Okay, thank you. Do the 11-8-69 and 4-20-70 envelopes say AM or PM?

Saturday 11-8-69 PM
Monday 4-20-70 AM

Thank you. The Saturday letter could have been mailed Friday afternoon, or evening, following the final Friday pickup for that box. The reason being, there was typically only one pick up from residential boxes on Saturdays, and that pickup would have likely received the PM stamp.

The Monday letter could have been mailed Monday morning.

Those scenarios would maintain the drop offs in the 19th Ave/Park Presidio corridor as being on weekdays.

Okay, thank you. Do the 11-8-69 and 4-20-70 envelopes say AM or PM?

Saturday 11-8-69 PM
Monday 4-20-70 AM

Thank you. The Saturday letter could have been mailed Friday afternoon, or evening, following the final Friday pickup for that box. The reason being, there was typically only one pick up from residential boxes on Saturdays, and that pickup would have likely received the PM stamp.

The Monday letter could have been mailed Monday morning.

Those scenarios would maintain the drop offs in the 19th Ave/Park Presidio corridor as being on weekdays.

Yes that certainly is possible

Hopefully someone will be able to clarify this for me. On the below Postal guide from 1971 in the Zones list the top option is Local. Could this be the reason why some of the postmarks do not have a Postal Zone on them i.e. the Letter was sent from the same postal zone as the delivery address ??

Hopefully someone will be able to clarify this for me. On the below Postal guide from 1971 in the Zones list the top option is Local. Could this be the reason why some of the postmarks do not have a Postal Zone on them i.e. the Letter was sent from the same postal zone as the delivery address ??

Yes, that’s exactly why some of the letters lack a 5 digit ZIP. If they were mailed within the city at that time, they were given a neighborhood code instead.

Cragle,

There were two letters that were missing postmarks completely. I don’t recall which ones they were, but those were the ones intercepted at the mailboxes at Taravel & 23 and Van Ness & Union.

Hopefully someone will be able to clarify this for me. On the below Postal guide from 1971 in the Zones list the top option is Local. Could this be the reason why some of the postmarks do not have a Postal Zone on them i.e. the Letter was sent from the same postal zone as the delivery address ??

Yes, that’s exactly why some of the letters lack a 5 digit ZIP. If they were mailed within the city at that time, they were given a neighborhood code instead.

Cragle,

There were two letters that were missing postmarks completely. I don’t recall which ones they were, but those were the ones intercepted at the mailboxes at Taravel & 23 and Van Ness & Union.

Sorry I was referring to the ones that have neither the ZIP or the neighbourhood code. Could the reason be that they have neither is due to the fact that they were posted from the same neighbourhood code as the recipient.

I’ve not come across any without postmarks and I can’t find reference to this in any of the FBI reports. All known letters, with the exception of the possible hand delivered 2nd letter, have their corresponding envelope with postmark.

That’s very strange, because Tom has said for many years that two letters were intercepted at the dropoff location – most likely by eagle-eyed letter carriers that recognized the handwriting. Those two letters were mailed from Taravel & 23rd and Van Ness & Union.

Here is the relevant video:

https://youtu.be/3s8cF1pBbuc

Here is the relevant thread from Tom’s site:

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

So, if a mailman discovered the letter at the mailbox, it shouldn’t have a postmark. Any explanations?

That’s very strange, because Tom has said for many years that two letters were intercepted at the dropoff location – most likely by eagle-eyed letter carriers that recognized the handwriting. Those two letters were mailed from Taravel & 23rd and Van Ness & Union.

Here is the relevant video:

https://youtu.be/3s8cF1pBbuc

Here is the relevant thread from Tom’s site:

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

So, if a mailman discovered the letter at the mailbox, it shouldn’t have a postmark. Any explanations?

The Taravel & 23rd would be a 3C code.
The Van Ness & Union would be a 7D or 8E

None of these codes are on any of the letters, Possibly 2 of the 3 without Zone codes on may be these ?

The Citizen code letter has a 3A postmark
13 Hole Card has a postmark, illegible but seems to include an A
Peek through the Pines – Don’t know as not seen a PM for this.

Tom does frequent this site so maybe he could help more ?

I’m not an expert on this, its simply information I have been able to obtain from the FBI reports.

Like I said due to Tom’s vagueness on which letters they were it could be possible that these may be unreleased up until now.

<So, if a mailman discovered the letter at the mailbox, it shouldn’t have a postmark. Any explanations?>

Correct, they wouldn’t have been postmarked. They would have been handed over to the police.

This is IF these letters were actually intercepted. Is there evidence of this, besides what Tom has said?

The evidence we have collected would indicate that the locations Tom has talked about as known locations for letter drops were not accurate. As you have pointed out, none of the postmarks show those district codes and all known letters have some postmark of some kind.

So, what gives?

Tom, can you provide some insight? Can anyone else, perhaps?

On another topic, I think the info provided by Cragle has given us some new insight. There appear to be three Zodiac "hot spots":

Richmond – 3 letter drops and the Stine murder all occurred there

Hayes Valley – 2 and possibly 3 (Little List?) mailings were done from here

Balboa Terrace/Miraloma – 3 mailings were done from here

Anyone know of any relationship these three areas might share?

Hopefully someone will be able to clarify this for me. On the below Postal guide from 1971 in the Zones list the top option is Local. Could this be the reason why some of the postmarks do not have a Postal Zone on them i.e. the Letter was sent from the same postal zone as the delivery address ??

That Zones rate applies to packages (parcel post) which go by weight. That wouldn’t apply to the letters.

My understanding from a USPS person is the following:

The letters with the two digit code (1A, 6B etc) would have been brought from the box to the nearest post office, and processed there. During that process, the sub-zones (1A, 6B) would have been noted in the postmark, to reflect the specific batches of mail that were picked up in the specific sub zones.

The Z letters that do not contain the two-digit codes were processed at a central facility and not the local post office.

At least that’s my understanding after posing the question to someone who I believe said worked in USPS operations.

This is IF these letters were actually intercepted. Is there evidence of this, besides what Tom has said?

None that I am aware of. The first place I heard of these two locations is from Tom’s video that I posted above. In the video, he doesn’t say where he got his information from.

I wouldn’t accept it then, unless there is another source. It’s sounds a bit unrealistic as well.

I think our investigation here has been quite thorough, and the evidence pretty clear. I don’t see any way letters could be found at those two locations.

Yes, until Tom comes forward and reveals where he came about this information, I’m going to assume it is not accurate.

I agree. Also it’s possible — if there IS anything to the story — that those were fake Z letters that were intercepted.

Yes, or authentic Zodiac correspondence that has never been made public for whatever reason.