It’s as relevant to the Zodiac case as some gravy packet you might find on the ground.

I’ve been seeking Victim brand gravy for sometime.

Are you denying that the card is making some reference to a criminal activity? It’s true that we don’t know what the victim was supposed to be a victim of, theft perhaps? Or if the victim existed. We don’t know the identity of the author either. But playing dumb to the authors intent? It’s pretty obvious to any reasonable person that the author, hoaxer or not, is making reference to seeking a victim for the purpose of murdering that victim. Are you saying you don’t understand this Tom? That you can’t see any difference between this and a gravy packet?

I have no idea how common hoax letters actually were. It’s easy to say they were common, it’s easy to say they were rare. It’s easy to say something is a hoax, it’s easy to say it’s not a hoax. I don’t see much proof one way, or the other. No ones ever presented a box containing 300 hoax letters received during the Zodiac case.

I don’t get the enthusiasm for thinking it’s a hoax. I don’t get the enthusiasm for thinking it’s real. Someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to write a murder letter. Was it the Zodiac? Who knows.

Let’s say the police received 100 remotely plausible Zodiac letters during the investigation. That would give any letter a 1% chance of being from the Zodiac. Obviously I’m just making up numbers here, but it seems to me we’re not dealing with low probability here at all. Low probability would be if the police received 10,000 Zodiac letters. Low probability would be looking for the Zodiac based on personality traits in the entire population of San Francisco. All I see is a few dozen letters, hardly any kind of haystack. I guess the 1000’s of other hoax letters must have been so bad no one hung onto them.

In fairness, there are some letters that I feel pretty weird about. Take The Red Phantom letter, it’s not hard to imagine that there could have been thousands of people who disliked Count Marco. People write into newspapers all the time, by the thousands. But cards about murder? How many people are out their making murder cards? Could be a few, but I’m having a hard time believing it’s on the same kind of scale.

All I know is the Monticello card was examined and not deemed authentic.

"In the woods dies April" could have been referencing a suicide, like has been speculated with the Riverside desk poem.

Fair enough. I thought the gravy packet comparison was kind of funny. Sometimes I pause and wonder how some things were ever connected to begin with.

That’s a fair assessment of the desktop poem, but in the case of the Monticello card, it’s a bit hard to reconcile with "shought victims 21" with the idea of suicide. It would seem to me fair to assume that even if it’s a hoax, it is probably making some reference to the idea of seeking a victim. And since it seems unlikely that anyone would announce their desire to rob someone, or commit any other type of petty crime, murder would seem the most likely. Is there really much doubt that this is the topic of the card?

Getting back to the San Rafael card, I’m still curious to know the true proliferation of hoaxes. But as I’ve said, a personal grudge would seem to be a good motive for a hoax letter. Pretending to be a famous killer to scare someone you don’t like, it’s something I don’t have a hard time imagining. Still, nothing to stop the Zodiac getting in a few personal ones while he’s at it.

in the case of the Monticello card, it’s a bit hard to reconcile with "shought victims 21" with the idea of suicide.

I don’t recall that "shought" reference.

It was my understanding that the Monticello card has never been released, but I thought it’s contents were established. I was under the impression that it contained the following message: "near monticello shought victims 21 in the woods dies april". Is that not the case?

replaceablehead, that is the case:
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtop … =30#p28265

TomVoigt has courteously identified the location, authority and the officer then
in control of that mail item, said to be contained within the ‘Murder Book’ as TV
related it, specifically in a ‘binder’ folder. Some of the items in that folder (but
evidently not the ‘Monticello mail item’) were copied and provided to TV.
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiack … html#p2685
Further enquiries would just as well be directed to the authority TV has identified,
notwithstanding that past efforts have been unsuccessful.

I posted that SFPD list on June 8, 2001. It was given to me by Lt. Bruton, now retired.

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

The Monticello card is not considered authentic. However, it’s obviously impossible to rule out. There’s simply no evidence that it was from the real Zodiac.

I don’t remember the "shought" reference but it’s been a while.

I suppose that’s the question on everyone’s lips, is there anything else on the card, say for example a Zodiac symbol? Based on what we think we know about the card, it seems that the card is making reference to murder, but there’s no mention of anything that would tie it specifically to Zodiac. It could be not only a hoax, but a hoax unrelated to Zodiac. Having said that, if it is similar to the Pines card that would tie it to the Zodiac symbol by association, which would make it Zodiac related, whether hoax or not.

I’m interested in the outlier cards, not because they’re likely to be authentic, but because if one them could be demonstrated to be authentic, it might be more likely to tell us something quite different. If a card like the Monticello were demonstrated to be authentic, it would bolster the case for other paste up cards. If the San Rafael letter was demonstrated to be authentic it would show that the Zodiac did at times write personal death threats.

It’s that potential to really change the way we view the case that makes outliers so appealing.

I’d love to get a clear idea of how prevalent hoax letters were and what the general quality was. It seems to me that there is a discrepancy between claims that the police were inundated with hoaxes, and the number of letters that seem to be stored in evidence. I suppose it’s possible that the more ridiculous hoaxes were chucked out and it seems as if a few have turned up in the possession of the newspapers. But you’d think they would have put the lions share into evidence, if for no other reason, but that it would surely be correct procedure to lodge all suspicious correspondence into evidence, no matter how remote. So unless law enforcement are holding out on a big box of hoax letters, I am wondering how many hoaxes were ever received?

