It is almost impossible to forge a solid connection to the Zodiac Killer from the Riverside communications, despite some interesting parallels, such as the trinity of letters mailed to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Riverside Police and Joseph Bates in 1967 (and the Confession letters), foreshadowing a similar methodology in the Bay Area of northern California, with communications to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. Both sets of letters possibly containing the letter "Z" and giving us a common thread to "The Most Dangerous Game" and Count Zaroff of yesteryear.

​The two Confession letters mailed in 1966 stated "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game" and "I am stalking your girls now", and offered us a message reminiscent of the flawed character traits of Count Zaroff and Erich Kreiger (A Game of Death, 1945), who were insane, heartless, and psychopathic men with a thirst for stalking and hunting human beings. The question being, were the Confession and Bates letters a precursor to the arrival of Zodiac on July 31st 1969, who boasted that "it was more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all". A "game" that was played in Riverside, Benicia and Vallejo - and would continue into the middle half of 1971, with the "Z" of Count Zaroff seemingly never far away. 

The Zodiac Killer should have been unaware of the Bates letters in 1969 (and what some believe is a stylized "Z" signature), had he not been the author, so it may be noteworthy to point out the possibility of the 408 cipher being signed with the identity of "Z", present on the ring of Count Zaroff in "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932). The Zodiac Killer used the exact phrase uttered by Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of the movie, when interviewed just prior to its release, by encoding the the words "man is the most dangerous animal of all" in his 408 cipher. So would it really be that unusual if he also encoded the letter "Z", taken from the main protagonist and big game hunter, in a story of unbridled madness? 

It is fairly clear that the Zodiac Killer made an error when taking his draft 408 message and separating it into three parts, missing out one complete row of seventeen characters when moving between his letters to the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle. The message on rows 17, 18 and 19 all began with the plaintext letter "E", so it is perfectly easy to comprehend how the Zodiac Killer accidentally skipped one row and left himself with 18 unwanted spaces rather than one. This is where I believe he intended to place his identity of "Z", synonymous with the villainous Russian aristocrat, Count Zaroff, who also enjoyed killing people for nothing more than entertainment.

On the left is the message he likely intended to encode, leaving us with "AFTERLIFEE" at the end of his cipher. The Zodiac Killer placed a dotted circle in the 391st position to give us the extra "E" in afterlife, so one could argue this was supposed to originally complete the 408 cipher and be the signature we had to work out. Only when the cipher key was understood, did it become apparent that the initial ciphertext character to represent the letter "E" in his cipher key was "Z". Whether this was the Zodiac's thinking is unclear, but the evidence is fairly compelling that he never intended to leave us a garbled message of 18 characters, that nobody has come close to explaining in over half a century. The massively interpretative quality of 18 jumbled letters should absolutely tell you that no definitive solution could ever be satisfactorily proven to be the correct answer - and as such - was never the intention of the Bay Area murderer, who was certainly no dummy. But the letter "Z" was, without doubt, an identity he would employ in later communications, with one additional key ingredient always present. This would show itself on October 27th 1970, when the Zodiac Killer selected his Halloween card with a specific message.       

The author of the typed Confession letters on November 29th 1966 claimed their insanity would "not stop the game" of murder, with the Zodiac Killer on July 31st 1969 bragging that killing people was "more fun than killing wild game in the forest", by taking his cues from "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), where the letter "Z" both down south and up north, may have been the signature. Then came the Halloween card on October 27th 1970, in which the Zodiac Killer addressed Paul Avery and selected a card with the message "But, then why spoil our game", while visibly adding the letter "Z" to a communication for the first time, just 20 days prior to the Paul Avery article on November 16th 1970, informing us of the Bates letters from 1967 with a Z-like signature. Seven months later, another letter and cryptogram of 148 characters would be mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, carrying the message "man is the most prized game", taken straight from the playbook of General Zaroff and "The Most Dangerous Game". This letter was signed with a sun cross, the ciphertext character representing the letter "Z" in the cipher. The Zodiac Killer only utilized the word "game" in three communications, on July 31st 1969, October 27th 1970 and May of 1971, with the letter "Z" plausibly embedded in the coding of two, and clearly present in a third. If the Zodiac Killer authored the communications in Riverside, it's possible he added a fourth - and may very well have been correct when he stated his insanity would "not stop the game", as many investigators had the misfortune to find out. 

Richard Connell book, The Most Dangerous Game (1924): "My dear fellow," said the general, "have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration. I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel--at last." The general raised his glass, but Rainsford sat staring at him. "You'll find this game worth playing," the general said enthusiastically." Your brain against mine. Your woodcraft against mine. Your strength and stamina against mine. Outdoor chess! And the stake is not without value, eh?"

The July 31st 1969 letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald provided information that proved the Zodiac Killer was the murderer at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs. To all three newspapers he threatened to go on a kill rampage over the weekend if his demands were not. To the San Francisco Chronicle he stated he was going to target "lone people". To the San Francisco Examiner he stated he was going to target "people who are alone at night". To the Vallejo Times-Herald he stated he was going to target "stray people or coupples that are alone". When he addressed the San Francisco newspapers he promised to target "lone or alone people", but to the Vallejo Times-Herald he opted to use the words "stray people" and "couples". Believing that his first two attacks on couples were committed in Vallejo, it really isn't surprising that he only used the word "couples" when writing to the Vallejo newspaper. Did this suggest his knowledge of courting couples and the areas they frequented was greater in Vallejo rather than San Francisco, because he lived there? 

But why did he opt to use the word "stray" when addressing the Vallejo Times-Herald​, rather than just "alone" or "lone". Stray can mean wander away from the correct path or from a given area, but is commonly used to refer to an animal. A stray sheep symbolizes a person who has wandered from their faith, community, or moral path, representing vulnerability and separation, but also the focus of divine compassion and pursuit, as shown in the Biblical parable where a shepherd joyfully retrieves the single lost sheep. Did the word "stray" leak into the Zodiac Killer's thought process when writing to the Vallejo newspaper because of what occurred on December 20th 1968, and the individual the Zodiac may have originally targeted? Who would have been a person off the beaten path in solitude? Somebody who would have been in pitch darkness, known to frequent a particular remote location (possibly with a schedule), that required the Zodiac Killer to attach a pencil flashlight onto his gun to facilitate a hunt in the wilderness. And more importantly, a relatively safe area for a first kill, where gunshots are a familiar sound to the residents nearby. 

The driverless white Chevrolet Impala was noticed in the Lake Herman Road turnout at 9:00 pm by Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser on their way to the Marshall Ranch. The white Impala was also noticed in the turnout at 10:00 pm by sheepherder Bingo Wesner, who was tending his sheep in the adjoining field, and possibly by Helen Axe at 10:15 pm and 10:30 pm, who after reading publicity surrounding the murders, likely assumed she had seen the Faraday Rambler. But for a few minutes, when William Crow was parked in the turnout (and chased by a mystery vehicle) sometime between 9:30 pm and 10:00 pm, the Chevrolet Impala could have been in the turnout for upwards of 90 minutes on at least two separate occasions.

