The final Zodiac Speaking podcast for the foreseeable future will be released this Saturday, August 20th 2022, with a running time of exactly 2 hours 18 minutes. Michael Morford and I tried our best at answering twenty-four questions sent in to us from various social media platforms, so we thank all those who contributed this time round. We have thoroughly enjoyed producing 36 podcasts to date, which we hope have pushed the boundaries just a little further regarding the Bay Area murderer, his crimes, and the many confirmed and unconfirmed communications mailed to the newspapers and police. If any new and interesting developments occur in the Zodiac case in the near future, or material becomes available to generate a second series of podcasts, we will regroup for another in-depth look at the Zodiac case.

​That just leaves us both to thank everybody who has tuned in over the last eighteen months and given their support to the podcast. Take care, Richard. 

On October 21st 1969 the San Francisco Chronicle released an article entitled Fear Rides the Yellow Bus, in which Fred Sowash, the transportation director of Napa Valley Unified School District stated he had been informed that somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer had telephoned a threat on October 15th 1969 to kill schoolchildren in Santa Rosa by placing bombs on the buses. This meant that this person was targeting schoolchildren and school buses at least two days before the Zodiac Killer's threat to "wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out" was released in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 17th 1969. It is virtually inconceivable that a random person pretending to be the Zodiac Killer could have foreshadowed the real Zodiac Killer and just happened to pre-empt his threat on schoolchildren by sheer luck. The phone caller to Santa Rosa on October 15th 1969 (or slightly before) was almost certainly the Zodiac Killer. This can be backed up by a further incident on October 17th 1969.

A female school bus driver was taking schoolchildren to the Yulupa Elementary School on the morning of October 17th 1969, when she reported that sound of gunfire beside the school bus, stating "As I came around this bend I heard a loud shot from the left hand side of the bus. The children heard it too. Now I don't know if anything struck the bus. We can't find anything that struck the bus". Law enforcement, as usual, were skeptical, pointing out that there was no physical evidence that a shot was fired at the bus. The KRON news footage stated that law enforcement were expecting more reports of this kind based upon the Zodiac Killer's latest letter regarding the murder of Paul Stine. The newspaper report in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Santa Rosa bombing threat on school buses wasn't released until October 21st 1969, so a school bus driver reporting shots heard alongside her school bus in Santa Rosa four days earlier, should be considered of some significance. Also, this bus driver was transporting schoolchildren on the morning of October 17th 1969 - the same morning that the Zodiac Killer's threat on schoolchildren was released in the newspaper.

​So, if the Santa Rosa school bus shooter wasn't the Zodiac Killer, we would have to believe a random individual bought the San Francisco Chronicle on the morning of the 17th, read about the "picking off kiddies as they came bouncing out" of a school bus, and almost immediately positioned themselves on a Santa Rosa street or road, from where they started shooting at a school bus (assuming the bus driver's claims are accurate). Were law enforcement suggesting that this elderly woman school bus driver bought and read the Chronicle newspaper before collecting the schoolchildren that morning and just invented the story to mirror Zodiac's threat? While this is unlikely but possible, she could have had no knowledge of the Zodiac Killer's phone call to Santa Rosa threatening school buses and schoolchildren on October 15th 1969. Bearing in mind (in the relevant timeframe) that this currently is the only reported shooting with respect to a school bus that we know of, it seems unusual that it should somewhat mirror the threat two days earlier in the same location. Unfortunately, law enforcement regularly dismissed things as hoaxes, as they did with the Oklahoma radio station recording of a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on December 7th 1969. Passing things off as hoaxes seems a tried and trusted method of doing absolutely no work. 

Another threat using bombs in Santa Rosa would again be reported in the newspapers, when somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer threatened a K-Mart store on two occasions on May 8th 1970, just ten days after the Zodiac Killer promised to have his "blast" when mailing the Dragon card to the San Francisco Chronicle on April 28th 1970. 

This lends greater credence to the claim by Robert Graysmith in his "Zodiac" book that "A man identifying himself as Zodiac had made a Santa Rosa Bomb threat exactly a year earlier". In other words, Graysmith claimed that on May 8th 1969 (before the Zodiac pseudonym was known) somebody had aimed another bomb threat at Santa Rosa. This possible threat encompassing Zodiac, telephoned bomb threats and Santa Rosa would come four months before the October 15th 1969 telephone call encompassing Zodiac, bombs and Santa Rosa. An October 15th 1969 telephone call to Santa Rosa threatening schoolchildren on school buses, that was made two days in advance of the Zodiac Killer's threat to pick off kiddies as they came bouncing off the school bus, which wasn't currently known to the public when the October 15th call was made.

