https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1895772 … _sentinel/
The un-named person that Steven Straub saw, talked to and sketched looks nothing
like any description of the Zodiac, and there’s only tenuous circumstantial evidence
that that person Steven Straub saw might have been ‘Sandy’.

The sketch done by Lt. H. C. Clark of the description of ‘Sandy’ (presumably with
input from Reed and Coleman) could be said to be similar to descriptions of the
Zodiac (allowing also that this would be a a more youthful Zodiac, as this matter took
place about six years before the LHR/LB/Presidio Heights incidents).

AK Wilks, you’ve been around here longer than me – has anyone ever ascertained
if James L. Coleman and J.C. Reed Jnr., respectively 16 and 17 circa June of 1963
and Santa Cruz residents at that time, are still alive?

If we consider the sort of person that may perpetrate a communication hoax in the style of Zodiac, we could consider a budding or existent serial killer who may have the motivation for such a card. We would be looking for somebody whose name fits the 5 and 8 characters of his forename and surname, who resided in Oakland, Ca, the likely address of the 7 and 2 characters. In 1990, this man may have already killed previously, but was ultimately convicted in 2014 for the 1992 strangulation killings of two Oakland mothers, murders that were solved nearly two decades after the fact with DNA evidence.
Monte Crawford, formerly of Oakland, was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole before he took a deal and pleaded no contest to the murders of Tredis Penny and Shirley Wynn.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/01/ … -with-dna/

Not only does his name fit the criteria, as does his address. He lived with his grandparents in 1990 in a 10-letter neighborhood in East Oakland called Castlemont, near to Skyline Road and Golf Links Road, the deposition site of the two murdered women. This fits the third line on the address side also – giving us Monte Williams, Oakland, Ca, Castlemont. It may not be this guy who authored the card, but all the relevant criteria fits – and he was responsible for two murders in Oakland and possibly more.

Fort Ord is close to Carmel. Prosecutor Stacie Pettigrew said there is no evidence that Crawford, a military veteran, knew the women before he sexually assaulted them, strangled them and dumped their nude or partially clothed bodies in the Oakland hills not far from his grandparents’ house.

Yeah, Carmel Beach and its twisted trees:

Nice picture, it shows that there is one heck of a steep slope from the person next to the tree and the tiny people closer to the water.

I am curious , about the construction of the home at the time of that card was sent. I take it as another clue the Zodiac could have been working construction in Carmel and just happened to find a card showing the area he was working at that time.

If it was sent by Zodiac and of course I believe that is who sent it, he was probably giving a warning that he would be hunting for victims at the Sandy beaches of the Calif. coast. ( Not Nevada)
Of course the Swindels were killed by a 22 at a San Diego Beach, as well as Domingos and Edwards Santa Barbara, Barbara Parkins, Barbara Nantais murdered at Torrey Pines Beach in 1978, six yrs later same spot Claire Hugh was murder all are still unsolved.

I also believe that Lyndon Lafferty did solve that code, after all he did teach how to solve codes. I tried to do it as well and came up with "Robt" right away, because it jumped off of the card at me. The Zodiac logo in front of Robt, I dropped down to the next line and used it for the letter Z , that gave me the 9 letter last name. Zodiac would use letters above line that was meant to attach to the word below, is why I moved the Z logo to the word below. ( That same name is in three different Zodiac ciphers)

Thank You Zamantha for posting the picture for me.
By the time the celebrity card was sent, I am pretty sure Zodiac considered himself a "celebrity" , so perhaps he gave his name as the celebrity?

Well here I go again with some more information that I just came across . I found the notes that Lyndon Lafferty gave to me about the celebrity cypher sent to the VTH Sept 25th 1990. Apparently Lyndon was shown the front of the card. He described it as showing driftwood on "Ocean Beach". Here is what I found for a possible connection to the card.
John and Joyce Swindle Murdered in San Diego,1964. Were They the First Zodiac Victims?
Unresolved Murder
On Wednesday, February 5, 1964, Navy radio-man third class Johnny Ray Swindle and his newlywed wife Joyce were violently murdered along the "Ocean Beach" Boardwalk next to the Silver Spray Apartments. Swindle had married his childhood sweetheart on January 18, 1964 and they stayed in a three room cottage nine blocks from where they would eventually be slain. According to the San Diego Union Newspaper, five shots were fired from the sniper position above. Police said two more were fired at close range. Indicating that the killer fired the last two shots into their heads in a kind of coup de grâce. Their murder case remains unsolved to this day however there are many persons who believe the murders were committed by the infamous Zodiac killer. http://zodiackiller.fr.yuku.com/topic/1 … M8SP53F_VA

There is a very good You tube video of the town called "Ocean Beach" in the 1960’s. It will also give the name of the street that John and Joyce lived. It is listed as "OB in the sixties".

What does all of this mean, it could mean that the card we were shown was not the correct card? That the correct beach on the card was a beach in San Diego called Ocean Beach. If the card was from the Zodiac, it would make more sense that it was indeed "Ocean Beach" and that was a clue to that couple’s murder. Any help would be appreciated.

