Pop over to Gavin Fish True Crime on Youtube in the new year for a "video a day to commemorate the solving of the 340 cipher" by David Oranchak, Jarl Van Eycke and Sam Blake on December 3rd 2020. Gavin will cover the crimes of the Zodiac Killer, as well as some of the unsolved murders, believed by many Zodiac researchers to be connected to the infamous Bay Area murderer. 

​If general true crime is your interest, Gavin has many more videos including the murders of Ellen Greenberg, Gabby Petito, Shelbey Thornburgh, Amanda Wienckowski and Father Joe Moreno, along with other videos analyzing the forensic tools used in modern day crime fighting. Visit his channel and give him your support.   

Gavin Fish True Crime   

On December 18th 2021, the Zodiac Speaking podcast will be releasing an interview with Jo Anne Goettsche, former roommate of Donna Lass at 4122 Balboa Street in San Francisco. It is approximately 55 minutes running time.

​Interviewed by Mike Morford, she talks frankly about her recollections of Donna Lass and the relevant time period before and after September 6th 1970, having traveled to South Lake Tahoe the day of her disappearance to spend a couple of days sightseeing with Donna. Unfortunately, that meeting never transpired, and Donna Lass was never seen again. We will also discuss a private investigator's report, provided to the family of Donna Lass by the investigator they hired. The season finishing podcast should be an interesting listen of about 90-120 minutes. So don't forget to tune in on December 18th.           

Doreen Gaul (19) and James Sharp (15) were found brutally stabbed and beaten in an alleyway between  Arapahoe Street and Magnolia Avenue in Los Angeles on November 21st 1969. Doreen Gaul had been a resident at the Scientology Thetan Manor hippie commune, having graduated one year earlier from a high school in Albany, where she lived with her parents at 570 Myrtle Avenue just 500 meters from the Albany Medical Center, that would become the possible target of the Zodiac Killer on August 1st 1973 when he mailed another malicious communication.

The address of Doreen Gaul in Los Angeles was 1032 South Bonnie Brae Street, with James Sharp living at 921 South Bonnie Brae Street, They were found murdered about one kilometer away from their homes. James Sharp was found fully clothed apart from his shoes, whereas Doreen Gaul was found naked but for a colored necklace described as "Indian beads" around her neck. A note from the Zodiac Killer was allegedly found in her residence (see below),  

Nobody knows for sure whether this typewritten note was created by the Zodiac Killer or an imposter. It has been typed to give the impression that Doreen Gaul was in the crosshairs of the Zodiac Killer prior to her murder, but could easily have been typed subsequent to her death in the present and future tense (absent of a postmarked envelope), so as to mislead or taunt law enforcement. Many have wondered what the attached drawing is under the signature of "The Zodiac Killer". It obviously had a meaning. Was it a clue given by the author of this note, insinuating his involvement in Doreen's murder and the crime scene at Arapahoe Street and Magnolia Avenue, in which Doreen Gaul was found naked but for a necklace hanging from her neck? 
​

​Fifteen years earlier, on December 25th 1954, Bonnie Brae Street would somewhat resemble the Zodiac Killer's last canonical crime, when 39-year-old taxicab driver Conrad John Favreau of 1312 Hazel Street, Inglewood, picked up a fare at 7th Street and Union Avenue, Los Angeles for the short trip to Bonnie Brae. Five minutes later at 8:45 pm he was discovered lying in the street alongside his taxicab, shot once in the back of the head with a 25-caliber pistol. Blood spatter was evident on the right rear of the Yellow Cab near to the taillight, shown here in a crime scene photograph. It appeared that he had been subject to a violent assault just prior to the murder, with a tooth discovered on the front seat of the taxicab. Homicide Officer Joe La-Monica stated that his pockets had been gone through, but his watch remained on his wrist. Near to the body investigators found a single 25-caliber cartridge casing. 

An earwithness, Fred Perez of 557 N Bonnie Brae Street, described hearing "a sharp crack like a 22" rifle at about 8:45 pm and seeing the Yellow Cab parked on the street. A short time later the body of Conrad John Favreau lying face up was found by a passing motorist, David Lindsay (17) of 2941-A Los Flores Boulevard. The final entry on the trip sheet was detailed as 7th Street and Union Avenue to Bonnie Brae. An all-points bulletin was issued for "a man wearing white trousers and black shoes and possibly armed with a 25-caliber pistol". 557 N Bonnie Brae Street is less than two miles from the once Los Angeles' residences of Doreen Gaul and James Sharp. None of these murders probably have anything to do with the Zodiac Killer, but the connections created between Bonnie Brae Street, a taxicab murder, the typwritten Zodiac note and the previous residence of Doreen Gaul in Albany just 500 meters from the Medical Center which became the focus of another threatening "Zodiac" communication, shows how a story can be fashioned to make you think twice. See Google maps for locations.   

