"The Zodiac is going to" postcard from 10/12/70

Morf it does seem as though that's what is being said, that the person who sent the letter to the Inspector possibly knows who sent this to him. Perhaps there was content in it that he had spoken of with this person, possibly the people/events named in the letter. I too feel that this is more likely to be a Zodiac correspondence.

Damn the FBI and their marker pen

Great work, Morf and everyone else on this thread! Seems real to me. Also seems like LE might have dropped the ball on this one. Foreigner's comparison of the date being from the same newspaper (or wherever it was cut out) strikes me as super compelling. So either both postcards are fake or both are real.

rand wrote:

Great work, Morf and everyone else on this thread! Seems real to me. Also seems like LE might have dropped the ball on this one. Foreigner's comparison of the date being from the same newspaper (or wherever it was cut out) strikes me as super compelling. So either both postcards are fake or both are real.

Yes, it sure is a possibility

Nachtsider wrote:

I think the October 5 card might be legit, due to its 'body count' of 13 matching the hitherto unreleased body count of the last letter confirmed as Zodiac's work. This new card dated October 12 is very much like the October 5 card; I therefore think it might be the real deal, too. It would seem that Zodiac was pretty big on cut-and-paste DIY postcards during this time period (these cards and the Halloween card, for instance).

morf, do you or anyone else know if Zodiac's penchant for excess postage was a publicly available fact at the time?

IMO Z didn't know or have the correct amount of postage for a postcard vs. a letter so he used the double stamps to make sure there would be enough and guarantee delivery. What was the price of a stamp for a letter in 1970?
Did Z use double the amount of postage when not needed and when one stamp was the correct amount for the item being mailed? If so, then there is some significance to that but otherwise, it could just be a matter of using up old stamps and avoiding the hassle of buying stamps. Remember, back then there was no Internet and I seem to remember stamp machines being around in grocery stores but even they were a problem if you needed a stamp and didn't have the correct change.

From '68 to '71 it was- per ounce- 6 cents. After '71 it went up to 8 cents.

This card came up recently in the discussion on the Halloween Card. Since there is no handwriting on the card it is impossible to totally rule Zodiac in or out, but this analysis by TheForeigner does a good job of showing matches to the "Fk I'm crackproof...13" card which is listed as authentic I think.

This may well be a REAL Zodiac card.

October 12, 1970 is about the one year anniversary of the Paul Stine murder. Four years later Arlis Perry would be killed at the Stanford Church.

I think Nancy Bennallack was killed right around the time this card was sent. [Bennallack was killed 10/25/70].

Reminds one of the Lass "Peek through the pines" card and more specifically one sent ONE WEEK before this card:

The Zodiac was thought to have sent this card on October 5, 1970, claiming 13 vicitms. He also makes the (upside down) statement that "Fk - Im Crackproof".



Now upside down:



Now compare to 10/12/70 card:





From Theforeigner:

Great job, AGAIN Morf ! Thank you VERY much:)


IMO the new Oct 12, 1970 card is created by the very same person as the person who created the probale Zodiac card of Oct 5, 1970. Created exactly 1 week apart.

Why?

Because:

1. the cut out day/date is proably from the same newspaper, exact same font.

2. both cards are signed with the name "Zodiac", and the name "Zodiac" in both cards are ALSO proably from the same newspaper, both in exact same font, only the Oct 5 is made by single cut out letters (NOT italics)and the Oct 12 is one single word cut out (this IS italics version of the font).

3. the crosshair symbols on the Oct 5 and the Oct 12 are very simelar in their design.

AK Wilks wrote:

I don't know if any newspaper printed the image of the "13th victim FK I'm crackproof" card, maybe one or two did. Maybe none did. But this card seems so similar in design, method and feel.

I don't know...

What do people make of the message? Is there a name blanked out? Paul Avery? Someone else?

No doubt this new card was directed at Paul Avery. Paul Avery wrote this article in the S.F. Chronicle on 10/12/70. The sender probably cut their "Mon. Oct 12, 1970" from this same page.

As you can see, shown it it's entirety is the 10/5/70 card. Note the stamp.

This stuff, imo, makes it easy for copy-cats.

I think someone was screwing with P.A., but just not confident it was Zodiac...and this includes the Halloween card.

Makes me wonder what may have been in October 5th's Chronicle.

All the questions about this 10/20 card and the fk card and no reply to my above post w/photo?? Guess this threads all washed up!

tahoe27 wrote:

No doubt this new card was directed at Paul Avery. Paul Avery wrote this article in the S.F. Chronicle on 10/12/70. The sender probably cut their "Mon. Oct 12, 1970" from this same page.

As you can see, shown it it's entirety is the 10/5/70 card. Note the stamp.

This stuff, imo, makes it easy for copy-cats.

I think someone was screwing with P.A., but just not confident it was Zodiac...and this includes the Halloween card.

Sorry, don't always check the off-beat letter threads. Good point on the date, and I agree someone may have been screwing with PA, maybe someone who had contacted him regarding the case whom he had told to buzz off.

The 10/5 FK card is sent to the SF Chronicle. The 10/20 card is mailed to some guy--very much resembling the FK card--while possibly referring to Paul Avery.

Ever since Paul Avery put that letter in his article, SOME letters mailed after that are addressed directly to Paul. ALL of these are the cut & pastes.

