David Oranchak has just released another excellent Youtube video on his Let's Crack Zodiac series, examining the numeric codes of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who killed three and injured twenty-three in a seventeen year reign of terror between 1978 and 1995. David Oranchak has delivered the often complex and difficult topic of cryptography to the masses by attempting to simplify this topic through his visual presentations, orchestrated in such a way, it elevates the understanding of the many who once found the art of cryptography perplexing and impenetrable. One of the key members of the team that finally broke the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher after fifty-one years, alongside Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke,

David Oranchak has sought to demystify the specialized skills of codebreaking through eighteen well produced videos. Although some uncharitable individuals claim the hard work in breaking the 340 cipher was achieved predominantly through the use of computers, this overlooks the fact that we have had these powerful computers for many years with no resolution until 2020, the requirement to develop new systems such as "zkdecrypto", and the human input required to recognize the Zodiac Killer's language as it emerges from the noise. These three gentlemen achieved what every other person failed to surmount in over fifty years - and for this - they deserve all the accolades they have been rightly bestowed. 

The 340 message, claimed by many to be another rambling and meaningless collection of Zodiac tropes, has in fact, opened the window to many other Zodiac Killer communications such as the first Fairfield letter mailed on December 7th 1969 and the third Fairfield letter mailed on or around May 2nd 1971, both containing cryptograms known as the Z38 and Z148 respectively (the latter having been solved). Both of these communications were related to the 340 cipher through coding and messaging, despite the 340 cipher solution being decades away from being solved. The Z38 appeared to know the wording in the 340 cipher before the code was broken, and the text in the accompanying letter seemed to pre-empt the wording in the Melvin Belli letter mailed on December 20th 1969, just thirteen days later. The Fairfield letter on December 7th 1969 also pre-empted the phone call to an Oklahoma radio station later that day, in which the author of the letter and phone caller both mocked the caller to the Jim Dunbar Show and Melvin Belli on October 22nd 1969. The phone caller to Oklahoma, mimicking the person who rang into the Jim Dunbar Show, also stated he left California because "it got too hot for me", just like phone caller to the Palo Alto Times newspaper, who stated he had left San Francisco because "because I'm too hot there", less than a day before the Jim Dunbar TV Show. If that isn't enough evidence that the Zodiac Killer was the responsible, we have the solved message in the Z148 calling out both Karl Francis Werner and Eric Weill (the Jim Dunbar caller) as phonys, just like the message in the 340 cipher calling out Eric Well by stating "That wasn't me on the TV show". The Jim Dunbar TV show, in which a second phone call was received on February 5th 1970, from somebody that the San Francisco Chronicle and homicide detectives described as a phony. 

To ascertain whether a communication is authentic or unproven, we must get away from consistently using the reasoning of "handwriting and tone" as a throwaway line to examine Zodiac communications in a matter of minutes. The interconnectivity of Zodiac communications must be examined through the picture created by the Zodiac Killer throughout many years and multiple correspondences and phone calls, just like the story of the San Jose murders which spanned the time period of August 3rd 1969 to July 13th 1971, when the Zodiac Killer mailed the Monticello card to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The interconnectivity between the Monticello card and the Z148 character cipher (and Pines card), the interconnectivity between the Z148 cipher and Albany letter code mailed in 1973, and the interconnectivity between the second Fairfield letter mailed on December 16th 1969 to the phone call delivered to the San Jose Highway Patrol on December 19th 1969, are just a fraction of the strands in the spider web that link these occurrences together. Just staring at a letter for a handful of minutes and declaring it a hoax, is inadequate, when we consider that the Zodiac Killer was traveling on a journey of murder and domestic terrorism spanning many years. To view the whole picture, please open the links provided in this article.

I am fairly confident that the Z38 code mailed on December 7th 1969 is somehow related to the 340 and 148 character ciphers through its messaging. Both the Z340 and Z148 ciphers referenced Eric Weill (the caller to the Jim Dunbar Show), by stating "That wasn't me on the TV show" and "stop listening to phonys" - and the Z38 code was mailed on the same day that somebody rang the Oklahoma radio station mimicking Eric Weill. My contention is that all three were the Zodiac Killer.

​I am not confident I can crack the Zodiac Killer's Z38 cipher because, despite having some limited knowledge of cryptography, this pales into insignificance when compared to individuals such as David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke, who ultimately broke the Zodiac Killer's masterpiece cipher. The recognition of the phrase "gas chamber" in the cryptogram was pivotal in understanding that the Zodiac Killer referenced recent newspaper articles (or the Jim Dunbar TV show) which detailed this very subject pertaining to Zodiac's capture. If we run with this concept, it may help to unearth the message in the Z38 code, which may (or may not) hold vital information of a contemporary nature and unlock the fifth of eight known enciphered messages. I have a strong belief that David Oranchak could make some valuable observations and inroads into the Z38 cipher if he chooses to tackle yet another Zodiac mystery, and thereby, attempt to close another chapter in this intriguing story.

As shown numerous times before, we can usually find the inspiration for Zodiac communications by looking at the most recent newspaper articles published in the Bay Area or Los Angeles. The November 21st 1969 letter to the San Jose Police Department was possibly directed at the recently widowed Diane Kennedy Pike, whose husband James Albert Pike had met an unfortunate death in Israel in September (information provided by Cragle). The letter caused enough alarm to institute 24-hour surveillance on the young woman and her residence. Information regarding this letter is sparse, but the language adopted in this communication is taken directly from the last San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on November 13th 1969 entitled Zodiac 'Legally Sane', featuring the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher and investigators attempts to snag the murderer of five.    

The newspaper snippet on the left reads "Through physical clues Zodiac has clumsily left behind at crime scenes and bits and pieces of information about himself he has inadvertently revealed in letters sent to The Chronicle, police feel sure there will be no doubt they have the right man in custody when an arrest is made". Eight days after this newspaper article was released, and thirteen days after he had claimed seven victims (the canonical five and the two San Jose murders of Snoozy & Furlong), the Zodiac Killer wrote to the San Jose Police Department and responded to "there will be no doubt they have the right man in custody when an arrest is made", by writing "There's no doubt I will do my Thing". The Zodiac Killer was clearly confident that no arrest was forthcoming, and his reign of terror would continue by doing his "Thing". His chronological list of victims by using months of the year would continue, when he wrote November=8 in his latest letter. He also added a short six character code of ~+62+~.  