Colin Marchelletta (marchellettacolin@gmail.com), creator of the Zodiac Killer Library on Facebook, has now developed a Zodiac Ciphers free website app which is now available on Google Play. Colin has invested considerable time and effort into this project, so hopefully you will find this application useful should you choose to install it. 

It has been speculated that Donna Lass, who was nearing the end of her shift, was abducted from the parking lot of the Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino on September 6th 1970, having possibly been lured there by claim of a false emergency from her abductor and bundled into a waiting vehicle. Harvey Hines stated in the Tahoe Daily Tribune that "There was a lot of evidence inside the Sahara Tahoe Casino that she left directly from there. She was a very personal person and she left a lot of personal items behind; an opened letter, a dirty uniform, and on her log a pen was dragged from the last word she wrote on the page". The last entry according to Mary Pilker (Donna's sister) was "patient complains of". Ten months later, on July 13th 1971, Trudy Ann Hiler (22) went missing from Cal Neva Lodge & Casino after finishing her shift, reported as being bundled into a vehicle in the parking lot of the casino. It was situated on the northern tip of Lake Tahoe just three miles from Incline Village. Trudy Ann Hiler was found strangled and stabbed two days later under a rock ledge between the casino and lake shore. The man who found the body also reported the abduction. That man was Michael Anselmo (18 at the time of the murder), who worked as a busboy in the same casino as Trudy. The following year he received life in prison for the murder of the young woman. He spent 47 years in jail before being released. I wonder where he got the idea of her being bundled into a vehicle in the parking lot?

Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper) was found guilty of murdering thirteen women between 1975 and 1980 in Manchester and West Yorkshire, England, claiming he received a divine message from God to rid the streets of prostitutes. However, many serial killers target sex workers because they have diminished family ties and will readily enter a strangers vehicle, meaning they can be wilfully driven to a remote location and murdered with little to no chance of being observed. Their victim will often not be noticed missing for a lengthy period of time (if at all), and valuable forensic evidence will degrade.

Many people claim that the Zodiac Killer targeted couples, born from a feeling of sexual frustration, or that he harbored a feeling of inadequacy because he was unable to form a meaningful relationship himself. While this cannot be ruled out entirely, the evidence does not support this conclusion.

In his earlier crimes, the Zodiac Killer simply targeted locations where he knew there would be vulnerable people in remote settings. Choosing somewhere like Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs places his attack site in a rural location, with the maximum possible chance of not being detected in the commission of his crime. It is no surprise he found victims at these locations, such as David Faraday (17) & Betty Lou Jensen (16) at Lake Herman Road, and Michael Mageau (19) & Darlene Ferrin (22) at Blue Rock Springs. These were young heterosexual couples seeking a bit of privacy late at night - and much more likely to become targets of the Zodiac Killer than homosexual couples, who statistically are a much smaller percentage of American society. The Zodiac Killer was also much more likely to encounter young victims parked up in these areas, because older people are less likely to make-out inside vehicles in remote locations, when they have many more options available to them. Therefore, from a statistical standpoint, it isn't surprising that the Zodiac Killer's victims were young, white heterosexual couples. The premise of a killer targeting locations is backed up by the Zodiac Killer, who told us he wasn't only targeting young couples in his very first communications.

This is what he wrote in the July 31st 1969 letter to the San Francisco Chronicle: "I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".  This is what he wrote in the July 31st 1969 letter to the San Francisco Examiner: "I will go on a kill rampage Fry night. This will last the whole weekend, I will cruse around killing people who are alone at night untill Sun Night or un till I kill a dozen people". This is what he wrote in the July 31st 1969 letter to the Vallejo Times-Herald: "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". His possible familiarity with Vallejo and his previous attacks, may be the reason he only used the word "couples" in the Vallejo Times-Herald communication, but even here, he was open to the possibility of picking off stray people, placing them first on his list.  

Does anybody believe that the Zodiac Killer, had he encountered two women, two men, or a single person at either location on December 20th 1968 or July 4th 1969, he would have turned around and just gone home? When the Zodiac Killer arrived on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969 he may have first considered attacking the three young women from Pacific Union College, before switching his attention to Bryan Hartnell & Cecelia Shepard approximately two hours later. It isn't just people today that speculate the Zodiac Killer was an inadequate, sexually frustrated deviant, searching for lone couples to destroy their dreams and obliterate something he couldn't attain for himself - the newspapers of the day painted a picture of a man who was driven by animalistic urges beyond his control, who primarily took his greatest anger out on the women at each setting. This may very well be the reason the Zodiac Killer targeted a lone male at Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969. The murder of Paul Stine designed to show law enforcement and the newspapers that he was quite capable of killing lone people in the night, while dispelling the myth he focused his hatred primarily towards the female sex.

