Hi-

I’ve reached out to a reporter in Riverside, who forwarded my email to another reporter, so we will see what happens.

Mike

Good Luck with it,I hope you make some waves. The RPD deserves to have a bright light shined on them

Amen to that! RPD threw what amounts to a police tantrum. They knew the hair in her hand was brown and that their guy’s was blond but they developed the type of tunnel vision worthy of an amateur investigator–despite their insider’s knowledge of the hair evidence! They stamped their feet and said that their guy killed Bates and when the mtDNA didn’t match, they took their ball and went home.

Did they ever look for nuclear DNA on the "Bates had to die" letters? There is so much that could be done and yet you get the impression that it wasn’t–or that the results were not what RPD wanted, so they are sweeping them under the rug. Either way it is a sad way for a police department to treat its most famous case.

Unbelievable.

Mike

Good Job Mike. This would make a great story for a reporter. Remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Forward clips from the
Zodiac killer websites on Cheri Jo to the reporter. This is a murder story and a law enforcement expose’. Excellent ideas on this hair
being ripped out of the killer’s head, because of the lack of bulbous roots. Unless there are some hair roots, in which case further DNA
testing should be done. I would suggest that a digital forensic document examination should be performed on the exisiting Bates letters.
This is something a reporter might be able to have done. An accurate,correct timeline should be drawn up as well.

To add my thoughts on RPD and their lacking job with this murder.
They got dna from their pet subject. This we know. Now surely they got prints and writing samples from him
also. But you hear nothing about hand writing being tested against Barnett. Now either the samples match or they are just covering their asses again and are sweeping it under the rug again.You know we are all human and we make mistakes.
As for prints, we don’t know that any that were kept actually belong to her killer. so where do you go from there?

I think handwriting might be icing on the cake, but I don’t think it would be used to convict someone. Too many of the pros have disagreed.

I guess I come from a different line of thinking…

It seems quite obvious MANY have contacted the RPD as well as many other LE agencies. I mean, how many places has Donna Lass been buried?

I know that is how it works…tips from people, but after 40 years of "it’s Zodiac"…it must get quite old to them.

Surely there are some with a better reputation who have been able to get some info, but I truly don’t see them taking everyone seriously.

How many changes of leadership have taken place at the RPD over the last 40+ years? This is one of their few murder cases that went unsolved and I think for some to believe they don’t care or are blind-sided by "their" suspect might be mistaken.

I have NO DOUBT back in the day this was the case, but I don’t think they have stopped looking for Cheri’s killer because they think they know who it was. No way.

In the past several years….how many books have come out? At least 5. I would bet $$ ALL of those people have contacted the RPD and other agencies with their "proof".

I think there is probably a standard reply when someone calls and says, "it was my uncle’s brother’s, friend’s, cousin. Here is his handwriting and he liked to kill dogs and wore a Timex and was also Zodiac"….and it’s "thanks…we’ll look into it".

Or maybe, just maybe, they know something we don’t. Why should they discuss anything with anybody?

Hi-

It’s the misleading info they have put out over the years that bothers me. And in these very old cases, it is not unusual to see the police release some new info to the public to try to get their help. Take the EAR/ONS case, where they just released new information recently. You don’t see that here.

OK. Maybe before the mtDNA exclusion of "their suspect," in 2000, they may have played the case cautiously and kept the info for themselves. But even that doesn’t seem right. They seemed to release the misinformation prior to 2000 in order to make everyone think it could only be one person (stabbed "42 times," "The bitch is going to the library," etc.) But that is still not how they should have run the investigation from 1966 to 2000. They should have entertained all theories and suspects, not deceived the public with disinformation that favored their own pet theory. Maybe they were afraid of being inundated with "Zodiac tips" if they let on that anyone other than Barnett did it. But even that is not right. They had an obligation as a police department to keep a more open mind. Just IMHO.

It just smells funny.

Mike

How many changes of leadership have taken place at the RPD over the last 40+ years? This is one of their few murder cases that went unsolved and I think for some to believe they don’t care or are blind-sided by "their" suspect might be mistaken.

I have NO DOUBT back in the day this was the case, but I don’t think they have stopped looking for Cheri’s killer because they think they know who it was. No way

Tahoe27, I truly hope this is the case. Cheri deserves this!!

 

Hi-

I need to tap into the collective knowledge of everyone on this board to answer a question. As we know from the docs on this site, in 2000, Bob Barnett’s mt-DNA was compared to DNA extracted from the brown hairs found in CJB’s palm. The DNA did not match. Did RPD then dump him as a suspect? If not, was their argument based on the information that Tom obtained in about 1999 that after the murder there were supposedly two people searching the area with a flashlight, presumably looking for the lost Timex? Does RPD contend that there was an accomplice, thus the hair (which was clearly brown, not blond like Barnett’s) cannot rule out Barnett?

If they are using an accomplice scenario, does anyone know if there were footprints other than the "military style shoe" found at the scene to support their theory? If there were no other footprints, how could Barnett still be a suspect?

Did the mtDNA rule Barnett out completely or not? (As if the color of the hair, which they knew in 1966, were not enough to rule him out if there was only ONE set of prints at the scene!)

I contacted a reporter in Riverside about ten days ago. He forwarded my email to another reporter who was presumably more likely to be interested in writing an article on the Bates murder. Both the Z case and the Bates murders remain to this day fertile ground for new investigative pieces. However, as of today this second reporter has not even acknowledged having received the forwarded email, nor my follow-up email (a resend of my first email) directly to him earlier this week. My gut feeling is that reporters are sometimes reluctant to write pieces that are critical of their local departments for fear that they may alienate their inside contacts for future stories. Not stating that is a fact, just something I feel.

