If the Zodiac Killer had correctly signed the car door at Lake Berryessa at approximately 6:30pm (only a few minutes after the attack) and traveled immediately south to the payphone at 1231 Main Street, Napa, the journey time from this area of the Knoxville Road to the payphone is about 43 minutes. Allowing some leeway of 40 to 50 minutes (and no stops on the way), the Zodiac Killer should have arrived at the payphone between 7:10pm and 7:20pm, thereby making the call to police 20 to 30 minutes earlier. However, he made the call at 7:40pm, so where did this time go?

In a previous article a new timeline was examined courtesy of Zodiac contributor Jibberjabber, where the Zodiac Killer left the car door at about 6:07pm and walked 0.8 miles north, to be spotted by Dr. Rayfield & Son at around 6:30pm by Smittle Creek Day Use Area (where the "voyeur" was spotted by the three women earlier that day). "Dr Rayfield stated that about 6:30 pm the previous evening (September 27th), he and his son had parked their car north of Park Headquarters and noticed a white male adult subject walking in the area, described as about 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves". If this was the Zodiac Killer, I suspected that he may have been walking back to his vehicle just north this location, about 2 minutes journey time to a turnout. This would have had him entering his vehicle at around 6:32pm.

The Zodiac Killer would have been aware that 34 minutes had now elapsed since he left the scene of the double stabbing (5:58pm), and knew the location of Park Headquarters, just south of the crime scene. He may have thought it unwise to head south, back towards the crime scene and Park Headquarters in possession of the gun, knife, costume, and possibly with blood transfer to his clothing. The logical choice under these circumstances may have been to travel north towards Pope Canyon Road and Pope Valley, and then head south on Chiles Pope Valley Road (built between 1845 and 1846). The Zodiac Killer would then pass Lake Hennessy and take the Silverado Trail towards Napa. The journey time from his vehicle to the payphone via this route would be about 67 minutes after entering his vehicle at 6:32pm. The Zodiac Killer would have arrived at the payphone in Napa at 7:39pm, one minute before the phone call was logged at 7:40pm. So was this the Zodiac Killer spotted by Dr. Rayfield & Son?​ 

A female student at Pacific Union College reported seeing Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard traveling south shortly after 5:15pm as she and a male companion were parked on Knoxville Road, approximately one mile south of the Lake Berryessa Marina. The Lake Berryessa Marina at 5800 Knoxville Road is about 1.4 kilometres northwest of the Dr. Rayfield sighting at around 6:30pm. Therefore, if the female student was parked up one mile south of this location, she was parked up about half a mile north of where Bryan Hartnell's Karmann Ghia was eventually found. Bryan Hartnett and Cecelia Shepard were about one minute away from parking up.

​The Pacific Union College student described Bryan Hartnett and Cecelia Shepard passing them shortly after 5:15pm, so I am going to attribute 10 minutes to this description of "shortly after" (you can adjust all future times by less or more depending how you interpret "shortly"). This would have our victims being spotted about 5:25pm. If we then add one minute for Bryan Hartnett and Cecelia Shepard to reach their destination, and about 9 minutes for them to gather their belongings and reach the shores of Lake Berryessa, we have them lying down on their blanket at approximately 5:35pm. 

In a revised timeline we had the Zodiac Killer finishing his attack and heading up the hillside at about 5:58pm. Bryan Hartnell stated that from the first time they spotted the man by the tree to the time he left, was a duration of 15 minutes by his estimation. That means the Zodiac Killer was hiding behind the tree at about 5:43pm. If he had spotted Bryan Hartnell's Karmann Ghia before heading down the hillside, the Zodiac Killer would have initially set eyes on their vehicle at least 6 or 7 minutes before he reached the tree. Going on the lower estimate, the Zodiac Killer would have first spotted the Karmann Ghia at 5:37pm, eleven minutes after Bryan Hartnell parked his vehicle at 5:26pm. Adjusting the definition of "shortly after" could easily alter this analysis ten minutes either way. For example, if "shortly after" was 20 minutes, it's possible the Zodiac Killer could have been trailing Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard in his vehicle as they arrived. However, if the Zodiac Killer was spotted by Dr. Rayfield & Son at approximately 6:30pm walking north at Smittle Creek, then this possibility evaporates.

A REVISED TIMELINE AT LAKE BERRYESSA

Zodiac researcher Jibberjabber has made an extremely good case that Ronald Henry Fong (39) (in his boat) heard the cries of Bryan Hartnell closer to 6pm, meaning that the attack on the young couple was likely just shy of the hour. In the statement of Ronald Fong the first time recorded for the cries for help was 6:00pm, corrected to 6:15pm. Bryan Hartnell stated that after the attack Ronald Fong had "stayed there watching us for about 15 minutes", with Ronald Fong stating that he didn't leave immediately because he thought it was a joke. So this may explain why we have the two times of 6:00 and 6:15pm in the report (see below).

If the Zodiac Killer had left the crime scene at say 5:58pm, it would have taken him about 7 minutes to walk 510 yards uphill to the 1956 White Karmann Ghia of Bryan Hartnell. Two minutes to write the message on the car door and remove/conceal his costume, has the Zodiac Killer signing 6:30 at approximately 6:07pm. The journey time walking north from the car of Bryan Hartnell to Smittle Creek Day Use Area (5600 Knoxville Road) is 0.8 miles. Police noted that this was the location of the Dr. Rayfield & Son sighting of a man walking north across the hillside.  Across less than favorable terrain, this journey time would have taken the Zodiac Killer approximately 25 to 30 minutes. This means that the Zodiac Killer would be passing Smittle Creek at about 6:32 to 6:37pm.

​In his submission to police "Dr Rayfield stated that about 6:30 pm the previous evening (September 27th), he and his son had parked their car north of Park Headquarters in the general area of the crime scene. They stated they went down towards the beach area when David noticed a white male adult subject walking in the area, described as about 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves". They had parked their vehicle at 6:30pm, but by the time they had got their belongings from the car, traveled down towards the beach and spotted the "subject at a distance of about 100 yards", it was likely closer to 6:32 to 6:35pm. The exact time the Zodiac Killer would have passed this area from the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia​.

The police report stated that "at 3:30 pm she and her two girlfriends parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road". These were the three women from Pacific Union College who noticed the suspicious voyeur on the hillside. This location, 2 miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand at 5100 Knoxville Road, is at Smittle Creek. The same location that Dr. Rayfield & Son would notice the male subject 3 hours later. Two unusual occurrences, either side of a brutal stabbing, in which two independent sets of eyewitnesses at the same location, felt the need to report to police what they saw that day. An image of the man observed by the three women appeared in the newspapers.    

One of these girls described the man as having "straight dark hair neatly combed". Looking at the hairstyle in the image on the left, the front of the hair is shown being combed back. This hair only has to be a few inches long, so that when the executioner's hood is pulled over the head in preparation for the attack, the hair at the front is displaced and dragged forward. This may have been the dark, greasy hair spotted by the eyelets of the hood by Bryan Hartnell. 

This could suggest that the Zodiac Killer was stalking the hillsides of Lake Berryessa for upwards of 3 hours looking for suitable victims, just like he may have done at Lake Herman Road, parking his white Chevrolet Impala in the turnout and venturing into the adjoining fields in the hours before the double shooting on December 20th 1968. A murderer prepared to diligently look for victims over a protracted period of time. At Lake Berryessa we had three incidents reported to police spanning 3:30pm to 6:30pm, within 0.8 miles of one another, of which two were at the same location of Smittle Creek. But was it the Zodiac Killer stalking the hillsides that day, with a vehicle parked slightly north of the Rayfield sighting?
Thanks again to Jibberjabber.

​Many Zodiac researchers have looked into history (and around the world) for the inspiration and design of the Zodiac Killer's hood/costume at Lake Berryessa. Many suggestions have been put forward, ranging from Renaissance Fair's, police riot gear,  Ned Kelly's outfit and executioner's costumes. However, it's equally possible that the costume he designed had no particular inspiration at all, other than what he read in recent newspaper articles.