At Lake Herman Road nearing midnight, David Faraday was the biggest threat, so the Zodiac Killer executed the young man at point blank range, leaving Betty Lou Jensen fleeing into the darkness of the turnout. The inevitable result of which, was more bullets being fired at a moving target. At Blue Rock Springs, Darlene Ferrin was struck directly five times, while Michael Mageau was struck four times. So no great disparity there. Cecelia Shepard was stabbed ten times at Lake Berryessa compared to the six times of Bryan Hartnell, because he played dead and Cecelia Shepard didn't - understandably terrified and writhing around - desperately attempting to avoid the plunging knife. At Presidio Heights no female was involved. So again, there is no evidence that the Zodiac Killer specifically vented his hatred towards the female sex. This is just another myth that will long continue, irrespective of any evidence to the contrary. The Zodiac Killer story is just that.

Many Zodiac enthusiasts, researchers and authors have attempted to profile the Zodiac Killer by examining the nature of his attacks and the content contained within the communications. Inevitably, no author who is promoting a suspect would ever endorse or recommend an accredited (or otherwise) profiler whose analysis of the Zodiac Killer doesn't conform to the suspect they are selling. There will be a variety of different opinions on the type of person the Zodiac Killer was, so it's a simple process of finding the profiler that fits snugly to the case you are arguing. This is the essence of confirmation bias. Many book authors have made the argument that the Zodiac Killer was an intelligent, or extremely clever individual, who deliberately misspelled words, and wrote in an erratic fashion to convince us he was less intelligent than he was. The case is often argued by pointing out the Dragon card mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on April 28th 1970, in which the Zodiac Killer managed to write "buttons" and "butons" in the same correspondence. However, this seems a very poor deception, if indeed, this is what it was. The author will point out the misspellings by the Zodiac Killer, arguing this was a deliberate and intentional deception on his part.

As the book unfolds, the author will analyze the communications and reach various conclusions based on their content, claiming that the Zodiac Killer had a fascination or interest in the theater, pointing out the letters that featured The Mikado. Then present you with information that connects their suspect to the theatre. They will use the mention of "radians" in the July 26th 1970 letter to point out the Zodiac Killer was an intelligent person, who could have known about radians through his profession - but only if their suspect had a profession that would make this claim possible. They may point out the cryptograms as evidence for their suspect, if their suspect worked with computers, possessed any code breaking books, or had a background in mathematics. The author will carefully select elements of the communications that seem to bolster the argument for their suspect, while conveniently ignoring the elements that seem to go nowhere. This isn't a criticism - it's the obvious reality of selling a story - and the flawed approach of viewing the case through the lens of a suspect.

But if the author has concluded that the Zodiac Killer was serving us a deception by deliberately misspelling words in a communication, then why do they readily accept the remaining content of the communication to promote their suspect. The Zodiac Killer could have easily copied any text from any theater production, to deceive us into believing he had theatrical leanings. He could have read about radians in any magazine article or book, and simply incorporated them into his July 26th 1970 letter. If he can create deception in one element of his communications, he can incorporate deception throughout. Why do we readily accept he could have deliberately misspelled certain words to sell us a lie, yet not draw the same conclusion for everything else he presented? Therefore, when an author argues for a particular suspect based on the content of the Zodiac communications, they may be arguing for somebody the polar opposite of who we are really looking for. The Zodiac Killer may have offered us plenty of material with which to dissect and analyze the type of person we should be looking for, but the content he mailed to the newspapers was chosen by a killer many believe to be a liar. Running around town looking for people who played Ko-Ko The Lord High Executioner in school, may be just what the killer intended. While you're looking around one corner, the murderer appears from the other. If the author accepts the premise of a killer who used misdirection when he misspelled certain words, then they are building a house of cards when using the rest of the communications as an argument to support their suspect. In reality, their presentation is arguing against itself.

