Mike Butterfield also published some correspondence he shared with Patricia Hautz, a student contemporary with the event, who admitted having sent that letter, as I recall Trav. Perhaps some info from his site might be forthcoming?
It was good, in that it included another sample of her writing, showing her rather recognisable capital "P".

No explanation was ever tendered for that rather "Z-like" message about rushing it to the Editor on the envelope, though.

Mike Butterfield also published some correspondence he shared with Patricia Hautz, a student contemporary with the event, who admitted having sent that letter, as I recall Trav. Perhaps some info from his site might be forthcoming?
It was good, in that it included another sample of her writing, showing her rather recognisable capital "P".

No explanation was ever tendered for that rather "Z-like" message about rushing it to the Editor on the envelope, though.

Mike Butterfield got her writing just before I did. Both the writing he got, and the writing I got for Hautz,proved that she very likely wrote the envelope.

Mike Butterfield also published some correspondence he shared with Patricia Hautz, a student contemporary with the event, who admitted having sent that letter, as I recall Trav. Perhaps some info from his site might be forthcoming?
It was good, in that it included another sample of her writing, showing her rather recognisable capital "P".

No explanation was ever tendered for that rather "Z-like" message about rushing it to the Editor on the envelope, though.

Actually she did not admit to sending that letter. She seemed to have no memory of writing that specific and very unusual letter. She did say she sent letters to the editor, and that the writing on the envelope was hers. I agree the writing on the envelope is hers. Credit to Mike Butterfield for his work, also to Bentley, Foreigner, Morf13, Ricardo, Bruce3, Quagmire, Sandy Betts and many other researchers who contributed to this aspect of the case. I transferred some of the most interesting and relevant posts from the 18 page thread below!

For most people, that was enough, and they just assume she forgot writing this specific letter or did not want to admit it. For me, I was not quite satisfied. The letter itself is cold and unfeeling towards Cheri, really its insulting to her, and asks for sympathy and understanding for her killer. I have a hard time imagining a young women writing such a letter and an even harder time imagining that she would not remember having done so. Maybe she did forget or maybe she did not want to admit it. I am 75% satisfied she wrote the letter…but I still have doubts.

She claims no memory of writing this particular letter but the matter is odd enough and the subject dramatic enough that anyone would remember writing it. There is a cross out on the envelope and my thought is Z fished this out of the garbage wrote "attn: Editor"’ on it and put his typed letter in it and mailed it.

MORF: Yeah, I have to admit, if I wrote something like that, even 40 years later, I think I would remember it. Not that a 7 year old would remember writing something when they are 47, but if you write something like that at age 18, you should remember it later on.

I think Bentley did some great work blowing up and enhancing postmarks on the envelope. Anybody ever do a closeup if the writing on it side by side with Z?? [The work of Bentley showed that the envelope was dated "Nov 1" and thus was the envelope sent to the Riverside Press that contained the "Hautz" letter. – AK]

Ricardo has a great section about the Hautz letter here:
http://mk-zodiac.com/ThePatriciaHautzMystery.html

This is the sample I sent to Ricardo which he posted:

She DEFINITELY wrote on that envelope. That is, without a doubt, her name written on the envelope,in her own cursive writing.(see her signatures I was able to get from her above)

So I have ZERO DOUBT she wrote on that envelope. Now whether or not she wrote ATTN EDITOR,or typed the letter inside,I can’t say.

THE FOREIGNER: At least , the odds that the envelope indeed IS the envelope that the PH letters was sent in, is pretty high, due to that, the envelope indeed has Zodiac handwriting on it, in the "ATTN: Editor"

Here you can compare

AK WILKS: Both say "ATTN:", then indicate intended party. Both have the "T" ‘s meet. The handwriting of "Editor" on the questioned envelope matches other Z writing.

