Troy Houghton: The Minuteman

Wow!

That is the first really interesting non-named suspect I have read about in awhile. Good research and many interesting similarities.

Any picture of this guy?

He never surfaced again?

The Minutemen connection is interesting and should be explored, both in relation to this POI and in general.

Well...howdy Rand.

Hey Tahoe and AKWilks. I've got about 8 good pictures of TH. I don't know how to post things on this board. But someone will post them for me soon. I have lots of stuff, as Tahoe knows too well. I'll get it up here asap.

Okay, I've mentioned that Troy Houghton was twice convicted of indecent exposure. He was a flasher, and he was constantly referred as such in newspaper articles about him -- of which there were quite a few. Why is this important? Because, IMO, Z took great pains to create the image of a flasher on the Halloween card. The card says: You Ache to Know My Name, and So I'll Clue You In...
Z put many clues on the card. The flasher image is the biggest clue. He placed a pumpkin over the pelvic region on the front, and then put a skeleton inside the card posed in a garrish position: PEEK-A-BOO! Indeed, I read a story in the SF Chronicle of a woman being arrested for indecent exposure because she was wearing a peek-a-boo blouse(!)
Look at the card with this image in mind, and you'll probably see it right away:







Other clues on the card. Notice the figure SLAVES PARADICE. It is formed by an H and a small t or cross in the middle. This may very well stand for TH or Troy Houghton.

There are 13 eyes. I have several theories about this. First, 13 is the number of the Revolutionary period. 13 colonies, 13 stars in the constellation, 13 arrows on the Great Seal of the US. 13 stars on the MM flag, which was a replica of the Betsy Ross flag. How come they're eyes? TH was featured in a LOOK magazine article in June 1966. (I'll post it soon). LOOK ---> EYES. A clue?

Also, notice that Z put a crosshair symbol, a Z, and a strange symbol in the signature area of the card. He also put a Z and the strange symbol on the return address. IMO, this is to indicate that the crosshair was never intended to represent the Zodiac. Recall that the original letter had the crosshair but no reference to Zodiac. I think there is a good reason for this, which I will outline in another post. Rather, the crosshair along with the Z in the HC was, IMO, a clue that this was a MM crosshair symbol all along. The Z is for Zodiac. The other symbol, well...haven't figured that one out yet (not for lack of trying).

One of the biggest busts of the Minutemen organization (front page news around the country) occurred in NY the afternoon that Cheri Jo Bates was murdered. Was this the motive? Was it retaliation for the arrests? Houghton said he would retaliate for MM arrests, especially the arrest of DePugh.

The two stories appeared on the front page adjacent to each other in some California newspapers.
Moreover, there was a story in February 1970 about Minutemen training exercises held just outside Riverside County. The point is that the Minutemen were active in Riverside and Houghton was the leader prior to his disappearance -- and he disappeared roughly 6 months after CJB was murdered in October 1966.


https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img687/8788/minutemencjbstories1031.jpg

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img9/1511/minutemenriversideconne.jpg

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img687/7915/minutemencjbredlands103.jpg

The Confession letter reads very similar to the passage on the MM decal. Compare the wording


This letter should be published for all to read it. It just might save girl in the alley. But that's up to you. It will be on your conscience. Not mine....It was just a warning. Beware....I am stalking your girls now.

See the old man at the corner where you buy your papers. He may have a silencer equipped pistol under his coat. That extra fountain pen in the pocket of the insurance salesman who calls on you might be a cyanide gas gun. What about your milk man?....These patriots are not going to let you take their freedom away from them. They have learned the silent knife, the strangler's cord, the target rifle that hits sparrows at 200 yards. Traitors beware. Even now the cross hairs are on the back of your necks.


Patricia Hautz (Haughton?) wrote a strange letter about the CJB murder. My understanding is that there was a Patricia Hautz that went to school with CJB, but I believe there is confusion whether she wrote the letter to the editor.

