morf13, Subject: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:08 pm

Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing??

I was on the phone with Katana tonight, and he mentioned something that I really had not paid much attention to before. In the November 30,1966 Bates confession letter, the writer wrote "SHE SQUIRMED AND SHOOK AS I CHOAKED HER, AND HER LIPS TWICHED". In Zodiac’s July 1970 "little list" letter, he wrote "Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm".

Not only do each of these writers use these same two words in a sentence in their letters, each writer spells the word TWICH incorrectly (should be twitch). In looking back, I see that AK had mentioned this way back on Zkfacts.com:

"Chief Kinkead strongly believed that the author of the “Confession” was the same individual responsible for the Bates murder, and he clearly viewed the Zodiac as a logical suspect. Kinkead based his opinion on many factors but other information also supported his conclusion. After the Bates murder, Riverside police, the local newspaper and Bates’ father received three virtually identical handwritten letters in April 1967. The Zodiac’s first written attempt to communicate consisted of three virtually identical handwritten letters mailed in July, 1969. The author of the Riverside “Confession” wrote, “SHE SQUIRMED AND SHOOK AS I CHOAKED HER, AND HER LIPS TWICHED.” In his letter of July 26, 1970, the Zodiac wrote: “Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm.” Theories regarding a possible link between the Zodiac and Bates crimes did not appear in news reports until three month after the Zodiac had misspelled the same word in the same manner as the author of the “Confession.” Although I cannot claim to possess complete knowledge regarding the history of writings linked to murders, I would venture to guess that these are the only two instances in which a killer mailed three virtually identical handwritten letters. This similarity, and the use of the identical misspelling, suggests that the same author may have been responsible for both communications."

The possible Z connection to Bates was first mentioned in the papers in November, 1970, 6 months AFTER Z sent the little list letter with the similar words & misspellings. I already was leaning towards the Bates letters probably being from Z, but now I am 100% convinced!

It was not until March, 1971, that Z gave the cops credit for stumbling across his "Riverside Activity". Unless the text of the Confession letter was in a newspaper prior to Zodiac’s "little list" letter, there simply is no way he accidentally used those same exact odd, and rarely used words, and same misspellings. It simply cant be a coincidence. I dont think the Bates case gets talked enough about, and things like this make it all the more interesting. Couple these clues with a writing expert linking the Bates letters to Z, and this is hard to dismiss. Did Z actually kill Bates? Thats a whole different debate, but for me, there is little question, Z wrote the Bates letters.

I want to see what everyone else thinks, and does anybody know when or if the confession letter text was available to the public prior to Z using it in his little list letter?

EDIT: I am certain the Riverside Press ran the confession letter in the paper, not too long after Cheri’s murder, so I guess it is possible that Z saw it, and years later, used it in his own letter. Anybody know for sure? Sometimes the newspapers will show a letter like the confession letter, but it will be too small to read. I am curious as to whether he could have got it from the newspaper.

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:26 am

Another interesting thing pointed out by Katana, the Riverside confession envelope in in ALL-CAPS with the exception of the letter i.

Now, compare this with Zodiac’s Halloween card to Avery. It too is in ALL-CAPS except for the letter i.

This cant be a coincidence. If both the confession letter & the confession envelope were not shown in the newspaper,then I think Z was most likley the author of the Bates confession letter.

And lets not forget the Halloween card envelope:

The envelope has LAV underlined, as if it is a clue from Z. Could that mean Los Angeles Valley or Los Angeles Valley College? That college is about 70 miles from Riverside college, and only 15 minutes from these Kathleen Johns-like attacks happened:
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … johns-case

Nachtsider, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:06 am

Nice catch on the misspellings, morf. The resemblance between the Zodiac’s handwriting and that on the Confession’s envelope is quite uncanny (look also at the hollow i-dots, which look like those in the Exorcist Letter); this resemblance has been the only factor that sometimes makes me consider Zodiac being the author.

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 11:30 am

Nice catch on the misspellings, morf. The resemblance between the Zodiac’s handwriting and that on the Confession’s envelope is quite uncanny (look also at the hollow i-dots, which look like those in the Exorcist Letter); this resemblance has been the only factor that sometimes makes me consider Zodiac being the author.

