You are misreading appears. It is being used as a synonym for seems. It appears the letter writer IS ACTUALLY the killer. Not the letter writer is trying to appear to be the killer. They say RPD surveyed the local papers and found no mention of mide wire. And they say the letter writer knew details of the manner of murder only the killer would know, and most importantly, the letter writer knew about a phone call that night that they imply came from the killer and that only the killer would know about. And they further treat the letter as if it did come from the killer.

I know that eventually we did find a Long Beach newspaper that mentioned coil wire, which is the middle wire. But that is not a Riverside area local paper. RPD looked at local papers and found no mention of middle wire. We can quibble with the description of the murder, but RPD, who knows all the medical details, which we don’t, says it matches. And the phone call nails it for me.

"Seems", "appears"…it’s all the same thing, imo.

That Confession letter was full of discrepancies though. It wasn’t a match and didn’t involve things only the killer would know about.

The Confession letter was sent on November 29th. It was all over the newspaper by then. November 1, 1966 it was in the L.A. Times–"ignition wire yanked loose". Surely that was sold in Riverside. I saw another that read "middle wire".

Whose to say the letter writer wasn’t the caller? Sure, could have been, but the letter writer said things that were not true. I’m simply saying it wasn’t things only the killer would know if it didn’t go down like that. Could he have actually been the guy and was full of it for whatever reason, yes, but that letter proved nothing.

I have to wonder if the comments the Dr. quote (above) were in the newspaper or told to him by someone in law enforcement.

This is off topic, but again, this is a hot thread now. A DNA question: Can a DNA sample be codified? That is, linked to a series of numbers, letters, etc? Or does each suspect require using a sample of LE’s DNA?

The mention of the phone call is very persuasive. It makes me want to read in to the "crank call" that Benicia PD received alerting them to the Lake Herman road attack, independent of the eye-witness who informed Pita. Grinell has written about that. There doesn’t seem to be any further published info on the Benicia or Riverside calls. It does seem an odd detail to include in a confession if you hadn’t in fact made such a call.

In regards to the comments made by the doctor. I think the doctor is saying that the wounds leave the attack narrative ambiguous, not that he is responding to a pre-assessment. When he says there are no obvious tell tale signs that the attacker(s) were able to plunge in "up to the hilt" I think he means unhindered by the victim. In other words, because she was slashed at the neck and wasn’t stabbed like an unsuspecting inanimate target we can infer that there was a struggle. I believe he is also stating that examining the wounds did not positively reveal the sequence of the events or what position the attacker(s) were in when the assault occurred.

The coil wire information was in the Redlands CA newspaper on October 31 1966. Redlands is less than 20 miles from Riverside.

When was the phone call made?

Why put it in quotes though. What is the point of saying it didn’t happen like that.

I don’t know why I put the Benicia crank call in quotes. Bidou I believe mentioned it in This is the Zodiac Speaking documentary.
The speculation of course is that it was the killer, but because it came in before Pitta was alerted to the scene by Stella Medeiros it seems that they interpreted it as a either a report of a roadside accident or perhaps some kind of hoax. I read about it on Grinell’s site here: http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-new … negro-male

Near the end of the article, Richard posts a quotation about the crank call and his thoughts:

"Bidou and his partner had served a warrant on a Lake Herman Road cabin Dec. 20, 1968, and were on their way to deposit some marijuana in the police department’s evidence locker when they were dispatched back to Lake Herman Road. Initially, they were told a woman was lying outside a car; they thought they were being sent to a crash. Police at first speculated it might have been a crank call, but the officers headed back north. But when they arrived, Bidou realized it was no crank call and no car accident. Instead, it was a sinister crime scene."
But why, in the plural, had "police at first suspected it was a crank call." What gave them this idea, after all this incident was radioed in by an experienced officer. Was the supposition of a crank call, which police "first suspected," allayed when the radio message arrived moments later from Officer Daniel Pitta. ​Had this been called in by Zodiac? Had this been called in from the payphone at Springs and Tuolumne, just as it was to be some six and a half months later? If police first suspected this was a crank call, then it was likely called in before Officer Daniel Pitta radioed in, whose confirmation would effectively quash the idea it was a hoax, as police first suspected.
The journey time from the Gate #10 turnout to Springs and Tuolumne is 12 minutes. Had the Zodiac Killer left the turnout at approximately 11.10 pm or shortly thereafter, let us say 11.11-11.12 pm, then the killer was able to place the phone call 12 minutes later at 11.23-11.24 pm, before Daniel Pitta radioed in, leading to the initial confusion experienced by police officers and the assumption it was a crank call. The Zodiac Killer may even have had a extra 3-5 minute window to travel home, ditch his vehicle and weapon, and walk to the payphone.