His next letter, postmarked December 7th 1969 from Fairfield, was shown to be authentic by pre-empting the pleading nature of the Melvin Belli letter and his use of another code of 38 characters. This code contained similar characters to the 340 cipher, unlike the following 13-Symbol and 32-Symbol ciphers. It opened the door to the possibility that the 38 character code was somehow related to the 340 cipher and maybe contained a clue to its construction. Druzer, an avid and diligent Zodiac researcher, mailed me the 38 character code deciphered with the 340 cipher key. The result is mostly garbled, but he drew my attention to the final line of both codes ending in "death". The Zodiac Killer only took a 4+ horizontal combination of characters from the 340 cipher to the 38 character code on two occasions. Those were HER> and AIKꞮ+, which spelled the standalone words of IRON and DEATH before the diagonal shift was applied to the 340 cipher to reveal the message. Despite the last two rows of the 340 cipher being a mixture of forward and backward reading words, the word "death" sits at the end of both the 340 and 38 character ciphers, indicating that this word likely concludes the message in each instance. 

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

The above image from the San Francisco Chronicle on November 13th 1969 shows the correlation on three rows of the 38 character code to the 340 cipher. We have 4, 5 and 5 characters from three rows of the 38 character code, organized in the correct order to three rows on the 340 cipher. The crucial 10th row of the 340 cipher which begins the second section of the 3-part cipher (9, 9 and 2), contains the four symbols of ~+62+~ in the correct order (and FB which numerically equals 62). Both the November 21st 1969 and December 7th 1969 letters were unreleased to the public, so it would be difficult to envisage how two different authors would choose to supply two relatively short codes that mimicked important features of the 340 cipher independent of one another. The three rows of the Z38 highlighted in blue rectangles above, all either begin or end a row on the 340 cipher - as does the six character code of the November 21st 1969 letter. Was the 38 character code on December 7th 1969 a clue to the construction of the 340 cipher or somehow related to the message ultimately found within it? If so, then the short code of ~+62+~ in the November 21st 1969 letter could be somehow related to the 340 cipher also. The December 16th 1969 letter, also mailed from Fairfield, contained another short code of five characters. This completed a quartet of puzzles from the Zodiac Killer in just over a month.

​The Zodiac Killer was likely reading this newspaper article on November 13th 1969 when he used the wording "There's no doubt I will do my Thing", so it's perfectly feasible that the presence of his 340 cipher prominently displayed within this article, may have been the inspiration to provide further codes based upon its construction. The newspaper article concluded with "Amateur cryptographers by the hundreds were at work trying to decode the cryptogram from Zodiac published in yesterday's Chronicle. It was an amateur - a Salinas teacher - who cracked Zodiac's cipher message in August to which he said the people he killed would serve him as his slaves in paradise. One cryptographer, who has studied the latest message, says it definitely contains word patterns hidden in the 340 symbols. "There is a definite message" he said. "Testing shows it is not just gibberish. Once that is determined then it's just a matter of patience before it pieces itself together". Did the Zodiac Killer take note of this section and provide "bits and pieces" in his next two codes to help in its decryption? 

The Zodiac Killer had murdered three people, seriously injured one, and mailed four communications, including three cryptograms forming one whole, by August 4th 1969, yet failed to receive the front page coverage he felt he deserved from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner newspapers. This may have influenced his decision to switch from gun to knife, when he read the San Francisco Chronicle article on August 6th 1969 regarding the brutal knife killings of Debra Furlong and Kathie Snoozy three days earlier in San Jose, which received extensive from page coverage. After this, the Zodiac Killer turned up on the shores of Lake Berryessa armed with bayonet type weapon measuring 9 to 11 inches. He would later claim the murders of Snoozy & Furlong by the addition of "Aug" in the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card.

The extensive coverage of the Tate–LaBianca murders at 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles may also have had a galvanising effect in the Zodiac Killer's switch to a more hands-on approach at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. However, the Zodiac Killer would intimate his involvement in the Snoozy & Furlong many times by the close of 1971, yet would not reference the Manson murders once. This suggests that the driving force was predominantly the murders of Snoozy & Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969.  

​As with many Zodiac communications, they were often a response to recent newspaper articles detailing his exploits. So with this in mind I took a look at the Zodiac Killer's letter mailed from Fairfield on December 16th 1969, stating "This is the Zodiac speaking. I just want to tell you this state is in trouble. I will go for the government life. So don't forget me. I will kill more people than you can count. So look for more blood.". (corrected for errors). The following article was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 16th 1969, a matter of hours before the Fairfield letter was mailed with an afternoon postmark. Therefore, a strong possibility exists that this article featuring the Zodiac Killer could have influenced the language and tone of the Fairfield letter. The opening sentence of the Fairfield letter: "I just want to tell you this state is in trouble", can be seen to be synonymous with the newspaper article that headlines with "State Furnishes List of Murders Similar to 7 Slayings Here", as well as the opening paragraph of the article that adds "State officials have provided Los Angeles police with details of 30 unsolved murders". The Zodiac Killer would counter the list provided by state officials with a list of his own. At the foot of his Fairfield letter he would give us a list of locations and the number of police he promised to kill in each city (38 in total). 

Government Official means any officer, employee or other individual acting in an official capacity for a Governmental Authority or agency or instrumentality thereof (including any state-owned or controlled enterprise). This may explain the Zodiac Killer's use of the phrase "government life" in his letter. It appeared that the Fairfield letter was specifically responding to this newspaper article - both of which corresponded to one date. Susan Denise Atkins (21), one of six persons charged with the Tate-LaBiaca murders, provided information to police where they could find items of disposed bloody clothing related to the Cielo Drive attack, detailed in the article as "A station spokesman said the clothes, stained with what appeared to be blood and knotted in a bundle were turned over to police". I have highlighted these below in reference to the Zodiac Killer's statement of "look for more blood" in the Fairfield letter. The police were effectively dispatched to look for items of clothing stained with blood in the Tate-LaBianca slayings, to which Zodiac suggested there would be more blood in future for police to find. 

Two days later, on December 18th 1969, another article by Dial Torgersen in the Los Angeles Times, again featured the Tate-LaBianca murders, and the San Jose murders of Snoozy & Furlong, with accompanying references to the Zodiac Killer and the once consideration he may have been involved in the two teenagers deaths. The following day, on December 19th 1969, the Zodiac Killer made a payphone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". He had threatened to kill one copper in San Jose in his Fairfield list, but had now upped that total to five, in line with rest of the Fairfield communication (unpublished at the time this phone call was made). The family of five, I believe, was Mr. and Mrs. Furlong and their three remaining children, Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11, who featured heavily in the San Jose article on August 6th 1969 in the San Francisco Chronicle. The article that likely triggered the attack at Lake Berryessa. The article that triggered the choice of "Monticello" in the Zodiac Monticello card on July 13th 1971, where Kathie Snoozy was buried in San Jose. "Funeral services for Kathy were held on Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park", which is situated in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose.

