The website (now not available online) crackproof.com examined the Zodiac communications and their associated postmarks. This indicated that the July 31st 1969 ‘408’ letters were franked in the Central Richmond District, and the Paul Stine letter, mailed two days after the murder, was franked in the Inner Richmond District. This doesn’t mean they were necessarily posted here, but processed at this location (these letters were franked 1A and 1B). However, they were very likely posted by the killer somewhere in the northwest region of San Francisco, with Richmond being a strong possibility.

Thanks, Richard.

I did a little digging of my own and found this ten year old thread on Tom V.’s website:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiack … ns#p118175

Apparently, two letters were intercepted directly at the mailboxes in which they were sent. I do not know which letters these were. Perhaps you could shed some light?

Anyways, according to Tom, one of the letters was placed in a mailbox on the corner of Van Ness and Union in the northeast portion of the city. The second was placed in a mailbox near the corner of Taravel and 23rd Street. These two locations are not near each other, and I do not know of any connection between the two locations.

Admittedly, I am not familiar with the Bay Area geography, but I’d be interested to know how these two locations line up with Kim Rosso’s geo profiling – especially as it pertains to routes in and out of the San Fran area.

ETA:

In doing some google mapping, it appears as if the two locations you mentioned are NOT the same as the ones mentioned in the above video. That provides even more opportunity pin down and possibly geo profile.

San Francisco is geographically small! The city also has an excellent public transportation system. It is a very easy thing to get all over in a very short amount of time. It is pointless to investigate these mailboxes imo as Zodiac would have been able to mail the letters from anywhere; he was smart enough not to mail them close to his home nor from the same boxes imo!

He likely folded the August 4th 1969 letter twice down its centre and delivered it to the San Francisco Examiner by hand. This may indicate he either lived and worked in San Francisco, or lived in the Bay Area and dropped it off early Monday morning by hand on his way to work.

He likely folded the August 4th 1969 letter twice down its centre and delivered it to the San Francisco Examiner by hand. This may indicate he either lived and worked in San Francisco, or lived in the Bay Area and dropped it off early Monday morning by hand on his way to work.

Yes, I’ve read your blog post about this. It’s interesting. I wish we could get confirmation.

Richard,

Is the Balboa Terrace mailing the same as the Taravel and 23rd Street mailing? Or a different one? They are both in general vicinity.

This is map a did a while ago, maybe it can of some use. The red lines are the street cars of the time.

One thing to note, all of these alleged drops occur with blocks of a major thoroughfare – California Route 1 which in that area is known as 19th Ave. Route 1 runs north through the Presidio and connects with 101 which in turn runs north and connects with 37. 37 takes you right to Vallejo/American Canyon. About an hour drive from Vallejo and Zodiac is over the Golden Gate Bridge and in northwest San Fran.

There are also six postal dropboxes in the Richmond area. They are located at:

Anza and 14th
600 Clement St.
498 6th Ave
5305 California S
100 20th Ave
200 17th Ave

All of these are with just a few blocks of Route 1.

Richard Grinell said;
"He likely folded the August 4th 1969 letter twice down its centre and delivered
it to the San Francisco Examiner by hand."

Maybe.
I see the possibility that the Zodiac read his Sunday afternoon S.F. Examiner
and tried to ensure that Zodiac’s reply to Jack Stiltz’s challenge would be brought
to the notice of one of the newspapers he had previously written to (S.F. Chronicle,
S.F. Examiner, Vallejo Times–Herald) in the shortest time possible. He achieved
this by simply dropping the unenveloped stapled,folded or paperclipped pages in a
USPS street pickup postbox with the assumption it would come to the attention of
a postal inspector pretty quickly – either initially noticed by whoever cleared the
street postbox, or shortly afterward that night in the USPS mail sorting facility.
By having no envelope, he ensured there would be no chance that the postal
employees wouldn’t immediately read the pages and by marking it ‘NO ADDRESS’
i.e. no return address with no stamps, he ensured it would be brought to
the attention of whichever newspaper the postal inspector forwarded it to – for
the simple reason that with no return address, USPS may ask the addressee
to accept delivery contingent on the addressee paying the outstanding postage.
(In the event, it’s possible the postal inspectors decided to waive the outstanding
postage fee and simply bought it to the immediate attention of the S.F. Examiner,
and possibly the police, first thing Monday morning.)
Also, by sending it like this, Zodiac assumed, probably correctly, that there was
no chance it might sit unnoticed amongst all the other received mail at the
newspaper, such that if it had been sent normally enveloped and stamped, the
newspaper mail openers might not open it until after Monday lunch or later.
Dropping it off at the S.F. Examiner is possible, but Zodiac may have reasonably
considered that that involves some risk – a security guard, a vagrant sheltering
in the entranceway near any building dropbox, an evening reporter or print employee
passing out of the building at that time, all are possible risks for being seen,
in what was likely to be a somewhat deserted business area on a late Sunday
afternoon, an area that the Zodiac if seen at, would have NO reasonable excuse
for being seen in the vicinity of if questioned about at some later date. (Also,
if seen placing something into a building dropbox – ‘Well, Sir, we are inquiring
what you placed in that dropbox on that date, as we know all the letter items
the newspaper received that weekend – which item was from YOU?’)…
Now consider instead if he posted it at say, the USPS street postbox at the corner
of Union St and Van Ness Ave, 37.798536, -122.423795 – there are multiple
eateries in the surrounding streets, particularly to the east, so to take a Sunday
late lunch or dinner in that vicinity gives an alibi to be in the area, and as it
is also residential, someone wearing gloves and placing something into a USPS
street postbox is unremarkable, and USPS doesn’t make a record of each mail
item, so if you were seen by someone, it can’t be later proved that it was a
Zodiac letter that YOU posted instead of just some other letter to some other
place.