Beginning in 1991, John Walsh from the popular television show America's Most Wanted, started receiving a sequence of sinister letters and cryptograms that many have considered may have been authored by the infamous Zodiac Killer. The title of the fifth Scorpion cipher stated "Hi!, Remember me?", and was accompanied by a 180 character cryptogram. The implication being, we were supposed to infer it may have been the Zodiac Killer. But was it? The cryptogram had 155 unique characters, meaning any conventional technique of breaking this mystery was nigh on impossible. So I decided to take a look at previous Zodiac Killer encipherments and examine if any correlation exists between the Scorpion cipher and his solved cryptograms. In previous articles (visit links provided) a case has been presented to show that the 148 character cryptogram mailed in 1971 and the Albany letter mailed in 1973 are likely connected, as well as the 340 character cipher and 148 character cipher. [1] [2]. But let's take a look at the 148 character cipher and fifth Scorpion cipher. Below is the solved 148 character cipher, followed by the accompanying text that came with this communication.

This communication was signed with a "sun cross" rather than the usual Zodiac crosshairs, leading some to believe it was an obvious hoaxer. However, somebody prepared to mail a Zodiac communication complete with a 148 character cipher, is hardly likely to be ignorant of the Zodiac Killer crosshairs that adorned virtually every single communication mailed by the Bay Area murderer. This "sun cross" signature on the letter was also present in the cryptogram, in which it was determined to represent the letter "Z". Therefore, the author of this letter likely signed off with the letter "Z" to represent the "Zodiac", as he had done in the Halloween card on October 27th 1970. It was probably a clue to begin the decoding of the 148 character cipher. When the letter "Z" was used for the "sun cross" in the cipher, the inevitable phrase of "Zodiac Speaking" is revealed (see above). The "sun cross" is also twice present in the 180 character Scorpion cipher. If you take a look at the bottom of the 180 character cipher, the letter "Z" applied to the "sun cross" allows "Zodiac Speaking" to conveniently end the cryptogram. There is even room to place "The Zodiac Speaking" before the repeated letter "N" prevents further progress.       

The 148 character cipher had not been released into the public domain by the time the Scorpion ciphers arrived, but I have highlighted with a blue square the five symbols used in the Scorpion cipher that look eerily similar (and the same) as the 148 character cipher. The number "7" in both the 148 character cipher and Albany communications represented the letter "A". It is present in the Scorpion cipher also. Could the Zodiac Killer have teased us with the introduction of "Hi, Remember Me" and finished the message with "This is again the Zodiac speaking"?

Here are the other parts of the Scorpion cipher communications released Science Blogs.

I have recently discovered a documentary channel on Youtube called Bryan Bruce Documentaries, with the majority emphasis on true crime. Two excellent storytelling channels on Youtube are That Chapter and MrBallen, but this has to be a contender for the best investigatory channel of them all, taking a look at recent and historic unsolved murder cases, in addition to assessing the validity of some criminal convictions.

Bryan Bruce, born in Scotland in 1948 and now residing in New Zealand, is a documentary maker who covers a wide range of topics, including the true crime genre, which will no doubt appeal to the majority of visitors to this site. Currently he has twenty-one videos on his Youtube channel, in which fourteen are labelled True Crime Investigation. Despite a relatively low number of videos thus far, his burgeoning channel has already reached nearly 10,000 subscribers (as of writing), which is a fantastic return per video. The way Bryan Bruce examines each case is captivating viewing, using a logical, analytical and forensic approach in an attempt to unlock the mystery in each case. I would implore anybody who has a fascination with true crime and the unknown to visit his channel as soon as possible. Here is link to the videos available. Red Sky Television Videos. 

It is reasonable to accept - cautiously - a scholarly identification of handwriting which depends on a balance of probability. However the scrutiny which forensic analysis has undergone should help us to maintain a healthy scepticism about handwriting identification, especially when a document is simply asserted as being in a given person's handwriting without the basis of this identification being made clear. LIMA:Forensic Handwriting Analysis.

Handwriting expert witnesses typically do not state with certainty that a particular handwriting sample came from a particular individual, even if the goal of litigation is to prove that one person wrote a particular document. Instead, handwriting experts will express their opinion as to whether the characteristics of the handwriting on the document in question are consistent or inconsistent with the known sample used for comparison. Expert Institute.

Handwriting analysis is a useful tool that can be used in conjunction with other evidence to argue a case, but should not ultimately decide the fate of a defendant or be used to definitively declare whether a handwritten communication originated from a particular subject. However, this concept has been disregarded in parts of the Zodiac community, who insist they can look at an nth generation copy of a letter and determine it's an obvious fake simply by staring at it. There are also individuals who will claim that there is a universal arbiter pertaining to which communications are genuine or otherwise, despite disagreement between questioned document examiners and handwriting analysts connected to the Zodiac scene itself.

