Still,something interesting about the fact that Ferrin,Crabtree,and Gaik spent time all the way across the country in Albany NY, and then a possible letter from Z pops up there. Out of all the cities all across the US, why Albany?

…… That cipher isn’t a cipher but certain characters written within could be very important. Is there a way we can get a better copy of this letter? …….

Daniel-

I’m curious as to what you mean by saying "That cipher isn’t a cipher" It looks valid to me, but I don’t think it says quite what the FBI solution says that it does.

-glurk

Still,something interesting about the fact that Ferrin,Crabtree,and Gaik spent time all the way across the country in Albany NY, and then a possible letter from Z pops up there. Out of all the cities all across the US, why Albany?

I bet these three individuals spent a lot of time in many other cities as well, as for Z the same applies, he could have had relations there, he may have been on vacation etc, but there was a long perceived gap in communications from the Pines Card to the Exorcist Letter so unless he was in jail or serving abroad it is not inconceivable he wrote letters from other areas, he may have got married, had kids, was spending time in Albany because that’s where his wife was born. There are too many imponderables to know for sure, but this letter looks dubious. And Z was not that desperate to get caught to start giving out times and dates of potential victims, this letter appears like another sad hoaxer, but u never know.

Professional handwriting analysts say that the handwriting of each person changes throughout his or her lifetime. That is why letters written by a suspect today cannot be compared with letters written by Zodiac in 1969. You must compare letters written by the suspect in 1969 to letters written by Zodiac in 1969.

Given that truth, it should not be surprising that Zodiac’s handwriting will look different in 1973, 1974 and 1978 from an exact match to his 1969 lettering.

Professional handwriting analysts say that the handwriting of each person changes throughout his or her lifetime. That is why letters written by a suspect today cannot be compared with letters written by Zodiac in 1969. You must compare letters written by the suspect in 1969 to letters written by Zodiac in 1969.

Given that truth, it should not be surprising that Zodiac’s handwriting will look different in 1973, 1974 and 1978 from an exact match to his 1969 lettering.

Hello gestr & welcome,
I totally agree with your post. I’ve seen handwriting changes on myself & people I know over the years. I’ve also seen verbiage changes in people over time. So, I feel some of the current handwritings on POI’s are not going to always match up to Z’s first writings.

Uh, the problem is that his 1974 handwriting was so close to his 1969 writing that they were able to ID the 1974 letters as having come from Z. So what happened in 1973?

Mike

Good points

The cipher isn’t very Z-like either, in fact for all intents and purposes, it’s a pointless exercise. There is virtually no frequency disguise with one symbol for one letter and the most frequent letter E (6) has 6 symbols. (though there appears to be two symbols for C). Can’t get it all for no other reason than some symbols are not clear…Albany medical center is clear enough.
Depending on where you read the rest supposedly says " This Only beginning or This is Only beginning. Even though it’s not fully decipherable the "bones" of that statement is there.

Allegedly, the first 12 symbols are a name, if so, the surname appears to be HENLY. Don’t have enough to decipher first name.

The cipher isn’t very Z-like either, in fact for all intents and purposes, it’s a pointless exercise. There is virtually no frequency disguise with one symbol for one letter and the most frequent letter E (6) has 6 symbols. (though there appears to be two symbols for C). Can’t get it all for no other reason than some symbols are not clear…Albany medical center is clear enough.
Depending on where you read the rest supposedly says " This Only beginning or This is Only beginning. Even though it’s not fully decipherable the "bones" of that statement is there.

Allegedly, the first 12 symbols are a name, if so, the surname appears to be HENLY. Don’t have enough to decipher first name.

Doranchak also thought the last name was similar to Henly

Couldn’t help but notice the timing of this;

"Flash forward 40 years to the most extensive manhunt in the history of the Adirondacks.

For 12 days in 1973, upstate New York was spellbound by reports of a vicious four-time killer loose in the mountains, escaping one dragnet search of the wilderness after another, eluding tracking dogs and hundreds of police.

Robert F. Garrow, who once lived in Albany, killed with a sadistic bent campers and others.

Each August day of the search a different Times Union reporter showed up at the scene in Hamilton County near the wilds of Speculator, where Garrow had tied a Schenectady teenage camper to a tree and stabbed him to death, touching off the search.

Reporters would check in with police at a command post, but then often found themselves near the center of police activity. While not directly involved with trying to flush Garrow out of the woods with which he was so familiar, reporters were nearby. Perhaps not as close to the action as Joe O’Heaney was, but far closer than a police reporter would get today.

Often, the press now learns of a crime by checking e-mail and finding a news release dispatched by a police agency’s public information officer.

In a stolen car, Garrow escaped by roaring through a roadblock in the Speculator-Indian Lake area. A troop car in hot pursuit lost a fan belt as Garrow sped off. Garrow ended up at his hometown of Witherbee. Police trailed the killer’s nephew, teenager David Mandy, who took food to his uncle in a thicket about a half-mile from the home, and Garrow was shot and captured by state Environmental Conservation Department Officer Hillary LeBlanc of Ballston Spa.

