Excellent work CT – thanks!

That could very well be what I’m thinking about here. But it’s damn odd that it should be redacted if all it says is that Toschi was skeptical about the authenticity.

For that matter it’s odd to begin with that he should be publicly non-skeptical about the same material – but there you go. Could have been tactical: There are several examples of Toschi using the press in order to bait Z in one way or another.

Very interesting at any rate.

On the general note of the post-Exorcist letters, I just remembered the ’81 correspondence between the FBI offices in SF and Boston we discussed a while back. In that letter we find the following remark:

The last authentic Zodiac letter was received in 1974, and in it Zodiac claimed "Zodiac 37, Police 0."

In other words, the last authentic Zodiac letter was Exorcist – as per the FBI in 1981. Compare this to the "probable" verdict on Red Phantom mentioned above. Either the FBI changed their opinion – or we can, at the very least, conclude that to the feds "probable" definitely is not equal to "authentic". Which it shouldn’t be, of course – but it’s still worth noting.

It certainly looks as though there’s a holdback regarding these letters.

Mike Rodelli was told by an insider source that one of the ’74s was a fake. Maybe this is it? Badlands or RP…

Would love to know how SFPD could be so confident one way or the other. Would seem to suggest that they actually know the identity of the author…I suppose it’ll be many years before that white blob’s removed, if ever.

The only problem I have with that notion is what I touched on in my initial post: The term "fake" isn’t the first one that springs to mind when it comes to any of these letters: The author doesn’t identify himself as Zodiac, nor is the content explicitly Z like.

Exorcist is either a genuine Z letter – or a fake (i.e. someone pretending to be Z). The other three are very different in that regard. The most obvious assumption would seemingly be that they’re either genuine Z letters (which he decided to write in this non-obvious fashion for whatever reason, some sort of development/change on his part) – or they’re just red herrings, non-related missives sent by innocent parties. On the face of it, it seems borderline absurd to me that someone would compose something like SLA as a fake, i.e. as a communication intended to be snapped up and attributed to Zodiac.

Like everything else in this case,it’s all opinion. I for one think every 74 letter we have seen is from Z.

It will remain opinion unless we can find out why certain letters were flagged or otherwise considered interesting at the time.

However, it is not opinion that the FBI considered Exorcist the last authentic Z missive in 1981. That’s on record.

The same redactions exist in doranchak’s files, but this time I was able to locate the follow-up page. The FBI wouldn’t rule Z in or out as the author of RP (or, going back a bit, SLA), but believed that the Citizen card was "probably" done by Zodiac. So yes, generally speaking, the FBI was not so gung ho on these.

Also, whatever the heck Toschi advised "confidentially," they were examined nonetheless. So that has to be weighed in.

Re: Mike’s comments, my assumption is — assuming there’s anything to it at all — that SFPD was able to definitively rule out one of the letters via some piece of mystery evidence. So, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one of the ’74s was "debunked" or "disproven" (…allegedly).

Excellent work again, CT – appreciate the effort (searching through those FBI files is a pain).

Citizen/Badlands is the "probable" one, then. Whereas SLA and Red Phantom belong in the "inconclusive" category.

The more I look at Count Marco columns, the more it confirms my belief this letter was written by a woman.

I have a feeling most men chuckled and agreed with Count Marco. Who would get enraged by what he wrote? A woman.

Count Marco "always has to feel superior"…..superior to whom? Would a man write this? It seems to me Count Marco felt he was superior to WOMEN…not men, therefore, that statement fits that of a woman and how she felt about his sexist comments.

If one believes this was written by the man who was Zodiac (not using the persona), what would have upset him so? Was Zodiac, the man, the type to be upset by the writings of Count Marco? Zodiac was a serial killer after all…

The Zodiac could, in my opinion, write such things as "always has to feel superior" IF he was in the same trade or doing the same line of work. The Zodiac the persona made his own headlines and captured the world. The Zodiac the man probably couldn’t measure up in the real world and never found his own "legal" niche. Jealousy would make him say it.

Soze

Just picking up the possible Marshall thread again. * Whether that is plausible at all obviously depends on how early Marshall entered the picture as someone they considered interesting.

If memory serves, that didn’t really happen until someone sent them a dossier of sorts on Marshall – and that would’ve been some years after RP, I think. Late 70s? If they didn’t consider him at all before the dossier, then my theory goes out the window – as RP was clearly flagged one way or the other.

It could have been handwriting for SLA (the envelope in particular looks Z-ish) and Badlands, I suppose, but surely less so for Red Phantom: I’m talking about flagging here, remember: It would have to be pretty obvious Z style writing (printing) for it to be singled out – the flagging part wasn’t carried out by handwriting experts, after all.

* To be clear: The idea that RP was considered interesting because of a possible Marshall connection: Marshall was into old movies and is connected to San Rafael (where RP was posted).

Paring everything back to before all the subsequent speculation and ‘analysis’, can anybody help my out with this question: on having received this letter at the San Francisco Chronicle in mid 1974

what exactly possessed anyone at all to look at this and go “Ooh, that’s clearly from the Zodiac?”

I mean, based on any reasonable at-face-value, objective assessment of this letter’s content, voice, handwriting, etc. the idea of anyone even suspecting this to be anything that what it looks to be is nothing short of a ‘WTF?’ to my reckoning.

I agree with you. In fact, It’s my opinion that all of the letters mailed after 1971 are not genuine.

I think the Red Phantom letter is the least credible of them all. The handwriting doesn’t match. While the tone is angry, it isn’t joking and taunting like Zodiac correspondence is.

Unfortunately, it’s one of these things that get talked about so much regarding this case, that it gets taken for granted as fact. It makes me nuts when credible people – researchers – discuss the Bates murder as if it is a canonical Zodiac crime. Many of these letters get treated the same way.

This Chronicle statement is telling, regarding the Badlands card and Red Phantom letter:

On July 10th 1974 the San Francisco Chronicle stated: "Although he never identified himself as Zodiac in either of the latest messages, San Francisco Homicide Investigator Dave Toschi said "There’s no doubt in my mind about either one. I took them to a documents expert and in less than five minutes he told me positively they were in fact written by the Zodiac. He’s trying to slip letters and cards into the Chronicle without being detected. He’s not fooling anybody – no matter what his game is". Yesterday’s letter was dropped into a mailbox in Marin County sometime on Monday. It criticized Count Marco for his "superior" attitude and demanded the column be cancelled. The postcard (previous Badlands card), although received on June 4, was mailed in Alameda County nearly a month earlier, on May 8. There was no explanation for its delayed arrival in the Chronicle offices".

I agree with you. In fact, It’s my opinion that all of the letters mailed after 1971 are not genuine.

I think the Red Phantom letter is the least credible of them all. The handwriting doesn’t match. While the tone is angry, it isn’t joking and taunting like Zodiac correspondence is.

Absolutely! And what stands out even more to me is how it doesn’t make any mention at all of anything to do with killing people, which is kinda Zodiac’s favourite subject. I mean, … what?

Unfortunately, it’s one of these things that get talked about so much regarding this case, that it gets taken for granted as fact. It makes me nuts when credible people – researchers – discuss the Bates murder as if it is a canonical Zodiac crime. Many of these letters get treated the same way.

Right with you here too, Chaucer, re the whole Bates non-starter.