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Richard Grinell, Coventry, England
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THE MIKADO CODE?

9/24/2017

 
The Zodiac Killer teased us with his name on more than one occasion, firstly in the July 31st 1969 San Francisco Chronicle letter where he stated "I want you to print this cipher on the front page of your paper. In this cipher is my idenity". He would follow this up with the 'My Name is...' Letter on April 20th 1970 and the Halloween Card on October 27th 1970 tempting us with his name again; "I feel it in my bones, You ache to know my name, And so I'll clue you in.." ​It would appear however, these were empty promises and we are still no nearer to securing the identity of the Zodiac Killer nearly half a century later.

It always seemed strange the Zodiac Killer would integrate the Gilbert and Sullivan Mikado into his correspondence, leading researchers to believe he was a fan of the theater, having quoted three acts of The Mikado in the Little List Letter of July 26th 1970 and Exorcist Letter of January 29th 1974. But there may be an ulterior motive behind this apparent fascination with Gilbert and Sullivan, in that the killer was using The Mikado to reveal his name - and likely through four mailings rather than the accepted two. We will take a closer look at these four correspondences and the speculative links between them, without claiming this is anything more than coincidence. Let us first look at the Exorcist Letter.   

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The first thing to notice is its carefully structured appearance, being divided neatly into four sections of text. The curious thing about the correspondence is Zodiac wrote "Signed, yours truley," as though he was about to offer up his name in the third block of writing. He then recited ​Act II - On a tree by a river from The Mikado. It seemed like Zodiac was wasting our time, plucking out random verses from The Mikado - that is until you read verse three of this particular act. It not only contained a reference to 'name', but pointed us towards 'The My Name is...' Cipher mailed on April 20th 1970. Here is verse three.

Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name
Isn't Willow, titwillow, titwillow,
That 'twas blighted affection that made him exclaim
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
And if you remain callous and obdurate, I
Shall perish as he did, and you will know why,
Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die,

"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"

Was the Zodiac Killer giving us clues to his identity or name, by leading us back to the 13 Symbol Cipher. This observation on its own is meaningless, so we will travel back in time to the Little List Letter mailed on July 26th 1970, apparently the only other correspondence to contain references to The Mikado. The first section of the Little List Letter pulled lines from  A More Humane Mikado and continued on to extensively recite Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado Act One Part 5a As Some Day it May Happen, performed by Ko-Ko. In the introductory part of the letter, the Zodiac Killer simply boasted about how he would torture his slaves in paradise - but he again did something curious - by selecting just one small section of A More Humane Mikado, despite it being ten verses in length. The same as he did in the Exorcist Letter. He then continued to paraphrase the entirety of As Some Day it May Happen.

The Exorcist Letter, we have shown to have tenuous links to the April 20th 1970 'My Name is...' Letter, using verse three of Tit-Willow. So let us look at the small section of text Zodiac selected from
A More Humane Mikado. The Little List Letter read "And all billiard players I shall have them play in a darkened dungen cell with crooked cues + Twisted Shoes".  Why does Zodiac select this small portion? Was this also hinting towards the 'My Name is...' Cipher? When we think of billiard players or billiard balls from the standpoint of America, eight-ball comes to mind, and the circled eights on the 13 Symbol Cipher. 
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This is the full verse (right) from A More Humane Mikado. It is actually verse eight out of ten, providing us with the numerical link, as did verse three from the Exorcist Letter. The Zodiac Killer did state on the 'My Name is...' Letter; "PS I hope you have fun trying to figgure out who I killed".

There is however another link from A More Humane Mikado to the alphabetical characters on the '13 Symbol' code mailed by Zodiac.
The Zodiac Killer supplied us with eight alphabetical characters, reading from left to right  A, E, N, K, M, N, A and M. In the diagram below, key sections of A More Humane Mikado are highlighted for comparison to the '13 Symbol' Cipher. Seven letters have been highlighted in green and yellow. This is where we must take a bold leap of faith and consider that the Zodiac Killer chose The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan because it simply contained his name, Kim. Nothing more theatrical than that. 

