ebsorietemsthhpiti is a viable alternative, the rest are not. The triangle on the bottom line is not represented by W anywhere on the cipher. The two letter I’s are represented by a T. You have acquired the O from something that looks like an I but isn’t – it has a wavy structure at its foot. It is believed Zodiac encrypted his cipher incorrectly when spelling "dangerous" to "dangeroue".

Interesting … I see your point. When I did my analysis on the z408 I interpreted the triangle in row 21 column 6 to represent a W. There are actually many instances of the Z408 online with a W here, so that may have played into part of the confusion. So you simply think the Zodiac made a spelling mistake on row 21 and used the word "SLOI" instead of "SLOW" … for the phrase "YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN". When I cross referenced the Zodiac’s letters I can’t find any other instances where he spelled the word SLOW incorrectly. So perhaps this was just a flub up of the character when doing the enciphering? Anyways, that is where the W came from and this concept of multiple potential representations of each symbol.

I will investigate your other 3 points.

Investigated and yeah, you’re right. I did indeed have a wavy structure at the bottom of it therefore removing that potential. Thanks.

In regards to the other two … it boils down to the question –> Did the Zodiac spell the word "SLOI" or "SLOW" in cipher. And did he spell the word "DANGEROUE" or "DANGEROUS".

I am new to this so it appears that the general consensus is that these are spelling mistakes or accidental encoding errors when he was creating the cipher. He was a terrible speller (or spelled terribly on purpose … not sure) in letters so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Here is a screenshot of how my last row broke down in the end (with those corrections).

The spelling errors were likely simple mistakes in converting his plaintext into ciphertext, rather than misspelling the word. But when we consider the 18 characters at the foot being some form of identity, we have to consider the possibility he didn’t intend to leave 18 characters, but more likely 12. There were misspellings such as forrest, experence and paradice, but this wasn’t unusual in the many Zodiac communications, and doesn’t change the deciphered character or letter count, fixed at 390.
However, he accidentally left one word out inadvertently when he switched from cipher 2 to 3. I believe he meant to write "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the people I have killed will become my slaves," but accidentally wrote "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves," which doesn’t read correctly. Therefore his likely intention may have been to leave 12 characters at the end of the Chronicle cipher. Could he have intended to leave "Zodiac Killer" or "I am the Zodiac."

Oh, and don’t forget their were 12 underscores on the Confession letter after "By".

I’m pretty convinced that the last line of z408 is actually just a filler. My reason can be found at this link:

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=279&p=48722#p48722

Of course, this is not final proof, but the numbers speak for themselves. The repeated part with "QEHM" alone seems to me to be an exclusion criterion. Even if it is a signature or even a name, you won’t get a confirmation if you are right because of the brevity.

However, he accidentally left one word out inadvertently when he switched from cipher 2 to 3. I believe he meant to write "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the people I have killed will become my slaves," but accidentally wrote "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves," which doesn’t read correctly. Therefore his likely intention may have been to leave 12 characters at the end of the Chronicle cipher. Could he have intended to leave "Zodiac Killer" or "I am the Zodiac."

It is indeed very interesting that the missing text is located directly at the break between parts 2 and 3. It has often been assumed that the word "people" is missing. But somehow my gut feeling tells me that it was something else. "…all the people…" doesn’t sound like Zodiac. Wouldn’t he rather write "…all the teenagers…" or "…all the couples…" or even something derogatory? It’s also possible that almost a whole line is missing. What do you think?

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator

A whole line missing might make sense. Maybe his original message was nicely splittable into 3 parts but he lost track of an entire line somehow. Instead of finding his mistake, he just threw in a whole extra line of filler instead of just a single symbol.

Did the Zodiac spell the word "SLOI" or "SLOW" in cipher. And did he spell the word "DANGEROUE" or "DANGEROUS".

I think the simplest explanation is that he confused symbols with each other while copying his cipher text.

Note the "A" and "triangle" symbols have similar shapes and result in different decryptions.

Note the "I" and "curvy I" have similar shapes and result in different decryptions.
Note the "F" is "E" with a missing line segment.

Maybe he had a draft and was too excited and distracted while putting together the final version to mail, so he made simple transcription errors.

I’m pretty convinced that the last line of z408 is actually just a filler. My reason can be found at this link:

http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.p … 722#p48722

Of course, this is not final proof, but the numbers speak for themselves. The repeated part with "QEHM" alone seems to me to be an exclusion criterion. Even if it is a signature or even a name, you won’t get a confirmation if you are right because of the brevity.

However, he accidentally left one word out inadvertently when he switched from cipher 2 to 3. I believe he meant to write "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the people I have killed will become my slaves," but accidentally wrote "The best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves," which doesn’t read correctly. Therefore his likely intention may have been to leave 12 characters at the end of the Chronicle cipher. Could he have intended to leave "Zodiac Killer" or "I am the Zodiac."

It is indeed very interesting that the missing text is located directly at the break between parts 2 and 3. It has often been assumed that the word "people" is missing. But somehow my gut feeling tells me that it was something else. "…all the people…" doesn’t sound like Zodiac. Wouldn’t he rather write "…all the teenagers…" or "…all the couples…" or even something derogatory? It’s also possible that almost a whole line is missing. What do you think?

