When the Zodiac Killer mailed the 408 cipher on July 31st 1969 he claimed it would reveal his identity---and backed this up somewhat by stating in his August 4th 1969 "Debut" letter that when police cracked the code they would "have me". The Zodiac Killer wasn't actually lying in this instance, because the decoded message contained both words in the following sentences: "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the I have killed will become my slaves" and "to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience". It may be the case that the Zodiac Killer was just playing a joke on law enforcement by saying they would "have me"---giving them the personal pronoun of "me", which he amusingly used as his identity. It also appeared on the final 24th line of gibberish.

​The next time the Zodiac Killer addressed the police regarding a mailed cipher would be on April 20th 1970, when he again asked the police whether they had cracked the code, by stating "have you cracked the last cipher I sent you?" (meaning the 340 cipher). Placing this question before "My name is" appears to suggest the answer lay in the message of the 340 cipher, not the unsolved ciphertext. In other words, the answer would not only be found in the solved 340 cipher, but in the Z13 code he placed under "My name is". The answer surely had to be present in both.the Z340 and Z13---otherwise, why mention whether the previous cipher had been cracked, when he obviously knew it hadn't. When we look at the message in the 340 cipher, only one pronoun has been disproportionally overused.

If the use of the wording "have me" on August 4th 1969 was the Zodiac Killer jokingly giving us his identity as the personal pronoun of "me", then one might expect this to be more obvious when the message in the 340 cipher was revealed. If he wasn't going to give us his name in the 340 message, he would have to blatantly give us the identity of "me" in such a way that it could be interpreted. Not only would it have to be blatant, but it would have to be easily found in the 13 character cipher mailed on April 20th 1970. In the first 55 words of the 340 cipher, the Zodiac Killer excessively used the pronoun "me" five times (once every 11 words)..The Zodiac Killer's 340 message was then capped off with his crosshairs symbol, which he placed under the 20 rows of the cipher. 
​
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME - THAT WASN’T ME ON THE TV SHOW - WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME - I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME.

All we had to do now to test the "me" hypothesis for durability, was to find the "M", "E", and possibly the crosshairs in the Z13 code. Fortunately they were there---and could be found 8 positions to the right of each "circled 8" when we circled around the cipher with a right shift. Maybe this was just a bit of luck. Then came the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, with the introductory message of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". Conveniently positioned along the line of each word "BOO" was the word "me". One was deliberately made larger and bolder. The second peered out beyond the skeleton's left arm, which was the only part of the pasted skeleton different from the original card it was taken from. The left arm may have been misaligned to manufacture the reduction of "game" to "me". By January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer was probably tired of giving us clues, so decided to ram it down our throats, writing "Me-37". 

THE FOUR CIPHERS NOW HISTORY      THREE INNOCUOUS EXCLAMATION MARKS

A shift cipher with circled numbers (often seen in puzzles like escape rooms) relies on a Caesar cipher, where the secret shift key is represented by numbers wrapped inside circles, such as the three number 8's present on the simple Z13 code mailed on April 20th 1970. A shift cipher replaces each plaintext letter with another letter located a fixed number of positions down the alphabet. When you hit the end of the alphabet, the count would wrap around to the beginning. In the case of the Z13, the count of 8 would travel in a right shift and wrap around to the beginning (this would apply to the second two 8's).

This was just a continuation of the technique adopted in the 340 cipher---at the time unsolved---in which the Zodiac Killer employed a positive nine and negative eight shift to encode his message---that could be decoded with a period 19 shift. He also encoded errors into his 340 cipher using a nine shift, that became apparent as diagonal patterns across the second half of this cipher. The April 20th 1970 letter was very likely triggered by the morning newspaper reports of the Robert Salem murder in San Francisco on the same day (with Zodiac scrawled in blood on his apartment wall). A letter that had a morning postmark, so was likely created in haste with very little regard for complex cipher techniques. It is not certain that the Zodiac Killer was inspired to resume his letter writing campaign because of the Robert Salem murder, but it had been four months since the Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969, so this letter coinciding with his pseudonym appearing at a murder site, is probably not coincidental. 

The November 8th 1969 and April 20th 1970 letters were very likely prompted by Professor Donald C. B. Marsh, who told the San Francisco Examiner on October 22nd 1969: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

​That is because Edgar Allan Poe's lengthy essay "A Few Words on Secret Writing".held all the ingredients to the design of the Z340 and Z13, including the splitting of the alphabet into two halves, and the cipher wheel which adopts the forwards and backwards shifting method of encryption and decryption, involving two concentric, independently rotating circles. The bottom line is that the Zodiac Killer likely didn't have much time to dazzle us with complex cryptograms on April 20th 1970, so created a simplistic code of 13 characters in which the three circled 8's became the engine room to the solution, where we had to circle around the code to produce the joke reply to "My name is" of "ME ⊕".  

This is the answer he gave us on October 27th 1970, highlighting the word "ME" twice on the Halloween card by the clever positioning of the word "BOO", preceded again by the promise of his name through the selection of a card with the introductory message of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". The comedic answer was "ME"--- now given to us three times. The fourth time was in plain sight on January 29th 1974, when the Zodiac gave us his "pseudonym" or "name" as "Me-37".

A further fifth clue could be found by looking at the next line in the "Tit-Willow" verse he provided in 1974. The wording "My name is" can be extrapolated from the "The Mikado" text---thereby returning us back to the April 20th 1970 letter and ""ME" once again. We have now gone full circle back to the three circled eights. We effectively have four examples of "ME" through three communications---all but one of which are sitting in plain sight. The only one hidden from view can be easily found in seconds using a simple right shift the Zodiac Killer had previously employed. The Zodiac Killer mailed at least seven ciphers during his reign of terror, but it is safe to say that the four most commonly talked about ciphers have now been finally resolved.
​
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OF ME             THREE INNOCUOUS EXCLAMATION MARKS

The Zodiac Killer employed only two pseudonyms between 1969 and 1987 in the form of "Zodiac" and "Me"---the latter of which appeared in the only known genuine mailing of 1974, when the Zodiac Killer sent the "Exorcist" communication on January 29th 1974. A signature that can easily be unearthed by taking a right shift of eight from each circled 8 in the Z13 cipher.

But it was the "Halloween" card on October 27th 1970 that again teed us up with the promise of his identity, by the Zodiac choosing a card with the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". Knowing that this was written on the front of the card, one might have expected the Bay Area murderer to supply us with a humorous answer subtly concealed within the design of the card inner, just like "My name is" may have been followed by "ME ⊕" in the April 20th 1970 letter. This was covered extensively in a previous article, however, it appeared that the Zodiac Killer made a deliberate choice to add two exclamation marks to the "Halloween" card inner to compliment the third exclamation mark already present in the writing "But, then why spoil our game!".  The fourth was partially hidden by the the skeleton's right foot.
​
In the earlier article it was shown that the Zodiac Killer placed "Peek-a-boo you are doomed" around the knothole of the tree, yet it was fashioned in such a way that the "ME" of "DOOMED" was noticeably larger and bolder than the rest of the text. The following letter "D" returned to normal size, but was followed by an oversized exclamation mark, effectively creating an emphasis on "ME!".(ME complimented by an exclamation mark). This mimicked the word to the right of the inner skeleton's left arm, which was the only part of the "cut and pasted" skeleton out of position compared to the original. The left arm had been accidentally or deliberately shifted to the right to obscure the "a" of "game" to spell "me!". This was not all.