If we consider the sort of person that may perpetrate a communication hoax in the style of Zodiac, we could consider a budding or existent serial killer who may have the motivation for such a card. We would be looking for somebody whose name fits the 5 and 8 characters of his forename and surname, who resided in Oakland, Ca, the likely address of the 7 and 2 characters. In 1990, this man may have already killed previously, but was ultimately convicted in 2014 for the 1992 strangulation killings of two Oakland mothers, murders that were solved nearly two decades after the fact with DNA evidence.
Monte Crawford, formerly of Oakland, was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole before he took a deal and pleaded no contest to the murders of Tredis Penny and Shirley Wynn.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/01/ … -with-dna/

Not only does his name fit the criteria, as does his address. He lived with his grandparents in 1990 in a 10-letter neighborhood in East Oakland called Castlemont, near to Skyline Road and Golf Links Road, the deposition site of the two murdered women. This fits the third line on the address side also – giving us Monte Williams, Oakland, Ca, Castlemont. It may not be this guy who authored the card, but all the relevant criteria fits – and he was responsible for two murders in Oakland and possibly more.

Fort Ord is close to Carmel. Prosecutor Stacie Pettigrew said there is no evidence that Crawford, a military veteran, knew the women before he sexually assaulted them, strangled them and dumped their nude or partially clothed bodies in the Oakland hills not far from his grandparents’ house.

Look at the suggested code solution on: "Oakland, Ca" and "Do you know me, my name is"
(long time ago someone else, I think it was Glurk, did the "Oakland, Ca"
and shortly after I took it from there and did the "Do you know me, my name is" suggestion)

Today I found a name that might fit,
I even found an address for the person living in Oakland, Ca in 1991:

N _ o _ _
N a o m i

Y _ _ _ k _ _ _
Y a m a k a w a

Naomi Yamakawa
in the U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1
Name: Naomi Yamakawa
Address: 6400 Christie Ave Apt 5410, Oakland , CA, 94608-1048 (1991)

The key when putting forward a particular name is the relevance. Have you any additional information concerning Naomi Yamakawa, that suggests it has any contextual meaning regarding the celebrity cipher.

The key when putting forward a particular name is the relevance. Have you any additional information concerning Naomi Yamakawa, that suggests it has any contextual meaning regarding the celebrity cipher.

No, only that she seem to fit and that she was listed at an Oakland, Ca address at the time the card was sent.

I’m just thinking out loud here, but looking at the cipher and considering the possibility that it may have come from an older Zodiac, the thought comes to me that there may be some hints here to help with decoding a key for the 340 cipher. Assuming, that is, that the above decoding is valid.

In two places, I notice a pattern in the choice of cipher symbols representing a single character. In these two instances, these symbols can be regarded as loosely forming groups linked by 90 degree rotations. Thus, we have:

• O as , , and [/*:m:1g8ryjfm]
• A as , , and possibly [/*:m:1g8ryjfm][/list:u:1g8ryjfm]

Okay. This is officially the end of ‘Thinking out loud here…’

“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)

 

I am more concerned with the reason Zodiac chose the card that he did, rather than trying to put words together that may not be correct. Lyndon Lafferty taught code and I do believe that he broke the "celebrity cypher".

Richard G knows that the Sandy Beaches cards were a series of cards, so there could be 5 more in that series that we need to look at?

Lyndon described what the front looked like and that was driftwood on "Ocean Beach", Carmel Beach is not the correct one Zodiac sent to VTH. The one Lyndon describes is "Ocean Beach" , the company who prints them is in southern ca. I will bet it is the Ocean Beach in San Diego where the Sweet Heart murders took place. Zodiac was more than likely claiming he killed the young couple Feb 5 1964. And mailed it very close to to the Lake Berryessa 5th yr anniversary.
1990 was 26 years later,the 26 letter in the alphabet is Z. Was that just another coincidence?

The words Lyndon found in that cipher were: Longed hunt late sleuth invite u to a slut yuth hotel hide. He also said that it could be Long Hunted late sleuth—- ETC.

Lyndon wrote that all of the symbols were used except two = I Q Perhaps Zodiac was asking what is your IQ?

…

Not only does his name fit the criteria, as does his address. He lived with his grandparents in 1990 in a 10-letter neighborhood in East Oakland called Castlemont, near to Skyline Road and Golf Links Road, the deposition site of the two murdered women. This fits the third line on the address side also – giving us Monte Williams, Oakland, Ca, Castlemont. It may not be this guy who authored the card, but all the relevant criteria fits – and he was responsible for two murders in Oakland and possibly more.

I want to ask a back-to-basics question, not out of naivety, but to try and get my head around the rationale that might be being used to come up with some of these solutions, and partial solutions. As example, I could start with the above partial solution, even before the insertion of the name and location.