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The green highlighted sections on A More Humane Mikado in reverse, read KIMNAM. If we believe therefore, that the middle eight represents the letter I on the '13 Symbol' Cipher, it reads forward KIMNAM, exactly the same. The remaining letters of the cipher AEN are shown highlighted in yellow. Every letter on the '13 Symbol' Cipher is contained within this section of seven letters. ​The three eights encapsulated his identity, just like the three eights at the foot of the 340 character cipher mailed on November 8th 1969: The Mathematics of the 13 Symbol Cipher. Who said the Magic 8 ball was just for telling fortunes! Additionally, Mikado can be formed using the alphabetical characters on the 20th line of the 340 Cipher.

The Zodiac was keen to share with us what he had in store for his slaves in paradise: "This is the Zodiac speaking. Being that you will not wear some nice buttons, how about wearing some nasty buttons. Or any kind of buttons that you can think up. If you do not wear any type of buttons, I shall (on top of everything else) torture all 13 of my slaves that I have waiting for me in Paradice. Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm. Others shall have pine splinters driven under their nails + then burned. Others shall be placed in cages + fed salt beef untill they are gorged then I shall listen to their pleass for water and I shall laugh at them. Others will hang by their thumbs + burn in the sun then I will rub them down with deep heat to warm them up. Others I shall skin them alive + let them run around screaming. And all billiard players I shall have them play in a darkened dungen cell with crooked cues + Twisted Shoes. Yes I shall have great fun inflicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves".

The talk of slaves, paradise, pine splinters, dungeons and hanging his 'prisoners' by the thumbs, catapulted me to the Halloween Card mailed on October 27th 1970 and the last Mikado installment. The Zodiac Killer placed some wording around the knothole in the tree stating "peek a boo you are doomed". Bearing in mind that The Mikado opened to the paying public on March 14th 1885, and was hugely successful, running for 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre in London, a British connection had to be sought. The British term for peek-a-boo is peep-bo, and peep-bo is a character in The Mikado.      
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http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/fk-im-crackproof
Greg H
9/25/2017 09:44:34 am

Hi Richard.. Just from doing some quick searches, it seems Kinman is a fairly common last name. In fact, there was an Alfard Lee Kinman (1919-1982) who lived in Vallejo. No apparent results though for the name Kimnam...

Richard
9/25/2017 10:32:22 am

Cheers for the search Greg. No, I doubt Zodiac was ever crazy enough (can't believe I just said that) to leave his full name, but just releasing a first name wouldn't get investigators far, although probably amuse Zodiac. I don't believe this article has much legs, but just noticed a few running themes across several letters and cards. And hadn't done any crazy theories for a while.

Drew
9/27/2017 10:34:39 am

Hi Richard, do you know if May, 1970, prompted by the dragon card was the first time it was publicly revealed that Zodiac had made any kind of bomb threat?

Richard
9/27/2017 04:11:17 pm

Good question Drew, I honestly have never given it a thought, but will have a look on Thursday.

Drew
9/27/2017 05:25:53 pm

It seems Avery may have been the first to write about the bomb threats May 1, 1970, as he gave the police explanation for holding back the info to avoid panicking the public.

I have been looking into various calls made to police claiming to be Zodiac. I just thought these three Santa Rosa incidents were curious.

On May 8, 1970, someone calling themselves Zodiac twice called in a bomb threat to a Santa Rosa Kmart - not the police but the department store. They evacuated the store but found nothing. Graysmith said exactly one year earlier someone else in Santa Rosa had made a bomb threat (which would have been before Zodiac called himself that) but no one has ever confirmed this.

October 17, 1969, a Santa Rosa school bus driver told a reporter that she and her students thought they heard someone take a shot at her bus. Schools knew about the sniper bus threat in the first Stine letter on the 15th, but I don't think it was reported until the 17th Keith Powers article. Of course there very well may not have been a shot.

October 21, 1969, the day before all the Dunbar/Belli business, an article by Avery reported that a call to Santa Rosa police had recently been made by someone 'hinting' to be Zodiac and threatening to plant a bomb on a school bus.

