Honestly, I didn’t know where to put this. In all likelihood the editor who received the letters was hoaxed, probably by a friend. The editor has an entertaining way of telling the story.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/communities/s … 21a10.html

My friend, The Zodiac Killer

By: Kirk McCracken Managing Editor

Serial killers fascinate me.

I have a collection of serial killer books and movies, and my wife hides them when we have people over for dinner. Well, she hides them if we have new friends over for dinner. It gets weird when someone is staring at a book about Jeffery Dahmer on our bookshelf, and I’m talking about how they are going to love the dinner I prepared.

My true friends understand and accept me for who I am.

In college, I read Vincent Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter,” the definitive book about Charles Manson and his followers, and became infatuated with true crime books. Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” is one of the greatest reads of all time, and “Someone Cry For the Children,” the book about the Girl Scout Murders, is a must-read.

I am not a fan of serial killers. I do not like the fact that they kill innocent people. Well, actually I am a fan of one serial killer, but not because he killed anyone. It was the way he taunted the police and the local newspapers by writing letters and making the occasional creepy phone call.

I’m talking about The Zodiac, of course.

The Zodiac terrorized northern California in the 1960s, killing around five people. He claims to have killed many more, but those murders were never actually linked back to him. The Zodiac wrote numerous letters to local newspapers, which included ciphers that claimed to contain his identity. He also wrote to the police departments investigating the murders. The letters taunted the detectives, even pointing out their mistakes after the murders, and the killer included information only he would know.

The Zodiac signed his letters with a symbol – a circle with a cross through it.

Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac’s identity has never been revealed, making the killings even more fascinating.

My son, Paige, and I have gone down the rabbit hole of trying to discover The Zodiac’s identity and we’ve even tried linking him to the “Texarkana Murders” or “Moonlight Murders” in 1946. In 1976, the movie “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” was made about these murders, and a re-telling was released in 2014.

We can’t prove our theory, but we think the Phantom Killer and the Zodiac Killer is the same person.

About a year ago, I mentioned the Zodiac Killer on Facebook. What I said is irrelevant, and I never expected a response.

Shortly after, I started receiving letters from “The Zodiac.” They were addressed to me and mailed to the Sand Springs Leader office. Most of the letters were postmarked “Tulsa,” but I also received a card from Phoenix, Arizona. It was nice of The Zodiac to think of me while on vacation.

Some letters were typed and others were hand-written. Some wished me a happy weekend and others threatened to kill me.

But just as quickly as they started, the letters stopped.

I don’t know if The Zodiac became bored with our correspondence or if he moved on to someone else. The return addresses seemed fake, and I had no way of writing him back, but I wrote him for 365 days. It’s been a little over a year since I received my first letter.

I guess we were just too different. Maybe we were from different walks of life, and it just wasn’t meant to be.

Now, all I have are our letters.

I take them out of my desk drawer from time to time and look them, wondering what The Zodiac is doing at that exact moment.

I guess now all I can do is wait for the mailman to deliver, or maybe it’s time to move on.

Either way, I still have our letters, and I keep them in a Notebook.