Part 8 . . . Links to: Part 1 .. Part 2 .. Part 3 .. Part 4 .. Part 5 .. Part 6 .. Part 7

To review where we are at:

1. The Mikado review in the Stanford Daily was written by an aficionado of the show’ but we don’t know who wrote it.
2. The review has many layout mistakes, cut off letters, bad spacing, and white blemishes on each of the article’s two columns; almost like it was made in a hurry or under duress.
3. It shares the page with a review for an album named “The Electric Zodiac” but in the photo “Electric” is missing, leaving just “The Zodiac.”
4. The “spots” or blemishes on the Mikado review also appear on page 3 on the back side of the same piece of paper. Page 3 also shows a third mark several inches above those on the Mikado article. Closer examination of page 4 reveals the spot is there too, it was just hard to see. I posited the theory that someone poured a solvent on the page in the archived bound volume of the Daily. If so, that would be the second instance of an archive volume being modified in a Stanford student publication.
5. The Mikado review has two spots on it, one on each of the two columns of the article. The review is on page four, and the spots are also seen on the other side of the paper, page three. Since it was assumed it was a solvent that caused this, page two was examined. It did not look like it had spots, but in the event the blemish was very light and unable to be seen with the naked eye, that page was brought into Photoshop and aligned with page three and four. It was then discovered that the main spot landed exactly over a short letter to the editor about…. The Zodiac Killer.
6. The marks were not caused by a solvent, but were made on the printing press–first appearing on the Mikado Review. The blemishes are the result of a “crushed print blanket,” and if someone want to intentionally damage a print blanket in a specific place, that would be easily accomplished.
7. Upon closer and exact review, the blemish on the Mikado Review falls not just EXACTLY on the Letter to the Editor about the Zodiac Killer Message, it is shaped as such to fit EXACTLY over the words “the Zodiac.” This was discovered through a process of working through the actual process of placing the blemishes in the exact location. Certainly measurement would come from the closest corner to the blemish. When those corners were aligned, the blemish became perfectly centered over the words. If this isn’t significant, it’s the biggest F of a coincidence of all. The most likely is that the blemishes, the alignment, and the inclusion of the photo with the missing word, leaving just “The Zodiac” on the same page as the review, were intentionally done. The person who did it, was the Zodiac.

The blemishes were made on the October 31, 1969 Stanford Daily, but since they were on the printing press, they show up again 7 more times through Dec. 5.

The first time they appear again is on Wednesday, November 5, with the “3 spot pattern” on pages 3 and 4, the same pages as the Oct. 31 issue.

I think it is a good time to note there was another prominent blemish on this November 5 issue, a near-perfect circular spot on the front page, where it shares this showcase location with a small article at the bottom of the page, headlined “Zodiac Calls.”

“Wow, what a coincidence,” I thought. There were so many coincidences staking up that it was becoming ridiculous. “Zodiac Calls?” Really.

So yes, Someone claiming to be Zodiac called the Palo Alto Police around 9 pm or so and said they were “coming on the Stanford campus in 10 minutes.”

Police scrambled but nothing happened that night. But as it was, the call was early enough for it to make it into the Stanford Daily issue. With the relatively small article at the bottom of the page, it is reasonable that they squeezed it in perhaps bumping some material to another page.

The big story of the day was the “Secret Salaries,” the salary data protestors had “lifted” from Encina the spring before and had left copies of around campus in late October. The University was PISSED, After some back and forth, Stanford Administration agreed to release salary data, much to the anticipation of the students.

But when the University’s data came out earlier on November 4, it was just aggregate data and a press release that tried to smooth over everything. Now it was the students who were PISSED. They called it propaganda, and that the promise to release the data had been a jerk around.

So that was what was going on that night on campus.

When the Daily issues were delivered to campus the next day, people saw a prominent circular spot, aka blemish, right on the University-provided chart of salary data, in the top right part, the most prominent area of the front page.

Man, that printing press sure does pick amazing times to malfunction, and really is adept at having a paper jam produce such a nice, circular mark, (#sarcasm).

Readers of the Stanford Daily that day also saw that Zodiac called, and said he was coming on campus. I imagine most people just thought it was a prank. Who would even imagine it wasn’t?

But now there are two instances of blemishes on a Stanford Daily with Zodiac Killer articles. Two times it has to be “a coincidence.”

FWIW, informed conjecture places the “Secret Salaries” caper at the feet of the Chaparral. More on that one in a future installment.

There still is more. Stay tuned.

The Only Time Richard Got Angry at Me
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