WOW, Great job Rand, thats alot of info to dig up. Interesting stuff. Keep going, and welcome to the forum!

Thanks, morf. The pictures of TH should be up momentarily.

Info from Rand.

Info from Rand.

BATES LETTER



MOCKUP OF BATES LETTER

Thanks AK Wilks!
Let me explain this. The top letter is one of the CJB letters. The bottom one is a mockup I did using the LA letters sent to Ruby on Dec. 2, 1963.
The different thicknesses are due to the fact that I had to blow up some of the letters quite a bit more than others (due to a glitch in the way the letters printed).
The M in More is actually a small m from the LA letter, hence its thickness.
The only letters I didn't take from the LA letters are the H in Had and the E at the end of MORE. The reason is that I simply could find a capital H or E in the LA letters. I think they're very similar handwriting, but what do you think?

Front and side pictures of Troy Houghton, from Rand.

Let me explain these as well. This newspaper article is interesting as far as the Z connection goes, is that it mentions that TH shot out the tires of the woman whose bumper got hooked onto his by accident (see the bottom column of the second page). Z mentions shooting out the tires of a school bus. TH, btw, also held the woman at gunpoint until LE arrived. Also, it mention at the top of column 2 (page 2) that TH was arrested for malicious destruction of property in 1966 for tearing out a couple of pages of a Library book. Cheri Jo Bates was murdered outside RCC library.




This article is from the summer of 1968 regarding the MM put decals on cars in the Bay Area. What is important, IMO, is that the decals were being placed on cars months before Zodiac initiated his series of murders.

Another picture of TH.



Picture of Troy Houghton, identified by Rand as outside federal court November 1966.

Article on Troy Houghton from LOOK magazine from Rand.

Very interesting material Rand!

His hairstyle does look very much like the Zodiac sketch.

I see his MM secret number is "930"? Those numbers, well 0-3-6-9 really, keep showing up in the Z case - they are on the car door at LB and Z drew them on the Phillips 66 Map. I think they are the decode sequence to solve the codes.

This guy is interesting in that he is both a sexual pervert and a political extremist. It says he went to college campuses a lot to gather information on those he viewed as "subversive".

Lots of interesting things to explore. Did his 1966 trial conflict with the Bates murder and the November 28 Confession Letter?

No sight of this guy ever after the 1960's? Just vanished?

One criticism might be that you might think his targets would be more explicitly political than those of Zodiac - that if Houghton were going to kill it would be known leftists, communists, black radicals or federal employees.

But very interesting stuff and worthy of further study IMO.

Thanks AK! Interesting about the 930 connection to Z. There are also 9 little eyes, 3 medium eyes, and one big eye on the HC. Is that another clue: 930 (how do you represent a zero this way, though?)
You're correct that Z's targets were apolitical ones. TH says in the Look magazine article that he is beyond politics, as are the MM. They wanted to stir up a race war to start a revolution (which Manson borrowed a few years later.) Moreover, Z's incessant plea for people to wear his buttons strikes me as a political one. By wearing Z buttons, people would be unintentionally advertising the MM. The MM started a political party called the Patriotic Party in 1966. They ran candidates in the 1968 election, and supported George Wallace for President. DePugh split the MM into two groups in 1966: 1) for underground subversive activities and infiltration, and (2) an above public group that would run and champion the Patriotic Party. In my view, TH went underground to serve in the MM's secret guerrilla army.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=62448&relPageId=5

This is an FBI document from 1968. Page 5, provides a reason why Houghton first, then DePugh and Peyson went "completely underground."

"In April 1966, DePugh stated the Minutemen organization was then dividing itself into two bodies: one group who have been able to maintain their identity in complete secrecy from the public and Government investigative agencies, and the other group to be made up of members who have been publically identified and will become active in the Patriotic Party. The first group will go completely underground and will continue to emphasize intelligence activities and resistance warfare training programs....