​The question being, did it arrive a third time carrying the Zodiac Killer to the murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen? The individual driving this vehicle had obviously ventured beyond the roadside for at least 60 minutes (and upwards of 90 minutes) on a freezing night in December, in total darkness. Routine enquiries by police on local residences could have easily eliminated this person as doing anything suspicious, but we have heard nothing about this individual being cleared from the investigation in 57 years. If the person driving the Chevrolet Impala wasn't there on business or visiting friends, what other reason could there be to venture into the fields and hillsides in such inclement weather, other than "hunting"?          

When we first learn of the Zodiac Killer story it's easy to become controlled by the narrative that has gone before, of a killer that arrived at the turnout, pulled alongside the Faraday Rambler, immediately left his vehicle and began the attack to its conclusion, where Betty Lou Jensen received five shots to her back as she is running away, square on to the killer. Of course, the preponderance of the evidence doesn't point to a killer pulling alongside the Rambler when arriving at the turnout, with the killer failing to immediately vacate his vehicle and kill the couple in one continuous sequence, if we believe the testimony of James Owen. And the autopsy proves beyond any doubt that Betty Lou Jensen was not square on to the killer when he began firing at her. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a generational story.

We have an unaccounted for white Chevrolet Impala with an occupant that has seemingly never been traced, parked in a remote turnout in freezing weather, who was confirmed present in the same location twice, as testified by Robert Connelly and Bingo Wesner, within (or close to) one hour before a double murder. A double murder that wouldn't have required an illuminated gunsight had he initially parked behind the Faraday Rambler and prevented it from escaping the turnout. However, when you leave the confines of the turnout on foot at night, additional lighting would have been an absolute must. When we consider the illuminated gunsight mentioned by the Zodiac Killer and the reference to hunting humans rather than wild game in the forest, it brings the unoccupied white Chevrolet, parked next to rolling hills and woods, into sharp focus. High hills and trees that the Zodiac Killer pointed out didn't produce silhouettes on the horizon, and necessitated the use of his pencil flashlight. Everything the Zodiac Killer said here is true, but only for a killer standing in the surrounding fields and trees, not for somebody looking for victims in the turnout with the use of a vehicle. A fact that the Zodiac Killer admitted when finishing his "Debut of Zodiac" letter on August 4th 1969, by stating "there was no need to use the gun sights".

​The.confidence that the Zodiac Killer exhibited when proclaiming "Bullshit that area is surrounded by high hills and trees. What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun". suggested he was more than familiar with that area. He knew that he required a sighting flashlight to roam those hills, but he must also have known he didn't need a sighting flashlight for the turnout, which he ultimately admitted to in his communication. So the fact he claimed he fastened a pencil flashlight onto his gun prior to venturing out that night, strongly indicates he knew he was heading for the fields beyond the Gate #10 turnout that night, rather than cruising around looking for uncertain victims in random turnouts.

A local sheepherder with a routine, in the middle of nowhere, where heard gunshots were nothing out of the ordinary, seems like the perfect victim for a first murder. The stumbling block that may have scuppered the Zodiac Killer's plans, could have been the presence of Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser with their guns and dogs, who chose to go raccoon hunting in the very same area that night. Crossing paths with Bingo Wesner and a safe avoidance of the two hunters probably never materialized for the Zodiac Killer on December 20th 1968. But maybe everything fell into place on his third attempt, with the arrival of the unfortunate David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen into the turnout on their first date. The Zodiac Killer, having failed in his original mission of targeting "stray people in the night", was presented with the conundrum of going home or murdering the young teenagers from Vallejo. The rest is history. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have considered what level of research and newspaper archive digging the Zodiac Killer undertook to prepare his communications, bearing in mind the dedication he devoted to mailings such as the "13-Hole" postcard, "Edward Adams" card and "Pines" postcard, to name but three. His use of the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" in his 408 cipher on July 31st 1969 was taken from a direct quote of Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of the 1932 movie, "The Most Dangerous Game".

​Uttered by Merian C. Cooper immediately after the release of the movie, it only appeared in a handful of 1932 newspapers, until the Zodiac Killer made it newsworthy thirty-seven years later. Other than the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" used by the Zodiac Killer, the only other time I have found this quote, was from Merian C. Cooper in 1932, despite trawling through newspapers back to the distant 17th century. The following observations are likely coincidences, but they too are relevant to the life of Merian C. Cooper.

The exploits of Merian C. Cooper, an American filmmaker, actor, producer and air officer, have been widely publicized, including a 1932 book entitled "Wings Over Poland" by author Kenneth Malcolm Murray, featuring the bombing raids of the Kosciuszko Squadron under the supervision of Captain Merian C. Cooper in which Polish aviators fought to repel the Russians. The following newspaper cutting is taken from "The Lantern" newspaper in Ohio on December 14th 1932, describing the story as a "thrilling experience after thrilling experience on nearly every page of his book". The Zodiac Killer in his 408 cipher stated "I like killing people because it is so much fun - it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all. To kill something gives me the most thrilling experience". Therefore, we have "man is the most dangerous animal of all" and "thrilling experience" connected to Merian C. Cooper in 1932 through book and movie, both present in the 408 cipher. This isn't particularly noteworthy, so let's move forward to 1942 and another Ohio newspaper publication.        

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper in Ohio published an article about bombing raids during World War II on June 17th 1942, with the phrase "darck spot in the center of the circle of light" (see below). This is the exact phrase used by the Zodiac Killer on August 4th 1969 in his "Debut of Zodiac" letter. Before entering the film business, Cooper was a distinguished military officer. He was an aviator in the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I and was shot down and captured by the Germans. He later founded the Kościuszko Squadron of American volunteers who fought for Poland in the Polish-Soviet War, during which he was again shot down and taken as a prisoner of war by the Soviets. He achieved the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Colonel Cooper later served in China as chief of staff for General Claire Chennault of the China Air Task Force, which was the precursor of the Fourteenth Air Force..On October 25th 1942, a CATF raid consisting of 12 B-25s and 7 P-40s, led by Colonel Cooper, successfully bombed the Kowloon Docks at Hong Kong.  

​So, Merian C. Cooper led a bombing raid in 1942 during World War II, with the Zodiac Killer choosing the phrase "darck spot in the center of the circle of light" on August 4th 1969, which can be found in an Ohio newspaper article in 1942 about bombing raids during World War II. This coming after his 408 cipher on July 31st 1969 (four days earlier), in which the Zodiac Killer used the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all", taken from Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" movie in 1932. With the phrase "thrilling experience" being used twice in an Ohio newspaper in 1932, describing the adventures of Merian C. Cooper during bombing raids in the Polish-Soviet War, from a book by ​Kenneth Malcolm Murray.

