CHERI JO BATES-THE MURDERER SHE KNEW

11/21/2019

In the following examination we shall take a further look at statements by several key eyewitnesses on the evening of October 30th 1966, shortly before the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. The first being Walter Siebert and the four workmen. Walter Siebert stated that "he and a few friends were in the library from 7:15 pm until 9, but did not see Miss Bates, whom they all knew. They said they saw four men dressed in work clothes sitting on a fence across from the spot where Miss Bates' car was found, but they did not know them". This statement is explicit, when it mentions that Walter Siebert noticed the four workmen opposite to where Cheri Jo Bates' vehicle was "found", not opposite her vehicle on the night of the murder. It is apparent that Walter Siebert already knew where the young woman's vehicle had been found on October 31st 1966 and told police that four workmen were sitting in that location on the evening of the murder, but he never saw Cheri Jo Bates - and never mentioned seeing her vehicle that night either. Now let us consider the brief statement of the four workmen.

They stated "they had seen Cheri Jo near her car the previous night". If they knew it was her vehicle, there is a high probability they saw the young woman either exit her vehicle to proceed to the library, or enter her vehicle to drive away and place the books she had acquired from the library on the passenger seat. If we coalesced the two statements of Walter Siebert and the four workmen as a one time event, then it's clear that the four workmen saw Cheri Jo Bates, but Walter Siebert didn't. If this were the case, the young woman couldn't have been exiting her vehicle at 7:15 pm to enter the library, because shortly afterwards Walter Siebert entered the library with a few friends "but did not see Miss Bates, whom they all knew". Had Cheri Jo Bates been exiting the library and entering her vehicle at 7:15 pm to drive away, the four workmen would have noticed her failing to start the car and being offered assistance by the "good Samaritan", but they mentioned neither. Therefore, the workmen couldn't have been present on the fence opposite her vehicle at 7:15 pm at the same time they saw Cheri. They must have seen her at a different time.

A Mexican-American student: stated 'he knew Cheri Jo Bates and had noticed her in the library the night in question. He said he saw the girl "writing something with a ball point pen in her blue spiral school notebook". The boy told us he was outside about 5:30 pm, waiting for the library to open at 6, and it was then he saw the girl'. In part, this is an ambiguous statement, but clearly states that he saw Cheri Jo Bates "in" the library that evening shortly after it had opened. If the four workmen saw Cheri Jo Bates when she parked her vehicle to enter the library around 6:00 pm, then we have to consider the Confession Letter mailed on November 29th 1966, which stated "I first pulled the middle wire from the distributor. Then I waited for her in the library and followed her out after about two minutes. The battery must have been about dead by then. I then offered to help". The idea that her car was disabled shortly after she exited her vehicle and entered the library, before leaving two minutes later, would have required the four workmen seeing neither the man disabling her vehicle, Cheri Jo Bates failing to start her vehicle, or the man assisting and talking to Cheri Jo Bates. They clearly recalled none of these events, otherwise police wouldn't be at a loss as to what happened that evening.

Since we know Cheri Jo Bates entered the library around 6:00 pm opening time, the four workmen must have seen the young woman at this time, because no other sightings were given to police of Cheri Jo Bates subsequent to this period of time. The four workmen described no activity of any note regarding her Volkswagen Beetle. There is a small window of time that can be argued however. Could the workmen have noticed Cheri Jo Bates park her vehicle and walk to the library, and then left the arrea - at which point the perpetrator disabled her vehicle? For this to be the case, we would have to believe that Cheri Jo Bates arrived back at her vehicle shortly after 6:00 pm and after failing to start her vehicle, the amiable "good Samaritan" offered his assistance. The Confession Letter stated "She was then very willing to talk to me. I told her that my car was down the street and that I would give her a lift home". So obviously, Cheri Jo Bates having spoken to this friendly and helpful "good Samaritan", decided to totally ignore the library which had a telephone and proceeded to walk off with this person, leaving her windows rolled down, the vehicle unlocked, one door slightly ajar and her keys in the ignition (that may also have had her house keys on). This was her prized Volkswagen Beetle, but thought "what the heck", I'll trundle off down this dark alleyway (even though she was afraid of the dark) with a complete stranger. Even if she knew the person, who to this point was friendly, it doesn't make any sense that she would leave her vehicle in such disarray.

At approximately 9:30 pm, a female student purportedly noticed a man standing in the fateful alleyway smoking a cigarette and exchanged brief greetings with him. She later failed to identify anybody from a photographic line-up, including 'Bob Barnett', the prime suspect in the Riverside Police Department investigation. He would later be excluded using mitochondrial DNA retrieved from blood-clotted hair found at the base of Cheri Jo Bates' right thumb. The female student eyewitness was certainly credible enough to police, because they later retrieved a cigarette butt from the alleyway close to where the man was last seen standing. She mentioned no body lying in the alleyway. Then we have the screams heard by people coming from the alleyway. A female earwitness described "an awful scream between 10:15 pm and 10:45 pm, and then about two minutes of silence, and finally the sound of an old car starting up". For Cheri Jo Bates to have been killed shortly after 6:00 pm, we would have to disregard both of these statements and believe that she wilfully left her vehicle in the state it was eventually found.

