"THIS STATE IS IN TROUBLE" LETTER

This letter threatens 3 in SF - after Paul Stine, did Graysmith have Zodiac as a suspect in 3 SF murders of young woman, most with medical connections?

Ricardo has put up the 12/16/69 possible Zodiac letter postmarked from Fairfield at his site:

http://www.mk-zodiac.com/Communication12-16-69Report.html

As usual, Ricardo does some excellent research and presents a fair evaluation of this letter.

His initial research seems to confirm what The Foreigner thought, that the "by knife" part of the Lake Berryessa car door writing was NOT revealed to the public prior to 12/16/69, and indeed may not have been revealed as late as 1971.

Given what seems to be the strong match between the "knife" writing on the car door and in this letter, absent a policeman or reporter hoaxing it, this lends some support to the notion this may be a real Zodiac communication.

There are several other interesting observations there as well.

Good job Ricardo, and thanks for acknowledging the role of Morf, me and this site.

AK Wilks wrote:

Ricardo has put up the 12/16/69 possible Zodiac letter postmarked from Fairfield at his site:

http://www.mk-zodiac.com/Communication12-16-69Report.html

As usual, Ricardo does some excellent research and presents a fair evaluation of this letter.

His initial research seems to confirm what The Foreigner thought, that the "by knife" part of the Lake Berryessa car door writing was NOT revealed to the public prior to 12/16/69, and indeed may not have been revealed as late as 1971.

Given what seems to be the strong match between the "knife" writing on the car door and in this letter, absent a policeman or reporter hoaxing it, this lends some support to the notion this may be a real Zodiac communication.

There are several other interesting observations there as well.

Good job Ricardo, and thanks for acknowledging the role of Morf, me and this site.

Good work everyone. Get the truth out there!

I like the "knife" thing very much.

But the big problem I have with this one is that Zodiac was wittering away incessantly about his bus bomb in the letters before & after this one. But here he doesn't mention his beloved bomb at all. And Fairfield writes like a genuine 8 year old.

One possibility I suppose is that Fairfield was the Berryessa copycat . All a copycat needed was the symbol, a hood and the previous crime dates. Admittedly highly speculative.

When I look at this letter, I don't get the impression that Zodiac wrote it. The language seems stilted and doesn't have the same mocking tone of many of his other missives---at least I don't sense it.

As for the Bleeding Knife page, some of the letters are similar to the way Zodiac made them, but this could be explained by the fact that newspapers published copies of Zodiac's letters, so a hoaxer would have a way of knowing how Zodiac made his K's, etc.

As for the fact that this letter mentions a bleeding knife, so what? The news reports of the day stated that a knife was used in the attack.

I think the people posting in this thread have raised some VERY GOOD points for and against this being a Zodiac letter. Unless more information comes to light, I have to say that I don't think it is authentic. Hope I am wrong.

No doubt that it could be a copycat. But then again, the word KNIFE is similar to the Berryessa car door as it was written, and its been pretty much shown that the car door photo or full contents was not avail to the public in Dec 69

Well, if Zodiac wrote the word "knife" on the car door, wouldn't the letters more or less match the way he made the same letters in some of his writings? Someone would not have had to seen the words "by knife" in order to print the word "knife" in a similar fashion in the Bleeding Knife page.

I also do not think this is from the Zodiac from my first impression.
But....The way the writer makes sure the list includes cops for Fairfield
is interesting. Does not seem like something a hoaxster would do.
It is like the writer remembered when writing Fairfield 3 that he wanted
to specify "cops", not "times" and had to correct it with the arrow.

AK Wilks wrote:

Here is one thing not mentioned.

There have been at least three "fake" Zodiacs - in New York, Japan and North Carolina. All wrote "fake" Zodiac letters - they were not the man who was the SF Zodiac. Yet all three of these "fakes" did kill people.

If all the Fairfield/Sacramento Zodiac letters are fake, we have someone who spent a lot of time on this project. It can't be dismissed that he could - just like the NY, Japan and NC "Fake Zodiacs", also be a killer.

