To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, was a hugely successful book published on July 11th 1960 and later adapted into a motion picture starring Gregory Peck two years later, portraying racial injustice and the innocence of youth from the backdrop of the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. This next section is not inferring the Zodiac drew any inspiration from this novel, however, it will outline some unusual coincidences between this work of fiction and two greeting cards mailed by the Zodiac, notably the October 27th 1970 'Halloween' card and the December 1990 'Eureka' or 'American Greetings' card.
Kevin Robert Brooks noticed that the Asian characters at the foot of the 'Exorcist' letter could be rearranged to spell the words, 'To Kill'. These are obviously the first two words of this novel, but the 'Exorcist' letter also contained an extract from The Mikado about a bird, taken from Act II On a tree by a river- a little tom-tit in this case.
Kevin Robert Brooks noticed that the Asian characters at the foot of the 'Exorcist' letter could be rearranged to spell the words, 'To Kill'. These are obviously the first two words of this novel, but the 'Exorcist' letter also contained an extract from The Mikado about a bird, taken from Act II On a tree by a river- a little tom-tit in this case.
To Kill a Mockingbird was widely used as an educational tool in many schools, in which one of the central characters was "Boo" Radley, a reclusive resident of Maycomb, who generated a constant source of suspicion and mystery from the local townsfolk, despite his later acts of disguised benevolence. Note BOO on the 'Halloween' card. He went by the name Boo Radley, but curiously his first name was Arthur.
The alphabetical letters LAV letters are present together in the horizontal word SLAVES on the back of the card and underlined in the name Paul Averly on the envelope, but note the three letters at the intersection of the crossed PARADICE and SLAVES running vertically - they spell RAD,
The incorrect spelling of Paul Avery to Averly points towards LEY, to complete the character BOO RADLEY.
In the novel, a local resident by the name of Stephanie Crawford reported she was woken up one night and saw Boo Radley "looking straight through the window at her..... said his head was like a skull lookin' at her". On the tree around the knothole there are the words PEEK A BOO YOU ARE DOOMED.
The musical score to the original motion picture was composed by Elmer Bernstein. Three of the soundtracks are Creepy Caper/Peek-a-Boo, Boo Who and Tree Treasure. In the book, Tree Treasure was a hiding place in the knothole of a tree, where several items were found including a broken pocket watch, an aluminium knife and a ball of twine. These were placed there by Boo Radley for two local kids, Scout and Jem, to discover. The knothole in the tree represented Boo Radley's outlet to the world, and soon the children were to realize that Boo Radley was far from the monster he had been depicted. All the items he placed at intervals in the knothole came in pairs, except the twine - there were two packets of chewing gum, two polished coins, two miniatures of children, and the most interesting of all, was a knife and pocket watch, both on the same chain. Presumably two items, so Jem and Scout could have one each. The 'Eureka' card or 'American Greetings' card, mailed by the Zodiac Killer in 1990, was very similar to the 'Halloween' card in its design, both beginning with the phrase "From your secret pal". The 'Eureka' card included a photocopy, of not one, but a pair of keys on a chain. But who was the "secret pal" - the Zodiac Killer or Boo Radley?
The alphabetical letters LAV letters are present together in the horizontal word SLAVES on the back of the card and underlined in the name Paul Averly on the envelope, but note the three letters at the intersection of the crossed PARADICE and SLAVES running vertically - they spell RAD,
The incorrect spelling of Paul Avery to Averly points towards LEY, to complete the character BOO RADLEY.
In the novel, a local resident by the name of Stephanie Crawford reported she was woken up one night and saw Boo Radley "looking straight through the window at her..... said his head was like a skull lookin' at her". On the tree around the knothole there are the words PEEK A BOO YOU ARE DOOMED.
The musical score to the original motion picture was composed by Elmer Bernstein. Three of the soundtracks are Creepy Caper/Peek-a-Boo, Boo Who and Tree Treasure. In the book, Tree Treasure was a hiding place in the knothole of a tree, where several items were found including a broken pocket watch, an aluminium knife and a ball of twine. These were placed there by Boo Radley for two local kids, Scout and Jem, to discover. The knothole in the tree represented Boo Radley's outlet to the world, and soon the children were to realize that Boo Radley was far from the monster he had been depicted. All the items he placed at intervals in the knothole came in pairs, except the twine - there were two packets of chewing gum, two polished coins, two miniatures of children, and the most interesting of all, was a knife and pocket watch, both on the same chain. Presumably two items, so Jem and Scout could have one each. The 'Eureka' card or 'American Greetings' card, mailed by the Zodiac Killer in 1990, was very similar to the 'Halloween' card in its design, both beginning with the phrase "From your secret pal". The 'Eureka' card included a photocopy, of not one, but a pair of keys on a chain. But who was the "secret pal" - the Zodiac Killer or Boo Radley?
Incidentally, Scout and Jem build a snowman in the the Harper Lee novel, made initially from mud, but then layered with snow- a theme many believe is reflective of the racial overtones contained within the story. A snowman was depicted on the 'Eureka' card, with what appeared to be Groucho Marx imagery on the face. Jem and Scout created this snowman because of their dislike of a local resident down the street, much to the annoyance of their father Atticus Finch, who told the children to disguise it because it so resembled the local resident they were poking fun at. Their solution was to place Miss Maudie Atkinson's hat on it (she lived across the street from Atticus Finch and his family). The resident they so disliked was called MR AVERY- now that is a coincidence- along with release date of the film: December 25th 1962, in Los Angeles, California. Happy Holidays.