The Zodiac Killer's 38 character code may be solved by examining three of his other ciphers (two solved and one unsolved), including the day he mailed the first Fairfield letter in December. The Z340 (November 8th 1969), Z38 (December 7th 1969), Z13 (April 20th 1970) and Z148 (probably May 3rd 1971) all have one other date in common - October 22nd 1969.

[1] The Z340 (November 8th 1969) was a response to the October 22nd 1969 Jim Dunbar Show, stating that the person who phoned into the show was effectively an imposter or phony, encoding a contemporary message and using wording similar to the headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 24th 1969. The 340 message read, in part "That wasn't me on the TV Show", mimicking the headlines of "That Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know" and "It Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know". He also responded to the Jim Dunbar Show and the October 23rd 1969 Chronicle article, entitled "A TV Runaround With Zodiac Calls", in which "Belli told Sam he'd attempt to get a promise from District Attorney John J. Ferdon that Zodiac would be spared the gas chamber if convicted of murder". The Zodiac Killer responded in code that he was "not afraid of the gas chamber".​ 

​[2] The Z148 code (probably mailed May 3rd 1971) was again contemporary in nature, and a response to the police arrest and interview of Karl Francis Werner on April 29th 1971. Three newspaper articles ran with the headlines "San Jose Student Held in Slaying of Three Girls", "San Jose Student Held in Slaying of 3 Girls" and "Youth Arraigned in Knife Slayings of Three Girls". The Zodiac Killer encoded these headlines in his 148 character cipher by promising to "skin three kids and make a suit from the skin" if his latest letter was not published. He also encoded the statement "stop listening to phonys" in the Z148, referring to both Karl Francis Werner (who was being interviewed for the Snoozy & Furlong murders on August 3rd 1969, to which the Zodiac Killer had already claimed as his victims) and Eric Weill (who phoned into the Jim Dunbar Show at least twice, claiming to be Zodiac}. The second phone call was reported in San Francisco Chronicle on February 6th 1970, entitled "Talk Show's 'Zodiac' Caller a Phony", with Inspector David Toschi pitching in: "Homicide detectives later listened to a tape recording of the conversation and concluded that Sam was a phony. It most certainly was not Zodiac, said Inspector David Toschi".  The headlines of the October 24th 1969 and February 6th 1970 Chronicle articles both placed within the encoded text of the Z340 and Z148.

[3] The Zodiac Killer mailed the Z13 on April 20th 1970, very likely a response to the October 22nd 1969 article in the San Francisco Examiner, entitled "Cipher Expert Dares Zodiac to Tell Name". It read "Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: 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 Allen 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, which will truly and honestly include his name". The Zodiac responded on April 20th 1970 by stating "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is___ " The letters N, A, M and E could be found in the ciphertext of the code.

[4] The Z38 mailed on December 7th 1969 began with "This is the Zodiac speaking. I just need help", mimicking the caller (Eric Weill) to the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. It is clear that this cry for help was a disingenuous attempt at ridicule from a killer who either listened to the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969, or read the subsequent newspaper articles. On October 22nd 1969, the Los Angeles Times reported that "Belli was put on the line, and the voice said "I want help". On October 23rd 1969, the Desert Sun newspaper claimed that Melvin Belli told the caller “All of San Francisco wants to help you. The hand is out, you can feel the hands out.” On the same day of December 7th 1969, we have a man mailing a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle mocking the call to the Jim Dunbar Show by stating "I just need help", followed a few hours later by a call to an Oklahoma radio station by a man doing an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. This impressionist caller could possibly be the Zodiac Killer mocking the Jim Dunbar Show, just as he had done in the letter earlier that day.

​Therefore, we have the Z340 (November 8th 1969), Z38 (December 7th 1969), Z13 (April 20th 1970) and Z148 (probably May 3rd 1971), all relevant to the date of October 22nd 1969. Bearing in mind the Z38 carried the same four and five characters from the beginning and the end of the 340 cipher, along with the observations above, we could expect the Z38 message to be somehow related to these other ciphers. The message may very well lie in the newspaper inches from October 22nd 1969 to December 7th 1969 - and may be related to the Jim Dunbar TV Show yet again. 

This is a continuation from the article The Day the Zodiac Killer Rang Oklahoma. The original article will be replicated here under Part One, immediately followed by some fresh information under Part Two (with the help of Zodiac Killer Net forum).

Part One: ​An imposter by the name of Eric Weill called into the Jim Dunbar KGO-TV station on the morning of October 22nd 1969 and attempted to pass himself off to the host and Melvin Belli as the infamous Zodiac Killer. During the phone call Eric Weill pleaded with Melvin Belli, stating "I want help".  On October 23rd 1969, the Desert Sun newspaper claimed that Melvin Belli told the caller “All of San Francisco wants to help you. The hand is out, you can feel the hands out.” The Zodiac Killer clearly latched onto this plea for help, when in mocking fashion he wrote to the residence of Melvin Belli on December 20th 1969 and stated "please help me" on three occasions, in accompaniment to the phrase "I cannot reach out for help". However, this wasn't the first time the Zodiac Killer would mock the spectacle of the Jim Dunbar Show, when on December 7th 1969 he mailed a letter from Fairfield to the San Francisco Chronicle stating "I just need help. I will kill again so expect it any time soon the will be a cop". Thirteen days later, the Melvin Belli letter would replicate this plea for help, despite the fact the December 7th 1969 correspondence was never released to the newspapers. But here's the kicker.

After the Zodiac Killer communication, postmarked December 7th 1969, a phone call was received later that night by the host of commercial radio station KTOK in Oklahoma City claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer. KTOK news director Larry Lamotte told the San Francisco Chronicle that a man rang the station and declared that he had to leave California because "it got too hot for me", remarking that the man did an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. This is the crucial part. On the same day of December 7th 1969, we have a man mailing a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle mocking the call to the Jim Dunbar Show by stating "I just need help", followed a few hours later by a call to an Oklahoma radio station by a man doing an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. This impressionist caller could possibly be the Zodiac Killer mocking the Jim Dunbar Show, just as he had done in the letter earlier that day - and would do thirteen days later when he thrice pleaded "please help me". There is no way of finding out the full transcript of the phone call to the Oklahoma radio station, but it wouldn't be too far-fetched to believe he mockingly asked for help on this occasion too.   

The caller to the Oklahoma radio station, doing an impression of the Jim Dunbar Show caller, claimed he left California because "it got too hot for me". A few hours before the October 22nd 1969 Oakland Police Department phone call requesting that either Melvin Belli or Francis Lee Bailey, high profile lawyers at the time, appear on a chat show hosted by Jim Dunbar later that day, somebody rang the Palo Alto Times newspaper claiming to be the Zodiac Killer and stated that he had left San Francisco because "because I'm too hot there". Two similar pieces of phraseology connected by two phone calls and the Jim Dunbar Show.