The phrase "PEEK-A-BOO" around the knothole is positioned so that "BOO" lines up with the personal pronoun of "ME". The "D" and exclamation mark is broken off to line up with the large "BOO!" (BOO and exclamation mark) in the center of the card inner, which in turn is tilted 45 degrees anticlockwise to line up with the "me!" by the skeleton's left arm, which just happens to be the only part of the skeleton out of place compared to the original (see below). So, did.the Zodiac Killer deliberately add two exclamation marks to the card inner to form a bridge to the third, positioned after "me" by the misplaced left arm? The Zodiac Killer would have lined up "BOO" with "ME" twice (with both "BOO'S" sitting at approximately 45 degrees on the card), and fashioned "ME" followed by an exclamation mark twice. Was this a further mocking joke to compliment the simplistic answer to the Z13 on April 20th 1970? A joke that the Zodiac Killer finally got tired of on January 29th 1974, when he eventually exorcised the true identity of himself. Did anybody really expect the Zodiac Killer to give us his real name?  

If you are not interested in the recent examinations of the Z13, Halloween card and Exorcist letter with respect to the identity of "Me" as the Zodiac Killer's "name", then you need go no further. In this article I will be looking again at the Halloween card inner, following the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in" on the card outer. When the Halloween card was opened the most prominent writing on the card was "BOO". But why did the Zodiac Killer choose to angle this writing at about 45 degrees to the horizontal, when he had ample room to write it normally? The word "BOO" is facing the word "me" just beyond the skeleton's left arm, as if to complete the introduction to "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in. BOO. ME". Choosing a card with the promise of a name, yet jokingly delivering a self-identity of "me".

This isn't particularly noteworthy, until we look at the word "BOO" in "PEEK-A-BOO" around the knothole of the tree, which is also facing the word "ME" of "DOOMED". But the "M" and "E" have been written significantly bigger and bolder as if to emphasize this section of the word "DOOMED". Just check out the size of the other three E's for comparison. One could argue that the Zodiac Killer is peeking through the knothole in the tree and identifying himself as "ME", which he repeats for a second time on the card inner in identical fashion.

On December 28th 2024, a Reddit forum contributor using the moniker of SmallOrbit discovered the origin of the inner skeleton, which the Zodiac Killer had carefully cut from another card and pasted onto the Halloween card. But why did the Zodiac Killer go to great lengths to perform this task?

One would like to believe that the pasted skeleton was placed onto the Halloween card for a specific purpose, other than it was just another spooky addition. However, it wasn't pasted onto the October 27th 1970 card exactly as it appeared on the original card. Everything was kept the same except for the position of the skeleton's left arm, which was now further away from the skull. The question being, was this an accidental occurrence when the Zodiac Killer added the cut skeleton, or had he deliberately pulled the left arm away from the skull to achieve his objective of turning "game" into "me", to be highlighted by the word "BOO" seemingly angled purposefully at 45 degrees, which copied the scenario created around the knothole of the tree?
Ordinarily I wouldn't claim massive significance to this observation, if it hadn't been so easy to create "ME" by using the three 8's in the Z13 code, and the presence of "Me" as Zodiac's signature in the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. To read all the findings regarding "me" as an identity, here are six further articles [1], [2], {3], [4], [5], [6].. 

The unsolved 18 characters at the base of the 408 cipher have been widely shown to be EBEORIETEMETHHPITI, however there are other options, as shown by the author of the "concerned citizen" card on August 10th 1969. Below is one of those options. One of the questions that has arisen, is was it important for the concerned citizen to send these amendments to better understand the 18 unsolved characters that ended the cipher? The following observations are extremely speculatory and must be taken with a grain of salt. But the concept is that the Zodiac Killer was jokingly inserting his identity of "ME" into communications such as those mailed on April 20th 1970, October 27th 1970 and January 29th 1974, which were all teasing us with his identity or name. The whole story can be better understood by reading the article Four and a Half Years of Me. 

One notable feature of the Halloween card mailed on October 27th 1970 was the Zodiac Killer's use of eyes. He added 12 floating eyes to the one already present in the knothole of the tree, and sourced the skeleton from a card where a little girl peers through a rectangular opening on the skull of the skeleton. This effectively gave us 15 eyes in total on the card inner. The card outer teased us with "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in", which when we open, we are greeted with numerous eyes that may be saying "can you see me".

If the Halloween card was going to give us the answer of "Me" proposed in the Z13 code, you would expect to find this word embedded in its design. Not only was the word "Me" curiously obvious in the Halloween card inner, it was present twice. The Zodiac Killer was clearly employing the eye in the knothole of the tree as himself, by surrounding the knothole with the ominous threat of "Peek-a-boo you are doomed".

But there is one striking feature about the writing on the tree. After the phrase "PEEK-A-BOO" the Zodiac Killer positions the word "DOOMED", such that the "ME" lines up with "PEEK-A-BOO" to create "PEEK-A-BOO, ME". It is definitely noticeable that the word "ME" is visibly larger and bolder than the rest of the writing, as if to place emphasis on this pronoun. The skeleton's left arm is also affixed to the Halloween card in such a manner that it separates the word "GAME" to spell "ME". The word "BOO" is written on the card inner at a 45 degree angle so that it too lines up with the word "ME".

The word "BOO" around the knothole and the word "BOO" to the immediate left of the skeleton, are both positioned in alignment with the word "ME". Was the Zodiac Killer giving us the answer of "ME" to "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in"? Thereby replicating the answer of "ME" possibly given by the proposed solution to the Z13 code on April 20th 1970. And the signature of "Me" he would ultimately deliver on January 29th 1974 to the San Francisco Chronicle. Was the Halloween card saying "can you see me"?

This makes me return to the 408 cipher and the search for "ME" in its design. I have previously noted that the Zodiac Killer on August 4th 1969 stated "are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me". Was this a humorous way of saying they would only find "ME" in the code? It can be found in the 18 characters at the foot of the cipher, but the personal pronoun of "ME" can be isolated a further five times in the rest of the cipher as shown below.

However, if we use the revised version of the 18 plaintext characters of EBSORIETEMETHHPITI (shown below), where everyone has searched for his identity, we can form the phrase "SEE ME", as suggested in the Halloween card of "CAN YOU SEE ME". 

The ninth line of the cryptogram is the portion of the 408 cipher that begins the message to the San Francisco Examiner. It opens with "VES ME", which in Spanish reads "YOU SEE ME" or "SEE ME" (matching the green highlighted letters above). This analysis of the 408 cipher still falls way short of proving that the personal identity of "ME" was ever intended to be found within his message, but that's all I have for now.

ADDITIONAL READING: 
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OF "ME"      SAME METHODOLOGY BETWEEN Z340 AND Z13

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the Halloween card mailed on October 27th 1970 was influenced (but not necessarily exclusively) by the extremely lengthy newspaper article released by the San Francisco Chronicle on October 12th 1970 entitled Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac. The newspaper referenced his most recent boast of 13 victims, which began on December 20th 1968 when he "chalked up his first two victims" in "teen-agers" David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. This seemingly formed the basis of his communication when he chose a card with the introduction "I feel it in my bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in", with the card inner raising the victim total to "4-TEEN" in "chalk" writing.  

