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 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.

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).     

The Zodiac Killer made a payphone call near the corner of Main and Clinton Streets approximately seventy minutes after the brutal knife attack on Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell by the shores of Lake Berryessa. He uttered these words to relief police dispatcher David Slaight: "I want to report a murder, no, a double murder. They are two miles north of Park Headquarters. They were in a white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. I'm the one that did it". It always seemed odd that the Zodiac Killer could be so wide of the mark concerning the distance he attributed between the crime scene and Park Headquarters, when it was only 0.7 miles. The Zodiac Killer, a man of maps and codes, surely couldn't have mistaken 0.7 miles for 2 miles driving along Knoxville Road - leading to the notion that the 2 mile attribution was accidentally inserted into his payphone message, but the distance had some significance. That significance being, that the Zodiac Killer didn't enter his vehicle at the crime scene, but further north along Knoxville Road. He may have entered his vehicle at the Smittle Creek Day Use Area which is 1.83 miles (approx 2 miles) north of Park Headquarters. When he made the payphone call he accidentally inserted the distance he traveled in his vehicle to Park Headquarters rather than from the crime scene. There were two sightings of a suspicious man at Smittle Creek to back up this very notion. If we can place the Zodiac Killer at this location twice in one day, described by two sets of eyewitnesses, then we may be in business.  

The white circle on Knoxville Road below (as the crow flies) is exactly 0.8 miles north from the vehicle of Bryan Hartnell and exactly 2 miles north of 5100 Knoxville Road (A&W Root Beer stand). This is extremely important because the police report stated that the three women who spotted a suspicious man observing them from the hillside "parked their vehicle at a location two miles north of the A & W Root Beer stand on Knoxville Road". This was followed by a second suspicious sighting of a man by Dr Rayfield & Son just over 2 hours later. They described a "white male adult subject walking in the area, about 5'10", heavy build, wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt with red in it, long sleeves". This sighting likely after the attack on the young couple and described in the police report as a "location approximately 8/10ths of a mile from the scene of the victim's vehicle".  Two sightings in the identical area, alongside Smittle Creek Trailhead.

There is every chance that this was the Zodiac Killer, who had originally targeted the three female students of Pacific Union College, before aborting his attack and later settling on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard only 0.8 miles south. The man stalking the hillside while the girls were sunbathing eventually retreated for whatever reason, and his vehicle had vanished when the girls returned to their vehicle at approximately 4:30 pm. It is perfectly conceivable he entered his vehicle at the Smittle Creek Trailhead (shown by the yellow circle) and drove just 600 meters north to the Smittle Creek Day Use Area. He may have deemed that having his vehicle in such close proximity to a triple murder was probably not the wisest move, and relocated it several hundred meters up the road to provide a cautionary 'buffer zone'. Whether his intention was to return a short while later to complete his mission cannot be ascertained, because the girls had thwarted any intentions by leaving shortly after. 

If the Zodiac Killer had parked at the Smittle Creek Day Use Area, left it there, and trawled the hillsides of Lake Berryessa traveling south, while looking for potential victims, then on his return from the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard he would have to pass by Dr Rayfield & Son at Smittle Creek Trailhead to reach his vehicle. That is why they spotted a suspicious man traveling across the upper reaches of the hillside sometime after 6:30 pm, wearing a shirt with red in it. The Zodiac Killer traveled a further 600 meters to the Smittle Creek Day Use Area, got in his vehicle and drove 1.83 miles south along Knoxville Road past the Park Headquarters. When he reached the payphone at Napa he mistakenly described this distance of 1.83 miles as "two miles north of Park Headquarters", accidentally giving away the location of where he parked his vehicle on September 27th 1969. Or maybe he was just terrible at distances - but great at cryptograms, codes, maps and radians. We all have to be bad at something.  

Although I am still split down the middle on a Zodiac connection to Riverside, Tom Voigt (from ZodiacKiller.com) is correct in suggesting that the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966, being our 'groud zero', could open many doors in discovering the identity of the Zodiac Killer, where tangible evidence was recovered from the victim's hand and floor of the alleyway. Identifying commonalities between Zodiac crimes and Zodiac victims could be invaluable in narrowing down our search for the infamous Bay Area murderer. While understandably cautious about the two tips he received regarding a link between Cheri Jo Bates and Cecilia Shepard, it is a lead certainly worth pursuing amid the uncertainty of a viable DNA fingerprint. Just like geographic profiling, if we can tie the Zodiac Killer to a specific location through two victims, then many further doors could open.

In the April of 2019, Tom Voigt received an email stating that Cecilia Shepard and Cheri Jo Bates were known to one another - often frequenting the popular Sorrento Italian Restaurant on Magnolia Avenue. This corroborated a previous tip he had received fifteen years ago, thereby adding credence to the possibility the two girls knew each other. In 1966, Cheri Jo Bates was a student at the Riverside City College, whereas Cecilia Shepard attended the nearby La Sierra University, just 4.6 miles east of the infamous Corona crosshairs, where Joseph Bates (father of Cheri) worked as a machinist for the Corona Naval Ordnance Laboratory. Corona used to hold car racing around its city center in the early 1900s, primarily because of the unique layout of its streets, incorporating Main Street, East Grand Boulevard and West Grand Boulevard which formed a perfect circle. It was originally called South Riverside and is widely known as 'Circle City.'

The Sorrento Italian Restaurant was located at 9844 Magnolia Avenue. La Sierra University was located at 4500 Riverwalk Parkway, one mile north of Magnolia Avenue, with the Riverside City College at 4800 Magnolia Ave. The Italian restaurant just 2.5 miles from the grounds of La Sierra University. Tom Voigt makes an interesting connection to the November 29th 1966 'Confesion' letter in which the author concludes "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game", and reminiscent of the "dangerous game" he played out in the Bay Area. Tom Voigt hypothesised on whether there may have been an element of truth in the author's frankness, deducing that the only psychiatric facility available in 1966 was the Riverside General Hospital University Medical Center (founded 1893) and located at 9851 Magnolia Avenue, virtually on the doorstep of the Sorrento Italian Restaurant. Tom Voigt concluded that if the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates and received any treatment for a mental illness, then it's perfectly conceivable he received this treatment across the road from the Sorrento Restaurant - and may have visited the restaurant himself. Placing two victims and the Zodiac Killer in the same room would obviously turn the search for the infamous Bay Area murderer on its head, albeit layered with a degree of cautious optimism.