From my standpoint, the inspiration for the Lake Berryessa attack was conceived when his lack of front page coverage was compared to the brutal knife slayings of Kathie Snoozy & Debra Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. This obsession progressed into claiming their murders on November 8th 1969 and calling out their real killer, Karl Francis Werner, in 1971. However, this doesn't mean that other murders had no influence on his decision to switch to a bladed instrument on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969.

As pointed out by Zodiac researchers Cragle and Druzer (among others), the recent Manson family murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowskion and Steven Parent on August 8th 1969, along with the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca on August 9th 1969, likely had a part-influence in the Zodiac Killer changing course in his style of attack. When we consider why the Zodiac Killer chose to wear a hood at Lake Berryessa, it's probably wise to examine the murders of all these nine victims when considering the choices made by the Zodiac Killer at Lake Berryessa. Therefore, it's important to review the newspaper coverage in the run up to the attack on September 27th 1969 because we know the Zodiac Killer was heavily influenced by what he read..    

The "Press Tribune" newspaper on August 11th 1969, along with many others, reported on the August 8/9th murders and described a black hood over the head of Jay Sebring and the parallels between these two crimes, with words written in blood, numerous stab wounds, and electrical cord around the neck of victims. The newspaper stated "In the Bel Air slayings, the word "pigs" was scrawled in blood on the front door of the Benedict Canyon home, and one of the five victims, hair stylist Jay Sebring, was found with a black hood over his head. LaBianca's wife, Rosemary, owner of a boutique in the Wilshire business district, was found in the master bedroom. Police said she had been stabbed numerous times with a bayonet-type weapon".
​
​All the ingredients were present in these newspaper articles to shape the Zodiac Killer's Lake Berryessa attack, with the use of clothesline cord, the black hood, the bayonet-style weapon as described by Dr DE Petris at the autopsy of Cecilia Shepard, and the writing on the car door of Bryan Hartnell (to replace the front door). If the Sharon Tate & LaBianca murders part-influenced the shift from gun to knife in the Zodiac Killer slayings, why couldn't the reading of "a black hood over a head" have inspired him to create his theatrical costume at Lake Berryessa.

I am also confident that the Sharon Tate & LaBianca murders influenced the design of the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter (with the "Bleeding Knife of Zodiac" drawing), when the Zodiac Killer wrote "This is the Zodiac speaking. I just want to tell you this state is in trouble. I will go for the government life. So don't forget me. I will kill more people than you can count. So look for more blood.". (corrected for errors). The following article (edited for conciseness) was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 16th 1969, a matter of hours before the Fairfield letter was mailed with an afternoon postmark. Therefore, a strong possibility exists that this article, featuring the Zodiac Killer, could have influenced the language and tone of the Fairfield letter. The opening sentence of the Fairfield letter stated "I just want to tell you this state is in trouble", which can be seen to be synonymous with the newspaper article that headlines with "State Furnishes List of Murders Similar to 7 Slayings Here", as well as the opening paragraph of the article that reads "State officials have provided Los Angeles police with details of 30 unsolved murders", and the sub-headline of "All Murders Logged by State". ​ We know that the Zodiac Killer kept himself informed of murders other than his own, so wouldn't have been averse to using those newspaper articles to style his own communications (and possibly his attacks}  

​The Zodiac Killer would counter the list provided by state officials with a list of his own. At the foot of his Fairfield letter he would give us a list of locations and the number of police he promised to kill in each city (38 in total). This would develop in later communications, when the Zodiac Killer gave us a list of "society offenders" to be targeted from the plagiarized verses of The Mikado, a Savoy comic opera crafted by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert and Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan,  released in London on March 14th 1885.

Government Official means any officer, employee or other individual acting in an official capacity for a Governmental Authority or agency or instrumentality thereof (including any state-owned or controlled enterprise). This may explain the Zodiac Killer's use of the phrase "government life" in his letter. It appeared that the Fairfield letter was specifically responding to this newspaper article - both of which corresponded to the date of December 16th. Susan Denise Atkins (21), one of six persons charged with the Tate-LaBiaca murders, provided information to police where they could find items of disposed bloody clothing related to the Cielo Drive attack, detailed in the article as "A station spokesman said the clothes, stained with what appeared to be blood and knotted in a bundle were turned over to police". I have highlighted these above in reference to the Zodiac Killer's statement of "look for more blood" in the Fairfield letter. The police were effectively dispatched to look for items of clothing stained with blood in the Tate-LaBianca slayings, to which the Zodiac Killer suggested there would be "more blood" in future for police to find. 

​If the Zodiac Killer was inspired to write on the door of Bryan Hartnell's 1956 white Karmann Ghia by reading newspaper articles about the Manson murders and the writing on the front door of the Benedict Canyon home, was he also influenced by the same thing, when (in all probability) he designed the "Channel 9" letter on May 2nd 1978 by using "1,2,3,4,5,6,7 -- All Good Children Go to Heaven" on the envelope, taken from the "Helter Skelter" door at the Spahn Ranch? It originated from a Beatles song (hence the Apple logo drawn on the envelope), but by describing Susan Atkins (a member of the Manson family) in the letter as the "Judas of the Manson Family", it isn't hard to envisage that the Zodiac Killer could have been inspired by the two doors from the Benedict Canyon home and Spahn Ranch in his writings on September 27th 1969 and May 2nd 1978.

Just over three years ago, on the Tapatalk Zodiac forum, Chaucer did an excellent visual and written explanation regarding the autopsy report by Dr. De Petris of Cecelia Shepard's wounds, and how those injuries may have occurred at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. The analysis of Chaucer, looking at the possible sequence of stab wounds to Cecelia's body as she lay hogtied on the ground, is well thought out and viable. The conclusion made that Zodiac dealt 9 knife blows rather than 10 is backed up by the injuries, where wounds [2] and [3], wounds [5] and [6]. and wounds [7] and [8] - bearing in mind Cecelia Shepard was hogtied - were probably created by 3 knife strikes. If wounds [5] and [6}, or [7] and [8] were created by 2 knife strikes, then we have 10 stab wounds in total. It is clear that the dynamic struggle of Cecelia Shepard to avoid the knife blade resulted in wounds [9], [11] and [12] being angled blows, causing long incision type injuries to the anterior region of her torso. As correctly concluded by Chaucer, after the initial 2 strikes [1] and [2], wounds [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] and possibly [10] suggest that Cecelia Shepard had her left side predominantly exposed to the Zodiac Killer's knife strikes, evident by this cluster of injuries. 

Stab wounds [1], [2] and [4] all strike a rib, 1.7cm, 2.0cm and 1.2cm deep respectively. Injuries to the left lung and diaphragm were caused by wound [10]. The anterior left lower lobe of the lung has a 3.0 cm tear just above the nick to the diaphragm. The posterior aspect of the right lower lobe has a 4.0cm incision. There is bilateral pulmonary edema and hemorrhage. Death was due to loss of blood, causing a lack of oxygen to the brain {cerebral anoxia). It is unclear how Dr. De Petris concluded the knife used in the attack was similar to a bayonet type weapon measuring 9 to 11 inches in length and one inch wide, based on his autopsy measurements.   

AUTOPSY REPORT AND DIAGRAM BY CHAUCER
ANALYSIS OF THE STAB WOUND SEQUENCE BY CHAUCER  

In the police report regarding the attack at Lake Berryessa, Bryan Hartnell is quoted as estimating the Zodiac Killer's age as 20 to 30 based on voice concept. Despite the analysis of age based on somebody's voice being wholly unreliable, the age range given by Bryan Hartnell is often used by Zodiac researchers to partly validate a proposed person of interest who is within this range. The same is done with David Slaight, who received the phone call from the Zodiac Killer seventy minutes after the Lake Berryessa attack, who appeared to corroborate the earwitness testimony of Bryan Hartnell by describing the voice he heard at 7:40pm on September 27th 1969 as young (possibly early twenties). 