The Zodiac Killer had previously claimed the San Jose murder victims, Kathie Reyne Snoozy (15) and Debra Gaye Furlong (14), in his victim total on November 8th 1969, which he was determined to remind the reader of on October 27th 1970 by incorporating 4-TEEN into his current total of 14, giving it a double meaning. The Zodiac Killer was correcting the newspaper by informing the San Francisco Chronicle that he had currently killed the 4-TEENAGERS of David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong, despite having no involvement in the stabbing of the two San Jose girls on August 3rd 1969. 

The October 12th 1970 Chronicle article featured his 13-Hole postcard mailed in early October, which carried thirteen holes/circles punched into the fabric of the card, and almost certainly represented his running total of 13 victims. Therefore, the Zodiac Killer's incluson of four chalk circles or dots by the letter "F" in the symbol at the foot of the Halloween card inner, could very well be a mirror of his "4-TEEN" by the skull of the second skeleton. This dual phonetic offering combined his current victim total of 14 with the murder of the 4 teens, which is probably what he gave us at the bottom of the card.

The 4 white dots/circles could be suggestive of the 4 teenagers of Faraday, Jensen, Snoozy and Furlong, with the letter "F" representing "FOURTEEN". The Bay Area murderer was probably combining "Z" and "F" to inform police that "Zodiac" was now claiming "FOURTEEN", with the inclusion of 4 teenagers. The logical inference to "F" in the symbol at the base of the card, bearing in mind the "14" on the outer skeleton's hand and "4-TEEN" on the skull, would be "FOURTEEN". Most of his victim totals were positioned at the bottom right of each communication - and this was seemingly no different.

​Alternatively, we can argue that the symbol is a crude representation of Mount Diablo, which has no apparent supporting evidence in the rest of the Halloween card, and gets no direct mention in the San Francisco Chronicle article (other than it can be linked to the "Little List" letter which was featured in the newspaper). Additionally, we need to adequately explain what the four dots mean in relation to Mount Diablo. The contention that this symbol somehow looks like the 3,849 foot mountain in Contra Costa County should be qualified with an adequate explanation of its purpose within the card.

The 13-Hole postcard indicated the victim total using the number "13" and by punching 13 holes into the card. The Halloween card would also reference his current total on more than one accasion by using "14" and "4-TEEN", along with his claim of four murdered teenagers, which the Zodiac Killer possibly signified twice by highlighting the number "4" through the use of a hyphen and four white dots/circles. The Halloween card appeared like the Zodiac Killer was playing with the word "fourteen" throughout, and reminding us that David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were not the only two teenagers he had murdered. This wouldn't be the last time he would indirectly reference the two San Jose girls, when he continued their inclusion in the 148 character cipher/letter and Monticello card in May and July of 1971.  

This is a further examination of the 18 characters at the foot of the 408 cipher mailed on July 31st 1969, and the reasoning behind the apparent filler that made little sense. It is fairly clear that the Zodiac Killer made an error when converting his draft message into ciphertext form when he transitioned from the San Francisco Examiner to San Francisco Chronicle portion of the cipher, inadvertently missing out one line of 17 characters. This left him with the option of maybe dumping something unplanned into the remaining 18 characters to play a joke on the audience, which I have explored in the April 20th 1970, October 27th 1970, January 29th 1974 and December 1990 communications, found in an article entitled Four and a Half Years of "Me". 

​The word "ME" can be reasoned to be present in all the above four communications, but is also noticeable within these 18 characters, albeit not currently supported by the most convincing of arguments. So let's examine the 408 cipher in more depth, because on August 4th 1969 the Zodiac Killer informed the police to "cheer up", who would, once they solved the code "have me". This is despite his message in the 408 cipher stating that "I will not give you my name". The notion being that the identity he supplied was "ME", just like he eventually gave us in the "Exorcist" letter on January 29th 1974 when writing Me-37. The Zodiac Killer may not have been lying when he told police they would "have me" when they cracked the code. Below in green I have highlighted the characters that have seemingly been sourced by the Zodiac Killer from the columns above the final line. This final 24th row has 12 characters from the above columns, with 5 characters absent from the above columns. That is a strike rate of 70.5%. So if the final row really was just filler, why did the Zodiac Killer abandon this technique nearly 30% of the time? ​

Using the full 18 characters, let us examine the 11 characters either side of the run of 7 characters boxed in green. The first 6 characters only have a strike rate of 50% from the columns above, with the final 5 characters having a strike rate of just 40%. So its fairly obvious that the Zodiac Killer wasn't stringently harvesting characters from the above columns in these sections of the cipher. Therefore, if we discount the seven characters in a row, the remaining 11 only generate an overall strike rate of 45% from the above columns. But of these 7 consecutive characters found in the above columns, it is the grouping of 4 on row 8 that carry the most significance. The grouping of 4 characters on the eighth row spelling METH contain the object pronoun of "ME", which is visible on the final row - and an "identity" that the Zodiac Killer promised to give us in the cipher when he wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 31st 1969. One could conclude that a promise to give us his identity when writing to the San Francisco Chronicle and supplying us with the third portion of the cipher, meant we would find his identity in the final 8 rows of the 408 cipher (or possibly the final line). On August 4th 1969 the Zodiac stated "By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me". The final 8 rows of the cipher did contain "HAVE", "ME" and "ME".

The phrase "yours truly" has two main uses in English: as a formal sign-off in a letter and, informally and often humorously, as a substitute for "I" or "me"..When used in conversation or informal writing, "yours truly" is an idiomatic expression used to refer to oneself, the speaker or writer, usually in a self-deprecating or ironically boastful way. It functions as a first-person pronoun substitute. This is why it's important to note the use of "yours truley" and "Me" as the Zodiac Killer's chosen identity in the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974. He effectively gave us "Me" twice. After he wrote "Signed, yours truley" in the 1974 letter he gave us a "Tit-Willow" verse from "The Mikado", whose very next line contained the phrase "My name is", which was previously followed by a 13-character code on April 20th 1970. A code which can easily be shown to give us the personal pronoun of "Me" (and the crosshairs) by employing a simple right shift of 8 positions from each circled 8.  It can be argued that he gave us two identities on April 20th 1970 by supplying us with both the "crosshairs" and "ME".

We also had the visible presence of "ME" and "me" in the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, which was teed up with the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". The Zodiac didn't give us his name on October 27th 1970, but he did give us the personal pronoun of "Me" twice. The third portion of the 408 cipher (shown above) stated that he would not give us his name, although he did, once again, give us "ME" two more times. Throw in the autobiography of Groucho Marx entitled "Groucho and Me" with respect to the Eureka card in 1990, and it appears that the Zodiac Killer may have been playing a running joke on his audience for upwards of twenty-one years. 