It then goes on to say that DePugh resigned as National Chairman of the Patriotic Party at their last convention, but remain in an advisory capacity. DePugh subsequently disappears for 14 months.


Regarding the timing of the trial and CJB murder, DePugh and Houghton were in LA on the day of CJB's murder. DePugh was addressing a MM audience as a fund-raiser for the trial expenses. I have a poster that I can send you for the event. It left plenty of time for TH to get to Riverside and murder CJB.

The Timex watch at the scene also strikes me as something that may have been planted as a sign: the MINUTEmen. Also, of course, the Zodiac was a watch (a clue re the MINUTEmen?). Speaking of that Timex watch, Troy should be wearing it in the photo of him in the Look magazine article from the summer of 1966 (see the watch he's wearing as he sits at his desk in his garage office).

A note about the last picture of Troy on the steps of the MO courthouse in November 1966, Troy is on the left, in the middle is the leader of the Minutemen, Robert Bolivar DePugh, and on the right is the MM chaplain, Robert Leroy.

I have much, much more to show you about TH and Z, but this is probably enough for people to absorb in one day.

December 21: LHR murders. Troy's first child, Troy Jones Houghton, was born on Dec. 21, 1955. So the murder happened on the night before his son's 13th birthday. Was this a sign of rage that TH was underground and couldn't be with his son?

July 4th: Blue Rock Springs murder (Darlene Ferrin). Independence Day.

Sept 27th: Lake Berryessa murder. Samuel Adams was born on Sept. 27, 1722. Paul Revere's ride was to warn Adams and Hancock.

"Although Gage had evidently decided against seizing Adams and Hancock, Patriots initially believed otherwise. From Boston, Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere to warn the two that British troops were on the move and might attempt to arrest them. As Hancock and Adams made their escape, the first shots of the war began at Lexington and Concord. Soon after the battle, Gage issued a proclamation granting a general pardon to all who would "lay down their arms, and return to the duties of peaceable subjects"—with the exceptions of Hancock and Samuel Adams. Singling out Hancock and Adams in this manner only added to their renown among Patriots, and, according to Patriot historian Mercy Otis Warren, perhaps exaggerated the importance of the two men."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams

Z placed a Samuel Adams stamp on the 'citizen' letter. Citizen is a term that was used by Revolutionary figures (as well as KKK members and white supremacists). And Posse Comitatus, an outgrowth of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in Lancaster, CA, is thought to have written the anonymous propaganda tract known as the Citizen's Rule Book, which led to the sovereign citizen movement as well as the closely related militia movement. http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_(organization)

Finally, Paul Revere began his famous ride from the Green Dragon Tavern (the Dragon Card?).


Oct. 11th: Stine murdered on Columbus Day weekend and the murder happened at Washington and Cherry.

For this, you'll need th 408 code key:
http://www.zodiologists.com/z408_cipher_key.html

Second page of the 408: starting at the last character of line 3 and
continuing to the first 6 characters of line 4.

TTINGYO (translation)
HI^NG[]T (code part)

Using the code key for the 408 above, you see that:
the second T could have been coded as an H
I could have been coded as a U
N could have been coded as an O
When this is done you get:
TTINGYO (translation)
HHUOR[]T (code)
which, when these letters are combined, is an anagram for:
I TROY HOUGHT[]N
with a T left over (of course, Troy couldn't help that his name only had 13
characters)

Zodiac's first cipher was sent in three parts to three different Bay Area papers. Here are the three parts of the cipher:
part 1: http://www.zodiackiller.com/VTHCipher.html
part 2: http://www.zodiackiller.com/VTHCipher.html
part 3: http://www.zodiackiller.com/ExaminerCipher.html

Zodiac said his identity (not name) would be known once police cracked the cipher. It wasn't. For forty years people have believed that Z lied about this. IMO, he didn't lie.
Notice that the last line of the cipher is not part of the message (it isn't translated).
When translated it reads: EBEORIETEMETHHPITI with the E coming from the last character of the second to last line.

