[All text on this page copyright 2000-2001 by Mike Rodelli.]

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PART I

In his many letters and coded messages to the press, the Zodiac killer indicated that he was planting clues to his true identity for us to find. This, of course, has led some people to apply the codes and letters to any number of specific, named suspects, and to extract specific clues to that particular person's identity, which may be contained in these documents. There is, however, another possible clue to something very intimate and very important about the Zodiac killer. This clue may be found in the very manner in which the letters were actually prepared. It was while examining the entire body of Zodiac's work for consistent themes or writing styles that I stumbled upon this trait, which seems to run pretty uniformly through all the letters. It is described below.

If one gathers up all the known Zodiac letters, there is something that becomes obvious about almost all the "crossed circle" signatures that close each letter: If you look only at the "circle" part of the signature, you will notice that with only one exception (the "Pen Card), the circles are created by a pen stroke that begins and ends at roughly the "1 o'clock" position. (This type of circle is seen in all three 7/69 letters, the 8/69 letter, the Dragon card, the timer of the 11/9 Bus Bomb, the L.A. Times letter, etc.) While I am not an expert on handwriting and cannot say whether such a circle is more a left-handed trait or a right-handed trait, that determination is actually beside the point of this discussion. The main thing the different circles tell us is that Zodiac seemed to have been making his signatures in one particular manner--maybe with the same hand each time. (NB: In some of the letters--Belli's for example--it is not possible to readily see, on the reproductions I have to work with, where the signature circle begins and ends.)

A very interesting thing occurs when you now take a look at Zodiac's "embedded" crossed-circles (i.e., those contained in the 7/26/70 "Mikado" letter), as well as his "letter 'O's" from within the body of the vast majority of his missives. In the "Mikado" letter for certain, most if not all of the circles within the letter begin and end at roughly the "11 o'clock" position--the "opposite" one from the origin of the "signature" circles at the ends of the letters. (i.e., the capitalized "O"s in the many appearances of the word "Others" in that letter are examples of this). In contrast, the large crossed-circle at the end of the missive begins and ends at the "1 o'clock" position. This pattern of "embedded" "11 o'clock" circles and signature "1 o'clock" circles is seen in almost all the letters. Using the "Mikado" letter again as an example of this, you can see that even the four "embedded" crossed-circle symbols begin and end at the "11 o'clock" position. If you look at the "Mt Diablo" letter, the signature crossed-circle begins and ends at "1 o'clock", while the small, "embedded" Zodiac symbol at the bottom begins and ends at "11 o'clock".) To me, all of this implies one thing: That Zodiac was possibly writing the text of the letters with one hand and then signing them with the other. Thus, we seem to have some preliminary, tangible evidence of ambidexterity, which has been purported for Zodiac for many years.

There always seems to be discussion/debate about the writing on the car door of Hartnell's Karmann-Ghia as possibly being from someone other than Zodiac. I believe that the technique outlined above may be used to shed some light on the origin of the lettering on the door. The crossed-circle on it is, after all, essentially a "signature circle", similar to what Zodiac used at the end of his letters (which the writing on the car door essentially was). If one looks at the circle part of the Zodiac signature on the door, it becomes obvious that it begins and ends at the "1 o'clock" position, just as almost all the other signatures on his letters. Thus, this may be objective evidence that Zodiac himself was indeed responsible for the writing on the car door, as well as for committing the LB attack, as it is consistent with his other "signatures".

It is also believed that Zodiac wrote the 1967 "Bates had to die" letters. A close examination of the envelopes shows that in the word "California" (in the Press-Enterprise address) and in the word "Joseph" (on the letter sent to Mr. Bates himself), there are the same "11 o'clock" circles that characterize the text of the later Z letters and envelopes. Thus, these "11 o'clock" circles, in and of themselves, may serve to tie the April, 1967 letters with Zodiac's later writings. (i.e., The "11 o'clock" circles on this envelope compare with the same type of circles seen on other Z envelopes, such as the 1969 VTH and Examiner envelopes (and with the exception of the 1974 "Badlands" envelope, which has a more "cramped" type of writing from what we are used to seeing from Zodiac, and, maybe not coincidentally, "1 o'clock circles", on it).