The last known sighting of Cheri Jo Bates was her arriving and entering the library at 6:00 pm, so this had to be the time the four workmen saw her. The four workmen were again seen at 7:15 pm by Walter Siebert and friends. If the four workmen remained sitting on the fence opposite the Volkswagen Beetle throughout this time period, they clearly didn't report any suspicious activity around the vehicle and didn't hear any screams from the nearby alleyway either. They could have spotted Cheri Jo Bates around 6:00 pm, then vacated the area and returned at 7:15 pm, but this doesn't change the fact they saw nothing untoward in the near time Cheri was spotted leaving or returning to her vehicle around 6:00 pm. Her Volkswagen Beetle must have been disabled at a later time. From everything we have learned, it is apparent she went off the radar for about 4 1/2 hours until her death at around 10:30 pm. Whoever she was with has never come forward - and this is likely the person who disabled the Volkswagen Beetle and murdered the young woman. If she walked away from the library shortly after 6:00 pm (in absence of her vehicle) with a friend or somebody she trusted, then this person may have lived nearby. It is my contention that the disabling of her vehicle and subsequent murder were one continuous event by somebody she trusted. You may have a different opinion.

11/21/2019 09:08:03 am

Another head-scratcher Richard. A few comments (assuming I undsertood the article correctly):

The killer’s confession letter suggests he followed CJB two minutes after she left the library, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as saying she was in the library for only two minutes.

The fact that her peers don’t remember seeing her in the library doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. University libraries typically have many nooks and crannies, or she could have just sat on one of those tiny pedestals in the library isle near where she checked out her books.

No one seems to have witnessed the car being disabled or CJB exiting the library, which suggests that all chapters of this crime occurred much later in the evening when things had generally quited down. Definitely after 7:15 pm.

A male and female exchanged pleasantries around 9:30 pm and CJB’s corpse wasn’t there yet, evidencing yet an even later crime time.

The above observations suggests that the killer/Zodiac disabled the VW near closing time and waited for the doomed victim to come out, before discovering her vehicle wasn’t working. At this point a ‘good samaritan’ shows up and offers his help (maybe a cable jump) from his nearby vehicle. The events then unfold in accordance with his confession letter. This coincides with the awful scream heard after 10 pm.

The only wrinkle with the above is the Timex watch, which I believe was found with a time of 6:15 pm, suggesting a much earlier crime occurrence. However, the Timex could have easily been a random watch that was lost by someone not related to the crime.

The possibility that CJB and the culprit left the area entirely for several hours is unlikely in light of the fact that her car was unlocked and her books and personal belongings were left in plain sight. If she knew this person and was leaving voluntarily, she would have locked the car.

Richard

11/21/2019 10:39:52 am

The 2 minute observation you stated is correct - it isn’t necessarily the same thing as saying she was in the library for only two minutes. It could mean that he delayed his exit 2 minutes after her. My guess is the Mexican-American would have been interviewed on who was waiting for the library to open at 6, and who had entered. My guess there would only have been a handful of people waiting to enter the library immediately upon opening. I have read three accounts thus far of people possibly seeing Cheri just before the library opened, so at that time I would be highly surprised if police couldn't have concluded the voracity of the Confession Letter author. He would have been extremely dumb to enter a library with say five people in it, and then claim he was in the library one month later. I certainly believe she entered the library, but probably left by around 6:15 pm. I can understand people failing to spot her if she was concealed in a nook or cranny, but from the images I've seen it was a fairly cramped library that would be difficult to go unnoticed. More likely to go unnoticed when it filled up with 65 attendees, but more difficult to hide shortly after opening. She had earlier been in an extremely jovial and personable mood, so I would have expected, if she had been in the library for 3 hours, to have spoken to at least one person who remembered this. Of course, a reconstruction two weeks later could be difficult for people to separate one library visit from another. It really depends on how quickly after October 30th they conducted certain interviews with the respective eyewitnesses.
The Timex watch was observed the following morning by investigators and photographed in situ, reading 9:07. It was taken from the crime scene and later photographed in evidence at 12:23. The watch never stopped as some people claim - it was fully functional throughout.

https://www.zodiacciphers.com/uploads/4/9/7/1/4971630/7.jpg

https://www.zodiacciphers.com/uploads/4/9/7/1/4971630/published/year-3.jpg?1497784190

Yes, I believe she did leave around 6:15 pm voluntarily and secured her vehicle. But maybe at around 10:15 pm when the perpetrator/friend escorted her back to her vehicle, wound down the windows to get some fresh air into the vehicle (or her friend wound down the passenger window), because it was claimed one door was slightly ajar, she places her keys in the ignition to prepare to leave and then something unfolded. Maybe this person wanted more than Cheri was prepared to give. He then rips out the distributor wire in an act of malice. There are innumerable sequences of events that could have unfolded, but if two earwithness heard screams around 10:30, it isn't totally incomprehensible that something deteriorated shortly before hand. We also have to consider whether a person would kill a young woman on a college campus at 6:30 pm with students and a library nearby, or shortly after 9:00 pm with stragglers chatting and walking back to their vehicles, or at 10:30 pm (90 minutes after the library closed) with minimal passing traffic at this time. I'm not a psychopathic murderer, but I know which my safest option would be. Thanks for the insights Mo, I certainly don't have all the answers, but my best interpretation is the screams were likely the murder and the disabling of the vehicle was done with Cheri present in some perceived macho style of control, basically saying "you ain't going anywhere". But I may be wrong.

Richard

11/21/2019 11:58:52 am

We do have the contradictory accounts of an Air Force man and a blond female supposedly spotting Cheri heading towards the campus around 6:10 pm, but this account comes from Graysmith, so I cannot vouch for its total accuracy. He did after all place her vehicle 75 yards west of the alleyway, when it was actually 75 yards east of the alleyway. Probably just a mistake, but it is important in context to the crime.

Roger

11/21/2019 09:15:40 pm

I agree with you entirely Richard. Something unfolded at a time when the library was closed, otherwise she would have went to the library to ask to use their phone. The man was either someone she knew and trusted or he was a man in uniform representing a trustworthy position. These are the only two scenarios that make sense for me.

Let's consider if the man was in uniform (he left a shoe print showing a near new Leavenworth boots behind and was wearing a watch that police later presumed had been purchased in a second-hand military shop, either in England or Germany).