Why is it Zodiac LOVED to hand write his letters? He apparently had no problem with it. Now he is going to sit there and cut and paste HIS NAME from newspapers? I don't think so...

Somebody liked the fact Paul Avery included their first card (10/5/70) and decided to direct their future writings to Paul. Cutting out pieces from newspapers is done because they cannot copy the handwriting. Which is apparent, imo. That's my take anyway.

All of these freaking letters really make me wish that LE had made a concerted effort to keep something like the Zodiac symbol from public knowledge, although Zodiac's writing directly to the media would have made this very difficult. I'm not feeling this particular communication as it just seems to be a rehash of the 10/5/70 card utilizing the same cut and paste method. The 10/5/70 card is equally unverifiable but at least has a certain creativity and other intangibles that make me think it is possibly legitimate.

What's freaky is that these two cut & paste communications pre-date the Halloween card, generally considered as authentic, by just a few weeks and foreshadow Z's own use of the cut & paste method. I honestly wonder whether Zodiac didn't actually copycat a copycat here. In other words, he could have read about the 10/5/70 card in the SF Chronicle article by Paul Avery and decided to write Avery himself, one-upping the copycat's cut & paste card with his most creative communication in the same style, which would also make LE wonder if the 10/5/70 card was also legitimate.

Since this "Zodiac is going to.." card was postmarked "Berkeley" with the date on the card as 10/12/70, I thought this bit of Paul Avery's SF Chronicle article of 11/17/70 interesting - see below.


This man from Berkeley contacted the SF Chronicle to tell of an incident that happened 2 years prior. I think the BPD couldn't find a report because none was ever given. Never happened.

Could this card be from the same man? Only a month's time...


Thx to Seagull

Hmm the timing is interesting. And its very Bates-like...

By the way, a little off topic, but the Berkeley thing made me remember, the famed psychic, that guy Delouise,had received what he said were 'strong signals' from Zodiac. He felt "very strongly" that Zodiac, although he killed inVallejo, did NOT live there, and that he actually lived in BERKELEY. For waht its worth, he felt strongly that Z was born on 11/2 or 2/11, that he was not as heavy & stocky as everybody described him(he even looked a bit malnourished), and that he only wore glasses when he killed...Not sure how much I believe in psychics,but this man supposedly had some major predictions come true.

morf13 wrote:

Sorry, I enhanced this and made it as clear as possible. It appears that the writer, or most likely the FBI, has redacted certain words from the postcard.

The text, as far as I can tell, reads as follows:

MONDAY OCT 12,1970

______(word redacted)

THE ZODIAC IS GOING TO CHANGE THE WAY OF COMMITTING MURDERS.

I SHALL ANNOUNCE WHEN (unreadable) SHALL COMMIT MY MURDERS________(word Redacted) NEXT

YOU TAUGHT ME (unreadable) ______(word redacted)

_____(word redacted) YOU ARE NEXT

ZODIAC, followed by the crosshair symbol.


I wish this was clearer, but its all we have.

My initial thoughts are:

*The author is saying the same thing(or the opposite, its hard to read) as Zodiac did when he said he would no longer commit his crimes. This postcard was sent about 11 months after the Zodiac letter in which he said he would not announce his crimes.

*The postcard has double postage

*The postcard is made up partially, with magazine cutouts like the Lass postcard.


Thoughts & opinions please...

Thanks to the just released Zodiac FBI files, we know that this mailing was sent to Dr. Edward Adams in Orinda, CA -

Probably not Zodiac but assuming it was, why would Zodiac have in it for Dr. Adams ? Maybe Doc Adams left a sponge inside of Zodiac.

Dr. Adams was a psychiatrist!

Wow for some reason I was think he problem was.

Do we know what hospital or medical group Dr. Adams worked out of locally? He lived in Orinda, right?

OWK, as the article says, he was with the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. I tried looking up that institute and found a website for them but what I found says they were founded in 1989. The article was from 1957 so apparently there was another place with the same name back then.

I also found that he was listed as having died in 2004 on a memoriam page for the American Psychiatric Association. He's the first person listed.

http://pnhw.psychiatryonline.org/content/39/6/38.full

Thank you Seagull, I was wondering if Zodiac had some reason to target Dr. Adams. Was Dr. Adams
ever quoted in the newspaper, perhaps regarding Zodiac's psychological profile? Or did anyone
see if Dr. Adams took patients, and if so, were any of them Zodiac?

onewhoknows wrote:

Thank you Seagull, I was wondering if Zodiac had some reason to target Dr. Adams. Was Dr. Adams
ever quoted in the newspaper, perhaps regarding Zodiac's psychological profile? Or did anyone
see if Dr. Adams took patients, and if so, were any of them Zodiac?

From the redacted info in the FBI page, it looks like the Doctor believed the letter came from a former patient.

I did a search at newspaperarchive for him and the last article was dated 1958. There wasn't anything around the time of the Zodiac killings. Doesn't mean he didn't say anything about Zodiac, it just means that it isn't in the newspapers that the website carries.

I found a phone book listing for him on Shattuck in Berkeley, maybe that is where his office was located.

Seagull wrote:

I did a search at newspaperarchive for him and the last article was dated 1958. There wasn't anything around the time of the Zodiac killings. Doesn't mean he didn't say anything about Zodiac, it just means that it isn't in the newspapers that the website carries.

I found a phone book listing for him on Shattuck in Berkeley, maybe that is where his office was located.

"Hotel Shattuck"?