I want to take my request for a story up a notch within the newspaper hierarchy but before I do so I am trying to get as clear a picture of RPD’s current position with regard to Barnett and the DNA exclusion. (And BTW, this DNA comparison provides instructive contrasts with the 2002 "Zodiac DNA" exclusions. In 2002, they were dealing with potentially contaminated envelopes that were apparently not licked by the sender. On top of that, they also only got ONE unconfirmed fragment of DNA. In the Bates case, the mt-DNA comes from hairs that were actually found clutched in CLB’s hand the morning after she was killed. They were in a blood clot in her palm. If they were actually clutched in her hand and under her thumb (as opposed to having possibly fallen out of some investigator’s head ONTO her thumb!), then they are 99% likely to have come from her assailant. This is akin to the semen found on Josie Otero’s leg in the BTK case: IT has to belong to her assailant! So the Riverside DNA comparison is much more powerful as an exclusionary tool than the 2002 DNA ever was.)

Mike

Hey Mike, There is NO DOUBT that the DNA obtained from Cheri’s hand completely ruled out the ‘Barnett’ as being the donor of the hair. I guess none of us really know the truth about two guys walking around with flashlights, but if it was true, it certainly could explain why RPD would continue to latch on to Barnett even though the DNA rules him out. Personally, I question if the flashlight incident really happened. If only we could get our hands on those police reports!

MIKE R- check your PM

Not only did they have the hair clutched in her hands, but it is my understanding that they had found skin under her fingernails, indicating she scratched him?
I read that they were looking for anyone that had fresh scratch marks possibly on his face, it was believed he had some facial hair.
It would be good to see the RPD reports, I would like to know if Cheri Jo had on a Timex wrist watch, or if it was taken by her killer ? I have asked RPD but no response.

Hi-

Well, once again, if they are using the "two assailants" theory, it is very convenient that the one who had the real motive is the one whose DNA was not found on her. Presumably only the partner left DNA. Now, as for what was under her nails, and from whom, that is a different question.

I’m betting the whole "two people with a flashlight" story is a fabrication–just like the "42 stab wounds." If not, they have never mentioned what the other shoe prints were.

Mike

There are other reasons other than a scorned lover to become enraged. Cheri Jo’s killer probably became enraged when she fought him and scratched his face . Do any of us have a suspect that has a scar on his face, that looks like it could have been a fingernail scratch ?

I wish there was a way that we could find out the brand of cigarette butt they found at the crime scene.

The girl who went for a ride with the man who spoke to her about Cheri Jo, there has to be a better description of what he looked like and not just what he was wearing his age and pot belly ? Hair style and color, eye color, mustache, goatee, did he smoke ? It would be something to be able to talk to her and show her different suspect pictures from around 1966. She might remember something that she had forgot to tell the police ?
It happens to me all the time, I will be talking for instance to Ricardo, about things that have taken place to me over the yrs and bingo, I remember something that I totally had forgotten. Things that are significant pieces to the puzzle ! I would like to be hypnotized to see what all I can remember.

Morf , can you get a list of all of Cheri Jo’s belongings that were taken into evidence ? I am still wondering if she was missing a watch ? On my thread, I have a picture posted of a small Timex watch, that could have belonged to a female victim prior to Sept 28th or 29th 1969.

I know very little about the Zodiac killings as at the time I paid little attention to them. As I have now learned that the DNA found from the Bates murder did NOT match the RPD’s prime suspect. If they don’t match then why does the RPD continue to view him as the prime suspect? Has the DNA evidence been used to compare with the DNA of a key Zodiac suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. Allen died in 1992, why can’t a court order be issued to disinter the body for examination? His DNA will either be a match or it won’t match. Maybe the DNA has degraded after over 20 years but were not going to know for sure until we look. It would seem this would have the potential of eliminating Allen as the Bates murderer once and for all. Please tell me if I’m missing something here.

A.N.other, Allen’s DNA did not match the Zodiac’s, nor did his finger prints or palm prints. He is not the Zodiac. Those races at Riverside attracted many people from all over Calif. We don’t know for sure if that is why the killer was in Riverside .I think her killer knew the routine of Cheri and her father, he followed her for a while before he decided to kill her.
Riverside PD sent the hair that was found in her hand ,to the Department of Justus DNA lab in Berkeley 13yrs ago. I would like to know what became of that ? I am sure it was sent to see if it was a match to their prime suspect B.B.
There was no mention of ending the skin that was under her nails ! why not see if it matched up with the DNA of Zodiac ? If Zodiac was her killer then they just might have the best sample of Zodiac’s DNA.

Perhaps Cheri scratched at the back of the guys hands, or his arms or something, rather than at his face, huh?
By the way, where does the "bitch is going to the library" stuff originate, is it from here?
http://www.zodiackiller.com/BatesDNA.html
I mean, I love a good yarn, but she told him "we can’t date any more, I’m marrying this other guy"?, then she called him at the basketball court? (what, on a mobile phone?), he then gave his friends a wonderful in-just-a-few-words "sound bite" to remember later?
Naaaaaa. BS.

Hi-

"By the way, where does the "bitch is going to the library" stuff originate, is it from here?"

IIRC it comes from Shumway speaking to Tom V. I don’t buy into anything that guy said. Don’t know what he agenda was.

Mike