Cool stuff! I never noticed the "filler" aspect of this puzzle but that certainly seems to be the case. I’m skeptical about the use of anagrams or attempts to encode other secret words or messages. I honestly think that the word search was Rader’s best effort at emulating Zodiac and that he probably couldn’t anagram his way out of a paper bag. FYI, the speculation about P.J. Wyatt turned out to be a red herring. "PJ" was Rader’s personal code word for a "project", which he called potential victims and assigned them various "project names".

Yes the filler stuff seems pretty compelling.

I wasn’t giving very much thought to this. It’s just something that realised looking at it. I’m not completely up on past discussions anywhere regarding this particular puzzle so apologies if this has been covered. It bugs me that the numbers are out of alignment. I could see from just looking at it that they are out of alignment as a whole group. i.e not random dispersion.

Here they are shifted back into alignment. I just lifted them as a complete group, retaining position and spacing and moved them left back into alignment with the columns. Might be useful for visual reference?

The numbers aren’t random either. 6220 was Rader’s street address, which along with "D. Rader" in the puzzle might have at least made somebody scratch their head if someone (like his wife) already had suspicions. 259 is the number for Wichita Public Schools. 316 is a Wichita area code, which lead some to believe that the rest of the numbers might indicate a phone number (316-268-2043). I seem to recall that being registered to a local hospital but my memory might be a little fuzzy.

Again, this puzzle was never actually released to the public until BTK was captured. Most of it was picked up by an astute poster in a discussion forum like this and posted on-line. Wichita P.D. had already concluded that it was a simple word search and of no value to the investigation. To me, it stands as a good example of why this kind of stuff SHOULD be made public. It may not have helped but then again someone may have recognize something of note in the content or construction of the puzzle. Instead, they chose to publicize BTK’s stated autobiography, which was a bunch of crap and rapidly led to the arrest of an innocent man.

http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/1527 … vice=phone

The numbers aren’t random either. 6220 was Rader’s street address, which along with "D. Rader" in the puzzle might have at least made somebody scratch their head if someone (like his wife) already had suspicions. 259 is the number for Wichita Public Schools. 316 is a Wichita area code, which lead some to believe that the rest of the numbers might indicate a phone number (316-268-2043). I seem to recall that being registered to a local hospital but my memory might be a little fuzzy.

Again, this puzzle was never actually released to the public until BTK was captured. Most of it was picked up by an astute poster in a discussion forum like this and posted on-line. Wichita P.D. had already concluded that it was a simple word search and of no value to the investigation. To me, it stands as a good example of why this kind of stuff SHOULD be made public. It may not have helped but then again someone may have recognize something of note in the content or construction of the puzzle. Instead, they chose to publicize BTK’s stated autobiography, which was a bunch of crap and rapidly led to the arrest of an innocent man.

http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/1527 … vice=phone

I just got chills when I reads this. It creeps me out…

Which part, Tahoe? I think part of Wichita P. D.’s motivation for not releasing this stuff was that they did not want to exacerbate the fear that existed in the area at the time. I suppose some of the stuff in the puzzle would remind everyone that he was still in the area, still potentially stalking and could be just about any older male. His communications sought to foster that fear of him as an omnipresent bogeyman. There’s no doubt that BTK was a scary presence in the community, especially for women.

It’s my belief, however, that they erred on the side of shielding the public by providing far too little actual information. Sure, they requested help from the public but what is the public supposed to base suspicions on when they are given little or no information? I’ve mentioned before that WPD even opted not to acknowledge a letter sent by BTK long after many people believed he had either died or left the community. That, IMHO, borders in being irresponsible.

Which part, Tahoe? I think part of Wichita P. D.’s motivation for not releasing this stuff was that they did not want to exacerbate the fear that existed in the area at the time. I suppose some of the stuff in the puzzle would remind everyone that he was still in the area, still potentially stalking and could be just about any older male. His communications sought to foster that fear of him as an omnipresent bogeyman. There’s no doubt that BTK was a scary presence in the community, especially for women.

It’s my belief, however, that they erred on the side of shielding the public by providing far too little actual information. Sure, they requested help from the public but what is the public supposed to base suspicions on when they are given little or no information? I’ve mentioned before that WPD even opted not to acknowledge a letter sent by BTK long after many people believed he had either died or left the community. That, IMHO, borders in being irresponsible.

Sorry entropy–

Just the way he used the numbers that were familiar to him. The street addresss, the school, area code. It’s just creepy. I guess it makes sense for one to use something familiar. It’s all just so psychotic…

A contributor offers his analysis of the BTK word puzzle: http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/?p=499

After doranchak posted my BTK puzzle analysis I came across this forum. Traveller, you might want to take a look at my work, especially concerning the odd placement of the numbers.

After doranchak posted my BTK puzzle analysis I came across this forum. Traveller, you might want to take a look at my work, especially concerning the odd placement of the numbers.

Yes I saw that dj. TBH I’m not mathematically minded in anyway shape or form and most cipher stuff goes over my head but that’s never stopped me lol. I will need to re-read your analysis quite a few times before it makes sense to me and even then it probably won’t be in the way it’s supposed to make sense. The numbers thing did however catch my attention. I think because, quite recently I was musing about the possibility that numbers were used in the 340 ie dates, addresses or whatever and maybe that’s what throwing us? Thanks for the suggestion because it might help me concentrate and learn something lol.

P.S. I’ve also got a mind like a sieve when it comes to certain things. I’ve just looked back over this thread and had forgotten I’d posted the puzzle with the numbers re-aligned.

Hmmmm I thought I’d found one that had been missed but unfortunately it requires mild anagramming. Curses.

Y’all probably already noticed but the BTK puzzle was divided into 3 parts (sound familiar?), which are essentially titled by the beginning letters of each section: (MO, ID, RUSE) and the words to be found roughly correspond to those titles.

His MO: FANTASIES, VICTIM, DETAILS

His ID (apparently both real and falsely used):
OFFICER, TELEPHONE CO, the school district number (false IDs)
6220 (Rader’s street address), ADT (Rader ironically worked for ADT security company installing home security systems), DRADER.
Interesting that the false info. is very straight forward while the apparent true info. is misaligned or non-linear.

His RUSE: REALTORS, SERVICEMAN, LOST PET (i.e. ways Rader was able to gain access to people’s homes).

The puzzle is an interesting mishmash but there are certainly kernels of truth littered through it that might have been useful if this was made public and someone who already suspected Rader had seen it. I see little downside in releasing this other than the desire to not give him attention.

Someone pointed out to me that the word puzzle has exactly 340 letters and numbers in it. I counted them to verify and it does appear to be true. Interesting coincidence!

Yes. Might not be a coincidence at all….one psycho admiring another’s work, maybe.

To flip this thread on its head somewhat, I came across this the other day, which is one hell of a strange coincidence :
http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/340-cipher-9×9-grid-by-john-rose

Not sure if it’s been covered on this forum yet?
So what we have here is a potential partial solution to the 340 (if you consider that the majority might be filler and the essential details are random but relevant details like ‘by knife/by gun’ etc) along with the random sequence RADER. The circular Zync here is quite mind-boggling.

I can see how someone could come across this discovery randomly by using Doranchak’s tool that we all know and love, but I would be really interested in hearing from any of the serious cipher guys if they think this could be a platform for further discovery or if it is indeed just of of those frustrating coincidences?