SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The mysterious killer “Zodiac” — linked by police to five San Francisco Bay Area murders — has emerged with a misspelled public notice that he may take his “ninth and possibly tenth victim” unless he receives help soon.
The letter to attorney Melvin Belli, forwarded to Belli in Munich, Germany, and made public Saturday, was the first confirmed letter in six weeks from the man who calls himself Zodiac.
It claimed responsibility for eight murders and included a bloody swatch of cloth that police said came from the shirt of taxi driver Paul Stine, 28, shot to death here last October. It was the third piece of the blood-stained shirt mailed by the Zodiac.
The letter was postmarked in San Francisco Dec. 20, the anniversary of what police say was his first attack, in a Vallejo lovers lane where two teenagers were fatally shot.
The San Francisco taxi driver was the fifth and last confirmed victim, police said, although the Zodiac has claimed in previous letters to have killed more.
Belli said the message was an appeal for help in controlling “this thing in me.”
Belli issued a public response to the letter, asking the Zodiac to meet with him under any conditions the Zodiac presented.
This continues the Appeal’s review of news stories and headlines during its Sesquicentennial year.
