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Richard Grinell, Coventry, England
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NO ADDRESS FROM ZODIAC

10/17/2018

 
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The Debut of Zodiac letter was received by the San Francisco Examiner newspaper on August 4th 1969 and immediately turned it over to the Vallejo Police Department for comparison to previous Zodiac correspondence. The FBI files above constantly referred to the July 31st 1969 trinity of letters and envelopes, but there was a notable absence of the word "envelope" when referring to the August 4th 1969 communication, and more importantly, on the day it was received. The FBI files explicitly state that the correspondence was "undated" and sent "anonymously". In the absence of any dated or postmarked envelope, this strongly indicates that the three-page letter was hand delivered by the killer to the offices of the San Francisco Examiner at Third and Market Streets.

The Zodiac Killer painstakingly detailed his first two crimes in the July 31st letters "
stating some facts which only I + the police know", so must have been aghast at the statement of Vallejo Police Chief Jack E Stiltz in the Sunday August 3rd 1969 San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, wanting more facts to prove the letter writer was the killer. This may explain his eagerness in rushing off his three-page letter to the San Francisco Examiner. He may have considered posting it in a public mailbox, but his apparent desire to back up his claims in the July 31st letters and have it published in the Examiner by Monday afternoon, forced him to opt for the direct route of hand-delivery. 

For 35 years starting in 1965, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner operated under a Joint Operating Agreement whereby the Chronicle published a morning paper and the Examiner published in the afternoon. The Examiner published the Sunday paper's news sections and glossy magazine, and the Chronicle contributed the features. Circulation was approximately 100,000 on weekdays and 500,000 on Sundays. Wikipedia.

Below, the Vallejo News Chronicle details the Zodiac Killer's fourth letter to the San Francisco Examiner on Monday August 4th 1969,        
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Courtesy of Thomas Horan
The noticeable absence of the word "envelope" is not the only reason for believing the Debut of Zodiac letter was hand-delivered, when we look at the layout of the 3rd page where the Zodiac Killer writes "NO ADDRESS". Why on earth would the sender feel the need to write "no address" at the foot of the letter? Probably because there was no envelope containing the address of the San Francisco Examiner.   
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The scale on the left is slightly cut off, but the 3rd page measures approximately 10 inches in length.

If the Zodiac Killer had placed all three pages together, placing the 3rd page facing outwards on the top or bottom, then by folding the letters in the middle twice, the face of his communication would measure approximately 2.5 inches in height. The highlighted pink section would be the visible part of his communication, and where the address of the newspaper should have been written. But because he delivered it directly to the San Francisco offices, there was no need for an address - which is exactly what he wrote.

Does the hand-delivery of this letter tell us anything else about the Zodiac Killer, other than his eagerness for publication? The following is speculative and must be regarded as such.

The Zodiac letters have been heavily dissected to discover the likely home residence of the Bay Area murderer, and so we shall attempt to make some observations regarding this communication.


How prepared would the Zodiac Killer be, to travel a long distance just to hand-deliver this letter, rather than mail it? If the Zodiac Killer lived or worked in San Francisco, then it isn't a problem to deliver it in person, either by making the journey specifically or en route to his workplace. However, if he lived in an outlying area (but didn't work in San Francisco) such as Napa (44 miles), Sacramento (94 miles), Santa Rosa (57 miles), Vallejo (29 miles), Oakland (9 miles), then how likely would it be for a person to travel these distances for no other purpose than the desire to hand-deliver a letter?  Surely, based on the 'least effort principle' of geographic profiling, the further away he lives, the less likely this would be the case   

This may suggest that the killer either lived and worked in San Francisco, or lived in one of these other regions and traveled into San Francisco for his profession. If he lived in Napa, for example, would he travel 44 miles (88 miles round trip) for the sole purpose of dropping off a letter, rather than mail it in Napa or somewhere close by? Unless, he lived in Napa and worked in San Francisco.

