Just like the attempted poisoning of Daniel Williams on November 2nd 1969, the murder of Robert Michael Salem just prior to the Zodiac Killer's letter on April 20th 1970, is another case of possible Zodiac activity too readily dismissed. There are many potential clues in the April 20th 1970 letter to the Robert Salem murder, but here we shall focus on just one aspect of the case.
The Zodiac Killer likely switched to murder by knife at Lake Berryessa because of the contast he noted in newspaper coverage between his crimes and the double murder of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. The Zodiac Killer had murdered three people, attempted to murder a fourth, and mailed four letters and three cryptograms to high profile Bay Area newspapers. Imagine his "consternation", when discovering that the highest circulation newspapers in the Bay Area ignored his demands and relegated the cryptic murderer of three into relative anonymity on their inner pages.
The San Francisco Chronicle published his cryptogram on page four, while the San Francisco Examiner had placed their portion of the cipher on a lowly page nine. This was shortly followed by a comprehensive front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969, covering the brutal stabbings of Snoozy & Furlong in San Jose. The Zodiac Killer, likely scouring the newspapers for information about himself and the ongoing effort to crack his 408 cryptogram, must have read this article and been understandably horrified. He now knew what he had to do to secure the front page coverage he felt he richly deserved - kill his next victims with a knife. This was probably the trigger for his emphasis of "by knife" written on the car door of Bryan Hartnell on September 27th 1969.
The Zodiac Killer likely switched to murder by knife at Lake Berryessa because of the contast he noted in newspaper coverage between his crimes and the double murder of Kathy Snoozy and Deborah Furlong in San Jose on August 3rd 1969. The Zodiac Killer had murdered three people, attempted to murder a fourth, and mailed four letters and three cryptograms to high profile Bay Area newspapers. Imagine his "consternation", when discovering that the highest circulation newspapers in the Bay Area ignored his demands and relegated the cryptic murderer of three into relative anonymity on their inner pages.
The San Francisco Chronicle published his cryptogram on page four, while the San Francisco Examiner had placed their portion of the cipher on a lowly page nine. This was shortly followed by a comprehensive front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 6th 1969, covering the brutal stabbings of Snoozy & Furlong in San Jose. The Zodiac Killer, likely scouring the newspapers for information about himself and the ongoing effort to crack his 408 cryptogram, must have read this article and been understandably horrified. He now knew what he had to do to secure the front page coverage he felt he richly deserved - kill his next victims with a knife. This was probably the trigger for his emphasis of "by knife" written on the car door of Bryan Hartnell on September 27th 1969.
The Zodiac Killer added the "August" murders into his Dripping Pen card on November 8th 1969, followed by a drawing entitled "The Bleeding Knife of Zodiac" on December 16th 1969. This fascination with knife murders likely continued on December 20th 1969 with his address to Melvin Belli. In this communication he used very similar wording connected to another knife murder on December 10th 1945. We know the Zodiac Killer kept abreast of the news, so did he read something in the newspapers on December 10th 1969, the anniversary of the murder of Frances Brown at her 3941 North Pine Grove apartment in Edgewater, Chicago? She had been savagely stabbed, with the knife left protruding from her neck, along with a bullet wound to her head.. Near her body, written in lipstick on the apartment wall, were the words "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself". The Zodiac Killer wrote in the Melvin Belli letter "I will loose all controol of myself. Please help me. I can not remain in control for much longer". This is what makes the Robert Salem murder so very interesting.
Just shy of four months later (just prior to April 20th 1970), Robert Salem too was discovered murdered in his apartment, the victim of a repeated stabbing using a long-bladed knife. Just like the murder of Frances Brown (attributed to William Heirens), the murderer had written a "red message" (this time in blood) on the apartment wall of Robert Salem. It read "Satan Saves Zodiac" and was accompanied by the drawing of an Ankh, which was commonly held in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities (or being given by them to the pharaoh), to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.
If this was a copycat as police suspected, then we would have to conclude that the perpetrator (who didn't write the Belli letter) made the connection to the Frances Brown murder, which was concealed in the wording of the December 20th 1969 letter, and recreated her murder scene in the apartment of Robert Salem, with the Zodiac pseudonym attached. Or, the copycat inadvertently created the murder scene of Frances Brown in the 745 Stevenson Street, San Francisco apartment of Robert Salem, without any prior knowledge of the hidden meaning in the Melvin Belli letter, and just so happened to write the Zodiac pseudonym. The third option, is that the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the stabbing of Robert Salem and was deliberately linking the hidden message in the Melvin Belli letter to his latest murder, playing games with the police along the way. The final option may be that no connection exists between the wording on the Melvin Belli letter and the murder of Frances Brown. It is just another case of seeing things that aren't there.
If this was a copycat as police suspected, then we would have to conclude that the perpetrator (who didn't write the Belli letter) made the connection to the Frances Brown murder, which was concealed in the wording of the December 20th 1969 letter, and recreated her murder scene in the apartment of Robert Salem, with the Zodiac pseudonym attached. Or, the copycat inadvertently created the murder scene of Frances Brown in the 745 Stevenson Street, San Francisco apartment of Robert Salem, without any prior knowledge of the hidden meaning in the Melvin Belli letter, and just so happened to write the Zodiac pseudonym. The third option, is that the Zodiac Killer was responsible for the stabbing of Robert Salem and was deliberately linking the hidden message in the Melvin Belli letter to his latest murder, playing games with the police along the way. The final option may be that no connection exists between the wording on the Melvin Belli letter and the murder of Frances Brown. It is just another case of seeing things that aren't there.