To be honest, Azuma (the dude from Japan) didn't even style himself a 'Zodiac' (he used the monikers 'SHOOL [sic] KILLER' and 'Seito Sakakibara'), although he did loosely paraphrase some of Zodiac's lines. And what people report as a 'crossed-circle symbol' on Azuma's letters actually looks more like a child's pinwheel or a lollipop. To call him a Zodiac copycat is, IMO, kinda innacurate.

tracers wrote:

Well, if Zodiac wrote the word "knife" on the car door, wouldn't the letters more or less match the way he made the same letters in some of his writings? Someone would not have had to seen the words "by knife" in order to print the word "knife" in a similar fashion in the Bleeding Knife page.

No, we are saying that if this was the work of a copycat, how could they copy closely the word KNIFE if it was never released to the papers? Dont get me wrong, the writer of the bleeding knife tried to alter their writing, even the FBI report states that. But I think if Z's natural writing was what we saw on the car door, his altered disguised writing may be what we see in the bleeding knife letter. There are similarities, and of course they dont look exactly like the car door, because if it is really from Z, he tried to alter his writing.

Wikipedia and most media reports call him a "Zodiac copycat" or "Zodiac influenced". From wiki:

On May 27, 1997, the head of Jun Hase (土師 淳, Hase Jun?, ca. 1986 - May 27, 1997), a special education pupil at Tainohata Elementary School, was found in front of the school gate hours before pupils arrived for classes. Hase had been beheaded with a hand saw, with further mutilations being done before being left in front of the school, for students to discover when they arrived in the morning.[1] A note, written in red pen, was found stuffed in his mouth, identifying the killer as "Sakakibara." The note read:

"This is the beginning of the game... You police guys stop me if you can... I desperately want to see people die, it is a thrill for me to commit murder. A bloody judgment is needed for my years of great bitterness."

Additionally, some English was on the note as well: "shooll kill [sic]".

Police commented that the style of Hase's killing and the note was reminiscent of that of the Zodiac murders in the San Francisco area during the late 1960s

AK - Anyway, my point was that we have at least three cases, to debatable and varying degrees, were Zodiac copycats or Zodiac influenced persons really did kill people.

Given the number of Fairfield/Sacramento communications, if this was a hoaxer, I still find it interesting and wouldn't dismiss him as a murder suspect.

I do think the evidence leans towards this being from Zodiac.

Unlike some sites, we think it better to present all the evidence, let it be debated and discussed, and let everyone come to their own conclusions.

morf13 wrote:

tracers wrote:

Well, if Zodiac wrote the word "knife" on the car door, wouldn't the letters more or less match the way he made the same letters in some of his writings? Someone would not have had to seen the words "by knife" in order to print the word "knife" in a similar fashion in the Bleeding Knife page.

No, we are saying that if this was the work of a copycat, how could they copy closely the word KNIFE if it was never released to the papers? Dont get me wrong, the writer of the bleeding knife tried to alter their writing, even the FBI report states that. But I think if Z's natural writing was what we saw on the car door, his altered disguised writing may be what we see in the bleeding knife letter. There are similarities, and of course they dont look exactly like the car door, because if it is really from Z, he tried to alter his writing.

The point I am making is that the writer did not HAVE to see the "by Knife" on the car door in order for the word "knife" in the Bleeding Knife page to resemble the word "knife" on the car door. The writer could have looked at Zodiac's published letters for a sense of how Zodiac made his k's, n's, i's, etc.

tracers wrote:

morf13 wrote:

tracers wrote:

Well, if Zodiac wrote the word "knife" on the car door, wouldn't the letters more or less match the way he made the same letters in some of his writings? Someone would not have had to seen the words "by knife" in order to print the word "knife" in a similar fashion in the Bleeding Knife page.

No, we are saying that if this was the work of a copycat, how could they copy closely the word KNIFE if it was never released to the papers? Dont get me wrong, the writer of the bleeding knife tried to alter their writing, even the FBI report states that. But I think if Z's natural writing was what we saw on the car door, his altered disguised writing may be what we see in the bleeding knife letter. There are similarities, and of course they dont look exactly like the car door, because if it is really from Z, he tried to alter his writing.

