Z-26: Initials
Blog Post #1
The Zodiac Killer’s “My name is” cipher has ties to what’s commonly called A1Z26 or the letter-number code; I prefer the name alphabet-number code. It is a simple concept: Every letter is assigned a number based on its position in the alphabet—A-1, B-2, C-3, all the way to Z-26.
A is the first letter of the alphabet.
E is the second vowel in alphabetical order.
N is the fourteenth letter of the alphabet, while 14 is the sum of 3 and 11.
The second digit in twelve minus the first equals one, and the first letter of the alphabet is A.
M is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet.
The Eight Balls work as commentary on how eight of the cipher’s symbols are letters. In other words, they seem to connect letters with numbers—and with the K and M symbols between them, they juxtapose letters and numbers quite literally. . . . 8 + 8 + 8 = 24; K is the eleventh letter of the alphabet, while M is the thirteenth—and 11 + 13 = 24.
This apparent set of five is bookended by the only “non-letter, non-number” symbols; by “unionizing” those between them, symbols 4 and 10 ironically contribute to the cipher’s letter-number connection. Moreover, 4 features what resembles a plus sign [+]—and so, it may be a suggestion to do exactly what I did in the paragraph above.
The humble alphabet-number code seems to be the answer to a big question: Was Cheri Jo Bates a victim of the Zodiac Killer?
“THE CONFESSION [sic]” letter is a set of two virtually identical typewritten letters—one mailed out to Riverside PD, one mailed out to the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Postmarked on 11/29/1966, it gives then-unknown details about the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. In other words, it was almost certainly written by her killer. . . . 66 – 29 – 11 = 26.
The murder took place on 10/30/1966. . . . 66 – 30 – 10 = 26.
And the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet is Z as in Zodiac.
“CC. CHIEF OF POLICE ENTERPRISE” appears where THE CONFESSION letter’s signature would otherwise be; it is a total of twenty-six characters (including the period after “CC” but not the spaces between the words). And so, CC. CHIEF OF POLICE ENTERPRISE could be a Hidden Z Initial.
“CHIEF OF POLICE” clarifies whom the letter should be brought to at Riverside PD.
“ENTERPRISE” is a shortened form of Riverside “Press-Enterprise.” Its altered length prevents CC. CHIEF OF POLICE ENTERPRISE from going over twenty-six characters. In other words, the Hidden Z Initial has twenty-six characters by author design—not by accident.
Moreover, ENTERPRISE is just extra nonsense in the CC; CC-ing a business in a letter mailed to the same business is like going into Home Depot and saying that you need to speak with Home Depot. . . . In summation, ENTERPRISE should be longer, something completely different, or nonexistent—and its peculiarities draw attention to THE CONFESSION’s CC section. The statement is: “This is not normal.”
There are several standard abbreviations for “carbon copy,” but as far as I can tell, “CC.” (written exactly that way with the period after CC instead of a colon) is not technically one of them; though the very similar “C.C.” is one of the accepted abbreviations, it has two periods instead of just one. And so—when it comes to THE CONFESSION’s CC section, even the CC. itself is peculiar.
My Internet browser gives me the impression that CC. is an abbreviation for “Chief Constable,” which would be a British (and in this case, a double) way of saying CHIEF OF POLICE. In other words, it’s a redundancy—like CC-ing ENTERPRISE in a letter mailed out to the Riverside “Press-Enterprise.” And more importantly, CC. is the three out of twenty-six characters that CHIEF OF POLICE and ENTERPRISE don’t provide for the Hidden Z Initial.
In summation, THE CONFESSION letter establishes a strong Theme of 26—and it pops up over and over in documents involved with the Zodiac Killer case.
The murdered body of Cheri Jo Bates was found outside the Riverside Community College Library; circa two months later, the macabre Desktop Poem was found in storage at the same library. It is initialed “rh [sic]” (as seen in the image above). R is the eighteenth letter of the alphabet, while H is the eighth. If assigned values for their numeric positions, the sum of R and H would be twenty-six because 18 + 8 = 26. And as the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet is Z, the Desktop Poem’s rh-initials work as another Hidden Z Initial—which now graduates from a single interpretation into a theme.
Above is an image of the Bates Letters (aka the Riverside Letters), which are a set of three letters concerning the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. Each sent to a different address, all three Bates Letters were postmarked 4/30/1967. The date fits with the Theme of 26 because 30 - 4 (the day minus the month) = 26—and of course, the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet is Z as in Zodiac. Appropriately, a strange Z-like thing appears at the bottom of two Bates Letters (as underlined in the image above).
But many people think those Z-like things each resemble the number “32” mashed together more than the letter Z. However, that argument has a glaring problem: A cursive Z also resembles the number 32 mashed together.
To make a long story short, the Bates Letters’ Z-like thing is a cursive Z and a print Z blended together (a visual portmanteau); the two-in-one design seems to be a metaphor for how R and H (from the Desktop Poem’s rh-initials) combine to represent Z, the twenty-sixth letter of the alphabet (again, because R is the eighteenth letter of the alphabet, while H is the eighth—and 18 + 8 = 26). Accordingly, it is called the Cursive-Print Z throughout Essay: The Zodiac Killer's Alphabet-Number Code. The image below is the Cursive-Print Z’s only two known appearances sandwiched by cursive Zs.
As the only Bates Letter that contains no Cursive-Print Z, the Letter to Joseph Bates works as one big secret Z initial because its Outward Message is twenty-six characters long (as counted in the following image); unlike the other two Bates Letters—each of which are a total of twenty-eight characters—the Letter to Joseph Bates begins with the word “She” instead of “Bates,” shortening its Outward Message by two characters.
The Riverside Documents (concerning the murder of Cheri Jo Bates) come in one, two, and three: one Desktop Poem, two THE CONFESSION letters, and three Bates Letters. And a symbolic Z Initial (or Z-26 Initial) seems to be present in all of them. By the way, every Riverside Document predates the public debut of the Zodiac Killer.
Now is a good time to re-ask that hotly debated question: “Was Cheri Jo Bates a victim of the Zodiac Killer?” The alphabet-number code says unequivocally yes.
One more thing:
The first image above is of “The Exorcist” Letter; the second image above is of the envelope THE CONFESSION letter was received in. If they were written by the same hand, it would mean—with virtual certainty—that Cheri Jo Bates was murdered by the Zodiac Killer. Below is a list of their commonalities.
1) Both were mailed out to a local California newspaper.
2) Both were likely mailed out by a killer.
3, 4, and 5) Both include striking hollow dots above lowercase I’s, a colon, and something that resembles a matchstick.
How many documents have all five of these things in common?