QUAGMIRE: Pretty much agree about everything said in the last few posts. To me at least, Pat Hautz wrote that Riverside envelope. Looking at the facts:

1. An opinionated letter is sent to her local paper in 67 signed Pat Hautz with female looking writing on the envelope.
2. Acquaintances of Pat recently say that she was known to do that type of thing.
3. Pat is tracked down and admits she used to write letters to the editor at the time.
4. Pat says she doesn’t remember that particular letter but agrees it is her writing.
5. Many independant people check the writing and just about all agree that it is a match – not just the extremely unique "p" but most other letters too.

Most police using logical analysis would say Pat wrote that envelope and seeing that Pat agrees I think we can probably be 99% certain.

What is confusing though is the whole tone of the letter. As a fellow woman, she seems to have no empathy for Cheri and is more worried about the bad press this "boy" is getting. This leads me to 3 possible conclusions:

1. She either has a good idea or at least an inkling who the murderer was and feels sorry for him.
2. She simply likes to argue from the other side of the fence and raise contoversial topics. It does seem true that for someone to commit this kind of murder, they must have had an appalling childhood and suffered some form of traumatic experiences.
3. Someone else who knew of her or had access to a letter written by her, found her discarded envelope (in a classroom, library, etc?) and typed a letter himself using her envelope – possibly adding the Attn:Editor to the envelope.

If we take option 1, this is a huge lead as 40 years later someone has been tracked down who might have some serious information about the Bates murder.

Option 2 is not out of the question at all. As an example I personally despise paedophiles, but reading info and watching documentaries about how most paedophiles were once kids who were raped/abused themselves and grow up damaged, you do sometimes look at the bigger picture and try to see things from the perp’s point of view. It’s a scary thought but the sad little kids who are victims today have a good chance of being the perp in the future. We can’t help but feel sorry for them when we see these kids’ faces on TV but it’s easy not to feel any sympathy for them when we see their 30 year old faces 20 years later in the news. There’s a feeling that someone should have helped them before they got to that point. Certainly food for thought and maybe it’s understandable why an opinionated letter writer might just try to raise a point looking at it from another angle? I do feel that in this case, Pat would remember having such a strong viewpoint and having submitted a letter about it. Ashamed to admit it? Possibly.

Looking at option 3, I have always thought this was highly unlikely however the more I think about it, the more plausible it sounds. I still think it’s an outside bet but we can certainly say that we have deduced that Z was a sly old fox and a compulsive liar who took a lot of inspiration from various sources and misdirected the police and public whenever he could. He quoted lyrics from operas, themes and titles from movies, used various mis-spellings to probably look less intelligent than he was, used different handwriting styles, posted letters from different locations so he couldn’t be traced, told us his identity was in a cipher and once it was cracked we would have him but this turned out to be a lie. He had different hair, glasses, clothing, etc from one murder to the next and seemed to lie about who or who not he had killed. The Bates letters were seemingly written with the "wrong" hand and the confession letter was typed and a 13th generation carbon copy was posted to avoid being tracked back to him. All of this has created massive confusion as to who the hell he was – we aren’t even sure there wasn’t even two or three Z’s. Considering all this, it seems that picking up a discarded envelope from a bin and putting one of his typed letters into it is quite a very normal thing for such a person to do and in fact does indeed perfectly fit his MO. As in option 1, this is a lead because we know have a valid connection between the perp having some solid link to either Pat Hautz or Riverside Press.

Just a possible theory but if option 3 were the case, what if young Z had access to letters submitted to Riverside Press? Could he have worked there as a young clerk or been a janitor, etc? Maybe Pat’s letter just happened to be one that wasn’t sealed properly or could the envelope have been steamed open? All he’d need to do would have access to a submitted envelope to the paper with a signed letter inside and voila – he has a stamped envelope and a writer’s name so all he has to do is type his little note, put it in the envelope and leave it in the editors in-tray. He could even have added Attn:Editor to it. It’s not that far-fetched when we think that Z was very cunning and had a compulsive thing about letter submission to editors. If he temped at a newspaper or cleaned/maintained the offices then it would be ridiculously easy to do.

