Worth looking into. I hear there have been some tips called in, too.

Anyways, that's not even the fun part; I'd like to propose that the Doodler and the Zodiac Killer are one and the same. I have a question to start this off: why the ever-loving heck are the Zodiac's ears a different color than his face in the Presidio sketch? My theory is that the Zodiac is a black man, who wore white makeup as a disguise (note that the prime suspect in the case also did not need corrective lenses, as per his driver's license), since we know the Zodiac Killer loved to dress up, but left the ears alone. To mess with "the pigs," probably. He liked that.

Take it with a grain of salt. @zegalba on Tumblr and it looks like he has an Instagram, too. May as well do some digging.

I’d like to propose a small, fixed interpretive framework for the Zodiac ciphers (Z408, Z340, Z13, and Z32) and invite replication or critique.

This is not a forensic solution, does not claim to identify the author, and does not propose a cryptographic key. The intent is simply to test whether a limited rule-set can consistently explain the meaning and intent of the cipher corpus when treated as a whole.

Most prior approaches treat the unsolved ciphers as name-based or coordinate-based puzzles. This framework instead treats all four ciphers as parts of a single symbolic system, intended to communicate a worldview rather than conceal logistical information.

Framework (summary)

- Symbols treated as English letters (Latin/Greek overlap allowed)

- Crosshair symbol read consistently as “TH”

- Circled or looped symbols act as dividers

- Left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading only

- One global segment reordering allowed

- One adjacent-letter swap per segment maximum

- Optional E↔ I interchange at interpretation stage


No additional liberties beyond the above.

Applying these rules to Z13 yields a short, stable English identity statement rather than a proper name. I’m not asserting correctness here — only that the result is reproducible using the same steps.

I’d appreciate anyone willing to independently apply the framework and report whether they reach the same result, or where it fails.

Thanks for your time.

Z13 solve

Z18 solve

He maximises publicity by sending three different letters and ciphers to widen the geographical profile from Vallejo to San Francisco. This was a Vallejo issue up until this point. Publishing these letters and ciphers really complicates the investigation as it opens it up to every ’nutcase’ who either wants to interfere or copycat.  We therefore cannot be completely sure that Lake Berryessa and then Paul Stine were committed by the same culprit although on balance they probably were as the Paul Stine letter on the 13th October has the same writing characteristics of the earlier letters in August. There was no letter after Lake Berryessa. This is the only time he writes to three newspapers. He writes only to one paper after this as this newspaper have given him the publicity required to disrupt the investigation. I don’t think it is a hoax.

Let us look carefully at the first letters of 31st July, the Zodiac claims the Lake Hermann and Blue Rock Springs murder. He is also provides a cipher whos major feature is the 'collection of slaves for paradice'. There is nothing in the cipher that leads to his name as many have hoped. What he does say is that if 'you solve this then you have my name'. 

The notable factor in this letter is the way he spells the word until. Those of you have read Richard Hoffmann’s Police report realise he makes exactly the same spelling error as Zodiac.  Richard Hoffmann was the police officer who was closest to the Blue Rock Springs murder scene being less than a few minutes away. He spells it ‘untill’.  Both Richard Hoffmann’s report and the Zodiac letter are littered with spelling errors. Both appear to have a similar level of illiteracy. Was this intentional?  This is not to say that Hoffman is the Zodiac; the immediate time line of the events after the slaying largely clear him of involvement in the phone call. He could not possibly of made the phone call at the same time he was in the back of an ambulance, unless he of course had an accomplice who made the call for him. We cannot exclude the fact there was not another person in the attackers car. The spelling error in Hoffman’s report sticks out like ‘dogs balls’ at the end of the report. It could easily be somebody who has access to the report trying to muddy the waters to implicate him. 

The probability of the Zodiac and Richard Hoffmann both spelling untill the same way by chance alone is at best 1 chance in 50.   Adding extra letters to words occurs in about 15% of people. Until is one of the 10 top misspelt words. The true frequency of spelling ‘until’ is likely to be less than 10% To be conservative I have given a probability of 1:50 but it could be as low as 1:400. Tom Voigt dismisses this in a webpage refuting Horan’s theory about being a hoax but misses the point that probability is in favour of this being linked somehow to the Vallejo police report is actually higher than it not being linked.