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the police thought the tracks leading to the alley way suggested the two had walked there together. Apparently when people are running they leave different kinds of shoe prints. Note: I could be totally wrong about this as the internet is filled with rampant misinformation! Another possible misinformation is I recall reading on a forum long ago that Cheri Jo had left the library to go for a walk with friends who took her to a party, and this accounts for her absence. But I have never been able to verify this story. I recall the forum post seemed to be based more in idle gossip than fact.

I guess it is plausible that if the man was wearing some kind of uniform, such an air force uniform or security guard, or even a cop might wear, if he had neat, polished appearance, he may have seemed like a good clean honest man to Cheri Jo. In such case, she may well have followed him, or walked with him to the alley way.

The big question though is why would she leave her keys behind. She loved that car and I understand she had worked part-time shifts at the bank to buy it. Was this just a case of being flustered because her car would not go, or was it simply a lapse in judgement? We all have them, and we are more prone to have them in a crisis, as we have less time to think and tend to be distracted. This can make us absent-minded.

The man may have told her to just leave her keys there because the car won't start anyway, so nobody is going to steal it. She left her books behind too, but maybe the kindly stranger pretended to be a gentleman and said he would pick them up for her later. If he was a cop he may have said he would return and secure the vehicle, or radio for another officer to come and secure it for her.

As sad as this may sound, a cop is in fact a very likely perp in this scenario, because he may have said he had left his motor cycle down the alley way, or had parked his patrol car nearby there, and he would radio her father to tell him she was safe and would be home shortly. He may have said he would require her to accompany him in order to give him phone numbers and clarify her full name and address and date of birth, in order for him to radio the police office to be put through to her dad.

Monarch link

11/22/2019 09:45:46 pm

I'm starting to think that even the most basic information regarding this case may be wrong, for example the newspaper reports stated that Cheri Jo's car was lime green but I recently saw a color photo of her car and it's actually white.

So it makes me wonder what else in those newspaper reports are just flat out wrong, I mean how does a professional reporter mistake a White car for lime green ?

Roger

11/22/2019 10:46:40 pm

Yes Monarch, there is much we do not know for certain about this case. I wonder if the lime green car was the actual car or if it was the one used in the re-enactment. My understanding has always been that the lime green VW with windows down and door slightly ajar showing the books on the seat were actual crime scene photos. But then I would presume they should have had the Riverside PD stamp on them, which these photos do not. Richard may know for sure?

Richard

11/23/2019 01:01:14 am

Newspapers can get things incorrect, but every newspaper and magazine article I've ever read states lime-green. I know the photograph you are referring to, and despite its washed out colours, it definitely looks lime-green to me. I don't recall any article ever mentioning a white vehicle - and unless every single article was incorrect and police failed to correct them, it was lime-green. The photograph is old and bleached out, but I can see a distinct difference from the vehicle to white surround on the garage. I'll link the photograph here, so people can draw there own conclusion.

https://attachment.tapatalk-cdn.com/11510/201911/8727422_8f62d8bfe7611cd95ce220416b43771b.png?Expires=1575363065&Signature=PSR-bLkofhHjkKlB~4G16ru5jyr4c-Nh5zEVXH0ftVo1c81nKDesnn0NtdGOkEfWW2P7Wdtg1EinWLdJfgGby6NbAeaUQN1W8~YQR24A313czT6f-rcgD23AjxLSF96NInJWv9XRflsyMB3eR8Ho-sEZnO2nOQtzhp0YcCVI1xTtcC~ujfqnvrdyN7dzspTR~DCUmTR-lyIdVD1t3OiTXJnb2rLnz0aDUjvLfRcxIST0oX-rDGek97H-7sqQOxc5v3-TEiWezWupDTS~4ho1eP6U9U-xkczTi95QNDPZyieBpJla2XpipPJmnNEhFgi8DdFo6h5a8YSDTfM-mPFgmQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJS72YROXJYGYDADA

Roger

11/26/2019 03:48:59 pm

BB, I think your suspicions that he was familiar to the area and probably lived in the vicinity are very well founded. Of course the groundskeeper Cleophus Martin was ruled out as a suspect very early on. The skin under Cheri Jo's fingernails came from a white male. Exactly what happened to Cheri Jo that night and how we can account for the numerous discrepancies in the timeline are still a mystery, but I am sure the Riverside PD know more than they have ever revealed to the public. DNA should solve this crime, unless all of that material was squandered on earlier mitochondrial studies. |I understand they still have hairs preserved that most likely came from her attacker. Well as it turns out it is now possible to extract a complete DNA profile from hair that does not contain a root. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/science/hair-dna-murder.html

Stay hopeful! I feel there may be a breakthrough in the Cheri Jo Bates case in future.

11/21/2019 12:39:43 pm

Some added observations:

The disabling of vehicles to capture prey is a familiar MO of Zodiac. He claimed as much in the CJB Confession Letter. He also employed the same method with Kathleen Johns and maybe even Brian Hartnell. Lastlty, he wrote about disabling a school bus and shooting the kids as they disembarked. So, I’m leaning towards the deliberate and calculated disabling of the VW, just as he claimed in his letter.

If CJB left with a familiar figure for sometime, where did they go and is it possible that there were zero witnesses? If they went to a private place, the killer could have gotten what he wanted and killed her there, which would be safer than doing it in a public, albeit secluded place (unless it was his place).

It would be very perplexing and counterintuitive for a familiar figure to snap and commit a murder and then turn around and write about it and announce it to the world.