After noticing the presence (or inference) of "ME" at least six times on April 20th 1970, October 27th 1970 and January 29th 1974, all with the promise or suggestion of his name or identity, this has been a retrospective analysis of the 408 cipher, looking for the most reasonable way the Zodiac Killer inserted "ME" into the final portion of the 408 cipher, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 31st 1969, and followed with a promise by the Zodiac Killer to "have me" on August 4th 1969 when the code was cracked. This analysis of the 408 cipher is far from satisfactory, but I believe our focus should be squarely on the four consecutive characters on the eighth line, which appeared like a deliberate choice by the Zodiac Killer to drop into the signature line of his three-part cipher. However, I would be surprised if there wasn't more to it.

FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OF "ME"        THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GROUCHO MARX

The Zodiac Killer mailed a threat to the San Francisco Examiner on July 31st 1969 stating "I want you to print this cipher on the frunt page by Fry afternoon Aug 1-69. If you do not print this cipher, I will go on a kill rampage Fry night". The murderer of three would use the word "Fry" six times and the word "print" five times in his trinity of letters, that included the San Francisco Chronicle and Vallejo Times-Herald. He claimed that he would "kill Fry night" if his cipher wasn't printed "by Fry afternoon".

Therefore, it isn't a great leap of faith that immediately following the demand of "you better print" on the December 16th 1969 "Fairfield" letter to the San Francisco Examiner, his 5 character code with one repeating symbol at position 3 and 5 contained "By" and "Fry". However, to satisfy the code the words would have to be reversed to "Fry" and "By". Bearing in mind that the Fairfield letter was postmarked on Tuesday, December 16th 1969, the Zodiac Killer's threat of "you better print Fry" would have given the newspaper three days to comply, as opposed to the one day he gave the newspapers on Thursday, July 31st 1969  Had investigators similarly concluded that "Fry" was the first word of the code, then the word "By" would have been the inevitable answer to the final two characters. 

​Both Fairfield letters in December threatened to murder "cops". The December 7th 1969 letter stated "I will kill again, so expect it any time the will be a cop". While the December 16th 1969 letter gave us a list of locations he would kill 38 cops, which included San Francisco (3), San Jose (1), Vallejo (6), Napa (8), Fairfield (3), Sacramento (9) and Oakland (8). If the initial part of the 5 character code on December 16th 1969 had read "Fry", then the introduction of "you better print" would have completed the phrase to "you better print Fry".

​Obviously, a failure to comply to his instructions of printing the 5 character code had consequences, just like on July 31st 1969, when he demanded compliance that his cipher be printed in the newspapers or he would kill a dozen people over the weekend. The San Francisco Examiner did not publish the Zodiac Killer's letter by Friday, December 19th 1969, so it probably comes as no surprise that on December 19th 1969 the Zodiac Killer made a phone call to Shirley Searey of the San Jose Highway Patrol on Friday night (10:10pm), stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". The vicious verbal assault on police continued. This late night threat on Friday, December 19th 1969 to kill 10 people in total over the weekend, somewhat validates the threat of "you better print Fry" on December 16th 1969. It also mirrored the Zodiac Killer promises on July 31st 1969 to go on a "kill rampage" Friday night if his cipher wasn't printed in the newspapers. 

The threat to target 38 cops on December 16th 1969 (including in San Jose for the first time) was reinforced by the pledge to kill 5 cops over the weekend beginning December 19th 1969, when the Zodiac Killer phoned Shirley Searey at the San Jose Highway Patrol office and threatened murder between now (10:10pm) and Monday..

​The next part of the Fairfield letter code on December 16th 1969 may have contained the word "By", when you consider the yet-to-be-mailed Halloween card on October 27th 1970. The configuration of 4 offerings in 4 quadrants within both communications, possibly contained the common thread of "By". This word also satisfied the repeating symbol at position 3 and 5 of the code. The notion that Zodiac's message read "you better print Fry" or he would "By Gun, Rope, Knife and Fire" kill multiple cops at various locations, appeared to materialize when he issued the phone threat on Friday, December 19th 1969. This phone call made to the San Jose Highway Patrol should be of interest because the Fairfield letter had not yet been published in the newspapers. The phone caller at 10:10pm on Friday (if not the same person as the letter writer) couldn't possibly have known that a Friday threat was issued on December 16th 1969 (assuming the decoding is correct).

Joe Stine, the brother of the murdered taxicab driver Paul Stine, issued a confrontational challenge to the Zodiac Killer on October 23rd 1969, daring him to pay him a visit to his workplace in Modesto. Therefore, if the Zodiac Killer had the concept of By Gun, By Rope, By Knife and By Fire​ in his mind on December 16th 1969 (partly demonstrated by the car door at Lake Berryessa), it would have been extremely noteworthy that the next crime linked to him via the testimony of Kathleen Johns on March 22nd 1970 involved the burning of her vehicle "by fire" in Modesto. The Zodiac Killer told us he was starting a "little list" on July 24th 1970, owning up to the abduction of Kathleen Johns and the burning of her car, which was accompanied by the "Little List" letter two days later. Three months later he placed By Gun, By Rope, By Knife and By Fire on the back face of the Halloween card in a clockwise fashion, mimicking the order he presented his "killing tools" through time. 

There are only four communications from July 31st 1969 to January 29th 1974 where the Zodiac Killer teased us with his identity or name. The letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 31st 1969 promised that "in this cipher is my idenity", but only gave us 18 characters that seemingly have no discernible message. The April 20th 1970 letter with a thirteen character code tempted us with "my name is". The October 27th 1970 "Halloween" card began with the message "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". And finally, the January 29th 1974 "Exorcist" letter substituted part of the "Tit-Willow" verse for a signature, by introducing the verse with "Signed, yours truley". The Zodiac Killer teased us in each instance - yet to this day - no common thread has been found linking all four Zodiac offerings together. However, the following presentation will serve up the same "identity" in all four communications. An identity (if correct)  that would clearly have been chosen as a joke.
​
The first is incredibly tenuous, but it does exist. The deciphered portion of the 408 cipher mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 31st 1969 gave us 18 letters of illegible text, yet within these 18 apparently meaningless letters the Zodiac Killer may have placed his signature, shown inside the yellow rectangle below. This suggestion is wholly unconvincing on its own, but hopefully the remainder of this analysis will maybe change your mind.

The April 20th 1970 "13-Symbol" code letter, I have argued had the key of 888, derived from the murderer's pseudonym in the 340 cipher (see here), which when applied to the Z13 code with a right shift of 8, gave us the signature of "ME ⊕" ("ME" followed by the Zodiac crosshairs). In other words, when cycling 8 positions to the right from each "circled 8", we get the signature of "ME" and his "gunsight" logo.

​If the Halloween card on October 27th 1970 was going to give us the answer of "ME" proposed in the 408 cipher and Z13 code, you would expect to find this word embedded in its design. Not only was the word "ME" curiously obvious in the Halloween card inner, it was present twice. The Zodiac Killer was clearly employing the eye in the knothole of the tree as himself, by surrounding the knothole with the ominous threat of "Peek-a-boo you are doomed".

But there is one striking feature about the writing on the tree. After the phrase "PEEK-A-BOO" the Zodiac Killer positions the word "DOOMED", such that the "ME" lines up with "PEEK-A-BOO" to create "PEEK-A-BOO, ME". It is definitely noticeable that the word "ME" is visibly larger and bolder than the rest of the writing, as if to place emphasis on this pronoun. The skeleton's left arm is also affixed to the Halloween card in such a manner that it separates the word "GAME" to spell "ME". The word "BOO" is written on the card inner at a 45 degree angle so that it too lines up with the word "ME".