After 25 years of chasing the Zodiac Killer and many blind alleys, the link between Cecilia Shepard and Cheri Jo Bates (although still has to be conclusively proven) has invigorated Tom Voigt in his quest for the identity of the Zodiac Killer and bolstered his belief that the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966 and the Bay Area murders are inextricably linked. Did the inception of the Zodiac Killer begin on Magnolia Avenue, ultimately taking the crosshairs of Corona to his correspondence in the Bay Area and the "road races" of Presidio Heights, just under three years later? Tom Voigt is determined that the journey has only just begun.

To visit the forum thread pertaining to this subject, please visit the Zodiac Killer message board. Tom Voigt has also released a 14 minute 32 second Youtube video outlining other material regarding the suggested connection between Cecilia Shepard and Cheri Jo Bates.

Geographic profiling ia an invaluable tool for mapping the probable location where an offender most likely lives. This offender, like all of us, has areas of familiarity with respect to their profession and personal life that governs one's comfort zone, and therefore the commuter routes they opt for. These are factored into their way of thinking when considering any crimes that are to be committed or the areas where an offender may conceal a body. There is a delicate balance to be struck between the least effort principle (expenditure of the least amount of effort to accomplish a task) and the buffer zone (where an offender will avoid committing crimes too close to their home). In other words, they don't want to focus the attention around the place they live, but may equally not want to expend the effort in traveling a great distance, thereby creating a mental map of a target zone - usually somewhere with which they have a familiarity. Of course, factors such as their working week will affect the distance they are prepared to travel on any given day.

​This mental map was considered in the article Seventy One Days of Terror from October 11th 1969 to December 20th 1969, analyzing confirmed and unconfirmed letters, phone calls, murders and proposed murders during this time period. It became apparent that the locations targeted during this period, that included Sacramento, Fairfield, Vallejo, Oakland, San Francisco, Palo Alto and San Jose, all have Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 101 running directly through them. This may give us a clue to the areas where the Zodiac Killer was most comfortable. If he frequented these areas regularly in his profession, then this could very well influence the newspapers he read and the stories he became interested in. The case of murder victim Reet Jurvetson in a previous article, another example of a crime conforming to the above criteria. He may not have murdered this young woman, but was familiar with the area in which she was murdered, which ultimately governed his decision to choose her as victim number eight - allied to his new found fascination of knife crime. She too was brutally stabbed 157 times and unceremoniously dumped down a ravine off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Her body was discovered just 2 miles from U.S. Route 101.           

When the Zodiac Killer failed to acquire the "front page coverage" he craved, he may have drew inspiration from the murders of Debra Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathy Ann Snoozy (15), who were found brutally stabbed and murdered on August 3rd 1969 in the Bay Area of San Jose. They each had suffered in excess of 100 knife wounds that can only be described as savagery. In less than two months he would arrive on the shores of Lake Berryessa armed with a 12-inch bayonet. The killer wrote on the car door of victim Bryan Hartnell "by knife". On November 8th 1969, he claimed his involvement in the Snoozy-Furlong murders by the addition of "Aug" on the 'Dripping Pen' greeting card, followed by the November 21st 1969 San Jose letter possibly suggesting that Reet Jurvetson was another one of his knife victims. Then came the "Bleeding Knife of Zodiac" mailed from Fairfield on December 16th 1969, followed by the 'Melvin Belli' letter on December 20th 1969, stating he was losing control and looking for victims nine and ten.  

On April 20th 1970 he was claiming a victim count of ten - so if we are to determine the murder victims or proclaimed murder victims of the Zodiac Killer, then we must take all of the above into account. Based on three of the four attacks to date, victims nine and ten may have been a couple. They would have been murdered between December 20th 1969 and April 20th 1970, in a non-sexual attack that involved numerous knife wounds. It is also critical (whether the Zodiac Killer was responsible or claiming to be the responsible) that they would would be found close to Interstate 80 or U.S. Route 101.
​
On February 22nd 1970, John Franklin Hood (24), who had served decorated time in Vietnam in the 64th Armoured Division and Sandra Garcia (20), who worked in the California Department of Motor Vehicles, were discovered brutally stabbed on a beach close to Santa Barbara Cemetery and East Cabrillo Boulevard. This crime in some ways mirrored the stabbings at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, with Sandra Garcia receiving the brunt of the vicious attack. The beach where their bodies were found, lies only 500 meters from U.S. Route 101. The mental map of the Zodiac Killer is starting to take shape.

The Zodiac Killer may have been inspired to switch from gun to knife after the extensive front page coverage given to the murders of Debra Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathy Ann Snoozy (15), who were found murdered on August 3rd 1969 in the Bay Area of San Jose. They were savagely attacked with a penknife. The chief medical examiner described the ferocity of 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". Disillusioned by his lack of front page coverage, the Zodiac Killer struck in Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969 inflicting 16 knife wounds on the defenseless Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard. He would write on the card door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle minutes after the attack, stating Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69 -6:30 by knife. On November 8th 1969 he would not only claim the murder of Cecelia Shepard, but the murders of Debra Furlong and Kathy Snoozy in the August of 1969, writing Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7 on the greeting card. 

Just thirteen days after the mailing of the 'Dripping Pen' greeting card, the Zodiac Killer would write another cryptic message on November 21st 1969 - this time to the San Jose Police Department (the city of the Snoozy and Furlong murders), bumping up his running victim total to November = 8 and beginning the message with "There's no doubt I will do my Thing!". Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer had switched to a knife at Lake Berryessa to achieve "front page coverage", and claimed the savage knife murders of two teenage girls, who had both been stabbed in excess of 100 times, the Zodiac Killer's claimed 8th victim should mirror these attacks. If he was going to keep up the terror in the minds of the American people, the 8th victim would likely have been murdered in California just prior to the mailing of the November 21st 1969 letter - and stabbed multiple times. 

Although unidentified until 2016 and known only as Jane Doe 59, Reet Jurvetson (19) was discovered on November 16th 1969 by Trevor Santochi, who was hiking on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Reet Jurvetson had been viciously stabbed in excess of 150 times by a common penknife in the neck, chest and torso, similar to the attack on the two teenage girls from San Jose. Close to her body in the ravine next to the road, a pair of black prescription glasses (Liberty brand frames) were discovered. Detectives have concluded they are likely connected to her death. The Zodiac Killer was extremely unlikely to have been responsible for her murder, but just like the vague clue of "Aug" on November 8th 1969 insinuating his involvement in the penknife attack on Snoozy and Furlong, was he similarly giving us the vague clue of November = 8 to suggest his involvement in another senseless penknife attack just five days earlier? Had he read about the discovery of Reet Jurvetson's murder in the newspapers - the similarities between the two crimes of which would not have gone unnoticed.   

