The Zodiologists website took a deep dive into the three Cheri Jo Bates letters mailed on April 30th 1967 and wrote "It can be reasonably assumed that the signature has a particular meaning beyond of just being a letter. If we should pick just one of the available options, we would say that the signature is a combination of the letter Z and the number 3. If it would be only the letter Z, there would be no need to write its top in flying-bird shape. The line at the bottom of the letter is straight. We also could not find a symbol that would resemble the signature. Therefore, we consider Z-3 as most plausible". 

​In the Confession letter, mailed on November 29th 1966, the author stated that Cheri Jo Bates was "not the first and she will not be the last", suggesting that the typist was claiming more than one victim. This conforms to the notion of a signature with an attached victim count, also displayed by the Zodiac Killer alongside his crosshairs in the numerous letters and cards he mailed. However, there is one communication that may have used a similar signature to that used in two of the Bates letters.

The Halloween card, mailed by the Zodiac Killer on October 27th 1970, gave us a victim count of "14" on the skeleton's hand, and fashioned the number fourteen as "4-TEEN", using the number "4" to express the word "four". The Zodiac Killer may have used the same tactic with the symbol on the envelope and card inner, using 4 dots to indicate that the "F" stood for "fourteen" rather then "fifteen". If the symbol on the Halloween card inner and outer denoted a victim count for a third time, we have the possibility of a joined "Z" and "F" denoting the fourteen victims claimed by the killer - extremely similar to the joined "Z" and "3" suggested by the Zodiologists website. If this hypothesis is true, it could indicate a common thread from Riverside to the Bay Area through the correspondence of a killer. It must also be noted that the Halloween card was the only confirmed communication to use the letter "Z" to denote the "Zodiac" pseudonym - and it used the letter "Z" twice - just like the two Bates letters (if you believe the premise). The Zodiac Killer also used the word "BY" in prominent positions four times within the Halloween card, mirroring the "BY" which headed both Confession letters. The use of a Halloween card to convey these similarities is pertinent to the fact that the body of Cheri Jo Bates was discovered on Halloween morning  

The Zodiac's Little List letter (July 26th 1970), believed by some to be the previous communication to the Halloween card, began his little list by misspelling "victim" to "victom", and wrote. "Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and sqwirm". The Confession letter author began his little list by using the misspelling "victom", before typing "She squirmed and shook as I chocked her, and her lips twiched. She let out a scream once". The author of the Confession letter had a smaller list, but included "the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store" and "the shapely blue eyed brunett that said no when I asked her for a date". The Zodiac Killer could have fashioned the Little List letter and Halloween card to make journalists and/or law enforcement draw the conclusion he was responsible for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside on October 30th 1966. This ultimately became the case, when Paul Avery presented the link in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 16th 1970, much to the dismay of law enforcement. 

The information regarding the Confession letters was readily available to the Zodiac Killer, when the Inside Detective magazine published a comprehensive article about Cheri Jo Bates in January 1969. However, the signature on two of the Bates' letters had not been published in the newspapers or magazines prior to October 27th 1970, making the possibility of two "Z's" and a victim count, deployed in Riverside and the Bay Area, through three communications and one killer, a viable proposition. If Riverside really was the Zodiac Killer, had he reset his victim total when switching from "Z" to the "Zodiac" pseudonym, beginning anew some 450 miles north? 

If we want to discover the motivation and design of a Zodiac communication, we usually have to look no further than one or two newspaper articles precedent to the correspondence in question. Can the preceding newspaper article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 12th 1970 tell us anything about the Halloween card mailed on October 27th 1970, including an answer to the strange symbolism depicted on the envelope address side and card inner.

The newspaper article was entitled "Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac". Therefore, it shouldn't be any surprise that the Zodiac Killer chose a greeting card that opened with the wording "From your secret pal. I feel it in your bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in". This was the only communication thus far that contained white text, which the Zodiac Killer adopted by adding 4-TEEN, BOO and the symbolism at the foot of the card, rather than using pasted newspaper clippings. The Zodiac Killer was very likely claiming 14 victims when he wrote this total on the skeleton's hand on the front of the card, followed by a head count of 4-TEEN above the second skeleton on the card inner, and concluding with the symbolism at foot of the card. 

The Zodiac Killer likely combined his victim count of 4-TEEN with the claimed murders of four teenagers by October 27th 1970. Having claimed the August 3rd 1969 San Jose murders of Kathie Reyne Snoozy (15) and Debra Gaye Furlong (14) in his Dripping Pen card by the addiition of "Aug" within a monthly chronological victim count, the Zodiac Killer was effectively telling us that he was incorporating 4 teenagers in his Halloween card victim count of fourteen - David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong. The October 12th 1970 newspaper article stated "And he is now claiming 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. On Dec. 20, 1968, he gunned down teen-agers David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen". The Halloween card entry of a hyphenated 4-TEEN, not only incorporated his first two victims within his total, but "chalked them up" in blackboard style writing. The Zodiac Killer had written "14" on the hand of the first skeleton, "4-TEEN" over the skull of the second skeleton, so it could be argued that the symbolism at the foot of the card containing what appeared to be a joined "F", was likely "fourteen" as well  The symbolism could represent "Zodiac Fourteen" or "Zodiac Victims Fourteen" (with the four dots representing the four teenagers, just as he had incorporated them by separating "4" and "TEEN" earlier). His victim totals all neatly chalked up within the Halloween card.

The vast majority of the newspaper article was dedicated to the two act comic opera, The Mikado, and the search for individuals who may have played Ko-Ko in recent years, Many Zodiac researchers have considered whether the Zodiac Killer was of British origin, had British parents, or was influenced by British theatrical plays, based upon the language he adopted in his communications. It is extremely likely that the Zodiac Killer chose to write PEEK-A-BOO around the knothole of a tree because he knew the alternative British term for this saying.

​"Peekaboo (also spelled peek-a-boo) is a form of play played with an infant. To play, one player hides their face, pops back into the view of the other, and says Peekaboo!, sometimes followed by I see you!  There are many variations: for example, where trees are involved, "Hiding behind that tree!" is sometimes added. Another variation involves saying "Where's the baby?" while the face is covered and "There's the baby!" when uncovering the face". Wikipedia. A British term for "peek-a-boo" is "peep-bo" - which just happens to be one of the characters from The Mikado.

​The Zodiac Killer chose the introduction on the Halloween card outer in response to the newspaper article entitled "Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac", because it stated "And so I'll clue you in". He then responded to this introduction by inserting "peek-a-boo" around the knothole of a tree, with an eye peering from within. A saying which has the alternative of peep-bo - a character from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera. The teaser of "I'll clue you in" and the answer of "peep-bo" both inspired by The Mikado featured in the October 12th 1970 newspaper article. The Zodiac Killer would not give us the Ko-Ko investigators were desperately attempting to track down, only the protector or ward of Ko-Ko.

