WHY IS CHRON LETTER DIFFERENT?

[mike_r]

Hi-

I was looking over all three of these letters today and started highlighting the differences between them. The Chronicle letter has many features that distinguish it from the others but I can't say what that is so:

1) This one starts out with, "This is the murderer..."

2) This is the only one that mentions the golf course

3) Patterned is misspelled in only this letter.

4) The word "slacks" is used in only this letter.

5) This is the only one that makes mention of the fact that Z's identity is in the cipher.

6) It is the only one that has the word "OVER" on it to refer to the second side.

7) It is written with a different, thicker pen.

8) The date 1 of Aug 69 is formatted differently from the rest.

9) It is the only one that refers to the fact that the other two letters were sent to the "editors" of the other papers.

I wonder why...chance variations or some important reason?

There is an old discussion from Tom's board from 2002 about at least some of these issues.

Mike

[glurk]

Mike-
I made this comparison chart some years back. I believe it to be fairly accurate:

comp3.gif

-glurk

[mike_r]

Hi-

Thanks for that chart. The VTH and Examiner letters are essentially twins with minor variations, like "lyeing." The Chron letter is the odd man out. But is it signal or noise? That is the question!

Mike

[Wier]

Of course it was to become his paper of choice and probably was from the off, it's the neatest and the one in which he was most "helpful". Puts me in mind of when he later wrote to Belli, taking care to print neatly. Seems to betray something, exactly what, I'm not entirely sure.

[morf13]

Maybe Z was only going to send it to one single paper (the Chron),and wrote it originally just to them, but realized he would get more attention if he wrote to the other two,and split the ciphers up into 3 sections,thus one that is very different then the others.

[mike_r]

Hi-

I have been thinking just that all morning. The only thing that was bothering me is that he wrote the back of the Chronicle letter with the same thick pen he used for the front. I was imagining that had he decided a day or whatever later to add a second side to that letter, so as to describe his idea of breaking up the code in three, then why didn't he use the same pen he was using to write the other two letters for the second side of the Chronicle letter? If he had misplaced the thick one after making his decision and only had the thin one he used on the VTH and Examiner letters, why didn't he write the second side of the Chronicle letter with the thin one? Conversely, if he had both available to him, why didn't he write the other two letters with the same pen he used for the Chronicle letter?

However, note that in the VTH and Examiner letters, the references to the cipher are on the FIRST page of each. In the Chron letter, he does not reference the cipher until the back of the letter. So that could have been an add-on idea after he had written the original Chron letter. I wonder if he originally planned to use the "O" in "Over" to make his symbol but changed gears after writing the letter and decided to include the cipher, so he just converted it to the word "Over."

A bit perplexing.

Mike

[Soze]

It was his rough draft. The first one he wrote. The second one was Vallejo Times Herald ; a reduction of approximately 13% from the first. The last, San Francisco Examiner, a reduction of approximately 3% from the second.

Soze

[Wier]

On balance I think there's definitely an argument for the Chronicle letter to have been the first written. If the idea of splitting the code into three parts/writing 2 additional letters was an afterthought, I think the decision came pretty soon. If you look at the high resolution shots, there appears to be evidence that the pen was on the way out, so he probably had to change it. (yet he finished the letter with it and the envelope).I would also tend to believe (as the construction would have taken time and it being most important part of the exercise) the cipher was ready to go well before he got to the letters. It's therefore hard to think that the Chronicle letter was originally planned to end after the first page, having not mentioned it.
Could very well be though that his original plan was to send just one letter.

[smithy]

I've always thought the fact that Z408, with its filler (as demonstrated by glurk) neatly divides by three indicates his intention was to involve all three newspapers from the get-go.
But I suppose that may just have been a happy coincidence.

[Tahoe27]

Hi-

I have been thinking just that all morning. The only thing that was bothering me is that he wrote the back of the Chronicle letter with the same thick pen he used for the front. I was imagining that had he decided a day or whatever later to add a second side to that letter, so as to describe his idea of breaking up the code in three, then why didn't he use the same pen he was using to write the other two letters for the second side of the Chronicle letter? If he had misplaced the thick one after making his decision and only had the thin one he used on the VTH and Examiner letters, why didn't he write the second side of the Chronicle letter with the thin one? Conversely, if he had both available to him, why didn't he write the other two letters with the same pen he used for the Chronicle letter?

However, note that in the VTH and Examiner letters, the references to the cipher are on the FIRST page of each. In the Chron letter, he does not reference the cipher until the back of the letter. So that could have been an add-on idea after he had written the original Chron letter. I wonder if he originally planned to use the "O" in "Over" to make his symbol but changed gears after writing the letter and decided to include the cipher, so he just converted it to the word "Over."

A bit perplexing.

Mike

The felt-tip ran out of ink. He kept trying to rejuvenate it...until finally it ran out.

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