I think the killer of CJB was a psychopath, who planned CJB’s murder. Maybe he and CJB were familiar with each other. After all, he wrote to her father. But I doubt it was a spur of the moment crime, or that they went somewhere together with absolutely no witnesses seeing them leaving the library, staying wherever they went, or coming back to the crime scene.

art

11/21/2019 01:03:51 pm

just want to point out that the sunset on Oct 30 in Riverside was at 5pm. So the ability of workmen or anyone else to see people coming or going outside may have been limited - depending on the location of streetlights, etc

Richard

11/21/2019 01:43:06 pm

Yes, obviously compounded by DST
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/riverside?month=10&year=1966

Richard

11/21/2019 01:38:43 pm

There is the disabling of the vehicle to consider if Kathleen Johns was Zodiac. The Zodiac community is split on that one. Another thing to add, is we cannot be sure that the Confession Letter was by the killer. Again, many think it is and many don't. I doubt there is any categorical way of proving this one way or another. Let's pose another question: If the murder was planned, why make the task much harder with a small penknife?

11/21/2019 01:53:39 pm

This is what I imagine. CJB was likely kid-nabbed at about 6:30 PM
basically. She was held prisoner in one of the vacant houses that were used at the time for storage over-flow for the Library. Then at about 10:30 PM she fights her way loose of her captor only to be tackled and killed in the alley. Since she was found with the blood of the perp under her nails, he may have a facial scar as a forever reminder of that fight - which he later said "Some Of Them Fought It Was Horrible'. That and the misspellings of the words twitched and Squirmed were the dead give a-ways that this was the work of the Zodiac.

Richard

11/21/2019 02:58:34 pm

I remember reading a pretty good forum post on the possibility she was held nearby - likely at the college itself. Whether the mitochondrial DNA has ever been used to ever rule out or not any campus suspects back in the day, I doubt. But it would be an interesting avenue to follow up on. Although probably many are deceased. For anybody believing that the CJB murder was Zodiac, then their suspect can be ruled out or not with a simple DNA test. But like I said before, if you thought the CJB murder was definitely Zodiac and your suspect was Allen or Kaczynski, then that could be answered in a matter of days. But I guess, if their suspect proved not to be the murderer of CJB, then they wouldn't dismiss the suspect, just the link to Riverside. Revisionism at its best.

I do find it interesting that Zodiac wrote twich and squirm just four months before the Paul Avery article detailing the Zodiac connection to Riverside. Couldn't Zodiac have read the Confession Letter and then incorporated those words into the Little List Letter to plant a seed.

Richard

11/21/2019 03:07:29 pm

[1] "Twich and Squirm" July 26th 1970.
[2] "Some of them fought it was horrible" October 5th 1970.
[3] Halloween Card/Cheri Jo Bates found Halloween morning. October 27th 1970.
[4] Paul Avery newspaper article November 16th 1970.

11/25/2019 06:06:41 pm

1- An autopsy determined that the victim had scratched her killer, and an analysis of traces of skin under her fingernails concluded that the killer was a Caucasian male.

2- Chief of the Riverside Police Department, Thomas Kinkead's conclusion: “The person who wrote the confession is aware of facts about the homicide that only the killer would know. There is no doubt that the person who wrote the confession letter is our homicide suspect.”

3- Confession letter was written by the killer of CJB.

4- The writer of the letter was a man, and he was the killer of CJB.

5- I SAID IT WAS ABOUT TIME FOR HER TO DIE. I GRABBED HER AROUND THE NECK WITH ME HAND OVER HER MOUTH AND MY OTHER HAND WITH A SMALL KNIFE AT HER THROAT. SHE WENT VERY WILLINGLY. HER BREAST FELT VERY WARM AND FIRM UNDER MY HANDS,
This is not the moment of her death, but the abduction.It is 6:30pm. He said he put the knife to her throat (as a control mechanism) - from there he must have walked her - with his hand covering her mouth - into one of the vacant houses, and to some degree raped her. She probably escaped about 10:30pm when the scream was heard. He catches up to her just out side in the alley where he kills her. I agree that he may have been planning to kill her at midnight. She probably thwarted those plans ripping at his face with her nails. Then she made her way between the vacant houses where he catches her. Where she fights for her life. He must have felt some blow to his ego as she broke free of his choke hold - SHE LET OUT A SCREAM ONCE AND I KICKED HER HEAD TO SHUT HER UP - He lied she screamed at least twice according to the nearby witness. He lies to change the narrative showing shame.

6- There were three letters put out to three separate sources by both the Riverside and Bay area Zodiacs.

7- He also lost his wrist watch in the fight. The wear on the watch showed he was a size 7 - which says he was an average sized man.

Roger

11/25/2019 09:47:23 pm

Hi BB, The secondhand reports I've read claim that there were two sets of shoe prints leading from the VW to the alley. They did not appear to be running, they appeared to be walking. But as you suggest she could have been under some kind of duress at the time.

The scene where they struggled on the other hand resembled a ploughed up field.

I doubt if detectives would be so remiss as to not check out nearby vacant houses, but I agree the possibility that she had gone to one of these with her killer, either voluntarily or by force, cannot be ruled out. I do get the felling Riverside PD know a lot more about this case than they have ever made public. The timeline we have been presented with in the press reports is too muddled.

One thing that tended to rule out Allen Leigh was he did not have a scar on his face, and after he returned from the Riverside car race to his workplace, none of his work colleagues could recall him having a noticeable scar. But I wonder why the facial area has always been presumed? Surely the skin from the perp could have been scratched from another part of his body, e.g. back of neck, wrist, or hand? Also it may have been in a place where he could conceal it after going a few days without shaving.

Roger

11/25/2019 10:03:28 pm

Also BB, Further to your Point 6- "There were three letters put out to three separate sources by both the Riverside and Bay area Zodiacs".

The envelopes on the 3 Bate's letters each have a double stamp, which Poyser said was a trademark of the Zodiac.
The Zodiac also frequently double-stamped.