Although I believe the Cheri Jo Bates murder and accompanying communications have nothing to do with the Zodiac Killer, it would be foolish to unequivocally rule out of any of the commonly mentioned pre-canonical crimes suggested as possibly being the work of the Bay Area killer. So let us once again examine the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, that inspired Phil Sins to contact American journalist, Paul Avery, shortly after its arrival at the San Francisco Chronicle, and point out his thoughts on the relationship between the Halloween card and the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966. Even though a link between the Zodiac murders and Riverside had been considered the previous year by investigators, this wasn't common knowledge on October 27th 1970. Phil Sins was also unaware that three letters had been mailed to the Riverside Press Enterprise, Riverside Police Department and Joseph Bates on April 30th 1967 by somebody claiming to be the killer of Cheri Jo Bates.

​In 2012, Mike Morford of Zodiac Killer Net interviewed Phil Sins, who stated that despite going to the Riverside Police Department with Paul Avery "where the letters & desktop were discussed or shown", he himself did not get to see them. Therefore, he had no knowledge regarding the contents of the Bates' letters when he drew his original conclusions between the Zodiac and Riverside cases. And neither, have we yet proved, did the Zodiac Killer. This is why the Halloween card and the Zodiac Killer's previous letter, the Little List letter mailed on July 26th 1970, are so curious. If not responsible for any of the Riverside activity, the Zodiac Killer could have been aware of the Cheri Jo Bates case and the Confession letter when he mailed both the Little List letter and Halloween card, because the Inside Detective magazine published on January, 1969 featured both. However, he wouldn't have been aware of the three Bates' letters (had he not been the author).  

Had the Zodiac Killer read the Inside Detective magazine and thought now is the time to plant the seed in investigators minds that he may have been responsible for the Riverside murder? The Confession letter mailed on November 29th 1966 read "She died hard. She squirmed and shook as I chocked her, and her lips twiched. She let out a scream once and I kicked her in the head to shut her up". The Little List letter on July 26th 1970 read "Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and sqwirm". Did the Zodiac Killer deliberately group this sequence of words together (including the misspelling of twich) to encourage individuals to draw the comparison between both communications and force investigators to strongly consider his involvement in the Riverside murder (and authorship of the Confession letter)? Or were these word comparisons sheer coincidence? Before you draw any conclusions, it is important to consider the Halloween card, which followed three months later.

The whole premise of the Halloween card cover was seemingly chosen on the understanding that when the card was opened it would reveal his name. One notable feature of the card was the prominence of the word "By", followed by the four methods of death. The Zodiac Killer had written "By Fire, By Gun, By Rope and By Knife". The 1966 Confession letter also tempted us with a name, when the author began his typewritten letters with "The Confession", followed by the word "By" and several underscores. The word "By" playing a significant role in both communications. We also have the Halloween theme running through the 1970 card and the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates, whose lifeless body was discovered on Halloween morning. But it's the addition of the "Z" symbol (meant to infer "Zodiac") placed at the foot of the Halloween card that conjures the most interest. The Zodiac Killer had mailed 15 confirmed communications prior to October 27th 1970 (probably in excess of 20), yet he had never once used the letter "Z" to sign off a communication. In fact, no communication subsequent to October 27th 1970, verified or otherwise, ever signed off with the letter "Z".​

​The only time the Zodiac Killer used the letter "Z" as a signature, was in conjunction with Halloween on October 27th 1970. This is what is so interesting about the potential "Z" like signatures accompanying the April 30th 1967 Bates' letters, concerning the murder and discovery of Cheri Jo Bates' body on Halloween morning. Of course, the signatures on the Bates' letters may not have been the letter "Z", and the "Z" signature on the Halloween card may just have been a fortunate coincidence, but these three letters would have been unknown to Phil Sins when he contacted Paul Avery about a Zodiac connection. So, I suppose the discovery of the Bates' letters was an added bonus to Paul Avery when he entered the Riverside Police Department in 1970, and ultimately made the "Z" connection between the cases. Was it extremely fortunate for the Zodiac Killer to tie together Halloween, the prominent wording of "by" and the perceived "Z" signature - in combination with the common phraseology between the Little List letter and Confession letter, just three months previously - or did the Zodiac Killer deliberately place these markers on the Halloween card to plant a seed in the mind of investigators - or was he involved in the murder and/or letter writing in Riverside four years earlier?

The Zodiac Killer may have done exactly the same thing on November 8th 1969 when he claimed seven victims within the Dripping Pen card, forcing investigators to draw the conclusion he was responsible for the murder of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969 by the addition of "Aug" in his chronological list of months. As he did on March 22nd 1971, mailing us another cryptic card, this time encouraging investigators to connect him to the Donna Lass disappearance on September 6th 1970 by the addition of "Lake Tahoe areas" and "Sought Victim 12". Once Paul Avery had connected the Riverside and Zodiac murders together, the Zodiac Killer then cemented that notion by giving "credit for stumbling across his Riverside activity". However, not once did he ever categorically claim or prove these murders were his. He only let investigators draw such a conclusion.  

The Zodiac Killer had a long memory when constructing a communication, often citing newspaper headlines and the content within them from many months and years earlier. On Saturday, November 1st 1969 the Vallejo Times-Herald ran an article entitled You Couldn't Tell It Was Halloween, expressing surprise that the Zodiac Killer had not written or made an appearance during the Halloween festivities, writing "He made no threats - in fact, he did not even communicate to police departments in the Bay Area about any plans he may be developing for Halloween. Nevertheless, parents and youngsters alike were on the extremely cautious side". Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz warned it could be a very dangerous time for youngsters to be on the streets.

Whether the October 28th 1987 Zodiac letter was just a product of fortuitous language, or whether the Zodiac Killer religiously kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles about himself, is unknown. But this letter stated "Tell the blue pigs if want me I will be out driving around on Halloween in my death machine looking for some kiddies to run over. Cars make nice weapons. The pigs can catch me if They can find me out there. Just like in the movie The car. Tell the kiddies watch before They cross the street on halloween nite". Regardless of this distant future communication, the following Halloween after the November 1st 1969 article was published, the Zodiac Killer mailed the October 27th 1970 Halloween card to Paul Avery, referring to teenagers through the use of the word "TEEN". He also failed to use his pseudonym, and supplied us for the first time with the character "Z" (twice) as his identity, by way of a greeting card suggesting he was going to clue us in on his name, beginning "I feel it in my bones, you ache to know my name, and so I'll clue you in." The answer once the card was opened was "BOO", emblazoned in prominence. The strange symbolism in the card, in accompaniment to the letter "Z", was not only placed within the card, but positioned on the return address side of the envelope. Was this used to indicate his identity, as it may have been on the 408th plaintext character of the July 31st 1969 cryptogram.    

Two weeks prior to the November 1st 1969 newspaper article, on October 15th 1969, another article ran in the Los Angeles Times entitled Identity In Code? Zodiac Killer-Chilling Portrait Of Madness. The whole premise of the article was analyzing and ruminating on the identity of the Zodiac Killer, stating  "He could be old Mrs. So-and-So's boy, who never says boo and still lives at home. Or that batchelor that keeps to himself and never seems to have any fun". As a response to his name, one year later he would say "BOO" in the Halloween card. The article went on to examine the July 31st 1969 letters and cryptograms, along with the unsolved 18 characters at the foot of the 408 cipher, pondering whether "his name, or some other vital clue was written in the cryptogram". Did he finally give us the vital clue to the identity in the 408 cipher, when he used the character "Z" in the Halloween card for the very first time? See The Missing Line in the 408 Cipher. 

