The CJB murder was much different than the LHR and BRS attack so of course there will be some difference in how they are spoke of. LHR and BRS were cold, dispassionate, in and out shootings, CJB was an up close and personal knife attack that involved a fight. Different emotions and thoughts.

The CJB murder was much different than the LHR and BRS attack so of course there will be some difference in how they are spoke of. LHR and BRS were cold, dispassionate, in and out shootings, CJB was an up close and personal knife attack that involved a fight. Different emotions and thoughts.

Why “of course,” CuriousCat?

I would say that, ‘of course’, if it were a different person we should expect different language/expression of intent—a difference of voice, which we clearly see. If, then, B accounts for A—help me out here—why would we ignore this and go looking for a C?

Correct, the two are incompatible. One seems very personal, the others impersonal. The Bates Confession letter is likely why LE concluded Bates knew her killer. The letter names her (other Z letters never name victims) and is sent to a relative (others aren’t). To me, it is obvious the killer knew Bates.

So far as I remember the only undistorted handwriting found in the CJB case is the desktop poem; all other communications are either typed or obviously distorted printing. Which leads me to suspect that the desktop poem is in the killer’s normal handwriting/printing.

The envelope, spelling of "twiched"…a few things that jump out.

I don’t think Zodiac killed Cheri, but am still on the fence about some of the writings….(possibly) a young man taking credit for more things he didn’t do…I don’t know. Just ramblings of another psycho I think. Heck, just a few months prior to Cheri, a young woman was stabbed at RCC. These creeps were everywhere and Cheri’s murder was written about in a detective magazine so this stuff gets copied. Guys who admire the work of another.

I agree

I think I said it somewhere else on the forum, but the first Zodiac letter is arguably the driest and most terse. Taking all the confirmed letters as a whole I think the similarities are very striking.

I think you can go astray trying to make one to one micro comparisons. It’s not hard for the same person to write in different styles, or have different tones. Say for example I was to write a shopping list and a children’s storybook. Someone might read both and think two entirely different people wrote them. But what if my shopping list and my children’s book contained lots of puns, even though the writing style is different you would have to conclude that both authors liked the same kind of puns and so you might conclude it’s the same author.

The Zodiacs style changed in different letters as he wrote about different topics, sometimes he changes the way he writes about the same topic, in the same letter. But his sense of humor and basic personality traits remain the same. He’s sardonic and painfully didactic, sometimes campy and theatrical. Those things don’t change.

I read those letters before ever seeing a case summary, I didn’t even understand exactly what they were when I first started exploring the website, but it intuitively sounded like the same dark individual to me. But that’s worthless subjective opinion.

I should do a closer examination and find some actual examples.

I think whenever you have people capable of murder, you find those same dark traits. Cra-cra….common ground.

Just a thought:
The reason for the differences, in MO and language/"voice," could be as simple as that the CJB murder was personal,
that Zodiac one way or the other was personally attached to CBJ but was not to any of his other victims.

I think it is helpful, some of the time, to come at something 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 twi[t]ched. 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 [*sic*.] sitting in the front seat when I began fireing [*sic*.] 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.

Good to see you’re still around, Mike – and congrats on the book!

Another thought: THE CONFESSION recounts a tortured past relationship between CJB and her killer. So far as I remember, none of the later Zodiac (or Zodiac ascribed) letters deals with past relationships. It seems Zodiac cared–albeit negatively–about CJB, whereas subsequent victims were more or less statistics secondary to the method/s used to kill them.

The question is how well it fits in the overall picture.

Bates seems personal. The attack is very violent, frenzied – and it follows what looks like a potentially lengthy interaction with the victim. The Confession letter is in line with this – it is also personal, suggests that the victim, in short, meant something to the writer. The “she had to die” notes are also personal in the sense that a copy was mailed to the victim’s family. Absolutely none of the above is reminiscent of what the canonical Zodiac did later.

If Zodiac did it, he doesn’t seem to have recognized it as part of his “campaign” before it was added to the series, so to speak, by the SFPD.

He had already established himself as a killer + letter writer – yet did not send any missive(s) after LHR. And when he did, after BRS, he took credit for LHR – but not for Bates. He didn’t list Bates at LB either (not part of his “opus” as per the car door).

When he finally came out to claim it, it had been published in the papers as an established fact: he only had to nod in agreement to add to his notoriety.

At some point before this happened, however, Zodiac seemed a bit rattled (if you ask me): he was nearly caught in SF, he was witnessed by multiple people, he unconvincingly (if you ask me) tried to downplay it by stating that he was in the habit of leaving “fake clews” and looking “entirle different” when he did his “thing”. And – crucially – that he was about to change his MO: he wouldn’t operate overtly anymore – but kill people without “announcing” it.

Sure, yeah, I did that thing in Riverside – nice that you finally caught on. And, by the way, there’s a lot more “down there”. Says the super villain. Yeah, right.