He follows this up with a second letter (August 4th) where he provides more detail about the murders. Two details of this second letter stand out to me. The first he discusses ‘Blue Rock Springs in much more specific detail than the Lake Herman road murder. I am convinced he was at Blue Rock Springs, I am not convinced that he adds anything about Lake Hermann. 

In addition to discussing The Lake Herman murder, he makes a statement about what the 'police are interested in finding out' and then answers that question with the flashlight strapped to his weapon.  Ask yourself; How could he possibly know what the police are interested in? Obviously he either knows what is in the police investigation and has access to it or this is irrelevant and is just another lie. Horan picks up on this in the ‘Zodiac Hoax’. He thinks that this means that the reporters have read the police report, but fails to think this through in relation to Zodiac being real and the consequence of that information. By the way Chief Stiltz  from Vallejo came to the same conclusion about the writer having access to the case files.

At this stage,  in summary the writer of these Zodiac letters has detailed knowledge of the Blue Rock Springs murders and I am convinced he was there. He has a less detailed knowledge of Lake Hermann murders. More importantly he knows about the police investigation. Therefore the most likely writer is a police official who had access to the Lake Hermann murder reports. These letters point towards a Vallejo police officer as the most likely writer. However you cannot rule out that the Vallejo police information leaks like a seive.

F) Lake Berryessa. ’The first Zodiac murder’. Remember he needs to create the false narrative of a deranged random  serial killer who uses different weapons. This is what he does. The costume, the insignia, the car door, the weapon used. He says he is an escaped convict from Montana. Why does he need to say this.

Let us look at the car door. It assumed by most people interested in the Zodiac killer that Bryan Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard were attacked and then the Zodiac wrote the message on the car door claiming ownership of his deeds as you would expect of your typical serial killer. In this scenario the primary motive is the attack, the car door comes second. The zodiac would be covered in blood in this attack.  There is a debate about how he left the message without transferring some blood to the door, there were no signs of it being wiped clean etc.

The logical answer is he wrote on the car door before he actually performed the attack. The footprints discovered at the crime scene, indicate both a before or after scenario is possible. He takes two journeys between the car and the attack site, one in each direction. The fact that he writes the time of the attack on the car door is a dead giveaway. The time is out by about 10-15 minutes.  He also writes the method of attack.  This is actually very important as it goes to the his primary motive. He is actually thinking out aloud what he is about to do when he writes this. The actual motive for the attack  is not to kill either person but to write that message on the car door. The attack on the victims is simply to reinforce that message rather than being the primary motive. The motive is to claim the Lake Hermann murder, reinforce the idea that we have a crazed serial killer and to show he changes weapons readily to account for the discrepancy in weapons used. A random serial killer would feel no need to tell the time or even specify the weapon. I really believe that ‘Law Enforcement’ could have worked out it was a knife. Writing this is actually very telling. It reinforces the idea that this is not your typical psychopathic killer, there is another motive.

How do we know that he did not necessarily want to kill them? Think about it. Who was going to tell the story of the man in zodiac costume who escaped from a Montana prison if they were dead? Defeats the whole purpose of the costume don’t you think. He wants at least one of them alive to tell the story. We know they were both alive when he left them. He could of easily have plunged a knife into their carotids if he wanted to kill them. Believe me, you know when someone is dead. He did not want them dead. The motive is not killing.

Why did Cecilia die? We don’t actually know what killed her in the end. Dying two days later raises other possibilities. Was there an unanticipated complication? Was there any medical negligence? Who knows. The autopsy results that I have seen do not cut the mustard and other medical records  have never been released. I would be very interested to see what happened to Cecelia.

In his phone call in NAPA, he speaks normally as he has no fear of being identified. There is no put on voice with Bryan Hartnell either, reinforcing the idea that the Vallejo call was about hiding is voice which would have been known to Nancy Slover. He adds the two murders to be consistent with his first phone call. (He changes from one murder to two murders.) Remember neither of them are dead.  I think this deliberate and again to reinforce a false narrative which he stuffed up in the first phone call in which he has committed murders. In other words makes the call to set up a pattern of behaviour to justify his Telephone mistake after Blue Rock Springs. It has nothing to do with his MO. Lake Berryessa is about creating the deception of a Deranged serial killer who changes weapons and to justify his telephone mistake.