​Therefore, we have "man is the most dangerous animal of all", "darck spot in the center of the circle of light" and "thrilling experience" in two Zodiac Killer communications in the space of four days, all of which can be directly and indirectly linked to Merian C. Cooper through the newspapers. Did the Zodiac Killer do exactly the same thing in Riverside in 1966, when the author typed the phrase "it was about time for her to die" in the Confession letter? 

Merian C. Cooper was an accomplished U.S. Army Air Force pilot, trained in the art of bombing raids, so it wouldn't be surprising to know that we can find 1,000 foot crosshairs in the Nevada desert made by the National Aeronautics and Space Administrationas as early as the 1950s (used for aerial bombing). They are situated about 20 miles south of the Tonopah Test Range, part of the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), which is one of two military training areas at the Nellis Air Force Base Complex in Nevada and used by the United States Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base. The NTTR land area includes a "simulated Integrated Air Defense System", several individual ranges with 1200 targets, and 4 remote communication sites. The current NTTR area and the range's former areas have been used for aerial gunnery and bombing, for nuclear tests, as a proving ground and flight test area, for aircraft control and warning, and for Blue Flag, Green Flag, and Red Flag exercises. 

These targets in the desert were used in training exercises to determine accuracy, which included the dropping of bombs onto crosshairs such as the one above. The Zodiac Killer used crosshairs in his opening communications and would place a similar target upon Mount Diablo to help locate his bomb on June 26th 1970. The only reason I have brought this up, is because of the specific wording he chose to use in his communication following the 408 cipher, when, on August 4th 1969 he described his methodology of targeting victims in the dark by using a pencil flashlight (which he called an electric gun sight in his "Bus Bomb" letter on November 9th 1969).The Zodiac Killer stated "What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in the light".

The magazine "Battle Stories" in its #11 issue (July 1928) featured a story titled The Winged Dare-Devil, which referenced Merian C. Cooper (listed as Merian R. Cooper in some indexes). Merian C. Cooper, a real-life adventurer, filmmaker (co-creator of King Kong), and U.S. Air Force Brigadier General, had many famous and dangerous exploits. These real-world adventures likely inspired fictional "battle stories" in magazines of the era. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Butterfield has covered the idea of Alfred Hitchcock Presents possibly having some influence on the Zodiac Killer, when the murderer stated in the "Debut" letter on August 4th 1969: "What I did was tape a small pencel flash light to the barrel of my gun. If you notice, in the center of the beam of light if you aim it at a wall or ceiling you will see a black or darck spot in the center of the circle of light about 3 to 6 inches across. When taped to a gun barrel, the bullet will strike in the center of the black dot in the light". He would back this claim up on November 9th 1969 when he wrote "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves."  

In a series of 268 episodes running from 1955 to 1962, Museum Piece aired on April 4th 1961, in which a gun mounted sight on a .22 caliber rifle was used to aid in the hunting of victims, with a cursory mention of "The Most Dangerous Game" in the episode. The suggestion was that the Zodiac Killer may have watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents and used this sighting implement in his first attack at Lake Herman Road on December 20th 1968, before describing it in the "Debut" letter 7 1/2 months later.

Sir Howard Grubb (1844–1931) was an Irish optical engineer renowned for designing and manufacturing high-quality astronomical instruments, including some of the largest telescopes of the 19th century. He inherited and later expanded his father's company, cementing its reputation for precision optics. His innovations also included the invention of the reflector sight and improvements to the submarine periscope. In 1900, Grubb invented the reflector or "reflex" sight, a non-magnifying optical sight that uses a collimator to allow the viewer looking through the sight to see an illuminated image of a reticle or other pattern in front of them that stays in alignment with the device the sight is attached to (parallax free). This type of sight has come to be used on all kinds of weapons from small firearms to fighter aircraft.

​Using this principle, an "electric gun sight" was featured in the monthly publication of "Popular Mechanics" in the early 20th century. Michael Butterfield wrote "The Zodiac was not the first to conceive of a light attached to the barrel of a gun. Articles about a gun light had appeared in the magazine Popular Mechanics as far back as 1922 and 1933". However, the idea of an "electric gun sight" appeared in "Popular Mechanics" a little bit earlier than Michael suggested. The concept first appeared in "Popular Mechanics" in December 1908, and was featured in the San Jose Tribune, Bay Area newspaper on December 20th 1908, the very same day and month that Zodiac claimed he used an electric gun sight in his Lake Herman Road attack. The dates lining up is probably nothing more than coincidence, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.    

In a recent series of articles I attempted to show the thought process of one mind when exploring the feasibility that the Zodiac Killer may have composed communications in both Riverside and the Bay Area, through phrases such as "man is the most dangerous animal of all" and "it was about time for her to die". The thinking being that both the author in Riverside and the Bay Area used microfiche searches at the library when manufacturing the 408 cipher on July 31st 1969 and the "Confession" letter on November 29th 1966. One mind, therefore placing the Zodiac Killer in Riverside just after the murder of Cheri Jo Bates on October 30th 1966. The Confession letter author claimed "I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game", while the author of the July 31st 1969 letters referenced "The Most Dangerous Game" from 1932. But were there any signs of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in the Confession letter on November 29th 1966, therefore binding further the two authors? 

The Confession letter author typed "Miss Bates was stupid. She went to the slaughter like a lamb", yet they twisted the phrase "lamb to the slaughter", which comes from the Bible, specifically the Old Testament books of Isaiah and Jeremiah describing a righteous person being led to death without protest. The phrase symbolizes an innocent, unaware person being led to their own destruction. 

​In the Roald Dahl 1953 short story "Lamb to the Slaughter", the title serves as a dark, dual-meaning metaphor for Mary Maloney, who is initially an innocent, loving wife, but becomes the cunning killer who commits the act of slaughter with the leg of lamb itself. After murdering her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, she then cooks the meat to destroy any evidence and ends up serving the murder weapon in a dinner to responding law enforcement, who kindly oblige and eat the meal. While consuming the lamb, as Mary sits nearby but does not join them, the policemen discuss the murder weapon's possible location. One officer, his mouth full of meat, says it is "probably right under our very noses." I explored the possibility that the author of the Confession letter may have watched or read something about this Roald Dahl story, until I discovered that it had been made into an episode on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" on April 13th 1958 under the same title of "Lamb to the Slaughter".  

If this phrase had been in the Confession letter author's mind when he typed this communication and subsequently mailed it to the Riverside Homicide Detail and Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper, had he recently watched the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Lamb to the Slaughter" in Riverside? Using a newspaper archive search in "Genealogy Bank" using the terms "Lamb to the Slaughter", "California" and the year "1966", I could find only three newspapers advertising this episode (using this platform), but crucially, all three were in November (and one was in Riverside).