If Graysmith was correct about somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on May 8th 1969, this K-Mart bomb threat (or threat to another entity in Santa Rosa) would have come just over one month after the last major newspaper article about the Lake Herman Road murders (March 30th 1969). This Sunday Times-Herald article read "The horrifying crime may very well be the most celebrated murder mystery currently under investigation in California, and Lunblad has received aid and offers of it from a score of law enforcement agencies in the state. Those which have given him particularly large measures of support include the Vallejo Police Department, his own sheriff's department, the Benicia Police Department, the Napa and Sanoma County sheriff's departments, and the Fairfield Police Department".  All these police departments would become the focus of the Zodiac Killer's murders and threats in the following months. The county seat and largest city in Sanoma County is Santa Rosa, the focus of the K-Mart bomb threat by somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer on May 8th 1969. Vallejo and Napa County both saw the wrath of Zodiac when he attacked at Blue Rock Springs and Lake Berryessa, with the two Fairfield letters in December threatening the promise of further attacks. Every police department mentioned in this newspaper article as helping Sergeant Les Lunblad would receive the attention of the Zodiac Killer.       

Kenneth Mains, cold case detective, private investigator, former undercover FBI operative and best selling author (to name just a few of his credentials), now runs the extremely popular and burgeoning Youtube channel Unsolved No More, currently standing at 58,000 subscribers as of June 22nd 2022. His Youtube channel features an array of different cases, including the Delphi Murders, Sam Sheppard, The Springfield Three, Ted Bundy, The Starved Rock Murders, The Yoghurt Shop Murders, and many more. Most of you may be familiar with Ken Mains, when he partnered with Sal LaBarbera for the five part docudrama entitled The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer in 2017, which featured the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966.

Cheri Josephine Bates (18) was brutally murdered in a dirt driveway adjacent to the Riverside City College library annex by a knife-wielding assailant, who has remained unidentified for nearly 56 years. The murder appeared premeditated, with her prized lime green Volkswagen Beetle found disabled about 325 feet from her body, parked just 90 feet east of the library entrance. Ken Mains is about to release another video, re-examining the many facets of this unexplained and intriguing case, in which justice has remained elusive for far too long. To view his latest Youtube video on Cheri Jo Bates (to be released on Thursday, June 23rd 2022) and the many other cases he has delved into, please click here. To visit the website of Detective Kenneth L. Mains, click the image on the left.

Postmarked Vallejo on Thursday, June 18th 1970, two Oakland A's baseball tickets were mailed to Gerald Tagert of 1423 Roleen Drive in Vallejo, wrapped in a piece of paper with the message "Gift from Zodiac". The tickets for the baseball game were dated Saturday, June 20th 1970. It appeared that "Zodiac" or the impersonator wanted the couple to vacate their house and attend the baseball game in two days time. This communication was not released to the public and has only surfaced in recent years. Just over two years later, on Thursday, June 29th 1972 (and 18 miles west of Roleen Drive), Edward J. Salmina of 25 Crescent Lane, Novato received a death threat signed "Zodiac", stating "If you leave your house past 3:13:47 on the next ten Saturdays, you will be killed". Edward J. Salmina was a sports editor of the Novato Advance newspaper for 33 years and was a staunch baseball fan, who funded and managed the Novato Knicks team, while also having served as a sports correspondent for The Examiner newspaper. The specific threat on Salmina to not leave his house on ten consecutive Saturdays was almost certainly connected to his management of the Novato Knicks baseball team, thereby preventing his coaching of the team during this period of time.

We have two June communications separated by two years, both extremely brief in nature and connected to baseball, with both signed by the pseudonym "Zodiac" and mailed on the Thursday before the Saturday in question. Each letter was focused on the Saturday, The Oakland A's tickets were chosen for Saturday, June 20th 1970, encouraging the recipients to leave their house on 1423 Roleen Drive and attend the baseball game, whereas the letter to Edward J. Salmina on June 29th 1972 was encouraging him not to leave his house on the next ten Saturdays (and probably threatening him not to attend the baseball). The second author in 1972, if different to the one in 1970, could never have imitated the original threat without inside knowledge.       

Particular dates were the overriding focus of each letter, involving eleven Saturdays in total. The only other time the Zodiac Killer made reference to a specific date he would kill, is when he mailed the trinity of communications to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, July 31st 1969, stating to the Chronicle that  "the other 2 parts of this cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo Times and SF Examiner. I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, 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". These specific threats to kill, again occurring on a Thursday, just one or two days before the intended premise of the letter.

