Canonical cipher 4: Z32 vol.1. State-of-the-art
Canonical cipher 4_Z32 vol_1_State-of-the-art
1.
Timeline
up to the Z32
Z32 is the culmination (but not the last communique) of the killer’s
“bomb rhetoric”, first launched on the November 9, 1969 letter [1]. Since then,
all subsequent killer communications up to the Little List letter reference,
with the exception of the July 24, 1970 letter (the so-called “Johns letter”)
where the killer focuses on the March 22, 1970 incident of Kathleen Johns’
abduction and escape. However, in further works, I will try to make the case
how even that communication plays into the “bomb narrative”.
In the letter towards Melvin Belli, sent on the “anniversary” of the
first canonical murder on Lake Herman Road [2] on December 20, 1969, the
killer yet again references the bomb, in this context, under pretext of trying
to avoid the “inner evil” which is an impulse driving him to do harm to others.
Bad rhetoric aside, this establishes a continuum in the “bomb obsession”, that
is yet again revisited in the Z13 communique [3], here, with an updated bomb
diagram, as the killer “confessed” in his Belli letter that the first design
was not practical.
A few days later, the killer mails the infamous “Dragon Card”, once
again mentioning the “bus bomb” with a dire warning [4]. The Dragon Card also
launches his “buttons rhetoric”, that, like the “bomb rhetoric” continues up to
the Little List Letter. The Dragon Card was followed up on Friday, June 26,
1970 by the Z32 letter, featuring the infamous cipher and the map of Phillips
66, sent to the SF Chronicle with an envelope featuring the FDR stamp, used
since July 31, 1969 [5]-[7]. It should be noted that whereas the
ZodiacKiller.com website features a black-and-white version of the map, Tom
Voigt has also provided a color version [8].
The Z32 was followed up by the Johns letter [9] and the Little List
letter on July 1970 [10], on the 24th (Friday) and 26th
(Sunday) respectively. After that, the killer goes on a hiatus and re-emerges
on October 27, 1970 with the Halloween Card, directed against Paul Avery. In
March 1971, it’s the LA Times letter on the 13th and the
Pines/Sierra Club card, intercepted on Monday March 22 1971. None of these
communications, or any of the subsequent ones, ever mention the bomb again.
2.
Truth,
lies, deception
From a practical perspective, no known bomb incident has been attributed
to the killer. Even more so, it is questionable whether a ”sun-ignited” bomb
could practically work in the way the killer desired: such instability of
designation and lack of deliberate control would lead to either an unscheduled
detonation or a simple failure.
So, was there ever a “bomb”? There are of course those who believe that
he was a liar and that there was never such a threat. That may very well be so,
but this produces the next question: why bother? Why would this maniac go on
this threats about bombing school children? Maximum shock effect? Press
coverage? He certainly wanted the headlines and when attention and coverage was
given, he would ask for more. But does this mean he would go to the lengths of
producing an elaborate cipher accompanying with the map for the sheer purpose
of choosing distraction over destruction?
In her piece “The Decoy Effect” [11], Soze has expounded on the
convoluted, intrinsic characteristics of this killer’s specific version of a
“decoy”.
Soze writes [11]:
It is my belief that the Zodiac was not content with
just a simple curiosity. He knows that the public, without the added phrase,
would have had multiple theories as to what the message would contain prior to
a solution. By including the phrase, and using the word identity, he
intentionally reduces all interpretations down to a 50-50 split: a name and a
version of self-perception.
This is telling of the killer’s methodology, and it certainly, as the
article goes on, indicates an awareness of mass psychology linked with
advertising. Soze is not only a seasoned researcher in this case, but actually
the only person who had thus far, using her power of intellect, identified a
method in the killer’s work in her article “Quantity of Stamps and the Zodiac
Dozen” [12]. Even though this is something I intend to touch upon in a separate
piece, this is the most important development in the case along with the
(excluding the last 18) solution of the Z408 by Donald and June Harden, the
100% solution of Z340 by David Oranchak, Jarl Van Eycke and Sam Blake [13] the
online provisioning of the killer’s material by Tom Voigt with the
establishment of the ZodiacKiller.com website and forum and the identification
of the “envelope hint” (Donna Lass/ Sierra Card, March 22, 1971) by Richard
Grinell [14].
What makes Soze’s specific contribution stand out, among others, is that
it includes (and de facto acknowledges) the factor of historicality in the
killer’s method: it would have been impossible for the killer to identify and
“distribute” stamps as per envelope and per newspaper if he had not known (and
studied) the history of each newspaper. What this does is strike a serious blow
at the very foundation of a narrative that renders this specific killer as the
opportunist of all opportunist: an “ephemeral maniac” that suddenly emerges in
December 1968 and vanishes after 1971, returns briefly in 1974 and then again
vanishes into obscurity, with no historicality, with no past or future, with no
awareness whatsoever of the people he wrote to or (even worse!) of the innocent
victims he murdered.
3.
Contextual,
holistic and systemic: everything can mean anything
A meticulous study of the past, a chameleon-like cunning – deceptive
skill to manipulate the present and homicidal terror as a way to establish a
legacy for the future: it is at least logical to assume that a killer who
operates in such a context and with such mindset would not simply “waste” time
and energy to produce the Z32 just for the sake of distraction. A careful
analysis of Soze’s “decoy effect” thesis combined with outliers we already know
about the killer leads to a more dangerous scenario: even if it is was not a
“literal” bomb, it was something that can be correlated to this concept. A
linguistic, semantic, contextual and/or holistic connection to the “sun bomb”.