​It could be argued that the Zodiac Killer deliberately introduced himself as the "murderer" and "killer" in his July 31st 1969 letters to withhold his identity for the 408 character cryptogram. Possibly the identity of "Z", to which he would expand upon a few days later, when he introduced his now infamous "This is the Zodiac speaking" phrase. Maybe there were only 17 redundant ciphertext characters at the foot of the 408 cipher? 

Some people have considered that the Zodiac Killer may have worked at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper offices, with inside information pertaining to the investigation days or weeks before its release to the general public. The Zodiac Killer could have (and probably did) mail in excess of twenty communications before October 27th 1970, but not one single communication expressed the Zodiac pseudonym in the form of the letter "Z". This would change on October 27th 1970, when for the first time the Zodiac Killer used the letter "Z" within his Halloween card mailed to Paul Avery. This departure from the norm came just fifteen days before a San Francisco Chronicle article published by Paul Avery on November 12th 1970, which wrote that "the printing on the 'Bates Had to Die' envelopes seemed to match exactly the desk top poem writing. And perhaps the most meaningful discovery was that two of the three notes had been signed with a "Z".

​The Halloween card was mailed by the Zodiac Killer on October 27th 1970, it was addressed to Paul Avery, it referenced Halloween and it contained the letter "Z". Fifteen days later, Paul Avery is reporting on Cheri Jo Bates being found murdered on Halloween morning, with the Bates' letters signed with a letter "Z". Paul Avery's article was likely triggered by somebody (Phil Sins) noticing similarities between the Halloween card and the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, but what were the chances of somebody recognizing something in the Halloween card in respect to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, pursuing this angle, and subsequently finding a "Z" like signature that mirrored the Halloween card? (used for the first time by Zodiac). What are the chances of Zodiac marrying Halloween and the pseudonym "Z" together, which mirrored the discovery of a murder victim on Halloween morning, which later had accompanying letters signed with a "Z" style signature? The Halloween card coming just three months after the Zodiac Killer mirrored the Cheri Jo Bates Confession letter of "She squirmed and shook as I choaked her, and her lips twiched. She let out a scream once": when he wrote in the Little List letter on July 26th 1970 "Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and sqwirm".

In a time span of just three months, the Zodiac Killer had combined scream, twich, squirm, Halloween and a "Z" signature, possibly merging crucial details from the Confession and Bates letters together. Four of these details were already available in the January 1969 edition of the Inside Detective magazine, but the "Z" signature was not. If the signature on two of the Bates' letters was really meant to be the letter "Z", then the fact that the Zodiac Killer broke with tradition and used the pseudonym "Z" within a Halloween card for the first time, could be argued as carrying some significance. 

The Zodiac Killer mailed the Little List letter on July 26th 1970 setting out his search for "society offenders", but this lengthy communication was withheld from publication in the newspapers until October 12th 1970. Despite a comprehensive article in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 26th 1970 featuring the disappearance of Donna Lass from Lake Tahoe on September 6th 1970, the Zodiac Killer never raised his victim total of 13 from July 26th 1970 to October 5th 1970, when the 13-Hole postcard arrived. He never previously needed any prompting to falsely inflate his victim total in previous communications, yet a month after the abduction and likely murder of Donna Lass from the Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino, the Zodiac Killer kept his victim total static, suggesting at this juncture he was not claiming the young nurse as victim 14. That is, because he never murdered her. Besides, he would later retrospectively claim he had sought her as victim 12 in the March 22nd 1971 Pines card, while she was still present in San Francisco and working at the Letterman General Hospital by the Presidio.

Donna Lass would have been working as a nurse in the Presidio park in the relevant time period for her to be sought as victim 12. Bearing in mind that the Zodiac Killer was last seen entering the Presidio park after the murder of Paul Stine on October 11th 1969, he knew that by retrospectively claiming he had targetted Donna Lass in San Francisco before her eventual disappearance, it would carry more weight to his suggested involvement in her demise through the Pines card.

The punched hole in the top right corner of the Pines card was never a hint towards her burial location, because the Zodiac Killer had no idea where her body was located. The vague and cryptic phrases pasted on the Pines card were just designed to identify the name of Donna. When the "Sierra Club" was aligned over the Sierra Club of Clair Tappaan Lodge, the punched hole landed over the "Donner" of the Donner Memorial State Park. This was shown to be likely true when a similar pasted card, dubbed the Monticello card, arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13th 1971, again hinting at the identity of a murdered woman, that of Kathy Bilek. This time, the author pasted "Woods", "April" and "near Monticello" as a clue to her name. However, on this occasion, the sender would actually direct us to a burial site.

Buried in the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose was the resting place of Kathie Snoozy, claimed as a victim by the Zodiac Killer in the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969. She was the namesake of Kathy Bilek, who along with Debra Furlong, were all victims of the real murderer, Karl Francis Werner. The Monticello card followed the exact pattern of the Pines card, in which the Zodiac Killer retrospectively claimed the April 11th 1971 murder of Kathy Bilek in the Villa Montalvo woods of Saratoga, by pasting "shought victim 21" on the card. He never murdered Kathy Bilek and he never murdered Donna Lass. When Karl Francis Werner was credited with two of Zodiac's previously claimed victims, that of Snoozy and Furlong, he doubled down and more, by adding Kathy Bilek retrospectively in a vain attempt to discredit the notion of Werner being responsible for all three. This belated tactic was used to claim Donna Lass as a victim also, with the Zodiac Killer selecting a time period between the 10 victims on April 20th 1970 and 12 victims on June 26th 1970, while Donna Lass was still working at the Letterman General Hospital for a large chunk of this time. He knew this would add credence to his claim of involvement in her disappearance and likely murder, particularly when he noticed the proximity of her profession to the Washington and Cherry intersection in Presidio Heights.

In fact, the Halloween card, Pines card and Monticello card may have all been retrospective communications, with the Halloween card incorporating the murders of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong into its design by the addition of two skeletons and the 4-TEEN on the card inner. The Zodiac Killer was only claiming four teenagers as murder victims by October 27th 1970, that of David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Debra Furlong and Kathie Snoozy. We know that the Zodiac Killer wasn't responsible for the three victims eventually attributed to Karl Francis Werner, despite him valiantly trying to retrospectively claim all three on numerous occasions. Therefore, we should place little credence to his suggestion of involvement in the untimely disappearance of Donna Lass through the Pines card, especially when he had every chance to elevate his victim total on October 5th 1970. This should give you pause for thought when the Zodiac Killer retrospectively inferred his involvement in Riverside on March 13th 1971, four and a half years after the fact.

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.

The following is probably better answered by Dave Oranchak, who recently, alongside Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke cracked the Zodiac 340 cipher from November 8th 1969. The correlation between the Halloween card and 340 cipher has long been considered, but is it a comparison that deserves any further attention in light of the encryption techniques used by the Zodiac Killer when designing his 340 cipher? Is the comparison between the two communications justified?