​They were the Riverside Daily Press on November 5th 1966, Long Beach Press-Telegram on November 6th 1966 and Long Beach Independent on November 10th 1966. The show was due to air on Thursday, November 10th 1966 on KTLA (channel 5) from Los Angeles, about two weeks before the Confession letter author began typing the two Confession letters. It may have featured elsewhere in America during the year, but importantly, a Riverside resident could have viewed the episode "Lamb to the Slaughter" on television just fourteen days (or slightly more) before they typed "Miss Bates was stupid. She went to the slaughter like a lamb" into the Confession letters. It is impossible to say if a correlation exists between the two because we would have to know the mind of the author. However, if the Confession letter author did derive inspiration from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in Riverside in 1966, did this inspiration spill over to December 20th 1968, August 4th 1969 and November 9th 1969, when his "electric gun sight" took center stage? A murderer called Zodiac who possibly enjoyed murder mysteries. Who would have guessed.      

It has long been thought that the Zodiac Killer had a penchant for the theater, movies and comic books, based upon his letter writing to the newspapers. We don't know whether this was a protracted case of misdirection by the Zodiac Killer, who was simply playing to the audience, or whether the themes he portrayed in his communications were an extension of himself. We know that he was inspired by the exact words of Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), when he created his 408 cryptogram and enciphered the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" - but did any other movies have an influence in the design of his July 31st 1969 letters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle?

​The Zodiac Killer wrote "In this cipher is my idenity" in the Chronicle letter, to which he added the third portion of cipher, stating "I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife". In other words, he promised us an identity, but when the 408 cipher was decoded he assured us that it wouldn't be his name. We know of two identities for the Bay Area murderer [1] The "Zodiac", and [2] "Z". These appeared first in the August 4th 1969 "Debut" letter, and the October 27th 1970 "Halloween" card. One of these identities should be hidden in the 408 cipher if the Zodiac Killer was telling the truth. Unfortunately we have 18 unsolved characters in the 408 cipher which nobody has adequately explained, until David Oranchak highlighted the concept of a missing line. 

One other movie that the Zodiac Killer may have been influenced by was "The Mark of Zorro" released in 1920 and 1940, featuring an individual who had a secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega, a wealthy nobleman who lived in Los Angeles during the Spanish colonial era. By night, he transformed into the masked vigilante "Zorro" (Z), fighting the injustice and oppression of the corrupt. This duality allowed him to operate with impunity, as his true identity remained hidden from those he sought to neutralize. He was a type of masked superhero who left his signature or identity in the form of the letter "Z", often carved onto his slain victims by virtue of his sword. Somebody the Zodiac Killer may have identified with when he masked up for his "adventure" on the shores of Lake Berryessa on September 27th 1969, armed with a bayonet-type weapon. The whole concept of Zorro was a masked man who had ties to early California, whose "secret identity" was cloaked behind the letter "Z" that signed his perilous work. Sounds like the October 27th 1970 "secret pal" card, signed with a "Z". But how does the word "identity" and the signature "Z" tie in with the 408 cipher. The letter mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on July 31st 1969 carried the wording "In this cipher is my idenity", so where is the letter "Z" in the third and final portion of cipher mailed to the Chronicle?

Count Zaroff was the murderous host of "Ship Trap" Island, where unlucky sailors were lured to their fate of being hunted for sport in "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932). Zorro was the masked avenger seeking to right the wrongs of society with his trademark signature that struck fear into his adversaries. The Zodiac Killer seemingly flipped the script and lashed out at the innocent in a society that he had developed an animosity towards - but in all cases - the leading protagonist carried an identity beginning with the letter "Z". Bearing in mind that these two movies may have had an influence on the thinking of the Zodiac Killer, it isn't unrealistic to believe he adopted the letter "Z" from the pseudonym "Zodiac" and inserted it in position 408 in his cipher. An identify just like "Zorro".

​It is a fair to good assumption that the Zodiac Killer made a draft version of his 408 message in a grid of 17 by 24 characters, to be enciphered and mailed in three parts of 136 characters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle - but he made a mistake during this process when moving from the San Francisco Examiner to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. The problem was that the first three lines of the Chronicle section may have all began with the letter "E", so he likely accidentally missed out line 17 from his draft version of the message and continued his enciphering to the Chronicle beginning on line 18 instead (see associated image).

​This created the error in the deciphered message of "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (?) I have killed will become my slaves". His letters to the Vallejo Times-Herald, San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle described his potential dozen victims as being "couples", "stray people", "lone people" or "people who are alone in the night". Therefore, the missing line preceding "I HAVE KILLED" probably contained these descriptors. The original message could have read "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the lone or stray people I have killed will become my slaves". ​Had the Zodiac Killer not made this error, we would have been left with one unexplained character in position 408 (the letter E).

David Oranchak noted in his 408 cipher analysis that the Zodiac Killer adopted noticeable cycles in his encryption technique when allocating ciphertext characters to the same plaintext letter. Below is one for the plaintext letter "E", which David shows here in his YouTube video.

It appeared that the Zodiac Killer's original message read perfectly well for 407 characters (finishing with "for my afterlife"), but then he placed the letter "E" to end the 408 message. Was this his identity or signature we had to further decode? The plaintext letter "E" is first represented by the letter "Z" in Zodiac's cycled code key above. Is it possible that we had to run this anomalous letter through the key for a second time to reveal his true identity?  Could this be the link between the Bates letters mailed in Riverside in 1967, thereby binding the two cases together through a trinity of communications spanning two years?   

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674) was an English statesman, lawyer, diplomat and historian who served as chief advisor to Charles I during the First English Civil War, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II from 1660 to 1667. One of the most famous quotes attributed to him and present in the newspapers throughout the 18th and 19th century, included the phrase "weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die", similar to the Riverside Desktop Poem title of "sick of living, unwilling to die". This on its own wouldn't be that interesting, but for the fact that Zodiac cryptologist, David Oranchak, showed that Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon featured in a book called “The life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England: Volume 2", detailing his life from birth to his banishment in 1667, in which a chunk of text comprising of 46 consecutive letters could fit into the 408 cipher. Although David Oranchak described this as a one in eleven billion chance, he stated "don’t be fooled by this. Just because this rare event occurred, doesn’t mean it is anything more than a simple coincidence".

​However, the phrase "unwilling to die" was not only part of the Riverside Desktop Poem title, it had relevance to both the Confession letters and Bates letters. The phrase "to die" appears a further four times in these letters, and the desktop poem title uses the word "unwilling", to which the Confession letter states "She was then very willing to talk to me" and "She went very willingly". But probably the most interesting aspect of the Edward Hyde text featuring in Zodiac's 408 cipher, is that Edward Hyde regularly used ciphers to communicate with King Charles II of England during his exile [1] [2]. Therefore, it is strange that the text from the Edward Hyde book, who himself dealt in ciphers, featured in a cipher by Zodiac, whether accidental or not. You might believe the coincidences stop there, but they don't.   