The word "BOO" around the knothole and the word "BOO" to the immediate left of the skeleton, are both positioned in alignment with the word "ME". Was the Zodiac Killer giving us the answer of "ME" to "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in"? Thereby replicating the answer of "ME" possibly given by the proposed solution to the Z13 code on April 20th 1970. And the signature of "ME" sitting innocuously within the 18 characters of the 408 cipher.

Finally, on January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer probably got tired of playing games and outright gave us his signature in plain sight, by writing "Me - 37". In fact, he effectively gave us the signature of "Me" (or "ME") a total of three times in the "Exorcist" letter. The first, as already explained, sat alongside his running victim count. The second was in the words "Signed, yours truley", because while it is often used in formal and semi-formal correspondence, in some specific contexts, it can also be used humorously or self-referentially in conversation to mean "myself". The signature of "yours truly" simply means "me". The third can be shown by using the "Tit-Willow" verse that followed "Signed, yours truley".

When we look at the Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974, the Zodiac Killer appears to add the "Tit-Willow" verse from "The Mikado" for no apparent reason. However, the verse was preceded by "Signed, yours truley;" and may suggest that his identity of "Me" should be found somewhere within the verse. This concept hit a roadblock, until I looked up the following line from the complete song. The Zodiac Killer plagiarised the section below (marked in red) to place into his letter. The next line in the below verse (marked in blue) reads, in part, "Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name Is". which the Zodiac Killer wrote on April 20th 1970 to introduce his Z13 code, that has already been shown to easily create the signature of "ME" and his crosshairs. Therefore, we have the "Exorcist" letter with a signature of "Me -37", the phrase of "yours truley" which means "me", introducing a "Tit-Willow" verse whose next line contains "my name is", that preceded the Zodiac Killer's Z13 code, which by using the three circled 8's as a mathematical tool, easily creates the signature of "ME". A "Tit-Willow" verse, by the way, which is split into three sections of eight lines, just like the 408 cipher. 

​July 31st 1969: "I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife", but "in this cipher is my identity". EBEORIETEMETHHPITI.

August 4th 1969: "By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me".

Recently I have released two articles examining the solution of "Me⊕" in the April 20th 1970 letter mailed by the Zodiac Killer, having been formulated by a combination of Edgar Allan Poe, the 340 cipher and the three 8's in the Z13 code. Further hints towards this solution have possibly been unearthed in the 13-Hole postcard mailed a few months later in October, and Exorcist letter mailed on January 29th 1974 in which the Zodiac Killer changed his signature to "Me" for the first time.

​The April 20th 1970 letter tempted us with an identity stating "My name is", the 13-Hole postcard contained 13 holes punched into the fabric of its design and the phrase "Fk I'm crackproof", the March 13th 1971 "Los Angeles" continued the theme by proclaiming "This is the Zodiac speaking Like I have allways said, I am crack proof", with the Exorcist letter again suggesting an identity might be hidden in its contents by the introduction of "Yours truley", followed by the Tit-Willow verse from "The Mikado". But crucially, the January 29th 1974 letter added the signature of "Me", that can be replicated using the three 8's from the Z13 code by employing a cipher wheel described by Edgar Allan Poe. But there is one communication nestled in between these other mailings, that also tempted us with a name, much like the April 20th 1970 letter. The Halloween card, mailed on October 27th 1970, began with "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in".    

If the Halloween card was going to give us the answer of "Me" proposed in the Z13 code, you would expect to find this word embedded in its design. Not only was the word "Me" curiously obvious in the Halloween card inner, it was present twice. The Zodiac Killer was clearly employing the eye in the knothole of the tree as himself, by surrounding the knothole with the ominous threat of "Peek-a-boo you are doomed".

But there is one striking feature about the writing on the tree. After the phrase "PEEK-A-BOO" the Zodiac Killer positions the word "DOOMED", such that the "ME" lines up with "PEEK-A-BOO" to create "PEEK-A-BOO, ME". It is definitely noticeable that the word "ME" is visibly larger and bolder than the rest of the writing, as if to place emphasis on this pronoun. The skeleton's left arm is also affixed to the Halloween card in such a manner that it separates the word "GAME" to spell "ME". The word "BOO" is written on the card inner at a 45 degree angle so that it too lines up with the word "ME".

The word "BOO" around the knothole and the word "BOO" to the immediate left of the skeleton, are both positioned in alignment with the word "ME". Was the Zodiac Killer giving us the answer of "ME" to "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in"? Thereby replicating the answer of "ME" possibly given by the proposed solution to the Z13 code on April 20th 1970. And the signature of "Me" he would ultimately deliver on January 29th 1974 to the San Francisco Chronicle.    FURTHER READING:

From July 31st 1969 to March 13th 1971 virtually all Zodiac communications contained the signature of the "crosshairs", placed at the foot of each correspondence only once (with the exception of the 340 cipher). The "Little List" letter, postmarked July 26th 1970 and received by the San Francisco Chronicle the following day, contained two large crosshairs and deviated from his worded letters by having this extra addition. The first crosshairs mailed to The Chronicle carried the victim total of 13 (which would normally finish a communication). If the Zodiac Killer had either sealed this envelope, or already mailed this communication, it's possible he felt the need to write a second letter which began "As some day it may hapen" from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado", with a second crosshairs signature containing the crucial phrase of "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians". In other words, the Zodiac Killer mailed two communications on (or shortly before) July 26th 1970.  

The San Francisco Chronicle on October 12th 1970 clearly stated that two letters were "sent to The Chronicle last July 27". In the San Jose Sunday Mercury newspaper they reported that "This was the new total he claimed in two letters received July 27 by the San Francisco Chronicle and kept secret until now by agreement with police while the letters' contents were analyzed. The longer of the two letters begins: "As some day it may happen that a victim must be found". Bearing in mind that these two letters were kept "secret" by investigators and the San Francisco Chronicle for 2 1/2 months, it probably isn't surprising that the Zodiac Killer chose a greeting card with the opening line "From your secret pal".​

​The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on October 12th 1970 was entitled "Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac", so again, the greeting card's following line of "I feel it in my bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in" was perfectly chosen. It is fairly obvious that the Halloween card was mailed in response to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on October 12th 1970. The Zodiac Killer even mimicked the "chalk-like writing" on the presale card to add "4-TEEN" onto the greeting card inner. The newspaper stated "And he is now claiming he has murdered 13 persons. Homicide detectives who've been hunting Zodiac for nearly two years frankly admit he is as much an enigma now as he was on Dec 20, 1968, when he chalked up his first two victims" (which were David Faraday & Betty Lou Jensen). In this period of nearly two years the Zodiac Killer only ever claimed the lives of 4 teenagers, who were David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong. Therefore, David Faraday & Betty Lou Jensen were probably included in his "chalked" 4-TEEN victim total. 

​The two large crosshairs may have ended each letter received by the San Francisco Chronicle on July 27th 1970, to begin the outside possibility we have a second envelope either lost or misplaced. However, It must be stressed that it's unlikely two letters were mailed by the Zodiac Killer when we re-evaluate the wording contained within the newspapers, which are in direct conflict with several FBI files that document a "Five page letter and envelope". But if one envelope did get misplaced, this would be the obvious conclusion.      