On October 27th 1970, the Zodiac Killer mailed the Halloween card with a configuration of "paradice" and "slaves" in cruciform. In each quadrant of this design we had four methods of death (knife, gun, fire and rope), preceded by the word "By". The "paradice" and "slaves" element can be shown to exist on the canvas of the 340 cipher, bisecting it both horizontally and veritically in a 17 by 17 formation, imitating the cruciform design within the Halloween card. The four "By" words are present in each quadrant of the 340 cipher. The writing on the envelope stamp of "In the beginning God" falls nicely into the beginning line of the 340 cipher, with the word "God" landing squarely over the ciphertext supplied by the Zodiac Killer. The LAV of Paul Averly on the envelope also appears to be underlined. And finally, we have the Zodiac pseudonym visibly present on the final line of the 340 cipher, albeit slightly altered. Almost as though he was signing the canvas of his masterpiece.

Did the Zodiac Killer provide two puzzles on November 8th 1969? A superficial design on the canvas of the 340 cipher akin to a design on the cover of a book, with a hidden message that lay beneath the imagery in the form of a cryptogram.  

If the Zodiac Killer designed his 340 cipher key randomly by just allotting ciphertext characters to plaintext characters, what are the chances that all these above observations would fall out by chance and be highlighted a year later in the Halloween card design? However, if the Zodiac Killer began the 340 encipherment of the canvas first, with "paradice" and "slaves", "by", "God" and the near signature of Zodiac, he would be able to manipulate a superficial design onto the face of the 340 cipher before continuing to encode the rest of the message underneath. The "sorry no cipher" phrase written on the flap of the Halloween card envelope in cruciform, I wrongly concluded was a hint that the 340 cipher was not a genuine cryptogram. But was the "sorry no cipher" on the cover of the Halloween card somehow related to the cover of the 340 cipher?

The desire to unearth hidden meanings in the Zodiac communications is an insatiable one, that often leads to conclusions with no foundation or basis in reality (and the above interpretations may be one such example). Dave Oranchak would be able to shed much more light on the above comparisons made between the Halloween card and 340 cipher from a statistical standpoint, expanding upon the premise of a Zodiac Killer creating two puzzles for the price of one, or destroying the notion once and for all. It would answer the question of whether the Zodiac Killer created a superficial design and signed the canvas of his masterpiece cipher, or whether it is just a picture created in nothing more than the mind.

On October 22nd 1969 in the San Francisco Examiner, Dr. D.C.B. Marsh challenged the Zodiac Killer under the banner of Cipher Expert Dares Zodiac to Tell Name, to reveal something about his identity no matter how complicated. I doubt anybody with a modicum of intelligence seriously contemplated that the Zodiac Killer would supply us with his full name, however, the tactic of encouraging the Bay Area murderer to write more communications and possibly create a second cipher, had the potential to reveal more clues about the killer, while serving the secondary purpose of keeping him writing rather than killing.

On October 25th 1969, law enforcement and the newspapers headlined with Cops No Closer on Zodiac Identity, probably attempting to guide the Zodiac Killer into producing his second cipher, writing in conciliatory tone "Homicide detectives in San Francisco, Vallejo and Napa said they are no closer to catching the cryptic killer than they were ten months ago - unless some clue to his identity is among the hundreds of leads still in the process of being checked out".

The next paragraph may have been the inspiration for the next Zodiac communication on November 8th 1969. The Chronicle article continued "Zodiac struck last on October 11 when he gunned down cab-driver Paul Stine on Washington Street in Presidio Heights. He revealed himself the killer in a letter sent to the Chronicle three days later. Since then he has remained silent". In the Dripping Pen card the Zodiac apologized by way of chosen image and wording, stating "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen". It was hypothesized that the second cipher was inspired by the language adopted in the newspapers, and the Dripping Pen card was specifically chosen in response to "Since then he has remained silent". If so, then there is a real possibility that the 340 cipher was created subsequent to October 25th 1969. 

On October 26th 1969 in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle they dedicated an entire section entitled Hymn to Murder, reminding the reader about the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher, in part stating "Finally, a school teacher in Salinas broke the code by looking for the words "kill" and "killing". When deciphered, the messages proved to be a hymn to murder by an obviously disturbed person. There was, unfortunately, no clue to his identity in the cyphers".  Again, another newspaper article mentioning identity and ciphers, but this time describing them as a Hymn to Murder. Was it remotely possible that the Zodiac Killer responded to these strategic newspaper messages, bringing about the arrival of his second Hymn to Murder?

The next San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article on November 8th 1969 described the attempted poisoning of Daniel Williams, a Salesian High School teacher, on November 2nd 1969, that culminated a series of menacing phone calls by somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, which began on October 23rd 1969. The language adopted in the Dripping Pen card and Bus Bomb letter strongly suggested that the Zodiac Killer may have been referring to his ongoing pursuit of Daniel Williams. In fact, the Dripping Pen card and accompanying cipher appeared a response to all of the newspaper articles beginning on October 22nd 1969 (including the attack on Daniel Williams), with the card being carefully chosen in response to Paul Avery, who stated that Zodiac had remained silent since his October 13th 1969 letter.

It is certainly possible that the 340 cipher could have been designed to relay a relatively simple superficial message, while still harboring an underlying cryptic message. A picture with a cryptographic solution under the canvas, if you will.

If the Zodiac Killer just allotted ciphertext characters to plaintext characters randomly, then how likely would it be to find the possibility of "paradice" and "slaves" bisecting the mid-section of the cipher both horizontally and vertically (17 by 17), as depicted in the Halloween card on October 27th 1970? How likely would it be for the alphabetical letters B and Y forming "BY" to fall together in each quadrant of the cipher, mimicking the Halloween card? How likely would it be for the cipher to begin with HER, forming the last three alphabetical letters of "cipher"? How likely is it that the near "Zodiac" on the final line would drop out through a randomly designed cipher? Then we have the "sorry no cipher" on the envelope inner of the Halloween card mimicking the formation of "paradice" and "slaves" in both communications.

And finally, we have the Genesis of the Hymn to Murder, found on the envelope of the Halloween card and possibly the 340 cipher. The stamp, commemorating the Apollo 8 launch on December 21st 1968, contains the words "In the beginning God", spoken by Bill Anders from the text of Genesis. This slots nicely onto the first line of the 340 cipher with the ciphertext of "GOD" positioned in acceptance at the very end. Even the half-darkened "O" looks eerily similar to the picture of the earth from the moon on the Halloween card stamp. Did "In the beginning God" introduce the Zodiac Killer's second Hymn to Murder?

On October 12th 1970, Paul Avery of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article concerning the Zodiac Killer's latest two communications, notably the July 26th 1970 "Mikado" letter and the October 5th 1970 "13 Hole" postcard. The Zodiac Killer may have used much of this newspaper article to choose and fashion the October 27th 1970 Halloween card, including a continuance of The Mikado theme. The Zodiac Killer wasn't averse to plagiarising reading material for his communications, with the Halloween card fashioned not only from the Tim Holt comic book, but possibly crafted using the Paul Avery article as his inspiration.

The October 12th 1970 newspaper article was entitled Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac, thereby giving the Bay Area murderer about two weeks to find the appropriate reply in the form of a Halloween card beginning "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". The newspaper article detailed "Sheriff's detective sergeant Kenneth Narlow who had fruitlessly followed up another 900 tips as to Zodiac's identity since Sept 27, 1969". So finding a Halloween card teasing us again with his name and offering to clue us in, appeared like the ideal card in response.