In fact, many "so-called experts" have been discredited in recent years by a lack of due diligence, aligning themselves behind amateur researchers who are promoting a suspect, in conjunction with the release of a new Zodiac book. There is the infamous case of the JonBenet Ramsey murder, in which a three-page ransom note was supposedly left behind in the residence of the parents. Many document examiners have come to the conclusion it was written by the mother of JonBenet Ramsey, while others have dismissed this entirely. The point being, when you have disagreement in accredited experts within the field, what is the point of an authenticated list of Zodiac communications by a universal arbiter of truth or otherwise. Individuals who just look at these communications through a magnified lens, yet don't examine these communications in depth regarding the wider context of the Zodiac case - a case that has been examined far more thoroughly over 50 years since many of these determinations were made. What is far more important, is examining the content of a communication and how it fits into the overall story. One such example is the widely discredited Fairfield letter mailed on December 16th 1969, which has been routinely dismissed as being written by an amateurish and infantile hoaxer. Despite reasoning offered for its authenticity that is widely ignored, the recent solving of the 340 cipher by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke has provided further evidence to its authenticity through the identification of words in the Z340 and Z38 cryptograms, specifically identified by the author of the sister communication on December 7th 1969, who is undeniably the author of the December 16th 1969 letter. This too has been routinely ignored, because sometimes you have to accept that no amount of evidence will move a fixed mind - even when the preponderance of evidence points strongly in one direction. For some, no amount of evidence will ever make a difference. Just ask somebody who believes the Fairfield letter was created by a hoaxer, what are the strongest five arguments given by people in favor of it being genuine, and they will almost certainly fail to give you one or two (if any). The reason why - because they have already made up their mind without having read any counter arguments to their case - which is solely based on looking at the letter and nothing more. Enter the discussion and use cogent reasoning to argue against the points suggested for the authenticity of the Fairfield letter, as opposed to just saying "It's an obvious fake", bereft of any foundation for concluding such a resounding conclusion. 

The reasoning behind the authenticity of the Fairfield letter will not be elaborated upon further because it has become plainly obvious in recent years that certain individuals have a fixed narrative of the Zodiac story - unchanging and impervious to any amount of evidence or reasoning. What they believed a decade or two ago has never altered, and never will. The same approach is plainly evident in an individuals' blind and unwavering belief in a suspect. Trying to reason against that suspect will often be met with vitriol or a defensive posture, but almost certainly, will rarely result in any positive dialogue. The way to unearth whether a communication is genuine or otherwise, is a simple case of doing some research on that communication, but unfortunately, while we have the misguided belief of some that just looking at a handwritten letter is sufficient to determine its authenticity, sadly nothing will change. The other misguided alternative, is to look at an "authenticated" list of Zodiac communications while disavowing yourself of any critical thinking. In other words, just believe what you are told and don't think for yourself. The ability of some Zodiac researchers to decide whether certain communications are genuine or not, despite never putting one ounce of effort into researching these communications, is nothing short of staggering. The consensus narrative of the Zodiac story will survive, irrespective of whether it has any foundation in truth, reasoning or logic. That you can be sure of.           

Renowned Zodiac investigator Michael Morford (USA) is the creator of the ZodiacKiller.Net website and producer of the hugely successful Criminology podcast along with co-host Michael Ferguson (featuring a vast array of true crime episodes). They have also co-authored two books entitled The Case of the Zodiac Killer and The Case of the Golden State Killer. Starting on March 13th 2021, Michael Morford and I (Richard Grinell) have formed a transatlantic partnership to produce a new series of Zodiac Killer podcasts that strives to break new ground.

Under the title of Zodiac Speaking, the first two episodes will feature the Lake Herman Road murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968, followed by the Blue Rock Springs Park attack on Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau in the early minutes of July 5th 1969, which will be released simultaneously to begin the story. Every two weeks thereafter (which may change), the entire Zodiac story will be covered chronologically in depth, delving deeper into the crimes, communications and suspects than ever before. Each episode will not be constrained to a routine retelling of events, but feature new and challenging questions surrounding the Zodiac case which have never been examined and discussed before in any other podcast. The first section of each podcast will be a scripted overview of each topic, accompanied by ideas that challenge the usual narrative and raise new questions, while the second section will be an unscripted conversation between Michael Morford and myself.

We hope to create a minimum of 50 podcasts as an initial projection, with running times estimated at 45 minutes to over an hour for certain episodes, although no time limit will be adopted. Anybody new to the case will get the basic details of the case as an introduction, but each episode won't be limited to the usual story already known by many seasoned researchers and sleuths. The further we travel through the series, the deeper we will dive. Michael Morford will bring his extensive knowledge of the Zodiac case into this series, whereas I will be taking much of what has been discovered on this website into audio form and a wider audience not familiar with the topics I have covered, attempting to question many of the pervading narratives of the Zodiac story that have routinely been accepted as true over the last 52 years. I hope you will join us on this journey, beginning on March 13th 2021.

