A meta-note, Riverside’s police and government websites at this moment are concerned with traffic and the upcoming council meeting. A break in a world-famous, local murder case gets not a mention.
That was too much!
In the press release, they said that they traced the author of the 2016 letter using DNA found on the stamp of said letter. Then they found him and conducted a series of interviews. That’s cop speech for ‘We interrogated him.’ While it is lexically and grammatically confusing, it is a reasonable inference that it was in the course of these interrogations that the person they found using the DNA confessed to writing the 2016 letter.
I did not get that at all. I hope the facts are as you state it. I want the truth.
Why no credible press release with competent writing available? Why the reading between the lines to get at the truth?
I do not doubt that RPD can find someone who made some claims about the case.
That was too much!
I do not doubt that RPD can find someone who made some claims about the case.
This objection is as true for a person claiming to have hoaxed these letters as it is for Zodiac claiming responsibility for CJB’s murder, or for someone with no forensic evidence tying them to CJB claiming to be Zodiac.
Why no credible press release with competent writing available?
I don’t know, maybe they can’t afford to outsource their PR to a competent copywriter. To be fair, there’s a lot to explain.
There’s no doubt the wording in the press release is confusing, but the reasonable conclusion is that police have confirmed that the Bates letters were hoaxed.
Let’s accept that fact and move on to discuss the implications of it.
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
Let’s accept that fact and move on to discuss the implications of it.
Absolutely. First of all, unless I’m mistaken, the confession letter is the core of the FBI’s interest in a suspect with a typewriter. Consequently, this means that the Elite type Royal typewriter is no longer a relevant piece of evidence in identifying Zodiac, right?
That’s a big deal if correct.
Let’s accept that fact and move on to discuss the implications of it.
Absolutely. First of all, unless I’m mistaken, the confession letter is the core of the FBI’s interest in a suspect with a typewriter. Consequently, this means that the Elite type Royal typewriter is no longer a relevant piece of evidence in identifying Zodiac, right?
That’s a big deal if correct.
I think you are going to find opinions varied on that one. For me the Zodiac/Riverside connection has been severed.
I will allow Tom or Morf to correct me, but I think the Confession letter is still in play. Only the handwritten letters were debunked.
“Murder will out, this my conclusion.”
– Geoffrey Chaucer
For me the Zodiac/Riverside connection has been severed.
Yeah, I agree, and that’s sort of what I’m getting at. There are Zodiac suspects who have been put forth using evidence specific to the Riverside case, so this development weakens the case against them. Moreover, my impression is that a fair bit of Zodiac profiling has been derived from Riverside evidence, so that work probably needs to be re-evaluated as well.
I don’t like getting into suspects or POIs, but it’s been done almost since the beginning, and I think in the example of the typewriter, its been pointed out that one of the circumstantial pieces of evidence implicating ALA was the Royal typewriter/s with Elite font. If the “Confession” letter was fake, then finding that typewriter in ALA’s residence has absolutely zero utility in implicating him in the Zodiac case. Moreover, there are some possible observations made regarding the ciphers that might be impacted by this point, though that’s admittedly heavily conjectured.
I will allow Tom or Morf to correct me, but I think the Confession letter is still in play. Only the handwritten letters were debunked.
I think the Riverside killer likely wrote the Confession letter, I just don’t think Zodiac was involved. I didn’t read anything in the release that indicated that the Confession letter was a hoax.
I think the Confession letter is still in play
You might be right. Again, bad Press Release. However, one thing they were very clear about is that Riverside is no longer considering CJB to be a Zodiac case. This means a concrete, procedural change to how they are investigating the case. If they were still suspicious that Z was behind the Confession letter, I can’t imagine why they would do that. But of course, I can’t read their minds. Frankly, I can barely read their copy. Whether it is in or out is still a very important point.
I didn’t read anything in the release that indicated that the Confession letter was a hoax.
Yeah me neither. I does suggest that the lynchpin of their suspicion that Z was involved in Riverside was based on handwriting analysis rather than linguistic analysis or any other forensics.
It talks about letters to police in North California, so there must have been multi-jurisdiction interaction on this. What does this mean in terms of the other letters, or do they mean the police have a load of hoax letters and it is referring to some of those?
If there was inter-jurisdiction work on this, and with the FBI being involved does that make this more likely, then it seems to me that the other jurisdictions must have had some input and so when RPD claim it is no the Zodiac, the others must have concurred, is this correct?
Also, Russ, you did accuse Tom, and should really apologise. I have argued with mr voigt here and elsewhere, but this time he is in the right (it pains me to say it hahaha). You are making this forum look bad by your actions as of now.
I will allow Tom or Morf to correct me, but I think the Confession letter is still in play. Only the handwritten letters were debunked.
Back in 2006 for the 40th anniversary of Cheri’s murder, I worked with RPD to get some pertinent “new” case info out there for everyone. Note what they sent me:
https://zodiackiller.com/Riverside2006.html
They took a new color high-res pic of the confession for my update. It’s definitely considered legit by RPD and rightly so.
It’s definitely considered legit by RPD and rightly so.
Yeah, I think this is the state of nature right now. For whatever reason, they still want the public to know that their prime suspect has been and continues to be the same guy they pegged back in the 60s. That’s this “Bob Barrett”(alias) guy right, Tom?
And were those leaks made directly to you? Because, if that’s their theory, and they still think the “Confession” letter was written by the killer, I don’t understand how they can rationally square that with who this guy was and how much heat he had on him at the time.
If I’m not mistaken, he left the country. I won’t say ‘fled’ because I don’t know that to be the case and, again, I don’t like talking about POIs, but since RPD specifically made that point in their PR, I’d be interested in hearing peoples’ opinion on how the confession letter relates to the actual circumstances of the homicide. I mean, if that’s the guy they like for it, and they think that letter was written by the killer, I think that deserves an explanation. Does that make any sense?
[EDIT] I also skimmed through press releases from FBI Los Angeles going back to late 2019 and found no mention of DNA testing of stamps or any document analysis relating to the Riverside case at all, not that they would have anything to say on the subject. Just to point out that I haven’t found anything else that elucidates the info in the RPD press release.
Regarding other letters sent to police in Northern California, it should be noted that Richard Grinnell says there are over 200 known letters related to Zodiac that we know of that this point could be describing, most of which have not been released publicly. This is relevant because RPD also alleges that some of these letters claim to be from Zodiac, whereas none of the Riverside letters mention Zodiac at all (obviously preceding the canonical crimes by some years).
This is genuinely hurting my brain. I think it’s going to be very difficult to do any more than accept a distinction between the CJB murder and the Zodiac murders. I therefore think it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions about Zodiac letters based off the press release.
It’s definitely considered legit by RPD and rightly so.
Yeah, I think this is the state of nature right now. For whatever reason, they still want the public to know that their prime suspect has been and continues to be the same guy they pegged back in the 60s. That’s this “Bob Barrett”(alias) guy right, Tom?
That’s him. I interviewed him a while back. Details are here: https://zodiackiller.com/BatesUpdate2.html
And were those leaks made directly to you?
Yes.
If I’m not mistaken, he left the country.
Extradition was possible everywhere he lived overseas, so I don’t think that was his motive. And now he’s in Hawaii.
Tom do you think that Riverside believe that the hair in Cheri Jo’s hand belonged to an accomplice of BB?
