Melinda Stehr of the attorney general's office said handwriting experts confirmed the October 28th 1987 letter was a simulation of a letter sent to the San Francisco Chronicle a decade ago, which was also considered to be a hoax. "Someone saw the letter and was using it as a copy". Stehr said. "It's a fake. It's a hoax". Vallejo Police Captain Roy Conway said the letter ″was not authored by the authentic Zodiac, but that it is a simulation of a hoax letter written in 1978". Robert Prouty, a documents examiner, stated in respect to the 1978 letter: "I examined the photographs of the April letter and those of previous letters attributed to Zodiac. My first impression was that it was in the same general style as previous letters, but after closer examination my ultimate conclusion was that there were so many differences that it was not written by the same person who wrote the previous Zodiac letters … Several letter characteristics in my opinion did not match the style used by Zodiac. The slant of some letters was not consistent with previous Zodiac communications. I am of the opinion that the letter of April 24 was an attempt to duplicate Zodiac letters and is not authentic. He went on to say of the 1987 letter (and its sister letter mailed to the Chronicle): "My very firm opinion is that they were not written by the authentic Zodiac. They appear to be composed of previous letters which have since been made public. All of us were hoping we'd heard the last of him",
Click image to enlarge letter Therefore, Robert Prouty, Captain Roy Conway and Melinda Stehr are claiming that the 1987 author was mimicking the 1978 author, who was also mimicking previous Zodiac letters. This means that the author of both letters in 1987 took the time and effort to compose and mail two communications, but was utterly incapable of crafting a letter using any of the Zodiac Killer's confirmed communications, either by copying the handwriting from newspapers in 1969 or 1970, or by using Robert Graysmith's book released the previous year. Instead, the author of the October 28th 1987 letter to the Vallejo Times-Herald chose the only letter out of Zodiac's entire portfolio that was widely reported as a hoax by newspapers. In other words, the so-called hoaxer of the 1987 letter chose to copy a hoax letter to convince you he was real.
If you were a hoaxer in 1987, attempting to pass yourself off as the Zodiac Killer, would you really craft a letter in 1987 that virtually mimicked the first three lines of the 1978 letter and expect anything other than a copycat label. The bottom of each correspondence was equally similar, with "yours truly:" and "guess" featuring in both letters. Anybody making a serious attempt at fooling the police and newspapers would surely not have made it so obvious. The author of the 1987 letter clearly didn't care that people viewing this letter would draw the obvious conclusions - and the only person who didn't need to convince you that he was the Zodiac Killer, was the Zodiac Killer himself. These conclusions were made by documents examiner, Robert Prouty, in absence of the comparison between the October 28th 1987 envelope and the July 31st 1969 envelope, both mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald.
The author of the 1987 envelope, if a hoaxer, would have had no knowledge of the design of the 1969 envelope, because it had never been released publicly by October 28th 1987. So maybe Robert Prouty, Captain Roy Conway and Melinda Stehr should have explained how the author of the 1987 envelope used the same 13 words as the 1969 envelope, used no punctuation in either address, used the full newspaper title of Vallejo Times Herold in both (abbreviated in the published July 31st letters), probably misspelled "Herald" to "Herold" on both occasions (as spelled in the 1990 Celebrity Cypher postcard), and finally managed to create handwriting not too dissimilar (see below). A hoaxer on this occasion would have had to mimic another communication without ever seeing it. Unless of course, it was the Zodiac Killer on both occasions.
Robert Prouty stated "My very firm opinion is that they (1987 letters) were not written by the authentic Zodiac. They appear to be composed of previous letters which have since been made public". Had he stated "My very firm opinion is that they (the 1987 envelopes} were not written by the authentic Zodiac. They appear to be composed of previous letters (envelopes) which have since been made public", he would have been wrong. Had the 1969 Vallejo Times-Herald envelope been released into the public domain by 1987, you can be sure that Robert Prouty would have said the author of the 1987 envelope copied the 1969 envelope. These arguments have been widely used to discredit the 1978 letter and envelope (the latter of which mimicked the Dripping Pen card envelope). If the Zodiac Killer can mimic the 1978 letter in the 1987 letter and mimic the 1969 envelope in the 1987 envelope (which a hoaxer had no access to), then he can mimic the Dripping Pen card envelope in the 1978 envelope, showing that mimicry cannot be used to justify calling somebody a hoaxer.
If you were a hoaxer in 1987, attempting to pass yourself off as the Zodiac Killer, would you really craft a letter in 1987 that virtually mimicked the first three lines of the 1978 letter and expect anything other than a copycat label. The bottom of each correspondence was equally similar, with "yours truly:" and "guess" featuring in both letters. Anybody making a serious attempt at fooling the police and newspapers would surely not have made it so obvious. The author of the 1987 letter clearly didn't care that people viewing this letter would draw the obvious conclusions - and the only person who didn't need to convince you that he was the Zodiac Killer, was the Zodiac Killer himself. These conclusions were made by documents examiner, Robert Prouty, in absence of the comparison between the October 28th 1987 envelope and the July 31st 1969 envelope, both mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald.
The author of the 1987 envelope, if a hoaxer, would have had no knowledge of the design of the 1969 envelope, because it had never been released publicly by October 28th 1987. So maybe Robert Prouty, Captain Roy Conway and Melinda Stehr should have explained how the author of the 1987 envelope used the same 13 words as the 1969 envelope, used no punctuation in either address, used the full newspaper title of Vallejo Times Herold in both (abbreviated in the published July 31st letters), probably misspelled "Herald" to "Herold" on both occasions (as spelled in the 1990 Celebrity Cypher postcard), and finally managed to create handwriting not too dissimilar (see below). A hoaxer on this occasion would have had to mimic another communication without ever seeing it. Unless of course, it was the Zodiac Killer on both occasions.
Robert Prouty stated "My very firm opinion is that they (1987 letters) were not written by the authentic Zodiac. They appear to be composed of previous letters which have since been made public". Had he stated "My very firm opinion is that they (the 1987 envelopes} were not written by the authentic Zodiac. They appear to be composed of previous letters (envelopes) which have since been made public", he would have been wrong. Had the 1969 Vallejo Times-Herald envelope been released into the public domain by 1987, you can be sure that Robert Prouty would have said the author of the 1987 envelope copied the 1969 envelope. These arguments have been widely used to discredit the 1978 letter and envelope (the latter of which mimicked the Dripping Pen card envelope). If the Zodiac Killer can mimic the 1978 letter in the 1987 letter and mimic the 1969 envelope in the 1987 envelope (which a hoaxer had no access to), then he can mimic the Dripping Pen card envelope in the 1978 envelope, showing that mimicry cannot be used to justify calling somebody a hoaxer.
October 28th 1987 envelope
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