Gibberish, right? That's what everyone has thought. But I believe that what Z did has not been understood. When it is, the last line, IMO, reads: THE MINU+EMEN with 5 extra symbols leftover that are not letters. When I say the last line reads, I mean the last line in the code part of the cipher, not the translation, which remains EBEORIETEMETHHPITI. Thus, Z's identity is, as he said, in the code or cipher itself. But the code had to be cracked first, as he said, to see this. The trick is this:

What you do is take the translated letters -- EBEORIETEMETHHPITI -- and work backwards: that is, find the equivalents in the cipher for the letters. Of course, working backwards like this will give you exactly what the Zodiac orignally wrote on the last line. But it will also give you some other things as well.

Why? Because there are other characters that could have been used to yield the EBEORIETEMETHHPITI translation.

Why? Because some letters have two or more characters associated with them. When this is done, VOILA!, you get an anagram for +HE MINUTEMEN (a plus sign is used for one of the T's) with six characters left over: BRMPII. (see below) All of the six characters are not letters, but rather shapes, e.g., V/+ ^. Thus, they cannot be used in the translation -- a clever way for Z to say that only 12 of the 18 characters have meaning -- the other five are filler to yield the rest of the 17-character line.
Thus,

OTEHTEIEEHET BRMPII (TRANSLATED LINE)
THEMINU+EMEN +^Q/> (CODE LINE)

The top line (which is the translation) is precisely the same as EBEORIETEMETHHPITI -- just in a different order (because THE MINUTEMEN was anagrammed)
So Z's identity was, IMO, revealed once the cipher was cracked.

In July 1968, 12 convicts escaped from Deer Lodge, Montana. All but one was caught by July 26, 1968. The lone uncaught escapee was Harold Bates, 26, forgery.
Between the time the convicts escaped (July 12) and July 26, 1968, a woman, Alma Robuck, in Butte was clubbed in the head, and the perp stole from her three high-powered rifles, ammo, and her car. The person hid in Alma Robuck's basement and, when she got home, he clubbed her senseless, tied her up and put her in her car along with three high-powered rifles and ammo that he stole from her basement. He (or they) took the rifles and ammo. She was clubbed from behind so never got a look at him or them. The car got a flat, so it was ditched along with Alma but the the rifles and ammo were taken.

Everyone assumed it was one of the escaped convicts. But by July 26, 1968, the warden announced that this mystery man in the mountains could not have been one of the escaped convicts. Bates was believed to be somewhere on the West Coast; papers identifying Bates were found in a car stolen in Idaho.

An excerpt from the Billings Gazette, "Who Is Hiding in the Mountains?" (July 26, 1968):

"The warden said prison officials have abandoned their search in the mountains between Butte and Deer Lodge for the mystery man who is thought to be armed with three high powered rifles and ammunition."

Houghton had disappeared in 1967. Unlike all other Z suspects, Houghton was a fugitive. He could very well have wound up in the Mountains between Deer Lodge and Butte. And he could very well have clubbed a woman in the head and stolen her car.

Parenthetically: compare the clubbing in the head in this case with the mystery rapist in Riverside who threatened to club his victim in the head with a stick. That particular incident occurred several weeks after CJB murder, and the rapist fit the description of both Z and Houghton to a tee.

the Independent Record (Montana newspaper) dated November 17, 1968, that the FBI suspected two Minutemen, DePugh and Peyson, were in the mountains of Montana. This supports my theory that Robuck was clubbed by Houghton or one of the other two Minutemen, DePugh or Peyson. Remember, there were 3 high-powered rifles stolen from Alma Robuck. This suggests that Troy Houghton, whom the FBI did not think was a fugitive but rather a murder victim, might have been the third man -- and that DePugh and Peyson joined Houghton, who was already hiding out there, in mid-1968.

