Zodiackillersite.com

The Bus Bomb letter was a response to Chief of Police Martin Lee who disbelieved that Zodiac entered the park as he claimed, and claimed Zodiac had left fingerprints. The last time Zodiac was disbelieved was when Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz stated after the July 31st letters that he was "still is not convinced the letters and codes were written by the actual killer". The police chief "urged the writer to send more letters, with more facts to prove his connections to the crimes". The Zodiac duly obliged by sending the August 4th 1969 'Debut of Zodiac' letter in response to Jack E. Stiltz, writing about his gun sight. Therefore, when Zodiac is writing "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves". he is effectively saying "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask Jack E. Stiltz, the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves".

The statement in the Bus Bomb letter began "To prove that I am the Zodiac". He wrote this because when he declared he was "Zodiac" in the Debut letter, Jack E. Stiltz wasn't convinced that Zodiac (letter writer) was actually the killer, hence why he referred to the gun sight in the Bus Bomb letter to Martin Lee. The Zodiac supplied the extra details of the gun sight in the August 4th communication as "extra details" to prove how he was able to shoot his victims in the dark. So, the Vallejo cop in the Bus Bomb letter is Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz.

Thanks Richard. I suppose, if the first letter was not made public, then the "proof" would be the author of the bus bomb letter knowing about his previous description (in a confirmed Z letter) of the gun sight. So what Z would be saying is: You know the letter I previously sent describing the gun sight was from the killer, and to prove that person is me, I am telling you what I wrote about in that letter, i. e. the gun sight I used.

If the first letter was not made public, then it is proof. At the same time, there still is no actual proof Z used a flashlight or any other type of gun sight.

Richard, is that basically as you see it, or am I missing it?

The Zodiac is simply telling Chief of Police Martin Lee on November 9th not to disbelieve the contents of the Bus Bomb letter as Jack Stiltz had previously done, when he proved to him he was the Zodiac Killer by giving extra details to him (including the gun sight description) when he backed up the July 31st letters with the August 4th letter.

Jack Stiltz stated he was not satisfied that the July 31st letters proved the writer was the killer. In order to prove he was the killer the Zodiac sent extra details by explaining how he managed to shoot the couple in the dark by way of a gun sight. Because Martin Lee also disbelieved Zodiac's claims in the Bus Bomb letter, Zodiac effectively referred back to Stiltz, stating "To prove that I am the Zodiac, Ask the Vallejo cop about my electric gun sight which I used to start my collecting of slaves". That in essence was all he was saying.

Did the Eureka guy who owned the post box keys say that the object like a pencil attached to the keys was his also? While it looks like a modern magnet maybe it also has attributes of a pen light.



Top black one below has some commonalities.

By process of elimination alone it seems doubtful that that image could be of anything other than a small pencel flashlight. How many other things the size of a pencil are even made in keyring form? It is even shaped closer to a pencil than a pen in many respects. Having said that I think it's likely the light described by Z would have been a small light with a "pencil beam", because something this small would surely be too low in output, unless it was really well made.

My thought would be, how common was something like this before the advent of high output LED lights? It would seem to me that small pencil lights with enough output to be useful would have been rare a few decades ago.

These lights are everywhere now, but if they were more uncommon it might mean less manufacturers and therefore it might be easier to track down what this object is if it is indeed a light.

replaceablehead wrote:By process of elimination alone it seems doubtful that that image could be of anything other than a small pencel flashlight. How many other things the size of a pencil are even made in keyring form? It is even shaped closer to a pencil than a pen in many respects. Having said that I think it's likely the light described by Z would have been a small light with a "pencil beam", because something this small would surely be too low in output, unless it was really well made.

My thought would be, how common was something like this before the advent of high output LED lights? It would seem to me that small pencil lights with enough output to be useful would have been rare a few decades ago.

These lights are everywhere now, but if they were more uncommon it might mean less manufacturers and therefore it might be easier to track down what this object is if it is indeed a light.

The thing about the one in the image and the penlight interpretation I have is how it would be powered? AAA batteries might not fit the original Eureka image one but I just have nothing to gauge scale with. Keys could be any size.

I must admit it's hard to tell the scale, but it does look like an awfully small example. I still can't think what else it could be. Most of these would be powered by a AAAA battery. Streamlight made one that was as slim as this, but full length.

I think the chain is the best thing to estimate scale from as the keys could be larger than they appear. I'm going to play around with the scale and see what I can determine.

This isn't exactly most precise method, but I'm pretty good at eyeballing stuff. I'd say the ball chain has to be 2-3mm conservatively. I've never seen a key chain with a ball chain finer than 2mm, which is still a little on the fine size. If I scale the image till the ball chain is at about 2.1mm I end up with a key that lines up with an average sample of every key of a similar type I could find around the house. This makes the diameter of the object that looks like a pen/pencil around 9mm, which is just enough to fit a 7.8mm AAAA battery.

The thing I don't like is the hexagon shape, it means there's less room for a battery to fit and if two sections come apart or unscrew you would need an inner sort of flange, which would need to be a smaller diameter again. Also I see no evidence of the object having two section that come apart.

So it's a tricky one, but without an alternative object, there are only so many things you generally find on a keychain... well actually that's not true, tourism will make a keychain out of damn near anything. But still it has to be some functional item, or device I think.

It's probably a magnet just like this one.

Way to ruin the mystique. Actually I realise now, to my great embarrassment, that I've already seen this image a long time ago on another thread. We need to sticky this somewhere before I start anymore rumors

Anyway, my tremendous overconfidence aside, this did get me googling about old pen lights and it seems they were very common back in the day.

As I ponder the Zodiac's choice of words, "small pencel", it does bring to mind, either a slightly larger light with a pencil beam, or a very small pen light, small enough to be described as a pencil.

What I really want to know is, how bright is a small pen light back in the day?

If we assume there is any truth to the claim and we assume it was a fairly small example of such a light, then it seems it would have to be well made. And this might be a leap, but to my mind there is a more limited number of brands that could make a high enough quality pencil sized pen light for shooting, maybe something like Kel-Lite.

It seems to me consumer grade examples wouldn't put out enough light and if anyone was making a pencil sized light with enough output for shooting, I would speculate it might be police, or military grade. But that's a long bow to draw I admit.