Daily News, July 22nd 1973 On August 1st 1973 (I believe) the Zodiac Killer mailed the Albany Times Union letter and cryptogram threatening murder towards the Albany Medical Center in New York. This communication, irrespective of who mailed it, was triggered by an article by Kermit Jaediker that appeared in the New York Daily News on July 22nd 1973 entitled "A Code For Murder". The response in the letter was "You were wrong, I am not dead or in the hospital. I am alive and well and I'm going to start killing again. Below is the name and location of my next victim. But you had better hurry because I'm going to kill her August 10th at 5:00 pm when the shift change. Albany is a nice town". It contained a code (shown below) stating
"(12 characters undeciphered). Albany Medical Center this only the beginning".
Bearing in mind that this newspaper article was entitled "A Code For Murder" and began with the wording "Zodiac, a screwball with two hobbies, killing and cryptograms, hasn't been heard from for quite a spell now", one shouldn't be surprised that the Zodiac Killer replied with "I'm going to start killing again" and added a new cryptogram. Later in the article, with respect to the Zodiac Killer's earliest murders, it stated "Police were leaning toward the mad murderer theory. This line of reasoning was virtually confirmed Aug. 1 when Gibson Publications, publishers of the morning Vallejo Times-Herald and the evening News-Chronicle, received a thick envelope postmarked San Francisco". The beginning three lines of the cryptogram mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald were featured at the top of this recent newspaper article.
"(12 characters undeciphered). Albany Medical Center this only the beginning".
Bearing in mind that this newspaper article was entitled "A Code For Murder" and began with the wording "Zodiac, a screwball with two hobbies, killing and cryptograms, hasn't been heard from for quite a spell now", one shouldn't be surprised that the Zodiac Killer replied with "I'm going to start killing again" and added a new cryptogram. Later in the article, with respect to the Zodiac Killer's earliest murders, it stated "Police were leaning toward the mad murderer theory. This line of reasoning was virtually confirmed Aug. 1 when Gibson Publications, publishers of the morning Vallejo Times-Herald and the evening News-Chronicle, received a thick envelope postmarked San Francisco". The beginning three lines of the cryptogram mailed to the Vallejo Times-Herald were featured at the top of this recent newspaper article.
So is it a coincidence that the Albany cipher letter was postmarked August 1st, tying in with the Daily News article and the Zodiac Killer's demands in 1969 (including the one to the Vallejo Times-Herald), stating "I want you to print this cipher on your frunt page by Fry Afternoon Aug 1". Another unusual coincidence between the Albany cryptogram (above) and the portion of cipher shown in the July 22nd 1973 newspaper article (below), is that both have 51 ciphertext characters. When the Albany code was cracked, it finished with "This is only the beginning". The 51 ciphertext characters from the Vallejo Times-Herald shown below were ironically the beginning of the Zodiac Killer's cryptographic exploits, as explained in the latest newspaper article, which read "When decoded it began "I like killing people".
The Zodiac Killer had never before May 1971 used ciphertext squares with lines bisecting them, he had never used a sun cross character (Zodiac crosshairs without overhanging lines), a circle with internal lines, or a standalone number as a ciphertext character (only a reversed P in the Z408 and circled 8 in the Z13). The 148 and 51 character cryptograms mailed in (probably) May 1971 and August 1st 1973 respectively, not only were consecutive cryptograms claimed by a Zodiac Killer, but both had these overlapping features. A reversed N and reversed slanted N was also a possibility. The ciphertext character 7 featured in both cryptograms - and in both instances represented the plaintext letter A. It is extremely rare for killers or copycats to mail communications to the press. It is even rarer when those communications contain cryptograms. So how rare is it that two consecutive communications would be mailed by somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer, who added a cryptogram to their letter, both containing at least four overlapping features never before used by the Zodiac Killer, who utilized the ciphertext character 7 to represent the plaintext letter A on both occasions, despite neither communication having been publicly released. One could argue that the two authors had to be one individual.
The 148 character cipher used the ciphertext character 3, with the Albany cipher continuing the theme with 4, 5 and 7. By connecting the message in the 148 character cipher and letter from (probably) May 1971 to the contents of the 340 character cipher unearthed by Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke in 2020 (which in 1971 was unbroken), it becomes possible to authenticate both the 1971 and 1973 letters, if the connections argued above have met the threshold of proof in your eyes If not, then the article you have just read has been 5 minutes of your life wasted, for which I sincerely apologize. See The Zodiac Killer's Seventh Cipher/Code.