King Charles II of England, who exchanged ciphers with Edward Hyde, also had loose connections to the 408 cipher. King Charles II of England, who reigned from 1660 to 1685, was known for the Restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War and the period of the Commonwealth. He was also a patron of the arts and sciences, and his reign saw the publication of John Milton's Paradise Lost, an epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. Both Milton and Hyde died in the same year..

Milton scholar John Leonard interpreted the "impious war" between Heaven and Hell as civil war. Paradise Lost is, among other things, a poem about civil war. Satan raises "impious war in Heav'n" by leading a third of the angels in revolt against God. The term "impious war" implies that civil war is impious. But Milton applauded the English people for having the courage to depose and execute King Charles I. In his poem, however, he takes the side of "Heav'n's awful Monarch".

​Critics have long wrestled with the question of why an antimonarchist and defender of regicide should have chosen a subject that obliged him to defend monarchical authority. Both Milton’s prose works and poetry were banned. The prose was banned by King Charles II because Milton passionately and publicly opposed the two most powerful institutions of his day: the British monarchy and the established church (Anglican in England and Scotland and Catholic worldwide)..When Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, he issued a proclamation calling for two of Milton's books to be publicly burned by the hangman. Here is a Charles II copy of John Milton's Paradise Lost from 1667 (the date of its publication), stamped in gilt with the cipher of Charles II on the cover. The spine of the book was spelled "PARADICE LOST".

I dug a little further and found this 1890 book of Paradise Lost from the Library of Congress (see below). Chapter VII contained the text "A mercy-seat of gold, between the wings of two bright Cherubim; before him burn seven lamps as in a Zodiac representing the heavenly fires". The word "Zodiac" appeared in Chapter 7, line 255, of page 408. We now had "paradise", "Zodiac" and "408" in John Milton's book, a renowned epic poem first published in 1667, exploring the biblical story of the Fall of Man. John Milton, King Charles II and Edward Hyde from the 17th century can all be somewhat linked to the 408 cipher. 

There is good argument to be had that the Zodiac Killer began the design of his July 31st 1969 letters and 408 cipher shortly after July 20th 1969, when the movie "Rampage" (1963), based loosely on "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), was screened on television throughout the Bay Area. This was a film originally championed by movie posters, newspaper advertisements and the original Warner Brothers press book, carrying the slogans "The woman who was the most dangerous game of all", "The screen's mightiest excitements go on the rampage", "Big, Bold, Bob Mitchum is on a Rampage", "They lived, loved and fought by the code of the jungle" and "His code was to snare everything". It isn't difficult to see how the Zodiac Killer would then create a trinity of letters carrying the message that "man is the most dangerous animal of all" and that he would "go on a kill rampage". part enciphered within a code. This film, screened on American television just eleven days earlier, even had crosshairs featured in the opening credits of the movie. 

However, this movie was likely the inspiration for the Zodiac Killer to delve into the newspaper archives and conduct some research into the original film "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), using tools such as library microfiche. I recreated this possible research and looked for the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" from 1690 to 1969 and found only one result in 1932.

​Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" was interviewed upon its release, and he was quoted as saying "man is the most dangerous animal of all". The Zodiac Killer had effectively plagiarized this quote and embedded it into his code. It turned out that Merian C. Cooper, an avid game hunter and explorer, had done something similar, taking the phrase from a quote by Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne, another game hunter. 

​Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne had previously stated that "The most dangerous animal of all to capture is the gorilla", that was likely picked up by Merian C. Cooper because he was working on the movie "King Kong" at the same time he was involved in the making of "The Most Dangerous Game". "King Kong" was directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper.

​Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne and Merian C. Cooper had both worked for RKO Pictures inside of one year from one another. The movie company behind both "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932) and "King Kong" (1933) was RKO Pictures.

It appears as though DNA and fingerprint analysis has failed to bridge the gap between Riverside and the Bay Area murders, as has analyzing the text of the Riverside communications to forge a conclusive link in language between southern and northern California. This left one final option: discovering a commonality in design between the lengthy Riverside Confession letter and the July 31st 1969 letters mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald. In other words, was there a recent trigger that caused the Confession letter author to delve into the library microfiche for suitable quotes from yesteryear? Long suspected to be based upon "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), the 408 cipher author just happened to harvest the exact quote from its associate producer, spoken in 1932. What are the chances that the Confession letter author would find a equal length quote for his November 29th 1966 typed letter, harvested from the year of "Jack the Ripper" in 1888, after mimicking the wording from a recent newspaper article mentioning Cheri Jo Bates and "Jack the Ripper"? (see article clipping above).  

The author of the Confession letter seemed to borrow phrases from The Press-Enterprise newspaper on November 24th 1966. The newspaper article generated in the above link 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". Both the Confession letter author and the man featured in the above newspaper offered the woman a lift home. 
​
​After reading the newspaper article on November 24th 1966 quoting "Jack the Ripper", its easy to reconcile a Confession letter author typing "Ripper" like phrases such as "cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see", "finished the job out cutting her throat" and "I am stalking your girls now". Especially when the additional phrase of "it was about time for her to die", present in the Confession letter, could only be found in one newspaper article on December 11th 1888 (the year of "Jack the Ripper"), from newspaper archive searches spanning 1690 to 1966. December 11th 1888 being the same day it was reported that "Jack the Ripper" had possibly "cut the throat" of a woman on Bermondsey Street in London, causing great excitement in the neighborhood. 

As far as can be ascertained, it appears as though the white Chevrolet Impala described by Robert Connelly, Frank Gasser and Bingo Wesner in the Lake Herman Road police report never made it into the newspapers. This may have been held back to not encourage the driver of this vehicle to distance themself from it, as they attempted to track it down. However, subsequent to the second attack at Blue Rock Springs, the description of this vehicle, allied with the description of the man given by Michael Mageau, may have been useful in the public domain to gain assistance that was badly needed by police. Somebody may have known of an individual who had recently sold (or no longer drove) such a vehicle, had this person attempted to part company with the Chevrolet. A revised search could also have been done after Presidio Heights, when new descriptions of the killer were submitted by three sets of eyewitnesses within minutes of one another. 

