2. Perhaps the October 13th letter was written PRIOR to the crime.

Could be, in fact there was a mailbox right by where the cab was parked.

These are two suggestions (and merely suggestions; I’m quite prepared to be wrong):

1. Perhaps Zodiac wasn’t familiar with the area. Maybe he confused the two streets. It was dark and the streets look pretty much the same in that neighborhood.

2. Perhaps the October 13th letter was written PRIOR to the crime. There is nothing in that letter that he couldn’t have planned ahead of time (picking a taxi driver, taking his shirt, escaping into the park, etc.)

Your last comment is an interesting one.

These are two suggestions (and merely suggestions; I’m quite prepared to be wrong):

1. Perhaps Zodiac wasn’t familiar with the area. Maybe he confused the two streets. It was dark and the streets look pretty much the same in that neighborhood.

2. Perhaps the October 13th letter was written PRIOR to the crime. There is nothing in that letter that he couldn’t have planned ahead of time (picking a taxi driver, taking his shirt, escaping into the park, etc.)

1. Yes but must have had prior knowledge of the “street” I.e. Maple, as it would have been the destination he requested, so if he was dropped off a block further west possibly he did not know any better ?

2. It could have been written before but it must have been posted after as this letter included a piece of the shirt but as far as I am aware of no blood was on either the envelope or the letter. All the three known pieces of shirt have blood on the, so obviously the material was dry when posted ? Also if true the most compelling factor is the park, this was (based on the above theory) his planned escape route all along ?

Also we must remember that the terminology used in the letter implies that it was written in SF.

Why the crosswalk at Washington and Maple? What’s so important about that location or the school for that matter? Or are we to basically assume that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything he did?

Not sure Washington and Maple hold any real significance. I’ve always felt like Zodiac had his attacks well planned and well scouted. I think he knew that area of Washington and Maple was at that time of night fairly deserted, plus it got him close to his escape.

In the letter he said "over by Washington and Maple" which to me means he had Washington and Maple planned as the exact site of where he meant to do his thing, but for whatever reason they ended up at Cherry and he didn’t know that street’s name.

Reading the letter he seems to have written it the next day, using words like "last night", he also seemed to describe the activity afterwards fairly accurately which would indicate he wrote the letter the next day.

Why the crosswalk at Washington and Maple? What’s so important about that location or the school for that matter? Or are we to basically assume that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything he did?

Not sure Washington and Maple hold any real significance. I’ve always felt like Zodiac had his attacks well planned and well scouted. I think he knew that area of Washington and Maple was at that time of night fairly deserted, plus it got him close to his escape.

In the letter he said "over by Washington and Maple" which to me means he had Washington and Maple planned as the exact site of where he meant to do his thing, but for whatever reason they ended up at Cherry and he didn’t know that street’s name.

Reading the letter he seems to have written it the next day, using words like "last night", he also seemed to describe the activity afterwards fairly accurately which would indicate he wrote the letter the next day.

The planning I am with you. The knowing the area I am with you. At first, I started to disagree with you on the writing of the letter the next day because I am thinking of him writing the letter shortly after the crime. But once I thought about the time of the crime (roughly 10 p.m.), his hiding (according to him and which I actually agree with) and what time it would take him to clear the area and get home, it would be the next day. We are only talking about 2 hours between the time Stine was killed and the next day. I would have to disagree on Washington and Maple not holding much significance though. Deserted would be Lake Herman crime scene. That’s my interpretation of deserted. Stine crime scene we have homes all around. Nice homes. Very big homes compared to what I am use to. But as big as they are you rather expect "someone" to hear something. Indeed that happened. Not as much as I would think but still it happened. So for me its a no on the deserted portion. But then you say, "he said "over by Washington and Maple" which to me means he had Washington and Maple planned as the exact site of where he meant to do his thing". For him to plan it and, to say "Over by Washington & Maple", he had a reason to be there or a reason he chose THAT location. That’s where I am getting hung up on. Planning, choosing and then writing about that location.

Also we must remember that the terminology used in the letter implies that it was written in SF.

Agree with everything else you said, but not sure how this is true? Can you elaborate?

[ I would have to disagree on Washington and Maple not holding much significance though. Deserted would be Lake Herman crime scene. That’s my interpretation of deserted.

Well, I said "not sure", not there there was no significance. I just meant it could be as simple as that was the area he had scouted and decided it fit his needs. By "fairly deserted" I meant he knew not many people were generally out and about that time of night. Washington and Maple was where he had decided to do it and had memorized it as a place to tell his cabbie to take him and didn’t know the other streets.

I think the murder of Stine was mainly a big FU to the SFPD, he wanted to show them he could walk into the middle of their turf, shoot a guy, then walk away scot free. Taunting police was a big thing with him. So the significance of Washington and Maple could just be it was your average SF neighbourhood and an average neighbourhood was where he wanted to commit a brazen attack, and I’ve never seen him indicate there was anything important about that specific intersection.

Also we must remember that the terminology used in the letter implies that it was written in SF.

Agree with everything else you said, but not sure how this is true? Can you elaborate?

Just my opinion:-

1) Postmarked in SF
2) Use of phrase “Over by” seems to insinuate a relatively close proximity to the crime scene.
3) “Did in the people in the North Bay Area” this is in direct contrast to the above.

I do appreciate that this could be contributed to recipient of letter being in SF, obviously it is how you interpret his writing and this can be subjective.