Bringing together several articles to paint the entire picture, I would like to tell you a little story about San Jose and the major impact it had on the actions of the Zodiac Killer spanning just over two years. The attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, inextricably linked to Debra Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathy Ann Snoozy (15), two young girls who were found murdered on August 3rd 1969 in the Bay Area of San Jose. The man ultimately convicted for these two murders in 1971, Karl Francis Werner, was the trigger behind the attack at Lake Berryessa. 

The Zodiac Killer had successfully murdered three and seriously injured one person by the time he mailed his trinity of July 31st 1969 letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald. He then presented codebreakers with the extremely unusual challenge of deciphering three parts of one cipher from the hand of a serial killer, demanding that he receive front page coverage for his efforts. The three communications and three murders, in his mind, warranted the full attention of the American public when he wrote "Here is part of a cipher the other 2 parts of this cipher are being mailed to the editors of the Vallejo Times and SF Examiner. I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity. If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry.1st of Aug 69, I will go on a kill ram-Page Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend".  

The two major news publications, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, dismissed his demands by only publishing his offerings on page four and nine respectively. The Zodiac Killer's disdain was immediate, when on August 4th 1969 he presented us with his sinister pseudonym "This is the Zodiac Speaking" in a follow-up letter, that concluded with "I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage". But imagine his horror, when two days later the San Francisco Chronicle (August 6th 1969) ran a comprehensive front page article about the murders of Debra Gaye Furlong and Kathy Ann Snoozy in San Jose. Here is an excerpt:

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. 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.     

The Zodiac Killer must have been incensed that despite his brutal murder of three people during the holiday season, followed by his cryptic correspondences, he failed to achieve front page coverage from the Chronicle or the Examiner, despite threatening another dozen victims over the weekend. The only difference, he must have surmised, was the method of attack and the horror that such an intimate attack with a bladed instrument on two young girls had engendered in the psyche of the newspapers and public at large. The Zodiac Killer knew at this moment he had to ratchet up his attacks and get up close and personal with the use of a knife. But this wouldn't be any ordinary attack - he would dress up in an executioner's costume and hunt for young girls armed with a 12-inch knife - not "a pocket knife with a half-inch blade". Although Karl Francis Werner's capture was two years in the making, he was the absent agent behind the attack on Bryan Hartnell and murder of Cecelia Shepard just seven weeks later. Without the murders of Debra Gaye Furlong and Kathy Ann Snoozy on August 3rd 1969, it can be argued the attack at Lake Berryessa would never have taken place.

No surprise then, that the Zodiac Killer wanted to outdo the August 3rd 1969 murders, by setting his sights on three young girls from Pacific Union College as they sunbathed on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. Three murders with a 12-inch bladed knife would definitely have done the trick. But something clearly thwarted this attack and two hours later he focused in on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard, determined not to be denied and secure his front page coverage. After the sixteen strikes into the young couple, he retreated and traveled back up the hill to lay claim to this attack as the Zodiac Killer. After writing the dates of his previous two attacks and this one on the car door of Bryan Hartnell, he emphasized the words "by knife" at the foot of the message. The Zodiac Killer was effectively saying "do I get front page coverage now". The brutal knife attack, he hoped, would get the recognition akin to the murders of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong. Not only did he get the recognition, but it had an added benefit of the newspapers considering the possibility of his involvement in the Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong murders. This certainly didn't escape his attention.    

Six weeks later he duly obliged by slipping in "Aug" into his confirmed murder count when mailing the 'Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969, bumping up his total to seven victims. The Lake Berryessa attack "by knife" had effectively secured him two more victims by association. But to cement his perceived involvement in the San Jose murders, he had to strike while the iron was hot.

On November 21st 1969 he mailed a threatening letter to the San Jose Police Department beginning with the words "There's no doubt I will do my Thing!". The letter initiated this response: 'For the information of the Bureau and Sacramento, after a cursory analysis, officers of the San Jose, California PD, believe widow in message may be Mrs (redacted), San Jose, California. San Jose PD instituting 24 hour surveillance on Mrs (redacted).' It is clear that this woman had some connection to the Snoozy and Furlong murders, and by the Zodiac Killer interjecting himself into the San Jose investigation, he was attempting to solidify the notion of his involvement in them. Bearing in mind this letter was mailed to the San Jose Police Department and their response to secure the woman's safety, it isn't too surprising that the Zodiac Killer would threaten to murder a San Jose policeman in the Fairfield letter mailed a month later, on December 16th 1969. The Zodiac Killer thought he had now successfully cemented his claim to the Snoozy and Furlong murders. His choice of switching from gun to knife had paid dividends. My guess, is he was banking on these murders never being solved.

Imagine the Zodiac Killer's dismay in late April of 1971, when his plans lay in tatters, upon the arrest of Karl Francis Werner for the April 11th 1971 murder of Kathy Bilek at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, as well as the murders of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong in San Jose two years earlier, on August 3rd 1969. The Zodiac Killer would eventually be exposed as a fraud - caught in the act of claiming somebody else's victims at last. He reacted forthwith, by mailing two communications to the San Francisco Chronicle in the middle of 1971. 

In the first, he was trying vainly to convince us that he was in fact the murderer of all three girls (Snoozy, Furlong and Bilek) by claiming that Karl Francis Werner was the fraud or phony. Paul Avery, arch nemesis of Zodiac, wrote an article on April 30th 1971 detailing the capture of Werner. The newspaper article stated "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 responded sometime after he read this article (around May, June or July of 1971), mailing a 148 character cipher stating "Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on your front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin". In this correspondence he claimed his victim count was 21, by writing "I done it 21 times". This, in accordance with his claimed victim count of 17+ in the March 13th 1971 'Los Angeles' letter. We can ascertain that this communication was mailed around the middle of 1971, because he fired off a second correspondence at about the same time. The correspondence about to be discussed was withheld from newspaper publication (as was the 148 character cipher), so the fact that both contained a victim count of 21 and mailed in close proximity to one another, should be enough to consider both being mailed by the Zodiac Killer. The second communication we will show, is not only trying to claim the murder of Kathy Bilek - again attempting to show that Karl Francis Werner was a phony - but is also linking itself to the murders of Snoozy and Furlong.    

