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Post by Admin Horan on Dec 10, 2018 11:18:22 GMT -6
Tara:
Welcome to the club ;-)
Toschi admitted writing fan letters about Dave Toschi--he did NOT "admit to writing Z letters."
You can see all the crime scene photos all over the internet these days. From time to time, higher res versions get uploaded by someone somewhere.
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Post by santana9 on Jan 26, 2021 0:39:17 GMT -6
Hi guys, new to the case but enjoyed your books Dr. Horan, particularly this one. Agree, there is no Zodiac killer.
I find the Paul Stine murder a turning point in many ways. It looks to me like the event that turned the Zodiac letter writer from a cop to a journalist looking for a scoop for The Chronicle.
Wondering if Hal Snook or whoever wrote the first batch of letters quit after LB copycat murder freaked them out and Keith Power, assisted by a graphic artist, as you have suggested copied the writing style to revive the case at this opportune point.
The original letters in July, Aug 69 look like they were written by a technically inclined person giving murder details as a cop would. I imagine the cyphers we're included to maximise publicity and suspect they existed beforehand but were general enough in content to be included if they were deciphered. Also this person does not appear to be allied with any one newspaper.They have terrible spelling, either intentionally or not. The letter after the Stine case he has learnt to suddenly spell well! He doesn't appear to have time to generate a coded message either so relies on the stolen piece of shirt as sufficient evidence. I believe all the letters after that are fake and mostly come from a Chronicle employee(s). Don't believe the My name is code letter says anything.
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Post by Admin Horan on Jan 27, 2021 9:38:03 GMT -6
Thanks! Uh, I'm not a PhD (doctor.) I'm "just" a professor. With an MA and an MFA. Which only matters to the "people" at the college who HAVE to call me "professor."
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Post by santana9 on Jan 27, 2021 16:04:56 GMT -6
Sorry, Prof. My wife is a PhD so I'm careful to give her and anyone I suspect of being a Dr. due respect!
Can't help but feel the Stine letter is the first change of authorship. The letter d is incredibly uniform wherever it appears on the page - same length, looped form and slope. For a guy who varies his slope like an immature writer all over the place this seems odd. Traced?
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Post by Admin Horan on Jan 29, 2021 17:03:00 GMT -6
Um, you're not looking at the version Graysmith TRACED (literally) for the Chronicle, are you?
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Post by santana9 on Jan 29, 2021 21:50:34 GMT -6
I'm referring to the Oct 13 1969 letter to The Chronicle found in doc gallery of ZKF.
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Post by santana9 on Jan 29, 2021 23:46:32 GMT -6
I'm saying this looks like a neater version of the Zodiac's writing than the original batch of letters in July/Aug as if some characters like the d have been traced from a template. I know you suggested Graysmith may have used this technique later but I thought in your book you were saying the Stine letter was in your opinion by Hal Snook or whoever wrote the first few letters. Also seems a bit irresponsible of Snook to make threats re school kids once he'd achieved his original aim of drawing attention to Vallejo killings.
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Post by Admin Horan on Jan 30, 2021 20:33:13 GMT -6
Let me put it this way--is the one you're looking at the complete letter, or is the one in the Chronicle that's just the top few lines?
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Post by santana9 on Jan 30, 2021 22:12:10 GMT -6
Thanks for the reply, Prof, and apologies if I'm wasting your time on this but I was referring to the complete letter. By tracing I meant the d's all seemed too similar to me. When I drew a line with a rule through each long stroke of all the d's on the page the lines were remarkably parallel. Overall, this appears to be a much neater piece of correspondence than the others. Maybe he had more time and was careful in writing it but why no code enclosed and why was the spelling so much better? Because a journalist had written it?
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Post by Admin Horan on Jan 31, 2021 8:02:37 GMT -6
Well, Hal WAS a journalist. The main reason I say it's the same hand is the clear signs that he rotated the paper 180 degrees when writing p/d, etc, just like the first two letters. The intentionally "misspelled" words in the first two letters are a jab at Richard Hoffman. (A lot of "misspelled" words are actually correctly spelled words--"cerous" for cerous oxalate, "anilate" for another chemical related to explosives, etc.)
Uh, you HAVE read my book, right?
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