The other similarity is that the Zodiac also liked to use stamps of American presidents. We find Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower on Zodiac communications. The Bates letters used stamps of Abraham Lincoln.

11/26/2019 11:09:02 am

Roger

Serial rapists and killers and criminals of all types are often able to get away in the immediate. Simply because our laws to search property protect the criminal most in the initial moments after a crime takes place. The police are held-up in the most important time just after a crime is reported. In many cases the perp is found to be the neighbor to have been the kidnapper. Why because the "kid" is quickly taken and everyone assumes it must be a stranger. And, the cops can't check the neighborhood homes because somebody's rights will be trampled on. They have to ask the home owner - then get a search warrant if the owner is not home or won't come to the door. Then take it to a magistrate or a judge who wants you to say why you suspect that person in particular for having taken the kid. The person that killed CJB was someone very familiar with the area.
That and DNA has eliminated ALA as a viable suspect for CJB. He was set-up by Don Cheney to be the fall guy because Don believed that ALA molested his (Cheney's) daughter.

All points you make are well made and naturally good for some suspect we have yet to encounter. As Richard an incredibly smart person has determined. I however, with average intelligence have only my nagging curiosity and my life experience in the field of war to work with in my effort to know the truth. I have witnessed death first hand and have only that cold hard lens to view the world from. Peace

Roger

11/26/2019 03:51:17 pm

Sorry I seem to have posted my reply to BB in the wrong thread.

BB, I think your suspicions that he was familiar to the area and probably lived in the vicinity are very well founded. Of course the groundskeeper Cleophus Martin was ruled out as a suspect very early on. The skin under Cheri Jo's fingernails came from a white male. Exactly what happened to Cheri Jo that night and how we can account for the numerous discrepancies in the timeline are still a mystery, but I am sure the Riverside PD know more than they have ever revealed to the public. DNA should solve this crime, unless all of that material was squandered on earlier mitochondrial studies. |I understand they still have hairs preserved that most likely came from her attacker. Well as it turns out it is now possible to extract a complete DNA profile from hair that does not contain a root. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/science/hair-dna-murder.html

Stay hopeful! I feel there may be a breakthrough in the Cheri Jo Bates case in future.

11/21/2019 04:55:52 pm

That is an interesting idea, Richard.

The notion that the Zodiac may have read the Confession Letter and then incorporated those words into it.

This would place some suspicion on Paul Avery.
Was he the killer of Paul Stine calling attention to the name Paul?
Reminding us that Avery was too close to this case. So close that we can't see the forest through the trees. Could the Zodiac have been hiding in plain sight? While looking into this case I have worn every hat per-say of every suspect - just to try it out. As a form of investigation technique. I tried selling each man. Trying to convince myself and others of the guilty sounding evidence. Putting the best clues that I could find on the web of each POI. But, this notion if correct would explain things. Is this what you are hinting at? Avery is the one who connected the Riverside Zodiac to the Bay area Zodiac. He is the Ed/Editor the Zodiac addressed his letters to. He is the connection to Graysmith and Tochi and Lynch and the Examiner and the Chronical and it goes on from there. Avery did have a button that everyone was wearing at the time that said, "I Am Not Paul Avery.". The Zodiac wanted everyone to put on a button of him. He wrote about his bosses' (Hearst) daughter Patty"s kidnabbing more than any other journalist. Also Paul Avery wrote about the "Ice creme romance " That the E.V. Best was all about. Am I off base here? If so then ex-nay this. And, feel free to tell me where to go. Peace

Richard

11/22/2019 10:54:03 am

Whether or not twich and squirm has any relevance BB I'm not sure, but there is no denying it was similar wording in both the Little List Letter and Confession Letter. However, it was spelled Sqwirm in the LLL and Squirmed in the Confession Letter. I don't think Avery was responsible for any letters as was suggested in relation to David Toschi, but if Zodiac did write this phrase to drive investigators to conclude he must have a connection to Riverside, then its timing only four months prior to Avery's newspaper article is intersesting, albeit not compelling. But when he mailed the Halloween Card, Phil Sins drew a comparison to Riverside. Maybe that is what Zodiac wanted them to believe. The Halloween Card to me has always looked more like the Berrryessa scene, with the tree, eyes and two sketletons (although Bryan survived). The only way I could link the Halloween Card to Riverside was by "Look 4-TEEN". Cheri was 18 and discovered on Halloween. But that is not particularly a strong connection. The only way Zodiac could have known about the police forging links between Riverside and the Bay Area in advance of November 16th 1970, is if he was connected to law enforcement in some capacity, or forged a link himself. There was plenty of correspondence where Zodiac attempted to plant the seed he was involved in other murders - Radetich, Johns, Lass, Snoozy and Furlong just a few. He may have planted twich and sqwirm to lay the seed and add credibility to his later admission. It is far more convincing to let others find connections to Riverside pre-November 16th, than just blurt out that you did it.

11/21/2019 07:07:36 pm

There are so many great observations here. Mo's observation regarding the 9:30 p.m. exchange and no body; Art regarding sunset and the fact most witness accounts would be after dark; BB regarding the vacant houses... and Richard's scenario.

I believe there were a couple of witnesses who reported 2 men with flashlights at the scene at 1:30 a.m. I do not know if this report is accurate, but I would imagine a witness would have to be fairly close to know that it was "2 men" who were in the area.

If Cheri did know her killer, another idea could be that she went willingly to one of the vacant houses to hang out and perhaps discuss something personal by flashlight. Maybe even study. Might sound silly, but actually not far-fetched when compared to the activities of other college students throughout the years. If it was someone she knew, and it was premeditated, perhaps he pulled the wire after-the-fact. False clues so to speak. Same with the letters. Deflect attention / attract attention.