​In addition, we have the December 7th 1969 letter stating "I will kill again so expect it any time soon the will be a cop", followed by the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter listing 38 "cops" as potential victims, and a December 19th 1969 payphone call to Sergeant Robert Rengsdorff of the San Jose Highway Patrol threatening "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". Three threats to kill cops within twelve days of December. Then came the mocking Melvin Belli letter just one day later. Neither of the Fairfield letters were released to the newspapers, making the December 19th 1969 payphone caller just another lucky chap if it wasn't the Zodiac Killer. It is fairly evident that the Zodiac Killer was responsible for many more phone calls than the two he has been accredited with, including a phone call to the Santa Rosa Police Department on October 15th 1969. 

The apparent familiarity with the KTOK radio station, by choosing to call one of its hosts over 1,000 miles from the Bay Area, could suggest an affinity to their style of broadcasting. During the 1960s KTOK radio station featured news, sport and adult music, with the 1960 Broadcasting Yearbook describing its content as "toe tapping music (no rock and roll) and all the announcers are adults". That music included such artists as Tony Bennett, The Mills Brothers and Al Martino. This may give an insight into the maturity and age of the Zodiac Killer when the phone call was made on December 7th 1969, in a year when all three sets of eyewitnesses at Presidio Heights described the Zodiac Killer as 40 years or above. Was the Zodiac Killer an avid listener to this radio station, or did he once have roots in Oklahoma?   

Part Two: Then came the ridiculous statements in the Lodi News-Sentinel by a detective sergeant and KTOK news director, Larry Lamotte. The detective sergeant told the Sentinel that "Major Miller told us it was a hoax. I don't know if we even looked into the case". Apparently the police ended their investigation inside of one day - and according to Larry Lamotte they didn't even come to collect recordings of the man's voice when offered the tapes. Larry Lamotte remarked "I don't see how it can be anything but a hoax. The caller was too familiar with Oklahoma City. He knew the name of our shopping centers and mentioned our high rate of traffic fatalities and even the governor's 'Live for the 70s program". Well, maybe he had visited Oklahoma recently, and/or had possibly lived there at some point Larry. Maybe he read newspapers and magazines.   

When the caller was asked if he was the Zodiac Killer, he stated "I could be", and added that "I don't need to kill. There are too many people killed on the highways and that's legal". The conversation continued with the caller remarking "You're going to try and trace it" - and when met with the affirmative - replied "then I better hang up". The caller added one final thing, threatening more killings by stating "There are plenty of parking lots" - mentioning one large Oklahoma shopping center by name. This call to Oklahoma City on December 7th 1969 came forty-seven days after the Jim Dunbar Show, yet it mimicked the October 22nd 1969 call to KGO-TV station the very same day a Zodiac letter was postmarked to the San Francisco Chronicle, also mimicking the Jim Dunbar Show hoaxer by stating "I just need help". Again, predating the Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969 that thrice pleaded "please help me". The caller to the Oklahoma radio station stated he had to leave California because "it got too hot for me", just like the caller to the Palo Alto newspaper just hours before the Oakland Police Department call in the early morning hours of October 22nd 1969. On that occasion the caller stated that he left San Francisco "because I'm too hot there". So, the notion the Oklahoma City caller was an isolated hoaxer that was currently resident in Oklahoma doesn't stack up, especially when you consider the December 7th 1969 letter was postmarked Fairfield, California. This Oklahoma City recording could reveal the true voice of the Zodiac Killer. At the very least, it should have been played to Bryan Hartnell, Nancy Slover and David Slaight, who had all heard the Zodiac Killer's voice a matter of months earlier.       

Additional Information: On October 19th 1969, the San Francisco Examiner ran an article entitled "Message to the Zodiac Killer". It read: "Five people are dead. Let there be no more killings. Police say you are intelligent. If you are, then listen to reason. You are being hunted everywhere in the state, and nation. You are alone in this world. You can share your secrets with no one. No friend can help you. You are as much a victim of your crimes as those whose lives you snuffed out. You cannot walk the streets a free man. There is no safety for you, anywhere. And you will be caught, there is no doubt. You face life as a hunted, tormented animal - unless you help yourself. We ask that you give yourself up to the Examiner. We offer you no protection, and no sympathy. But we do offer you fair treatment, the assurance of medical help and the full benefits of your legal rights. And we offer to tell your story. Why have you killed? How has life wronged you? Call the City Editor of the Examiner any time, day or night. The telephone number is (415) 781 24 24. Call collect. Your call will not be traced".

This message may have inspired the Zodiac Killer to ring the Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969 requesting that either Melvin Belli or Francis Lee Bailey, two high profile lawyers at the time, appear on a chat show hosted by Jim Dunbar later that day. The San Francisco Examiner article was published on October 19th 1969 with the assurance of "legal rights" if the Zodiac Killer phoned in - and requested the murderer to "give yourself up". It was reported in a magazine article in August 1971 that after the caller to Oakland Police made contact, the main thrust of the conversation was that the Zodiac Killer wanted to give himself up, but only if he could be represented by a famous lawyer. Approximately six weeks after the Oakland call, a letter mailed on December 7th 1969 to the San Francisco Chronicle (now validated as Zodiac correspondence), mocked the dialogue in the Jim Dunbar Show by opening his communication with "I just need help", but after threatening to kill a cop he stated "I will turn myself in". This was the only time the Zodiac Killer offered to turn himself in, other than the caller to the Oakland Police Department. To the best of my knowledge no newspaper articles immediately subsequent to the Jim Dunbar Show mentioned the Oakland caller offering to turn himself in - and neither did the Jim Dunbar Show hoaxer. This last section will be deleted if fresh information proves otherwise.  

An imposter by the name of Eric Weill called into the Jim Dunbar KGO-TV station on the morning of October 22nd 1969 and attempted to pass himself off to the host and Melvin Belli as the infamous Zodiac Killer. During the phone call Eric Weill pleaded with Melvin Belli, stating "I want help".  On October 23rd 1969, the Desert Sun newspaper claimed that Melvin Belli told the caller “All of San Francisco wants to help you. The hand is out, you can feel the hands out.” The Zodiac Killer clearly latched onto this plea for help, when in mocking fashion he wrote to the residence of Melvin Belli on December 20th 1969 and stated "please help me" on three occasions, in accompaniment to the phrase "I cannot reach out for help". However, this wasn't the first time the Zodiac Killer would mock the spectacle of the Jim Dunbar Show, when on December 7th 1969 he mailed a letter from Fairfield to the San Francisco Chronicle stating "I just need help. I will kill again so expect it any time soon the will be a cop". Thirteen days later, the Melvin Belli letter would replicate this plea for help, despite the fact the December 7th 1969 correspondence was never released to the newspapers. But here's the kicker.

