The possibility of a serial killer using Emigrant Gap in Placer County as a dumping ground has to be considered after the breaking news (on March 18th 2026) that the body of Melinda Beardsley (30) has been identified after nearly half a century. Her strangled and naked body was found in a snowbank at Emigrant Gap on December 17th 1977, just next to Interstate 80 and slightly west of the intersection with State Route 20. This area is next to Chubb Lake Road, Forty Niner Way and Gonelson Canyon Road, which terminates close to where a jawbone was found on December 31st 1985 by a local fisherman, Melvin Bennett. Always on the move, she was last known to be living in Carson City, Nevada, and was last confirmed to be alive in 1976, after a DUI charge in Reno. This is when contact with her family ceased. Carson City is located on the eastern side of Lake Tahoe, about 25 miles by road (16 miles by crow) from where Donna Lass went missing from on September 6th 1970 (Sahara Tahoe Hotel & Casino).

If the reporting of the Sacramento Bee was accurate in 1977, the body of Melinda Beardsley must have been found somewhere by the red circle shown below, as this is the only location that Interstate 80 crosses Highway 20 at Emigrant Gap. This is approximately 500 meters from where a jawbone (maxilla) was found on December 31st 1985 (not Melinda's), and very close to where a skull was found in Yuba Gap on January 19th 1986. Further west of the intersection would place her body closer to the Drum Canal crossing.

​The skull of Donna Lass (according to the death certificate) was found on July 31st 1986, about 3 miles northwest of these locations, to the west of Lake Spaulding. The death certificate read "State Route 20, 3.5 miles north of Interstate 80 near Drum Canal Crossing, Emigrant Gap"..If the skull of Donna Lass (25) was found closer to State Route 20 and Interstate 80, nearer to the Drum Canal crossing (due to an inaccurate description) and the police report of Deputy Lowell Carlton on August 4th 1986, it would actually place her remains closer to the other skull, jawbone, and body of Melinda Beardsley. See here for explanation. Either way, we have the presence of "three skulls" in an approximate 3 mile radius of one another, including a jawbone. This opens up the possibility that four bodies have been dumped in the area of Emigrant Gap and Lake Spaulding over the years. All these individuals were potentially murdered prior to 1985 - and all may have been at the hand of one individual, who kept returning to this location, having eluded detection during previous visits. A killer will often revisit the same location (somewhere they are familiar with) to dispose of murder victims, if this has proved successful in the past.  

We have the bodies of Melinda Beardsley and Donna Lass (skull) found in close proximity to one another at Emigrant Gap, likely murdered in 1970 and 1977. The unknown skull, jawbone and body of Melinda Beardsley are likely grouped in a 650 meter radius of one another. Little is currently known about the life of Melinda Beardsley (who apparently worked as a waitress in 1976 according to the police report), one year before her body was ultimately found on December 17th 1977, which is frustrating from the standpoint of trying to forge any potential links between the two murdered women. Had she crossed paths with her killer through her profession as a waitress in a casino or drinking establishment? The movements of Melinda in her final days and hours could have been extremely useful and enlightening, to see if any connection could be established pertaining to her killer - and maybe that of Donna Lass.

ADDITIONAL READING: TWO SKULLS WEST OF THE SIERRA CLUB  

On September 13th 1973, the San Jose Mercury reported on the September 10th 1973 murder of Yellow Cab driver Roland J. Canfield (41) of 551 Manor Drive, Pacifica, who was shot behind his right ear at 4:00 pm while parked at the intersection of 27th and Noe streets in San Francisco. The wallet of Roland J. Canfield, although empty, was still in his back pocket, with investigators concluding that robbery appeared not to be the motive. The taxicab strongbox was described as undisturbed. Homicide inspectors David Toschi and William Armstrong, investigatng the case, indicated a lack of evidence to form a Zodiac Killer connection to that of Paul Stine on October 11th 1969. However, a lack of evidence to form a Zodiac link, doesn't mean there wasn't one.

​Somebody had phoned the Yellow Taxicab Company and requested a pick up at 27th and Noe streets in Noe Valley, a family-friendly, wealthy, upper-middle-class neighborhood in central San Francisco, known for its charming Victorian homes and vibrant 24th Street with local shops and restaurants. The caller had clearly given this location to the Yellow Cab Company operator, but had provided a non-existent address. When Roland Canfield arrived at the intersection he was immediately flagged down by a lone male walking on the street, who apparently entered the rear of the taxicab and shot the driver behind the right ear. Witnesses nearby heard the shot and saw a man enter a vehicle and leave the scene.   

It is virtually impossible to dismiss the notion that the phone caller and murderer were the same individual. On first look, it is safe to conclude that the taxicab driver was deliberately lured to this location for the sole purpose of murder. The fictitious address (likely a house number) probably designed to keep Roland Canfield at that location temporarily as he radioed back to headquarters to notify them that the address didn't exist and he was available for hire once again. This information was obviously given to police by the Yellow Cab Company, who were likely informed by Canfield shortly after his arrival at the intersection. This short window of time would have given the eventual murderer, who "just happened to be walking" in close proximity to the taxicab, the opportunity to wave down the taxicab driver, who was probably grateful he hadn't wasted a journey. If the phone call, fictitious address and murder happening within a few minutes of one another was just a coincidence, then it's an unlikely one. 

After the Zodiac Killer's "Monticello" postcard on July 13th 1971, over two years had elapsed before a mini revival in "Zodiac" activity, beginning on August 1st 1973 with the arrival of the Albany letter, mailed to the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York, with the Zodiac Killer threatening he was "going to start killing again". Just under six weeks later, Roland Canfield, a taxicab driver, was killed at an intersection in San Francisco by an unknown assailant - seemingly directed to a location for nothing more than murder. Eight days later, on September 18th 1973, the Zodiac Killer surfaced in San Jose, removing the tombstone (of likely Kathie Snoozy) from the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery at 300 Curtner Avenue, where Kathie Snoozy (15) was buried. The tombstone being placed at the front gate of the cemetery with the pseudonym "Zodiac" written on it in crayon.

