Fred Manalli

I think I have mentioned this before but in case I didn't, when I first got the letters I contacted my guy at the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department and told him what I had. The sheriff's department did not know the letters existed and he asked that I send him copies of them which I did. So, copies of the letters are in the possession of at least one LE agency. I'm not so sure it's the right one for the purpose of comparing handwriting but it's a step in the right direction!

patinky wrote:

Seagull wrote:

FWIW, the copies of Manalli's handwriting that I have are 1st generation. What I sent Morf are copies of mine and I had them done at a copy place with good equipment. So I guess what he has are 2nd generation. The originals can be viewed if it gets to that point.

Thanks for that info Seagull. Even at second generation Trav's work is compelling. The spacing of letters and words is soooo close to Zodiac spacing. Pretty incredible stuff.

And Trav ... I hate to tell you ... but I'm a female.

I flipping thought that lol. As I wrote Sir I thought, bet you Patinky is female lol. Apologies

Seagull wrote:

I think I have mentioned this before but in case I didn't, when I first got the letters I contacted my guy at the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department and told him what I had. The sheriff's department did not know the letters existed and he asked that I send him copies of them which I did. So, copies of the letters are in the possession of at least one LE agency. I'm not so sure it's the right one for the purpose of comparing handwriting but it's a step in the right direction!

It is Deb and I do remember you mentioning it before.

bentley wrote:

traveller1st wrote:

Nope lol and actually Bents I think we only have two at most. One's enough for me though.

And Morf's right, this guy uses both and the same on the y's - he uses looped and zodiac y's. It's not different people it's one person in 5 minds.

OK, thanks for checking. In light of all the phrase and spelling matches that have been found I'd agree, not a deal killer, however it seems strange that he would change the basic structure of his usual K (making it 3 stroke) for the Z letters and meanwhile leave every other character a virtual match. So where do we (you guys actually, I'm an observer on this one) go from here to move this forward?

Actually Bents he did change other characters. He picked the easy ones too, if indeed that is the scenario we are looking at. he uses straight and 2 stroke y's vs his usual curved 1 strokes, he introduced a new d and b as an alternative to the looped versions of both whilst still including the looped version and he uses a sharp angled z instead of the looser version which is more similar to his 2's. There's probably more but I mention those because I've always suspected that these were changes if indeed Zodiac had disguised his writing. Add to that mostly print with the odd hint of cursive in moments of carelessness.

Manalli is the opposite, he slips into rare moments of straight hand printing as opposed to his usual cursive, printing mix which flows and at first glance looks like it's straight cursive but it isn't. The Bates letters comps were most compiled from no more than a few words here and there in 36 pages of straight hand printing

If Manalli did indeed write the letters and was thinking about this the way I am then he took his own handwriting and from within the different styles contained in it created what appeared to be unconnected styles further disguised by new variations on some characters. It's an interesting thing to come across handwriting that resembles Zodiac's, it gets more interesting when construction of certain characters match but when it comes to a writing style that has all of the styles used as part of it's make up, and that those styles can be separated out into alphabets well, I don't even have a word to describe that.

I'm not trying to sell this BTW I'm just describing my own thoughts about the handwriting irregardless of the connections to the Zodiac case.

I've been considering the aspects of this writing and it's own possible story. The style mixes, sometimes as many as 3 or 4 in one page and then pages of the same style. The many alternating character styles, sometimes within the same word.....

.... This is going to be my moment of madness and it's not strictly to do with my previously mentioned/hinted at theory (it's got it's own madness). I was, whilst working on this, wondering what he thought about his own writing. Was he or did he consciously ponder his own writing in this way, did he reflect, even for a moment on this crazy mix, 2 different g's in the one word for example.

That's when this popped into my head. Was it deliberate? Is there a code hidden in this?

If memory serves me there is a code/cipher that employs something like this method of using variations on certain characters in such a way as to carry a message. I also think it's something probably like a one time pad where the recipient needs the key because the words used are too bespoke to be decoded but maybe not?

How mental would that be if someone was hiding codes in their own letters to people in everyday life and that such a person just happens to be a POI in the Zodiac case. I mention no names even though it's obvious but even as a thought I thought that was cute and liked it. It seems like a very Zodiac to do.

My gut feeling is it's not but it was too cool a thought to not mention it, if I do say so myself lol

So supposing some LE department analyzes the writings and determines that Manalli wrote the Z letters... then when will this information be made public? Maybe never, or maybe not for a VERY long time. Wouldn't they want to keep the info secret in order to pursue the Team Zodiac theory or try to connect Manalli to other crimes?

Would it really be for the best to keep the info from the public? Possibly, but then I think of it this way: who solved the 408? Not the FBI, but a school teacher. And who's responsible for "discovering" this person of very much interest? Seagull, Morf and Trav. And oh yeah, a little help from RGS! So wouldn't it be better if the Z community could be part of the investigation, supposing it's determined that Fred's the guy?

