It was common for the Zodiac Killer to compose letters and cards inspired by newspaper articles he had recently read, so it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for the murderer of five to have been a regular consumer of the San Francisco Chronicle, including the games and puzzles section. On November 8th 1969 the Zodiac Killer mailed his infamous 340 cipher, unsolved for 51 years, until it was cracked by David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke in 2020 using a knight's move (period 19) decryption technique. Could the Zodiac Killer have had an avid interest in chess, followed the popular column by George Koltanowski in the San Francisco Chronicle and incorporated a shift move into his encoding of the 340 cipher, that required a knight's move to unlock its secrets half a century later? Did the individual outlined below have an influence on the Zodiac Killer? The answer may lie in a newspaper article in the San Francisco Examiner on July 16th 1978, announcing the upcoming World Chess Championship beginning on July 18th 1978 with a match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, covered by guest speaker George Koltanowski at the Paul Masson Vineyard in Saratoga, Santa Clara County. A county where only 3 months earlier, the Zodiac Killer may have mailed the April 24th 1978 "I am back with you" letter from.
GEORGE KOLTANOWSKI George Koltanowski, the legendary grandmaster of chess who wrote more than 19,000 chess columns for The San Francisco Chronicle with the same ease with which he dispatched countless opponents in a career that spanned 10 decades, died Saturday (February 5th 2000) in a San Francisco hospital after a brief illness. He was 96. His column, which appeared in The Chronicle every day without interruption for 52 years, was the longest-running daily chess column in history.
He was also the world champion of a form of the game known as blindfold chess, in which the player commits the game to memory and does not look at the board or touch the pieces used by opponents, who play in the normal fashion. Mr. Koltanowski's 1937 feat of playing 34 opponents simultaneously while blindfolded without losing a game has never been equaled. Koltanowski was the former president of the U.S. Chess Federation, which bestowed upon him the title of "Dean of American Chess." He served during the years after the Bobby Fischer boom of 1972, when interest in chess soared to record highs after the mercurial American grandmaster won the world title. Koltanowski seized the momentum of those heady days to install chess clubs in countless schools, community centers and even at San Quentin Prison. San Francisco Chronicle.
Among his countless chess feats, Mr. Koltanowski was well-known for performing the Knight's Tour, where random bits of information such as names and phone numbers would be supplied by audience members and written in the 64 squares of a giant chessboard. In seconds, Mr. Koltanowski would commit the entire hodgepodge to memory. Then, while blindfolded, he would call out the intricate path required for a chess knight to make its series of L-shaped hops around the board -- by recalling the scraps of information in order. If the Zodiac Killer had a liking or fascination with chess and puzzles, he would very likely have known about the knight's tour challenge, a mathematical problem where you have to move a knight around a chessboard (8 X 8 grid) and visit all 64 squares without landing on a square more than once. The Knight's Tour is very well-known, recognized as a classic, over-thousand-year-old mathematical puzzle and graph theory problem, first appearing in 9th-century Sanskrit texts and later analyzed by Leonhard Euler, becoming famous for its complexity and links to magic squares, popularizing it through chess history and computer science as an illustration of algorithms.
He was also the world champion of a form of the game known as blindfold chess, in which the player commits the game to memory and does not look at the board or touch the pieces used by opponents, who play in the normal fashion. Mr. Koltanowski's 1937 feat of playing 34 opponents simultaneously while blindfolded without losing a game has never been equaled. Koltanowski was the former president of the U.S. Chess Federation, which bestowed upon him the title of "Dean of American Chess." He served during the years after the Bobby Fischer boom of 1972, when interest in chess soared to record highs after the mercurial American grandmaster won the world title. Koltanowski seized the momentum of those heady days to install chess clubs in countless schools, community centers and even at San Quentin Prison. San Francisco Chronicle.
Among his countless chess feats, Mr. Koltanowski was well-known for performing the Knight's Tour, where random bits of information such as names and phone numbers would be supplied by audience members and written in the 64 squares of a giant chessboard. In seconds, Mr. Koltanowski would commit the entire hodgepodge to memory. Then, while blindfolded, he would call out the intricate path required for a chess knight to make its series of L-shaped hops around the board -- by recalling the scraps of information in order. If the Zodiac Killer had a liking or fascination with chess and puzzles, he would very likely have known about the knight's tour challenge, a mathematical problem where you have to move a knight around a chessboard (8 X 8 grid) and visit all 64 squares without landing on a square more than once. The Knight's Tour is very well-known, recognized as a classic, over-thousand-year-old mathematical puzzle and graph theory problem, first appearing in 9th-century Sanskrit texts and later analyzed by Leonhard Euler, becoming famous for its complexity and links to magic squares, popularizing it through chess history and computer science as an illustration of algorithms.
To commemorate the opening of the World Chess Championship in the Philippines on July 18th 1978, George Koltanowski appeared at a chess tournament in the Paul Masson Vineyard in Saratoga, Santa Clara County, which offered $15,000 in prize money and was open to 700 players. A chess tournament was held there annually in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The San Francisco Examiner newspaper reported on July 16th 1978 that it had not yet been decided whether George Koltanowski would be performing his mind-blowing Knight's Tour chess puzzle while blindfolded, or would be taking on the Controlled Data's computer in St. Paul Minnesota, while sitting in the shade of the sycamore trees in the Paul Masson Vineyard in the mountains of Saratoga.