This individual parked the Chevrolet Impala in the Lake Herman Road turnout sometime prior to 9pm and 10pm on December 20th 1968 and wandered off into the night, before returning. Had this been the Zodiac Killer hunting for victims in the adjoining fields, the description of a pencil flashlight mounted on a gun now doesn't seem so fanciful. Apart from the eyewitnesses in the police report, only the Zodiac Killer would have known of this vacant Chevrolet Impala (had it been his). In other words, the Zodiac Killer may have brought up the notion of gun-mounted illumination, because he knew the hunt for victims initially extended beyond the turnout perimeter. An additional source of illumination that wouldn't have been required had the Zodiac Killer arrived at the turnout shortly after 11pm and remained within the confines of the turnout throughout. His murder of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen could easily have been achieved in a similar manner to that used at Blue Rock Springs, employing the headlights from his vehicle and/or a handheld flashlight to illuminate his victims from close range. The use of a pencil flashlight buys into the notion of a hunter stalking the surrounding fields of Lake Herman, along with his use of the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" in the 408 cipher, plagiarized from the words of two big game hunters in Merian C. Cooper and ​Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne, who both worked for RKO Pictures in the 1930s.

The vacant white Chevrolet Impala close to 9pm, and sometime after 10pm coincides with Robert Connelly and Frank Gasser hunting raccoons in the adjoining field, so this may explain why the owner of the Chevrolet Impala decided to abandon his plans for murder during this time period (to possibly target Bingo Wesner or another). The thought of encountering two hunters was probably something he hadn't bargained for, resulting in him leaving twice and arriving for a final time shortly after 11pm.

​This time he saw David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen parked up in their Rambler, making any venture into the surrounding fields unnecessary. No wonder he wrote on August 4th 1969 "there was no need to use the gun sights.  All I had to do was spray them as if it was a water hose". There was never any need to use gun sights in the turnout - but for a hunter stalking his prey in the fields of Lake Herman at distance, having left his vehicle for a protracted length of time - the marksmanship provided by gun sights would have come in much more useful. A Zodiac Killer driving a 1959/1960 white Chevrolet Impala, that he was only too glad to concede was brown in the very same letter.  

When interviewed about the release of the movie "The Most Dangerous Game" in 1932, its associate producer, Merian Caldwell Cooper (born 1893) replied "man is the most dangerous animal of all". Merian C. Cooper wasn't only known as a filmmaker, actor and producer, he was an officer with the United States Army Air Service and Polish Air Force, who began his fledgling movie career as part of the Explorers Club, traveling the world and thoroughly documenting his adventures.

As a young 6-year-old, he decided that he wanted to become an explorer after reading stories from the book "Explorations and Adventures in Equitorial Africa". Cooper would eventually realise those ambitions. He was also a big game hunter, so when the script for the upcoming movie "The Most Dangerous Game" was presented to him, it obviously appealed greatly to his penchant for adventure, detailing a psychotic big game hunter who deliberately strands a luxury yacht on a remote island, where he plans to hunt its passengers for sport. This movie title has been touted as the inspiration for the Zodiac Killer's wording in the 408 cipher, but it seems that the quote given by Merian C. Cooper to a reporter of "man is the most dangerous animal of all", was the likely origin for the Zodiac Killer's choice of words in his lengthy cryptogram. Something that he could only reasonably have found by trawling through microfiche reels in the library. Currently, I have only found this exact quote in three newspapers, all from America in 1932. 

However, "The Most Dangerous Game" wasn't the pinnacle of his movie career, because in 1933 the much acclaimed movie "King Kong" was released by RKO Radio Pictures, directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Cooper was inspired to create the character of King Kong, a giant ape, after developing a scenario for a “gorilla picture” in 1929. Cooper's original concept for the film involved a giant gorilla who kidnaps a woman, fights dragons, and is defeated by modern technology. His fascination for adventure and hunting would coalesce to produce a film praised by critics and the viewing public for its stop-motion animation and score.

​But did the conception of "King Kong" and his love of big game hunting play any part in his quotation of "man is the most dangerous animal of all"? There is a strong likelihood that the Zodiac Killer took this phrase from Merian C. Cooper, but did Cooper develop this phrase from somebody else before him? Somebody who was also an adventurer and big game hunter, who came face to face with a gorilla in Africa. An adventurer who would almost certainly have been known to Merian C, Cooper.  

To cover the story of Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne (born 1877) would take forever, so here is a condensed version of this infamous character, described as a soldier, big game hunter, journalist and spy, who fought with the Boers in the Second Boer War and as a secret agent for Germany during both World Wars, and became known as the man who killed Lord Kitchener, a British Army officer and colonial administrator. Duquesne was an advisor to US President Theodore Roosevelt on big-game hunting, as a publicist in the movie business, as a journalist, as a fictional Australian war hero and as head of the New Food Society in New York. As a youth, Duquesne became a hunter like his father. His hunting skills proved useful not only in the African landscape, but also later in life, when he would publish articles about and give lectures on big-game hunting. Below is a newspaper cutting from 1912 describing one of Roosevelt's hunts in Africa, with the sub-headline "The First Hunt for Buffalo, the Most Dangerous Game in Africa". In numerous statewide articles in America throughout the years, Frederick Duquesne was featured in countless stories, including full page spreads on big-game hunting.​ One of which we'll get to soon.

During the Second Boer War, Duquesne was under orders to assassinate Frederick Russell Burnham, the American acting as Chief of Scouts for the British Army. After the war, Burnham remained active in counter-espionage for the British, and much of it involved keeping track of Duquesne. In 1910 he and Representative Robert Broussard founded the New Food Supply Society to import useful African wildlife into the US as a solution to a serious American meat shortage, and Broussard selected Duquesne as an expert. In support of this plan, Broussard introduced H.R. 23261, also known as the American Hippo Bill, attempting the appropriation of $250,000 to import hippopotamus into the Louisiana bayous as a food source and to control the water hyacinth then clogging Southern river systems. Former US President Theodore Roosevelt backed the plan, as did the US Department of Agriculture, as well as editorial writers in The Washington Post and The New York Times, which praised the taste of hippopotamus as "lake cow bacon". Duquesne's expert testimony on this subject before the House Committee on Agriculture is recorded in the Congressional Record. The bill fell just short of passing, and the New Foods organization was disbanded. Wikipedia. 

​Duquesne was wanted by His Majesy's government for murder on the high seas, but fled to Mexico and Europe. In 1926 he moved back to New York and assumed a new identity as Frank de Trafford Craven. He worked for Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO Pictures), and later RKO Pictures in 1928, as part of the publicity staff. As part of this job he moved back to Manhattan, where he was well-known under his real name. In 1930, Duquesne moved to the Quigley Publishing Company, a producer of movie magazines, and called himself Major Craven. This is just the tip of the iceberg, so if you want to read the rest of his life story, click here.

​Both Merian C. Cooper and Fredeick Duquesne worked for RKO Pictures, with Cooper joining RKO Pictures in 1931, just before the release of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932) and "King Kong" (1933). With their common lifelong interest in adventure and big-game hunting, and both employed by RKO Pictures during a similar time period, it is not difficult to see how Merian C. Cooper came upon the words "man is the most dangerous animal of all". In one of Frederick Duquesne's many ventures into Africa, he spoke of a "Blood Curdling Gorilla Hunt" in 1909 that was covered extensively in US newspapers, stating that "The most dangerous animal of all to capture is the gorilla". 