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator

Vallejo Times-Herald: "I will cruse around and pick of all stray people or coupples that are alone then move on to kill some more untill I have killed over a dozen people".

Examiner: "This will last the whole weekend, I will cruse around killing people who are alone at night untill Sun Night or un till I kill a dozen people".

Chronicle: "I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend."

The Zodiac actually used "people" 6 times in his July 31st communications. He used teenagers three times in these communications. He used couples once in these communications. I therefore believe it’s highly probable that people would have been used.

He didn’t use couples or teenagers in his next two communications, the Debut letter or Stine letter, but he did write "I am the same man who did in the people in the north bay area". I suppose People 7, teenagers 3, couples 1, SFPD 0.

Zodiac didn’t just let in teenagers and couples into his afterlife.

I suppose People 7, teenagers 3, couples 1, SFPD 0.

Wow, you’re absolutely right. I didn’t notice that he uses "people" so often.

Still, it makes me wonder how Zodiac could overlook a single word in the substitution process. A single letter? Definitely…A whole line? Likewise. But a single word? I’ve long wanted to collect possibilities on how Zodiac might have created the cipher. I had already started in the past:

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=3337

Can you think of a way to overlook a single word?

I can only surmise that he lost his train of thought when he carried over between cipher 2 and 3. Because that section finished with "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves," he clearly has to encompass all of his victims into paradise to become his slaves, so uses the generic term "people", free of age restrictions. But if Zodiac had done an original draft, then casting his eye back and forward between draft and finalized version, one can see how easy it would be to miss a word. It would mean, however, that Zodiac never intended to leave 18 unsolved characters, only 12. That is why I speculated loosely on "Zodiac Killer" or "I am the Zodiac". It would have been easy to compromise once he inadvertently left 18 characters, by amending his identity to "I am the Zodiac Killer", thereby using the full compliment of characters. The QEHM dropdown option wouldn’t have been available had he incorporated "people" correctly from the off. I am going to take a more in depth look at this conundrum.

I can only surmise that he lost his train of thought when he carried over between cipher 2 and 3. Because that section finished with "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves," he clearly has to encompass all of his victims into paradise to become his slaves, so uses the generic term "people", free of age restrictions. But if Zodiac had done an original draft, then casting his eye back and forward between draft and finalized version, one can see how easy it would be to miss a word. It would mean, however, that Zodiac never intended to leave 18 unsolved characters, only 12. That is why I speculated loosely on "Zodiac Killer" or "I am the Zodiac". It would have been easy to compromise once he inadvertently left 18 characters, by amending his identity to "I am the Zodiac Killer", thereby using the full compliment of characters. The QEHM dropdown option wouldn’t have been available had he incorporated "people" correctly from the off. I am going to take a more in depth look at this conundrum.

Very plausible. He used the word "people" quite a bit (at least 18 times in his letters and ciphers) so it wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe the name is 12 characters, and the Z13 has one extra character for the middle initial. Or maybe he realized he wasn’t going to have enough space to add all the characters of his name (13) at the end and therefore chopped off the word "people" on purpose at the last second.

In regards to the original thread premise, I did another scan in the 1966 Ramona High School yearbook for names that meet the original rules of this post and found a name that is interesting.

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way suggesting this person should be a POI or suspect, just literally comparing names in Cheri Jo Bates yearbook with the rules defined in the first post of this thread.

I S A D O R E M A R K I N

Rules it meets:
– Same first letter as second last letter
– 13 characters long
– Circled 8’s are in vowel placement areas

Rules it violates:
– Different representations for the symbol N (no explanation for this one)
– Different representations for the symbol M (could he just have not encoded one of the M’s?)

Additional notes:
– Wears glasses
– Worked in the math department at Cheri Jo Bates school

It all depends (as somebody pointed out earlier) whether we use anagrams or not. I like the idea of resisting anagrams as you have done. The William Martin I found fits the ’13 Symbol’ cipher and he was in the 1958 Vallejo High School yearbook, but again requires shuffling the letters which there is no evidence Zodiac did. The ’13 Symbol’ cipher could in fact be 12, because the crosshairs could accompany the name or pseudonym. I highly doubt Zodiac ever added a name to the ’13 Symbol’ cipher, and if he did, I doubt highly it was his name. My guess is his name was representative of the dash in ‘My name is___’, and the 13 characters normal text.

Rules it violates: Different representations for the symbol XY whatever – NO.
Using anagrams – NO.

And we might get closer to Z. It’s not my rule but logical, think most people would agree to not violate nor shuffle the cipher or cleartext. Different opinions allowed.

QT

I can only surmise that he lost his train of thought when he carried over between cipher 2 and 3. Because that section finished with "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves," he clearly has to encompass all of his victims into paradise to become his slaves, so uses the generic term "people", free of age restrictions.

I think you might be right about that theory. If it really happened like that, it also tells us something about how Zodiac created z408. The option that he first put the plaintext into a 17×24 shape and then substituted that is out of the question. In this case, the missing word would have been immediately noticed because of the offset.

The option that he first put the plaintext into a 17×24 shape and then substituted that is out of the question. In this case, the missing word would have been immediately noticed because of the offset.

Good point.