​A cemetery located in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose, which the Zodiac Killer referenced in his "Monticello" postcard after claiming the murder of Kathy Bilek, who "in the woods died April" (stabbed on April 11th 1971). Less than four months would pass, when on January 11th 1974, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer phoned the police and newspapers stating he had killed a woman and placed her body in a Daly City church in San Mateo County. Only 18 days later, the Zodiac Killer mailed the "Exorcist" letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on January 29th 1974, threatening that if his latest letter wasn't published in the newspaper he would "do something nasty" which everyone knew he was capable of. We have five actual events, three of which can be proven to be Zodiac activity, in the space of six months. Question marks obviously remain regarding September 10th 1973 and January 11th 1974. 

The Albany letter mailed on August 1st 1973 was the only communication since the Paul Stine letter on October 13th 1969 to carry small crosshairs on the address side of the envelope, despite the Paul Stine envelope not having been released to the public, so it's uncanny that the next event to be associated with the Zodiac Killer was the murder of Roland J. Canfield on September 10th 1973, the following month. There is limited information on the Roland Canfield murder in the newspapers to forge any substantial link to the Zodiac Killer, but the mere fsct he was mentioned in connection to the murder, may have been the catalyst that drove him to the Monticello neighborhood in San Jose on September 18th 1973.  

There were a series of phone calls and one letter to various police departments from October 14th/15th 1969 to December 19th 1969 from the "Zodiac Killer". The phone call to Santa Rosa on October 14th/15th 1969 (almost certainly Zodiac) was likely delivered to the Santa Rosa Police Department, who had recently moved into the newly constructed Civic Center at 100 Santa Rosa Avenue on June 10th 1969.

​This phone call came within two days of the mailing of the Paul Stine letter on October 13th 1969, threatening to place bombs on various school buses, which resulted in an immediate response from the district's transportation director. Three weeks later, on November 5th 1969, somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang the Martinez Police Department at 30 minutes past midnight, stating "There's going to be a shooting at 1234 Bush Street", before immediately hanging up the receiver. The caller was continuing his threats on school teacher Daniel Williams, who had received several malicious and sinister phone calls over the previous two weeks, including an attempt on his life using arsenic. Two weeks after the Martinez Police Department phone call, on November 21st 1969, a "Zodiac" letter was mailed to the San Jose Police Department targeting a woman, which police took extremely seriously by instigating 24-hour protection on the "widow". Four weeks later, on December 19th 1969, a phone call to the San Jose Highway Patrol by the "Zodiac Killer" threatened "I am going to kill five of you officers and a family of five between now and Monday". This call came three days after the then unpublished Fairfield letter promising to kill numerous police officers.

​However, as far as we know, only one specific bomb threat was ever issued by the real Zodiac Killer outside of San Francisco. His November 9th 1969, April 20th 1970, April 28th 1970, June 26th 1970 and July 26th 1970 communications were all delivered to the San Francisco Chronicle.

​The Santa Rosa bomb threat on schoolchildren on October 14th/15th 1969 was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 21st 1969 in an article entitled Fear Rides the Yellow Bus, which stated "A climate of fear hangs over the Napa Valley. The fear is over "Zodiac" and his terrifying boast to "wipe out a school bus. The district encompasses an area of Southern Napa County of 229 square miles. Sixty-four bright yellow buses travel the county roadways each day - often into areas where houses are a couple of miles apart. The vehicles go a total of 4,000 miles daily in and from elementary schools, three junior highs and one senior high school. Even before starting on its routes each vehicle has undergone a thorough check to make sure a bomb isn't aboard. Someone hinting he might be Zodiac has telephoned such a threat in Santa Rosa. The man responsible for the safety of the students who ride the buses is Fred Sowash, the district's transportation director. Since last Wednesday, when he learned of Zodiac's threat, Sowash has been devoting 18 to 20 hours a day to blunt it"

When the Zodiac Killer aimed his threat at Santa Rosa in October 1969, this was the only confirmed bomb threat outside of San Francisco by the murderer of five. But is this actually true, when we consider that seven months later, on Friday, May 8th 1970, somebody issued two false bomb threats to the recently opened K-Mart department store at 3771 Cleveland Avenue in Santa Rosa? These malicious phone calls came 10 days after the Zodiac Killer's "Dragon" card arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle and stated "I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my blast".

​If this was a hoaxer phoning the Santa Rosa K-Mart on May 8th 1970, then they chose the only city beyond San Francisco that the Zodiac Killer had previously threatened by bomb, seven months earlier. If the Zodiac Killer had called the Santa Rosa Police Department at 100 Santa Rosa Avenue on October 14th/15th 1969, then this hoaxer on May 8th 1970. would have issued these following threats just 3 miles north of the police department, alongside Highway 101, linking San Francisco. The Santa Rosa Police Department was 500 meters east of Highway 101, while the K-Mart on Cleveland Avenue was only 120 meters west of Highway 101. 

The question we have to ask is, did a hoaxer pretending to be the Zodiac Killer choose Santa Rosa again by sheer fortune, did they select this city by virtue of one newspaper article in the San Francisco Chronicle seven months earlier, or was it the real Zodiac Killer targeting this location once again, who may have shot at a school bus in Santa Rosa on October 17th 1969?

Regardless of the threats to target schoolchildren with bullets and bombs, investigators were skeptical of the female bus driver's claim as they could find no evidence of any bullets striking the bus. One would have thought that a Santa Rosa telephone threat from the Zodiac Killer directed at school buses, followed by a woman driving a school bus in Santa Rosa reporting what she described as "a loud shot", would have stimulated less skepticism  Especially when you consider that the female bus driver in Santa Rosa reported this story before any knowledge of the Santa Rosa bus bomb threat had been published in the newspapers. It seemed that Fred Sowash took it seriously when he learned of the threat on October 14th or 15th 1969, because he devoted 18 to 20 hours a day to minimize the possibilty of an attack. However, despite his commitment, it appeared that no police vehicles were trailing this woman's school bus on October 17th 1969 as it approached Yulupa Elementary School in Santa Rosa, amidst the Zodiac Killer's threats to shoot out the front tires of a school bus and "pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out" on October 13th 1969 , and the direct threat to Santa Rosa less than 48 hours later.

