I have to tell you AK that out of the ‘less considered’ letters presented here I think there’s maybe something to the Atlanta one. When I recently started to look more closely at the traits contained in the handwritings there were things that started to catch me eye in the ATKID letter that didn’t in the others.

IIRC correctly the FBI’s stance on this letter was that it was inconclusive but it did contain some things that made them add that it shouldn’t be ruled out as it did contain some similarities to the known Zodiac letters. The obvious distortion employed hampers identifying it as Zodiac but I have to agree with the FBI’s conclusion on this one. I’ve probably said all this before somewhere.

I can’t show what I’ve seen in it as I haven’t reached the stage of focusing on this letter but I do remember that whatever it was I spotted made me stop and think ‘holy crap’ and it was in conjunction with a few other things thus not only being a similarity but maybe a pattern as well.

Might turn out to be nothing but, as I said, out of all of these kind of letters, it was only that one that made me stop and then it gave me a little ‘hairs on the back neck moment’.

I have to tell you AK that out of the ‘less considered’ letters presented here I think there’s maybe something to the Atlanta one. When I recently started to look more closely at the traits contained in the handwritings there were things that started to catch me eye in the ATKID letter that didn’t in the others.

IIRC correctly the FBI’s stance on this letter was that it was inconclusive but it did contain some things that made them add that it shouldn’t be ruled out as it did contain some similarities to the known Zodiac letters. The obvious distortion employed hampers identifying it as Zodiac but I have to agree with the FBI’s conclusion on this one. I’ve probably said all this before somewhere.

I can’t show what I’ve seen in it as I haven’t reached the stage of focusing on this letter but I do remember that whatever it was I spotted made me stop and think ‘holy crap’ and it was in conjunction with a few other things thus not only being a similarity but maybe a pattern as well.

Might turn out to be nothing but, as I said, out of all of these kind of letters, it was only that one that made me stop and then it gave me a little ‘hairs on the back neck moment’.

Thanks for taking a look at it Trav. I think the May 1978 and March 1981 letters deserve at least a little more attention from Zodiac researchers than they have got to date.

Interested in any ideas you may have.

Yes indeed the FBI did not rule out Zodiac as author of the 1981 letter and noted some matching characteristics.

No probs.

I was just now having a look at it compared to the latter letters. The reason being because in my other, more in-depth research viewtopic.php?f=96&t=789 I started there just to look at the Marco letter and it, as usual spiralled.

I haven’t done a comp because the things I believe I saw were more involved than that but there will be comps, some day lol. Complicated stuff this guy’s communications are turning out to be. However if you want a flavor look at the ATKID letter compared to the citizen letter. Look at some of those lowercase g’s the word ‘light’ in the citizen letter and the word ‘guess’ in the ATKID letter. Look at the use of quotes in their placements in the letter and also, concerning the recent stuff on the 340 partially solved, the over or abundant use of double ll’s. Even look at the z in Citizen compared to the Z in Zodiac. There’s more but like I say, it’s complicated which when it comes to comps translates as not obvious until it’s explained.

There was also something else that caught my attention about the ATKID letter but this was maybe a year or so ago (or more) and I’ll need do more research, or backtracking, to find out what it was. It did concern the style of some of the disguising techniques employed though. Point being though that this letter popped up on my radar quite early because of it. It’s only recently though that I’m starting to see more compelling things.

Odd, I don’t discount the possibility of Zodiac writing a letter from Atlanta, I actually welcome it. What I do find odd is, it looks as if the Atlanta writing is disguised, or altered. Why sign a letter as Zodiac, and then attempt to hide his writing, when it was so widely used in the previous Z letters? If Z was in Atlanat,which I believe is possible, hearing about the Atlanta child murders every day could certainly make Z crave some attention that he might have missed from his Bay area days. Could have caused him to write that letter even if he had no part in the Atlanta child murders. Then again, AK and I are familiar with the anonymous, cold and insensitive letter mailed from Atlanta in the Betsy Aardsma case which read, "You never did catch that guy that killed that C**T in the library, did you?". (If you are not familiar with the Aardsma case, I suggest you read about it: http://www.truecrimediary.com/index.cfm … ments#view in Betsy’s case, there was also an odd desktop poem)

Don’t forget, there is that FORCED BUSSING/BUSING letter possibly from Z too, when you do your comparison

What I do find odd is, it looks as if the Atlanta writing is disguised, or altered. Why sign a letter as Zodiac, and then attempt to hide his writing, when it was so widely used in the previous Z letters?