I ask, then: Given that a simplest-first try of a basic substitution cipher approach incorporating the (IMO) very plausible "My name is" quote would produce this:

what is the (specific) justification given for bypassing this to get the "DO YOU KNO[M] ME?"

And then, I suppose from this, what is the (specific) justification for similar sleights-of-hand to get "[N]ONTE [YI]AWFOR[E]" and the like?

Again, if you have next "OAKLAND, CA" and "MONTE CRAWFORD," how do you justify going from these to "CASTLEMOUNT" and not "IAKELCIANE," if I’ve got that right?

If there are Caesar shifts or polyalphabetic substitutions or whatnot going on here, what are they – how are they defined (key) in the necessary unique manner that would be required to avoid any claim of the solutions being merely forced?

Hi Shaq, I used absolutely no cryptography in arriving at Monte Crawford, Castlemont or any part of the message, simply because the variability of the characters in respect to the character total makes this code effectively unbreakable. The Oakland, Ca is logical because of the postmark and the "my name is" fits known Zodiac phraseology. The left side of the card is predominantly used for the return address and "my name is" should be the response to such a question as "do you know me".

If the author was obeying the rules, his name should be 5 and 8 characters.
His locality should be 10 characters.
His city should be 7 characters followed by CA.

All I did was post murderer Oakland 1990 into Google search (the criteria on the card). After all, the author of the card is likely a flawed individual. The only relevant answer on the first page of the Google search gave me a man who was a possible serial killer, whose name, locality at the time of the murders, city and deposition site exactly matched the criteria on the card. That was uncanny. The point to me posting this individual was not to show any relevant cryptography skills (because I have none), but to emphasize that this was a real person who matched the card. I certainly am not suggesting that Monte Crawford designed this card, moreover, that if a genuine name and address was placed on the address side of the card, this is the only individual that satisfies the character count throughout – and he killed two women and dumped their bodies within 2 miles of the residence he was living. Admittedly, it was 1992, but I sincerely doubt his career of criminality began at that juncture. He could easily have had an interest in Zodiac (as did Heriberto Seda and many others) and simply mimicked a Zodiac correspondence, with no intention of laying down a genuine code. After all, nobody seriously believes the author of this card would create a code that was able to be cracked, and therefore reveal his real name.

If we believe the author of the celebrity cipher had a history of murder or wrong doing, this is the only candidate that conforms to the character count in every instance. But I certainly don’t claim this to be the answer.

If we take the card at face value, being a celebrity cipher, let’s look for a celebrity associated with the Zodiac Killer, relevant to Carmel, California and relevant to San Francisco (often written San Fran in Zodiac communications). Dirty Harry was based on the Zodiac Killer, set in San Francisco, starring Clint Eastwood and who was mayor of Carmel between 1986-1988, two years prior to this card. Not to be taken seriously.

After all, he was the man with no name.

Thanks for your detailed reply, Richard, in response to which I’d just like to reflect a little on where you suggest that maybe:

the variability of the characters in respect of the character total makes this code effectively unbreakable.

Now, I need to be open as well and state at the outset that I am no skilled cryptographer, either. However, the point that I think you are making here is that there are not enough constraints and too few characters (total) to permit the cipher to be cracked. And, in one sense, I think that that is a reasonable inference. If, that is, it weren’t for one thing.

In relation to ‘celebrity ciphers’, the one constraint that overrides all the others that are generally lacking is that when you have solved it you end up with something famous that someone has said.

This type of genre is a very specialist one, and probably fits best with people who spend a lot of their time reading biographies of famous people and the like, or who are generally interested in books on famous quotes. Without that knowledge and experience, however – and I, certainly, don’t have it – then it wouldn’t be surprising that the whole thing seems insufficiently constrained.

Based on this, I would want to suggest that this is looked at not as some potential sinister communication from Zodiac or some other serial killer or murderer, but just as a straightforward ‘celebrity cipher’ that may, or may not, relate to a quote that some famous killer (e.g., Zodiac) might have said. Basically, the form (famous quote) is everything.

Then, from there, I would suggest that the ‘quote’ idea would suggest moving away from the idea that the second two lines are part of an address. You wouldn’t, with a celebrity cipher, expect to see the sender’s name and mailing address in code. I would further suggest, then, that the ‘famous quote’ starts right at the top. That, whoever this famous person is, and whatever the quote, it starts with their own name and likely ends with it.

As for the use of symbols, I might imagine that the author simply noted that this famous quote happened to fall out with "My name is" near the end, thought of the zodiac ciphers, and thought "You know what? That’d be so cool!"

Basically, I think this will likely be nothing more than a regular celebrity cipher and be such as is open to being cracked if seen as such. We’ve just got to break out of the "all things Zodiac" to do it. And that can be really hard, at times.

It could very well be a name at the beginning and end, with a quote in between. But why was it ever mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald in the first place?

It is extremely blotchy and unclear, but what if Herald was spelled Herold on the July 31st 1969 envelope – would this increase the suspicious purpose behind the 1990 celebrity cipher.