Only six weeks away from claiming the August 3rd 1969 San Jose murders of Kathie Snoozy (15) and Debra Furlong (14) in the "Dripping Pen" card on November 8th 1969, the Zodiac Killer attempted to augment the perception he was involved in their murders, by reinforcing newspaper stories of his possible connection to this crime and adding "by knife" on the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia of Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. The obviousness of the double stabbing by the lake, a clear indication that the wording on the car door had greater purpose. This became clear when the Zodiac Killer drew us a "bleeding knife" on December 16th 1969, when he mailed the second Fairfield letter. This letter was the product of a Los Angeles Times newspaper article earlier that morning, which told of the Zodiac Killer's "hint" on November 8th 1969 that he was responsible for the slayings of Snoozy and Furlong. There is no way to prove the following concept, but it's eminently possible that his two phrases of "bleeding knife" and "by knife" were deliberately taken from the newspapers which detailed the murder of Debra Furlong and her resulting autopsy. 

In the San Jose Mercury on August 6th 1969, Dr. John Hauser, who performed the two autopsies on the teenage girls, stated that he couldn't attribute a specific cause of death, but concluded that it may have been from "bleeding" or lacerations of internal organs or both. On the same day, August 6th 1969, the Los Angeles Herald & Examiner ran an article entitled "The Victims: 16 Young Girls", featuring pictures of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong. The picture of Debra Furlong had the wording "killed by knife" written under it. The phrase "by knife" that was written on the car door at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. One year later, on October 27th 1970, "by knife" was added to the Halloween card, which appeared to incorporate "4-TEEN" or "4 teenagers" into the running victim total of fourteen. The Zodiac Killer was only claiming the murders of four teenagers by October 27th 1970. They were David Faraday (17), Betty Lou Jensen (16), Kathie Snoozy (15) and Debra Furlong (14). 

Also, on August 6th 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle released an article entitled "The Frenzy of San Jose Girls' Slayer". The newspaper gave the proposed burial site of Kathie Snoozy at the Oak Hill Memorial Park in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose (which formed part of the 07/13/1971 Monticello card), and released details of the five remaining family members of the Furlong family, that the Zodiac Killer may have threatened on December 19th 1969, three days after the "bleeding knife" of Zodiac offering.

It appeared as though August 6th 1969 was integral to at least three "communications" (car door, Fairfield letter, Monticello card), and one phone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol on December 19th 1969, in which the Zodiac Killer spoke to dispatcher Shirley Searey and claimed he would "kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday".

​In 1971, two communications were mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle (the 148 character cipher in probably May and Monticello card on July 13th), which both indirectly referenced the Snoozy & Furlong murders and the recent murder of Kathy Bilek (18) in Saratoga on April 11th 1971. The 148 character cryptogram contained the ciphertext symbol of a "mirrored N", just like the Halloween card on October 27th 1970.. The phrase "by knife" was written on the Halloween card, not only reminiscent of the car door and picture of Debra Furlong, but the Halloween card very possibly also referenced Debra Furlong amongst the four teenagers he was claiming as victims at this juncture. The "mirrored N" would therefore have appeared in two communications from the Zodiac Killer, both of which suggested his involvement in the murders of Kathie Snoozy & Debra Furlong. The plaintext character for the "mirrored N" in the decrypted 148 character cryptogram was "K" for "Knife".  

Another message would appear on September 18th 1973:
WHAT INSPIRED THE TOMBSTONE WRITING? 

The canonical murders of Jack the Ripper began on August 31st 1888 with the brutal murder of Mary Ann Nichols in Buck's Row, her throat severed, her vagina stabbed and her lower abdomen partly ripped open to expose her bowels. This grisly affair was followed on September 8th 1888, when the body of Annie Chapman was discovered in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. She had also suffered deep cuts to her throat and abdomen, but this time the killer had removed her small intestine and placed it on her right shoulder, and excised part of her stomach and deposited it on her left shoulder. Annie Chapman's uterus was missing, along with parts of her bladder and vagina. 

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes both met their fate on September 30th 1888, with Elizabeth Stride being found in Dutfield's Yard, having received one knife wound to her neck. The severity of her injuries were believed to be considerably less because of the arrival of Louis Diemschutz, the steward of the International Working Men's Educational Club, who arrived at the location in his horse and two-wheeled cart. The killer, now unable to perform the mutilation of the corpse as in previous attacks, sought out Catherine Eddowes less than an hour later, cutting her throat and once again ripping her intestines from her body. Her left kidney and the majority of her uterus had been taken from the site of the murder. The final attack, that of Mary Jane Kelly inside her single room at 13 Miller's Court on November 9th 1888 is almost impossible to describe, other than to say that her body was destroyed beyond recognition.          

Jack the Ripper was fond of removing various body parts, some of which he carried away from the crime scene and some he left on public display for the whole world to see. This sickening display of the grotesque was the seeming ambition of the Confession letter author in Riverside on November 29th 1966, who confessed that he wanted to mutilate furher victims, stating that he would "cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see" and had recently "finished the job out cutting her throat", referring to the October 30th 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates. The Confession letter author issued the Riverside Police Department a stark warning, that he was "stalking your girls now", just like the Ripper had done in the dimly lit streets of Whitechapel, 78 years earlier.

Five days before the Confession letter was postmarked, a newspaper article from the Press-Enterprise told of the recent murder of Cheri Jo Bates and postulated a connection to the abduction of a 19-year-old girl on November 22nd 1966. The perpetrator in this case invoked the name of "Jack the Ripper", by stating "Well, after all, I'm not Jack the Ripper" after she refused to enter his vehicle. This led me to explore the idea that the author of the Confession letter, who plagiarized key phrases from this newspaper article, had also been inspired to create a typed letter using the sadistic reportings of Jack the Ripper. The promise to cut off female parts, the stalking of girls, and the casual and brutal way he described cutting the throat of Cheri Jo Bates - synonymous with the Whitechapel murderer - required further exploration to see whether this was coincidental or a deliberate choice by the Confession letter typist. And indeed, if the author of the letter was the killer of Cheri Jo Bates.         

To discover material on Jack the Ripper, the easiest route for the killer in 1966 was to use the Riverside library (possibly) on his doorstep, writing a poem on the desktop in between his searches of the microfiche reels. The Riverside City College library may have been convenient for him, but any library would have sufficed. Today, I approached the task at hand by typing in key phrases from the Confession letter, and/or the year 1888, to see if the newspaper archives churned up any interesting results, whereas in 1966 the task would have been a bit more arduous and labor intensive. However, it would have been easily  accomplished by somebody who was determined enough, who was prepared put considerable thought into his compositions. Somebody like the Zodiac Killer.

The following section of the Confession letter looked contrived, stating "When we were away from the library walking, I said it was about time. She asked me "about time for what". I said it was about time for her to die". The last phrase reading "I said it was about time for her to die" appeared over-dramatic and had a punchline effect, as though it had been borrowed for purpose from elsewhere. I typed the shortened phrase of "it was about time for her to die" into the newspaper archive and it produced only one result in 336 years. That year was 1888, the year of Jack the Ripper. Alongside the stories of Jack the Ripper in 1888 was the accompanying story of "The Sturdy Beggar", who attempted to scrounge food from a woman inside her home and placed his hand into his hip pocket (probably reaching for a presumed knife) and stated that "it was about time for her to die".​ Had the Confession letter author added this phrase into his communication to bolster the Jack the Ripper theme of "body parts" and "cutting her throat"?