However, the following observations show just how unreliable it is to estimate somebody's age based on nothing more than hearing their voice. Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight's thoughts that the Zodiac Killer may have been somebody in his twenties will be called into question by none other than Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight. The San Francisco Chronicle released a newspaper article on October 24th 1969 entitled "That Wasn't Zodiac, Say 3 Who Know", in which Bryan Hartnell, David Slaight and Nancy Slover listened to the recorded voice of "Sam" on the Jim Dunbar TV Show. The article stated that "Bryan Hartnell told Napa County homicide detectives he remembers Zodiac's voice as being much older and deeper than the one heard in the series of telephone calls to KGO-TV. His opinion was backed up by Napa police Patrolman David Slaight and Vallejo police clerk Nancy Slover, who have also heard the real killer's voice". 

The voice of "Sam" was later found to be that of Eric Weill, who pretended to be the Zodiac Killer when interviewed by Jim Dunbar and Melvin Belli on October 22nd 1969. Therefore, Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight both described the Zodiac Killer's voice as "much older" than Eric Weill, who was aged 29 in 1969. This seemingly contradicts Bryan Harnell's earlier police report of a 20 to 30 years estimation, and David Slaight's recollection of a man possibly in his "early twenties". Somebody described as "much older" than 29, must be at least 35 to 40 years of age. Of course, both Bryan Hartnell and David Slaight could have been influenced by their perception of the voice of "Sam" (Eric Weill) believing him to be much younger when they heard the recordings. They may have thought "Sam" to be about 18, thereby making their "much older" perception of Zodiac still viable as somebody in their mid-twenties, or up to 30 years. This appears like a reasonable explanation for the discrepancy. However, if "Sam" was 29 years of age and sounded 18 years of age (11 years younger), then the Zodiac Killer could have been 39 years of age at Lake Berryessa, yet sounded like a man aged 28, in line with Bryan Hartnell's 20 to 30 age estimation. If Bryan Hartnell can mistake the age of "Sam" by at least a decade, he can mistake the age of Zodiac by the same amount at Lake Berryessa.

This is why perceiving individuals age based on the sound of their voice is inherently flawed. So when Zodiac researchers use the interpretations of earwitnesses and eyewitnesses to argue their case for a suspect (or person of interest) fitting the desired age range, they employ confirmation bias and augment the attributes of some and not others. The testimony of Bryan Hartnell, Donald Fouke, Michael Mageau and the three teenagers, regarding the age of the Zodiac Killer, will be dissected meticulously to discredit and promote each that best fashions a case for their person of interest. Interpreting information to conform to an existing belief system, while ignoring information that doesn't conform to an existing belief system, is highly beneficial in crafting a false narrative and magnifying the likelihood an individual will be perceived as the Zodiac Killer by the reader. The problem is that everybody does it, but it's only recognizable in others.

In his very first communications, the Zodiac Killer wrote three letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald on July 31st 1969, and fully expected to receive front page coverage, demanding "I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1-69, If you do not do this I will go on a kill ram page Fry night that will last the whole week end". After all, he had now committed the murders of David Faraday, Betty Lou Jensen and Darlene Ferrin, while seriously injuring Michael Mageau. He again reiterated the importance of publicity when the August 4th 1969 Debut of Zodiac letter arrived at the San Francisco Examiner offices, stating "I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage". This trend would continue in the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969 when he asked politely "Could you print this new cipher in your frunt page", and when the Los Angeles letter was mailed on March 13th 1971, declaring "The reason I'm writing to the Times is this, They don't bury me on the back pages like some of the others". By August 4th 1969 he had killed three, nearly killed another, sent four letters and created a 408 character cipher formed of three parts - but despite this - the two main newspapers in the Bay Area relegated his cipher offerings to page four and page nine in the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner respectively. The Zodiac Killer was probably wondering what more he had to do to achieve the front page coverage his crimes and communications merited. The answer would come sharply into focus, when two days after he announced himself to the world as "Zodiac" - and while he was scouring the newspapers for any progress on his 408 cipher - the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a comprehensive article on the front page of their newspaper featuring the brutal slayings of Kathie Reyne Snoozy (15) and Debra Gaye Furlong (14) in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. The two young teenage girls were brutally stabbed countless times as they picnicked atop an oak grove in Alamedan Valley.        

The father of one of the girls, Glen Furlong, spoke of some unsettling phone calls in the aftermath of his daughter's murder, stating "The individual or individuals who did this either had to be deranged or high on dope or something of that nature, They didn't know what they were doing. It was such a senseless killing. On several occasions people have called and as soon as we answer, they hang up". he said in bewilderment. At the foot of the San Francisco Chronicle article, it mentioned the surviving Furlong children and described the funeral services for both girls (see above). This section of the San Francisco Chronicle publication would be crucial regarding a phone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol by the Zodiac Killer on December 19th 1969 and a postcard mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13th 1971, both of which were inspired, in part, by this section of the August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle newspaper,

The Zodiac Killer, having created terror in Benicia and Vallejo - and having sent four communications to date - noticed that the Snoozy & Furlong murders received front page coverage, while he received inner-page status. Is it really any surprise that the Zodiac Killer reappeared on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, armed with a large knife and wearing an ominous executioner's costume. Dr. John E. Hauser, Santa Clara county's chief medical examiner and coroner, stated of the Snoozy & Furlong murders  "I've never seen a case with this many stab wounds. You know, I've been in this profession a long time and sometimes I think I'm rather callous, but when I saw these girls, believe me it was terrifying. The Nazi sex mutilations during World War II were nothing compared to what was done to these young girls". The Zodiac Killer had to perform an attack that would shock, so it's not difficult to understand why he ramped up the terror in the manner he did, knowing that a close-quarter attack should secure him the front page coverage he felt he warranted. After the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, the Zodiac Killer traveled back up the hill and wrote "Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69 - 6:30. by knife" on the car door of the young couples' vehicle. The addition of "by knife" was effectively saying to law enforcement "I've now killed with a knife, do I now get front page coverage like the San Jose murders". The plan worked perfectly, because the Lake Berryessa attack had the added advantage of him being linked to the murders of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong. Something he would capitalize on in the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969, when he upped his victim count to seven and added the month of August to his chronological list of murder months.  

The Zodiac Killer knew that just committing an attack "by knife" and adding "Aug" to his Dripping Pen card, he may need more reinforcement to convince law enforcement he was responsible for the Snoozy & Furlong murders, so kept on with the San Jose angle by mailing a letter to the San Jose Police Department on November 21st 1969. A letter that would again promise more mayhem, by threatening a woman in San Jose and force police to instigate 24-hour protection to quell the possibilty of further attacks. But it didn't stop there.

On December 16th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter from Fairfield to the newspapers, threatening to kill 38 cops by targeting 9 in Sacramento, 8 in Oakland, 8 in Napa, 6 in Vallejo, 3 in Fairfield, 3 in San Francisco and 1 in San Jose. The Zodiac Killer would include San Jose once again. This letter was withheld from the newspapers, making it fairly obvious that the person who rang the San Jose Highway Patrol on December 19th 1969, was the same person who authored this letter. 

On December 19th 1969, the Zodiac Killer again threatened multiple cops, making a phone call to Sergeant Robert Rengsdorff of the San Jose Highway Patrol, stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday".  The Zodiac Killer had made a list of cops he wanted to kill on December 16th 1969, but would up his San Jose total from one to five on December 19th 1969, adding that he also wanted to kill a family of five in San Jose (which is very specific}. This is where the San Francisco Chronicle article from August 6th 1969 comes into play. The article heavily featured Glen Furlong, who spoke about his daughter and the unsettling phone calls he was receiving. The article also mentioned his wife and their three children,  by stating "The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11". This was almost certainly the family of five the Zodiac Killer was referring to, staying relevant in San Jose, and keeping with tradition by never referring to his victims or potential victims by name. As stated earlier, the relevance of the San Francisco Chronicle article would again resurface on July 13th 1971. 