G) Paul Stine. I am not going to delve into the Paul Stine murder other to say that I think it is an attempt to simply widen the geographical focus from Vallejo to San Francisco and to collect objects by which he can prove his identity in further communication. The collection of car keys, wallet and shirt tail is the primary motive for the attack. Killing Paul Stine is the way he justifies his further communication without having to kill anyone else. The two important pieces of evidence from this attack are the description given by the direct witnesses and that of officer Foukes. They are different!

We can see from statements from Law enforcement that the investigation moves in the direction he wants. I think Paul Stine is the last murder simply because he does not need to attack again as the Investigation is now heading in the direction he wants. They are no longer looking for the acquaintances of Darlene Ferrin, they are looking for a random deranged serial killer. We can see this in Police media statements as well as what is in the case file. Mission accomplished. Police investigation derailed.

Looking at all subsequent communication, including envelopes and letters, I can’t really convince myself that they are all definitely the work of the same author. If you look carefully at the way he dots his ‘i’ and writes his uncapitalised ’t’  and writes his uncapitalised ‘d’ it appears to change in some of the correspondence after Paul Stine. Note that his writing in the letters appears to improve with time in the subsequent letters. His ideas are however  in the public domain by this time and are unfortunately at the mercy of copycats. The only two communications we can be  100% sure that are his are the ones he provides evidence for. October 13 and November 9. 

What is apparent in the October 13 communication is that he talks about Motor cycle cops in the Presidio. Why does he single them out when there is no mention of the encounter with officer Foukes. This may be an important clue by the way.  There is a police meeting in late October (20 or 22) where the San Francisco Police force shares information with the other Jurisdictions. Looking at the November 9 communication (validated with Paul Stines shirt),  he provides much more information about the Police dogs and Officer Foukes etc. Ask yourself  has the Zodiac read the police report from San Francisco that was shared with Vallejo police on October 22? The discrepancy in the information provided between the two letters is just extraordinary. It follows the same pattern as the earlier letters. I can’t help but feel that the Zodiac is reading Police reports.

In summary the 1) I believe the Zodiac reads police reports and could be a Vallejo area police officer. 

2) I believe the motive for the attacks is to mislead a police investigation. Killing is a secondary motive. It is therefore not a psychopath style murder spree. Any suspect that fits that definition is therefore not the Zodiac. 

In the third section I will tie all the communications together and show you where it leads. It implicates one person but I think this is an intentional deception.

I have looked at this case for many years. Knowing the motive is important in murders as it tells you where to look for the culprit. In classical serial killings, the primary motive is to exercise some sort of power over their victims. This can be either sexual or otherwise. Looking at 5 of the victims there was no such display at all. It is basically ‘Shoot and scoot’, no obvious pleasure involved at all. In addition he stops killing after Paul Stine.  A serial killer getting pleasure from killing would not have stopped so soon.  Zodiac says in his letters that ‘killing being better than getting your rocks off with a girl’ . I think this points to a pattern of deception and  suggests this a lie but I think it is clearly what he intended law enforcement to believe. Zodiac is not your typical psychopathic serial killer.

The second possible  motive that is mentioned in this case  is that the whole intent is to show the police up to be stupid. I think there is definitely is an element of this but it is probably not the primary motive. If the motive is to make the police look stupid, one has to ask why he did not taunt them after the first three attacks instead of waiting  until after the Paul Stine murder. In addition he only taunts the SFPD but leaves Vallejo, Benicia  or Solano county where all but one of the assaults occur. I think this is an enormous clue by the way. One could wonder whether this may be a law enforcement officer who joined Solano county, Vallejo after possibly being rejected by SFPD. 

I actually think the evidence in the case however points to a far different motive;  The third possible motive is that this has something to do with covering up a crime. Really the Zodiac only takes shape after Darlene Ferrin’s murder. After pondering this case for what feels like decades, I think the primary motive of Zodiac is to mislead a police investigation; In other words Deception. Deception is often characterised by lies in order to deceive. Zodiac does this in spades if you look closely at the evidence.

In order to understand the Zodiacs motives, you really need to think like him.  I think a lot of what happens makes sense if you put yourself in his shoes. I will try and interpret motive for each event and explain the discrepancies in the known evidence. Try and put away any bias in thinking about the case. I have tried really hard to only put down verified evidence, if you find a mistake let me know.

I will explain this with reference to the known evidence. I think most of the circumstantial evidence in the case points to a law enforcement officer from the Vallejo area as being Zodiac. I am surprised that this line of enquiry does not receive more attention. 

A). Lake Hermann road murders. Are they really performed by the Zodiac killer? 

The Lake Hermann murders occur a good 7 months prior to the other three  events which occur over a relatively short  3-4 month period between July and October, 1969 and then completely stop. Ask yourself why? I think this discrepancy is quite important and points to the possibility they are not actually performed by the same offender. We know that some offenders do take a break after the first murder, however the bizarre nature of the last two killings is completely different with the first two events. The MO completely changes. Ask yourself why? There has to be a logical reason.

At the time of the events in July, 1969, the chief suspect for the Lake Hermann road murders was a Juvenile who had threatened David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen in the weeks prior to their murder. He was given an alibi by his parents and sister for the time of the killing and subsequently refused to take a lie detector test. There was also some information that the victims had planned to meet up with some of their other school colleagues at the time of the murder at the location of the murder. The information was out that they would be there.

Looking back at the published interview of the chief suspect, one notices the poor quality of questioning to determine whether his alibi checks out. He was supposedly watching a Bob Hope show on TV, but nothing about the content of the show was ever asked of the suspect to determine whether his evidence is truthful. He had also made statements to colleagues that he was going out in his parents car the night of the murders. In his Alibi he stays at home and eats his sisters birthday cake.

This attack only becomes a Zodiac murder based on what the Zodiac claims in a telephone call after the next event. The problem is that this case was never followed to its conclusion due to the fact the investigation changed towards looking for a random serial killer after the Zodiac appeared. It should be noted that the suspects father was a Mare Island police officer. I am unsure whether information was shared with the law enforcement at that location. This may be important later in identifying a way forward.

B) Cold Rock Springs road shootings 

The killer drives up to the car and sees Darlene in the car and then drives away. He then returns and approaches the car like a police officer with a bright light followed by a volley of shots from the passenger side of the vehicle. This happens after Mike gets his I.D. out. Did he think Mike was getting out a gun? Could this be just another Police shooting?  Why did he need to drive away if he went there to kill some random people for fun? The gun was surely already loaded if this was the case.There was no one else there at the time. He was alone with them.

It needs to be noted that Darlene took her lovers multiple times to the exact location where she was murdered. If it was a jealous lover then maybe he returned because he was angry. It is reportedly a  location where drugs were also dealt. There are multiple possible motives. Whether it be jealousy, crime related etc. Many amateur sleuths share the opinion that Zodiac was known to Darlene, it is also what the police thought as well. Thats not to say they are right.

Those of you who have watched the Zodiac Killer documentary would realise there are discrepancies from the evidence in the police report provided by officer Richard Hoffman who states in his report he was at the site of the murder '15 minutes' earlier at about 11.55 pm and had seen no one at all. Those of you who know the case well would realise he puts himself there at about the time of the shootings. He should of at least seen the vehicles that were parked there. He then changes this to '30 minutes' earlier in the Zodiac documentary. Why the change between his report and the documentary.? Richard Hoffman was in an unmarked car and not in uniform. Richard was working undercover in Juvenile Narcotics issues at the time. The exact movements of Richard Hoffman around the time of the murder and immediately after need to be clarified. They never are. Where exactly was he in those 15 minutes. He was certainly really close after the call went out and was first on the scene.

Mike Margeau (who seems seriously knocked around) also states in the documentary that Darlene identified the person who pulled up as Richard. In a  discussion with Dee’s sister about a month after the shooting also reportedly said the assailant called her ‘Dee’.   There obviously seems to be some issues that should have been sorted out. Mike is really only interviewed when he is either 'shocked' or under the influence of pain killers and the police record states this. I am not sure we have a clear description at any time from Mike. 

C). The first telephone call. This call is about Deception.

The first phone call is really when the concept of a serial killer first arises. There are real problems with this evidence. The details of the phone call are printed in the local newspapers before any written statement by Nancy Slover. Obviously someone is leaking information. The call was made about 12:40am, but this time is actually imprecise. The decision to make the call happens when Darlene and Mike are being transferred to hospital in the back of an Ambulance. The call is made barely 200 yards from the police station and is put through by the operator to the police dispatcher; Nancy Slover. In order to trace the call the telephone operator had to be listening, as the call was immediately traced back.

The phone caller says that he had murdered two people. He gives highly specific directions to Cold Rock Springs.  They were not murdered. He already knows that Mike is not dead. First lie (he wants you to think he does not know they are alive).