On September 18th 1973 the Zodiac Killer, either deliberately or inadvertently, revealed the location of "Monticello" in the July 13th 1971 Monticello card by, almost certainly, removing the tombstone of Kathie Snoozy from the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery in the Monticello neighborhood of San Jose. A cemetery I identified in December 2018 as the location mentioned in the card, despite never seeing this accompanying newspaper article until 2023. The tombstone had "Zodiac" written on it in crayon. This was almost certainly the Zodiac Killer, because a hoaxer in 1973 would have had no way of knowing that this cemetery had been featured in an unreleased communication nearly two years previously. But what triggered the Zodiac Killer to perform such an act in the third quarter of 1973? Had something about the Zodiac Killer appeared in a San Jose newspaper in the last week or so?

On September 13th 1973, the San Jose Mercury reported on the September 10th 1973 murder of Yellow Cab driver Roland J. Canfield (41) of 551 Manor Drive, Pacifica, who was shot behind his right ear at 4:00pm while parked at the intersection of 27th and Noe streets in San Francisco. The wallet of Roland J. Canfield, still in his back pocket, was empty of money. The taxicab strongbox was described as undisturbed. Homicide inspectors David Toschi and William Armstrong, investigatng the case, indicated a lack of evidence to form a Zodiac Killer connection to that of Paul Stine on October 11th 1969. 

In the middle of the afternoon Roland J. Canfield received a dispatch to an address at 27th and Noe streets, but when he arrived at the intersection he would have discovered that the address he was given didn't exist. Reports from police, who interviewed the dispatcher, stated that upon discovering the non-existent address the taxicab driver was hailed by a man walking on the opposite side of the street. The fact that this man shot Roland J. Canfield and escaped to a nearby automobile, strongly suggests that the taxicab driver was lured to this location for the purpose of murder (and maybe robbery). A fictitious address followed shortly by murder could be argued as related. The Zodiac Killer has long been believed to have parked his vehicle close to the crime scene at Presidio Heights - although this comparison - would be rightly described as clutching at straws when attempting to forge a link from this crime to the murder at Washington and Cherry in 1969, just over 3 miles north.

Three days after the murder of Roland J. Canfield, on Thursday, September 13th 1973, homicide inspectors David Toschi arrested James A. Montano (20) at his 380 Tompkins Street home. No weapon was retrieved from the crime scene or suspect. The arrest was detailed in the accompanying newspaper article from the San Jose Mercury on September 14th 1973. Four days later, on September 18th 1973, the Zodiac Killer wrote on the tombstone removed from the Oak Hill Memorial Park & Cemetery in San Jose. Had the connection between the murder of Roland J. Canfield and Paul Stine to Zodiac, reported in the San Jose newspaper only days earlier, stirred the Zodiac Killer into visiting the San Jose cemetery and placing his pseudonym firmly in the public gaze once again? Clearly telling us he was still around. 

On January 12th 1974, after two court proceedings, the second jury in the trial of James A. Montano again failed to reach a verdict, with Superior Judge S. Lee Vavuris declaring a mistrial. The murder of Roland J. Canfield remains unsolved to this day. This Yellow Cab shooting is extremely unlikely to have any connection to the 1969 murder of Paul Stine and the Zodiac Killer, but the mere mention of his pseudonym in the newspapers often created an immediate response from the Bay Area murderer in the form of a letter. On September 18th 1973, it seems he deviated from this pattern and left his message on a tombstone. 

FURTHER READING: A MESSAGE FROM THE GRAVE

On the same day, March 13th 1978, that somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang a man in the Mission District of San Francisco declaring "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco" (which was recorded on an answering machine), somebody threatened a woman in the Taraval District of San Francisco. This person pinned a note and a flower on the front gate of her single dwelling with the message "You're next (The Zodiac Killers)". At a time when Zodiac occurrences should have been dwindling, two threats on the same day targeting individuals just a few miles from one another, could be argued as the same perpetrator. When you consider the similarity in messages between the March 13th 1978 phone call of "Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco", to the April 24th 1978 letter of  "I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here", it is not unreasonable to conclude one responsible for all three events. Whether this was the case or not.

​The police logged the time of the threat in the Taraval District between 7:00am on March 13th 1978 and 12:30am on March 14th 1978. Therefore, the flower and threatening note must have been placed on her front gate during a 16 1/2 hour window of time. Sunset in San Francisco was 6:15pm, so if the perpetrator applied some caution, it is likely the note was pinned on her front gate sometime between 6:15pm and just after midnight. The phone call to the man in the Mission District was logged at 11:00pm, falling between these two times. Therefore, it is possible that these two "Zodiac Killer events" occurred  within a reasonable time of one another - with 10pm to midnight being prime time for the Zodiac Killer under the cover of darkness. The individual who threatened the woman in the Taraval District could easily have made the phone call from this location. There was no need to travel to make the phone call to the Mission District.  

On November 29th 1966, one month after the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, somebody (possibly the Zodiac Killer) mailed two typed Confession letters to the Riverside Homicide Detail and Riverside Press Enterprise. In each correspondence the claimed killer stated "She is not the first and she will not be the last. I lay awake nights thinking about my next victom. Maybe she will be the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven". If the woman in the Taraval District of San Francisco was known to the perpetrator, had he targeted her with the express knowledge that she wasn't at home at the time, so as to avoid identification. She had been absent from her residence on March 13th 1978 because she was babysitting that day. Maybe he "did make that phone call to the man also". 

​If the author of the threatening note was the Zodiac Killer, did he target a random person, or did he choose somebody of significance that he knew would generate a response from the police and hopefully make its way into the newspapers. The last time a Zodiac note was found on a public street was on October 21st 1969, having been thrown from a car on Lake Mendocino Drive at 3:00 pm, just north of Ukiah, California (see newspaper clipping below). The note, attached to a twig, was thrown towards an eight-year-old girl with the crudely printed message "You're next - Z". The only difference between the note in the Taraval District of San Francisco and the note in Mendocino County was the signature, morphing from ​"You're next - Z" to "You're next (The Zodiac Killers)". The note in Mendocino County, whether the Zodiac or not, was seemingly piggybacking off the October 13th 1969 threat by the Zodiac Killer to target schoolchildren.

​So did the woman he targeted with a note and flower in 1978 carry any significant value in his quest to hit the newspapers once again? Or did he just select a random member of the public, hoping his pseudonym alone was enough to generate the publicity he so badly craved? Or was it a hoaxer with nothing better to do with his life, who used the term "Zodiac Killers" to suggest he was separate to the original killer? Were the two occurrences in San Francisco on March 13th 1978 just coincidence? If not, we are back to where we started with two connected events, in which one appeared to pre-empt the message on the April 24th 1978 letter.  