On October 27th 1970, the Zodiac Killer would mail the Halloween card, upping his victim count to fourteen, but chose to write 4-TEEN as an alternative, to include the only four teenagers he was claiming thus far. Those four were David Faraday (17), Betty Lou Jensen (16), Kathie Snoozy (15) and Debra Furlong (14). Seven months later (probably early May, 1971), the Zodiac Killer mailed the 148 character cipher and letter in response to the recent arrest and interrogation of Karl Francis Werner (18) for the murders of Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong, as well as the recent murder of Kathy Bilek (18) in Saratoga on April 11th 1971. The headlines stated San Jose Student Held in Slaying of Three Girls, San Jose Student Held in Slaying of 3 Girls and Youth Arraigned in Knife Slayings of Three Girls.  Paul Avery of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote "He (Werner) was immediately advised of his rights concerning any statements he may make and legal representation to which he is entitled, the detectives said. Werner was then taken to the scenes of the crimes. Late yesterday he was undergoing questioning. The detectives would not reveal what statements, if any, he had made concerning the killings of the three girls".

​The Zodiac Killer, having invested nearly two years linking himself to the Snoozy & Furlong murders, could now abandon his connection to the two young teenagers, or continue the facade, and now claim all three murders, which included Kathy Bilek. It was either all three, or none at all. His choice became apparent when the 148 character cipher included in his 1971 letter was deciphered. It read "T(h)is (is) the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on the front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin". The Zodiac Killer was urging investigators not to listen to Karl Francis Werner, referring to him as a "phony". Bearing in mind the newspaper headlines of "San Jose Student Held in Slaying of 3 Girls", it wasn't a surprise the Zodiac Killer was threatening to further "skin 3 little kids", adding in his letter that he would "send a patch of human skin if their was some left over". All three girls in San Jose and Saratoga were stabbed in excess of 100 times, so it doesn't require much imagination to understand the notion of little skin being left over. However, the story doesn't end there. The Zodiac Killer now had to add Kathy Bilek to his ever-increasing victim total. 

This is where the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper article from August 6th 1969 comes into play for the third time. An article that probably inspired the Lake Berryessa attack and the December 19th 1969 payphone call threatening a family of five. In the same section of newspaper under the subheading of "CHILDREN", the article detailed the burial sites of both Kathie Snoozy and Debra Furlong, but only one was the phonetic namesake of Kathy Bilek. The article read "The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11. Furlong said he did not know and had not yet talked to Kathy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Snoozy. Both Snoozy, a carpet layer, and Mrs. Snoozy reportedly are in a state of collapse. Her funeral has been scheduled Friday at 11 a.m. at the Place Funeral Home in Los Gatos. Burial will be at Oak Wood Cemetery in Santa Cruz. Funeral services for Kathy will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park Mortuary in San Jose. Burial will be at Oak Hill Memorial Park". It should therefore come as no surprise that the Zodiac Killer would mail a postcard on July 13th 1971 with newspaper cuttings reading "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". Kathy Bilek was murdered on April 11th 1971, in the Villa Montalvo woods in Saratoga, near the neighborhood of Monticello. Just nine miles east of the Villa Montalvo woods in Saratoga, sits the neighborhood of Monticello in San Jose. The neighborhood of Monticello contains the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery where Kathie Snoozy is buried. The phonetic namesake of Kathy Bilek. The Zodiac Killer did like playing word games.    

THE HEADLINES THAT INSPIRED THE 340 AND 148 CHARACTER CIPHERS 

By August 4th 1969 the Zodiac Killer had shot four young people, killed three and mailed four letters, including three parts of a 408 character cryptogram. However, this didn't afford him the front page coverage from the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner that he thought he richly deserved. The August 6th 1969 front page coverage in the Chronicle, featuring the brutal stabbings of teenagers Kathie Reyne Snoozy and Deborah Gaye Furlong in San Jose, was almost certainly the inspiration for the Zodiac Killer to switch from gun to knife and appear on the shores of Lake Berryessa brandishing a long-bladed weapon. This murder and attempted murder on September 27th 1969 secured him front page coverage due to the brutality of the attack. So why would the Zodiac Killer revert back to the use of a gun in his next attack. The answer may lie in the newspaper articles subsequent to the Lake Berryessa attack, in which the Zodiac Killer was portrayed as a psychotic, sexual deviant who likely focused heavily on the female sex. As explained in the previous article, the Zodiac Killer did not specifically target couples, or primarily direct his ire towards the female, but this didn't stop the sensationalized newspaper articles and the irresponsible statements by law enforcement, who portrayed the Zodiac Killer as a man starved of a meaningful heterosexual relationship, with an underlying sexual problem.

This was exemplified by the San Francisco Examiner on October 1st 1969, just ten days before the Zodiac Killer targeted a lone male in San Francisco on October 11th 1969. The Examiner ran with the headline "Sex Fiend Sought For Six Killings", followed by the opening paragraph of "A psychotic killer police say brutally slays females for sexual gratification is loose in the North Bay today". If you are wondering where the San Francisco Examiner got six killings from - they had incorporated the murders of Snoozy and Furlong in San Jose, who were also mentioned in the newspaper article (which is what the Zodiac Killer had hoped for by committing the Berryessa attack). The newspaper article continued by stating the Zodiac Killer was "a mentally ill person, who must get his sex gratification from the act of killing. With a gun it was not as much as a knife. He wants to be caught". If you want to drive the Zodiac Killer back to killing with a gun and targeting a lone male by design, then these are the sort of irresponsible statements you release in the newspapers, rather than attempting to pacify the killer into writing more communications or another cryptogram. It really isn't any surprise that the Zodiac Killer entered the taxicab of Paul Stine just ten days later. If you need any more proof that the Zodiac Killer was inspired by this newspaper article, take a look at the wording in the Paul Stine letter on October 13th 1969. The killer wrote "I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area", in response to the newspaper article which stated the Zodiac Killer was "loose in the North Bay today". Law enforcement also claimed that the Zodiac Killer wanted "to be caught" in the Examiner. The Zodiac Killer replied in the Paul Stine letter: "The S.F. police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly". It is also little surprise, that the Zodiac Killer accepted these six killings - added on Paul Stine - and claimed seven murders on November 8th 1969 in the Dripping Pen card, with the addition of the "Aug" murders of Snoozy and Furlong, attributed to him in this newspaper article.    

Cragle, a contributor to the main two Zodiac Killer forums, brought my attention to two sections of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia door of Bryan Hartnell where there appears to be additional writing. The cardboard obscuring the car door on the right side is noticeably larger than the cardboard taped to the left side. This would have little significance, if it were not for the apparent lettering that seems to be present - particularly on the bottom right side where the two letters of M and L (or something like them) are just visible.  

We know that the "by knife" phrase was initially withheld from the newspapers, to distinguish between the real killer and any hoaxers, had the perpetrator of the stabbings at Lake Berryessa made contact with the police. In the San Francisco Chronicle article published on October 1st 1969, the investigators stated "there were a couple of other things we're still holding back so we'll be able to identify the man if he wants to call us again". We know that the "by knife" phrase was one, so could this potential hidden writing be the second.

Of course, there are subsequent images of the car door that show its right side without any writing, so these images would have required doctoring to conceal any writing on the right side and keep the message (if one exists) under wraps.  

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 Zodiac Killer murdered David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen in Benicia on December 20th 1968, before moving into Vallejo on July 4th 1969 with the attack at Blue Rock Springs on Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau. He had successfully committed two late night attacks on two young couples - and by the time he had mailed his July 31st 1969 letters and cryptograms to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald newspapers - the police were no nearer to catching him. By all accounts, this seemed a rather 'successful' opening to his serial killer career, evolving from the murderer of three into the ominous Zodiac Killer by August 4th 1969. This being the case, why did the Zodiac Killer rip up this template of murder and embark on a whole new path on September 27th 1969, leaving many observers to this day questioning the Lake Berryessa stabbings as a Zodiac crime? Rather than constantly examining the modus operandi between the three crimes and questioning their incompatibility with one another, it may be more productive to discover the reasons why the Zodiac Killer dropped an approach that had worked on December 20th 1968 and July 4th 1969, to now adopt a brazen attack with a knife in daylight hours. Something happened externally or internally to provoke this switch in attack style.