Here is my two cents worth of debate. I for one have always believed the killer was the caller, writer, and that he was the Zodiac.

When he wrote that she went to the slaughter like a lamb, I believe he was talking about walking with her from her car,she went willingly. But just before they got there he told her it was time for her to die and with that, he grabbed her mouth with one hand and with the other hand he put the knife to her throat. She went willingly is what he said. Who wouldn’t with a knife at their throat?
The report above is not very well written , the pathologist said something about the reason she didn’t scream? She did scream a witness came forward to say she heard the scream. " Not plunged up to the hilt? " For Zodiac to mention that he" plunged" the knife into her, is how he is describing stabbing her. The Pathologist has a different way of describing a stab wound. Some words have different meanings , some may sound one way to one person and another way to someone else. I think that this is a good example of that.

(In a later letter Zodiac tells that some fought, perhaps meaning she was one of them that did? )

I am pretty sure that if he choked her as he said he had, it could have been what is called a "choke hold". A choke hold would not be found like a strangulation would be in a autopsy.
Also it would be hard to see being she was nearly decapitated. He mentioned that he could feel her warm firm breast, in order for him to be able to do that , he could have used a choke hold with one arm and with the other feel her breast. There was nothing in any paper that I read about her being kicked in the head. That should be something that would be noticed in the autopsy. It would probably be shown as blunt force trauma to the head or beaten about the face and head.

He did write that she died hard, that she squirmed and shook. That sounds like a struggle to me. I do not believe that some love sick boy killed her, when Zodiac wrote about her brush offs, I feel that was to point the finger at a much younger person, not someone about 27yrs old.

One poster mentioned how could the police think that the call was a hoax? That is their nature, even today! Pittsburg Ca Police received a call from a man claiming to be their killer of a dozen people during the late 80’s through the 90’s. He told them where to find a body and that he was the Zodiac,to this day they believe that call was a hoax, yet they do believe that the killer they are looking for is a serial killer, go figure.

My other beliefs are that the Zodiac worked construction, the RCC campus was under construction Oct 1966 through 1967.
The high school in Lompoc where Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards went was under construction in 1963.I do not believe these were just a coincidence.

There are a few people who have suspects that can not be placed in Riverside Oct 30th 1966, their suspects were either in jail or out of the country, so of course they believe Zodiac could not be Cheri Jo’s killer. ( I think I put in more than my two cents)

Hi Sandy, I think the construction worker idea is terrific.

Do you know if any information has ever come out about the four men at RCC who told police that they saw Cheri by her car? They were described as wearing work cloths by the student who noticed Cheri writing in her notebook. Ray Grant has noted that their presence was not included in the police recreation and also that it would be very unusual in 1966 to be working on a Sunday. I have not actually read the report in which they are discussed. Grinell has speculated that these men would likely have been witness to any tampering to the VW after Cheri’s arrival, but the duration of their coffee break or whatever they were doing is debatable and likely not confirmable. The unnamed work men remain a mystery. Unless someone here has further info.

Hi Sandy, I think the construction worker idea is terrific.

Do you know if any information has ever come out about the four men at RCC who told police that they saw Cheri by her car? They were described as wearing work cloths by the student who noticed Cheri writing in her notebook. Ray Grant has noted that their presence was not included in the police recreation and also that it would be very unusual in 1966 to be working on a Sunday. I have not actually read the report in which they are discussed. Grinell has speculated that these men would likely have been witness to any tampering to the VW after Cheri’s arrival, but the duration of their coffee break or whatever they were doing is debatable and likely not confirmable. The unnamed work men remain a mystery. Unless someone here has further info.

