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Just picking up the possible Marshall thread again. * Whether that is plausible at all obviously depends on how early Marshall entered the picture as someone they considered interesting.

If memory serves, that didn't really happen until someone sent them a dossier of sorts on Marshall - and that would've been some years after RP, I think. Late 70s? If they didn't consider him at all before the dossier, then my theory goes out the window - as RP was clearly flagged one way or the other.

It could have been handwriting for SLA (the envelope in particular looks Z-ish) and Badlands, I suppose, but surely less so for Red Phantom: I'm talking about flagging here, remember: It would have to be pretty obvious Z style writing (printing) for it to be singled out - the flagging part wasn't carried out by handwriting experts, after all.

* To be clear: The idea that RP was considered interesting because of a possible Marshall connection: Marshall was into old movies and is connected to San Rafael (where RP was posted).

Paring everything back to before all the subsequent speculation and ‘analysis’, can anybody help my out with this question: on having received this letter at the San Francisco Chronicle in mid 1974



what exactly possessed anyone at all to look at this and go “Ooh, that’s clearly from the Zodiac?”

I mean, based on any reasonable at-face-value, objective assessment of this letter’s content, voice, handwriting, etc. the idea of anyone even suspecting this to be anything that what it looks to be is nothing short of a ‘WTF?’ to my reckoning.

I agree with you. In fact, It's my opinion that all of the letters mailed after 1971 are not genuine.

I think the Red Phantom letter is the least credible of them all. The handwriting doesn't match. While the tone is angry, it isn't joking and taunting like Zodiac correspondence is.

Unfortunately, it's one of these things that get talked about so much regarding this case, that it gets taken for granted as fact. It makes me nuts when credible people - researchers - discuss the Bates murder as if it is a canonical Zodiac crime. Many of these letters get treated the same way.

This Chronicle statement is telling, regarding the Badlands card and Red Phantom letter:

On July 10th 1974 the San Francisco Chronicle stated: "Although he never identified himself as Zodiac in either of the latest messages, San Francisco Homicide Investigator Dave Toschi said "There's no doubt in my mind about either one. I took them to a documents expert and in less than five minutes he told me positively they were in fact written by the Zodiac. He's trying to slip letters and cards into the Chronicle without being detected. He's not fooling anybody - no matter what his game is". Yesterday's letter was dropped into a mailbox in Marin County sometime on Monday. It criticized Count Marco for his "superior" attitude and demanded the column be cancelled. The postcard (previous Badlands card), although received on June 4, was mailed in Alameda County nearly a month earlier, on May 8. There was no explanation for its delayed arrival in the Chronicle offices".

Chaucer wrote:I agree with you. In fact, It's my opinion that all of the letters mailed after 1971 are not genuine.

I think the Red Phantom letter is the least credible of them all. The handwriting doesn't match. While the tone is angry, it isn't joking and taunting like Zodiac correspondence is.

Absolutely! And what stands out even more to me is how it doesn't make any mention at all of anything to do with killing people, which is kinda Zodiac's favourite subject. I mean, ... what?

Chaucer wrote:Unfortunately, it's one of these things that get talked about so much regarding this case, that it gets taken for granted as fact. It makes me nuts when credible people - researchers - discuss the Bates murder as if it is a canonical Zodiac crime. Many of these letters get treated the same way.

Right with you here too, Chaucer, re the whole Bates non-starter.

Richard Grinell wrote:This Chronicle statement is telling, regarding the Badlands card and Red Phantom letter:

On July 10th 1974 the San Francisco Chronicle stated: "Although he never identified himself as Zodiac in either of the latest messages, San Francisco Homicide Investigator Dave Toschi said "There's no doubt in my mind about either one. I took them to a documents expert and in less than five minutes he told me positively they were in fact written by the Zodiac. He's trying to slip letters and cards into the Chronicle without being detected. He's not fooling anybody - no matter what his game is". Yesterday's letter was dropped into a mailbox in Marin County sometime on Monday. It criticized Count Marco for his "superior" attitude and demanded the column be cancelled. The postcard (previous Badlands card), although received on June 4, was mailed in Alameda County nearly a month earlier, on May 8. There was no explanation for its delayed arrival in the Chronicle offices".

Hi Richard. Yes, I had seen this. Telling, indeed. And what jumps out for me about Toschi's assessment is the specific phrase:

Toschi wrote:"He's trying to slip letters and cards into the Chronicle without being detected."

I mean, what did Toschi actually think - even in his wildest imagination - that Zodiac's "game" would be in wanting to send letters "without being detected"?

For someone who pretty much has always said "I want to be on the front page, or people are going to die," how does this even...?

For another point of view, read these two articles by Mike Cole.

http://zodiacrevisited.com/ten-days-of-count-marco/

http://zodiacrevisited.com/ten-days-of- ... nclusions/

Also, if you haven't done so, take a look at the envelope for the Red Phantom letter.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/RedPhantomEnvelope.html

Seagull wrote:Also, if you haven't done so, take a look at the envelope for the Red Phantom letter.

http://www.zodiackiller.com/RedPhantomEnvelope.html

Thanks, Seagull. Now, the envelope certainly would raise an eyebrow or two, I would say.

I think I have seen elsewhere, Seagull, that you have done a lot of work in the past getting the Zodiac newspaper articles together. Do you happen to know off hand if images of any of the earlier envelopes were every printed at any time?

Thanks

Mike Cole is awesome and I have always appreciated his work. I still say, no way was that Zodiac. While the envelope certainly raises eyebrows, I still believe it was some angry woman.

It just doesn't seem to fit the bill of something that would piss Zodiac off. A man attacking women? Nah...