In the first column of the article, Paul Avery wrote "Homicide detectives who've been hunting Zodiac for nearly two years frankly admit he is much an enigma now as he was on Dec. 20, 1968, when he chalked up his first two victims". Those two victims were teenagers David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen. The Zodiac Killer decided to chalk his victims on the Halloween card in white marker pen above the head of the inner skeleton and beneath its feet, in the form of 4-TEEN and what could be Zodiac Victims Fourteen or Zodiac Fourteen.

The author of the card could have written 14 (similar to the outer skeleton hand) or fourteen, but intentionally separated it to 4-TEEN. David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen were two of Zodiac's confirmed victims, but he had also claimed Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy by the addition of "Aug" in the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969, who were both teenagers. The Zodiac Killer had claimed 4-TEENS as victims, hence why he altered fourteen to 4-TEEN, to incorporate them into his running victim total. The addition of four dots (little marks) around ZVF or ZF possibly created for a similar reason. It can be noted that Paul Avery also referred to David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in the article as teenagers, but he hyphenated the word into teen-agers, just like Zodiac did with his running teenager total of 4-TEEN.

The majority of the newspaper article focused on the July 26th 1970 "Mikado" letter and the search for potential Ko-Ko's, The Lord High Executioner featured prominantly in the July 26th 1970 (Little List) letter. The Mikado Act One Part 5a  As some day it may happen was performed by Ko-Ko of the town of Titipu. This led investigators to consider the possibility of a Zodiac Killer who played Ko-Ko in his student days. But where was The Mikado and Ko-Ko in the Halloween card? Perhaps the investigators could have searched the knothole in the tree.

The original card came with one eye peeking from the knothole in the tree, in which the Zodiac Killer circled the words "Peek-a-Boo you are doomed". But notice how "Peek-a-Boo" and "you are doomed" are deliberately separated.

The Mikado is a two-part comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, which opened to the paying public on March 14th 1885 and was hugely successful, running for 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre in London. However, this wasn't the only version of the opera from that time period, In 1888, Ed J. Smith wrote a stage parody of The Mikado called The Capitalist; or, The City of Fort Worth to encourage capital investment in Fort Worth, Texas. In this version, Peek-A-Boo is listed as one of the three sisters and wards of Kokonut (The Lord High Executionist).

The Mikado original featured Peep-Bo: A ward of Ko-Ko and sister of Yum-Yum and Pitti-Sing. Peep-Bo is the British version of Peek-a-Boo. Peekaboo (also spelled peek-a-boo) is a form of play primarily played with an infant. To play, one player hides their face, pops back into the view of the other, and says Peekaboo!, sometimes followed by I see you! There are many variations: for example, where trees are involved, "Hiding behind that tree!" is sometimes added.

Peep-Bo can also be reversed to Bo-Peep, believed to originate from the 16th century practice of concealment, before reappearing to startle or surprise. See here. Little Bo Peep is a popular English nursery rhyme The earliest record of this rhyme is in a manuscript of around 1805, which contains only the first verse. There are references to a children's game called "Bo-Peep", from the 16th century, including one in Shakespeare's King Lear (Act I Scene iv), but little evidence that the rhyme existed. The additional verses are first recorded in the earliest printed version in a version of Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus in 1810.

The phrase "to play bo peep" was in use from the 14th century to refer to the punishment of being stood in a pillory. For example, in 1364, an ale-wife, Alice Causton, was convicted of giving short measure, for which crime she had to "play bo pepe thorowe a pillery". Andrew Boorde uses the same phrase in 1542, "And evyll bakers, the which doth nat make good breade of whete, but wyl myngle other corne with whete, or do nat order and seson hit, gyving good wegght, I would they myghte play bo pepe throwe a pyllery". Taken from Wikipedia. The skeleton on the card inner also appeared to be hanging in the form of punishment, as if placed in a pillory. I suppose the "punishment must fit the crime".

Bearing in mind the newspaper article of Paul Avery, was the Halloween card drawing on the search for Ko-Ko's by its design of inserting Peek-a-Boo around the knothole of the trunk, with the eye "hiding behind that tree"? Was the chalked-up victim count of 4-TEEN above the pilloried skeleton denoting the running total of fourteen, including four teen-agers? The newspaper article of Gilbert and Sullivan Clue to Zodiac may have spawned the choice of Halloween card with the introduction of "I feel it in my bones you ache to know my name. And so I'll clue you in". But did it inspire anything else?

It is now fairly clear that the Tim Holt comic book connection, discovered by Tahoe27 in 2013, was integral to the Zodiac Killer agenda from the very outset. His determination to gather slaves for the afterlife by way of gun, knife, rope and fire, was probably rooted more in fantasy than reality, but it would feature heavily through four cryptic communications. When the Zodiac Killer realized there was inadequate information in the June 26th 1970 Mount Diablo code, he rectified the situation in just 30 days, giving us the answer to where the bomb was set via two prominent Zodiac crosshairs and a small piece of text. When the Zodiac Killer crafted and mailed the 340 cipher on November 8th 1969, he again gave us insufficient information to decode. However, he did state "PS could you print this new cipher in your frunt page?" But just like the Mount Diablo code to which he gave us the answer in 30 days, he would give us the full answer to the 340 cipher in only 29 days.

For anybody believing that the two Fairfield letters mailed on December 7th 1969 and December 16th 1969 were just a hoaxer, unrelated to Zodiac, then they have to explain, not only what purpose they served, but how the 38 character code manufactured by a lazy imbecile, incapable of even recreating a credible Zodiac Killer communication, just so happened to design five lines of 12, 7, 5, 6 and 8 characters, which could by sheer accident allow by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun, slaves and paradice to fall nicely onto each line. Ten words, self-contained on each line, which just happened to correlate with the October 27th 1970 Halloween card, ten months in the making. Not to mention, that by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun, slaves and paradice can be found in the "word search" 340 cipher just 29 days prior, in exactly the same design as the Halloween card.

Any doubts that the December 7th 1969 coding was a hint to the solution of the 340 cipher, should have been lessened by the inclusion of many repeating sequences of characters from the November 8th 1969 offering. The above configuration in the 340 cipher will probably be described as accidental by eminent codebreakers. However, if the December 7th 1969 author was just an ignorant charlaton, bereft of the solution to the 340 cipher, who just slapped a quick and meaningless 38 character code together, then it has to be purely by chance once again, that he managed to fortuitously create a code of 38 characters that mimicked the exact character count of by fire, by rope, by knife, by gun, slaves and paradice, present in two other cryptic communications mailed by the Zodiac Killer. Not only was this extremely lucky, but the clown impersonator of Zodiac, would for a futher time, just happen to create another cryptic addition on December 16th 1969 that mimicked the Zodiac designs in the 340 cipher and Halloween card.  

The Zodiac Killer was rather quite polite on November 8th 1969, when he cordially requested "could you print this new cipher in your frunt page?" However, after 38 days his patience was running thin, aghast at the inability of code breakers to pry open his simplistic cipher. In fact, he was starting to get bloody pissed off with authorities, demanding "you better print" in his December 16th 1969 letter (see right). Underneath his demand was yet another clue to his 340 cipher, and a design that again mimicked the yet to be mailed Halloween card.

