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Below is a transcription of a letter written by the Zodiac killer. Grammatical and spelling errors are included as written.
Date: Postmarked December 7, 1969
Comments: Sent to San Francisco Chronicle. Postmarked Fairfield, CA.
This is the Zodiac speaking
I just need help I will kill
again so expect it any time
now the will be a cop then I will turn my
self in OK
The note is signed twice with the cross-circle symbol.
Investigators from the F.B.I. concluded in a memo that this letter was "not written as freely as other letters." The memo goes on to say that "characteristics indicate...they may have been prepared by writer of other letters in this case." Further notes indicate that this letter probably conatins some "distortion."
Some pages on the F.B.I. website incorrectly refer to this letter as "A coded message of the "Zodiac" serial killer that was broken by a California couple in a few hours." Those familiar with this case know that this is incorrect. The F.B.I. has issued this correction:
"Code Breaking in Law Enforcement: A 400-Year History” by Dorn Vernessa Samuel, published in the April 2006 issue of Forensic Science Communications, contained an error. The text of the article incorrectly described Figure 3 as the “Zodiac’s most famous cipher... broken within a few hours by a husband and wife team of amateur code breakers.” Figure 3 actually depicts one of the many enciphered messages the FBI examined during the course of the Zodiac investigation. The editors apologize for the error."