Nikki Alexandra Benedict (14) had left her friend Kathie Gomski's house in Halper Road, Poway on May 1st 1967 shortly after 6:00 pm, to walk the 2 1/2 mile journey to her home at 13530 Olive Tree Lane, when approximately 20 minutes into her journey her life was cruelly snatched away.

She was just passing the intersection of 12784 Poway and Carriage Road, traveling along a dirt pathway that straddled the Poway Road, when it is speculated that somebody laying in wait leapt from a grassy depression and viciously attacked the young teenage girl with a short-bladed knife. She had a knife wound to her neck and bruises on her elbows and knees, but the fatal injuries were two stab wounds that penetrated her heart.

The young girl did not succumb to her injuries immediately, with a trail of blood extending 200 yards to the west side of Carriage Road as she desperately sought help near a local shopping center. At approximately 6:30 pm, an 11-year-old boy, Ronald Fisk, discovered the critically injured girl and raced away on his bicycle to seek help from his father, who worked at a nearby market store. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of responding personnel, Nikki Benedict would be pronounced dead upon her arrival at Palomar Hospital.

Much speculation has followed this case for 54 years and theories surrounding the murder of Nikki Benedict are far reaching, that include the infamous Zodiac Killer. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I see very little in this murder that points towards the Bay Area murderer of five. It is certainly possible that this could be an early attack perpetrated by the infamous Zodiac Killer, but other than an attack with a knife at a location 82 miles south of the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates, that may or may not have been committed be the Zodiac Killer, there is little else. The injuries detailed in the murder of Nikki Benedict suggest a brief encounter, before the suspect fled on foot from the pathway. From the reports in the newspapers, it appears that no sexual interference took place on the young girl, and no eyewitnesses have testified to viewing the attack as it unfolded. What we do know (which is limited), is the assailant inflicted a wound to her neck (as though a knife was pressed against her skin) and two fatal stab wounds to her chest, in what has been described as a brief struggle. Then there are reports of an individual running away from the crime scene.  

It is extremely difficult to form any certainties surrounding this crime, based on snippets of information gleaned from the newspapers, but it appears that the encounter between Nikki Benedict and her murderer was short in duration. Sunset was over an hour away, so this attack with a short-bladed knife would have occurred in daylight hours in an open field, close to the intersection of 12784 Poway and Carriage Road, with a shopping center nearby.

Bearing in mind that this attack wasn't viewed in progress by any eyewitnesses, why would a grown man with ulterior motives, fail to achieve his objective of overpowering a 14-year-old girl at this location, or fail to drag her away to a waiting vehicle? Nikki Benedict traveled at least 200 yards after the attack in a desperate bid to seek help, that not only showed the attacker's inability to kill her on the spot, but based on her described injuries, appeared to corroborate the notion of a brief encounter before the assailant ran away on foot. Using this speculatory analysis, it could be argued that her killer was extremely inexperienced and inadequate. This tallies with the description given in one newspaper of a young man seen running away from the crime scene. Another newspaper detailed a witness, who "reported seeing a white male running from the area but it was from a considerable distance and the description was broad, investigators said". From these limited eyewitness descriptions, it is certainly possible her attacker was an inexperienced youth of similar age to Nikki Benedict.  

“Could it be a local? Yes, it could be. Could it be an outsider? Yes, it could be", said Detective Will Altenhof with the San Diego County Sheriff's Dept. "We don’t really have evidence to suggest one way or another".

There is every chance her killer was local, every chance he knew Nikki, and every chance he was either a classmate of the young girl, or he waited for her that day as she left school and visited her friend's house. Nikki Benedict would usually travel the 2.3 mile journey from Meadowbrook Junior High School on the school bus to her home at 13530 Olive Tree Lane, however, on this Monday she visited her friend Kathie in Halper Road to discuss an art project.

Meadowbrook Junior High School is situated just off Halper Road, and her attacker struck just 20 minutes after she left the home of her friend. Not only are the three locations of school, friend's house and attack location extremely close to one another, but was it really just bad luck that the only day she didn't travel home using the school bus, was the day an attacker just happened to be lurking in a depression alongside the pathway she chose that evening? Or was her attacker connected to Meadowbrook Junior High School, who followed Nikki to her friend's house and waited for her to leave to walk home? It wouldn't be the first time a young man pestered and stalked a young girl. In absence of any eyewitnesses before the attack, had the young man walked with and spoken to Nikki Benedict? When he didn't get or hear what he wanted, could he then have lashed out in a brief, but deadly attack, from which he may have been seen running away from? His flight path could tell us so much as to what area of Poway he lived. 

