Could it also be a very investigative, or observative, type of thing to say? The attention to "the record" — the detail as to exactly what happened — has qualities of attention to detail that might be applied by a scientist, analyst, or record-keeper of some kind. In addition, the focus of his correction definitely seems on the police here — not unlike a lot of his criticism.

If he did not have a British influence, his references to the Mikado and other literary works and his use of language not used by Americans in their daily speech may be indicative of a theatrical element, hence his ability to craft the Berryessa costume, he certainly didn’t pop down the local joke shop to buy it and it is highly unlikely he had somebody make it for him, that is the best way to get caught, couple this with his ability to tear a ‘neat’ section from Paul Stine’s shirt is not the thing most criminals do, it seemed to show a knowledge of fabrics and weave. Maybe as a stage-hand or costume designer also gave him access to the use of a marker pen in his letters and the car door at Lake Berryessa, is a necessity often used to mark fabric, where traditional pens do not function. Such marker pens are standard tools employed by seamstresses, tailors or indeed costume designers. Pinking shears are used for cutting woven cloth to limit fraying and could have been used in the design of the Pines Card mailed on March 22nd 1971, where the edges of the card appear to have been scalloped. Wikipedia shows the word ‘pink’ to date back to 1300, meaning to stab, pierce or ‘make holes in’. That leads nicely onto the punch holes apparent on the 13 Hole Postcard and Pines Card, although both disputed Zodiac material, it is believed these holes were formed using a hole punch, readily available to buy and used as standard office equipment, but equally could have been crafted using a non revolving leather punch, used in the design of belts and shoes.

I like this thread.. Maybe journalism was a school subject he took..never professionally but picked up a bit along the way. Worked on the schools year book . Tequesquite? School subjects mainly artistic? .. English/Maths, Drama / theatre , arts ,poetry, photography, journalism , all spilling over into his nasty hobby. The stimuli of visual and auditory senses fit Z.

Men to women with the ability for typing ratio back then.. Any one know. Did the males have to take typing lessons in that era. A prerequisite for journalism back then ? The confession letter in point..a taunting letter, I would guess he was being cautious by typing, rather than divulging his hand writing in the area that he lived schooled worked.

I use, and or but to start sentences. It’s used for effect. I use shall, quite often as well. It is of no consequence what the guy wrote like. I might say, "Hey, shall we go have some lobster rolls or stick with the sushi today." Or, " But you know what, I have a better idea, my sushi bar has the lobster sushi rolls, in which case we can kill two birds with one stone." Or, " And on another note, let’s wet our whistles with some ice cold libations, I’m feeling quite parched today."

Well I guess I won’t be going to get Sushi today. My sushi chef at PF Chang in Peabody MA, just killed the manager with his sushi knife, the other day. They have the lobster sushi there too.

If he did not have a British influence, his references to the Mikado and other literary works and his use of language not used by Americans in their daily speech may be indicative of a theatrical element, hence his ability to craft the Berryessa costume, he certainly didn’t pop down the local joke shop to buy it and it is highly unlikely he had somebody make it for him, that is the best way to get caught, couple this with his ability to tear a ‘neat’ section from Paul Stine’s shirt is not the thing most criminals do, it seemed to show a knowledge of fabrics and weave.

Thought about this the other day. It’s a potentially very important point. It all depends, however, on the exact nature of that hood/bib of his.

Being able to stitch, or cross-stitch, a symbol like that on a piece of cloth/fabric certainly isn’t something anyone is able to do. It takes some skill.

Then again, perhaps he didn’t actually do that – perhaps he just attached a piece of cloth/fabric with that design on it to his hood/bib. Which is much easier to do. Could have glued it on, even.

Bryan’s description isn’t definitive/detailed enough to reach an absolute conclusion as to the exact nature of the thing.

An interesting/relevant question might be this: If he did not create the symbol from scratch – where might he plausibly find a piece of cloth/fabric with that design on it?

The white supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle, is one of the most important and commonly used white supremacist symbols. Although usually called a Celtic Cross by white supremacists, its origins date to the pre-Christian "sun cross" or "wheel cross" in ancient Europe. Norwegian Nazis used a version of the symbol in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, a variety of white supremacist groups and movements adopted the symbol. Today, this verson of the Celtic Cross is used by neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and virtually every other type of white supremacist. It has also achieved notoriety as part of the logo of Stormfront, the oldest and largest white supremacist website in the world.

Idk I think he showed more mathematics skills rather than grammar skills. I mean just how many journalists know how to make ciphers?

Btw, I always found it curious that Zodiac used the Xor symbol in his ciphers and used the same Xor symbol to represent himself.

"In modern terminology, a Vernam cipher is a symmetrical stream cipher in which the plaintext is combined with a random or pseudorandom stream of data (the "keystream") of the same length, to generate the ciphertext, using the Boolean "exclusive or" (XOR) function. This is symbolised by ⊕ [3] and is represented by the following "truth table", where + represents "true" and − represents "false"."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Vernam

"On 31 August 1941, two versions of the same message were sent using identical keys which constituted a "depth". This allowed John Tiltman, Bletchley Park’s veteran and remarkably gifted cryptanalyst, to deduce that it was a Vernam cipher which uses the Exclusive Or (XOR) function (symbolised by "⊕"), and to extract the two messages and hence obtain the obscuring key. After a fruitless period of Research Section cryptanalysts trying to work out how the Tunny machine worked, this and some other keys were handed to Tutte who was asked to "see what you can make of these."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte

I feel that the Zodiacs superior ability to make the second cipher (still unsolved until this day possibly due to complexity) clues us into his IQ and a probable experience in something involving coding. Bomb making is very mathematical/technical. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in some sort of engineering/programming whether through military involvement or through other employment.

I think you give the Zodiac too much credit. He was clever but I don’t think a wiz at any real thing other than maybe taking a wiz. Come to think of it I bet he screwed that up too.

Soze

I think you give the Zodiac too much credit. He was clever but I don’t think a wiz at any real thing other than maybe taking a wiz. Come to think of it I bet he screwed that up too.

Soze

Lol! What a mess that would be perhaps you are right. He could have just been an immature nit wit with too much time on his hands to grab either his pee pee or a knife. Idle hands. Tisk tisk.

The white supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle, is one of the most important and commonly used white supremacist symbols. Although usually called a Celtic Cross by white supremacists, its origins date to the pre-Christian "sun cross" or "wheel cross" in ancient Europe. Norwegian Nazis used a version of the symbol in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, a variety of white supremacist groups and movements adopted the symbol. Today, this verson of the Celtic Cross is used by neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and virtually every other type of white supremacist. It has also achieved notoriety as part of the logo of Stormfront, the oldest and largest white supremacist website in the world.

Yes, but the question then becomes twofold:

1) Was Z some sort of white supremacist?

2) To what extent was the symbol used by racists/white supremacists in the late 1960s?

After a certain point, you see white power types using this symbol extensively – in the form of tattoos, on t-shirts, as the logo of websites, and so forth. But I believe this is a more recent phenomenon. I don’t think it was widespread in the 60s – but I haven’t done nearly enough research to be sure.

As I pointed out in another thread, the basic "sun cross", or "Odin’s cross", or "Celtic cross" was indeed used by right wingers as early as the 1930s (and probably before that). But if we’re sticking to the original formula here, so to speak, we need that symbol on a piece of cloth/fabric (for Z to cut out and attach to his hood/bib) – and that’s a very different proposition. We need a white power t-shirt, say – from the late 1960s.

And then we’re back to the first point above. Was Z a racist? I don’t see him as such myself. It doesn’t seem to have been a part of the persona, at any rate. Neither his victims nor anything he states as a possible explanation for his actions betray any kind of racist agenda.

The spelling errors could be intentional to throw police off, if Z were a writer and/or journalist. That’s something I have always wondered about and that is why I like Manalli as the author of the letters.