​In 1927, multiple American newspapers reported the Ripper like murders from New York, spanning the previous 15 years. The first in 1912, detailed the savage knife murder of Julia Connors by Nathan Swartz, who wrote a confession letter after the killing and an additional message on a soiled linen collar with a lead pencil, reading "I am guilty. I am insane", using five of the same words from the Riverside Confession letter, which read "I am not sick. I am insane". Two stories, loosely connected to Jack the Ripper, with two perinent phrases. But there had to be more.

On October 27th 1970, the Zodiac Killer mailed the Halloween card with the skeleton of an unknown victim. One observer of this communication by the name of Phil Sins contacted San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reporter, Paul Avery, believing that the greeting card was insinuating the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, whose lifeless body was discovered by a Riverside groundskeeper on Halloween morning in 1966.

It turned out that the prominent word "by" was shared 6 times by the Halloween card and the two typed Confession letters. The Halloween card author also used the signature "Z" for the first time, that was suggested by Paul Avery as the signature present on two of the three Bates' letters on April 30th 1967. The presumed connection was laid bare by Paul Avery in a comprehensive newspaper article in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 16th 1970. By claiming a connection between the Zodiac Killer and the Riverside communications, Paul Avery was suggesting that the murder of Cheri Jo Bates may have been the early work of the Zodiac Killer. To see if this has any validity, I decided to explore the Jack the Ripper connection a little further. Did the Zodiac Killer select the Halloween card with wording similar to the Confession letter?

​The wording on the selected Halloween card inner read "But, then why spoil our game. Happy Halloween". The typed Confession letter read "I then finished the job by cutting her throat. I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game". One communication didn't want the game spoiled, while the other pledged to not to stop the game.

On October 16th 1888 the "From Hell" letter, addressed to George Lusk, the president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, arrived inside a cardboard box from somebody claiming to be Jack the Ripper. It contained a "body part" in the form of half a kidney, with the message "Mr Lusk, Sor I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer". signed "Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk". 

​Just before Halloween, on October 29th 1888 (one day before the date Cheri was murdered), a letter was sent to Dr. Openshaw, who performed the medical examination on the portion of kidney received by George Lusk. The letter stated "Old boss you was rite it was the left kidny i was goin to hoperate agin close to you ospitle just as i was going to dror mi nife along of er bloomin throte them cusses of coppers spoilt the game but i guess i wil be on the jobn soon and will send you another bit of innerds. Jack the Ripper. O have you seen the devle with his mikerscope and scalpul a-lookin at a kidney with a slide cocked up". 

This letter arrived on October 29th 1888, Cheri Jo Bates was murdered on October 30th 1966, her body was found the next day on Halloween morning, and the Confession letter about Cheri Jo Bates contained many plausible links to Jack the Ripper (shown above). The Halloween card contained the phrase "spoil our game", that somewhat mirrored "spoilt the game" from the Openshaw letter, and "stop the game" from the Confession letter. Throw in "The Most Dangerous Game" and we have a cocktail of "games". You may also notice that the Openshaw letter described murder as a "job", just like the Confession letter author, who typed "I then finished the job out cutting her throat".  Many Ripper letters use the word "job" in respect to the killing of women.
​
​Four months after reading the San Francisco Chronicle article by Paul Avery (on November 16th 1970), the Zodiac killer replied to the claim he was involved in Riverside, by stating on March 13th 1971 "I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there". Not only was the Zodiac Killer invoking the word "hell" and using similar phraseology from the Bates' letters that "there will be more", he was apparently accepting his involvement to some capacity in the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. If that "activity" was suggestive of the communications, involving the Confession letter with Jack the Ripper overtones, then it's really curious that his next two widely published letters (mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle) on January 29th 1974 and April 24th 1978, began using the Jack the Ripper valediction of "yours truley" and "yours truly", that the Whitechapel murderer used in the majority of his letters from 1888. If the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the "riverside activity" down south, was his use of "yours truley" and "yours truly" in these following communications a case of playing more "games" with law enforcement? The continuation of the Jack the Ripper theme in these letters laying bare his character - and belatedly pointing a finger to the secrets of the Confession letter, now that his Riverside connection had finally come to light?

In his July 31st 1969 letters and 408 cipher, the Zodiac Killer would delve into the distant newspaper archive of 1932 to create the significant phrase of "man is the most dangerous animal of all", which he plagiarised from the utterances of Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game". Was the same archival  technique used to fashion the typed Confession letter in 1966, borrowing the wording of "it was about time for her to die" from "The Sturdy Beggar" in 1888, with both the Riverside and Bay Area communications created by the cunning disposition of one author and one mind?   ​
​THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MURDER.

Many people have asked the obvious question of why did the Zodiac Killer make the effort of obtaining a second Halloween card to painstakingly cut out the skeleton from this card to paste onto the October 27th 1970 card we are all familiar with? Thanks to the great work of SmallOrbit from the Reddit platform, we now know the identity of that second Halloween card. The Zodiac Killer would also cut out a rectangular section from around the eyes of a young girl from the inner portion of this second card, to affix onto the skeleton in the appropriate place. It appears as though a additional skeleton was pivotal to the choice of the Zodiac Killer once his October 27th 1970 Halloween card was opened. It may also be significant that he took the time to add the eyes of a female to the skeleton he pasted on his card inner. Bearing in mind that the Zodiac Killer was now claiming a fourteenth victim - and Donna Lass is the only victim he has ever claimed between July 26th 1970 and October 27th 1970 - we could be forgiven for believing the skeleton with the female eyes was meant to be Donna Lass. The thirteen eyes (representing thirteen souls) looking at the latest Zodiac victim in skeletonized form.

This 1970 greeting card, and the Pines postcard on March 22nd 1971, were the only two mailings by the Zodiac Killer to San Francisco Chronicle journalist, Paul Avery. The Pines postcard, with its "Lake Tahoe" reference and punch-hole, is widely believed to be referencing the burial site of Donna Lass. It's almost as though the Zodiac Killer was directing Paul Avery and law enforcement to the remains of Donna Lass on March 22nd 1971, who he had implied was his fourteenth victim by addressing Paul Avery five months earlier. If the Zodiac Killer was claiming Donna Lass as somebody he murdered in the Pines postcard on March 22nd 1971 - and he only raised his victim count by one between July 26th 1970 and October 27th 1970 - then the Halloween card's fourteenth victim had to be Donna Lass, who disappeared between these dates on September 6th 1970. There really isn't any other option.​

Having fashioned thirteen "floating eyes" on the Halloween card inner to possibly represent his previous victims, it may have necessitated the adding of female eyes to the skeleton's skull to represent his current victim. With the choice of a skeleton being representative of the time elapsed between September 6th 1970 and October 27th 1970, and the probability that Donna Lass had been buried in a shallow grave somewhere around Lake Tahoe, unlike his previous victims, who were discovered at the site they were murdered. It's possible that the choice of skeleton was indicative of Zodiac's lack of faith in law enforcement to find Donna Lass in the next few months, until such time he provided additional clues to the police to aid in the discovery of her body (such as the Pines postcard). But why would the Zodiac Killer choose to bury his latest victim, something he had never done before?