*The Taraval District is the city’s largest and most populous police jurisdiction, encompassing a large part of southwestern San Francisco. It is bordered by Golden Gate Park to the north, Ocean Beach to the west, Daly City to the south, and 7th Avenue down to Interstate 280 to the east. The district includes the inner and outer Sunset neighborhoods, as well as Parkside, Golden Gate Heights, Balboa Terrace, Ingleside Terrace, Monterey Heights, St. Francis Wood, Ingleside, Oceanview, West Portal, Lakeshore Acres, Country Club, Merced Manor, Park Merced, Edgehill, Laguna Honda, Lakeside, Merced Extension, Mount Davidson Manor and Sunset Heights. link.

On March 13th 1971 the Zodiac Killer insinuated his involvement down south when declaring in his Los Angeles letter "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". The question police asked themselves, was whether the Zodiac Killer was blowing hot air, or were there really other victims in Riverside - possibly close to the murder site of Cheri Jo Bates. The police reviewed a case 3.9 miles (by crow) from Terracina Drive and the Riverside City College library on May 13th 1961, mysteriously pointed in that direction by a dead man's finger. The finger of a possible murder victim resting on a bible verse that spoke of "things to come".

Revered Charles Williams (66) was last seen alive driving on Twelfth Street in Riverside on Saturday, May 13th 1961 at approximately 2:55pm. Thirty-five minutes later he was discovered by four Norton AFB airmen in his blood-spattered car at 3:30pm on Canyon Crest Drive, 3/10ths of a mile (1584 feet) north of Alessandro Boulevard in an extremely rural area popular with target shooters and hunters. Found behind the steering wheel of his vehicle with a bible in his lap, Rev. Charles Williams was thought to have been shot at close range by possibly two bullets that entered the left side of his head and burst out the other side. Two .32 caliber casings were found in the car which police hadn't yet determined were from the gun that killed him. There were no signs of robbery (with twenty-seven dollars found in his wallet), and no appearance of a struggle with a potential assailant. The bible on his lap was opened to "The Epistle to the Hebrews" from the New Testament, with his finger either deliberately placed, or accidentally pointing at Chapter 11, Verse 20 reading "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come". Investigators considered a possible murder.  

Police questioned whether this was an accidental shooting or murder, but unequivocally ruled out suicide. Investigators found a shattered bottle not far from the victim's car, so speculated that hunters may have been target shooting and accidentally shot Rev. Charles Williams, having not seen his vehicle because of the hilly terrain. An appeal for any hunters in the area at about 3:30pm to come forward failed to generate any response.

​Deputies found a .22 caliber rifle under the front seat of the vehicle and a .38 caliber pistol in the glove compartment, which tallied with information given by his wife, who told police he owned "a couple of guns". Fragments of the bullets found in Williams car were being checked to identify the gun they belonged to, but as of writing, I have been unable to find any results of this examination. If two shots struck the left side of the victim's head (that were connected to the two casings found in the vehicle), an accidental shooting because of errant shots aimed at a bottle, seems unlikely. Especially if the initial assessment by police of a bullet, or bullets entering from close range was correct.  

Had Rev. Charles Williams parked up in this remote area and was approached by somebody with murder on their mind, had he traveled to this area of Canyon Crest Drive with his eventual murderer in the passenger seat, or was this some freak accident from a stray bullet or two fired from the wilderness? Was his finger purposefully placed on this particular section of the bible to send a sinister message to police, or was he simply reading the bible when shot and his finger fell there accidentally?

The story of his hand being guided over a holy book by a murderer wanting to convey a biblical message to law enforcement, or the victim wanting to impart a final declaration before death, certainly makes for a more intriguing and compelling mystery, bearing in mind police briefly explored the possibility that the "cryptic" Zodiac Killer may have been involved. However, this may be a willingness on the part of investigators to fashion a layer of intrigue into an unexplained death where it isn't required. An eagerness to magnify an already puzzling mystery into divine murder through the guidance of a dead man's finger, so to speak.

Taking into account we have two .32 caliber shell casings in the car that were seemingly different to the two weapons owned by Rev. Charles Williams (according to newspaper reports), and early reports mentioned there may have been two shots to the left side of his head at close range, this is inconsistent with a murderer sitting in the passenger seat of the victim's car. On first look, it appears that Rev. Charles Williams was shot through the driver side window (based on the picture of a left hand drive in the top image).

​The location of his death is about a 6 to 10 minute drive from his last known location on Twelfth Street at 2:55pm (depending where on 12th Street he was last seen), so if he traveled directly to the remote location on Canyon Crest Drive, he would have likely been sitting in his vehicle for approximately 25 to 29 minutes before he was found dead by the four airmen. Detectives stated they had no particular reason to think that Zodiac was involved, but the above newspaper report from the Riverside Daily Enterprise on March 16th 1971 was published only three days after the Zodiac Killer's Los Angeles letter claiming more "riverside activity". 

There is little reason to forge a Zodiac connection to the murder of Rev. Charles Williams other than location. If the killer had deliberately placed the finger of the murder victim over the biblical passage of "things to come", a weak link could be created to the April 30th 1967 Bates' letters where the author wrote "there will be more", and the phrase "she went to the slaughter like a lamb" derived from Isaiah 53:7 and typed into the Confession letter on November 29th 1966. But this is undeniably stretching the bounds of reality and could never be proven without identifying the murderer, if indeed this was a wilful and deliberate act.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would like to revisit the abduction of Kathleen Johns (22) just west of Modesto on March 22nd 1970, considered by many the primary outlier beyond the canonical four in the Bay Area. After the murder of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969 his brother, Joe Stine, issued a combative challenge to the Zodiac Killer on television and in the newspapers to come and hunt him down, giving the address of his workplace at 706 Sutter Avenue, Modesto, and the location of La Von's Walking Chicken where he lunched at noon most days. His open invitation of the Zodiac to Modesto was heavily frowned upon by investigators because authorities believed it endangered the lives of people around him and the wider community. The thought being that the Zodiac Killer may have opted to accept the challenge and target Modestans to prove he could murder anywhere.