The point I am making is that the writer did not HAVE to see the "by Knife" on the car door in order for the word "knife" in the Bleeding Knife page to resemble the word "knife" on the car door. The writer could have looked at Zodiac's published letters for a sense of how Zodiac made his k's, n's, i's, etc.

That is also true. If its a fake, I would say they did a pretty good job. The FBI was stumped, and I have a feeling if they were, we will be too.

Tracers - Of course that is possible.

But the "knife" on the car door is distinctive, the letters, the spacing, the feel. The "knife" on this letter looks very similar in the writing, the spacing and the feel.

I have now heard from 3 different sources that Tom V claims to have posted this on his forum 12 years ago, but removed it because it was not "authenticated". I personally dont believe that it was ever on there, and everyone I know of that has been a longtime member of his forum doesnt seem to recall it either. If it was there, it would have made its way onto the internet, as everything else has.

It is an odd claim, because Tom has up the May 1978 possible Zodiac letter, the one with "Chief Piggy" and the Manson reference, and to my knowledge NO expert has ever authenticated that letter. Yet he has it up. And this 12/16/69 letter the FBI says it DOES have characteristics similar to other Z letters and "MAY HAVE" been written by Zodiac.

In any event, why not leave it up and let people decide for themselves?

For those who are friends with Tom, ask him if he will email the envelope the 12/16/69 letter came in. Tell him you want to post it here to prove that it was Tom who got this first.

If he does, then he is telling the truth. If he doesn't...

AK Wilks wrote:

For those who are friends with Tom, ask him if he will email the envelope the 12/16/69 letter came in. Tell him you want to post it here to prove that it was Tom who got this first.

If he does, then he is telling the truth. If he doesn't...

I dont really care if he found it first, its not like it's a competition. Just be honest with your peers.

Morf, Zam and I all agreed that we would share any Zodiac documents we uncovered with all major Zodiac sites, regardless if we were on friendly terms or not, or what the rivalries of the moment were. These letters were sent to Tom, Mike B, Howard Davis, Doug Oswell, Chris Y, Ricardo and Roland. Most were appreciative and thankful. Some were not. So be it.

We are trying to focus on solving the case, and sharing information helps further that goal. We will continue to do so, and continue to have members here who are members at all other boards.

Thanks to all who are working on the case, and have taken time to study, do research and offer opinions.

Fantastic work, morf and AK ! Kudos and many thanks for sharing the great find!

Now, thinking about the "State in trouble", it could really mean trouble for the State or the Government if Zodiac was an agent "gone bad", right?

Could it be as simple as:



Since the writer aligned the 5 symbols next to the first of the 5 crosshair symbols I am including this one crosshair symbol in the solution. Looks like the 4 other crosshair symbols (3 small ones and the big one) were to disguise the first one. Just saying..

Y = WHY
I = I
N = AN
H = AITCH
N = AN
D = D

WHY I AN AGENT ... "YOU BETTER PRINT WHY I AM AN AGENT"

-Nin

So if the Fairfield letters are all fake, from a hoaxer, how is the langauge on the 12/7/69 Fairfield letter matches up so well with the langauge and pose of the 12/20/69 letter?

Thanks AK for the pointing out the above statement, this is what I keep pondering an pondering...... IT' matches up very well!

The handwriting on the July Fairfield letter looks a hell of a lot like that on the April 1978 letter...

July Fairfield?

The April 78 letter seems based (or traced) on several different Zodiac letters.

Any one have an explanation for how the "fake" Fairfield letter uses the same langauge and pose of the real 12/20/69 Zodiac letter?

Very interesting stuff.

AK Wilks wrote:

July Fairfield?

The April 78 letter seems based (or traced) on several different Zodiac letters.

Whoops, I thought 12/7 meant 12th of July.

Here, look. The handwriting looks very similar, at least to me: