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I am so excited as I write this blog post as I think I may have stumbled on the true identity of the Zodiac killer and it is Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer. I had been thinking over the case and going back over notes etc when I came across 2 phone calls that had been made to Darlene Ferrin's family on the night of her murder, one was a call to Darlene Ferrin's husband Dean around 90 minutes after the fatal shooting, the caller did not speak, all he could hear was someone breathing heavy down the phone. The other call was to to Dean's parents, Mr & Mrs Arthur Ferrin who also said they had a similar call within 90 minutes of the shooting. No press had yet reported on the story so whoever called had to have been a prank or the killer. For some reason the police did not consider these calls to be suspicious, Dean Ferrin had stated that the police had expressed no interest in the source of the calls.
I found this really interesting as we all know this would become a large part of the Golden State Kiler's M.O, calling victims and their families, sometimes years later. I had to know more and reading further on came across the Zodiac Suspect William Joseph Grant, he has been investigated by police back then as a possible Zodiac and the phone calls to the Ferrin Family on the night of the murders had been made from William Joseph Grant's home.
There were several things that matched in William Joseph Grant to the known Zodiac traits but the more I read on, the more the three young men interested me who had been at a paint party where Darlene had been with friends, Darlene had got nervous about one of these guys and it got me thinking, did Joseph James DeAngelo possibly know William Joseph Grant, could there be a connection so down the rabbit hole I went looking at documents when all of a sudden I came across a website with details of Zodiac's Celebrity Cipher which I had never seen before, it was never made public at the time but boy if it had, some thought it was a fake but I can now tell you I think it's the key to our killer and names him, I'm going to lay out the documents below for you to read and to see the celebrity cipher that does spell it out. According to the website I got this information it was Lyndon Lafferty who thought William Joseph Grant was Zodiac, the documents show his method of thinking thanks to morf13 on the website for uploading these documents and the celebrity cipher, the site details are at the bottom of this page so you can see where I found them.
Did you spot it, in the cipher above Longed, spells out dgnleo, deangelo, only an a & e short, too much of a coincidence I think. The Sentence above would ultimately change I haven't done that as yet as I'm not much of a code breaker but given the hard work has been done and taking the letters from the whole sentence I will give it a bash, it's possible that Lyndon Lafferty got some of the letters in the code wrong, if anyone comes up with the answer and possibly crack's this code once and for all before I get to it, great, let me know all about it but for now I think there are too many coincidence's and for me Zodiac is Joseph James DeAngelo.
The following link is where I found the documents above
I have also come across a few different ways of reading the code which also makes for interesting reading, the codes, deciphered, are shown below and are taken from the work of Richard Grinell who believed the translation to be Zodiac revealing himself as a Celebrity and gives the name Joey Paradise and the message as
Ah Fun! Aime gun!
Eat at Joe’s!
RN (real name);
Joey Karadanis (translated into a mob name Joey Paradise for those who couldn't say Karadanis"
Another clue to DeAngelo being Zodiac?
Further Research
Myself and a friend have been doing a lot of research into where DeAngelo was at specific times as well as looking at the above Celebrity Cypher which was sent by Zodiac to the Vallejo Herald. My friend noticed that upon looking at the code to left top the Postcard the code almost looks like Groat which would have a connection to DeAngelo's Mother who was Kathleen DeGroat, there is also a Lorraine DeGroat friend connection with Betty Lou Jenson, one of Zodiac's victims, was she related to DeAngelo's Mother?
I have looked over the code for days trying different anagrams using the Sentence from above LONG HUNT LATE SLEUTH INVITE U TO A SLUT YUTH HOTEL HIDE and this is what I have came up with
DEANGELO HUNT THEY HOT SLUTS TONITE THE HIDE VILLA U TUT
What I did find is the Hidden Villa which is an Educational & Learning Center/Camp in San Francisco which also has a Hiking Trail going into the Black Mountains. Whether any of the code is right will certainly be up for debate but would love to know my readers thoughts, feel free to drop me a line
The Code by Richard Grinell is interesting too as it mentions Joey Paradise although Zodiac spelled it Paradice possibly a referral to the Paradice Motel, Lake Tahoe where Donna Lass was abducted. Eat at Joe's could also be a referral to Rodunda Beach, Los Angeles as this is where the Original Eat at Joe's began around the mid 1960's, there is also a Painting by Norman Rockwell called Runaway which is of a Policeman with young runaway boy being served in a Joe's style Diner.
Myself and my friend have spent several days now pouring over all the information to try and give as much detail as we can on Zodiac/JJD for you to make your own assumptions. The next cases we will be looking at takes us into the 1970's where I think we will see an escalation in JJD's activities.
I recently got sent some of DeAngelo's Navy Documents from my friend and as I started to read Page 33 caught my attention, its the 16th July and at the top of the ships log is handwriting very similar to JJD/Zodiac's. I will try to upload the file here as I have'nt been able to extract the page in question. There are a few more examples of the handwriting around the 28/29th July, in all cases the signature wasn't DeAngelo's but it was signed by a Lt Crawford and Lt Sanders.
You can also see in the documents themselves the signs and symbols often attributed with Zodiac. You can get the file from the attachment below.
FURTHER UPDATE 26/6/20
I had posted my thoughts on reddit to get other's perspectives about the above code and quite a lot of new leads have come from it.
The Postcard's picturesque Beach that is shown on the front of the Celebrity Cypher Postcard is named Carmel Beach, thanks to Obstaclesisagiven for the information, I zoomed in to the Photo and I found a strange half man in the centre of the photo slightly hidden by the tree's leaf's, it show's a dark figure of a man's torso and head wearing a hat, I have no idea if this means anything or if it's just a glitch but it's all noteworthy in the end.
The Stamp is also of note as it show's one of America's most celebrated female Poet's Marianne Moore. Her Poetry was very observational and could be challenging, possibly something Zodiac/GSK would be attracted to.
The mention of Carmel Beach got me thinking as I thought I had seen it somewhere as you do, so I went hunting again for info and came across an Unsolved Murder in 1967. Rhoda Harris was a 61 year old woman who lived alone in a small house at Oxner Street, Monterey, only 15 minutes away by car is Carmel Beach.
Rhoda had been found several days after her murder, her poor daughter was the one who discovered her after getting no reply when calling her Mother. Rhoda had been bound by the hands and feet with electrical cord and had been stabbed several times. Her car was found to have been stolen and was eventually found in the city of Marina, around a 15 minute drive from Rhoda's home.
The M.O of the above crime certainly fits with GSK/Zodiac, was he trying to call law enforcements attention to his crimes at Carmel by sending the postcard.
There also may be a connection point for the Zodiac Suspect William James Grant knowing Joseph James DeAngelo through the Real Estate business. William Grant worked as a Realtor for some time during the early 70's and we know as EAR/ONS JJD would often view homes that were up for sale and then attacking at a later time.