In September 1978, Garrow broke out of Fishkill State Prison by scaling a 15-foot barbed wire fence and eluded police for three days before he was killed in a gun battle with correction officers while still on prison grounds."

For those of you that don’t know, Garrow was convicted of a murder in which he told his victims something very similar to what z told his victims at Berryessa, that he was an escaped prisoner and was taking their car to Mexico, or something along those lines.

Here’s a bit;

"Garrow went over to the first tent he saw. He pointed his weapon at Carol Ann Malinowski and David Freeman who were still in their sleeping bag. "There was this couple in this tent," he said at trial, "they had no clothes on…I had my rifle with me and I asked them for some gas…I remember her putting her pants on…I don’t think she put a bra on, she didn’t have one." He soon rounded up all four campers at gunpoint and told them he wanted to siphon some gas out of their car. But Phil Domblewski objected. Garrow brandished his rifle and pointed it at the group. He marched them all into the woods. "I’ve killed before and I will again if I have to!" he told the frightened teenagers.

Garrow was physically a big man. He weighed 210 pounds and stood 5 feet 11 inches. He was larger and more intimidating than any of the campers. "Then is where everything, you know, all that pressure where I went berserk, I didn’t know what to do," he told the court later. Once he herded them into the woods, he tied them all to separate trees, out of sight of one another. "I remember having people tie each other up and, I don’t know which one tied which one up…the girl was tied up last," Garrow said. The terrified victims tried to reason with the stranger but Garrow seemed not to hear them. Domblewski especially refused to back down."

I had some articles about this, and recall the details and conversation went down similar to zodiacs at Berryessa, not saying there is a connection to z, but find it odd that while this guy that was from Albany was on the loose in Aug 73, a possible z cipher was mailed from Albany

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg … d=49868946

The cipher isn’t very Z-like either, in fact for all intents and purposes, it’s a pointless exercise. There is virtually no frequency disguise with one symbol for one letter and the most frequent letter E (6) has 6 symbols. (though there appears to be two symbols for C). Can’t get it all for no other reason than some symbols are not clear…Albany medical center is clear enough.
Depending on where you read the rest supposedly says " This Only beginning or This is Only beginning. Even though it’s not fully decipherable the "bones" of that statement is there.

Allegedly, the first 12 symbols are a name, if so, the surname appears to be HENLY. Don’t have enough to decipher first name.

Doranchak also thought the last name was similar to Henly

I have a 1973 Albany city directory, and there are no listings for Henley or Henly. Do you guys have any other suggestions? Of course, maybe the threat was against a person that worked at the med Ctr but didn’t live in Albany?

I have one strong possiblilty of a hit from the directory. DORANCHAK thought the first name may be CONNIE. Both he and WIER think the last name is likely HENLEY or HENLY.

I found a CONSTANCE HENDRIE. But she is not listed as working at Albany Med Ctr, but rather State Insur Dept (maybe that ties into the Med ctr?)

Anybody know the date this letter was mailed or received?

I’ll just throw out my thinking re the name in the code, I agree that the surname is most likely HENLY, however I’m at a loss as to how Doranchak settled on Connie for the first name. However there is some room for manouvre here. Perhaps we can cross reference here and find the most logical answer.

I have the first 12 symbols down as the name. Immediately thereafter is ALBANY MEDICAL CENTER. (2 different symbols for C)
When those values are slotted into back into the first 12 symbols, the last 4 are ENLY.

According to the FBI the words after ALBANY MEDICAL CENTER are either THIS IS ONLY BEGINNING or THIS ONLY BEGINNING. These amount to 19 or 17 letters respectively.I come up with a count of 18 symbols so do not know where the exact error is but the bones of that statement is there. Regardless, the first word is "THIS" apparently, giving a value of "H" for what I call the " open book" symbol. This symbol also comes before "ENLY" hence HENLY.
There is a problem however because from the initial insertion of values we have "NLY" in "Only" however the "open book" symbol comes before these also, given an alternative value of O.
So the open book symbol is either an H or O or both. HENLY/HNLY/OENLY/ONLY.

So as far as the name goes we have _ H _ _ _ E _ HENLY, or _ O _ _ _ E _ OENLY. Fixed values. or does the open book symbol have values of both O and H ?
The "lightening bolt" symbol is definitely E so that’s the 6th letter.
In the word "medical" the value for the "4" symbol is C. The "4" is closed at the top. The first symbol in the code, while not exactly the same also looks like a "4" but is open at the top.
But it’s quite possibly the same giving…. CH _ _ _ E _ or CO _ _ _ E_.
There is also an argument if the first word after Center is "THIS," that the final letter is S, hence…CH _ _ _ ES HENLY or CO_ _ _ ES OENLY.

Don’t know that I’m 100% corect…..anyone see things differently?