In Zodiac’s Halloween card to Paul Avery, he says, “By Knife By Gun By Rope By Fire.” This is apparently another comic book reference, this time to a 1952 Tim Holt comic book which contained a Death Wheel citing these options as ways to die.

Under the truthful murderer theory, it would seem a clear indication of the ways Zodiac was killing or intended to kill.

Lake Herman, Blue Rock Springs, and Paul Stine were all by gun. Lake Berryessa was by knife, although he showed the victims his gun, and he tied them up with rope. Still, when he wrote on the car at Lake Berryessa, Zodiac listed that murder as By Knife.

So where are the deaths By Rope and By Fire?

By Fire – Emma Sharon Brown

In the October 24, 1973, Stanford Daily I found an article about the death of Emma Sharon Brown, a star undergraduate student about to begin law school. Her life was cut short by a fire at her apartment on October 22, 1973, in East Palo Alto. Authorities ruled the fire an accident.

The name seemed familiar. On a hunch I checked back through the articles I had been reading. Sure enough, Emma Brown was quoted in an article about the January 1972 fire in the Manzanita trailers office. She was a resident of the closest residential trailer to the burning office. Her trailer had almost been consumed in the fire but was saved.

The article also revealed that she and her roommates had been living at Junipero the previous April when arson hit there. This gave me pause, and I double checked everything.

I confirmed the horrible coincidence that Emma Brown endured a fire by arson in her dorm in April 1971, a fire by arson next to her trailer in January 1972, and ultimately died in a fire at her apartment in October 1973. She was another star student, earning her undergraduate degree in only three years, and who was beginning Stanford Law School. Press reports only listed her as a Spanish major.

The accident, according to authorities, was that Emma Brown fell asleep while smoking in bed. Now it is just my gut reaction, but it doesn’t sound right. I mean, I know good students can smoke too, especially in 1973, but smoking in bed is dumb. It just doesn’t sound like the actions of a star student.

It sounded out of place, and WTF, fire seemed to follow this woman. I did a wider search for Emma Brown, and I discovered that I was not the first person to conjecture that her death was not an accident. I have learned from my research that this case has been re-opened twice as a possible homicide.

By Rope – Edward Alan McNeill

Zodiac’s bomb letters and references, coupled with the myriad unsolved bombings around the Bay Area could more than account for Zodiac using bombs, the By Fire of the Halloween card. But what about By Rope? On my list of questions, I still had, “Where are the strangulations?”

Leslie Perlov in February 1973, and Janet Taylor in March 1974 were strangulations, but of course their killer has been apprehended and convicted in recent years. John Getreu was found guilty and subsequently confessed to both murders.

I specifically searched for cold case strangulation murders at Stanford, or of Stanford students, and lo and behold, I found one.

Between 1 am and 4 am on the morning of July 17, 1976, Edward Alan McNeill, age 27, was found dead in his apartment in Menlo Park. He was a postdoctoral researcher in chemistry at Stanford. There were traces of adhesive around his mouth and the death was ruled a strangulation. There were no signs of struggle.

The similarities of the murder of Edward Alan McNeill to those of David Levine and Eric Abrahamson should be noted. All three occur at times when school is out of session. All three victims were involved in the sciences at their respective universities, Levine in physics, Abrahamson and McNeill in chemistry. Two of the three murders, Levine and McNeill, involved no struggle. All three would have had access to computers.

Star students were emerging as a theme. As a PhD candidate, Paul Stine could be described as a star student, as could Emma Brown. That would be five star college students. Of course, Cecila Shepard and Brian Hartnell were college students too, as was Lynda Kanes. It makes one wonder.