Several articles pre-dating the letter mention that her throat was slit.

http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestigatio … iac-Victim
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtop … =33&t=1455
http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/galler … ?album=155
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/ee … b003b1bd27

You beat me to it,lol….Definitely proves that a hoaxer could have used all of the stuff from the papers

OK I was wrong now, right in the first place to ignore it!

I have a small objection on the middle wire being dismissed. Do you remember what newspaper you found the mention in Morf? I thought it was a Long Beach newspaper? Which is not typically read in Riverside, not sure if even readily available. RPD said no local papers they could find had middle wire. So we have to assume a hoaxer reading the Long Beach paper account, with the coil wire detail not printed elsewhere, but is confident it is correct and adds it to his claims.

But OK I’ll accept dismissing middle wire as he could conceivably in some way got it from that paper, even if it was out of town paper.

So we have at least these four correct statements:

1. A phone call from a male to RPD which RPD indicates is important information that only the killer would know.
2. A kick to the head.
3. A small knife.
4. Knife is broken in some way.

Is that everything? Does that cover all details of the manner of death that RPD says the writer was correct on? So we have to assume a hoaxer made at least four lucky guesses and was correct on all four.

RPD, who knows the totality of circumstances about the phone call and manner of death, are convinced the writer is the killer and tell that to the FBI, in their request to have them examine the letter.

I think looking at everything we know it is very likely to almost certain that the Riverside writer was the Bates killer, as RPD concluded and advised the FBI. That is satisfactory to me, but I can accept others might come out differently on the scale of certainty. For myself I just can’t accept four bold lucky guesses that all turn out right.

I have a small objection on the middle wire being dismissed. Do you remember what newspaper you found the mention in Morf? I thought it was a Long Beach newspaper? Which is not typically read in Riverside, not sure if even readily available. RPD said no local papers they could find had middle wire. So we have to assume a hoaxer reading the Long Beach paper account, with the coil wire detail not printed elsewhere, but is confident it is correct and adds it to his claims.

But OK I’ll accept dismissing middle wire as he could conceivably in some way got it from that paper, even if it was out of town paper.

So we have at least these four correct statements:

1. A phone call from a male to RPD which RPD indicates is important information that only the killer would know.
2. A kick to the head.
3. A small knife.
4. Knife is broken in some way.

Is that everything? Does that cover all details of the manner of death that RPD says the writer was correct on? So we have to assume a hoaxer made at least four lucky guesses and was correct on all four.

RPD, who knows the totality of circumstances about the phone call and manner of death, are convinced the writer is the killer and tell that to the FBI, in their request to have them examine the letter.

I think looking at everything we know it is very likely to almost certain that the Riverside writer was the Bates killer, as RPD concluded and advised the FBI. That is satisfactory to me, but I can accept others might come out differently on the scale of certainty. For myself I just can’t accept four bold lucky guesses that all turn out right.

The articles I found were all in the Redlands Daily facts newspaper in San Bernardino County,definitely where the writer could have found the info.

Your points above-
1) The call is debatable since it’s not clear whether the call in question is the ‘horrible scream’ call or a second unknown call.
2)If indeed she was kicked for sure,that could be grounds that the writer killed her
3)same as above
4)Do we know the knife was broken for sure?

I agree that the call is debatable, but I maintain that it is debatable only for the reasons stated above.

To sum it up: The RPD request an examination of the material in question because they consider said material relevant – that is surely beyond doubt. To me, at least, it seems natural to read the debatable phrase in that light: He provided details in his letter, and these details check out. Hence, we think it’s him – hence we request you look at the material. If the phone call referred to was not considered as confirming what the letter writer claimed – why mention it? This was my point above: If the call in question really is the "horrible scream" call mentioned in the papers, then the RPD must have concluded (although it doesn’t seem obvious why they would have done so) that this call was made by the killer. If not, the question is yet again: Why mention it?

