In April of 1965, at RCC (the school Cheri attended), a young woman was attacked and stabbed with a knife, not far from where Cheri was murdered. She lived.
ROLLAND TAFT:
This was brought to our attention in the "Inside Detective" magazine "identical in many ways" (see the 2nd to last page) . —> viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3154
An old (and missed) member here, Solar Pons, had brought up questions about that case. Another member here (Ricardo–who also operates his own site) investigated further: http://mk-zodiac.com/TheOriginofthePoem … heory.html and http://www.mk-zodiac.com/041365.html
I won’t copy his findings, as he apparently doesn’t want them shared aside of linking to his site (understandable as people tend to take credit)…too bad though, as I think it would be informative to show she newspaper and the date of the "clean cut" mention, but some of us will further research on our own.
While this person could not have been the man who killed Cheri (he was in jail) it does leave one wondering if there was an influence from that case to Cheri’s? Was the desktop poem written about that young woman? Could he have actually been the author? Of course those who adamantly believe Zodiac wrote it, there won’t be be any question Taft didn’t write it, but for others it might be an intriguing possibility.
Scary to to think there were two individuals in a relatively short period of time who were capable of committing such an act…not to mention another individual who was driving around threatening women just a month after Cheri. viewtopic.php?f=33&t=3495
Of course there has been scattered discussion of this in the past…feel free to chime in or copy quotes from other threads!
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
I was able to come up with a little more info about Rolland Lin Taft, namely how he came to his death in 1974. I also found marriage and divorce records for him.
The marriage is a little curious to me because it took place just shy of three months after Taft was arrested for the stabbing in a different county than where he was charged for the stabbing. He could have been out on bail I suppose. It would be nice to have more articles about a trial or plea for the 1965 stabbing to be certain that he was actually convicted and in jail or prison at the time of Cheri’s murder.
Wow. Rolland sounds like he was a swell guy.
Almost 9 years to the date of the stabbing.
Yes, more information is needed! It would be nice to know when he was released…and arrested. We know the arraignment date, but how soon after did they haul his butt to jail?
The marriage is curious too. Thanks for posting all of that seagull!
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