On July 13th 1971 a pasted card was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle with the words "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". Many have speculated on the location mentioned in the card as "Monticello" in Napa County, California, because of the Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard on September 27th 1969. It has been further speculated on whether "April" was a woman's name or the month of the alleged murder. After a comprehensive review of all the information, I believe the woman's identity, labelled as victim number 21, can finally be revealed, along with the exact location of Monticello. 

On Sunday, April 11th 1971, Kathy Bilek (18) visited Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, having planned to read a paperback book (The Gabriel Hounds) and engage in a spot of bird watching​ in the seclusion of a remote, wooded portion of the park, near a small stream. Her body was found the next day by her father, Charles, while Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies searched nearby. She had been stabbed 17 times in the back and 32 times in her chest and stomach, although her killer had taken care to avoid stabbing her breasts. Her murder was also attributed to Karl Francis Werner. Wikipedia. The brutal murder of Kathy Bilek would again be claimed by 'Zodiac', not only in the Monticello card, but in another alleged Zodiac letter, also mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle at about the same time as the Monticello card. Kathy Bilek was murdered in "April", exactly as mentioned in the Monticello card, and "in the woods" at Villa Montalvo (a wooded section of the park). Saratoga is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, directly west of San Jose, The appearance of San Jose once again. ​ ​

It was easy to get sidelined into believing Monticello was referring to Napa County, because the town was completely covered by Lake Berryessa, the site of Zodiac's third attack. However, the "Monticello" the author is referring to in the pasted card, is again in San Jose. Monticello is a neighborhood in San Jose, California, just over 9 miles east of Villa Montalvo, the site of Kathy Bilek's murder. ​In other words, the author of the card was saying "I killed Kathy Bilek near Monticello, in the Villa Montalvo woods in April". ​To view the proximity of Monticello to Villa Montalvo click here.

The Monticello card stated "Shought victims 21", referring to the Kathy Bilek murder, whereas, in the 148 character cipher, the author was claiming he had already "done it 21 times." The Monticello card was never released to the newspapers or public, so bearing in mind these two communications were both likely mailed at approximately the same time, there is a high probability they were mailed by the Zodiac Killer.

"I killed Kathy Bilek near Monticello, in the Villa Montalvo woods in April".
"Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April".

The ​November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card would not be the only communication insinuating his involvement in the murder of Deborah Gaye Furlong and Kathy Ann Snoozy, when the Monticello card arrived just over 20 months later, on July 13th 1971. The San Francisco Police Department had reason enough to place the Monticello card in 'suspected Zodiac correspondence' when searching for traces of DNA on potential Zodiac communications, indicating the high regard it was held in.

It is with little doubt that Karl Francis Werner was responsible for the murder of Deborah Furlong, Kathy Snoozy and Kathy Bilek in 1969 and 1971, but the overarching question is, why did the Zodiac Killer describe the location of Kathy Bilek's body as "near Monticello"? The neighborhood of Monticello is 9 miles east of Villa Montalvo. Why did the Zodiac Killer choose to pinpoint this particular location, rather than any other neighborhood in between Monticello and Villa Montalvo? He could have pasted "near Willow Glen", "near Oster", "near Carlton", or any other location closer than Monticello. It is arguable that he chose this particular location for a specific reason.   ​

Tom Voigt, creator of the hugely successful Zodiackiller.com website has sought a potential Zodiac letter, described as the DMV letter. On his message board he stated "While I don't yet have as many details as I would like, at some point the Zodiac wrote a letter to the chairman of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California. The letter was authenticated, apparently via handwriting, and was kept quiet for reasons unknown". None of the following can be definitively proven, but I will attempt to expand on this elusive correspondence based on the limited information we have, and use the propensity of the Zodiac Killer to respond to newspaper and magazine articles against him. We know he closely followed anything that was written about him and often replied in kind. With that said, it is possible the DMV letter was mailed to the chairman of the Department of Motor Vehicles because he read an article referencing this department. If the letter was addressed to the chairman, it is very likely the letter was addressed to the headquarters of the DMV in Sacramento. What we now have to do, is tie the Sacramento DMV to a Zodiac crime, or a crime claimed by Zodiac, written in a publication that the Zodiac Killer had reason to read - who subsequently got upset because it portrayed him as a liar and a fraud. It therefore follows, that it is highly unlikely to be a polite correspondence from the Bay Area killer. Based on the above, I believe the DMV letter was mailed in the October or November of 1971.

As early as November 8th 1969 the Zodiac Killer was claiming the murders Deborah Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathy Ann Snoozy (15), who were found murdered on August 3rd 1969 in the Bay Area of San Jose. This was his "Aug" on the 'Dripping Pen' card. He would later insinuate his involvement in the murder of Kathy Bilek (18), murdered in the woods of Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, due west of San Jose. On July 13th 1971, a potential Zodiac communication arrived in the form of a pasted card. It read "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". The author of the card was detailing the murder of Kathy Bilek in the woods of Villa Montalvo on April 11th 1971, just 9 miles from the neighborhood of Monticello in San Jose. He chose this neighborhood because it sat adjacent to Oak Hill Memorial Park at 300 Curtner Avenue. The cemetery where the body of Kathy Ann Snoozy lay - and chosen to hint at the forename "Kathy", pertaining to Kathy Bilek.

​Assuming these communications were mailed by the Bay Area murderer, it would be fairly obvious that the Zodiac Killer was following the San Jose murders closely from August 3rd 1969, through his 'Dripping Pen' card of November 8th, to the eventual murder of Kathy Bilek, and up to his correspondences in the middle of 1971. Therefore, it would be no great surprise if he continued to monitor any newspaper or magazine articles regarding the murders of the three young females. ​

In October 1971, a magazine publication entitled 'True Detective' comprehensively featured the murders of Kathy Snoozy, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Bilek, and the subsequent arrest of Karl Francis Werner. There is every chance the Zodiac Killer read this magazine article, compelling him to continue his contact with authorities regarding these murders.

One particular section about Kathy Bilek caught my eye - that may have been the reason why the Zodiac Killer wrote a letter to the chairman of the DMV in Sacramento. It stated "At about the same moment, Park Ranger Ken Williamson was informing a member of the investigative team that he, too, had noticed a tall, bespectacled young man who had been a frequent visitor at Villa Montalvo. He was a loner and had impressed the Villa's ranger staff with his almost furtive conduct, said Williamson. The ranger had jotted down the license number of the strange youth's auto.
The license number was forwarded to the California Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Sacramento, the state's capital 150 miles to the north of San Jose. The information teletyped back from the registration bureau was that the auto was the property of a Karl Francis Werner, living at an address on Shawnee Lane in San Jose." 

The Zodiac Killer, having previously mailed two communications (Monticello card and 148 character cipher) referencing the murder of Kathy Bilek and the victim total of 21, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he fired off a third communication, this time to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento, after reading these two paragraphs. As this magazine article was published in October of 1971, the DMV letter may have been postmarked with the latter months of that year - possibly October, November or December. The compunction of the Zodiac Killer in claiming, or interjecting himself into the middle of these murders, may have been the driver behind his contact with the chairman of the DMV. The content of this communication is unknown, but I guess he is continuing the menacing theme of his previous two correspondences, suggesting the identification of the vehicle belonging to Karl Francis Werner is somehow another red herring and threatening more murder and mayhem.

There is a significant number of people who believe the Lake Berryessa attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard was not the Zodiac Killer, rather an impostor or fraud masquerading as the Bay Area murderer. Despite the overwhelming evidence this attack was by the hand of the Zodiac Killer, the ever grandiose theories of a copycat or 'newspaper driven' conspiracy keep filling the message boards. If you believe the Lake Berryessa murderer was an impostor, then it is reasonable to assume that you also believe the October 27th 1970 'Halloween' card was the same impostor. The murderer of Cecelia Shepard wrote on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, finishing his message with the immortal words "by knife". This phrase was withheld from the newspapers and wasn't known by the time the 'Halloween' card was mailed. Since the author of the 'Halloween' card wrote the phrase "by knife" within his communication and selected imagery of a an eye peering from behind a tree with the additional phrase "peek-a-boo you are doomed", it seems rather logical that the author is referring to Lake Berryessa and his escapade of vanishing behind a tree, before reemerging in his masked costume. Unless of course, he just guessed the phrase "by knife" withheld from the newspapers, by simultaneously discovering a Tim Holt comic book with the exact phrase around a death wheel. This impostor is rather a lucky chap.

​This impostor would then discover the workings of the unbroken 340 cipher, writing "sorry no cipher" on the envelope inner of the 'Halloween' card, despite the fact (to our knowledge) that nobody at this juncture had noticed that the paradice and slaves configuration on the card was also present on the 340 cipher, bisecting it at its center both horizontally and vertically. Not only had this impostor accidentally stumbled across the withheld "by knife" in the Tim Holt comic book, but he had also told us the puzzle contained in the 340 cipher. By writing "sorry no cipher" in the same style as paradice and slaves, he was effectively linking the two and stating that the unbroken 340 character cipher contained the configuration paradice and slaves within its design. It was therefore no cipher.

This links the apparent impostor to the Lake Berryessa attack, the 'Halloween' card and the 340 cipher. It is rather amazing that the impostor not only found the hidden "by knife" on the car door by inadvertently thumbing through his comic book collection just prior to the 'Halloween' card, but he found it around a death wheel that he could conveniently transfer and place it around the paradice and slaves configuration on the card. Even more fortunate, was the real Zodiac Killer had apparently allowed the option of paradice and slaves within the design of the 340 cipher, placing the word "by" accidentally in all four quadrants to equally mimic the 'Halloween' card. It is rather more logical to conclude that the designer of the 'Halloween' card also designed the 340 cipher - and because of "by knife", was the perpetrator of the September 27th 1969 Lake Berryessa attack. If you believe the Lake Berryessa attack was an impostor and not Zodiac, then by extension you have to believe the designer of the 340 cipher was the same impostor. 

​If the impostor created the 340 cipher, then he mailed the 'Bus Bomb' letter also. The 'Bus Bomb' communication was mailed in tandem with the 340 cipher and contained the same victim count of 7 in the passage "This is the Zodiac speaking up to the end of Oct I have killed 7 people". It also contained "Oct" in the same fashion as the writing on the 'Dripping Pen' card. Most people are in agreement that the 340 cipher/'Dripping Pen' card and 'Bus Bomb' letter were mailed by the same author. But if an impostor created the 340 cipher, he also sent the 'Bus Bomb' letter containing a piece of Paul Stine's blooded shirt from the October 11th 1969 taxicab murder. By extension therefore, the impostor must be responsible for the murder of Paul Stine and the October 13th 1969 letter. Furthermore, he must be responsible for the December 20th 1969 'Melvin Belli' letter, which also contained a swatch of Paul Stine's shirt. The bottom line being that, if you believe the Lake Berryessa attack to be an impostor, then you have to believe the Paul Stine murder wasn't Zodiac either, along with five other communications that include the October 13th 1969 mailing, the 340 cipher and 'Bus Bomb' letters, the 'Melvin Belli' letter and finally the 'Halloween' card. You cannot have one without the others. The logical conclusion is that the entirety were mailed by the Zodiac Killer, who was responsible for four attacks in the Bay Area. But no doubt, this will be far too boring a conclusion, in a case where facts seem to no longer matter anymore.

After five murders in a matter of 10 months in 1968 and 1969, followed by numerous communications, 1971 was a watershed year for the Zodiac Killer. When all is said and done, it will probably be remembered as the year Zodiac tried to convince law enforcement he had committed four brutal stabbings, when in fact he had committed none. The Zodiac legacy was coming to an end and his final two communications in the latter half of 1971 failed to make the newspapers, ultimately marking the final days of the Zodiac Killer. He wouldn't be heard from again. When Paul Avery wrote the San Francisco Chronicle article 'New Evidence in Zodiac Killings' on November 16th 1970, it must have been a heavenly blessing for the Zodiac Killer. He was being linked to the Cheri Jo Bates murder in Riverside on October 30th 1966. He would gladly accept this offering on March 13th 1971 when he unashamedly wrote a letter stating "I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity, but they are only finding the easy ones, there are a hell of a lot more down there". A man inspired to attack Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard with a knife at Lake Berryessa, driven by the front page coverage of the August 3rd 1969 Snoozy/Furlong murders in San Jose - something he yearned - not only laid claim to the murder of these two young girls in the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card, but was only too happy to claim another in Riverside. 

