Inside Detective Magazine was published in January 1969, one and a half years before the Little List letter, where he wrote virtually identical phrases. He simply could have read this magazine. Whether the Confession letter was connected later by police is irrelevant, Zodiac could still have read it as early as January 1969. The two crimes were discussed as possibly having connections as early as October 20th 1969.

Inside Detective Magazine was published in January 1969, one and a half years before the Little List letter, where he wrote virtually identical phrases. He simply could have read this magazine. Whether the Confession letter was connected later by police is irrelevant, Zodiac could still have read it as early as January 1969. The two crimes were discussed as possibly having connections as early as October 20th 1969.

AGAIN, IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE!

Now tell me, is all that even probable?

I don’t see an obvious copying of the Lipstick Killer’s words in the Zodiac Belli letter. Plenty of killers, from Jack the Ripper on, have written letters saying they can’t control themselves and / or police should stop them. Zodiac hit a similar theme as the LK, but didn’t copy exact phrases.

But even if we accept he copied LK, there is a big difference between the LK case and the Bates case. The LK case, like the Mikado and The Most Dangerous Game, was a very famous. It was well known and covered nationwide in newspapers, magazines and TV.

In 68 & 69, before the Avery articles, the Bates case was a years old murder in Riverside, basically never widely covered and mostly forgotten about. Except for article in one magazine. Was the desktop in that one article in that one magazine. Why would Z pick a relatively obscure murder to copy themes, words, misspellings and handwriting (If the desktop photograph was even published in that magazine). Very good points by paul_averly too.

If the Zodiac did read the quite elaborate Jan 69 Detective article on the Bates murder in the weeks after the Dec20 68 Lake Herman Rd attack (before he had the idea to start his media campaign) and was inspired by it I think it is fair to suppose that he would quote it misspellings and all. I think the Bates letters were from the Riverside killer but the desktop poem is a lot less certain, and neither were great samples for analysis. Double postage I believe is what was required for the Riverside package. Morrill might have been correct but Paul Averly other than handwriting the only coincidence you are highlighting in Richard’s muse theory is the felt tip pen. Incidentally, I think Zodiac was the Riverside killer.

The one thing that keeps me from believing wholeheartedly that the Confession Letter was written by Zodiac is the spacing between the individual letters and words on the envelope which is much closer than what is on the known envelopes. Yes, the known Zodiac letters and the Confession Letter envelope were both written with a felt tipped pen and a few of the individual letters look the same but some traits like spacing are automatic and not even considered by the person doing the writing.

Not trying to sell my ideas to anyone, it’s just a personal observation.

I don’t see an obvious copying of the Lipstick Killer’s words in the Zodiac Belli letter.

The Confession letter has reminded me of the Lipstick killer and what he did to Suzanne Degnan.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=888

The one thing that keeps me from believing wholeheartedly that the Confession Letter was written by Zodiac is the spacing between the individual letters and words on the envelope which is much closer than what is on the known envelopes. Yes, the known Zodiac letters and the Confession Letter envelope were both written with a felt tipped pen and a few of the individual letters look the same but some traits like spacing are automatic and not even considered by the person doing the writing.

Not trying to sell my ideas to anyone, it’s just a personal observation.

I think that is a good observation Seagull. It is also interesting that the Riverside envelope uses bold text, presumably to disguise handwriting, while the Bates letters employ the crude caps approach to obscure identification. If Zodiac was the Riverside killer then it is odd that he abandoned both of these techniques in his Zodiac persona. Other then beginning some letters with neat and precise lettering only to fall into his natural pattern, and the well supported theory that his egregious spelling mistakes were intentional, it doesn’t seem to me that as Zodiac he did much at all to disguise his writing. Clearly he felt comfortable showing them a large sample.

but these were 3 years earlier Seagull, before his Zodiac persona… IMO he was in college then, and this one was personal. he knew her, and her father.

"The one thing that keeps me from believing wholeheartedly that the Confession Letter was written by Zodiac is the spacing between the individual letters and words on the envelope which is much closer than what is on the known envelopes. Yes, the known Zodiac letters and the Confession Letter envelope were both written with a felt tipped pen and a few of the individual letters look the same but some traits like spacing are automatic and not even considered by the person doing the writing.

Not trying to sell my ideas to anyone, it’s just a personal observation."

but these were 3 years earlier Seagull, before his Zodiac persona… IMO he was in college then, and this one was personal. he knew her, and her father.