​This is why the claimed attack on Kathleen Johns cannot be overlooked, who stated in the police report that she thought she had been trailed by a vehicle from Modesto to the area of South Bird Road on Highway 132, a distance of approximately 19 miles. Although her recollections are often contradictory, it must be considered significant that she may have been followed by a suspicious vehicle from Modesto, that she later claimed was the Zodiac Killer, who could have chosen his fifth attack anywhere in California, but began his "hunt" in the very city that Joe Stine laid down his challenge. Modesto is 90 miles from the murder site of Paul Stine in Presidio Heights, so what are the chances this was pure happenstance? How likely is it that Kathleen Johns had read or seen the challenge by Joe Stine in October 1969 and waited five months to concoct a story of abduction, putting her 10-month-old daughter and unborn child through unnecessary hardship to initiate this elaborate hoax? 

Furthermore, her route from San Bernardino to Highway 132 had been achieved by traveling on Highway 99, which passed only 4,600 feet from the 706 Sutter Avenue workplace of Joe Stine, where he worked as a mechanic at the Richfield Service Station. La Von's Walking Chicken was slightly closer at 4,375 feet from Higway 99. Admittedly, this would have been late at night on a Sunday when these premises were shut, but if this was the Zodiac Killer, where had he been in the 48 hours previous? Had he picked up her trail in this location and decided to enact an alternative crime to his original intentions? 

​If the Zodiac Killer had trailed Kathleen Johns from Modesto, then it isn't inconceivable that he passed right by the workplace of Joe Stine five months after being issued the challenge. Another striking feature of the challenge was that the accompanying pictures in the many newspapers on October 23rd 1969 (including the San Francisco Chronicle), showed Joe Stine working at the Richfield Service Station close to the wheel of an elevated vehicle (it may have been the right rear wheel). Especially when we consider that the "Zodiac Killer" operated as a mechanic on the rear wheel of Kathleen Johns vehicle, five months later. Originally, Kathleen Johns claimed that the Zodiac Killer had turned onto South Chrisman Road and entered the Richfield Service Station/ARCO gas station, two miles west of her abandoned vehicle. However, finding it closed, the unidentified "Good Samaritan" continued on Highway 132 towards the city of Tracy. This detail was curiously dispensed with in some of her current and later retellings of the story.

​Had this been true, we would have had Joe Stine working near the wheel of a vehicle at the Richfield Service Station in the newspapers, which Zodiac passed by 5 months later, who then disabled the wheel of Kathleen Johns vehicle, before taking her two miles down the highway to a Richfield Service Station. All the ingredients for a good story was available in the newspapers, either concocted by Kathleen Johns or fashioned by the Zodiac Killer. If this seemed too clever a belated design by Kathleen Johns, it certainly wasn't for the Zodiac Killer, who we know liked a challenge.

Kathleen Johns was quoted in the police report, saying that the suspect "went west on Highway 132 and pulled into a Richfield service station that was closed. It is believed by undersigned to be Chrisman Road". Whether or not she identified the gas station as Richfield or ARCO, free from equivocation, would have been useful information to know. There was a large glowing sign above the gas station on South Chrisman Road identifying it as an ARCO, so anybody traveling on Highway 132 would have known where to refill, but they wouldn't necessarily know it was a Richfield Service Station unless they were familiar with this location (because it was over 800 feet from Highway 132). 

​ARCO was established in 1966 as the Atlantic Richfield Company, an independent oil and gas company formed from the merger of Atlantic Petroleum and the Richfield Oil Corporation. If Kathleen Johns had literally told police her abductor drove her to a "Richfield Service Station", then this may have made her story more credible, because from Highway 132 it would only have been recognisable as an ARCO for a first time visitor (unless signposted). Or she was given this name by her abductor. If her story was completely fabricated and no abductor existed, there would have been no need to invoke the name "Richfield", that the "undersigned" believed to be the gas station on Christman Road. That is why the story of her abductor taking her to this gas station, being omitted from her later stories, is unusual. It tends to support her story rather than negate it. Especially considering this gas station would have been unidentifiable from 2 miles away (from slightly east of South Bird Road), where the presumed abduction began. Maybe the story of a seemingly helpful man at this point in time didn't fit the menacing narrative wanted to be portrayed in later accounts. It must be stressed that the police reports also carried the story of an abductor who never made any attempts to visit a service station, making this case extremely difficult to formulate any consistent narrative. 

Four months after the Kathleen Johns affair, on July 24th 1970, the Zodiac Killer admitted that he "gave a rather intersting ride for a coupple howers one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car where I found them". On October 27th 1970 he incorporated "by fire" into his crime methodology within the Halloween card, which he followed up by a further communication on March 13th 1971, mailed from Pleasanton. The city of Pleasanton would have been a location passed by the Zodiac Killer had he set "fire" to Kathleen Johns vehicle and headed back to the Bay Area.

​If this abduction was committed by the Zodiac Killer, it is extremely unlikely he took a 180 mile round trip from the Bay Area just for the sole purpose of randomly abducting a woman nearing midnight. Either there was a more sinister purpose to his visit over the previous hours or days in Modesto that failed to transpire - or knowing he had upcoming business dealings or relations in this area, seized the opportunity to bring his terror to the very location where Joe Stine lived (we know that Chester Clark Klingel lived in Hughson, close to Modesto, subsequent to 1970, and had relatives in Turlock prior to this year). Did Chester Clark Klingel cross paths with the Zodiac Killer on one of the killer's continued dealings in this locality? 

Despite this presentation making a case for the Zodiac Killer being in Modesto on March 22nd 1970, it is extremely difficult to see past the many inconsistencies in the story of Kathleen Johns - not only at the time - but in the dramatized account portrayed in the Zodiac book by Robert Graysmith, that actually weakened her case still further. However, the sheer fact that the brother of Paul Stine (Zodiac's last known victim) laid down a challenge to the Bay Area murderer to come to Modesto - and the next major Zodiac story had its roots in Modesto - has to raise some eyebrows. Either Kathleen Johns, after reading the challenge by Joe Stine, deliberately fashioned a story about being followed from Modesto, to be subsequently abducted by the Bay Area murderer, or the Zodiac Killer specifically targeted this area of California after reading the bravado exhibited by Joe Stine many months earlier. But how would Kathleen Johns have known that a sketch of the Zodiac Killer would have been conveniently available to her at the Patterson Police Department, for her to say "that is the man that abducted me"? In absence of the sketch, she would have had to initiate the story using her knowledge of the sketch from elsewhere. For many Zodiac researchers, the jury is still out on the abduction of Kathleen Johns.