Sorry for the lengthy thesis – I should stop and breathe when I’m typing!

MORF13: Good points QUAGMIRE!

We may never know the real answers, as she herself did not even remember if she wrote that letter. But you are correct, the typed letter (maybe from her, maybe not-although the envelope certainly apparently is)has no empathy or sensitivity regarding Cheri Bates. If Hautz was so moved to write a letter after reading about Cheri, then why write such a letter that is cold to Cheri, and sensitive to the killer? A killer that she seems to know as a "boy".

I know we are really writing the backstory ourselves by saying maybe someone found her envelope and used it, but it could explain some stuff. I know people can print in an address or something after the fact on an envelope. But here, we have a typed envelope, cursive address, and printed "Attn Editor". That seems a little more unlikely. Maybe a "fellow student" of hers, found the letter or intercepted it?? Maybe a mailboy at the paper, or some other worker, (who was Bates killer, and/or Z)intercepted it and added his own commentary? As unlikely as these scenarios are, they should be checked out.

These questions remain-

1) Patricia says it was her writing on the envelope. Thats fine. But is that her printed writing as well? (wish Butterfield had thought to ask for printing)

2) When she would write to the paper, did she TYPE, or HANDWRITE her letters?

3) Does she remember or know ZODE, her fellow schoolmate?(Later mentioned as a Z suspect), and if so, how, and on what level?

4) Why/How does she know the killer was a "Boy"? This one will probably never be known since she can’t remember the letter itself clearly.

AK WILKS: With option 2, she may have wrote the letter, does remember, but is embarassed to admit it. At the time she wrote the letter, nobody was saying Bates was killed by Zodiac. Most speculation seemed to be it was a local boy, an ex-boyfriend, a confused kid, maybe as the confession letter said someone who had got brush offs over the years. Slightly more feasible to see how a contrarian person might play the "Devils Advocate" for a local boy gone bad, a confused kid who killed once in a moment of anger or madness. But now that Zodiac claimed credit for Bates, Morrill identifies the Riverside handwriting as Zodiac, and most speculation today is that Bates was killed by the Zodiac serial killer, a brutal man who hunted down teens for his sick sport, she might well decline to explicitly say she wrote the letter.

It would be interesting to know if the typewriter she owned is compatible with the letter.

Quag = "3. Someone else who knew of her or had access to a letter written by her, found her discarded envelope (in a classroom, library, etc?) and typed a letter himself using her envelope – possibly adding the Attn:Editor to the envelope."

Doug Oswell wrote the following, years before this issue, saying Zodiac might have done exactly this thing:

Improvements in image-enhancement have revealed the presence of a "writer’s palm" moving from left to right across the surface of Zodiac’s Exorcist Letter:

While the authorities are apparently convinced that this "writer’s palm" could have originated only from the hand that wrote the letter, two circumstances militate against this conclusion as an absolute certainty. Perhaps most significantly is the fact that no other palm prints of this nature were found on any of the Zodiac correspondences from 1969 through 1971, suggesting that Zodiac understood full well the importance of masking his prints during composition of the letters.

Moreover, further enhancements of the letter clearly indicate that the odd-sized sheet of paper had been more-or-less loosely crumpled, then smoothed-out prior to its having been written on:

This suggests that the paper had been written on by a third party, crumpled, discarded, and retrieved by Zodiac for use as a means of confounding the authorities in their investigation.

In the final analysis, fingerprints cannot be relied upon as exclusionary tools, until or unless authorities can match specific prints with other prints to ensure that they indeed were made by Zodiac.

BRUCE3: Like the 1/29/74 note the PH letter is crumpled and flattened. Why I don’t know.FYI

AK WILKS: I never noticed that or heard it discussed, but it does look very rumpled and crinkled, consistent with it being thrown away and rescued from the trash. And the envelope has the cross out, also consistent with it being tossed out.

