A FLOWER ON THE FRONT GATE

On the same day, March 13th 1978, that somebody claiming to be the Zodiac Killer rang a man in the Mission District of San Francisco declaring "This is the Zodiac. Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco" (which was recorded on an answering machine), somebody threatened a woman in the Taraval District of San Francisco. This person pinned a note and a flower on the front gate of her single dwelling with the message "You're next (The Zodiac Killers)". At a time when Zodiac occurrences should have been dwindling, two threats on the same day targeting individuals just a few miles from one another, could be argued as the same perpetrator. When you consider the similarity in messages between the March 13th 1978 phone call of "Tell the press that I am back in San Francisco", to the April 24th 1978 letter of  "I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here", it is not unreasonable to conclude one responsible for all three events. Whether this was the case or not.

​The police logged the time of the threat in the Taraval District between 7:00am on March 13th 1978 and 12:30am on March 14th 1978. Therefore, the flower and threatening note must have been placed on her front gate during a 16 1/2 hour window of time. Sunset in San Francisco was 6:15pm, so if the perpetrator applied some caution, it is likely the note was pinned on her front gate sometime between 6:15pm and just after midnight. The phone call to the man in the Mission District was logged at 11:00pm, falling between these two times. Therefore, it is possible that these two "Zodiac Killer events" occurred  within a reasonable time of one another - with 10pm to midnight being prime time for the Zodiac Killer under the cover of darkness. The individual who threatened the woman in the Taraval District could easily have made the phone call from this location. There was no need to travel to make the phone call to the Mission District.  

On November 29th 1966, one month after the murder of Cheri Jo Bates, somebody (possibly the Zodiac Killer) mailed two typed Confession letters to the Riverside Homicide Detail and Riverside Press Enterprise. In each correspondence the claimed killer stated "She is not the first and she will not be the last. I lay awake nights thinking about my next victom. Maybe she will be the beautiful blond that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven". If the woman in the Taraval District of San Francisco was known to the perpetrator, had he targeted her with the express knowledge that she wasn't at home at the time, so as to avoid identification. She had been absent from her residence on March 13th 1978 because she was babysitting that day. Maybe he "did make that phone call to the man also". 

​If the author of the threatening note was the Zodiac Killer, did he target a random person, or did he choose somebody of significance that he knew would generate a response from the police and hopefully make its way into the newspapers. The last time a Zodiac note was found on a public street was on October 21st 1969, having been thrown from a car on Lake Mendocino Drive at 3:00 pm, just north of Ukiah, California (see newspaper clipping below). The note, attached to a twig, was thrown towards an eight-year-old girl with the crudely printed message "You're next - Z". The only difference between the note in the Taraval District of San Francisco and the note in Mendocino County was the signature, morphing from ​"You're next - Z" to "You're next (The Zodiac Killers)". The note in Mendocino County, whether the Zodiac or not, was seemingly piggybacking off the October 13th 1969 threat by the Zodiac Killer to target schoolchildren.

​So did the woman he targeted with a note and flower in 1978 carry any significant value in his quest to hit the newspapers once again? Or did he just select a random member of the public, hoping his pseudonym alone was enough to generate the publicity he so badly craved? Or was it a hoaxer with nothing better to do with his life, who used the term "Zodiac Killers" to suggest he was separate to the original killer? Were the two occurrences in San Francisco on March 13th 1978 just coincidence? If not, we are back to where we started with two connected events, in which one appeared to pre-empt the message on the April 24th 1978 letter.  

*The Taraval District is the city’s largest and most populous police jurisdiction, encompassing a large part of southwestern San Francisco. It is bordered by Golden Gate Park to the north, Ocean Beach to the west, Daly City to the south, and 7th Avenue down to Interstate 280 to the east. The district includes the inner and outer Sunset neighborhoods, as well as Parkside, Golden Gate Heights, Balboa Terrace, Ingleside Terrace, Monterey Heights, St. Francis Wood, Ingleside, Oceanview, West Portal, Lakeshore Acres, Country Club, Merced Manor, Park Merced, Edgehill, Laguna Honda, Lakeside, Merced Extension, Mount Davidson Manor and Sunset Heights. link.