by Mark Hewitt
Throughout the subsequent years, armchair researchers obligingly suggested many, many possible solutions. Some were better than others. A notable possibility was “Alfred E. Newman,” the name of the famous mascot of Mad Magazine, a counter-culture humor screed that was popular among the youth of 1960s and 1970s. Only one spelling mistake or coding error needed to be acknowledged for this solution to fit the symbols in a simple substitution cipher. The first three symbols of the cryptograph were also the initials of the named solution: AEN.
The FBI determined that the message was too short to be meaningfully decoded. The bureau realized that with so few symbols, without more input from the killer himself, the true, intended solution would in all probability never be known.
As the first contact after the Belli letter, the Name letter suggested that the killer’s apparent cry for help in the previous note was a farce, a temporary phase from which the killer had emerged, or was not the intent of that letter in the first place. The writer’s generous use of boasting, threatening, and taunting was consistent with virtually all of his previous and future letters.
The first page of the new letter read as follows:
This is the Zodiac speaking
By the way have you cracked
the last cipher I sent you ?
My name is –-
[13 symbol cipher]
I am mildly cerous as to how
much money you have on my
head now. I hope you do not
think that I was the one
who wiped out that blue
meannie with a bomb at the
cop station. Even though I talked
about killing school children with
one. It just wouldnt doo to
move in on someone elses teritory.
But there is more glory in killing
a cop than a cid because a cop
can shoot back. I have killed
ten people to date. It would
have been a lot more except
that my bus bomb was a dud.
I was swamped out by the
rain we had a while back.
The second page of the missive presented a revised bomb diagram. Like the first drawing, it outlined an explosive system designed to detonate when passed by a school bus. It incorporated a new provision: a second circuit designated as a “cloudy day disco[n]nect.” Apparently, if the sky was overcast, the second circuit would prevent the bomb from being activated. Otherwise, without it, the new diagram implied, on a cloudy day the system would detonate as soon as it was set and would not wait until a bus drove past.
The second page included the following words:
The new bomb is set up like
this
PS I hope you have fun trying
to figgure out who I killed
[crosshair symbol] = 10 SFPD = 0
The writer’s mention of “being swamped out by the rain” launched an investigation into lower lying regions of the Bay Area, the police figuring that if they could find the spots where rainwater pooled, they might be one step closer to identifying the killer. The police also wondered what the killer might have meant by referring to someone else’s “ter[r]itory.” Did the Zodiac believe he had a specific area, geographic or otherwise, in which he operated?
The killer’s claim to ten victims also had to be explored. It provided the investigators with only two possibilities. Either the Zodiac had killed additional victims of which they were not aware, or he was padding the score, falsely claiming victims who did not exist.
They later questioned why he would deny responsibility for one killing—that of Sergeant McDonnell—if he was willing to claim credit for other murders that he had not perpetrated. And why mention a murder that happened two months prior while remaining silent about the kidnapping of Johns, if in fact he was involved in the latter?
The letter seemed to communicate something about the killer, but investigators could not pinpoint anything specific that would further their quest. If the killer was aware of investigative techniques and used this knowledge to cover any leads, he was also very skilled in tantalizing those tasked with capturing him, and doing so in a way that was not very helpful. He may have offered up large servings of fake and vague clues. One way or another, he aided little in police efforts to catch him.
Many of the reports filed by law enforcement at the time bleakly concluded with the words, “The investigation continues.”
The Dragon Card
The killer sent a most unusual communication one week later. Following through on his theme of setting a bomb by a roadside to kill children in a school bus, the Zodiac now provided a means by which the people of the Bay Area could avert the disaster. If two specific actions were taken, he promised, the bomb would not be detonated.
Why law enforcement should believe him and trust him at his word was never even intimated. Even if the offer was disingenuous, however, the police had to take it seriously. They were as committed to preserving life as they were to capturing the Zodiac.
The Dragon card followed closely on the heels of the Name letter, and was postmarked April 28, also in San Francisco. The FBI Field Office in San Francisco received it from The Chronicle on April 30, and in turn notified Washington, D.C. of its receipt that same day. San Francisco requested an analysis on May 1, but the lab did not receive its copy of the items until May 4. The envelope was labeled Qc48, and the front and back of the card, Qc49 and Qc50, respectively. The SFPD advised The Chronicle to make some mention of the letter to “placate” the killer. The newspaper obliged with a brief story on May 1.
On May 7, the FBI lab reported on the card, noting that some of the previous samples of the killer’s writing had been distorted and were not written as freely as others. Nevertheless, all of the samples were likely composed by the same person, it concluded, “Hand printed characteristics were observed, however, which indicates that all of the threatening letters in this case, including Qc48 through Qc50, were probably prepared by one writer.”