Sadly, Nikki Benedict passed away during the ambulance ride to Palomar Hospital without uttering a word, but my guess had she done so, would have identified somebody she knew of similar age, who deliberately lay in wait in the field opposite Halper Road that evening. It's certainly possible this could be a random assailant unknown to the young girl, but the proximity of Meadowbrook Junior High School, Kathie Gomski's house in Halper Road, the pathway alongside the Poway Road, the seemingly inexperienced attack which was initially survived by Nikki Benedict and the young white male seen running away from the crime scene, appears like a targetted attack of somebody known to the young teenage girl. This, coupled with the fact she usually caught the school bus home, could indicate prior knowledge of her intentions and movements that day.

Irrespective of my take on the murder of Nikki Benedict, the overarching priority is to identify the killer no matter who he turns out to be. If you have any information pertaining to this case, please call the Sheriff’s Homicide Unit at (858) 974-2321 or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477. Or use the online tip form.

"In this, the most awful day in our lives, we have been kept afloat and have been given the strength to bear the senseless tragedy we have had, by our new friends in Poway. You have come to us with your real understanding, and you have given us food to eat when we could not cook, and you have gone out and searched in the fields with the sheriffs. In spite of our awful loss, we cannot say we are sorry we moved here. This senseless thing could have happened in any town in America - a sick person stabbed a girl who came down a country path. It happened to be our daughter, and not yours. If he should read this, we want the person who killed our Nikki to know that we pity him, for he is alive (as Nikki is not) and he has a great burden and a great debt to pay. If he comes forward and tells the sheriff he did it, we promise we will not hate him, and we will try to help him. To everyone in the sheriff's department and fire department, to everyone who tried to save our Nikki, and to the volunteers, we are deeply appreciative". Russell and Julie Benedict. 

Poignant words from the grief-stricken parents after their beloved daughter was brutally stabbed by an unknown assailant in Poway on May 1st 1967. Nikki Alexandra Benedict (14), a carefree young teenager, was walking home by the intersection of 12784 Poway and Carriage Road shortly after 6:00 pm, when the embodiment of evil cruelly cut short the young girl's life with two stab wounds to her heart. As of writing, the perpetrator of this heinous crime has yet to be identified, as we approach the 54th anniversary of her untimely death.

The picture on the left shows a caring young girl tending to her pet rabbits, hopeful of a bright future, in stark contrast to the malevolence that exists in some people to destroy the dreams of others. In the words of her parents, Nikki was just an innocent young girl walking down a country path, never believing for a moment she would never reach home.

If you have any information on the murder of Nikki Benedict, then call the Sheriff’s Homicide Unit at (858) 974-2321 or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477. Russell and Julie Benedict died without any justice for their daughter, so if you know anything that may push this case forward, please don't hesitate to contact the appropriate authorities. Above all, remember the photograph of a smiling young girl with so much to give, who never got to cuddle her pet rabbits again.

On August 3rd 1969, cyclists made the grim discovery of the bodies of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong from San Jose, each stabbed in excess of a hundred times and found beneath an oak tree in Almaden Valley. The Chief of Detectives, Barton Collins spearheaded an investigation that eventually saw the arrest of Karl Francis Werner in the April of 1971.

The Zodiac Killer on August 6th 1969, after viewing the extensive front page coverage of this crime that he believed he deserved, very likely switched to a knife for his brutal attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. The Zodiac Killer would indirectly refer to Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong through multiple communications spanning two years, most notably the "by knife" attribution on Bryan Hartnell's car door and the Dripping Pen card, when he inflated his victim total to seven by adding the month of "Aug". He may also have done this in the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter when he drew the Bleeding Knife of Zodiac with seven drops of blood falling from the blade. He wasn't responsible for the murders of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong on August 3rd 1969, but he wanted us to believe he was. 

This leads us to the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, approximately one year after the Dripping Pen card. The greeting card contained an eye peeking from the knothole of a tree with the circled wording of "peek-a-boo you are doomed". It is this childlike terminology of "peek-a-boo" used by parents when playing with their children, that could reveal an alternative meaning to the Halloween card. There are many variations of "peek-a-boo", such as where trees are involved: "Hiding behind that tree" is sometimes added. Wikipedia. Kathy Snoozy (15) and Deborah Furlong (14) were extremely young victims, with Kathy Snoozy described by investigators as much younger looking than 15 years. The Halloween card depicting a tree with somebody hiding behind it, in accompaniment to the two skeletons adorning the card (one purposefully added}, seemed to mirror the attack on the two young girls by an oak tree. The Halloween card deliberately designed to signify two victims, explaining why the Zodiac Killer went to the extra effort of adding a second skeleton to the card inner, and featuring "by knife" on the rear of the card, just like he did on the car door of Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa.  

