"Where is the evidence that Cheney had a history of lying or fabrication?"

Shortly after 911, Cheney called me and said those events reminded him of something else Allen had claimed he might do, and that was to hijack a jetliner and crash it into the Sears Tower. That alleged conversation with Allen happened in the late 1960s, after that the two had no communication. Construction of the Sears Tower didn’t even begin until 1970.

I’m not aware of Allen having interest in, or experience with, codes. But he really didn’t need either to have created the 408, IMHO.

"Where is the evidence that Cheney had a history of lying or fabrication?"

Shortly after 911, Cheney called me and said those events reminded him of something else Allen had claimed he might do, and that was to hijack a jetliner and crash it into the Sears Tower. That alleged conversation with Allen happened in the late 1960s, after that the two had no communication. Construction of the Sears Tower didn’t even begin until 1970.

I’m not aware of Allen having interest in, or experience with, codes. But he really didn’t need either to have created the 408, IMHO.

His statement to you is obviously fallacious — a complete fabrication. Sears began planning the Chicago project in 1969. "Sears and the City of Chicago approved the design and the first steel was put in place in April 1971. The structure was completed in May 1973. The construction cost about US$150 million,[18] equivalent to $850 million in 2019 dollars.[19] By comparison, Taipei 101, built in 2004, cost the equivalent of US$2.21 billion in 2018 dollars.[20]" This quote is from Wikipedia.

I have no reason to doubt your account. Did you challenge Cheney on this apparent fabrication? Did you take contemporaneous notes of that conversation, Tom? If so, have you posted them? As I recall, Don and Leigh were close in age. Lee was born in 1933. When you interviewed Don in December of 2000, he (Don) would have been in his late 60s? After the 9-11 attack, Don would have been only a year or so older. I recall that Don Cheney was a "drinker." Wasn’t that the ostensible reason for the need to have a second polygraph? I wonder if that "drinking" caught up with him. I concede that Don Cheney’s handwriting DOES resemble that of ALA. Also, Don was a civil engineer and would have understood "radians" which Zodiac notes in his Mt. Diablo map. If you have other samples of DC’s handwriting, I’d like to see them.

The 2nd batch of FBI files had that "magic square" which was suggestive of ciphers:

http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/?p=179

It’s not clear to me which person the document was attributed to. Was it ALA?

That is the period 15 magic square. I had a thread about this suspect but had it removed by morf13 because the suspect is still alive and I became uncomfortable with it. The suspect (not Gareth Penn) was under investigation by the FBI because he went missing from his military base during the Zodiac crimes. Largo did some work on this magic square because I could not find anything about its construction rule, and apparently this form of magic square only became academically known somewhere in the late 90’s or so.

Thanks, Jarlve!

I’d like to refocus this discussion on the apparent ciphers that ALA kept in a grey metal box in his bedroom. This is what I wrote in an earlier post in this thread:

Tom, please refer to page 8 of the SGT Mulanax’s investigation report, wherein he describes ALA showing a paper from "a grey metal box" from his bedroom to Tucker and his wife. In the message were "various symbols similar to those used by the Zodiac in his coded messages. Symbols and code very neatly done." So, according to SGT Mulanax, in addition to ALA’s sister-in-law, we have TWO additional witnesses (the Tuckers) to the same type of information coming from the same "grey box." Page 13 of the Mulanax report is even more explicit. Tucker’s wife was taken by (showed great interest in) the code symbols on the document that ALA showed them. The document from the "grey box."

I also find that ALA was very capable of drawing very "neat" script — completely dissimilar to the sloppy handwriting evidenced in most of his handwritten letters. I’m making specific references to several of the envelopes he addressed.
Karen would have a motive for dissembling about what she initially stated about the symbols and grey box. However, the Tuckers would not have a motive to fabricate their account. QED?

NEW ADDITION TO THIS DISCUSSION:

Looking for cipher related information, I have finished reading Jake Wark’s 2001 article that assails virtually all of the alleged evidence suggesting that ALA was Zodiac. Mr. Wark makes a passing reference to the document(s) in the "grey box." He states that "Allen had mysterious coded letters in a strongbox – but they were sent to him by Joseph Mitten, a patient at Atascadero." Remarkably, that is ALL he says about the "mysterious coded letters! What’s unfortunate for follow-on research is that Wark doesn’t cite a source for his allegation. This unsourced statement begs so many questions: Who was Joseph Mitten and why was he sending Leigh coded letters? What was their relationship? What happened to those coded letters? What was Mark’s source? Were the letters decoded? So we now have another claimant that ALA did have coded messages in a "strongbox" (grey metal box), who is none other than one of his principal defenders, Jake Wark. So, Karen Allen, both Tuckers and Jake Wark confirm (directly or indirectly) that ALA kept coded messages (or ciphers), secured in a container, in his home! Why hasn’t this "evidence" ever been run to ground?!

