Mailboxes

[Soze]

Ok I'm promised myself that I was not getting involved in this again but best-laid plans of mice and men :-

Some pages back I said the same thing. I meant it. Cancellations and nailing down precise locations of mailing is pretty much dead. No desire to turn it to pulp. However, i do think nailing down precisely where the SCF was may be of importance in future endeavors.

Soze

[Soze]

Ok I'm promised myself that I was not getting involved in this again but best-laid plans of mice and men :-

You have 3 Hand Cancelled letters, One of which is the Belli letter which is Not to the SFC and is in completely different writing than usual. Tom Voigt is adamant that two letters were intercepted at source and as such would not have gone through the mailing system, logic would dictate that the two which he is refering to are the "Little List" & "Bus Bomb" letters. These coincidently are the only two with Sunday postmarks.

Also are we saying that EVERY other letter went through a machine which happened to have an error code at the time, did all machines at the time show codes (i.E. to enable staff to monitor how close the machine was to needing to be fixed), or was this only when a machine had a specific error.

Cragle, the understanding is that the Pitney Bowles machines showed the 2-digit codes as part of their standard postmark.

If the two letters were intercepted at the source, it's hard to justify why they received a postmark.

I guess one explanation might be so as to not alert the Zodiac that the letters had been intercepted?

That's tampering with evidence. Uh no.

Soze

[shaqmeister]

Also Is it not a federal offence to open mail without a warrant, I understand that there are certain circumstance when this is bypassed. Surely though it would have been quicker and easier for when it had been intercepted, which at this point only Z and the Postal worker would have touched it, gets hand cancelled (no need to physically touch) and then hand delivered to the SFC, thus meaning no laws broken. Minimal handling of the letter, and the quickest way of reading its contents.

Or am I wrong ?

Hard to see police operating that way when they're trying to apprehend a serial killer before he kills again.

Why ? They could have the letter opened within hours, perhaps minutes of it being intercepted. As opposed to going through the lengthy process of getting a search warrant ?

(c) The Postal Service shall maintain one or more classes of mail for the transmission of letters sealed against inspection. ... No letter of such a class of domestic origin shall be opened except under authority of a search warrant authorized by law, or by an officer or employee of the Postal Service for the sole purpose of determining an address at which the letter can be delivered, or pursuant to the authorization of the addressee.

All they had to do was phone up the Chronicle - or whoever; depends which letter we're talking about - and say "We've got this letter that we believe was sent by the Zodiac addressed to you. Can we have your permission to open it?"

In any case, whatever the outcome, the primary concern would always be about protecting evidence. Once they had identified that a letter was pertinent to an ongoing capital offence investigation, the Post Office would have regarded it as evidence. They would not have postmarked it, even if they had taken it over to the recipient to seek permission to open. This would be tantamount, at this point, to 'tampering with evidence'. For all they know, the letter could have contained something that could be damaged by post-stamping it.

As for whether, even if it had to go this far, the post office would have held any such letter back waiting for a warrant - of course they would! Protection of evidence beats sending it to the Chronicle for everyone and their mother to get their grubby mits on, even if this did incur a delay.

[Xcaliber]

<The FBI - or, is it the person sending the item to the FBI? I forget, they use different numbering - also have the following as showing "JB." So clearly, little confidence can be had in whoever's understanding of what they are seeing.>

Poor work on their part, whoever 'they' are. They guessed instead of getting expert help.

[Xcaliber]

<As for whether, even if it had to go this far, the post office would have held any such letter back waiting for a warrant - of course they would! Protection of evidence beats sending it to the Chronicle for everyone and their mother to get their grubby mits on, even if this did incur a delay.>

Disagree. LE would have opened the letter immediately. The letter might have contained a viable threat.

[Soze]

.They're not worried about what would be admissible in court.

Oh yes they are. Sure they want to catch the guy. But catching the guy means nothing if they can't prove it in court. Obtaining something illegally can be argued in court and possibly dismissed. Akwilks may be the person to answer this question better given he is a lawyer. Of course I don't know what kind of lawyer.

Soze

[Simplicity]

Ummm i would argue that LE would be readily covered by “hot pursuit laws” on this matter especially if there was a Zodiac symbol on the envelope?

If the question is about postal workers opening such a letter well i hope police threw the book at them.

[shaqmeister]

Some pages back I said the same thing. I meant it. Cancellations and nailing down precise locations of mailing is pretty much dead. No desire to turn it to pulp. However, i do think nailing down precisely where the SCF was may be of importance in future endeavors.

Perhaps you could help. We're looking for possible scenarios that would explain what we find in the case of the 'Bus Bomb' and 'Belli' letters:

• both received a hand stamp, as opposed to going through the face-cancellers;
• these being two of only three in total that did so, with all three being postmarked with weekend dates.
• in both instances, the date stamp was a PM - one Saturday, one Sunday - likely when post-office counters were closed (and certainly for the Sunday PM);
• both contained pieces of Stine's shirt, which we feel it would have been important to protect against getting lost in transit.

We feel we're close - pending some confirmation - to having a good argument for the possibility of their having been deliberately hand dropped at the SCF at a time on a weekend, outside of counter hours and, being both local (assuming Rincon as SCF), may have been hand-cancelled for convenience and bagged for the next morning delivery.

In pursuing this, we are certainly aiming for a precise location of mailing, but we (of course) need to rule out alternative explanations.

[Chaucer]

Again, law enforcement wouldn't be handling these letters. The US Postal Inspection Service would. The USPIS is a federal agency just like the FBI. Whether they opened the letter or not is just a guess, but if anyone opened it, it would have been them and not the police.


I also think it's completely irrelevant for a variety of reasons.

[Simplicity]

[quote="Chaucer"]Any Zodiac letters intercepted by post workers would have been turned over immediately to the US Postal Inspection Service. Postal inspectors would have done their own investigation in conjunction with law enforcement. Remember that the story is that the letters were intercepted AT THE MAILBOX. They would not have been processed and/or postmarked. [/“Chaucer”]

But i agree Chaucer its all not really relevant and i can’t see where this is going any more, was this going anywhere?