Zodiackillersite.com

Also...

I don't know if it's the original or reproduction, but there is the mention of "brownette"...which some say is a foreign term.

A 60's version of Barbie had a model "Bubble Cut Brownette".

I had never heard that term before. I wonder how popular it was (or wasn't) then.

The article was published January 1969.

Thanks Seagull.

So there is a chance Zodiac (if not the Confession letter writer) read this.

Apparently “brownette” was a term coined by Max Factor in the 1920s – to describe a certain kind of lighter brunette, no doubt so that he could sell a specific type of make-up to women with that particular shade.

It seems to have had its heyday somewhere before WWII. After that the most famous “brownette” around seems to have been the Barbie doll mentioned by Tahoe. It doesn't seem to have ever been a (very) widely used term – but it's still used here and there to distinguish between (darker) brunettes and women with (lighter) brown-ish hair.

That the Confession writer uses the term is certainly noteworthy, as it would have been much rarer and less obvious than “brunette” at the time.

I have talked to many women (my Mom included b. 1945) who have never heard of "brownette". While I don't think it would be behind finding the letter writer, it's something to consider. What? I don't know. But hey, there was a "brownette" Ken doll too.

traveller1st wrote:
Unless of course we think that Z somehow noticed this crime and took certain otherwise obscure minutia from it's details and incorporated them into his own communications before he also got really lucky when someone else noticed these things and brought them to world's attention or did Z just get lucky with the little things incorporating them into his own campaign purely by chance and then was handed a gift wrapped crime in terms of the communications laced with these little similarities and all he had to do was claim it?

Depends on how you view these minutiae.

If you think it's beyond all coincidence that two separate writers misspell the word twitch, use the combination “twitch and squirm” and use the form “shall”, then yes.

The misspelling is not uncommon, however – nor is the combination. And “shall” has been blown somewhat out of proportion in the Z context, if you ask me.

Norse wrote:

traveller1st wrote:
Unless of course we think that Z somehow noticed this crime and took certain otherwise obscure minutia from it's details and incorporated them into his own communications before he also got really lucky when someone else noticed these things and brought them to world's attention or did Z just get lucky with the little things incorporating them into his own campaign purely by chance and then was handed a gift wrapped crime in terms of the communications laced with these little similarities and all he had to do was claim it?

Depends on how you view these minutiae.

If you think it's beyond all coincidence that two separate writers misspell the word twitch, use the combination “twitch and squirm” and use the form “shall”, then yes.

The misspelling is not uncommon, however – nor is the combination. And “shall” has been blown somewhat out of proportion in the Z context, if you ask me.

The fact is, and I am sure somebody will debate this saying they use the word 'SHALL' all the time, but simple fact is, Americans in general do not use the word often at all, now OR in 1969. The exceptions are in literary uses, and court documents etc. I will ask anybody reading this, when is the last time you used the word SHALL in any conversation not having to do with Zodiac? Again, I expect to have 1 or 2 people post that they use it every day, but it is NOT a common word, so for both Zodiac, & the confession writer to both use it (in addition to the titch stuff,etc)is certainly interesting.

The only other instance of the correctly spelled “victim” in the confirmed/suspected Z literature apart from Confession, occurs in the questionable Pines card.

The uncontested Z letters do not contain a single instance of the correctly spelled word – but three (or is it four?) instances of the incorrectly spelled “victom”.

Which is also an interesting fact.

Assuming the same man wrote the Confession and the Z missives starting with the three part letter in '69, he underwent a marked change in terms of style.

He went from being personal and overtly sexual in his descriptions to becoming remarkably detached and impersonal. In the Confession he focuses on the victim, her reaction, her body, he calls her by name and characterizes her in several ways. In the later letters he's not interested in the victims at all beyond making it clear that he was the one who killed them. He never calls them by name and he never characterizes them in any way. It's like they mean nothing to him.

I'm not saying this difference proves it wasn't the same writer. I'm merely saying – because I honestly think this is something people need to address in one way or another – that the difference is there, and that it is pronounced. If it is the same guy, what does this development tell us about him? It has to be significant, I think.

Maybe he knew Cheri, thus, used her name. Maybe he did not know the Z victims, assuming that the confession letter writer and Z are one and the same