The Tim Holt comic book connection unearthed by Tahoe27 (displayed in the Halloween card), not only contained the four phrases of by gun, by knife, by rope and by fire in each quadrant, but they were preceded by the word "death" in the comic itself. Exactly as depicted in the configuration on the right.
There are five characters, followed by four crosshairs placed around a larger crossed circle. This hoaxer was certainly having a bit of luck, creating 38 characters to mimic the Halloween card words of paradice, slaves, by gun, by knife, by rope and by fire, but also mimicking the design - including each mode of murder by the possible 5-letter introduction of "death", found on the wheel of the Tim Holt comic book.

The luck doesn't end there mind. The author of the December 7th 1969 letter wrote the words "I just need help". The phrase "please help me" would appear thrice in the authenticated Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969, despite the fact neither of the two Fairfield letters were ever published in the newspapers. Damn, this hoaxer is seemingly getting a lot of things correct, even thirteen days and ten months in advance.

The notion of a Zodiac Killer, who bragged, boasted and put pen to paper at every opportunity, is seemingly disregarded when it comes to his codes and ciphers. We are led to believe that a killer with marker pen diarrhea, writing to the newspapers on an almost monthly basis for two years, managed to keep his big fat trap shut for just over fifty years with respect to his codes. The designs in the December 7th 1969, December 16th 1969 and October 27th 1970 communications suggest otherwise. He would give us the answer to the 340 cipher in just 29 days (albeit inadequate), and give us the answer to the Mount Diablo code in only 30 days, when the Little List letter rolled along. The idea of a killer with extreme patience, upwards of 50 years, is not a killer I recognise.  

Professor D.C.B. Marsh 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 Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name". According to Edgar Allen Poe, any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Which is why Zodiac created the apologetic "sorry no cipher".

The video has a minor error - the "rope" in the bottom right quadrant should look like the image on the left. Click to enlarge.

The following will be extremely speculatory and should not to be taken too seriously, but I wanted to examine the prompt by Professor D.C.B. Marsh who told the 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 Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

When recently promoting the notion of a killer providing us with all the solutions to his ciphers in Three Months After the Mount Diablo Code, it was considered that the Zodiac Killer did respond to Dr. Marsh, but he certainly wasn't going to be as forthcoming as to provide us with his full name as Dr. Marsh had honestly requested. Hence the idea that he did give us his name, albeit in the abridged version of his initials which he supplied to us in the October 5th 1970 '13 Hole' Postcard. When this was slotted into the April 20th 1970 '13 Symbol' Cipher it read like so: "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Fk, I'm crackproof". The Zodiac Killer had in effect answered the request of Dr. Marsh, although in a rather devious manner. However, Dr. Marsh issued this challenge on October 22nd 1969 and the 340 Cipher came before the 13 Symbol Cipher.     

One of the most prominent features in the 340 Cipher is the sixth line where he corrects a forward facing K to a backwards facing K, similar in nature to the way he reversed the "Fk, I'm crackproof" phrase on the 13 Hole Postcard. The proximity of F and K can be noted in these two outstanding features - and possibly the Zodiac thought it mildly amusing to provide his name to Dr. Marsh in the extremely "complicated" manner of reversing his name or initials. Everybody was searching for a stunningly complicated solution to the 340 character cipher as Dr. Marsh had requested, so the Zodiac Killer gave us the complete opposite.

The connection between the 13 Hole Postcard and 13 Symbol Cipher was not only bound in the "Fk, I'm crackproof" solution, but the two phrases he used in each communication didn't go unnoticed either. The Zodiac Killer inextricably tied the two correspondences together using similar phraseology, such as "What is the price tag now" and "how much money you have on my head now". On January 29th 1970, the Yellow Cab Company put up a thousand dollar reward for any information leading to the arrest of the Zodiac Killer. In addition, the Teamsters Union which represents the Yellow Cab Company were reported in the San Francisco Chronicle to be considering offering a further reward on February 8th 1970 in the case of Paul Stine and Charles Jarman (another taxicab murder victim). This news was likely what prompted the Zodiac Killer to open this communication with the words "I am mildly cerous as to how much money you have on my head now".  Or could there be another more subtle clue in these phrases with regard to his name?

Where on the April 20th 1970 letter and throughout much of his communications to date (including the 340 Cipher) could money or a price tag be found on a head? The 13 Symbol Cipher letter carried a dated 1966 Franklin D. Roosevelt stamp, where indeed "money" or a "price tag" could be found 'on' the head of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Was this a subtle hint to his first name of "Franklin" or "Frank". This would satisfy the F part of "Fk, I'm crackproof" - but as stated earlier,  very speculative to say the least.

Another communication where he promised us his name was the October 27th 1970 'Halloween' Card, in which he gave us an odd-looking symbol and placed it on the left side of the envelope and the Halloween Card inner, followed by the letter Z. The correct way to address an envelope is to write the sender's name and address in the top left corner of the envelope, shown here on a Youtube video, and the recipient address (in this case Paul Avery) in the center of the envelope. Therefore, this strange symbol could equate to the sender's name. Since we are looking for the initials of the Zodiac Killer (which may be reversed for a third time), it is extremely promising that we have an F looking character on the right side yet again. I don't like too much manipulation and the use of mathematics anymore, but on this occasion I will choose the path of least resistance and take the 7 and 4 dots to equal 11 (K being the 11th letter of the alphabet) - and therefore give us a joined K and F for his name on the return section of the envelope. Unfortunately, manipulation such as this always leads to the possibility of multiple solutions, so we have to be guarded to any conclusions we make. Finally, I would like to take a look at the sister card to the Halloween Card mailed in the December of 1990. It too promised us his name.       

The greeting card was again from our Secret Pal just like the Halloween Card twenty years earlier - it began with the message "FROM YOUR SECRET PAL CAN'T GUESS WHO I AM YET? WELL, LOOK INSIDE AND YOU'LL FIND OUT". Then promised to keep us guessing on the card inner.

All the Zodiac Killer added to the card inner was a Xerox copy of some "keys". It really couldn't be any simpler. The card outer stated "From your secret pal, can't guess who I am yet? Well, look inside and you'll find out" followed by "keys". This may very well be the final really complicated answer to the challenge laid down by Dr. Marsh all those years earlier. The surname of Keys, Keyes or Keays would satisfy the K of FK, from the phrase "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Fk, I'm crackproof".

This mocking response to Professor D.C.B. Marsh, who requested that the Zodiac Killer "send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name" was probably befitting of the Zodiac Killer. The answer may have been simpler than we could ever of imagined. Return to sender: Franklin Keys (or alternate options above).

Of course, I am not claiming this to be the answer regarding the identity of the Zodiac Killer, but it would be rather appropriate for the Zodiac Killer to have begun his letter writing campaign with Franklin on the stamps of his July 31st 1969 trinity of communications, and ended with his surname of Keys in 1990 - and thumb a finger to all the cipher experts trying vainly to crack his extremely complicated ciphers, when the answer was literally staring us in the face all along. 

