Zodiac in Houston TX area?

[morf13]

Back in 2009, I had discovered a cluster of crimes in the Houston/League city area of TX, that had some strong Zodiac overtones. I posted about these cases back in 2009 on Zkfacts, and a couple other sites. One case in particular,that of Laura Lynn Miller was very interesting. She was killed in a strip known as the I-45 corridor in the League City/Houston area. She was shot to death, and her body discovered. There were several girls murdered there in the 70's and 80's. Her father, like Jospeh Bates in the Cheri Bates case, got a cold taunting letter from somebody claiming to have killed his Daughter. The language, wording, and phrasing, was quite similar to zodiac, as well as the construction of the letter.

Some time after I made this public, I contacted Police there and spoke with them as well as to Laura's Father, Tim. I told them of the paralells to the Z case, but that it was also a longshot. Anyhow, at some point, Dennis Kauffman's camp saw this connection I had made and used it to try and link their suspect, Jack tarrence, to the crimes there in TX, and this article even accuses Nanette Barto of hoaxing the letter:

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-753342

"Dennis Kaufman hosts a message board upon which he and his members discuss the facts pertaining to the Zodiac case and other crimes for which Jack Tarrance may be responsible. In the last few weeks, Kaufman has informed his members that Nanette Barto likely forged a letter, in an attempt to link Jack Tarrance to the I-45 Killings and, more specifically, to the death of 16 yr old Laura Miller in 1984. Laura was the daughter of Texas Equusearch founder, Tim Miller, and her murder significantly changed the course of her father’s life. Kaufman believes that Document Examiner Barto purposely fabricated the letter in an attempt to make a name for herself and to gain favor with the highly connected and influential, Miller"

The problem is, I think that letter was sent to Laura's Dad BEFORE Barto ever came along and started helping Dennis investigate Jack.

[morf13]

The letters in the Miller case-

[morf13]

One side was hand printed, and the other side was made from magazine cutouts. Interesting to me, was that if you turned the handwritten side either end up like a playing card, you could still read a message. This was also true of the Lass case mailings. This simply is NOT a common practice.

[morf13]

For what it's worth, a suspect in the Lass case who worked with her at the casino, Victor Jonasson, wound up moving to and living in the League City/Houston area

[morf13]

Also, in the Houston area, was the case of Cheryl Henry & Andy Atkinson. They were parked on a lovers lane in that area,, when they were approached by somebody that ordered them out of the car, and into a nearby field. They were tied up and killed with a knife. Henry was raped apparently which doesn ot match Zodiac M.O. However, a letter was mailed to police in the case, and again, there are some similarities to Zodiac here(and some differences)

The candy kane F, some of the numbers, etc. Similar. Some key differences too. Most interestingly of all, was the word CHRONICLE. The word used odd spacing C HRON IC LE. This same exact spacing was used by Z when he wrote that word

I have asked TRAV to do some comparisons of these letters from these cases against Z to see what is similar and what is different

[Quicktrader]

Calder Drive, 'killing field' gets into my mind...very typical mo..although the letter imo might be authentic, this somehow reminds me a copycat issue.

http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Man-conv ... 15165.html
http://wikimapia.org/8061236/Calder-Dri ... ing-Fields



QT

[traveller1st]

Enlarged and maybe easier to read. Quite a small image to start with.

straightened-stonger.jpg

[morf13]

Thanks for the enlargement Trav.

The letter K looks nothing like Zodiac's. The candy kane F looks like Zodiac's, as do the numbers. Trav,did Z ever make an & symbol like the one here?

[traveller1st]

Probably something similar but not sure off the top of my head. There's a repeating style throughout this on certain characters though I haven't seen Zodiac use. I agree that the numbers look ok and the 'f' could certainly be a Zodiac f but the rest of it is all wrong in shape and form and the angles as well.

[traveller1st]

Ok here's the numbers. Zodiac's are on the bottom. I don't see a match. Some of the 3's might be similar but even then I see differences. The angles in the numbers from the letter seem consistent to each other and that doesn't match.

numbers.jpg

And the letter and envelope. I've tried to pick up on things that I consider strong style choices or writing habits to compare and there's some pretty obvious differences. Even when you look at Zodiac's upper case M's, his styling is consistent even into the more disputed letters so in that respect I think it's quite a strong habit given that he sticks to it even when he's trying to write in a different style. I would expect to see it here but I see quite strong evidence of another habit at work in this letter and it's at odds with Zodiac's IMHO.

Henry-Atkins-comp.jpg