​Then, just one month later, a gift arrived from the Vallejo Times-Herald on April 13th 1971, when the Zodiac Killer saw the words "One thing's certain, Miss Bilek's murder is almost a carbon copy of a double killing Santa Clara County" homicide detective said. "And all three could well be the work of the so-called Zodiac".

The Zodiac saw the publicity generated from the brutal stabbing of Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy on August 3rd and capitalized on this at Lake Berryessa in September. It had now paid dividends on April 11th 1971, when Kathy Bilek (18) visited Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, having planned to read a paperback book (The Gabriel Hounds) and engage in a spot of bird watching​ in the seclusion of a remote, wooded portion of the park, near a small stream. Her body was found the next day by her father, Charles, while Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies searched nearby. She had been stabbed 17 times in the back and 32 times in her chest and stomach. This crime was obviously linked to the Snoozy/Furlong murders because of the extensive knife wounds and the locality. But by committing the savage knife attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa and hinting at his involvement in the San Jose murders of Snoozy and Furlong, the Zodiac Killer had now been given the opportunity by Paul Avery to accept the Riverside murder in 1966, along with the Kathy Bilek murder by the Vallejo Times-Herald on April 13th 1971. His switching to a knife in the commission of murder would inevitably lead law enforcement to link him to more crimes - something he knew only too well.

The 'Monticello' card mailed on July 13th 1971 was open-ended. It didn't directly claim the murder of Kathy Bilek, thereby allowing him a get out clause should this crime be later attributed to somebody else. The Zodiac Killer had used this tactic before when he insinuated his involvement in the murder of Officer Richard Radetich by stating "I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38". Then in the 'Pines' card, by again offering a cryptic message open to interpretation. He never actually claimed the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, simply stating "I do have to give them credit for stumbling across my riverside activity". Everything designed in such a fashion to avoid full admission.

The "August" reference on the 'Dripping Pen' card, while not actually writing it on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, had metaphorically opened the door to the speculation shown by law enforcement in the article by the Vallejo Times-Herald. The September 27th 1969 attack, effectively enabled the Zodiac Killer to extend his reign of terror far beyond the shores of Lake Berryessa, into the heart of San Jose. The July 13th 1971 'Monticello' card was now the fifth communication referencing San Jose in the last 20 months - but there was still time for one more.

The final communication of 1971 may have been the elusive 'Sacramento DMV' letter, probably mailed in the November or December of 1971. This correspondence likely mirrored the November 21st 1969 San Jose letter and code, in which the Zodiac Killer mailed a correspondence to the San Jose Police Department and threatened a "widow". I have little doubt this woman had some involvement in the Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy murders from the perspective of an eyewitness, and by Zodiac threatening her, he was effectively giving the impression that the murders were somehow pertinent to him. The Sacramento DMV letter was used for the same purpose - to keep the Zodiac story alive by means of interjection.  
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In October 1971, a magazine publication entitled 'True Detective' comprehensively featured the murders of Kathy Snoozy, Deborah Furlong and Kathy Bilek, and the subsequent arrest of Karl Francis Werner. There is every chance the Zodiac Killer read this magazine article, compelling him to continue his contact with authorities regarding these murders.

One particular section about Kathy Bilek caught my eye - that may have been the reason why the Zodiac Killer wrote a letter to the chairman of the DMV in Sacramento. It stated "At about the same moment, Park Ranger Ken Williamson was informing a member of the investigative team that he, too, had noticed a tall, bespectacled young man who had been a frequent visitor at Villa Montalvo. He was a loner and had impressed the Villa's ranger staff with his almost furtive conduct, said Williamson. The ranger had jotted down the license number of the strange youth's auto.
The license number was forwarded to the California Department of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Sacramento, the state's capital 150 miles to the north of San Jose. The information teletyped back from the registration bureau was that the auto was the property of a Karl Francis Werner, living at an address on Shawnee Lane in San Jose."

This was the final entry point of the Zodiac Killer. The 'Monticello' card and 'Sacramento DMV' letter had failed to hit the newspapers - and the reign of the Zodiac Killer had reached its end. The arrest of Karl Francis Werner for the three murders in San Jose had finally exposed the Zodiac Killer for the fraud he had metamorphosed into. The long shadow he had cast over the Bay Area of Northern California was starting to recede - and he knew his days were numbered.

Using old and new material, we will take a comprehensive look at the 'Dripping Pen' card mailed by the Zodiac Killer on November 8th 1969 and attempt to link it to a future threat of murder. The card itself was most likely chosen for purpose, referencing the immediate aftermath of the attack on Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. Approximately five minutes after the brutal stabbing the killer walked to the side of Bryan Hartnell's white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and wrote "Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69, Sept 27-69 -6:30 by knife". The hand the killer wrote on the car door with was likely the hand he used during the attack on the young couple, almost certainly peppering his dominant hand with blood, and consequently to the marker pen he wrote with. So the choice of greeting card stating "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen" was likely a sardonic reference to the callous and bloody attack at Lake Berryessa. The addition of "Aug" on the card inner, a suggestion of his involvement in the double murder of Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. This, coupled with the footnote of "by knife" written on the car door was likely deliberately engineered to steer investigators toward this conclusion. They had after all considered this premise in the October 1st 1969 edition of the San Francisco Examiner, in which was stated "And today San Jose police, to the south, inquired of law enforcement officers here whether there was indication that the "Cipher Killer" might be linked to the knife slaying of two teenage girls Aug.3, still unsolved". This wouldn't be forgotten by the Zodiac Killer.   

Another reason to believe the 'Dripping Pen' card was referring to Lake Berryessa can be found in its design. The Zodiac Killer, almost without exception, would give us a running total of his victims, occasionally writing the victim count on the horizontal wing of the crosshairs. The only two times this was not the case, was the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card and the car door of Bryan Hartnell's white Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. In both of these writings he gave us his Zodiac crosshairs with the months of his murders underneath. This was the first and last time he would ever do this.

If you run the message from the face of the 'Dripping Pen' card to inner, it reads "Sorry I haven't written, but I just washed my pen and I can't do a thing with it". So when the Zodiac Killer wrote "I get aufully lonely when I am ignored, so lonely I could do my Thing", he was indicating that in the future when he needed some attention he would write again. His Thing being his propensity to put pen to paper, or in the case of Lake Berryessa, to metal. He was effectively addressing the police when he wrote "I though you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news. You won't get the news for a while yet". In fact, the bad news would arrive in exactly thirteen days time - and it was directed towards the police in regards to the month of August. In effect, his next correspondence would be pushing the same narrative as the car door and greetings card, of his involvement in the deaths of Deborah Furlong and Kathy Snoozy. 