Also on May 7, an additional request was made of the FBI Laboratory. Because latent prints had been developed from the Dragon card and its envelope, it was asked to make fingerprint comparisons. The prints—one latent fingerprint and six latent palm prints—were likely deposited prior to delivery by the United States Postal Service or from being handled by the office staff of The Chronicle. The lab attempted to find a match, but no identification was effected.
The entire text on the back of the Dragon card read as follows:
If you dont want me to
have this blast you must
do two things. 1 Tell every
one about the bus bomb with
all the details. 2 I would like
to see some nice Zodiac butons
wandering about town. Every
one else has these buttons like,
[peace symbol], black power, melvin eats
bluber, etc. Well it would cheer
me up considerbly if I saw
a lot of people wearing my
buton. Please no nasty ones
like melvin’s
Thank you.
[crosshair symbol]
The card exposed the killer’s childish sense of humor. Two goofy-looking miners were pictured on the front, one riding a mule, the other sitting on a dragon. The caption of the “get well” card declared, “Sorry to hear that your ass is dragon.” To this, the killer added in his own hand printing, “I hope you enjoy your selves when I have my B?l?a?s?t.” followed by a crosshair symbol and “P.S. on back.” Except for the Zodiac’s words, the back of the card was blank.
The Zodiac was evidently making the promise that he would not detonate a bomb if two conditions were met, two conditions that the killer must have prized. The first demand was to publish his bomb diagram with all of its details. While some information about the Name letter had been passed on to the public, the diagram of the bomb on page two was never printed in newspapers. The bomb diagram fr
om the 6-Page letter the previous fall had been similarly withheld.
The killer had demonstrated no willingness to discuss his demands. He provided no means of communication. If the police wanted to negotiate with him, they would have to do so through the media. Or they could accept his terms as stated.
The irony of the first demand was not lost on the police. If they continued to prevent the publication of the bomb diagram, the public would have no fear because they would never know about it. On the other hand, if they released the sketch to the media, the public could unnecessarily be in fear of a threat that the killer promised to never enact should it be broadcast. Evidently, the intent of the bomb diagram was to scare, and not to be used as a blueprint for an actual device that would kill. Perhaps the bomb did not exist, and the only leverage that the killer felt that he had at this point in his campaign was to terrorize the Bay Area residents with his diagram. Or perhaps he was so proud of his drawing that he wanted it communicated to the world, even if its concepts were never used. Law enforcement wrestled with the implications of the killer’s words.
The second demand was for the citizens of the Bay Area to wear “some nice [crosshair symbol] buttons.” It was never clear what he hoped to achieve by having his button worn “about town,” even though he said that it would “cheer [him] up,” possibly suggesting that he was suffering with depression or some other kind of mood disorder such as a bipolar disorder.
The specifics of what the buttons were to look like were not provided, but examples of buttons produced by several groups were offered: a circled “Y,” known as ban the bomb or a peace symbol; “Melvin eats blubber” (a probable dig at attorney Melvin Belli in an allusion to buttons worn by English teachers at the time to promote the novel Moby Dick, “Herman Melville eats blubber”); and those worn by the Black Panther political party.
In light of the horror of his killings, and his threat to use a bomb if his demands were not met, the Zodiac’s signoff was particularly odd. In great kindness and with polite manners, he ended, “Please no nasty ones like Melvin’s / Thank you.” It may have been an expression of sarcasm, the police realized.
The second demand was evidently as important to the killer as it was perplexing to the general public. It was never enacted (did he really believe that anybody would proudly display a button that glorified an odious killer?). Undaunted, he renewed his request in three subsequent letters. For him, it was no fleeting fantasy or throw-away line. The public’s failure to heed his words soon became the justification for the killer to “punish” the people of the Bay Area.
At the request of the SFPD, the card was withheld from the public for one day. SFPD Police Chief Alfred Nelder then told The Chronicle to publish information about the bomb threat. No mention of any bomb appeared in the press until May 1, 1970.
Nelder’s reasoning behind the change? The bomb threat was likely a hoax, and in light of the Zodiac’s new promise to kill if the bomb details were not made public, he weighed the chance of public panic over against the killer’s new threat, and decided to share the information. When Paul Avery reported on it, he made sure to include the U.S. Army’s assessment that such a far-fetched device would be extremely difficult to construct.
Neither the police nor the public created or wore any Zodiac buttons.
The investigators realized that with the two demands the Zodiac’s mind may have been opened a crack to provide a brief glimpse into his soul. By giving ultimatums to the public, he may have unwittingly provided some clarity to his motive for the gruesome murders and his sinister campaign of terror. But what exactly was to be accomplished by fulfilling his requests remained a mystery, possibly another hoax by a killer who’d already proved himself dishonest. He may have been possessed only with a desire to spread fear, with the added goal of gaining notoriety.