After the Zodiac Killer communication, postmarked December 7th 1969, a phone call was received later that night by the host of commercial radio station KTOK in Oklahoma City claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer. KTOK news director Larry Lamotte told the San Francisco Chronicle that a man rang the station and declared that he had to leave California because "it got too hot for me", remarking that the man did an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. This is the crucial part. On the same day of December 7th 1969, we have a man mailing a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle mocking the call to the Jim Dunbar Show by stating "I just need help", followed a few hours later by a call to an Oklahoma radio station by a man doing an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969. This impressionist caller could possibly be the Zodiac Killer mocking the Jim Dunbar Show, just as he had done in the letter earlier that day - and would do thirteen days later when he thrice pleaded "please help me". There is no way of finding out the full transcript of the phone call to the Oklahoma radio station, but it wouldn't be too far-fetched to believe he mockingly asked for help on this occasion too.   

The caller to the Oklahoma radio station, doing an impression of the Jim Dunbar Show caller, claimed he left California because "it got too hot for me". A few hours before the October 22nd 1969 Oakland Police Department phone call requesting that either Melvin Belli or Francis Lee Bailey, high profile lawyers at the time, appear on a chat show hosted by Jim Dunbar later that day, somebody rang the Palo Alto Times newspaper claiming to be the Zodiac Killer and stated that he had left San Francisco because "because I'm too hot there". Two similar pieces of phraseology connected by two phone calls and the Jim Dunbar Show.

​In addition, we have the December 7th 1969 letter stating "I will kill again so expect it any time soon the will be a cop", followed by the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter listing 38 "cops" as potential victims, and a December 19th 1969 payphone call to Sergeant Robert Rengsdorff of the San Jose Highway Patrol threatening "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". Three threats to kill cops within twelve days of December. Then came the mocking Melvin Belli letter just one day later. Neither of the Fairfield letters were released to the newspapers, making the December 19th 1969 payphone caller just another lucky chap if it wasn't the Zodiac Killer. It is fairly evident that the Zodiac Killer was responsible for many more phone calls than the two he has been accredited with, including a phone call to the Santa Rosa Police Department on October 15th 1969. 

The Zodiac Killer may have attempted to ring the Jim Dunbar Show before the murder of Paul Stine on October 11th 1969. On October 22nd 1969, Eric Weill (Sam) rang into the morning KGO-TV Jim Dunbar Show - but when Jim Dunbar and Melvin Belli interviewed this man it was on the understanding he may have been the infamous Zodiac Killer, with the host asking him "Did you try to call us one other time, about two or three weeks ago". This suggests that Jim Dunbar was aware of a previous attempt by the Zodiac Killer to contact the show prior to the murder of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969. The Zodiac Killer may have attempted to contact the Jim Dunbar Show for a second time, when he rang the Oakland Police Department on October 22nd 1969, but again his debut on the show was thwarted by imposter Eric Weill. With this in mind, did he then choose to redirect his attention to a different radio station in Oklahoma on December 7th 1969? But why would he choose KTOK radio station in Oklahoma? There has to be a reason.  

The apparent familiarity with the KTOK radio station, by choosing to call one of its hosts over 1,000 miles from the Bay Area, could suggest an affinity to their style of broadcasting. During the 1960s KTOK radio station featured news, sport and adult music, with the 1960 Broadcasting Yearbook describing its content as "toe tapping music (no rock and roll) and all the announcers are adults". That music included such artists as Tony Bennett, The Mills Brothers and Al Martino. This may give an insight into the maturity and age of the Zodiac Killer when the phone call was made on December 7th 1969, in a year when all three sets of eyewitnesses at Presidio Heights described the Zodiac Killer as 40 years or above. Was the Zodiac Killer an avid listener to this radio station, or did he once have roots in Oklahoma?   

So, could the 38 character code hold some further reference to the Jim Dunbar Show, or the upcoming appearance on the KTOK radio station? If the Z38 is somehow related to the Z340 (through its opening 4 characters and 5 ending characters), does it carry a similar message? The first communication after the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969 was the 'Dripping Pen' card and 340 cipher mailed on November 8th 1969, stating "that wasn't me on the TV show". With the December 7th 1969 letter and KTOK radio call coming on the same day, could it have any bearing on the message contained within the code? "That was me on the Oklahoma radio station" would have certainly been the ideal contemporary message to encode.  

Just a quick recap: ​The author of the 38 character code prominently featured two sections of the 340 cipher, that included the beginning 4 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher, and the last 5 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher. The only logical reason for the Zodiac Killer to have done this, would have been to give us a clue to the solving of the 340 cipher. When the code key is applied to the 340 cipher before any period 19 (diagonal shift), the first 4 plaintext characters of the 340 cipher spell IRON. The last 5 plaintext characters spell DEATH. As previously pointed out, a hoaxer would have had to be extremely lucky to keep the beginning and ending of the 340 cipher intact, to the tune of 4 & 5 characters (when creating the Z38), that just happened to create two English words in these notable positions. One would have expected a lazy hoaxer to replicate ciphertext characters 333 to 338 in the 340 cipher, because these characters were close to the spelling of "Zodiac". But the author of the December 7th 1969 letter refrained from doing this, choosing to separate these 6 ciphertext characters, so as to form the word DEATH at the end of the 38 character code. See here.

The red rectangle above (around the first three rows of the Z38 code) represents the first 18 rows of the Z340 cipher, These sections both begin with the letter H and end with the number 9 (or reversed P), The last line in the red rectangle contains five characters, all of which can be found on the last line of the 340 cipher (that is solved only using the period 19 diagonal shift). If you apply the period 19 shift to the red rectangle of the Z38, you get H+, mirroring the first two characters seen when you apply the period 19 shift to the 340 ciphertext.  The blue rectangle (around the last two rows of the Z38 code) represents the last two rows of the Z340 (solved absent of the period 19 diagonal shift). The final five characters in the blue rectangle spell DEATH when using the 340 code key. The author of the December 7th 1969 letter (containing the Z38 code) also predated the appeal to Melvin Belli by stating "I just need help". The Zodiac Killer could not have copied the December 7th letter because it was unpublished by the time the Melvin Belli letter was mailed on December 20th 1969. It is such a shame that the majority of the Zodiac community dismiss this communication (and its sister communication on December 16th 1969) based on their extensive research of "it doesn't look like a Zodiac letter". A great opportunity to reveal another Zodiac message is sadly being ignored.  

On December 3rd 2020 David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke unlocked the mystery to the 51-year-old 340 cipher, mailed by the Zodiac Killer on November 8th 1969. On December 7th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed a communication from Fairfield containing a 38 character code, yet to be broken. In recent years I have had little doubt that this letter was genuine Zodiac material, but the solving of the 340 cipher put to rest any lingering doubt regarding its authenticity.

​The author of the 38 character code prominently featured two sections of the 340 cipher, that included the beginning 4 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher, and the last 5 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher. The only logical reason for the Zodiac Killer to have done this, would have been to give us a clue to the solving of the 340 cipher. When the code key is applied to the 340 cipher before any period 19 (diagonal shift), the first 4 plaintext characters of the 340 cipher spell IRON. The last 5 plaintext characters spell DEATH. As previously pointed out, a hoaxer would have had to be extremely lucky to keep the beginning and ending of the 340 cipher intact, to the tune of 4 & 5 characters (when creating the Z38), that just happened to create two English words in these notable positions. One would have expected a lazy hoaxer to replicate ciphertext characters 333 to 338 in the 340 cipher, because these characters were close to the spelling of "Zodiac". But the author of the December 7th 1969 letter refrained from doing this, choosing to separate these 6 ciphertext characters, so as to form the word DEATH at the end of the 38 character code. 

After the solving of the 408 and 340 cryptograms in 1969 and 2020, there is a strong argument to be had, that the Zodiac Killer's remaining unbroken codes also contain a message, which includes the Z38 mailed just one month after the 340 cipher. I have attempted to tackle the Z38 code, but it needs an expert in code breaking to take a look at this encipherment, such as Dave Oranchak, who I believe could shed more light on this small code. The message beneath - at the very least - should provide a little more insight into the thinking of the Zodiac Killer during this crucial period. 

Did the Zodiac Killer create the 38 character code so soon after his November 8th 1969 offering as a prompt to the solution of the 340 cipher? I hope Dave Oranchak will take a look and possibly correct some of the incorrect assumptions I may have made. Thanks to Druzer, a regular contributor to both main Zodiac forums, for his assistance in this matter.
CLICK HERE FOR UNOBSTRUCTED VIEW OF CODE.

The breaking of the 340 cipher by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke on December 3rd 2020 was a fantastic achievement after 51 years, only slightly tarnished by the banality of the message encoded by the Zodiac Killer, in which he denied it was him on the Jim Dunbar Show, along with the usual paradice and slaves nonsense. However, it may have gone a long way to verifying two previous communications once considered inauthentic Zodiac letters. 

The 340 message stated "That wasn't me on the TV show", thereby suggesting by inference that the person who called into the Jim Dunbar TV show on October 22nd 1969 was an imposter and fraud. Shortly after the April 29th 1971 arrest of Karl Francis Werner for the murders of Kathie Reyne Snoozy, Debra Gaye Furlong and Kathy Bilek in San Jose and Saratoga, another cryptogram was mailed from Fairfield to the San Francisco Chronicle containing 148 characters. It too was effectively delivering a contemporary message, again claiming that the person (Karl Francis Werner) being 'interviewed' was an imposter and fraud, stating "Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys". The 340 cipher was unbroken in 1971, yet the author of another contemporary enciphered message was again claiming that the person in the spotlight was a "phony". The only difference this time was the Zodiac Killer was the "phony", falsely attempting to wrestle back the murder victims of Snoozy & Furlong on August 3rd 1969, that he had claimed in the Dripping Pen card mailed on November 8th 1969, with his addition of "Aug" in his chronological victim count of seven. He would further compound matters by adding the April 11th 1971 murder of Kathy Bilek to this list, when on July 13th 1971 he claimed her murder in the Monticello card by stating "In The Woods Dies April".

This should allay any doubts as to the authenticity of this communication, especially when you consider that the Monticello card "shought victims 21" just like the written message accompanying the 148 character cipher - and both were withheld from the newspapers.

The 340 cipher also went a long way to verifying the 38 character code, mailed from Fairfield on December 7th 1969, because both cryptograms isolated the word "death" at the end of each message. The person who created the Z38 deliberately separated the prominent ZO∆AIKꞮ+ characters on the bottom line of the 340 cipher, into AIKꞮ+ on the bottom line of the 38 character code. thereby manufacturing the word "death". Druzer, a valued contributor to both main Zodiac forums, pointed out the same thing, stating  "The most curious/compelling feats are that the author isolated actual words, most notably death, and that he refrained from copying Zodaik, which would certainly be expected of a hoaxer".  

The 340 cipher did indeed harbor a banal and relatively uninteresting message after a long 51 year wait, but it can be argued that the solving of the message contained within it, may have handed us two more confirmed Zodiac communications to examine, offering fresh insights into an investigation often blighted by stagnation. The Z38 can be connected to the 340 cipher through two notable portions of each code, The words IRON and DEATH can be found in both, before any period 19 shift is applied. If these two enciphered cryptograms are connected by beginning and end, then why should the middle section of the Z38 be any different. The Z38 and Z340 could very well be have a much bigger relationship, yet to be unearthed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While running experiments through the AZ Decrypt on December 3rd 2020, Dave Oranchak noticed two sections of text which grabbed his attention. A partial message appeared within the array of gibberish of "hope you are trying to catch me" and "or the gas chamber", that ultimately provided the chink of light to finally decode the Zodiac Killer's seemingly impenetrable cipher. The Zodiac Killer usually responded to the recent newspaper articles he had read, so the reference to "gas chamber" in light of the recent Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969, finally opened the door to a cipher many believed would never be solved. The collaboration between Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke was about to bring an early Christmas present to everybody who has followed the Zodiac case for many decades. The dedication of Dave Oranchak in continuing to believe that a possible solution existed, despite the nagging doubts that the cipher may have been non-cryptographic in nature, is testimony to a man who ultimately followed his beliefs and succeeded - and a man that I have huge admiration for. Congratulations to everybody involved in finally decoding the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher (shown below).

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.

The inspiration for this message can be found in the pages of the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle from October 22nd 1969 to October 25th 1969. The first challenge came on the same day (October 22nd) as the Jim Dunbar TV show aired, when Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association challenged the Zodiac Killer "to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts, however complicated". The Zodiac Killer certainly made his encryption process more complicated, but unsurprisingly didn't give us his name. However, it appears that this challenge was the catalyst for his second and third cryptograms. The following day, on October 23rd 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle released an article entitled A TV Runaround With Zodiac Calls. Whether the Zodiac Killer watched the Jim Dunbar Show is incidental, because this article (on left) contained the possible inspiration behind the Zodiac Killer stating "I am not afraid of the gas chamber".   

