The Zodiac Killer Sends His First Letter (August 2, 1969)
The August 2, 1969 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, featuring the first of many coded letters from the Zodiac Killer.
Scan courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
[Transcribed by me. Please note any errors you find in the comments.]
"Coded Clue in Murders"
A man who claimed he shot and killed two Vallejo teen-agers last December and a young woman on July 4 threatened yesterday to kill 12 more this weekend.
The menacing message came in unsigned letters mailed to the editors of The Chronicle, the Vallejo Times-Herald and the San Francisco Examiner.
"Here is part of a cipher," the letter said in part. "In this cipher is my identity.
"If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry. (Friday), I will go on a kill rampage Fry. night.
PEOPLE
"I will cruse (cruise) around all week end killing lone people in the night, then move until to kill again until I end up with a dozen people over the week end."
The covering letter listed what the writer called "some facts which only I and the police know," such as the brands of ammunition used and the positions in which the bodies were found.
Vallejo police said most of the material was actually common public knowledge, but officers took the letter seriously anyhow. They learned last month that the killer of Darlene Ferrin, 22, who was slain July 4, was a man with a bizarre craving for attention.
Half an hour after the girl was killed, the police received an anonymous phone call from a man who said he shot her and a young companion while they were parked in Blue Rock Springs Park.
VICTIMS
The other victims the man were Thomas Faraday, 17, and Bettilou Jensen, 16, who were shot while they were parked on Lake Herman road, three miles from Blue Rock Springs Park, last December 20.
"We're not satisfied that the letter was written by the murderer, but it could have been," Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz of Vallejo said. He requested the writer to send a second letter "with more facts to prove it."
The three newspapers turned over their letters to Vallejo police, and the ciphered message in turn was given to a Navy cryptographer in the hope that he could decode it.
Note: This article refers to David Faraday as "Thomas Faraday" and Betty Lou Jensen as "Bettilou Jensen."