i might actually have found a clue to the Z32.

So weeks ago i had the idea that the Z32’s geometric symbols are numbers. The thought behind it was that if there are numbers in the code, they have to be represented by something that should be able to be counted.
Geometric symbols like "circle", "triangle", "square" etc. would be a good candidates because you can count the edges or corners

Based upon these assumptions:

1. Z32 draws empty and filled triangles as separate symbols. With a pure edge count they’d be identical, so the fill has to mean something like multiplication.
2. If the symbols represent single digits (0 to 9), ×3 would turn the square into 12. ×2 is the only multiplier above 1 that keeps every filled shape a single digit.
3. I also picked ×2 because it gives 3 and 8, matching the “.38” in the letter that came with Z32 and the 3849 on the map. I know that is a weak reason, and I’m not counting the 3 and 8 as evidence.

i got this rule:

Rule: number = edges × 2 if the shape is filled, otherwise edges.

Applying this to the symbols gives this:

---

line 1: Δ ■ ▲;
line 2: ⊙ ▣ ⊕ Δ;

circle = 1, ignore the dot, also using ▣ for the half filled square.
This gives Δ=3, ■=8, ▲=6, ⊙=1, ▣=?, ⊕=?, Δ=3.

3,8,6,1, ?, ?, 3

I am not sure if ▣ and ⊕ belong to the set, i didn't get the rule to work cleanly for them and after seeing the fairfield letter decided to exclude them, and ⊕ might not be a geometric symbol at all.
Another thing, I treat plain O as a letter. If they count as circles, the string becomes 3816113 and only two digits will match with the fairfield letter.

---

The Dec 16, 1969 Fairfield letter has a list:
S.F. 3, S.J. 1, Vallejo 6, Napa 8, Fairfield 3, Sacramento 9, Oakland 8.
Read bottom-up:

8, 9, 3, 8, 6, 1, 3.

It contains 3, 8, 6, 1, 3 as a single run, matching the five digits my rule gave if ignoring the ▣ and ⊕ outliers.

---

Another thing that connects the letter and Z32 is that the letter contains a row of symbols:
Δ, ▢, (cicle vertical), (circle horizontal), (cicle vertical), (circle both)

Similar symbology as the Z32, long before Z32 overstates it.
The letter is dated December 16, 1969 and Z32 is June 26, 1970, about six months apart.

I came up with my rule before i knew about the fairfield letters, it is more a prediction with corroborating evidence than proof. I can’t prove my rule comes before the list, and each rule variants I could have accepted multiplies the odds. Another caveat: the letter’s authenticity is disputed. I don’t know what the leading 8, 9 mean, and ▣, ⊕ is still unanswered.

Disclaimer: I did the decoding myself. I used an AI model to check the probability, because i didn't know how to do that.

TLDR:
In short it boils down to this:

Z32, simple geometric shapes (triangle, *circle, square), count edges, for filled shapes edges x2
*(circle written as ⊙ to differenciate it from the letter O)

and the Fairfield letter is just corroborative evidence, you just have to read the numbers bottom up.

i think its possible after reading Drew Beesons book

I looked at the calendar today and realized that today marks 57 years since Paul Lee Stine was tragically murdered at the corner of Washington and Cherry Streets in Presidio Heights.

This case is often analyzed through the lens of cryptograms, police mistakes, and suspect theories, so I think it’s vital to remember that Paul was a real person whose life was cut incredibly short.

He was only 29 years old. Beyond driving a Yellow Cab to support himself and his wife, Claudia, Paul was an incredibly bright doctoral student studying English at San Francisco State. He was described by those who knew him as a gentle, intelligent, and hardworking man with a deep passion for writing and literature.

Amid all the discussion about who ended his life tragically let's take a moment today to remember the victim, the student, and the human being whose future was stolen from him.

[u/doranchak](u/doranchak), this seems like it’s right up your alley. It’s a bit of a read but I think there might be some merit in there.

You’re the best qualified to analyze it, especially from a statistical angle. If it’s accurate, it could be a big deal.

But just like with anything related to Zodiac, a lot remains to be seen.

57 years ago today, October 11, 1969, the Zodiac popped up in the Persidio Heights district of San Francisco. He also deviated away from secluded couples as this time he shot and killed Paul Stine, a 29 year old Cab driver. The Zodiac had flagged down and taken a ride in the cab before the Cab stopped at Cherry and Washington Street at which point the Zodiac shot and killed Paul with a single shot to the head.

From a window in a house across the street, some kids observed a man wiping down the cab and called the police. Somewhere between that call and nearby patrolmen arriving on scene, the description was mistakenly sent out as a black male (if anyone knows which point and how this occurred, feel free to fill in the blanks).

