The FBI backing up the fact that the Exorcist letter was likely legit

Hi-

Alan Keel said that there was matching DNA on the two forgeries, one being the 1978 letter and the other is from 1974. The only letter from 1974 that had been known to have been tested as per SFPD’s chart of the letters is the Exorcist letter. There is an old article I saw that said that Toschi may have forged the 1978 letter and one other. The one they showed in that article was the Exorcist letter. FWIW

Mike

Considering the ’78 letter had some scratching their heads, it was obviously a good fake. Someone out there was doing some good faking, that’s for sure.

The FBI response is pretty interesting. Let’s say that someone carefully copied Z’s writing (which was the case with the ’78 letter). That’s not – say – inconsistent with what the FBI say, or?

Looks like the same hand, but there are problems here – including the quality of the exemplar.

What exactly do they mean by "freely" and "distortion"?

The thing about this DNA/fake conundrum is this: If someone prepared a fake Z letter, would they really come up with something like Red Phantom or SLA?

The only ’74 letter which claims (almost explicitly) to be from Z, is Exorcist. The ’78 letter is clear about who it’s supposed to be from too.

SLA, Phantom and Citizen are very different in that regard. If you prepared any of those as a Zodiac fake, could you realistically count on it being understood as a Z letter? I don’t think so.

Well (*cough*) at least not unless you were in a position to make sure it was understood that way.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about with respect to the 1974 letters and I’ve never heard that DNA from the 1978 letter was matched to one of the 1974 letters.

I’d be fairly surprised if that were the case considering the 1974 letters are all pretty off the beaten Zodiac path, whereas the 1978 letter is quite clearly far more similar to the Zodiac’s original communications, aside from what looks like to me clear evidence it wasn’t written fluidly or naturally.

And that FBI profiler made me laugh.

She says: The Zodiac killed on the weekend, thus that means he had a nine-to-five weekday job; he was a loner because he never confessed, which we know because no one has ever claimed he confessed; he spent his weekends driving around, "hunting"; and so on.

Really, how does one get a job as a profiler, because I think more than a few of us could perform the duties of her job. Certainly hardly the level of effort James Brussel applied to profiling George Metesky, the Mad Bomber of Con Ed, and that was decades ago before profiling was as much a supposed "science" as it is now….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Metesky#Profile

If you wanted to fake a Z letter, wouldn’t you include double stamps, or cross hair logo, or call yourself Z in the letter? Not one of the 1974 envelopes has double postage.
Not a single one has a crosshair. Not a single one has the word ZODIAC in it. Seems unlikely that anybody would send one of these 1974 letters as a Z copycat with no guarantee they would be connected to Z. I wonder, how possible is it that there was a 1974 Fake Z letter as was told to Mike R, but rather, it’s one we have not seen??

If you’re going to forge a Zodiac letter, why wouldn’t you sign it as from The Zodiac? Why would you omit such a thing from the 1974 letter but then include it in the 1978 letter? Why does the Exorcist letter look far more authentic (fluidly, naturally written) than the 1978 letter? Who would think to include the "symbols" as seen on the Exorcist letter’s bottom? Who would think to include such things as the "he plunged himself…titwillo"? Who would think to misspell "suicide"? And why? To call attention to that word? What about "saterical"? "Truley"? And the manic-depressive tone? Why does the 1978 letter read like it was written by a retarded version of the Zodiac as channeled by an unethical person perpetuating a self-serving fraud?

I don’t buy it for a second.

Dunno if I can curse on this forum, but I call bullshit on the claim The Exorcist letter is a fake prepared by the same person who prepared the 1978 letter. They don’t even begin to look like they were written by the same person.

Sounds to me like incompetent DNA testing and/or contamination.

If you’re going to forge a Zodiac letter, why wouldn’t you sign it as from The Zodiac? Why would you omit such a thing from the 1974 letter but then include it in the 1978 letter? Why does the Exorcist letter look far more authentic (fluidly, naturally written) than the 1978 letter? Who would think to include the "symbols" as seen on the Exorcist letter’s bottom? Who would think to include such things as the "he plunged himself…titwillo"? Who would think to misspell "suicide"? And why? To call attention to that word? What about "saterical"? "Truley"? And the manic-depressive tone? Why does the 1978 letter read like it was written by a retarded version of the Zodiac as channeled by an unethical person perpetuating a self-serving fraud?