The San Francisco Chronicle article on October 24th 1969 headlined with That Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know, to which the Zodiac Killer would reply in his message in the 340 cipher by confirming "That wasn't me on the TV show". Then, on October 25th 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle ran another article entitled Cops No Closer on Zodiac Identity, containing the text "Zodiac struck last on October 11 when he gunned down cab-driver Paul Stine on Washington Street in Presidio Heights. He revealed himself the killer in a letter sent to the Chronicle three days later. Since then he has remained silent". The question would be, how was the Zodiac Killer going to respond to the silence attributed to him by Paul Avery? Probably by choosing a greeting card with a Dripping Pen and accompanied by the words "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen". The increased complexity of the coding used, along with everything the Zodiac Killer wrote in the decrypted 340 cipher, was likely inspired by these four consecutive newspaper articles in October. If the 340 cipher was specifically crafted subsequent to his purchase of the Dripping Pen card, then this more complicated offering was dreamt up between October 25th 1969 and November 8th 1969.

The excellent work of Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke has permanently closed one chapter of the Zodiac Killer story, but has opened many more. "The chase is better than the catch" comes to mind, when that relenting pursuit of something just out of reach is finally taken away. The exhilaration of finally discovering the solution to a 51-year-old mystery, tinged with the realization that the search is finally over. Everybody likes a good mystery. But that mystery is no more.

One new path to pursue, may lie in the three immediate communications following the 340 cipher. Those three being, the November 21st 1969 letter mailed to the San Jose Police Department and the two Fairfield letters mailed on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969. All three contained rudimentary coding that may, or may not be clues pertaining to the 340 cipher. The December 7th 1969 code was particularly interesting because it contained 38 characters, many of which ran in sequences mimicking the 340 cipher.

Here is just a simple observation regarding the two December codes in respect to the 340 cipher solution and the reference to "death" on two occasions. If we take a look at the small fragment of code on the December 16th 1969 letter, you will notice that its design somewhat mimics the configuration on the Halloween card. We have five characters, followed by four small crosshairs in each quadrant of the large crosshairs. This had similarity to "paradice" and "slaves" fashioned in cruciform on the Halloween card, accompanied by the four methods of "death" in each quadrant. The Tim Holt comic book, believed to be the inspiration behind the Halloween card, actually carried the full message of "death by knife", "death by rope", "death by gun" and "death by fire". Therefore, the five characters of coding on the December 16th 1969 letter (precedent to the crosshairs) could be the word "death".   

Then I decided to use the plaintext 'solution' of "death" and place these alphabetical characters into the Zodiac Killer's code mailed on December 7th 1969. You will notice that the letters "A" and "H" are both represented by a circle with vertical line bisecting its midsection (which is unfortunate), so I will only use the first four plaintext characters of "DEAT" and place them into the first four corresponding ciphertext characters that appear in the 38 character code on December 7th 1969. It's nothing earth shattering, but this section of the cipher caught my eye.

The animosity of the Zodiac Killer toward law enforcement increased after Captain Martin Lee accused the Zodiac Killer of being a liar with respect to his escape into Presidio park, but at no time did the Zodiac Killer directly threaten to murder a cop until his two Fairfield letters were mailed on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969, both of which were seemingly disregarded as hoaxes and never published in the newspapers. The second Fairfield letter was particularly interesting because it actually provided a list of the number of cops he was going to kill in each city, including one in San Jose.

These were now direct threats to murder members of law enforcement. Not only had he never done this before, but to this point, no threats on San Jose had ever featured in any published newspaper articles. The San Jose letter mailed on November 21st 1969 also failed to make the newspapers, just like the two Fairfield letters. Yet, three days after the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter, on December 19th 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang police dispatcher Shirley Searey at the San Jose Highway Patrol station issuing two threats that mirrored the contents of the Fairfield letter (despite the fact it was unpublished).

The Fairfield letter, mailed on December 16th 1969, contained the totals of police he wanted to kill. It also contained a picture of a dripping blade entitled The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac. This was effectively an extension of his "by knife" attribution on the car door of Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, glorifying in the fact he was responsible for the brutal stabbing of Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard alongside the Knoxville Road, as well as the frenzied murder of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong on August 3rd 1969 in San Jose, which he would ultimately claim by the listing of "Aug" in his running victim count on the Dripping Pen card. The second Fairfield letter was clearly still in his mind (probably angered by its failure to be published), when he made the phone call to Shirley Searey at the San Jose Highway Patrol station on December 19th 1969. He now wasn't threatening to kill one cop in San Jose, he had upped that total to five, more in line with the rest of his list on December 16th 1969. The caller stated "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". The phone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol station and the wording of "you officers", shouldn't leave anybody in any doubt as to where the threat was primarily aimed. Bearing in mind The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac drawing and the focus of the threat toward San Jose, we don't have to go very far to conclude which "family of five" he was threatening.   

The specificity of the threat to "kill a family of five" is highly suggestive that the caller had a particular family in mind. When you consider the caller was directing his threat toward the city of San Jose, take into account the "Bleeding Knife of Zodiac" drawing, his previous claim of responsibility for the Snoozy & Furlong murders in San Jose, and his annoyance at not receiving front page coverage in the Chronicle and Examiner newspapers subsequent to killing three people and mailing his cryptograms, the family of five becomes a little clearer. 

At the same time he was relegated to the inner pages of two high profile Bay Area newspapers, the murders of the two San Jose teenagers was extensively covered in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969. The Zodiac Killer undoubtedly read this newspaper article - and it's probably an understatement to say - he must have been immeasurably displeased. We don't have to look very far in this publication to find the "family of five". 

The Zodiac Killer was already claiming the murder of Debra Furlong, so why not claim he was going to murder the rest of her family for maximum terror. Whether the police connected the dots is unknown, but it's unlikely he arrived at the figure of five randomly. If you look at the August 6th 1969 article here, you will notice the last two subheadings of "callers" and "children".
Under the banner of "callers" it describes the frustration of Glen Furlong (father of Debra) to the many annoying phone calls the family received, stating "On several occasions people have called and as soon as we answer, they hang up,"  He said his neighbors were "very sympathetic", but complained he found some of his phone calls "very disconcerting". Under the banner of "children" it lists his remaining children of Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11. With the Zodiac Killer having read this San Francisco Chronicle article (his inspiration for the Berryessa attack), it isn't very surprising that the "family of five" threatened by phone on December 19th 1969 would be Glen Furlong and his wife, along with their three children of Glen, Floyd and Pamela. 

