IMHO, CJB was not killed by the Zodiac Killer.

IMHO, CJB was not killed by the Zodiac Killer.

I agree. If the killer of Cheri Jo Bates was the author of the ‘Confession’ letter, then he was likely sexually motivated, and likely went on to commit further crimes on women. The ‘Confession’ letter stated;
1. She was young and beautiful but now she is battered and dead.
2. May’be she will be the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store.
3. But I shall cut off her female parts and deposit them for the whole city to see.
4. Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands.
5. She squirmed and shook as I choked her, and her lips twitched.
6. Beware….I am stalking your girls now.

All of these indicate a sexual component, something the Zodiac barely alluded to. In fact the nearest the Zodiac ever came was when he stated "to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience, it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl." Hardly the statement of a sexual sadist or a man driven by a sexual component. The Zodiac Killer in the four confirmed attacks, never attacked a lone female, despite his inferences to Kathleen Johns and Donna Lass, which are highly questionable Zodiac crimes.

My guess is the murderer of Cheri Jo Bates developed into a killer such as Ronald Clyde Tatro, who was likely responsible for the murder of Claire Hough and Barbara Nantais, who were both killed in San Diego, 100 miles from Riverside in 1984 and 1978 respectively. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m … story.html

All valid points..i can see why some do not think LB is z as well..may be someday we shall know..i dunno if cjb is z or not….outside correspondence what would bring z to riverside?…too many unknowns in my mind at this time

I’ll contribute two more cents. I believe CJB’s killer was motivated by rage toward her; he knew her personally, and for some reason–probably for rejecting his advances–she shut him down harshly. After her murder, her killer received secondary gratification he hadn’t anticipated, primarily panicked attention to his crime, with beaucoup publicity. This negative adulation then came to the fore, and inspired his future murders.

Something written about her here.

http://riversideproud.com/50th-annivers … ge-murder/

On a breezy fall evening in October of 1966, Student Cheri Jo Bates was leaving the library after a night of study to get ready for Halloween the next day. Not long after she exited the library at Riverside Community College,crime_scene_tape she was joined by the an unidentified figure. Described only as a tall male with dark clothing, Cheri Jo was walking towards her green Volkswagen Bug when she was attacked from behind.
The attacker slashed her throat before stabbing Bates several times in the back and chest. Her slain body lay next to her car face down through the cold night, only to be discovered in the morning hours. Students and faculty from the college were in fear for their lives. The eerie feeling rushed through the campus leaving the community unsettled.
One month following the murder an anonymous letter was sent to the local paper saying, ” She was young and beautiful. But now she is battered and dead.” This sent chills through reporters and officials bodies. What made the letter even more chilling was the closing, “She is not the first and she will not be the last. Beware…….I am stalking your girls now.” Officers only had a scarce description and DNA evidence that determined the killer to be a Caucasian male.
Officers say the killer potentially went to Riverside Community College after finding a bizarre poem under one of the desks in the music room, matching the killers hand writing. The poem described an encounter with Cheri Jo on the night of her murder. Officers say the man had mistaken Bates’ kindness for affection. In one of his letters, he mentioned that although he liked the way her body felt against his, Cheri Jo had to pay for brushing him off.
Months after the murder, students began noticing paranormal activity starting to happen. The library Cheri Jo would sit and study in began to have cold spots where she was reported to be sitting hours before her murder. Some students say they see a figure in a red dress wandering the library some evenings. When students have gotten close to the girl, they say she walks away and disappears in the next aisle.
Other students have reported seeing a girl wandering in the alley where Cheri Jo was found. They say that the girl can be seen pacing back and forth looking for her car saying, “Help.” Some believe this is the ghost of Cheri Jo asking for help from the man she is being followed by. The ghost is said to be seen when there are few people out to warn them of the murderer.
Although a conviction has never been made, a suspect and lead in the investigation has been identified but never released to the public for fear of losing additional evidence. He is expected to be living outside the country under an alias. Until then, it is said that Cheri Jo’s soul will not rest until her death is brought to justice. If you find yourself on Terracina Drive on the Riverside Community College Campus, lookout for Cheri Jo warning off students of her Predator.