The story headline reads: "Two Leaders of the Minutemen May Be Hiding Out in Montana."

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Because we have Z saying that he's an escaped convict from Deer Lodge. And in July 1968, 12 convicts escape Deer Lodge prison and all but one, Harold Bates, are returned. Then we have the warden and Montana LE saying that the armed man hiding in the mountains is definitely not one of the escapees. Then we have the FBI saying that they suspect two Minutemen leaders are hiding in the Montana mountains.

Thus, there is a direct Minutemen-Deer Lodge escapee-Zodiac connection. While it may be spurious, it is direct.

Why would Z claim to be an escaped convict from Deer Lodge prison? Because this incident had meaning for him (he was up there in the mountains with them), and he wanted to keep LE guessing. He probably wasn't aware that they had all been captured, except Harold Bates, and so this was a great way to throw LE off his scent. Why not blame an escaped Deer Lodge convict?

COINCIDENCE?
Consider this, the FBI and I independently came to suspect that a Minuteman was the armed mystery man in the mountains between Deer Lodge and Butte.
But we got there from entirely different routes.

I started with Z's comment in Sept. 1969, that he was an escaped convict from Deer Lodge prison, and worked backwards. His comment is what put me in the Montana mountains near Deer Lodge, so to speak, and led me to the Deer Lodge convicts who escaped in July 1968. Then I find out that there was a mystery man in the mountains who was not one of the escapees and who had stolen rifles, ammo, a car, and clubbed Alma Robuck. Then, days later, I find out that the FBI suspected, in Nov. 1968, that Minutemen were in the mountains.

The FBI got to the Minuteman (Minutemen, actually) from an entirely different direction and, obviously, for different reasons. After all, this is July 1968 -- Z doesn't even exist yet as an entity. The FBI suspected it was Peyson and DePugh, who were fugitives like Houghton. Houghton disappeared in May 1967, they disappeared in April 1968 or thereabouts. Peyson and DePugh may have been in the mountains, for we know that they were in Idaho prior to diisappearing. They were apprehended 14 months later in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (July 1969).

Why would Troy Houghton be in the mountains of Montana? Because his right-hand man, Dennis Mower, worked in a bookstore in MT. Because TH was a survivalist who trained recruits to take to the hills as a guerrilla force, which would liberate the US from the impending Communist takeover. And because DePugh had said in 1966, that he was splitting the MM organization in two, with one faction going underground as a secret army organization. I believe that Houghton was put in charge of the West Coast portion of that army.

Notice the following:
1) Houghton has a toneless voice
2) He carries a gun in his briefcase
3) He went undercover when JFK was shot
4) The MM are violently anti-political (very good way to describe Z); beyond politics
5) He is very connected to his shortwave radio...THIS IS THE ZODIAC SPEAKING

13 PUNCHED HOLES



NOTICE BELOW THAT HOUGHTON TALKS ABOUT 13 BULLET HOLES IN HIS CAR, WHICH HIS WIFE TOLD ME WAS AN OLD BEATUP WHITE CAR.

On Sept. 17, 1964, Houghton and the Minutemen were featured in a nationally syndicated editorial by Paul Coates, "The Minutemen 'Have a Little List' -- And Guess Who's On It." Here is the LA Times version:




The Epilogue to Jones's book, THE MINUTEMEN (1968), begins with the last interview of Troy Houghton. He talks about a list of targets for assassination if DePugh is jailed. DePugh was jailed.

"When are you going to start shooting?" I asked Troy Houghton, half seriously, as we sipped coffee in a Springfield, Missouri, restaurant in May, 1967, a few days before his 'disappearance.'
"If Bob [DePugh] goes to jail," Houghton replied, drawing a line across the table top with his right forefinger, 'there's people who say that's the line."
"Who's going to get shot?" I asked, having no idea whether he was in earnest.
"I've assigned names of certain poeple to certain people."
"How many to how many?"
"A medium, three-figure amount."