I don't wanna wait 10 or 20 years to know if LE analysts think FM is good for the letters. Surely there must be some handwriting expert/document examiner, who's highly competent and whose work is respected, that would be very happy to look at the Manalli letters and give his or her opinion??? For free. To us. And reasonably quickly. If Seagull gives the letters to LE, I'm seriously afraid she'll never get them back. And that LE will tell us nothing.

JEM,

Here's the issue, many law enforcement agencies in CA are strapped for cash,short handed,etc. Finding time, funds,etc to do writing examinations of ANY zodiac suspects may take some time. Personally, although I think Manalli's writing is the closest to Zodiac's that I have seen, nothing will beat a set of prints. Thats another problem, police as far as I can tell have not been able to find any prints for Manalli. My gut tells me that there ARE some out there some place. He taught at a prison,and I would think he would have to have some clearance to get in and out of there,including prints. He was in the military,so I think they would have prints,but unless you are law enforcement, you will not be able to get these.

All we can do is keep digging,I think there is more out there to find.

There are clues in Manalli's writing,similarities to zodiac, discussion of violence,he had issues with his wife,divorced, etc..he is a suspect in another murder,the timeline of when Zodiac stopped writing coincides with Manalli's death. And then there's that crazy personal AD a couple days after Manalli died that read "zodiac your partner is in deep real estate". Maybe thats just a coincidence,but its a hell of a coincidence. Not for one second saying that I agree with Horan at all,but 'IF' there was ever a zodiac letter hoaxer,I think it could certainly be Manalli. The Bates letters also look like Manalli,but we have uncovered ZERO proving that he was ever in Riverside,despite Graysmith's account that he was. Lastly, although Santa Rosa & Vallejo are not that far apart, we have uncovered ZERO that directly connects him to Vallejo either.

Jem wrote:

So supposing some LE department analyzes the writings and determines that Manalli wrote the Z letters... then when will this information be made public? Maybe never, or maybe not for a VERY long time. Wouldn't they want to keep the info secret in order to pursue the Team Zodiac theory or try to connect Manalli to other crimes?

If LE can conclusively match Manalli to the letters, the best thing they can and should do is announce him to the world as being complicit in the murders. It would give people some degree of closure.

Nachtsider wrote:

Jem wrote:

So supposing some LE department analyzes the writings and determines that Manalli wrote the Z letters... then when will this information be made public? Maybe never, or maybe not for a VERY long time. Wouldn't they want to keep the info secret in order to pursue the Team Zodiac theory or try to connect Manalli to other crimes?

If LE can conclusively match Manalli to the letters, the best thing they can and should do is announce him to the world as being complicit in the murders. It would give people some degree of closure.

I agree Nacht. As long as what they are analyzing is prints or DNA.

Some degree of closure would be wonderful.

Something has just occurred to me whilst writing this diatribe of my skills over on the 'Hartnell's car door thread'.

It involves alphabets and in-fact alphabet creation.

One thing I'm now realizing is that when compiling the alphabets of both Zodiac and Manalli for the different letters the thing that I hadn't thought until now is how relatively easy it was. By that I mean that all I had to do was lift individual letters for each one and put them together. This is not always a straight forward thing because not everyone's handwriting is suitable for straight font use as a full alphabet. A lot of the time certain characters can be disproportionate and have to be tweaked to work visually with their own alphabet.

Both Zodiac's and Manallis alphabets required either none or very little of this which means that is another signature hidden in the writing to be in mind off for future comps against POI's writing. Does it make an easy alphabet because Zodiac's certainly does.

Regarding my crazy hidden code theory.

This is one of the things that got me wondering. Why change the word 'good' for the word 'good' only to change the form of the g? There's also the possibility that he first spelled it gaad but I'm not sure if that's what I'm seeing, the g though has definitely been altered directly after.



EDIT: It's not gaad, that's a visual illusion created by a mix of the page line and the overscore deletion. So it is just the g that was changed.

Thanks Morf. You're saying LE needs the letters because only they can access Manalli's records and compare the prints. That makes sense and if we have to wait, I guess that's just how it will be. Just hope they will tell us yay or nay soon.

But if they don't, I won't care too much now. Because it turns out we actually do have an experienced professional at this website who's been hard at work analyzing the letters. His "diatribe of skills" is good enough for me!

Aww thanks Jem,

21 years experience and counting for the record and also Smithy has even more in sed field. So there's two of us, Lord have mercy lol.

Good work! Just another curious zynchronicity but Z describing "man" as the most dangerous "animal" made me think about MANalli being almost an anagram of ANIMAL (just an extra L).

