Sometime in 1971 a questionable Zodiac correspondence and cipher was received by the San Francisco Chronicle, postmarked Fairfield, California. This was now the third Zodiac related communication mailed from Fairfield, following the December 7th and December 16th letters. There is limited information on the internet regarding this letter, other than the Zodiologists.com website, who have analyzed this correspondence in great detail. The letter and cipher can be found using the Wayback Machine on Ed Neil's old website TheZodiacFiles.com. I have cleaned up the letter without altering any of the text by the author:
I'll DO IT TO BECAUSE I DONE IT 21 TIMES. I CAN'T STOP BECAUSE EACH ThAT I KILL MAKES IT WORSE AND I MUST KILL MORE. MAN IS ThE MOST PRIZED GAME. ILL NERVER GIVE MY NAME BECAUSE YOU dONT UNDERSTAND. NEXT TIME I WILL SEND A PATCH OF HUMAN SKIN if their is SOME Left OVER.
I'll DO IT TO BECAUSE I DONE IT 21 TIMES. I CAN'T STOP BECAUSE EACH ThAT I KILL MAKES IT WORSE AND I MUST KILL MORE. MAN IS ThE MOST PRIZED GAME. ILL NERVER GIVE MY NAME BECAUSE YOU dONT UNDERSTAND. NEXT TIME I WILL SEND A PATCH OF HUMAN SKIN if their is SOME Left OVER.
The 148 character cipher decodes to:
"Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on your front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin".
The wording in the letter "I'll do it to because I done it 21 times" is consistent with a mailing date sometime after the March 13th 1971 Los Angeles correspondence from Zodiac, claiming 17+ victims. Using a simple calculation we can estimate how often the Zodiac claimed a victim. From December 20th 1968 to July 26th 1970, the Zodiac Killer claimed 13 victims over 584 days. That is one victim every 44.9 days. Therefore, from victim 13 to 21, another 8 victims were claimed (8 X 44.9 = 359 days). Add 359 days to July 26th 1970 and we arrive at July 20th 1971, approximately four months after the Los Angeles letter.
This letter and cipher appears at first glance a dubious Zodiac communication, but as Zodiologists.com point out, how difficult would it be for a hoaxer to mimic the ciphers or crosshairs of Zodiac. The fact the author failed to do this, should be pause for thought. There is also something about this letter that indicates the author had written another 'Zodiac' communication (or the author was the actual Bay Area murderer). The other communication, also mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13th 1971, mirrored the 148 character cipher and letter in one crucial way - the victim total. The last two widely accepted Zodiac communications were the March 13th 1971 Los Angeles letter claiming 17+ victims, and the January 29th 1974 Exorcist letter claiming 37 victims. The author of the above correspondence had 19 victim totals to choose from (18 to 36), yet he chose the total of 21, exactly the same as the total mentioned in the July 13th 1971 Monticello card, which featured in the San Francisco Police Department DNA report under "suspected Zodiac correspondence". Did the author of the above correspondence just get lucky by randomly choosing 21 victims and thereby mirroring the Monticello card, or was he the author of both?
The Monticello card was mailed on July 13th 1971 stating:
"Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April".
By my rudimentary calculations, the 148 character cipher and letter should have been mailed on July 20th 1971, only one week after the Monticello card. If somebody can find the exact date of mailing regarding the 148 cipher and letter, or when this correspondence was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, it would be of immense value. The Monticello card was not published in the newspapers, therefore the notion of a victim total of 21 having been chosen by two independent authors looks extremely unlikely. If the Monticello card was designated as "suspected Zodiac correspondence" by the San Francisco Police Department, then by extension, the above correspondence should be afforded the same value.
"Tis the Zodiac Speacking. Why can't you stop me. I can't stop killing. Stop listening t(o) phonys. If this is not on your front page in a week I will skin 3 little kids and make a suit from the skin".
The wording in the letter "I'll do it to because I done it 21 times" is consistent with a mailing date sometime after the March 13th 1971 Los Angeles correspondence from Zodiac, claiming 17+ victims. Using a simple calculation we can estimate how often the Zodiac claimed a victim. From December 20th 1968 to July 26th 1970, the Zodiac Killer claimed 13 victims over 584 days. That is one victim every 44.9 days. Therefore, from victim 13 to 21, another 8 victims were claimed (8 X 44.9 = 359 days). Add 359 days to July 26th 1970 and we arrive at July 20th 1971, approximately four months after the Los Angeles letter.
This letter and cipher appears at first glance a dubious Zodiac communication, but as Zodiologists.com point out, how difficult would it be for a hoaxer to mimic the ciphers or crosshairs of Zodiac. The fact the author failed to do this, should be pause for thought. There is also something about this letter that indicates the author had written another 'Zodiac' communication (or the author was the actual Bay Area murderer). The other communication, also mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on July 13th 1971, mirrored the 148 character cipher and letter in one crucial way - the victim total. The last two widely accepted Zodiac communications were the March 13th 1971 Los Angeles letter claiming 17+ victims, and the January 29th 1974 Exorcist letter claiming 37 victims. The author of the above correspondence had 19 victim totals to choose from (18 to 36), yet he chose the total of 21, exactly the same as the total mentioned in the July 13th 1971 Monticello card, which featured in the San Francisco Police Department DNA report under "suspected Zodiac correspondence". Did the author of the above correspondence just get lucky by randomly choosing 21 victims and thereby mirroring the Monticello card, or was he the author of both?
The Monticello card was mailed on July 13th 1971 stating:
"Near Monticello Shought Victims 21 ...... In The Woods Dies April".
By my rudimentary calculations, the 148 character cipher and letter should have been mailed on July 20th 1971, only one week after the Monticello card. If somebody can find the exact date of mailing regarding the 148 cipher and letter, or when this correspondence was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, it would be of immense value. The Monticello card was not published in the newspapers, therefore the notion of a victim total of 21 having been chosen by two independent authors looks extremely unlikely. If the Monticello card was designated as "suspected Zodiac correspondence" by the San Francisco Police Department, then by extension, the above correspondence should be afforded the same value.
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