If the August 4th 1969 Debut of Zodiac letter was personally delivered by the murderer to the San Francisco Examiner, does it in some small way reveal something about Zodiac Killer and his likely residence, or is "no address" the likely outcome?    

Swede
10/18/2018 01:45:23 pm

Hm, how far away could Zodiac buy the newspapers? I guess he could just get it easily if he worked or lived in SF ofc. Anyway, he was def into publicity so I would not be suprised if he in his eagerness was prepared to travel at least some distance.

Shawn
10/18/2018 06:11:48 pm

Do we absolutely know there was never a envelope with the Aug 4th letter?

Seems like someone might have said "hand delivered" or "slipped under door".

Richard
10/19/2018 01:34:43 am

I don't know for sure that this letter wasn't mailed with an envelope Shawn, and I may end up with egg on my face. But when you read around about this topic on the internet, everybody skirts around the issue, saying the August 4th letter was received, delivered, or arrived at the Examiner. Tom Voigt has the letter on his website as "Mailed: Unknown, Postmarked San Francisco, Calif". If this is the case that the location of the mailing is unknown, then why, if it's postmarked San Francisco is it unknown.
The Examiner only days earlier had received a Zodiac cryptogram with crosshairs, so if this letter was received on the 4th and immediately forwarded to Vallejo on the same day, that the editor opened the letter, tossed the envelope in the bin, but then realizing the importance of the letter as coming from Zodiac, just thought "to hell with the envelope, I'll just leave it in the bin". We would have to assume that the Examiner received the envelope in the afternoon and managed to lose it almost immediately, as the FBI files never mentioned any envelope as being attached to this letter from the outset. Also, what purpose do we accredit to the statement "no address" from Zodiac, if there was an envelope. He isn't going to mail a letter with his home address on it - that would be obviously ridiculous - so this certainly wouldn't make sense as an explanation.
As far as I am aware, the Zodiac Killer always addressed his envelopes, but on the one occasion we haven't got an envelope attached to a correspondence, he writes "no address". The only way I can read this, is his failure to place San Francisco Examiner, Calif, please rush to editor on the envelope - because there wasn't one.
If he did mail an envelope, then we would have to believe that the Examiner after receiving a correspondence with crosshairs on it, from the killer who replied to Officer Jack Stiltz imploring Zodiac to send more facts to prove he was the killer, in an article ran by them only the day before, would somehow throw away or lose the envelope within hours of receiving it. He mailed his correspondences to the Editor, so the editor of the Examiner would have been fully aware of the significance of the phrase "please rush to editor" and the handwriting style of the July 31st letter sent to them only 4 days prior, so to throw it away or inadvertently lose it almost immediately would be hard to swallow. If somebody can show me evidence of the word envelope from an accredited source ever being uttered in the same sentence with this correspondence, I will happily delete the article, but equally glad that it has forced somebody to fin that said evidence. But until that time, or somebody can show me a photograph of the envelope, I have to question if there ever was one.
The significance of no envelope can then be discussed in more depth from the standpoint of somebody living 50 miles from the San Francisco offices and travelling 100 miles round trip in the morning hours to drop off this correspondence, if they didn't live or work in San Francisco. If there is an envelope I will only be too glad to be notified of this fact Shawn. I certainly won't double-down and dig a deeper hole.

Shawn
10/19/2018 06:14:50 am

At Butterfield's website he has what seems to be good quality pictures of all three Aug 4th pages.

http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=5

It appears that none of the pages have obvious fold marks and lots of bleeding from the the felt pen ink.

If there was no envelope then maybe he used a paperclip or staple. The page you show above does have marks what could be staple marks but the other two pages do not show the same.