In a previous article I examined the notion that the Confession letter mailed on November 29th 1966 was the forerunner to the July 31st 1969 Zodiac letters. When "The Most Dangerous Game" movie was released in 1932, its associate producer, Merian C. Cooper, reflected on the evil of the human condition and stated "man is the most dangerous animal of all". This would be the wording used by the Zodiac Killer in his decrypted 408 cipher, solved by Donald and Bettye June Harden on August 8th 1969. Thirteen years after "The Most Dangerous Game" was released, "A Game of Death" starring John Loder and Audrey Long opened in US cinemas on November 23rd 1945. A poor remake of the original, the only real difference was that the evil Russian, Count Zaroff, had turned into the insane German, Erich Kreiger.

​This later movie featured on television throughout California from November 5th 1966 to November 8th 1966 - so if the Zodiac Killer was present in Riverside (or California) during this period, and was responsible for any of the communications down south - could this movie have had any influence on the phrases chosen in the Confession letters? Did the flawed character traits of Count Zaroff and Erich Kreiger, who were insane, heartless, and psychopathic men with a thirst to hunt human beings, form the basis of the wording "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game" in the Confession letters on November 29th 1966? That "game" being "a game of death", in which the insanity of Erich Kreiger and the Confession letter author created no barrier to the murderous game and ambitions of either.. "A Game of Death" in 1966 turning into a "Most Dangerous Game" in the Bay Area, two to three years later. The murders in southern and northern California cloaked under the banner of the Richard Connell short story of 1924. ​

There were extremely close similarities between the language used in the Confession letter to the Riverside Desktop Poem. The desktop poem appeared to be reminiscing in the present tense about the attempted murder by knife of Roslyn Atwood (19} on the Riverside City College campus on April 13th 1965, before switching attention to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966, writing "Just wait till next time. rh." The footnote being riverside, halloween, the day Cheri Jo Bates' lifeless body was discovered next to the library. An interesting connection was made by Ricardo Gomez of MK-Zodiac, who showed a strong similarity between the headline of the Riverside Daily Press on April 17th 1965, to the opening lines from the desktop poem. The Riverside Daily Press stated "Clean-cut youth sought in stabbing", with the desktop poem beginning "cut, clean, if red/clean. blood spurting, dripping, spilling; all over her new dress". 

Was this just one big game, comparing the "unwillingness" of Roslyn Atwood to die on April 13th 1965 in the desktop poem title, to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966, who the author of the Confession letter claimed was as a woman who "went very willingly" to her death. The Riverside Daily Press on April 17th 1965 with the "clean-cut" headline also mentioned that Roslyn Atwood was "stabbed in the lower abdomen with a hunting knife with a 4 1/2 inch blade". Strangely, the morning after the Riverside City College library reconstruction on November 13th 1966 concerning the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, a buried hunting knife with a blade measuring 4 1/2 inches was raked up by a groundskeeper just 50 feet from the location of Cheri Jo Bates' body, in the same driveway. Although this was unlikely the weapon used in the attack on Roslyn Atwood, was the game now being played out in the campus itself? The comparison between the murder of Cheri Jo Bates and Roslyn Atwood was briefly considered in the Riverside Daily Press newspaper published on November 3rd 1966, entitled "Key Clue Goes to C11 Unit". Only briefly, however, because Rolland Lin Taft (19) was still behind bars for the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood.      

The typed wording on the Confession letter of "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game" may have a different meaning. Was the author of the Confession letter, just like the Riverside Desktop Poem, harking back to the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood in 1965, using a mocking defence of his actions in the stabbing of Cheri Jo Bates? It was reported in the Riverside Daily-Enterprise newspaper on September 11th 1965 that Rolland Taft had pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood by reason of insanity. It appeared that the author of the Confession letter was doing the same. But I suspect this claim of insanity was just another part of the "game". It must also be noted that one of the Confession letters was mailed to the Riverside Daily-Enterprise.   

When the Zodiac Killer concealed "man is the most dangerous animal of all" in his 408 cipher, he mimicked the exact quote used by Merian C. Cooper upon the release of the 1932 film "The Most Dangerous Game". I have only found this quote in a handful of newspapers from 1932, so how did the Zodiac Killer acquire this from 37 years prior to 1969 without the use of old newspapers, possibly stored on the microfiche from a library? Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief advisor to royalty in the 17th century. The words once used by Edward Hyde of “They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die" are extremely similar to the Riverside Desktop Poem title of "sick of living, unwilling to die," who himself survived a murderous attack, when English sailors nearly killed him at Evreux in France in 1668. If the title of the desktop poem had such lofty origins, it would seem that a library would be of great value once more. A history graduate that can migrate from southern to northern California perhaps? 

MERIAN C. COOPER AND "THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME" (1932)

It has recently been shown how phrases from the Riverside newspapers have been used to create the Riverside Desktop Poem in November/December, The Confession letters on November 29th 1966 and the "Bates Had to Die" letters on April 30th 1967. It seems like the author of the desktop poem trawled through old articles from the local newspaper (the Riverside Daily Press), and used "Clean-cut youth sought in stabbing" from April 17th 1965 about the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood (19). She was stabbed once in the lower abdomen by Rolland Taft while she was walking through a Riverside City College parking lot on April 13th 1965 at 9:30pm. The Riverside Desktop Poem stated "cut, clean, if red/clean. blood spurting, dripping, spilling; all over her new dress". 

The author of the confession letter used the same mimicry on November 29th 1966 by taking phrases and inspiration from the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper on November 24th 1966. This newspaper article was about another 19-year-old female college student, who was offered a ride in a man's car and then attacked, just like the claims in the confession letter five days later. The newspaper article stated that the man "grabbed her around the neck". The confession letter author typed "I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth". The newspaper article stated "I could just hit you in the head with this piece of wood". The confession letter author typed "She let out a scream once and I kicked her in the head to shut her up". The assailant mentioned in the newspaper stated "I'm not Jack the Ripper". The confession letter author typed "But I shall cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see". At one point the assailant offered to "take her home", with the confession letter author typing he "would give her a lift home".