I originally thought the pen knife was an odd choice to use in an attack, but pen knife attacks turn out to be quite common back then. In 1950, a man even used a pen knife to kill himself. He cut his throat. Pen knives were used in multiple attacks. I was looking for a specific article about an attacker who witnesses say was laughing after he attacked a woman in her yard with a pen knife, but I'm having difficulty relocating the article. I did find another interesting one, the link below. I wouldn't think that someone would use a pen knife in such a deliberately planned attack, lying in wait for a couple of hours. But go figure.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/458295561/?terms=pen%2Bknife

Roger

11/21/2019 08:42:23 pm

Hi Richard, I have wrestled mentally with those times myself on many occasions. The discrepancies continue to nag at me. I think some of the confusion relates to witnesses who were still using a mental clock, i.e. they are still relating times on "old time" and hadn't got use to the changeover. This is a common confusion in places that have DST, but I would have thought any diligent detective should have reminded witnesses about DST when taking statements in order to obtain the actual times that the witnesses intended.

The other problem is with people who really had not been keeping track of the time and were guessing. We all lose track of time. I know I do all the time. I can think it is 9 am only to look at the clock and see it is actually 10:30 am. So when a witness says "7:15" he may have actually meant "some time around about 7:15" which may have actually been more like 7:00 or 7:45. The police did in fact re-enact the scene, I think in order to resolve some of those time discrepancies. Whether they were successful seems unlikely, given that the these were the times later reported by the press in that journal article. We can only presume they were accurately reported there.

The third problem is with "Who is telling the truth?" ,or "Is somebody trying to create an alibi for themselves, whether guilty or not?" Or "Is somebody trying to cover for the killer?"

Roger

11/22/2019 03:56:01 am

BTW Richard, I have since learnt that some of the earlier stories about Michael Zlaket may actually be true. It has been alleged that Zlaket, who was a student of Pacific High in the early to mid-60s, regularly called himself "Zode" and "The Zodiac". One Chinese whisper alleges that he had threatened students who were teasing him by saying he would kill them all one day and keep them as his slaves for his afterlife. That last bit sounds rather "gossipy" and contrived to me.

Zlaket's photo from the school yearbook looks rather Woody Allen-ish. Unless he had really padded himself up and wore raised boots, he could never have achieved the bulky proportions of the suspect that witnesses described. The poor guy was picked on and teased and had apparently invented the Zodiac persona as a shield against bullies. I do however wonder if someone else at the school may have latched on to this persona and stole it for himself. Perhaps this person had the intention of implicating "Zode" in order to turn any potential heat away from himself?

The forum owner who broke the news evidently received a communication from "Zode", stating categorically that he had no involvement in the Zodiac killer murders whatsoever. This was way back in April of 2011, and at least that letter was dated 11 April, not 1st April.

One website did run a feature article about the man known as "Zode" on April 1, 2019. Many people, including yours truly, considered that the airing of a story to coincide with April 1 could only mean one thing - it had to be a hoax.

Michael Lee Zlaket was apparently in the same class as Patricia Hautz, although I have been unable to confirm this with any degree of certainty.

Patricia Hautz was of course that girl who wrote the letter about Cheri Jo Bates to the press in 1967. It is perhaps interesting to note that Patricia posted her letter in early November, as if as an anniversary tribute to Cheri Jo Bates, who had been killed the year before on October 30, 1966.

Based on certain similarities, some people have speculated that Patricia Hautz may have been responsible for typing the Confession Letter, of which two identical copies were mailed claiming credit for the homicide of Cheri Jo Bates; one to Chief Of Police, Riverside PD; and a second to The Riverside Daily Enterprise on November 29th, 1966. It was as if the sender had wanted the letters to be received exactly one month after the murder. The phrasing, the style of writing and the grammar are, by some accounts, remarkably similar to those used by Patricia Hautz.

Zlaket has apparently claimed in his defense that he had never lived in Vallejo or attended school there.

1) Was Michael Lee Zlaket ever a student of Pacific High in San Bernardino? It appears he may have been.

2) Was he ever in the same class as Patricia Hautz (I have not been able to confirm this, nor if they attended at the same time, or if they ever knew one another).

3) Did Zlaket really call himself "The Zodiac" (those exact words?). Apparently that much does indeed seem true.

If this is all just a coincidence I must say it is a massive one. However, Patricia Hautz would have had no way of knowing about the real Zodiac killer in 1967! The real Zodiac killer did not use the name Zodiac until 4th August, 1969.

Incidentally, when it comes to coincidences, in 1964 when Zode was attending the Pacific High School, the seniors there staged a play by the name of - you guessed it - The Mikado!

Pacific High School and Riverside are only 14 miles from each other.

Richard, I guess this all simply adds to the confusion and shows the baffling discrepancies that exist between the anonymous letter writers and the actual crime in the Cheri Jo Bates case. And this gives us pause to wonder if the "Bates had to die" letters may also have been authored by another third party, who either did or did not have something to do with the crime. On April 30, 1967, exactly six months after the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, the three nearly identical letters were sent to the victim's father Joseph Bates, the police, and the Press Enterprise in Riverside. We need to remember that hoaxes come in all shapes and forms, and some are not really hoaxes. Some even resemble "Public Service Announcements" or Letters to the Editor. For my money, the "Bates had to die" letters have the highest probability of being authored by the killer.

Richard

11/22/2019 06:22:50 am

Good summation Roger. The designer of https://murderincorp.wordpress.com/ has covered this topic extensively and believes a connection. It is an extremely difficult and convoluted story of facts and hearsay, making it extremely difficult to form any solid opinion. I think your description sums it up for me. I think if any connection exists between Michael Zlaket and Zode to the Zodiac Killer, then it could be through a third party taking on the mantle of the Zodiac Killer. A reverse example would be Cheney to Allen, where the Zodiac is projected to another. As you stated, the Patricia Hautz letter has been confirmed by Patricia Hautz herself - so that mystery has been put to bed. Everything you have written is likely a fair assessment to the state of affairs, but cementing the guaranteed link between Zode or a third party from Riverside to the Bay Area, my guess, is extremely difficult to prove one way or another. Good assessment though on your part.