And that is the conundrum I am trying to unravel. The SLA, Citizen and Marco letters don’t ‘look’ like Zodiac’s usual communication but according to LE/DE they are they same person. From my own opinion coming from a background in graphics and font creation (using pens through to the modern era) I also think they are the same.

This is a learning process for me and I’m very mindful of that regarding handwriting. I am actually learning from this whole experience. I’m not sure what though because it’s like a hybrid between DE and graphic skills and I’ve no one to counter balance my thoughts with. (note to morf) get a documents examiner to join us lol – a good one though, seriously.

He did and always has used disguise though, hasn’t he? That’s the other part. I see evidence of this at the start (Riverside) and the end (SLA, CItizen and Marco). But what was the inbetween? Were the they "Zodiac " years? Are we maybe seeing the beginning, the apex and the tailing off? Could the letters themselves be a reflection of that. I know this has been suggested before but rather than involving some sort of life change were he is no longer a killer, step back and consider what might have been also the build up in T’s thread.

viewtopic.php?f=79&t=1087&p=10627#p10627

Are we, through his writings, seeing the rise to killer, then to serial killer, then the tail off? This isn’t a theory I’m just typing as I’m wondering.

Odd, I don’t discount the possibility of Zodiac writing a letter from Atlanta, I actually welcome it. What I do find odd is, it looks as if the Atlanta writing is disguised, or altered. Why sign a letter as Zodiac, and then attempt to hide his writing, when it was so widely used in the previous Z letters? If Z was in Atlanta,which I believe is possible, hearing about the Atlanta child murders every day could certainly make Z crave some attention that he might have missed from his Bay area days. Could have caused him to write that letter even if he had no part in the Atlanta child murders. Then again, AK and I are familiar with the anonymous, cold and insensitive letter mailed from Atlanta in the Betsy Aardsma case which read, "You never did catch that guy that killed that C**T in the library, did you?". (If you are not familiar with the Aardsma case, I suggest you read about it: http://www.truecrimediary.com/index.cfm … ments#view in Betsy’s case, there was also an odd desktop poem)

Don’t forget, there is that FORCED BUSSING/BUSING letter possibly from Z too, when you do your comparison

Trav, I agree with what Morf said above, and to the extent that you or anyone else wish to take a look at what I think is a somewhat neglected aspect of the case, the possible Atlanta connection, these are the other materials.

Another letter in this time frame, perhaps also from this "Zodiac", was a demand that the Washington Post classified run this ad as a secret message:

DANIEL PLEASE CALL HOME

At almost the same time, a message was sent in the same way as the Zodiac Sacramento Cancer and Leo cards – in a prepaid envelope.

This letter was treated as credible, there are 10 pages on it in the files, and 3 kids were killed that March in Atlanta.

Only three cities got this insert for classic model cars that the message came in – Harrisburg PA, Long Beach FLA and Chicago, IL.

This is the poem by "The Ghost Killer".

LUBIE was the name of one of the Atlanta victims.

POEM

Well your all afraid, your all upset
Cause none of those cops have caught me yet
Ive struck again and didn´t leave a clue
Now the whole city doesn’t know what to do
You finally found Lubie, he’s been there all the while
Keep looking you might find another child
You think that the number stops at nineteen
Man, there are some things you haven´t seen

One night some kids got killed in a fire
I struck the match, so the death toll is higher
But you can´t seem to catch me. I wonder why
Thousands of you see me everyday when I pass by
It´s pathetic to know that I can get away
With first degree murder on any chosen day
Politicians are worried as the plot thickens
Leaders running around like headless chickens
All different cops can´t cooperate with the others
You will never catch me, you bumbling mothers
Go back from the ridiculous to the sublime
and you´ll find that I´v been with you everytime
You’d better start looking before it´s too late
Or there will be another "50-48"

So now I leave you with this peice of evidence
Don´t do somthing stupid like dust it for prints

The Ghost Killer

I don’t have any info I can present on this at the moment. Something I read about a week ago is really nagging me and to present more I will need to try and find it in my recent files.

Anyway, I was following along something I was reading on the Zodiac and came across a mention of numbers that went something like this (these numbers i made up): 50-32, 50-24, 50-16, etc. They all began with the 50 number, believe (since my focus of study concerns zodiac) it was in California, and all numbers were identification numbers for a bridge. Thinking I remember the 50 stood for a zone and the latter 2 numbers stood for the year the bridge was made.

