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".

Having been in existence for at least three years on Youtube, Black Box Online Radio hosted by Ned, has currently accumulated a stock of 880 videos supported by 905 subscribers, primarily covering all aspects of true crime. His main focus is that of the infamous Zodiac Killer, which for selfish reasons, I believe the burgeoning success of his channel should concentrate on. Introduced by the now familiar line of "coming to you from West Virginia", Ned has covered many topics on the Zodiac case, ranging from the communications, ciphers and suspects, along with numerous theories, interspersed periodically with interviews from such people as Drew Beeson, Mark Hewitt and Thomas Horan. He also welcomes feedback from his audience, not only in comments, but in terms of suggestions for future episodes and the direction of his channel. Ned approaches the Zodiac Killer story more from a neutral standpoint, leaving open the possibility of a more broad-based discussion about the case without the usual baggage, yet is still an open forum for individuals who have a more concentrated view of the case through the lens of a suspect. His willingness to consider and discuss topics he clearly doesn't subscribe to, should be viewed as an asset to open discussion on a platform where everybody can contribute.

His channel has recently undergone the first major change in its evolution, switching from daily Youtube videos of the shorter duration format, to three-time weekly presentations of more lengthy videos, including an "ask me anything" day. The increased video length is a wise move, but looking at the view count on his respective video catalogue, it appears to indicate that a switch to a three-time weekly Zodiac segment might be the future of this channel, as this is where his majority audience seems to lie. Irrespective of my personal opinion, it won't be long before Ned hits his first milestone of 1,000 subscribers, in what I hope is a long and successful venture for him and Black Box Online Radio.        

After several years of extremely hard work and off the back of the announcement of the 340 cipher being cracked, the eagerly anticipated three volumes of The Zodiac Revisited by Michael Cole were released on December 20th 2020. Michael was kind enough to forward me all three volumes in advance of their release, which I highly recommend to anybody wanting to learn about the Zodiac Killer story, who also want to delve further into the case on a deeper level. For this reason, Michael has split the presentation into three volumes entitled The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 1: The Facts of the Case, The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 2: Analysis and Fact-Based Speculation and The Zodiac Revisited, Volume 3: Tying It All Together. 

The three volumes are now available on the ebook stores of Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, !ndigo and Angus & Robertson. To secure purchase of the The Zodiac Revisited trilogy, please click the link provided by the image on the left.

Michael Cole has run his own website for many years, and is a highly respected member of the Zodiac community, so you can guarantee that every aspect of his presentation has been thoroughly researched and well-thought-out. If you would like any extra information regarding the contents of each volume, Michael has compiled a brief description in what to expect from each book. This is available on The Zodiac Revisited website under the banner The Zodiac Revisited Published.   

Whether the New York "by fire" attacks on Catholic churches in July 1974 were inspired by the events in San Francisco and Daly City in 1974 is unknown, but let us examine the story anyway.

Somebody purporting to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the San Francisco Police Department and several newspaper outlets on January 11th 1974 claiming to have murdered a woman and placed her body inside a Daly City church. Police mobilized a search, but after several hours they were unable to find any murdered woman, concluding it was very likely a hoax. On January 29th 1974, a letter believed to have been authored by the Zodiac Killer arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle stating "I saw + think "The Exorcist" was the best saterical comidy that I have ever seen".

Exactly six months after the postmark date of The Exorcist letter, on July 29th 1974, a blaze erupted at the Roman Catholic Church, St. Vincent Ferrer, at 65th Street and Lexington Avenue in the Upper East Side of Manhattan at about 9:50 pm. Reverend Thomas Smith (71) unable to escape the fire, unfortunately died of asphyxiation. Ten minutes after the fire engulfed the church, a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the news agency United Press International threatening to "unleash a tirade against the Catholic church. Priests are going to die. Someday people will realize that Christianity is a fraud". This phone call was followed by several more to The Daily News from 10:30 pm to 3:45 am, also claiming to be from the Zodiac Killer, The following day at 11:33 pm, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, at Fifth Avenue and 10th Street became the second church to be targetted by the arsonist, shortly followed by a third attack just 30 minutes later and two miles away, at the Episcopal church, St. Mary the Virgin, at 145 West 46th Street. No other casualties were reported at the latter two fires.

It was the fire at St. Mary the Virgin that gave officers their initial break, when a female eyewitness was able to give a description of the killer. He was eventually arrested close to West Side Church and identified as Gordon Earl Marais (56), a former mental patient living at 117 West 71st Street, located within three miles of every crime scene. After the arrest of the suspect, Assistant Chief James T. Sullivan, the acting chief of detectives, described the suspect as bearing “considerable animosity toward the Catholic Church". The police suspected he was the telephone caller, who used the pseudonym “Zodiac". 