The 1972 Novato letter threatening to kill Edward J. Salmina contained a series of symbols under the heading "message" (believed to be a short code). This is extremely interesting, because the next letter we know of (claimed to be from Zodiac) also contained a short code, while claiming he would kill on a specific date. The author of the Albany letter, mailed to the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York on August 1st 1973 and targeting the Albany Medical Center, promised to "kill her on August 10th at 5:00pm". The author of this letter gave a specific time he would murder, just like the author of the Novato letter who stated "If you leave your house past 3:13:47 on the next ten Saturdays, you will be killed". This was unique to both these letters. Although the Albany message was issued on a Wednesday for a week Friday, it was again issued with time being the central focus. The two 1970 Oakland A's tickets bore a time and date, the 1972 Novato letter bore a time and ten dates, as did the Albany letter in 1973. All three letters were aimed at a specific individual - Gerald Tagert, Edward J.Salmina and Connie Henly (from the decoded portion).

I asked Druzer, a Zodiac researcher who contributes to both Zodiac forums, to send me a series of questions that I could incorporate into the next Zodiac Speaking podcast on June 4th 2022 for Mike Morford to tackle. However, because he devoted a lot of time compiling these questions and there wouldn't be enough time to address them all in the next podcast, I decided to answer the majority of them here myself. ​The topics covered are confined to the four canonical attacks at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa and Presidio Heights, in respect to the victims and eyewitnesses in the case. Running time: 30m 17s.  

Leona Roberts was abducted from her boyfriend's apartment at 749 Tormey Avenue in Rodeo at approximately 6:00pm on December 10th 1969, and her naked body was found on December 28th 1969 by an elderly man collecting driftwood near Bolinas Lagoon. The coroner estimated she had been alive 10 to 14 days after her abduction, with the sheriff's office stating she had been dead about 10 days. This suggests she was murdered (or had died in captivity) sometime between December 18th and December 24th 1969. Authorities said it was impossible the body could have been dumped into the bay on the east side and floated through the Golden Gate Bridge. The man collecting driftwood discovered Leona Roberts body on a beach near Bolinas Lagoon - so the location was possibly the southeastern section of Stinson Beach or Red Rock Beach (which is slightly lower on the map below). However, Red Rock Beach can only be accessed by a very steep trail from Shoreline Highway, making it a very unlikely deposition site in absence of the body being thrown from the clifftop. Stinson Beach has many houses along its shoreline (even in 1969), so it could be argued that somebody disposing of a dead naked woman at this location, would probably have chosen the southeastern edge of Stinson Beach, which was devoid of residences. But why choose this location at all? 

If the killer had traveled westwards to this location and used Shoreline Highway, there are innumerable turnouts, clifftops and wooded areas before you reach Stinson Beach, near Bolinas Lagoon. In fact, there is in excess of 10 miles of winding road before you reach Stinson Beach, where a body could have been secreted quite easily. So why would you pass all these potential dump sites and place Leona Roberts on an open beach, unless you wanted her found and was making a statement? The same argument can be applied to somebody approaching by vehicle on the northern side of Bolinas Lagoon - unless she had been deposited in the water at a different location and the currents carried her to Stinson Beach (or somewhere nearby).  

​If the estimates of her time of death are fairly accurate, then we have a scenario where a woman is kidnapped, kept alive for 8 to 14 days (18th to 24th December), before being found 4 to 10 days later. It is highly unlikely her dead body had been on Stinson Beach, unnoticed for several days. So had it washed up recently, or had the killer dumped the body on the beach shortly before it was found, having stored it for several days?  There are two viable options: either she was deliberately placed on a beach somewhere near Bolinas Lagoon by her killer, or she was thrown into the water at a secondary location and was carried by the currents to the location she was found on December 28th 1969.

Associated articles: A Very Unlikely Zodiac Murder and Did Zodiac Call on January 4th 1970?

On April 30th 2022, Ross Geraci of Planet X Filmworks was kind enough to invite me to discuss the Zodiac Killer case on his Zodiac Files Interview series on Youtube. We had a comprehensive discussion for 2 hours 23 minutes on the entire case. Ross has also recently released an episode on the Cheri Jo Bates mystery in Riverside, to accompany his previous videos on the Ray Davis taxicab murder in Oceanside and the sniper slayings of Johnny & Joyce Swindle at Ocean Beach, as well as conducting interviews and reviews with Dr. Mark Hewitt, Thomas Horan, Michael Morford, Ned DeHan, Howard Davis, Drew Beeson (on Zodiac and Dan Cooper) and Bryan (usngunner1976). Please give his Youtube channel your support by visiting and subscribing to Planet X Filmworks.      

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

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

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

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 stranger's 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.