Although I do believe the Zodiac to have written long after the 1974/1978 letters, I am not trying to make a case for him as a letter writer in this instance however, I am left wondering. I just remembered the number 50-48, thought about the Atlanta child murderer dropping children from bridges and thought maybe the 50-48 in this letter might refer to a bridge as outlined in the material I was reading.

Soze

I don’t have any info I can present on this at the moment. Something I read about a week ago is really nagging me and to present more I will need to try and find it in my recent files.

Anyway, I was following along something I was reading on the Zodiac and came across a mention of numbers that went something like this (these numbers i made up): 50-32, 50-24, 50-16, etc. They all began with the 50 number, believe (since my focus of study concerns zodiac) it was in California, and all numbers were identification numbers for a bridge. Thinking I remember the 50 stood for a zone and the latter 2 numbers stood for the year the bridge was made.

Although I do believe the Zodiac to have written long after the 1974/1978 letters, I am not trying to make a case for him as a letter writer in this instance however, I am left wondering. I just remembered the number 50-48, thought about the Atlanta child murderer dropping children from bridges and thought maybe the 50-48 in this letter might refer to a bridge as outlined in the material I was reading.

Soze

Good to see you and yes the Atlanta Child Killer did dump bodies from bridges. So the possible connection you are exploring makes sense.

However let me do you a favor that glurk, doranchak and others have done for me, which is deter me from going down the wrong road. A 50-48 is Atlanta police code for "Officer Down". Which makes sense in the context of the poem.

Glad to see someone looking at these letters IMO they deserve far more attention and examination than they have received so far.

I don’t have any info I can present on this at the moment. Something I read about a week ago is really nagging me and to present more I will need to try and find it in my recent files.

Anyway, I was following along something I was reading on the Zodiac and came across a mention of numbers that went something like this (these numbers i made up): 50-32, 50-24, 50-16, etc. They all began with the 50 number, believe (since my focus of study concerns zodiac) it was in California, and all numbers were identification numbers for a bridge. Thinking I remember the 50 stood for a zone and the latter 2 numbers stood for the year the bridge was made.

Although I do believe the Zodiac to have written long after the 1974/1978 letters, I am not trying to make a case for him as a letter writer in this instance however, I am left wondering. I just remembered the number 50-48, thought about the Atlanta child murderer dropping children from bridges and thought maybe the 50-48 in this letter might refer to a bridge as outlined in the material I was reading.

Soze

Good to see you and yes the Atlanta Child Killer did dump bodies from bridges. So the possible connection you are exploring makes sense.

However let me do you a favor that glurk, doranchak and others have done for me, which is deter me from going down the wrong road. A 50-48 is Atlanta police code for "Officer Down". Which makes sense in the context of the poem.

Glad to see someone looking at these letters IMO they deserve far more attention and examination than they have received so far.

I agree

I did have a question regarding your post but I think I will let it be. Not my area of research and there certainly is no sense beating a horse thats dead.

I do thank you for the advice and favor AK.

Soze

I did have a question regarding your post but I think I will let it be. Not my area of research and there certainly is no sense beating a horse thats dead.

I do thank you for the advice and favor AK.

Soze

No Problem.

Happy to try to answer any question.

Well, this guy in the poem, is talking about killing kids. He talks all the way through it about killing a new kid, about how they finally found Lubie, and about killing a child or children by fire in the past. In the mean while he talks about how inept the cops are at their job and how he has managed to never be caught. He gives little clues about how he cant understand why he hasn’t because he has been there the whole time and people see him every day (his response was thousands). I get why one would conclude that 50-48 was cop lingo for officer down. That makes sense in terms of him suggesting he has been there the whole time. However, if we were to look at the 50-48 in terms of a bridge, add in the act of tossing kids from bridges,, being there the whole time and thousands see me everyday when I pass by, it would seem to me that this guy is suggesting that he is a transportation worker. Although, I must say, I am not sure as to what capacity a transportation worker would be involved in the case of a kid being tossed from a bridge.

Anyway, my question had to do with 50-48 and its relation to "an officer down". I worked the question out when I started writing this post.

Soze

Well, this guy in the poem, is talking about killing kids. He talks all the way through it about killing a new kid, about how they finally found Lubie, and about killing a child or children by fire in the past. In the mean while he talks about how inept the cops are at their job and how he has managed to never be caught. He gives little clues about how he cant understand why he hasn’t because he has been there the whole time and people see him every day (his response was thousands). I get why one would conclude that 50-48 was cop lingo for officer down. That makes sense in terms of him suggesting he has been there the whole time. However, if we were to look at the 50-48 in terms of a bridge, add in the act of tossing kids from bridges,, being there the whole time and thousands see me everyday when I pass by, it would seem to me that this guy is suggesting that he is a transportation worker. Although, I must say, I am not sure as to what capacity a transportation worker would be involved in the case of a kid being tossed from a bridge.

