It appears as though the Confession letter on November 29th 1966 primarily focused on attractive women, who "crazed " the author enough to want to kill them. The typed letter began "She was young and beautiful. But now she is battered and dead. She is not the first and she will not be the last. I lay awake nights thinking about my next victom. Maybe she will be the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven. Or maybe she will be the shapely blue eyed brunett that said xxx no when I asked her for a date in high school".
After discovering that the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" from the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher was uttered by Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" movie in 1932, which could only reasonably have been found by diligently trawling through microfiche reels from newspapers of the day, I wanted to see if the author of the Confession letter employed the same technique. By finding a commonality of approach between the 408 cipher and Confession letter authors, it may shed light on the idea of one mind and one person responsible for the communications in 1966 and 1969. This is the first step in determining whether the Zodiac Killer was responsible for "riverside activity" or "riverside murder".
I then looked at the seemingly contrived section of the Confession letter where it stated "I said it was about time. She asked me "about time for what". I said it was about time for her to die". After dropping the phrase "it was about time for her to die" into a newspaper archive search, I was surprised to receive a hit from 1888 (the year of "Jack the Ripper"), bearing in mind that the Confession letter author appeared to mimic the language of a recent newspaper article on November 24th 1966, mentioning Cheri Jo Bates and invoking the name of "Jack the Ripper". The two phrases of "man is the most dangerous animal of all" and "it was about time for her to die", I could only find in newspaper articles dated 1932 and 1888 respectively, despite searching 331 years of newspaper archives.
After discovering that the phrase "man is the most dangerous animal of all" from the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher was uttered by Merian C. Cooper, the associate producer of "The Most Dangerous Game" movie in 1932, which could only reasonably have been found by diligently trawling through microfiche reels from newspapers of the day, I wanted to see if the author of the Confession letter employed the same technique. By finding a commonality of approach between the 408 cipher and Confession letter authors, it may shed light on the idea of one mind and one person responsible for the communications in 1966 and 1969. This is the first step in determining whether the Zodiac Killer was responsible for "riverside activity" or "riverside murder".
I then looked at the seemingly contrived section of the Confession letter where it stated "I said it was about time. She asked me "about time for what". I said it was about time for her to die". After dropping the phrase "it was about time for her to die" into a newspaper archive search, I was surprised to receive a hit from 1888 (the year of "Jack the Ripper"), bearing in mind that the Confession letter author appeared to mimic the language of a recent newspaper article on November 24th 1966, mentioning Cheri Jo Bates and invoking the name of "Jack the Ripper". The two phrases of "man is the most dangerous animal of all" and "it was about time for her to die", I could only find in newspaper articles dated 1932 and 1888 respectively, despite searching 331 years of newspaper archives.
If the author was searching the archives in 1966 for Jack the Ripper related material to insert into the Confession letter, I needed to know if anything other than "it was about time for her to die" could be found to bolster the argument for this hypothesis. Although the following isn't compelling, it does provide a possible second layer to consider. I focused in on another section of the Confession letter where the author typed "I am not sick. I am insane", which seemed an unnecessary addition to the story. However, I was unable to find this exact quote from 1690 to 2021 in the Genealogy Bank archives.
So I refined the search to "Jack the Ripper" and "I am insane", hoping to find these two sections of text within one newspaper story. The search was successful, when I found several large articles in 1927 detailing the horrible mutilations of "Jack the Ripper", The newspapers stated "Nothing the London monster did exceeded the wanton devilishness the murders of half a dozen New York children by "rippers" whose crimes have stirred the city during the past fifteen years" (see below). This was a promising find, but I needed more.
So I refined the search to "Jack the Ripper" and "I am insane", hoping to find these two sections of text within one newspaper story. The search was successful, when I found several large articles in 1927 detailing the horrible mutilations of "Jack the Ripper", The newspapers stated "Nothing the London monster did exceeded the wanton devilishness the murders of half a dozen New York children by "rippers" whose crimes have stirred the city during the past fifteen years" (see below). This was a promising find, but I needed more.
NEW YORK EVENING JOURNAL, OCTOBER 1ST 1927
The first on the list of ghastly murders between 1912 and 1927 in New York told of a Confession letter before the murderer killed himself by gas poisoning. Without detailing the extensive brutality of the crime, the Confession letter was written in respect to the murder of 12-year-old Julia Connors by Nathan Swartz in 1912, who stabbed the young girl to death with a knife, and was described as "one of the most ourageous murders in the history of New York". Nathan Swartz confessed that women's make-up crazed him, similar in fashion to Confession letter in 1966, which began by focusing on the beauty of women and why they had to be killed.
The Confession letter of Swartz was fairly lengthy, but it was an additional piece of text he wrote on a soiled linen collar with a lead pencil, found in the lodging house near his body, that is of more interest. Although not of most importance, part of the message about the murder read "I felt sorry just two minutes after I did it". This reminded me of the phrase in the Riverside Confession letter where the author typed that he "followed her out after about two minutes". Although "just two minutes after" sounds similar to "after about two minutes", I'm not convinced that this was borrowed from the 1927 newspaper article about the murder of Julia Connors. However, just before Nathan Swartz wrote this section of text, he stated "I am guilty. I am insane", using five of the same words from the Riverside Confession letter, which read "I am not sick. I am insane".
The Confession letter of Swartz was fairly lengthy, but it was an additional piece of text he wrote on a soiled linen collar with a lead pencil, found in the lodging house near his body, that is of more interest. Although not of most importance, part of the message about the murder read "I felt sorry just two minutes after I did it". This reminded me of the phrase in the Riverside Confession letter where the author typed that he "followed her out after about two minutes". Although "just two minutes after" sounds similar to "after about two minutes", I'm not convinced that this was borrowed from the 1927 newspaper article about the murder of Julia Connors. However, just before Nathan Swartz wrote this section of text, he stated "I am guilty. I am insane", using five of the same words from the Riverside Confession letter, which read "I am not sick. I am insane".
NEW YORK EVENING JOURNAL, OCTOBER 1ST 1927
The Nathan Swartz murder of Julia Connors had some of the features of Riverside, in that he wrote a Confession letter, told of being crazed by the beautiful make-up of women, stabbed a young girl to death, articulated a "two minutes" window, and stated that "I am guilty. I am insane". The Confession letter author at Riverside mentioned that they would "cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see" in "Jack the Ripper" style, only five days after a newspaper article mentioning Cheri Jo Bates and "Jack the Ripper". We also have the phrase "it was about time for her to die", found in a newspaper article entitled "The Sturdy Beggar" from 1888 (the year of "Jack the Ripper"), in which a women was threatened by a man motioning towards a potential knife in his pocket. And finally, the Nathan Swartz story was embedded within a comprehensive "Jack the Ripper" newspaper article from 1927. It may be nothing, but it could be something.
CONNECTING RIVERSIDE TO THE ZODIAC USING JACK THE RIPPER [IN 6 PARTS]
CONNECTING RIVERSIDE TO THE ZODIAC USING JACK THE RIPPER [IN 6 PARTS]
THE TACOMA TIMES, JULY 18TH 1912
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