Trav

Thanks for your hard work!! You have no idea how often I refer back to a lot/many of the comparisons you have done–in doing my own research. Your work is much appreciated.

Thanks Trav. There’s something ‘off’ with the g’s from 78. They look traced or something, and the tops do not look at all like Zodiac’s

They do. How do you get the variations right in the tails though with the wrong top? How do you get the wrong top at all if they are traced? How can you trace from something that hasn’t been done before?

Maybe its the thickness of the ink?

Thanks for the comparisons Trav. I know that is time consuming to put together.

We know the ’78 (to some) was a decent fake, and many today believe it is authentic. For it to fool some, it had to be Zodiac-like. Some have stated that letters were traced somehow and if one were to do that I would think would go to a variety of previous Zodiac letters to do so.

I would think that too. In fact that would be my base assumption or indeed even my own choice if I were too consider such an undertaking. What I find weird here is that whoever created the ’78 letter looks to have done that but appears to have made some odd choices. I don’t know. Just trying to get my head around the logic in it. I mean they appear to have created a ‘new’ type of g but following Z’s own variations and indeed his own habits. There’s more as well. The choices of the styles of lowercase m’s are quite curious too. I’m slightly confused as to how in one way whoever created it has payed attention to some rather obscure details yet overall it looks for all the world like a mish-mash creation but with new variations alongside pre-existing ones. Some of those m’s looks similar to ones used in the Marco letter and the desktop.

I’m not trying to argue either way on it. Just wondering out loud at what I think I’m seeing and trying to understand if or how that fits into the context of creating that letter. If it’s real or fake. Either or.

Bizarre for sure.

Now consider this…

The Belli letter has things reminscent of the ’78 letter. The crossing out of words, etc. Could parts of this letter be the template for the ’78 letter?

Another thing I noticed is that Maupin specifically mentions all the times Toschi used the word "help" in the fake letters to him. Every one of them used the word "help" – one of them three times. The Belli letter uses "help" twice.

Maupin’s mention of "help" here under the fake typed Toschi letters: http://zodiackiller.com/BelliLetter.html&hilit=maupin#p23 8″>viewtopic.php?f=84&t=163&p=238 http://zodiackiller.com/BelliLetter.html&hilit=maupin#p238

Belli Letter: http://zodiackiller.com/BelliLetter.html

as time goes on I see more of what may have led to the handwriting confirmation for the RP letter in some of the other confirmed letters. In particular the Kathleen Johns letter.

My big issue with it is that with the possible exception of the Belli letter, Z was never quite this able to stylize completely. There’s some deviation with the G’s but it doesn’t lose the general theme and is in general a great work of art.

as time goes on I see more of what may have led to the handwriting confirmation for the RP letter in some of the other confirmed letters. In particular the Kathleen Johns letter.

I’ve seen them too and, imo, they overlap. By that I mean the last set of letters and then in turn to the main bulk stretching back to the Riverside stuff. I haven’t got around to the doing any work on the KJ letter for presentation but I have seen the ‘similarities’. Here’s some work on the similarities between the RP letter and the Citizen if you haven’t already seen this.

viewtopic.php?f=96&t=789

Apparently Toschi thought both RP and Badlands were "fake". Does anyone have a source for this? It’s just something I’ve seen mentioned over the years, but I don’t recall anyone providing a source. Seems odd at first glance, as neither letter would have to be "fake" in order to be non-Z communications. *

Also read somewhere recently that Susan Morton did not authenticate any of the supposed Z letters post Exorcist – and I’d like some more info on this as well, if anyone happens to have a link or two.

For the record, RP (possibly Badlands too, not sure about that) WAS confirmed by the FBI, in as much as they stated it was "probably" prepared by the same hand that prepared the known Z letters.

It’s interesting, though, going with the rumor (I’ll call it that) that Toschi thought they were "fakes" (whatever that means in this context): The SFPD come across a letter which is not signed by Z and which does not contain anything which explicitly hints to him being the author either, Toschi doesn’t actually think it’s him – but sends it to the FBI nonetheless. And the FBI says "probably". The question is what made these letters stand out in the first place?

* The source is obviously not Graysmith. IIRC according to his tale Toschi smelled Z in these letters from a mile away. Or something like that.

I wonder – specifically – to what extent the idea of Marshall as Zodiac influenced the status of the RP letter. He is the one suspect (and he was by all accounts treated fairly seriously as such at one point) with an obvious "phantom" connection. And he apparently had some sort of connection to San Rafael * too.

I find it important in general to ask WHY the ’74 letters were considered interesting back then. We tend to treat all "confirmed" Z letters as just that. I sometimes wonder whether we should. If some of these letters were treated as genuine Z missives because they fit a pattern of some kind which has since been pretty much abandoned as viable (i.e. the Marshall angle), there’s no reason why we should treat them as anything but "probable" (to go with the FBI phrase) at best, IMO.

* RP was posted in SR.

As a skeptic of many of the supposed Z letters, I’d ask – because I don’t actually know – how many were written on "Fifth Avenue" or "Eaton" paper that he was known to use? How many were written with the blue marker he was known to use? How many seem, even to an untrained eye, to be of the same handwriting?

And then, which of the questioned letters share any of these traits?

I am actually asking, because I don’t know. Are any of the questioned docs on the same type of paper, penned with the same type of marker, etc?

I know that Zodiac could have "switched it up," of course, but I wonder about the obviously watermarked paper in particular.

-glurk

Good questions, glurk.

Some info on this is available, I think – but I can’t seem to find it here and now.

"Badlands" was, if memory serves, not a letter as such but a postcard, FWIW.

This is what Toschi told the press.

Thanks, CT – not much doubt there on T’s part…Wonder who that expert was, who confirmed the letters after five minutes’ study?

As mentioned above, the FBI declared RP "probable" in the usual style, whereas this expert seems to have been handing out far more ringing endorsements.

If there is any source for Toschi’s radically different view on these letters it could be in the FBI files, i.e. a communication from the SFPD/Toschi asking for an examination of said letters. Yet again I wish those files were easier to search than they are presently.

It appears that Toschi passed Zodiac material along to the FBI as a matter of course. Here’s Toschi consulting the FBI on the Dragon card. Didn’t see anything in regards to Toschi skepticism about the ’74 letters…unless it was buried in a mess of "Berta Margoulies" nonsense.

We can all thank, um, or something, Gareth Penn for the "Berta Margoulies" stuff.

Thanks Gareth.

-glurk

EDIT: Because unsolved cases are always easier to deal with when random un-involved people insert themselves into them for LULZ.

The FBI has more files on Penn than on actual evidence or suspects.

However, it would appear that Toschi did, indeed, express something to the FBI regarding these letters. What’s bizarre is that they didn’t just redact Toschi’s name, they redacted his entire statement. What could he have said about these letters that would still be considered too sensitive to release?

^"however…."…..what? lol What does that go onto say?

Odd the FBI would conclude something off of a photocopy–when it comes to handwriting.

The only thing that I think would in some way flag the Red Phantom letter as possible Zodiac was the envelope. But who (in 1974) was still keeping such a keen eye? Was that same women still working there? Maybe it was Count Marco himself who thought of Zodiac.