The Summer of '70

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This is the Zodiac Speaking By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you?  My name is --

[13-character cryptogram]

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 wouldn't doo to move in on someone else's 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 new bomb is set up like this

[Diagram]

PS I hope you have fun trying to figgure out who I killed

[crossed-circle] - 10     SFPD - 0

Although the word "cerous" in this letter is routinely corrected as a misspelling of "curious," it is in fact an English word defined by Webster as "Of, relating to, or containing cerium."  Cerium is the most abundant of the rare-earth elements, number 58 on the periodic table.  The phrase "blue meanie" is almost certainly a reference to the uniformed ogres in The Beatles' animated film, The Yellow Submarine, which was released in 1968; it soon gained popularity as a counter-culture euphemism for police.

The latest bus threat went unreported until later that month, when a note arrived at the Chronicle demanding its publication.  Postmarked 28 April 1970, the note was written on a "Jolly Roger" brand greeting card featuring a cartoon prospector riding a dragon and the pun "Sorry to hear your ass is a dragon."

I hope you enjoy your selves when I have my Blast

P.S. on back

If you don't want me to have this blast you must do two things.  1 Tell everyone 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 considerably if I saw a lot of people wearing my buton.  Please no nasty ones like Melvin's

Thank you

An unspecified number of latent fingerprints were developed on this card and its envelope by San Francisco Police evidence technicians shortly after its receipt.  One SFPD Inspector noted that, while the envelope prints could have been left by a mail carrier, the prints on the card itself were probably those of the Zodiac [Footnote 1].

The slogan "Melvin eats bluber" may have its roots in an old novelty button favored by at least one college English professor that read "Melville Eats Blubber."  The bomb threat was finally revealed to the public on April 29, 1970, but the schematics (described as "dubious" [Footnote 2]) were not published until 1986, when they were reproduced in Graysmith's ZODIAC.

The next letter was sent to the Chronicle on June 26.  It contained another code and a Phillips 66 road map of the Bay Area, which was annotated with a stylized clock face drawn on the summit of Mount Diablo.  The design was basically the Zodiac's crossed-circle with a zero at the top, a numeral three on the right side, a six at the bottom, and a nine on the left.  According to the annotation, the zero "is to be set to Mag. N."

This is the Zodiac Speaking

I have become very angry with the people of the San Fran Bay Area.  They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice [crossed-circle] 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 another way.  I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38.

The Map coupled with this code will tell you where the bomb is set.  You have untill next Fall to dig it up.

The only Bay Area shooting in recent memory that had been committed with a .38-caliber weapon was that of SFPD Officer Richard Radetich, who was shot to death in his car while writing out a traffic ticket six days before this letter was postmarked.  A witness to the murder identified ex-convict Joseph Wesley Johnson, a black man who bore no resemblance to any description of the Zodiac, as the shooter, and SFPD officials were adamant that the letter's claim was false.  Most investigators agree that the Zodiac was capitalizing on Radetich's murder and wrote the letter without the knowledge that police had already identified a suspect.

* * *

A short note that seemed to confirm Kathleen Johns' claim was sent to the Chronicle on July 24, 1970.  Although several Bay Area newspapers had reported on Johns' abduction, only the relatively small Modesto Bee included the detail that her car had been burned, and many cite this as evidence that it truly was the Zodiac that Ms. Johns rode with.  Sent with this note was a lengthy perversion of the song "I've Got a Little List" from Gilbert & Sullivan's musical, The Mikado [Footnote 3].  Its postscript refers back to the June letter and its unsolved 32-character cipher.

This is the Zodiac speaking

I am rather unhappy because you people will not wear some nice [crossed-circle] buttons.  So now I have a little list, starting with that woeman + her baby that I gave a rather interesting ride for a coupple howers one evening a few months back that ended in my burning her car where I found them.

[Crossed-circle]

As someday it may happen that a victom must be found.  I've got a little list.  I've got a little list, of society offenders who might well be underground who would never be missed who would never be missed.  There is the pestulentual nucences who whrite for autographs, all people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs.  All children who are up in dates and implore you with im platt.  All people who are shaking hands shake hands like that.  And all third persons who with unspoiling take thos who insist.  They'd none of them be missed.  They'd none of them be missed.  There's the banjo seranader and the others of his race and the piano orginast I got him on the list.  All people who eat pepermint and phomphit in your face, they would never be missed.  They would never be missed And the Idiout who phraises with inthusiastic tone of centuries but this and every country but his own.  And the lady from the provences who dress like a guy who doesn't cry and the singurly abnomily the girl who never kissed.  I don't think she would be missed Im shure she wouldn't be missed.  And that nice impriest that is rather rife the judicial hummerist I've got him on the list All funny fellows, commic men and clowns of private life.  They'd none of them be missed.  They'd none of them be missed.  And uncompromising kind such as wachamacallit, thingmebob, and like wise, well-nevermind, and tut tut tut tut, and whatshisname, and you know who, but the task of filling up the blanks I rather leave up to you.  But it really doesn't matter whom you place upon the list, for none of them be missed, none of them be missed.

[Another giant crossed-circle, more than half the page]

PS.  The Mount Diablo Code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians

A radian is a specific angular measurement based on the transcendental number pi.  It is equal to a circle (or 360 degrees) divided by 2pi (or 6.23818...).  The resulting degree, whose legs are equal in length to the length of the arc they form, is equal to 57.29578... degrees.

Two days later, exactly one month after the Mount Diablo letter, the Zodiac sent his thirteenth mailing, devoted to the tortures that his slaves would undergo in the afterlife.  The penultimate sentence is another corruption of The Mikado.

This is the Zodiac speaking

Being that you will not wear some nice [crossed-circle] buttons, how about wearing some nasty [crossed-circle] buttons.  Or any kind of [crossed-circle] buttons you can think up.  If you do not wear any type of [crossed-circle] buttons, I shall (on top of everything else) torture all 13 of my slaves that I have waiting for me in Paradice.  Some I shall tie over ant hills and watch them scream + twich and squirm.  Others shall have pine splinters driven under their nails + then burned.  Others shall be placed in cages + fed salt beef untill they are gorged then I shall listen to their pleass for water and I shall laugh at them.  Others will hang by their thumbs + burn in the sun then I will rub them down with deep heat to warm them up.  Others I shall skin them alive + let them run around screaming.  And all billiard players I shall have them play in a darkened dungen cell with crooked cues + Twisted Shoes.  Yes I shall have great fun in flicting the most delicious of pain to my slaves

[Giant crossed circle, about half the length of the page] = 13

SFPD = 0