The puzzling request for Zodiac buttons was reiterated with the next letter, the Map letter, sent approximately two months later.
The Map letter
Postmarked in San Francisco on June 26, 1970, the Map letter was, like the two previous letters received that year, addressed to The San Francisco Chronicle. Curiously, the single, hand-written page was accompanied by a piece of a map illustrating a portion of the Bay Area. The letter included a new cipher, the fourth sent by the killer. The mailing was turned over the SFPD on June 30, on which date the San Francisco FBI Field Office notified Washington, D.C. of its arrival in an airtel. The missive, map piece, and envelope were collectively labeled Qc51 by the FBI Crime Laboratory.
On July 8, the laboratory gave up its attempts to crack the encryption it had received on July 2: “No decryption could be affected for symbols on Qc51.”
The new cipher contained 32 symbols, 26 of which were unique, the laboratory noted. A close inspection revealed that a mere three symbols occurred more than once, and these were each used twice. The only similarity to the first two Zodiac ciphers was the length of the row: 17 characters long. Many possible words were run though the encryption, particularly those used in previous communications, such as “with,” “east,” “west,” “miles,” “yards,” “feet,” “bomb,” and “kill,” but there were no significant hits to any of these potential cribs.
On July 15, the FBI in Washington, D.C. concluded that the hand printing on Qc51 was probably done by the Zodiac, “Hand printing characteristics indicate all threatening letters, including Qc51, probably one writer.”
The text of the Map letter read as follows:
This is the Zodiac speaking
I have become very upset with
the people of San Fran Bay
Area. They have not complied
with my wishes for them to
wear some nice [crosshair symbol] buttons.
I promiced to punish them
if they did not comply, by
anilating a full School Buss.
But now school is out for
the summer, so I punished
them in an another way.
I shot a man sitting in
a parked car with a .38.
[large crosshair symbol]-12 SFPD-0
The Map coupled with this
code will tell you where the
bomb is set. You have untill
next Fall to dig it up. [crosshair symbol]
[32 symbol cipher: 17 symbols on the first line, 15 on the second]
The Zodiac’s claim of having killed again was in all probability spurious, the investigation concluded. SFPD Officer Richard Radetice had been fatally shot by an unknown assailant as he sat alone in his police car on June 19, 1970, mirroring the Zodiac’s words, “I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38.” Though the weapon used was a .38, despite the boast of the letter the death was never attributed to the Zodiac. An arrest warrant had already been issued for Joe Wesley Johnson, an ex-con who witnesses said was responsible for the slaying of the officer.
The killer’s words may instead have found their origins with The Chronicle’s October 12, 1969 story that wrongly, in the immediate fog of violence, attributed Stine’s death to a .38. But the killer’s deception was not the only clue found by the police.
The Map letter included a different kind of evidence for the investigation. The inclusion of the piece of a map was the first time that the killer had presented geographical detail in such specificity. Where in previous letters he had referred to directions, where in phone calls he had indicated distances, here he sent a piece of a map and indicated that it was to be used as a tool. Written on the map was a crosshair symbol centered on Mount Diablo, a prominent landmark located in Alameda County of the East Bay. The numbers “0,” “3,” “6,” and “9” appeared at the cross intersections with the circle around the symbol going clockwise from the top. Next to the “0” at the top of the crosshair symbol, the Zodiac had written, “- is to be set to Mag. N.”
The purpose of the map, the killer explained, was to aid in locating the bomb he had repeatedly threatened to place at some roadside
site to kill children. With the solution to the new encryption in hand, he promised, the police could use the map to locate the bomb which the author claimed had already been set to detonate. By this time, with so much written about a bomb that was never proven to exist, the police had their doubts.
Because law enforcement did not believe there was a bomb, they did not spend undue effort in either the cipher’s solution or the map itself. Killers have been known to send maps to law enforcement authorities, directing agencies to the location of a body, a dump site of several corpses, a kidnap victim, or stolen property. Usually, they provide clear instructions and are helpful. Never in the history of criminology, apart from this note has a map been used in conjunction with a cipher to indicate the location of a bomb. The pieces were scoured for prints—just like all the previous mailings—but none were recovered.
Investigators were led to wonder whether their quarry was beginning to unravel on some emotional or psychological level. On the heels of the Dragon card with its silliness and bizarre requests, this new mailing might further document the killer’s descent into madness, a depth deeper than already evidenced in his appalling attacks. Regardless, the police had to look beyond the writer’s mental state in their search for clues.
The Map letter was the third communication of 1970. Like the two preceding notes, it provided new information. It contained instructions and taunts from the killer, and as a result it offered new evidence about the type of person who would utilize such unique ideas. Of the killer’s imagination and creativity, there was no doubt, but this letter further contraindicated that he was communicating on the level and being honest with investigators.