Richard

11/22/2019 04:52:49 pm

“Exhibit B”February 21, 2018 Special Board Meeting Potential Board Candidates (Alphabetical Order) 1.Kenneth J. Ambroise Sr.2.Nelson Brown 3.William F. Collazo 4.Phillip Goodrich 5.Vincent D. Laster 6.Lisa Migliozzi 7.Gail M. Shelton 8.Dr. Joseph W. Wekesa 9.Michael Lee Zlaket

https://eastvalley.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02212018-1452

Roger

11/22/2019 06:32:53 pm

Thanks Richard, There is another example of his writing online. Neither look anything like the Zodiac's writing to me. This guy was clearly Zodiac "in name only" during the early-mid-60s. Whether somebody else stole this man's boyhood persona and ideas is the million dollar question. There is a rumor that Zlaket would draw the gun sight or target symbol on the black board and write Zodiac underneath it. This gives me pause to wonder about Allen Leigh's whereabouts at the time. Leigh was a school teacher. The Allen File on http://www.zodiackiller.com suggests:

December 1958: Allen was discharged from the Navy.
1959-1962: Allen, attempting to gain his teaching credential, was hired by Santa Rosa Elementary in Atascadero, Calif.
1961-1962: Allen worked two summers as a psychiatric technician at Atascadero State Hospital in Atascadero, Calif.
1962-1963: Allen taught at Travis Elementary, Travis Air Force Base, Calif. He was eventually fired for having a loaded weapon in his car on school grounds.
1964-1965: Allen was incapacitated with a "severely lacerated leg," allegedly the result of a motorcycle accident.
1966-1968: Allen taught at Valley Springs Elementary in Valley Springs, Calif. His teaching career ended when he was fired for molesting a student.

Zlaket did not appear to have any military experience at all and although Patricia Hautz's father William C. Hautz had retired from the Air Force in 1965. He was stationed in the Philippines.

An connection with Allen seems unlikely. The only thing connecting Zlaket to the Zodiac killer was the uncanny use of the same name "Zodiac".

Could Allen Leigh have taken a class as a temp teacher at Pacific at some point in time and Zlaket's Zodiac symbol and identity had come to his attention?

Roger

11/22/2019 07:00:26 pm

According to a witness in Graysmith's book, Allen Leigh attended this car racing event annually in Riverside. https://www.racingsportscars.com/race/Riverside-1966-10-30.html

Graysmith's book implies that Leigh was an occasional visitor to the Riverside area and stayed with certain families while he was there. In 1966 the race took place on October 30, the same day Cheri Jo Bates was killed. Could Leigh have been going there for additional reasons that year as well as the big race? Perhaps he had a temporary teaching job lined up that he did not want his colleagues back at Valley Springs to know about.

On the morning of 31 October, Allen phoned Valley Springs School to say he was sick. It was the only sick leave he took that entire year. Colleagues could not recall seeing any scratches on his face when he returned to work. But this is actually not very incriminating evidence, because if Leigh had been tired after watching the car race the day before, he may have simply taken a day off in order to recuperate and drive home.

11/23/2019 09:18:30 am

Cheri Jo Bates 1948-1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7hMSmV3Y1Q&list=PLB0kuCbmpN1GJnJmzgwr8qKynovWttoCQ&index=6

Roger

11/26/2019 04:15:29 pm

For what it is worth, I get the feeling Riverside PD have always regarded the motive for the murder of Cheri Jo Bates as jealous rage. In the old days and in works of fiction these were called "crimes of passion". This presumption tends to rule out the concept of serial killers, Good Samaritans, strangers hiding in the bushes, "sheep in wolf's clothing" types. Instead it focuses primarily on the idea of a jealous ex or friend. Jealousy can manifest itself in many ways and in fact Cheri's killer could have been a secret admirer. I am sure we have all had secret crushes in high school. She may have never spoke to the person or only met the person briefly. He may for instance have plucked up the courage to ask her out and she turned him down or found an excuse. She may even have laughed at him. Cheri was very independent for her age and could be headstrong according to her father. She was energetic, extroverted, popular, and at times cheeky. Girls at that age often know exactly what they want and so it is plausible that her attacker may have been a spurned admirer. The very fact that he had the ability to overpower her may suggest he was no puny nerd. It suggests he may have been an athletic type too. He would also be the kind of person who would perhaps carry grudges for a long time, who is easily riled to anger, and who has a large ego and high opinions of himself.

11/27/2019 10:23:28 am

Roger - That is more likely than the killer being a complete stranger.

On the other hand there is this company named Toschi that uses cherries as the central ingredient in all of its' products. It is Italian just like Dave Toschi.

http://www.toschi.it/en/toschi-tradizionale/amarena/amarena-frutto

David Ramon Toschi, whose personal style was the model for Bullitt and Dirty Harry, was widely known for his efforts in the San Francisco Police Department as an inspector in the Zodiac Killer case.Wikipedia

In the Army he was a member of the 24th Infantry Division. David Ramon Toschi was born July 11, 1931 Dali-day

The cross-hairs symbol stands for the letter "D"
David R Toschi equals 12 letters for twelve signs in the Zodiac.
He was busted for writing fake Zodiac correspondence, which is the main reason the Zodiac case is completely convoluted.
He and William Armstrong were the inspectors at Washington and
Cherry streets. Also, CJB's first name could be a tip of the hat where the artists' pays hommage to that which influenced them.