​The filming for "The Most Dangerous Game" and "King Kong" by RKO Pictures overlapped in 1932, so it can be strongly argued that Merian C. Cooper took the quote of "The most dangerous animal of all to capture is the gorilla" from Duquesne, and during the filming of "King Kong" he repackaged it to read ​"man is the most dangerous animal of all" to fit the narrative of "The Most Dangerous Game", which replaced hunting animals with the hunting of humans. So the phraseology of the Zodiac Killer in his 408 cipher on July 31st 1969 may have its roots as far back as 1909 in the words of Frederick "Fritz" Joubert Duquesne. The Zodiac Killer's wording of "I like killing people because it is so much fun, it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all", now makes a lot more sense. His claim of using a pencil flashlight on his gun on August 4th 1969 so he could hunt victims, is in keeping with his trinity of letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald.

​Anybody reading the numerous Lake Herman Road newspaper articles would have been aware that one eyewitness reported seeing a second vehicle in the turnout with the Faraday Rambler, but nobody would have been aware of the empty Chevrolet Impala parked in the turnout at 9pm and 10pm on December 20th 1968, except the police and each of the eyewitnesses that night - and probably the killer. If the occupant of this vehicle had traveled into the adjoining fields on two occasions, looking for victims, they would have required additional illumination such as a carry flashlight or gun-mounted flaslight.

If this was the murderer's vehicle he would have known this. Therefore, the claims of the August 4th 1969 letter writer stating that he used a pencil flashlight for extra illumination is extremely noteworthy. Extra illumination would not have been required in the turnout when you have the use of headlights from your vehicle, along with the illumination from within each vehicle. Also, extra illumination would certainly not have been required if the murderer had kept the couple penned inside their vehicle. The only person that would have required additional illumination (either carried or gun-mounted) would have been somebody venturing into the fields surrounding the turnout. Such as the driver of the white Chevrolet Impala, who apparently never came forward. ​There is a distinct possibility that this Chevrolet owner wrote the "Debut of Zodiac" letter, because this person had a viable reason to carry additional illumination as he distanced himself from his vehicle that night. Not once, but twice, on a freezing dark night in Benicia. Possibly an individual, who on July 31st 1969, would promote the idea of hunting humans in the wilderness because it was more fun than killing wild game in the forest. 

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 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. 

The film Rampage (1963) borrowed elements of "The Most Dangerous Game", including "The woman who was the most dangerous game of all", while using "Big, Bold, Bob Mitchum is on a Rampage" in its promotional advertisements, along with "They lived, loved and fought by the code of the jungle" and "His code was to snare everything". Bearing in mind the choice of words used by the Zodiac Killer in his code and letters on July 31st 1969, coupled with the crosshairs he adopted, which featured in the opening sequence of the "Rampage" movie, this production had many interesting parallels and appeared on US television screens in California just 11 days prior to Zodiac's opening communications. "A Game of Death" was showing in California three weeks before the typed Confession letters arrived at the Riverside Homicide Detail and Riverside Press Enterprise in 1966.

The Riverside Desktop Poem, Confession letters and "Bates Had to Die" letters had a consistency of language that permeated all three, shown in this article (and the image below). Another point of interest, is that all three communications ended in similar fashion. The Riverside Desktop Poem finished with "Just wait till next time", the two Confession letters finished with "Beware....I am stalking your girls now", and the Bates' letters finished with "there will be more". All three, by implication, promising death in the near future. These Riverside communications had a consistency of menace and language, but they were all fashioned in markedly contrasting ways. One was written on a desktop in blue ballpoint pen (for the most part) in lower case handwriting. Both Confession letters were typed (with the envelopes in capital letters), and the Bates' letters were written in, what can only described as scrawl (with no consistency). One could argue that if all of these communications were authored by one person, then they had deliberately manufactured them with such difference of design, so as to disguise this fact to the reader. If deception was their intention, I would argue that they failed miserably because of the similarity of language that flowed from one to the other.  

"The Most Dangerous Game" heavily focused on a tense stalking sequence in the second half of the movie as Rainsford and Eve attempted to outwit Count Zaroff as he tracked them while wielding his prized Tatar war bow. The 1945 film mimics the original for the most part. Therefore, is it a coincidence that after the Confession letter stated "I am insane. But that will not stop the game", it concluded with "I am stalking your girls now". It appeared that the "game" was stalking women as prey. This stalking would seemingly continue on July 31st 1969, when the Zodiac Killer began with "I like killing people because it is so much fun - it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all". Was the game employed by the Zodiac Killer, at least in a literary sense, continuing after 32 months? Was the Zodiac Killer operating in Riverside in 1966 (at least with his communications), or was he simply incorporating the story of Riverside into his current campaign of terror in the Bay Area of northern California?  
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ADDITIONAL READING: RETHINKING "THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME" 

It is far too simplistic to make the jump from the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" from the 408 cipher to "The Most Dangerous Game" short story by Richard Connell (1924) and/or the film version by RKO Radio Pictures (1932). The phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" stands alone in its own right as an utterance by Merian C. Cooper, a filmmaker, actor and producer, recognized as an authority on jungle life. The overwhelming majority of his films gracing our screens were produced in the first half of the 20th century, including King Kong (1933), in which he was both director and producer during its making throughout 1932. This project ran alongside the release of "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), to which he was the associate producer.

Upon release of "The Most Dangerous Game" he declared that "man is the most dangerous animal of all", because the movie featured a madman who switched from hunting animals to hunting humans on a remote island. This was the origin phrase used by the Zodiac Killer when he mailed the first part of the 408 cryptogram to the Vallejo Times-Herald on July 31st 1969. Therefore, the loose translation from "The Most Dangerous Game" to "The Most Dangerous Animal" was in fact correct, because of the below quotation by Merian C. Cooper about the movie in the newspapers. It stated "Merian C. Cooper, a recognized authority on jungle life declares man is the most dangerous animal of all".

A young Zodiac fascinated by movies would have had ample opportunities to watch adventure films such as Rango, The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong during his formative years. However, this word-for-word mimicking of "man is the most dangerous animal of all" in his 408 cipher - one would have thought - likely came from something more contemporary which reminded him of its origins.