That is the first I have heard about any workers seen that night. I do know that construction is not usually done on weekends, but I wonder if because it was a collage and had a budget, which I know there was a budget and a time frame to be finished. If some of the men offered to work weekends and have other days off I guess that could be?
The killer could have been a construction worker and spotted her before his day off and thought that Sunday would be a better time, because none of the other workers would be there, is a possibility?
It was believed by some LE that Zodiac could be Catholic. That being said , perhaps he watched her at church then followed her and her father to their home one Sunday? He would have gotten the address that way, although I believe that was also in the newspaper. Sorry about all the" if’s"and maybe’s , but all we can do is speculate until we have more information. I wish that RPD would do something with the DNA they have and compare it to what SFPD has.I don’t think that has been done and should be, they have plenty of DNA!

I feel that he had planed this for sometime and was very comfortable with his plan to kill her.That is how I believe that the address where her body was found had the same numbers as the address for the church she attended every Sunday.Otherwise it is one heck of a coincidence. I have been dealing with someone who is or believes he is Zodiac and this is the way he works and thinks. Everything is a fun game for him, so if he noticed the address at the Church was the same for one of the few homes on campus that were empty, that would be his sort of sick fun humor.

Regarding the four men who were observed sitting on a fence opposite where the VW was parked at 6:15 and again at 7:15, all I know is they were described as young. I wonder if there was a sporting event at the field that day and their visiting team jerseys appeared like work shirts to their young witness William Siebert. As they cooperated with police who would have been looking for scratch marks I am not quick to be suspicious, but everything is worth exploring. The unoccupied school houses around where the body was found are a point of interest to me as well.

Is it known whether the DNA from RPD is comparable with anything in the Zodiac case? I think in the Riverside case there is only the hair and the cigarette butt, and that the two cannot be compared because they are different types. I’m not sure what tests would be possible or why they wouldn’t have been done already.

Sandy, AK Wilks had this to say about DNA results:

The FBI nemo shows they recovered 4 brown hairs on a small bit of a blood clot in Cheri’s hand. That hair yielded only mtDNA, not nuclear DNA. Only nuclear DNA can be added to CODIS and other databanks. When you have full nuclear DNA you can say when there is a match that only 1 out of 2 billion persons would randomly match.

With mtDNA, you can only say 5% of the American public have this mtDNA or 2% of Hispanic Americans have this mtDNA. If a suspect does NOT match mtDNA known to be from a killer, he can be totally excluded. But even if a suspect matches mtDNA you can only say ‘He is in the 3% of the American population that has this mtDNA."

Back in 1966 they had no awareness of DNA. The watch was probably handled by the bare ungloved hands of police, evidence techs and others. I doubt that today they could get reliable DNA from any sweat that was on the watch band. But it’s possible. In some cases they have recovered "touch DNA" from clothes or objects 10 or 20 years later.

I don’t think that Zodiac’s DNA is in CODIS anyway. What I would like to see done is for RPD to give the numbers they have for the hair and blood evidence to compare to the numbers that SFPD have. Even blood typing is better than nothing. There must be a way of what they have can be compared to other Z DNA?

The only possible problem with all of that is if there were two Zodiac’s working in tandem like I believe. That is not too unbelievable, because there are some high up in LE that think it is possible there were two , especially because of two very different descriptions, one given from Lake Berryessa and the other much smaller description of the killer of Paul Stine. I think the Lake B suspect could be the RCC killer , he prefers using a knife, the other one seems to prefer a gun.
However the person who shot Darlene I think was also the Lake B guy.The gun that he used to control Bryan and Cecelia I think could have been a 9 mil and not a 45, both guns look enough alike and we know Zodiac did own a 9 mil.

1)Possibly made a call to police as per confession letter, Z also called police

Has this call ever been substantiated prior to this case being linked to Zodiac by LE?

2)Used the word, ‘SHALL’ just like Z did

Can it be ruled out that ONLY Zodiac and the Riverside UNSUB used the word "shall?"

3)Used Twitch/Twich & misspelled it like Z did

Isn’t "twich" a common misspelling for the word "twitch" and not entirely reserved for murderers?