What I have discussed here are simply some observations I have made, as a layperson, in the Z literature. I have never seen any analysis of Z's letters by Morrill or any other professional and certainly am not holding myself out to be an expert on handwriting, by any means. Maybe Morrill or others have keyed in on the "11 o'clock vs 1 o'clock" circles issue before me, maybe not. I have no way of knowing. I certainly welcome any input from a professional handwriting analyst that might tend to corroborate, refute or amplify upon my findings. In particular, I'd like to know if it is more likely that, say, a left handed person makes circles beginning at the 11 o'clock position, or if that is more likely for a right handed person. (Or might the differences be attributable to some other thing, such as Z's mood when he wrote, and the signed, the letters?) In any case, there seems to be a definite pattern seen in Zodiac's circle-drawing, which may lead us to some important insight into his methodology/personality/handedness.

PART II

There is one more thing that occurred to me as I examined his various signatures. I believe that the implications to the case are both quite clear and quite important, if I am correct in this particular observation. As I stated in my previous posting, a glaring exception to the pattern of Z writing his "signature circles" starting at the "1 o'clock" position is the signature of the 11/69 Pen Card. At the end of that missive is a crossed circle that is inarguably different from the norm. It begins and ends at about "7 o'clock" (i.e., just past the "6 o'clock" position).

Upon viewing that particular signature, one thing became obvious to me: If you turn the card upside-down, the signature is the same as most of the others, essentially a "1 o'clock" circle. So I asked myself, "Why would Z do this? Is there a reason for this clear deviation from the norm? Why would he want us to look at this signature upside-down?" So I did the obvious and closely examined the card in an inverted position. What I found has potentially staggering implications.

The one thing that stood out when I turned the card on its head was the exclamation points at the end of the text. There are six of them, and Zodiac even emphasized them by underlining them. As I looked at them, it became clear to me that there were definite (and seemingly intentional) variations in them, and that they obviously took some effort to produce in that manner. There are, in order, a line, three stippled dots in a triangle, and two heavy dots side by side. These were not, I submit, drawn by chance in that pattern. Viewed from left to right, they read (one) line, (three) dots and (two) heavy dots. Thus the pattern is 1-3-2.

I began to search my memory for some implication of the number "132" to the Z case. It didn't take but a second for me to grab for Graysmith's book and open it up to the section on an incident which I had long doubted--the abduction of Kathleen Johns. She was not abducted until March 1970, a full 4 months AFTER this card was sent to the Chron! Where exactly was she abducted? On HIGHWAY 132 in Modesto!!

IF this is a foreshadowing of the fact that SOMETHING important was going to occur in the future that would be somehow associated with the number 132, it seems to confirm that Johns may actually have been abducted by Z. This is despite all of the holes in her story. (Remember that in the "Pen Card" text, Zodiac said that, "you won't get the bad news for a while yet". By implication, he was seemingly referring to some event that had yet to take place.) There are clearly some very important implications to the Johns story, should it indeed be true. First, she confirmed that, despite all the doubt that has been raised over the years, the kids from SF DID apparently get the sketch right (Z himself actually confirmed this when he said in the 11/9/69 letter that he did look like the sketch when he "did his thing".) Johns, as you may recall, said that Z was a dead ringer for the 1969 SFPD sketch. Second, Z was apprently not "6' to 6'2", 250 lbs.", but of a more normal height and weight (5'9", 160 lbs, or so, according to Johns' description, which again matches that of the kids from SF). Thirdly, Z APPEARED to Johns to be around 30 (although that speaks only to how old he LOOKED, not how old he actually WAS. Someone could be either older or younger in actual years and still APPEAR to be about 30, or so. How old someone looks and how old someone actually is can be two different matters altogether.)

I had never personally been a believer in the story Johns told. There are obviously inconsistencies in it. However, if the inverted signature does point out the number "132", it should give us all pause to reconsider what she said, despite any reservations about the specifics of her story. (If her story is given some thought, it is clear that her car was apparently "burned where Zodiac found them", just as he stated in his letter about the incident. Zodiac contradicted her and got the story right, IMHO.) The only question is whether those exclamation point dots are simply random variations, as one researcher has said to me. My answer is that the fact that there is even a PATTERN to the stippled dots (i.e., a small triangle) seems to imply that they were written intentionally, and that the variations were done for a specific reason and to achieve a desired goal. The variation between them is just too stark, they all required different types of effort to create, and all of the stippled ones are even in a small cluster.

I'd like to point out that I did not formulate my ideas about Z's signatures AFTER noticing the pattern to the exclamation point dots. The above observations about the dots were made AFTER having noticed the pattern to Z's signature circles, then realizing that the signature on the Pen Card was "inverted" compared to the others. In all of my efforts on the Z case, I try to work deductively, not inductively, formulating a theory and then attempting to prove it by further observation. It was by observing that the Pen Card was an exception to the "signature circle" rule that I stumbled upon the possible implications of the series of exclamation points.

See Also: Highway 132