I don’t buy it for a second.

Dunno if I can curse on this forum, but I call bullshit on the claim The Exorcist letter is a fake prepared by the same person who prepared the 1978 letter. They don’t even begin to look like they were written by the same person.

Sounds to me like incompetent DNA testing and/or contamination.

Watch your language!!! JUST KIDDING, I call Bullshit too, they don’t look alike to me either

Hi-

Alan Keel said that there was matching DNA on the two forgeries, one being the 1978 letter and the other is from 1974. The only letter from 1974 that had been known to have been tested as per SFPD’s chart of the letters is the Exorcist letter. There is an old article I saw that said that Toschi may have forged the 1978 letter and one other. The one they showed in that article was the Exorcist letter. FWIW

Mike

I understand where Mike is coming from on this post.

According to the Pert Chart the Exorcist WAS the only 1974 letter that had been tested for DNA.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/SFPDDNA.html

According to the SF Chronicle articles regarding Toschi’s transfer out of homicide, he WAS accused of forging the 1978 letter. The article of July 14, 1978 says that investigators are looking at "a lot of old Zodiac handwritten letters".

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=25

So, in 1978 a lot of Zodiac’s written letters were being re-examined regardless of Morrill’s or the FBI’s previous opinions.

Anyone have a copy of the "shought victims 21…in the woods dies april" letter/card?

EDIT: Never mind.

viewtopic.php?f=69&t=1353

Hi-

Alan Keel said that there was matching DNA on the two forgeries, one being the 1978 letter and the other is from 1974. The only letter from 1974 that had been known to have been tested as per SFPD’s chart of the letters is the Exorcist letter. There is an old article I saw that said that Toschi may have forged the 1978 letter and one other. The one they showed in that article was the Exorcist letter. FWIW

Mike

I understand where Mike is coming from on this post.

According to the Pert Chart the Exorcist WAS the only 1974 letter that had been tested for DNA.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/SFPDDNA.html

According to the SF Chronicle articles regarding Toschi’s transfer out of homicide, he WAS accused of forging the 1978 letter. The article of July 14, 1978 says that investigators are looking at "a lot of old Zodiac handwritten letters".

viewtopic.php?f=84&t=25

So, in 1978 a lot of Zodiac’s written letters were being re-examined regardless of Morrill’s or the FBI’s previous opinions.

This has been a rumor since those articles. Only problem is they didn’t have DNA testing back when Toschi was suspected. As Jbroberson points out, why would he forge Z letters in that manner?

There is also no evidence Toschi’s DNA was ever compared with anything. Z resumed writing letters only in 1974 and odds are they are all genuine.

I understand why Toschi was investigated for possibly forging a Zodiac letter. He was accused of and eventually admitted to writing made up letters to Armisted Maupin. Anything to do with false letters and the lead detective on the Zodiac case should have been investigated and it was. Toschi paid a dear price for his fun with Maupin.

But Toschi was cleared of writing any of the Zodiac letters by handwriting experts. No DNA was needed to do that.

It was Alan Keel who said that there was matching DNA on two of the forgeries, one was the 1978 letter and the other was a 1974 letter. Keel is a DNA expert. Since the Exorcist letter was the only one of the three 1974 letters to have DNA found and noted on the Pert Chart it does seem as if the Exorcist letter is the one that was believed to be the forgery.

One of the things I do not understand on that Pert Chart is the scoring. The Exorcist has a score of 37, the highest score of all the letters. Is a high score bad or good and what exactly is being scored?

That was Zodiac’s "score".

DOH!

"Alan Keel, the former chief of the SFPD crime lab who resigned in 1991 amid controversy and criticism."

If he quit in 1991 would he really be in on the DNA results?

1978 was a great example of a fake. Choppy writing, generic Zodiac like references and a cross symbol. I think this rumor is just a bunch of here say.

Keel is the person who compiled the information for the Pert Chart. San Francisco has and has had many problems with their forensics department. Some of it is politics and some is personnel problems. The fact is Keel is still working in the field and has been for 30 years. He works for the company that many Bay Area LE agencies contract their DNA to for analysis. I believe that SF contracted their DNA analysis to this same company during their most recent forensic department troubles.

http://www.facrimelab.com/about-us/laboratory-team/

Edited to add a link to SF’s most recent crime lab troubles involving the DNA lab, this is still on going.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/DNA … 165643.php