Could be…or it could be that he was just an a-hole and got her Dad’s name and address out of the paper. Sending that to her Dad…something unlike Zodiac, imo.

but these were 3 years earlier Seagull, before his Zodiac persona… IMO he was in college then, and this one was personal. he knew her, and her father.

I don’t think the years would make any difference as far as the spacing is concerned. That is something that is an unconscious habit as is writing pressure, though pressure would be hard to determine when writing with a felt tipped pen.

S’pose I might as well interject at this point.

The problem with this envelope is that it’s heavily stylized as others have touched on. For that reason I don’t appear to have looked at it in too much detail. Having said that though there are enough similarities in not only some letterforms but also relationships between certain angles and even the spacing choices although this has been distorted as well so it’s not as reliable an indicator as Seagull has touched on.

There are quite a few similarities in habits between this and the majority of Zodiac’s writing. Is it enough to say yes, no doubt … no but that’s the nature of the style employed here. Again, however, we see this employed by Zodiac in other communications and indeed replicated. The block style shaping of letterforms, the overwriting or scrawling are but two I can mention. The ‘Bus bomb envelope’ and the ‘Do my thing’ in the ‘Dripping Pen’ card.

To touch on individual letterforms some similarities are very apparent. The ‘circle’ dot above the lowercase i. Less obvious would be things like that E on the end of ‘Enterprise’. That’s quite interesting because it’s not a typical thing employed by Zodiac in his uppercase E’s but he does use it. Aug 4th 1969 letter ‘No Address’ – look at the E in Address. The curved base as opposed to the more often used straight base. The little tick on the top of the C in ‘Calif’ and in ‘Crime’ although less pronounced. The interchangeable but consistent variations in the constructions of the uppercase E’s. Etc.

There’s quite a bit of visual information going on in this envelope that’s been replicated in either Zodiac’s other envelopes or letters. That, for me, is enough to make it very interesting.

But even if we accept he copied LK, there is a big difference between the LK case and the Bates case. The LK case, like the Mikado and The Most Dangerous Game, was a very famous. It was well known and covered nationwide in newspapers, magazines and TV.
In 68 & 69, before the Avery articles, the Bates case was a years old murder in Riverside, basically never widely covered and mostly forgotten about. Except for article in one magazine. Was the desktop in that one article in that one magazine. Why would Z pick a relatively obscure murder to copy themes, words, misspellings and handwriting (If the desktop photograph was even published in that magazine). Very good points by paul_averly too.

It may not have been as widely covered as the Lipstick Killer, but it certainly would have been well known to Riverside residents, one of whom may have been Zodiac. That doesn’t necessarily imply he was the author of the Confession or the killer of CJB. Only that he may have had a strong connection to the area and familiarity with the case. But I certainly don’t rule out Zodiac as being responsible for the communications or the murder.

The Confession letter was cut top and bottom. Had he used letterhead paper. with the address at the foot and then simply removed the identifying features, because it would have revealed crucial information. The three Bates letters sent by the killer on April 30th 1967, as seen in the FBI document, were written using 8 1/2 X 11 inch lined paper, the same dimensions as the paper used in the library photocopying machine and likely paper used by the college.
As the author typed the letter he may have been subconsciously influenced by the paper he was writing on, adding his own header "THE CONFESSION" and ending with "CC CHIEF OF POLICE ENTERPRISE"as an address footer.

mildlycerous, I didn’t mean any offence, I just meant WELL STATED !
With all of the Z traits in the Bates case writings I just don’t understand how so many believe it’s impossible for Z to have had
anything to do with it.

And the funny thing is, with all the doubters that think Zodiac wasn’t involved in the Bates writing, I have yet to hear a single one lay out a case for why they are doubters.

Huh??

Yes, for example. "I have doubts as to whether the Bates writing was by Zodiac"…..and that’s pretty much where it ends. I never see "Because of this, this and this" or "this and this is totally different" etc

Inside Detective Magazine was published in January 1969, one and a half years before the Little List letter, where he wrote virtually identical phrases. He simply could have read this magazine. Whether the Confession letter was connected later by police is irrelevant, Zodiac could still have read it as early as January 1969. The two crimes were discussed as possibly having connections as early as October 20th 1969.

That’s the problem with this theory. The fact that Sherwood just happens to link the writing. What are the chances that Zodiac reads that letter in a magazine and somehow manages to write all the Zodiac letters in such a way that he fools Morrill into linking the writing?