Here are some Bates articles from the San Bernardino County Sun in 1966.

Thanks for posting those seagull. Some interesting tidbits I had not seen before. Makes sense local papers might get a little more detailed.

A couple more articles from the San Bernardino County Sun. The first one really does not have anything to do directly with Cheri’s murder but is about LE not getting paid overtime when investigating her case.

The second article was apparently written when "Bob Barnett" was thought to be Cheri’s murderer. We now know that he was eliminated via his DNA not matching but that hasn’t stopped Riverside still believing he was her killer. The article also includes some of the facts in the case, not all of which were known in the ’60’s. For instance this article says that the Desk Top/Bottom Poem was not found until January 1968.

January of 1968. Doesn’t help validate the poem much, but to those who believe in the handwriting, time isn’t a factor I’m sure.

Bud Kelly is mentioned of course , and…I agree her killer was/is always a dirty creep.

I thought the same thing about the desk poem, if it wasn’t found until January 1968 it could have been written anytime after Cheri’s murder. I’ve never been keen on that poem figuring into the Zodiac case because there are so many unknowns about it. I prefer to stick with the known evidence and clues because otherwise it’s like going down a rabbit hole.

That date can’t be right, surely?

Incidentally, I was re-reading the FBI and CADOJ documents pertaining to the Bates case just now – and this is what the DOJ report states:

"During the month of December 1966 while removing several desks from the Riverside City College Library one of the custodians observed a poem written on one of the desks which reads as follows…"

In the FBI documents the discovery is described as having been made "some months" after the murder.

In other words, I think the journalist was simply mistaken. If the poem hadn’t been discovered until January ’68, I doubt anyone would have connected it to Bates (such is the nature of that poem, but that is another debate).

That DOJ report is chock full of errors though and "some months" would definitely be more than a month or so.

The FBI report actually says "several months" – which makes it even more of a stretch to reconcile it with December 1966.

I don’t know. But if "December 1966" is in reality "January 1968", well – that isn’t an error. It’s a complete shambles.

While there may be good reasons for taking the DOJ reports (this isn’t the Zodiac DOJ report, BTW, it’s the one dealing with Bates specifically) with a pinch of salt, I don’t see any reason to implicitly trust a newspaper article written years after the fact either.

Doesn’t really matter from where I’m sitting, though – the poem could have been written ten years before Bates as far as I’m concerned. What I mainly take from these reports is the undeniable fact that Morrill’s conclusions regarding the Riverside evidence were controversial and disputed. And that the FBI were unable to confirm his verdicts.

Everything I have read has the desk being found by the end of 1966. I would rely more on the FBI & DOJ reports than the Newspaper. We have lots of instances of them being wrong.

Great articles by the way Seagull, I like re-reading these every once in a while

The FBI report actually says "several months" – which makes it even more of a stretch to reconcile it with December 1966.

I don’t know. But if "December 1966" is in reality "January 1968", well – that isn’t an error. It’s a complete shambles.

While there may be good reasons for taking the DOJ reports (this isn’t the Zodiac DOJ report, BTW, it’s the one dealing with Bates specifically) with a pinch of salt, I don’t see any reason to implicitly trust a newspaper article written years after the fact either.

Doesn’t really matter from where I’m sitting, though – the poem could have been written ten years before Bates as far as I’m concerned. What I mainly take from these reports is the undeniable fact that Morrill’s conclusions regarding the Riverside evidence were controversial and disputed. And that the FBI were unable to confirm his verdicts.

You would think the FBI would have been a little more clear in their reporting, but "several months" still puts it later than Dec. of ’66, imo. If you think about it, it was almost 1967 when Cheri was killed so January of ’68 put it about a year out. I do hope the DOJ with Cheri’s case was more accurate. Such a shame the Zodiac case was such a mess.

Still though, I agree with you all in regards to newspaper reporting. We’ve seen how that goes!

You would think the FBI would have been a little more clear in their reporting, but "several months" still puts it later than Dec. of ’66, imo.

Yes – that’s what I meant to imply: Several months after the murder is well into 1967 – it’s hard to read it any other way.

This comes from the RPD, by the way – the FBI report simply refers to what an RPD detective has informed them in a letter (in which the RPD requests various tests/comparisons to be made). So the lack of precision (which is indeed puzzling – and annoying) is the RPD’s fault, it would seem.

Just out of interest, does anyone think that Bud Kelly could be connected to CJB’s murder? Seeing his name in the reports reminded me of how he turned out to be a criminal who had a thing for younger girls. Does anyone know if he might have been instrumental in constantly pushing Mr Bennett as the prime suspect?

Just out of interest, does anyone think that Bud Kelly could be connected to CJB’s murder? Seeing his name in the reports reminded me of how he turned out to be a criminal who had a thing for younger girls. Does anyone know if he might have been instrumental in constantly pushing Mr Bennett as the prime suspect?

You are not alone in those thoughts Quagmire. Might be worth looking into when he retired.

EDIT: Looks like he retired in 1990. He could have had pull for a lot of years…

http://www.pe.com/articles/kelley-63495 … tml?page=1

Article from Zk.com

http://www.zodiackiller.com/InsideDetective5.html