Why should someone ‘confess’ to the crime but the killer himself? Plus providing detailled information..also mentioning to kill even more? Even if so, three more plus Z’s credits regarding his Riverside activities..

QT

Morf, let me run this past you: are you, or any of the moderators able to contact Cheri’s brother–at least to the point of asking him to review our POIs? I know he definitely didn’t believe that "Barnett" was his sister’s killer.

Why should someone ‘confess’ to the crime but the killer himself?

So you think that Zodiac really killed Bates and a whole lot more? He also kidnapped Johns. Did he shoot Officer Radetich? He must have committed 37 more murders.

But that’s only the starting point. If you think only a killer would confess, then Zodiac wrote like 50 more letters, he killed hundreds of people, and he even traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and started killing kids there for which Wayne Williams was convicted, since someone wrote a letter saying so.

But that doesn’t quite add up to the case of Keith Jesperson. Someone confessed to his crimes, was arrested and convicted and sent to prison for the murders. He then confessed and provided evidence that matched the crime scenes to prove that he was the real killer, and he was sent to prison and the false confessor released.

Or the case of Peter Sucliffe, in which someone sent in an audio tape claiming to be from the killer which turned out to have nothing to do with him, but police believed that it was real because of the logic that no one else would do such a thing, and completely derailed their investigation and wasted their time.

John Mark Karr allegedly confessed to killing Jean Benet Ramsey and was arrested, but was cleared by DNA, and then later claimed that he had not confessed to the crime.

Some people are just psychotic jerks, but don’t rise to the level of murderers.

Zodiac was likely a letter writer, then a killer, and then likely went back to being a letter writer. He wanted attention whether he killed people or not. That’s his reason for writing letters. I think he was nervous about the Riverside connection being made because he could immediately taken credit for the Bates case once the connection was in the news. He didn’t, he instead waited months to give the credit to police for making the connection. Why wait when he could immediately take credit and get the attention he craved, if he wasn’t really from Riverside? I think it’s because he was scared and expecting a knock on his door any day. After that knock never came, he finally wrote a letter feeling safe

Zodiac was likely a letter writer, then a killer, and then likely went back to being a letter writer. He wanted attention whether he killed people or not. That’s his reason for writing letters. I think he was nervous about the Riverside connection being made because he could immediately taken credit for the Bates case once the connection was in the news. He didn’t, he instead waited months to give the credit to police for making the connection. Why wait when he could immediately take credit and get the attention he craved, if he wasn’t really from Riverside? I think it’s because he was scared and expecting a knock on his door any day. After that knock never came, he finally wrote a letter feeling safe

This is a great point. I also think the reason the confession was typed is because there were too many people in Riverside (teachers, etc.) who might be able to ID his writing if they had a big enough sample of it.

But, if he delayed claiming credit for Riverside because he was afraid a connection might be made, doesn’t that mean he was the killer? Why would he be afraid the typed confession letter would’ve incriminated him? If there had been anything in that letter that pointed at him, he would’ve been asked about it years earlier. There’s no way the Bates letters would lead back to him, they were written too crudely to look like anyone’s handwriting.

The only thing about Bates/Riverside that would’ve been dangerous to him would’ve been related to the crime itself.

Furthermore, consider this: Let’s suppose for a minute that Z had been investigated and cleared of the Bates murder. In this scenario, claiming credit for the murder actually would’ve been absolutely perfect for him! He should’ve jumped all over it immediately, saying, yes, he killed Cheri and here’s how, and then gone into great detail as to how he did it. Because now LE would have bates and the Z crimes definitively connected, and Z already had been cleared for Bates. He would be virtually immune!

Unless… his alibi was weak and the evidence not conclusive, or he feared there might have been mistakes made that could still trap him. Again, this leads back to Z having killed Cheri.

As far as the scribbled writing not being enough to match to anybody, that’s not technically true, it was matched to Zodiac. When you attempt to disguise writing,experts can still find stuff in it.

If Z wrote the Bates letters but didn’t kill her, it still could be dangerous to him,because the link of Z to Riverside could dramatically shrink the suspect pool, and any transplants to the SF Bay area from Riverside would be under a microscope. That’s my feeling is that Z was afraid when the connection was made to Riverside in his background.

As far as the scribbled writing not being enough to match to anybody, that’s not technically true, it was matched to Zodiac. When you attempt to disguise writing,experts can still find stuff in it.

If Z wrote the Bates letters but didn’t kill her, it still could be dangerous to him,because the link of Z to Riverside could dramatically shrink the suspect pool, and any transplants to the SF Bay area from Riverside would be under a microscope. That’s my feeling is that Z was afraid when the connection was made to Riverside in his background.

