Good point. Assuming that she spent some degree of time with her killer, I would imagine that she would not have done so for a much older man, who would seem out of place and untrustworthy hanging around a college campus at night.

Good point. Assuming that she spent some degree of time with her killer, I would imagine that she would not have done so for a much older man, who would seem out of place and untrustworthy hanging around a college campus at night.

Unless it was a professor..anybody ever look at faculty at rcc during this time?

Good point. Assuming that she spent some degree of time with her killer, I would imagine that she would not have done so for a much older man, who would seem out of place and untrustworthy hanging around a college campus at night.

Unless it was a professor..anybody ever look at faculty at rcc during this time?

I had a list of RCC staff from back then,I’ll see if I can find it

Cheri was a freshman at Ramona High in 1962-63. There were guys then attending RHS who were three, possibly four, years older than she. Nor would it have been unusual for, say, a junior or senior guy to have hit on her.

Cheri was a freshman at Ramona High in 1962-63. There were guys then attending RHS who were three, possibly four, years older than she. Nor would it have been unusual for, say, a junior or senior guy to have hit on her.

Ramona High didn’t have freshman according to the yearbooks. 9th grade must have been middle-school.

Tahoe, do you think you could or someone who has access to these yearbooks for high school, produce a list of all males listed during the years Cheri may have been in attendance?

Soze

Sorry Soze, won’t be me. There were hundreds and hundreds. Even without freshmen, there were A LOT of students. I did go through and list all the RH’s once–did it for morf, but I don’t think I have that list anymore. Morf?

Sorry Soze, won’t be me. There were hundreds and hundreds. Even without freshmen, there were A LOT of students. I did go through and list all the RH’s once–did it for morf, but I don’t think I have that list anymore. Morf?

Some of them are here-
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=1707

There may be another list floating around too

People think the Zodiac, if he killed CJB, would have mentioned the Riverside connection in his first letters due to his pathological need for attention/power.

But IMO Zodiac is a scary animal as he is an extremely organized process oriented killer and I don’t think he would be so quick to claim his very first "newbie" crime in a farm town like Riverside far less populated and hip as San Francisco. Maybe he felt like CJBs crime did not mesh well with his revised Zodiac persona/MO he created after killing her. I almost feel like Cheri’s murder was his "first draft" – his first attempt at writing letters after a murder. Also perhaps he knew if he mentioned Riverside that LE could narrow the pool of suspects – in my opinion he likely thought about this. When he claimed Riverside finally later as the Zodiac I think he couldn’t help but to do so at that point bc it would fulfill his need to gain attention and power, but also he was aware he was putting himself at further risk of being ID’d. He also did things at the Stine scene to put himself at further risk of being caught. He had become brazen. That situation of taking credit as Zodiac for Cheri’s murder years later was a catch 22 for him. I think he initially didn’t particularly like having CJB death considered to be one he committed as the Zodiac, but he also wanted to take credit for murdering her once he read that they suspected him. Again at that time that he took the brazen credit for Riverside he had already committed the brazen Stine murder.

IF Zodiac killed Cheri and sent the letters, why would he wait years to begin killing and sending letters about his murders again?

Either because he was a little shook up after his first murder/letters in Riverside OR because he was institutionalized in some way during that time. I’m not discounting that he might be process oriented/organized enough to have taken a cooling off period to gather himself and revise his persona before reemerging as the Zodiac in San Francisco.

IF Zodiac killed Cheri, why would he go from murdering and sending taunting letters in Riverside to murdering and sending taunting letters in San Francisco?

Either because San Fransico has a larger population and thus he could gain more attention than he gained in CJB murder OR because he wanted to move from Riverside to San Fransico after the murder to escape suspicion in Riverside. OR again maybe also because he was sent to the area after being arrested/institutionalized in some way … or to simply transfer for work and/or school.

I think Zodiac wanted to be associated with a big city like San Fransisco. Grabbing SF’s attention would satiate his need for attention far more than a smaller city like Riverside.

All opinion and theory of course.

There are so many details in the Z case that it’s impossible for a sap like me to keep them all in order, they tend to surface, disappear and resurface again – sometimes almost randomly. This, then, is one such detail – which has struck me before, and which recently struck me again:

CJB was probably killed around 10:30 PM (based on the screams later reported by a witness). The library closed at 9 PM. These simple facts seem to indicate that whoever CJB’s killer was, she spent more than an hour talking to him before he finally attacked her.

What does this imply? Well, to me – at least – it would very nicely back up any theory along the lines of her being very well acquainted with her killer: The spurned lover who accosts her and then has it out with her, talking to her at length, becoming more and more frustrated – before it all ends in tragedy.

At any rate, the idea that she would spend that much time talking to a perfect stranger – seems a complete non-starter. It even seems unlikely to me that she would spend that much time talking to someone she knew, but not intimately. The amount of time apparently spent in conversation seems much more in tune with the theory that this conversation was something like a lovers’ quarrel.

Now, if only that pesky Bob fella hadn’t been cleared on DNA, eh? It would all make – almost – perfect sense.

Unless the person who heard the screams hadn’t changed their clocks yet: "Fall back".

I still think Cheri knew the guy. What I question though is the "brush offs". I think that is a ruse. Maybe he felt he was brushed-off, but she never even knew it. I tend to think it’s a brother of a friend, or friend of a friend, or cousin of a friend or something like that. Even possibly a "friend" of her brother.

If it was a friend of a friend, who knew Cheri would be at the library? Her friend Stephanie for one. They could have very well been stalking Cheri too, but I can’t help but wonder if someone had (somewhat) pre-planned that library scenario.

What I’m thinking – just speculating, of course – is that if you’re on the right track here, the killer would be someone they considered initially (because he was, indeed, someone who knew her very well) but who was dropped quickly because he seemingly didn’t fit the profile at all. In other words, not someone she ever dated or who ever showed any romantic interest in her as far as the rest of the world knew.

That would make some sense – I think. What we do know about the investigation is that it was thorough: They didn’t just go through the motions, they actually invested plenty in nailing the killer. So, in light of that, I’d say the fact that they failed to catch him indicates that he was either a perfect stranger who wasn’t connected to her at all (possibly an out-of-towner) – or the very opposite.

And the timeline here does speak against a perfect stranger for me, as suggested. If the killer was completely unknown to her, there must be something we’re missing in terms of how it all played out.

Probably someone people would least suspect.

The known Zodiac victims were all couples in intimate situations, until he shot the cab driver Paul Stine. I’ve heard the Stine murder explained by a profiler thusly: he needed the publicity of one murder in the big city. No known victim was a lone female. I’m wondering if CJB was with some guy just before the murder and then he took off. This would make it closer to the other Z attacks. Specifically thinking of Ted K as the suspect and his journal entry about "promiscuous college students."

If so, he never came forward. According to this article, nobody present at the library that night remembered seeing her at all. viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1455