The most obvious interpretation of the debatable phrase is, in my opinion, that said phrase confirms that the RPD considered it very likely that the letter writer and the killer was one and the same – and that the phone call referred to was unmistakable as far as they were concerned: It was not a potentially ambiguous phone call reporting a horrible scream, but someone taking credit for the act itself.

1. On the phone call Norse nails it. Read his post above. Since RPD tells the FBI that the writer saying he called them is significant proof the writer is the killer, I also interpret this to mean a male called RPD and either took credit for the crime and/or informed them where the body was, leaving RPD to conclude the caller was the killer, and by virtue of the writer knowing this non-public fact about a significant call, the writer was the caller and the killer.

I thought somewhere it said the scream call came from a woman. In any event the writer takes credit for a call RPD feels was significant and incriminating. Did the hoaxer guess this, or as Norse says, create a fictional event that turns out to be true? And the writer is confident the call was not from a female, or elderly man, or teenager, etc.

2. We can deduce kick to the head is true because autopsy report notes abrasions and other injuries not from a knife but consistent with a kick. In addition, knowing all the facts, RPD says the writer is correct about details of the manner of death.

3. The knife was small, IIRC 5 inches. It’s in a document. And again RPD says details are correct.

4. Knife broken we just have to accept that is a very important and specific detail, and RPD said details were correct for them to conclude writer was killer.

Redlands is close to Riverside so I’ll dismiss middle wire. Though it requires hoaxer to read small out of town but close by newspaper, read coil wire reported nowhere else, but assume it’s correct and make the claim. But it’s possible so I won’t count it.

I agree that the call is debatable, but I maintain that it is debatable only for the reasons stated above.

To sum it up: The RPD request an examination of the material in question because they consider said material relevant – that is surely beyond doubt. To me, at least, it seems natural to read the debatable phrase in that light: He provided details in his letter, and these details check out. Hence, we think it’s him – hence we request you look at the material. If the phone call referred to was not considered as confirming what the letter writer claimed – why mention it? This was my point above: If the call in question really is the "horrible scream" call mentioned in the papers, then the RPD must have concluded (although it doesn’t seem obvious why they would have done so) that this call was made by the killer. If not, the question is yet again: Why mention it?

The most obvious interpretation of the debatable phrase is, in my opinion, that said phrase confirms that the RPD considered it very likely that the letter writer and the killer was one and the same – and that the phone call referred to was unmistakable as far as they were concerned: It was not a potentially ambiguous phone call reporting a horrible scream, but someone taking credit for the act itself.

The fact RPD couldn’t find any articles in local papers containing the info proves they are not very good investigators, since we have easily found those articles

Redlands is a small town 20 minutes away. There may be a dozen such small town newspapers. They said they checked the local Riverside papers. And they’re human!

I can’t take the fact that they missed the item in the Redlands paper as proof they are incompetent in all respects, and therefore completely dismiss what they told the FBI about the phone call and details of the manner of death confirming to them that the writer was the killer.

We are still left with at least four claims that RPD says the writer was correct on, two or three of which we can independently verify to full or some extent. Norse may conclude writer is killer is almost certain, I’ll say very likely to almost certain, you or others might conclude probable but not definite. That’s cool. We can agree to disagree on this point.

Redlands is a small town 20 minutes away. There may be a dozen such small town newspapers. They said they checked the local Riverside papers. And they’re human!

I can’t take the fact that they missed the item in the Redlands paper as proof they are incompetent in all respects, and therefore completely dismiss what they told the FBI about the phone call and details of the manner of death confirming to them that the writer was the killer.

We are still left with at least four claims that RPD says the writer was correct on, two or three of which we can independently verify to full or some extent. Norse may conclude writer is killer is almost certain, I’ll say very likely to almost certain, you or others might conclude probable but not definite. That’s cool. We can agree to disagree on this point.

