January 29, 2022
Birch Bay, Washington
Yesterday, we were presented with the Rees Key which suggested a possible name cipher solution to a letter sent to law enforcement on George Hodel’s birthday in 1950, claiming to identify by name the Black Dahlia Killer. (See blog link Breaking News…HERE.
Could this taunt (hiding his real name as a clew) have been a crime signature used by George Hodel after he reinvented himself as “Zodiac” in the 1960s? I believe it was. Here’s the evidence.
Exhibit No. 1
(Copied verbatim from the original reference in Most Evil I (2009 HB ed.) pg.183 which reads:
8. Bates confession paper and signature
The original crime summary of the Cheri Jo Bates investigation states that the suspect typed his “confession letter” on teletype paper cut from a roll of a “UP model 15 Teletype machine.” He also typed “THE CONFESSION” at the top using all capital letters and, according to some investigators, included a signature line comprised of spaces for 12 letters as shown below.
THE CONFESSION BY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Not having access to the original documents, I’m unable to confirm the accuracy of these statements.
Figure 15.16 shows three of my father’s legal signatures. They read: (1) G. Hill Hodel M.D;
(2) Dr. G. Hill Hodel (3) George H. Hodel. All three contain 12 letters. It is not a stretch to imagine Zodiac, due to his megalomaniacal ego, would not be able to resist using the actual number of letters in his name.Figure 15.16
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Figure 15.17
Figure 15.17 is a reproduction of a Telex teletype sent to me by my father in January 1978. I know for a fact that he had Telex machines (unknown models) installed in all of his fifteen branch market research offices throughout Asia, and received and sent dozens of teletypes a week.
Telex teletype paper would have been foreign and inaccessible to most people who were considered suspects (including past boyfriends and students) in the Bates murder. Yet it was a commonly used item, handled many times a day by business executive George Hill Hodel.
Exhibit No. 2
(Copied verbatim from the original reference in Most Evil I (2009 HB ed.) Page 159):
… Missive sixteen (a postcard sent on October 5, 1970) is of interest because of the use of cut-and-paste letters, a practice employed by the Black Dahlia Avenger in his letters to the press following the Elizabeth Short murder in LA.
13.8![]()
At the time this postcard was received the police and press noted the thirteen holes punched in the paper and assumed this represented victims as suggested by Zodiac. However, it could well have been a double entendre which also corresponded with his earlier “signings” with the 13 punch holes representing his signature and real name as:
D R G E O R G E HODEL or G E O R G E H O D E L M D.
Exhibit No. 3
Once again we have the number thirteen connected with Zodiac’s message, “You ache to know my name and so I’ll clue you in.” We know he included the cipher which when decrypted by Mssr. Yves Person, the Paris, France high school teacher, who revealed the letters to be from the ancient Celtic language and spelled-H O D E L.
In addition to the actual cipher signing of his name did he include the 13 “Spellbound Eyes” again to represent each letter of his name? –
G E O R G E H O D E L M D or D R G E O R G E H O D E L
Having walked around inside my father’s mind for several decades, (a very scary place to be) I believe he may well have conceived these to be his clever clews. Puzzle pieces to satisfy his taunting “catch me if you can” persona.
The post The Significance of Zodiac’s References to the “Number 13”-A Literal Crime Signature? appeared first on Steve Hodel.