Anyway, my question had to do with 50-48 and its relation to "an officer down". I worked the question out when I started writing this post.

Soze

Interesting ideas. Perhaps he is referring to a bridge or something else. We don’t really know for sure. It seems to make sense he is referring to violence against an officer. Also 50-48 may actually mean shots fired. It is frequently applied to officer in trouble situations and was used as the title of a book about Atlanta officers killed in the line of duty. But it could apply to other victims as well. It seems to make sense that the poem writer was referring to a 50-48 as shots fired generally or at officers specifically, but maybe it was a misdirect and/or double meaning. Your bridge theory makes sense, as the Atlanta Child Killer did throw bodies off of bridges. What California cases were you thinking of?

This is the section of the poem I think you were referencing, leading you to wonder if he is a highway worker:

But you can´t seem to catch me. I wonder why
Thousands of you see me everyday when I pass by
It´s pathetic to know that I can get away
With first degree murder on any chosen day

He says when he passes by. So could be a highway or transportation dept worker. Could also be a truck driver? Something were people see him and take no notice, no hint of suspicion. Highway worker? Truck driver? Garbage man? Security guard?

Or just a red herring false clue, a misdirect?

Interesting ideas. Perhaps he is referring to a bridge or something else. We don’t really know for sure. It seems to make sense he is referring to violence against an officer. Also 50-48 may actually mean shots fired. It is frequently applied to officer in trouble situations and was used as the title of a book about Atlanta officers killed in the line of duty. But it could apply to other victims as well. It seems to make sense that the poem writer was referring to a 50-48 as shots fired generally or at officers specifically, but maybe it was a misdirect and/or double meaning. Your bridge theory makes sense, as the Atlanta Child Killer did throw bodies off of bridges. What California cases were you thinking of?

This is the section of the poem I think you were referencing, leading you to wonder if he is a highway worker:

But you can´t seem to catch me. I wonder why
Thousands of you see me everyday when I pass by
It´s pathetic to know that I can get away
With first degree murder on any chosen day

He says when he passes by. So could be a highway or transportation dept worker. Could also be a truck driver? Something were people see him and take no notice, no hint of suspicion. Highway worker? Truck driver? Garbage man? Security guard?

Or just a red herring false clue, a misdirect?

AK,

It has been some time since I have read up on the Atlanta murders or this thread. I posted about the possibility of bridges because of what I came across and because that was what I remembered of the case. I reread the poem before I made my post and the transportation worker was and still is the feeling I have from that read. I thought that perhaps the best thing to do, before getting into what type of worker he might have been, would be to reread the case. That’s what I have done over the past several days. No where near a complete read of course.

Wayne Williams I do not think is innocent by any means. However, I do think that there is circumstantial evidence to suggest he didn’t commit the crimes he was charged with. Maybe others but not the ones he was convicted of. Its an absolute shame that LE seems to have rushed to place all of or the vast majority of the victims to him and have closed the cases to most. There seems to be several killers who were operating at the same time. I see a few killings as random kills and not part of a series. Aside from, the random, I see at least 3 killers operating. 2 of them could actually be part of one big picture like some kind of crime ring: heroine and/or homosexual pedophilia combined.

Several of the crimes have an air of, tit for tat, like they were intentionally dumped in locations associated with this heroine/homosexual/pedophilia thing going on. Like someone was trying to set these dudes up or call attention to them for whatever reason. The remainder of the cases, and specifically including the victims where calls have been made, I think we can attribute to the poem writer.

Chet Dettlinger was the one who made the prediction that the next victim would be dropped from a bridge. He is the reason why law enforcement was staked out at the bridge Wayne Williams would cross. (Wayne Williams I would include in this heroine/homosexual/pedophilia thing and as part of this set up I mentioned earlier). I haven’t dug enough to perhaps fully understand HOW Chet was able to make this prediction. I say this because a good majority of the cases were ALWAYS at or near a bridge. I mean we are talking, at most, 2 square blocks of a bridge. Is he meaning that he just realized bridges were significant? Or was there some sort of pattern that led him to say, next time, one would be dropped from a bridge verses being placed in the water a block away? Don’t know.

Based on what I am reading and seeing in terms of body disposal, I am convinced that the intended meaning to 50-48, was a bridge. To what capacity bridge was important I am at a stand still until I dig further into the cases.

Soze