This cocktail of the company Toschi is a felony in the United States.

TOSCHI PAIN KILLER

http://www.toschi.it/en/ricette/cocktails/cocktail-alcolici/toschi-pain-killer580dfc700db4f

But we have to remember that at the time, everyone it seems was pointing fingers, and saw the Zodiac in every other man - they did not like. Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle "publicly accused San Francisco Police Inspector Dave Toschi of faking one of the Zodiac Killer's taunting letters to the media, seriously and irreparably damaging Toschi's career and reputation. Maupin claimed to have noticed a similarity between anonymous fan mail Toschi had sent him after Maupin based one of his Tales of the City characters on him, and a Zodiac letter received by the San Francisco Chronicle on April 24, 1978. Although the USPS crime lab cleared Toschi of being the Zodiac letter's author, Toschi was removed from the case and his chances of succeeding Charles Gain as chief of the San Francisco PD were destroyed.The incident is portrayed in the 2007 David Fincher film Zodiac.Wikipedia

Roger

11/27/2019 05:53:48 pm

Famous line in The Zodiac movie.

Inspector William Armstrong : Cabbie's been shot three blocks from the Presidio.

Dave Toschi : Mm-hmm. Well, it wasn't me. I've been with my bride all night. She can vouch.

Roger

11/27/2019 05:58:45 pm

DALI (moon) days could be a complete coincidence, considering the Zodiac really did not murder that many people. Still, it is interesting that the symbol for DALI is a circle divided into four quadrants.

11/28/2019 10:17:08 am

Graysmith's books have been proven to be full of inaccuracies and lies.
Therefor since the movie is based off Graysmith's blend of fact and fiction we can't rely on them for facts. Loved the movie though. Highlight the following, hover over, copy and paste in the url so you don't need to type all of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEagZAJptB0&list=PL9FD98739D8D94604

Also;
There are only 52 Dali-days every year - the math shows that coincidence is out of the question. To land on these days - to be no accident. There have been many hundreds of different 10,
12, 13, 14, 17, and 18 month calendars used through-out history.
We still do not know which 13 month calendar the Zodiac used. But.
the one used in the History Channel is bastardized so everyone just disregards it. Though it was put out in 1992 does not mean it was invented then. It was obviously borrowed and blended. From where?

As for Washington and Cherry streets. This is where the Zodiac left the cab. For what reason - I am just another person speculating. I do not subscribe to any theory. I do not believe anything. I'm agnostic. And, don't know what to think. Other than this case is messed up. Peace

Roger

11/28/2019 04:07:15 pm

One could just as easily argue that Zodiac was a Mason based on his use of symbols and calculations. Likewise one could also argue he was a Satanist, or a Scientologist, or "just about any church you like to consider". In terms of probability alone:-

Chances of Graysmith being correct on everything, probably about a million to one.

Chances of Zodiac knowing anything at all about Dali days would probably be millions to one.

Chances of Zodiac formulating Dali days into some kind of all-encompassing "theory on killing", probably also millions to one.

DNA is our only hope of reducing down those terribly bad odds. All else is just we humans yelling from a mountain top into the wind.

I recall the case of Arlis Perry. Her killer arranged her body as if ritualistically, in a shape similar to a Satanic symbol. For many decades there was speculation she must have been killed by Satanists or some other evil-worshiping group of brethren. Well as it turns out DNA would later prove that the very man who found her, the security guard Steven Crawford, had been responsible for her death. Crawford was interested in antiquities and the classics and was a petty thief. He stole hundred of museum items and valuable books during his time working at Stanford. There is no evidence to link Crawford with Manson or the Occult or Satanism. It would appear the symbolic body arrangement was either a complete coincidence or he had intended this as a ruse or red herring. Crawford perhaps was well aware of the widespread popular myths in society at the time relating to "Satanic death cults", and of course the Manson murder sprees were still very fresh in people's minds.

In the 1970s, prosecutors investigating the Los Angeles murders committed by the Manson Family suggested that there were links between Charles Manson and the Process Church, for example. However no proof of such a connection was ever put forward. The allegation appeared to be based on rumor alone. The myth had in fact grown out of anti-Satanist literature coming from hysterical religious standpoints. In his 1972 book The Family, Ed Sanders alleged that Manson had been a member of the Process Church. The only evidence presented was the fact that Manson once lived in the same road as the Church's San Francisco location. So what? That year, the Church took legal action against Sanders and his U.S. publisher E. P. Dutton in the District Court of Chicago. The allegation was subsequently retracted from future printings of The Family. It also brought legal action with the book's British publisher, although the British court sided with the publisher in that case.

By the late 1970s the Process Church had disbanded, so it then became common for conspiracy literature to allege that Manson had been an active member of the group and that both were linked to blood sacrifices etc. In his 1974 book America Bewitched, the journalist Daniel Logan cited the Process Church alongside Manson, the Church of Satan, and the British occultist Aleister Crowley. The journalist Maury Terry—whom Baddeley described as "a sensationalist reporter with a nose for good scare stories"—further linked the Process Church to the Ordo Templi Orientis and claimed both as part of a grand Satanic conspiracy in his 1987 book The Ultimate Evil. Claims about the Process Church being linked to a vast Satanic conspiracy and a wide range of crimes were also endorsed by members of the LaRouche movement. But there has been absolutely no proof that the Process Church was ever involved in widespread ritualistic killings, and even less proof that Manson was ever involved in the church. I basically consider this stuff as the domain of folklorists and conspiracy theorists who probably have too much time on their hands.

11/29/2019 10:24:49 am

I don't want to agree but you are probably right.

That does not mean that we should stop yelling out.

Just cuz there is no evidence to have come out,
does not mean that there's none to be discovered.

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CHERI JO BATES-THE MURDERER SHE KNEW

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