer, stating "Envelopes: This is where the rubber truly meets the road in this discussion and where we can see that it is unlikely that anyone but Zodiac wrote the SLA letter. When you look at the hand printing on the SLA letter in a vacuum, it certainly does not jump off the page to me that it was penned by Zodiac. But when you take a close look at the envelope, that is a different story". Mike then gave me a list of envelopes here, to compare with the SLA envelope. If Mike is confident that these comparisons strongly argue for the SLA letter being Zodiac, there is no way he can argue against the Exorcist letter envelope being the same author as the two April 1970 communications (particularly the Dragon Card). If the two April 1970 communications are genuine Zodiac, then so is the Exorcist letter. If the Exorcist letter is genuine, and the argument in favor of the Exorcist letter DNA matching the 1978 letter DNA by Mike Rodelli is correct, then the 1978 letter is genuine too. 

In the link above, Mike Rodelli argued that the writing on the SLA envelope is consistent with the Stine envelope, 340 envelope, Bus Bomb envelope and Kathleen Johns envelope, stating "It's hard to look at these envelopes and not see the similarities. And note that the November 8, 1969 envelope contained a piece of Stine's shirt, thus proving its authorship as being from Zodiac. There it is in black and white. So the evidence seems to show that, regardless of the timing and his reason for being in Los Angeles on February 3, 1974 (assuming that the letter was posted from there on that date), it was, in fact, the Zodiac killer who sent the SLA letter, not the SLA itself, which, once again, would not have benefitted from its contents. Nor is there any reason why they would have benefitted from imitating Zodiac's handwriting on the envelope but not attributing the enclosed later to him".

Again, if Mike Rodelli is claiming these envelope comparisons are good proof the SLA letter is genuine, he now cannot with any good conscience claim that the comparisons between the Exorcist envelope and the two April 1970 envelopes are not equally as good. Especially when the April 28th 1970 envelope had never been released into the public domain for the author of the Exorcist envelope to copy (not only the handwriting, but the format of San Fran (dot) Chronicle). This being the case, Mike Rodelli (based on his statements) must now accept that the Exorcist letter and SLA letter are genuine Zodiac correspondence. Therefore, if Alan Keel is correct and the 1978 letter DNA matches one of the 1974 communications, we are left with the Badlands card or Red Phantom letter for Mike Rodelli to choose from. But this is what happens to the SLA envelope when we add the "tails" from the Red Phantom envelope. Bearing in mind the SLA envelope wasn't available for the author of the Red Phantom envelope to copy, the writing is virtually indistinguishable from one another, along with a single comma and address format. If Mike Rodelli finds "It hard to look at the envelopes he suggested and not see the similarities to the SLA envelope", he cannot fail to see the similarity between the SLA envelope and Red Phantom envelope. If he believes that the SLA letter was authored by the Zodiac Killer, he now must accept (using his arguments) that the Red Phantom letter was authored by the Zodiac Killer as well. Fortunately, in his book he does.    

However, in his book Hunt For the Zodiac, he also makes an extended case for the Badlands letter being the Zodiac Killer, stating "In it (the Badlands letter), the anonymous author is accepted based on hand printing as having once again been Zodiac". So, Mike Rodelli is arguing that the SLA letter, Badlands card and Red Phantom letter are genuine Zodiac, but the Exorcist letter is the one he questions most. But if he accepts the arguments he has given for these communications being authentic Zodiac (including the SLA envelope handwriting), he can only come to the conclusion that the Exorcist letter is genuine too. We can therefore conclude, using Mike Rodelli's own words, that if Alan Keel showed a DNA match between the 1978 letter and one of the 1974 letters (and all the 1974 letters are genuine), then the Zodiac Killer licked the envelopes and stamps on the 1978 letter, Exorcist letter, SLA letter, Badlands card and Red Phantom letter. In other words, he never used tap water. The only way that Mike Rodelli can maintain the claims made at the beginning of this article, is to say the comparisons between the two April 1970 envelopes and the Exorcist envelope are not as valid as the comparisons he has made between the SLA envelope and the four envelopes he listed. In good faith, that argument cannot be made. The reality is, that the Exorcist letter is genuine Zodiac correspondence, and contrary to the arguments Mike Rodelli has made. 

There are a number of individuals in the Zodiac community who have long vouched for suspects, confident to degrees of near certainty they have found the elusive Bay Area murderer, while simultaneously claiming that the Zodiac Killer was an extremely clever individual, deliberately misspelling his words to misdirect us into believing he had a lower intellectual capacity. Therefore, these individuals should think twice about using the Zodiac communications with unabashed confidence to proclaim their suspect had theatrical leanings, was proficient in mathematics, had a penchant for comics and the movies, or had artistic leanings. A killer who can misdirect by way of spelling mistakes, can easily misdirect by composing three musical numbers from The Mikado, or reference a comic book. The Zodiac Killer could very easily have painted a picture of himself completely antithetical to the person he actually was. So, when somebody arrives at a suspect based on the Zodiac communications, they may want to re-evaluate and consider a suspect completely opposite to the one they have chosen. It is extremely difficult to support the idea of misdirection, only when it suits the conclusions you have already concluded. In other words, a Zodiac Killer who only misdirects when you say so. But did the Zodiac Killer deliberately misspell in his communications? The evidence doesn't support this claim.  