The Zodiac Killer by August 4th 1969 had murdered three people, severely injured one, mailed three cryptograms and written four letters. From the outset he placed importance on receiving front page coverage. On July 31st 1969, his trinity of communications demanded that he received front page coverage, stating "I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend". Imagine his horror and dismay, that the highest circulation newspapers in the Bay Area ignored his demands and relegated the cryptic murderer of three into relative anonymity on their inner pages. The San Francisco Chronicle published his cryptogram on page four, while the San Francisco Examiner (had in his eyes), literally spat in his face, by placing their portion of the cryptogram on a lowly page nine. This wouldn't go unnoticed by the killer of three on August 4th 1969, who hastily composed a fourth letter with an imposing pseudonym and uttered his displeasure by stating "I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage". We have come to understand the Zodiac Killer as a narcissistic braggart, whose primary objective wasn't the murders, but the publicity they generated. This publicity, to him, meant front page coverage in the major newspapers of the day - not page four and certainly not page nine. 

Just when the Zodiac Killer didn't think it could get any worse, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a front page article on August 6th 1969, entitled The Frenzy of San Jose Girls' Slayer, detailing the brutal stabbing murders of two young teenagers in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. This article arrived just two days after his dismay at not receiving front page coverage. The San Francisco Chronicle article read as follows:

The two young girls, found dead Sunday on a sun-parched San Jose hillside, appear to have been victims of a sexual psychopath, whose blood frenzy led him to "overkill."  Dr. John E. Hauser, Santa Clara county's chief medical examiner and coroner, said yesterday that the girls, Deborah Gay Furlong, 14, and Kathy Snoozy, 15, died in a "frenzied flurry of knife-wounds" inflicted so swiftly that neither gave any evidence of having struggled against the attack. 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.

PUZZLE: 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 coroner said both girls must have died very quickly and he is investigating the possibility they may have been drugged before the stabbing began. Blood and skin samples as well as stomach contents have been sent for further examination to area laboratories, he said. The results should be known in a few days. It is Dr. Hauser's opinion that the multiple puncture wounds were inflicted by one or two small knives, the largest wound the size of a pocket knife with a half-inch blade. "I've never seen a case with this many stab wounds," Dr. Hauser said. "You know, I've been in this profession a long time and sometimes I think I'm rather callous, but when I saw these girls, believe me it was terrifying. "The Nazi sex mutilations during World War II were nothing compared to what was done to these young girls.

INVESTIGATION: So far, according to Chief of San Jose Detectives Barton Collins, his investigators have uncovered no solid clues to the slaying. He said police and sheriff's deputies are looking for a "light colored van—a Volkswagen, a Dodge, a Chevrolet or a Ford" in which the girls may have been killed and then rolled, carried or dragged down the hillside to a grove of snarled, dusty oaks where their bodies were found. Both he and the coroner emphasized that at the scene there was almost no blood, suggesting they had been slain elsewhere. Collins said he and his men have talked to at least 200 people so far, searching for some information that might draw them closer to the killer. Asked if he were looking for a "mad man," Collins, pale and exhausted, snapped: "I'm looking for a killer and it doesn't matter whether he was under drugs or what." Collins did not mention this, but the Chronicle learned that wedged in between the two bodies of the dead girls police found a "new," but empty beer can. There was speculation the killer may have rolled or carried one girl down, then finished off a can of beer, and then disposed of the second body without noticing the can. The scene, not more than six blocks from where the two girls lived with their families in a neat, prosperous subdivision in San Jose's Almaden area, was utterly desolate yesterday. A few small boys on bicycles paused to look up at the tanned knoll, swathed with wide paths used for scrambles by neighborhood motorcyclists, and scurried off. Normally scores of children play in that area, because, in the words of Deborah's father, Glen Furlong, "It's the only open area close by where kids can go to." Housewives living in the immediate area, across the street and around the corner, conceded they were suddenly "very frightened." One mother said that since the murder she had seen some children poking around the scene, and added, "We were shocked. "Maybe their parents don't care. But I wouldn't let mine go up there . . . "

PUBLICITY: Although very close to tears, Furlong said yesterday that he was allowing interviews in the hope that more and more publicity "would trigger something in someone's mind and we can solve this crime." The 40-year old father works at the big International Business Machines plant only about a mile away from the family home. He is a senior associate engineer in the logic design section of IBM and he tried to bring objectivity to the disaster that has befallen his family. "The individual or individuals who did this either had to be deranged or high on dope or something of that nature," he said. "They didn't know what they were doing. It was such a senseless killing." He said his neighborhood has never had any problems, although mahy complain about the noise made by the weekend cyclists. He noted parenthetically that the riders are not of the Hell's Angel variety, but use lighter motorcycles. He said his neighbors were "very sympathetic," but complained he found some of his phone calls "very disconcerting."

CALLERS: "On several occasions people have called and as soon as we answer, they hang up," he said in bewilderment. Furlong tried to control his emotions as he spoke of his eldest daughter — one of his four children. "She was only a freshman in high school," he said, "and this was the first year we allowed her to date. We talked to her about it, and I sort of teased her. She went out with a boy friend a few times — a very nice boy who came over yesterday morning to extend his condolences — but most of her social activities were confined to her school. She was never any trouble." School mates and neighborhood friends of Deborah said the girl, very slim and looking more like a 10-year-old than a 14-year-old, was "just an ordinary nice girl who baby set and had a boy friend and talked about becoming an airline stewardess."

CHILDREN: The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11. Furlong said he did not know and had not yet talked to Kathy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Snoozy. Both Snoozy, a carpet layer, and Mrs. Snoozy reportedly are in a state of collapse. Her funeral has been scheduled Friday at 11 a.m. at the Place Funeral Home in Los Gatos. Burial will be at Oak Wood Cemetery in Santa Cruz. Funeral services for Kathy will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park Mortuary in San Jose. Burial will be at Oak Hill Memorial Park.  

The Zodiac Killer, avidly scanning the newspapers for progress on his cryptograms and latest letter, must have been bitterly disappointed that these murders committed in San Jose featured front and center of the San Francisco Chronicle, while his three murders, allied to his cryptic ciphers, were relegated to page four and nine of the two San Francisco newspapers. He needed to switch his approach to murder and hit San Francisco hard.

The phrases of "The Nazi sex mutilations during World War II were nothing compared to what was done to these young girls", the title of "The Frenzy of San Jose Girls' Slayer" and "Dr. Hauser, so shaken by the brutality of the crime he could scarcely find words", must have resonated with the Bay Area murderer. He knew that to generate the front page coverage he so badly craved, he needed to switch from gun to knife in a savage close-quarter attack. However, he needed to elevate the fear by dressing up in a costume with his moniker emblazoned on his chest, akin to the fear the Nazi swastika instilled in its victims. He would also ramp up the terror by using a bayonet-style knife, rather than the pocket knife used in the Snoozy and Furlong murders. This article alone was the driver behind the Lake Berryessa stabbings, and effectively sealed Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard's fate, seven weeks in advance of the crime. The Zodiac Killer, dressed in ordinary clothes, gazed into the mirror and effectively saw the costumed Lake Berryessa murderer staring back at him. His fantasy was taking shape.         

Three girls from Pacific Union College may have been the initial target of the Zodiac Killer as he scoured the hillsides of Lake Berryessa, but circumstances unknown would ultimately change what transpired. Two hours later, an ominous figure stepped out from behind a tree at Twin Oak Ridge and bore down on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. The Zodiac Killer's fantasy, driven by the August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle article, had emerged into reality. The Snoozy and Furlong murders on August 3rd 1969 were about to be replicated in the mind of a killer. The costume specifically designed and crafted with care, by a man who fed into his own narcissism and who was now on the verge of securing the recognition he felt he so richly deserved. Whether the couple survived the upcoming attack and reported what they saw was incidental - the Zodiac Killer had now satiated his desire to become the embodiment of fear, he viewed as being denied from him and his accomplishments after the trinity of cryptic communications on July 31st 1969.