Who knows, Z said his ID was in that cipher - perhaps he was using a play on words with ANIMAL and putting MAN before it as a clew?

Thought the same myself Quagmire - couldn't prove it though but certainly interesting, I hadn't considered it far enough beyond 'man', nice thinking.

Yes, wonder if dangerous animal = dangerous manalli? Just the type of weird cryptic thing that Z would hide in his letters/ciphers IMO. I wonder if the misspelling of words like "dangerous" in the solution was intentional as they anagram to something?

Just to add,

My own skill set and experience in the field of graphic design and manual artwork techniques and font creation is why I have the Utmost Respect for Sherwood Morril's determination's in this case.

Despite my own abilities I still had to see what Sherwood saw and that has taken a couple of years extra experience of looking at Zodiac letters. I can now say that Sherwood wasn't just a document examiner he was document examiner with an artists and a designers eye for detail and form. That's why he was what he was.

I can now see the connections he seen between the letters he authenticated. He was the Sherlock Holmes of handwriting despite how his career ended and how he was portrayed/betrayed by the Fincher movie.

I know excellence when I see it because I've worked with it (I'm just a pretty good) and Sherwood was excellent. It's actually been a pleasure seeing what he saw and understanding it over these past 2 years or so.

traveller1st wrote:

Just to add,

My own skill set and experience in the field of graphic design and manual artwork techniques and font creation is why I have the Utmost Respect for Sherwood Morril's determination's in this case.

Despite my own abilities I still had to see what Sherwood saw and that has taken a couple of years extra experience of looking at Zodiac letters. I can now say that Sherwood wasn't just a document examiner he was document examiner with an artists and a designers eye for detail and form. That's why he was what he was.

I can now see the connections he seen between the letters he authenticated. He was the Sherlock Holmes of handwriting despite how his career ended and how he was portrayed/betrayed by the Fincher movie.

I know excellence when I see it because I've worked with it (I'm just a pretty good) and Sherwood was excellent. It's actually been a pleasure seeing what he saw and understanding it over these past 2 years or so.

You're certainly right TRAV, your skills are noted & appreciated. I agree with you and I also think Sherwood was great at his job,and his verification of the Bates case was of major importance,of course made possible by Paul Avery & Phil Sins.

traveller1st wrote:

Regarding my crazy hidden code theory.

This is one of the things that got me wondering. Why change the word 'good' for the word 'good' only to change the form of the g? There's also the possibility that he first spelled it gaad but I'm not sure if that's what I'm seeing, the g though has definitely been altered directly after.



EDIT: It's not gaad, that's a visual illusion created by a mix of the page line and the overscore deletion. So it is just the g that was changed.

I think I have a simple explanation for this one...

It looks like Manalli had originally written "take(s) care", but then decided he wanted to emphasize "care". He then tried changing "care" to "good" only to cross it out and rewrite the word "good" cleanly.

Interesting Tim.

I say that, not only because it's really nice thinking, but also because if he started to write the word care and only got as far as starting the c, later to be altered or incorporated to make a g then the shape of the c, then dictating the shape of the g means that c that is an even closer match to the form and shape of the Zodiac's c's.

I did warn you, you can't poke around with this writing, it's dangerous lol. Please keep poking, really

thebigZ wrote:

traveller1st wrote:

Regarding my crazy hidden code theory.

This is one of the things that got me wondering. Why change the word 'good' for the word 'good' only to change the form of the g? There's also the possibility that he first spelled it gaad but I'm not sure if that's what I'm seeing, the g though has definitely been altered directly after.



EDIT: It's not gaad, that's a visual illusion created by a mix of the page line and the overscore deletion. So it is just the g that was changed.

I think I have a simple explanation for this one...

It looks like Manalli had originally written "take(s) care", but then decided he wanted to emphasize "care". He then tried changing "care" to "good" only to cross it out and rewrite the word "good" cleanly.

BIGZ, this certainly makes sense, but on the other hand,he still did cross out a word,then wrote the same word anyway.

Yeah, I know. But with me, that's not very unusual... my OCD kicks in and I tend to cross stuff out if it gets a little messy.

Manalli's punctuation compared to Zodiac's. Manalli's is on the right and below.

traveller1st wrote:

Manalli's punctuation compared to Zodiac's. Manalli's is on the right and below.

Something I hadnt noticed that both Manalli & Zodiac bend their exclamation points.

thebigZ wrote:

Yeah, I know. But with me, that's not very unusual... my OCD kicks in and I tend to cross stuff out if it gets a little messy.

Don't you mean "my CDO" ... bwahhhhh <sorry, the devil made me say that>

On to being serious ....

The line below the "good" line--has it been rewritten (same word written over the original)? It looks like it is darker and I see artifacts? Overwriting? Bleed-through? My imagination?