In an article in the San Francisco Examiner on January 30th 1978 entitled Zodiac:4 Years Later,  Sherwood Morrill, a respected documents examiner stated "He is an intelligent guy and we know he deliberately misspells some words because he sometimes spells them correctly". If the Zodiac Killer was intelligent and deliberately misspelling words to misdirect investigators into believing he was less intelligent, why would he spell the word "buttons" in the Dragon card on April 28th 1970 incorrectly, and then nine words later spell it correctly. If the Zodiac Killer was deliberately manufacturing his spelling mistakes, did his attention span falter after only nine words. An intentional and wilful deception would be categorically undermined by such a correction. Twenty-four words later, he would again spell the word incorrectly. This doesn't appear to be an individual achieving a grand deception by constantly fluctuating between good grammar and bad.

Three months later, on April 24th 1978, the Zodiac Killer claimed he was now in "control of all things", unlike the Melvin Belli letter when he was afraid he would "loose all controol" and "loose control". Despite the claimed four year hiatus between the January 29th 1974 Exorcist letter and the April 24th 1978 letter, the Zodiac Killer seemingly didn't forget to mail both communications from San Mateo County or Santa Clara County according to the impression given by investigators. Yet he couldn't remember how to incorrectly spell the word "buttons" twice, within a time span of approximately thirty seconds, eight years earlier    

Mike Rodelli is convinced that DNA will not solve the Zodiac case because the authenticated letters were not licked by the sender. Mike Rodelli spoke to Alan Keel in 2007, who was a Criminalist at the San Francisco Police Department from 1996 to 1999. He gave Mike Rodelli the following information: "that there were two letters in possession of the department that, in contrast to the "true" Zodiac letters, had abundant saliva and DNA-containing oral epithelial cells on them, that DNA was easily extracted from these two letters, and that the DNA extracted from these two letters matched between them. These two letters were considered forgeries, since the "true" Zodiac verifiable letters had not been licked by the sender". According to Mike, Alan Keel had "analyzed two letters, one of which is the 1978 'forgery', and finds that this letter and one of the 1974 letters are loaded with saliva and cells. He then easily extracts DNA from both of these letters using the more primitive DNA technology of that time and finds that the DNA matches between those two letters, thus proving that one person sent both".

On October 29th 2021, Mike Rodelli stated on the Zodiac Killer message board "The fact remains that in 2007 Keel told me, as he had told Lafferty before me, that there is a 1974 forgery based on DNA and the ONLY 1974 letter that had been tested for the presence of cells during Keel's tenure (as demonstrated by the DNA chart that I believe Keel made in about 2000) was the Exorcist letter. This is not rocket science.  Even if it is not the Exorcist letter that Keel was talking about, it IS a candidate as being a forgery whose DNA matches the 1978 letter based on the information in the chart".

In his book, The Hunt For Zodiac, he stated "Now there was DNA proof that whoever had penned the April 1978 letter had also penned one of the 1974 letters. And apparently it was not Zodiac. According to the chart of DNA testing results compiled by SFPD's lab in ca. 2000, the only one of the 1974 letters that had been tested by Keel up to that time was the January Exorcist letter. This was the letter that had a swarm of palm prints on it. This created an interesting dilemma that lends credence to the possibility that this is a forged letter. Zodiac had penned a dozen letters prior to writing the Exorcist letter and had never left even a single palm print on them. So why had he suddenly and carelessly taken off his glove(s) to write this one and leave a virtual montage of his palms all over it. From that standpoint alone, it makes sense that someone else may have written the Exorcist letter, its bizarre content notwithstanding. While it is possible that one of the other three letters was tested for DNA subsequent to the compilation of the DNA summary chart that Keel had assembled, I believe that on balance the most likely candidate for being the 1974 forgery is the Exorcist letter until proven otherwise". Mike Rodelli is almost certainly correct that the 1974 Exorcist letter is overwhelmingly the most likely DNA match for the 1978 letter (because it was the only tested in the DNA chart), but here is the almost certain proof that neither the 1974 Exorcist or April 1978 letter were forgeries. 

Take a look at the address style, spacing and handwriting of the Exorcist letter envelope (below), and compare it to the two April 1970 communications (in particular the Dragon Card envelope). These two April 1970 envelopes had not been publicly released by 1974. They were the only confirmed Zodiac communications to use the address style of San Fran (dot) Chronicle prior to January 29th 1974. The January 29th 1974 author (if a hoaxer) could never have produced such similarity, or had knowledge of the address style of the April 1970 communications. But the real Zodiac Killer could have. 

Mike Rodelli is confident that the SLA letter mailed in 1974 was authored by the Zodiac Killer, stating "Envelopes: This is where the rubber truly meets the road in this discussion and where we can see that it is unlikely that anyone but Zodiac wrote the SLA letter. When you look at the hand printing on the SLA letter in a vacuum, it certainly does not jump off the page to me that it was penned by Zodiac. But when you take a close look at the envelope, that is a different story". Mike then gave me a list of envelopes to compare with the SLA envelope. If Mike is confident that these comparisons strongly argue for the SLA letter being Zodiac, then there is no way he can argue against the Exorcist letter envelope being the same author as the two April 1970 communications (particularly the Dragon Card). If the two April 1970 communications are genuine Zodiac, then so is the Exorcist letter. If the Exorcist letter is genuine, and the argument in favor of the Exorcist letter DNA matching the 1978 letter DNA by Mike Rodelli is correct, then the 1978 letter is genuine too.