Russell Ray
Host/ Media Content Manager
Proud Digital Media
russellray.pdm@gmail.com

what this case needs is more fictionalized accounts of the actual crimes that aren’t attributed as fictionalized. "she was attacked by a clown, but managed to knock his big red nose off before succumbing to her injuries". clown theories in 3, 2, 1…..

Thanks Masootz, you are so right. I was disgusted by what that person wrote about Cheri Jo’s case.
The Press Enterprise reporter who stayed with us all day and into the late evening told me that she didn’t know when it would be in the newspaper. It would be up to the editor and depending on what news stories they would get, that would have to be printed first.
She took a lot of notes that day and spoke to everyone about the case, so there is a lot of editing to be done is my guess?

The more that I looked into that case the more I believe it was the Zodiac. The confession letter was signed with a fancy Z at the end( I have seen that same fancy Z written on my car, I assume by my suspect in the early 80’s)
The detectives in Cheri’s case said that only the killer would have had the information that was in that letter.She was not molested or robbed , like all of the Z victims we know of.
My thoughts are that the killer had it in for Cheri’s father and that was the motive for her killing , the mean letter sent to her father was to rub it in.

His writing that made it sound as if he was perhaps a school mate, I think was to direct the attention away from an older man. His mention of warm firm breasts wouldn’t be something a younger male would think of , because all of the girls at that age would have firm breast.

Sandy…..

Russell Ray???? WTH….Insensitive jerk…..

Getting even with Joseph, the dad? Could be. Maybe a friend of the mom. Mom is under Physchiatric Care, maybe someone holds her condition against Joe? Could be custody battle was brutal, it happens. I think the breast comment is also only added to be cruel. But we know serial’s who communicate sometimes do that all on their own without an axe to grind. You would think Joseph would have played out the revenge thing a million times in his mind, who wouldn’t? It could be that the killer is say 20 years older and has opportunity to communicate with Cheri Jo and does so many times and she always brushes him off, thinks he’s being gross, doesn’t give him the time of day. It pisses him off. Course I couldn’t see her going off with a guy like that at all. Her brother and friends were pretty steadfast that Cheri Jo wouldn’t walk off with a stranger. I’m sure then she wouldn’t walk off with someone she brushed off either. She had options, could have called friends if dad wasn’t home, if she even had the opportunity.

All we can do is speculate. But if I was having a car problem and a polite nice looking clean cut man about 25 to 28 yrs old offered to help me get my car going, I would let him try. Pulling a coil wire can be done by anyone who knows that without the coil wire, the car will not start. I know because that happened to my car in Vallejo 1968.

After Cheri Jo tried for a while to start the car would be when he offered to help her. It would be after that when he removed the condenser ( which would take a tool to do that ). I doubt he had that tool in his pocket, so did he tell her he had to drive home first to get some tools ? How many 18 yr old boys carry tools in their cars , unless they are working as a mechanic or studying to be one? Could going to get or buy the tools needed explain the missing time, approximately 3 to 4hrs? I found out that the library was open from 6pm to 9pm that night. Lets say she was in the library from about 6:30 to 9pm studying and left at that time. Most of the other students would be gone by that time, so there wouldn’t be any witnesses to see that she had someone working on her car. If she left earlier wouldn’t someone see her having a car problem or wouldn’t she go back inside to ask her friends for some help?

If he was Zodiac and looked ok enough for Kathleen Johns and her baby to go with him, why not Cheri Jo? She must have felt desperate, because she had important homework to get done. People do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do under duress.

Another theory I have, is that when he asked her to walk to his car and she refused, because he was a stranger. He used a gun or a knife to make her cooperate, that was the tactic he used at Lake Berryessa to get both of them to cooperate.