Since 2021 when I began researching the case “from scratch” and
especially since October 2023, when I began sharing my ideas online and taking
a deep-dive into the semantics and outliers, I have begun to construct a method
which attempts to be contextual, holistic and systemic (CHS). In that
hypothesis, any piece of information that the killer provided or associated
himself with, can have multiple interpretations, and this could all play into a
multi-tier reference index utilized (or exploited) by the killer, in order to
(a) make connections that he could keep track of in terms of places, dates,
people and (b) utilize this web of connections as his “taunting game” with LE
and the press.
Figure 1. Example of a CHS approach for the PUC
acronym
Figure 1 features such a CHS example: the PUC acronym, met twice in this
case: first, as the acronym for California’s Public Utilities Commission who
took over the resources of the collapsing Benicia Water Company, the entity
that commissioned Herman Schuessler to build the LHR dam, landmark of the
killer’s first canonical murder. Second, PUC stands for Pacific Union College,
the prime educational entity of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, with members
Cecelia Ann Shepard and Bryan Hartnell being the victims of the third canonical
crime, that took place in Lake Berryessa. Lake Berryessa was constructed on the
basis and designation of the Monticello Dam to provide water to Solano County,
in the same broader chain of events that led the City of Benicia to re-acquire
the PUC-controlled facilities of the old Benicia Water Co and produce a series
of contracts linked to Humble Oil and the refinery built in the site of the
former Benicia Arsenal.
But how does this all play into the construction and de-construction of
the Z32?
4.
Proposed
solutions for the Z32: a legacy of brainstorming
In 2023, Floe Foxon assembled past proposals and suggestions for the Z32
[15] whilst introducing a statistically-derived proposal for a new solution.
The piece, entitled “On the 32-Character Zodiac Cipher”, featured an overview
(and criticism) of various proposals, including the oldest one (Gareth Penn’s
“radian theory”) and Richard Grinnell’s “Ingleside PD” proposal [16]. However,
Foxon fails to include the Z32 code solution proposed by Druzer, noted Zodiac
researcher, contributor, podcast host and guest, moderator of the “Tapa
discord” server. Richard Grinnell, one of the most meticulous and tireless
researchers in the case, acknowledged Druzer’s code proposal as correct and
therefore, we can now identify this is a Richard-Druzer combined solution that
points to the SF downtown area as the location of the bomb [17].
Foxon also fails to record and include Soze’s own solution, based on a
triangulation method that eventually leads to the identification of Saint
Mary’s College as the “landmark” identified by the killer [18].
A further analysis of these solutions will be the topic of a follow up
article. In this instant, my intention is to compile and produce a thorough
table of proposals, essentially updating Foxon’s Table 1 into a more
comprehensive list of proposed solutions and methods.
Table I. Listing of solutions and proposals for the Z32
5.
State-of-the-art
The introduction is not meant to be “literally” but directly correlated
to what will follow. In order to avoid “re-inventing” and to be as much
informed as possible as to the legacy of Z32-related research, I tried to
understand the background, the methods and the narrative of suggested
solutions. I have also tried to de-correlate that research from other facets of
conduct, especially in the case of Gareth Penn, who has achieved a certain
infamy not so much for his theoretical assumptions, but for his “other
conduct”.
A person can provide an interesting idea in the bulk of their work, and
then go into other territory, doing injustice to his interesting idea, and also
ending up being rejected “en bloc” because of other factors. I try to separate
the research from the researcher.
It was only logical of Gareth Penn to begin the map analysis from the
canonical crime scenes and use the Mt Diablo (which is anyway a USGS Meridian,
with administrative regulations and presidential acts tied to the history of
the case) as a starting point for further analysis. Regardless of his claims,
it is not at all absurd that he did it. It is weirder that this has not been a
consensus: the crime scenes are all traced via Mt Diablo. Indeed, this is the
topic of the follow-up article for me.
My aim is not to add yet another convoluted “cryptic” contribution. The
killer has beat us to this already: for all his ciphers provide enigmas,
riddles to be solved in a path meddled by multiple layers (the multi-tier
reference index) of data. Somewhere in all this, there is the looming shadow of
destroyed lives and families. The destruction, riddled by the distraction, both
terrestrial and celestial, always “arcane”. The light must enter graciously and
get rid of this murky, muddle darkness that he cast like a curse on the Bay
Area.
The 55th anniversary of the Z32 is coming up.
It is time.
It is necessary.
SDS
June 21, 2025
References
1. https://zodiackiller.com/BombLetter5.html
2. https://zodiackiller.com/BelliLetter.html
3. https://zodiackiller.com/Bomb2.html
4. https://zodiackiller.com/DragonCard.html
5. https://zodiackiller.com/ZButtonLetter.html
6. https://zodiackiller.com/ZMap.html
7. https://zodiackiller.com/ZButtonEnvelope.html
8. https://discord.com/channels/996952324150931477/996952376894292018/998431999482142801
9. https://zodiackiller.com/JohnsLetter.html
10. https://zodiackiller.com/Mikado1.html
11. https://zodiackillerletters.blogspot.com/p/the-decoy-effect.html
12. https://zodiackillerletters.blogspot.com/p/quantity-of-stamps-and-zodiac-dozen.html
13. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.17350
14. https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/category/pines-card
15. https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/982.pdf
16. https://www.zodiacciphers.com/dragon-card-and-button-letter.html
17. https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/december-27th-2020-the-day-the-z32-was-solved
18. https://ostellovolante.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gareth-penn-california-magazine-1981.pdf
19. https://ciphermysteries.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/01/The-Bomb-code-solution.pdf
20. https://zodiackillerletters.blogspot.com/p/the-z32-cipher-and-rule-of-three.html
21. https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/the-32-symbol-code-hidden-in-plain-sight
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