Richard
9/28/2017 12:10:03 am

On a KPIX News report from April 22nd 1970 featuring an interview with SFPD's Lieutenant Charles Ellis, he alludes to Zodiac stating he wasn't responsible for the Park Police Station bombing, but the newspapers clearly up to this point held back details of his bomb threats, but I'm still looking for an earlier mention. I see where your going with this line of reasoning. I shall keep looking.
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/231080

Richard
9/28/2017 12:26:39 am

Yes, the article entitled 'Valley of Fear-Fear Rides the Yellow Bus' published on October 21st 1969, despite this being written before Zodiac's threat in the 'Bus Bomb' letter of November 9th 1969, mentioned the Santa Rosa call. Significant, when you think he hadn't actually made any bomb threats by mail up to this point. He clearly would have read this article prior to November 9th, so did it influence his correspondence or was he the actual caller. Interesting.

Drew
9/28/2017 08:27:52 am

Thanks Richard, I'll let you know if it develops any further.

Tom
9/29/2017 08:07:01 am

The suspect I am focusing on (a relative of mine), changed his name from William to Arthur in June of 1970. This date is between the April 20 letter and the October 1970 Halloween Card, and he flew from California back to his home state to change it - without visiting family. It seems that he didn't want anyone knowing he had changed
it, and he made a 1,200+ mile journey to do it.

The Exorcist was written by William Blatty and the movie directed by William Friedkin, while the Mikado was written by Arthur Sullivan and William Gilbert. So, if I am correct in assuming my suspect is who I believe him to be, it makes sense to assume he included works written exclusively by people who shared his name. It would be like me commenting on a Tom Cruise-directed movie based on a Tom Clancy-written novel, changing my name to Jerry, and signing off with a Tom and Jerry reference to a game of "cat-and-mouse."

I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but the circumstantial evidence surrounding my suspect is pretty astounding - and it extends to every aspect of the case. Even up to the 1990 "Eureka Card," which may or may not be an 'official' Zodiac correspondence.

Richard
9/29/2017 08:14:28 am

Hi Tom, I did a piece exploring the name William, as you have mentioned and found many instances.
http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/name-dropper

Alex Lewis
10/5/2017 05:42:32 pm

"The suspect I am focusing on (a relative of mine), changed his name from William to Arthur in June of 1970."

Not another one! Was there some sort of fashionable craze of legal name changing to co-incide with the free love on offer from the Hippies in a pot smoking inspired Sixties?

'Free Love, free drugs, and above all, free to change ones identity....."See a name man, that's a label man and you brother, you are Gods child, at one with Mother Earth in peace and harmony and.....***bosh*** "Shut up you've taken too much LSD, Maaaan!" Ha!

Fiddle
12/16/2017 01:05:11 pm

What's your take on this solution using Craig Bauer's Key?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZodiacKiller/comments/7k9efy/i_applied_the_new_340_solution_to_the_my_name_is/

Richard
12/16/2017 01:14:20 pm

I think like most people- that it isn't the solution. Using the same key you can create alternative messages to the one offered.

Fiddle
12/16/2017 01:18:57 pm

But what are the odds that the seeming fit for Y, I, and S are occurring?

Richard
12/16/2017 03:10:01 pm

I will look at the solution you've given tomorrow. It certainly is a clever fit from the History Channel key. Taken independently, my above comment was referring to Craig Bauer's solution, not yours. I'll look again in the morning. Have you asked the cipher expert Dave Oranchak on Zodiackillersite forum.

Richard
12/17/2017 04:45:59 am

It certainly is an intriguing idea you have presented Fiddle. The Y and E for the 8, could be accounted for based on his introduction in the letter. With the Craig Bauer key he did use an O for the crosshairs at the foot of the solution, but by sticking to the top 6 lines it follows.
The downside with the 13 Symbol cipher is its lack of characters, meaning many different plausible alternatives can and have been presented, nevertheless an interesting 'solution'. The crucial thing is getting into the mind of the killer and how he intended this correspondence to be read. One could argue that taken in its entirety such as "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you. My name is....My name is Kayne" makes little sense. But how it was intended is open to interpretation, and there belies the problem. The solution you have presented gains more traction if Craig Bauer's key is correct, if not, then it's based on a flawed attempt by the History Channel. Certainly though, a worthy observation based on the docudrama.

Richard
12/17/2017 06:53:18 am

I do like the Kaye, Kane interpretation, to Kayne.

Me
11/6/2018 02:07:38 pm

It seems to me it could be about people that get to make rules about what is acceptable. This could also explain the objection to the Badlands ad. I doubt it is just because z likes japanese operas.


Comments are closed.
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