Richard
10/19/2018 06:53:58 am

Yes Shawn, it is a possibility that the three letters were bound by a fastener of some kind. But again, he uses the word "received" not "mailed". The only reason I think they were folded, is because a double-fold would leave the "no address" and crosshairs as effectively his front cover. Checking for folds in the letters can be seen some of the time, as the October 13th 1969, but I accept that these letters could have been paperclipped, stapled or bound together in some fashion. Of course, the absence of folds would certainly bolster the idea of no envelope, but I suppose the premise of when I'm proposing, is somebody who works at the Examiner who is ultimately responsible for handing over the letters to the editor, has to instantly recognize their importance ie: from Zodiac. Hence the crosshairs visible upon delivery. I don't know, but logic tells me that Examiner staff would have been briefed on recognizing a potential Zodiac letter, in view of the fact, the Sunday Examiner & Chronicle were the ones encouraging Zodiac to write to them. I accept I may be wrong with my assertions about the envelope, but I have never even read that there was an envelope but it was unfortunately lost. An envelope lost a matter of minutes or hours after its arrival is not something they would be too keen to publicize, but having said that, how is that a logical conclusion, when once you have opened the letter and identified its contents you cannot retrieve the envelope that you have just put down or tossed into the bin. If it doesn't make sense, it generally isn't true.

Shawn
10/20/2018 07:16:33 am

"Tom Voigt has the letter on his website as "Mailed: Unknown, Postmarked San Francisco, Calif". If this is the case that the location of the mailing is unknown, then why, if it's postmarked San Francisco is it unknown."

In some cases with the Zodiac killer envelopes/cards, they are not obviously dated or not dated as when mailed. With the Red Phantom envelope, it is postmarked, but the date is not readable with the images available online. The Tahoe card was bought pre-stamped/cancelled with no date. Lastly the SLA letter has a stamp with no postmark.

Could the Aug 4th envelope be postmarked with date, but it is unreadable due to an insufficient imprint from the post office cancellation machine.

If you get a chance, could you ask Tom where he got his information regarding the Aug 4th envelope?

Red Phantom Envelope
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=22&pid=134#top_display_media
Tahoe Card
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=18&pid=142#top_display_media
SLA Envelope
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=20&pid=136#top_display_media

Shawn
10/20/2018 08:08:50 am

In Graysmith's Yellow Book, under "Zodiac Letters" toward the end of the book he has a list of all letters and when/where they were mailed.

He has the Aug 4th Letter being mailed to the "Vallejo Times Herald" on Tuesday Aug 7th. In the body of the book he had August 7th as a Thursday which is correct for August 7th in 1969. In the body of the book he does not say where the letter was mailed.

It is rather bizarre Graysmtih would be so off on where and when the Sentinel Aug 4th Zodiac letter was sent/received. Graysmith was a employee at the SF Chronicle and pretty good with most details regarding the case. (Chron had joint operating agreement with the Examiner)

Richard
10/20/2018 08:54:45 am

Yes, he was way off with the date, constantly referring it as sent/received on August 7th 1969. This is odd considering it appeared in the newspapers before this date. After being received by the Examiner, it was immediately forwarded to the Vallejo police, so we can forgive him for thinking it was received by the Vallejo Times-Herald I suppose. He made a lot of errors, but I have always believed he contributed a lot to the case, and where we are today is mainly down to his efforts, despite the rather slanted Arthur Leigh Allen books. I may ask Tom, but I suspect he has no idea whether an envelope came with this correspondence, or we would likely have read it somewhere Shawn. I suspect you have done an extensive Google search like me, and no mention whatsoever about this envelope. With topics left to cover running out, this has to be worth investigating. I know it won't break the case, but I know every little unanswered question builds a bigger picture of our understanding.

Shawn
10/20/2018 11:35:48 am

"I may ask Tom, but I suspect he has no idea whether an envelope came with this correspondence, or we would likely have read it somewhere"

Tom is/has been in contact with Zodiac cold case Det. Poyser at Vallejo PD. Vallejo PD has/had possession of the Aug 4th letter as shown in the FBI document above. It seems the Detective could quickly answer if he ever heard of an envelope accompanying the Aug 4 letter.

Nobody
10/18/2018 06:22:47 pm

Cryptographers were "consulting the stars". LOL!


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