The author of the "Bates Had to Die" letters continued the theme of mimicry from local newspapers. The sender of the three Bates' letters on April 30th 1967 parroted the words used by Jack Matthews, the Staff Writer of the Press-Enterprise newspaper. On the same day the three threatening letters arrived (one to the Press-Enterprise), he wrote an extensive article about the murder of Cheri Jo Bates and the content in the confession letter, stating "The letter told of how Cheri struggled while she was being stabbed to death and the writer said there would be more killings to come". The author of the Bates' letters mimicked this wording by writing "Bates had to die, there will be more".

​On October 19th 1966, eleven days before the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, The Riverside Daily Press ran an article about David Karp's original drama series on ABC Stage 67. It ran from September 14th 1966 to May 4th 1967, featuring 26 episodes. The episode immediately before the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, aired on October 19th 1966, was entitled "The Confession", in which a lieutenant who was unaware of the latest Supreme Court ruling on murder confessions, attempts to coerce a confession from murder suspect Brandon de Wilde. 

​On June 13th 1966 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that law enforcement in the United States must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements or confession cannot be used as evidence at their trial. Specifically, the Court held that under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot use a person's statements made in response to an interrogation while in police custody as evidence at the person's criminal trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with a lawyer before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them before answering questions. ​ 

"The Confession" to the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on November 29th 1966 may have been another time the author mimicked the local Riverside newspaper (four times in total), mockingly confessing to a recent murder, knowing that anything he typed was in advance of any Miranda rights being issued. We have the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood (19) on April 13th 1965, the murder of Cheri Jo Bates (18) on October 30th 1966, the abduction of a young 19-year-old woman on November 22nd 1966, and the fictitious "murder" of Bonnie on October 19th 1966, all wrapped up in three suspicious communications authored in Riverside, using mimicry from the local Riverside newspaper.   

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

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

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

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

It is clear that the author of the three Bates' letters on April 30th 1967 parroted the words used by Jack Matthews, the Staff Writer of the Press-Enterprise newspaper. On the same day the three threatening letters arrived (one to the Press-Enterprise), he wrote an extensive article about the murder of Cheri Jo Bates and the content in the confession letter, stating "The letter told of how Cheri struggled while she was being stabbed to death and the writer said there would be more killings to come". The author of the Bates' letters mimicked this wording by writing "Bates had to die, there will be more" (see foot of article).

​The author of the confession letter used the same mimicry on November 29th 1966 by taking phrases and inspiration from the Press-Enterprise newspaper on November 24th 1966 (see below). This newspaper article was about a 19-year-old woman who was offered a ride in a man's car and then attacked, just like the claims in the confession letter five days later. The newspaper article stated that the man "grabbed her around the neck". The confession letter author typed "I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth". The newspaper article stated "I could just hit you in the head with this piece of wood". The confession letter author typed "She let out a scream once and I kicked her in the head to shut her up". The assailant mentioned in the newspaper stated "I'm not Jack the Ripper". The confession letter author typed "But I shall cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see". At one point the assailant offered to "take her home", with the confession letter author typing he "would give her a lift home". The author of both the Bates' letters and confession letters borrowed phrases from a recently published newspaper article in the Press-Enterprise, and summarily addressed two of these offerings to the same newspaper..The menacing letters came in duplicate on November 29th 1966 and in triplicate on April 30th 1967. The methodology of both authors was extremely similar. The strange signature on two of the Bates' letters followed the wording "There will be more". The author was implying more victims?

​The murder of Cheri Jo Bates (18) and the attack on the 19-year-old woman happened 2 1/2 miles from each other. The man who picked up the woman on Linden Street on November 22nd 1966, had initially given her a lift in his car three weeks earlier. This would have been approximately November 1st 1966, one day after the body of Cheri Jo Bates was found murdered in the driveway alongside Terracina Drive. He was described as 35 years old, 5-foot 9-inches, with a "chunky protruding stomach". I wonder what he looked like on October 11th 1969?

​It is difficult not to see a connection between the Riverside Desktop Poem, Confession letter and Bates' letters when they have the common language of "to die" running through all three, along with the numerous similarities between the poem and the Confession letter, explored here in great detail. A further comprehensive examination of the Confession letter with the then unreleased autopsy report of Cheri Jo Bates, strongly points to an author who knew too much. If the Confession letter author on November 29th 1966 was the murderer of the young college student, then he was very likely responsible for the desktop poem also. 

Only three days after the discovery of Cheri Jo Bates' body on Halloween morning (October 31st 1966), the Riverside Daily Press newspaper published an article on November 3rd 1966 entitled "Key Clue Goes to C11 Unit", comparing the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood (19) on April 13th 1965 with the murder of Cheri Jo Bates.(18) on the same campus (see below). It was soon discovered that Rolland Taft (19), responsible for the attack on Atwood, was still in jail when Cheri was murdered and therefore was not responsible for her murder and any of the subsequent communications. I suspect that the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates read this newspaper article and composed a desktop poem mentioning how Roslyn Atwood was "unwilling to die" and had escaped to a nearby house after her stabbing. with "blood spurting, dripping and spilling over her new red dress". The author concluded that she wouldn't "die this time," but Cheri Jo Bates wouldn't be so lucky, stating "just wait till next time", The addition of "rh" likely dating her demise as happening in Riverside on Halloween, because that is when her body was discovered.

The poem was predominately structured around the Roslyn Atwood attack, and was possibly written in blue ballpoint pen a matter of days after the November 3rd 1966 newspaper article. The Confession letter on November 29th 1966 likely continued where the desktop poem finished off, by describing that "next time". The Confession letter would contrast the fact that Roslyn Atwood was "unwilling to die" by remarking how Cheri Jo Bates "went to the slaughter like a lamb" and "went very willingly". The Confession letter also used the phrase "to die" again, stating "I said it was about time. She asked me "about time for what". I said it was about time for her to die". It must also be noted how the word "time" appeared 5 times in these two communications.   