​Maybe because of his fascination with puzzles, having previously given us a code and map on June 26th 1970, in which he claimed to have buried a bomb somewhere in northern California. Then followed this up on July 26th 1970 by giving us the phrase "The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians & # inches along the radians", to further help pinpoint its location. If the Bay Area murderer was prepared to play games with a bomb, why wouldn't he play games with a body? This isn't beyond comprehension, because he mailed the cryptic Pines postcard on March 22nd 1971 with a punch-hole and associated directional markers, such as "pass Lake Tahoe areas", "Sierra Club" and "around in the snow". These were obvious location points designed to direct law enforcement to a specific area beyond the lake. In 2024, I used the punch-hole and the directional aids on the Pines postcard to identify an area by Chubb Lake and Yuba Gap, just 1,000 meters from where the partial remains of Donna Lass had been discovered in 1986 (but not identified until 2023). The punch-hole sat over the remains of Donna Lass.

It was also interesting that the Zodiac Killer had chosen a 1962 UX48 Abraham Lincoln postal card on March 22nd 1971, lacking postage and issued nine years before this mailing. So was the Abraham Lincoln card chosen for a specific reason? I noticed that the address side of the postcard had the crosshairs and "Zodiac" around the punch-hole, with the upper point of the crosshairs touching the letter "D", which was the first initial of "Donna". Across from this was the "Abraham Lincoln" stamp with the initials "A" and "L". If the punch-hole represented the burial location of Donna, then this could have been fashioned to read "D .A. L" or Donna Ann Lass. The front of the postcard pointing to her name, and the reverse side pointing to her burial location.  ​

Therefore, we have two cards, both addressed to Paul Avery in the space of five months. The Pines postcard appeared like a cryptic puzzle giving us clues to the name and burial location of Donna Lass, with the October 27th 1970 Halloween card only increasing the victim count by one since July 26th 1970, spanning the period that Donna Ann Lass was last seen at the Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino. A Halloween card, in which the Zodiac Killer went to great pains to add a second skeleton with female eyes to the card inner.

But what would be the point of burying Donna Lass and playing this quite extraordinary game of "hide and seek" with her body? Even if law enforcement had identified the general area of a possible burial site from the Pines postcard directions, there would be no guarantee they would find the specific location of her body after months or years had elapsed. I wonder if her burial site had been marked by the signature of Zodiac. On something like a heavy rock, that would stand the test of time? Although this may seem unlikely, it falls a long way short of impossible. 

On October 6th 1970, the Zodiac Killer mailed the 13-Hole postcard with the number 13 on the card, so why didn't the Zodiac Killer raise his victim count to fourteen here, if indeed, he was the murderer of Donna Lass on September 6th 1970? It is possible he wasn't ready to yet lay claim to this murder for any number of reasons, but could have pasted the phrase "Fk I'm crackproof" to indicate he had now achieved "Fourteen kills" (or "Fourteen killed") as another cryptic clue. The use of fourteen within this card could have begun the theme of "fourteen", which continued in the Halloween card three weeks later by way of "14" and "4-TEEN". The Halloween card symbol on the envelope and card inner also appeared to have the letter "F" in its design, so the Zodiac may have replaced "Fourteen killed" with "Zodiac Fourteen".

However, this doesn't change the fact that the Zodiac Killer, according to most researchers, was claiming the murder of Donna Lass on March 22nd 1971, and his victim count only increased by one between July 26th 1970 and October 27th 1970. Therefore, the Zodiac Killer, by mailing the Pines postcard on March 22nd 1971, has left us with the inevitable conclusion that the Halloween card must have been claiming Donna Lass as victim number fourteen. This being the case, are we to conclude that the skeleton he pasted onto the Halloween card inner, was the imagery of his misdeeds near Yuba Gap in Placer County? 

If the Zodiac Killer was the abductor and murderer of Donna Lass from the Sahara Tahoe Hotel on September 6th 1970, then one might have expected him to claim or insinuate her murder in his next communication, the 13-Hole postcard. Despite later suggesting his involvement in her murder on March 22nd 1971 when the Pines card was mailed, he never increased his victim count from the July 26th 1970 "Little List" letter to the 13-Hole postcard on October 5th 1970 by the Zodiac Killer, which spanned her abduction. Or did he increase the victim count and we simply didn't recognise it? The Pines postcard and 13-Hole postcard both contained punch-holes (suggestive of victims), both contained pasted text, and both carried inverted wording within the postcard. The inverted phrase of "around in the snow" on March 22nd 1971 was clearly referring to the murder and burial location of Donna Lass, so where was the reference to Donna Lass in the inverted text on October 5th 1970?

The construction of the October 5th 1970 postcard may have began just over two weeks after the disappearance of Donna Lass, because all the newspaper cuttings identified on the postcard were sourced from the Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner (all separated by only 9 miles)  The cuttings were taken from publications dated September 23rd and 25th. 

On the day the 13-Hole postcard was mailed, a newspaper article by The Orlando Sentinel carried the headline "Zodiac, Killer Of 5 or 13, Silent As Police Wait". The 13-Hole postcard carried a cutting of the number 13 and used the word "police" in the inverted text - so was this section of text giving us a clue to the total victims killed, which now included Donna Lass? The text read "There are reports city police pig cops are closeing in on me. Fk I'm crackproof. What is the price tag now?" Could this have been cryptic in nature, just like the Pines card mailed 5 1/2 months later, telling us surreptitiously that he was the murderer of Donna Lass and reading "There are reports city police pig cops are closeing in on me. Fourteen killed I'm crackproof. What is the price tag now?" In other words, responding to The Orlando Sentinel headline of "Zodiac, Killer Of 5 or 13" on October 5th 1970 (or earlier newspaper that carried the same or similar question).  

​It would mean that the main body of the postcard was reiterating the victim count from the Little List letter on July 26th 1970, but teasing us with the cryptic clue of "Fk" to suggest that there were now "Fourteen killied" in total. This may have been repeated when the Halloween card arrived 22 days later, on October 27th 1970, when he added 13 "floating eyes" to the card, but added the number "14" on the hand of the first skeleton, placed "4-TEEN" atop of the second skeleton, and used the letter "F" once again in the strange symbol at the foot of the card (and on the envelope). The "F" in "Fk" on the 13-Hole postcard may have denoted the number fourteen. The "F" in the strange symbol on the Halloween card may have also denoted fourteen, by combining "Z" and "F" to give us "Zodiac Fourteen". The four dots giving us a clue that "F" meant fourteen. This would mean that the Zodiac Killer gave us two cryptic clues containing the letter "F" in a span of 22 days. The Zodiac Killer could also have added the 14th punch-hole of his career to the Pines postcard, to make up for the one he deliberately withheld from the 13-Hole postcard on October 5th 1970. A postcard in which he decided to use "Fk" instead. But did the Zodiac Killer specifically invert his text in two postcards to represent one victim? That of Donna Lass.