​On November 21st 1969, a letter arrived at the San Jose Police Department addressed to a particular law enforcement officer. The letter was threatening a widow - so much so - that police initiated 24-hour surveillance on the woman's home. The police stated that "they believed the widow in the message may be Mrs......" In other words, the woman wasn't directly named in the correspondence, but they had by reasonable deduction concluded who the threat was aimed at. I believe that the Zodiac Killer in his continued drive to cement the notion of his involvement in the two teenage girls murders, mailed this "bad news" to the San Jose Police Department. Can it really be a coincidence that he wrote "by knife" on the car door to plant the seed, added the "Aug" on the 'Dripping Pen' card, then mailed his next correspondence to the City of San Jose? In addition, this new communication began with some familiar words: "There's no doubt I will do my Thing".  

On November 21st 1969, the San Jose Police Department would still have been devoting many hours to the unsolved murders of these two teenage girls, and likely receiving many tips from potential eyewitnesses and the residents of San Jose, eager to assist in the investigation. What better way for the Zodiac Killer to convince law enforcement of his potential involvement in this crime by threatening to do his Thing on one of these residents.

I have no doubt the Zodiac Killer was scouring the newspapers about this crime - so imagine he came across such a headline:
"An elderly widow, Maureen Jones, was today helping police with their investigation into the senseless murders of two young girls in San Jose, Sergeant Johnston said", or "An elderly widow, residing at Seacreek Way, was today helping police with their investigation into the senseless murders of two young girls in San Jose, Sergeant Johnston said". These article excerpts are fictitious, designed to show what Zodiac  may have read in any number of articles I have no access to. 

The Zodiac Killer never mentioned his victims by name, so it is entirely plausible that whether he knew this woman's name or not, he could, by sending a threatening letter to police using the term "widow", and addressing the communication to "Sergeant Johnston", convince police that the threat was a credible one. This may be why the police believed they knew who the woman was, despite the fact her name was never mentioned in the correspondence mailed to the San Jose Police Department. Because she had recently received newspaper coverage.     

A small code arrived with the November 21st 1969 communication. The short code (shown above in the FBI files) was
​-- + 6 2 + --, containing two dashes either side, two pluses, and the numbers 6 and 2. The idea that anybody looking at this code could arrive at 1620 without having previous reason to suspect this four number solution, seems unlikely. But if investigators knew that "Maureen Jones" lived at a residence, such as 1620 Seacreek Way, San Jose, then they might have reason to believe this is what the code was implying. Earlier newspaper reports stated "A killer armed with a thin-bladed stiletto was hunted here today as the one who savagely stabbed to death two teenage girls yesterday as they picknicked in Almaden Valley. The scene where the bodies were found is just south of Blossom Hill Road, two blocks west of Calahan in the northern end of the valley. About 10:00 am yesterday, the girls packed a lunch and left Deborah's parents' San Jose home for a picnic atop a grassy knoll nearby. The picnic ground is a rugged area, near a narrow, serpentine trail used by motorcyclists for hill-climbing contests".  So, if we could find a 1620 residence in San Jose, possibly close to the crime scene, this may be the location of the "widow" Zodiac was targeting.

As shown above, in the October 1st 1969 San Francisco Examiner article "San Jose police, to the south, inquired of law enforcement officers here whether there was indication that the "Cipher Killer" might be linked to the knife slaying of two teenage girls Aug.3".  Therefore, would it really be that surprising if the Zodiac Killer had capitalized on their suspicions and mailed a threat to the San Jose Police Department? He knew he would be taken seriously by police - and why they were prepared to instigate 24-hour surveillance on the residence of the "widow" mentioned in the letter.

In the last article 'More Than Just By Knife' we looked at the message "by knife" on the car door at Lake Berryessa and the month of "Aug" on the 'Dripping Pen' card, mailed on November 8th 1969. It was argued that the reference to "by knife" meant so much more to the killer than just telling us the patently obvious, that Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were attacked with a knife. It was a declaration of what was soon to be revealed on November 8th 1969, that the Zodiac Killer was suggesting his involvement in the Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong double stabbing on August 3rd 1969.  

The addition of the time on the car door also appeared to be lacking any great purpose, so this led me to believe that the time of 6:30, just like "by knife", also had some significance to the killer. The Zodiac Killer would certainly have been scouring the newspapers around the time of his July 31st 1969 and August 4th 1969 communications to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald. It is apparent that his narcissistic tendencies would have compelled him to purchase the newspapers for any reading material about himself. 

It must therefore have annoyed him greatly that the Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong murders featured on the front pages of the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th 1969 and the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969, when he had declared at the same time that he "was not happy to see that he did not get front page coverage" in the 'Debut of Zodiac' letter. This is probably the moment he decided on an altogether more hands-on approach to his method of murder - by knife. The inspiration for the Lake Berryessa attack may have come straight from the pages of the San Francisco Examiner. On the same day the Zodiac Killer hand delivered his 'Debut of Zodiac' letter to the Examiner offices, the San Francisco Examiner headlined with '2 Girls Stabbed-Picnic Murders Footprint Clue'. Apart from "Girls", this headline could easily have been written for the September 27th 1969 Lake Berryessa attack.       

Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were enjoying a pleasant afternoon/early evening picnic near the Oak Shores Recreation Area, when a man in an executioner's outfit changed everything. The San Francisco Examiner (above) stated "San Jose-A killer armed with a thin-bladed stiletto was hunted here today as the one who savagely stabbed to death two teenage girls yesterday as they picknicked in Almaden Valley. The scene where the bodies were found is just south of Blossom Hill Road, two blocks west of Calahan in the northern end of the valley. About 10:00 am yesterday, the girls packed a lunch and left Deborah's parents' San Jose home for a picnic atop a grassy knoll nearby. The picnic ground is a rugged area, near a narrow, serpentine trail used by motorcyclists for hill-climbing contests". 