Whatever the case, the day after the World Chess Championship began (and while George Koltanowski was giving his performance in Saratoga), the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19th 1978, stating "But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape....My tape is waiting for me all over California". Clearly this was no coincidence, especially when you consider that this Zodiac letter was probably composed on July 18th 1978, the day the World Chess Championship began, the day that George Koltanowski gave a talk in Saratoga about the opening chess match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, and the same day that the Santa Cruz Sentinel (and numerous others) reported on this very same chess game, with a Zodiac Killer newspaper article right next to it, entitled "SF Chief Says Inspector Didn't Write Zodiac Letter". A newspaper article on July 18th 1978 about David Toschi who had been demoted to pawn detail, followed by a Zodiac letter on July 19th 1978 inviting the former inspector to "maybe play chess".
Whatever the case, the day after the World Chess Championship began (and while George Koltanowski was giving his performance in Saratoga), the Zodiac Killer mailed a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19th 1978, stating "But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape....My tape is waiting for me all over California". Clearly this was no coincidence, especially when you consider that this Zodiac letter was probably composed on July 18th 1978, the day the World Chess Championship began, the day that George Koltanowski gave a talk in Saratoga about the opening chess match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi, and the same day that the Santa Cruz Sentinel (and numerous others) reported on this very same chess game, with a Zodiac Killer newspaper article right next to it, entitled "SF Chief Says Inspector Didn't Write Zodiac Letter". A newspaper article on July 18th 1978 about David Toschi who had been demoted to pawn detail, followed by a Zodiac letter on July 19th 1978 inviting the former inspector to "maybe play chess".
In the Zodiac Killer letter postmarked July 19th 1978, it stated "I am the ZODIAC and I am in control of all things. I am going to tell you a secret. I like friction tape. I like to have it around in case I need to truss someone up in a hurry....I have my real name on a small metallic tape. You see, while you have it in your possession, I want you to know it belongs to me and you think I may have left it accidentally. I am athletic. It could be swim fins, or a piece of scuba gear. But maybe you play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets all over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape....My tape is waiting for me all over California. Do you know me? I am the ZODIAC and I am in control". You will notice that the letter mentions Scotch Tape, invented in 1930 by 3M engineer Richard Drew in St. Paul, Minnesota (and manufactured there). The very location of the computer being challenged by George Koltanowski at the time the Zodiac Killer letter arrived at the San Francisco Chronicle, mentioning chess. Designed as a moisture-proof sealant for food packaging, it quickly became popular during the Great Depression for repairing household items. The Zodiac Killer informed us that he had his name "on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape", leading many to believe that the Zodiac Killer's name may have been "Paul", contained within the location of St. Paul, Minnesota.
"I HAVE MY NAME ON THE BOTTOM OF THE LID WITH THE SCOTCH TAPE"
CLICK TO ENTER GOOGLE MAPS Is it possible that the Zodiac Killer attended this chess tournament at the Paul Masson Vineyard in Saratoga as a competitor or spectator? This location is situated 2 miles (by crow) from where Kathy Bilek (18) was stabbed to death on April 11th 1971 in the woods of Villa Montalvo, whom the Zodiac Killer claimed responsibility for on July 13th 1971 by mailing the "Monticello" card, stating "Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April". Saratoga is close to San Jose, which has consistently featured in the Zodiac Killer story.
The company (3M) that produced Scotch Tape also invented Post-it Notes (sticky notes) in 1974. George Koltanowski famously used sticky notes (or small pieces of paper) as part of his demonstration of the "Knight's Tour" during his exhibitions. During his demonstration of the knight's tour, George Koltanowski would ask audience members to call out random words, names, or numbers, which were written on sticky notes and placed on each of the 64 squares of a large demo chessboard. He was then blindfolded, and another person would select a random square. Starting from that square, Koltanowski would recite the text on the note and continue to call out the contents of every other square in sequence, without error, following the path of a knight's tour until all 64 notes were removed. A knight's move that was required to solve the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle where George Koltanowski had a chess column. The audience members sometimes had their names placed on sticky notes, not unlike the Zodiac Killer, who claimed his name was on Scotch Tape all over California.
The Scotch Tape letter upon first reading makes little sense, but everything contained within Zodiac communications usually have their foundation in Bay Area newspapers, which the Zodiac Killer borrowed from and inserted, often cryptically, into his writings to the San Francisco Chronicle (and occasionally others). Whether this extended to the 340 cipher through an interest in chess, is open to question.
FURTHER READING: A PAWN IN A GAME OF DEATH
The company (3M) that produced Scotch Tape also invented Post-it Notes (sticky notes) in 1974. George Koltanowski famously used sticky notes (or small pieces of paper) as part of his demonstration of the "Knight's Tour" during his exhibitions. During his demonstration of the knight's tour, George Koltanowski would ask audience members to call out random words, names, or numbers, which were written on sticky notes and placed on each of the 64 squares of a large demo chessboard. He was then blindfolded, and another person would select a random square. Starting from that square, Koltanowski would recite the text on the note and continue to call out the contents of every other square in sequence, without error, following the path of a knight's tour until all 64 notes were removed. A knight's move that was required to solve the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher, mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle where George Koltanowski had a chess column. The audience members sometimes had their names placed on sticky notes, not unlike the Zodiac Killer, who claimed his name was on Scotch Tape all over California.
The Scotch Tape letter upon first reading makes little sense, but everything contained within Zodiac communications usually have their foundation in Bay Area newspapers, which the Zodiac Killer borrowed from and inserted, often cryptically, into his writings to the San Francisco Chronicle (and occasionally others). Whether this extended to the 340 cipher through an interest in chess, is open to question.
FURTHER READING: A PAWN IN A GAME OF DEATH
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