NEW ADDITION TO THIS DISCUSSION:

Looking for cipher related information, I have finished reading Jake Wark’s 2001 article that assails virtually all of the alleged evidence suggesting that ALA was Zodiac. Mr. Wark makes a passing reference to the document(s) in the "grey box." He states that "Allen had mysterious coded letters in a strongbox – but they were sent to him by Joseph Mitten, a patient at Atascadero." Remarkably, that is ALL he says about the "mysterious coded letters! What’s unfortunate for follow-on research is that Wark doesn’t cite a source for his allegation. This unsourced statement begs so many questions: Who was Joseph Mitten and why was he sending Leigh coded letters? What was their relationship? What happened to those coded letters? What was Mark’s source? Were the letters decoded? So we now have another claimant that ALA did have coded messages in a "strongbox" (grey metal box), who is none other than one of his principal defenders, Jake Wark. So, Karen Allen, both Tuckers and Jake Wark confirm (directly or indirectly) that ALA kept coded messages (or ciphers), secured in a container, in his home! Why hasn’t this "evidence" ever been run to ground?!

Hey, this is interesting LouisAZ! I found this about the bombs they found at Leigh’s house:

Allen claimed that the weapons and bombs found during the 1991 search were left without his permission by a friend whom he met at Atascadero.
Even though the bomb diagrams were in his handwriting, Allen maintained he hadn’t written them.

This friend was your Joseph Mitten?

On paper ALA still looks good as any of em to me…the codes seem fanciful to me..i do not think Z was any expert in code writing and i question if the military would have wanted anything to do with that nut and this was during the vietnam police action!…i like TK as Z more than ALA but with TK’S smarts why would he write such a rudimetry code that was easily solved?…he would not so while TK is dam interesting to me as well i question if he was the Z…so i go right back to ALA as i think that buffon was far more legitimate to as have written that bullshit code(s) then TK…i am pretty much with TV in that Ralphie was capable of writing any of those codes or may be Scott Vargas…i guess the bottom line for me is TK IS AND WAS capable of killing…it remains to be seen/proven if ALA was capable of killing…

Ps…could care less about cheney as a witness of usefulness to the Z….what exactly did he contribute to this case?..i dont think much as 50 years later we really are no closer to solving this case….Darlenes clan is another bunch i have serious misgivings on as well….the surviving victims are so traumatized little value can be placed on them as well….KJ is best we have and even that is debatable if it was really Z…..after all these years why hasnt 1 legitimate family member/relative ratted out the Z…i think he was a foster kid with no known family members…kinda where i am at

The only Zodiac cipher that we know to be a true cipher was the original three-part cipher. It was basic stuff, anybody likely Zodiac’s age would have understood the fundamentals of such a substitute cipher, even Ralphie in the movie "A Christmas Story" knew how to create one.

The 408 was more sophisticated than your characterization suggests. It was not a simple substitution cipher. It was a homophonic substitution cipher designed to thwart (inter alia) character frequency analysis. The FBI and NSA could not decipher the 408. The Hardens "got lucky." The Z340 is apparently more complex. It’s smaller and has more cipher symbols. Many analysts are convinced that the Z340 does contain a message. The correction of the "k" suggests it does. The point is that whoever created the Z ciphers was not your average crossword puzzle aficionado.

With respect to ALA’s proficiency and interest in ciphers, it appears that the Joseph Mitten story was started by YOU, Tom Voigt. Here is your post from 2007:
Posted on Tuesday, January 09, 2007 – 12:41 pm: The "Joseph Mitten" story first surfaced due to my e-mail exchange with a guy named Chris Iman. Iman allegedly had friends on the Vallejo police force who told him the real identity of the main suspect from a Zodiac book (Allen). Iman allegedly interviewed Allen, who claimed the Zodiac’s codes were the work of an inmate (Mitton) at Atascadero State Hospital. Allegedly Mitton was a killer. Who knows if any of that was true. I’ve done searches for Joseph Mitton and found nothing. Maybe the last name is spelled Minton, but I didn’t find anything under that spelling either."

Questions: 1. Who is Chris Iman? 2. There are many "Chris Imans" in the White Pages. Is he still alive? 3. Who were his "friends" in the Vallejo PD? You suggest that in 2007, you didn’t know if any of what Iman told you was true and you were unable to corroborate Iman’s claims with your "searches." Did you make any other efforts to corroborate his information? 4. Why would Iman fabricate his story? 5. How well did you know Iman? 5. How and why did you make contact with Iman? 6. Do you still have Iman’s email address? 7. You honestly don’t know the correct spelling of Mitton’s name?

In other words…WHERE IS THE BASIC GUMSHOE RESEARCH that is necessary to run these evidentiary fragments to ground? I don’t see it.

its so obvious ALA was the zodiac, its not even close.

https://youtu.be/nlODaFMP4uw

There are people who still consider Arthur Allen as a serious suspect?