Yes, Katana actually gets the thumbs up, he alerted me to it last night.

Zamantha, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:22 pm

Nice catch on the misspellings, morf. The resemblance between the Zodiac’s handwriting and that on the Confession’s envelope is quite uncanny (look also at the hollow i-dots, which look like those in the Exorcist Letter); this resemblance has been the only factor that sometimes makes me consider Zodiac being the author.

Yes, Katana actually gets the thumbs up, he alerted me to it last night.

Fascinating, when something like this is pointed out!
Thanks Katana, Good i !!!

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:04 pm

Lots of folks when they write in all caps, use lower case "i"s. I can find a few examples in the Zodiac case. One being Toschi. (not saying T was Z)

Zodiac did tend to use the circle for the dot on the "i" a lot. Not found on the Halloween card. NONE of that writing looks like Z imo.

google "squirmed and twitched" …people use it a lot together (even spelled wrong). Strange. . –Makes me wonder if that term was used in some famous writing or something. ??

Theforeigner, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:02 pm

Great job!

I´v long time been convinced that the Bates letters was from Z, but this discoveries just makes it even stronger.

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:46 pm

Great job!

I´v long time been convinced that the Bates letters was from Z, but this discoveries just makes it even stronger.

Yes, I have to lean in that direction now.

Azazel, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:34 pm

Great job indeed.. Thanks to Katana…

sandy betts, Subject: letters Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:13 pm

Katana has done his home work that’s for sure !
I didn’t think that there was any doubt that the letters came from the z ?
Its the Bates murder, that some LE didn’t believe the Z did.
Myself, I have never had a bit of doubt Z did it, but then what do I know ?

I still think the reason that Z sent a letter to the father, was to add salt to his wounds, because he had it in for Joseph.
I would be looking at anyone who may have worked with Joseph Bates at March Air force base.
The other Joseph Bates , who also lived in Riverside, worked for drug enforcement. Could Zodiac have it in for that Bates, and killed the wrong person ?

, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:20 pm

Morf: Another interesting thing pointed out by Katana, the Riverside confession envelope in in ALL-CAPS with the exception of the letter i.

Now, compare this with Zodiac’s Halloween card to Avery. It too is in ALL-CAPS except for the letter i.

This cant be a coincidence. If both the confession letter & the confession envelope were not shown in the newspaper,then I think Z was most likley the author of the Bates confession letter.

And lets not forget the Halloween card envelope:

The envelope has LAV underlined, as if it is a clue from Z. Could that mean Los Angeles Valley or Los Angeles Valley College? That college is about 70 miles from Riverside college, and only 15 minutes from these Kathleen Johns-like attacks happened:
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … johns-case

, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:28 pm

Katana has done his home work that’s for sure !
I didn’t think that there was any doubt that the letters came from the z ?
Its the Bates murder, that some LE didn’t believe the Z did.
Myself, I have never had a bit of doubt Z did it, but then what do I know ?

I still think the reason that Z sent a letter to the father, was to add salt to his wounds, because he had it in for Joseph.
I would be looking at anyone who may have worked with Joseph Bates at March Air force base.
The other Joseph Bates , who also lived in Riverside, worked for drug enforcement. Could Zodiac have it in for that Bates, and killed the wrong person ?

I’m thinking Z killed Bates but that the motive was her rejection of any interest he may have shown in her. The writing of the letter to Joseph Bates reminds me of the nurse who went missing from Lake Tahoe and the unknown man who called her employer (?) or someone to say she wouldn’t be wherever because she was called out of town on a family emergency. Also, reminds me of the phone calls Z has made to the police to notify them of the other victims.

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:20 pm

Spent an hour skimming thru the FBI files, and found those that deal with Riverside & Bates.

They clearly state that two CA writing experts disagreed about whether Z had written the Riverside stuff. So the police sent it off to the FBI to get their opinion, and I think the FBI is pretty clear, that it is very possible the Zodiac wrote the Riverside stuff!

Nachtsider, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sat Jun 04, 2011 11:17 pm

I think the FBI is pretty clear, that it is very possible the Zodiac wrote the Riverside stuff!

When they say ‘Riverside stuff’, I think they’re only talking about the handwritten notes and the desktop, not the typewritten confession.