I didn’t mean to indict RPD as a whole, but not finding articles a couple towns over as well as refusing to give up on their main suspect despite DNA & prints not matching him, as well as refusing to connect the Bates case at all with Zodiac, just seems like they have had blinders on. Again, their evidence was compared to the Z case evidence and flat out didn’t match, but that would be the only excusable answer for them ruling out Z completely.

I think most of us feel Z wrote the letters in the Bates case & the desktop, whether we agree on Z killing Cheri or not, and that’s an important clue.

Oh yes the modern RPD in this DNA era is incompetent and/or stubborn and willfully blind to any suspect or theory not their own. On that we agree. You know my experience with RPD Detective Steve Shumway back in 2010-2011.

My point is there could be a dozen or more small town papers within 30 miles of Riverside. They made a mistake. But I think the other points hold. And we agree the Riverside writer very likely became Zodiac. On the issue of the Riverside writer being the Bates killer we just have to agree to disagree.

But it was a very useful and clarifying discussion IMO. It brought forth some forgotten or overlooked information and evidence. Thanks also to Morf, Norse, Doranchak, Up2something, Averly, Ducking and several others for contributing information and ideas.

The fact RPD couldn’t find any articles in local papers containing the info proves they are not very good investigators, since we have easily found those articles

Very true. But this doesn’t affect the phone call point, which is the one I consider most compelling here. If my (and AK’s) interpretation is correct, the RPD did receive a phone call they – themselves – deemed was made by the killer.

That is hugely significant regardless of what we think about their general abilities as investigators. It doesn’t take a brilliant investigator to conclude whether a phone call made in the aftermath of a murder is relevant or not.

If the killer did send the confession letter, then RPD has quite possibly failed Cheri’s Family since there’s a good chance that z wrote/typed it, and they refuse to consider Zodiac as Cheri’s killer

I still disagree. We’re looking at this from a half century later pouring over every microfiber to find anything that yields a clue to this mystery. We aren’t looking at it the way a cop would who is investigating a very terrible, but not exceptionally out of the ordinary crime of which they had many such cases on going at the time.

They aren’t going to go around looking for newspaper stories, especially non local news stories to see what they say to compare to a letter. For them the letter probably wasn’t that important. They would be doing typical police work, interviewing people and looking at the crime scene. That is it.

This is a document from a detective, he is not a pathologist. Can we really assume that he knew exactly what the injuries were and how they matched to what the letter said, or that he described the letter to the coroner and asked for their opinion on it? I don’t think so.

We just assume that they corroborated and verified all the information, even though they never state that they did so, and they certainly don’t state how they did it. You have to remember this was from the same people who believed a guy in jail who told them that BB killed her. That was good enough for them. A letter that says "I stabbed her" and she was stabbed was probably good enough for them as well and all the proof that they needed.

As I said, the letter probably wasn’t important to them. It didn’t yield an useful clues, so they most likely just said, "Ok. the killer wrote a letter. That means he’s a local guy who is still here. That matches to what we think." and then filed it away and that was the end of it.

The one possibility I can see that the writer might have been able to write the letter and know the details without committing the crime would be 1) if there were rumors going around campus and the rumors happened to be right and he just repeated them and/or 2) if he was in or very close to Bates’ circle in some way and knew the facts told to friends and family by the police, even himself possibly being questioned. That’s quite possible. In fact, we know someone who fits that bill.

That said, it’s far more likely that the writer was the killer.

The one possibility I can see that the writer might have been able to write the letter and know the details without committing the crime would be 1) if there were rumors going around campus and the rumors happened to be right and he just repeated them and/or 2) if he was in or very close to Bates’ circle in some way and knew the facts told to friends and family by the police, even himself possibly being questioned. That’s quite possible. In fact, we know someone who fits that bill.

That said, it’s far more likely that the writer was the killer.

That’s an interesting point. I assume you are talking about Ross. I wonder if during questioning, they may have asked him if he ever called them?