​The question being: did the Zodiac Killer switch from gun to knife, head down the serpentine trail of Lake Berryessa to target unsuspecting picknickers or people enjoying a relaxing day out, because he just fancied a change, or did he believe this was his path to guaranteed "front page coverage", just like the brutal stabbing of the two young girls in San Jose? The car door may have held the answer, by the addition of the "by knife" phrase. The Zodiac Killer was effectively saying "do I get front page coverage now". But how does the time of 6:30 (pm) on Bryan Hartnell's car door play into the Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong murders of August 3rd 1969.

Serial killer Karl Francis Werner may inadvertently have been responsible for the murder of Cecelia Shepard and attempted murder of Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969. Many people have made the case for questioning the Lake Berryessa attack as a Zodiac crime, by pointing out that the Zodiac Killer included the month "Aug" on his November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card, yet he failed to include this date on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's white Karmann Ghia. However, the inclusion of August on the 'Dripping Pen' card may be the confirmation of the "by knife" message on the car door withheld by police. As early as October 1st 1969, only four days after the Lake Berryessa attack, an article in the San Francisco Examiner entitled 'Sex Fiend Sought For Six Killings' stated "A psychotic killer police say brutally slays females for sexual gratification is loose in the North Bay today". Extremely irresponsible and factually incorrect journalism, that may have driven the attack on a lone male in San Francisco to prove this assertion incorrect.

The Zodiac Killer would use this "North Bay" reference only twelve days later, after the callous execution of taxicab driver Paul Stine on October 11th 1969 in San Francisco, to confirm his link to Berryessa. The Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle with the admission "I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area". The San Francisco Examiner would detail the withholding of part of the message on the car door at Berryessa, stating "There was more to the inked car door message than dates. But Captain Townsend masked the information, considered it "classified". In the September 30th 1969 edition of the Examiner, entitled 'Police Dare Cipher Killer', Captain Don Townsend dared him to write or phone again to prove he wrote the message: "There is more, and we are not releasing it now. Why? Because this man has a pattern of contacting the police and newspapers by phone and letter after his killings. We are holding back part of the note because, when and if he writes, he can say what else was written there - and thus prove he is the 'man who loves to kill'"   

I believe the Zodiac Killer did respond - not as the police had hoped - but indirectly, by the inclusion of the month of "August" on the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card, just five weeks later. The killer wrote "Des, July, Aug, Sept, Oct = 7". The murders in December, July and October were all perpetrated with a firearm, and police knew that September represented the Lake Berryessa attack with a knife. Therefore, it left "Aug" to figure out.

​The answer lies in the October 1st 1969 San Francisco Examiner edition, where investigators contemplated a link to the brutal stabbing and murder of two young girls in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. Deborah Gaye Furlong (14) and Kathie Ann Snoozy (15) were found murdered in the Bay Area of San Jose, in what can only be described as a barrage of knife wounds. These murders were eventually linked to the hand of Karl F. Werner, who was also convicted of the Kathy Bilek murder. However, these murders were not solved until 1971. The October 1st 1969 Examiner stated "And today San Jose police, to the south, inquired of law enforcement officers here whether there was indication that the "Cipher Killer" might be linked to the knife slaying of two teenage girls Aug.3, still unsolved".   

This is exactly what the Zodiac Killer had hoped - and why he perpetrated the Lake Berryessa attack in the first place. He was laying the seeds for law enforcement to conclude this very idea - and the reason he switched to a knife attack on this occasion. The "Aug" reference was pushing law enforcement to conclude he was responsible for the brutal slaying of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong - "by knife" - and therefore, in his mind, unequivocally linking himself to the Lake Berryessa stabbings. Had Karl Francis Werner not killed Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong, it is my contention that Cecelia Shepard would still be alive today.

The Zodiac Killer knew that he had to kill to secure the attention of the newspapers, and the bolder the attack, the more publicity he would generate. He had murdered three young people by July 4th 1969 and had sent newspapers a trinity of communications on July 31st 1969 containing three parts of a cipher, determined to secure the headlines he felt he deserved. His letters promised more murder 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". To his dismay, he felt he was being short-changed, writing in the August 4th 1969 'Debut of Zodiac' letter "I was not happy to see that I did not get front page coverage". At this point in time, without doubt, the Zodiac Killer would have been scouring the newspapers for progress on solving his cipher, along with updates on his crimes. Then came the savage knife attack on Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong in San Jose, featured on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969: ​   

The Zodiac Killer likely read this article and knew the course of action he needed to take to secure "front page coverage". His next crime had to be bolder, more savage and more personal - using a knife. The brutal murder of these two young girls by Karl Francis Werner would ultimately change the tactics of the Zodiac Killer in his relentless pursuit of notoriety. Seven weeks later he arrived on the shores of Lake Berryessa.

It has been questioned as to why the Zodiac Killer wrote "by knife" on the car door of Bryan Hartnell's vehicle, when it was patently obvious the couple had been stabbed with a knife. But it was much more than this. The writing of "by knife" on the car door was a statement to the publicity he felt he deserved - and was also partly alluding to the Snoozy and Furlong murders he would lay claim to just six weeks later. The "Aug" reference on the November 8th 1969 'Dripping Pen' card was further corroboration to the 'hidden' message on the car door of Bryan Hartnell. The Zodiac Killer attacked Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard with a knife at Lake Berryessa, then planted the seed on the car door to hint towards the San Jose murders just seven weeks earlier, to which he would finally confirm on his 'Dripping Pen' card at the beginning of November. He knew the month of August would be interpreted by law enforcement as the murder of Snoozy and Furlong, because law enforcement had contemplated the link only weeks earlier. The "by knife" message on the car door at Lake Berryessa, would on November 8th 1969, now hold much more significance than it did on September 27th 1969. 

Confirmation of the Snoozy and Furlong "August" link, would arrive on July 13th 1971, when a pasted card was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle with the words "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". The Zodiac Killer was now claiming (or at the very least associating himself with) Karl Francis Werner's third victim, Kathy Bilek. On Sunday, April 11th 1971, Kathy Bilek (18) visited Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, with the intent to read and engage in a spot of birdwatching in the seclusion of a remote, wooded portion of the park, near a small stream. Her body was found the next day by her father, Charles, while Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies searched nearby. She had been stabbed 17 times in the back and 32 times in her chest and stomach. The Zodiac Killer's requirement to associate himself with three brutal stabbings, despite the fact he wasn't responsible for any, tells you all you need to know regarding his quest for notoriety - and why he was only too willing to write "by knife" on the car door at Lake Berryessa.on September 27th 1969. Its meaning went far beyond the obvious.