The Zodiac Killer gave us the answers to his six unsolved ciphers by March 13th 1971 without ambiguity, but effectively gave us all the answers by October 27th 1970. It is important to read Three Months After the Mount Diablo Code to understand all of the following, but I shall give a very brief recap. The Zodiac gave us the answer to the Mount Diablo code (32 symbol Cipher} in the Little List Letter on July 26th 1970. In fact, he gave us the answer word for word, in the form of Radians and 5 inches along the radians (all we had to do was add the number 5 where he placed the arrow and hashtag}. The 13 Hole Postcard on October 5th 1970 gave us the answer to the 13 Symbol Cipher word for word, in the form of Fk I'm crackproof. The Halloween Card on October 27th 1970 gave us the answer to the 340 Cipher word for word, in the form of Paradice and Slaves. No mathematics was required and no manipulation was needed - all we had to do, was use the three phrases that Zodiac provided us with in three consecutive communications, to answer the three previously unsolved ciphers. But that wasn't all. The Zodiac gave us the answer to both the Fairfield Letter codes of December 7th and 16th of 1969, again word for word using the Halloween Card. The 18 unsolved characters in the 408 cipher he again gave us the solution word for word, using the trinity of communications on July 31st 1969 and following letter on August 4th 1969, when he revealed his pseudonym to the world. However, there is even more.

The Zodiac Killer's 408 Cipher was effectively a written message that he enciphered into characters. When you take a look at the decoded message, it isn't structured and organized - because one line or row bleeds into the following. The Zodiac Killer didn't contain his words within the confines of one row. For example, when he opened the cipher with "I like killing people", the letter E is positioned at the beginning of the second row. This randomness is not displayed in the answers to his remaining six unsolved portions of code. The answer to the 18 unsolved characters, the 340 Cipher, the two Fairfield letters, the 13 Symbol Cipher and the 32 Symbol Cipher are all organized and deliberately structured, where every single solution and word is contained within each line - and does not leak from one row to another. Let us take a look at the 13 Symbol Cipher that exhibits symmetry within its design.             

I don't have to explain the above, because its structure and symmetry is there for all to see. The Zodiac Killer had already responded to prompts by Vallejo Police Chief Jack Stiltz to send more details to prove the letter writer and killer were one and the same. The more the Zodiac Killer wrote, not only lessened his time for killing, but may have provided additional clues to detectives regarding his identity. This tactic was likely adopted by Professor D.C.B. Marsh in the October 22nd 1969 San Francisco Examiner newspaper article by Will Stevens, which laid down a challenge to the Zodiac Killer to reveal his name. The newspaper stated Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allen Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name -in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

The above invitation by Dr. Marsh, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, was met with the 13 Symbol Cipher that mirrored a code used in Poe's A Few Words on Secret Writing. The alphabet being split A to M, and N to Z. The 13 Symbol Cipher began with A and ended with M. So it was logical to place the alphabet alongside the 13 Symbol Cipher and see if any patterns emerged by counting the numerical difference between corresponding characters. This resulted.

I don't want to labor the point again, so for a full explanation please visit the article Embedded Symmetry  Suffice to say, that when the Zodiac's solution or answer to the 13 Symbol Cipher was inserted into the code above, it showed an organized and structured pattern without a word bleeding from one end of the cipher to the other. The Zodiac Killer gave us the cyclical solution of Fk I'm crackproof on October 5th 1970, and followed this up with the line "This is the Zodiac speaking Like I have allways said, I am crack proof" on March 13th 1971. But in the Los Angeles Letter you will notice he separates "crackproof" to "crack proof", exactly how it is found in the 13 Symbol Cipher. It does not bleed from the end of the cipher to the start.

The first 8 begins FK. The second 8 begins IM. The third 8 begins CRACKPROOF. But CRACK and PROOF are separated, without either word being fragmented. The FK and IM also fit nicely around the existing K and M in the cipher. The cipher solution maintains an organized and symmetrical appearance. The introduction on the April 20th 1970 letter now read "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Fk, I'm crackproof". He was leading us into the belief these were his initials.

The Paradice and Slaves configuration from the Halloween Card to the 340 Cipher also exhibited form, with Paradice exactly bisecting the columns of the 340 Cipher, and Slaves exactly bisecting the rows of the 340 Cipher in a 17 X 17 pattern. Each word contained within a row or column. The Halloween Card envelope providing us with "sorry no cipher" in a cross formation, not only telling us that the 340 wasn't a standard cipher, but the design of the 340 was to be found in a cross formation.

The 32 Symbol Cipher also adhered to a solution where no word bled from one row to another. The 32 Symbol Cipher contained two rows of 17 and 15 characters - obviously created this way for a purpose. When we discovered that the number 5 was to be inserted into the cipher using the arrow and hashtag, the answer of Radians and 5 inches along the radians again fell perfectly into the 32 Symbol Cipher with no word extending from one line to another. You will notice that when the Zodiac Killer provided us with the answer in the July 26th 1970 Little List Letter, he self-contained the answer on a separate line, with the first Radians beginning with a capital letter. This was the beginning of the code solution.

"PS. The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians and # inches along the radians" was in fact Radians and 5 inches along the radians. When this is placed into the 32 Symbol Cipher, you will notice that once again it retains separation, with "inches" ending line one, and "along" beginning line two. Each word is contained within the line. This organization and structure flies in the face of the solved portion of the 408 Cipher and implies a deliberate and calculated design. But we need to take it even further.

Explained in greater detail in the article The Answer to the Z38 Code, the structure of the Zodiac 38 character cipher was pointed out. The code below has been structured with different character counts on each line (unlike the 408 and 340 ciphers), but is instead arranged in a formation of 12 characters on line one, 7 characters on line two, 5 characters on line three, 6 characters on line four and 8 characters on line five. This may suggest that the words are contained separately on each line, without running from one line to another. We would expect Slaves and Paradice to be grouped together - and the last two lines satisfy this character count of 6 and 8. We then have three lines remaining of 12, 7 and 5 characters. By Gun satisfies the 5 characters, By Knife satisfies the 7 characters, and By Fire, By Rope satisfies the 12 characters. This forms the basis of the completed 38 character code solution, mimicking the second Fairfield Letter design and the exact wording on the Halloween Card configuration. Furthermore, no word extends from one line to another, exactly as displayed in the above codes.

So far (including the Tim Holt comic book unearthed by Tahoe27), every single solution or answer to the ciphers can be achieved using the exact words employed by Zodiac from three consecutive communications spanning July 26th 1970 to October 27th 1970. [1] Radians and 5 inches along the radians [2] Fk I'm crackproof [3] Paradise and Slaves, and [4] By Fire, By Gun, By Rope, By Knife, Paradice and Slaves. And none extend or bleed into another line, or from end to beginning in the 13 Symbol Cipher. That is five ciphers down with one to go. 

The Zodiac Killer claimed that his 408 Cipher contained his identity or pseudonym. What was important to the Bay Area murderer was the structure exhibited by all the above codes. The characters he used were of no particular significance, because they weren't designed to be solved without future Zodiac input. This input came towards the end of his letter writing campaign, when he supplied us all the answers in just three consecutive communications. He was effectively wrapping up business. There was no way a man with such an inflated ego and inability to resist writing to the newspapers, could keep the secret to his ciphers for upwards of five decades. The answer to the 408 Cipher was given to us in just four days, contained in the trinity of July 31st 1969 letters and the August 4th 1969 'Debut of Zodiac' Letter. He claimed his identity was in the 408 cipher - and we know his identity was "Zodiac" because he gave us his pseudonym. All we then had to do, was fit Zodiac around the declaration of who he was. 