The San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969 stated "Dr. Hauser, so shaken by the brutality of the crime he could scarcely find words, said the Snoozy youngster had 150 wounds on her back, 50 on the front and a "storm" of punctures on her neck. Deborah's body had about 100 wounds on her back and upper front and a dozen on her neck. Dr. Hauser said he was "puzzled" by many aspects of the brutal slaying. He said neither girl had been sexually molested; neither had suffered any wounds below her waist, neither gave evidence of having struggled to escape. Only the Snoozy girl, he said, had one small mark on her hand, suggesting she may have tried vainly to deflect the plunging knife". The Zodiac Killer placed a pumpkin over the groin/waist region of the first skeleton, giving rise to the notion that this communication had a malevolent undertone attached to it. But these observations are backed up by the Zodiac Killer's running victim total presented in three forms. He wrote 14 on the first skeleton's hand, he wrote 4-TEEN over the skull of the second skeleton, and may have written "Zodiac Fourteen" at the base of the card inner by combining two features, adding 4 dots to signify "four" once again.

The Zodiac got creative by listing seven victims with the addition of "Aug" on November 8th 1969 and adding seven drops of blood on December 16th 1969 on the Bleeding Knife of Zodiac drawing, so did he get creative in the Halloween card? The Zodiac Killer didn't write 4-TEEN as his victim total for no reason, therefore we have to examine why he did it. The number 4 is self evident, meaning 4 victims. The word TEEN is short for teenager or teenagers. This indicates that the Zodiac Killer has incorporated 4 teenagers into his victim total of fourteen. At this juncture, he was claiming the murders of Betty Lou Jensen (16), David Faraday (17), Darlene Ferrin (22), Cecelia Shepard (22), Kathy Snoozy (15), Deborah Furlong (14), Paul Stine (29), Richard Radetich (25) and Donna Lass (25). That is nine claimed victims of the fourteen he had placed on the Halloween card, but only four were teenagers, hence the wording of 4-TEEN. The two skeletons may sadly have represented Snoozy and Furlong, adding the two teenagers from San Jose to the existing two teenagers from Lake Herman Road in Benicia, that we already knew for certain. 

Halloween is a time when the children venture out into the night, dressed in costumes to play trick or treat in the neighborhood. The Zodiac Killer, on the other hand, may have played the sickest game of all, when he mailed the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, claiming yet again his involvement in two murders he had no hand in.

On December 3rd 2020, David Oranchak (USA), Sam Blake (Australia) and Jarl Van Eycke (Belgium) solved the Zodiac Killer's 51-year-old 340 cipher, laying waste to the countless other solutions proposed by amateur sleuths down the years. Now, Jarl Van Eycke has done it again, solving the 386-year-old Code of Langren created by Michiel Florentius Van Langren (1598-1675) in the 17th century. Van Langren was an engineer, cartographer and astronomer from the Netherlands, known for his mapping of the moon. In 1634, he enciphered a solution for determining the longitude of a ship at sea for help with navigation, which had remained unbroken for nearly four centuries. His story attracted the interest of Jos Pauwels, an Antwerp amateur astronomer who studied his work, and mathematician Dirk Huylebrouck, who would contact Jarl Van Eycke after reading about his success with the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher. Jarl Van Eycke, after being contacted by Dirk Huylebrouck, managed to crack the 386-year-old code in just one week.

The code, enciphered in the French language (despite its introduction), decoded to "Michel Florencio van Langren says that one should make two cylindrical copper vessels of equal volume that have a conical end at the bottom, in which a hole is made in the middle so that when they are filled with seawater, they let a line of water run until they empty. The stars know in how much time they must be empty. This noted, the first barrel is run on departure, while recording which known star is on the meridian. This vessel will be empty when this star is back on the same Earth meridian, knowing that it is empty in 24 hours of sidereal time. At the same time as when the first vessel stops flowing, the second vessel opens, which will also be empty when the said star is back on the meridian of departure. This careful operation will be done daily during the trip mentioned here if one wishes to know how many degrees of longitude one has traveled from the meridian of departure. One has only to determine this difference from the stars in the sky each time one of the vessels is empty. Not to be surprised, a cylindrical float floating on cork is used to indicate".