This is the actual article the "Hautz" letter refers to, it was obtained by MORF13.

These pictures also appeared with the article.

———————————————-

Bruce3 noted the letter looked very wrinkled, and I posted the above. The possibility being discussed – fairly speculative, I admit, and probably impossible to ever prove – is based on the following:

1. Pat Hautz admits to writing letters to the editor.

2. Pat Hautz apparently has no memory of writing this particular letter, despite the odd and memorable subject matter.

3. The paper the letter was typed on is extremely crinkled, possibly meaning it was got from trash.

4. The envelope cursive writing appears to be a strong match to the writing of Pat Hautz.

5. The envelope has a cross out on it, indicating it may have been thrown away and got from the trash.

6. The print writing of "ATTN: Editor" matches the style of the confession envelope and the handwriting of Zodiac.

7. There is some evidence to suggest Zodiac perhaps got the paper for the Exorcist letter from the trash.

I have seen pictures of Cheri Bates blonde, but I think that is her with darker hair from the newspaper story, above on the left. Compare to picture of "Pat Hautz". Somewhat similar look. Both girls are very attractive, short to medium darker hair, big smiles, kind of a glow to them.

One other possibility is what if Zodiac was following Pat Hautz? There seems to be a basic similarity in look between Bates and Hautz. Young girls of about the same age, same hair length, both very pretty, both intelligent. What if Z was following Hautz, and saw her throw away the envelope – it does have a cross out on it, and big enough that most people would throw it away I think. What if Z thought it might be a great way to send a letter to the editor in a way that would not be traceable to him? Who knows – and I am getting into pure speculation, here, I admit – what if he even thought it might be interesting to have a letter from Pat Hautz, with her actual handwriting on the envelope, expressing sympathy for the "boy" who killed Bates? And maybe he even contemplated making Hautz a victim, with police then looking at the letter expressing sympathy for the "boy" that killed Bates as possible evidence that Hautz knew the Bates killer and thus her killer?

I think the majority of the Z research world will accept Pat Hautz as the likley writer based on the handwriting match to the envelope, and the police seem to have no interest. And that may well be the simplest and most logical answer. I can live with that I guess.

But I think it is possible the Hautz envelope was retrieved from the trash and used by Zodiac to send something he typed, and that he printed "ATTN: Editor" on the envelope. But I doubt that can ever be proven, and most will reject it as too far fetched, though it seems Z did get the paper for the Exorcist letter out of the trash, and it does explain why Hautz has no memory of writing this letter, and why the "ATTN:Editor" matches Zodiac writing and the "P" matches Hautz writing.

There’s a weird imprint hidden on this. Also, as I’ve long suspected, I don’t think the ATT bit is on the envelope. You can see, once it’s been enhanced the possible bottom to the envelope.

I’ve also see, I think, an example of PH’s writing, in a book or notebook, where she uses the ‘exact’ same P as the one on the envelope. Can’t find it at the moment though.

TRAV – Is this the one you mean? I think it matches the envelope.

From MORF: As I promised, I have obtained OFFICIAL STATE PAPERS that show the real "Patricia Hautz’s" signature:

first sig is from 1987:

From MORF:

The letter was dated 11/1/67 as seen here:

The writer mentions the OCT1 human interest story. Of course, we verified that there was NO human interest story from 10/1/67, so the writer either made an error with the date, or purposely lied,but either way the writer was wrong.

Next, Bentley enhanced the image of the envelope thought to have contained the Hautz letter. Seen here:

The date on the envelope matches up with the date of the Hautz letter.

Next, Foreigner did an image enhancement for the aprox size of the envelope to see if it could actually have housed all the words & writing properly.

Foreigner wrote: "Here I have made an "envelope" (blue lines) in the size Howard Davis stated that the envelope was; "The envelope is 63/4 inches in length and the width is 4 1/4 inches And then I have placed it within a copy of the envelople the size it have been posted on Z.com, which seems to that it have been enhanced a bit. The result seems that the "ATTN: Editor" indeed was placed on the front of the envelope, due to that the proportions seems to fit."