It is hard to believe that when the desktop poem was discovered in December 1966, a connection wasn't made between the Roslyn Atwood story and the contents of the desktop poem. I have trawled through approximately a dozen newspaper articles about the attempted murder of Roslyn Atwood and found no mention of a "new red dress" in any. All police really had to do was reinterview Roslyn Atwood and discover if she had bought a new red dress shortly before she was stabbed. If she had been able to confirm this fact, it would have placed the desktop poem author and likely murderer of Cheri Jo Bates in her proximity the day she was stabbed. How else could he have reasonably acquired the knowledge she had recently purchased a new red dress and had worn it that night, other than her telling him directly, by somebody who knew Roslyn telling him, or through him overhearing a conversation of her telling someone else?

Roslyn Atwood attended night classes at the Riverside City College and had been attacked traveling home at 9:30pm that night, so it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the desktop poem author attended the same night class as Roslyn, or had been at the Riverside college for other classes on April 13th 1965. Either way, if police could have confirmed she had bought such a dress and was wearing it when she was stabbed, it would have placed the author of the desktop poem extremely close to Roslyn Atwood at the Riverside City College. A college he would have been writing a desktop poem about 19 months later. For those who believe Zodiac to be responsible for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, Roslyn Atwood could be the key.

Ten injuries were noted at autopsy on the right hand of Cheri Jo Bates and only two on her left hand, along with brown Caucasian hairs found in blood at the base of her right thumb (microscopically different to her hair). Just like her killer, there was a 90% chance she was right-handed, which appeared to be her dominant hand during the attack. As was her right arm, which received two knife wounds to the axillay fold (armpit) and mid upper arm. A killer thrusting a knife forward while facing her is not born out by the autopsy report, as demonstrated in these three articles. She was close enough to her killer to grab his hair and scratch either his head, hands, arms or face (because of foreign skin under her fingernails), and likely tear the Timex wristwatch from his left wrist. If Cheri Jo Bates was being held by an assailant from behind with his non-dominant arm and hand around her neck and mouth, his hair, face, arms and wrists would all be in close proximity and make this possible.

Close quarter restraint was also evidenced by the narrow vertical grouping of wounds to her breasts and right axillary fold, and the close mirroring of the knife wound widths on her upper torso (1,4cm, 1.5cm, 1.7cm, 1.9cm) to the estimated width of the blade (0.5 inches/1.27cm), along with what seemed to be compression or strangulation petechiae noted on her forehead at autopsy. If the killer had been forcibly restraining or choking Cheri Jo Bates around the neck from behind, then this compression could increase intra-capilliary pressure by restricting the venous return of blood, thereby creating the petechial haemorrhaging evident on the forehead of the young woman..But why would our killer be using his left hand to choke her? - or as he put it - "grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth and my other hand with a small knife at her throat".

​If we go by statistics, the killer would be right-handed, restraining her from behind with his left arm, while using his right hand to stab backwards into her upper torso. Because a right-handed person usually wears their watch on the non-dominant left side, it would mean that his watch would be over her mouth or neck during the initial part of the attack - and the area she would naturally grab to remove this restriction. This could explain why she pulled the watch from his wrist (and why skin was found under her fingernails). If the killer was facing Cheri Jo Bates and thrusting the knife forward with his right hand in an unrestrained attack, the chance of her being able to grab his left wrist and watch with enough purchase to remove it from his person would diminish in likelihood. It could be argued that there was a higher probability of the watch being yanked from his wrist before the stabbing began (or early part of the attack), because there appeared to be no blood found on the watch, which would be much more likely as the attack unfolded.  

This would explain why the watch was discovered 10 feet distant from her right foot, pulled from the assailant's wrist the moment his left arm was placed around her mouth/neck area. A brief struggle ensued, before she was thrust forward into the ground, detaching the straw bag from her shoulder.  A kick to her head and one knife wound to her back, probably culminated with the seven slice wounds to her neck. A brief, but undeniably horrible and brutal murder of a gregarious, intelligent young woman. 

Zodiac researcher Andrew Gray noted that the author of the Confession letter on November 29th 1966 typed "I plunged the knife into her and it broke", despite this never being featured in the newspapers or detailed at autopsy. It seemed strange to consider a hoaxer just inventing this unnecessary inadequacy regarding the attack if it didn't actually happen. Bearing in mind the sequence of events described above, the plunging of the knife into her appears to be describing the wound to her back, opposite the spinous process of her 7th thoracic vertebrae. This would explain why the small knife could have broken as it struck the bony processes of the spinal column. A broken hinge mechanism would now only be good for the final action of drawing the knife across her neck region, which the author described. Despite volunteering this unnecessary admission of a malfunctioning knife, the author of the Confession letter doesn't address the elephant in the room, notably the Timex watch found by the body of Cheri Jo Bates and mentioned heavily in the newspapers. The inclusion of the broken knife, but omission of the watch, forces one to conclude it was probably his timepiece.

The author of the Confession letter stated "Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands" and "I shall cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see". This focus on "female parts"and "her breast", allied with the claim of "brush offs" in the very next sentence, gives rise to the notion of a sexually motivated attack when one considers there were only three knife wounds to her torso and all three were to her breasts (four attempted wounds to her breasts if you include the axillary fold injury slightly above the right breast). An individual who had focused his unhealthy attention towards the attractive young woman beyond his reach and unattainable, may have driven him to target the very objects of his desire - an attack on her sexuality. The knife wounds to this region was another detail that was absent from the newspapers. The author also claimed that "She let out a scream once and I kicked her in the head to shut her up". The scream was noted in the newspapers, but the "2 cm oblique ragged edge fresh non gaping laceration of the upper lip on the left side, that angles laterally from above and extends completely through the thickness of the lip" was exclusive to the autopsy. A severe kick to the head is perfectly capable of lacerating the lip from back to front without damaging the teeth, if delivered as an angular blow. 

The entire attack, short in duration, with "only" 5 stab wounds to her front upper torso and right arm (clustered in an area measuring 20cm horizontally and 10cm vertically), all above the breast line, taking place in a small section of the driveway, with petechiae on her forehead and the straw bag alongside and partially under her body, suggests an attack of close contact and restraint. The hair from the assailant at the base of her right thumb, the skin under her fingernails and the Timex watch found just 10 feel from her body, confirms this hypothesis and is commensurate with the details provided by the author of the Confession letter, who was probably the killer of Cheri Jo Bates.