Well Don Harden, having solved Z’s 3 part Cipher, stated that it was his opinion that Zodiac deliberately misspelled words within the cipher itself with the intent being to make solving the cipher just that bit more difficult. But in this instance, if Harden is correct, then it can’t be used as evidence that he deliberately misspelled words in the letters because, as Harden points out, Zodiac deliberately misspelled words in the cipher because he wanted to make solving it more difficult. So Z would have a legit reason to do it for words in ciphers, but would he for words in the letters? Well, my opinion is, yes he would, and these spelling errors he makes are, with a few exceptions, inconsistent. For example, he spells Kiddies correctly with a K in the Stine confession letter, then shortly after, refers to the singular as a ‘Cid’. He does, however, always spell certain words incorrectly consistently, such as the word ‘Victim’ always spelling it ‘Victom.’

We can’t really say with any degree of certainty if these spelling errors were deliberate or not, but in my unqualified opinion, they were.

Z consistently sent letters to Chronicle Crime Reporter Paul Avery, but Z always addressed him as "Paul Averly." Was this an innocent mistake? Doubtful, Zodiac underlines a section of Paul’s name to highlight that there is something significant about it which to me suggests he’s also adding the extra L each time to Avery for a specific purpose.

‘Cid’ might come from

The Sword of El Cid

a movie released in 1964, possibly still played in 1970 in the bay area.

QT