I knew there was something suspicious about poetry. Even in Primary (Elementary) school I knew it. Good find, even more stuff to look into.

Big Z had asked me about the circle dots that Zodiac uses. These are most evident in the "Exorcist letter" and on the Car Door.

I had considered these as well and hadn’t seen any in Manalli’s writing. I had noted his rather heavy approach to punctuation which is very similar to Zodiacs. By heavy I mean oversized and emphasized as opposed to a simple dot. What I wasn’t sure about was how he constructed these. As the letters are photocopies it not possible to say if a dot is a circle just because there’s a hole in the middle. It could be a solid dot but photocopying degradation can create a hole where there isn’t one.

I was happy enough to leave it as ‘inconclusive’, not least cause I got use a proper grown-up LE term lol. Then, of course, as this writing just keeps doing, something pops up.

Ignore the hole. Look at the outline. There looks to be evidence of a circular motion to create the dot.

They look almost like little x’s in the circle,almost like this:

Just while we’re looking at this I thought I’d check and what a surprise. Both Manalli and Zodiac do their circles in the same direction.

More Manalli/Zodiac comparisons.

The letetr K. Zodiac did not make his K’s like this most of the time. And neither did Manalli. But this is pretty close in my opinion. Zodiac’s is first & Manalli’s is 2nd. Then third is Zodiac’s again, only this time, I stood it more upright.

Another example of Manalli’s lower case i with the circle on top like Zodiac’s:

And now we have the right 4 as well.

More Manalli/Zodiac comparisons.

The letetr K. Zodiac did not make his K’s like this most of the time. And neither did Manalli. But this is pretty close in my opinion. Zodiac’s is first & Manalli’s is 2nd. Then third is Zodiac’s again, only this time, I stood it more upright.

Good stuff Morf although you should have used this k a few lines below.

I’m working on a comp for the dripping pen letter but I wanted to post this as I’ve spotted it. I’ll ad the full comp for this card once it’s done.

This shows what I’ll call the half W. I’ve seen this mentioned as a spelling error on occasion but it’s not, it’s just an incomplete w. And good old Fred has one too.

Curly and circle dots anyone?

It would be good to see another photo – Good luck.

So….though I’d try and focus on the more unique features of Zodiacs writing. Can’t get more unique than a one-off (you will excuse the pun). I thought this would prove elusive as it’s a unique ampersand from Zodiac and I was pretty sure I’d seen all of Manalli’s and didn’t recall any looking like it.

I was right…but then….AWWW come on Freddie, what are you doing to me. As in the regular zodiac ampersand a similarly constructed letter was found rather then an ampersand, it was Manalli’s lowecase t’s. This time it’s an O and as far as I can tell it’s a one off for Him as well.

Direction and flow very similar.

BTW I’m posting snippets as it were, not because I’m running out of similarities, on the contrary, there are too many and many more to come. I’m just having trouble with where to start lol.

EDIT: That ampersand is from page 2 of the bus bomb letter BTW

A quick synopsis of where I am with this so far.

There’s a lot more to do for one lol.

I’m trying to find something to rule him but to be honest I think it may come down to the wire and be beyond my amateur tinkering. I’m looking at Zodiac’s less well known traits but that at least is something good to come from this. It’s made me see things that I will use for future comparisons against other POI’s writings.

This guy’s writing has had me all over the place. It’s like following a dwindling trail of breadcrumbs and when you think that’s it done you trip over a loaf. As far as the Zodiac’s missives are concerned Manalli’s writing has been like a missing link. It seems to contain elements from all of the missives even the little peculiarities. Every little weird line shift or letter or spacing, every little tick, flick or stroke – they all appear.

I thought I’d done it. I thought I’d finally found something that I couldn’t account for in the Zodiac stuff. I’ll illustrate it in later work but basically it’s a little flick that Manalli puts on the crossbar of his lowercase t’s. It’s pretty much a running theme through all his writing no matter what the style or year. I can find things that look like a flick but I can’t say for definite if it counts and given it’s prevalence in Manalli’s writing I would have expected it to be somewhere.

There is reasonable evidence for it in the citizen letter (more to come on that letter BTW) but as for the bulk of the Zodiac stuff, nothing that would qualify.

Until…….LOAF! dagnammit.

It’s in the Count Marco letter and it appears only once in the line "suggest you refer him to a shrink". It’s in the word "to". The reason that Manalli puts that flick on his l/c t’s (IMHO) is that it’s an active remnant from joining the t to the next letter. In the Marco letter the author does just that and yes…..Manalli does it too and it’s a match. There are other elements of the Marco letter that appear in Manalli’s handwriting – quite a few actually and we’re talking right down to the shape of the flicks on the end of some of the hand-drawn lines.

So that’s roughly where it’s at so far. There are other comparisons to come and have been started but seriously, another analogy, it’s like putting together multiple, mixed up, jigsaws. I’ll be working on one thing and then "oh, that’s from the dripping pen card" or "that’s from the citizen letter" etc etc, right across the whole range of styles.

Despite all of this, I’m still not convinced because we basically more compelling evidence of a different nature. Locations etc.

Sorry for the long post but I can’t convey enough how unusual this guy’s handwriting has been beyond mere visual similarities. Regardless of the outcome it’s been and continues to be very intriguing and a learning experience and in that respect I’d like to thank Deb again for procuring the letters.

The key difference I spotted, was that everytime Manalli writes the word ‘the’, he capitalizes it, no matter what. Zodiac didnt do that, Trav, please check thru and see if I am correct.

Yup, you’re right.

I’ve had a quick look and he does it for the words the, this, and that. Haven’t checked it all but that seems pretty much the case throughout. Actually it’s any word that starts with ‘th’.

This has changed – there is an instance of the word ‘this’ all lowercase. I’ll post it when I spot it again.

Found it.

Found this interesting.

The "g’s" – I was working on the Count Marco card (which, after some things I’ve noticed, consider genuine) and I became aware of not only similarity in the shapes but also a pattern in them.

The pattern concerns the use of the double g’s in this example and I’ve seen this elsewhere throughout the letters – zodiac and manalli. When using doubles there is a slight variation on the type of g used, in the second double in the sequence. On the Marco card the second double is slightly shorter and starts to curve inward toward the first g. Manalli’s does the same. Manalli loops his second g in the series and, depending on how heavy he is with the pen, it can look like second g is curving in – like the Marco card.

And finally….the obvious bit – there’s two types of g used by the zodiac and Manalli. The one with the curled tail and the straight one with the smaller head.

Left hand tick from Zodiac and Manalli, This may prove important later on. Sorry for being cryptic but I can’t be bothered explaining lol…….ah to hell with it. It may concern use of alternating ticks – I say may because I can’t be bothered looking.

Ok I will do more on this but as the writing in the Marco letter (note?) is stylised this is probably the bulk of the interesting ones.