Seems to me that saying "we got hundreds of hoax letters", is about as easy to say and to swallow as me telling my boss that I have "hundreds" of emails. It sounds very plausible, we’re always hearing about hoaxes, and there are examples, like the Yorkshire Ripper, so it sounds really believable, but maybe that’s the danger. And if it’s true, where are all these hoax letters?

It kind of reminds me of way wife’s tales spread, they sound plausible, even intuitive. Like someone says, "sugar makes kids hyperactive" and it just sounds so commonsensical, so intuitive; it fits with our own personal observations, so we lap it up, but it’s not true. I feel like a hoax has that quality, it fits with our own life experience, that yes, people do indeed create hoaxes. We’ve all grown up hearing about famous hoaxes, I remember my grandmother telling me about the Piltdown Man and hoaxes are just part of the public consciousness. But is that because hoaxes are common, or because they’re memorable? And just because hoaxes in general are not uncommon, that doesn’t mean that detectives working the Zodiac case received hundreds of them.

Imagine if the letters we know of make up around 80% of the known correspondence received, suppose to that the police received twice as many again in the form of prank phone calls, and lets suppose they had half as many again in the form of hoaxes that were not letters or phone calls. In this scenario there would be enough hoaxes in total for the police to be justified in saying that they received a great many hoaxes, but on closer inspection the actual number of hoax letters could still be relatively low once the dust had settled. Between all the tips and phone calls and dead end leads, it would be easy for officers working the case to feel as if they were surrounded by hoaxes, but now the dust has settled, how is it that we have ended up with so few apparent hoax letters?

There are more "apparent hoax" or "unconfirmed" letters on this board than authenticated ones, and we haven’t even seen everything. How would we "demonstrate authenticity" now if experts couldn’t do it 50 years ago?

There are more "apparent hoax" or "unconfirmed" letters on this board than authenticated ones, and we haven’t even seen everything. How would we "demonstrate authenticity" now if experts couldn’t do it 50 years ago?

Nowadays people are "authenticating" letters they haven’t even seen. And lets not forget the "fixing" of the wanted posters. And altering police photos.

I must be old fashioned.

It could be not only a hoax, but a hoax unrelated to Zodiac. Having said that, if it is similar to the Pines card that would tie it to the Zodiac symbol by association, which would make it Zodiac related, whether hoax or not.

Sorry for double posting this piece of information, but I think there’s a potential connection between the Pines Card and Monticello:
– "Monticello" is also the name of a Dam ("Monticello Dam"), which led to the creation of Lake Berryessa.
– "Hell Hole" is the name of Dam ("Lower Hell Hole Dam" actually), which led to the creation of Hell Hole Reservoir

Both cards could actually point to artifical lakes, assuming that Hell Hole is the answer to the Pines Card as I shared with you (viewtopic.php?f=70&t=5201)

The Pines card was authenticated. Monticello card…was not.

It could be not only a hoax, but a hoax unrelated to Zodiac. Having said that, if it is similar to the Pines card that would tie it to the Zodiac symbol by association, which would make it Zodiac related, whether hoax or not.

Sorry for double posting this piece of information, but I think there’s a potential connection between the Pines Card and Monticello:
– "Monticello" is also the name of a Dam ("Monticello Dam"), which led to the creation of Lake Berryessa.
– "Hell Hole" is the name of Dam ("Lower Hell Hole Dam" actually), which led to the creation of Hell Hole Reservoir

Both cards could actually point to artifical lakes, assuming that Hell Hole is the answer to the Pines Card as I shared with you ( https://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewto … =70&t=5201)

The Monticello/Lake Berryessa connection has been made before. I don’t know about your connection, maybe if we had a sound foundation for drawing each of those conclusions independently, but I think your trying to bridge a wide expanse by joining two wobbly foundations together in the hopes they will strengthen one another. It’s a fair observation, but it’s all very oblique and sounds quite silly at the moment. I mean what was he doing, building dams? Throwing bodies into them?

The Pines card was authenticated. Monticello card…was not.

Well that leads to the next logical question, which has no doubt been answered ad nauseum, but for the sake of continuity please indulge me. The Pines card, it arrived four months before the Monticello card, correct? If so, was a photograph, or description of The Pines card ever published prior to receiving the Monticello card?

The reason I ask is because it seems to be generally believed that the Monticello card, hitherto unseen by most, resembled The Pines card. The implication is obvious, if the card was published in the paper, a hoax is quite plausible, but if it was withheld, the only reasonable conclusion, assuming it is indeed similar and the similarity has not been exaggerated, is that it is authentic, or at least as authentic as The Pines card.

I mean what was he doing, building dams? Throwing bodies into them?

The connection is not the dams, it’s the artificial lakes. He might be killing people at artificial lakes.

I know nothing about the Monticello card, just an observation that came to my mind. For the Pines Card, I’m still convinced the interpretation is Hell Hole for all the reasons we discussed in the other thread. But as someone said, we may never be able to verify it.

Getting back to the Novatan having received a death threat from Z – guess who actually had a post box in Novato (same person?):

QT