We could effectively take every eyewitness statement and apply the same argument of the guessing game. What we know of Hartnell is that he was a very astute and intelligent individual who recalled the evening’s events with great clarity under extremely difficult circumstances. If we can’t take his observations as likely accurate, we cannot take any of the other eyewitnesses as accurate. In this scenario, we can literally rewrite the Zodiac story with an endless array of alternative hypotheses. Is it possible that Hartnell was wrong – yes. But this applies to the three teenagers, Armond Pelissetti, Donald Fouke, James Owen, Stella Medeiros, William Crow, Helen Axe, Nancy Slover and just about every other eyewitness and earwitness in the Zodiac case. Bryan Hartnell interacted with the Zodiac for the longest period of any of the eyewitnesses in the case. If we cannot use this as a basis that he was likely correct, then we cannot use any of the other eyewitness recollections as reliable. This leaves us deconstructing the case rather than advancing it. Assessing the observational awareness of Hartnell, in accompaniment to the time he interacted with the Zodiac Killer, should lean us towards what he said as likely accurate. If his observations were inacaccurate, then a case can be made to reject or disbelieve every other eyewitness that crossed paths with the killer. In this scenario, we are left with very little.

Right… but, 40 years of scholarship on memory and eyewitness testimony also demonstrates that eyewitnesses have terrible observation skills and even worse recall. So, regardless of your argument from consequence, the empirical scholarship suggests that eyewitness testimony is not reliable and should always be taken with a grain of salt. Without physical corroboration, you should be skeptical of almost everything a witness says.

Zodiac could have used his foot-long knife to simply cut their throats, and Bryan and Cecelia would have been guaranteed dead within 30 seconds; both victims were bound and helpless. So I don’t think being previously seen was the motivation for his Berryessa costume. Not to mention one wouldn’t have needed to create something so elaborate to simply conceal his face.

Also, if a surviving victim was the reason for no Berryessa letter, why was there a letter following Blue Rock Springs?

To link the LHR murders with the BRS murders? LE might have linked them, eventually, but they may not have made it public right away. It took five or so victims before police considered a serial killer in the Green River case. Just a thought.

Zodiac didn’t do things the way we think he should have. The idea that a guy who was motivated to dress in a costume to kill in broad daylight, was worried about his face being seen doesn’t make sense to me. Especially since he followed it up with a murder in front of several people, when he could have directed Stine to a much more isolated spot with no witnesses.

Agreed. Very little about the killings makes sense. He made many, many counterintuitive choices, even in the information he revealed in his letters. Regarding the 340 cipher, the text concerns subject matter responding to recent events, but he had to know that no one was likely to guess his exact manipulation of the symbols to solve that. So, was his purpose to send a cipher that no one could break to make him look superior to the rest of us? Strange on every level.

he obviously wasn’t overly familiar with the streets themselves as he references Maple in his letter

The original destination was Washington and Maple, which was an elementary school crosswalk. Still is. Presidio Hill Elementary. I believe he wanted to kill Stine in that intersection to add emphasis to the subsequent Stine letter where he threatened school children. Which is why he still made reference to Washington and Maple in the Stine letter.

I think you’re right about that.

he obviously wasn’t overly familiar with the streets themselves as he references Maple in his letter

The original destination was Washington and Maple, which was an elementary school crosswalk. Still is. Presidio Hill Elementary. I believe he wanted to kill Stine in that intersection to add emphasis to the subsequent Stine letter where he threatened school children. Which is why he still made reference to Washington and Maple in the Stine letter.

I think you’re right about that.

It is also in keeping with his referring to December 20 as Christmass and July 5 as the 4th of July. The specific time or place of his crimes were not important to him in terms of being technically accurate.

LB was quite a bit different, where he was specific about the date of LHR, and about LB down to the minute.

“Zodiac didn’t do things the way we think he should have “ can you elaborate on this Tom ?

Sure. I see people regularly approach the Zodiac case from the perspective that he got away with it because he must have committed the perfect crimes intentionally, "perfect crimes" being leaving no evidence or at least attempting to leave no evidence. Then they make excuses for why he left witnesses etc. Yes he was smart, but to me it’s clear that Zodiac was a suicide bomber who luckily happened to survive each mission. The man gave the police what at the time could have convicted him (handwriting), yet I see theories that he disguised his voice or wore a fat suit. Zodiac could have easily made sure all of his victims died. He could have made sure there were no witnesses. He could have made sure to not provide handwriting. He could have retrieved shell casings. On and on and on. Zodiac was brazen, his Berryessa attack is the perfect illustration, his victims could have been found before he even got back to his car, the roads blocked long before the 40-minute drive out of the area. That’s not the behavior of a guy who is worried about his face being seen or his voice being heard.

Well said. People who believe Zodiac was a master criminal ignore the witnesses, tire tracks, casings, bootprints, and other forensic evidence he left at crime scenes. He was more lucky than smart.

Well said. People who believe Zodiac was a master criminal ignore the witnesses, tire tracks, casings, bootprints, and other forensic evidence he left at crime scenes. He was more lucky than smart.

Lucky in light of today’s forensic science. At the time, the evidence that he left would only confirm that he was the killer after he had already been identified. He did not apparently leave the type of evidence that would identify him. If Bates is a Zodiac victim, maybe he left DNA. But, it hasn’t led to an arrest yet. So, whoever killed Bates was not likely in any database. I would say that Zodiac was smart enough for his day. If he committed crimes the exact same way today, the only thing that likely gets him caught would be the Robbins kids’ cell phone.