4)Signed off with a symbol that looks like a stylized Z

Wasn’t the symbol in question only on two of the three penciled letters as if to represent sequential numbering?
Using a VSC, doesn’t it appear that the tails of the two symbols were added post-evidentiary to perhaps make them look like "Z’s?"

5)Sent letters with multiple stamps like Z did

Doesn’t this show a lack of knowledge with postal rates rather than homicidal similarities? Is there evidence that no one else has ever used excessive postage to ensure delivery?
Does the excess postage eliminate other persons that would have knowledge of postal rates, such as business employees, postal workers, out of state students, media personnel, etc…?

6)Has a very stylish & unique candy cane f on the desktop poem that exactly matched the candy cane F written by Zodiac on Hartnell’s Door

Can handwriting from different mediums be compared conclusively, or only theoretically?

7)Handwriting expert with years of experience handling the Z case matched the writing saying that the Bates case writing was "unquestionably" the work of Zodiac.

Considering the exemplars are a desktop, a type-written letter, and penciled letters written with what appears to be a recessive hand, isn’t it possible Mr. Morrill succumbed to the same flaws other QDE’s have done when comparing exemplars to Zodiacs felt-tip marker apparently-dominant-hand submissions?

1 or 2 things can be argued or debated, but take all of it as a package, and it screams that Zodiac, whomever he was, was in Riverside in 1966-67.

Do you believe Bates was a definite victim of the Zodiac?

Thanks

I tend to doubt that Zodiac was responsible for the Bates murder. I have no doubt that he authored the letters & desktop poem in her case

AK Wilks: This FBI document (obtained by Morf) confirms that RPD and FBI accepted that the actual Bates killer and the letter writer were one and the same. This was on the basis that the letter writer knew about at least three items cited by the letter writer were correct and thought to only be known by the killer – details of the manner of murder, the middle wire of distributor being pulled and a phone call made to police the night of the killing.

For me, that FBI memo seals it that the Bates killer and the letter writer are one and the same. On the basis of the combined effect of several different pieces of evidence, the totality leads me to believe that the letter writer was probably to almost certainly the Zodiac Killer. The evidence on that score does not add up to 100% proof, so I admit there is still some small room for doubt and debate. But a dozen separate pieces of evidence – circumstantial, direct, situational and otherwise – add up to tip the scales for me to somewhere between probable and almost certain that the letter writer became Zodiac.

You raise some valid objections and questions. Yes people other than the Bates killer and Zodiac use the word shall. But its noteworthy that both the Bates killer and Zodiac did. Yes other people use the word twitch. But it is not a very commonly used word, and both the Bates killer and Zodiac use it, and both misspell it the exact same way, as twich. It is pretty clear the letter writer (who we see is definitely the Bates killer) signed off with a stylized "Z". A clear link to a future Zodiac. The use of excessive postage, often double postage, is yet another match. AS is the cane "F". Handwriting experts are not infallible, but a good expert here matched the Riverside writings and Zodiac. And even an unexpert eye can see many matches. See the excellent work of traveller1st here: http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtop … f=80&t=397

On every point made by Morf or me some qualifications can be made, that the noted match or similarity is not absolute or exclusive. But it is the total combined effect of looking at a dozen or more matches or similarities together that starts to gather cumulative weight. Any one item alone is not that significant, but when you look at all of them together, for me it goes beyond coincidence and into the realm of probably the same person.

There were things published in the papers, just days after the murder detailing how the car was disabled. There’s nothing in the confession letter regarding the disabling of the car that couldn’t have been gleamed from the papers

Tahoe – You have to read the whole thing. It states RPD advised middle wire distributor had not made the papers,so info only the killer would know. Then states the same for details of the manner of murder and the phone call. Concluding that RPD says it "appears the letter writer is ACTUALLY the murderer".

It then acts that way, saying the US Attorney is evaluating the letter as if it was from the killer, and that is how the FBI is treating it.

This is INCORRECT. See my photo below, again, anybody that knew anything about cars, and read that paper would have known the details without being the killer, see article "Coil wire yanked loose", that’s the middle wire,as mentioned in the confession letter.