Two officers on patrol happened to stop a man walking in the area that would bare a resemblance to the correct description of the suspect but this individual was ultimately dismissed and walked away into the night.

Many people speculate that this man was the Zodiac but was let go as he did not match the still incorrect description of a black male (this is subject to opinion at this point).

The Zodiac would write a letter to the newspapers in which he took responsibility for the murder. A claim, which, paired with a piece of Paul Stine’s bloody shirt included with the letter, left no doubt the author was the killer. The Zodiac would also taunt the police writing “the police could have caught me last night if they had searched the (Persidio) Park properly rather than hold street races with their motorcycles seeing who could make the most noise”. He would also issue a threat to shoot out the tires of a school bus and then “pick off the kiddies one by one as they come bouncing out”. Zodiac never carried out his threat but he now held an entire city in fear.

This is not my story, but thought I should share it here since it hasn't been already.

I am putting together a final project that will attempt to wrap up the Colliver saga of my research. I still intend on being active in discussions about him and the theory however, my intention was mainly to make my own determination and allow other people to make their own determination and both of which appear to be completed so my goal is finished. I think staying razor focused on the same person for too long creates a situation where other people’s opinions are glanced over.
It’s a great theory and I’ve enjoyed being involved but everything must end and it is the time for this saga to end.

So as usual once in a while i end up down the Zodiac rabbit hole. This time i came across this Youtube Channel named "Black Box Online Radio" and saw this two video interviews (1st and 4th in the picture) where a guy named Scott Bobbitt claims he found a new suspect and he cannot share his name for legal reasons also said in one of those videos comment section his suspect is presumabliy still alive today LOL.

He claims his suspect left some "aviation" clues in some of the letters like the Halloween card, Mount Diablo card pointing to various murder scenes also airports etc.

Im not claiming i believe every single bit of info said in this channel/interview as i just discovered it this evening but what theyre talking about in those videos is stuff i didnt heard before.

Even if all this is bullshit i found it entertaining and explained in an assertive manner, and thats what we all as internet sleuths should be behaving instead of claiming stuff in a definitive and close minded manner.

Also, just found 1 mention of this channel in the sub, anyone here familiar with it can fill me in about the general consensus of this channel?

Thank you for your time and sorry for my potato english 😅

Did his sensationalism and rise to niche micro-celebrity via the Zodiac killings hinder the actual detective work being done to find the killer? I believe that his involvement is one of the main reasons why the Zodiac case moved from investigative forensics (the police force’s competence notwithstanding) to pop culture mythos. It seems that he was the driving force behind a lot of speculation and circumstantial evidence being taken at face value. When things don’t look like Zodiac but are accepted as Zodiac usually Paul Avery is behind it and I can’t help but feel like he muddied the waters.

At the bottom of the table top poem it is signed "r h".

Richard Hoffman?

Not sure if anyone else has covered this.

image is from zodiackiller.com

I'm Eddie McNamara the guest on the most recent two-part episode of True Crime Garage where I talk about the urban legend of the Zodiac Killer. If you're interested give it a listen. If you have questions or want to chat about it AMA.

Prior to it being solved, was it ever speculated that human error is what caused the code to be difficult to solve? It being a hand written note presumably without an editor to check his work surely lends to the idea that he simply messed up.

In recent years, what's been the "general consensus" on what, if anything, really happened to her?

This case has genuinely fascinated me for years
I’m actively trying to decode z32 and z13, I’ve got a number of theories myself regarding motives and suspects, but I would love to hear other people’s thoughts, who they like as suspects, and if you have any relatively unknown facts or connections between crimes and victims?

Please discuss and or message me

This book came out in 1968: "The Zodiac and The Swastika", but I am not sure when it was available in the United States.

Not that anyone believes in any connection between the Zodiac and anything Nazi related though, but just wanted to point this out as well, except for me that is, kinda obvious though but in any case here it is, I thought I'd post it in case it may help someones research outside Reddit.

Some observations:

There is exactly 100 words in the Z408.

There is exactly 100 days from July 31, 1969 to November 8, 1969.

Could be something, or could be nothing, but in my opinion is that the 408 and 340 are much too highly ordered on the numbers to be random. I think there were reasons as to why things seem to structured, it is not random either.

I have a few predictions on this case though:

I predict that the purpose of the ciphers, and all of them were to encode his name in all of the ciphers.

The purpose of this whole thing was indeed to gather as much media attention as possible, encode his name into the ciphers, not just the name cipher either, but all of the known ciphers, the 408, 340, 32 and Z13. The intention of the entire thing was to inspire others to join in his attempt to start some sort of revolution against the "system" and ground zero for this system was San Francisco, which at the time was the epicenter of a lot of the cultural changes happening in society at that time.

