It was to stand out as starkly different from the childish hand that wrote the body of the note. But it is a symbol that the poison pen pal meant to be taken seriously. The symbol is not a “Z” as many have posited in an attempt to make a link with the “Astrological Assassin” more concrete. It is a mystical script used to conceal meanings or make signs, blessings or cursings. But it is not any known symbol.Īn enlargement, above, of the symbol, as it appeared on the note to the It is also very much like an alchemist’s symbol. In appearance it is after the style of a witch’s rune, something similar to the Theban alphabet, the most stylistic of runes. But the note was signed at the bottom with a very small symbol. The letter writer disguised his hand by holding the pencil high up and forming the letters crudely with clumsy strokes. “THERE WILL BE MORE.” A short bit of lunacy, it would seem. The writing was all in caps, naturally, the script of anonymous and poison pen pals. Months after the murder, on April 30, 1967, to be precise, more correspondence had come in to the Riverside Police. Nevertheless, as unlikely as The Zodiac is as the culprit, the murder may contain a vital key to unlocking the identity of the infamous northern California killer. This and much more make it very difficult to assess the Cheri Jo Bates murder and find the killer. Unfortunately, the “Boastful Slayer,” the “Horoscope Killer,” the “Astrological Assassin” was simply too adept at advertising himself. Alas, in the public forum we are left with only The Zodiac. By this time, of course, any other suspect had long fallen through the cracks. This ended up being a crusher: it was a positive non match. They had their eye on somebody else, and even got DNA from him as late as 1998. Riverside Police, with good grounds, refused to accept it. Were these the other murders the anonymous confession letter writer had promised? Instinctively, there are those who reject his claims as mere boasting. Then he boasted again, typically, that there were a “hell of a lot more” down there than what they found. It was then that Zodiac congratulated the police and the press on having discovered his “southern California” work. But in late 1971, Paul Avery of the San Francisco Chronicle made a connection with Zodiac and “The Riverside Murder” of 1966. For instance, soon after the murder an anonymous confession letter took the blame and its writer even boasted there would be more. The murder of Cheri Jo Bates at Riverside Community College the day before Halloween 1966 has enough confounding elements in it without all of those that have later since been heaped upon it. Above, Dana Andrews puzzles over an ominous warning in Night of the Demon (1957) after leaving a farmhouse of coven members who practice a form of witchcraft in which people have to die after being given a slip of paper on which are written witch’s Futhark runes. Over 40 years later, onlyĪmateur sleuths and private detectives hound his trail.Īrt inspires so much in real life and is itself inspired by real life. Quickly and clumsily killed his victims asĪn ante in a game he was developing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |