Most serial killers speak solely through the modus operandi of their crimes. Sometimes this is best. One voice is speaking. But ZODIAC decided to make a game of his crime spree. He brought in the public, the authorities, and the press by using the best avenue— the newspapers. This gave us 2 voices. They are very different, and this adds a curve to trying to unravel the killer’s identity and actual motive. His speech was far more consistent than his modus operandi. His modus operandi changed— from shooting to stabbing, from couples to a single cab driver— but the execution of his crimes remained essentially clumsy. His speech, however, was much smoother.

     The ZODIAC’s game was, in fact, executed much better than his crimes. The newspapers obliged only because, basically, ZODIAC extorted them by threatening to kill more if they didn’t. He used cryptograms, so that we were all intrigued. Nothing occupies the human mind more than a puzzle. He made himself the hunted and he essentially made us all potential pawns in his murder game.  His quick, clumsy drive-by killings were enough to convince the whole Bay Area he was capable of doing everything he claimed in his letters. Naturally, we paid attention. A little, obscure man became the center of all the Bay Area as a result.

       Let’s limit this page to the first installment of his game— those letters and cryptograms that came in between July 31, 1969, and September 27, 1969, when he fulfilled his threats to kill again.

       The first solid communication was on July 31, 1969.

       The backdrop: on the late night of July 4, 1969, a couple— Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau— were shot point blank while they sat in Ferrin’s car in the isolated Blue Rock Springs Park parking lot on the outskirts of Vallejo, California, a North Bay town in the San Francisco Bay Area. About 40 minutes later, the shooter called the Vallejo Police and boasted of the killing. He then took responsibility for an unsolved killing that had happened down nearby Lake Herman Road on December 20, 1968, over 6 months before.

       His precise words, as taken down by operator, Nancy Slover, were:

               “I want to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway
                     to the public park you will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9
                     millimeter luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.”

     The goodbye was taunting, haunting, a bit sarcastic.

     The next communication was his first letter. Three near-identical letters arrived at the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, on August 31, 1969. With each letter there was one-third of a cipher. See below.              

   Well, he’s brisk to do business. He establishes who he is and then the second page is the threat to print the cipher. Ultimately the cipher is everything. It is the purpose of the letter, the reason he must prove he’s the killer first, and then the extortion is to make sure they print it. He wanted his audience no matter what. Nothing less than the whole Bay Area. There is no mention of the moniker “Zodiac.” He merely signs it with a cross hairs, suggestive of a gun scope.

     There are a few spelling errors in the letter, notably idenity, which may indicate he is spelling phonetically and has a regional dialect.

     It is not my desire here to inject and discuss theories in circulation today, but one theory is almost unavoidable here. It is widely speculated that the killer, soon to identify himself as The ZODIAC, somehow worked at one of the newspapers. Yet The ZODIAC’s demand that his ciphers should be published the very next day reflects gross ignorance about the newspaper business. Not only is it assuming the mail will arrive overnight, it is assuming that all would be processed and read the next morning by the appropriate staff. It also assumes the owners and chief editors of all papers in question would act so quickly so as to publish the ciphers. If ZODIAC was well acquainted with the newspaper business, he would have known he was demanding the impossible. This would only force him to act upon his threat. If he doesn’t, he loses all credibility. As the above article notes, his threat failed. The papers didn’t print the ciphers until Sunday August 3rd. There had been no kill rampage over the weekend.

     It can better be argued that ZODIAC was delayed in mailing his 3 letters and ciphers, and perhaps had intended that they be mailed earlier in the week. From what The ZODIAC did next, it can be inferred that he did not even live around the Bay Area, but rather visited it frequently on some form of business. When the request by Jack Stiltz, Vallejo’s Chief of Police, was printed in the newspapers asking for the writer of the ciphers to give more info in order to prove he should be taken seriously as the killer, The ZODIAC rushed off a letter that very day.

     Proving to people that he was the killer was one of ZODIAC’s prime reasons for originally writing. Without being accepted as the killer, his game of murder and seek— and thereby terrorizing an entire metropolitan area— fails. In his haste, he did something different.

     It is my contention he made a mistake. This paper was not what he used before. It was not Monarch-cut Eaton watermarked paper. It was “Fifth Avenue,” which was sold by Woolworths. This mistake becomes evident with time, for this is the only time he would use this paper. In a later letter he would revert to his original type of paper. We will develop this mistake elsewhere later. For now, it is best to continue.

     That ZODIAC wanted as wide an audience as possible is seen in his next action. In response to Vallejo’s Jack Stiltz, ZODIAC responded by writing not to the Vallejo Times Herald but to the San Francisco Examiner, which had a much wider circulation.

     The cipher was still unbroken when on August 4, 1969, the day after the papers published Stiltz’s statements, ZODIAC’s response came to the Examiner. The killer now announced himself.    

I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND ALL THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTING OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE. EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

     Simple Simon sentence structure. Plus, there are some really bad spelling mistakes. Some seem to be The ZODIAC’s bad spelling. Others are his own mistakes. Such as: DANGEROUE for DANGEROUS; THAE for THAT; THEI for THOSE I; SLOI for SLOW; and ATOP for STOP, etc.

     He gave us nothing . . .or did he?

     Individual sentences are logical. He gives reasons and draws conclusions that support his reasons. That’s all logic is.  It need not be laudable for it to be logical. Logic looks for such words as thus, therefore, because, if so, if then, so, such as. All indicate that a conclusion is coming based on what was just presented. ZODIAC liked to use because. 

     But the entire missive is illogical.

     I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL

       He presents himself as a thrill killer. Yet what had ZODIAC done? Nothing. In substance, he had attacked two unarmed couples of youngsters, the eldest being 22. Not very dangerous game. 

       He goes from thrill killing to wanting slaves in his afterlife. He must want teenagers for slaves, and, like Noah, wants them only in pairs.  But he does let us know that he went for the quick kill on the male. He shot Faraday once to the head. In his second letter, he admits he was going to kill Mageau with one shot to the head but Mageau moved. For simply wanting slaves, he seemed to prefer to riddle the female with holes. Jensen was shot 5 times; Ferrin 9 times.

     Ultimately, the serious point here is that he is impressing upon the Bay Area that he kills for his own motives and intends to continue. The game has begun.

     The Bay Area began to take it to heart. Those final 18 letters— EBEORIETEMETHHPITI—  frustrated everybody. They were deciphered correctly, but they made no sense. It was thought to contain his name and be a separate code. Was it an anagram? The name Robert Emmet, the Hippie, was suggested. Suffice it to say to this day that these last 18 letters still confound those who study the cipher.

     What he has inadvertently told us is that he doesn’t understand the newspaper business. He didn’t come through with his “kill rampage” and that therefore much of this can be idle threatening. But he is obviously the killer, and he wants to boast about it. More thrill. . .or intentional misleading. The press immediately labeled him the “Boastful Slayer” or “The Cipher Slayer.” This he was.

     Yet nothing else happened. No more killings. No more letters. The collective Bay Area police took note, waited out August, then September. Nothing.

     Then September 27 came around. It was the end of the month, but Lake Berryessa was far away.