After the attack on the couple, he made his way up the hillside to the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia of Bryan Hartnell and defiantly listed his accomplishments on the door of the vehicle, but specifically added the words "by knife" at the foot of the message. He was effectively making a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle (and to a lesser extent, The Examiner), "do I get front page coverage now". The Snoozy and Furlong murders, in his mind, had overshadowed his accomplishments at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs, despite the cryptic offerings he had so painstakingly crafted. So he crafted a costume instead and attempted to ramp the fear factor to a new level. The fact that Bryan Hartnell survived the Lake Berryessa attack, inadvertently played right into his hands. The evil, fear-inducing costume he had carefully crafted and labored over, was now the focus and feeding frenzy of a media gripped by this new revelation. The second coming of Zodiac was now complete - and his requirement to converse with the newspapers strangely deflated, because Bryan Hartnell had successfully recounted the details of Lake Berryessa with astonishing clarity and vividness. The Zodiac Killer had now been reborn and resurrected from gun-toting lunatic into the embodiment of evil. This crime also had one added benefit with respect to the identity of the killer of Snoozy and Furlong - and I doubt this possibility escaped the attention of the Zodiac Killer when he arrived at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969.    

In an article entitled Another Grim Message by Paul Avery, a link between the Lake Berryessa stabbings and the murder of the two San Jose teenagers was pondered by both investigators and newspapers alike. The Zodiac Killer had deliberately emphasized "by knife" on the car door at Twin Oak Ridge, and included "Aug" in his victim months on the Dripping Pen card for this very reason. When he mailed the November 8th 1969 Dripping Pen card, he requested "I though you would nead a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet. PS could you print this new cipher in your frunt page? I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing !!!!!!  Des July Aug Sept Oct = 7". The Zodiac Killer didn't need to demand front page coverage anymore, he knew he would get it. By committing the Lake Berryessa stabbings and including "Aug" in his chronology of months, he had effectively planted the seed in investigators minds that he could have been responsible for the Snoozy and Furlong murders in August. He had essentially bought himself front page coverage by piggybacking off a crime he already knew had achieved this status on August 6th 1969.
Just like the threat to pick off schoolchildren and blow up a school bus, the savagery of these two close-quarter attacks demanded he be taken seriously. Whatever we say about the Zodiac Killer, his marketing skills were second to none. He knew how to turn page four and page nine into page one, placing Another Grim Message proudly on the news stands of San Francisco.    

The importance of the San Francisco Chronicle article from August 6th 1969 cannot be underestimated with respect to Lake Berryessa and future Zodiac communications. Who would remember the burial location of one of the victims from San Jose, if not the killer who was so influenced by this very article? Who then shifted from impersonal double shootings at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs, to intimate stabbings at Lake Berryessa. Only somebody invested in murder during the time  period this article was released, would have reason to remember where the two San Jose teenagers were laid to rest. Under CHILDREN in the August 6th 1969 Chronicle article, it stated "The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11. Furlong said he did not know and had not yet talked to Kathy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Snoozy. Both Snoozy, a carpet layer, and Mrs. Snoozy reportedly are in a state of collapse. Her funeral has been scheduled Friday at 11 a.m. at the Place Funeral Home in Los Gatos. Burial will be at Oak Wood Cemetery in Santa Cruz. Funeral services for Kathy will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park Mortuary in San Jose. Burial will be at Oak Hill Memorial Park".

The Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery in San Jose lies in the Monticello neighborhood, just nine miles east of the Villa Montalvo woods, where Kathy Bilek was brutally stabbed on April 11th 1971 - and who the Zodiac Killer referenced in his July 13th 1971 communication, stating "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". There are a multitude of places in San Jose the author of this card could have chosen, but he chose Monticello. The exact place Kathie Snoozy was buried - and the teenager whose murder he insinuated his involvement in on November 8th 1969. When Karl Francis Werner was attributed with the murders of Debra Furlong, Kathie Snoozy and Kathy Bilek, the Zodiac Killer had the option to recuse himself of all involvement in the two San Jose murders. But that wasn't his style. The attack at Lake Berryessa, the Dripping Pen card, and a whole host of communications involving San Jose had locked him into a lie he was unwilling to relinquish. He would effectively try to reclaim the Snoozy and Furlong murders, by also claiming the Kathy Bilek murder in Saratoga via the Monticello card, as well as calling Werner a phony in another Zodiac communication mailed in May 1971 (shown below). The Zodiac Killer had simply invested too much time and effort into this elaborate facade, that was encapsulated by his theatrical performance at Lake Berryessa. Two years he had lived in a house of illusion - and Karl Francis Werner was not going to tear it down. 

Bryan Hartnell stated in the 2007 documentary "We went down to St Helena and I think we looked in a rummage sale or something - we got distracted - when we looked at the clock we realized we weren't going to make it to the city and back (San Francisco). I had some responsibilities I had to be back for that evening, so we decided instead to take the loop up to Lake Berryessa". Below is the route they took, departing from St Helena at approximately 4:30 pm. They traveled north through Angwin and Pope Valley before heading south along the Knoxville Road to the area of the crime scene. We can calculate their direction of travel and the approximate time of their arrival based upon a couple who knew them. John (22) and Marilyn (18) were parked up just one mile south of the Lake Berryessa Marina and just north of the eventual crime scene. Marilyn stated that shortly after they parked their vehicle (5:15 pm) "they observed the victims who were known to them, driving south on Knoxville Road in Bryan's white Karmann Ghia. She stated as the Hartnell vehicle drove by, Bryan waved out of the window and said "Hi John". Marilyn stated that they did not see the Hartnell vehicle any other time that day".

The three girls from Pacific Union College "parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road". The Sugar Loaf Park A & W was situated at 5100 Knoxville Road. They would have parked their vehicle somewhere in or between the region of Smittle Creek Trailhead and Smittle Creek Day Use Area. They arrived at 3:30 pm. "After approximately one-half hour had passed (4:00 pm), they observed what appeared to be the same subject standing with 40 or 50 feet of them, apparently observing them. The subject hung around the area for approximately 45 minutes (4:45 pm) and then the girls observed him walk up the hill". Allowing 10 minutes for the girls to get their belongings from their vehicle and walk to the beach, the total time passed would have the man walking up the hill at around 4:55 pm (approximately 5:00 pm). However, one page later in the police report, it stated "The three girls left the area about 4:30 pm and the subject's vehicle was gone". Therefore, we have to estimate the man left that location sometime between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm. This is the approximate area that John and Marilyn were parked up at 5:15 pm when they spotted Bryan and Cecelia heading south to the area of the crime scene. If the man spotted by the three girls was the Zodiac Killer, it is clear that Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were not trailed by their eventual attacker from St Helena.

If Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard had arrived at the crime scene (0.8 miles south of Smittle Creek Day Use Area) at about 5:20 pm, they would have laid out their picnic blanket at approximately 5:30 pm. The Zodiac Killer's appearance from beyond the tree was about 45 minutes in the making (6:15 pm arrival to 6:30 pm attack). So if this was the same person spotted by the three girls, we could be looking at just over an hour to 1 1/2 hours from last being spotted by the three girls at Smittle Creek (4:30 pm to 5:00 pm) to his arrival by the Karmann Ghia (but not necessarily). If he had been trawling the Knoxville Road between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm in his vehicle (or the hillside on foot) looking for potential targets, he may very well have stumbled across Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard far earlier. If he arrived at the eventual crime scene (about 5:20 pm to 5:30 pm) shortly after the couple had parked up, had he circled the area in anticipation of an attack on Bryan and Cecelia, just like man observed by the three girls from Pacific Union College? They stated "the subject hung around the area for approximately 45 minutes and then the girls observed him walk up the hill". If this man had used the same "stalking his prey" technique before eventually approaching Bryan and Cecelia, then an arrival time of about 5:30 pm at the Karmann Ghia would have him approaching the couple 45 minutes later. This would have placed him behind the tree at approximately 6:15 pm, before culminating his attack at 6:30 pm (the time scrawled on the car door of the Karmann Ghia).

