August 2, 2021 Riverside, CA Police released a press conference providing details about anonymous letters received in April, 1967 in the case of Cheri Jo Bates, who was murdered outside of the Riverside College library on October 30, 1966. The 3 separate letters were mailed to the police, the newspaper, and cruelly to Cheri’s father. Later, these letters were determined to be the work of the Zodiac killer by documents examiner, Sherwood Morrill, However, in 2016, a man from San Bernardino mailed a letter to Riverside PD admitting that when he was a teenager, he mailed the 3 letters as a cruel hoax. Police used the DNA from the stamp he used in 2016 to track him down via genetic genealogy. He was apparently questioned more, and ruled out as being Cheri’s killer, or being the Zodiac. The 3 handwritten letters in the Bates officially are now not connected to her murder, or to Zodiac. That being said, Police have not indicated whether or not a ‘confession letter’ received in the Bates case on November 30, 1966, is the work of the same hoaxer. It could still be connected to Cheri’s case, or to the Zodiac case. You can read the Riverside PD press release here
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July 1, 2021 San Francisco Chronicle reporter, and Zodiac go-to-guy at the Chronicle, kevin Fagan, discusses the claims of Fayçal Ziraoui, a French engineer who claims to have solved two more Zodiac ciphers. The FBI has not backed up his claims, and in general, most of the online Zodiac community has their doubts. You can read Kevin’s article here.