Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings - Zodiac Discussion Forum https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/ Zodiac Killer Discussion Board en-US Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:26:05 +0000 wpForo 60 Confession letter inspiration? https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/confession-letter-inspiration/ Tue, 04 May 2021 18:53:14 +0000
]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings morf13 https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/confession-letter-inspiration/ Bates and Zodiac mailing dates and anniversary themes https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/bates-and-zodiac-mailing-dates-and-anniversary-themes/ Wed, 08 Jul 2020 23:41:05 +0000 before Paul Avery published the Bates connection which the Zodiac appeared to sign off on. A theme the writer of the Bates had to Die letters seems to have also engaged in. It's not inconceivable that this is all coincidence except the Zodiac is the confounding variable because he is the sort of character who would be into things like this. The problem is that other offenders can come up with these anniversary ideas independently. Seems it's part of their whole totem phase. To find ways to rekindle the emotional need. Still then there is all the other stuff pointing at a connection between Bates and the Zodiac. I find it compelling or this guy was very familiar with the case down to the fact he picked up on the anniversary connection. Anyway seems Zodiac was doing it before Avery revealed the Bates connection which has this same thing going on.]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings BDHolland https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/bates-and-zodiac-mailing-dates-and-anniversary-themes/ CJB evidence https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/cjb-evidence/ Thu, 06 Feb 2020 08:40:46 +0000 Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings Dag MacLugh https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/cjb-evidence/ Beautiful blond https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/beautiful-blond/ Sun, 26 Jan 2020 18:48:02 +0000 little store. In Riverside, where would such store have been? - Z had known the 'beautiful blond' was babysitting. Babysitting, however, actually happens inside the house and usually not visible to neighbors etc. on the door step or in the garden. Thus, only an 'insider' would have known about her to be a babysitter at all. This, as the blond could also have been a cousin, friend, daughter or similar. Nevertheless Z was aware that she was actually babysitting. He knew that she had received money for taking care of one or more children. - Walking down a dark alley: Few locations where you could 'walk down' in the Riverside area, correct? - "each evening about seven" Z saw her 'each evening' about seven? What did he do there 'each evening'? If we search for the place Z had worked or lived at that time, this definitely is the area to search for. Also the question, where had been children to 'babysit' at all? QT]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings Quicktrader https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/beautiful-blond/ similarites between the zodiac & confession letter https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/similarites-between-the-zodiac-confession-letter/ Tue, 01 Oct 2019 01:31:36 +0000 DISCLAIMER : This thread does not suggest that the zodiac killer is the killer of Cheri Jo Bates. Neither does it suggest that the writer of the confession letter is the killer of Cheri Jo bates. Its just to compare the similarities between these two cases. ]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings Obsession https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/similarites-between-the-zodiac-confession-letter/ Same handwriting as on the "Bates Had to Die" letters? https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/same-handwriting-as-on-the-bates-had-to-die-letters/ Fri, 16 Aug 2019 12:38:09 +0000
]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings Eduard Versluijs https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/same-handwriting-as-on-the-bates-had-to-die-letters/ ‘The Confession’. How did it ever...? https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/the-confession-how-did-it-ever/ Wed, 15 May 2019 00:58:52 +0000 without all the background context, without preconceptions or frantic hopes built out of trying desperately to solve one intractable case by tying it to another. Having no favoured POI nor pet theory; having never read Graysmith (and without any intention of ever doing so); having, in all honesty, only a picture of ‘The Zodiac’ obtained through his actions, in the police reports, and his words through his letters; having all this, but only this, I can only express my thoughts on ‘The Confession’ letter by asking the question—How did it ever come about that anyone paid any due to the suggestion that this might have been penned (typed) by the author of the Zodiac letters? And I mean, ever. Let’s take a look at it—and, thankfully, we won’t have to be distracted by the enchanting spell of needing to attempt a ‘handwriting analysis’. No, all we have is the language, and through that language comes a voice—actually two voices; two voices, in fact, that are so far apart in space and time that I can’t but ask the question above. Both the author of ‘The Confession’ (Anon, let’s call him) and the later Zodiac both wanted us to know what they had done and have us believe it. Yet it is so absolutely evident that the former wanted to achieve much more than just that. He wanted—needed—for the recipient to be able to see the act being committed:
“I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth and my other hand with a small knife at her throat. She went willingly. Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands. ... She squirmed and shook as I choked her, and her lips twiched. She let out a scream once and I kicked her head to shut her up. I plunged the knife into her and it broke. I then finished the job by cutting her throat.”
His summary assessment of his triumph is that:
“She was young and beautiful. But now she is battered and dead.”
As to style, this is bold and direct use of imagery, forcing us to look at what we don’t want to look at, don’t care to see. The words are intended to cut right into us, where we know they will sit and fester and remain vivid even when we close our eyes. Yet, compare this to the first of the letters in which Zodiac announces and details the events of his atrocities at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs:
the murderer of the 2 teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman & the girl on the 4th of July near the golf course in Vallejo.”
He then goes on to itemise mundane details about the crime scene that only he could be expected to know, to ensure that he will be believed. Could this have been any less visual, any less impersonal? This is ‘shopping list’ narrative. Essentially, whereas Anon. is evidencing not only that he wants you to know he did it but that he wishes to glorify what he has done to the reader’s shock and disgust, Zodiac is just saying “well, I did this.” Sure, Zodiac is expecting to create shock also, but he is not skilled enough—or perhaps not motivated enough—to do it for the reader. The reader will have to do it for themselves. Zodiac does not, as far as I can tell in any of his communications, want or even need to dwell specifically on describing the frightened looks of his victims, or how they bled out and died. He does not, I don’t believe, even mention any by name, as Anon. does—they are just “victoms” Incidental, at that. Even where he does describe the scene in more detail, as in his second letter, Zodiac is clearly only presenting this again to confirm that he must be the killer; that is, to ensure credibility. Writing of the shooting of Mageau, he is once more utterly lost in a mere matter-of-factness, stating:
“The boy was origionally sitting in the front seat when I began fireing When I fired the first shot at his head, he leaped backwards at the same time thus spoiling my aim. He ended up on the back seat then the floor in back thrashing out very violently with his legs; that’s how I shot him in the knee.”
In this same letter, but in regard to the earlier double murder at Lake Herman Road, he could only spend enough ink on describing the mechanism by which he was able to shoot in the dark. So, for me—on this basis alone—there is one gaping disparity between the content of ‘The Confession’ and the Zodiac letters, in this: that whereas the Bates letter writer wants us to see all the gory details and to be clear about his sexualised motives in killing—and, by implication, had these motives—Zodiac didn’t, and pretty much never did anything much beyond give the facts. And of course, these two ‘voices’ speak of two different persons entirely—on the one hand the passion-driven, sexual murderer and, on the other, the wholly dispassionate, emotionless, asexual (mere) killer. And how these ever got mixed up, I can’t imagine.]]> Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings shaqmeister https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/the-confession-how-did-it-ever/ The "Sooo..." Letter https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/the-sooo-letter/ Fri, 10 May 2019 18:16:00 +0000 Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings marienbad https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/the-sooo-letter/ move from Chino to Riverside https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/move-from-chino-to-riverside/ Sun, 28 Apr 2019 09:02:53 +0000 Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings brubaker https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/move-from-chino-to-riverside/ RCC library achives https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/rcc-library-achives/ Sun, 30 Dec 2018 01:54:53 +0000 Cheri Jo Bates Case Letters & Mailings IthinkIknow https://forum.zodiackillerciphers.com/community/cheri-jo-bates-case-letters-mailings/rcc-library-achives/