This wasn't the only time the San Francisco Chronicle article on August 6th 1969 inspired the Zodiac Killer. It triggered his switch from gun to knife in the Lake Berryessa attack so as to secure front page coverage. It was also the inspiration for the wording "Near Monticello" on the July 13th 1971 communication, detailing the murder of Kathy Bilek on April 11th 1971. The Zodiac Killer very likely kept many of the newspaper cuttings relevant to the time he was operating - and this could have been one of them. What hoaxer in 1971, claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, could have remembered that Kathie Snoozy was buried at Oak Hill Memorial Park in the neighborhood of Monticello, with enough knowledge to have tied together the murders of Bilek, Snoozy and Furlong under one communication. The person who created the Monticello card on July 13th 1971 knew her burial location, because August 6th 1969 was a time extremely pertinent to him. A time when the Zodiac Killer would have been scouring the newspapers for updates on his 408 cipher and whether it had been decoded. The December 19th 1969 phone call to San Jose threatening a "family of five", more evidence that this newspaper article held high importance in the mind of a single perpetrator. That perpetrator being the Zodiac Killer.  

The hostility exhibited by the Zodiac Killer toward police began on November 9th 1969 when he responded to what he believed were disparaging remarks by SFPD's Captain Martin Lee. In the San Francisco Chronicle on October 18th 1969 under the headline Zodiac Called a Clumsy Criminal, the newspaper listed the mistakes it believed were made by the Zodiac Killer.

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

Captain Martin Lee also appeared on a KPIX News report on November 12th 1969, responding to the November 8th and November 9th communications. He mentioned the Zodiac Killer's aggressive temperament in the Bus Bomb letter, noting the shift in "tenor of this letter as opposed to the others. For the first time he has demonstrated a hostility toward police. Now we are blue pigs and such remarks as that. He has never been particularly interested in our profession before this".  Just over three weeks later this hostility would continue, when on December 7th 1969 the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter from Fairfield promising to "kill again, so expect it anytime. The will be a cop".  He would continue the threats on police in his following letter on December 16th 1969. In this letter he immediately began with "this state is in troulbe..I will go for the Goverment life", suggesting a shift in the Zodiac Killer's thinking to more high profile targets. Law enforcement operates primarily through governmental police agencies in the United States, so the threat to target "government life", bearing in mind his threat to kill a cop on December 7th 1969, it's a reasonable assumption that "government life" = cops. Especially when he listed a potential thirty-eight police targets at the foot of the December 16th 1969 letter.     

The shift exhibited toward police was brought about by the comments of Captain Martin Lee, resulting in the introduction to the Bus Bomb letter of "This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people. I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me. So I shall change the way the collecting of slaves. I shall no longer announce to anyone. When I committ my murders, they shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, + a few fake accidents, etc". Followed by the two Fairfield letters in December.

However, there was one other shift in the Zodiac Killer's communications subsequent to the KPIX interview with Captain Martin Lee on November 12th 1969. The police chief stated "I think the rambling, careless appearance of his notes is also a disguise. The cryptograms when he makes them can be absolute works of art as far as alignment both vertically and horizontally and space between the characters is concerned. I think that goes more toward the true picture of a man than the rambling notes that we've gotten". Captain Martin Lee believed the organized cryptograms structured like "works of art" were more toward the true picture of the Zodiac Killer. The next letter to a San Francisco newspaper was........    

The Zodiac Killer was incapable of keeping the secrets to his ciphers for any length of time, arguable by his eagerness in responding to the various newspaper articles about his crimes. The two Fairfield letters, mailed on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969, were perfect examples of a killer who could barely go one month subsequent to the "340" cipher before hinting at the workings of his masterpiece cipher.

The December 7th 1969 cipher of 38 characters was the beginning of many short and apparently unsolvable codes. The sheer fact that he mailed the Z38, Z9, Z13 and Z32, comprising of no more than 92 characters in total, should have set off the alarm bells that these codes were nothing more than a message only understood to their designer without further input. That further input began only 29 days after the mailing of the "340" cipher with the wording of "paradice" and "slaves", gleaned from the 408 cipher of "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves" - and would play an integral part in the Z38 and Z9 codes, as they did in the superficial design of the November 8th 1969 "340" cipher and the configuration on the October 27th 1970 Halloween card. The chosen phraseology of "paradice and slaves" long preceded the Halloween card and the presumed Tim Holt comic book connection.

Nobody can dispute that "paradice" and "slaves" can be slotted into the 340 cipher in cruciform. The only dispute is whether it was unintentional or by design. That is why we must turn (in absence of the code in the November 21st 1969 letter) to the Zodiac Killer's next two cryptic offerings on December 7th and 16th. He gave us three consecutive coded communications after the 340 cipher, that may show the Bay Area murderer's incompatabilty with keeping secrets, especially when you consider that these three codes were hopelessly short of characters - and as such - designed as clues to the workings of the 340 cipher rather than standalone codes in their own right. The codes of the Z38, Z9, Z13 and Z32 were all simplistic in nature, to be later revealed from July 26th 1970 to October 27th 1970. The one sure thing we know of the Zodiac Killer, was his narcissism and his inability to withhold communication from the newspapers. Irrespective of this character trait, we assume he was able to remain deathly silent regarding his codes for up to 51 years.

The fact that the December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969 letters came within nine days of one another, separated by 29 days from the 340 cipher, facilitates an argument based on their limited characters, that these two Fairfield codes contained clues to the workings of the 340 cipher and therefore carried the same purpose. If we remove 14 characters (paradice, slaves) from the total of the Z38 code, we would have 24 characters remaining  (by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun). Those 14 characters present at the base of the Z38, separated into rows of 6 and 8 characters (paradice, slaves). The others rows conveniently accommodating the remainder of the Halloween card phrase of by fire, by rope, by knife and by gun. 

The second Fairfield letter (Z9 code) effectively becomes a 29 character code of DEATH by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun - and the rudimentary forerunner to the Halloween card configuration - inspired by the Tim Holt comic book, which harboured the word "death" as a precursor to the instrument of death. Unless, we conclude that the two designs in the Fairfield letters were another case of unintentional scrawlings, lacking any meaning whatsoever. The design of the Z9 code with four small crosshairs around the larger crosshairs would have to be regarded as an unfortunate mirroring of the Halloween card, only nine days after a code of 38 characters was mailed in the December 7th 1969 letter (paradice, slaves, by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun). Not withstanding that death, paradice, slaves, by fire, by rope, by knife and by gun are all self-contained on a separate row.

This interwoven pattern traversing the four communications of November 8th 1969, December 7th 1969, December 16th 1969 and October 27th 1970 will still be categorized under the category of unproven and likely unintentional. Short of a cryptographic solution to the 340 cipher, approaches to the codes such as the one presented here, will always be discarded and casually dismissed under the banner of "seeing patterns in the clouds" - thereby making any non-cryptographic solution to these codes and ciphers a non-starter. This means, that if the Zodiac Killer created a puzzle rather than a cryptogram, you will never be able to prove the case. Therefore, I have just wasted my time writing this article.