Bentley followed up with this post:
"TF, I think you are correct here, nice work. Upon enhancing the image what looks like a rectangle starting above Editor appears to be some scanning anomaly. It still doesn’t measure right on my screen but that may be due to the size of the screen. So it looks like the ATTN: Editor does indeed belong on the front of the envelope and I was in error."

and this scan:

The results of all this seem to indicate that the letter & envelope share the same date. And that ALL of the writing, cursive and printed, could have fit on the envelope. Still leaves some questions, but answers some also.

There’s a weird imprint hidden on this. Also, as I’ve long suspected, I don’t think the ATT bit is on the envelope. You can see, once it’s been enhanced the possible bottom to the envelope.

Wow Trav – nice. True you think, not on the envelope? It’s tough, this.

I’ve also see, I think, an example of PH’s writing, in a book or notebook, where she uses the ‘exact’ same P as the one on the envelope. Can’t find it at the moment though.

Yes you have, Mike Butterfield secured it I’m sure – and I think it’s on one of Pat’s old schoolbooks, as I recall. In the margin of a story or something. (I’ll go find it later unless you beat me to it.)

Yeah I’m not sure either now. It does look like the line is created by the anomaly so the ATT bit could well be on the envelope.

Somebody may have copied the envelope,and then wrote TO THE EDITOR on the copy to make it look more suspicious,sinister, or compelling. I hope nobody would do that,but that’s what it looks like

Dollars to donuts she knows who the killer is. Cops need to sit her down and ask her some tough questions.

It’s obvious why people see a Z connection here, but what is it that led researchers to this letter? Was it published in the newspaper or a police report as a Zodiac connection, or did someone just happen to stumble upon it while looking through letters to the editor?

As always it’s a problem of motivation. Why would Z send a letter under someone else’s name and address, and with their own handwriting too? And if the aim was to obscure his identity, including typing the message, then why include his own handwriting and trademark phrase? I could buy that he wanted to "tease" with his identity, but wasn’t confident enough in making it obvious, so it was a secret thrill, but he already wrote letters in his own hand and sent them to the police and newspapers so it doesn’t make sense that he’d be worried about being identified with his writing. Then of course he never again wrote under someone else’s real identity, even after he stopped being "Zodiac".

The idea of someone finding out about the letter after the fact and then writing some hoaxed copied Z print on the front of it makes the most sense to me. Sure killers do weird things, but they don’t usually do things that are pointless and contradictory to the rest of the things they do.

Edit: PS. I now see that this letter was given to Howard, so as far as I can tell it has no contemporary relevance to the case. That cements it for me that the person who gave it to him, or from whomever they might have acquired it from probably hoaxed it.

Ducky – hiya – the letter came from Patricia H., as conclusively proven by Mike B, and originated with her, so "The idea of someone finding out about the letter after the fact and then writing some hoaxed copied Z print on the front of it makes the most sense to me.. " too.
Who or why, I wouldn’t know.

….but he already wrote letters in his own hand and sent them to the police and newspapers so it doesn’t make sense that he’d be worried about being identified with his writing.

I couldn’t agree more.

….but he already wrote letters in his own hand and sent them to the police and newspapers so it doesn’t make sense that he’d be worried about being identified with his writing.

I couldn’t agree more.

I have to agree with you, I used to be really interested in this letter, but I just don’t think it’s as mysterious anymore as alot of people think. I still find it interesting that she did go to school with ‘zode’, and I also find it odd that she could not specifically remember writing that letter, but I do agree, the name PATRICIA HAUTZ written on the envelope was done by her

It could be that when the newspaper opened their letters to the editor they did not keep the letters and envelopes straight and ended up putting that typed letter into Patricia Hautz’ envelope by mistake.