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sat Jun 04, 2011 11:30 pm

I think the FBI is pretty clear, that it is very possible the Zodiac wrote the Riverside stuff!

When they say ‘Riverside stuff’, I think they’re only talking about the handwritten notes and the desktop, not the typewritten confession.

Actually, I am the one that said "stuff", but yes, you are right, they are onlt talking writing comparisons.

, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:06 pm

I think the FBI is pretty clear, that it is very possible the Zodiac wrote the Riverside stuff!

When they say ‘Riverside stuff’, I think they’re only talking about the handwritten notes and the desktop, not the typewritten confession.

This writing on the desk looks like that on the note posted somewhere under the "compare these handwritings" thread where I was reading earlier. There are references to Jack Ruby and Oswald in connection with JFK.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:20 pm

Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing??

I was on the phone with Katana tonight, and he mentioned something that I really had not paid much attention to before. In the November 30,1966 Bates confession letter, the writer wrote "SHE SQUIRMED AND SHOOK AS I CHOAKED HER, AND HER LIPS TWICHED". In Zodiac’s July 1970 "little list" letter, he wrote "Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm".

Not only do each of these writers use these same two words in a sentence in their letters, each writer spells the word TWICH incorrectly (should be twitch). In looking back, I see that AK had mentioned this way back on Zkfacts.com:

"Chief Kinkead strongly believed that the author of the “Confession” was the same individual responsible for the Bates murder, and he clearly viewed the Zodiac as a logical suspect. Kinkead based his opinion on many factors but other information also supported his conclusion. After the Bates murder, Riverside police, the local newspaper and Bates’ father received three virtually identical handwritten letters in April 1967. The Zodiac’s first written attempt to communicate consisted of three virtually identical handwritten letters mailed in July, 1969. The author of the Riverside “Confession” wrote, “SHE SQUIRMED AND SHOOK AS I CHOAKED HER, AND HER LIPS TWICHED.” In his letter of July 26, 1970, the Zodiac wrote: “Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm.” Theories regarding a possible link between the Zodiac and Bates crimes did not appear in news reports until three month after the Zodiac had misspelled the same word in the same manner as the author of the “Confession.” Although I cannot claim to possess complete knowledge regarding the history of writings linked to murders, I would venture to guess that these are the only two instances in which a killer mailed three virtually identical handwritten letters. This similarity, and the use of the identical misspelling, suggests that the same author may have been responsible for both communications."

The possible Z connection to Bates was first mentioned in the papers in November, 1970, 6 months AFTER Z sent the little list letter with the similar words & misspellings. I already was leaning towards the Bates letters probably being from Z, but now I am 100% convinced!

It was not until March, 1971, that Z gave the cops credit for stumbling across his "Riverside Activity". Unless the text of the Confession letter was in a newspaper prior to Zodiac’s "little list" letter, there simply is no way he accidentally used those same exact odd, and rarely used words, and same misspellings. It simply cant be a coincidence. I dont think the Bates case gets talked enough about, and things like this make it all the more interesting. Couple these clues with a writing expert linking the Bates letters to Z, and this is hard to dismiss. Did Z actually kill Bates? Thats a whole different debate, but for me, there is little question, Z wrote the Bates letters.

I want to see what everyone else thinks, and does anybody know when or if the confession letter text was available to the public prior to Z using it in his little list letter?

EDIT: I am certain the Riverside Press ran the confession letter in the paper, not too long after Cheri’s murder, so I guess it is possible that Z saw it, and years later, used it in his own letter. Anybody know for sure? Sometimes the newspapers will show a letter like the confession letter, but it will be too small to read. I am curious as to whether he could have got it from the newspaper.

The fact that BOTH the Bates killer and Zodiac spell "TWICH" the same way is just convincing icing on the case. We have the facts in the confession letter indicating the writer was the killer, we have the FBI-Cal DOJ-SFPD saying the Riverside writings were done by Zodiac, we have the numerous other facts showing that Zodiac killed Cheri Jo Bates and did the writings.

Anyone still in doubt should carefully read through this entire thread and also here:

http://zodiackillerfacts.com/blog/archi … questions/

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sat Oct 29, 2011 5:22 pm

I agree, that clue, along with the little Z-like symbol and the writing expert making the connection, leads me to believe that Z most likely wrote the Bates letters. Did he kill Bates? I dont know.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:57 pm

AK: There is NO QUESTION that Zodiac wrote the Riverside materials, which rules out any suspect who was in prison in 1966!