Thanks for the input and well reasoned. Wherever the Zodiac dropped the folded sheets (possibly secured by paperclips or suchlike) it may help in narrowing his likely home location, if indeed he worked a standard 9-5 job. If he was working that Monday, it may indicate he either lived and worked in San Francisco, or lived somewhere in the Bay Area and travelled to San Francisco for work. Somebody living in say Napa and working there, would unlikely perform a roundtrip of 88 miles to hand deliver this letter, based on the least effort principle. So it may help from a geographical profiling stance to narrow the focus. San Francisco being the key – where he either lived or worked. Because I have collected lots of information suggesting Vallejo as his home base, this hand delivery strongly indicates to me he mailed his communications en route to work, which is why I can understand the desire to narrow down the mailboxes he used. Of course, there are other possibilities, in that he may have been on holiday that week, or temporarily unemployed, but after 50 years I believe in playing the percentages rather than creating 50 possible alternatives, that while could be true, are less likely.

Thanks for the input and well reasoned. Wherever the Zodiac dropped the folded sheets (possibly secured by paperclips or suchlike) it may help in narrowing his likely home location, if indeed he worked a standard 9-5 job. If he was working that Monday, it may indicate he either lived and worked in San Francisco, or lived somewhere in the Bay Area and travelled to San Francisco for work. Somebody living in say Napa and working there, would unlikely perform a roundtrip of 88 miles to hand deliver this letter, based on the least effort principle. So it may help from a geographical profiling stance to narrow the focus. San Francisco being the key – where he either lived or worked. Because I have collected lots of information suggesting Vallejo as his home base, this hand delivery strongly indicates to me he mailed his communications en route to work, which is why I can understand the desire to narrow down the mailboxes he used. Of course, there are other possibilities, in that he may have been on holiday that week, or temporarily unemployed, but after 50 years I believe in playing the percentages rather than creating 50 possible alternatives, that while could be true, are less likely.

Richard I concur in regards to his work. It can be said with almost certainty that he used the Golden Gate Bridge to travel to and from SF. You have two mailings on a Monday and one on a Tuesday (Possibly posted on Monday but franked the day after) both posted mailing were around Route 1 whilst on the PS attack he was heading away from SF center towards the Golden Gate bridge again. It was only in later mailings that he began to spread them out, maybe at the beginning he was not aware of the franking system being able to pinpoint a certain area.

I envision an scenario similar to the start of most serial killers MO i.e. at the start their sprees they act in a very close proximity of their homes before spreading outwards over time. He could have some tie to the Richmond district either working or parking in the area whilst traveling to work. I do find it interesting that this area is directly on the main street car line to downtown SF, so I would be inclined to believe the latter.

Richard –
Agree 100%. If he did hand deliver the letter to the SFC it would also mean that he diverted away from his apparent pattern of using dropboxes right off of Route 1. This would break his pattern. Sometimes a break in a pattern is more illuminating than the pattern itself.

Cragle –
Also agree. I think this indicates that if he lived in American Canyon/Vallejo, then he likely took the 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge and did his mailings in the northwest corner of San Fran.

I think this could be big. I’d love Kim Rosso’s input on this.

Yes, I have come to that conclusion also – that the killer arrived to and from work via the Golden Gate Bridge, and therefore his acquired knowledge of Presidio Park in this region of San Francisco. I also concur with Rex’s analysis of a Zodiac escaping across the park to the ideal place to park his vehicle – at the Lyon Street Steps. From here, a matter of minutes via Highway 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge. This separates him almost immediately from the San Francisco region. The fact that Donna Lass worked at the Letterman General Hospital and lived at 4122 Balboa Street, in this region of San Francisco, is a tantalizing aspect of the case. Could their paths have crossed?

Have you read Rossmo’s geographic profiling of Zodiac? – it is pretty extensive.

I tend to be skeptical of any Zodiac connection to Donna Lass. Admittedly, it’s an interesting coincidence.

I have read Rossmo’s paper several times. I believe an addition of this information regarding the location of the letter drops would add an important layer to that profile.