Is it a coincidence that just a short time later, Dr. Rayfield and his son observed a "white male adult subject walking in the area of Smittle Creek, described as about 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves. Dr Rayfield and his son stated that they did not notice a vehicle in the area of their vehicle and only this subject at a distance of about 100 yards. This location was approximately 8/10ths of a mile from the scene of the victim's vehicle. There are four coves of water between the scene of the crime and the area where the doctor saw the subject". They stated that they parked their vehicle at about 6:30 pm that evening and walked down to the beach, when they noticed the man approximately 100 yards away. If this was around 6:40 pm, we have a small discrepancy of about 10 minutes for a man to walk from the crime scene to Smittle Creek. An attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard slightly earlier, or Dr. Rayfield's time estimate a few minutes off, could easily account for this.  A suspicious character noted by two sets of eyewitnesses 0.8 miles north of the crime scene, before and after the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. Was this man the Zodiac Killer, trawling the hillsides of Lake Berryessa on foot looking for potential victims, before returning to his vehicle parked somewhere in the region of Smittle Creek?     

It is very likely that the Lake Berrryessa attack on Bryan Calvin Hartnell (20) and Cecelia Ann Shepard (22) was inspired by the newspaper articles in the August 4th 1969 San Francisco Examiner and August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle. Both ran major news articles on the brutal murders of Deborah Furlong (14) and Kathy Snoozy (15) in San Jose on August 3rd 1969, while the Zodiac Killer was relegated to the lesser pages, despite his three murders and boastful communications, that included his cryptic puzzles. He knew that a savage close-quarter knife attack was required - and the tactic worked - because law enforcement subsequently pondered a connection between the Zodiac crimes and the Snoozy and Furlong murders in San Jose. The Zodiac Killer also acquired his front page coverage and the added bonus of bolting two extra victims onto his total in the Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969. He would further implicate his connection to the San Jose murders by threatening a widow in the November 21st 1969 San Jose code letter. However, it didn't stop there.

There is one crucial feature of the first eight Zodiac letters, in that none explicitly threatened the lives of law enforcement, other than the wording "If you cops think I'm going to take on a bus the way I stated I was, you deserve to have holes in your heads" in the November 9th 1969 Bus Bomb letter. Then, three unpublished letters and one particular phone call arrived. The San Jose code letter threatened a woman in San Jose on November 21st 1969, followed by the December 16th 1969 Fairfield letter threatening cops in numerous cities, including San Jose. Both unpublished, yet both continuing the San Jose theme. It is also significant that the November 21st 1969 communication was mailed directly to the police in San Jose. In between the November 21st 1969 and December 16th 1969 letters was another Fairfield letter, mailed on December 7th 1969 and also threatening cops. It stated "I will kill again, so expect it any time the will be a cop". We now have three communications with a continuing theme of threatening police, none of which were published in the newspapers. Either these letters were from the Zodiac Killer, or a hoaxer had inferred the San Jose connection from the "Aug" month on the November 8th 1969 Dripping Pen card all by himself. Bearing in mind the similarity between both Fairfield letters in handwriting and mailing location, and the "real" Zodiac mailing the Melvin Belli letter on December 20th 1969, pleading for "help" just like the December 7th 1969 Fairfield letter, it leaves little doubt of a single author throughout. But what of the phone call to police on December 19th 1969, the day before the Melvin Belli letter?    

On December 19th 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer again threatened cops, making a phone call to Sergeant Robert Rengsdorff of the San Jose Highway Patrol (see article on right), stating "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". This threat towards San Jose police and a family of five was issued on a Friday, exactly as was the November 21st 1969 letter, mailed to San Jose police threatening harm on a widow. After the threat on the widow was thwarted by 24-hour police surveillance on her residence, was this the response, to once again instigate fear in the San Jose community? We know he was threatening the lives of numerous police officers, but the threat on five members of a family appears chosen.

I now believe this was the Zodiac Killer. This telephone call came off the back of a previous direct correspondence with San Jose police just a month earlier. It also continued the theme of threatening police officers (five to be exact), just like the unpublished Fairfield letters -  in particular, the December 16th 1969 communication threatening the lives of up to 38 police officers. Two contacts from an individual just three days apart, both claiming multiple threats on police. For this to be two separate individuals, not only targeting San Jose police in such close proximity to one another, but also be separate to the author of the unpublished November 21st 1969 letter to San Jose police, would be quite something. There may be even more reason to believe the phone call to Sergeant Robert Rengsdorff was the Zodiac Killer.

The threat of killing "a family of five between now and Monday" is rather specific, almost as though he had earmarked a couple with three children. We know the Zodiac Killer read the August 4th 1969 San Francisco Examiner and August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle, which inspired his attack at Lake Berryessa and subsequent claim to the Snoozy and Furlong murders by the addition of "Aug" on the November 8th 1969 Dripping Pen card. This is an obsession he would carry forward into 1971, referencing the Snoozy and Furlong murders at least two more times, if not three. The August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle article, entitled The Frenzy Of San Jose Girls Slayer, read under the banner of Children "The other Furlong children are Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11.  Furlong said he did not know and had not yet talked to Kathy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Snoozy. Both Snoozy, a carpet layer, and Mrs. Snoozy reportedly are in a state of collapse. Her funeral has been scheduled Friday at 11 a.m. at the Place Funeral Home in Los Gatos. Burial will be at Oak Wood Cemetery in Santa Cruz. Funeral services for Kathy will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at the Oak Hill Memorial Park Mortuary in San Jose. Burial will be at Oak Hill Memorial Park".  

The Furlong's had three surviving children called Glen, 16; Floyd, 12, and Pamela, 11, which ties in with the threat from the December 19th 1969 telephone caller to kill "a family of five between now and Monday". This would not only have continued the threat regarding the Snoozy and Furlong murders, but also the phone call was directed towards San Jose. The question to be asked is, did law enforcement consider this a possible connection to the Furlong family and offer them protection as had been given to the widow on November 21st 1969? We know of two certain Zodiac phone calls, so was this the third? The August 6th 1969 San Francisco Chronicle article also contained the burial location of Kathy Snoozy at Oak Hill Memorial Park. The cemetery is situated in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose, which featured in Zodiac's July 13th 1971 Monticello card.  

The Zodiac Killer committed the senseless slayings of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968. Six and a half months later he would follow this up with a second attempted double murder at Blue Rock Springs Park on July 4th 1969, in which sadly, Darlene Ferrin would succumb to her devastating injuries. Approximately one month later, the Zodiac Killer mailed three letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald announcing that he was responsible for the three murders and attempted murder, while challenging authorities to decode a 408 character cipher. The Zodiac Killer threatened the newspapers, stating "If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".  Imagine his horror when the two main newspapers failed to bow to his threats, with the San Francisco Chronicle placing the story on page 4 of the August 2nd 1969 edition, and the San Francisco Examiner demoting him to a lowly page 9 on August 3rd 1969. The problem was further compounded, with Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz even questioning the validity of the author and "urged the writer to send more letters, with more facts to prove his connections to the crimes."

The Zodiac Killer in his haste to prove he was the killer responsible for three people, immediately sent a letter to the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th 1969 - and despite the Examiner printing his letter the same day, in which he declared "This is the Zodiac Speaking" and that he "was not happy to see that he did not get front page coverage", imagine his utter disbelief when he discovered that the San Francisco Examiner had again relegated his letter supplying more details of the crimes to page 4. It equally wouldn't have escaped his attention, that on the front page of the same paper it featured the double knife slaying of two young girls from San Jose. Deborah Furlong (14) and Kathy Snoozy (15) had been brutally stabbed while picnicking on a grassy knoll on August 3rd 1969. The Zodiac Killer had now murdered three people, nearly killed Michael Mageau and sent four communications (including three cryptograms), yet he was still unable to command front page coverage. But now he knew exactly what was required - and it was staring him squarely in the face on page one. August 4th 1969 was not only the day he announced his pseudonym to the world, but the day he realized that a brutal stabbing was required to secure himself front page coverage. This was the day the fate of Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard would be sealed, almost two months in the making.   