People can belive what they want, but those are the facts.

The documents Morf posted below show that there was near complete agreement among all the experts, SFPD, Cal DOJ and FBI, that Zodiac wrote the Riverside materials. And Toschi agrees with the experts. Aside from the experts, my own eyes tell me Zodiac wrote the Riverside materials, with the "Z" signature and all the other clues linking it to Zodiac. For me this means he also almost certainly killed Bates, with the items in the confession letter showing it was likely from the killer.

MORF: Spent an hour skimming thru the FBI files, and found those that deal with Riverside & Bates.

They clearly state that two CA writing experts disagreed about whether Z had written the Riverside stuff. So the police sent it off to the FBI to get their opinion, and I think the FBI is pretty clear, that it is very possible the Zodiac wrote the Riverside stuff!

morf13, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:39 pm

Good point, if Z wrote these, then Bujok, Valentine, etc, could not be Z.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:09 pm

Good point, if Z wrote these, then Bujok, Valentine, etc, could not be Z.

Well, thats what I think, others may disagree!

If ONE of these guys was out in 1966, you could go with some kind of group theory, however weak that would be, but with ALL of them locked up in 1966, I personally am 99.99% comfortable saying they can’t be Zodiac.

The evidence in the Bates case strongly points to Zodiac in writing, MO, letters, behavior, "Z" signature, etc. Plus the tie in to Aardsma and a lot of other factors.

Plus Zodiac claiming it and NOBODY else emerging as a strong suspect.

But above all else, the handwriting alone tells me Zodiac was in Riverside in 1966.

bentley, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:32 pm

I agree in general. However, in the March 1971 letter to the LA Times Z claims responsibility for Riverside, claims "there are a hell of a lot more down there" and a body count of 17. So when did Z do this "hell of a lot more"? Likely not during the NorCal spree I think we can agree, never heard a peep. 1970? Don’t think so, he was still busy writing letters and taunting the SF Bay Area. That leaves pre-1969, likely the time he claims to have been active in Riverside.

So why did he claim he "started his collection of slaves" at LHR in 1968? What were all the others, a dozen more, included CJB?

Nachtsider, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:35 pm

Perhaps they were sloppy murders, Bentley, and he did not want to be associated with them previously. Come 1971, though, with his reputation slipping away, and maybe he became desperate, willing to even dredge up and crow about crimes he formerly did not want to identify with.

tahoe27, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 9:10 pm

I agree in general. However, in the March 1971 letter to the LA Times Z claims responsibility for Riverside, claims "there are a hell of a lot more down there" and a body count of 17. So when did Z do this "hell of a lot more"? Likely not during the NorCal spree I think we can agree, never heard a peep. 1970? Don’t think so, he was still busy writing letters and taunting the SF Bay Area. That leaves pre-1969, likely the time he claims to have been active in Riverside.

So why did he claim he "started his collection of slaves" at LHR in 1968? What were all the others, a dozen more, included CJB?

In November of 1969, Zodiac claims to have killed someone in August, be he didn’t include August on Bryan’s car door. I think that is proof he is full of it.

Zodiac wanted credit for his crimes and provided proof of these crimes. Why not with the others?

***

Curious, do prison officials read all mail before it goes out?

bentley, Subject: Re: Links to Zodiac in the Confession letter writing?? Sun Oct 30, 2011 11:45 pm

Come 1971, though, with his reputation slipping away, and maybe he became desperate, willing to even dredge up and crow about crimes he formerly did not want to identify with.

Good point Nach. Why did he really write to the LA Times and dredge up Rivreside? He says he’d been put on the back pages in SF, however his previous confirmed correspondence, the Halloween Card, was on the front page of the Chron just a few months earlier. I’m a bit of a skeptic of that card, however real or not he was still front page news.

http://www.sfgate.com/gate/graphics/200 … Threat.pdf

Was there another reason?

Edit: Actually I see the card was not on the front page, just the start of the article.

Back page:

http://www.sfgate.com/gate/graphics/200 … _1970b.pdf