You’re right. Z never worried about evidence he may have left at a crime scene when he took credit for his other murders, so if he was concerned, it had to have been the Riverside connection.

If Z couldn’t be associated with Riverside, killer of Cheri or not, he would’ve had no reason to be afraid of the connection. In fact, the opposite.

So, this theory doesn’t help with answering whether Z killed Cheri, but it strongly implies Z had known ties to Riverside in 1966.

Let me repeat: if we accept Z as the author of the desktop poem, but insist he did not kill Cheri Bates, that means there were two homicidal individuals associated with Riverside Community College in 1966. This is not impossible, of course; nonetheless, it is hard to accept. By modern standards (or lack thereof) 1966 Riverside was almost idyllic, as evidenced by the city-wide shock and revulsion that attended Bates’ murder.

Let me repeat: if we accept Z as the author of the desktop poem, but insist he did not kill Cheri Bates, that means there were two homicidal individuals associated with Riverside Community College in 1966. This is not impossible, of course; nonetheless, it is hard to accept. By modern standards (or lack thereof) 1966 Riverside was almost idyllic, as evidenced by the city-wide shock and revulsion that attended Bates’ murder.

Right. It is most logical that the writer of the desktop poem, the confession letter, the Bates had to die letters, and the killer, were all the same person. Otherwise we have to assume multiple homicidal individuals were circling around this one murder, which is not likely.

The point morf makes is very interesting. Z might have been concerned about being connected to Riverside, given his reluctance and hesitation to claim that murder. This theory, if correct, ties Z to all this "Riverside Activity."

Why is that uncommon that there should be two murderers in Riverside? How many homicides were there in 1966? I couldn’t find that information. All I saw is that the crime rate has gone down since then, and there is an average of like ten a year now.

You miss the point, duckie: that, in 1966, there might be two homicidal maniacs ASSOCIATED WITH RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY COLLEGE. This would be a much smaller area and population than the city.

Let me repeat: if we accept Z as the author of the desktop poem, but insist he did not kill Cheri Bates, that means there were two homicidal individuals associated with Riverside Community College in 1966. This is not impossible, of course; nonetheless, it is hard to accept. By modern standards (or lack thereof) 1966 Riverside was almost idyllic, as evidenced by the city-wide shock and revulsion that attended Bates’ murder.

Cheri’s murder could have been spur of the moment, or crime of passion etc not necessarily the work of a homicidal murderer. Could have been a person passing thru town,a Ted Bundy type. For the record, I think Cheri knew her killer at least a little bit, to have trusted him to walk down to the unlit area with him as opposed to going back to the safety of the library

"Cheri knew her killer at least a little bit. "

Not necessarily. In 1966 people were more trusting of strangers. Hitchhiking was still prevalent. Don’t forget around the time of the Bates murder a young girl got into a car with a male stranger, who IIRC made comments about Jack the Ripper before trying unsuccessfully to assault her. And IIRC this was after the Bates murder. The point is a young woman got into a car with a complete stranger. I think Bates would have walked a short distance with a helpful good Samaritan offering her a ride or a battery jump.

If a man was white, attractive and normal looking back then he would not raise the suspicions of most white middle class women. I think back then people were more cautious about people of other races or whites with long hair, shabby clothes or unusual appearance.

Why I know someone who turned out to be a killer but appeared to be a normal clean cut, short hair, suit and tie young student, who would approach young women he did not know on college campuses, engage them in long conversations while walking them home or just around to talk.

I suppose virtually anything is possible, until proven otherwise. But the bulk of the evidence supports the simplest and most logical theory. That being that the Bates killer was very likely to almost certainly the Riverside writer, who most likely became the Zodiac. One person killing strangers, using Z as a signature, writing multiple letters with double postage, etc. Not two or three.

I agree, AK. That Cheri’s murderer lived in Riverside at the time she did; that he knew her and the car she drove; that he wrote The Confession, etc.; and that he later moved to the Bay Area is the simplest, most economical solution–again, following the principle of Occam’s Razor. Question: how many POIs doe we, as a site, have that meet the foregoing criteria? I know I do, and Morf does, but are there others? As a group, they’d comprise the likeliest candidates, and deserve special scrutiny, both by this site and LE.

No I don’t think the killer personally knew Bates. I see no evidence of that. I don’t know if the killer lived in Riverside or not. Just as I don’t know if Zodiac lived in Vallejo or SF. Where I do agree with you is that the evidence shows the Bates killer was very likely to almost certainly the Riverside writer, and that one person likely became Zodiac.

I don’t think there were two killers who used Z, etc.