The Zodiac Killer is often dismissed as a footnote in history, 'only' responsible for the murder of five people in California over fifty years ago, but it seems that his legacy may have inspired many more murders subsequent to his relatively brief reign of terror, that included Heriberto Seda, dubbed the "New York Zodiac", and the 1997 Tokyo Child Murders committed by Shinichiro Azuma. Arsonist and murderer, Gordon Earl Marais may not be the Zodiac Killer, but his attacks on Catholic churches just six months after the Daly City affair, along with the mailing of The Exorcist letter in San Francisco, in response to the William Friedkin movie revolving around catholicism, makes you wonder how far his legacy reached - and is still reaching. 

The discovery of the message in the 340 cipher has triggered a new debate on the intelligence of the Zodiac Killer, bearing in mind the greater complexity of the encryption used to disguise its contents. Creating an extremely difficult cipher is actually far easier than attempting to decode it, especially when the person who designs the cipher accidentally bakes errors into his cipher as shown by the Zodiac Killer.

However, Cragle on the Zodiac Killer Site forum made an astute observation regarding the Zodiac Killer's switch from describing his hidden messages as ciphers, to codes in the June 26th 1970 and July 26th 1970 letters. While not completely true, because the Zodiac Killer stated "By the way, are the police having a good time with the code?" on August 4th 1969, it does open up the broader point of the difference between codes and ciphers, which is effectively what Cragle was implying. Codes generally operate on semantics, while ciphers operate on syntax. A cipher is a system to make a word or message secret by changing or rearranging the letters in the message, whereas a code is a system of changing entire words or phrases into something else. Codes are not just secret messages, they can be any symbol or signal used to represent, or communicate, something else.

One could argue, that if the Zodiac Killer invested the time to construct a period nineteen cipher, then he was certainly aware that by creating the Z13 and Z32  codes of such brevity and variability, he was effectively creating an impossible task and any realistic possibility of a solution without ultimately providing a key to each code. The fact that the Mount Diablo code had 29 unique characters in a 32 character array, makes it practically unsolvable without that key, A key explaining these 29 unique characters in his remaining communications appears not to be the case. The Zodiac Killer stated that "the map coupled with the code will tell you where the bomb is set", so if we take this literally, then the Zodiac Killer by June 26th 1970 expected us to solve the 32 character code with nothing more than the Phillips 66 map he supplied alongside the letter. He did supply additional clues on July 26th 1970 in the form of "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians", but as of June 26th 1970 he fully expected us to decipher these 29 unique characters with nothing more than a map, lending credence to the notion that this encryption was designed as a code rather than a cipher. Finding corresponding alphabetical letters to 29 unique characters appears an unlikely proposition with the limited information he provided. A man with the patience to design the 340 cipher encryption must have known this.

Sam Blake, who contributed to the solving of the 340 cipher, made an extremely valid point when stating that the decoded message was contemporary. By the Zodiac Killer claiming that "it wasn't me on the TV show", he fully expected his 340 cipher to be decoded fairly quickly. This message was for the moment, not for 51 years later. The same is probably true for the Z13 and Z32. These codes were apparently designed with the promise of a hidden name and bomb at a time when newspapers were king. When the Zodiac Killer started fading from the newspaper headlines by 1971, the ongoing quest to decipher these two codes had equally faded into obscurity. This isn't the case today, with the internet endlessly keeping the mystery and speculation alive. But as the 1970s rolled forward these codes would have faded from the publics gaze, making these puzzles much more contemporary at the time they were designed. The Zodiac Killer could enjoy the speculation surrounding his unsolved puzzles and codes while they were still being discussed in the newspapers, but once the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner have moved away from featuring the Zodiac Killer, the feedback surrounding his unsolved codes would equally fade away. He probably expected these two codes to remain unbroken for a limited time only.

Therefore, as Cragle intimated, we might be better rewarded by looking at the Z13 and Z32 codes through the lens of codes rather than ciphers. The search for words or phrases, in accompaniment to the limited clues he supplied, quite possibly a much more profitable avenue to go down. The solving of the 340 cipher has inevitably switched the focus of attention toward the remaining unbroken codes, with every effort being made to follow up on the success of Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke. However, adopting an approach using cipher-type encryption may possibly lead to another 51 years of blind alleyways and false beliefs, scattered with the graveyards of "solved solutions" that never were.