Another prediction I make is that some of the minutiae of the fingerprints match Joseph Paul Franklin, since they never bothered to check his prints and minutiae of the suspected Zodiac prints since of course he was never suspected anyway. It is just my "gut feeling" though. That goes for many people from what I gather to be fair though.

Mike was born on October 29, 1949 in Vallejo, California. He was only 19 when his life changed forever.

Around midnight on July 4–5, 1969 Mike and 22-year-old Darlene Ferrin were sitting in a parked car at the Blue Rock Springs Park parking lot in Vallejo. A car pulled up behind them and then drove away, but it soon came back. The driver got out, walked toward their car with a flashlight, and shined it at them, temporarily blinding them. He then fired several shots into the car with a 9mm Luger. Mike was shot four times, suffering serious injuries to his jaw, shoulder, arm, and abdomen. Somehow, he survived. He managed to crawl out of the car and get help. Darlene, however was pronounced dead when she arrived at the hospital.

The attack left a lasting impact on Mike. Back then, there wasn’t really much awareness of how much care and support survivors needed after going through something like that. In a lot of ways, the Zodiac completely changed his life.

Even after everything he went through, Mike was still able to give the police a description of the Zodiac and tell them what happened that night. Mike then tried to stay as far away as possible from anything related to the Zodiac. It took time, but eventually he was able to rebuild his life and even appeared in documentaries to talk about his own experience.

I hope he knows how many people still remember him and care about what he went through. Just a little appreciation post for Mike Mageau, sending him lots of love and support.

Howdy all. This is gonna be a bit of a long-winded post, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this legendary case. I’m by no means an expert, and I’ve never been truly convinced by any one suspect, so please don’t take my words as argumentative or inflammatory. That’s just the way I talk. I mainly wanted to share a personal story and explain how I think it could plausibly apply to the Zodiac.

During the Great Recession, my family moved from SoCal to Sacramento, right into the heart of EARONS territory. Two of his attacks were literally down the block from my home. My parents had no idea before they moved in, lol. The attacks had happened decades earlier, but the community still had scars. I wasn’t old enough to really understand it at the time, but people were still scared nearly half a century later. If you watch the HBO documentary about the case, a lot of the talking heads from the ’70s are still living in the same houses. Like, the dude who built the effigy was literally my neighbor.

Anywho, one day my best friend’s mom was reminiscing about that time. This is a conservative, churchgoing kind of lady, and not the crazy kind either. She’s the sort of good, honest citizen who respects authority. Long story short, she basically said EARONS was a cop. To her, it was obvious.

Now, this was about a decade before Joseph James DeAngelo was caught, but this lady was spot on. If I had taken her word at face value and simply looked at cops who fit the basic facts of the case, I would’ve ended up with a pool of people that included the serial murderer.

That’s what got me thinking about the Zodiac.
There isn’t a lot of physical evidence left to work with. There’s no confirmed DNA, at least at the moment. The fingerprints are partials, and the case is more than half a century old. But we now have access to an enormous amount of historical data, and I think there’s enough to start building a pool of people instead of trying to prove that one particular guy was the Zodiac.

We have descriptions of his approximate age. We have information about vehicles associated with the crimes. We have geography. We have his letters, ciphers, interests, and apparent familiarity with the film versions of The Most Dangerous Game. Individually, none of those things identifies the Zodiac. But together, they can potentially narrow the field.

That’s really my point. Instead of starting with a suspect and trying to make the evidence fit him, start with the evidence and use it to build a pool of people. Then keep narrowing.

If we stop focusing on proving that one particular guy was the Zodiac and instead focus on identifying the group of people who realistically could have been, I think this thing might still be solvable.

Maybe some of you legends have already started this. I just haven’t been able to find the data. If you do could you share it with me?

One can dream right?

I’ve seen some people saying that zodiac put the pistol right up against David faradays head before shooting and I’ve also seen some people say he was shot as he was getting out of the car. I always assumed they were ordered out, and as they both exited one side he shot David, Betty climbed out over his body and then he just emptied the gun into her as she ran. If he had gotten the gun right against his ear how would he have managed to get so close? He was only shot once

Criminologist Dirk Gibson talks about his research into how serial killers communicate. Here's part of the blurb.

Roughly two-thirds of the serial killers Gibson studied engaged in some form of crime-related communication. Sometimes that communication was with the police or the media. At other times, it was with the families of their victims.

I don't agree with his analysis of the Zodiac case, but something interesting stuff in here none the less.