I believe he used the confession letter as a ruse to lie about her brushing him off so that the police would think he was younger and more her age. That certainly did work , because they went after one of her school mates as her killer and still think it was him, even with the DNA not matching !

We have to remember that fancy" Z "at the bottom of that letter.
Construction again going on at RCC like all of the other sites except for Lake Berryessa. Yes I do believe that Zodiac was a construction worker who would go where ever the work was. Santa Barbara June 1963 construction at that collage , was he under contract to work at schools all over California at that time?

Lets hope that the prayer book I have belonged to her and you BA60’s can help get the information we need for that. Thanks again for your help. Her brother Michael would be the only person who may have the answer to her having one like that.

Another thought is, what if the woman that her father was dating and took to the beach that day had a evil scorned lover ?

Almost reminds me of the TV soap:" As the world turns". Sorry I always spit out what runs though my brain before I think about what I am going to say.

Sandy, Did Mark L take video of the Riverside Meeting ?

Yes Mark did , he will work on it when he gets back from a mini vacation.

Ricardo did a video late at night on the 30th, he did the walk from the library up Terracina passed the crime scene towards Magnolia. I believe that can be seen on his face book page.
It was eerie to see that area late at night, remember that after Cheri Jo’s murder, RCC added lights in that area, so it would have been even darker on Oct 30th 1966.Her car was parked on a dead end street which some of us think could have been Terracina court , on the opposite end of Terracina rather than towards the crime scene. It would have been closer to the other end near the library which makes more sense.
I would love to have a 1966 street map of that area, so I could see where the dead end street was for sure.I went to the Riverside main library to try and find one,but there wasn’t one according to the librarian who was trying to help me.
I looked at the 1966 city criss cross directories for any suspect names that I know have been listed,even looked for Jack Terrance or his brother’s name whom I was told lived there in 66. He was not listed nor were any of the names I know some of you have as suspects.
Of course I did find my suspect RH or at least someone with that name which there are many, it is like looking for John Smith. I also wanted to see who once lived in the two vacant houses at the crime scene to see by chance there was a connection to any suspect names, they were not. One was in the "Air force" though, he lived at 3692 Terracina next to 3680.

Sandy— 1964: http://www.ebay.com/itm/OLD-VINTAGE-196 … Swx2dYFi0~

If we take the scientific approach on Cheri Jo Bates murder, discarding the paranormal nonsense written by this ghost writer, then using body temperature and undigested stomach contents, the unexplained 3-4 hours is not required, until some screams may have been heard later that night. Her likely murder was at 6.30 pm, or close to it. Stomach contents empty in around 3-4 hours, depending on the food ingested. We know she eat a meal around 4.30pm, testified by Joseph Bates that Cheri had cooked food for herself, of which 100ml was still present in her stomach at autopsy, suggesting a murder no more than 2 to three hours after she eat, likely less. Her body temperature, which is less accurate, also puts the time earlier, and it also explains why nobody spotted her in the library. She likely entered the library shortly after 6, when less or no students were present in it, left and was murdered shortly thereafter. Had she been murdered at 9.30pm or 10.30pm, no food would have been present in her stomach, let alone 100ml, which is a significant amount. Don’t take my word for it, here is an FBI document, alluding to an earlier murder.

I can see her waiting for the doors to open, checking out her books and returning to her car right away. I have always felt she knew her killer. How well remains a question in my mind.

One would think that early in the evening that someone would have come across her body, but it would have been dark at that time so it’s understandable she was not found. One has to wonder if her killer knew the status of those houses or it what happened to Cheri wasn’t the original intention.

I don’t think she would have left her car and her personal belongings like that. While I think she knew the person, I don’t think she would have casually walked away with him and left things the way she did. Heck, maybe he said he was staying in one of the houses and she could use his phone…

Sunset in Riverside, October 1966: http://sunrise-sunset.org/calendar?mont … 0CA,%20USA