The movements of a killer before, during and after a crime can tell us so much about that person, without them even knowing they could be mapping out their own demise. If we can identify a killer's "anchor point", then we have a valuable location from which to springboard the rest of the investigation. An "anchor point" could be the killer's home location, place of work, or the number 48 bus terminus he used to commute to the neighborhood or city. It is effectively the art of using human nature against the person you are seeking for the crime. That person leaves a fingerprint on the map, which can then be analyzed to produce "hot zones" of particular interest. The "anchor point" could be the home residence of the killer, so identifying an approximate area where the killer may live is invaluable in focusing an investigation, often when resources are finite  This "anchor point" can often be the comfort zone (or area of familiarity)  that the killer will invariably retreat to after the commission of a murder.

In the case of the Zodiac Killer, we have Springs Road & Tuolumne Street, 1231 Main Street, Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs, Lake Berryessa and Presidio Heights as our bedrock. We then have his movements subsequent to each crime, the hour each crime was committed, and the wording he used in his letters describing each crime. Everything tells you something about the killer. We can utilize geographic profiling tools such as distance decay, target backcloth, buffer zone and the least effort principle (to name but a few), and use these in identifying the possible home location of the Zodiac Killer. Techniques that our killer would have been unaware of in 1968 and 1969, other the a rudimentary knowledge of preservation and deflection.

In two extremely informative videos on the Profiling Evil channel [1] [2], Dr. Spencer Chainey uses the "geography of crime" to examine several crimes. He demonstrates some of the above principles and a lot more besides, while showing us how police were able to identify Levi Bellfield, a serial killer from London, England, who was responsible for the murders of Marsha McDonnell, Amélie Delagrang and Milly Dowler between 2002 and 2004. He then covers the sexual assaults in Bath, England in 2004/2005 perpetrated by Adrian Warburton, along with the "Irvine Chair Burglaries" in Orange County over a period of two years, in which Raymond Lopez was eventually arrested in 2005. The "geography of crime" in each case, pivotal to apprehension. In the second video he analyzes the murders of "Jack the Ripper", who terrorized the streets of Whitechapel in London, England in 1888, again using maps to show us how the geography of his murders speaks volumes to where he likely lived. This tool is so undervalued in the Zodiac case.

Larry Lamotte (60), a former news director at commercial radio station KTOK in Oklahoma City, drowned off the coast of Florida in 2003 while swimming at Grayton Beach. There was nothing suspicious about his death, but Larry Lamotte spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle in an article featured on December 8th 1969. A man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned a talk show host at KTOK on December 7th 1969 doing an awfully good impression of the man who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969, stating he left California because "it got too hot for me".

On October 22nd 1969, the Oakland Police Department took a call at 2:00 am from somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, 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 by inference that he was the infamous Zodiac Killer. The call was later attributed to hoaxer, Eric Weill, whose  father's name just happened to be Sam.

Larry Lamotte thought that the man on the phone to KTOK appeared to be impersonating the caller who rang the Jim Dunbar Show on October 22nd 1969, so it's quite a coincidence that on the same day (October 22nd 1969) the Palo Alto Times newspaper carried a news story regarding a phone call from a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, stating he left San Francisco "because I'm too hot there".

The Palo Alto Times reported Patrol cars convoyed school buses around Palo Alto yesterday after a telephoned murder threat by a man claiming to be the Zodiac killer of five persons. The caller to the Palo Alto Times said he intended to "pick the kids off as they get on the school bus." The weird slayer, who signs himself "The Zodiac", made a similar threat in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle last week after the Oct. 11 shooting of a taxi driver. Handwriting tests and descriptions of two victims who survived have convinced police that the same person. The district transportation supervisor said an armed guard might ride with each of the system's 25 buses. Officers in Napa and Vallejo, areas of the first three murderous attacks, some 75 miles north of Palo Alto, have been convoying police officers. Palo Alto Police Chief William Hydie called the new threat "extremely serious," but warned against over reaction to what might be a crank call.

We have two phone calls separated by one-and-a-half months, with both callers claiming they left the Bay Area because "because I'm too hot there" and "it got too hot for me". Either it's coincdence (and both are hoaxers), the second caller recalled the phrase used by the first caller one-and-a-half months earlier (and one caller may be Zodiac), or both phone calls were made by the Zodiac Killer, who was simply enjoying the terror he was inflicting on the people of northern California. 

There is every chance that the Zodiac Killer prepared for his four attacks well in advance of the double murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in Benicia on December 20th 1968. His four canonical crimes may have been conceived at least three months prior to the first attack on Lake Herman Road, with at least four firearms purchased to complete the task. The Zodiac Killer would then likely discard each weapon immediately after each attack as a precautionary measure. Otherwise, he could have just used the same gun at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs and Presidio Heights, to spare him the effort of convincing police he was responsible for all these attacks. Statements such as "I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area" would have been totally unnecessary, had he just left correlating ballistic evidence through each crime scene, or had used the 'shirt piece' method on October 11th 1969 in his earlier attacks, so as to assuredly bind the crime scenes to his communications.  