Forever the narcissist, the Zodiac Killer couldn't believe his luck when he happened upon three young girls on the shores of Lake Berrryessa by Smittle Creek. I am sure for a brief moment he could see the headlines flash in front of his eyes: "3 Girls Stabbed, Sunbathing Murders, Footprint Clue". However, the Zodiac Killer for whatever reason, decided against the attack, returned to his vehicle and drove away. Fortunately, the three young women from Pacific Union College would escape the wrath of the Zodiac Killer - but he was not done yet. Approximately two hours later and eight tenths of a mile south, the Zodiac Killer would reappear and set his sights on the 1956 White Karmann Ghia of Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, before traversing the 510 yard hillside descent to the area of the picnicking couple. Driven by an insatiable desire to secure front page coverage, he proceeded to callously stab the young couple sixteen times before finally returning up the hillside and out of sight. The thoughts of the San Jose murders of Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy - and the headline news they generated - were probably in the forefront of his mind when he approached the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and pulled the black marker pen from his pocket. He proceeded to write on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, to leave you in no doubt that he was mimicking the murders of the two young girls from San Jose. He wrote "Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69 - 6:30 by knife". If you ever wondered why he wrote the time 6:30 on the car door, even though he rang in the crime just seventy minutes later, then the newspaper article below may give you a clue. This is the article from the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th 1969 - the very reason why the Zodiac Killer arrived at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969 in the first place.  

This annotation of 6:30 on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle was supposed to mark the time that the young couple at Lake Berryessa failed to return home also.

Before the advent of the Rigel software system, utilizing the geographic profiling techniques of criminologist Dr. Kim Rossmo, a rudimentary form of geographic profiling was used by Stuart Kine before the capture of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. This is mentioned by Dr. Kim Rossmo in a 1998 NCIS Conference, stating "I’m sure people in this room are familiar with this case. This is an example of an investigation going awry because of geography. The tape that was sent to the investigators from someone claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper led to analysis of the accents, they felt there was a Geordie accent, the person was from the Sunderland area, and they focused on that part of England which was about a hundred miles away from where the crimes were occurring. That was wrong. Sutcliffe lived close to the area. Interesting, and I’m not sure how many people are aware of it, but shortly before Sutcliffe’s arrest through work by some patrol officers, a Home Office scientist by the name of Stuart Kine did a sort of basic geographic analysis of the crimes and was quite successful as it turned out in his predictions".  He was in fact very accurate, bearing in mind the size of the killing field - and by literally sticking pins in a map - highlighted an area somewhere by Shipley, only 6 miles from the 6 Garden Lane, Bradford address of Peter Sutcliffe. View geoprofile.

Covered extensively in previous articles, had the Zodiac Killer worked a conventional Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 profession and had lived in the Vallejo area at the time of his murders, we would expect to see his first two Friday attacks relatively close to his home base. Unconstrained by time on Saturday, the Zodiac Killer would be able to venture further afield for his attacks - which is exactly what happened. However, we now have another tool in our arsenal, highlighted in this short but informative video by BCU professor Craig Jackson. Here is a small extract: "Wherever the Yorkshire Ripper was based, the time of his murders would be a vital clue to where he lived. So, if one of the Yorkshire Ripper's victims was murdered in the early evening, 8 o' clock or 9 o' clock at night, that individual could be based very far away from where the Yorkshire Ripper's base was. But if the victim was murdered in the very small hours, midnight, or one or two in the morning, that victim would probably be very close to where the Ripper's base was, assuming that the Ripper would have to be home at a reasonable time to be with their partner or families, or friends who they lived with". The type of victim targeted, the areas they frequented and their availability also has to be factored into the target backcloth. Therefore, we will use the Zodiac Killer's four attacks and see if they conform to a home base in Vallejo.

If the Zodiac had left his house to search for victims on a Friday in the area of Columbus Parkway and Lake Herman Road, then he likely had a knowledge that young courting couples or lone individuals may be found in these remote locations. He has a mental map of the area and an optimal time he would like to return to his residence - but he knows that this sort of victim targeting is unreliable. Sometimes the opportunity may present itself immediately, while other times he may have to do several passes before a suitable target or targets appear. He has to factor this into his thinking when leaving his residence. In other words, if he wants to arrive home no later than 12:15 am, he has to allow for this when leaving his residence. In respect to Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park, he could have left his residence at 10:00 pm to allow for this "hit and miss" technique of trawling the eastern edge of Vallejo. This may have accounted for the earlier suspicious sightings on December 20th 1968, prior to the eventual double murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen.

If we apply the model of professor Craig Jackson to our killer, then an attack at approximately 11:15 pm at Lake Herman Road and midnight at Blue Rock Springs Park, would suggest a killer who lived close by and was aiming to return home sometime in the late evening to early morning hours. If the Zodiac Killer had lived near to the Springs Road and Tuolumne Street payphone, he would have arrived home at around 11:30 pm on 12/20/68, and 12:15 am on 07/04/69. The Zodiac Killer's attack at Presidio Heights would not have been affected by a "hit and miss" targeting technique. Had the murder of taxicab driver Paul Stine been planned ahead of time, he would know where he was to find his victim, where he was going to murder the taxicab driver and where his escape route lay before him - including his journey time back to Vallejo. Paul Stine was murdered shortly before 10:00 pm on 10/11/69. The Zodiac Killer (had he parked his vehicle near the Presidio Park) would have about 5-15 minutes of walk time, followed by a 50 to 60 minute journey home via the Golden Gate Bridge. At the latest, he would arrive home at approximately 11:15 pm. Therefore, his window of time to arrive back at his residence after three of his attacks, would fall within one hour of each other (between 11:15 pm and 12:15am) - although it may be slightly more.     

The Lake Berrryessa crime is altogether different. If we believe that the Zodiac Killer targeted areas he was familiar with, then he knew that the outskirts of eastern Vallejo, in the secluded areas of Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs during the weekend or holiday season, was likely rich pickings for courting "couples" or "stray people" in the night. The sheer fact he wrote about killing "over a dozen people" at the weekend, showed an element of confidence in these surroundings, despite the obvious braggadocio displayed.

The Presidio Heights area must also have been familiar to him, to risk such an audacious attack in a built-up area of San Francisco. Dr. Kim Rossmo summed it up perfectly: ​​"The San Francisco murder differs significantly from the Zodiac's other crimes. Up to this point he was hunting in locations that had a good probability of containing his desired victims. Target selection was a function of area, not of an individual. However, it is unlikely the Zodiac was successful in all his searches; serial killers typically engage in extensive hunting activities, and for every attack there are many unsuccessful search attempts. In San Francisco, however, the Zodiac controlled the situation through his selection of victim type. The need for such control could be indicative of the distance the Zodiac had to travel to the crime site. Criminals who travel longer distances to offend are less likely to use uncertain target selection techniques".

His familiarity with Lake Berryessa (09/27/69) was also obvious. The Zodiac Killer knew on this occasion that a targeted attack in the late evening hours (close to midnight), similar to Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park, was wholly uncertain with respect to finding a suitable victim or victims in this location. But he knew that a late afternoon or early evening attack within the expanse of Lake Berryessa, would be the safest bet, The location, on this occasion, effectively governed the earlier attack time. When this constraint was unburdened during his first, second and fourth attacks (assuming he lived in Vallejo and went directly home), his arrival time to his residence would have always fell within a 60-75 minute window of time. If the Zodiac Killer had a preconceived time he wanted to return home by, then Vallejo by the payphone was a perfect fit for a good night's sleep - as well as not arousing suspicion - had he been married (with children).