I wouldn’t be shocked if there is news in the murder of Cheri Jo Bates coming in the not so distant future.

I wouldn’t be shocked if there is news in the murder of Cheri Jo Bates coming in the not so distant future.

Eh

Morf, That would be awesome if they announced that they have shared the DNA they have , or that they have used to latest DNA technology, which can give eye and hair color of the killer.

From the Nov. 7th 2016 Press Enterprise article I read, RPD are still working that case and were glad that our group were there for the anniversary, to call attention to the case.
Sadly RPD still believes that their suspect was her killer in spite of the DNA not matching him. They don’t know yet that DNA doesn’t lie?

I wouldn’t be shocked if there is news in the murder of Cheri Jo Bates coming in the not so distant future.

Do you know something we don’t ?

Did RPD make any progress with their latest round of DNA testing ?

I don’t know why I put the Benicia crank call in quotes…

Hi Druzer…sorry, I should have clarified better. I was wondering why the doctor put his words in quotes and when the Riverside phone call was made.

That is the first I have heard about any workers seen that night.

Howard has been talking about that for years.

Tahoe, it did seem rather pointless for the doctor to use quotations without actually quoting something. I really can’t imagine why quotations were used on "tell tale", "proof positive". I had never heard "up to the hilt" before and it seemed odd as well.

Does Howard Davis still contribute here occasionally? I would be interested to hear how he views these four men.

I wouldn’t be shocked if there is news in the murder of Cheri Jo Bates coming in the not so distant future.

Do you know something we don’t ?

Did RPD make any progress with their latest round of DNA testing ?

I plead the 5th

Tell us what you know or I will send Ray Grant my log in information!

The "Confession" Letter is in sync with the brutality exhibited in Bates’ murder. I am inclined to believe that Bates and her killer had known each other for at least several years. Since Bates was a recent graduate of Ramona High I visited the RHS libary, and examined 1963-1966 copies of "Aries", the school yearbook, and found an rh who:
1. Graduated from RHS in 1963;
2. Joined the Navy Reserve, and was on active duty for a year before October, 1966;
3. In September, 1966 married a girl who lived, literally, around the corner from Bates;
4. Before her marriage to RH, his bride had been a librarian assistant at Riverside City College library;
5. Since RH moved to San Jose, CA in 1968-1969, and was listed in the phone book as a "student" it is likely he attended RCC earlier, and transferred. (RCC attendance would not give me any info re his having been a student there).
Re the desktop poem: if it had been written after Bates’ murder it would either have been unsigned, or the initials would be bogus, intended by the killer to implicate someone else; in which case the poem would have been written on the desk TOP, so it would be found easily.

That is the first I have heard about any workers seen that night.

Howard has been talking about that for years.

Tahoe , Howard has talked about construction going on at RCC for years yes, so Have I. I really don’t remember him posting that on the very night of her murder, there were construction guys near where she was.

In the days before yes and that they had flirted with her.

If you know where Howard posted about construction workers being near her the night of Oct 30th , I would appreciate seeing it, thanks. That to me is huge and fits what I have been saying for so long, about Zodiac being in construction.
Which could be why he traveled to different areas, he went to where the work was.

The Donna Lass card shows construction going on, perhaps a clue that he was one of those construction workers and that he buried her where he was working? True he didn’t name Donna Lass per-say, but he did hint to victim number 12 being in the Lake Tahoe area and Donna was the only person missing from there,other than the Doctor who went missing soon after.
Then of course the Christmas letter to Donna’s sister about Donna, very much like what Zodiac enjoyed doing. Tormenting family members, like Darlene’s mother after he killed Darlene. Not many people know about that.

It would appear RPD was wrong when they said the middle wire info was not in any local papers. I guess the only quibble would be what is local. We have the advantage of the internet. Redlands is only 20 miles away, but it is a half hour car trip. Apparently RPD just looked at Riverside and immediate local papers. Would the Bates killer have a reason to drive a half hour to Redlands to buy a newspaper? I can’t think of a good reason to say it is likely that he would, but of course it is possible he did. So RPD was wrong about middle wire being something only the killer would know. We still have the fact that they say the letter writer’s description about the murder included details that were correct and not published in any paper. But I guess a skeptic could argue that the details in the letter could have been cobbled together from info in the papers, talking to an ambulance attendant – hospital worker or just some lucky guesses. That seems unlikely to me.

But what clinches it for me is the letter writer mentioning the phone call. RPD and the FBI seem to find that very convincing. There was a phone call that might, and apparently by virtue of its early nature and / or details of what was in the call, RPD seems to think the call was from the killer. No phone call was mentioned in the papers. Morf – Tahoe – others, how do you explain the call? For the writer to have just guessed there was a call seems incredibly ballsy and lucky. I don’t buy it.

Also, since evidence strongly points to Zodiac being the letter writer and poem writer, I don’t buy that another killer, not Zodiac, just happened to be in the same town as Zodiac, picked "Z" as a name, used double postage, Calif, sent 3 letters, etc.. And I don’t know of any other serial killer who started by claiming credit for a crime he didn’t do. To me it all adds up to being 95% likely or better that the letter writer was the killer, and 95% likely or better that the letter writer – poem writer was Zodiac.

Simply put, there is nothing in that letter, specifically, that only the killer could have known. Did the knife tip actually even break off? I can’t recall. Either way,this article appeared in San Bernardino papers, the town next over from Riverside.
Authorities in the Bates case and the Zodiac case are convinced, Zodiac did not kill Cheri. Did he write the letters in here case? That’s still on the table. I think that physical evidence, DNA, etc has led them to this conclusion. I’m hoping that news will be forthcoming, as I have heard rumblings that there may be some movement in both the Zodiac, and Bates cases, that I can’t give too many specifics about.

At this point, I’d have to say,it’s quite likely Zodiac did NOT kill Cheri, but regardless, two points need to be focused on:

1) Cheri’s case, no matter who killed her, needs to be solved. She deserves justice.

2)If Zodiac did not kill Cheri,but wrote the letters in her case as well as the RCC desk poem, that’s a major clue that needs to be properly followed up on and investigated. That would eliminate a lot of suspects.

That’s correct Mike, nothing in the Confession letter is unique to the killer. "The ignition coil is the unit that takes your relatively weak battery power and turns it into a spark powerful enough to ignite fuel vapor. Inside a a traditional ignition coil are two coils of wire on top of each other. These coils are called windings. One winding is called the primary winding, the other is the secondary. The primary winding gets the juice together to make a spark and the secondary sends it out the door to the distributor. You’ll see three contacts on an ignition coil, unless it has an external plug, in which case the contacts are hidden inside the case. The large contact in the middle is where the coil wire goes (the wire that links the coil to the distributor cap)."
Such an article below shows that ‘the distributor and coil wire had been torn loose.’ So when the author of the Confession letter described pulling the middle wire, he knows that is the coil wire, that links the coil to the distributor cap.

You both make some good points. But neither of you deal with the most convincing piece of evidence, the phone call. The letter writer says he made a phone call that night, and RPD confirms there was a call made that night. That info was not in any papers. For a hoaxer to just guess there was a call that night seems incredible to me.