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd 1963 in Dallas as his motorcade traveled along Dealey Plaza. The rifle used to kill President Kennedy was purchased by mail-order via an advertisement in the monthly magazine, American Rifleman. This generated widespread debate and congressional hearings for the need to ban mail-order sales of firearms. However, the bill was not passed for another five years. The assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4th 1968 and the murder of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5th 1968, accelerated the desire for more gun control in the United States. The Gun Control Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 22nd 1968, banning mail-order sales of rifles and shotguns and prohibiting most felons, drug users and people found mentally incompetent from buying guns. The Zodiac Killer was fully aware of the approaching clampdown on gun sales, when on November 9th 1969 he stated "my killing tools have been boughten through the mail order outfits before the ban went into efect. Except one & it was bought out of the state". If we believe his claim, then he likely purchased the majority of his weapons in California prior to October 22nd 1968, possibly in anticipation of the carnage he was about inflict on the Bay Area residents.

The impending ban on mail-order gun sales was widely covered in the American Rifleman, a magazine owned by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Lee Harvey Oswald had killed President John F. Kennedy with a rifle purchased from a Klein's Sporting Goods advertisement in the February 1963 issue of American Rifleman. There were large sections of the magazine devoted to gun sales through advertisements.

Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer may have been a fisherman, hiker or hunter, with a penchant for killing humans because "it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest", then it's not inconceivable that he purchased his weapons through this magazine before the ban went into effect. This obviously wasn't the only gun magazine on the market, but it was this magazine that triggered the debate on gun control in the first place. The pencil flashlight, he claimed was taped to the barrel of his gun at Lake Herman Road, could have been inspired by an article featured in American Rifleman or similar magazine. The gun magazines released in the months prior to December 20th 1968 might be a valuable resource in learning a little more about the Zodiac Killer.

Inspired by the great work of Druzer on the Zodiac Killer Site forum, we can delve further into the possible Zodiac Killer threats toward Santa Rosa during the October of 1969. It was highlighted in the last article that a person claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned authorities in Santa Rosa (likely Santa Rosa Police Department) on, or shortly before October 15th 1969, threatening schoolchildren with bombs. This was crucially important, as the Stine letter text of "School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out" had not been released to the newspapers at this juncture. This was compelling evidence that the phone caller to Santa Rosa was very likely the Zodiac Killer. If that wasn't nearly enough, there is a little more to bolster this claim.

On October 17th 1969, KRON News footage featured an interview with a school bus driver who claimed that someone fired a shot at the bus she was driving. The woman was driving a school bus in Santa Rosa. She stated "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". The woman was confident she had heard a shot that day.

The release of Keith Power's article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 17th 1969 revealed that school bus drivers had been issued with evasion tactics in the event of a Zodiac attack. The article not only released the Zodiac threat on schoolchildren, but stated "Detectives issued an all-points bulletin yesterday, with advice to bus drivers if an attack is, in fact made. The drivers were told to keep the bus in motion "at all costs", instruct passengers to lie on the floor and to attract as much attention as possible with horn and lights". The perceived attack on this school bus in Santa Rosa could easily be attributed to imagination or hysteria, bearing in mind the attention the Zodiac Killer had drawn over recent months. However, the story given by the bus driver becomes more significant when we consider the October 21st 1969 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It stated "Even before starting on its routes each vehicle has undergone a thorough check to make sure a bomb isn't aboard. Someone hinting he might be Zodiac has telephoned such a threat in Santa Rosa. The man responsible for the safety of the students who ride the buses is Fred Sowash, the district's transportation director. Since last Wednesday (October 15th), when he learned of Zodiac's threat, Sowash has been devoting 18 to 20 hours a day to blunt it". 

This bomb threat (October 15th) on schoolchildren with respect to Santa Rosa was only made available in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 21st 1969. Therefore, it must be considered extremely coincidental that the first major news footage of an attack on a school bus, happened in Santa Rosa just four days earlier. This attack on a school bus could have happened anywhere in the Bay Area, but it just happened to occur in Santa Rosa, just two days after a man claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang Santa Rosa authorities threatening schoolchildren on buses. If they weren't the same person, then it has to be a massive stroke of luck for the Santa Rosa caller on October 15th 1969 to pre-empt the details in the Stine letter, which was shortly followed on October 17th 1969 by a reported shooting of a school bus in Santa Rosa, that coincidentally occurred in the same location as the target chosen by the caller.

Law enforcement were skeptical that any shooting took place on a school bus in Santa Rosa on October 17th 1969. If this was the case, then the reported "loud shot" heard by the bus driver just happened to never occur in Santa Rosa, rather than the innumerable other places in the Bay Area.