Recently it was shown that the 1963 movie "Rampage" had all those ingredients, including the phrases "The woman who was the most dangerous game of all" (man is the most dangerous animal of all), "go on the rampage" (go on a kill rampage), "a dozen men" (a dozen people) and the crosshairs over the movie title during the opening credits of the movie. The book "Rampage" by Alan Caillou, the movie poster and original Warner Brothers press book cover, along with the newspapers, contained numerous references to these phrases. It was also ironic that the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" would be placed by the Zodiac Killer within a code, when statewide, the "Rampage" movie would be advertised in the newspapers under the wording "They lived, loved and fought by the code of the jungle" [1] and "His code was to snare everything" [2].. The movie "Rampage" was broadcast on US television on July 20th 1969 (Channel 2), 11 days before the July 31st 1969 letters were mailed by the Zodiac Killer - with the movie advertised in the San Francisco Examiner, Sacramento Bee, Oakland Tribune, Berkeley Gazette and Santa Cruz Sentinel, to name just a few. To read the full story click here.

The original phraseology of "man is the most dangerous animal of all" was born from the movie "The Most Dangerous Game" through Merian C. Cooper in 1932, but the additional phrases mentioned above (including the crosshairs and code) used by the Zodiac Killer on July 31st 1969, may have been inspired by the more contemporary movie "Rampage" (1963). It seems that both may have played a role in the theatrics of the Zodiac Killer.  

One of the long-standing questions in the Zodiac community is whether a solid link can be forged between the Riverside murder of Cheri Jo Bates and/or the associated communications in 1966 and 1967, with the crimes or letters of the Zodiac Killer, beginning on December 20th 1968. On April 30th 1967, somebody mailed three letters to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Riverside Police Department and Joseph Bates stating "She had to die. There will be more" and "Bates had to die. There will be more".

​This approach would be somewhat mimicked by the Zodiac Killer on July 31st 1969 (without the 1967 Bates letters currently published), who mailed three letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Vallejo Times-Herald with his hidden cryptographic message of "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the I have killed will become my slaves". One individual had already used the phrase "to die" in the Riverside Desktop Poem, Confession letters and Bates letters (six times), so looking at the transition from "she had to die" to "when I die" from Riverside to the Bay Area, it is certainly worth looking into further. Especially when you consider the fact that the Zodiac Killer never used the word "die" in any of his subsequent communications.    

Also noteworthy, but not compelling, was the continuation in the religious overtones of "The Confession" letter and "She went to the slaughter like a lamb. She did not put up a struggle", to the message of the Zodiac Killer in the 408 cryptogram, in which he enciphered the wording "paradice", "reborn" and "afterlife" with respect to his death (when I die). The saying, "Like sheep to the slaughter", was used in respect to the notion of Jewish people being led passively to their deaths during the Holocaust. In other words, the suggestion that they offered no resistance or struggle - to be articulated by "The Confession" letter author when they typed "She (Bates) did not put up a struggle". and "She went very willingly". Cheri Jo Bates, it was claimed, was being marched passively to her death.       

Just a few months before the November 29th 1966 "Confession" letter, Jean-François Steiner released a highly controversial book entitled Treblinka: The Revolt of an Extermination Camp, claiming that the Jews were led "like sheep to the slaughter" - and in doing so - caused worldwide consternation in the newspapers. Although Steiner was not the originator of the phrase, it nevertheless was contemporary to 1966 to anybody who was well-versed in literature or recent newspaper coverage. If the author of the 1966 Riverside Desktop Poem can borrow headlines from The Press and Daily Enterprise on April 17th 1965 entitled "Clean-cut Youth Sought In Stabbing", then they can do the same in the case of the Jean Francois Steiner story. Changing "sheep to the slaughter" into "slaughter like a lamb".

In Isaiah 53, a chapter in the Hebrew Bible tells of a virtuous servant who is murdered but does not protest: "Like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a lamb that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth". The Confession letter author typed "I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth and my other hand with a small knife at her throat. She went very willingly". There appears a mix of religiosity with contemporary news in the Confession letter, but it still isn't compelling. 

A link to Alfred Hitchcock and the Lake Herman Road murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968 has been suggested by Zodiac researchers, who highlighted the 1961 episode of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, entitled Museum Piece. Aired on April 4th 1961, it featured an individual who used a light attached to his .22 caliber rifle in the commission of a murder, just as the Zodiac Killer had claimed in his follow up to the July 31st 1969 letters. The father of the convicted killer appealed to the district attorney about his son's innocence, which was rejected. The district attorney is then murdered - to which the father latterly reminisced “I remember the excitement of the manhunt. The most dangerous game”. Three years earlier, on April 13th 1958, Alfred Hitchcock Presents released an episode entitled "Lamb to the Slaughter", which was not that dissimilar to the phrase "to the slaughter like a lamb" used in the Confession letter. These observations ultimately fail to cement a link between Riverside and the Zodiac Killer, but the definitive answers we seek may still be found one day. 

Not convinced that a previous observation of the Adventures in Paradise television series played a role in the Zodiac Killer's choice of words in the 408 cryptogram, I began looking for more contemporary offerings from a religious aspect, in respect to the phrase "reborn in paradise". Bearing in mind that the Zodiac Killer, in two letters, paraphrased three acts from The Mikado, a comic opera set in Japan, and used Japanese style symbolism at the foot of the Exorcist letter, it had to be a possibility that "reborn in paradise" was a product of Japanese history.

If the Zodiac Killer had a leaning towards Japanese culture, was he aware of the annual Obon festival, which is observed from the 13th to the 15th day of the 7th month. However, because of differences in the solar and lunar calendar, the 7th month is either July or August. Obon is therefore celebrated at different times in different regions, on and between these dates. This can be seen in the July 26th 1969 Stockton and Evening Record newspaper shown below, where the Buddhist holiday, born from the legend of a suffering mother "reborn into paradise", was held on August 2nd and 3rd - beginning the day after the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher carrying the phrase "reborn in paradise" arrived at three newspapers. The Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher was mailed between July 15th and August 15th 1969, with its conception likely earlier. 

If the Zodiac Killer's life and/or thought processes were shaped by Japanese influences, then he would have had an interest in any newspaper or television coverage pertaining to this subject. It was previously shown how the Zodiac Killer's letters mailed on January 29th 1974, April 24th 1978 and May 2nd 1978 were heavily influenced by the Golden Globe and Academy Award ceremonies, so could the Bay Area murderer have been triggered by any recent event he had read or watched on television, that kept the phrase "reborn in paradise" in the forefront of his mind? Could he have created the 408 cipher shortly after the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen on December 20th 1968 and added the accompanying text after his second attack on July 4th/5th 1969? On October 17th 1968, Yasunari Kawabata became the first Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, before giving a Nobel lecture on December 12th 1968 entitled "Japan, the Beautiful and Myself". In part of his speech he stated "If Buddhism is divided generally into the sects that believe in salvation by faith and those that believe in salvation by one's own efforts, then of course there must be such violent utterances in Zen, which insists upon salvation by one's own efforts. On the other side, the side of salvation by faith, Shinran, the founder of the Shin sect, once said: "The good shall be reborn in paradise, and how much more shall it be so with the bad". This view of things has something in common with Ikkyu's world of the Buddha and world of the devil".