He states he used  a 9mm Luger which contains 8 x 9mm bullets. 9 bullets were actually fired, did he have 1 in the chamber?. Browning 9mm with a 10 or 13 mm round magazine much more likely (which happens to be a police weapon in common use). Different pistols leave different marks on casings. The police reportedly worked out it was a Browning, high power, not a Luger pistol. Some claim he is referring to the ammo, 9mm Luger.  I think he is trying to divert people away from the weapon he actually uses. Why would he need to do this? There is no need to mention any weapon at all, the police can figure this out. Whether this is deceptive or whether it is a misunderstanding is not clear to me. A 9mm Browning is a police pistol. I am unsure whether Vallejo police were using this weapon or not.

Claimed he 'killed those kids last year.' Did not mention either the location or the weapon used.

He reinforces this idea of a deranged serial killer by using a strange disguised voice.  He rings police from a phone near police station.  Finishes off with Good Byeeeeeeee. It has been stated that this is being read out and was prepared.

The obvious first issue that one can see is that he gives good directions to location and the weapon type used at Cold Rock Springs but almost no detail about Lake Hermann. If this was really a pre prepared statement claiming two events as some have suggested  there should be much more information about Lake Hermann. The logical conclusion is that this call was neither pre prepared and suggests he did not do Lake Hermann. 

Why does he need to lie? If it is truly a random serial killer then there is no need to lie. There is actually no need to make this phone call so soon after the murder either. Ask yourself what is the rush?  He did not make any phone call after Lake Hermann.  Why does he try and disguise his voice? He does not do this to Bryan Hartnell or the dispatcher in Napa after the Lake Berryessa event. There must be a logical reason. I think he hides his voice as he may be known to the police dispatcher, Nancy Slover.

The obvious reason for this call is because he panics. Both victims are alive at the time he makes the decision to make this call.  He could not possibly know Darlene is dead. I think he is worried that one of the survivors will identify him and makes the call to mislead the Police Investigation into thinking this is a Random attack. Secondly:  Think of this as ‘reverse logic’. By lying he is trying to distance himself from actual knowledge of the truth. Therefore law enforcement could be tricked into looking for people that would know they were not dead.   Very few people knew what happened at this stage and this is an important clue. The police and ambulance officers are the only ones that know what has transpired since the shooting.

This phone call is a serious mistake in my mind. It points to someone near the Vallejo police station (he was not expecting to be traced) known to Darlene Ferrin,  who knows what is happening in the aftermath of the shootings. Because he gives no real evidence about Lake Hermann he did not commit this shooting. This phone call points to a cover up in my mind.

D) Darlene Ferrin investigation.

This is what we know happens. The investigation concentrates on Darlene Ferrin. A complicated young woman with many lovers. It is also not clear that Darlene may also be involved with criminals as well. She lies to her family and friends where she is headed to immediately before the attack. As I have said, Cold Rock Springs carpark is where Darlene takes her lovers. Any previous lover knows where to find her. This line of investigation is a clear threat to anyone involved with her.  Darlenes ex husband, James Crabtree Phillips describes her as a compulsive liar and is not even interviewed at this stage. The ex husband who despises her is not interviewed. Why not?  One of Darlenes friends called 'Richard' is also never interviewed. Despite admitting to being a lover of Darlene; another person does not appear in the file, this happens to be a Vallejo police officer. These facts alone suggests the investigation is either very poor or compromised.

As Law enforcement is concentrating on lovers and acquaintances of Darlene Ferrin, it is possibly just a matter of time before the culprit is caught. He must somehow know that is where the police are looking. Ask yourself how does he know?  How does he derail a Police Investigation?  This is when the Zodiac is actually born. This is why I think the case changes so abruptly at this point.

 I think the primary motive is to derail a Police investigation and what subsequently follows is to create that scene. He has four major requirements at this stage. 1) creation of a deranged 'serial killer' in order to  take ownership of Lake Hermann for which he has an alibi.   2) Justify why he changes weapons. 3) Cover up  his ’stupid’ phone call. 4) widen the Geographical profile and get the focus off Vallejo.

What happens from now is to simply validate this plan. Thats why I think  the attacks go from routine to the Bizarre and changes location. No other serial killer has ever changed their MO as rapidly as this in such a short time. Zodiac is about Deception.