Initially, the Zodiac Killer had intended to leave 12 characters at the base of the 408 Cipher, but his accidental omission of the word "people" when he encoded his message, inadvertently left him with 18 unsolved characters. However, this was of no consequence - it was an easy adjustment. You will notice again, that the unsolved 18 characters are split into an ungainly 1 and 17 configuration. If we are to hold true to single words not bleeding from one line to another, then the single character must stand for I or A. We know that the Zodiac Killer was an egotist, beginning the 408 Cipher with "I like killing people because it is so much fun". He also began two of the July 31st letters with "I am the killer". So it wouldn't be any great leap of faith to believe that the isolated singular character on line 23 was "I". Coupling the "Zodiac" with "I am the killer" to produce "I am the Zodiac Killer" satisfies his declaration of identity and the 18 characters at the base of the 408 Cipher. We again have used only the words written by the Zodiac Killer - and no word extends from one line to another. The third of code containing his identity was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, which is why he began that introduction with "This is the murderer". He was reserving "I am the Zodiac Killer" for the base of the 408 Cipher.  

We now have six unsolved portions of code answered, using only the words written by the Zodiac Killer in a total of four communications. Every single answer was organized and structured to remain within each row, line and column with no manipulation whatsoever. We can wait another 50 years for these codes to be "solved" - or believe they were all answered by October 27th 1970 from the pen of the Zodiac Killer.

THE 340 CIPHER WAS CRACKED ON DECEMBER 3RD 2020 BY DAVE ORANCHAK, SAM BLAKE AND JARL VAN EYCKE, SO THIS EARLIER ARTICLE SHOULD BE VIEWED IN RESPECT TO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

The Zodiac Killer mailed the Paul Stine letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 13th 1969 and stated "I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington St + Maple St last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt. I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area". Bearing in mind that the murderer had previously referenced the murders at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park under the umbrella of Vallejo on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, it is clear that the switch to the north bay area was deliberately chosen to incorporate his latest attack at Lake Berryessa. The North Bay is a subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The largest city is Santa Rosa, which is the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. It is the location of the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, and is the least populous and least urbanized part of the Bay Area. It consists of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. This is just the first of many times he referenced his Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, which claimed the life of the young woman. The November 8th 1969 'Drippng Pen' Card and 340 character cipher were pivotal to the Lake Berryessa attack in a number of ways.      

Up to this point, the Zodiac Killer had given us details of the two attacks in Benicia and Vallejo with "some facts which only I + the police know". and confirmed he was the murderer of Paul Stine by the addition of the blood stained shirt piece in the October 13th 1969 letter. Why should he then mail two communications in near tandem with one another, if one of them was not a belated offering? The wording on the front of the card, stating "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen" appeared chosen for purpose, because Lake Berryessa was the only attack he hadn't written about. Maybe it took the Zodiac time to search for an appropriate message and card, which fitted the bill regarding his exploits by the lake. Once he found a suitable card, he designed his 340 character cipher and mailed it alongside the Bus Bomb Letter, franked one day apart. If this were the case, then it's highly probable that the message in the 340 is relevant to Lake Berryessa as well.

The image and writing on the card outer marries up perfectly with the Zodiac message on the card inner. The Zodiac supplied us with his crosshairs, which underneath he wrote the months of his claimed attacks ("Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7"). This mirrored the message he wrote on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, where he also added the months of his crimes, thereby generating another link to the crime. These were the only two occasions he did this. The reason for the 'Dripping Pen' Card choice, was because when he wrote on the car door with the same hand that he had stabbed the young couple, he transferred blood onto the pen - and hence the sardonic introduction of "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen" and the imagery shown.

If the Zodiac Killer apologized for not having written because his blood stained pen had been washed and gave us his attack months on the card inner - thereby replicating the design on the car door - then one could expect the "by knife" attribution to be present somewhere in the card or cipher as well. The card outer and card inner were inextricably linked by the act of Zodiac writing on the car door after the Berrryessa attack. Investigators asked the Zodiac Killer to confirm the "by knife" writing to prove he was the murderer and he duly obliged in the 340 character cipher. The Zodiac Killer placed "death by knife" in the bottom left quadrant of the 340 cipher and was confident that investigators wouldn't "get the news for a while". This turned out to be true, because the Zodiac Killer had to show us the workings of the 340 cipher nearly a year later, using By Fire, By Gun, By Rope, By Knife, Paradice, Slaves and Sorry No Cipher. 

Tahoe27 found the link between the Halloween Card and the Tim Holt comic book, where victims were placed on a Death Wheel. The four prominent execution methods featured on the cover were Death By Fire, Death By Gun, Death By Rope and Death By Knife, with the executioner spinning the wheel. Therefore, is it any great surprise that the Zodiac Killer turned up at Lake Berryessa dressed as an executioner and wrote "by knife" on the car door. This strongly suggests that the Tim Holt comic book not only played a major part in the October 27th 1970 Halloween Card, but in the Lake Berryessa attack, murder of Cecelia Shepard and the design of the 340 character cipher. The two communications mirror each other perfectly, with the Halloween Card even designed with an eye peering from behind a tree, mimicking the Lake Berryessa attack where Zodiac hid behind a tree to don his costume. For more information on the parallels between the Halloween Card and 340 cipher, please read Zodiac Admitted 340 Not a Real Cipher and The Answer to the Z38 Code.

However, we mustn't forget that the months and total provided on the 'Dripping Pen' Card only referenced the Zodiac's claimed murder victims (the Aug attribution referring to the August 3rd 1969 Snoozy/Furlong murders). This may suggest that the 340 character cipher only contained a basic message with regards to the murder of Cecelia Shepard - and why the cipher began with the word "Her". The "By Knife" phrase in the bottom left quadrant of the 340 cipher was, in effect, the Zodiac Killer supplying the answer to investigators about the writing they concealed on the car door. Nobody said Zodiac was going to make it easy and play by the rules. The "By Knife" attribution was in fact "Death By Knife" from the wheel of the Tim Holt comic book. 

If we now read the 'Dripping Pen' Card from outer to inner, and through the 340 cipher, it effectively reads "Sorry I haven't written about the Lake Berryessa attack, but I just washed my pen of the blood. Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7. Her death by knife. Zodiac".

The Halloween Card curiously contained 4-TEEN on the Lake Berryessa depiction. Only four teenagers had been murdered and claimed by Zodiac on November 8th 1969. They were David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy. Two communications forever linked.

# In medieval and ancient philosophy the Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a symbol of the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna (Greek equivalent Tyche) who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel: some suffer great misfortune, others gain windfalls. The metaphor was already a cliche in ancient times, complained about by Tacitus, but was greatly popularized for the Middle Ages by its extended treatment in the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius from around 520. It became a common image in manuscripts of the book, and then other media, where Fortuna, often blindfolded (second skeleton), turns a large wheel of the sort used in watermills, to which kings and other powerful figures are attached. The origin of the word is from the "wheel of fortune" - the zodiac, referring to the Celestial spheres of which the 8th holds the stars, and the 9th is where the signs of the zodiac are placed. The concept was first invented in Babylon and later developed by the ancient Greeks. Wikipedia.